Saturday’s Forum
Steven L. Taylor
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Saturday, April 5, 2025
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58 comments
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About Steven L. Taylor
Steven L. Taylor is a Professor Emeritus of Political Science and former 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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BlueSky.
Was talking to my DIL last night. She works for a small to mid size firm ($250M revenue) selling valves, actuators, and other hardware (some manufactured, some sourced) as well as engineering services and solutions. In response to the tariffs, they’ve had emergency meetings the last two days to review all the planned and existing bid packages to determine the price increases that the tariffs will cause. They are not happy, customers are not happy. Business will inevitably be cancelled or postponed. Good job everyone!
My son works outside sales for an oil and gas industry supplier. Price of crude has dropped 12% this week. It is at the price the producers will not invest in exploration and drilling. No drill, baby, drill from these guys. It is a guess how long it will take for major cuts to hit this industry.
As a family (two small kids) they are not overextended and should have enough resources to ride out the storm but I’m going to get as liquid as I can just in case I need to provide some backup.
In other news:
Measles Outbreak – April 4, 2025
This was a jump of 59 since Tuesday.
New Mexico reported 54 cases, an increase of 7, mostly adjacent to the epicenter of Texas outbreak. I guess borders don’t matter in disease spread.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MJbZCbBLqkk
According to Maddow, Trump’s tariffs guru is some guy named Peter Navarro, a bit of a crackpot by reputation.
Here is another run through re tariffs:
“Link”
Lots more at the link.
@charontwo:
A bit of a crackpot is a bit of an understatement
@charontwo:
Not foot, the U.S. shot its own dick off.
As things fell apart, nobody paid much attention…
@charontwo:
Not foot, the U.S. shot its own dick off.
As things fell apart, nobody paid much attention…
The utter shits running this administration only sent THREE people to assist with earthquake recovery efforts in Myanmar. That’s bad enough.
But those three were apparently FIRED last night, while they are still abroad and sleeping outside.
It’s difficult to describe how horrible the people in this administration are at this point.
OK, here is a legal question on TikTok that I haven’t found the answer to. Why, if the law banning TikTok has specific rules on extending the date of the ban (90 days), does Trump executive orders extending it 75 days twice, have any legal basis?
Bankruptcy is Trump’s go-to move.
Six bankruptcies and two divorces. That’s the type of steady hand we need to guide America forward.
We are the bondholders, essentially. Someone is going to need to clean this mess up in a few years.
It seemed inevitable that the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture would be in the crosshairs. And so it begins…
https://news.artnet.com/art-world/director-national-african-american-museum-on-leave-2627356
@Scott:
The Trump admin does not need sound legal basis (or any at all) to just do something.
They are using a widely reviled 18th century law that does not even apply to the current state of immigration in order to deport people who are legal residents.
They are also deporting natural born citizens in defiance of law that was settled a century ago.
From what I can tell they are impounding funds in the basis that their OMB head asserts that the law prohibiting impoundment is unconstitutional. That guy is a self-ID Christian Nationalist, an ideology that is inherently unconstitutional by any textual standard. The thing is,
According to them, they have a mandate to do whatever they want. And their patron has promised to and demonstrated that he will do whatever it takes to challenge GOP Congresspersons who do not go along.
They don’t give a shit what the law says unless it happens to support what they do. Hell, if anyone does something they don’t like, they just accuse them of violating the law.
In many of these cases, the act, whether legal or not, does damage that cannot be fixed.
Last night Rachel Maddow offered an explanation of Trump’s tariff obsession. She told a story about Trump during the 2016 campaign telling Kushner he needed advice on trade. He told Kushner what he wanted, which was campaign stuff, an enemy, anger. Jughead then went out and skimmed books in Amazon. Not skimming the books, looking at the covers and maybe skimming the blurbs. He found Death by China by a then largely unknown Peter Navarro. They brought Navarro in as a an advisor, and he’s the source of Trump’s trade insanity. Maddow notes, as a publishers note now does at Amazon, that Navarro’s book relies heavily on quotes and opinions from one Ron Vera, who turns out to be fictitious. (The name, like “Tom Marvolo Riddle” is an anagram of Navarro. Facepalm.)
