Monday’s Forum
Steven L. Taylor
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Monday, July 15, 2024
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70 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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From two decades ago, a Fisking (ludicrous claims put down) of https://nypost.com/2024/07/14/us-news/grateful-defiant-trump-recounts-surreal-assassination-attempt-at-rally-im-supposed-to-be-dead/
“A lot of people say it’s the most iconic photo they’ve ever seen,” Trump said. “They’re right and I didn’t die. Usually you have to die to have an iconic picture.” (Marilyn Monroe skirt? Iwo Jima Flag? Now the amazing technology that actually captured the bullet, that is new. ) He is Jesus, people, he is the Holy Ghost. a Saint, blessed {You folks need to read Mark Twain https://www.americanyawp.com/reader/19-american-empire/mark-twain-the-war-prayer-ca-1904-5/
He added,“I just wanted to keep speaking, but I just got shot.” [Monty Python, it is just a flesh wound]
The doctor at the local hospital, which has a trauma center, told him he’s never seen anyone survive getting hit by an AR-15, Trump recalled. [OMG, an AR-15 (queue NRA WTF on AR-15s, major mistake). It is a regular rifle that looks scary (I’m not afraid of AR-15s). And how many AR-15 cases has this Eastern PA doctor seen? I’m guessing ZERO. So zero divided by zero is infinity. To the Stars! And Beyond! ]
Total imaginary enemies.
Just to be clear, I totally disagree with the assassin’s veto (queue Arch Duke Ferdinand). I truly think the USA majorly is for the better as the kid missed – I don’t want a civil war.
Was he right, was he left – nope, in a country of over 300M, we have a few crazies.
In non political news,
Spain 2-1 England for the Euro 2024
Argentina 1-0 Colombia to win the Copa America
Despite all of the breathless headlines, I’m not really sure that this weekend’s events are going to change anything as far as the race is concerned.
@Jen: As always, time will tell. For the time being, I choose to believe the sky will remain in it’s place.
Did Trump get “shot with an AR-15,” or did a shard from the teleprompter that got shot with an AR-15 ding his ear? You know which version Trump will endorse (and monetize). Given the reaction from sycophants like JD Vance (it was all that “he’s Hitler” talk), the truth (motive) ultimately won’t matter…Trump is already constructing the legend.
Question….if the assassin had succeeded in killing Trump, what would’ve happened then as far as the nomination process? He hadn’t even named a running mate yet. Would it have been a free-for-all at the convention this week?
So Trump has reportedly rewritten his convention speech concentrating on “unity” as contrasted with “vilification”.
I suppose that it’s just wishfull thinking that he would stop vilifying immigrants en masse.
I wish he’d succeeded. I’m pretty pragmatic and consider myself to pretty utilitarian. I didn’t wake up thinking that I’d like to see him assisinated, but if it was going to be attempted I wish it had been successful. In all the talk here about how terrible the Republican party is we sometimes forget how uniquely awful Trump he is. Is he Hitler? No, but he is far and away the worst person to ever seriously run for president, and I include Wallace and other similar types. He is an evil person, and worse yet, he surrounds himself with evil people. Let’s say Nikki Haley had to step in as the nominee. Does anyone think she would have handled Covid substantially differently than Biden would have? She would gave listened to the experts like any normal president. And people like Stephen Miller and Steve Bañon would not be in the administration. I might not like Haley’s policy but she cares about the country and is not an evil person. She would have a cabinet with like minded people who at leat have a basic level of competence, and are not chosen based on how they much they suck up to Trump.
And then there is Project 2025. With Trump there is no question in my mind that all policy will be directed by the Heritage people, who seem to be kind of like a slightly softer version of the nazi party.
Trump is an evil person who does evil shit and surrounds himself with people just as evil. And now the Supreme Court has given their permission to do anything he wants.
@Jax: Yes, it would have been a free for all, open convention this week for the nomination.
