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. Bill says:
  2. Bill says:
  3. Teve says:

    @kevinmkruse

    Man, Colin Kaepernick is going to be thrilled to hear that the Republican Party is taking a stand against “cancel culture.”

    And Goodyear and Grayton Carter and Glenfiddich and HBO. Rolling Stone New York Magazine Jonah Goldberg Univision Mexico Macy’s Charles Krauthammer Rich Lowry Katy Tur Apple Carl Rove AT&T Debra Messing Paul Krugman Social media Chuck Todd Megyn Kelly.

    “Cancel culture” is just a new name for their complaints about political correctness. It’s perfectly fine when conservatives do it all the time.

    ETA General Motors and Starbucks.

    13
  4. Teve says:

    @RachelBitecofer

    Yes, by saying that he did not order these changes, Dejoy lied to Congress. And he didn’t seem worried at all about doing it. And he’s NOT dumb. So it means he expects to be immune from accountability.

    10
  5. Jen says:

    @Teve: Did a brief search and couldn’t find anything, what did Glenfiddich do? I must have missed that one!

    1
  6. DrDaveT says:

    It strikes me that the GOP has found a (contemptible but) effective tactic in using “The Crew” as their scare tactic bugbear (bogiewoman?). When Republicans claim that Joe Biden is really just the tool of the extreme Socialist wing of the Democratic Party, what exactly can Democrats respond? They could truthfully say “almost none of the legislation introduced by these people you fear has even passed the House, and the ones that did had lots of cosponsors; how can you say they are driving the Party?”. But that would piss off their own voters who care about the causes that The Crew champion, and don’t want to see them dismissed.

    Again, an informed voter is the GOP’s worst nightmare. In order to succeed, they need to successfully (continue to) gaslight America.

    2
  7. CSK says:

    @Jen:
    Now why did I think the mention of a legendary single malt would make you sit up and take notice? 😀

    2
  8. Teve says:

    @Jen: ugh. The BBC site is as shitty as CNN’s.here you go

    1
  9. Teve says:

    In the 50s and 60s the conservative mainstream had the ability to disempower the Birchers. Thanks to technological changes and 50 years of whipping up uneducated white Christian racists, today’s reasonable conservatives don’t have the ability to disempower QAnon etc.

    Heaven help us if the Senate stays Republican

    5
  10. senyordave says:

    @DrDaveT: At this point i don’t see it moving the needle much. I don’t believe there are many people wouldn’t already be voting for Trump who are going to be moved by associating Biden with the Crew. I also can’t imagine the “Biden is a dangerous socialist” working well ion too many people who don’t already think that all Democrats are socialists.

    3
  11. de stijl says:

    @Jen:

    Not be peaty enough?

    (I like aggressive smoky Scotch, sorry)

    I reckon it had to do with one of golf courses and sponsorships. Too lazy to look it up.

    One of the cool Presidential promises Biden make would be that I promise not to tweet anything but the most anodyne attaboys on my Twitter.

    Congrats to the Omaha downtown USPS on their litter prevention project.

    It would be sweet going to bed knowing the President was not going to start a war via social media at 4 AM over a personal grievance.

    Or try to swap PR for Greenland with the Danes.

    1
  12. Scott says:

    Yes, they’ll scream socialism. Of course, they point to Venezuela and Cuba. But when my adult children hear “Socialism!”, they go: “Yes, Denmark, Sweden, Europe. We need to be more like that!”

    8
  13. Jen says:

    @CSK: HA! It’s funny when my reputation/tastes are even well-known to my cyber-buddies.

    @Teve: Thank you! I’d forgotten about that incident. Spirit of Scotland Award, indeed!

    1
  14. OzarkHillbilly says:

    @DrDaveT: Every election the GOP finds a new whipping boy (in this case, girls) to rile up the base. Considering the current state of the country, I do not expect this to resonate much beyond the 27%.

    5
  15. wr says:

    @DrDaveT: That argument is only problematic if the Democratic party were made up entirely of morons. The correct answer is: “You’ve known Joe Biden for years. You’ve always known him to be a sensible moderate. Now you’ve got these Trump people shrieking that he’s a commie — who are you going to believe? Trump, who lies about everything… or your own eyes?”

    What you’re suggesting is that they need to come up with a serious, comprehensive answer to the question “When did you stop beating your wife?”

    7
  16. CSK says:

    @Jen:
    I always pay attention to what people say they eat and drink, particularly if they have good taste.

    I think we should observe a virtual cocktail hour here at OTB, starting perhaps at 5 p.m. eastern time. I have not yet figured out a way to accommodate out cyber-pals in other time zones. Anyone?

    4
  17. Daryl and his brother Darryl says:

    Where in the fuq is Biden’s rapid response team?
    Is he really going to stand there and take these punches from the RNC?

  18. de stijl says:

    My local Senate race ads feature AOC and Pelosi. Stand up to the liberal mob and the like.

    It’s almost as if Rs have a misogyny problem. And it’s an all female race. Schumer is all like “What am I? Chopped liver? Why was I not included in your dumb-ass ad?”

    It’s hard to hit the mute button while simultaneously flipping off your tv.

    The big Ernst message was that Greenfield once exercised lease conditions and declined to renew the lease on some mom and pop shops on property she owned as a RE exec. Oh, the horror! To build out space for a foreign owned big box retailer. Insert scary music sting.

    An entrepreneur exercising her rights on property she owned. These are Republican ads, mind you.

    It is the most confusing attack ad.

    I really, really hope Ernst loses just because of those stupid-ass ads.

    2
  19. EddieInCA says:

    @Daryl and his brother Darryl:

    Where in the fuq is Biden’s rapid response team?
    Is he really going to stand there and take these punches from the RNC?

    What punches?

    What was said, yesterday, that hasn’t been said for the last month?

    4
  20. OzarkHillbilly says:

    @Daryl and his brother Darryl: Why? The more they talk the more everyone realizes just how unhinged they are.

    3
  21. Teve says:

    @Scott:

    But when my adult children hear “Socialism!”, they go: “Yes, Denmark, Sweden, Europe. We need to be more like that!”

    Republicans have spent decades calling any social program socialism so now it’s lost all negative meeting.

    “The library is communism!”
    “Ok i guess communism sounds good then”

    12
  22. DrDaveT says:

    @Daryl and his brother Darryl:

    Is he really going to stand there and take these punches from the RNC?

    My dream response ad would be for Biden and Harris to watch footage from the GOP convention and not be able to stop laughing.

    8
  23. Kathy says:

    I’m done with the Lewis book.

    Next up, a Great Courses lecture series on comparative economics featuring Capitalism vs Socialism. After that, I still have a big backlog, so i don’t know. One I might finally dive into is Dante’s The Divine Comedy. I recall reading excerpts in junior high school, and I’ve read two novels based on it, “Inferno” and “Escape from Hell” by Nieven and Pournelle. Essentially they have their updated versions of Hell. Curious how they track with human advancements on Earth.

    One thing about Lewis’ “The Fifth Risk.” He claims Obama’s people in the various Federal departments and agencies prepared extensive briefing material for their successors, the better to let them know what their departments do and the better to prepare them for taking over. He then claims few of Trump’s people even showed up, none read much of the briefing material, and in some cases ignored everything altogether.

    I hope they saved all those briefings, because Biden’s transition team will need them. I don’t expect Trump’s people to do more than leave a note saying where they left the front door keys, if that much.

    3
  24. Jen says:

    Sen. Tim Scott said “…If we let them…they will turn our country into a socialist utopia…”

    He then went on with the usual blather about that path leading to pain and misery, etc.

    I get what he’s trying to say, but this is really hilarious–saying “if we let them they will turn our country into a socialist utopia” means that it would be, according to the dictionary definition, “an ideal place or state.”

    It’s hard to take these people seriously.

    14
  25. MarkedMan says:

    The Republican’s FDA toadie has walked back his ludicrous press conference claims on plasma treatments. Wonder if that retraction will ever make it onto Hannity or Rush or Ingraham?