So, like TheWall, Trump tried it out at rallies, it got big applause, so now it’s policy. A form of crowdsourcing.
You can discount Maddow, as James may, and she didn’t cite sources on the air, but the story sure fits. And apparently Navarro authored some of the trade stuff in Project 2025. Paul Campos at LGM this morning quotes Ezra Klein and Paul Krugman talking about Trump’s people on trade relying on Artificial Stupidity.
@Kingdaddy:
Listening to the Behind the Bastards episodes you highlighted the other day.
It is amazing how much of the rationalist movement, even the part not involved with the Zizians, is so irrational.
@Kurtz: That was my thought, too. As crackpots go, Navarro is pretty famous.
@charontwo: “tariffs guru”
But what’s a crackpot to do after spending several months in prison on a contempt charge related to the investigation of attempts to overturn the 2020 election? Butthurt and itching for vengeance, convince his boss that this tariff plan will give the boss what he wants.
@Scott: Same reason as always. Laws work because the people under them agree to obey. In the absence of immediate consequences (punishment) for violations, laws start to break down as a behavior-control mechanism (see “morality,” “sin,” etc.).
Oh man, I just had the nicest, coolest encounter in the elevator.
A guy I know from CISS (our city’s big homeless shelter where I volunteer) now lives in my building. He lives here – that’s so cool!
I saw him. He saw me. We both went “hey, I know that guy.” We fist bumped and did the quasi half hug thing.
That is so incredibly awesome! Getting up and out of homelessness and getting an apartment is damn hard work and requires extreme fortitude and all the required documents. ID and documents is a huge hurdle for many folks.
Good on him. Getting an apartment while homeless is hard work. And good on the system that helped him. I’m in awe of the staff and social workers there.
I’m so happy for him!
@Beth:
If Stephanie Clifford is to be believed, they found a hell of a good shot.
@gVOR10:
IIRC, Trump has been obsessed with trade imbalance since the 80s.
@Kurtz: “Listening to the Behind the Bastards episodes you highlighted the other day.”
Me, too!
Fascinating stuff…
Since February / March here are the new policies at the homeless shelter:
– Hard limit on intakes. 150 beds. No more overflow folks sleeping overnight on the floor of the common area. (That was 10 to 30 people a night before. Those folks are now on the streets sleeping in parking garages.) Overflow didn’t even get cots or mats, but a blanket and a concrete floor. And no blanket if after 9 pm. Now, nothing. You go on a waiting list.
– No meals to non-residents. Generally, about 40-50 people who lived outside the shelter showed up for meals and are now turned away. No bed, no food. (So, rough math about 44,000 meals a year.)
– No cold weather amnesty. “Amnesty” is the wrong word, but the policy was that if it was below 15F you could come into the shelter if you were not obnoxiously intoxicated or fighty. No more. People are going to die because of this.
This particular shelter was formed because 4 people froze to death. That was the genesis of it. People freezing to death because they had no place to go to escape the cold is why the shelter came to be. As a result, a consortium of churches and charitable organizations came together and funded this very shelter, because government wasn’t doing squat except hauling bodies away.
Now, they turn away folks in deathly cold because of funding cuts. And no food. People will freeze to death while hungry.
‐—-
I don’t work in the evenings very often, but the dinner service is very often provided by a church, a business, or a service organization. Like probably 5 times a week. Heavy on the churches. I’m not religious, but I purposefully thank everybody that contributes if I’m there. Not everyone has forgot about charity.
Other shoes…
@de stijl:
I’m interested in whether church contributions vary noticeably by denomination.
I’ve never seen “Honey badger don’t give a F” applied to economic policy.
It’s also fun to watch Trump blow up all the sanewashing the news has been doing for Republicans for decades now.
@Beth:
Most people don’t realize what a powerful song that is.
Thanks for it.
The Talking Heads, David Bowie and Hole are the soundtrack of my life.
@Sleeping Dog:
MBS’s again!?!
I used to work for a mortgage bank. I’m definitely going to hell.
Mortgage providers do not exist to lend you money to “buy” your dream house and profit off the interest. They exist to repackage your mortgage loan with thousands of others and sell it off as a security to some sucker. And then they also sell the servicing rights (servicers are the folks who send you bills and take and process your monthly payments and sock you with fees.) Why accept risk if you could repackage it and resell it onto the secondary market?
