Tuesday’s Forum
Steven L. Taylor
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Tuesday, December 6, 2022
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79 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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“I believe that I’ve been persecuted for three or four years, including false charges brought against me by the federal government,”
-Rudy Giuliani
Pobrecito….
RIP Kirstie Alley
The military fielded over 200 domestic extremism reports last year
Talk about composure… Too funny.
More of this please.
@OzarkHillbilly:
I thought politics was like theater, beyond the obvious similarities: you don’t put in any of our own money.
I’ve been heartened to see, as widely reported, that police shootings of civilians declined over the last few years. But it’s not true. WAPO has maintained their own data base of police shootings.
Of the 1,047 the FBI data base shows 168. The apparent improvement in the number of police shootings is entirely a function of declining accuracy in the FBI data base.
WAPO has data for 2015 thru 2021.
Some of this is time lags as WAPO data is contemporaneous and some departments report after incidents are resolved, or at least claim so. Some of it is an attitude that our shootings aren’t crimes so why are we supposed to report them. And a lot of departments simply don’t report, despite getting generous federal money.
Part of the problem with guns is that we have very little reliable data. Not even on public employees.
This is a very good summation and analysis by Mona Charen:
http://www.thebulwark.com/why-the-right-needs-hunter-biden/
@CSK:
Are there no nude pics of Ivanka?
@Kathy:
Not that I’m aware of, but there are plenty of Melania.
They aren’t legally required to, it’s voluntary. Hence, what with all the attention being brought to the problem of police shootings, the incentives to obfuscate are much greater.
Trump is really foaming at the mouth now, insisting he didn’t write what he wrote about terminating certain parts of the Constitution:
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/fire-trump-denies-writing-wrote-constitution-rona60282
Some of the MAGAs were claiming yesterday that Trump meant that the Democrats were terminating the Constitution. Pathetic.
Technically Casper is not a sheepdog but a guardian dog bred for the specific purpose of protecting his livestock. His horrific wounds are probably why most goat and sheep folks around here have 2 guardian dogs. My buddy has an Akbash and a mutt of indeterminate heritage that is very protective.
@CSK: I checked the websites of my Rep and both my senators yestereve. Not a word about it on any of them. Maybe now that trump denies writing it they will mention that they are sworn to protect and defend the constitution. If not they will get some rather unpleasant emails from me.
@OzarkHillbilly:
Well, check this out. Unfortunately, the MAGAs will never read it because National Review is, in their eyes, a Communist Party publication.
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/arent-you-tired-of-all-this-crap
@CSK:
If you can’t access NRO, try here:
http://www.rawstory.com/trump-republican-party-2658838873/
@CSK: “Page not Found” is all I can get.
Still tons of work, not to mention a programed start for tomorrow at 5 am…
I’m re-reading Clarke’s early novel, The City and The Stars. For a book I’ve not read in over 20 years, it’s amazing how much of it I recall, even some names.
The part that interests me is the economy, or lack thereof, of Diaspar, the city at the heart of the story. Essentially there’s no money and no commerce. People have a home, no children, and machines materialize anything they want literally in an instant (furniture, clothes, food, etc).
I may have some thoughts on that when I finish it, and when work allows time to even think.
@OzarkHillbilly:
The link in the Raw Story piece will take you to NRO.
@OzarkHillbilly: My friend Cat has livestock guardian dogs to protect her sheep from wolves, coyotes, and occasionally mountain lions. Mostly wolves, though, this time of year. Very brave dogs.
https://cowboystatedaily.com/2022/11/08/cat-urbigkit-the-shifting-moon/
@OzarkHillbilly:
Having had 3 Pyrs in the past, the bravery of that dog doesn’t surprise me and there was an article that a Pyr and Nevada drove off a mountain lion trying to attract his teenaged companion.
My Pyrs were lazy house pets that enjoyed having their ears scratched and long walks, but I did some research into using them for livestock guarding and the recommended process is to have 2 Pyrs deployed so they can fight back-to-back and avoid some of the injuries this pup has.