    6
  26. OzarkHillbilly says:

    @Kathy: Those briefing books will be sadly outdated by the time Biden hopefully takes over, filled with programs, policies, and procedures that no longer exist.

    2
  27. Teve says:

    That Guilfoyle screech…

    1
  28. Michael Reynolds says:

    @de stijl:

    (I like aggressive smoky Scotch, sorry)

    For my birthday my wife bought me six bottles of aggressive single malts – an Irish Connemara that did not go down well, Laphroaig Triple Wood, Highland Park The Light 17, Ardbeg Corryvrecken, Caol Ila 12 and Talisker 18. Some excellent whiskies in there but honestly I still prefer my go-to Talisker 10.

    2
  29. gVOR08 says:

    @Teve:

    today’s reasonable conservatives don’t have the ability to disempower QAnon etc.

    Who are these reasonable conservatives of whom you speak? The odd Romney or Kasich has little influence in the Party. The Lincoln Project guys and other anti-Trumpers are exiles. What’s left of the Party has no desire to disempower Qanon. The Birchers were disavowed because the Party of the 1950s and early 60s felt a need to appeal to the middle. The party of the 2020s feels no such need. The Birchers still exist, they’re still nuts, and they’re welcome in the Party.

    7
  30. Mu Yixiao says:

    @CSK:

    Everyday scotch: John Barr (not bad for a $25 bottle).

    Special: Glen Morangie, Port-wood finish.

    Very special: Glen Dronach.

    Masochistic: Any baijiu (think… paint thinner poured over burning rubber, then strained through a used gym sock).

    4
  31. Kathy says:

    @Jen:

    Utopias of any kind are unprofitable for the dystopians.

    Hell, change a few things, like Trump Gin and Big Donald, and they’d be perfectly happy with the living hell Mr. Orwell warned us about.

    2
  32. Kathy says:

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    Yes, but 1) they will state what the department does. Commerce, for instance, has more to do with predicting the weather than with trade. 2) they can provide a blueprint for reconstituting the government.

  33. Daryl and his brother Darryl says:

    @EddieInCA:
    @DrDaveT:
    @OzarkHillbilly:
    You are all correct.

  34. Scott says:

    Another headline for the day:

    Almost 50 North Texans Drank Bleach This Month, Poison Center Warns ‘Stop, It Won’t Cure COVID’

    Following 46 cases of bleach ingestions in the North Texas Poison Center region since the start of August, experts are again warning people that drinking the chemical won’t prevent COVID-19.

    The organization pointed to “misleading and inaccurate information circulating online about how to prevent the spread of COVID-19,” for an uptick in poisonings.

    Darwin Award anyone? Except these people probably already reproduced.

    3
  35. de stijl says:

    @Michael Reynolds:

    Your wife is a total bad-ass.

    1
  36. CSK says:

    @Jen:
    Perhaps he meant to say “dystopia,” but someone told him no one would know what it meant.

    3
  37. Jen says:

    @Michael Reynolds: Talisker is wonderful, and the distillery is fun to visit. Like many parts of Scotland you start thinking “did we take a wrong turn somewhere?” right before you see the main building.

    I think my favorite Talisker is the Port Ruighe, which is finished in port casks. Yum.

    For aggressively peaty/smoky whisky, I like Bruichladdich Port Charlotte 10 year.

    1
  38. Kathy says:

    @gVOR08:

    I wonder what the Lincoln Project people and other reasonable Republicans will do after the election. I think it’s likely the GOP will turn on them, or turn on them more. Biden and the Democrats may owe them something, should Biden win the election, and more if the Democrats take the Senate. So they may find a place in the party, but that would move the Democrats further to the right.

    The GOP may then regain its sanity (ie expel the Trump base and cult), or it may not. If it doesn’t, it’s tempting to say they’ll get smaller and lose more ground, except that may not happen. And if Biden faces any kind of crisis that results in a downturn, I can see a Republican president elected in 2024, even if it’s a Trump spawn or someone even less qualified and more divisive.

    Damn these interesting times.

  39. MarkedMan says:

    @Kathy:If the nation as a whole follow the California example, they will either effectively drop out of politics or become Democrats. Once a party has become so extreme they’ve condemned themselves to minority status for the foreseeable future, anyone who wants to accomplish things will do so thru the party in power.

    1
  40. Gustopher says:

    @Mu Yixiao: My go to scotch is a bottle of 17 year, single cask Benraich. It’s down to about a quarter of a bottle, and is my last bottle of it. But my drinking has also slowed, so it might last a very long time.

    For a while, I had started getting into ridiculous scotches — oh, this was aged 7 years in a bourbon cask, then 5 years in a sherry cask, and the cask produced 213 bottles of which this is one. Sometimes I don’t do things halfway.

    My pantry is a liquor cabinet with bottles of things like that. Now that I’m cooking, and I’ve mostly stopped drinking… I really could use that space for food.

    Oh well.

    ——
    ETA: I should drink more.

    3
  41. Kathy says:

    @CSK:

    Might as well do that the (lame) Trump joke for today:

    Trump: Did you ever catch that Jewish guy who sank the Titanic
    Johnson: What Jewish guy? It was an iceberg.
    Trump: Iceberg! Goldberg! Grinberg! They’re all the same thing!

    2
  42. Michael Reynolds says:

    @Jen:
    On my first UK book tour I was to spend some time in Scotland, so I insisted that I would need time to visit certain, ahem, holy places as I made the drive from Edinburgh to Glasgow. I only made it as far as the Oban distillery before I detected a flaw in my plan to drive through Scotland on the wrong side of the road in an unfamiliar stick shift while drinking whiskey.

    I’d love to do the islands, one of my UK publicist’s parents own a B n B on Skye, so I’d have a nice place to stay. In fact I had reservations for the Edinburgh fringe this year and plans for side trips, but alas, Covid 19.

    1
  43. Teve says:

    @gVOR08:

    Who are these reasonable conservatives of whom you speak? The odd Romney or Kasich has little influence in the Party.

    Second sentence answers the first.

  44. Teve says:

    I hope Biden wins but I’ve given up predicting what these idiots are going to do very much. Ignore the idiot’s by line and just look at the numbers.

    mericans know literally nothing about the Constitution
    CNN
    By Chris Cillizza, CNN Editor-at-large
    Updated 4:39 PM ET, Wed September 13, 2017
    (CNN)If you are way into politics, you are not the average American. Not even close.

    A new poll from the University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg Public Policy Center reveals how shockingly little people know about even the most basic elements of our government and the Constitution that formed it.
    Take your pick from this bouillabaisse of ignorance:
    * More than one in three people (37%) could not name a single right protected by the First Amendment. THE FIRST AMENDMENT.
    * Only one in four (26%) can name all three branches of the government. (In 2011, 38% could name all three branches.)
    * One in three (33%) can’t name any branch of government. None. Not even one.
    close dialog
    Sign up for CNN’s

    CNN’s Chris Cillizza cuts through the political spin and tells you what you need to know.

    * A majority (53%) believe the Constitution affords undocumented immigrants no rights. However, everyone in the US is entitled to due process of law and the right to make their case before the courts, at the least.
    (And the First Amendment protects the rights to free speech, free exercise of religion, freedom of the press and the rights of people to peaceably assemble, in case you were wondering.)
    “Protecting the rights guaranteed by the Constitution presupposes that we know what they are,” said Annenberg Director Kathleen Hall Jamieson. “The fact that many don’t is worrisome.”
    Uh, yeah.
    Sadly, the Annenberg poll is far from the first to reveal not only our collective ignorance about the basic tenets of democracy but also the fact that we are even less informed than we were in the past.
    Take this Pew Research Center poll from 2010. When asked to name the chief justice of the Supreme Court, less than three in 10 (28%) correctly answered John Roberts. That compares unfavorably to the 43% who rightly named William Rehnquist as the chief justice in a Pew poll back in 1986.
    What did the 72% of people who didn’t name Roberts as the chief justice in 2010 say instead, you ask? A majority (53%) said they didn’t know. Eight percent guessed Thurgood Marshall, who was never a chief justice of the Court and, perhaps more importantly, had been dead for 17 years when the poll was taken. Another 4% named Harry Reid, who is not now nor ever was a Supreme Court Justice.
    What we don’t know about the government — executive, legislative and judicial branches — is appalling. It’s funny — until you realize that lots and lots of people whose lives are directly affected by what the federal government does and doesn’t do have absolutely no idea about even the most basic principles of how this all works.
    The level of civil ignorance in the country allows our politicians — and Donald Trump is the shining example of this — to make lowest common denominator appeals about what they will do (or won’t do) in office. It also leads to huge amounts of discontent from the public when they realize that no politician can make good on the various and sundry promises they make on the campaign trail.

