Friday’s Forum
Steven L. Taylor
·
Friday, November 22, 2024
·
59 comments
OTB relies on its readers to support it. Please consider helping by becoming a monthly contributor through Patreon or making a one-time contribution via PayPal. Thanks for your consideration.
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.
It’s a Friday, Gaetz’s pelt is nailed to the wall and it doesn’t look like Hemseg will last much longer. Let’s take a break going into the weekend.
My question: what book did you read in 2024 that you really liked and which you know you’ll read again soon?
For me: Craig Childs’ Atlas of a Lost World: Travels in Ice Age America. It’s a travelogue spanning millennia of sites with particular relevance to prehistoric but post-dinosaur history. A really great read, like sitting in the passenger seat of a time travel space ship listening to the pilot tell stories. I read his Animal Dialogues last year and am now hooked.
I bow to no one in my ability to have a gloomy negative outlook. But it has to be based on reality. Yesterday I was listening to an update on my company’s 401K plan, and the last part turned out to be some kind of sales pitch from a guy who thought he was much more charming ang funny than he was. But I stopped listening after he started talking about how expensive everything has gotten and then implied that a new Toyota Corolla costs $50K. I hear this so often – “You can’t buy an affordable car anymore!”. Total crap. And the Corolla is good proof of that.
– 2025 Corolla has an MSRP of $23.6K to $26.9K.
– 2000 Corolla had an MSRP of $12.9K to $15.5K.
– 2025 Corolla adjusted for inflation: $12.3K to $14.7K.
So, adjusted for 25 years of inflation, the 2025 version is cheaper. And a helluva lot better.
But maybe there is something odd about these years? Let’s look at the very first new car I ever bought, a 1986 Toyota Corolla. MSRP from $7.5K to $10.1K. The 2025 in 1986 dollars? $8.2K to $9.3K. Basically the same as today.
As long as I’m on this hobby horse, let’s look at the original iPhone versus today’s, which everyone knows just keeps going up and up without end:
2007 iPhone (cheapest model): $499
2024 iPhone (cheapest model): $799
Adjusted for inflation: $524. So $25 more.
But wait, that’s not the cheapest new iPhone you can buy . That would be the iPhone SE
2024 iPhone SE: $429
Adjusted for inflation since 2007: $282
Nancy Mace: “It’s Offensive That Sarah McBride Thinks [She’s] My Equal”
Trump gained 95,000 votes in NYC. Dems lost a half million.
I’ve seen articles about lack of Dem voter turnout in several of the battleground states. It’s less Dem voters shifted to trump, than they didn’t embrace Harris.
@Stormy Dragon:
I think Congressman Mace ought to show us his genitals, as well as a genome and a medical report on hormone levels, before we can conclude whether he’s a man or not.
I’m serious. How else can we know for sure.
@Sleeping Dog:
This country was destroyed by Joe Biden’s hubris and spite:
Pod Save America Host Says Biden’s Internal Polling Showed Trump Winning 400 Electoral Votes
It remains to be seen if Trump is indeed Hitler, but Biden was definitely our President Hidenburg
@MarkedMan:
Off topic, do you own a Corolla now?
I own a 2011 Corolla, and it’s the best car I’ve ever had. Hasn’t broken down even once*. The other day I struck up a conversation in a parking garage with a woman who has a 2010 model. She’s had a similar experience. I’m curious whether I got lucky, or if Toyota really builds them that well.
*My previous car, a 1998 Nissan Altima, broke down every few weeks. Radiator leak, broken fan belts, broken brake line, busted thermostat, and that’s just the highlights. It was an absolute nightmare between 2004 and 2011.
@Kathy: I have a 2011 Toyota Highlander, and I have never had one problem with it. I am a firm believer in the quality of Toyota’s vehicles.
@Kathy: Haven’t owned a Toyota of any kind since that 1986 model, but other Japanese cars (Honda, Infiniti, Acura, Isuzu, Subaru). Right now we have a 2015 Mini Cooper 4 door, because, hella fun to drive, great mileage (albeit mediocre reliability – it is essentially a BMW after all), and very practical for street parking. And a 2023 Subaru Outback, because it is the smallest thing that will tow our small travel trailer.
@Jax: The Highlander makes a lot of sense for you, but is just too big for us. I wish the RAV4 Prime would have a tow rating of 3500 lbs because we might really justify that. Unfortunately, Subaru is one of the few reasonably priced brands left that takes towing in its midsize vehicles seriously. For everyone else you need either a huge vehicle or a $70K investment.
