A Pile of Monday Morning Tabs
Steven L. Taylor
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Monday, September 8, 2025
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13 comments
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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I’d love to see a real explanation for the Weiss/CBS deal. If those numbers are right, it doesn’t make any sense. The Free Press is not Barstool Sports. It’s mostly boring, redundant publicity-based coverage interspersed with psychotic takes on famine. Look at their site. There are like 7 articles about one thing–Amy Comey Barret having released a book is now, shockingly, on a book tour to promote the book. And everyone involved is boring too. Unlike Barstool Sports, which has at least built its own style, they all ape TV and professional punditry, but at a B or C level.
I do not see the payoff.
Proof positive that Dems are delusional in thinking that passing programs will result in getting votes in the future.
@Modulo Myself: CBS thinks the zeitgeist is turning conservative and they want to profit by getting ahead of that imagined parade and lead it. Late stage capitalism, baby! Besides, who they gonna hire that’s better? NYT searched for months for a RW pundit to replace Kristol, and the best they could find was Ross Douthat.
I was just thinking how massively disrespectful it is to do things like declare DC to be “crime-free” or to put your name on an infrastructure project.
It’s a giant meta-message of “you are too dumb and/or poorly informed to know better”
Thing is, I wonder how many people are actually persuaded by this? Or is this like is 2017 inauguration crowd size? Everybody knew it was small, but Trump had to proclaim it huge for his own emotional needs.
@gVOR10:
I get why they believe that. But where’s the payoff? They’re getting an in-flight magazine with occasional defenses of genocide for 100-200 million. I don’t see how this brings in new viewers.
Hmm, a quick search suggests that CBS News has maybe 6 million viewers in a week. I think I read that right.
This is nothing like the days of Walter Cronkite. I know YouTube channels – several YouTube channels – that are bigger.
I don’t know one that does general news though.
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You sure seem to be willing to tell certain people that they can't put hormone blockers or hormones in their child's body. But only certain children. It's fine for other children, because they aren't "weird" or "sinful" or "woke" or some goddam thing.
The Atlantic piece is funny in a dark way, but it did make me wonder why parents who have had their kids vaccinated cant band together to refuse to have unvaccinated kids at their schools.
Steve
@gVOR10:
Silver Lining?
They somehow passed on Charlie Kirk, Ben Shapiro, and Jordan Peterson.
@Sleeping Dog:
They are if they can’t get their messaging straight! They should be taking every opportunity to be clear about the situation.
@Jay L. Gischer:
I think the general public digests this information without chewing. It’s like GWB and “nukular” — it still has an impact even if it’s subliminal.
Last one — re: DC, I love how Dems have gone from “DC crime is way down” to “there have been so many crimes in DC” based on 47’s messaging.
@Ol’ Nat: “Last one — re: DC, I love how Dems have gone from “DC crime is way down” to “there have been so many crimes in DC” based on 47’s messaging.”
Can’t really imagine why this seems remarkable to you. When Trump was saying that crime in DC was the worst in any city in the world, the Democrats rightly responded that while there was crime in DC, the rate had been going down for some time and that instead of being the worst in the world, it was actually lower than that of many US cities in red states.
Then when Trump bragged that there was absolutely no crime in DC because of his actions, Democrats rightly pointed out that there was crime, and that the crime rate hadn’t actually fallen all that much once he decided to treat the city as an occupied zone.
Both statements were simply a set of facts responding to the various self-serving lies from the president.