Sunday’s Forum
Steven L. Taylor
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Sunday, July 21, 2024
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28 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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2024 State Scorecard on Women’s Health and Reproductive Care
To the surprise of absolutely no one.
eta: when you rank below South Carolina, you know it’s bad.
@OzarkHillbilly:
Speaking of women’s health, I’m still in the hospital with the c. diff. Short-term rehab tomorrow.
@CSK: Damn. Sorry to hear that. I will recross my fingers and toes.
@CSK: Sorry to hear that, I was just wondering last night how you were!
Trump is frantically trying to disavow Project 2025.
Suddenly I find myself in a much more “Biden should not end his campaign” mood…
Manchin says Biden must ‘pass the torch’
@CSK:
Hoping for your speedy recovery.
About the effects of shockwave from a bullet, the Mythbusters tried an experiment on this as it affects glass.
They fired a large, supersonic round between rows of various types of glass. The idea was to see whether a sonic boom can break glass. You can watch the experiment here at 23:23
A bullet in flight does not transfer much of its energy to the surroundings. That’s how come a sniper can kill a person hundreds of meters away. Besides, it’s far more likely the Convicted Felon got his boo-boo from shards off the teleprompter than from a badly aimed bullet.
@Kathy:
Well, Trump is now claiming that he “took a bullet for democracy,” so you’d think he was a veteran of the First Battle of Monte Cassino.
The basketball game between the USA and South Sudan may be relevant to the discussions around immigration that we have. South Sudan has less than 13 million people and a GDP ranked 160th in the world, and yet they were able to make a very credible opponent to the highest level elites from a much bigger and much, much richer country that invented basketball. Now sports are sort of simple, a ball, a patch of ground are all it takes. Is it possible that if they were given the complex infrastructure that a good education requires that people from many sh*thole countries could be seriously competitive with the best that the US has? Maybe racist arguments against third world immigrants are based on avoiding competing on a level playing field?
@Stormy Dragon: Stopped watch time for me, he’s right.
So many scenarios:
Biden continues, loses badly. That becomes a major part of his legacy. Country is screwed badly for God knows how long.
Biden continues, loses close. Part of his legacy, but not the big part. Sucks for country, but maybe we hold onto something.
Biden continues and wins. Great, but that scenario seems less and less likely to me.
Biden does not run. Risky, Harris is demonstrably unpopular based on polling. But one thing that does happen is that the not fit to be president label is gone, and may start to shift back to the candidate who is completely unfit to be president.
For the next three and a half months one of the lead stories will always be is Joe Bident fit to be president. It has to be. It should be. The question of Trump’s fitness should be at least equally newsworthy but it won’t be. The debate is the 800 lb. gorilla in the room. His every appearance will be analyzed, there will be probably be leaks like he couldn’t meet with X person because he wasn’t up to it. To many people Joe Biden will be the grandpa who won’t give up his car keys. It doesn’t matter if it is fair, it is what could very well happen.
The Guardian just reported that Pres Biden has withdrawn from the presidential election. He will apparently remain until the end of his term.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/jul/21/joe-biden-withdraw-running-president?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other
ETA. Ok, smarties, all y’all got what y’all wanted… Now what???
@CSK:
Best wishes. Hospitals….as described by Al Pacino…
@CSK: I’m not sure that’s a wise approach (not that he’s known for making wise choices). Project 2025 doesn’t alienate any of his constituency/the Republican abnormies, and probably attracts some of the “I wish politicians would take stands” segment of the “undecideds.” I’m not sure that it’s a net negative in a race where the Democrats are near fracturing–if that train hasn’t already pulled in.
Biden’s out.
It remains to be seen whether this is a good thing.
@Kathy: “It remains to be seen whether this is a good thing.”
I’m pretty sure that whether or not it’s a good thing, it’s better than the other thing…
@Flat Earth Luddite: Okay, the dog has caught the car. This could be interesting.
That’s…
awkward, but it is in keeping with the dog catching car metaphor. If I were a Democrat, I’d be hoping the atheists are wrong. Having God on my side might be an essential element in the coming month. (Though, my personal suspicion is that God is pronouncedly neutral on this point. Free will, and all that.)
@Kathy:
Cracker and I were discussing this earlier today over breakfast, cigars, and walkies.
Neither of us were hopeful before this, given the feckless/stupid faction nearing or exceeding 50% of the population, but still…
Personally, I suspect that a Trump 2 presidency will be bad news for the poor, minorities (whether racial/sexual/non”Christian”/any I’ve missed here). The wealthy will continue to enjoy their privileged life, and the trumbills will continue to roll closer.
The feckless/stupid population is likely to get the gummint they deserve. May the deity, karma, or fate of the reader’s choice be looking out for you.
Queue up Republican lawyers in 50 states and DC challenging Democratic Presidential
candidate 2.1 ballot access.
Aaaaannnndddd…
Biden endorses Harris for President.
Not surprised, but about 3 years too late, IMO.
Personally, I welcome debates between either Trumplet/Harris or Vance/Harris (after Vance pushes his running mate out a window).
Past time for someone else’s mom to be proud of their child.
I’ve a twist of an idea on the classic von Neumann machine. Briefly: a self-replicating interstellar probe that can launch other probes to further interstellar destination. My idea is a sort of programmable organic being intended to cover large spans of time, rather than large stretches of space (I’m being vague because I’ve no concise description of them).
Now, suppose two of these are somewhere in the Yucatan peninsula around 800 BCE. Would a story about them qualify as historical science fiction?
@wr:
It sure is something.
@Flat Earth Luddite:
There’s supposed to be Chinese curse that says “may you live in interesting times.” I’d change it to “may you get what you wish for.”
I don’t really care is the Democrats nominate a ham sandwich, so long as it beats the Convicted Felon, or Biden uses his now ample spare time planning a coup just in case (the Supreme Court says it’s ok for him to do so).
This should be required reading from anyone “on the fence”.
https://digbysblog.net/2024/07/21/yesterdays-trainwreck/
Trump’s starting point was close to crazy, but now he’s almost incapable of uttering a coherent sentence much less a paragraph.
First,my thanks for the good wishes and concern.
@Just nutha ignint cracker:
He might think this approach will appeal to the non-MAGAs.
@Mister Bluster: Speaker Johnson was already
announcingdiscussing the potential lawsuits with Martha Raddatz on Sunday morning news TV even before Biden announced. Hmmmm…Mu Yixiao and de Stijl sightings and Democrats quickly coalescing around a candidate and just not tearing each other apart!?!
This is quite the day.
Now we just need CSK to get that c. diff thing done so she can go home.
@Gustopher:
Thank you. Going to short-term rehab tomorrow.
@Gustopher: de Stijl checked in?! Which thread?