    4
  45. Michael Reynolds says:

    @Teve:
    I gotta tweet that.

    1
  46. @Teve: Remember how I keep saying that a large number of people make their electoral choices based almost solely on party label…

    3
  47. Kylopod says:

    @Kathy: Don’t you love recycling old jokes and inserting Trump into them? Here’s another:

    In a Hannity interview, President Trump boasts about the jigsaw puzzle he just finished, claiming no one’s solved it as quickly as he has.

    Hannity asks, “How long did it take you, Mr. President?”

    Trump answers, “Six months. But the box said ‘2-4 years’!”

    11
  48. CSK says:

    Gail Sheehy has died at age 83. I never read Passages, but it seems to have a huge influence on a great many people.

    1
  49. Kathy says:

    @Teve:

    This is what struck me:

    A majority (53%) believe the Constitution affords undocumented immigrants no rights. However, everyone in the US is entitled to due process of law and the right to make their case before the courts, at the least.

    The US Constitution makes few mentions of citizenship. The bill of rights in particular, mentions “the people.” The reasonable interpretation is this means all people, not only citizens.

    But, really, the US Constitution is rather short, comprising 8 articles, if memory serves, and under 30 amendments. I’ve read it in its entirety, and even have a copy at home. Not to say I am an expert on it, but I know the general gist and a few specifics.

    The Mexican Constitution has 137 articles, and amendments are incorporated by overwriting or adding to existing articles (and are many more than 30). Still, Article 1 states that all people inside Mexico are entitled to all the rights contained in it. That’s unambiguous.

    2
  50. CSK says:

    @Kathy: @Kylopod:
    Remember those old moron jokes? We could recycle them for Trump.

  51. Kylopod says:

    @CSK: I got that one from a page of blonde jokes, and I just Trumpified it.

  52. Mu Yixiao says:

    I haven’t seen anyone post about the “Republican Voters Against Trump“.

    Regular people–all conservatives and/or Republicans–explaining why they’re not voting for Trump.

    3
  53. Mu Yixiao says:

    @Gustopher:

    My go to scotch is a bottle of 17 year, single cask Benraich. It’s down to about a quarter of a bottle, and is my last bottle of it. But my drinking has also slowed, so it might last a very long time.

    Quarter of a bottle…. very long time…. so…. That’s more than half an hour?

    4
  54. Teve says:

    @Steven L. Taylor: I’m aware. And I agree.

    1
  55. Teve says:

    The daily show made a 5-minute Biden ad. 5 stars.

    Joe Biden: He’s Not Insane

    3
  56. Jim Brown 32 says:

    Very good opinion piece that we are using the wrong model to mitigate Covid spread–
    We should be using Tuberculosis instead of the Flu

    https://news.yahoo.com/covid-19-transmitted-aerosols-enough-110024854.html

    5
  57. Kathy says:

    @CSK:
    @Kylopod:

    I’ve been re-purposing old offensive ethnic jokes into Trump jokes. It’s a natural fit.

    1
  58. Kingdaddy says:

    @OzarkHillbilly: The single biggest mistake that John Kerry made in 2004 was ignoring the Swift Boat attacks. Not only did he let lies go unanswered, but he looked like someone who wouldn’t defend himself. So was he going to defend you?

    2
  59. OzarkHillbilly says:

    @Michael Reynolds: Laphroaig… Mmmm mmmm. I feel like I should have tried the Talisker at some point but damned if I can remember.

    1
  60. Teve says:

    @Kingdaddy: the swift boating started in may that year. I don’t think Kerry and especially his military service was well defined in the public mind at that point. The attacks were savage and appeared legit to the uninformed. I can’t think of a single thing that could possibly land like that on Biden from what I’ve heard so far.

    Screaming Republicans on the podium shout he’s a far left radical! he’s going to lock you in your homes and let BLM rioters steal your Dodge Ram! I can’t imagine there are many voters who are On the fence right now who going to hear that and say holy shit Martha did you hear about that evil bastard?

  61. OzarkHillbilly says:

    @Kathy: And they will quickly come to the realization of how terribly impossible it will be to undo the damage trump has done in the 4 or 8 years they will have. Building things takes time, decades for the Dept of Energy, the EPA, HHS, centuries in the case of State. The blink of an eye to tear them down.

    I hope I am wrong, I hope they have not done as much damage as I fear, but the institutional memory that has walked out the door is irreplaceable. Maybe some of them can be convinced to come back, but a lot are gone forever.

    2
  62. OzarkHillbilly says:

    @Kathy: what the Lincoln Project people and other reasonable Republicans will do after the election.

    They are toast in the GOP and really don’t care. From what I’ve read, most of them know they will have limited to no influence in the DEM party and just figure there is more to life than politics.

    1
  63. Bill says:

    @Kathy:

    I’ve been re-purposing old offensive ethnic jokes into Trump jokes. It’s a natural fit.

    You mean did you hear the one about The Pollock Donald Trump hijacking a submarine? He asked for 5 million dollars and a parachute?

    I heard that joke 48 years ago when my Dad had horses racing in Delaware.

    1
  64. Kathy says:

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    Yes, but what choice is there?

  65. gVOR08 says:

    @Teve:
    https://www.theonion.com/area-man-passionate-defender-of-what-he-imagines-consti-1819571149. I love the classics.

    @Kathy: I think the correct way to look at the lack of reference to citizenship in the Constitution is to realize that citizenship was a loose concept at the time and the founders, revered by conservatives, were OK with that. You had to be born here or naturalize to vote, but otherwise, if you were here, you were us. Except for Indians and ni*clangs* of course. I think of conservatism as a giant game of make believe. They believe the Constitution says what they think it should say.

    IIRC, early in his career Andrew Jackson swore an oath of allegiance to the Spanish Crown, a requirement for doing business in New Orleans. No one cared.

    1
  66. OzarkHillbilly says:

    @Kingdaddy: trump is not Bush. He does not have anywhere near the political assassins Bush did. He has political tiddlywinks players. One does not have to answer every attack, least of all the ridiculous over the top ones, and one certainly doesn’t have to answer them NOW NOW RIGHT NOW!!!

    And I think you over state the effect of the Swift Boat ads, especially in the wake of 9/11 and Iraq which had a hell of a lot more to do with Bush’s re-election than a made up well moneyed group of veterans. People don’t like the idea of changing horses in mid stream.

  67. OzarkHillbilly says:

    @Kathy: There is no choice, I’m just saying those briefing books will be of very limited value in the situation that Biden will inherit.

  68. OzarkHillbilly says:

    @gVOR08: You had to be born here or naturalize to vote, but otherwise, if you were here, you were us. Except for Indians and ni*clangs* of course.

