Monday’s Forum
Steven L. Taylor
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Monday, December 16, 2024
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79 comments
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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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Some 2024 statistics I calculated:
* Every state shifted toward Trump relative to 2020. The state which shifted by the least was Washington, where Harris did exactly 1% worse than Biden four years ago. The only electoral-vote unit where Harris improved over Biden was Nebraska’s 1st district, which Harris lost, but did 1.92% better than Biden.
* On average, Trump showed his biggest improvements relative to 2020 in states Harris won. The state where he improved by the most was New York, where he did 10.53% better than in 2020. His biggest improvement in a red state was in Florida, where he did 9.74% better than in 2020.
* Harris still did better than Hillary in 23 states (Colorado, Vermont, Nebraska, Kansas, Maine, Delaware, Oregon, Georgia, Minnesota, Washington, New Hampshire, Oklahoma, Maryland, Alaska, Connecticut, South Dakota, Montana, Wyoming, North Carolina, and Virginia). Nebraska’s 2nd was the one electoral vote Harris won that Hillary lost.
* Harris outperformed Obama 2012 in 13 states (Utah, Colorado, Georgia, Kansas, Arizona, Washington, Maryland, Oregon, Texas, Massachusetts, Virginia, Nebraska, and Alaska).
* Harris outperformed Obama 2008 in 7 states (Alaska, Utah, Maryland, Arizona, Georgia, Colorado, and Washington) and even did better in Nebraska’s 2nd, which Obama won in that cycle. The overall leftward shift of that district even in a bad year for Dems is worth noting.
* The tipping-point state was Pennsylvania, which Trump won by 1.7%. As his national margin was 1.5%, that means the EC was skewed toward the Republicans by just 0.2%, compared to 3.8% in 2020 and 2.8% in 2016. In other words, this is the first election of the Trump era in which his national numbers were fairly consistent with the EC outcome, largely a result of his aforementioned improvements in blue states.
Yet another horror story.
A Coast Guard Commander Miscarried. She Nearly Died After Being Denied Care.
Regarding the ongoing social media discussion on denial of healthcare. My personal experience, albeit 20 years ago, could provide some additional insight.
I was on a family plan provided by my employer (with some cost sharing of premiums). My wife developed an abdominal cancer, that was difficult to properly identify (frozen sections were examined at several institutions across the US).
Bottom line was after surgical excision, a decision had to be made about chemo/radiation.
My employer provided insurer Blue Cross, would not give pre-approval to any treatment at all.
By happen chance I causally mentioned our plight to a friend in the company’s HR.
After 8 or so weeks of stone-walling BC/BS called me to say that they would now cover her prescribed treatment. So I called my friend in HR and she gave me a general description of how the company chooses the health insurance provider to ADMINISTER insurance to it’s employee’s.
At least at that time (20 years ago) each potential healthcare insurer would submit several plans to the corporate HR, and Corporate HR would choose the plans. In my case the company had chosen a plan that did not provide coverage for post-operative treatment of “inadequately identified carcinoma”.
After HR heard of my wife’s case THEY went to bat for me and “ordered” BC/BS to cover the recommended treatment.
So to summarize, it wasn’t the healthcare insurer that had been declining coverage but my employer. BC/BS was simply carrying out the directions given by my employer.
If this type of arrangement still is prevalent today, then some of the complaints about the healthcare “insurer” are misplaced.
(sorry for being so long)
@Bobert:
I see this kind of thing happening in the context of trans healthcare all the time. HR depts are constantly getting told that they still have to follow IL even if they aren’t insurers.
What radicalized me against the health insurance companies was Aetna in 2013. I had a crappy, expensive, Aetna plan and my partner had BCBS. I was the only one covered on the Aetna plan and was a dependent on the BCBS plan.
Long story short I broke my neck and needed a 3 disk spinal fusion. Aetna took forever to approve the surgery even through the CT scan looked like someone shoved a grape into my spine. On the day before surgery Aetna denied the claim because of the BCBS plan. It took an additional 30 days for Aetna to reapprove the surgery. Surgery was a success. A week after surgery Aetna denied the claim again in full. A lawsuit between BCBS and Aetna ended up resolving it. I dropped Aetna immediately after that. All those CEOs can choke as far as I’m concerned.
@Bobert: ..
No apology necessary. Your prose is clear, concise and to the point.
