Saturday’s Forum
This is what we've waited for.
Steven L. Taylor
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Saturday, May 23, 2020
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57 comments
About Steven L. Taylor
Steven L. Taylor is a retired Professor of Political Science and former College of Arts and Sciences Dean. His main areas of expertise include parties, elections, and the institutional design of democracies. His most recent book is the co-authored
A Different Democracy: American Government in a 31-Country Perspective. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Texas and his BA from the University of California, Irvine. He has been blogging since 2003 (originally at the now defunct Poliblog).
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Who’s got two thumbs and insomnia? This guy! Ugh. Hopefully a warm cup of herbal tea will help.
@Mikey: No insomnia today, that fact being a lot rarer than I’d like..
@Teve:
It’s hard finding yourself nodding and thinking, just for a second, Jeff Sessions is right. The feeling passes quickly and he throws a lie about exoneration in there to help the feeling go away even quicker.
I guess I need to watch them feud the same way I watch a Yankees – Red Sox game, wishing there were a way for both teams to lose.
Amazon angles to grab back customers
Amazon’s order fulfillment got so incompetent in the last two months that I reluctantly switched to Walmart, and I’m not the only one.
@Teve:
Cheering for injuries.
@Teve:
Jeff, please. It doesn’t matter if recusal was required by law. What matters is…you were disloyal, as he sees it, to that pig-eyed bucket of human lard hunkered down in the Oval Office. And that’s all that matters.
“Teaching t cells to fight cancer” (Harvard)
This is interesting. They train certain cells to locate and fight cancer cells. This could be also used against infections and viruses.
Whine, whine, whine – what a pussy.
If they just stopped quoting trump the number of lies would plummet.
Tara Reade got dumped by her lawyer. But he still totally believes her story, he just needed to spend more time with his belly button lint.
A FoxNews viewer is born every minute.
@sam:
“Niel” Cavuto? Trump spells it “Niel”?
@CSK: What’s even more irksome about his issue with Cavuto is that it is born out of Cavuto’s clapping back at Trump over hydroxychloroquine.
Cavuto, of course, knows a bit about what he’s saying–unlike the President.
@Jen:
Speaking of medical issues–and certainly Cavuto would be far better informed about them than Trump–NBC News is asking why Trump has not yet completed the physical exam he started six months ago. The White House won’t say.
A couple of interesting reads for a Saturday.
Germany’s Lessons for China and America
Better to love your country with a broken heart than love it blind.
Why Our Economy May Be Headed for a Decade of Depression
Dr Doom is back with bad news.
@ 95South:..What’s your goal?
@CSK:
FWIW, my guess about Trump’s failure to complete his physical is that he’s terrified his doctors will find something seriously wrong with him, physically or mentally. And I’m not altogether convinced–to put it mildly–that that episode last November when he was taken to Walter Reed was the first part of a routine physical. I strongly suspect he had some sort of episode; I don’t know what kind. Perhaps cardiac. It may have turned out to be a false alarm.
Trump’s Press Secretary Displays One of His Checks in a Little Too Much Detail
Somewhere in Russia:
“Boris, Yuri, get in here”
“What’s up Chiefski?”
“Look at this.”
“Jesusski. A fucking goldmine.”
“Da. The man’s a billionaire. We got it made. Get on it. I want it hacked like yesterday.”
Later.
“Uh, Chiefski, we hacked the account, but, uh, there’s a problem.”
“What kind of problem?”
“Well, there’s not much in the account. And what there is is apparently locked and dedicated to monthly payments to a company.”
“What company?”
“Lessee. Ah, da. West Palm Beach Instatan, Superlock Hair Fixit, and Derriere Suppression. He’s been making payments for years.”
“Bummerski. Well, back to the salt mine. How we doing on the bots?”
@sam:
I wouldn’t be surprised if it were a fake check. Donald Trump is a man who charged his son’s seven dollar Boy Scout initiation fee to his now-shuttered-by-court-order charitable foundation. There’s no way he’d give away a hundred grand of his own money.
@sam:
I don’t know why, but “Bummerski” made me laugh out loud (and scare my dog). I’m definitely gonna have to work that into my vocabulary.
@Mister Bluster: Context:
@95 South: I can’t edit the prior comment. It should have a link to the original comment under “Political Dialog in the Age of Trump” but I don’t think it’s working. The last sentence should be close blockquote. The question is, what are you trying to say? I wasn’t talking about the wall or about Jefferson Airplane. If anyone wants to see the original exchange they can. Are you just trolling?
@95 South:..I can’t figure out why I’m responding to your comment though.
Beats me…
@Mister Bluster:
She dragged this business over from one of yesterday’s threads. Damned if I know why. It has nothing to do with anything in this thread, even though this is an open forum.
@CSK: No, Mister brought it over by quoting me without context like he likes to do.
Damned if I know why either. If I posted “@CSK … this is an open forum” tomorrow, would you understand why?
