Tuesday’s Forum
Steven L. Taylor
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Tuesday, April 12, 2022
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74 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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To start off your Tuesday morning with something fun, I present to you….
Dr. Evermore’s Imaginarium.
A Holocaust survivor dies and goes to Heaven. He meets God and tells Him a Holocaust joke. God says, “That’s not funny.” The survivor says,”Well, I guess you had to be there.”
Is it just me, or did anyone else feel the season finale of Foundation dragged on and on sloooooowly?
Anyway, overall it was good, source material notwithstanding, but unlike other new TV shows, I’m not very impatient to know what happens next.
@Kathy: Tried to like it. Accepted the fact that it had nothing whatsoever to do with the books. But it was such a confused shoot-shooty mess I lost interest. Stuck with it to the end but, like you, am indifferent to what happens next.
Although I did think the Emperor storyline was good. So there was that.
The Law of Unintended Consequences strikes again: Sunscreen chemicals accumulating in Mediterranean seagrass, finds study
Herd immunity now seems impossible. Welcome to the age of Covid reinfection
I hate this time of year.
Been awake for an hour and a half and I’ve sneezed about 50 times and blown my nose 4 times. Thankfully, the pill is kicking in now.
I sneeze extraordinarily violently. Really, really loud. Full body convulsion. Enough so, people ask me if I’m okay.
I do like the greening of the world and being to take a walk without a jacket. I could without the pollen.
I swear, one day I’m going to stroke out from sneezing.
@MarkedMan:
Not quite indifferent. I do want to know what happens next, I’m just not anxious to know. if the producers said it will be five years until season 2, I’d just go on and wait. Contrast with Severance, where I very much want to know right now what happens after the season finale.
The Cleons are far more interesting than I thought they’d be. Talk about extreme notions of purity!
@Kathy:
I’m jealous! I don’t have Apple+ and I really, really want to watch Severance – it’s such a dystopian, intriguing concept.
@Mu Yixiao: Too F’n cool. Thanx for that, I’ve got it bookmarked for a visit the next time I head to the northwoods.
@de stijl:
Can you get a free trial? I got one for 7 days, which was plenty of time to see Severance at 9 eps. Had I not wanted to see Foundation, I might have cancelled before I was charged for a month.
@de stijl:
“I hate this time of year.”
April is the cruelest month.
WHY THE PAST 10 YEARS OF AMERICAN LIFE HAVE BEEN UNIQUELY STUPID
The article is too long to effectively summarize, but if you suspect that social media is a large part of the problem, you’d be right. Overall, despite suggestions that can change the current trend, it is a pessimistic look at our future, at least in the near term.
The fringe has taken control of political discourse and Structural Stupidity.
Read the whole thing.
Speaking of allergies. All the time I lived in NE, never had an allergy. Neither did my wife. We walked on a golf course through rolling clouds of pine pollen. Nothing. We moved to New Mexico, and for the first years, allergy-free. Now, come the spring and that cruel month, it’s a sneeze-a-thon. I had it so bad the first time it hit, I couldn’t even drink. Not beer, not wine, not bourbon, not nothin’. That was cruel. Slightest bit of alcohol, and Bang! It’s attenuated over the years, but it’s still there. But at least I can drink now. Someone told me it takes about seven years in this environment before the allergies take hold. That was about the time-frame. Juniper is the main culprit hereabouts.
@sam: I didn’t have allergies until around the age of 50. At first it was only in the autumn. Now it’s autumn and spring. Fortunately, most of the time it’s not too bad, but right now I am really tired of chasing after my nose all the time.
@de stijl:
I have sneezing “fits” from time to time. Sneeze every 5-10 seconds, 20-30 sneezes in total. No idea what triggers it. My grandfather had them, my dad had them, and me from about mid-teens on. My son seems to have escaped the curse, though.
The lt. governor of New York, Brian Benjamin, has been arrested on bribery charges.
Multiple shot, at least 13 injured in NYC subway station; undetonated devices found, officials say
ETA: It’s a sign of our times that my first thought is RWNJ and not Jihadist. We’ll see.
@sam:
I am a bit conflicted about Eliot. By many accounts not a particularly good person.
I remember when Tevo was getting into poetry. I wanted to guide, had all sorts of recommendations. I stopped myself. Backspaced over all that nonsense.
I think my advice to him was, basically, “Read what looks interesting. Discard what you don’t like, hold on to what you do. Linger over it.”