Part of the problem is that since the decision by SCOTUS in the early 80s that a corporations sole duty is maximizing shareholder return, all corporations are legally required to be cons: to suck as much money as possible out of whatever system they exist in, while expending the absolute minimum amount of effort possible to enable it.
Before this, and for most of the country’s history, corporations had a duty to multiple parties (customers, employees, etc.) and had to balance what was best for all those groups. Things kept going for a while as the momentum of leadership that came up under the old system, but as those people were gradually replaced with “financebros” that actively embraced the con, things have inevitably begun to spin out of control.
@Beth:
I think I’m seeing a pattern. In the 90s and the years leading up to Obamacare, there was much talk about insurers denying coverage to people with pre-existing conditions. Now it seems to be to deny specific claims and procedures.
The time frame doesn’t work for @Bobert’s experience. SO maybe denial of claims was always a factor, along with denial of coverage. But now when they have to cover everyone, they are denying more claims?
Here are some MAGA explanations for the drone sightings:
1. Government psyops to create mass panic
2. They originate from an Iranian mothership
3. Radiation sniffers to detect a nuclear device that was smuggled over the border
4. Neocons desperate to cause war
There may be a buyer for SIL’s business. Moving to bluer pastures is starting to get real.
The only thing I will hate to leave is our house. To us it is magical. I know I sang its praises five years ago when we bought it. It is so unique. There are four sets of glass French doors of varying width and style. All interior doors are reclaimed and framed glass. Bath and bedroom doors are filtered for privacy. There’s a mirrored hallway that creates infinity lighting of all the Christmas decor. There’s a leaded cut glass interior window next to the fireplace that does the same. There is nothing palatial, nothing ostentatious, just interesting and surprising. Just a really cool house of reflection and light.
And, of course, the lake. My only demand when we pull the trigger and relocate is that it I can get on a boat and float from my own dock.
This year Hell Week is producing crappy weekends. These past two I’ve had to come in on Saturdays to catch up on work. This leaves me too tired to write. I try, I just can’t focus. I wanted to do some corrections and final revision to my story and submit to a magazine (they are still around and some do pay for stories).
I made the corrections, but couldn’t figure out the two scenes that need changes. one I may leave as is. The other is the ending, which I feel needs to be more than 3 pages long. In particular the very end needs something extra. I couldn’t come up with anything.
BTW, is there something in the Bechdel test about one man and one woman talking about another woman? Or two women talking about a third woman?
@becca:
I can envision you and Ms. Sadie doing just that.
@Kylopod: Speaking only for myself, of course, I’d be interested in what the factoids are prompting you to conclude. What, if anything, does that all show? What does it mean for Ds/Rs about the future of the parties? The zeitgeist of the body politic?
@CSK: As MAGA explanations go, those seem remarkably lucid. Are MAGAts becoming more rational than in the recent past? Are they telling their crazies to STFU? Any theories?
@just nutha:
I don’t know. Trump thinks that the government should either explain what the drones are or we should shoot them down.
Democrats with influence (in or on) the Biden White House have shown their true colors in having Biden pardon the Pennsylvania ‘Kid for Cash’ judge.
Children, especially poor kids, are simply profit centers for Democrats, either sending them away to please corporate supporters or sending them to be mutilated in a Gender Conversion clinic. And the ones they can’t profit off of, they use the teachers’ unions to ensure they can’t read and write if they attend a school in a Democrat controlled city.
Interesting how hard some Democrats are working to ensure Biden’s legacy is the worst of all presidents.
@just nutha:
Hopefully, @Kylopod will share their thoughts, but I’ll throw my two cents in now.
The first bullet says it all, in my opinion, as it reinforces a point made by Prof. Taylor right after the election. Namely, that Trump won on the basis of the global anti-incumbency wave. In the most general terms, the zeitgeist is that people are dissatisfied with where things stand in the world right now and they want change. Direction of the change, capability to deliver the change, trust in the character of the changemaker – all were less relevant than the simple “Trump [or insert any other demagogue] Will Fix It.”
As for future direction of the parties, I hope the Democrats don’t change much at all. Personally, I really liked what the Harris/Walz campaign stood for and how they ran. And I know that simple solutions are unicorns. So when “where things stand in the world” isn’t changed in 2 years or 4 years from now – either because Trump voters discover they don’t like what Trump wants to do OR because what Trump did doesn’t solve immigration or foreign wars or the price of groceries – the Dem should run on “Can we try it our way now?”
