Thursday’s Forum
Steven L. Taylor
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Thursday, March 10, 2022
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86 comments
About Steven L. Taylor
Steven L. Taylor is a Professor of Political Science and a College of Arts and Sciences Dean. His main areas of expertise include parties, elections, and the institutional design of democracies. His most recent book is the co-authored
A Different Democracy: American Government in a 31-Country Perspective. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Texas and his BA from the University of California, Irvine. He has been blogging since 2003 (originally at the now defunct Poliblog).
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Minor spoiler, @de stijl: “The Voice” does show up eventually.
I’m sure there’s a blooper reel where Seyfried laughs at the rank silliness of the stunt.
The USPS has finally been rescued from salivating grifters .
This reminds me of the disastrous Washington Consensus. Deregulation and privatization are not one size fits all like some are paid to think.
Atrios rang in on the trials and travails of Ms. Emma Camp at the University of Virginia.
I think he’s on to something. This, or rather that NYT published this trivia, has something to do with justifying their bothsides and publishing op-eds from horrible people.
@gVOR08: Agreed. And there are additional layers to this: the NYT running pieces like this isn’t going to gain them subscribers, conservatives will still call it a liberal rag. Is it worth the clicks? I have no idea. I suppose it’s also to encourage some Hand Wringing and Deep Reflection on the part of liberals, wondering if they are being illiberal by rolling their eyes at Ms. Camp’s high victim act.
It is exceedingly tedious.
@becca: The big complaint was that the USPS was forced to do what no other agency (public or private) had to do which was to “pre-fund” healthcare benefits.
Other than it was an unequal treatment, what exactly is wrong with pre-funding healthcare benefits. Benefits when you retire is just deferred expenses. I think all incurred income and benefits should be fully accounted for. Too many private pension systems have been looted and drained and left retirees out in the cold. Social Security and Medicare are in the same boat. Pretending that these expenses are not being incurred is a fantasy.
Is it my imagination or is America’s famous Attention Deficit Disorder WRT foreign affairs already kicking in on the Ukraine-Russia War? Are we moving on to other topics less distasteful?
@Scott: Speaking only for myself, I haven’t moved on to other topics so much as required myself to take breaks. Aside from shoveling as much money as I can afford to World Central Kitchen and other organizations that are helping, I can’t steep myself in the war all day long without feeling really, really helpless. I’m furious at Putin, furious at our previous president (and all of his enablers, including Republican voters), and enraged that we can’t do more. Basically, it’s not so much moving on as regulating the fire hose of information so I don’t get despondent.
@Scott:
I’ve noticed that as well. Thanks for bringing it up.
@Scott:
Personally, I’m getting blasted with the horrors out of FL, TX and ID. I need to take frequent info breaks or it all just gets too crushing. Watching two attempted genocides is way to much for me.
I feel our defense establishment (DoD, State Dept, WH, etc) is becoming too timid and not maintaining the momentum we established just in the last two weeks. We cannot, by just plain negligence and inattentiveness, accept anything but the total removal of Russian forces from Ukraine. We can’t be cowed by the threats coming from Putin and Russia (the latest is chemical warfare). We need to call that bluff.
Given the humanitarian horror just getting rolling, I think we need to start flying in humanitarian aid escorted by our military. Ukraine is still a sovereign country with a viable government. Humanitarian aid is not escalation and defending that aid is not engaging in offensive operations against Russian forces.
I may be on the outer edge of the spectrum WRT to Ukraine but that is my opinion.
@Jen:
I noticed something interesting on my daily sally to Lucianne.com, which is that while some of the commentators are justifiably horrified by what is going on in Ukraine, many, perhaps most, think the photos and stories are being manufactured by the press to make Russia and Putin look bad. After all, they “reason,” the press lied to us about January 6 being an insurrection, the press lied to us about the severity of Covid, and the press lied to us about Trump. Ergo, they’re lying about Ukraine.
@Scott: We can all agree “looting” retirees pensions is bad, even criminal. Maybe we should do something about that.You would think the Postal Service, a vital part of any government, would deserve a bit more support from the people. Neither rain nor sleet nor snow…
@CSK:
This is exactly the sort of nonsense I need to restrict the inflow of–it enrages me, and yes I’ve seen some of this garbage on Twitter.
The Russian Embassy in London is pushing all sorts of garbage out on its Twitter feed, and I want to know why they haven’t been shut off yet.
@Scott: I have to believe that our intelligence community, particularly the CIA and NSA, are working hard to counter Putin in any ways they can. That’s the thing about intel successes–when they work, no one knows. I think we’re probably doing a lot more than is visible. We’ve just entered the third week of this war, and Russia has barely achieved any major goals. They’ve captured a power plant and one city. In more than TWO WEEKS, that’s all they have accomplished.
