Monday’s Forum
Steven L. Taylor
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Monday, February 10, 2025
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157 comments
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About Steven L. Taylor
Steven L. Taylor is a Professor Emeritus of Political Science and former College of Arts and Sciences Dean. His main areas of expertise include parties, elections, and the institutional design of democracies. His most recent book is the co-authored
A Different Democracy: American Government in a 31-Country Perspective. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Texas and his BA from the University of California, Irvine. He has been blogging since 2003 (originally at the now defunct Poliblog).
Follow Steven on
Twitter and/or
BlueSky.
As usual, I made it to half time at the Superbowl and then threw in the towel. I figure I wouldn’t see much more and I was right. Despite the Facebook pictures of my 2 month old grand nephew looking adorable in his Chiefs jersey.
Since we are calling Dem Congresscritters with questions, why leave Republicans out of the fun?
Why are we paying $10k per immigrant for deportation flights?
Why are we deporting less than Obama?
Why would we house migrants in Gitmo at TRIPLE the cost? WTF are you doing my tax money?
Why are we releasing the majority of the immigrants detained back into the US? Do you think we’re fools?!
Why are Gas and Egg prices not down and don’t gimme any of that Biden shit!
Why does Elon have access to my SSN, tax/bank data. WTF!
As I said before, do not let these people run from governance and governing. They have attacked the “how” of governance for decades while divorcing themselves from it via culture war smokescreens.
They are still directing the discussions on their terms which is to their advantage. Remember when Biden was going to ban gas ovens? That WAS a real thing in the RW clown car–spun up from a ridiculous reading of a obscure EPA rule. But Biden had to respond to it– ditto for Obama’s birth certificate.
Now before the Boy and Girl scouts on here come after me–Im not saying outright lie. But use things that affect common life, and yes, create a little drama–drama they’ve not game planned for. We will know the Dems leadership has their shit together when we see $trump responding to things he doesn’t want to.
Right now they are still playing kids soccer, $trump kicks the ball and all the Dems and legacy media crowd around it– waiting for him to kick it again. Dem leaders and media needs to kick it where he’s not–and make him run to it.
I know many here believe Republicans are in the “find out” phase but they are not, they are loving every minute of it because it’s chaos they’ve been conditioned to anticipate and desire.
FO phase comes with things they are not anticipating–which, again, requires the media cycle soccer ball to be kicked where $Trump has to run to it.
Unacceptable in this day and age.
Texas reports new measles outbreak in West Texas
We’ve invented Chinos at OTB which I intend to keep using but @Joe gave me a good spin on DEI for $trump hires: TGI- Trump Groveling & Inane
Sums up the whole lot
@Scott: Who will the parents blame when their kid dies of a preventable disease like measles? Charles Darwin?
Price of beef will be going up.
U.S. Cattle Inventory Smallest in 73 years
Really feels like a discrediting campaign against this administration would be pretty easy for anyone with media connections and a pile of cash, so…um…where the hell is it?
Odd, the page shows 6 comments but I only see 4, even after reloading the page.
I haven’t had anxiety issues for a while, but came close to having an anxiety attack yesterday. I was able to recognize what was happening and talk myself down. What a mess this is going to become.
@Jen:
Reporting in, I see 8 comments advertised but 6 IRL. I’m guessing the comment tracker either shows comments waiting approval, or ones from trolls that were quickly deleted.
Pretty sure RW go along with anything as long as you first call it Woke And Gay.
Since it’s DEI to say that you’re not pro-American-empire… USAID is therefore OK because it funds things that support American empire items.. so.. Do they really not know why they’re being instructed to hate USAID?
@Scott:
Watching the Super Bowl was worth it just for that one sideline shot of Harrison Butker looking like he was about to cry
The Populist Cure Is Worse Than the Elite Disease
Worthwhile column by David French on Populism
. (emphasis added.)
Of course “good policy” has been repeatedly the Dem response to populism and they/we, keep wondering why it doesn’t work?
It should be noted that one of the popular resistance tactics to the felon being advocated, is to hang every bad outcome on him. We shouldn’t be surprised if this works less well than we would anticipate.
emphasis added.
For Dems and particularly progressives, defeating MAGAt populism might require making some unpalatable choices in the short term about which battles we fight and which to roll with for now.
@Tony W: immigrants…as usual. It couldn’t possibly because they failed as caregivers and didn’t vaccinate their spooge stooges.
I realized last night just how well and truly screwed we are. There is no way to get rid of Elon Musk, even if Trump wanted to. There are myriad ways Musk can essentially blackmail Trump, now that he’s been deep into the entrails of so many federal agencies and downloaded so much data. Who’s going to stop him? What enforcement methods are there if he ignores any judicial order? Pam Bondi? Yeah, right. He’ll just skip off to China or Russia and take the data with him. It’s not like he’s got any particular loyalty to the United States.
Not to mention he probably has first-hand knowledge of Trump’s mental deterioration. Any threat to go public with that, Trump will cave.
@Stormy Dragon:
Here’s what I find amazing: KC had a time of possession lower than the Eagles’ by 13:56 minutes. Meaning it was almost as though the Chiefs’ offense sat out a whole quarter.
The rest of the stats are lopsided, but that lopsided. The game felt as though KC began to play near the end of the third quarter. The Eagles pretty much shut them down, not just out, that long.
After a game, most of the starters wind up dead tired, understandably so. The plus side for Mahomes and Buttcrack and Kelce and the others on offense, is that they ended the game well rested and ready to play next… oh.
@Tony W:
C’mon! Democrats!
IT seems many senate Republiqans are well aware of how bad the felon’s cabinet picks are, but will vote for them anyway because the nazi in chief threatened to primary all who don’t fall in line.
He who lives by capital accumulation will die by capital accumulation.
On other things, I caught a few mentions on Bluesky that the nazi claims some US Treasury notes need not be honored, and the rapist chimed in the country may have less debt than thought.
This is really serious. Treasury bonds finance the US government. Fail to pay interest or principal on a timely manner, never mind at all, and they could crash. Meaning few investors will decide to put money into them, which means loaning money to the US government. Think of debt crises in the past in Greece, Mexico, etc. and the havoc they caused in global markets. Now multiply that by fifty.
There’s minimal info out there, according to this link. It states in part “It wasn’t immediately clear whether he was talking about US government debt, or payments processed through the Treasury Department.”
You’d think the rapist would be stupid enough to crash the bond market. he suggested as much early in his first attempt to wreck the country. But one would think the nazi isn’t, unless he is. Or unless he thinks there’s something in it for him, like a massive investment in cripto, or some other hare-brained notion.
Well, fun times today as the unconstitutionally over broad TRO issued ex parte on Saturday sees the light of the open courtroom.
What I do hope is that Elon’s team established login/activity logs so they can see if any of the “civil servants” accessed the system over the weekend to illegally alter it to cover the fraud and abuse. Such logs would not access the “private” data but just track the system activity of users as is proper oversight of employees.
It’ll be interesting to see if I have a job in a few months. Elon Musk hates patents and I double Trump knows what a patent is.
Some of the comments over at places like IPWatchdog and PatentlyO about how useless we patent examiners are and how we hate inventors makes me wonder—why do I even bother. We’re the last bailiwick against patent trolls and greedy people trying to claim rights to something they shouldn’t have rights to, and we get abused for our professionalism.
At some point, there’s going to be one too many block pulled out of the system and we will see the whole thing collapse. Musk and his followers are idiots. He treats this whole thing like a piece of software, where if you”break it”, you can simply patch it with the old code and the system will work again. This is far more like the collapse of that condo building in Florida—once the structural damage gets bad enough, the whole thing collapses into rubble, with a high loss of life. And no, you can say “sorry about that!” as much as you want, but it doesn’t fix things.