@Senyordave: Nobody sane, even those of us who think Trump is the worst American ever to hold the office of the Presidency, thinks he should have been shot at. The way to win this is at the polls and, in Trump’s case, in the criminal courts.
@Jax: Short answer: yes, the convention would have been a mess. A lot would have depended on how states handle their delegates, for which one would have to dig through each state’s GOP guidelines. Haley, as the one (I think) with the second-most delegates would have a slight edge, simply because she has delegates (at all). However, unless those delegates are bound, even that might not have mattered.
@Jax:
I was wondering the same thing this morning. Would the RNC have to hold most if not all of its primaries and caucuses again? Or would Nikki Haley simply move up as the second place-r?
@Tony W:
If Trump is elected there are no courts and only sham elections. See: Russia.
We have been living pretty much sans news, especially political news, since the debate. I have been a political news junkie since high school, so this was something of a shock to my system. But, knowing the blowback was going to be epically ugly and depressing, we stepped away. I doubt we ever return to past behavior. Haven’t slept this well for decades.
John Prine’s Eat a Lot of Peaches has been my most recent ear worm.
Blow up your TV
Throw away your papers
Go to the country
Build you a home
Plant a little garden
Eat a lot of peaches
Try to find Jesus on your own
per The Guardian.
ETA
FFFS.
ETA 2
I’m pulling the blankets up over my head. LA LA LA LA. Nope, I can’t hear anything.
@Tony W: Criminal courts? How’s that looking these days? Given that he was shot I would rather have seen him out of the picture one way or another. Yes, he’d be a martyr but so be it. Once he’s in we’re in deep shut.
@Tony W:
We aren’t at the point where the only recourse for the people to preserve democracy is to resort to political violence.
We still have avenues open to us and we should take them.
Having said that, it is also true that the Republican Party is actively working to try and close off all possible avenues of peaceful change.
So we will have to revisit this conversation at some point in the future, depending on how events unfold.
One thing that has changed over the past eight years or so is that the prospect of political violence has shifted from a wild and crazy thought, to something a sober and reasonable person needs to contemplate.
This is because the proposed policy of the Republican party has shifted from merely conservative, to overtly fascist. They are using Putin’s Russia as a template for their preferred state of affairs.
Americans really need to shake loose the naivete of It Can’t Happen Here and acknowledge that yes, it very much can, and one party is working very hard to make it so.
Cannon dismisses Mar A Lago case, finds the use of a special prosecutor to be unconstitutional.
@Flat Earth Luddite:
It’s good to be the king
@becca: I had to do something similar a number of years ago because my blood pressure was insane (like, 153/105), and my doc basically told me that I had the diastolic blood pressure of police and firefighters she’d seen, so no stress at all until the meds started to kick in. So, no news, no social media, and I got rid of one toxic client.
It worked.
IANAL. Can the South Florida U. S. Atty refile the charges against Trump? But in any case, Cannon has ensured no conviction before the election. What @Kathy: said. Sotomayor and Kagan will pull an RBG and Trump will appoint Cannon to SCOTUS.
@Neil Hudelson: Evil is winning. All I feel is despair.
@Flat Earth Luddite: Maybe not quite that dramatically kangaroo court-ish, but did you really ever expect anything else? I know I didn’t.
Father Nathan Monk posted yesterday, “The morals of an alley cat, and apparently the lives of one too.”
It is utterly f*&king astonishing what this sad sack of a man has managed to get away with his entire life.
@Neil Hudelson: Good time to be old. My condolences to you and yours. 🙁
@Kathy:
@just nutha:
I always knew the fix was in, as it were, I’m just deeply offended by the shear ham-handedness and amateurism of the fix. Boss Hogg and sheriff Roscoe P. Coltrane did it much better on a weekly basis.
@gVOR10: Given that age is “just a number,” calling for older people to step down is “ageist nonsense,” and the basic sense of entitlement that being in authority gives one, I’d call it the nation’s destiny.
Perhaps Biden should order the FBI to arrest Judge Cannon on the grounds that her decision imperils national security. I mean, protecting national security is a core presidential responsibility, amirite?