The Hollow Men is one of my favorites. The Wasteland is damn fine, too.
Jeebus:
Where did they get the gun? That’s the person who should be charged with murder.
@Michael Cain:
My classic move is the 3 sneeze trifecta. Three really hard sneezes back to back. A half-second beat to reflexively suck air back into my lungs, then BAM! again.
A few years ago I was leaning back in an office chair reading a book with my feet up on an ottoman. Had the triple sneeze and tipped over backwards. Banged my head on the wood floor.
The worst bit was I tipped over on the second and then the third hit when I was already flat on my back and the residue fell back on my face.
Kinda gross.
@sam: I was warned when living in Japan: the first 2-3 years you won’t have problems with the cedar pollen. After that, you’ll be sneezing up a storm for another 2-3 years. Then your body will get used to it and you’ll go back to not noticing it.
Exactly what happened to me.
I’ve never had allergies, but I do take them seriously (anaphylaxis can kill you). So I ask this seriously: would an N95 mask and perhaps goggles help?
This is a gross anecdote. It involves bodily fluids and not the fun kind. Be forewarned.
One time I had a nasty cold. So much snot!
I was a young teenager at school. I couldn’t dash out into the hall to blow my nose every five minutes. So I sucked it up and decided the best course of action was to swallow it. Sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do. Over the course of several hours.
My stomach rebelled after a while. “Dude, I can’t process this. It’s snot!” I needed to bolt right fricking now.
I tried to run to the bathroom and didn’t make it. Not even close. I barfed up about a quart of snot on the floor.
Sorry for the mental images.
Thankfully, nobody saw. I gathered up a huge handful of paper towels and mopped up asap before the bell rang.
I didn’t ask permission to leave for the day. Just left.
@Kathy:
N95 masks and goggles do help except when the wind is high.
@OzarkHillbilly: Isn’t there an OTB regular who’s from Brooklyn? Kylopod perhaps? Hope they’re ok.
@OzarkHillbilly:
The latest on this, from MSNBC, is that the suspect is a Black man, perhaps wearing a gas mask and protective vest. All the shooting took place within the subway car, after the guy set off a smoke grenade. The NYFD says there were no active explosive devices, contrary to previous reports.
Can you sneeze while you’re asleep? I never have.
Sleep suppresses a lot of things we take for granted in waking life. You are basically paralyzed during REM sleep. Not always. Mostly.
Every now and again I kick during vivid, violent dreams. A handful of times. What Kramer calls “the jimmy leg”.
A work buddy shared once that he and his wife slept in separate beds because he socked her in the face once during a dream.
Sometimes the suppressive, protective systems in place during sleep kind of fuck up and bleed over. Like when a sleeping dog runs in place while dreaming.
Never been woken up by a sneeze, though. Five minutes after, though, and bring on that sad circus act. The same allergens are there poking at your immune response while you are asleep, but no response. Kinda baffling, actually.
@de stijl:
One time I had a bandage put on a knee, and was concerned about messing it up tossing and turning while sleeping. I woke up in the morning never having moved at all.
I thought that was creepy as hell.
After hernia surgery last year, I put an ice pack on while sleeping. That one got tossed all over. I awoke once, when one broke and soaked me with ice-cold water.
@de stijl:
Ti’s not possible to sneeze during sleep because the reflex muscle contraction is paralyzed. It is possible to wake up and sneeze.
@Kathy: Yes, they do, but for a lot of us, the discomfort of wearing the protective gear outweighs the discomfort from the condition. I used to mask up in the produce warehouse during watermelon season in the days of stacking melons by hand on beds of straw. Very uncomfortable, but my condition wasn’t mere sneezing jags; it was asthma attacks. For sneezing, I’m not positive I would have bothered.
I think dog dreams involve chasing squirrels. Maybe catching one. Or coming close.
I am an urban person. The most commonly seen non-domesticated land critter I see is a squirrel. If I’m up early and do a dawn walk I see bunnies. Sometimes possums and raccoons.
Why the multi-generational conflict between squirrels and domesticated dogs? They are no threat to one another. Primal antipathy.
Co-existence, my sisters and brothers.
@de stijl:
Separating art and the artist seems to be both the hardest and most important thing to do with poets. An author of a novel can completely separate himself from the plot and characters they are constructing. A poem, even one that seems far removed from the author’s personal life (Robert Browning’s poems come to mind), usually are analyzed as being intensely reflective of the author.