One of the podcasts I listen to is The Shield of the the Republic found on the Bulwark. It focuses on national security issues and it can be dry and academic at times but it does go beyond our national political navel gazing and deals with real international issues.
The latest one is an interview with our long time Ambassador to Russia, John Sullivan.
We’re Already at War with Russia
I recommend listening to it.
@Not the IT Dept.: I can’t say I like all of Craig Childs books but I admit Atlas of a Lost World is a great book. As you say, time traveling in comfort and a realization of how huge Beringia was and entertaining the idea of migration along the shores.
@Stormy Dragon: Mace is weirdly obsessed with McBride. Mace does not seem to be doing well at all. She’s giving stalker vibes.
I don’t think Republicans attacking trans folks and fighting to confirm unqualified sex criminals and druggies will lower the price of eggs. Conservatives need to drop their focus on identity politics and get to work for the American people.
@Jax:
I’ve pretty much settled on a Toyota for my next car. Though I should say I found their dealership service department to be no better than any others. That’s why I got an independent small shop mechanic.
@MarkedMan:
I’ve never had to tow anything.
Agree on not all Childs’ books are as interesting. I also read Virga and Bone: Essays from Dry Places, a series of short essays on his travels in deserts. It was a bit of a slog.
Another author I discovered whose works are also on the To Be Read list now is Robert Macfarlane’s Underland: A Deep Time Journey”. A number of essays on experiences underground from investigating funghi to primitive underworld mythology to modern-day mining operations. He makes words dance on the page. Greatly recommended.
Gaetz quit in the face of a investigative report. We’re entitled to that report. Political titles don’t mean much nowadays, but us conservatives believe that people who commit sex crimes should receive sanctions, and if the miscreant has a high public office, the sanctions should be harsh. Jail bait should result in jail time.
Also, Marjorie Taylor Greene has an obligation to disclose any evidence of wrongdoing by public officials. Shielding criminals is not conservative nor Christian. She should be questioned at every opportunity. Press, do your job.
Since there are no restrictions vis-à-vis topic on this Open Forum I am compelled to brag on my 1992 Ford F-150 Super Cab 2wd with an 8ft bed and camper shell. Bought it new. Used it on the job on road and off road loaded with a ladder, tools and supplies. Parked it for the last time after 14 years and 320,000 miles The only major repair was an automatic transmission rebuild after 100,000+ miles. The result of not properly maintaining the transmission. Needless to say after the rebuild I maintained it religiously. Years later I took it back to the independent transmission shop for an inspection. When I told the guy that the rebuild they did lasted 200,000+ miles he said that rebuilds didn’t usually last that long! I was going to give them a plug but I can’t find them listed anywhere on the net.
I only half watched yesterday’s game, as I was also watching a Mythbusters ep (some keep sporadically trickling on). Overall, Cleveland played very much unlike a 2-8 team, and the Steelers did not play at all like an 8-2 team.
Since I wasn’t paying close attention, I think I missed a few things. like why did Tomlin switched between Wilson and Fields at QB. Was there a point to that? I had flashbacks to when Craig Morton and Roger Staubach were both at Dallas, and Landry kept switching them throughout the game. He was ridiculed for that.
About the only good thing is the Steelers managed to find the end zone they’d misplaced last week….
Oh, and great job by the Cleveland grounds crew keeping the yard lines and hash marks clean through the blizzard.
@DK:..Conservatives need to drop their focus on identity politics and get to work for the American people.
You are a laugh a minute! Where are you playing this weekend?
Alex Jones has labeled Matt Gaetz “quite the stud” for his sexual exploits with minors.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/alex-jones-praises-stud-matt-gaetz/
Via CNN, Judge Merchan has indefinitely postponed Trump’s hush money trial sentencing.
@CSK: Another step in the march to a two (or more) tiered system of justice.
In a pitch to have me join a zoom conversation, Monika Bauerlein has offered that “women in swing states voted at lower levels for Harris than they did for Joe Biden in 2020 or Hillary Clinton in 2016.” I have no input to make on this point; I offer it only as a potential talking point. Carry on.
Another nitrogen execution in Alabama.
It boggles the mind that after three such killings, officials are still claiming it’s a humane means of execution. The piece describes the inmates gasping, convulsing, trying desperately to move, and the corrections commissioner claims these are involuntary movement.
Bullshit.
I really don’t get it. Who believes it?
As I understand this, they simply pump nitrogen into a mask fitted hermetically on the inmate’s face. That’s the same thing as pumping in CO2 or argon or any other gas that’s neither oxygen, poisonous, nor corrosive. It means suffocation, which is not humane at all.