@Scott F.:
I’m not entirely happy about it* but I think the future for Democrats is what’s being called the Conservative Left in Europe. Basically, tone down identity politics, get immigration under control, and go after the undeserving rich.** Less race and gender, more class. Edge conservative on social issues, especially immigration, and swing pretty hard Left on economy.
*The last thing I was ever entirely happy with was. . . wait, it’ll come to me.
**Elon in government is a fantastic target of opportunity. He’s an oligarch who is also a dick, an organically unlikable person.
@JKB:
This is nothing short of an absolute disgrace. As is Biden commuting the sentence of Rita Crundwell. C
Just more signs nothing is well with Biden and I have been saying it for a long time and prior to the June debate I was ridiculed for saying so. Please explain to me how commuting a judge who threw children into jail in return for cash and doing the same for a person who plundered a town to pay for her quarter horses is in any way the sign of a person who has any kind of adequate mental faculties.
Gun supporters are using children for target practice again.
@JKB:
Documented source for this information, please.
@CSK: That might be a couple of good choices, but presumes 1) that teh gubmint knows what they are, and/or 2) that the flights are clearly illegal/nefarious in intent.
But this is what Murkans voted for. 🙁
@JKB: “Democrats with influence (in or on) the Biden White House have shown their true colors in having Biden pardon the Pennsylvania ‘Kid for Cash’ judge.”
Another disgusting lie. Yes, he was pardoned, which is outrageous — but no one was calling for him to get it. Biden issued a blanket pardon for all those who were serving out their sentences at home because of Covid, and he was swept up in that.
Sloppy and terrible, but how dare you claim that Democrats see kids a profit centers when Republicans across the country are eliminating child labor laws.
@Michael Reynolds: “The last thing I was ever entirely happy with was. . . wait, it’ll come to me.”
Dude — your wife!
@Bill Jempty: “Please explain to me how commuting a judge who threw children into jail in return for cash”
I just did. But then, it took me at least five seconds to find the answer on Google, so I understand why you’d simply choose to hyperventilate instead of putting in all that hard work.
@JKB:
How many children a year do you think get Gender Conversion Mutilation?
What are the top three techniques of GCM? Please, explain exactly what you mean.
Who profits, and how much do they profit? What is the total economic impact of the child Gender Conversion Mutilation industry?
How many children each year get mutilated by guns? How many don’t get enough to eat?
I kind of think you don’t give a flying fuck about children, except when you think you can use them to attempt to score a point, and even there you don’t know shit.
What does von Mises have to say? And do you really think the ghost of Von Mises is looking down on you with approval?
A school shooting appears to be happening in Madison, WI, right now. I have no further information at this time. I’m disgusted by my failure to be shocked. I never thought that I would be inured to such events, but here we are. Don’t bother commenting. Nothing is going to change.
@JKB:
WA! Every time I think you can’t possibly say anything stupider you show me I’m wrong. Where is the bottom of the inanity, dude?
If von Mises could hear you, he rise up from the grave to burn his books himself. Yikes!
@wr:
First blanket pardon is just the latest excuse for people trying to explain away Biden’s mental state. There is no excusing giving Michael Conahan a sentence commutation. The judge abused children and Biden and his administration is just another example of people defending/covering up/excusing the behavior. Remember that talk page conversation we had about 10 days ago.
Horrendous behavior by one party isn’t defensible because another party is doing similarly.
Just to comment on Robert’s issue since I was in charge of choosing our corporations health insurance plan, you have always have lots of choices. You can pay more and (s0metimes) get a better plan or pay less and (usually) get a worse plan. With the ACA in effect most plans cover most of the same stuff so you are mostly talking about differences in out of pocket spending. You can still buy plans that dont meet ACA standards in some circumstances but I dont think many employers do that.
However, the incident was before the ACA. Back then you could buy plans that would exclude stuff like OB care or chemotherapy. However, I dont remember (which may be a function of my memory) plans specifying inadequately defined carcinoma. I think it more likely that there wasn’t any standard therapy at the time so that the insurance company was unwilling to pay for what might have been considered experimental treatment. (Almost all cancer treatment is done by protocol and it starts with a diagnosis so that they know everyone in the protocol has the same cancer.) As an aside, I have found that insurance companies are afraid of losing market share. I would bet that the HR people threatened to choose a new insurance company.