On a motorcycle trip across Wyoming about 20 years ago, I stopped by the roadside to adjust my gear. There was a flock of sheep in the field, about 75 yards away. When finished my adjustment, I planned to take some pictures of the flock. Sighting through a short, telephoto lens, I spotted a Pyr standing between me and the flock, about 50 yards away. Scanning the rise beyond the sheep, I spotted the second. Wonderful dogs and great pets with children.
Here are the names of those 21 despicable creatures:
Lauren Boebert of Colorado
John Rose of Tennessee
Andy Harris of Maryland
Thomas Massie of Kentucky
Bob Good of Virginia
Louie Gohmert of Texas
Barry Moore of Alabama
Ralph Norman of South Carolina
Matt Rosendale of Montana
Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia
Chip Roy of Texas
Paul Gosar of Arizona
Andy Biggs of Arizona
Warren Davidson of Ohio
Scott Perry of Pennsylvania
Matt Gaetz of Florida
Greg Steube of Florida
Andrew Clyde of Georgia
Jody Hice of Georgia
Mary Miller of Illinois
Michael Cloud of Texas
Dems desire to recast the primary season crashing into reality.
Georgia official doubts Democratic plan for 2024 presidential primary
R’s have trifecta control of NH government and will go forward with the primary under current law and they have united support from the Dems. Looking forward, Nevada will have an R governor and his willingness to accommodate Dems is unknown.
It should be noted that R’s have their own rules about primaries and it doesn’t appear that the Dems coordinated with the opposition.
@Mister Bluster:
Well, that’s a Rogues’ Gallery of MAGAs.
@Mister Bluster: That’s my Chip!
@OzarkHillbilly: who are the three people who stood up behind her? Just random audience members?
ICYMI: Indiana’s “Religious Freedom Restoration Act,” designed to legalize discrimination against LGBTQ+ folk, is now responsible for their abortion ban being potentially overturned:
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2022/12/mike-pence-abortion-ban-indiana
Anderson Lee Aldrich, the suspect in the Colorado LGBTQ nightclub shootings. has been charged with 305 criminal counts: first degree murder, attempted first degree murder, first and second degree assault, and bias crimes.
@OzarkHillbilly: Not quite all. I got an invitation to watch Dennis Prager. 🙁
@Just nutha ignint cracker:
Sorry. Try the link here: @CSK:
@CSK: But no, in answer to his question, I’m not tired of it. The funny crap is a source of great comic relief, and I don’t follow it closely enough to have ennui set in. I usually only link to a few GQP stories in a week. I certainly don’t link to all the outrages that my fellow travelers at OtB can find–I do have a life beyond the online world no matter what it may look like from here.
@Neil Hudelson:
Just like they were warned – “religious freedom” and “deeply-held beliefs” are designed to be as vague as possible to cover all the fringe nuttery they might need to come up with in the future *cough* COVID denial *cough* The fact that the traditional understanding of life beginning at birth for Christianity, Judaism and Islam has been around for thousands of years means that courts are going to *have* to accept it as as a legit religious belief unless they want to start declaring which sects are government-approved and which aren’t.
@CSK: I did. Read about a paragraph or two to get the gist and moved on. I would be glad that the opinionator in question was tired of it if I didn’t realize that it only means that he would be happy for the party to go back to dog whistles and innuendo (ala HUNTER BIDEN’S LAPTOP!!!!!!!!!!!!9999999999!!!99911!!!!!!)
@Just nutha ignint cracker:
Well, it is funny, and it can get tedious, but the increasing lunacy of Trump’s words and deeds does represent a growing danger, I think.
@Just nutha ignint cracker:
I don’t think Cooke, the author, has ever supported Trump or his merry band of deranged sycophants. That’s why the MAGAs see NR as Communist propaganda.
FWIW, a viralogist is predicting a hard landing for China’s COVID program. Their program was essentially the extreme case for lockdown and isolation.
Fyi James, Steven, I go to OTB in Chrome, and can click on a story, but then I get an error message when I try to click on another post. I go to Incognito mode and OTB loads up just fine. Not sure what is going on, but this has been happening the past couple weeks.
I would have to double check, but going to OTB on my iPad or Pixel (Android) phone still is a great experience as far as I can tell. I need to check what happens on my MAC Air in Safari, but for now OTB and Chrome do not get 100% along well as friends, lol.
