Thursday’s Forum
Steven L. Taylor
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Thursday, October 3, 2024
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43 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
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BlueSky.
So there is, apparently, a tradition of 60 Minutes (CBS) interviewing both Presidential candidates before elections, this year scheduled for October 7 evening. But apparently only Kamala Harris will be interviewed, two versions:
CBS says Trump agreed to the interview and then backed out. Trump campaign says there were discussions/negotiations but never a firm commitment.
So the point of contention per Trump is live fact checking, which CBS insists on but Trump regards as unacceptable.
My thoughts on possibilities:
1) The 2020 election, which Trump claims was “stolen.” This is an article of faith, mandatory in Trump’s orbit, anyone who disputes this gets banished. This is why Vance reacted as he did to that issue at the debate.
2) More broadly, Trump depends on lying, will not tolerate live fact checking.
3) Or maybe Trump is just too cognitively impaired and low energy for the Trump campaign to risk a 60 Minutes interview.
In any case, Trump is willing to be seen taking a stand on the no fact checking hill.
Thoughts?
@charontwo: I’m reminded of a biblical story (in Matthew:7) about building your house upon a rock versus building your house on sand.
@Tony W:
Trump is turning MAGA into something much like a religion – in the same way that “Bible Inerrancy” is a mandatory belief for Southern Baptists, “Stolen Election” is mandatory belief in Trump’s GOP/MAGA movement.
ETA: Trump is not a very confident prophet if he is so fearful of challenges from the Pharisees of 60 Minutes.
This has gotten some excited here in Texas. We shall see. Registration is one thing; voting is another.
Texas just hit 18M voters. See how surging registrations could reshape the election
I’m headed out of town, sans laptop shortly and won’t return until Sunday afternoon.
Timely article.
With a drop of blood, an Army device can diagnose traumatic brain injuries in 15 minutes
@James Joyner: Travel safe and have fun!
@James Joyner: Enjoy your weekend! When you get back, perhaps you could lead a discussion on this article I just ran across:
The US military must prepare for a second Trump presidency
Similar to Monday’s https://outsidethebeltway.com/lawful-but-unethical-orders/ discussion.
@charontwo:
4) All of the above.
Frat Bro Elon Musk has been crowing about how he and Tesla were exonerated in the trial over whether he misled investors about Full Self Driving over the past decade. (Hint: despite Musk’s semi-annual promises that it is just around the corner, Tesla not only does not have anything that could be remotely qualified as full self driving, it isn’t even best of class any longer.) But what Musk is leaving out is the legal strategy Tesla used to win the trial: asserting that everything Musk said was just “Puffery” (an actual legal term) and not to be taken seriously. This despite the fact they were charging people $10-15K extra for the promise of Full Self Driving (which was imminent, of course).
Some more (potentially) good medical news: progress on type 1 diabetes. TLDR: Doctors removed some stem cells from a woman, genetically modified them to produce insulin and re-introduced them. A year later they are still producing insulin.
Gotta take it with a grain of salt, because it’s in a Chinese team and there has been more than one case of exaggerated claims coming from Chinese genetic researchers, but it is published in Cell, a reputable journal.
@MarkedMan:
Fool me once…fool me twice…
Anyone paying $10-$15K for full self driving deserves the empty box that it is.
@MarkedMan: Makes sense to me. After all, why would anyone believe the CEO of a company when he makes claims about one the company’s products?
@charontwo:
MAGAts are unconcerned about facts. It doesn’t impact him.
@just nutha: I agree. Trump gives his followers permission to be bigots, racists, misogynists, and scorn ethical considerations. None of this other stuff changes that in the slightest
Public education in Texas is failing. I believe it is intentional. This story is just one piece and is disturbing all by itself. The school district described here is considered well run.
Warning: There are disturbing photos of bruised and beaten teachers.
Concussions, bruises, bite marks: San Antonio special education teachers say they often get hurt at work
@charontwo:
Isn’t it spelled “stollen”?