@Flat Earth Luddite: No, I think this is about Boss Hogg-level work. The real problem is that life doesn’t imitate art (or at least what passes for it on old network TV).
@SC_Birdflyte: Sadly, that isn’t even snark anymore. It’s probably the future in some administration sometime. We’re becoming Idiocracy.
Cannon’s actions regarding the Trump case is at bare minimum a dereliction of duty and grounds for disbarment.
Even Trump’s attorney general Bill Barr appointed multiple special prosecutors for different investigations without getting approval from the Senate.
But hey, IOKIYAR, right?
Now we know. With Cannon’s ruling we know that Trump appointed Heritage judges will do anything for him. I read commentary from numerous legal experts and never once saw one that thought Trump would win on the special prosecutor being illegally appointed. This election is about the continuation of freedom in America. Make the entire campaign about Trump’s character, have endless ads about him stealing classified documents and suggest he showed them to Russia and North Korea. Go after his corruption, Steve Bannon’s corruption, Ivanka’s Chinese patents. Bring a bazooka to a gun fight. Policy – the persuadables don’t care about policy. Maybe promise a middle class tax cut paid for by higher taxes on incomes over $400k. Say or do anything to win, lie if you can get away with it.
To all of our transgender friends here, I’ll say what I will be saying to my daughter. Get a second passport. Once it occurs to them, the Trump regime will revoke passports for anyone with a passport or Real ID drivers license whose gender doesn’t match their original birth certificate.
Trump’s announcing his VP pick today. My money’s on Vance, because three Secret Service vans pulled up to his house yesterday.
@CSK: BARF.
But, good call.
@Michael Reynolds: “If Trump is elected there are no courts and only sham elections. ”
Fortunately that’s not going to be such a big change from today that anyone will notice. After all, it’s not like we have a judicial system that’s in any way distinguishable from the Trump campaign.
@CSK:
I also heard that Tim Scott was one of the potentials, but Trump said he was going to do some Apprentice shit. I guess that mean’s that Scott’s out.
@Jen:
Yeah, I know. Barf, indeed.
@Beth:
Excuse me. That would be “highly sophisticated” Apprentice shit, according to Trump.
@Senyordave:
Political assassinations are as old as politics. I think the person most likely to be murdered in a given year in the Roman Empire was the emperor. In one year, several were killed (The Year of Five Emperors).
Look up US presidential assassinations, and you’ll find multiple assassination attempts on just about every president since Kennedy. Incredibly, most of these are discovered before they can be carried out, and seldom even make the news.
Still, political assassination as a means of career advancement or electoral advantage, tends to move one’s nation towards civil war (Rome had many, including in the period cited above).
So, even though the Convicted Felon can best serve the world by leaving it, the prospect of civil war in a country with nuclear weapons and the most powerful military in history, is not worth it.
Preview of what the Convicted Felon and his associates have in mind: Masha Gessen was convicted in absentia in Russia for speaking about the many atrocities the Russian army committed in Bucha.
Gessen was born in Russia, but they sensibly live in the US, and I assume have US citizenship.
If you read through the piece, you’ll find about other Russian subjects convicted of the same non-crime, who were less fortunate in their choice of residence.
@CSK:
@Jen:
There has to be a VP candidate named at the convention, but doesn’t the Convicted Felon knows as soon as they name one, the news focus and chatter will shift to that and push the unfortunate events of last Saturday off the spotlight?
@Kathy:
Well, he has no choice but to announce it today, does he? Yeah, yeah, I know.
There was a most curious line in Melania’s public statement on Saturday’s event: “A monster who recognized my husband as an inhuman political machine.”
WTF? Is she finally admitting something we’ve all known about DJT for decades?
Well, Burgum is out of the V.P. race, according to CNN.