On health related topics, nice review of Medicare at 60. Of note, costs have been falling and Medicare’s solvency is expected to last much longer than was projected. Going forward we will spend more on Medicare, in projections, because it will cover more people. Actual prices are predicted to continue to increase at a rate lower than inflation or even decrease.
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/1475-6773.14415
Steve
@Liberal Capitalist: Part of the drop in test scores has been that we are testing more kids — specifically special ed kids who are getting mainstreamed as much as possible in the Democrat Party Controlled Schools rather than just stuck in a broom closet or “taught” at home (in a broom closet) in Godly Republican Rural Paradises.
@wr: @wr:
Instead of taking assinine potshots at me instead explain how really great it is to let an abuser of children off. I’m waiting for a reply.
@Bill Jempty:
It isn’t. It’s not great.
But, it was a blanket pardon to more than 1500 people. Would I have been happier if they’d gone through each one and checked? Yes, yes I would. But, here’s the thing: we can pretty safely assume that most of these folks did something really, really wrong to end up in (checks notes) PRISON. But, they’d been essentially out, serving at home, since the pandemic.
@Bill Jempty:
Do you think that Biden personally went through each pardon, weighing the specific case? Do you think this is what Biden spends him time Presidenting? That he has no other responsibilities? Whose mental state is really declining here?
He went with a set of criteria, based on the home confinement, etc.
It would have been better had a few staffers reviewed all these cases, and it been a blanket pardon for everyone except those two people. Are we fine with the other 1498 or so people? (Ok, 1500 is an estimate… “but are we fine with the other 1500?” sounds odd)
I bet that when Carter pardoned the draft dodgers there were a few undeserving in that group too.
@Slugger:
Five dead, an unknown number wounded. It was at a Christian school.
@CSK: It was the Abundant Life Christian School.
If I were a better person, I would not find the name of the school to be funny in this context, but I guess life ain’t so abundant there now.
That’s how numb I am to all these school shootings that we aren’t going to do anything about.
@Gustopher:
Apparently the shooter was a student at the school.
Trump said today that we wouldn’t believe how many countries there are in the world.
@Gustopher:
Just more bullshit excuses and attack the people who call the shit out.
Please give a reason that a abuser of hundreds of children deserves a sentence commutation.
@wr:
Fuck! Thank God she doesn’t read this.
@Bill Jempty: “Horrendous behavior by one party isn’t defensible because another party is doing similarly.”
Even a dog knows the difference between a kick and a trip.
@Bill Jempty:
For which see Kevin Drum. First, Drum points out, as others have above, that the judge wasn’t singled out, he’s a member of a class. Drum uses this as a vehicle to criticize our excessive sentencing. He lists a four part argument.
I’m having trouble getting outraged over the judge serving only 14 years of a 17 year sentence.
@Bill Jempty: This judge along with most of the 1500 people receiving clemency, was not pardoned. He simply had his sentence commuted to time served. He remains a convicted criminal. Of the 1500 people who received clemency only 39 received pardons and among them were former service members who were convicted of homosexual behavior under the old military code.
From Politico
Second chances for a child abuser and if Biden and his supporters are so concerned with impact how about the impact Conahan caused on children’s lives and their families. WTF is wrong with people?
@Bill Jempty: If you want to see a corrupt pardon, go look up Marc Rich.
@steve:
After review of my original post, I realize that I failed to make it really plain that the Corporation was self-insured, so that their “choices” had more to do with paying administrative costs. The actual costs (for a healthcare service) was borne by the corporation.
The corporation could limit their exposure by selection of plans (within the carrier) that would deny certain services.
So my question/thought is this: Is company self-insurance still a common thing today and does it avoid ACA provisions?
My situation was resolved by the corporation instructing BC/BS to cover my claim (or so I was told by a “promise never to tell my name” HR supervisor).
BTW, I was employed by a corporation with just under 5,000 employees, so it was no means a large corporation.
Oh and this–
A Democratic Governor calling it wrong. Here we have a forum full of people fine or excusing the commutation of a child abuser.
@Bill Jempty: Republicans went through that list of 1500 people desperately looking for something, no matter how trivial, they could use to criticize Biden, and by extension, Democrats. Don’t help.
