Thursday’s Forum
Steven L. Taylor
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Thursday, February 8, 2024
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36 comments
About Steven L. Taylor
Steven L. Taylor is a Professor of Political Science and a 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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This headline caught my eye: Saturn’s ‘Death Star’ moon has hidden ocean under its crust, say scientists
Pretty cool what one can deduce from mixing a little* math with a few* pictures.
* ok ok, more than a few pics and a fair amount of higher math. nitpickers.
Say what?
Active shooter training: State-specific requirements for schools and law enforcement
@OzarkHillbilly:
“Look, he’s heading for that small moon.”
“That’s no moon. It’s a space station.”
“Bullshit, old man! It’s a moon with a massive impact crater on its surface.”
Flights of fancy: starling murmurations – in pictures
I’m not a big fan of starlings (they don’t belong here and compete with birds that do) but dawg damn their murmurations are a wonder to behold.
Days from Super Bowl LVIII, the cheapest seats in the house are still the most expensive in history
I went the 1984 Super Bowl at the Superdome in New Orleans (Oakland Raiders vs. Philadelphia Eagles). Tickets were $40 for upper level seats. Friend invited me; father was a senior Pepsi executive. Lousy game but New Orleans was a blast.
@Scott:
At such prices, tickets should have a money back guarantee. I mean, imagine you pay that much, and then wind up with a Bills vs Cowboys blowout.
Unless you’re a Cowboys fan*, it’s a terrible game to watch. You should get at least half your money refunded.
*And if you are, for heaven’s sakes why?
@OzarkHillbilly: Years ago I was tramping solo around Italy and had two hours to kill waiting for a train, and it was cold, so I sat down on a park bench to figure out where I could cheaply spend two hours indoors other than the train station. More than an hour later I was still sitting there watching the last of the murmurations of this huge flocks of starlings. I’ve never seen anything like it before or since.
Any speculation on which Supremes will telegraph their biases, and how? I’m speaking of the disqualification case they are hearing today.
@MarkedMan: One of the ironies of this court is that Thomas and Alito are the Trumpiest of the justices, even though neither was appointed by Trump. Any decision against Trump would probably involve at least one of the Trump appointees joining together with Roberts and the three liberals.
Of course, who am I kidding? We all know the six Republican-appointed justices will overturn the Colorado decision and Trump will be on the ballot in all 50 states come November. The only suspense is figuring out how they reach that decision.
@Kylopod: The fact that Thomas is present in that courtroom is all you need to know. His wife was an active participant in the insurrection. If Roberts had any integrity or any control over his court Thomas would be recused.
@MarkedMan:
I wonder if anyone will specifically call that out. That would be awesome.
Tell us what you really think, Julia Ioffe.
Julia Ioffe really goes off on the
Tucker Carlson and the Putin interview:
https://puck.news/podcast_episode/tuckers-putinphilia-the-most-controversial-man-in-d-c/
It’s short. About 10 minutes.
A Waymo taxi hit a cyclist and, assuming the description below holds up (it was reported by Waymo) I wonder how it will be perceived?
As described, I don’t see how a human driven vehicle could have done better. It sounds like a dumb and unsafe move by the cyclist.
@Kylopod:
I see a tiny glimmer in that the Federalist paymasters may believe Trump will lose, but Haley has a chance. But a tiny glimmer. The only good that can come from this is a trail of controversy and chaos behind candidate Trump and further reduced respect for a corrupt court.
Of late I’ve seen discussion of a possible out for the Supremos, the 50 state solution. Find for CO, where Trump was going to lose anyway, but make no nationwide judgement, leaving it to state officials to bar Trump or not as a matter of state election laws. I haven’t seen anyone game out the electoral consequences of this. I think it largely comes down to how many purple states have red or blue state supreme courts. Except that blue courts are more likely to follow the letter of state law, as IL did, leaving Trump on the ballot. Once again GOPs could profit from the greater integrity of their opponents.
@gVOR10:
Get Lardass off the ballot in Michigan and Wisconsin, and he may as well let Haley have the nomination.
Of course, that’s not what would happen. It’s HIS nomination, after all. He may as well give up something less valuable, like his brain. Besides, he will demand Biden be removed off rvery state ballot.
Then things will be all messed up.
I’m also sure there will be attempts to remove Biden off the ballot, even if the Supremes rule that no constitutional prohibitions apply to Drumpf.
@MarkedMan: Don’t they need to recuse themselves, not have the chief justice remove them?
@Kathy: You’ve never heard of the Cowboys as “America’s Team?” You must be very young!
@Mr. Prosser: Yes, but if Roberts had felt he should recuse, he could have brought enormous pressure.
@MarkedMan:
I agree with you. As a matter of fact, I lived in that general vicinity for 4 years.
I can tell you that cyclists, cars, and pedestrians always seem to have a hard time sharing the paths, streets and sidewalks of the City. Cyclists are kind of anarchistic and do not generally believe that they are subject to rules. The City is a tough place to be in traffic no matter where you are. Over 800,000 people are jammed into an 49 square miles of hills and quirky sidestreets.
I used to cycle a lot, then I reached the age where I didn’t like the odds of avoiding injury if/when I had a chance collision with a vehicle.
@just nutha:
I look a lot younger than I am (and act more immature than that).
I know NFL Films claims they started it, in one of their highlight films referred to them as America’s Team. I’ve no idea how that stuck.