The number of comments on this page does not reflect the number at the top of the page. This hasn’t happened before. What’s up?
@ptfe: Truthful, apolitical answer: things are changing too fast to plan and mount a campaign.
@Jax:
We all have first hand knowledge of Trump’s mental deterioration, and Musk’s mental deterioration as well. It’s all there, plain to see, and projected larger than life by our media, every single day —- except for those whose ideological bent rewards them for not acknowledging the truth. So at this point, mental dysfunction reports will not land.
But, it is correct that Trump will have difficulty ridding himself of Musk, a cult leader with his own following and richest man in the world. Still, there’s always the tantalizing (but unlikely) prospect for Trump of being able to say that he “fired” the richest man on the planet, as a demonstration of his own power.
No, if Trump cannot be rid of Musk, at this point neither can we.
So society needs to look farther ahead, and start considering this problem of power that comes from massive wealth being coupled with mental dysfunction on a scale that breaks society-wide norms. We haven’t really looked at this, in part, because for broad society, understanding and talking about mental health remains somewhat taboo, and largely naive.
@Fortune:
Completely agree and that’s what I am hearing from organizers. People are working and planning. And at the same time, shell shock is real.
@Neil Hudelson & @Jen:
I suspect it may be a site caching issue related to a spam or comments in moderation. On the way back from my morning BJJ class. I will check once I get home.
@Not the IT Dept.:
It happens with me all the time. I always have to reload the page to get an accurate view/count.
@Sleeping Dog:
Without disagreeing with your last paragraph, I have things to say about French.
That French column reads like a guy trying to avoid responsibility–he was a committed culture warrior in the ‘religious freedom’ industry.
He cannot even change his mind on marriage equality without reiterating that he personally thinks of LGBTQ issues in moral terms; defending a version of religious freedom that a.) directly helped radicalize the ‘conservative’ base that turned MAGA, and b.) cannot, despite his assertions, be fully separated from integralism or dominionism; and trying to preserve tax-exempt status for his own religion-afiliated institutions.
All of that after patting himself on the back for changing his mind (sort of) and claiming that he has a life-long commitment civil libertarianism (lol).
He also continues to defend the invasion of Iraq.
I agree with him that real policy solutions are hard. He makes them even harder with his ideology.
Note that I’ve expressed the same frustration with feeling caught between defending broken political and economic systems.
But he was a part of the problem. He continues to be.
He has no business using the word elite as if it does not describe himself.
So, yeah, French can laugh out loud at Steve Bannon’s bullshit claims about populism all he wants; he deserves to be laughed at as well.
@Grumpy realist: I consider this to be of a piece with the upcoming killing of the CFPB. The commercial infrastructure (rules, regulations, courts) that make US business successful is under attack. Let’s make fraud great again. Let’s allow the protections of the consumer to be allowed to lapse. Let’s allow the powerful to abuse the weak. It is the MAGA mantra: Punch down and suck up.
@Scott:
“All money to the oligarchs!”
In essence that’s been Republiqan policy since January 1980. Only it was disguised as something else at first, and now all pretense has been dropped. To paraphrase the Vorlons on B5, “You’ll work for us because we tell you to work for us.”
@CSK: The count has been off despite reloading.
@JKB:
You’re watching too many movies or television shows. That’s not how any of this works. And the people illegally accessing the system are the teenagers Musk has hired.
@CSK: I always have to reload the page to get an accurate view/count.
Yes so do I, as does Jen above. But for the first time, it doesn’t work.
@Matt Bernius:
@CSK:
@Jen:
I notice variations on the comment count now and then, but only when numbers are small. Like if it says five and there are 3, or says two and there are none.
For all I know, the count is always off, but when I see 35 and there may be 32, I don’t count them all and notice. I assume, as Matt explains, some spam or moderation thing. Sometimes the count catches up, and the previously unseen comment had many links, or was by someone whom I hadn’t seen before.
What I’ve not seen lately is comments sent to moderation, or commenters asking to break heir comments out from moderation jail.
But hey, let’s prioritize making room for “refugee” white apartheid remnants from South Africa.
@Not the IT Dept.:
I usually have to do it twice, too. No biggie. But it is odd.
@Tony W: I’m more interested in the inevitable spread to pregnant women, but then again, being an agent of chaos has an appeal to me that it lacks for others. 🙁
@Jen: These are the seeds of Fox News/Newsmax/OANN planted in the fertile grounds of a malleable mind.
JKB has been told that people who, like, work at these agencies might be trying to access the computer systems where they work, and that’s probably some nefarious effort at a coverup. Whereas a hundred billionaire who has ~$1B in government contracts leading a group of unaccountable college-age kids as they infiltrate every corner of that computer system and terminate payments on a whim is totally on the up-and-up. He apparently can’t decide how to evaluate the plausibility of these claims.
It’s one thing to be ideologically convinced that, e.g., government should be smaller – this generally is a policy discussion, subject to facts and debate and pros and cons. It’s entirely different to think an authoritarian takeover managed by an oligarch is in your interests and those opposing it are shadowy evildoers.
@Jim X 32: Good list. You can add to it, “if Musk is trying to save us money, why didn’t he deploy accounting teams to these agencies, instead of teenage coders?” and, even more to the point, “your ‘cost cutting’ strategy has incurred $7 million in expenses in ONE WEEK. WTAF are you doing with taxpayer money?”
@CSK: I’ve solved the problem for myself by not worrying about the comment count match.
@Rob1: well, we’ve already seen what happened historically when ridiculously inbred individuals became kings and queens of European countries….
(Although, if you really want to blow your mind, look at the Ptolemies of Egypt, which have been accurately described as “that’s not a family tree; that’s a family pretzel.” How Cleopatra came out of that mess is a wonder and a marvelment.)
@Scott:
Who knew that cattle ranching had become a failed ‘woke’ DEI operation?
@Rob1: I think Musk is just planning on bringing in the worst of the worst to bolster his fascist numbers here in the US. Most South Africans, like the rest of the world, have a pretty low opinion of the Ketamine Kid.
Oh no, the Potemkin protests are hard pressed to get people out now that their USAID subsidies are frozen
Here we see the “massive” protest in El Salvador against mining.
File under category “Pennywise Pound Foolish”
He’s got to pick up every stitch
He’s got to boot every snitch
Activism for the rich
Oh no, must be the season of the witch
The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget has published estimates for Trump’s Budget based on Trump’s outline when he met with House leaders. They project it will add $5-$11 trillion to our debt. The optimistic cost savings for the DOGE project come in at about $50 billion. (The savings are just short term. In the long term we likely we increased costs from the inability to coordinate public health and loss of revenue as research goes away at our academic centers.)
https://www.crfb.org/blogs/trump-tax-priorities-total-5-11-trillion
Steve
@Jax:
@Rob1:
Except Trump does have a way of ridding himself of Musk. At any point he chooses, he can simply have Musk killed. He doesn’t even have to be subtle about it, he can just declare Musk did something, add in a reference to something Bondi makes up and then orders Hegseth to have to military just shoot him. It’s that simple. Was it here or LGM talking about the response of stupid people is that there are simple answers to complex problems. I think that can cut both ways, sometimes there really are simple answers to complex problems.
