Friday’s Forum
Steven L. Taylor
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Friday, August 2, 2024
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38 comments
About Steven L. Taylor
Steven L. Taylor is a retired Professor 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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Yet another example that JD Vance is a horrific trash fire of a person:
JD Vance’s ‘Weakest Moment’ Remark About Simone Biles Draws New Scrutiny
Senator JD Vance of Ohio, the Republican vice-presidential nominee, is drawing renewed scrutiny over his past remarks that the American gymnast Simone Biles, who won another Olympic all-around gold medal on Thursday, showed weakness when she withdrew from the previous Games because of a mental health issue.
Mr. Vance, during an appearance on Fox News in 2021, questioned why Ms. Biles was receiving acclaim for stepping away from the competition at the Tokyo games.
“I think it reflects pretty poorly on our sort of therapeutic society that we try to praise people, not for moments of strength, not for moments of heroism, but for their weakest moments,” Mr. Vance, who was running for the Senate, said at the time.
@Jen: Modern conservative culture is steeped in antipsychiatry and mental illness denialism, and of course the people who promote this outlook most loudly (a) are the weakest, most pathetic people to walk the planet (b) almost certainly have unaddressed mental health issues themselves.
As usual, it’s all projection.
Well, this seems HIGHLY suspicious. Gift link because this seems to be rather important.
I’m tempted to put quotes around “his own money” because OF COURSE IT WASN’T.
I’ve mentioned here before that Project 2025 has deep Texas roots.
The conservative manifesto Project 2025 may have nationwide aspirations — but it started in Texas
We just had an earthquake here, a small one, very small. I’m a little surprised I felt the tremors. At first I wasn’t even sure it was real.
@OzarkHillbilly: Yikes, you’re on the New Madrid, aren’t you?
Just a little something that Peter Thiel, patron of one JD Vance, once wrote:
Indignant resentment against women because giving* them the vote makes it harder for Libertarians to get their way. In other words, the answer to the fact that rational people think Libertarian ideas are childish claptrap is to exclude such people from the polity. Could their be anything more on brand for Libertarians?
*For the record, no one “gave” women the vote – they (and allied men) fought for it and won
Just got a “create an account to proceed” prompt at Politico. Anyone else?
Do I really want to create an account to read Politico? Hmm…
@MarkedMan: Politico is working normally for me – no account.
Hardly ever read Politico and am not sure I’ve ever directly visited the site, so “no” on the “anyone else” question for me.
The headline of the day- U.S. Hiring Slowed Sharply, With 114,000 Jobs Added in July
@MarkedMan:
No issue for me.
@MarkedMan: it’s 50/50 now as to whether Politico asks me to create an account or not, but yes, I’ve been asked quite a few times.
All of my family and acquaintances who are in the MAGA Camp are losing their absolute S*&t over the Algerian Woman’s boxer Imane Khelif. This is a woman who has never identified as Trans nor is she the invincible juggernaut they are making her out to be. She has won gold at one regional tournaments, and silver at the World championships in 2022. But failed to medal in Tokyo in 2021. She had won a little over 50% over her fights.
She is being attacked purely on what some people feel are her “manish” features. The attacks are vicious and cruel and based on nothing more then speculation after another contestant, Angela Carini, withdrew from her bout with Khelif. It should be noted that Carini has never won a gold medal in a tournament and has won just a little over 50% of her fights as well. I guess it better then admitting you lost to a better fighter. Also the state of woman’s Boxing, from a talent perspective, is still uneven even at the highest levels.
I swear people are looking for crap to be upsent about. This woman is positively being excoriated but the US right and Transphobes around the world (J.K Rowling) just because of her looks. God i would hate to me a woman in this world where people think it’s OK to destroy you because they think you might be trans.
And this is nothing new, a lot of woman athletes over the years have had to take the same crap and it’s disgusting. Brittney Griner has to put up with the same crap.
@Rick DeMent: From what I’ve read the IOC has an accepted definition of what qualifies someone to participate in women’s sports and the athletes fall within those qualifications. It should be a total non-issue.
@OzarkHillbilly:
You can check whether the US geological survey recorded any quakes in your area.
@Rick DeMent: Same sort of destructive garbage being thrown at Ilona Maher on the women’s rugby team. She was in tears a few days ago, defending all body types.
It’s heartbreaking. There’s just no excuse for it, at all.
@MarkedMan: Lots of things that shouldn’t be an issue become issues when members of the public decide to make them so. The Olympics are simply the current thing being unnecessarily politicized.
@just nutha: This is the thing I’ve been saying about the self identified “Christians” in the Republican Party – They are nasty snooping busybodies who want to get into everybody’s personal business. The Dems should make an issue of this: Republicans started out by going after trans people but it’s led where it inevitably must: they are now sitting in judgement of every woman and get nasty, perverse delight in publicly and loudly debating whether a this one or that one looks too man-ish to be considered a “real” woman. First they followed you into the bathroom and demanded to look at your junk, but now they’ll be looking through your records for evidence you ever got electrolysis because you wanted some upper lip hair gone.