@becca: I take whatever comfort there is in knowing that at the professional/policy/academic level of the intellect chain that people do have to be paid to believe what they do about deregulation. I wish the general public would stop believing in it for free, but I can’t control that.
The head of the Russian space program is threatening to strand our astronaut at the station. Mark Kelly had something to say about that and the Russian chief had a cow, in response.
@gVOR08: Yeah, that was quite a piece of Dreherbait, with Our Man over at TAC lauding the opinion piece to the skies. A few commentators were pointing out the innate snowflakitude of the author and that, no, just because people don’t agree with you doesn’t mean you’re being censored.
(Dreher’s been churning out hysterical articles for some time now about how We Should All Understand The Russians And It’s All The Fault of Those Gays And Transsexuals. For someone who claims to not Live By Lies he’s certainly gullible enough to swallow anything that fits in with his prejudices without fact checking it.)
@Scott: Have you got a “bluff call” that doesn’t involve troops on the ground, a no-fly zone, or other overt acts of war? I ask because I can’t think of any but am concerned about backing ourselves into another “eternal” war so soon after the last one. We’ve been “taking the army out for a ride” for 20 years now. Maybe it’s time to consider the possibility that we can’t control everything that happens on the planet geopolitically.
To quote the lede of the piece linked below: “Donald Trump wants his fans to foot the bill for a new plane that would let him pretend he’s still president.”
http://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-begs-fans-for-cash-to-fund-new-trump-force-one-plane?ref=home
@gVOR08:
As I’ve said elsewhere here, normal people have had to bite their tongues forever knowing that saying the wrong thing at any time could have disastrous results for their careers, families, etc.
There was this “professional opinion-haver” class that was largely shielded from this, and the real concern, on both the right and the left, is that they may lose their privileges and end up having to live in the real world like everyone else.
@Scott:
There’s nothing wrong with prefunding benefits FOR CURRENT EMPLOYEES. The problem is the USPS was being forced to fund 75 years out, that is covering benefits for employes who won’t evene be born for 40 years. You can’t set aside payroll from someone you haven’t hired yet to fund benefits for them.
The real goal was to make the USPS pension unaffordable in hopes they’d have to drop it as a benefit for future employees. That is, it wasn’t intended to keep the pension solvent, but to intentionally crash it.
@Stormy Dragon:
Put it another way: would you been in favor of doubling you social security taxes to cover your great-great-grandkids social security? I mean pre-funding benefits is a good idea, right?
@CSK:
I’m actually in favor of Trump people wasting their money on stupid stunts, since it reduces the amount left to fund the actual dangerous things the GOP wants to do. That plane represents dozens of fewer lobbyists pushing for trans genocide laws.
Very interesting piece:
@Michael Reynolds:
I’m perfectly willing to let “America tricked us in invading Ukraine” be the official story if that lets Putin climb down from the hill he finds himself stuck on top of.
@Scott: Well, for starters, they are supposed to prefund for 75 years. Effectively putting aside money to pay for retirement healthcare costs for postal workers not even born yet. I don’t know that that can be fiscally justified as a good idea. And anyway, when I first heard about it my immediate thought was it was going to be yet another incentive to privatize the USPS. A few years ago when there was open discussion about the “need” to privatize, I found I was right in that belief when some Mitt Romney-type was being interviewed and they flat-out stated it was an ideal target for privatization and pointed to the fund as being why. In a “this is a good thing” way, of course.
@Stormy Dragon:
Same. Whatever bullshit Russians have to tell themselves if it stops them murdering innocent people, OK.
People have to go through stages it seems. They can’t just decide 1+1=2, they have to slowly talk themselves into it. The Russians can add this to the eternal chip on their shoulders.
@Stormy Dragon Not necessarily. But I WOULD be in favor of taxing the whole nut instead of capping the tax as one hundred whatever thousand and foregoing taxes on millions in salary income. How about that instead?
@Stormy Dragon: I guess I was too slow, you got there before I did. And I sincerely believe the pre-funding was done so someone would get a payoff when they finally got the USPS privatized.
@Han: Oligarchs do love them some privatization. Look at Russia, hollowed out and broke, Putin and his oligarchs having siphoned off any wealth. My goodness, have you seen Putin’s Sochi estate? Does the average Russian think that’s cool? Do they even know?