Now, the practical effect of that is going to be a true black swan event and it’s probably best for Trump to begin political killings at a particular, “useful” time. Honestly, I don’t know if Musk or Trump is clever enough to realize that Trump has the final, absolute, fuck you card. But I’m sure as shit Miller does. I’d bet there are a couple other fanatics in either camp that do too. When that card comes up, everyone will have to pick a side and eventually account for their choices. But it’s a simple answer (killing) to a complex problem (Musk). Anticipating a particular response, yes, killing Musk will create its own, somewhat unpredictable problems, but viewed in at least semi-isolation, that’s the solution to the problem of Musk.
Durbin, Schumer, Pelosi, and Jeffries are for sure not ready for that happening. I agree there’s some shell shock going on, but there’s also a massive failure of imagination on the part of the first 3.
@Beth:
Let me add in, does anyone want to take a bet that the thing that forces Trumps hand will be when Musk breaks something that causes a mass of people to start blaming Trump. It’ll be an ego thing and not the thing Musk broke that causes his death. I think Trump is in full agreement with Musk right now.
@ptfe: @Jim X 32:
Good question. I can’t do it myself, but I can pony up some cash.
Liberals won’t fight – that would require setting priorities and those priorities would not equally ‘prioritize’ the entire laundry list of constituencies. Can’t decide on a message because liberals have hamstrung themselves with gibberish euphemisms and neologisms and academese jargon that make it all-but impossible to craft a message. Can’t talk to regular people because they can’t seem to do it without lecturing and scolding. Can’t plan strategy when you cannot bring yourself to admit that your previous battle plan was a loser.
Liberals are very good at whining, though, because impotent rage and self-pity are easy, especially for the callous-free educated elites who think choosing paper or plastic matters.
Say one thing for the MAGAts, they fucking fight. We’re losing to morons because they’ll fight and we won’t.
JKB, you are aware that those protests are sponsored by the US State Department, right?
This protest is quite explicitly the action of The US Foreign Policy Establishment.
That’s Marco Rubio.
What point do you think you’re making?
If you think the US shouldn’t be playing games with the governments of other countries.. welcome to believing exactly the same thing as the very left wing you claim to be against. As well, once you find yourself Being A Left Winger, you might then confront the reality that nobody on The Left believes precisely the same things.
Take a good look at @JKB. He’s a liar and an intellectual mediocrity, and every day he toddles in and is ritually destroyed. And yet every day, his side is winning, and our side is losing. So who’s the dumbass, him or us?
@Beth: I’ve been thinking quite a bit about Trump and Musk, and how this partnership will play out.
Musk is running around, breaking what he can. Thus far, aside from a few farmers stuck with wheat and rice they had been providing to USAID, there hasn’t been too much immediate pain for Trump’s voters. That will likely change. We all know that Trump doesn’t like to take responsibility for ANY of his decisions. Meanwhile, Musk doesn’t care about his reputation at all. So, it’s going to be very important to remind people that Musk *is* Trump’s choice, and he cannot be allowed to offload/distance himself from Musk. Tie these two together like macaroni and cheese, or peanut butter and jelly.
@Beth: “Except Trump does have a way of ridding himself of Musk. At any point he chooses, he can simply have Musk killed. ”
Once he gets away with publicly defying court orders, ha can pull a Putin and seize Musk’s assets while throwing him into prison.
http://www.abcnews.go.com/Politics/transgender-nonbinary-people-sue-trump-administration-passport-policy/story?id=118592498
@JKB:
Now show us pictures of the protests in recent years.
Oh, Bukele didn’t tweet pictures of those?
Tell me, what was Bukele’s response to those? What do you think about that response? For or against?
Let me make your pro-Bukele argument for you:
He has maintained a very high approval rating, including among the diaspora. When I say, very high, I mean almost unbelievable. But the results are so consistent that they are credible.
NGL, sorta okay on Trump’s penny ban.
Today, they are of extremely narrow utility. They are used to square up the exchange if dealing with cash. Which is fine and good – if all monetary exchanges go digital we’re extremely fucked. And dumb.
Me, I immediately dispose of coin change into 4 jars when I get home. And never take them to a bank. I probably have several hundred dollars in change in jars stashed in a closet. Probably should.
The relative utility of coins has dropped radically during my lifetime.
What can you buy today with change coins? Quarters still retain some utility in vending machines or in a laundromat, but that’s about it.
Dimes, nickels, and pennies are essentially dross. Irrelevant. I’ve thrown away coins into a trash can.
The only stuff I buy with cash is coffee. And I just dump all of the change and an extra buck in the tip jar.
I’m outsourcing my change coin ramifications onto relatively poorly paid service workers as tips.
Pennies are essentially pointless. Change is a hassle. You can’t buy anything with it. (You can, legally, but it’s a pain.) If you paid for your coffee with change it would take too long, would annoy everyone, and require you to carry around $5 in change.
Am I missing anything in saying that confidently? I like cash. I appreciate cash money, and cash transactions. But less than a dollar coin change is kinda pointless. It’s marginal money I get back in exchanges that I never use.
@Michael Reynolds:
Why do you hate the “liberals” you’ve invented in your head?
@Jim X 32:
Kicked by whom? It’s not going to be kicked by anything but the consequences of Trumpism. Trump was done in the first time by his own COVID mismanagement, not by imaginative Democratic strategy.
The idea there is something Democrats can “do” to get people to change their minds about Trump 10 years in is wishful thinking from people searching for a locus of control. Hence why all the keyboard geniuses who’ve never run any campaign anywhere — but own imaginary political consulting firms to which imaginary candidates are scrambling for advice — don’t themselves have any idea what that “something” is further than empty platitudes and performative irrelevance.
The FO comes when the inevitable fuckups that follow rightwing governance start piling up and causing undeniable harm. What Democrats can do is rail against the fuckups and be ready with an alternative when people tire of them.
Any psychologist familiar with how behavior change works knows an alcoholic does not stop because of some perfect external messaging pitch. They stop drinking when they admit and tire of the ways alcoholism is fucking up their life.
As their therapist, I can highlight, warn, beg, shame, scold. This can help them move past precontemplation into action. But it’s ultimately their decision to want to recover (or not). At that point, I have to be ready guide them through recovery.
@Michael Reynolds:
Both? But electoral politics is not really about who is correct, nor who is right.
To be clear, I take your point. But my guess is that the shit going on has to play out for a while. Even then, not sure how much it will matter.
If we want to have a discussion of how the GOP manages to do what it does–something that is critical to formulating a coherent strategy–the most we would get is a bunch of people flogging their particular hobby horse.
Not saying stop discussing it, I am all ears.
@de stijl:
I’m not Michael, but it sounds to me more as if he’s exasperated with them. He’s our resident curmudgeon.
@de stijl: I suppose as we move away from cash, eliminating pennies may have some merit. However, I wonder what it will do to pricing. If someone wants to pay cash for something, adding sales tax means it will frequently end up with an amount that would utilize a penny (for example, recently I bought a small bottle of hand sanitizer, that, with tax, cost $1.61). If I want to pay cash for this, and mine is the only cash purchase of the day, rounding down to eliminate the penny makes the most sense. But, over time, waiving .01 to .04 will add up. So, what are they going to do with this? Program POS systems to round up (or down)?
Basically, I don’t have a problem with it, but I do wonder what the practical ramifications will be.
@Fortune:
Yes. That is a good point.
In all seriousness, because you challenged my willingness to have an intellectual debate, I will ask some questions.
At the risk of being interpreted as snark, which it is definitely not, if readers assessed a majority of my long posts, I would have a hard time defending against a charge of tedium in some cases.
I think I have a pretty solid track record here of intellectual discussion. You don’t agree, so show me how to do it. Let’s see if we can get on the right foot.
Don’t feel the need to answer all of them. If you want to pick one, I won’t complain nor attempt to use it against you. Though they are inter-related.
