Thursday’s Forum

FILED UNDER: Open Forum
Steven L. Taylor
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 Twitter and/or BlueSky.

Comments

  1. Beth says:

    do do do be doo doot doot doo. This time shift suuuuuucks. I feel more human today though. Time to get a cell phone package.

    11
  2. drj says:

    @Beth:

    Flying east sucks. The other way is much better.

    3
  3. Franklin says:

    @Beth: I caught some of yesterday’s thread, but otherwise missed your updates. Are you just on holiday (in the British sense) or did you permanently escape?

  4. Rick DeMent says:

    So it’s spring ahead day this Sunday. Now don’t get me wrong. I love DST. I love it being light until almost 10 PM in the summer. But we spend more days in “Daylight savings” time than we do on “standard” time.

    Now a lot of people want to do away with it. I get that one day a year everyone is jet-lagged for a day or two, but if it means never having DST I’m cool with it. If they do change it, I hope it is to all DTS because standard time just sort of blows.

    We give up an hour of sunlight in the summer, for waking up in darkness most of the year.

    So this weekend I just set my alarm ahead an hour starting Friday or take Monday off 🙂

    1
  5. Scott says:

    @Rick DeMent: I’m an early to rise, early to bed person. I hate it if it is light much after 8:30. And the time zones are much too wide.

    My bitch for today.

    3
  6. Neil Hudelson says:

    This week is the busiest week for the quarter, possibly the first half of 2025. Just unending list of to do’s for work and none of them quick or easy.

    My kids gave my dog an oatmeal raisin cookie and now I’m following her around waiting for her to vomit from the hydrogen peroxide I shoved down her throat, before taking her to Pet ER.

    Why do we have kids again?

    6
  7. Grumpy realist says:

    @Beth: glad to hear that you’ve made it over there safely. Do you know where you’ll be living yet? I spent my first month living in a bed-and-breakfast getting introduced to the joys of a traditional English breakfast. I especially enjoyed the grilled mushrooms. Yum.

    2
  8. charontwo says:

    @Rick DeMent:

    High noon by the sun in Phoenix can be as late as 12:45 in early Feb. currently about 12:43. Not sure how early it can get, at least 12:25 maybe earlier.

    But given the average is roughly 12:35, I would say Phoenix (which stays MST year round) is effectively on year round Daylight Savings. Alternatively, you could say Phoenix should be in the Pacific Time Zone and is effectively year round on PDST, in the summer Phoenix time is the same as Los Angeles time.

    The clocks don’t move here, what moves is what time the TV shows come on, or what time the stock market opens.

  9. CSK says:

    Per ABC, the Trump administration has been hit by over 100 lawsuits since inauguration.

    3
  10. CSK says:

    The Texas legislature is considering a bill to charge trans people with “gender identity fraud.”

    2
  11. Neil Hudelson says:

    172,000 jobs lost in February, ending a 4 year streak of job growth. Highest job losses since the last year of Trumps first term. Recession right around the corner, possibly already here.

    https://www.reuters.com/markets/us/us-announced-job-cuts-surge-245-february-federal-government-layoffs-2025-03-06/

    5
  12. Kathy says:

    @Neil Hudelson:

    It’s called trumpcession now.

    How many of the lost jobs were the responsibility of the nazi in chief?

    4
  13. Kathy says:

    @Rick DeMent:

    Mexico took up daylight savings in teh 90s. it’s been massively unpopular, and the added sunlight in the summer stretched only to around 7:30-8:00 pm.

    His majesty Manuel Andres 0 railed against it nonstop through three runs at the presidency and his time as mayor of Mexico City. Finally he abolished it a couple of years ago, so we’re all on standard time now, except at the border (except at the border with Arizona), and at Quintana Roo (because Cancun is a popular vacation spot for Canadians and others), and maybe there other exceptions.

    I’m not against abolishing DST, but the way his majesty complained about it was infuriating. First he claimed it serves no purpose and doesn’t work, which is not true.

    Second he claimed it was instituted solely to let stock brokers keep time with Wall Street. But then, why was it instituted in Canada and the US and Europe and elsewhere? besides, EDT and EST are 2 and 1 hour ahead of Mexico City time anyway.