@Scott:
Not only Texas, the GOP generally wants to privatise education. The GOP religious component likes religious schools and home schooling.
https://outsidethebeltway.com/mondays-forum-105/
I’ve made some recipes in the pressure cooker that I’d previously done in the slow cooker, and I see very little difference in outcome, Be it the flavor density in the sauce or broth, how well beans cook, or how tender the meat gets. The big difference is how long it takes. Like 1 hour in the pressure cooker vs 8 in the slow cooker.
Part of it may be the appliance, because it’s the same one. I’ve seen slow cookers with glass lids with a vent hole. I assume these can be set slightly offset to let more steam out if so desired. Mine has a metal and plastic lid that seals. When slow cooking, the vent is set to release. But if I want to reduce the liquid after cooking, I need to engage the sear/saute function with the lid off.
The same goes for reducing after pressure cooking. But then that’s about an hour or so after setting things up, not 6 to 8 hours later.
So, I think I’ll be doing far less slow cooking. Though I still want to try the beef and onion sauce in the cast iron pot in the oven, which is closer to slow cooking (say 3-3.5 hours instead of 6-8).
Argentina passed an airline deregulation bill so broad, it will allow foreign carriers to do domestic flights within Argentina (a practice known as cabotage).
It’s way too early to say what will happen, not to mention I don’t know the Argentine aviation market at all. I figure the large multinational carriers in the region, Avianca and Latam, which operate subsidiaries in various countries, may set up domestic flights in Argentine without setting up subsidiaries there.
Other airlines may triangulate. Say Gol sets a flight from Rio to Buenos Aires to Cordoba to Buenos Aires to Rio, selling tickets for each segment. Or more simply Rio-BA-Cordoba-Rio. In the latter case they may find few takers for a BA-Cordoba flight, as there wouldn’t be a return flight to BA.
We’ll see.
Can anyone explain this Statista chart on Argentinian inflation to me? It all made sense until I noticed it went to 2029. And they have the same for other countries too. What’s up with that?
@MarkedMan:
I assume the numbers for 2024 and subsequent years are estimates/forecasts. they just aren’t marked as such.
@Kathy: My friend who lives in Bariloche finds it pleasanter to fly to Santiago and then to Bariloche with Latam rather than Buenos Aires to Bariloche. Partially because US to Buenos Aires flights land at EZE and require a transfer to AEP.
@Kathy:I thought of that but I don’t see how you can forecast inflation with any kind of certainty for even a month, let alone 5 years.
@Slugger:
That’s more a matter of multiple airports in one city. I often wonder how things work out in NYC with connections possible in JFK, La Guardia, and Newark.
@MarkedMan:
I’ve a feeling economists tend to claim to know far more than they actually do, and to be more certain about it.
@charontwo:
And the GOP late stage capitalist component wants a cut of all that tax money.
@Kathy:
For years I flew extensively out of Newark and to a lesser extent JFK and LGA, on both domestic and international flights. EWR (Newark) and JFK are completely self contained, with connections to pretty much everywhere, and I would be surprised if you ever had to transfer from one to the other. LaGuardia is pretty self contained domestically and handles fewer international flights. I can’t ever recall it being a choice when I came back into the country or flew out, and I always put “NYC” in as my choice which should bring up flights for all three.
@MarkedMan: To apply what an econ prof friend of once said about a similar of projection,
@just nutha:
A segue to something I was going to post anyway. Democrats aren’t “unskewing” the polls, but I fear we may be too dismissive of polls this cycle.
Digby quotes a reader friend on polling. It’s the best short explanation I’ve seen.
He goes on to explain my pet peeve “margin of error”, that it’s really just sample size. It doesn’t address all the other errors pollsters may commit, despite best intentions.
That said, polls haven’t been all that bad. It’s just that we expect them to predict a binary, the winner, with a very equally divided electorate. But like the man said, “Experts making informed guesses are a useful thing, and the best realistic option”.
@Mister Bluster: (quoting OzarkHillbilly)
For some reason this reminds me of Trump and America.