@Rick DeMent: I believe it’s a bit more complicated than that because she and another boxer were disqualified from a competition last year. Reports on that are inconsistent… most commentary says it had to do with testosterone levels (which some woman have naturally high levels of, even to the point of being “illegal” for competition purposes) though reports say hormone testing was NOT done but some sort of medical issue was the reason. For privacy reasons, they won’t release that info. I also read that various governing boards have said they should never have been DQ’ed.
So, all in all, you broad point stands and it is awful what these athletes are being subjected to and to see the anti-trans hate flow. But that is being fueled by whatever the hell happened at the prior event.
Isn’t tranny boxing working out well? So warranted.
@Jen: No, it’s further south and east of me, about 100 miles or so. We get tremors from time to time, I’ve even been awakened on occasion. The strongest one was about a 5.3. California we are not.
On a 1-10 natural disaster scale, we are more likely to be taken out by a tornado or a Derecho. We did once get cut off from the outside world by floods but our house is a good 150′ above the nearest flowing stream so it’s not really a problem for us.
MAGA has decided that Kyle Rittenhouse is an idiot because Rittenhouse sees Trump as weak on the Second Amendment and thus refuses to vote for him.
@CSK:
I was going to say the murderer is not a complete idiot, but then I saw he intends to vote for Ron Paul as a write-in candidate.
@Kazzy: There are real questions about that disqualification.
From today’s WaPo:
@Jen:
Who runs the IBA? The Russians. Gazprom is the sole sponsor and the IBA President is only there because of the typical Russian corruption.
That tells you all you need to know. And anyone pushing the lie that Khelif is trans is simply parroting Russian propaganda.
@Jack: haven’t seen it, though I think a ZF8HP could whoop up on a Chrysler 727TF.
Moron.
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/trump-jd-vance-weird-remarks-1235072789/
It’s kind of beautiful.
@Jen:
@Mikey:
Sex is a lot more complicated than we like to think it is, largely because biology is messy. There are a number of women with XY chromosomes. They may lack some gene in the Y chromosome, or they may present androgen insensitivity. I vaguely recall reading some years back the proportion of female athletes with XY chromosomes is much higher than the proportion in the general population.
There are other oddities like XX males, X0 females, XXY males, XYY males, etc, each with varying issues as regards development, and some may lead to health issues later in life.
There’s also a great deal of variation as to how sex hormones* may or may not affect individuals, even those without the rare karyotypes. And there may be other conditions, of diverse origin, present as well.
Most people fall within the great average, naturally. The rare cases can be hard to classify for such things like athletic competition. The bottom line is that a sporting agency that knows the rules and practices of athletic contests, counseled by specialists on matters of human physiology, are far more likely to come to a fair conclusion than the public at large who has no idea of any of these complications.
*One of my pet peeves is how most people equate hormones with sex hormones, as though there were no other kind.
@Jack:
I realize that you and the OTB regulars have a longstanding friction. I too wish that this place was more inviting to alternative viewpoints.*
That being said, I ask you to reconsider using such terms. They are deeply hurtful to a lot of people. Deeply hurtful. You can make your point — and make it pointedly — without using such terms.
You don’t know me, and I don’t know you. So you are free to disregard my ask. And I will still make the ask: please reconsider using such terms. Thank you.
*OTB regulars, please don’t make this a thing right now. I’m aware of your perspectives (eg, “we want thoughtful conservatives etc”). I agree. And still.
@Kathy:
My sentiments exactly. As long as we have separate sporting events for women, there has to be qualifications. “Just accept whatever designation the athlete chooses to make” isn’t going to work. (Look at the 50-70’s era of Eastern Bloc steroid and surgical abuse, )which even the athletes didn’t completely understand. But once a sports agency has developed those rules in good faith, and the athletes qualify under them, the discussion should be over.
@Jen:
And there are other governing organizations that oversee qualifications for other Olympic sports. The body in charge of track and field, for example, has maximum testosterone criterion for eligibility to compete in certain track events. For example, Christine Mboma of Namibia was barred from competing in the 400m to middle-distance events at the Tokyo Olympics, but she won the Olympic silver in the 200m as a previously little known 18-year old. A rule change required her to take testosterone lowering drugs to compete in Paris, which she did, but didn’t qualify based on her running times. The most well known female athlete to have unusually high natural testosterone levels is probably Caster Semenya of South Africa, who is a female with identifiable male genetic characteristics. She competed for years and won Olympic medals, but the rules involving testosterone were evolving and she would have been required to take testosterone suppression drugs to continue.
We may not know much about Khelif’s natural condition, but of course the usual subjects will use this as an excuse to be transphobic.
@Rick DeMent:
As a sports headline of the day yesterday, I posted a link to the NYT article on Khelif and Carina. Not one person commented on it in the open thread.
Sometimes it feels like the trolls are simply trying to move up on the brain transplant list.
@MarkedMan:
A paper on why the measuring testosterone levels isn’t an easy, or a good, fix.
@Mimai:
I am planning to write on that topic now that the site is running.
@dazedandconfused: Why is that there is no clamor to ban men who excessively tall from competition? Surely their excess of HGH must give them an unfair advantage over “normal biological males” in basketball or volleyball…
Anyone else getting Harrison Bergeron flashbacks here? (A story more honored in the citation than in the reading, perhaps.)
@DrDaveT: I believe woman’s sports are a very good thing and the line must be drawn somewhere. We should not bury our heads in the sands of total fairness, which is not achievable.