Welcome to July Forum
Steven L. Taylor
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Saturday, July 1, 2023
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31 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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Geee… I wonder why people are questioning the integrity of the SC? Could it be the broad sweep of decisions overturning long standing precedent? Could it be the blatant corruption of several SC justices? Could it be the ignoring of established norms of appointments to the SC in order to pack it with religious zealots? Whatever could it be and why won’t the peons just accept their rightful low stature in society?
Assuming Biden wins in 24, and Democrats retake the House and keep the Senate, then if he doesn’t expand the SCOTUS he should be impeached for negligence.
https://twitter.com/oneunderscore__/status/1674536758900318210
https://twitter.com/MaxKennerly/status/1674543614460928000
@charontwo: Links aren’t working
@MarkedMan: The links are good. It’s just Elon fucking things up again. You can’t view Tweets unless you have an account and are logged in.
https://mashable.com/article/twitter-force-visitors-login-view-tweets-profiles
@MarkedMan:
Twitter changed yesterday, links will no longer work unless you have a twitter account.
I just checked, they work fine for me.
I’ve been meaning to post about this the last few days (no subscription needed). I’ve long contended that people misunderstand what happens when a city or state turns completely blue. The article discusses NYC and how conservative Dems are doing better in the primaries. This is important because for much of the city, the primaries effectively are the general. Since anyone can call themselves a Democrat and run in a primary, these right leaning candidates have just accepted the label and got on with it.
I don’t think this is as true in Republican states and cities. While Democrats want specific legislative initiatives, my sense is that there are fewer individual Republican patrons, but each much more powerful and they simply want specific laws passed or repealed to benefit their business interests. The Republican base on the other hand seems to have little interest in effective governance and views politics as some sort of performance art or a way to exact revenge or abuse on groups they don’t like.
@MarkedMan: They worked for me, but I’m special. On the serious side, twitter is doing something to fuck up accessing their site for subscribers and non subscribers alike, something about forcing people to log in before letting them view.
I, for some unknown reason, am immune to all their shenanigans. About 8 mos or so ago they did something that f’d everything up but the solution was to open an account. So I did and voila the problem went away. Since then I have never logged in, I participate in nothing there (never have never will), the only thing I do is open several people’s twitter feeds and read them. (stonekettle, rex chapman, marcy wheeler, mueller she wrote, tom nichols, and a number of others) I also have a very aggressive ad blocker.
So why am I spared the pain they inflict on everyone else? Elephino.
@Mikey:
Unless Skum is simply maliciously attempting to damage the site, it’s a bit of an “own goal.”
It’s hard to see how driving away viewers is smart, but maybe I am not real smart like Skum.
@Mikey: Hysterical. Well, I guess that’s it for me and Twitter then. I technically have an account from the first few months of the service but haven’t logged in in years and don’t plan on it. What is the gist of the charts you referenced?
@Mikey: And it took me some effort to find out how to log out. On an iPhone:
– From the Home screen tap the (head and shoulders) Account icon.
– Tap Settings and Support.
– Tap Settings and privacy.
– Tap Your account.
– Tap Account information.
– Tap Log out.
– Tap Log out when asked if you’re sure.
Seven clicks to log out. Perhaps a bit paranoid, but if I’m going to let anybody watch my phone all day, it ain’t Elon. I’m not even sure I believe I’m actually logged out.
@MarkedMan: Well, from what I recall it showed big jumps in favorability for RFK Jr. among Republicans, and big jumps in unfavorability from Democrats.
I can’t tell you exactly at the moment because my account has been “rate limited,” which is only supposed to apply to users who tweet 2400 times in a day, which I of course have not. So who knows why. But at the moment I can’t view the charts.
@MarkedMan: I was able to view the tweet on my smartphone and found the article that contains the charts at the Washington Post (gift link so you should be able to view it if you don’t have a WaPo account): https://wapo.st/44s7ros
@MarkedMan:
They are embedded in a post at LGM, you can see them there.
https://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2023/06/rfks-laser-focus-on-pro-desantis-podcasts-surprisingly-not-helping-him-with-democratic-primary-voters
Via Angry Bear nice piece on how hospitals are abusing the 340B program to make tons of money off of poor failing hospitals and invest that into wealthy communities and their facilities, plus generous salaries for CEOs. In the case cited in Richmond that meant money leaving the black community and going to mostly white communities.
For those not familiar 340B requires that pharma companies sell drugs at a discount financially troubled hospitals in underserved areas. The chain in Richmond bought the only hospital in the poor, black area of Richmond and slowly removed services like the ICU, let the air conditioning fail and didnt do upkeep on its MRI/CT machines. However, it didnt open satellite facilities in the wealthy parts of town under the name of the poor hospital so they could use the cheaper drugs and generate larger profits. So on paper the poor hospital is generating $100 million a year in profits.
The program was set up to help the struggling hospitals with the idea that if it ended in profits, those would be reinvested in the hospital. It would help hospitals in poor and underserved areas stay open. Non-profit hospitals dont get taxed with the understanding that they provide free care to the community in return. So the chain claims they have provided some free care and done some reinvestments, but if I totaled them correctly that comes to about $5 million a year, while they are profiting $100 million a year from the drug sales, to say nothing of the $6million CEO salary.
Medicare needs to do better monitoring but sometimes the crooks are clever. I hope that now they are caught the punishments are in line with the crime. (Ok, we know that wont happen. Punishment either wont happen or they will require the chain to spend a whopping $20 million on the poor hospital.)
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/24/health/bon-secours-mercy-health-profit-poor-neighborhood.html
Steve
@Kathy: Americans should face the consequences until we learn to stop voting Republican.