Every report says the Russian arms are pretty crappy and not well supplied. War on the cheap, apparently. How are you supposed to get the Soviet band back together on a shoestring budget? This may not have started out as a dog wag, but it seems to be turning into one.
@CSK:
I pledge some rubber bands and a square meter of balsa wood.
So, this allegedly rich and successful individual is begging money from poorer people to buy a private jet, and they don’t see the con.
@Michael Reynolds:
Well, Sergei Lavrov stoutly maintains that Russia didn’t invade Ukraine. So there.
@Kathy:
And…he wants them to keep this a secret from the press!
As of 10am Pacific Time this morning, Democrats have led something like 8 of the last 8 generic ballot polls according to 538’s aggregator.
I doubt it will last if high gas prices drag on, but it’s predictable the media has ignored this two week trend. Doesn’t fit the Biden Is A Failure It Was Better Under Trump narrative.
@CSK: Lavrov kinda looks like the Iraqi Information Minister too, come to think of it.
“There are no American infidels in Baghdad! Never! I speak better English than this villain Bush. They will be greeted with bullets and shoes!”
@Stormy Dragon:
I suspect the plot of over-funding USPS retirement was to create a piggy bank which, after the USPS was transferred into private hands, could be raided. This would make taking over the USPS much more attractive to private equity pirates, aka bankers.
You know, I read that piece about Trump’s plane having difficulties. It also mentioned that Trump is saying to donors that he’s “looking strongly, very strongly, at running in 2024”. My immediate reaction was, “well, I guess he isn’t going to run then”
Remember, this is a guy who never wanted to be president in the first place, he just wanted some spotlight and some brand recognition. But he can rake in lots of cash saying he might run.
Maybe I’m too cynical sometimes. I have been told that.
@DK:
“No, I am not scared and neither should you be!”
@CSK:
It’s called hiding in plain sight. Why don’t libtards get this?
@Jay L Gischer:
Last I heard, his old 757 was missing one engine plus other needed maintenance.
Assuming he wants another commercial passenger jet, there are two suppliers: Boeing and Airbus (I doubt he’d settle for a smaller plane like the Embraer E-2 family), both of which have a business jet division. So figure an A321 or B737 MAX 9/10. Both companies are very tight-lipped when it comes to private jet orders, but leaks do happen.
He could pick up a used A380, as no one else wants them. It would fit his ego, largest passenger jet ever made. They probably can be had cheap, considering the original sale price, but the fuel and maintenance and gold fixtures for every lavatory would cost a fortune.
@Stormy Dragon: Perhaps it can be a war about Hunter Biden being forced to step down from the board of Burisma? And since has has stepped down (years ago… but maybe he left a few things in an office that can be shipped back to him), they can declare victory.
The right wing here could get behind that.
Meanwhile, the Fox Personality wing of the Republican Party (that is, the mainstream Republican Party) is currently beginning to parrot Russian lies about a US-run biological weapons laboratory in Ukraine having forced Russia’s hand. (The US has been working with countries in the former Soviet republics to safely dismantle Soviet biological weapons research laboratories)
@Kathy: Trump Force One, the first casualty of sanctions targeting Russian aviation and plane parts. Sad!
@Gustopher: The other axis is to provide good employment to people with the requisite bio-hacking knowledge, so they don’t get desperate enough to start trying to sell their services to (unknown) third parties.
Sheesh, looking at all this you’d think none of the noisy republicans had ever thought about prudential activities.
Watched a piece on the BBC last night. The reporter was standing in front of a now-closed McDonald’s in Moscow talking to young Russian “political analyst.” The young analyst said that the “colonization” of Russia by the West began 30 years ago when the first McDonald’s was opened, and now the decolonization was beginning with the closings. I thought to myself, Gee, I wonder how much you’ll like the Chinese shit sandwiches you guys are gonna be eating for the next 40-50 years.
I asked this question last year: Since a census is constitutionally mandated, is there a point where the performed census is so inaccurate as to be unconstitutional and a redo required?
2020 Census Undercounted U.S. Population by Nearly 19 Million
Of course, a lawsuit would have to be filed to get to an answer on this question.
@sam: “The young analyst said that the “colonization” of Russia by the West began 30 years ago when the first McDonald’s was opened, and now the decolonization was beginning with the closings. ”
And the crazy thing is that if you read Dostoevsky, these are exactly the same fights they’ve been having in Russia since at least the 19th century, with Slavophiles demanding cultural purity and Westernisers wanting to keep up with the rest of the civilized world.
Not that the US isn’t having the same fights we’ve been having for hundreds of years…
@Han:
I don’t think it was even that complex. I think it was more just general Republican hostility toward postal workers (as semi-government employees) and trying to make the pension unaffordable so that they can argue for taking the pension away entirely.