And more–
@gVOR10: @gVOR10:
There is no excuse for what was done. Children and families were victimized by Conahan. He don’t deserve a commutation and doing so is wrong. Period, and screaming it from the rooftops isn’t wrong. Should Democratic Governor Shapiro not expressed outrage either or the families and victims of Conahan? Republican digging? Just another bullshit defense of an unpardonable act by President Biden.
@Bill Jempty:
Since you feel so strongly about this, I would recommend not voting for Biden last November 5th.
Good News Everyone! Mike Duncan has had a change of heart, and more important a chance to rest, and he has decided to continue his Revolutions Podcast.
He will finish his Martian revolution first, then get back to several revolutions he had planned to cover. he mentioned the Cuban, Irish, and Iranian revolutions.
He did not say how this would affect his other podcast, The Duncan & Coe History Show.
I wonder how long he’ll take it, too. Arguably he could cover the various changes in regime in Eastern Europe, the 2010s in Ukraine, and even the Arab Spring (the latter much as he covered 1848 The Year of Revolutions).
Bobert- That makes more sense if it was a self-insured company. They could more exactly specify what they want covered or not. To briefly answer your questions, and things may have changed since I retired 2 years ago, companies that self-insure can avoid a lot of ACA requirements. IIRC, they cant avoid all of the reporting requirements but they can avoid health care provisions. They can also avoid state mandates too. In general, self insuring had been increasing though it has its ups and downs. It has been on a downtrend recently among larger companies. When my corporation hit 200 employees our Blue Cross rep offered a self insured plan to us as an option. They would have managed it for us and we would have had a stop-loss secondary.
Steve
With yet another school shooting in the front pages, I started googling around and came across this PolitiFact piece from last year, investigating a quote from Chris Murphy, where he observed that the states with the five highest gun death rates have lax gun laws, while the states with the lowest have stricter gun laws. It does the usual fact check thing of holding a Democrat to a much higher standard than Republicans, which is why they only rank is true statement as “sort of true”. They concede that he corrected two mistakes later on (Listing Mississippi as “MI” and saying “gun homicides” when the study he pointed to said “gun deaths” which includes suicides and accidents), so that’s not why they downgraded him. They went the route of challenging the statement itself, arguing that he should have made a different statement, and then investigated the truth of that.
But the study itself is fascinating. We have to set Washington DC aside as an outlier because it’s not a state and there is obviously something else going on there. But then the statistics that PolitiFact presents are interesting in and of themselves. By shifting the question from gun deaths to gun homicides, PolitiFact manages to move two states with strict gun laws out of the lowest 5 (MA and RI, which end up as 6th and 7th lowest instead). From a US News report:
But what’s really interesting to me is whether you take gun deaths or limit it to gun homicides, the worst states have 10 times the rate as the best! 1000% higher death rates! And regardless of gun laws, the states that have high rates are the ones that celebrate guns, the ones where you are most likely to find open carry whackadoodles, the ones most likely to have idiots leaving guns in their glove compartments:
Gun homicides
Worst
MS
LA
AL
MO
SC
Best
VT
NH
ME
HI
ID
For Gun Deaths:
Worse
MS
LA
NM
AL
MO
Best (Note: Had to look at a different year, 2021, for 4 and 5)
RI
MA
HI
NY
NJ
If you read between the lines, you can see that some states such as New Mexico have exceptionally high rates of gun suicide, which brings up their gun death numbers substantially.
@gVOR10:
That’s because you’re a normal person, not a gullible mark for rightwing outrage bait like most Americans.
@a country lawyer:
Details and facts don’t matter to those who’ve made bothsidesism and hatred of Joe Biden their whole personality.
@MarkedMan:
Looking at gun death best rates, except HI, the others are ruralish, mostly white, and largely middle class and in the case of ME, NH & Vt, elderly. Drawing correlation from data means needing to account for lots of variables.
