Monday Tab Clearing
Steven L. Taylor
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Monday, May 11, 2026
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9 comments
- By the way, this is an excellent illustration of Christian Nationalism:
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
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BlueSky.
Well, how many tacky, overpriced Chinese bibles has the Pope sold?
From the Techdirt>Palantir link,
The writer goes on to argue that really an open society is necessary for innovation. Indeed. For which see the society that birthed Palantir.
But this raises a question I often ask. Why do supporters of authoritarianism always assume the dictator will rule as they wish? Isn’t it more logical to assume the regime will become a closed cabal ruling for its own benefit? Putin has displaced his original oligarch backers in favor of new oligarchs dependent on him. A President for Life Kushner isn’t going to want Alex Karp and Palantir existing as independent sources of influence. Just as Trump can’t stand universities.
@gVOR10: Pet peeve. I proof read the above and found “Alex Katy and Palantir expiating”. If I could type I’d be dangerous. I probably typed “Katp”, as confirmed by spellcheck wanting to correct it here as well. OK, no worse than my typo. But I probably typed something like “existnig”, which you, dear reader, probably would have read properly without even noticing. But spellcheck made it meaningless. I find myself having to proofread more carefully with spellcheck than without. Especially when, as here, I did a deliberate typo like “Katp” and found spellcheck had corrected it again while wan’t watching.
Re why stocks keep going up. The Dow Jones is up 44% overthe last five years. S&P is up 77% over five years. Bitcoin is up 74% over the past five years. Since Bitcoin produces nothing, shouldn’t we be asking why real companies making real things are not doing a lot better than some smoke and mirrors outfit?
Is narrowing participation a sign of a healthy market?
“FT“
@gVOR10: Oh yeah. You are highlighting why I avoid using automated spellcheck as much as possible.
Now I like it when a word is underlined because it isn’t in the checkers lexicon. That’s just fine. Just don’t do it for me. Unless you have trained on my writing for a good long time.
Pastor Robert Jeffress says in that clip, “The Pope ought to know — and I think he does — that God created both the church and government for two distinct purposes. The role of the church is to point people to faith in Jesus Christ, but the role of government is to protect citizens from evildoers, according to Romans 13.”
That is NOT what Romans 13 says (even in the tacky Chinese made version with Trump’s name on it). Romans 13 says in part, “Love your neighbor as yourself. Love does no harm to a neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.” This is pretty much what Pope Leo is saying when he states his job as Pope is to argue against war and for peace.
Jeffress isn’t illustrating Christian Nationalism. He’s demonstrating a scriptural version of Dunning Kruger.
@Scott F.:
Back in the 70s there was a song that got a lot of play in Mexico, called “What color is God’s skin?” The gist is a child asking this question of his father, and the father answers with an anti-racism message.
As to the question itself, the dad answers: Black, yellow, red, and white. We are all equal in the eyes of God.”
I wonder if today’s “Christians” would think this as blasphemy. The song pretty much calls God DEI.
It’s a pity we can’t upload images. There’s a wonderfully realistic AI-generated image on Twitter of Trump schooling Jesus in a class on ‘Introduction to Advanced Christianity’.