Listening to Pink Floyd while working today, and these lyrics caught me as oddly resonant with the times:
The lunatic is in the hall
The lunatics are in my hall
The paper holds their folded faces to the floor
And every day the paper boy brings more
And if the dam breaks open many years too soon
And if there is no room upon the hill
And if your head explodes with dark forebodings too
I’ll see you on the dark side of the moon
I know, the song is probably about Syd Barrett in particular, and insanity in general, but still.
@Kingdaddy:
You can follow that up with The Fletcher Memorial Home. No question whom it is about, as it mentions by name Reagan, Brezhnev, Thatcher, and Begin. Also McCarthy and Nixon.
I’m ambivalent about that song, as in the end it implies all the “overgrown infants” residing in the Home are to be murdered in a “Final Solution.”
But the intent and meaning is very clear.
@CSK: NYT is reporting that Vance is Trump’s VP pick.
J.D. Vance
Trump’s VP
The Guardian is saying Trump has picked JD Vance as his VP.
If true, then holy shit has Trump been had. This is a man with roughly no problems taking any position for his own advancement, who Trump will be unable to fire. While Pence didn’t have the backbone to throw the election, Vance would push Trump down the stairs if he thought he could get away with it and become President.
Photo Finish!
Jen by a nose!
@Kathy: Appreciate the recommendation, also very apropos.
Every once in a while, I indulge my nostalgia for English progressive rock of the 1970s. Today is one of those days. Who’s next? Jethro Tull? King Crimson? Hawkwind?
When I was a teen, I adored Genesis, when Peter Gabriel was still with them. I listened to The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway so many times that I drove my mom crazy (“Not again!!”). Peter Gabriel only got better after he left.
I’m much less of a fan of Rush or Yes, but I did really like Jon Anderson’s concept album, Olias of Sunhillow. I found out years later that he played all the instruments. Crazy!
@Kathy: Appreciate the recommendation, also very apropos.
Every once in a while, I indulge my nostalgia for English progressive rock of the 1970s. Today is one of those days. Who’s next? Jethro Tull? King Crimson? Hawkwind?
When I was a teen, I adored Genesis, when Peter Gabriel was still with them. I listened to The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway so many times that I drove my mom crazy (“Not again!!”). Peter Gabriel only got better after he left.
I’m much less of a fan of Rush or Yes, but I did really like Jon Anderson’s concept album, Olias of Sunhillow. I found out years later that he played all the instruments. Crazy!
And speaking of which, there has been an internecine war over delegates within the Misery GOP.
GOP credentials committee reinstates Missouri convention delegation at center of dispute
I have not paid much attention to it at all, not even enough to enjoy the circular firing squad I hope it devolves into.
@OzarkHillbilly: OMG, what a mess! Thank you for the link, and I know I’ve been out of politics long enough when the only name I recognize in the piece is that of your secretary of state. 😀
@Jen:
It’s not as though there were any good choices, is there?
Besides, the weather vane from Ohio comes highly recommended by the Convicted Felon’s oldest spawn. So this may be a case of the enemy making a mistake.
Odds and ends…
Amid the hubbub of replacing Biden and some overgrown toddler not getting shot, there was a note last week that the jury at the Bob Menendez trial has begun deliberations. Honestly i don’t recall reading another word of coverage about this trial.
It seems Xlon’s XpaceX Xalcon IX second stage did not blow up, Just the same, the FAA has grounded the type while it investigates, and while XpaceX fixes the problem. This is a big deal, as the Xalcon IX is the rocket most used for lofting satellites to orbit. For now, a NASA resupply mission to the ISS may be delayed (which might be good news for the NASA astronauts not stranded along their Boeing Starliner capsule*).
There’s good news on the next pandemic front, as most reported cases of H5N1 bird flu appear to be mild. More important, so far the spread seems confined to farm workers working with or near infected cattle and chickens. Meaning it’s not spreading from them to others.
Of course, biology being messy and complicated, this may change any time.
Today I exchanged my car’s license plates. Why they need to be changed every five years now, at least in Mexico State, I’ve no idea. I had the same ones, marked as “PERMANENT” Between 2011 and 2019.