And unfortunately Poets can be a horrendous lot.
I love Pound was a fascist, Eliot an anti-semite, approximately 98% of male poets were raging chauvinists (William Carlos Williams), rapists (Derek Walcott), or something in between.
And yet I cant’ help but love Pound, Eliot, or WCW. Walcott can fuck off.
@MarkedMan:
I thought that was the best stuff in the whole season–which I did not expect.
The whole Gayle and Salvor stuff at the end is just strange and I am not sure what the point is going to be.
I will say that Jared Harris as Seldon was brilliant casting.
So, I’m watching a few YouTube chess videos, and now I see that the top recommendation, actually a paid advertisement, is sponsored by the Daily Wired, and it’s a video titled “What is a Woman?” The ad copy reads:
The image that goes with this has text that reads:
First, why do they show me this stuff?
Second, what an eyeroll.
Third, Matt Walsh should really know better, he’s has a PhD in Social Work. Of course, he’s “just asking questions”.
Fourth, I think this is the stage that shows we’re winning. Giant freak-out comes just before they lose big time.
Fifth, the idea of “grooming” kids to be trans is facially ridiculous. Trans people never, never, ever change their minds. Not at age 6, not at age 10, not at age 16, not at age 50.
I ask you to consider the question: Would you be willing to cross dress, alter your voice, alter your mannerisms, and maybe use some simple prosthetics (stuff your bra or your pants) 24/7 for the next year? If your answer is “yes, I’d like that” you are a trans person. The very very strong majority of us would find that oppressive as hell, and that’s exactly what a trans person experiences before they transition.
There’s no such thing as “trans grooming” It Does. Not. Exist.
@Sleeping Dog:
Great excerpt from the article, and I particularly love this line:
“But when the newly viralized social-media platforms gave everyone a dart gun, it was younger progressive activists who did the most shooting, and they aimed a disproportionate number of their darts at these older liberal leaders.”
What is that saying that Hollywood sometime eats its own (brought up in the year when Marisa Tomei won the Oscar, and people to this day still want to believe that it was a mistake and the Academy was too embarrassed to admit it so they jus gave her the Oscar), I feel that is what we Liberal’s tend to do way too often in the day and age.
The GOP does not reserve all of their ire for those in their own tribe who sometimes misspeak, or something to that effect, instead they are focused on destroying the Liberal dream and Democracy in America. I will say it again, and I may end up saying it another thousand times on this site, but Michael Reynold’s frustration about the Liberal/Progressives tendency to tear each other apart is often times very warranted, as it is very counterproductive that Libs/Progs do this all too often to members of their own team, folks who in fact want to be their friends, but some folks in our tribe make it absurdly difficult to be happy to reach out and shake their hand, and will continue to keep us from getting more of our team members into the halls of Congress so we can remove some of the many hands the GOP has the levers of Power in the United States.
Michael Reynold’s posts may occasionally have me shaking my head and can be very condescending when lecturing all of us Liberals about how we are doing it wrong, but gosh dangit, when he is right he sometime nails the problem by hitting the nail on its head.
@Neil Hudelson:
Pound is hard.
He was a hateful person. He also wrote good shit I like to this day.
I really like the distinction between prose writers and poets. If you are doing a story or a novel you have to invent diverse characters in conflict or in rough accordance. A vivant tableau of believable people to make the story work.
With modern poetry, it is all you. Well, mostly you. We all have filters.
@inhumans99:
I disagree pretty strongly.
The RW is the aggressor. Always has been.
The LW is saying that not socially compliant outliers are valid people and full citizens. What we did and accepted in the past was wrong, and I will no longer comply and be silent.
Acknowledging and affirming that not everyone fits the accepted mold is the best thing we have done as a nation since the Civil Rights Act.
@Mu Yixiao:
Other Wisconsin good stops if you’re traveling by and have no place you need to be: Taliesin and that weird organic castle house thing on the bluff top east and south. Dude built out new wings and rooms on a whim. Can’t remember the name.
The world’s biggest fish up in Hayward. A muskie, the most elusive.
My buddy had a cabin outside of Hayward. Spent way too much time thereabouts. Spooner, Wascott, Chetek, Cumberland.
@de stijl:
House on the Rock.
And… yeah. I know about all those things. I live in the middle of them. 🙂 Never made it to House on the Rock, however.