@Sleeping Dog:
I agree completely. I went deep into the weeds and got sidetracked a bit, but my actual takeaway was that it’s more complicated than simply gun laws, and it is possible that gun laws are a trailing, rather than leading, indicator. It’s probably worth looking at alcohol and drug use as contributing factors, as well as a number of other things. But just looking at the entire list, it’s impossible not to recognize that the most macho gun-nut states are the ones with the highest death rates, whether its drunkenly shooting someone who cut you off, or rang your doorbell while you were being ramped up by Fox News, or you had drunkenly decided Mabel was never taking you back and flipped a coin as to whether to shoot her or yourself. These aren’t 5% higher death rates. They aren’t 50% higher death rates. They aren’t even 500% higher death rates. They are north of that! MAGA mentality, and what I refer to as Jim Crow governance, is associated with vastly higher death rates. The states with vastly lower death rates are the ones where the populace isn’t constantly whipped into a frenzy of resentment and anger, where the is less of a drumbeat of “Don’t expect anything from doctors/the legal system/the government, they all despise you and are just in it for themselves”. Look for yourself at the link above.
@Gustopher: I’m not a better person, either, unless I get credit for doing an actual facepalm when I read the name of the school.
And don’t be so hard on yourself. You’re at least feeling numb and sad about your reaction. I jus shakes muh head and says “yeah, this is who Murkans is now.”
@Kathy:
Thank you. An excellent note on which I will exit that conversation.
@Gustopher: I’m not a better person, either, unless I get credit for doing an actual facepalm when I read the name of the school.
And don’t be so hard on yourself. You’re at least feeling numb and sad about your reaction. I jus shakes muh head and says “yeah, this is who Murkans is now.”
@MarkedMan:
Darwin wins again.
@Kylopod: I sometimes use comments as little essay assignments to clarify my own thinking, and expose it to criticism. I’m using your well researched and cogent comment as a jumping off point for collecting some thoughts I’ve been intending to post. I haven’t been interested in bitching about Harris and her campaign because I think they were bucking some issues impossible to address in three months.
Trump probably has the highest name recognition in the country, Harris, like most veeps, wasn’t highly visible until the last three months. People kept saying they didn’t know who Harris was or what she stood for. None of which was hard to find if they “did their own research”. OK, Biden should have declined to run, but would it have made much difference? It would have made him a lame duck.
One of my takes is the commonplace that people vote on some perceived tribal affiliation. Over the decades FOX/GOP has built a strong tribe. They’d probably identify themselves as “The Real Americans”. I’d call them “The Gullible”. I’d characterize Dems as “The Educated” or “The Rational”, but if we have a widely shared identity with the general public it’s probably something like “The Minorities and Gays”. This is something the Dems can do something about, but I don’t know what identity we can create short term, via the feckless MSM. But let’s try to establish a positive identity.
Atrios has a crack this morning, nasty but true, “Elite US journalists increasingly see their primary job as holding the public to account – annoying students, disgusting poor people, ungrateful minorities – instead of the powerful. Punching down is good, punching up is bad.” FOX, on the other hand, sees their role as making money by telling the gullible what they want to hear, as long as it supports Republicans.
Larry Bartels, Poli Sci prof and author of popular books had a very simple “fundamentals” model for the popular vote for prez. Not sure he still stands by it, but it seemed to work pretty well. It had only two variables, years of incumbency and growth in real personal disposable income in Q2 and Q3 of the election year. Once a party’s held the presidency for two terms, the voting public, in their infinite wisdom, tend to vote them out. I’ve never been a big critic of Hillary because she actually beat Bartel’s model by a couple points. This year, with an ex-prez and the veep running, incumbency gets complicated. Looking at real disposable income reflects feelz, and using only Q2 and 3 reflects the electorate’s amnesia beyond six months. In the 12 months Oct to Oct (latest data) it went up a reasonable 2.19%. But in Q3 it only went up at an annualized rate of 0.4% and Q3 was worse at 0.2%. Good economy, very bad timing. I can’t find Bartel’s formula anymore, but that would not have been good.
What worries me though, is that democracy works because it gives the little people some marginal power. The elites can’t completely ignore the welfare of the masses. That was working pretty good post WWII, but the wealthy and powerful always use their wealth and power to accumulate more wealth and power. There’s a cycle of accumulating more and more until something breaks and restarts the cycle. For which see Thomas Piketty, Peter Turchin, and many others. Wealth is now more top heavy than in the Gilded Age. I fear the conservative effort, going back to Goldwater, to buy the “permanent Republican majority” is working. I fear how it might break.
@MarkedMan:
The gun humpers always object that gun suicides shouldn’t count. Shot.dead.gun. How is it not a gun death?