    The more things change…

  69. JohnSF says:

    Whiskys I’d recommend, and not too expensive (due to my regrettably limited funds) :

    Balvenie Doublewood 12 year old (Speyside, v. good indeed)
    Aberlour 12 year old (Speyside, lovely stuff)
    Aberlour 10 year old (not quite up to 12, but cheaper LOL)
    Aberlour 16 year old (yum!)
    Benromach Organic (Speyside)
    Dalmore 15 Year Old (Highland)
    Dalwhinnie 15 Year Old (Highland, prob. my pick of this area)
    Dalwhinnie Winter’s Gold (a bit controversial; rather unusual style, some traditionalists not keen)
    Talisker 10 year old (from Skye, somewhat peaty/smoky)
    Bowmore 15 year old (a fairly peaty one from Islay)
    Lagavulin 16 Year Old (another Islay)

    Being the cheapskate I am, I’m a fan of the Aldi supermarket range of malts on pure value for money. You won’t find them anywhere else, but if in the UK worth trying(or Germany I suppose).

    Appears they buy in surplus or “need cash NOW” stock from distillers quietly (it’s a touchy subject among the whiskey producers) and sell for about two-thirds to half the price of comparable branded.

    Treated myself to a “Glen Marnoch” 30 year old last Christmas (rumoured to be a Dalwhinnie)
    Excellent IMHO. And £40 as opposed to 3 figures all the better.

    1
  70. Kingdaddy says:

    @gVOR08: Thank you for that Blazing Saddles reference.

  71. MarkedMan says:

    @Kathy: People have a hard time thinking things through. If you’re not a citizen, then you don’t have rights? Yet these same yahoos merrily take their vacations in Mexico or Canada, the Caribbean or Europe or maybe even get exotic and go to the Middle East to wonder in the footsteps of some Galilean carpenter. If non-citizens have no rights, what the h*ll are they doing tromping around the globe where someone could cheat them out of their accommodations, default on their deposits, or heck, rob them or murder their spouse and they have no recourse because they are not citizens?

    2
  72. Monala says:

    Anybody have any total numbers on DNC night 1 vs. RNC night 1 viewership? All the articles I can find cherry-pick the numbers, such that more liberal outlets report higher numbers for the DNC on the three main networks, and right-leaning outlets report that the RNC overshadowed the DNC with C-Span viewership. No one seems to be reporting overall numbers on all TV networks and streaming.

    2
  73. OzarkHillbilly says:

    I may need to subscribe to the Texas Monthly. Just plain and simply consistently damn good writing on a wide variety of subjects.
    Today’s: The Wildest Insurance Fraud Scheme Texas Has Ever Seen

    His stunts may sound implausible to some, he acknowledges. But that was the point: to will into existence something that sounds so outrageous that people would describe it as “unbelievable.” That was the fun of it the whole time, the joy of being able to tell stories that demanded his audience’s attention, making them wonder if their lives were maybe a little gray in comparison.

    Some days, when he’s reminiscing in his cell, he tries to look on the bright side. If he hadn’t gotten caught when he did, his business only would have escalated toward riskier, more-dangerous illegal dealings. “I probably would have had a RICO [Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations] indictment; I probably would’ve been offered twenty years, gone to trial, and gotten life,” he said. “So part of me says, ‘Yeah, I got screwed in getting five years for petty little insurance fraud.’ But at the same time, you know, maybe it’s the best thing that could have happened to me.”

    Worst case, it would make a good chapter in his book.

    A longish but very good read.

  74. Just nutha ignint cracker says:

    @Teve: Not Jen, but I was wondering about Glenfiddich myself, so thanks! Still don’t get the problem with the BBC site, but your circus, your clown car.

    @Teve:

    today’s reasonable conservatives don’t have the ability to disempower QAnon etc. [emphasis added]

    Disempowering QAnon and such is asking a lot from a dozen or so people in a movement as large as American conservatism. 😉 I suppose one could hope, but…

    1
  75. SC_Birdflyte says:

    @Teve: Yeah, Kimbo the Bimbo sounds like a real winner.

    1
  76. Kylopod says:

    @Teve:

    I can’t think of a single thing that could possibly land like that on Biden from what I’ve heard so far.

    Of course if Bush had been presiding over a pandemic and recession, Kerry likely would have beat him regardless of the Republican attacks on him. He very nearly did anyway–even though Bush, quite unlike Trump, had positive (albeit middling) approval at the time.

    I’m a broken record about this, but after an election happens people always magnify the perceived mistakes of the losing candidate. None of the attacks against Biden seem to have landed so far–though if he loses I’m guessing that narrative would quickly change and people would start saying he didn’t do enough to push back against the attacks.

    I actually see a parallel between Biden and Kerry–and I don’t mean that in a bad way. After a terrible summer in which Bush acquired a massive lead, Kerry delivered a strong first debate performance. A lot of people cite this example as proof that “debates don’t matter,” but actually I think it proved the opposite. His poll numbers shot up, and they never returned to pre-debate levels. (Bush had a 7.6-point lead on RCP in early September. He ended up winning by just 2.4 points.) Just because it wasn’t sufficient for Kerry to win doesn’t mean it didn’t help him.

    I think part of what happened is that the Republicans turned Kerry into such a caricature (it wasn’t just the Swift Boat–it was also those wind-surfing ads which were allegedly about his flip-flopping on issues but were really trying to make him out to be a sissy) that it was a relatively easy image for him to puncture as soon as he got on stage. One of the oldest rules in the book is that a candidate tries to lower expectations for himself before a debate. Kerry did a masterful job of that (I remember him telling every interviewer he talked to about how formidable a debater Bush was), but it was bound to happen just by how overdone the attacks on him were.

    There’s no question in my mind that Biden has benefited from lowered expectations. It’s part of what got him through the primaries–people kept expecting him to implode, but he never did. And it’s continued in the general election. His decent convention speech has been given rave reviews (even at Fox) mostly because a lot of people are surprised he didn’t drool.

    In this respect, Trump’s problem is that he’s pathologically incapable of attempting to lower expectations for himself. He feels he has to be always claiming he’s the best at everything and that his opponents are laughable garbage, and he’s therefore unwittingly making Biden’s task so much easier.

    6
  77. Monala says:

    @gVOR08: Great Onion article! This part made me laugh:

    “Dad’s great, but listening to all that talk radio has put some weird ideas into his head,” said daughter Samantha, a freshman at Reed College in Portland, OR. “He believes the Constitution allows the government to torture people and ban gay marriage, yet he doesn’t even know that it guarantees universal health care.”

    Both sides! lol

    2
  78. Just nutha ignint cracker says:

    @CSK: I’m reminded of a line from Stumptown from last season…

    Want a drink, Dex? I mean it’s gotta be 9am somewhere in the world, right?

    2
  79. Mister Bluster says:

    @Kathy:..the US Constitution is rather short, comprising 8 articles, if memory serves, and under 30 amendments.

    Close…Seven Articles and 27 Amendments

    Everything I know about Constitución Política de los Estados Unidos Mexicanos I just learned in your comment today.

    1
  80. Kathy says:

    @gVOR08:

    I think of conservatism as a giant game of make believe. They believe the Constitution says what they think it should say.

    That’s about the size of it.

    @MarkedMan:

    There are international treaties covering such things. But also most countries that protect the rights of the people, make no generalized legal distinction between citizens and non-citizens in matters of criminal law. I suppose there are exceptions. There are also specific laws limiting certain services or rights to citizens, of course.

    But, yeah, the outlook of rights being limited to citizens is beyond stupid.

    2
  81. a country lawyer says:

    @Michael Reynolds: For years my drink was Johnny Walker Black, a blend. Then about 20 years ago my daughter brought me a bottle of Glenfeddich which got me started on the single malts. About ten years ago I found Aberlour double cask which I think is my drink for the duration. I’ll still order a JW Black in a restaurant to save trouble.

  82. Monala says:

    @Jim Brown 32: I found this very interesting:

    The unwillingness to acknowledge the likelihood that aerosols are a major means of COVID-19 transmission can be traced to the legacy of Dr. Charles Chapin, an American public health researcher. Trying to bury once and for all the theory of miasmas, ghostly clouds of disease, he argued in his seminal 1910 book The Sources and Modes of Infection that aerosol transmission was nearly impossible.

    Trying to help people understand that germs caused disease, not “bad air,” unfortunately led to not realizing that germs could be present in the air.