    Say it’s unpopular, say it’s effects are minimal and not worth the hassle, say the constant increase in electric rates wipe out any savings. Don’t make stuff up and present it as the truth.

    2
  14. Mister Bluster says:

    @CSK:..Trump administration has been hit by over 100 lawsuits since inauguration.

    Lawyer submits ‘new evidence’ in case against DOGE, using Trump’s own words
    The lawyer pointed to Trump’s saying during his joint address to Congress that the Department of Government Efficiency “is headed by Elon Musk.”
    NBC News

    The Gavel: Justice Department stretched thin in Trump litigation onslaught
    DOJ lawyer Josh Gardner said during a hearing last week that DOJ’s Federal Programs Branch has been “cut in half” since November, even as it has received roughly 80 lawsuits challenging various administration actions.
    The cuts have left many Justice Department lawyers seriously outmanned in court. During a hearing over the administration’s directive to fire probationary employees across agencies, just one DOJ lawyer local to San Francisco represented the government while eight lawyers appeared for the plaintiffs.
    The Hill

    1
  15. CSK says:

    Trump really is an imbecile:

    http://www.indy1oo.com/politics/trump/donald-trump-transgender-mice-speech-trending-memes

    He thought “transgenic” meant “transgender.”

    7
  16. charontwo says:

    Here is Steve M.’s take on explaining why Trump does what he does:

    NMMNB

    Trump is the worst person in the world and the most dangerous, but most of the terrible things he’s doing, or trying to do, are other people’s ideas. The foreign policy mostly derives from Vladimir Putin. The 2017 tax cut and the one likely to be passed in this term are warmed-over Kochism. Trump’s chainsaw approach to government staffing is Elon Musk attempting to impose his techno-Nietzschean view of the superfluousness of ordinary people on the government because he got away with massive staff cuts at Twitter. The assault on government workers is the mad plan of the people who concocted Project 2025, because they want government to stop being useful to other people so they and their fellow Dominionists can take command of government, while also seeking control of society’s other six “mountains”: family, religion, education, media, arts and entertainment, and business. Trump, who used to brag about getting COVID vaccines developed, has completely outsourced his public health approach to Robert Kennedy Jr.

    Obviously, many of these ideas overlap with Trump’s own beliefs. Stephen Miller and Steve Bannon might have been the ones encouraging Trump to demonize immigrants starting in 2015, but Trump was always racist. The Project 2025ers want the federal government to be staffed exclusively by people loyal to their cause; Trump wants government to be staffed only by people loyal to him, and that amounts to the same thing.

    Some people say Trump has no core beliefs and is merely “transactional.” But that’s not really correct. While it’s true that, to take one example, Trump was somewhat welcoming to LGBTQ people in his first campaign — he waved a rainbow flag once and said Caitlyn Jenner could use the bathroom of her choice at Trump Tower, while he now demonizes trans people almost as viciously as the Nazis demonized Jews, and last night he proposed a law criminalizing parents who permit a child to undergo gender surgery — the core principle here is “How do I beat the hated Democrats?” In 2016, he tried to coopt the opposition party, but now he’s a demonizer — an approach he borrowed wholesale from the likes of Christopher Rufo and Libs of TikTok.

    Trump is a horrible person, but Bump reminds us that part of what’s horrible about Trump is that he’s a conduit for the ideas of other horrible people. When we depict Trump as uniquely bad, we overlook the fact that the entire Republican Party and its ideological allies are rotten to the core.

    I highlighted the point that Project 2025 is the brainchild of Russell Vought who is a big NAR/Seven Mountains Christian Nationalist.

    9
  17. Mister Bluster says:

    @CSK:..”The Texas legislature is considering a bill to charge trans people with “gender identity fraud.”

    This will require that the State of Texas appoint an official government crotch inspector.
    For this position I nominate disgraced Republican, former Federal Judge, Samuel B. Kent.

    2
  18. Mister Bluster says:

    @CSK:..Trump really is an imbecile

    Bad link.

    1
  19. Scott says:

    @charontwo: @CSK:

    I have had these dark thoughts rattling around in my brain. Boils down to the dark question: At what point does legal and financial oppression and violence justify physical violence?