Oh… and I believe the muskie was built as a set piece for the movie “Blood Hook”.
@Steven L. Taylor:
IMO Gaal’s arc went downhill after she left the swimming pool.
As to the emperors, does it look to anyone else their personalities change when they age? They kind of get meaner, and that’s saying something given what Day did on his trip and once he returned home. But it was Dusk who was unflinchingly unforgiving.
@Sleeping Dog:
Thanks for that link. A more organized and eloquent statement of issues that have been concerning me for years.
@Neil Hudelson:
Let’s not leave Wallace Stevens out of the august group, a stone racist he — and, for me, the greatest of the American poets. Even those with reason to hate him are, perhaps against their will, enchanted:
@de stijl:
Taliesin is bad-ass.
I admit I am a bit of a Frank Lloyd Wright fan and love the aesthtics, but it freaking cool. Highly recommended.
I remember being up NW. You expect the Anderson, the Peterson, the Knutson. Maybe the odd Finnish surname. You don’t expect the D’Amato, the Zappa, the Di Salvo, the Zappitello. You meet random folks in bars and they have intriguing names. Way more Italian names than you’d possibly expect. They all interbred decades ago. An impossibly good looking bunch. Striking.
They ran a spur line up to north a long while back and imported a lot of Italians to lay the tracks. They stuck around after the job ended. Melded in.
There was a adage I heard an old guy say once. “Cumberland, Hayward, Hurley and hell.” I think it meant about rowdiness and miscreancy in boom towns, railroad towns. He seemed nostalgic, pensive.
@Jay L Gischer:
No, but we bargain, prevaricate, hide, dissociate, lie to ourselves, all sorts of terrible things we do to ourselves. I don’t want Trans kids to go through what I did to myself.
A year or two before I transitioned I had a little extra money and got myself a new pair of prosthetic breasts. My old chicken cutlets had sprung a couple of leaks and they were going on like 14 years old. The new ones were really fancy in that they were self adhesive. The adhesive wasn’t perfect, but it was lightyears better than the old ones. The first time I glued them to my chest I felt whole in a way I never had. They were amazing, unless you got sweaty or bent forward the wrong way. Then they hit the ejector button and the reverie was broken.
Oh, and one other thing. When I bought them I got to test out a couple of different sizes. I got the first ones I tried which were roughly a C cup. Then, for giggles I tried out the largest pair they had which were like a large DD. I couldn’t get them off fast enough. My brain rebelled.
@inhumans99:
There were several good paragraphs in that article, that among them.
Sunday’s NYT had this article; I’m a Conservative Professor Who Opposed Safe Spaces. I Was Wrong. It’s not that he suddenly became Woke, but he recognized that students were having discussions in class and those holding the minority position in the debate were being attacked outside of class in social media, that is, they were victims of dart shooters. And you don’t need to have much knowledge about psychology beyond a high school class to recognize that that is patented passive-aggressive behavior. So he instituted a rule, what is said in class, stays in the class.
Much of what exists on twitter is simply ridicule and P-A behavior. It is one thing to engage someone in a discussion; You said X and this is why you a wrong, and another; You’re a [enter favorite pejorative here] because you said X. So yes, despite MR’s ability to infuriate some here, he’s right more than he’s wrong, but yes, he can be an a__hole about it (of which, I’m sure he’s proud).
I’ve never established an account on either FaceBook or twitter, I never could understand the benefit. Early FaceBook, because I had no interest in ‘reconnecting,’ if I had been interested in the person, I’d have found a way to stay in touch. When FaceBook began the curated news feed, it was something that I believed would come to no good, but didn’t conceive of the evil that it has turned out to be.
Today, the number of Americans that value free speech has shrunk considerably. The entire R party has been consumed by illiberalism and seeks to control speech through government action and the progressive left seeks to control speech through social pressure. The defenders of free speech are down to classical conservatives, that’s always been a small number, classical liberals and liberals as we understand the term in the US.
A few were commenting the other day about they were glad they were old, given where the country is headed. Me too.
@de stijl: Come join us here in Oak Park, where–as I keep telling people–“you go five feet and trip over something else designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. Or one of his students.”
(FLW was a great architect, but a lousy engineer. Which is why his buildings keep needing to be repaired. Le sigh.)
