Wednesday’s Forum
Steven L. Taylor
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Wednesday, December 9, 2020
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78 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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According to Axios, on January 20, 2021 Trump will skip Biden’s inauguration, fly on Marine One from the South Lawn of the White House to Andrews Air Force Base, and take Air Force One to Florida, where he will hold a “giant rally” to announce his run in 2024. The timing of the rally will compete with Biden’s swearing-in.
This is exactly what I predicted he’d do.
https://twitter.com/ShimonPro/status/1336428716642226184
https://twitter.com/mgerrydoyle/status/1336463645832667137
Who has advance purchased vaccines:
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EouKn_uWEAAW6-t?format=png&name=900×900
https://twitter.com/Laurie_Garrett/status/1336314235396235267
Here is a source for more informative chart, scroll down:
https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2020/12/03/942303736/how-rich-countries-are-hoarding-the-worlds-vaccines-in-charts
Is it Trump’s indifference? Or contempt? Or just a treat for the lap dogs? I don’t see the logic.
Trump appoints former aide Kellyanne Conway to Air Force Academy Board of Visitors
Not sure that Conway has anything to contribute to any of these areas.
Of course, Trump also appointed this winner:
@Scott:
It’s just revenge on Trump’s part.
@charon: I haven’t finished my coffee yet, but isn’t that way more doses than we’d need to vaccinate everyone in the US?
Why would we hoard vaccinations?
“How about those Cowboys!”
@Jen:
I really can’t comment, too much unclear about what those charts are really showing.
@Tyrell: Except they lost against the Ravens, who I’ve loathed ever since Art Modell left Cleveland.
@Jen:
Essentially, the pre-purchases reserved production capacity for promising vaccines still under development by various manufacturers.
Not every purchased vaccine was/is expected to pan out.
@drj: Ah, of course. Thank you, that makes sense!
@Scott: I’ll have one on that. I liked the Browns way back: Jim Brown, Kosar, Frank Ryan, Paul Warfield, Ozzie Newsome, Lou Groza, Bobby Mitchell.
@Tyrell: Don’t forget about Brian Sipe and the Kardiac Kids. Deeply fun and frustrating.
@CSK: Another of my dreams: Air Force One flies from Andrews to Palm Beach, where Donald and Melania are loaded into the escape pod, which is then ejected as close to Mar-a-Lago as possible. The plane then returns to Washington to be disinfected.
@SC_Birdflyte:
Depending on the flight plan, why not eject the pod into the middle of Chesapeake Bay?
Another Republican leadership profile in courage:
It’s time we stop treating these Republican thugs with kid gloves. These are violent degenerates and the longer we wait to start imprisoning them the worse it will get.
@SC_Birdflyte:
@CSK:
In a way it’s too bad Biden ins’t petty enough to break one norm, and declare Air Force One inelegible for use by private citizens.
He could at least say “Sure, Donnie. You can take MY plane for a ride home. After the inauguration.”
@MarkedMan:
From WashPo on this:
and
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/12/09/idaho-coronavirus-protest-homes/
@Kathy:
I think Trump will probably leave D.C. very early in the morning of Jan. 20, so the plane will still, technically, be at his disposal. Besides, he’ll want to get to Palm Beach before noon so he can hold his rally while Biden is being sworn into office.
@Jen:
Very likely you have to divide the numbers in half, as most likely vaccine candidates are a two-dose deal. The result is how many people can be vaccinated. Still, over a billion doses makes for 500 million vaccinations, which is way higher than the US population.
Long haulers are losing teeth:
https://twitter.com/DrEricDing/status/1336443942607462402
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/26/health/covid-teeth-falling-out.html
@charon:
More:
I suppose if Cletus is going to go anti-mask, he might as well be toothless also so as to fit the stereotype better.
@Tyrell:
Playing in the mistake by the lake. Of course the current stadium is on the lake as well.
Kellyanne Conway has reportedly scored the biggest advance of any Trump insider yet for her memoir. No word yet on when it will be published. No word either on who the publisher is, but Simon and Schuster did her first book.
@charon:
Toothless and a limp willy. Now there’s a man for you.
@charon: The Bundys have been handled with kid gloves through all their armed snowflake silliness. White privilege. We’ve sown the wind by doing do.
@Kathy:
FWIW, my understanding is that Air Force One is the plane that the President flies on. If he flew in a Cessna Crop Duster that would be Air Force One. Marine One is any helicopter he flies in. So if Trump takes off on Air Force One and Biden is sworn in during the trip, Trump lands in “Just some plane”.
There’s a lateral thinking puzzle about why the number of Air Force One landings is different then the number of take offs and, if I recall correctly, it’s because Johnson was sworn in during the flight after the Kennedy assassination. Or, and I’m too lazy to Google, it may have to do with when Nixon signed his resignation letter.