    This is also good:

    We should continue doing what has already been recommended: wash hands, keep six feet apart, and so on. But that is not enough. A new, consistent and logical set of recommendations must emerge to reduce aerosol transmission. I propose the following: Avoid Crowding, Indoors, low Ventilation, Close proximity, long Duration, Unmasked, Talking/singing/Yelling (“A CIViC DUTY”).

    2
  83. Just nutha ignint cracker says:

    @Jen: I wonder if he was looking for “dystopia” and simply doesn’t have enough vocabulary/experience with word formation to pick the right word.

    2
  84. a country lawyer says:

    I suppose everyone driving down the highway has noticed the little diamond shaped signs on the sides of the trailers with 4 numerals. Those are UN hazardous cargo numbers. Out of curiosity I will sometimes google the numbers to see what is being hauled down the highway. This morning I saw an unfamiliar number on a large tanker-3065. When I got a chance I checked the number to find it was-alcoholic beverage. Mind boggling to think of thousand of gallons of booze in a tanker we expect to be full of gasoline. Someone’s having a great party.

    2
  85. @a country lawyer: That’s just what the UN wants you to think. 😉

    11
  86. Just nutha ignint cracker says:

    @de stijl: I’m with you on the peaty scotch thing, but I don’t smoke often enough to really give the peatyness its full due. Peaty scotch/medium body Macanudo–a nice combination.

    On the other hand, I expect that if I lived in an apartment where the landlord permitted smoking, the walls would be gray by the end of the year, so maybe it’s just as well.

    1
  87. Scott says:

    I am totally left out of the Scotch discussion. Haven’t been able to drink Scotch since an adversion therapy encounter when I was 15.

    3
  88. Just nutha ignint cracker says:

    @Mu Yixiao: Nonsense. Soju is exactly what it is intended to be and tastes exactly like it should–moonshine.

    (While I was in Korea, euigooks used to tell me how soju “just knocks you on your ass.” I always assumed it’s because most Americans–more likely than Brits of any sort to say the preceding–aren’t familiar with liquors whose primary flavor is alcohol. Korean soju runs 14.5-19% a.b.v., except for Andong soju–which is 40% and has a much stronger alcohol flavor.)

    1
  89. Gustopher says:

    @Mu Yixiao:

    Quarter of a bottle…. very long time…. so…. That’s more than half an hour?

    It’s cask strength, and I’m on blood thinners, so that might actually kill me. Which might be fine. Ask me again in November.

    2
  90. Jen says:

    @JohnSF: I am a big fan of The Balvenie Doublewood. If you enjoy that, you might also like the Highland Park Valkyrie.

    I like a bunch of different styles. Glenkinchie 12 is a nice, lighter style (I think that’s a lowland whisky). The last time we were in Scotland I got a bottle of the Dalwhinnie Lizzie’s Dram, which is a completely different style than I normally prefer, but it’s lovely and perfect paired with chocolate and orange flavors. Mmm.

    @Just nutha ignint cracker: That would make a heck of a lot more sense. I just kept looking at that statement (someone had turned it into a meme, I actually didn’t believe that’s what he said until I located a copy of his remarks on CNN and saw it) and thinking “I can’t imagine that he means what this says.”

    1
  91. Just nutha ignint cracker says:

    @CSK: Considering the audience, that’s a reasonable theory, too. [thumbs up emoji here]

    2
  92. Mu Yixiao says:

    @a country lawyer:

    Aberlour is great for an “everyday” scotch. And, as a bonus, the bottles look really nice on the kitchen shelf when filled with rice, beans, etc.

    I turned an extra doorway into a shelf unit. Top shelf is the beans and grains (all in Aberlour bottles). The ones below are spices (in square sesame oil bottles), herbs (in hexagonal salad dressing bottles), and on the bottom are pastas (in the Aberlour tubes).

    Unfortunately, the local store stopped carrying it. 🙁

    1
  93. Jim Brown 32 says:

    @Jen: Im a big Scotch fan myself but partake mostly in Winter. Have been ever since an Air Force Commander I was an aide to walked in the office one evening and told the other aide and I to ‘turn the gawd-damn computers off’, grab a Scotch glass and come in his Office and keep your mouths shut.

    He broke out a 17 year Macallan and was soon joined by his other old crusty pilot buddies where they proceed to talk shit tons of smack about anything, anyone of conversation value within the Airforce at that time.

    Scotch is a relic of pilot snobbery in the Airforce but that was the first time I got a real behind the curtain look at how decisions were made in large institutions. They had this ‘meeting’ once a month. Fun times

    4
  94. Mu Yixiao says:

    @a country lawyer:

    This morning I saw an unfamiliar number on a large tanker-3065. When I got a chance I checked the number to find it was-alcoholic beverage. Mind boggling to think of thousand of gallons of booze in a tanker we expect to be full of gasoline.

    It’s quite possible that it’s stale beer.

    I interviewed a distillery several months ago for a story about a local bio-tech company making hand sanitizer. The Master Distiller was talking about making the alcohol content, and said that the major breweries (Miller-Coors in this case) frequently donate stale beer to distilleries who make it into “neutral grain spirits”–which is used as filler in other booze in order to bring the ABV up to what it’s supposed to be.

    2
  95. Mu Yixiao says:

    @Just nutha ignint cracker:

    Nonsense. Soju is exactly what it is intended to be and tastes exactly like it should–moonshine.

    Soju is good–especially if you julienne a cucumber and soak it in the booze for about 15 minutes.

    Baijiu, however, is Satan’s urine. The best reaction I heard to someone drinking it was a friend of mine; “This is the worst thing I’ve ever tasted! And I’ve had bathtub vodka in Prague!”

    1
  96. CSK says:

    @Steven L. Taylor: @Teve:
    The majority people do indeed make their electoral choices based on party affiliation. But among Republicans, you can divide them between those who find Trump awful, but probably somewhat preferable to his opponent, and those who believe that Trump is the best president we’ve ever had. I find the latter incomprehensible.

    2
  97. Just nutha ignint cracker says:

    @Gustopher:

    ETA: I should drink more.

    That’s probably true of most of us not in 12-Step programs. Those of us in them will have to adjust accordingly.

    1
  98. Just nutha ignint cracker says:

    @CSK: I read it. You didn’t miss anything.

    (Not that it was a bad book, just boilerplate pop psychology.)

    1
  99. Just nutha ignint cracker says:

    @Teve: Yeah, 5 stars as satire. What’s troubling to me is that in any other election in my lifetime, that would have been an oppo piece.

    So. Tired. Of. Winning.

    2
  100. Monala says:

    OMG, this is a horrifying statement by an RNC speaker. This poor child.

    “Right now, Jude is an adorable, perpetually tan-looking little brown boy,” said Johnson, whose husband blogged, in 2015, about adopting their biracial son at his birth. Johnson is white. “But one day, he’s going to grow up and he’s going to be a tall, probably sort of large, intimidating-looking-maybe brown man. And my other boys are probably gonna look like nerdy white guys.”

    But the fact that the police could one day view her sons differently, simply due to the color of their skin, doesn’t make Johnson mad, she said. Instead, it makes sense to her.

    “Statistically, I look at our prison population and I see that there is a disproportionately high number of African-American males in our prison population for crimes, particularly for violent crimes. So statistically, when a police officer sees a brown man like my Jude walking down the road — as opposed to my white nerdy kids, my white nerdy men walking down the road — because of the statistics that he knows in his head, that these police officers know in their head, they’re going to know that statistically my brown son is more likely to commit a violent offense over my white sons.”

    “So the fact that in his head, he would be more careful around my brown son than my white son, that doesn’t actually make me angry. That makes that police officer smart, because of statistics.”

    Link

    1
  101. Monala says:

    @Monala: even while horrified, I laughed at this response to the article on Twitter:

    “However, on the other hand, my pale nerd men sons are statistically more likely to shoot up a school. ‍ I should probably just have them all locked up now , right? Statistics are gonna statistic”

    6
  102. CSK says:

    @Monala:
    The woman’s an imbecile. Someone take that child away from her for his own good.
    Branding your own little boy a criminal. Unbelievable.