So…the latest from Qanon is that the Covid vaccines implant Satan’s DNA in our bodies. I guess the Bill Gates/George Soros microchips weren’t sufficient for the needs of the Deep State:
http://www.rawstory.com/qanon-2657144627/
@grumpy realist:
In part he was a lousy engineer, but also he experimented with new materials and techniques, and that often leads to problems.
@Beth:
I knew a young woman. Proud of who she was. Scared shitless she was going to be found out. Proud, defiant, terrified. Still came out. Regardless. Opened herself up to possible hard rejection. Gave us her new name.
This was early 80s. Clued in smart people got it. This is people being themselves. This is the correct course. Anything else, compliance, would be wrong. Unacceptable. Inappropriate. Ghastly.
I was on the straight, cis side of the equation (the easy side), but I understood. I was outside of what society expected and they were too. We weren’t exactly alike but I had and felt empathy, kinship.
I totally fucked up the first time someone came out to me. I was cavalier. I fronted like it was no big deal. I didn’t think it was. To me, it wasn’t a big deal, but of course it is a big deal. To him, it was massive. I was the first person he came out to ever. This was a life changing event.
And I bollixed it up. I apologized a few years later.
He was very gracious. Said my poorly stated full acceptance meant a lot to him. He got where I was coming from. I got better at that exchange over time.
You are always welcome here.
@grumpy realist:
True on that. His shit looks cool, but falls apart if you look at it hard.
There is a a bank lobby is S Minnesota, Owatonna or Faribault that is killer.
@de stijl:
I think queer people are pretty good at discerning between someone who doesn’t quite get the response right, but is accepting, and someone who hides their poor response well. My mom swears up and down how accepting she is, but her reactions to my coming outs were awful. And the first 100 times are hard, after that it gets boring.
Also, I was thinking about you and pens the other day. A couple months ago I bought a planner/journal, and because I’m letting my inner 14 year old run amuck, a bunch of sticker books and colored pens. The worst of the bunch were the “Gelly Roll” ones. I could see the color, but it felt like I was color blind. Like, there was an unintelligible smudge where I wrote something. I just can’t see it. I got frustrated and gave them to my kids and bought a bunch of Pilot G-2s in a bunch of fun colors.
@Beth:
Once you figure out which pen is correct for you, then you have that situation covered for life. I’m a Pilot pen person now. I don’t have to think about this anymore.
Let your inner 14 year old rum amok.
@CSK:
Given we consume animal, plant, and fungal DNA regularly, and we take in tons of bacterial and viral DNA as well (and viral RNA), getting some from an angel is a nice change of pace 😀
@Kathy:
I think DNA is just an acronym they’ve heard of, and have no idea of what it is.
@de stijl:
If I had a million dollars, I’d fund a distillery and make “Rum Amok”. Per my understanding, rum is pretty easy to make. A business venture off a typo.
Now I am going to have that damned Barenaked Ladies song stuck in my head.
You know, Barenaked Ladies are pretty okay. Present as a bit novelty, but they aren’t really. Not my jam, but they are all right in my book.
If I Had A Million Dollars does not suck. A nice pop song a la They Might Be Giants stuff.
@CSK:
Of course they do. It’s something bad. Like RNC, KFC, DIA, NSC, GMO, and other scary acronyms (OSA).
April 12, 1961
Yuri Gagarin. First man in space.
@de stijl: I was surprised to find that Barenaked Ladies has a kids music album, and it’s quite good!
https://youtu.be/2fasxQN42KU
@grumpy realist:..Which is why his buildings keep needing to be repaired.
Bucky Fuller’s domes leaked like a sieve. He had the good sense to sell the only one he owned and lived in from 1960-1971 that was built by Design Students.. It has been pretty much totally rebuilt.
There was at least one more Fuller dome on the main drag in Slepytown. It earned it’s place in history when the demonstrators tried to use it as a Red Cross emergency center during the riots in the Spring of 1970 complete with the Red Cross flag. All that did was make it a target for Illinois State Police. It was constantly pummeled with tear gas canisters.
I spent some time in the dome when things weren’t so crazy in town. Even when I wasn’t stoned the curved walls made me dizzy.
Just to point out that I married very well.
I just read the piece about the OK abortion ban at LGM. Then I read Michael’s awesome wife’s awesome letter. I thought to myself, I need to email my PCP and ask her what their backup plan is when Republicans inevitably attempt to ban adult Trans care. That’s a fun thought.
