Thursday Tabs
Steven L. Taylor
·
Thursday, October 17, 2024
·
13 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).
Follow Steven on
Twitter
The people using threats of violence against federal workers are terrorists plain and simple. Send them to Gitmo!
Gender affirming care is healthcare. Prisoners are given medical care when they need it, or at least they are supposed to. I don’t see a big controversy on whether inmates should get insulin or chemotherapy or statins, etc.
@Kathy:
A lot of Republicans don’t want prisoners to get insulin or chemotherapy or statins either though…
Question for the Trump tariffs were terrible crowd.
So repeal all tariffs like the sugar and steel tariffs?
Wouldn’t the additional tax revenues from the Trump tariffs be better for US just like the wealth and unrealized capital gains taxes?
Progressives (Paul Krugman and his chief acolyte Brad Delong) say the the government spends money more efficiently with better outcomes.
I knew this was BS misinformation because there would be J6 style mass arrests as there are multiple laws and civil service protection for the King’s men. Note, It is even illegal to lie to them.
@Slugger:
If even one federal worker is issuing threats against federal workers, and you get your wish, then your threat of sending them to Gitmo gets you sent to Gitmo too.
Nice.
The amount of money Elon Musk has just set fire to over the last few years is insane. Think of how much good that amount of cash could have done. Here’s hoping his sh!tty luck with ROI continues though.
@Kathy: To be clear: I agree.
@Jen: At the risk of being accused of being a socialist, it seems to me that people being able to accumulate so much wealth that they can just burn it as he has is a problem. I have no coherent and clear answer to the problem, but still think it is a problem.
At the link on Xlon’s perfidity, there’s this line. “This is likely illegal, because in a federal election one cannot give anything of value in exchange for someone agreeing to turn out to vote.”
Last June when we had the general election, there were tons of freebies all over the country offered to people who had voted*. Things like free parking at some shopping malls, or discounts at restaurants. I recall mention in the papers that some young people had gone to vote to take advantage of such offers.
So, this would be illegal in America?
*In Mexico it’s easy to tell who voted. When you get your ballot, your thumb gets an ink stain so you can’t try to vote again later. Also your name’s checked off the list, and a notch is placed on your voter registration card.
Ballots are secret, so you can’t prove whom you voted for.
@Jen:
The price of emotional insecurity. He’s so desperate to be cool, and of course doesn’t realize you can’t buy cool. Cary Grant, James Dean, Joan Jett, Harrison Ford, Maggie Smith, Michele Obama, Mick Jagger, Charlize Theron, George Clooney. . . Cool can make you rich, but all the money in the world cannot make you cool.
Musk setting fire to money is nothing new. Remember when he launched a Tesla into the sun, just because he could?
But taxing the rich is class warfare, don’t you know (the rich–as a class, not all individuals–have been waging class warfare in this country for decades, and have kicked everyone else’s ass).
@Just Another Ex-Republican:
Not into the Sun, around it. I think its orbit straddles Earth’s and Mars’, or gets close to Mars’ orbit.
Commonly in tests of new rockets, the payload is ballast. You need the weight there to gauge performance, but don’t want to risk a multi million satellite or probe on it. Launching a car into space is harmless whimsy, not hubris.