@charon: i was critical of people pushing the ‘Trump administration declined to purchase more Pfizer vaccine OMG’ story yesterday for this reason.
@MarkedMan:
It was Nixon. The captain had to request a designation change while in flight.
@MarkedMan: And there are two of the VC-25A modified 747s, so I expect the other would be immediately available to Biden at noon on the 20th. Hopefully disinfected, figuratively and literally.
@MarkedMan:
Almost right. But IMO that’s rather ritualistic and pedantic.
As to the almost, if the president, or even Trump the Loser, flies a rotary wing airplane staffed by the USMC, the designation is Marine One.
So there 😉
I can imagine this scene, too:
Air Force Colonel: Gee, Mr. trump, I’m sorry. I forgot the keys to the plane at home. Let me just get into this Cessna crop duster and I’ll fly back to Florida to get them. I’ll be back in ten hours or so. Twelve tops.
From a Bulwark newsletter:
…
Also this linky to a pretty extended discussion:
https://thebulwark.com/trump-is-forever/
@charon:
That was a good piece. Scary, but good.
From that Bulwark link above:
I still think Trump has senile dementia which will be much more obvious by late 2022, so that will factor in.
@charon: if Trump starts receiving heavy prosecution in NY it’ll change the dynamic.
@charon:
@Teve:
If you’re an R politician that has presidential aspirations of one’s own, you need to figure a way out of the dilemma of Trump controlling the party if you are to have the future you desire. You can’t run for prez and express fealty to trump, they’re mutually exclusive. Shortly after the inauguration, we should see a change in the intra-party dynamic. Whether it is each of the prospective candidates breaking with trump in their own way or the group quietly conspiring on a plan, something will happen. Otherwise come June, if Cruz, Cotton or Rubio et.al. makes a trip to Iowa or NH they will be subject to a disloyalty attack.
The wildcard is when do the Manhattan DA and NY AG indict and who.
Yes. The Bulwark has a lot of quality content. Been trying to listen to Charlie Syke’s podcast everyday.
CNN reports that Melania Trump will not write (ha-ha) a memoir but rather do a coffee table book on the history of hospitality in the White House or on her changes to the decor therein.
It figures. In order to write a memoir, you actually have to have done something other than get cosmetic surgery, read fashion magazines, and do Pilates.
She will, as she did in the White House (and doubtless in Trump Tower), have her own bedroom suite apart from Donald’s.
@Sleeping Dog: I was discussing exactly this with my husband last night. There’s only so long this appeasement stuff is going to last. If Trump does indeed announce his 2024 candidacy on the day Biden is sworn in, Cruz, Cotton, Hawley, and the lot of them are going to have problems. They ALL want Trump’s voters, but if he announces they need to figure out a way to negate Trump without alienating his voters–and that’s going to be harder by miles than it would have been back in 2015.
Something’s gotta give.
@MarkedMan:
Air Force One is really distinctive looking. You could call it Criminal Transport #1 but anybody watching it land will think “yep, POTUS is here!” Designation aside, the planes POTUS flies on are *expensive* and full of top-secret tech and info. Trump taking off with one on the last day of his Presidency raises questions of what else he’s absconding with. Are they going to frisk him when he gets off? If he has it loaded with all sorts of materials and goods he thinks is his (gifts from other nations intended for the Office for example), do they stop him? What about documents or drives with state secrets?
It feels like he just announced where his getaway car is going and that he’s gonna be taking it all with him. Air Force One = POTUS so still having it that day is clearly an optic that “I’m still the Prez, not that guy in DC”. The Secret Service needs to prevent any bags from being unloaded without strict scrutiny and cut off the wifi and all security access the *second* they’re allowed to….. and maybe before if they can claim it was accidental. He’ll be using it to steal and the murkiness of the timeframe means they can essentially be accessories to the crime.
@charon: The truly crazy suits are now largely getting dismissed on technical grounds: standing, timeliness, remedies outside the court’s authority, etc. There are a number of cases still pending, at least a couple of which will probably make it to the Supreme Court either this spring or next fall. Possibly just because a couple of the Appeals Courts are going to make conflicting decisions. The most interesting question likely to get addressed, I think, is whether there are limits to how much authority the state legislature can delegate to election officials when there are “extraordinary circumstances,” and how explicit such delegation must be.
@KM:
Currently a distinction without a shred of difference.
@Teve: Ain’t that the truth.
Melania might be another wild card in the whole “Trump running again” thing (aside from the criminal investigations, I mean). There’s a piece on CNN about how she just wants to get the heck out of this situation and “back home,” whatever that means now.
She is also not immune to the grift:
(Emphasis added by me.)
My guess is that she wants to skedaddle back to New York, but Trump wants to go to Florida (and that’s a bit of a question itself, as no one is allowed to use Mar a Lago as a residence, it was part of the agreement signed with the city to turn it into a resort). Neighbors want the helipad gone, etc.