Can you give an honest, non-political answer as to whether that is a good thing?
Or an analysis of whether it is consistent with oft-stated principles of governance of the GOP, and conservatism philosophically?
Or how it relates the relationship between the three branches of government?
How about whether it fits with the traditional GOP defense of Senate procedure, in particular, but not limited to the filibuster?
Paging @Mimai for a frivolous follow up to something unimportant from a few days ago.
@Jen:
In Canada we didn’t do anything to pricing. Most transactions are debit credit anyway. The POS systems I see were programmed to round cash down if the transaction ended at .01 or .02, round up at .03 and .04.
Quite honestly nickels should probably go too.
For whatever it’s worth this late in the day, the comment count thing goes back at least months. Can’t swear to it, but I think I first noticed it after the big site change which was what? a couple years ago? Never seemed to me to be much of a problem.
I’ve also noticed that if I post a comment, back out of the page and come back a minute or two later, it’s flakey on whether I’ll see my comment or not. If not, a refresh usually gets it.
@Kurtz: Did I miss something? I don’t know what you’re asking about. (A particular thing? The number of things? The way the Democrats haven’t found footing?)
Hands down, Trump is the most infantile alleged adult occupant of the White House ever.
http://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-hits-out-taylor-swift-super-bowl-2028623
@JKB:
Link, please. Or are you embarrassed about the writer you are quoting?
Or are you concerned that if anyone read the piece, they would immediately see that the writer commits a few intellectual sins.
The most relevant of which is that he accepts Musk’s evidence-less Twitter claim without question, and that the claim itself shows either:
a.) a lack of understanding of Treasury’s role in the payments system; or
b.) he knows but is being willfully misleading.
Either choice is damning.
—
As I say to anyone who posts a poll, regardless of the numbers presented, pollster, or the opinions of who posts it:
A generic opinion poll does not say much.
A single opinion poll does not say much.
And again, no link. So no one can take a peak at cross-tabs. Though, those can be even more misleading than the topline, but are worth looking at for various reasons. And over time can lead to insight.
@Jen:
The Brits eliminated the ha’penny (half penny) when it became irrelevant due to inflation. Nowadays, it’s more about digital vs. physical cash.
There is nothing I can do with change coins. Well, I could, but the hassles and social judgement of using coins to secure a transaction would be more onerous than I want to engage with.
Yeah, it’s legal cash money, but if you pay for a pack of smokes with 40 quarters people will judge you. Pretty hard. Even if you’re a millionaire blowing off the excess quarters, dimes, nickels, pennies you got in change from previous transactions at the same store. People will judge coin users.
Cash change in coins is essentially worthless. No utility. Well, marginal utility if I ever cashed my multiple filled jars in at my bank.
Pennies are the most worthless of the lot.
Hate Trump, but the penny ban I’m kinda on board with. None of the rest, though.
Reading that Trump is directing DOJ to pause enforcing the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act? Interesting.
@JKB: I doubt you’ll understand the problem until you lose all your saved money to a Russian hacker who managed to crack into your bank account because of lack of security engendered by Elon’s little gnomes.
And then you’ll blame the Democratic Party, like usual.
@JKB: As I noted above, so far, only a handful of people–farmers, mostly–have been directly impacted by this sh!tshow.
If the courts aren’t able to stop this nonsense, the impacts will begin to filter out, along with the ramifications from tariffs. Example: it has finally dawned on Sen. Katie Britt that losing millions of dollars to research institutions might, just might, have a negative impact on her state. Bright one, she is.
@CSK:
The previous time they won a Super Bowl the Eagles stood up the traditional White House invitation. That sort of thing Trump does not forget.
@Fortune:
I was unclear. I figured the context was enough. I apologize.
I concurred. As several other posters have.
I asked your opinion as to whether that speed is a good thing in the context of the specific activities being undertaken and several questions about how it relates to several aspects of our system of government, and how it aligns with long-standing GOP arguments.
I cna add more if you would like. For example: does the speed and method align with the established procedures for making changes?
I ask, because I have yet to see anyone say anything beyond, “President controls the Executive Branch” which is not an actual argument, technically; nor does it address that there are limits to the President’s power.
@Tony W:
Obama, of course.
@JKB:
Let me get this straight — your main hope is that the burglars installed hidden cameras in the home, so that they can learn whether the homeowners are stealing cable TV services?
@JKB:
Then why is an unelected oligarch having unvetted kids illegally steal Americans’ sensitive financial data and rummage through sensitive nuclear code — instead of qualified, experienced forensic accountants?
What they say about President Elon Musk? And when is he going to reduce the price of eggs and gas?
@de stijl:
I feel that. But in past times when that was necessary for me, I realized that the discomfort doesn’t last much longer than the time it takes to get to the store and complete the transaction.
I don’t have a generic look–more likely to be hazily remembered than generic dude–but that’s just it: for most individuals, memories of brief interactions are vague, if they are remembered at all.
Also, most people handing you a pack of smokes are unlikely to be doing much other than barely making ends meet. So less likely to judge.
But yeah, I have felt the discomfort of anticipated disdain as well as looked into the eyeballs of judgers.
@Kurtz: I disagree with French on many things, and agree with you that there is an underlying message that his view of right should be legally mandated for all. But I read him from time to time because he is open and honest about his philosophy and ideas, and I’m always looking for people who have honest disagreements with me and who can argue their points well.
@de stijl:..Pennies are the most worthless of the lot.
How many do you have. I’ll be glad to take them off your hands.
@Jc:
EO forthcoming. Reportedly includes an order for AG Bondi to establish revised procedures for investigation and prosecution.
@Scott:
As with all of the oversimplifications of populist “policy”, there is a certain seductive appeal to the correlation-equals-causation observation that America’s greatest surge in economic dominance came during the Gilded Age, and was driven by plutocratic exploitation of the working class and flagrant disregard for public health. I’m sure there are people out there who are certain the leopards won’t eat their face and that we’ll all be better off in the long run after they’ve culled the herd.
@de stijl:
While the penny should have been eliminated 20 years ago, that is Congress’s purview. The President does not have the authority to decide what currency is minted or printed.
Can you think of something commonly bought and sold that costs less than a dollar?
In my youth there were so called “five and dime” stores. Ben Franklin (the brand, not the person). Nowadays, dollar stores.
Inflation is inexorable.
@MarkedMan:
Point taken.
@Kurtz: I don’t want to dodge the question, but I don’t have an opinion on the speed of the changes. The DEI policy and pardons seem like Day 1 moves whether you like them or not. I think the tariffs are a bad idea but closely tied to the foreign policy assertiveness, which is in turn related to the Gaza and Ukraine negotiations which should start soon. The personnel issues aren’t going to get cleared up quickly, and it makes sense for the administration to treat them as part of the early staffing decisions. Maybe immigration could have been put off a while, but other than increased enforcement we don’t know what changes are in store, so I can’t call it over-accellerated.
@de stijl:
Are the denominations of currency set by the legislative or executive branch?
I have no problem with the end goal, but the half-cent was eliminated in the Coinage Act of 1857, so that would suggest that the executive does not have the authority to do so.
And then there are the details, such as when do they stop being legal tender, how long do businesses have to adjust, etc.
@Jen: Serious question: Why do you want to pay cash for anything? The few times a year I find coins in my pocket I don’t know what to do with them. I took money out of the ATM for the first time in maybe 6 months because I like to have emergency cash. But it’s almost exclusively used for street musicians, the occasional $2 lottery ticket and office collections for things like weddings, retirements, Super Bowl pools, etc. I never buy anything with it where I can pay with a charge card
The senior coffee at the local Mickey D’s is 99¢ before tax. I pay with even money. $1 bill, dime and a penny.