@Beth:
There is a line early on in Fight Club where The Narrator is talking about his sofa.
“You buy furniture. You tell yourself this is the last sofa I will ever need in my life. Buy the sofa, then for a couple of years you’re satisfied that no matter what goes wrong, at least you’ve got the sofa issue handled.”
Always resonated. As an anxious person, putting an issue to rest, ticking off that box, feels good. One less thing to pick away at my brain come 3 AM.
Pens, sofas. Ticking off boxes. A decision done and dusted.
If I could tick all of the boxes, would I feel complete?
One afternoon I was driving home listening to a goofy They Might Be Giants song and glanced over at a woman and realized I had to break up with her like right when we got home.
Thankfully, nothing had gone more than some hard smooching. PG, well tongue so PG-13.
I never go further unless I think that there is definitely a there there.
She liked me way harder than I liked her. I had lurking misgivings. A good person, but we were not a match. Knew it was not what I wanted. Knew what I had to do.
Man, I suck really bad at being the breaker-upper. I am way better at being the break-uppee. At that, I have experience and a bit of expertise.
I have no idea what to say or how to say it.
To this day Birdhouse In Your Soul freaks me out. God, I suck at breaking up. It’s painful. I am so inadequate at a pretty basic thing.
@de stijl: How would you be sure that you’d ticked off all the boxes?
@Just nutha ignint cracker:
I’m pretty sure the list of possible boxes is an endless one.
My brain invents new ones daily.
@de stijl:
Decades ago, I had an actor friend who lived in Chicago, Wrigleyville, in the sort of small apartment only a struggling, doggedly single and gay, middle aged actor could love and afford. Not just the only Alabama-born Shakespearean actor I have ever known (to the ocasional question of musical auditions, he would summons a perfectly Shakespearean “I. Do. Not. Sing.), he had a keen eye for art and regularly brought home Ming vases and Modiglianis (both literally and figuratively) from garage sales. The small apartment was a perfectly brimming, not overly brimming, work of art.
As he related it to me shortly after, one spring morning he brought home a bunch of peonies from the local market and placed them in a vase on the coffee table in the middle of the room. As he stepped back, he realized that the room was now perfect and his time there was done. He had to move.
He did move – in with roommates most of whom I knew. They were an ok bunch with an ok apartment of indifferent design. But I was pretty confident my friend was now past the zenith of his home life. But I also understood completely that he could not live in his perfect apartment anymore.
I hope you are ready when all those boxes are checked.
That is an awesome story.
This is messed up. This cop shot a guy in his own backyard, he didn’t match the description of the guy they were looking for (does that even matter? It’s ok to shoot first if he matched the description?) and he’s getting off with “more training”. 😐
https://www.ksl.com/article/50386353/idaho-falls-police-officer-very-relieved-after-judge-dismisses-case-against-him
@Joe:
For me, the tickable boxes aren’t usually about stuff.
I like my sofa. It’s long enough so I can take a nap and stretch out fully. No scrunching required. Is it getting a bit scruffy? A bit. I don’t care. I got the sofa situation squared away in my book. For the next few years, anyway.
Your friend, moving in with other friends? I flat out could not do that anymore. I could if I was in my 20s. Not anymore. It would be too uncomfortable. I would hate it.
Moving in with friends? No. Box ticked. A thing I longer have to fret about.
The rest of the list is long.
I don’t often link to Reason, but this one is pretty good.
https://reason.com/2022/04/12/ralph-petty-prosecutor-secret-job-judges-who-decided-his-cases-prosecutorial-immunity/
@inhumans99: “Michael Reynold’s frustration about the Liberal/Progressives tendency to tear each other apart is often times very warranted, as it is very counterproductive that Libs/Progs do this all too often to members of their own team”
And yet, oddly, it is also exactly what he accuses those other people of doing — tearing apart people on his own side. Funny how it’s never considered a problem when the moderates train all their venom on progressives, just the other way around.
@wr: Which by the way is not meant as a dig at MR or a desire to restart an old and tedious argument. It’s just that many “moderate” Dems feel it’s terrible when progressives complain about them, but then do nothing but trash progressives and blame them for their own mistakes. Look at BB for instance — the progressives voted for everything the moderates wanted, and then the moderates turned around and screwed them on BBB. And then when their poll numbers went down because voters weren’t going to get what was promised them, the mods blamed it all on “the squad.”