Bottom line, she hated being first lady, and I sincerely doubt she’d be on board for another run. Which means either: she bolts, and he’s a thrice-divorced candidate gunning for the Evangelical vote, or, she holds the cards in this and he will blather about running but ultimately won’t.
@Jen:
You seriously think that will be a problem?
Besides, he can always marry Ivanka to project a presentable family man image. And he can adopt his grandchildren and have his new wife raise them as his own.
@Jen:
I’m sure she would much prefer to be in New York. I recall that she didn’t move into the White house until June 2017, using the excuse that she couldn’t pull Barron out of school. That’s not troubling her now; she’s apparently more than willing to have the kid leave his Maryland school as of January 20.
As to whether she’ll dump Trump, who knows? She may be able to negotiate some sort of deal where they stay officially married, and she agrees to show up at his side for the occasional public event, but otherwise, they’ll live apart. Maybe she’ll have in her own place at Trump Tower.
If he goes to prison, she probably won’t be making visits to him with a basket of home-baked chocolate chip cookies.
@CSK:
I could see her bringing him a cake with an extremely dull file baked into it…
@DrDaveT:
Perhaps a cake with Ivanka baked into it.
@Sleeping Dog:
Exactly.
Do ambitious Republican pols want to end up being Donald’s putative VP patsy for a 2024 run?
Or if TrumpMedia (Newsmax or OANN deal?) really takes off, Trump able to play kingmaker and have them humiliated by being VP candidate to DonJr (or Ivanka)?
Not to mention the potential for “Trumpocracy” to torpedo the GOP in both 2022 and 2024.
The senior Republicans aren’t idiots; they know that Trump has to be taken out of the equation for their ambitions to flourish.
But no one wants to be the one to bell the cat.
I suspect they’ll want to wait till post-inauguration and then try to co-opt a retiring elder to co-ordinate the denunciations.
Ideally they want to coerce enough current admin insiders to spill a torrent of beans, alongside state prosecutions and congressional or special investigator/prosecutor work.
And they’ll want Murdoch onside for the assault.
Murdoch has got to be gaming the potential returns of fighting Newsmax/OANN/”TrumpMedia” for the Trumpkin audience, and possibly losing the less “all in” Fox viewers.
Or help take down Trump and allies, preferably without leading i.e. just by being the perfect channel for dropping turds in the punch-bowl.
Referring back to some recent comments about Trump being too stupid to garner transactional national security material for his advantage.
Maybe he is; maybe others aren’t so stupid; or rather, are stupid, but in a different way.
Were I cynical GOP operator, I would be prepping to have the All Seeing Eye stare hard at a certain Mr Kushner.
@Kathy: My thoughts exactly. The idea that Evangelicals give a sh*t about morality is ludicrous at this point.
@CSK:
New York?
Or perhaps Slovenia might be more congenial.
@charon:
Dimmit, Charon, now all of us long-term cancer survivors (long-term chemo/radiation are known to cause severe osteoporosis and tooth loss) are going to be mistaken for MAGAts? Crapola!!!!!!!
@Kathy:
LOL, no. I should have put a sarcasm tag on it, the hypocrisy is just so all-encompassing with this crowd.
@flat earth luddite:
I’m not saying it is this, but the tooth loss could be to long-term untreated periodontitis.
@CSK: The NYT piece on the covid/tooth loss link states that for the most part, post-covid recovery tooth loss does seem to be happening in people with prior periodontal disease. That’s not particularly useful information though, as the article notes nearly half of the population over age 30 has some form of periodontal disease.
A key potential culprit is damage to the blood vessels, because these teeth are falling out with no pain and no blood loss. Freaky.
@Teve:
I found myself this morning humming a few bars of Old Man River. I had a similar thought about Paul Robeson. How many careers did McCarthy and anti-communist zealotry destroy? But I’m sure that was trivial compared to criticizing Neal Katyal for representing child slavers at one remove.
@Jen:
It is indeed, but I know someone who suffered a painless, bloodless tooth loss way before Covid-19. He did have periodontitis, though.
Covid may manifest itself long-term as an acceleration of a specific ailment someone was already suffering.
@charon: You quote the Bulwark article,
I think this ignores a more complicated dynamic. Tax cuts got passed. We continue to ignore AGW. We only built bits and pieces of the Wall. The actual agenda is not quite Trump’s agenda. The Republican Party is an asset of Charles Koch and the Billionaire Boys Club and they do use it to execute their policy visions. One thing I’ve learned from this blog is how entrepreneurial electoral politics is. Trump showed himself to be a master manipulator of the base and pulled off sort of a half-coup, taking over not really as head of the party but as figurehead of the party. The plutocrats were forced to compromise some on trade, but a small price to pay for retaining power. And when you read “Trump did so and so”, much of the time it’s really the Koch and other Republican apparatchicks who did it. Trump has nowhere near that level of control over detail.
