Friday’s Forum
Steven L. Taylor
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Friday, October 25, 2024
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59 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).
Follow Steven on
Twitter and/or
BlueSky.
Massive report from New Republic dissects the hack RW polls used to pump up Trump’s polling averages the last few weeks.
Of course the media loves it — anything showing Trump gaining ground is great clickbait for them. As well, they want Trump to win for that $$, so they happily give legitimacy to anything as long as it will help in any way to generate their desired outcome.
Elon Musk’s Secret Conversations With Vladimir Putin (WSJ)
Why are American taxpayers giving subsidies and government contracts to a foreign-born bond villain? Musk is working with our enemies and rivals. This includes his attempt to buy the 2024 election for Putin-puppet rapist Trump, a mentally-deteriorating failure who admires Hitler.
I hope Musk’s security clearance is speedily reviewed.
@Gavin: I’ve been thinking a lot about polling firms lately. Maybe it’s my background in PR, but the question of accuracy is bread and butter to them–their entire currency is bound up in their ability to provide predictions that, more often than not, are correct. They don’t want another 2016 on their hands, so instead of providing numbers to a public that is fairly illiterate in statistics, it’s easier (and safer for them) to just say “COIN TOSS!!1!” and leave it at that.
Defining terms.
Why is a C-section not like an abortion?
@JKB: Honest question: I assume the reason you are anti-abortion is because you believe a human egg at the moment it merges with a sperm cell is equivalent to an outside-the-womb baby, and I assume you believe that because of your religious beliefs, but why should those beliefs apply to anyone else?
@JKB: we’ll take it out of her and stick it into your belly instead, ok?
Anyone who claims to be “pro-life” but doesn’t volunteer his/her own kidney/lung/liver/blood/bone marrow to be grabbed as needed is not “pro-life” at all. Oh, and you had better be vegan as well.
@MarkedMan:
Why do you assume I am anti-abortion? I support pregnancy termination prior to the fetal stage.
as it was called even back into Medieval times, the “quickening”, when the mother could feel the movement of the fetus.
I do not support the “at moment of conception” because I do not follow the “jihadist” Pope Pius IX’s doctrine introduced in the mid to late-19th century. I do support strict scrutiny “life of the mother” abortions before fetus viability.
@JKB:
so you should not be forced to follow someone else’s religious beliefs when it comes to abortion?
And I assume you believe the quickening is significant because of your own religious beliefs? And other people should have to abide by your beliefs but not Pope Pius’, why exactly?
“If you can’t understand why your trans friend is so scared right now, then you don’t have a trans friend, you just know a trans person”
@JKB:
I’m curious about “life of the mother” in cases where the pregnancy has passed beyond fetal viability (weeks 20 through 25 and 6 days of pregnancy, according to Wikipedia) but, due to congenital or other defects, the fetus will not live for any prolonged period of time after birth?
That seems to be the biggest sticking point in all the most restrictive abortion laws. This is exacerbated by the fact that they are often written with a distinct lack of clarity, which causes risk-adverse institutions (like hospitals) to interpret them in the most restrictive ways possible.
@Stormy Dragon:
Well said.
And that sentence applies to a lot of minority populations.
If you need a break from politics, why not read someone praise Randy Newman’s lesser known works?
https://www.theatlantic.com/books/archive/2024/10/randy-newman-biography-review/680335/
I’ve always been a fan of songs from his earlier, pre-soundtrack period, like “Political Science,” “Sail Away,” “God’s Song (That’s Why I Love Mankind),” “Rider In The Rain,” “My Life Is Good,” “It’s Money That I Love,” et al. Often very funny, never pulls a punch.
@JKB: I have a very different question about this posted exchange. Why does it matter at all? Someone somewhere in America said something you think is dumb. It’s not someone you’ve ever heard of. It could be made up. It probably isn’t, but wow, you think that it’s newsworthy when someone says something that seems dumb?
Or maybe it wasn’t so dumb and has been cherry picked. We don’t know, but I do know that this is the kind of thing I don’t pay any attention to.