Pennies From Heaven
@JKB:
Or, alternatively, overriding the fairly well established right of Congress to mandate and oversee spending. And to require that certain officers not be dismissed at whim of the executive without cause.
It really would have been much more sensible to set up a general audit under the OMB, perhaps using a DOGE “task force” but led by qualified auditors, not a bunch of semi-juvenile, and inadequately vetted, Musk acolytes.
Whose first instinct seems to have been to intrude themselves into key databases, with possibly inadequate considerations for critical systems security.
And following Musk’s inclinations and instructions to “just shut it down”.
An audit could have been reviewed by OMB, and passed to Congress, with strong recommendations for the termination of progams, and related reductions in staff.
Which Congress could then have proceeded upon
Given the Republican majorities, such recommendations, if soundly argued, would surely have been given due consideration?
And, of course, the executive could itself have acted in regard to such programs that were determined not to be based on Congressional mandates.
Maybe I’m missing something, but that would seem to me to be a more sensible approach than saying, in effect: “the building needs reconstruction; therefore let’s just set fire to it.”
@JKB:
Presidents do not hold unfettered power. They have, for instance, the authority to appoint judges and other officers (such as cabinet secretaries), but only with the advice and consent of the senate.
Our Constitution explicitly balances power between three branches of government.
We are about to find out if conservatives really do give a shit about the Constitution, or if it’s all just lip service.
Judge Rules the White House Failed to Comply With Court Order
@MarkedMan:
That’s fair. And I cannot claim to have a neutral viewpoint on him, so my impression may be tilted too far toward a dim view. Unlike other prominent commentators, he does seem honest, and he displays more intelligence than most.
I do give him some credit for changing views, but I think it’s fair to question about whether he truly changed his view. Or at least, if the ancillary reasons for his flip are strongly held enough for him to stay with his current view in the future.
After all, it seems that the central motivation for his change is borne more out of fear of possible damage to his self-interests. He mentions other reasons, but they don’t seem particularly important to him. I could be wrong.
And I think it bears repeating that his claim of commitment to civil libertarianism is questionable. Or at the very least, far more limited than what a commitment would imply.
That puts a point on the self interest aspect of my view–it’s hardly a commitment, because if the political situation changes and the perceived threat appears to have waned, then his primary motivation for changing perspective also disappears.
I hope he would remain committed, but I’m skeptical. Maybe we will find out.
I pay $16.75/month for all the coffee that I can drink at Panera. I am there every day so it works out to about 55¢/day. The internet connection that allows me to log on to OTB is free!
@Jen: In Korea, 10 won is the smallest unit and amounts smaller than 10 won are rounded down. But when I was there a year ago, very few people carried cash for transactions to other than street merchants.* I saw people going into convenience stores and using debit cards to buy packs of gum. (No service charge on small card transactions in Korea.)
I don’t know that Americans would ever work out how to do this, though. I occasionally find a small business that rounds down here, though, so maybe we’d figure it out.
*Street merchants (usually food carts, but not always) sell everything for 1000, 5000, or 10000 won and similar combinations. All paper money and ATMs have hoppers into which depositors dump bags full of money to be counted and credited. It’s amazing to watch.
@Jen:
@just nutha:
In the UK, paying by “contactless card” for transactions under £100 has become almost universal.
I’ve not paid for anything in cash for about six years, apart from one old country pub where their card machine was on the blink due to crap internet connectivity.
Oh, and a couple of parking meters that still needed coins.
@just nutha:..I saw people going into convenience stores and using debit cards to buy packs of gum.
I visit the local Kroger almost every day. Often there are bakery items and other products marked down as they approach the “sell by” date. I have picked up the store brand 7 oz. yogurt that is regular priced at 70¢ or 80¢ for as little as 23¢ a container. More than a few times I have paid for less that a $1 worth of items with my debit card and there is no extra charge to me for that transaction.
Lack of time and all. One store credits all change too small for existing coins to their customers’ loyalty cards. It can be spent at that store. Of course, you need to have such a card.
@Kurtz:
I have been really damn poor. Ate macaroni and butter for weeks. (The trick is pepper. Cheap cheese for protein, if you can afford.) BTW, you can steal salt and pepper from any sit-down restaurant easy-peazy. Ketchup, mustard.
I wouldn’t recommend you should. But you could. Just sayin’. If it’s survival.
@Kurtz: I think we have entered a stage of Presidential power where the current occupant is inclined toward believing that his power is limited only to the extent that he agrees to limit it. The “Constitutional remedies” have been shown for their toothless “emperor’s wardrobe” qualities, so Trump’s belief in his unlimited power may well be correct.
@DrDaveT: If they’re like my mom was toward the end, they’ll be blaming Obama because he’s the one who dismantled the CDC and NIH. 🙁
@JohnSF: I spend a fair amount of time in the UK, and there are a few differences–one, taxes are included in prices there–here, they are not. So, when a retailer says “$1.99” it’s…usually not $1.99. Second, retailers are getting absolutely crushed here by credit card fees, and some restaurants, particularly cafes, are offering discounts to customers who pay cash. Add to that: our regulatory environment for things like that is about to get a whole lot worse, as the bureau that would be tasked with addressing these issues has just been effectively disbanded.
To all: I’m not in any way going to die on the hill defending the penny. I just wondered how it will affect pricing, because I, for one, still carry cash, especially to pay at smaller businesses because credit card fees are absolutely insane. (A local bakery says that she pays as much per month in credit card fees as she does for ingredients.)
@de stijl: is there anything that can be considered “cheap cheese” anymore? It’s cheaper for me to stock up on chicken quarters (99 c/ lb) or pork ($ 2.99 / lb) than any cheese ($4.99/ lb)
@Fortune:
Then don’t dodge them?
But I would think that given the way the weekend went between the two of us–your direct indictment of my style, not just my aggressive, rude comments, but approach in toto, coupled with the fair observation from many of us that you have established a pattern of active avoidance of meaningful engagement, you would expend at least a little effort.
Obviously, you are under no obligation.
Thank you for the response.
@MarkedMan:
A test for my watch the change coming message to Kurtz a few posts up. Who stops the President from deciding this? Congress? Production management at the various mints? If choice two, do the next set of production management follow the choice of the ones they just replaced in the recent DOGE purge?
@Jen:
I don’t think you’re going to be happy with the answer. 🙁
ETA: And back when down voting was still a thing, I received a large number (maybe 10 or so) for saying that conservatives were willing to burn the country to the ground in exchange for the right to rule the ashes. I’ll stand by that statement.
@Jen:
That’s something I tend to forget about the US: the sales taxes and their variance, and them not being on the marked price. Which is just weird.
Regarding basic card payment fees, they are not that high. Generally 1.5% to 3%.
American Express charge more, which is why a lot of places won’t accept American Express.
It tends to generally work out cheaper for the vendor to pay the card fees than the fees on cash handling.
And makes sense for the banks to keep card fees reasonable because of their cash-handling costs.
The payment terminal system is apparently pretty cheap and efficient, and highly secure, and handled by several inter-bank consortiums under regulation by the Payments Systems Regulator.
Beyond that, my knowledge of the systems ends.
@Mister Bluster: Where I live, some convenience stores charge a service fee (up to a dollar) for credit/debit transactions. Usually owner-operated/independent stores.
@just nutha:
I wonder how the non-peaceful transfer of power will play out. It can range from a military coup, to a governor ordering their national guard to take down the usurper in DC, to a state or several seceding, to open armed civilian revolt, to, least likely, the GQP taking out its own trash.