    1
  103. DrDaveT says:

    @JohnSF:

    Balvenie Doublewood 12 year old (Speyside, v. good indeed)
    Dalwhinnie 15 Year Old (Highland, prob. my pick of this area)
    Talisker 10 year old (from Skye, somewhat peaty/smoky)
    Lagavulin 16 Year Old (another Islay)

    You managed to pick 4 of the half dozen good values that my local idiot ABC stores carry. The Lagavulin is the priciest, and my favorite routine purchase.

    Two more that I’d add in the “good value” category:
    Glenfarclas 21 Year Old (surprisingly cheap for the age)
    Laphroaig Quarter Cask (surprisingly smooth for the lack of age)

    1
  104. CSK says:

    @Just nutha ignint cracker:
    I didn’t think I’d missed anything, but thanks for confirming that. I practically never read pop psychology.

  105. flat earth luddite says:

    @Mu Yixiao:
    never tried the bathtub vodka in Prague. Distilled shine made from grapefruit pruno in Cell Block A, yes. Unforgettable experience, and not in a good way. Think I’ll pass on devil’s urine, although I quite like soju

    1
  106. Monala says:

    Another article about this horrific RNC b*tch quotes her saying this:

    Johnson said that, according to her research, high rates of incarceration of black men is caused by black fatherlessness. She then claimed that, according to her research, there is a push to make black fatherlessness culturally acceptable.

    “There are studies out there that are trying to redefine black fatherhood. They are essentially saying that the seventy percent number is a lie because black fatherhood looks different than white fatherhood; that black fatherhood actually does look like a black man coming in and out of the home and not being a consistent presence in the home, and that version of fatherhood is equivalent to a white father being consistently in the home,” she said.

    “Okay, I don’t want to cuss on here, but that is B.S., and that is racist,” Johnson continued.

    “[B]lack fathers do not get a pass. Just because it is culturally different, just because black fathers don’t want to be in the home, and culturally it has been acceptable for them to be with multiple women,” she said.

    This is just infuriating! One of the most heartbreaking things about so many of these murders of black men by police is how many were killed in front of their children (Jacob Blake, Philando Castile), or while shopping for a birthday party for their children (John Crawford), or trying to earn money for their children (Eric Garner). In other words, black men who were actively involved with and taking care of their children, and police killed them and took these children’s fathers away!!!

    5
  107. Mister Bluster says:

    Jerry Falwell Jr. says he has resigned as president of Liberty University
    Jerry Falwell Jr. has resigned — again. And this time he and Liberty University agree.
    “The university’s heartfelt prayers are with him and his family as he steps away from his life’s work,” Liberty said Tuesday in a statement.

    1
  108. Mu Yixiao says:

    Completely off topic, but I need to vent.

    As a side project at work, I’m unsubscribing people from the approximately 50lbs of catalogs and magazines we receive each week–about half of it for people who no longer work here (several of whom are dead).

    One of them just required that I subscribe to an online service in order to cancel a catalog subscription.

    *headdesk*

    Where’s my scotch?!

    3
  109. Kylopod says:

    @Mu Yixiao:

    Completely off topic, but I need to vent.

    That must be the first time someone apologized for going off topic in an open thread.

    9
  110. JohnSF says:

    @Scott:
    Heh.
    Didn’t drink whisky for some dozen plus years after, at age 17, drinking some beer, then cider (the rather potent English sort) then whisky and lemonade (?), then cider, then whisky, then…

    I did not previously comprehend how much spewing a human being was capable of.
    Important life lessons episode #13.

    1
  111. Monala says:

    @Monala: speaking of Texas Monthly, they’ve done quite a bit of research on this piece of work, Abby Johnson. Quoted in Wikipedia

  112. Kathy says:

    @Mister Bluster:

    You’d think his first resignation got such rave reviews, he just had to do a repeat performance to satisfy the adoring crowds.

    1
  113. Just nutha ignint cracker says:

    @Monala: @CSK: I guess the “big” lesson here is that you can do the “right” thing for society, but it won’t necessarily make you a “better person” overall.

    1
  114. JohnSF says:

    @flat earth luddite:
    Ah. Another occasion in my somewhat misspent youth, this time around 22-ish, passing round a jamjar full of genuine (Northern) Irish poteen.
    Yeeks.

    No illness, and tasted surprisingly good for something that could probably fuel a space-shot.
    Mind, after a couple of slurps you couldn’t tell, and didn’t care, how it tasted!

    1
  115. flat earth luddite says:

    @Mu Yixiao:
    Never tried bathtub vodka in Prague. Gin, yes (my grandmother made it). Soju is nice but not an ass-kicker, IMHO (h/t to Cracker). However, Baijiu sounds like a close runner-up to my all-time worst drink; shine that started out as grapefruit “pruno” in Cell Block A.

    I’ll have to try steeping the julienned cukes next time – thanks.

  116. Mister Bluster says:

    @Mu Yixiao:…I need to vent…

    Just because it’s knocking you off your rocker doesn’t mean it’s off topic.
    This is The Forum.

    1
  117. OzarkHillbilly says:

    @Monala: Some white people just gotta white.

    3
  118. flat earth luddite says:

    @JohnSF:
    Well, with regard to the grapefruit shine, given that the guy who made it lifted small-block Chev motors for light exercise, all I could say was “Wow, nice. Gimmie another pull on that jar.” 4 of us and two quart mason jars.

    Yet another reason not to publish my memoirs until 40 years after my death. Like a friend’s son who, after both parents were gone, discovered mom’s desiccated weed stash, his paternal grandfather’s history as a Klansman and Indian Agent, and the nekkid movies of his maternal aunt.

    1
  119. Bill says:

    @JohnSF:

    Didn’t drink whisky for some dozen plus years after, at age 17, drinking some beer, then cider (the rather potent English sort) then whisky and lemonade (?), then cider, then whisky, then…

    In my condo the only alcohol or wine we have is rubbing and cooking. This apartment is dry. My wife has a liver condition and I rarely drink. The last time was 16 or 17 years ago.

    Isn’t there a saying all good writers drink? I suppose so but who said I’m a good writer. Crazy= Yes, Can sell his books= Yes, Good writer- I think I come up with good and novel story ideas but putting into words I’m not as good at.

  120. CSK says:

    @Mister Bluster:
    I think Doug Mataconis’s motto for the open thread was: “Where you can’t be off-topic, because there IS no topic.” That should be reinstated.

    2
  121. CSK says:

    @Bill:
    Back sometime in the 1980s, the old Saturday Review ran an article entitled “Drink: The Curse of the Writing Class.” It surveyed the number of writers who were lushes. Fascinating. Depressing, but fascinating.

    4
  122. JohnSF says:

    @Bill:
    Odd thing was, though I couldn’t face whisky for years, I was still perfectly fine with both cider and beer (and lemonade for that matter 🙂 ).
    Just learnt not to mix them up too much LOL.

    Incidentally a popular drink back in the day with youngish folk was (is? dunno; modern youth pos. more sensible?) 1/2 and 1/2 cider and lager aka “snakebite”. Never cared for it myself.

    Best avoided.

  123. OzarkHillbilly says:

    @JohnSF: Sitting around a bonfire at an MVOR, passing the mason jars around the fire, just a little sip, but damn, it was good, not the usual rotgut. Probably the best shine I’d ever drank. After about the 4th time the jar came around I looked up in time to see a young lady friend of mine, tip the jar back and go, “Glug, glug, glug…” I leapt across the fire screaming, “NOOOOOOOO!!!!” and grabbed the jar away from her. She and her girl friend looked at me like, “What?”

    “How much have you 2 drank?”
    “I don’t know, a bit.”
    “Oh Jesus….”

    I dragged their staggering bodies away from the fire to our camp and proceeded to rifle their vegetarian cooler for anything I could cram into their gullets and had them drink lots of water. When they finally refused to eat anymore, I had them crawl into their tent and go to sleep.