    And are we heading there?

    6
  20. CSK says:

    @Mister Bluster:

    Oh, he sounds just perfect for the job.

    @Mister Bluster:

    I don’t know what the problem is. You can Google “transgender mice” and get it and other articles.

    1
  21. Michael Reynolds says:

    @Beth:
    Did you bring any pets over with you? That’s the single biggest hang-up for us. Two small dogs, one, unfortunately, a Pug which adds a layer of difficulty. We thought we could take the Queen Mary 2 but their kennels are booked from now to forever. We are wait-listed for Bark Air but who knows if that will clear.

    As it stands now we’ll stick Astrid (emo-dog) in the belly of the plane and try to shove Boss under a seat. But because Boss is stretching the 20 pound limit, she may be turned back at boarding. So we have to have one of our kids at the airport with us to take her temporarily.

    Also, dogs are not allowed in the front of the plane, so we’ll buy two business seats, plus a coach seat, then split our dog-sitting time. Which, granted, earns only so much pity.

    You may enjoy this woman. She does tours of London with a focus on shopping and pastry. And she never shuts up. Really, never. You can do a drinking game where you take a shot any time she shuts up for 5 seconds – it’s only for the sober. Here she is having tea at the Ritz.

    3
  22. Bill Jempty says:

    My kidney biopsy results are in. They are negative.

    It seems I have through several health scares that began last year. I’ve been having health scares for 16 years, My luck is going to run out sooner or later.

    14
  23. steve says:

    I am sort of half heartedly watching an interview with Lutnick. It’s sort of interesting, sort of because as a Trump follower you have to assume he is lying, that he is claiming that the current tariffs are really about fentanyl though he does go on to claim it will make American farmers wealthy again. There are a lot fo problems with this claim of course. Almost no fentanyl comes in from Canada. We have had the War on Drugs for years and have pretty much proved that demand creates supply. However, if you follow drug deaths data you know that deaths have had a fairly sudden and steep drop off. My prediction is that the drop likely continues and when the next batch of data comes out showing another drop he will take credit.

    Also, like every other interview with a Trump rep it’s pretty nauseating listening to them since nearly every other sentence is them telling us Trump is wonderful.

    Steve

    5
  24. Slugger says:

    American car makers need to respond to tariffs-yes, tariffs-no, tariffs-yes, tariffs-next month. I suggest following the Foxconn playbook. Announce a giant new plant to cost tens of billions and employ myriads of worker. Have Trump give a speech at the ribbon cutting ceremony full of self congratulations and fulsome self praise. Then get a couple of guys in hard hats to drive equipment around on the site, stir some dust, and interrupt nearby traffic. You can keep this going for years; Foxconn did. No tariff while rebuilding American car production!

    7
  25. Lucysfootball says:

    Texas showing the world it has no shortage of morons throughout the state legislative:
    State Rep. Tom Oliverson filed a bill Wednesday that would amend the Texas Penal Code to create a new form of fraud: “Gender Identity Fraud.” A person would commit “gender identity fraud” by “identifying the person’s biological sex as the opposite of the biological sex assigned to the person at birth.” Committing “gender identity fraud” under the proposal would be a state jail felony, the lowest level of felony in Texas. A person found guilty would be subject to up to two years in prison and a $10,000 fine.
    Next up: bald men wearing toupees will be charged with deceptive follicle practices.

    6
  26. CSK says:

    @Lucysfootball:

    Yeah, I noted that above. Oliverson’s an M.D., too, an anesthesiologist.

  27. gVOR10 says:

    WAPO has a useful article (gift link) this morning on the White House media operation’s focus on social media. All, apparently, on the taxpayer’s dime. Where’s the Hatch act when you need it? We talk a lot about what Dems need to do. Some Dem billionaire needs to set up a comparable influencer operation. However, social media lends itself to simple, emotional, messages, which is an inherent bias favoring conservatives.

    I’m still letting my subscription lapse. The article, while useful, is also a prime example of my bitch about WAPO, and NYT. They no longer do news, they do interminably long essays about the news. I skimmed. I wonder if anyone actually reads through these long “stories”.