“This is it, boys this is war.” (And 99 red balloons go by, too. 😉 )
(This one was easy for me, I used the song for comment at the time that Trump was saber rattling about NK–and got the most downvotes I’ve ever had, IIRC. A red letter day!)
@CSK: Well yeah–it’s pronounced “knee” “el,” how else would you spell it?
@95 South:
I’d probably recognize it as something I’d said on the previous day. But I can’t see why I’d disinter it and repost it.
@Just nutha ignint cracker: Haha…I thought the lyric sounded familiar. But I never listen to 99 Luftballons auf Englisch.
Hast du etwas Zeit fuer mich? Dann singe ich ein Lied fuer dich, von 99 Luftballons, auf ihrem Weg zum Horizont…
@Just nutha ignint cracker: I was living in West Germany when that song came out, and it was years before I heard it in anything but the original German. It’s still only “real” to me when I hear 99 Luftballons auf Deutsch.
@Teve: They need a new Soros-like figure in RW land. This is a test phase to see if he can resonate in the same fashion
Here’s another indicator of just how terrible America’s response to COVID-19 has been.
https://twitter.com/JeremyKonyndyk/status/1263685616576999425?s=20
The future of flight: Immunity passports, unexpected border closings, and no carry-ons
When I retired, I decided that except crossing an ocean or a family emergency, there was no reason for me ever to take a commercial flight again. If I need to go to LA for a wedding, no problem, take a couple of weeks and visit points of interest along the way. I have the time.
@Just nutha ignint cracker: Well done. I thought this one would run for at least two days!
@Mister Bluster: Was there something in that conversation you wanted to fininsh?
Just a lucky happenstance, I assure you. It’s a song that’s been on the radio a lot where I live.
@Mister Bluster: @95 South: I just wish you two would just agree to disagree and put an end to all the obscure sniping on both sides. And no, I don’t care who either of you think started it.
On the other hand, it’s easy to skip over the @bluster @95 posts because they’re in red, making them easy to ignore.
@Just nutha ignint cracker: I consider it dropped.
Well, nearly 100,000 Americans have died of Covid-19, Memorial Day observances have been canceled…and Trump goes golfing at one of his courses in Virginia. Way to go, you revolting sack of humanoid lard.
@Sleeping Dog:
We will look fondly back to the good ol’ days when all the TSA had to do was frisk us. Distances up to 1000 miles will be achieved faster by bicycle.
The Florida headline of the day-
Florida Keys cops say man kidnapped a teenage girl to get through COVID-19 checkpoint
@Just nutha ignint cracker: I hear you. I was just about to say “If I have to pull over you’ll be in real trouble!”
In tones of grim yet noble resolve, Trump informed Sharyl Attkison that he has “a chance to break the deep state. It’s a vicious group of people.”
@dazedandconfused:
Road trip!
Shocking event in my life today- Dear Wife found Charmin toilet paper at Costco today. She bought one pack for us and one for our 85-year-old neighbor we sometimes shop for.
The front page of tomorrow’s New York Times. Words fail.
They were not simply names on a list. They were us.
@Mikey:
The epitaph following each person’s name is very moving.
@CSK: And those names represent just 1% of all those we know we’ve lost so far. It is crushing.
OK mom. I’ll take your scolding under advisement.
Who started what? You brought that up. I know I never raised that issue.
When anyone claims that they want to help people who have gotten off-track in their thinking
I assert that they are arguing from a position of authority and I reserve the right to question their authority.
I have never stated anywhere that my posts are required reading.
(in red??? not what I see posted on my screen???)
@Mister Bluster: Take a look at MY NAME on your screen and I think you’ll be able to suss out what I was referring to. (But maybe not. 🙁 )
You probably don’t need to worry about it as much. With your Mr. Magoo on the phone (boy, is that ever ironic) avatar, you’re easy to skip over anyway.
@Just nutha ignint cracker:…Take a look at MY NAME on your screen…
I see YOUR NAME (Just nutha ignint cracker says:) at the beginning of posts 14:53, 15:00, 15:39, 15:44, 22:10. Each entry is IN BLACK.
My name heading my posts are also IN BLACK.
Same with @95 South.
Apparently you see something else.
@Teve: Vaccine or not, I would not have anything that Gates has had anything to do with, even if he is giving away his “Spy phones”, smart watches, and other devices. I don’t trust Google any further than I can throw them. Do not use or install any government or health department tracking app. Your personal information and health records will be distributed to who knows where.
Turn off all “smart” devices in your home.
I threw Alexa out in the woods.
Gates/government complex: it’s here.
@Mister Bluster: When I REPLY, what COLOR does my name appear in? (because that’s the only time that “@” is used by the format–t’s easy to skip over the @bluster @95 posts because they’re in red)
And I see you changed your avatar. Coincidence? (Won’t help 🙁 )
” Vaccine or not, I would not have anything that Gates has had anything to do with”
This is the kind of stuff that keeps people coming back–rational opinions intelligently stated.