Tuesday’s Forum

FILED UNDER: Open Forum
Steven L. Taylor
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). Follow Steven on Twitter

Comments

  1. Michael Cain says:

    Still nothing? Did the world end last night and no one sent me the memo?

  2. Kathy says:

    @Michael Cain:

    I worked until 12:30 am yesterday and got up at 6:30 (they don’t call it Hell Week 4 for nothing). I may spend the rest of the day trying not to fall asleep while doing something partially resembling work.

    1
  3. becca says:

    See if this works…

  4. OzarkHillbilly says:

    “I never claimed to be Jewish,” Santos told the Post. “I am Catholic. Because I learned my maternal family had a Jewish background I said I was ‘Jew-ish’.”

    See? He wasn’t lying, all you libtard nitpickers just didn’t understand the nuances of his speech.

    2
  5. becca says:

    Explanation of previous comment- OTB has disappeared my witty bon mots since last week. Apparently I’m back in good graces. So Merry Belated Christmas and Happy New Year in advance (in case I get booted off again).

    4
  6. Kylopod says:

    @OzarkHillbilly: One of those “not from The Onion” moments.

    I have a feeling we’re stuck with this guy for the next two years, but he’s going to need to worry about getting “sue-ish”ed.

  7. OzarkHillbilly says:

    @Kylopod: He’s not anywhere near as good at this whole lying thing as trump. The first rule of pathological lying is to lie about lying.

    2
  8. Kylopod says:

    @OzarkHillbilly: He doesn’t even clear the Herschel Walker bar. But I’m not sure I want to think about the equivalent of pulling out his “badge” to prove his Jew-ishness.

    2
  9. MarkedMan says:

    @Kylopod: Josh Marshall is speculating on whether or not he is an American citizen – if he’s not his term could be over before it starts. My guess: since he does appear to actually be gay yet has a divorce from a woman on the books, I suspect he got his citizenship through a sham marriage.

    1
  10. Mister Bluster says:

    This morning (Tue. 12/27/2022) when I checked yesterday’s (Mon. 12/26/2022) Texas Bussed Migrants to Vice President’s House thread for late arrivals I found:

    anjin-san says:
    Tuesday, 27 December 2022 at 04:25
    And here I thought Abbott & DeSantis were Christians.
    I’m reminded of a great line that Max Von Sydow had in Hannah and Her Sisters: ” ‘If Jesus came back and saw what was being done in his name, he’d never stop throwing up.’”

    I may be confused (I often am) but I think this is the first post by anjin-san for some time. In any event it is good to see the colors of the San Francisco Giants at OTB again!

    3
  11. Kathy says:

    Today’s one of those days where I feel my brain and I aren’t on speaking terms. Work suddenly staged a strategic retreat, after I got ahead of a project due Thursday, and it seems nothing more should pop up until next week. Just the same, I can’t put a coherent thought together.

    I also have a bunch of petty cash and expenses stuff to get through, and about zero enthusiasm for it. Maybe after lunch and some more coffee.

  12. Mu Yixiao says:

    Russian millionaire, critical of war in Ukraine, falls from window.

    Russian sausage tycoon Pavel Antov has been found dead at an Indian hotel, two days after a friend died during the same trip.

    Superintendent Vivekananda Sharma of Odisha police said Mr Budanov was found to have suffered a stroke while his friend “was depressed after his death and he too died”. The Russian consul in Kolkata, Alexei Idamkin, told the Tass news agency that police did not see a “criminal element in these tragic events”.

    They were visiting the eastern state of Odisha and the millionaire, who was also a local politician, had just celebrated his birthday at the hotel.

    Last summer he denied criticising Russia’s war in Ukraine after a message appeared on his WhatsApp account.

  13. Franklin says:

    @Kylopod: [snicker]

  14. Just nutha ignint cracker says:

    Bwahahahahahahahaha!Just when I think he can’t be any more ridiculous than he already is…

    Democratic activist Andrew Wortman placed his bets on Twitter as to whether or not Trump will attempt to wield this power. […] “Going on record now and saying there is at least a 99 percent chance that Trump issued himself a pardon while he was still in office that he plans to pull out of his pocket and try to use as an actual get-out-of-jail-free card the moment he’s finally indicted/arrested (It will not work).”

    As to whether it will work or not, isn’t that up to the Supremes?

    My money is still on DoJ running out the clock on the “running for office” timer. In practical terms they only have to drag their feet for another 6 months or so. Pretty easy task considering that Luddites putative SIL was going to be arraigned on December 5th and we’re no longer sure it will happen on January 19th. (I’ve got a side bet on FredMeyer/Kroger needing an extension on that day for some lame a$$ reason. It’s their turn to seek a delay given that Covid-19, sent to the wrong court, and icestormmageddon have already been used.)

    1
  15. OzarkHillbilly says:

    @Mister Bluster: Good to hear from him again, indeed. Hopefully it’s not a one and done driveby comment.