Now, it’s long been suggested the plutocrats would lose control to the “populists”. That the inmates would take over the asylum. And Trump may prove to be the leading edge of this. But right now, it’s only Trump’s party because it’s convenient for the real owners to profit off his control of the base.
We have our first Trial of the Century.
The FTC along with 48 states, have sued Facebook for antitrust violations.
The big question, aside of how much money will be spent on lawyers, is whether the trial will come to a conclusion before Biden’s first term does. The MS trial was looooong.
Also, I’d look, really hard, at Facebook and Zuckerberg, since they are very likely to hire private investigators to dig up dirt on the states’ and government’s lawyers, witnesses, etc.
@Kathy: Iffy on Trial of the Century. Yesterday the Texas AG sued WI, MI, PA and GA, claiming the Supreme Court had to take the case because it was interstate so fell under their original jurisdiction. Basically seemed to me to be a matter of no-excuse absentee ballots are unconstitutional, so the elections in those four states should be tossed. Today, 17 other states filed an amicus brief supporting Texas. Some of the amicus states use… wait for it… no-excuse absentee ballots.
Facebook antitrust is one thing (I wonder what the FTC and states are claiming is the market that Facebook dominates?). 21 states — so far — before the Supreme Court fighting over election practices? So we’re at about the equivalent to what in the run-up to the American Civil War — 1850 and the Fugitive Slave Act?
Oh f@<k me sideways.
So, I said, these were the final, the absolutely final UK/EU negotiations?
My bad.
“A decision on a trade deal is promised by Sunday…”
Oh, come swiftly, sweet meteor of doom!
@Michael Cain:
I think it will be dismissed because the states lack standing, I don’t think they can show any harm, and the remedy they seek is ridiculous.
besides some states filing amicus using the no-excuse ballots, wouldn’t such a decision invalidate all the votes in states that are mail-only voting, like Washington, Colorado, Utah, etc.?
So a trial that doesn’t take place is hardly a Trial of the Century.
BTW, if the SCOTUS dismisses the case, can they appeal to the SCOTUS? 😉
We are now having a 9/11 per day, and we will for the remainder of the year.
@CSK:
The data isn’t complete or conclusive, but a large percentage of the population treating with long-term chemotherapy (and radiation) report subsequent osteoporosis and tooth loss months to years after treatment. While the anti cancer drugs do a good job of killing the cancer, reports from survivors identify significant long-term damage to our bodies. Factors likely include (a) drug toxicity, (b) inability to have routine dental care while immunocompromised, (c) most disability insurance (i.e. SSDI) doesn’t cover dental when you’re done with treatment. Oh, and did I mention the drugs are so flipping toxic?
My oncology doctor and team discussed these features with me extensively before, during, and after nearly 4 years of week on/week off chemo, and I gladly agreed to it because the benefits far outweigh the damages. Overall, I’m happy to be stumbling around 7 years after the expiration date on my milk carton.
I’m just sniveling about the fact that I might be misidentified as a “Cletus” when in fact I’m a Luddite! Completely different grouping.
@Kathy: You are more optimistic than I am. There’s a bunch of states that believe they may not win this time, but within the foreseeable future they are going to grind California under their heels… This year’s cases are the foundation for those. See also, Tariff of Abominations. About thirty years later the cannons opened fire. I’m just hoping for a peaceful partition.
@flat earth luddite:
Cletus doesn’t express himself nearly as well as you do.
thread
@CSK: Or at least a pair of her undies. Might be good to trade for a few mollys if he can bear to part with them
Hayes using my favorite Law and Order term.
The recently-elected speaker of the NH House, a Republican, has died, age 71.
They seem to be trying to deflect the obvious question:
I guess tomorrow there will be much discussion about Hunter Biden.
Before the Republicans get on their high horse, they should keep in mind Trump the One-Term Loser has been mulling ver preemptive pardons for all his adult children.
@Kathy: I prefer to think of it as a warning shot across the bow of the Trump 2024 ship. He can only pardon federal crimes, how’s it gonna look when the charges are all laid out? This is when MANY ads by the Lincoln Project and such should appear on Newsmax, Fox, OANN, laying out their federal crimes and what they got away with.
Some will be cheering, “YEAH, LOOK WHAT THEY GOT AWAY WITH! FUCK YOU, LIBTARDS!”
The rest will be wondering why they got audited way back when, when there are obviously MUCH bigger fish to fry.
More will come out in the next few days, but according to tech and law oriented analysts who have read the antitrust filings against FB, the filings are remarkably clear and penetrating indictments of the company’s whole range of ugly behaviors.