@Scott:
Yes, and that point is the moment when the Republican wing of SCOTUS suspects the inaccuracy is benefitting Democrats instead of Republicans.
@sam:
McDonalds established a no-fry zone?
@Kathy: Trump’s previous planes have come from odd sources and were probably bought at fire sale prices. The 757 was Paul Allen’s private jet and he had it outfitted like a luxury yacht, no doubt paying full cost as it was brand new at the time. My assumption is that white elephants like this are like Rolls Royces in that people who want them and can afford them buy new and when they go on the used market it’s at a huge discount.
Also there is circumstantial evidence that the private jet was used as part of Trump’s typical scam. The ones that made it to court are replete with complaints about how Trump would imply he was personally invested in whatever business deal he was hawking, only to find out later that Trump had no stake in the business at all and was actually billing exorbitantly for every conversation, every power point, every lunch or dinner, until all the investors money was gone. Given that Trump’s gullible investors also gushed about all the times they were “invited” to fly on Trump’s jet with him while he attended this or that function, it’s not a stretch to think he was billing them at exorbitant chartered luxury aircraft rates for the privilege of being his guest
@sam:
@wr:
Revealing, as it opened when the Soviet Union was still a going concern.
Illustrates how the regrets of the Great Russia “nationalists” regarding the fall of the USSR are primarily about the belated end of the Russian Empire.
The “Empire without the Emperors”.
It brings to mind Kamil Galeev’s observation:
@sam:
Szechuan Shit Dim Sum. It’s like the little pork buns, but different.
@MarkedMan:
You could ask His UNroyal Majesty, King Manuel Andres the Last, who’s been trying to sell off the presidential jet ordered by the past administration, for the last three years. You’d think a 787-9 would be easy to sell, even if the interior needs to be fully reworked.
I’ll buy that. It would explain how he could afford such an expensive jet for so long.
@Kathy:
Trump got his 757 flying again in Nov of 21, word is he’s quietly trying to sell it.
https://simpleflying.com/trump-boeing-757-flies-again/
A little good news on schools from Cow Hampshire.
@dazedandconfused:
And he’s begging for money to repair it before the sale?
@dazedandconfused:
I do check Simple Flying daily. I either missed it, or did not care to read about Benito, or I forgot all about it.
@Gustopher: Indeed! We need to keep clear that they’re not shit sandwiches, they’re shit bao. A world of difference.
@CSK:
The report is the money is for his wonderful NEW TF1, under construction somewhere by somebody, which everybody will love when he unveils it…belief him and many people are saying that.
@dazedandconfused: What’s the over/under on the “special work” being that N757AF is getting new livery so that it can be unveiled as Trump
FarceForce One?@dazedandconfused:
His email is worded oddly (surprise, surprise): “My team is building a BRAND NEW Trump Force One…”
His team?
Building or rebuilding?
@Kathy:
I suspect the donated Dassault he was flying was probably one that had engines close to timing out. The value of these beasts varies wildly with how much time is left on the engines. When they get near the end they become quite cheap, so cheap donating one away is not impossible to imagine for people in the bracket of people who play with private jets.
If that was the case the engine failure would be the end of the hunt for that plane, no sense putting money into an engine that is near it’s end. Either put about $10 million into it for a pair of new engines or it sits.
He’s down to that tawdry little Citation X and get laughed at by the truly wealthy, or pony up for fuel of a 757.
@CSK:
Jarred is in the dog-house, so it must be Don Jr and Eric.
@dazedandconfused:
Well, Eric Trump says the family has oodles of cash, given that the Trump Org. just took out a 100 million dollar loan on the Trump Tower from something called (I am not kidding) the Bank of the Internet in California. So they can afford the fuel, I suppose.
Trump’s previous $100 million mortgage on this property comes due this September.
Yesterday, Jax, I think, was asking why deer are getting hit badly by COVID, but some animals with a closer relationship with humans, such as cows and horses, are not.
I assume susceptibility to Covid has more to do with the genetic makeup of the species than with proximity to people. Look at a few animals with an even closer relationship with humans: cats and dogs. Cats are very susceptible to Covid; dogs, not so much. My dog sleeps in my bed, and continued to sleep in my bed when I had Covid. She never got sick.