    4
  28. gVOR10 says:

    @Lucysfootball:

    Texas showing the world it has no shortage of morons throughout the state legislative:

    plus ca change or some damn thing. Back in the ’70s Molly Ivins used to say she had great job security because the Texas lege provided infinite material for satire.

    2
  29. Fortune says:
  30. Neil Hudelson says:

    @Fortune:

    CNN admitting they fact-checked wrong.

    CNN isn’t exactly a bastion of journalist integrity, so it pains me to defend them. But I want our audience here to know this is what you mean by “admitting they fact checked wrong.”

    Here’s the correction:

    An earlier version of this item incorrectly characterized as false Trump’s claim about federal money being spent for “making mice transgender.” The article has been updated with context about the spending, which was for research studies on the potential human health impacts of treatments used in gender-affirming care.

    The new article content:

    DOGE and transgender mice: Trump claimed on Tuesday that the Department of Government Efficiency identified government spending of “$8 million for making mice transgender.” This claim needs context.

    The morning after Trump’s speech, the White House provided a list of $8.3 million in federal grants to health studies that involve mice receiving treatments that can be used in gender-affirming health care. The White House list made clear what Trump, in the speech, did not: The studies were meant to figure out how these treatments might affect the health of humans who take them, not for the purpose of making mice transgender.

    For example, the National Cancer Institute awarded $299,940 to one project in 2023 to compare breast cancer rates among female mice and those receiving testosterone therapy. Hormone regulation of breast development is similar in mice and humans, and the research allows for much faster findings than a prospective study in humans.

    And awards totaling $455,120 went from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases to two projects between the 2023 and 2024 fiscal years to test differences in the ways an HIV vaccine worked in mice that had received cross-sex hormone therapy. The research has an “ultimate goal of designing an HIV vaccine that maximizes efficacy but minimizes adverse outcomes,” according to the project description on the National Institutes of Health website.

    They fact checked his speech just fine. Afterwards staffers in the White House did some damage control and corrected the bullshit Trump spewed. CNN did the polite thing and updated their article to match the post-speech claims from the White House.

    10
  31. Fortune says:

    @Neil Hudelson: “They fact checked the speech just fine?” What did they originally say?

  32. Mister Bluster says:

    @CSK:..google…

    I’ll try that when I get a chance.

  33. Fortune says:

    @Neil Hudelson: I found this on the wayback machine.

    DOGE and transgender mice: Trump falsely claimed that the Department of Government Efficiency identified government spending of “$8 million for making mice transgender.”

    Between the 2021 and 2022 fiscal years, the National Institutes of Health awarded a total of $477,121 to three projects that involved administering feminizing hormone therapy to monkeys to understand how it may affect their immune system and make them more susceptible to HIV. Feminizing hormone therapy is a gender-affirming treatment used to block the effects of the male hormone testosterone and promote feminine characteristics among transgender women.

    Transgender women are nearly 50 times more likely to be infected with HIV than other adults, according to one study from 2013 across 15 countries, including the US. It’s not clear where the $8 million figure came from.

    From CNN’s Deidre McPhillips

    https://web.archive.org/web/20250305134449/https://www.cnn.com/2025/03/04/politics/fact-check-trump-address-congress/index.html

  34. Neil Hudelson says:

    @Fortune:

    They took his inane comment about making mice transgender and tried to find any spending at all that might have anything to do with gender affirming care and animals, finding some information regarding monkeys. After the white house clarified just wtf Trump’s verbal diarrhea was about–understanding the impact of hormone therapy on cancer development in women (notably, not making mice transgender!)–they updated their article.

    Glad to be of help.

    Your takeaway from all this seems to be that CNN is the issue here, and not a President who believes that “they’re making the mice transgender!”

    CNN: Trump believes Haitian immigrants are eating dogs, cats.
    Fortune: He never said “cats” plural, just “cat.” The absolute gall of CNN, the fucking nerve, why I never!

    (This is absolutely going to become part of his stump speeches, isn’t it? “Our beautiful mice, folks, they are forcing them into hormone therapy, making them wear cute little outfits that show off their legs. It’s a shame folks, a real shame. Biden did this you know. He forces our strong, manly mice to be feminine. They’re putting them into semen milking machines to steal their manly mouse essence. You hate it to see it, folks, you really do.”)