None are good options, but all are better than the alternative to allow Queen Felon and King nazi to rule like Mad Vlad. My one big concern, though, is whether Queen and King will decide to use nukes because they’re magic. Irresponsible, entitled, ignorant morons do not mix well with H-bombs.
@de stijl:
I remember you writing of that before.
I have been in that situation as well.
@Jen:
In Korea, the government decided not to allow this. Living in a socialist hell hole seems to have advantages, even for capitalists.
@Mister Bluster:
When I was a wee boy I was a coin collector. Still am. Always have been. A budding numistmatist.
My mom would buy a bag of US pennies / cents for me from the bank in rolls. I’d open them and look for keepers. Wheat cents. Low production variants. Anything with an “S” mintmark piqued my interest. Eventually, I learned the production output of every mint by year. I had a book I cross-refernced.
I would replace all of the keepers with random pennies from my pocket or piggy bank. Re-roll, re-seal and my mom could get back her $25 initial outlay in a week.
That was satisfying. I loved it.
When Sam’s Club and Costco (then Price Club) first set up in Mexico, they only took cash. The reason being credit card fees ate into their, allegedly small, margins. later they accepted them, but placed a higher price for paying with them. All products, to this day, carry a cash price and credit card price.
The thing is the cash price is the same if paid with a debit card. To me this says debit card fees are either very very low, or they don’t exist at all.
This would make sense. When you pay with a credit card, essentially the bank loans you money to buy the items, but gives the loan money to the merchant. You then pay the bank (and can accrue interest and other fees). The merchant pays the credit card fee in exchange for a guaranteed payment.
A debit card payment takes money from your account and transfers it to the merchant. Essentially it’s the same as cash in that sense. Ergo no need for fees.
@Kathy: I wonder about the non-peaceful transfer of power, too. And I hate to think that after all the effort I spent to keep breathing despite the asthma, that I’ve lived too long and am going to have to watch it happen. On this point, the spineless Congress is probably my friend.
@just nutha:
This. This is where we find out what happens when a court tells the President “You can’t do that” and his reply is “Whaddya going to do to stop me, losers?” The only real remedy at that point is impeachment and the Republicans are Vichy redux. Not a single one will vote for impeachment even when Trump starts executing people in the streets.
I fear armed revolt is coming. Will the military gun down protesters? James may be certain they won’t, but I wish I was more sure. In any case, the military will not stand in the way of Trump sending the Nazis out to gun down protesters in the streets.
@Kurtz:
I’ve occasionally (weekly?) noted that the electorate are a box of rocks, or more charitably, woefully ignorant. I’m going to modify that. Let me start this little essay with a question: On the whole, would you rather A. stick your hands in a bowl of cockroaches? B. stab a photograph of your family six times?
I recently started reading Enchanted America. It’s a book in the extensive “Republicans are from Mars, Democrats are from Venus” genre. They divide us into “intuitionists” and “rationalists”. Half of us choose A. above, the cockroaches. That half tend toward intuitionism. Guess which way they tend to vote. If you’ve run across Daniel Kahneman’s “Thinking, Fast and Slow”, this is System 1 v System 2 thinking. System 1 being fast, unconscious, intuition and System 2 is conscious reasoning. This is consistent with George Lakoff’s observation that conservatives are well able to think through complex causation, but they default to simple morality. Intuitive morality. There’s another book in the Mars/Venus genre, Prius Or Pickup that splits us into “fixed” and “fluid”, the definition being intuitive. This has a crucial bit of data. In 1992 about 40% of fixeds identified as Republican and about 48% as Dem. 36% of fluids identified as Republican and 52% as Dems. In 2016 60 % of fixeds identified as R and 72% of fluids as D. I would expect this polarization has deepened since.
If fixed/intuitionist and fluid/rationalist didn’t align with party thirty three years ago, why do they now? There are explanations around sorting and social media, but I would suggest it’s been deliberate. If you’re a Republican strategist or messaging guy, and you realize your party’s base platform of top end tax cuts and deregulation aren’t sellable, what do you do? You hide the real agenda and talk about something else. And since you’re lying, who’s going to be more receptive to your pitch? Intuitionists or rationalists? So you turn your platform into a list of grievances against some “other”, any “other’ you can manage to define. You try gays, and when that quits working, it’s elites and trans and the ever popular immigrants.
I may revisit this theme, but for now I’ll just comment on our OTB discussion of what Dems should do. I am uninterested in policy. Consistent with the above, I tend to see the party split as between deontology and consequentialism. Our consequentialism, and our lack of desire to kick down, define our policy. The question is how do we pitch it so as to appeal to simple, intuitive, morality? Reynolds, IIRC, quoted AOC on class war. That seems a good start. We need an enemy. Perhaps not all billionaires, I’d still like to get money from some of them, but, as GOPs depend on smearing Soros, specific, named billionaires.
@JohnSF: Honestly, the reason I think many small businesses believe they are getting hammered by credit card fees is that they pay them all at once, at the end of the month. If they were deducted from the actual sale price they wouldn’t even notice.
@MarkedMan:
Evidence from Kent State argues toward your insecurity being wise.
[Cue appropriate CSN song]
@MarkedMan: Interesting point. Why don’t banks/credit handling services change their approach (and secretly raise the fees)?
@de stijl:..coins…
When I was in Jr. High School (1961) I had some blue coin books that I tried to fill with pennies, 5¢, 10¢, 25¢ and 50¢ pieces. This was before 1965 so I’m sure I had many silver coins. I never came close to filling any of the books. This was about the time that I started smoking cigarettes and when I needed a pack of butts I would “borrow” the coins from my collections for the nearest cigarette machine. Those coffin nail dispensers were everywhere.
@Grumpy realist:
Cheese used to be a relatively cheap protein. Beans. Lentils. Rice isn’t a protein source, but it filled my tummy up.
Ground beef was a splurge buy. Summer sausage in the casing was cheap relatively.
Elbow macaroni and butter + a cheap protein was my regular fare for a long time.
I can now afford what I want, but my palate is still cheap-ass. I make tacos, curries, bacon-egg-and-cheese on toast, pasta variations.
Life has taught me to be frugal.
And I like and prefer simple meals.
@just nutha:..service fee…
There is a locally owned appliance repair shop in town that has a sign on the door that offers a 4% discount for cash payment. There is also a local Mexican Restaurant that charges a small % for use of credit card for payment. There may well be other merchants that do this. I just don’t get around to the local diners as much as I did before the disease.
@de stijl:
NGL, I’m in total agreement with his.
Canada did this a few years ago, and I believe that digitally it exists but on a cash basis it does not. If they truly want to go foward with abolishing the Penny without a total meltdown by the guns-and-Bible crowd all they have to do is accuse the Treasury of being ‘woke’ (blah Blah Blah) and it will happen.
@MarkedMan: @Jen:
The downside of a court order is how to enforce it. I was listening to George Conway on The Bulwark and he was explaining that how a court enforces a judges order is to use the US Marshal Service. Guess who runs the US Marshal Service. The Department of Justice currently under Pam Bondi.
I see this all ending with Congress somehow using its ultimate power of denying funding. And even then….
@Mister Bluster: I was a paper boy back when the coins were still “silver”. I have a coffee can of those coins in the attic. I should dig them out sometime. Along with the stamp collection.
Sorry, no link available.
The nazi in chief offered to buy OpenAI for $97 billion. Sam Altman, the CEO, reportedly replied, “no thank you but we will buy twitter for $9.74 billion if you want.”
I rate it a second degree burn.