    The next morning I’m sitting by the camp fire drinking coffee when M came crawling out of the tent and began puking her guts out just feet from the door.

    “Tom? I think L might be dead.” or some such mumbled statement from someone who was still miserably drunk from the night before.

    So I crawled into their tent, where I found a still breathing L, took her shoulder and gave it a shake. Nothing. Again. Still nothing. Her sleeping bag and clothes were soaked with urine so I said “L? I’m gonna take your clothes off and get you in a dry bag.”

    She reacted as I expected her to, to the idea of a crusty old bstrd stripping the clothes off her young nubile lesbian body: “NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!” and she rolled back into her soaking wet bag.

    I crawled back out of the tent, looked at M and said, “She’s fine.” and went back to drinking my coffee.

    3
  124. OzarkHillbilly says:

    @Bill: If you can sell your books, you’re a good enough writer, which is better by far than 99.9% of the writers in this world.

    2
  125. OzarkHillbilly says:

    @CSK: Which reminds me of the Dorothy Parker quote: “I’m not a writer with a drinking problem, I’m a drinker with a writing problem.”

    (hope I got it right)

    4
  126. CSK says:

    Since Cult45 couldn’t ignore the revelation that Melania Trump was recorded saying nasty things about her husband and Ivanka, they’ve decided to spin it as: “What woman doesn’t say terrible things about her hubby and her step-children?”

  127. CSK says:

    @OzarkHillbilly:
    Sounds exactly right to me.

  128. DrDaveT says:

    @Mu Yixiao:

    One of them just required that I subscribe to an online service in order to cancel a catalog subscription.

    I don’t suppose you can mark them “not at this address” and return them to sender?

  129. JohnSF says:

    @OzarkHillbilly:
    Chuckle.

    Query: What’s an MVOR?

  130. Gustopher says:

    I just watched the highlights of Kimberly Guilfoyle’s deranged rant at the RNC, from WaPo, and was struck by two thoughts simultaneously.

    1. This woman is fucking crazy, and anyone who cannot see that is an idiot.

    2. She seems crazier than the Jim Jordans, but really isn’t. It’s just my latent sexism.

    I wish that either she would tone it down a little, or that Jim Jordan would get more loony, so I don’t have to confront my latent sexism.

    4
  131. Mu Yixiao says:

    @Bill:

    In my condo the only alcohol or wine we have is rubbing and cooking. This apartment is dry. My wife has a liver condition and I rarely drink. The last time was 16 or 17 years ago.

    Despite that I consider myself a “more-than-moderate drinker” (and that’s by [i]Wisconsin[/i] standards!), I’ve got no problem with people who don’t drink (though, on the other hand, I’d never date a woman who doesn’t drink at least a little).

    I did 5 years dry–to the hour. One day I decided that drinking wasn’t fun any more, so I quit. 5 years later I was in a much better headspace, and decided it would be okay again. Aside from a few times I should have stayed away from the keyboard, I’ve been doing well. 🙂

    5
  132. flat earth luddite says:

    @Teve:
    As a friend pointed out to me, the saddest thing about the piece is that any other time in American history that would have been an attack ad. Uffta!
    @Scott:
    I had to double check the link, as I was convinced that this had to be an Onion piece. Although the voices in the back of my head (under the rocks by the nightshade plant) point out that, as the dead don’t contract Covid-19, drinking enough bleach WILL in fact make you immune.

    2
  133. Teve says:

    @Kylopod: If 100,000 votes had been geographically re-distributed, those same pundits would be saying well of course Hillary crusted she won by 3 million votes, she ran a great campaign.

    I just really stopped watching stock market news three decades ago when I realized that 500 things that happen in a given day, and if the stock market goes down 100 points that they all say well it was obviously because Of event number 17, if it goes up on the same day they’ll see well clearly it was event number 43. Humans invent bullshit narratives out of thin air without even knowing it.

    4
  134. Mu Yixiao says:

    @DrDaveT:

    I don’t suppose you can mark them “not at this address” and return them to sender?

    If I did that with all the ones that had come in, I’m pretty sure the USPS would have called out their SWAT team. At the point I started sorting them, I had 11 full mail tubs.

  135. Mu Yixiao says:

    @Teve:

    if the stock market goes down 100 points that they all say well it was obviously because Of event number 17, if it goes up on the same day they’ll see well clearly it was event number 43.

    Humans got to be the top of the food chain because we developed a keen sense of pattern recognition. And we understand both positive and negative patterns: If I do this, X happens. If I do this Y doesn’t happen. Unfortunately, once you get past “don’t shit in the water hole” and “cook the meat”, things get mucked up fairly quickly.

    2
  136. Teve says:

    @Scott: I’m 44. I haven’t been able to drink tequila since a bad party when I was 17.

  137. Mu Yixiao says:

    One scotch down. Live-stream interview for the newspaper starting in a half-hour or so (17:30 go, but need time to prep and talk with the guest). Then a short evening of British quiz shows before calling it a night.

    I’d hope for something exciting to happen, but I’m afraid it would involve snakes and napalm.

    2
  138. Mu Yixiao says:

    @Gustopher:

    I just watched the highlights of Kimberly Guilfoyle’s deranged rant at the RNC

    What the FUCK did I just watch‽

    2
  139. JohnSF says:

    @Jen:
    @CSK:
    @Just nutha ignint cracker:

    re. Senator T. Scott and “utopianism”.
    It could , if one were feeling charitable, be a mental muddle relating to both “conservative” and “liberal” critiques of utopian projects as inherently perilous due to potential for extremism, totalizing etc.
    e.g. Oakeshott, Karl Popper’s Utopia and Violence, various critiques starting with Burke of Rousseau and French revolution etc.

    Ironically, Rober Nozick’s Anarchy, State, and Utopia is probably more influential among American “conservatives” and proceeds to conjure a libertarian utopianism which leaves a lot of European conservatives longing to kick something.

    Senator Scott: mispeaking, muddled, or daft.
    Place your bets.

    1
  140. JohnSF says:

    @Mu Yixiao:
    Hey there!
    Let’s not be recklessly endangering the snakes.

  141. Jen says:

    @CSK: Huh. I’m a writer…

  142. JohnSF says:

    @Mu Yixiao:
    Kimberley Guilfoyle

    My. Word.

    Also just followed a link to Don Jr speech.
    Well…
    erm, okay
    ( hide the sharp objects and back away sloowlyyy…)

    1
  143. Mu Yixiao says:

    @Jen:

    I get what he’s trying to say, but this is really hilarious–saying “if we let them they will turn our country into a socialist utopia” means that it would be, according to the dictionary definition, “an ideal place or state.”

    I missed this earlier.

    No. It would be “an ideal place or state” [b]for socialists[/b]. Which would be a [i]hell[/i] for conservatives. He’s using the word correctly, and in the correct context. The key isn’t the noun, it’s the preceding adjective.

  144. CSK says:

    @Jen:
    Yes; I am as well. I do enjoy a drink, but I’ve always managed to keep it under control. What’s life without a pre-dinner vodka martini on the rocks with a giant bleu cheese-stuffed olive?

    Vodka’s my default potion, but I do keep a cabinet of Scotch, Irish, gin, bourbon, rum, and the two vermouths for those whose boats are floated by those potables. And I have been known to savor a good single malt Scotch or Irish or bourbon myself.

    2
  145. Just nutha ignint cracker says:

    @JohnSF: In Northern Ireland among the young people my mom grew up with, that was a “shandy.” I only came to find out it was usually lemonade later in life.

    Either way, not to my taste (which leans toward Jaegerbombs in mixed drinks–or G & T in a pinch).

    1
  146. Monala says:

    Oh God. Abby Johnson isn’t the only outlandish speaker at the RNC tonight.