  16. Flat Earth Luddite says:

    @Just nutha ignint cracker:
    Aaaaannnnnnddd the story gets better, Cracker & Company!

    In addition to the set/delay/reset/re-delay of the criminal stuff (1/17 maybe??), SIL is fighting for unemployment benefits. He didn’t know he’d been fired until 30 days after his arrest (notice from union, still no word from employer – he was fired for “no call/no show!” Employer challenged benefits, lied in their affidavit regarding “incident/s,” including reporting he confessed. That means a hearing before an ALJ, which has now been rescheduled twice re unemployment. We’re told a letter will follow rescheduling this. Hopefully it doesn’t conflict with court dates.

    So, a thin time for the Kids. No regular income at this time. Daughter’s working on her BA; SIL’s been working temp, but that’s limited with the arrest showing on his background.

  17. OzarkHillbilly says:

    @Flat Earth Luddite: Employer challenged benefits, lied in their affidavit regarding “incident/s,” including reporting he confessed.

    Employers pull variations of that shit all the time banking on the fact that most people won’t fight back. As often as not, just walking in for the hearing is enough to get their challenge overturned because their BS is so transparently stupid, but it never hurts to have some paperwork to back yourself up.

    Good luck to him.

    2
  18. Flat Earth Luddite says:

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    Employers pull variations of that shit all the time banking on the fact that most people won’t fight back.

    Truth truthily truthed. The years of working w/c and employment law on the serf side of the divide hammered that home for this Luddite.

    If Daughter of Luddite weren’t involved, I suspect he’d also just roll over and walk away. However, she is beyond pissed, and while she’s inherited SWMBO’s explosive temper, she’s also inherited my sociopathic tendencies to return the injury, pointy-end first, repeatedly, until the object lesson is “driven home” as it were. So no, he gets to fight both battles, both to regain his good name and to get the $$$ they owe him.

    2
  19. OzarkHillbilly says:

    @Flat Earth Luddite: The one and only time I, as a union carpenter*, had my UE challenged, I was chomping at the bit for my hearing, because these dumb fcks had so totally fucked everything up from the moment I walked on to the job to the moment I got laid off, I sooooo wanted to see the looks on their faces as I called them lying sacks of shit and proved it. Unfortunately, before my hearing date another of my former employers called me back to work. To say the least, I was more than a little irritated to get called back and to be making good money again. About the only time in my life I could say that.

    * everybody on both sides understood how the game was played and the costs of UE Insurance was built into the contractors pricing. They could hire us for a week, a month, a year and let us go for no cause at all (other than we weren’t needed anymore) and we got our unemployment every time. Nobody ever challenged it… Which is why I so wanted to face plant these mf’ers.

    1
  20. OzarkHillbilly says:

    @Flat Earth Luddite: PS, again, good luck to them. It’s tough living between a rock and a hard place.

    2
  21. Flat Earth Luddite says:

    In the meantime, heard from a couple of friends who made the mistake of traveling over the holiday. One conversation led me to a link that over 70% of Southwest’s flights were cancelled, causing (or significantly worsening of) a complete fuster-cluck nationally. SW’s universe has apparently imploded, and it’s going to take a while…

    https://twitter.com/xJonNYC/status/1606637219359461378?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email

    1
  22. Jax says:

    @Flat Earth Luddite: Enough that they’ve pre-emptively cancelled flights all through this week, due to incoming weather. Even the crews are grounded and can’t fly out.

    It’s kind of a crap shoot, though. If I was the CEO of an airline company, I wouldn’t fly planes in this weather, either. But there has to be a better cancellation and re-booking policy, with safeguards for people who are stuck in airports.

  23. Gustopher says:

    @Jax: it’s not the weather — although the weather doesn’t help — it’s the scheduling system. All the other airlines are dealing with the same weather.

    Ancient software system with bugs and cascading failures and no way to figure out what crews are where after flights get cancelled. And the manual fallback of having crews call in and say where they are fails because it uses the same call centers as customer service or something similar.

    So, when a flight from A to B gets cancelled, not only is the crew not in B to do the flight from B to C, but they drop off the schedule and no one knows they are in A for the flight from A to D (which is missing crew since that was supposed to come from A flight from E to A).

    They also can’t get hotel rooms for the stranded crews (more computer issues, plus no one knows wheee they are), so they aren’t getting the federally required sleep/rest break between flights.

    It’s wonderful. For certain definitions of wonderful.

    After many years in software, I enjoy these fiascos. I’m just wondering if the root cause will be a known issue that was deemed to expensive to fix, an insane scenario of events that would require three dozen systems to fail the right way at the same time, or something that makes everyone go “oh” and feel a little dumb for not seeing it beforehand.

    1
  24. Dutchgirl says:

    @Gustopher: my sister is supposed to fly in on sw tomorrow. Fingers crossed that her flight is a go. It’s an interisland flight, from a small airport. Not sure if that will help or hurt her chances.