Other sites I hit in Chrome load just fine, Drum’s Jabberwocking, AV Club, my Xfinity email page, etc.. I also wonder if this is happening to anyone else?
@Mister Bluster: The usual suspects.
@Monala: I don’t know, maybe late comer backup vocals?
@Jax: Thanx for that. Your friend knows how to tell a story.
@Just nutha ignint cracker: An opportunity I know you could not resist.
@inhumans99:..I need to check what happens on my MAC Air in Safari,..
I have been using Safari on a MacBook Air for years. The machine that I am using to type this comment is my second Mac Air. Before my first Air I had a MacBook. This one had a slot for CD and DVD discs. My first real Apple* was an eMac. What a beast!
Years of loading OTB with Mac OS.
Lately some of the pictures adorning the OTB items don’t load with Safari. I know what that means. I need to upgrade my OS. I get prompts to do it every day.
If I really want to see Trumps mug on the intro to an OTB article I will use my Chrome browser which I loaded as a back up. It also tells me that my OS is out of date but it always loads all the OTB pages, pictures included, with no errors.
*My first desk top computer (’86-’87?) was a Laser 128. A clone of the Apple IIe.
@inhumans99:
Chrome works for me on both Linux and Windows. However… I have ScriptSafe, AdBlock+, and Privacy Badger all installed (though the only thing blocked is one cookie from ShareThis).
I noted above, @gVOR08:,that the FBI numbers on police shootings of civilians are useless. I just stumbled across a WSJ story via MSN on the number of guns stolen,
WTF, ten thousand. And oh, by the bye, maybe another four hundred thousand?! ATF only has a number for theft or loss from licensed dealers and manufacturers. (Lost? From dealers and manufacturers? WTF?)
I’ve said before that if we did an honest cost/benefit analysis on private gun ownership we’d ban the things by next Tuesday. We seem to work awfully hard to avoid getting the data for such an analysis.
@Mister Bluster:..Chrome…
Just to be sure I am now using my Chrome browser.
Version 103.0.5060.134 (Official Build) (x86_64) (whatever all that means)
Clicking around OTB posts with no error messages.
@gVOR08: Feature, not a bug.
I did not@Mu Yixiao:
Interesting, I do not want to suck up all the oxygen in the room on this thread, but this is the error message I get: Bad Request
Your browser sent a request that this server could not understand.
Size of a request header field exceeds server limit.
Apache/2.4.41 (Ubuntu) Server at http://www.outsidethebeltway.com Port 443
I probably just need to work on my settings in Chrome or tinker around with a plug-in.
It sounds like this error is not being returned by other members of this great blog so I will stop posting about this issue in particular. I am about to read the Why the Right Needs Hunder Biden Bulwark story CSK linked to in his post. Happy Tuesday folks, continue to have a great day.
@Mister Bluster:
Related, this happened today at the Capitol.
The description: During Congressional Gold Medal ceremony for Jan. 6 police, representatives of those receiving awards shake hands with Schumer then walk past McConnell and McCarthy.
@inhumans99:
I got that a lot, after a good long while reviewing past posts and going back and forth inside the blog. On Chrome and Edge both.
the cure was to close all browser windows and then start over fresh.
Oh my: picture from the Orion lunar flyby.
Paging Stanley Kubrick…
@Kathy:..walk past McConnell and McCarthy.
They look like a couple of chumps with their clammy hands out like they are on a streetcorner begging for scratch.
Maybe that’s where they should be.
The Trump Org. has been found guilty on ALL counts of tax fraud.
Trump Org guilty in NY tax fraud case
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/12/06/trump-organization-guilty-tax-fraud/
Yippe!
CSK beat me to it, but I’ll leave this for the link
@Sleeping Dog:
I wonder if he’s started ranting and raving about witch hunts on Truth Social yet.
For the OTB legal minds…Does this mean they are out of business in NY? And can Trump.Org simply re-incorporate in Florida, or some other friendly state?
I guess this makes it obvious why he would never release his taxes.
@Kathy:
It should be noted McCarthy did not even offer the police a handshake.
@CSK:
Under Jonah Goldberg’s editorship, the NR did a print issue entirely anti-trump, when trump won, Goldberg and David French were exiled from the island. Some of the remaining writers became trumpists while a few, like Cooke, joined the anti-anti-trump legion, i.e. trump is bad, but he does good things (judges!), so you shouldn’t oppose him. Cooke has come out against trump, not because he at the heart of it, opposes him, but because R’s are losing.