Pro tip: if you want to fuck with your mortgage lender / servicer a lot, just overpay on your monthly payment. Doesn’t matter if it’s a dollar or a thousand. Prepayment goes directly against the principal and rejiggers all the calculations, and much more importantly it reduces the debt. You can cut years off your loan and save big money on interest with a monthly overpayment on the stated bill.
If you can afford to overpay on your mortgage, ffs do it!
Or you could not pay at all, but that’d be stupid. You’d lose the house. But, it would fuck with them hard. Foreclosures are expensive and a huge hassle.
On being sane in an insane America:
You’re Not Crazy. America Has Gone Mad.
@Sleeping Dog:
I’m going to preface this by saying, yes, I know, this is not how decent people should think. Objectively, this is all bad. I’m speaking from a place of anger and I shouldn’t feel this way.
AND
After some 40 odd years (I’m 47 and followed politics since I was young) of listening to Republicans talk about 1. how inflation was going to kill us all, 2. Democrats were going to bankrupt the country and kill us all, and more recently 3. that all trans people deserve to suffer and die, all I have to say is HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA FUCK IT.
I look at the stock market collapse will GLEE. I hope China and Japan dump, just fucking dump an whole bunch of MBSs at stupid cut rate prices and a whole bunch of adjustable rate mortgages blow the fuck up. I can’t fucking wait to see the next round of 08 level real estate meltdown cause that’s fucking coming too.
Do you remember 08? I do. I did my first couple of real estate closings in 08 and watched as deals blew up at the table because the lender did a last second appraisal and decided that the property was now worth 20k less, so they were going to lend 20k less. That meant a whole lot of people got pushed into short sales.
If I ever talk to my stupid ass father in law again I’m gonna laugh right in his stupid fucking face. I hope they lose their home and have to move in with their golden child son.
I’m thousands of miles away from my people and my home because you conservative assholes couldn’t get your fucking heads out of your asses. Too busy humping chesterfield’s gate and jerking off to libertarian nonsense (and copious amounts of trans porn) while shitting on everyone else.
Intelligent men (yeah, it was mostly racist misogynistic men) built an international order that made the US the most powerful richest nation on the planet. And a handful of fart sniffing idiots blew it up because black people, women and LGBT people asked politely not to be shit on all the time.
I hope these assholes get their faces held to the stove till their eyes melt Indiana Jones style.
I’ve told people, for years, that the US and China wouldn’t go to war because even though the US military is way stronger, China bought up tons of Treasuries and MBSs and it would be suicide for both sides. Never once did I think we’d be so stupid as to blow our own dicks off like this. China should make a show of just dumping a1/3d of what they have and watch the bodies rain down on Wall St.
I’ll laugh my ass off.
@Sleeping Dog:
The best part of that article is the confirmation that the GOP is made up of fanatics. Hell, Rand Paul is a fanatic and he’s like “I’m not like those fanatics, they’re stupid.” Then you just have Murkowski admitting she’s roughly as stupid as Tuberville and Johnson.
chef’s kiss idiots, no notes.
@Kurtz: Exactly. They furiously paint themselves into ever smaller “logical” corners, based on ridiculousness that it laughable on its face.
The Curtis Yarvin episodes are much the same, except for the murders.
@de stijl:
Paid off the house years ago, early. Denied the banks lots of interest.
@Beth:
Please, vent, you’re among friends.
Heading out the door to attend a local Hands Off! rally. LEaving my cellphone at home and bringing a covid-era mask and hoodie (can’t be too careful these days.).
@Michael Reynolds:
Catholics are way over-represented. Then it’s Lutherans. Then Methodists. Everybody else, not very often. The Catholics are probably pulling the majority of the weight.
There was one group (I think it was Foursquare Gospel) that tried to preach and had folks sit down with people to pray with them. They were not invited back. As in, ever.
I pitch in at the kitchen every now and again. The guy who runs the kitchen is such a cranky pants. To the point where it’s no longer annoying, it’s just funny.
During dinner, if with volunteers, they just serve. Health codes and such.