    11
  35. becca says:

    Macron gave a barn burner yesterday. The North Atlantic Alliance is over for all useful purpose. Le Monde says djt has thrown in with Putin and Xi.
    Boycotting American products is growing in popularity across Europe. Tesla is in the toilet. I would imagine a fair number of Panamanians, Greenlanders, Canadians, etc are of a like mind.
    How much do we have to lose before we start winning?

    2
  36. Kathy says:

    BTW, two different newspapers in Mexico City published figures that show fewer deportations during the felon’s first month on the throne, as compared with Biden’s last month in office and the average during his term.

    I haven’t been able to verify this, and the US media’s said nothing as far as I’m aware.

    I wouldn’t find it surprising, if true, as the rapist’s regime seems more concerned with showy military deportation flights, with immigrants shackled like criminals. Military flights are more expensive and likely carry fewer passengers.

    2
  37. DK says:

    @Neil Hudelson: Republicans crash the economy every time they get power. So no surprise that Trump’s and President Musk’s trade wars, tarrifs, mass layoffs, threats to occupy Gaza, and surrender to Putin are landing with an economic thud. Except to the idiots who are still voting Republican because “woke trans DEI hire cat-eating Haitian migrant CRT pronoun drag shows” or something.

    5
  38. Michael Reynolds says:

    @becca:
    NATO and Article 5 died on election day.

    Let’s say Trump wants to bomb Iran. How does he do it without the use of European bases? The trip from North Dakota to Iran necessarily crosses multiple European nations. Where are the refueling tankers based? What if MI6 or DGSE give Teheran a heads-up? Will anyone in the ME aside from Israel support an attack launched by a Putin-wannabe? Even the KSA?

    Trump keeps threatening Gaza. Where are the forces he’ll use to make the rubble bounce? Europe can if it chooses, deny the US Navy access to the Mediterranean – no refueling, no emergency landing strips, no ports to load ordnance.

    What are we going to do if Japan, seeing how things are going, and contemplating the huge cost of arming up, decides to make a separate peace with China? If Trump won’t stand with NATO, only a fool would expect him to back South Korea against Russia’s ally North Korea.

    Taiwan will be Xi’s for the taking and given the parlous state of his economy, and American weakness paired with hostility, sooner would be better than later. It won’t be a straight invasion, I don’t think China has the troop carrying gear for that just yet, but what does Trump do if China pulls a Hamas and just starts peppering Taiwanese military bases with missiles?

    Trump has done far more damage to US security than Al Qaeda ever dreamed of. Trump is the most dangerous and damaging enemy the United States has faced since WW2.

    15
  39. Mister Bluster says:

    @Bill Jempty:..My kidney biopsy results are in. They are negative.

    Good to hear!

    My 71 year old brother spent time in the hospital recently. First in January for a blood clot in his lung and intestinal distress. Then last week for more intestinal distress.
    I got this email from him yesterday just before he was discharged:
    “You won’t believe this. Apparently I have a congenital condition in my right kidney and the doctor told me that it has not worked since the day I was born.”
    He’s home now and says he is feeling better.

    4
  40. CSK says:

    @Kathy:

    Trump claims he has a “very good” relationship with Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo.

    2
  41. Kathy says:

    @Michael Reynolds:

    There’s a substantial US Air Force presence in Qatar.

    I think it’s common for strategic bombers, like the B-2, to fly from the US to their target and back. I’m sure I read about such missions during Gulf War II.

    @CSK:

    If one assumes 100% of what the felon says is a lie, one would be right about 98.2% of the time. If one assumes 100% of what the felon says is a lie, wrong, misleading, or irrelevant, one would be right about 99.9% of the time.

    1
  42. Fortune says:

    @Neil Hudelson: The “fact check” went from false to yes it happens but Trump didn’t explain the reason for it. Trump was right, CNN and CSK were wrong.

  43. Michael Reynolds says:

    @Kathy:
    B2 maximum range without refueling is 6000 miles. It’s about 6,800 miles from North Dakota to Iran. The B52 can do 8,800 miles, which gets them there, but not back. Not without refueling. Naval aviation would be hard put to have much effect from outside the Gulf. Also worth noting that these are all nominal figures and range is less when loaded.