@Sleeping Dog:
Oh, indeed. My point really was that no matter how much some of the NR people condoned Trump, the MAGAs will accept no less than 100% slobbering devotion from everyone on staff. Otherwise you’re a Communist RINO.
@daryl and his brother darryl:
Right after the indictment, NY got an injunction to prevent them from doing precisely that:
NY judge orders monitor to oversee all Trump Organization financial reporting
@Sleeping Dog:
That would have been my guess if asked. It’s my basic assumption for US conservatives at large (inner Manichaean fist pumping right now).
FYI I also have been getting the bad request error about header size the last couple weeks. It seems to happen after I post something from Safari on my Mac. The post goes through, but if I then try and click into another article I get the error and have to restart my browser. And I don’t think I’ve ever seen it without first posting something.
Trump’s reaction to today’s ruling: “Communism come (sic) to our shores.”
@OzarkHillbilly: She does, indeed. One of the smartest and funniest ladies I know. She has several children’s books out regarding guardian dogs if you’re looking for Christmas presents for the granddaughters. 🙂
She’s also trying to bring sanity back to our local Republican party, and all she’s gotten are death threats. It doesn’t faze her, though. She faces down actual predators on the regular, like she’s gonna let two-legged predators prevent her from speaking the truth.
CNN.com is reporting Warnock 60.8% – Walker 39.2%. with an estimated 34% reported. I know this is very early and I don’t know where the returns are from. However I’m glad it is not breaking the other way.
@Mister Bluster:
Now it’s 54% Warnock, 46% Walker, with 46% reporting. Still looks good for Warnock.
@Mister Bluster: While I “think” and “hope” that Warnock is going to win, I can’t believe it’s even a close race. It’s depressing that it’s even a close race at all.
@CSK: from
TPM
@Jax: It’s depressing that Republiqan movers and shakers couldn’t come up with a better choice for senatorial cat’s paw than Walker to begin with. How stupid are these people? It’s embarrassing!
@Jax:
I still find it hard to believe El Cheeto Benito did not lose in 2016 by over 100 electoral votes, or that he got more votes in 2020 than in 2016.
@Just nutha ignint cracker: I see it as an indication of how gullible they think their voter base is. All they were looking for was “black guy–>football player–>conservative”. They had to check all the boxes, and that’s the best they had.
Correction….it’s not even how they “think” their voter base is this gullible. They actually are this gullible, given it had to go to a runoff, and it’s still semi-close.
Holy shit, Walker just pulled ahead.
I don’t know how many times I have to say it, but here it goes again: Republicans will vote, always. They will vote out of obligation, they will vote out of spite, they will vote because their pastor/preacher/priest tells them to vote.
Never, ever assume that they’ll simply sit home “demoralized.” I saw this repeatedly when I worked in politics. Republicans vote.
@Jax: I had an English teacher tell me I was a good story teller on a paper once (B+ or A- so not that good) I took it as a high compliment.
Links, please. I have fierce Granddaughters who know no fear and I am always looking for books for them. (I suppose I could find them on my own) 😉
I’m sorry to hear that. I have had to deal with that myself. Not that I ever took them all that serious, but my ex’s husband wasn’t wound very tight and I had to respect the fact that he could lose his shit in any confrontation (which because of the law I had to initiate) At least in my case, she went to prison and he died. I doubt Cat will get similar relief.
ps: I’m serious about her books. My eldest GD scares the shit out of all her male HS classmates and I want the other 4 to follow in her footsteps.
@Kathy: You underestimate the misogyny in America, The right was scared to death of a President Hillary Clinton.
@Jen: I think they were demoralized with the Roy Moore senate campaign. But, that was special.
@Jax:
@OzarkHillbilly:
There are days when I feel a quote from Prof. Farnsworth rather strongly: “I don’t want to live on this planet anymore.”
Of course, he had plenty of alternatives in the 30th century. We do not.
@OzarkHillbilly: Stay tuned! We serve on a county board together, we’ll meet up Friday, I might be able to get you some signed ones!