People seem unable to take a simple phrase, like “gun death” and not baggage it up with feelz and morality. Something to do with intuition v reason. Someday I gotta dig into American Pragmatism and semiotics
@gVOR10: There you go–making excuses again and ignoring the wisdom and rationality of someone who has demonstrated repeatedly that he’s better at being outraged than most anyone here. If you were real Democrats and Americans, you’d be shouting from the rooftops for a national day of Democrat repentance and demanding that Biden be impeached immediately.
Some in the Democratic Party are floating Harris for president in 2028….
I see no reason why not, except the elephant in the room: she lost against the felon, the worst candidate she could face*.
I see no particular reason why. We seem to be at the point where there’s no one in the GQP worth voting for, but the last election showed a candidate that generates little enthusiasm outside the base won’t do well.
BTW, the only way the US gets a woman elected to the presidency will be the same way Mexico did: by having both major parties each nominate a woman (Mexico is having a weird coalition politics without a parliamentary system moment, so this time there were two major party candidates rather than three).
*Unless JD goes on a crime spree of his own and runs after the felon dies in office.
@gVOR10:
That’s only been true since the 1950s (and even there it has caveats which I’ll get into in a moment). It used to be pretty commonplace for a party to win several successive terms in the White House. The Republicans held the WH continuously for 24 years from Lincoln onward, then 16 years starting with McKinley, then 12 years starting with Harding. Then Dems held it for 20 straight years, in the FDR-Truman period.
And even since the 1950s, Republicans held it for 12 years under Reagan and Bush I. Then Dems won the popular vote three straight times, and would do so again after Dubya.
The point is, patterns like these hold until they don’t anymore. We’ve just been through three consecutive presidential cycles in which the incumbent party has lost–something that hasn’t happened since 1892 (the last time a former president won a nonconsecutive second term). And 1976-1980 is the only instance between these two times in which the incumbent party has lost twice in a row. It’s possible something has changed, and the normal “rules” no longer apply.
I think one key to the problem is that there’s a massive disparity between how well the economy is doing contrasted with how badly much of the public thinks it’s doing. One common response I’ve heard is that the way elites measure the economy shows how out of touch they are with the regular problems facing ordinary Americans, such as wealth inequality, stagnant wages, and outsourcing of jobs. But that’s a criticism I’ve been hearing for years now, and yet these methods used to work pretty well in predicting electoral outcomes. Obama in 2012 wouldn’t have stood a chance otherwise.
I think the answer to this puzzle lies more in the (mis)information bubbles Americans are increasingly occupying.
@gVOR10:
Thats just wishful thinking though. The gun fetishists are absolutely convinced that they are safer with a gun in the house – right up to when their teenager blows their brains out.
I’ve little down time right now.
Last week I read an old, old, old, book (c.2015) about how to settle Mars… Yeah, why do I bother?
It was sooooooo optimistic I’d call it hubris. But that’s just me. If this were all, I wouldn’t bring it up. What surprised me is the author brings up an economic reason to settle Mars: mining the asteroids.
He’s not totally off, but not totally right.
He points out launching stuff from Mars is cheaper than from Earth, even if the atmosphere were terraformed to Earth normal densities, which would increase drag. Also Mars has water and other resources, like CO2, which can be used to make rocket fuel (think water and CO2 split and then combined to make oxygen and methane).
Sure, but launching from any asteroid is even cheaper than from Mars, and there may be water in some asteroids (unproven). Many are rich in carbon compounds (carbonaceous asteroids).
And then there’s the Moon. We know there’s some water (ice under the surface). there’s no CO2. I don’t know if there are carbon compounds (likely, but, you know). Launching from the Moon is cheaper than launching from Mars, too.
There’s a lot more to consider, but at least there is one person in the colonize Mars group who knows there needs to be an economic reason to colonize Mars, beyond Xlon’s xalesmanship.
@Kathy: Did they suggest terraforming it back to having a rotating molten iron core so it can have a magnetosphere so the surface radiation won’t kill you? Then of course there’s the radiation on the trip. As far as I’m aware, Elon hasn’t mentioned these little details. Of course he may not care if his settlers die.
@gVOR10:
Astonishingly, the author mentions the effect of solar wind on what’s left of the Martian atmosphere, and how it would affect colonists on the surface. But then suggests terraforming for a thicker, warmer atmosphere, and this will take care of the radiation problem. no further mention is made of atmospheric erosion.