And by the way, fetuses die for lots of reasons, not just abortion. Which is why I pay no attention at all to Ben Shapiro. He’s a guy who pretends to know things he doesn’t know.
@Kingdaddy: I bought “Sail Away” as a teenager, and considered it a revelation, both musically and on world-view. I’ve easily listened to it a hundred times or more
It does seem the big sticking point in the Boeing machinist’s strike is pensions.
I don’t see how Boeing can muster the funds to pay them, seeing as how they’ve been hemorrhaging money wince the MAX crashes in 2019 and 2020. I do see all of that as the fault of management. Further, given the many quality control issues surfacing now, it’s ludicrous to think undercompensating workers will improve quality.
I don’t know. maybe they should get a trillion dollar bailout so they can buy back more shares. That always makes everything better.
On other news, Southwest has reached a truce of sorts with Elliot Management. they appointed six board members approved by Elliot (or, as I like to call then, Borg nanoprobes) and removed the current head of the board. The airline keeps the current CEO, and Elliot’s demand for a shareholder meeting has been withdrawn.
I await analysis by Brett Snyder at Cranky Flier blog, as he is a long time industry watcher, especially as regards revenue and financials (and has worked in the revenue department for an airline).
@JKB: @JKB: wouldn’t “termination prior to the fetal stage” not be an “abortion” if “abortion” is “death of a fetus”? You are of course welcome to define terms in whatever way you want, but it will facilitate conversation and avoid people making incorrect assumptions if you either use common-usage definitions or make it clear what your definitions are.
On better news, the last season of Lower Decks is supposed to have premiered yesterday. I totally forgot about it and didn’t check Paramount+ last night. Once it’s done, I plan to cancel Paramount+ until the next season of Strange New Worlds.
Bad calls from the officials can decide games. This is well known and we should make out peace with it. Officials are human and make mistakes.
Still, missing a face mask grab right in front of you goes beyond a bad call. I’d call is a complete failure of the officials’ duty.
Worse yet, as the grab was in the end zone, it was ruled a safety. This sealed the game for the Rams.
Would the Vikings have won if the penalty had been called? Hard to say. They would still have to advance over 80 yards to the Rams’ end zone, score a TD, and convert on two points just to tie the score. Not easy with around 96 seconds left and no timeouts, but not impossible. Then anything might have happened in overtime.
And there’s Kathy’s First Law: all the game time counts. Meaning if you didn’t sufficiently outscore the other team over 58 minutes, then scramble desperately to score, you lost due to all you and the other team did or didn’t do throughout the game, not only the last two minutes. Ideally you want a two score advantage by the time of the 2 minute warning*.
What I find infuriating is that face mask grabbing is really dangerous. Picture a man with a body mass of over 100 kg twisting your neck, often running at speed or falling down. IMO, the penalty for that ought to be ejection of the perpetrator, besides 15 yards and a first down.
*A warning of what, I’ve often wondered. That time is running out? Clock management is a skill all NFL teams practice and hone. But I suppose calling it the impartial 2 minute time out is too verbose.
@JKB: as someone who has been pregnant, I can tell you that the quickening usually occurs much later than 9-11 weeks. I was probably five months pregnant before I felt my baby kick. According to Cleveland Clinic, quickening typically happens around 16 to 20 weeks.
Following up on our open thread conversation yesterday, I saw a link to this 2023 New Yorker article today: What’s the Matter with Men? One quote sounds very much like MR’s argument:
The article says that the book is very good in making a case for the crisis among men and boys and the need to address it, but lacking when it comes to solutions.
ETA: one interesting point Reeves made was that while men still dominate in the workplace, that could change as fast as the current dominance of women in education has changed, due to two factors: first, women have either surpassed or are rapidly catching up to men in degrees in high-paying fields such as law, medicine, STEM, and business. And second, the pandemic has forced employers to be more flexible with scheduling, which has long been a huge obstacle to career advancement for women with children. (Whether employer flexibility will persist the further we get from the pandemic remains to be seen, especially with the current “return to office” push among many employers.)