Just, like, motherfuckers, he ain’t hiding shit. The slightest effort will show you exactly who and what he is, and if voters can’t figure that out, well, they will get exactly what they deserve.
Authoritarian/Fascist governments promising ethnic cleansing haven’t worked out for anyone, pretty much ever.
@gVOR10:
I’m not sure what we can do about the polls other than dismiss them. I trust Team Harris to be lookin closely at their polls to see where there is weakness they need to strengthen, but you and I can just dismiss them as it won’t change our lives.
Democrats sacked their nominee. I don’t think the people who have the power to affect things can be more responsive to polling data than that.
But everyone else? The polls are close enough to not be predictive, so do what you need to do and don’t worry about it. Even the two people who tried to kill Trump weren’t obsessing over polls.
@Gustopher: That sounds like a pretty good ad. Close up to stuff about Smith’s filing, some comments about soldiers, a bit of the grab the pussy tape, then start fading out with a top voice person (maybe a baritone male, think James Earl Jones voice) saying “Donald Trump isn’t hiding shit. He’s a traitor, a rapist, a thief. If that is what you want as president, vote for him”.
@gVOR10:
I’m not. I’m freaking the fuck out. I’m about to wire £3000 to the UK for a way out when shit goes bad. As far as I’m concerned we’re fucked.
@Beth:
Where’s Nancy Pelosi and George Clooney when you need em?
Baseball Tonight
One Strike and You’re Out!
Dockworkers strike suspended, the union says
ABC
Still no word on robots replacing umpires.
Well, that certainly de-escalated quickly.
TL;DR the dock workers strike is over.
I wonder how many gloom and doom editorials were killed by this agreement.
At that, they’ve agreed only on wages, apparently. Other issues still need to be worked out, but the contract extension ends in mid January.
Campaign 1968
I was two months shy of my 21st birthday on election day in November of 1968 but I would have voted for one of these guys.
@Kathy:
Well, that had to be the all time most anti-climatic October Surprise. Also, the GOP Governor of Georgia joined with Democratic Governor of NC to contradict Trump to note that President Biden’s Administrations response to Helene has actually been great. Oh yeah, he can also resume debt relief for certain individuals heavily burdened by financial aid debt.
The month of is young, and the race is not over yet but I (and to be fair, many others) have been saying that it feels like the GOP knows Trump is not running a winning campaign to be President and they might genuinely be facked at the ballot box in a few weeks time.
I know that hindsight is 20/20, but if I had known that Biden would have a day like today, in which a potentially economically crippling strike ends after less than 72 hours time, he has GOP Governor’s praising him, and one of his signature efforts at debt relief for college students becomes active again with all of this happening in around a days time, I and others might have not been so vocal that he needed to be replaced on the Democratic ticket and had a fighting chance to win the election.
That being said, I feel that ultimately it was the right thing to get Biden to step down after this term runs out.
The GOP needs to understand that the electoral college may not save their bacon this time around. Trump sounds like a super bitter 78 year old man yelling at clouds, and as the days tick down even members of his base are going to notice how unfit for office he sounds.
ETA: Oh yeah, it was also revealed how active Trump was in trying to succeed in overturning the 2020 election. Trump’s flunkies can spin things all day long but this really was not a good day for Trump.
Wow. White supremacy protects itself at all costs and by any means necessary.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2024/10/03/vance-debate-harris-walz-first-amendment/75483782007/
@DeD: So, is Jonathan Turley a True Fascist Believer, or an opinion-for-hire?
@DrDaveT:
My welfare 2-cent opinion is that Turley is and probably has always been a true believer in the superiority of the White American male. He, like Alito and Roberts and, yes, ol’ step-and-fetch Thomas, who was the Stephen to Scalia’s Calvin Candie, believes only White Christian dominance is the legitimate power-wielding apparatus. But wtf do I know?
I think inflation forecasting is a lot like weather forecasting. It isn’t always right, but it’s usually in the neighborhood, and better than flipping a coin.