The first exchange five years ago was free of charge. This year I got charged about $50 for the privilege of doing something mandatory. That may be the reason.
*I mean, if supplies will be delayed, then having two extra mouths to feed may prove more trouble than it’s worth. Boeing maintains the Starliner can safely return any time. If so, big if, then they are keeping it docked to gather more data for some reason.
Imagine being little Marco tonight and knowing all the orange pole smoking and spunk guzzling was all for nought.
Po Lil Marco
I have to wonder, am I the only person who has had the thought of “false flag operation” cross his mind? Mind you, I don’t believe it, but it is all just a little too perfect. I mean, the “picture”???? C’mon, it’s “made for Hollywood.”
Not that those incompetent fcks could ever pull something like this off.
Nah, the Orange One is too biggly a coward to ever be downrange of a loaded weapon. His handlers might set it up, but I can’t figure out where’d they look for a patsy for the role of “dead assassin.”. After all, SOF Magazine is dead, right?
@CSK:
In the model I hold for Trump, his VP pick will be meaningful.
That model is Trump has no agenda besides making himself rich, being adored, and playing golf. Doesn’t give a crap about anything else. He learned the first time around the job is way over his head and this time will seek someone to whom he can utterly delegate the job to. Who he picks may well be the real POTUS.
Well, I knew this day would come. Despite a major reduction in alcohol consumption (no small feat in today’s America, I assure you) and regular exercise (weights and cardio) over the last year, today’s annual physical has produced a prescription for blood pressure medication. A legacy of my father, may he rest in peace, although it was dementia that did him in and not hypertension.
@dazedandconfused: Didn’t he make that offer to some prospective VP picks back in 2016? He’d do all the fun Presidenting stuff and the VP would handle anything substantive. I think John Kasich was at least one of those he told this.
Also, Vance is strongly anti-NATO and anti-Ukraine, so I strongly suspect some connection between Trump picking him and the Kremlin.
@Mikey: …and I bet that Rod Dreher is pissing himself with glee…
@Mikey:
A story circulated in 2016, that Kasich was offered that kind of deal. He’d govern from behind the scenes, letting Convicted Felon take all the credit while the latter golfed, watched the shows, held rallies, and ate hamberders.
About Vance, is he anti-NATO and Anti-Ukraine out of his own convictions*, or because Convicted Felon is?
*It was hard to type that and not laugh. a weather vane doesn’t choose when to move.
@Michael Reynolds:
If you have a security clearance, that would cause you to lose it. Catch-22 for transgender national security professionals.
@Kingdaddy:
Random suggestion: Gentle Giant — specifically the album Free Hand. Much of their stuff is too weird and difficult for me, but that album was surprisingly accessible (and wonderful).
Alt suggestion: Renaissance, and the glorious vocals of Annie Haslam.
@Kathy:
The juxtaposition of this comment and the Jethro Tull reference above reminded me of the awesome song Weathercock, from Tull’s superb album Heavy Horses.
So apparently the Democrats are going to just give up and Bob Dole their way through to November: https://www.mediaite.com/news/senior-house-dem-tells-axios-post-shooting-weve-all-resigned-ourselves-to-a-second-trump-presidency/
@Stormy Dragon: Really silly thing to think, much less say, much less say to a reporter.
There’s still 3+ MONTHS until the election. A lot can happen, including a natural disaster (big hurricane probably the most likely) or, the possibility that Trump overplays this and people tire of it.
Throwing the towel in at this point is such dumb thing to say, that I almost think it’s an attempt at a bluff, to feed overconfidence.
@DrDaveT:
Gentle Giant? High school music teacher’s still refer to that stuff. What do you get when a bunch of classically educated musicians decide to make pop music? Some pretty hard to shake ear worms.
I just discovered who plays Stilgar in the Dune movies. Javier Bardem, the same guy who played the bad guy in No Country For Old Men. Talk about range, from that to a near-perfect Anthony Quinn from Lawrence of Arabia? That boy’s a pro.