@JKB: I get that this is the forum and all, so I really, really don’t mean this as a criticism, but HUH?????
@Monala:
One thing I’ve noticed with the MR argument is how much it ties male self-image to exclusivity. Men apparently can’t draw purpose from anything unless they’re the only ones allowed to do it.
Almost like it’s not really about “male identity” and really about obtaining social leverage to control other people.
@Kathy: In theory–and actual practice and as a matter of law in the case of 3rd party-managed pensions–the pension money was “held in trust” for the purpose of paying pensions as people retired. If Boeing “no longer has” the money to provide pensions, the in-trust funds were (possibly illegally) diverted to other purposes.
When boards of directors or fiduciaries/trustees perform such diversions, it’s called “conversion;” when other parties do it it’s called “embezzlement” or “theft.” Why society makes that distinction is beyond me, as are many other distinctions society makes.
You point about Boeing not having the money because of its current financial situation is compelling–or at least would be if the funds hadn’t been
stoleneh… converted in the first place. Given that it was, the rationale falls on deaf ears. The people who stole the money have to put it back and the board needs to dismiss the thieves so they can be prosecuted on their own nickel instead of the company’s.Yes, I know this isn’t going to happen. It’s the American way.
@Stormy Dragon: that is an excellent point!
@just nutha:
I’m thinking more about pensions for all the workers hired since 2014, when the last contract was negotiated. I don’t know what became of the funds available til then. Whether they were distributed, held, or used to buy back more shares…
@Kathy: The 2-minute warning was instituted to allow an additional fixed advertising break for television.
@Kathy:
There are several rules that change or only apply during the final 2 minutes of each half.
@just nutha:
Oh, that actually makes sense. Warning the audience it’s their last chance to go grab a snack or use the bathroom before the game ends, hopefully in dramatic fashion.
@Kathy: Why aerospace workers have been working without a revised contract since 2014 is puzzling to me, but in my day, pension contribution increases were fixed as to size by law and were miniscule in salary increase impact. But our pension was paid into a trust fund (Western States Teamsters)*, so even pennies added up. If aerospace has the same system–and most union operated funds have at least similar systems–making up the lost contributions isn’t a formidable outlay. But might need agreement between labor and management for a bypass of usual limit fixation. Why management would object probably comes under the Boeing management issues I alluded to yesterday.
*The 3 Teamster pension trusts total trillions (with a “T”) of dollars in assets. The Western States trust is ~$500 billion and was the smallest of the three in my day (50 years ago).
WaPo is following the LAT in refusing to endorse. I just canceled. Any writer who still works for them tomorrow is of no value.
@Michael Reynolds: Hats off to you, sir.
I’ve noticed some around here, in critiquing the media’s continued failure to hold Trump accountable, pointing towards billionaire ownership and urging folks to follow the money. Others have pooh-poohed this notion.
The billionaire owners of the LA Slimes and the Washington Compost have now blocked their editors’ planned endorsement of Kamala Harris.
Oh.
@DK:
Those owners must be assuming Trump will win, and don’t want to offend him. Chickens.
@CSK:
They’ve already failed. What El Felon will remember is they didn’t endorse him.
@CSK:
Oh, I think they want him to win – lower personal taxes, lower corporate taxes, no support for unions, no wealth tax… what’s not to like, if you’re a billionaire?
A monument to the January 6 traitors has been placed across from the Capitol.
The plaque reads, in part: “This memorial honors the brave men and women who broke into the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021 to loot, urinate and defecate throughout those hallowed halls in order to overturn an election.”
@Kathy:
Well something like 80 media outlets have endorsed Harris, and fewer than 9 Trump, so he can spread his ire around. Besides, the only one he really cares about is the NYT.
@restless:
Of course they want him to win.
This is from The Bulwark, I think it is very well said:
When institutions like WaPo preemptively get out of the way of an aspiring authoritarian, that’s what crumpling guardrails look like. WaPo’s owner, Jeff Bezos, is signaling that he’s willing to bend the knee. I wonder if he really thought this through?