Susan Collins will support RFK Jr.’s nomination.
@Jen:
I have taken to reminding certain conservatives that the rest of the Constitution merits at least as much deference as the Bill of Rights, and the other amendments at least as much as the Second. Any argument that (say) birthright citizenship can be set aside by Trump is unavoidably also an argument that the right to keep and bear arms can be similarly discarded at whim.
@MarkedMan: I was speculating the other day about the number of guns floating around this country (when they are not being gun runned to the cartels in Mexico). The main argument for the 2nd Amendment is to keep the populace armed to prevent tyranny. Makes you wonder when Trump, the Republicans and the CHINOS will be reversing their 2nd Amendment views because the guns will be in their way.
@Kathy: Was the $97B in cash or some bogus inflated stock or crypto currency.
@JohnSF:
Different regulatory environment here I guess? The retailers I’ve talked to pay a processing fee and an interchange fee. One of the fees is a percentage of the total, or a set minimum for really low amounts. So, if someone buys a cup of coffee for $5, and the processing fee can be .50 (the flat rate), rather than the 1.5%, which kicks in at higher amounts. So, that cup of coffee is a 10% fee + the interchange fee. That means that places where they process a lot of smaller transactions–like a cafe–are getting crushed.
@de stijl:
I lived on mostly lentils for 3 years of undergrad, back in the early 80s. That, and 8 cents per packet in bulk instant noodles (Chinese, not ramen) from the asian food wholesale store. I could make a tasty and nutritious lentil stew that my roommates wouldn’t steal because it looked like vomit. (Eggs were also cheap and nutritious, but vanished before I could eat them.)
Steve Bannon will plead guilty to fraud charges in exchange for no jail time.
@Scott:
The various Latin American wars of independence against Spain were led mostly by liberal whites born in the Americas (criollos), or mixed race people also born there. Mexico was a bit of an outlier, as independence was finalized by a group of criollo conservatives, who were less than impressed by Ferdinand VII.
So, there’s some precedent
@Scott:
At those rarefied heights, who knows. Maybe the chief nazi offered Altman the opportunity to continue to draw breath unimpeded.
Any day now, the felon may declare AI crucial to national security and order all AI companies seized from the wokeDEI hands they’re in now…
@DrDaveT:
The thing I value most now is frugality.
@DK:
As enticing as it may be to equate to a substance addiction paradigm this ongoing mass phenomenon of seemingly self destructive behavior, what is taking place is operating at a confluence of socio-psychological levels so as to defy such simple and known analogies. We better understand that right up front. All those “hot takes” that keep getting served up daily are amusing and catch our attention, but this thing is way more complex. The cheese has been moved.
@Jen:
We’ve already got confirmation that they don’t.
@Michael Reynolds:
Eh? Liberals fight just as hard as those who are commonly indentified “conservatives.” The issue is that liberals come to what is now a knife fight armed with a rational argument — and a lot less cash. The liberal coalition for the most part, still attempts to follow the rules, guidelines, informal guide rails. Conservatives have dispensed with all that and any pretense of civil power sharing. They have no shame. So they have no problem with hypocrisy and being outed.
@Rob1:
OK, I know there was a book or something, and this phrase means something to someone. I’m not that someone. Could you please unpack/explain it, so I can stop wondering? It is not at all clear from context, no matter how many times I see it.
@DrDaveT: It was a business/motivational book. Who Moved My Cheese?
It’s a parable about adapting to change. “The cheese has been moved”–> the inciting event that shows how differently each mouse responds to the change.
The penny thing is just Trump not knowing the difference between government and business. Business exists to make a profit and create an economy, government exists to provide the things that otherwise wouldn’t be. Trump is honestly puzzled that anyone or anything would make something without netting a profit.
For that same reason he can’t imagine not having the powers of a CEO/dictator.
But we are a nation of laws. The POTUS having total say so on what the law is and is not is a Constitutional crisis.
Had a hunch Kendrick Lamar would not let a chance to take a shot with Trump there pass. He went off-script in his lyrics yesterday for just one single, wonderfully inciteful sentence:
“The revolution is about to televised, you picked the right time, but you picked the wrong guy,”
@CSK: I am concerned for her.
@Gustopher:
I knew you would be.
@Rob1:
There’s obviously there’s nothing similar about behavior change theory, addiction, maladaptive behavior, or the stages of change model, as applied to either individual or mass behavior. But this is just a blog comments section, after all.
Even before the cheese was moved, it was oversimplistic to believe the wobliness Western democracy is all based on Democrats not being pugilistic enough (“they need to fight!”) or not offering the perfect platitudes (“messaging!” “imagination!”). So yes, it would actually be nice if more people recognize that there are complex layered forces at play, instead of yelling “Do something!” at Democrats and lamenting that they aren’t fighting enough or aren’t imaginative enough — as if the cheese movement is under Democratic control. Movement that is occurring across the globe, not just among voters within the purview of American liberals and Democrats.
The basic dictionary definition of gravity is fairly simple. How gravity actually plays out across the universe is mind boggling.
To put it simple, the American people have to decide to turn away from fascism, or not — Democrats do not have the power force them. Obviously how that plays out is complex. But the basic truth of it is what it is, whether people want to accept it or not. I don’t have the power to force a determined alcoholic to stop drinking. Democrats do not have the power to force Americans to reject far right extremism. There are certain things Democrats can do to make that more or less likely at the margins. But the ultimate decision will be made by the American people, involving events largely out of Democratic control since Republicans have more power.
Simplistic solutions about how it can all be solved by obvious behaviors Dems are just too weak and unimaginative to deploy are just comforting Bible stories. That, unsurprisingly, match up each time with our personal hobby horses. ‘They just need to do this thing that matches up with me preferences and biases.’ If course.
But hopefully Americans will figure it out before we get our faces smashed in like 1940s Germany.
I had briefly wondered if there was going to be some kind of RW backlash to the halftime show. But I had thought more about the potential setlist than anything else.
It started, and I thought that perhaps the patriotic themes may mute criticism a little bit.
Then, I saw the shot of a performer sitting atop the streetlamp and thought that “Alright” might be coming–that may ruffle feathers.
Didn’t think about it nor hear anything until this evening. On his podcast, analyst Aaron Schatz mentioned that he had heard that there was some sort of RW meltdown on social media.
Yes. There. Was. Just nothing like the responses to the Rihanna crotch grab or Nipplegate.
Indeed, Kendrick was announced as the performer in September.
Walked right into that one, Boebert.
In her defense, I thought the audio quality was terrible. I vocally blamed it on my friend’s lack of soundbar–TV speakers are generally trash. He agreed. But it turns out, we were not the only ones bothered by the unbalanced mix. But having seen video of Kendrick performing live in various venues, he is exceptionally clear live. And he raps fast even when it does not seem like he is.
Well, let’s see, Matt. Two of the songs were from an album that earned the man a Pulitzer–not only a first for a rapper, but a first for a non-jazz, non-classical artist. The initial Hot 100 chart post-release, every single track on the album charted. Safe to say plenty of people know those songs.
“Not Like Us” was the song of the summer and won Grammys. The crowd yelled “A-Minor” at the correct time. So at least a bunch of football fans in the crowd know it.
Within hours of its release, there were countless videos of club-goers going nuts the moment the first beat started. It was also all over sports arenas immediately, including white Wisconsinite Dodgers player Gavin Lux using it as his walk up song the first game after it was released.
“Luther” and “TV Off” are pretty well known. I mean they are tracks from a recently released hit album.
Given the wide appeal of the NFL, and that it crosses every demographic, it’s pretty safe to say that plenty of football fans know most of those songs.