I oppose all executions (with some exceptions*), but I have to wonder: why can’t they gradually increase the proportion of nitrogen slowly, in order to bring about hypoxia gradually. This way the inmate would first lose consciousness, and then pass away without feeling or knowledge of it.
The point has to be to make them suffer in the end.
*I had no problem at all with Saddam’s execution. I’d have no problem at all seeing other such tyrants die sooner rather than later.
We should start making up Felon jokes. I’ve adapted a few anti-communist, anti-nazi, and dumb as dirt people, but we need more than that. here’s one (not a good one):
Q: How is the Felon different from the Devil?
A: The felon can’t quote scripture.
@Kathy:
I’m still driving my 2008 RAV4, ~115k miles so far, and it is still a fantastic car. Also, my dealer keeps trying to buy it back from me. Yes, they really did build them that well, at least in that era.
@Kathy:
I have read that this is not true — that the body reacts very differently to excess CO2 than it does to (say) CO, or to replacing oxygen with nitrogen. I do not have any primary sources to cite, though.
More generally, how is it that we can put down pets humanely, but the same methods somehow aren’t available for putting down humans?
Trump has picked Kelly Loeffler to be Secretary of agriculture.
LOL Dark money BS network Meidas Touch contributor published a Political Science Civics, History and Theory textbook.
I don’t understand why Dreamer Jose Ibarra killed his Latin Passion victim when Adjudicated rapist like Trump , Kavanaugh and college student gangs allow their victims to live.
Or was it because Laken Riley fought back. If E. Jean fought back, Trump would have never been a problem. Trump would have gotten the death penalty for her murder.
@DrDaveT:
Well, CO is actually poisonous. I think it binds with hemoglobin and displaces the oxygen it usually carries.
My point is that there is a sufficiently dense gas so that the mechanics of breathing are not affected. They’re neither poisonous nor corrosive, so it doesn’t damage the mouth, nose, airway, or lungs, or even causes coughing. But since they carry no oxygen, or no usable oxygen, one suffocates wile breathing normally. it’s an evil thing to subject people to.
CO2 is largely inert*, but it’s also produced by the body as a byproduct of respiration. The body may have means to sense it.
For one thing, because veterinarians are allowed or even required to carry out such procedures, and they care abut their patients and their patients’ human owners. Medical ethics do not allow doctors to participate in executions (euthanasia, freely chosen by a terminal patient, being a different matter**).
On paper, multiple drug lethal injection reads as humane. First a sedative is given which renders the inmate unconscious. Then a paralytic is administered, which stops breathing. And finally a potassium compound (I forget which) gets injected to stop the heart from beating (it might be the same that is or as used in open heart surgery to paralyze the heart while the surgeons operate).
In reality, I don’t know if it is or isn’t humane.
Since doctors aren’t involved, often the IV lines are placed in muscles rather than veins, or the lines get clogged, or both, and there may be other issues, and the inmate suffers a great deal of pain and dies slowly. that is when they even place the IV lines. Many executions are postponed because the people carrying it out can’t even get the IVs in. Not to mention several drug manufacturers refuse to provide prisons with the necessary drugs.
@Stormy Dragon: I do not get Mace’s attitude. I’m a woman, a mom, and formerly a wife (now a widow). In other words, everything the Republicans say women should be. And the existence of trans women does not threaten my womanhood at all. How could it? How could someone else’s identity change mine at all? It’s like the anti-same sex marriage folks who claimed that it would harm straight marriage.* How could it?
* I notice that you don’t hear this argument much anymore.
I’m re-watching The Good Place for the second time. the first was just a general re-watch. This time I’m looking at how Michael (SPOILER ALERT) carries out torture while pretending to be a Good Place architect.
I can’t decide whether he was subtle or not, as you can’t really un-know what’s going on. Much of it was believable.
When I first watched it, two things struck me right on the first ep. One was that the points system for admitting people was unrealistic and few people would make it (and SPOILER ALERT, I was right). the other was the possibility that they were in the Bad Place all along. I didn’t think that would be the case, because it’s become cliche since at least the classic Twilight Zone ep with the dead mobster. But I kept the notion in the back burner. I decided for it, just in time, when Shawn (SPOILER ALERT) adheres strictly and without a microgram of compassion to his deadline for Eleanor and Jason to return, and more so when he says he doesn’t even care who goes to the Bad Place.
I’m not sure what to watch for early in the second season, as that’s when (SOILER ALERT) Michael switches sides.