    Mendoza, an “angel mom,” is scheduled to speak Tuesday about her son’s 2014 death at the hands of a drunk driver who was in the country illegally. Her tweet on Tuesday linked to a lengthy thread from a QAnon conspiracy theorist that laid out a fevered, anti-Semitic view of the world. In its telling, the Rothschilds—a famous Jewish banking family from Germany—created a plot to terrorize non-Jewish “goyim,” with purported details of their scheme that included plans to “make the goyim destroy each other” and “rob the goyim of their landed properties.”

    ,,, The tweet from Mendoza is the latest example of a convention speaker with a checkered background. As the Republican festivities enter their second night, several scheduled speakers have already been exposed for holding bizarre beliefs.

    Public school teacher Rebecca Friedrichs, who spoke at the convention on Monday, has claimed that public schools use their curricula to “groom” children for sexual predators like Jeffrey Epstein. On Tuesday, Vice reported that anti-abortion activist and convention speaker Abby Johnson praised the idea of police racially profiling her biracial son as “smart.”

    Link

    2
  147. Kathy says:

    @Monala:

    At this point, we can call the Republican party is deranged.

    2
  148. CSK says:

    @Mu Yixiao:
    You watched a maniac behind a podium raving to an empty room.

    2
  149. Bill says:

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    “I’m not a writer with a drinking problem, I’m a drinker with a writing problem.”

    A quote I remember from actor and author* Robert Shaw

    Will you tell me one great actor who doesn’t drink?” Robert Shaw.

    *- Shaw’s famous movies- Jaws, The Sting, A Man for all Seasons. His writings include The Hiding Place and The Man in the Glass Booth

    1
  150. Kylopod says:

    @Monala:

    Her tweet on Tuesday linked to a lengthy thread from a QAnon conspiracy theorist that laid out a fevered, anti-Semitic view of the world. In its telling, the Rothschilds—a famous Jewish banking family from Germany—created a plot to terrorize non-Jewish “goyim,” with purported details of their scheme that included plans to “make the goyim destroy each other” and “rob the goyim of their landed properties.”

    No worries, they’ve got Lee Zeldin (the one Jewish Republican in Congress) speaking on Wednesday, and he can tell us about how Donald Trump is the greatest president for Jews this country has ever seen. Pay no attention to the Nazi behind the curtain.

    5
  151. Kylopod says:

    @Teve:

    If 100,000 votes had been geographically re-distributed, those same pundits would be saying well of course Hillary crusted she won by 3 million votes, she ran a great campaign.

    It wouldn’t even need to be geographically distributed or whatever. If Hillary Clinton had eked out an EC victory by a hair, they’d have said she ran a great campaign. And Trump would have entered the history books as a pathetically inept candidate, just as the pundits had described him prior to the election before shelving that narrative the moment he improbably won.

    Pundits and party operatives almost never learn any lessons from winning campaigns. This is why nobody was talking about the Democratic Party’s massive deficit among the white working class after Obama’s two elections. They assumed it was irrelevant as long as he was winning. And they would have continued to make that assumption in 2016 if 77,000 votes in three states had gone the other way, even though the underlying reality wouldn’t have been any different.

    3
  152. Jax says:

    @flat earth luddite: Hey! Nice avatar pic, what happened to the other one? And where’s Cracker’s? Y’all need a Yin/Yang one. 😉

  153. Just nutha ignint cracker says:

    @flat earth luddite: Decided I had to look up what all the wailing and gnashing of teeth was about. Guy’s such as myself may never get to experience baijiu–which according to the importer, has considerable higher abv than most [edit: hard] liquors at 60% (or 120 proof as the floor)–in that it is “not available in my area.”

    Additionally, at what seemed to be a floor level price of ~$30/pint (375 ml) and many brands being in excess of $1oo/liter, it is much too spendy to suit my limited budget. That I am passionately ambivalent about soju adds a final disqualifier.

    1
  154. Just nutha ignint cracker says:

    @Mu Yixiao: Yeah. That point came to my thoughts later in the thread. Having not heard the speech, it’s difficult to assess tone from the written transcript, though. As a word string, what you interpret that he said being what we all should have heard is, as written language, probably the least likely.

    Of course, oral discourse is not written discourse–which is the fundamental problem in reading transcripts/live cut excerpts of speeches.

  155. Just nutha ignint cracker says:

    @Kathy: No. “Deranged” doesn’t have a strong enough negative connotation. I don’t know what to pick, but “deranged” won’t do.

    1
  156. Monala says:

    @Kylopod: I guess the “Jewish conspiracy” tweets were a bridge too far. She’s been removed from the RNC lineup. Link

    She has apologized and deleted the tweet, saying it “does not reflect my feelings or personal thoughts whatsoever.” However, someone replied with screenshots of tweets of hers from earlier years ranting about the Rothschilds and Soros destroying America.

    2
  157. Just nutha ignint cracker says:

    @Jax: Cracker lacks the technical expertise to put avatars at the places he visits as part of the internet in his role as data mining product. He believes that avatars happen because some people have magical powers.

    As it was in the beginning, is now, and shall be forever.

    2
  158. Kylopod says:

    @Monala:

    However, someone replied with screenshots of tweets of hers from earlier years ranting about the Rothschilds and Soros destroying America.

    I’m fascinated by the fact that conspiratorial claims about Soros aren’t recognized by the GOP as anti-Semitic–they do it all the time. But the Rothschilds is considered a bridge too far even for them–despite the fact that it’s an essential (if peripheral) part of QAnon.

    2
  159. flat earth luddite says:

    @Jax:
    Figuring out this whole avatar thingie. I’m enough of a luddite that I had no idea you could do this stuff. The first one’s a self portrait, which I rather like b/c I don’t look completely like a short/old/fat/balding loonie (appearances CAN be deceiving). The second one I took here in PDX about a decade ago, before I did chemo. Gradually finishing my promise to my daughter to go through 50 years of slides/negs/RAW files.

    As far as an avatar of Cracker, Wit/Sec says no. I’m already in enough trouble with my handlers.

  160. flat earth luddite says:

    @Mu Yixiao:
    Like several others, I’d read the transcripts w/o watching the video. Now I’ve seen the video “highlights.” Oh my indeed. I suspect we have a winner in the “Charles Manson on acid in the role of Keith Ledger’s Joker Having a Psychotic Meltdown” for this year’s drama program.
    @JohnSF:
    Hiding the sharp objects won’t help. Make sure your shots are current before you go into the room. Distemper or rabies?

  161. Jax says:

    @flat earth luddite: I liked the other one, too, nice to put a face to the name(s)! 😉

  162. Teve says:

    @Kylopod:

    I’m fascinated by the fact that conspiratorial claims about Soros aren’t recognized by the GOP as anti-Semitic

    Birther claims weren’t recognized by a lot of Republicans as racist. “Well actually Kenyan isn’t a race so durr durr durr…”

    1
  163. Teve says:

    WaPo 2.5 yrs ago

    “Why are we having all these people from shithole countries come here?” Trump said, according to these people, referring to countries mentioned by the lawmakers.
    Trump then suggested that the United States should instead bring more people from countries such as Norway, whose prime minister he met with Wednesday. The president, according to a White House official, also suggested he would be open to more immigrants from Asian countries because he felt that they help the United States economically.
    In addition, the president singled out Haiti, telling lawmakers that immigrants from that country must be left out of any deal, these people said.

    NO RACISM TO SEE HERE FOLKS

    1
  164. Kylopod says:

    @Teve:

    Birther claims weren’t recognized by a lot of Republicans as racist. “Well actually Kenyan isn’t a race so durr durr durr…”

    I get that. What I’m commenting on here is the selectivity. They don’t recognize the Soros-bashing as anti-Semitic, but they do recognize it when it comes to the Rothschilds. I guess the Rothschild theories have a much longer, older pedigree that makes it harder to rationalize away. But they’re still implicitly getting into it in their embrace of QAnon.

  165. Gustopher says:
  166. JohnMcC says:

    @OzarkHillbilly: Unofficial motto of the city of Annapolis: A drinking city with a sailing problem. Felt I fit right in.