Michael Knowles tried to split the difference, praising the patriotism, but calling the music gibberish.
It’s almost as if these commentators have a problem with Black people. Gaetz couldn’t be bothered to check the dates. Boebert was probably too busy with her boy’s crotch. And Walsh does not seem to have a grasp of who watches the NFL. And rather than just say, “I don’t like that style of music” like a normal, non-racist would, they go out of their way to denigrate.
But I’ve been told to suggest any of that is race-baiting.
Maybe someone should challenge these people to place the lyrics of “Try That in a Small Town” next to “Count me Out” or “Sing About Me (Dying of Thirst)” and explain how the former comes anywhere close to the depth in form or content of either of the latter. “Sing About Me” is also filled with Christian imagery, but not the right kind. It is more than just generic, empty praise of God one might find in mainstream Country songs.
Lol. Cry more.
Full disclosure: IMO, his latest album is by far his least interesting. Kind of like his Beatles for Sale. It’s good, but it doesn’t have the thematic cohesion of his other albums.
@Jen:
Yes, I knew that much. But that still doesn’t help me interpret the statement. When Rob1 says “the cheese has been moved,” what does that mean in plain non-metaphorical non-allusive English?
(The urge to cite that ridiculous episode of ST:TNG with Paul Winfield is nearly overwhelming…)
@Jen: @just nutha:
I’m reminded of a not very good Star Trek episode, The Omega Glory. It’s a cold war metaphor, based on the absurd premise of another planet having a war between the Yangs and the Kohms. At the end the Yangs turn out to have a stars a and stripes flag and their leader recites the Pledge of Allegiance, so badly it’s barely recognizable. IIRC the Yangs call it, and other memorized documents, “worship words”. They don’t understand them except as liturgy, like pre-Vatican II Catholics with the Latin liturgy. That’s how conservatives understand the Constitution, worship words. Revered, but not understood.
@gVOR10: Wow, two references to bad Star Trek episodes as analogy, in one day’s forum. Pop geek culture FTW.
@DK:
But that’s the trick isn’t it. Even among the more formally educated there exists disagreement of what constitutes “fascism” and what, in this day and age, does not.
Among the general population, there appears to be the additional question of why they should care. But in the immediate aftermath of WWII, we knew, as one country, the answer to both those questions. Three generational groups later, the corporate memory has faded, overwhelmed by all sorts of shiny distractions offered up by an exceedingly clever culture.
The task is to unpack what is happening to us — there’s no lack of ideas, but only fragments are represented — and figure out how to respond while there are enough resources accessible to do so. I’ve tried to play that sleuthing game like everyone else, but find the layers of complexity challenging.
In all this, I find the fantastical amount of wealth consigned to malignant personalities bent on rolling back the progress of human reason to be a significant factor, and worthy of our focused attention. We are in a footrace against our worst, most self-destructive tendencies and several time dependent existential thresholds on our horizon.
The deliberate disruption of our human mechanism for ascertaining fact from untruth runs counter to the entire history of human continuity on this planet. We need to nail down what is driving events to know how to respond before we run out of time.
@DrDaveT: I believe ongoing “hot takes” and explanations keep going back to familiar cultural reference points. The blame game proceeds from there.
But what is happening now is far more complex, and influenced by wholly new factors, that we don’t acknowledge because we the observers, are immersed in a society wide cultural soup of change —- we either don’t recognize the weight of these change factors or we simply take them for granted.
The “stutter-step” emergence of successive generations’ influence on our shared cultural perspective seems to have the effect of obscuring the influence of those novel shifts in our shared experience. We have to look elsewhere for our understanding of what is happening now.
@dazedandconfused:
Of course he did. And like the brilliant man that he is, he did it with subtlety.
He performed “DNA.” Which is pretty pointed lyrically, but requires some unpacking. Alas, that would require people willing to engage with it; bigotry precludes that.
But the main reason I bring up DNA is the transition between it and the previous track. It samples Geraldo, Kimberly Guilfoyle, and Eric Bolling criticizing the pre-chorus to “Alright”.
That is to say that he has plenty of overt criticism in his ouvre. And the contrast with his clever approach vs. the responses highlighted in my previous post, Donald Trump’s style, and The Fox News personalities could not be more stark. Most, if not all, of the latter group do not have the capacity.
There is more, though. Here are the lyrics to the song that closes with the FNC hosts:
Brave new world that has such tariffs in it.
There are many complications in the steel industry, starting with the many varieties and qualities of steel produced. Even so, I feel it safe to say few investors will sink money into expanding existing steel mills, or building new ones, on the strength of a tariff on foreign steel which may or may not last long enough for such investments to pay off.
This is what I mean the felon uses the word “tariffs” as an incantation. He says the word, names the amount, waves the magic Sharpie, and something happens.
@Kurtz:
Scanning this open thread. Surprised I even caught this.
What’s on your mind?
@Mimai:
One note from reading the indirect costs post. I had the impression that you were at a major research institution, so it was interesting reading that detail.
The actual reason I put up the signal is because I caught a post late. I noticed you sometimes mirror my post when you reply. The ones I notice are delivered as a parenthetical. The ones I remember specifically:
I remember a discussion a long time ago, I think IQ, maybe. And you wrote, roughly, (insert postmodern digression here).
The other day, I quoted Rust Cole. At the end, you wrote, (insert Raylan Givins quote about assholes.)
I usually laugh, but then I wonder “Hmmm. Is he laughing with me here?”
😉
I am curious: is there is a specific reason you do that or is it just a fun quirk? I can think of some potential reasons. But considering your area of expertise, and figuring out that you are quite intentional, thought I would ask.
I just remembered the very high inflation in Mexico in the 80s did away with cents entirely, and with many coins as well. When the New Peso was introduced by chopping three zeroes off, cents came back. But the smallest denomination was 0.10 (at the time worth about US $0.03).
Since cash transactions could include lower amounts, it was decreed up to 0.05 was rounded down to zero, and all above rounded up to 0.10. Meaning an item with a cash cost of, say 3.75 was charged 3.70, and one worth 3.76 was charged 3.80. the idea is that it evened out.
These days the lowest denomination coin is 0.50, and it’s good only for making change.
@Kurtz:
It’s just a quirk. The motivating factor depends on the post. Sometimes it’s an easter egg to myself. Sometimes it’s a silly aside. But it never (ok, rarely 😉 ) has deeper meanings or malintent.
The Raylan Givens reference was a dig at myself. I had mentioned my experience of posing hypotheticals in the past. And how they had fallen flat. And how that was my fault and that I own it. Hence, I was (am) the asshole.
@Rob1: I really feel we’re out of time. We ran out of time during Obama, when “satirical” websites started happening and blossoming on Facebook and other social media sites, and Boomers got online to “stay in touch with their grandkids”. Nobody stopped it then, and nobody’s going to stop it now. How? How do we stop it? We’ve got “trolls”, here, in our little microcosm of the internet, and it’s pretty damn obvious where they get they information from, and they’re not gonna believe us otherwise.
Somebody upthread mentioned qualified people trying to find jobs to get out of the country. Why wouldn’t they? We all see where this is going.
@Kurtz: “But it turns out, we were not the only ones bothered by the unbalanced mix.”
I didn’t watch this year’s halftime show, but the ones I’ve seen in the past — Prince, U2, Tom Petty, Bruno Mars etc — all suffered from the exact same problem: The sound seemed to be mixed by techs who were used to doing sound for sporting events and not for musical performances. They always sound terrible.
@Jax: This is our one shot, all of humanity. Always our one shot. I don’t believe in conceding ground to ignorance.