@MarkedMan:
In theory yes, any example of Roberts actually doing so in practice?
I had intended to link to this, but couldn’t remember where I saw it, until Anne Laurie mentioned it this morning. From Adam Silverman’s War In Ukraine series last Sunday, well down the page, search for the 8th use of McConnell.
As I’ve said before, yes the nature of politics and the structure of our system incentivizes bad behavior, but there are villains in the story, including the people who paid McConnell to do this. No previous Leader felt compelled to do this.
@gVOR10:..Except that blue courts are more likely to follow the letter of state law, as IL did, leaving Trump on the ballot.
Illinois Republican Party Primary Ballot access for Trump has yet to be resolved.
See Bloomington Pantograph:
As I was working with the Pantagraph story it went to a paywall. Here is another link with what appears to be the same story from Capitol News Illinois via WJBD Radio, Salem IL.
https://southernillinoisnow.com/2024/02/07/187419/#
Someday I will learn that newspaper web sites often are behind a paywall. I have never seen any AM or FM radio station block stories behind a paywall. Often the stories are from the same source as that which a newspaper might post.
I listened to oral argument this morning in the Trump case. While it’s risky to guess from the questions asked how the Justices will vote, It seems pretty clear to me from the questions asked, the six conservative Justices will find a way to overturn the Colorado Supreme Court, though perhaps for separate reasons. Justice Brown-Jackson was troubled by the ability of one State to determine the outcome of a Presidental election and shouldn’t there be uniform national procedure. What would prevent a red state secretary of state or court from throwing Biden off the ballot? What is the standard or definition of insurrection and who determines who is guilty.
Most people would be surprised to learn there is no constitutional right to vote for President or vice President. Under Article II a state legislature could simply pass a law giving the legislature the right to select the electors. Assume a State which votes blue in presidential elections but because of how legislative districts are drawn has a red majority. In that case, in winner take all the legislature could overrule the collective will of the people. I predict nine different opinions.
Probably the only time I will reference an Hannania piece. Anyway, in it he concludes that the right is more dominated by conspiracy theory and their epistemological ecosystem is terrible. It’s based upon a 2021 paper but if you just paid attention that has been clear for a while.
https://twitter.com/RichardHanania/status/1755278869983302014
Steve
I seem to have stopped getting OTB on my RSS feed. Was this deliberate?
@a country lawyer:
Yes, but they’d have to do that before the election. Law is not supposed to be retroactive. They may also need to amend or repeal existing state laws, depending on the state.
I understand that some states do codify voting rights in their constitutions. If so, changing how electors are appointed would require amending the constitution, however that process is handled.
@a country lawyer: The last election in which a state had its legislature choose its electors was 1876, and the state was Colorado.
On a somewhat lighter note, I got Netflix back mostly for the purpose of getting to Part 5 of Disenchantment.
I decided to stream the whole thing from the beginning, rather than go straight to Part 5. When I saw Part 4, there were several references to earlier events I no longer remembered. I’m averaging two eps daily, on those days I get home early enough to watch TV.
I also went with the cheapest subscription option, the one with ads. I saw none until about 4 eps in. There aren’t many at all. Some do interrupt the ep being played, but thus far it’s only one ad rather than many.
Turning to cooking, I think I’ll tray roasted chicken thighs, not marinated, with potatoes and turkey wieners on the air fryer. I’m still thinking out the details.
The special counsel investigating Biden’s classified document retention chooses not to pursue prosecution of the “elderly man with a poor memory”
@Kathy: Right. However this was one of the crackpot theories Trump’s attorneys proposed to overturn the election. As you pointed out you can’t make those changes ex post facto, after the election. Changing the law in anticipation of the election would be different matter. In the context of this particular case, all of the Justices seemed to be concerned that under Article II the actions of a particular State could control or affect the outcome. One of the arguments of Trump’s attorneys was that the 14th Amendment is not self executing and absent congressional action providing process the States cannot remove a candidate under the insurrection clause.
@steve: That was interesting, except his initial example of what liberals get wrong–is there a non-trivial number of liberals who believe Russia actually changed vote totals in 2016? I thought the general consensus was Russia did engage in influence operations to benefit Trump, but not to the extent of actually being able to change already-cast votes.
So Mr. Hur and JKB both fell for it?!?!
@a country lawyer:
Wasn’t there a case of the crackpot Sola Legislatura pending at SCOTUS?
I wonder how consistent the court will be regarding how automatic constitutional provisions are. I don’t think they can punt the ballot qualification questions. They have to rule somehow, likely by requiring federal or state legislation, or some legal finding of engaging in insurrection or rebellion (or however section 3 is worded).
Regardless, I’m sure there will be at least one attempt to keep Biden off some state ballots. Most likely in Georgia and Arizona.
@Kathy: I don’t think it will be Georgia and Arizona. I think it’ll be a whole host of states Biden wasn’t going to win, anyways. Florida SOS has indicated he’s gonna go that route. Georgia…maybe? Arizona, hard no, SOS is a Dem, if I remember correctly. What the AZ legislature does between now and the election is a different can of worms.
@Jax:
I’m not sure how close the vote was in some red states not seen as either purple or swing states. If there is real Lardass fatigue among voters who usually go Republican, some might stand a chance.
I certainly didn’t expect either AZ or GA to vote blue in 2020.
I’m sure the GQP will try to keep Biden off because 1) bothsiderism, and 2) it would please his Orange Assery no end.