I lived about 40 miles from DC for almost thirty years. I subscribed to Wapo for about the first half of that period, ending the subscription because they had Mark Thiessen as an occasional columnist, and I refused to help pay his salary.
Biden delivers “long overdue” apology in Arizona for Indian boarding school atrocities (CBS News)
The modern GOAT continues to get it done. And President Uncle Joe looks fantastic, too.
Referring back to yesterdays post re Trump’s “end income tax: replace with tariffs” proposition, there is an insight into the MAGA reception of it on Jack Posobiec’s xittter post.
I looked at it briefly, and could feel the neurons being sucked out of my head by the osmotic effect of sheer concentrated stupidity.
Totally out there on the moors and howling at the moon.
I might get snarky about American Republican enthusiasts being silly; but then, there are still British ultra-Cons praising the Truss/Kwarteng budget as a brilliant idea done in by the far-leftist bond markets.
Idiocy seems to have no national boundaries, unfortunately.
@Kathy:
Not to mention parading a Confederate flag through the halls of the Capitol.
@JohnSF:
I’ll never forget the two women who proudly proclaimed that they were going to “find Nancy Pelosi and put a bullet through that bitch’s brain.”
Meanwhile, in South America:
Brazil blocks Venezuela’s membership of the BRICS.
Madero accuses Brazil of “aggression”. Lol.
Lula may be inclined to poke the West in the eye, but he is, at base, a democrat.
And probably pissed off at Madero’s refusal allow Brazil to negotiate a compromise.
Perhaps also unhappy about Venezuelan menaces re. Guyana.
Meanwhile in Russia:
UN Secretary General Guterres attends the BRICS summit, rather unnecessarily, and pays full respects to Putin, on whom a ICCJ warrant is outstanding.
Idiot.
Meanwhile in the European Caucasus:
Georgian elections are close, but bet on the government to fake it over the line.
Meanwhile in Britain:
Far-Right agitator “Tommy Robinson” (real name Anthony Yaxley-Lennon) charged under Terrorism Act.
Yet another lesson to the Far Right: the UK Labour government is not to be f@cked with.
@just nutha:
All I can tell you is that’s the date for the last contract reported in the media, including aviation blogs.
@JohnSF:
Do you know how many people want to go back to gold and silver currency?
@Michael Reynolds:
Robert Kagan has just resigned from the WaPo editorial board, it seems.
Good for him.
Cue “horrid rotten neo-con” squawks from both ends of the horse-shoe
@Michael Reynolds: Agreed. I just cancelled. That an extra twelve bucks a month I have for beer.
@Kathy:
Exact numbers, no.
But divide total number by IQ to get an imaginary number. 😉
It’s so silly: China in c 800 moved to using paper currency on a nominal silver backing because actual silver was inadequate, and copper too damn cumbersome.
The dimwit MAGA look at the entire currency history of the West, and in particular the post-WW2 Dumbarton Oaks etc agreements, that set up the longest sustained (relatively) peaceful economic growth period in human history and decide “Hey! I’m WAY smarter than that!”.
An army of Fredo’s.
@Lucysfootball: Who knew that Democracy Dies in Darkness was going to evolve into a goal?
@JohnSF: I don’t know how many are fans and how many are just go alongs either. What I can say is that over the years, nearly everyone I’ve ever heard advocating a return to gold-backed currency was also willing to admit a substantial presence in the gold investment market. I can understand why they advocate for the position, given that presence.
Israel is carrying out air raids in Iran.
I’m wondering about the logistics, where are the aircraft based, what routes they took, and what countries let them through or tried to impede their progress.
Here we go or just a precursor?
IDF strikes in Iran.
@JohnSF:
@Just nutha ignint cracker:
The idea caught some popularity in Mexico in the second half of the 90s. This after three or four massive currency devaluations, and a period of 150+% inflation. But mostly after the 1995 devaluation and economic crisis.
Only the favored metal was silver, as Mexico is a large producer of it, but not of gold.
Nothing ever came off it. Though the government since then twice issued bimetallic coins with a silver center, denominated at 20 and 50 pesos. Some people collected them, but their face value never changed.