Hillary warned us this would happen. Biden said to vote for Hillary. Trump got elected instead. So here we are.
Elections (and bothsidesism and Emailghazigatepalooza witch hunts) have consequences. It’s not Biden’s fault that too many Americans are deplorable or gullible.
I forget which congressman/senator it was who said it, but when somebody complained about 5 or 15 page long laws being written and passed by congress he replied that if corporations didn’t have teams of lawyers poking holes in not quite perfectly written laws, congress wouldn’t need teams of lawyers to draft 5 or 15 page laws that cover every possible contingency and plug every loophole corporations are certain to look for and exploit.
@steve:
History suggests the crooks will be punished with a Senate seat.
Now that Pride month is over, I can finally go back to Shame and Self-Loathing! Fits like a comfortable shoe.
I really don’t have a full month of pride in me — just maybe a week or so, and then I have to grit my teeth and fake it for the rest of the month. It’s tiring.
(I assume I make some variation of this joke every year. It’s more for me than you.)
More happenings at twitter, maybe.
https://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2023/07/twitter-is-imploding
https://twitter.com/AntiToxicPeople/status/1675212111402926080
https://twitter.com/MuellerSheWrote/status/1675197994210308096
ETA: Didn’t take me long to get a “rate limited” message, after being on the site, briefly. Guess I won’t be bothering much with Twitter after today.
If you were inundated by right wing family/friends etc about NYC shutting down NYC wood burning stoves where they make pizza, it’s all BS. Via Ritholz.
Rightwingers say ‘pink-haired liberals’ are killing New York pizza.
“Here’s what’s really happening: That’s the lie fueling the latest rightwing outrage cycle, in a distorted account of a commonsense air quality rule passed in New York City seven years ago. In reality, the rule, which soon takes effect, requires a handful of pizzerias to reduce the exhaust fumes that could harm neighbors, using a small air filter like those required at other New York City restaurants, which have been used by pizza shops in Italy for decades.”
Steve
@charontwo:
Lots of speculation that Twitter failed to pay Alphabet for hosting services, and is deperately trying to re-host loads of stuff.
At the same time as the God-Emperor
Letois having brainwaves about forcing everyone to have a twitter account, and then to upgrade paid subscription to make it usable.In the process breaking search engine access and archiving, but doing nothing to curb the plague of sexbots, crapto-currency shills, and floods alt-right/alt-left/conspiraloon disinformation.
Also, the no access without login nonsense make twitter virtually useless for various emergency services who use it as one of their alert channels.
If Muskulus wanted to make a case for public ownership and regualation of social media, he ould hardly do better.
LOL, just thought maybe that’s the gameplan, for the EU?
(Not serious; but still funny)
Something tells me Linda Yaccarino may not be having a relaxing weekend at the beach.
I wonder when she gets to walk with her first year salary intact?
@OzarkHillbilly:
@Kathy:
@DK:
What are the requirements and procedures for investigating, impeaching and removing Supreme Court Justices?
Can the DoJ appoint a Special Prosecutor or investigator?
I assume that given a Republican House and a filibuster-able Senate, that Congress is going to be of little use.
@charontwo:
I’m not entirely up to speed on the US candidacies malarkey and shenanigans, but I recall reading somewhere that when RFK Jr fails in the Dem primaries bid, he’s among the possibles for the “No Labels” third party move. Along, IIRC with Manchin and Sinema.
It’s funny, even to an ignorant Brit, they seem to be so obviously trying for candidates from the Dem (for arbitrary value thereof) side to damage the votes for Biden.
But may just end up screwing themselves by attracting the votes of loons who’d probably have voted for Trump.
My working hypothesis at this point being, Trump will end up being the Republican candidate.
@JohnSF:
As I understand, there are no set procedures. The requirement is having enough votes.
@Kathy:
So it’s all down to Congress. 🙁
Such is life.
Were I a multi-billionaire, I might consider buying ads along the following lines:
“Dear sensible-but-rather-apathetic American demographic: please consider voting in mid-term and state elections. You know it makes sense.”
Meanwhile in the UK:
Omnisis opinion poll, 29 June:
Lab 48% (+1)
Con 26% (-1)
LD 8% (-1)
SNP 4% (+1)
Ref 7% (+1)
Green 5% (-1)
INJECT ME!
🙂
@JohnSF:
The only Supreme Court Justice ever to have been impeached by the House was Samuel Chase in 1805. The Senate didn’t convict him.
@JohnSF:..when RFK Jr fails in the Dem primaries bid, he’s among the possibles for the “No Labels” third party move.
From the No Labels website:
These jugheads don’t even know if they will nominate a candidate for President USA for the 2024 election.
Somehow I don’t think that the crackpot Kennedy Jr. represents “America’s growing commonsense majority” that the No Labels crowd claims as their own.
@Mister Bluster:
Give them time, I’m sure they can work something up.
🙂
My money would be on Manchin or Sinema, but are they going to give up on a Senate seat for a bit of NoLabelling and failing?
OTOH isn’t Sinema likely to get primaried?
So, maybe that’s an option for her?
Like I say, not keeping up with dirty details of US politics right now.
Only if she went back to being a Democrat, she has left the party, now Independent. (Polling says she would badly lose a primary to Gallego.). Polling says she finishes distant third in a 3-way Senate race.
OTOH, she likely has wiser things she could do then get mixed up with No Labels, it’s hard to see what she would get out of that.
No Labels would like to get Manchin, but he probably has no interest.
I have never had a Twitter account and can not open the Twitter links in this thread. I don’t know how Twitter works so I am confused about why I could see a video tagged “watch on Twitter” embedded in a Huff Post item just now.