@dazedandconfused:
The “under construction” thing got me. it’s not like there are that many airplane manufacturers. Aside from the big two, Boeing and Airbus, there’s Embraer, which only makes regional jets (confining ourselves to the civilian market) and executive jets. Bombardier is private jets only, as it sold its regional operations to Airbus and Mitsubishi. ATR makes only small turboprop regional planes. There’s a few more who make turboprops or private jets, and some which make small prop planes
Aside from that there’s COMAC in China, which makes a knockoff of the DC9 (no kidding) and is working on a mainline narrow body, the C919. And a Russian manufacturer or consortium, whose name escapes me just now, also working on a mainline narrow body, the MC-21 (now with Russian-made engines!), and Sukhoi which makes the SU-100 “Super Jet” regional plane.
So, it’s not a big mystery.
Used jets, like the retired A380s and 747-400s, are not under construction.
@CSK:
A few years ago I saw Mark Cuban comment that Trump is nowhere near a true billionaire, it’s all a heavily leveraged stack of cards, and Mark knew it from production of the Shark Tank. They way Cuban put it was “The only way Don Trump could come up with a billion in cash is if I gave him $950 million to wash my balls.” I assume that was a reference to his Dallas Mavericks NBA team.
@dazedandconfused:
Oh, of course Cuban meant the footballs. 😀
Israel bans Israelis from marrying Palestinians:
Israel’s Knesset passes law barring Palestinian spouses
@Stormy Dragon: I must not be normal.
@CSK:
Benito seems the type to be a disciple of the Homer Simpson School of Economics. In this case, the mortgage is a “building loan.” He gets to spend like a drunken sailor, and the building is stuck with the loan!
@dazedandconfused: That’s so bad I’d give you 3 thumbs up if I could.
@Stormy Dragon: But Israel is not an apartheid state, no no no, not that.
@Monala: Indeed, and even more interesting is the ability to transmit covid back and forth. Minks can both catch covid from humans and transmit it to humans, which makes them super-dangerous as a potential reservoir for mutations.
@CSK: Basketballs? I can’t tell when people are kidding…but intentionally swapping basketball/football is something my husband would do with a completely straight face….
@Jen:
Sometimes my jests fall flat.
How does this sound? Pasta with a creamy garlic sauce made with cottage cheese, sweet cream*, and a little milk, mixed with bite sized pieces of grilled turkey breast and chorizo?
If I find any turkey breast at the store, that is.
*Sweet cream is just not sour. It’s not sweetened with added sugars.
@Stormy Dragon: It makes sense, since a large number of the members of the Knesset see Palestinians as subhuman.
@Kathy:
Perhaps add a bit of Parmesan or mozzarella?
@Kathy: Is this one of those food challenges like they used to do on The Splendid Table, when people called in with what was in their fridge and the host would make up a dish using very random ingredients. One involved moldy chocolate pudding that was truly inspired.
To be honest, I would use a hard Italian cheese instead of the cottage cheese, like carbonara. Little bit goes a long way.
@becca:
More like “what do I feel like eating next week?”
It’s less often when I play “Let’s see what’s in the fridge and pantry.” I don’t keep much that can be turned into a meal, but rather buy what I’ll cook when I need it.
I realize now I was flippant, a bad habit of mine, because your ingredients aren’t random at all. My sincere apologies to the chef.
@Kathy: I swear I hit reply!
@Stormy Dragon: But let’s pretend Israel isn’t an apartheid state…
@becca:
I don’t know. Chorizo with turkey and creamy sauce sounds rather out of the blue to me 🙂
@Monala: I did a little more asking around today, and the cattle industry has already been hit by coronaviruses in the past, it led to a large amount of death and….vaccines. Every cow, calf and bull got a vaccine for various coronaviruses over a 20 year period. The best I can figure is that some of those old vaccines provided some protection against this new coronavirus? Doesn’t explain horses not coming down with it, though, they get even more up close and personal with their human owners, and they’re not on a vaccination schedule like cattle are. We are required by law to vaccinate at certain times of year and that’s it.
I have a cat who was diagnosed 6 years ago with Feline Corona Virus. Long-term runny nose and sneezing. She never caught Covid-19 when we were sick, either.
@OzarkHillbilly: Did you head out on your vacation? The thread was slow this morning. 😉 Update us on hanging out with your fam and the cemetery adventures, please!
@Jax: Not yet. We had our STL granddaughters for their weekly visit today. On those days, I have to be up and out the door as early as 5:30 to pick them up (sometimes as late as 6:30, but not today) and away from the internet most of the day if not all of it. I head down to NOLA on Thursday AM next week and return the following Thursday. While I am gone I will be incommunicado, due to the fact that I don’t have a smart phone or any kind of tablet. Which also means I will have little to no awareness of the larger world while I am gone.
My arteries and veins will celebrate the precipitous drop in my blood pressure.