Fact is money and monetary policy are far more complex than most people know, let alone what they understand. Gold or silver are not necessarily terrible ideas, but they’re not the panacea of stability many of their advocates claim.
@Just nutha ignint cracker:
Welp, it surely makes sense if you’re invested in precious, precious metals, without a doubt.
From the pov of desiring functioning post-1900 economies, not so much.
What is rather funny is both the dismissal of all counter-metallic argument from 1850 to date as somehow a statist conspiracy, and even more, sliding past the populist anti-metal guys of the 19th century to the polar opposite.
“Whatever the libs support, I’m agin’ it!”
Re Iran strikes: my suspicion is, Israel will build this incrementally.
To test Iranian defenses, to calculate target positions, and as an exercise in political humiliation.
@Kathy:
Paper money is fiat currency — it is worth precisely whatever the market is willing to value it at.
Gold and silver are… also fiat currency, also worth exactly whatever the market is willing to value it at. The enormous fluctuations in the price of gold over the years should be enough to prove this even to the clinically dense, but apparently not. Worse yet, both gold and silver have enormous value as industrial materials, which goes mostly unrealized because of their inflated values as specie. If gold looked like lead, everyone would be better off.
Second wave Israel strike reported.
Targets seem to be missile and IRG command related.
Strikes also on targets in Syria.
Appears to be a focus on IRG.
I was born in Rochester NY in January of 1948. Grade school for me in the 1950s was in the suburbs of Irondequoit and later Webster. In my neighborhood a baseball fan either loved the Yankees or hated them. Can’t say how I arrived at my allegiance to the Brooklyn Dodgers, I just remember coming home from school to catch the last few innings of the Yankees-Dodgers World Series on the radio in 1955 to hear the Dodgers finally beat the Yankees in a World Series for the first time after 5 crushing defeats since 1941. The following year in what would be the last crosstown match up between the Bronx and Brooklyn I got home in time to hear the end of game 7. Yankees won 9-0 on the Dodger’s home field. I hid in my parents bedroom closet and cried like a baby. As if that wasn’t enough of a cross to bear my Brooklyn Dodgers picked up and moved to Los Angeles after the 1957 season.
So here we are with another Yankees-Dodgers World Series. The 5th Fall Classic meeting for the two rivals since the Dodgers went to the west coast.
Who am I going to root for?
My family left Rochester for Illinois in 1961. It wasn’t long before I got to be a Cub fan like my dad and his father. My gramps was 21 in 1908 when the Cubs won the World Series. There wasn’t even radio yet. He had to read about it in the newspaper. My dad lived out his 85 years only to suffer the Cubs losing the World Series six times. When the Cubs won in 2016 I put a Cubs flag on his grave.
Ever since former Cub Joe Girardi led the Yankees to World Series victory in 2009 and broke the curse that a former Cub on a team meant certain defeat I have tempered my dislike of the Bronx Bombers.
Now it’s been 60+ years since the Dodgers ripped my heart out and moved to the West Coast. On a visit to my brother in Los Angeles 35(?) years ago he took me to opening day at Dodger Stadium. I don’t remember much about the game but I’m sure I cheered for the Dodgers.
So what about this year?
The Yankees are leading 2-1 in the 7th inning in California in Game 1.
I think that I should get off the fence before the game is over.
GO BLUE!
Dodgers win on a walk off Grand Slam with two outs in the bottom of the 10th!
Looks like this is gonna’ be a great series!
@Mister Bluster:
Can I now proceed to expostulate on the wondefulness of the English cricket Test victory in Pakistan? 😉
I’ve been seeing quite a lot of social media comments about baseball lately.
Seems like your season is quite dramatic; but I’m still having difficulty working out exactly what’s going on.
Being as I’m a sorta Americanophile, I’m going to have to study baseball at some point, I suppose.
So: whats happening?
And what’s the best way to understand what’s happening?
🙂
@JohnSF:..And what’s the best way to understand what’s happening?
Who’s on First?
(Hope this link works where you are.)