Chick-fil-A is very charitable. My opinion of that company has gone up considerably.
@Sleeping Dog:
From your Semafor link, an assumed fact not in evidence:
Denial is a very intoxicating addiction.
@Michael Reynolds:99% of church contributions are little more than membership fees in a private club that go towards building and maintenance of club facilities and employee salaries and benefits. Given that, the amount that members contribute is no indication of charitable bent
For the third weekend in a row health issues are keeping me down, but a good number of family and friends have joined the marches today. They report good turnout
@Beth:
Things fall apart, it’s scientific.
Also Talking Heads (Wild, Wild Life)
On a long enough timescale entropy happens.
@charontwo: “The long-term effects are something that I think need to be considered. But I don’t see a permanence in this. It would provide some serious headwinds, for sure.”
Really? You might consider the long-term effects? Anyone who thinks it is possible to overstate the ignorance of the modern Republican party, here is exhibit A. To quote Rex Tillerson, Trump’s Sec of State in his first term and probably the most honest person he ever appointed, Capito is a fucking moron.
I had been thinking that taking a broad view, some of what is going on is reminiscent of the Chinese Cultural Revolution and Pol Pot with the Khmer Rouge. Trump has placed, with glee from his supporters, people with little actual experience or expertise into key government positions. While we have thousands of people in the country who could make a good faith, knowledgeable attempt to cut govt spending Trump instead chose Musk and a bunch of 25 y/o coders. So when I read this which Scott Sumner quotes from the Chinese movie To Live it sure seems appropriate.
“Months later, during Fengxia’s childbirth, her parents and husband accompany her to the county hospital. All doctors have been sent to do hard labor for being over educated, and the students are left as the only ones in charge. Wan Erxi manages to find a doctor to oversee the birth, removing him from confinement, but he is very weak from starvation. Fugui purchases seven steamed buns (mantou) for him and the family decides to name the son Mantou, after the buns. However, Fengxia begins to hemorrhage, and the nurses panic, admitting that they do not know what to do. The family and nurses seek the advice of the doctor, but find that he has overeaten and is semiconscious. The family is helpless, and Fengxia dies from postpartum hemorrhage (severe blood loss).”
Steve
@Scott:
Will we have enough of an economic collapse to meet our emission targets from the Paris accords?
The busses to Seattle Center for the big protest were so full that they weren’t picking up new passengers, so there’s effectively a tiny protest at the corner (25 people), outside my favorite coffee shop. Cars are beeping their support, and everyone boo-ed a CyberTruck.
I would have joined, but they were in direct sunlight.
@Michael Reynolds: What I observed over the years was that charitables didn’t differ as much by quantity as by kind. Evangelicals are slightly more interested in substance abuse and international relief and less (maybe much less) in domestic poverty and homelessness. In my day, fundies were more sympathetic to child placement issues, but largely as an extension of evangelistic outreach.
@Beth:
You are going to hate this.
In the front entryway to the shelter where I volunteer everyone sees an “inspirational” quote from J.K. Rowling emblazoned on the wall as they walk in about overcoming obstacles. I can’t even tell you what it says, honestly – I blank it out because I despise her. In my head is just reads “shut the fuck up TERF bigot”
Meanwhile, inside the shelter are trans folk. Dorm assignments and bathrooms are not an issue. There is no sorting hat.
Homeless people, basically, don’t give a shit. Usually, they’ve got other irons in the fire.
@Sleeping Dog: @Beth: Don’t hold back so much, Beth; tell us how you REALLY feel. 😉
@Paine: If it’s good enough for ICE agents …
@de stijl:
You have successfully overcome an obstacle.
Proof that authoritarian propaganda has no sense of humor: RT (aka Russia Today) published as fact an April Fool’s joke that the UK is getting a new carrier.
I don’t know. If the prospect of a carrier named HMS Prince Andrew isn’t obvious enough, then a quote from “..a senior analyst at the controversial think tank DMCS (Daily Mail Comment Section)..” should tip anyone off.
Link to the April 1 piece.