One thing, I had forgotten how much I disliked season 1 Tahani. She’s so shallow, self-centered, and such a show off. She has some moments, and I felt for her when she had flashback to her parents, but I thought overall she was a phony (and I was also right). Fortunately she grows over time, and by the end of he series she was my favorite.
@Kathy: My favorite thing about The Good Place turns out to be a regular Michael Schur thing, at least according to his writers: don’t consider seasons or break points when it is time to pay off a bit, just do it right then. So the big payoff in season one happens with a fair number of episodes to go. Any other show would have dragged it kicking and screaming to be the so called finale, and probably even pulled it through another season.
@MarkedMan:
I’d heard of that, too. But, for the record, I just watched season 1, and (SPOILER ALERT) Eleanor figures out they’re in the bad place in the very last ep of the season.
BTW, the actor who plays Vicki, Tiya Sircar, also voiced Sabine Wren in Rebels.
Friday, November 22, 1963. 61 years ago.
President John F. Kennedy shot dead in Dallas, Texas.
RIP
@Mister Bluster:
Those of us who were alive then won’t ever forget it.
Trump has picked Scott Bessent for treasury secretary.
@Kathy:
I think Tomlin has said that they would have packages for Fields ready to go throughout the season.
Looking at PFR, Fields played 7 snaps last night. This approach is not rare these days, though it kind of is for a QB with as many starts as Fields has had.
Off the top of my head, Baltimore did the same thing Lamar’s rookie year. Sean Payton, famously, would pull future HOFer Brees to run plays for Taysom Hill at QB–something that still happens in New Orleans, albeit without an all-timer at QB.
Landry was ridiculed because of the traditional saying, “If you have to QBs, you have none.” It is a different league now, even though you will find plenty of people who believe the saying is true. From what I can tell, there is no question who the starter for Pittsburgh has been all year, Fields only began the year under center because Wilson had a calf injury.
At this point, I think Tomlin deserves the benefit of the doubt.
@MarkedMan:
UK reliability surveys actually have Mini scoring very well
Apparently, they sorted a lot of the reliability issues on the post-2016 model iteration.
I have a certain desire to get either a Mini JCW or a Honda Civic Type R when I replace; to satisfy my inner hooligan. 😉
Or else a SEAT Leon Cupra; less reliable, but utterly mental, and less, umm, obvious than a Type R. Also, automatic, which is nice for commuting in Brum, if you don’t want your left leg to go into failure mode.
There’s been a fair amount of discussion as to why Harris lost. Paul Campos at LGM links to a YouGov poll. They asked how large various groups are as a percentage of the population. The polled subjects, for instance, estimate that 20% of us make over a million dollars a year. The actual number, to the nearest whole percent, is 0. They also estimated 27% of us are Muslim and 30% Jewish. (Really 1% and 2%). They’re closer on Black, 41% v 12 actual. Weirdly, Blacks said 52%. Which may partially be explained by living in Black neighborhoods.
Campos concludes,
Or, as I have put it here before, the electorate are a box of rocks. A fact that Republicans have learned to exploit.
@Kurtz:
I’d no idea. I also don’t may much attention when I watch other teams play. I pretty much browse the web, or write, or comment here, while the TV plays the NFL game. I pay attention when the announcers sound excited. Then I catch the replay.
On Landry’s QB controversy, it gave rise to the cruelest thing I’ve ever heard said of a pro NLS player, in their professional capacity: Craig Morton tried very hard to win a super bowl for Dallas. When he played for Denver, he finally succeeded.
I figure Dan Reeves also felt that way.
Curious that both instances involve Denver.
@CSK:
Never heard of him.
The two big questions: 1) how does he feel about tariffs?, 2) how much of a pushover is he?
@JohnSF:
Sure, but on this side of the ocean, the UK and auto reliability only triggers old jokes about room temperature beer and Lucas refrigerators.
@Kathy:
Bessent LOVES tariffs.
@Kathy: One headline I saw indicated he was a fan of tariffs replacing taxes (he’s a hedge fund guy, duh). And as a fund guy, he’ll be working in his own personal interests, so his relationship to Trump is less important. I’m guessing he’ll be another Mnuchin.
@Just nutha ignint cracker:
Well, Land Rover seem to be doing their best to live up to those jokes, so there’s that.
What surprised me was how badly Nissan did in that survey.
And how well Dacia performed, given there main selling point is “We’re Dacia, and we’re cheap as f@ck!”
The interesting thing from a UK motor industry pov is: British manufactured cars (UK is a major Toyota producer) were not inherently crap “because reasons”. It was mainly down to the UK corporate emphasis of “move the metal, screw the quality” and the workers are just tools.