But, you know, the Earth’s magnetic field is not that strong. It is very large. A fridge magnet can move a compass needle easily, but only from a short distance. So, there are proposals out there to set gigantic electromagnets in orbit around Mars.
This might be possible someday, but, IMO, for a long long time it will be something more appropriate to science fiction stories.
As to Xlon, another recent read, Trekonomics, plainly states the talk about colonizing Mars is just a publicity stunt to get attention and support. Me, I think Xlon wouldn’t need to sell Xtarlink if XpaceX made a profit. But that’s complicated.
@Kathy: I’m not sure about the numbers, but denying claims for people who are insured is a long-time practice. It was the theme of the 1997 movie, The Rainmaker.
Lemme give a little context free cherry on top of the day:
I just glued my lips together with Fixodent.
This is like my crown, right @steve: ?
Frank Figliuzzi former FBI agent going full back the blue “Officers did not get there fast enough [in school shootings]” because they hid and set up a perimeter.
@Kathy:
You mock me and six people support it. It is truly pathetic Sympathy for the supporters of those who think a child abuser deserves sympathy. Where’s the sympathy for the victims and their families. Biden’s actions are indefenible and the attitude of those making excuses for it is just as disgusting.
Two PA judges sent children as young as 8 to juvenile detention for the crimes of smoking in school and jaywalking and other horrible offenses in return for cash, Biden then awards one of those judges with a break in his sentence. You think that’s fine or will everyone continue to mock me because you have no defense for the actions of the sick man in the White House right now,
@DK:
My whole personality? How dumb can you be.
Not one person at this forum has come up with a defense of the commutation. Instead you take pot shots at me. As Governor Shapiro said ‘President Biden got it absolutely wrong’. The forum members sure got it wrong too.
@Slugger:
Yeah. It’s going to be the usual: thoughts and prayers, lawyers, assignment of blame that excludes guns.
@Kylopod: While we’re on vast disparities, anyone want to consider the disparity between those for whom the economy is, in fact, doing just fine and those others for whom it is equally and clearly not? I’ll grant that their numbers are considerably smaller, but those numbers may not be as small as you might wish and the vulnerability they feel may be significantly more widespread and potent than we imagine.
@Bill Jempty:
I have seen a defense of the PA judges that ultimately Biden only reduced the
sentence of Judge Conahan in the “kids for cash scandal”—who’s been in home confinement since COVID by 2 years. We can hope the judge is destitute from his victims’ lawsuits.
Can’t be that outraged about it when convicted felon and adjudicated rapist Trump is destroying Democracy!
@Bill Jempty:
Oh, you want to fling directed personal insults? Okay, let’s go. there.
I didn’t say anything to or about you specifically, but naturally an arrogant egomaniac assumes everyone’s commentary revolves around his bloated ego. A hit dog will holler.
None of your impotent tantruming will make people here join you and MAGA in pretending to be outraged about this random nobody felon serving 14 years of a 17-year sentence. You didn’t even know who this person until this week when Fox News told you and the other sheep what to think (per usual), but I’m supposed to take up a pitchfork, acting like he’s the center of a some grand big scandal. Yeah, right.
Nobody died and made you God, or made Josh Shapiro God. We don’t have to agree with either one of you. And people only need to offer a defense when they’ve done something wrong. So we don’t have to offer a defense anything. There’s nothing to defend.
Rage and cry all about the commutation all you want. Not going to change anything. We still don’t care. Probably because unlike you, most of us have better things to care about.
There’s a Christmas season with friends and family to enjoy. A new year to be grateful we’ve reached. Bombs falling on people in Europe and the Middle East. American kids still being shot in classrooms. And an incoming administration that wants to bring back polio. Those are real worries. Your childish flailing and whining because someone you never heard of until this week served only 82% of his prison sentence makes you look like an easily-manipulated idiot.
@just nutha:
This cohort includes the chunk of Republicans who suddenly started telling pollsters the economy was doing better with nothing having changed except Trump winning the presidency.
Before considering the disparity, we might wait to see how Americans feel after Trump starts tweeting and truthing “Jobs! Jobs! Jobs!” daily while telling everyone the economic indicators he inherited from Biden suddenly represent the greatest economy ever — with the media playing along. It’s not at all clear yet actual pocketbook data matters more than vibes and marketing.