I take this from the first link as a good moral to the story: “It’s easy to laugh, but it also points to something important: how easily disinformation or narrative-shaping content can spread when verification is skipped in favor of a message. “
@Gustopher:
You tell me that you’re in Seattle. ChatGPT tells me that it’s early April. The Pro version tells me that it’s April 5. So I’m gonna call bullshit on this.
I don’t expect you to disclose the real reason. But I do expect you to lie better.
Relatedly, it’s important to find joy and whimsy amidst all the other stuff. I very much enjoy the variety of rally/protest/march pets, mascots, and humans.
-Maine Coon in a baby bjorn carrier — check.
-Box turtle in a travel pet backpack… in the design of a turtle — check.
-Irish wolfhound — check.
-Xoloitzcuintle — check and check (yes, two).
And that’s just the non-human animals!
@Gustopher:
I have been hiding in the shade, and the backs of my hands are already red and spotted from sunlight. Sunlight and I do not agree.
No one told me Seattle would have sunlight. That’s not why I moved here. We are just starting the six months of unrelenting fucking sunshine.
I think I need to arrange an annual house swap with someone in the southern hemisphere so I can get yearlong overcast and rainy. Probably someone who likes cats.
I do fear that the Trump administration would disappear them and send them to the El Salvadoran concentration camps, and then my cats would go hungry (and there would be horrible human rights abuses, in addition to the cat abuses).
ETA: As I was typing this, Miami has scolded me! I also hate crowds, but the tiny protest across from the coffee shop is not a crowd.
ETA2: Autocorrect really wants Mimai to be Miami. (I suspect my sun sensitivity is increased by one of the drugs I am on — it’s always been a little annoying, but it’s been worse the past few years, possibly since the warfarin)
ETA3: I do really like that the people who couldn’t get on the full busses just started their own protest. It’s kind of adorable, even without weird hairless dogs. A few nice fluffy dogs joined, including a Burnese Mountain Dog that I know is named Gus, and a creature that I can only describe as a Bernese Mountain Corgi.
There’s a little Burnese bubble near me.
@de stijl: While I applaud paying the mortgage down, make sure you mark you extra principal payments clearly as such. We got a 30 year fixed because it was cheaper than a 15 or a 5, but when I started throwing money at it in November, my December statement simply treated it as prepaying several months at the stated division of principal and interest. I had to get the mortgage company to reallocate those payments and now I just make principal only payments separately and clearly marked.
@de stijl:
It depends on your interest rate, your other debts, the rate of inflation, and the return on your other investments. There are a lot of under-4% mortgages out there.
Ha! Looks like Trump is finally getting his “biggest crowds EVER!”, judging by all the protest pics and videos I’m seeing! I hope it’s driving him nuts!
@de stijl:
Wow, that’s a fantastic story — thanks! Reminds me of a similar one in my own life.
I’m a long(ish)-time yoga practitioner. For reasons, I did a drop-in class at a studio I was unfamiliar with. The class instructor was a bloke I had connected with years earlier in a much different context.
He was formerly unhoused and in rough shape – chronically so. Our paths crossed multiple times in my professional capacity.
Fast forward to “now” (then), he teaches part-time at the studio and works for a local non-profit focused on animal welfare.
We chatted a bit after class, nothing too deep. He didn’t volunteer details about his turnabout, and I certainly didn’t feel the need to ask.
Rather, it was enough just to connect in the ordinary way as ordinary people.
@Jax:
It’s not. In his mind, they are flown in and paid handsomely by Soros.
Fcuk. Here’s a new one… Trump opens up have the national forests to logging.
Trump administration orders half of national forests open for logging
An emergency order removes protections covering more than half the land managed by the U.S. Forest Service as the president aims to boost timber production.
That orange salesguy… is there NOTHING that doesn’t belong to him that he’s not willing to sell?
In 3 1/2 years, America will be a paved parking lot next to a going-out-of-business sign.
@Jax:
The felonsphere has been very quiet all day long.
@Liberal Capitalist:
Do you really think it will take that long?
@Kathy: My Trumpies all tell me I need to “trust the process”, like there’s a fucking a process or a method to the madness.
@Gustopher: I was photosensitive when I was younger. I’ll agree that it is miserable.
And yes, some medications can exacerbate the condition, or so I’ve been told by a past dermatologist.