Line speed as the One True God, to whom we must bow!
Whereas Toyota and Honda went for “Get it done RIGHT! And your workers are actually valuable in that process.”
@CSK:
@Just nutha ignint cracker:
Therefore an idiot.
Lordy, I sometimes wish for zombie Cobden and Bright to rise from their graves and eat these folks brains.
Then perish from malnutrition.
It’s like Marx might have said, had he got to reviewing Smoot-Hawley vs Trumponomics:
@CSK:
@Just nutha ignint cracker:
I give it, then, a 99.99999…999% chance of major economic crisis within two years. And a one times ten to the minus 100th% chance* of some sort of novel economic revolution that will benefit the middle class.
In a twisted, “go ahead, touch the stove,” kind of way, I hope it will be bad enough to finally end the felon’s political career, assuming nature or the second amendment don’t do it sooner. Twisted, because this will hurt literally billions of people. We’ll be pining for the good old days of 2008-9…
*That’s zero point one hundred zeroes followed by a 1. I may have overestimated it wildly.
Sebastian Gorka is headed back to the White House as Trump’s senior advisor for counterterrorism.
Popehat, on Bluesky:
Wife: What is a Sebastian Gorka
Me: Imagine if Mr. Potato head got a doctorate in racism from a spätzle factory
@CSK:..Those of us who were alive then won’t ever forget it.
I was 15 at the time, a sophomore in High School. We were starting choir practice when the news hit. No one could believe it.
Two days later I was at a friends house watching the funeral march on TV as the horse drawn caisson bearing the Presidents casket was followed by the riderless horse with boots in reverse in the stirrups.
“That’s where we should be.” my friend said.
“Yeah.” was all that I could reply.
This image from that day in November 1963 still haunts me.
@Mikey:
The MAGAs are thrilled.
The acquisition of Misinfowars by the Onion has hit a legal snag. Here’s a video on the matter where lawyers explain it.
Upside, The Onion should prevail (I fervently hope).
@Mister Bluster:
Michel! Ton président et mort!
My school friends told me as I arrived in Rochefort the next morning. (Time difference and slower media.)
@gVOR10:
I think we safely can put to rest the expression: ‘Wisdom of The People.’
There is no such thing as an enduring ‘Wisdom of The People.’
Sometimes ‘We The People’ have it, sometimes we don’t.
It comes and goes, and right now it’s gone for a while.
It looks as if the Portuguese golden visa is the ticket. Invest 500 K in an array of funds, get basically 10 years of residency with the beauty part being that you don’t even have to be in-country more than occasionally. The benefit over digital nomad visas is that DH requires you to be a tax resident. The US and Portugal of a double-taxation treaty, but I’d still get hit for the diff between the top US rate (37%) and the top Portuguese rate of 48%.
With the golden visa I can avoid being a tax resident so long as I am not in Portugal for 183 days or more in any given year. So, I can have essentially unlimited Portuguese residency, pay only US taxes, avoid paying Trump’s tariffs, keep the condo in state tax-free Vegas, spend 90 days there and 90 days on the road anywhere but Portugal.
The bitch is it takes 18 months to work its way through the Portuguese bureaucracy.
In related news, if the new fascist regime decides to move against trans passports, I know where to buy my daughter a valid passport and second citizenship. Not cheap, and I doubt she’ll even go for it, but I like to have escape routes planned. Daughter #1 can be St. Lucian, wife and I can be Portuguese residents. I’ll stay away from Lisbon, they’re about fed up with immigrants, but there’s Porto, Coimbra, Madeira, the Açores.
@Kathy:
Same BS from the legal hacks who predicted that Disney was going to destroy Desantis in court.
I hope Alex Jones pulls the same waiver BS used for the sale to the Onion and declares the judgement paid in full.
@Paul L.: That doesn’t make any sense. A waiver is something where you say, “you don’t have to pay me” Not “you don’t have to pay them“.
I’m not predicting the future overall, my track record ain’t that good. However, this particular thing can’t work, that’s not what a waiver is.
However, if FUAC LLC wants to make sure the plaintiffs are more richly rewarded, and can come to an agreement with them about it, they are welcome to.
So now I’m curious. Do you listen to Alex Jones/Infowars ?
No. But I have seen bits of Alex Jones/Infowars.
Connecticut families illegally messed with and rigged the bid process contrary to the sale order and should be punished. They can’t assign a monetary value to embarrassing and laughing at Alex Jones and good feelings by selling InfoWars to the Onion.
Here’s a video on the matter where a lawyer explains it.