    So they’d have to fly from Diego Garcia. Which is do-able, but involves moving a large number of bombers to the base in the Indian Ocean to gas up and arm-up, which means a single vector of attack, and plenty of warning since the enemy can’t watch ND, but can watch Diego Garcia. And while we lease DG, it remains UK territory.

    And what will Putin have to say about hitting Iran. I wonder. He’s buying a lot of Iranian drones.

    1
  44. MWLib says:

    @Mister Bluster: Maybe a bad link, but still true!

    1
  45. restless says:

    @Fortune:

    CNN adjusted their reporting when presented with clarifying information. This is bad?

    6
  46. CSK says:

    @Fortune:

    So are you saying that Trump did not use the phrase “transgender mice”?

    And why the hell does every Goddamned thing Trump says need to be explained/justified/translated?

    8
  47. Fortune says:

    @restless: I’m happy they corrected themselves.
    @CSK: Because you and CNN react without thinking.

  48. CSK says:

    @Fortune:

    Answer my question: Did Trump say “transgender mice”?

    6
  49. Kathy says:

    @Michael Reynolds:

    Mid-air refueling. No idea if they can do that without Europe’s cooperation.

    But this merely raises more issues. Back in the 80s when Reagan ordered a retaliation raid on Tripoli, France and Spain denied permission to use their airspace. Therefore F-111s based ni the UK had to go around the Iberian peninsula rather than fly straight to their target. Both ways.

    Say this time various European countries deny permission to overfly their airspace enroute to Iran, but the felon goes ahead and orders the drunk at DoD to overfly anyway (like he’s gonna say no?). What happens then?

    It’s not an easy choice. On the one hand you don’t want to start a war, on the other you can’t let your sovereign airspace be violated. Europe being Europe, they’d tart with protests and escalate through various sanctions (like removing US airlines slots at European airports) before it gets to a shooting war.

    1
  50. Mister Bluster says:

    @MWLib:..still true.

    I agree.

  51. Fortune says:

    @CSK: No.

  52. Kathy says:

    @Scott:

    The nazi in chief and the MAGAts are very busy inciting violence against the many federal judges who rule against the rapist’s regime.

    Aside the fact they don’t understand what impeachment is for, sooner or later we may see a poor federal judge being scraped off the pavement by the local police. We’ll see much shaking of heads, and much concern, and somehow the nazi and the MAGAts will blame the Democrats and Joe Biden for the violence.

    After that, almost every ruling will be favorable to the new dictator.

    So what can everyone else do, especially what can the various states do (and it won’t just be blue states), when neither Congress nor the courts will or can stand against the blatant illegality and actual tyranny?

    I see two choices: they can knuckle under, or they can rebel. The latter has a very high likelihood to end in civil war. Be it because the ruling regime sends troops to force compliance, or because the aggrieved states decide they can’t live under a hostile dictatorship.

    If the courts collapse, or the regime simply ignores their rulings, it will end badly.

    Things won’t progress to violence right away. At first, the hope will lie in the midterm elections. Assuming these 1) are held, 2) are fairly conducted, 3) the results are respected, what keeps the regime from ignoring laws passed by Congress any less than court rulings?

    Hope may shift to the 2028 general election, but I don’t think one can be conducted fairly, as dictatorial regimes will do everything to retain power.

    3
  53. restless says:

    @Fortune:

    Technically, true. He didn’t say “transgender mice”. He said “$8 million for making mice transgender”

    https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/read-the-full-text-of-trumps-speech-to-a-joint-session-of-congress

    So your position is that CNN, reporting on Trump‘s actual words, is at fault for not waiting until the Trump whisperers come out and explain what he meant?

    6
  54. Fortune says:

    @restless: No that’s not my point, my reply was only mocking CSK for trying to play lawyer and doing it badly. My point is what Trump said is true and CNN and CSK pounced, based on misunderstanding it, and at least CNN has cleared it up but CSK still won’t.

  55. CSK says:

    @Fortune:

    Of course I won’t. He referred to a study that made mice transgender. What’s to clear up?

    And, I repeat, why does Trump have to be translated?

    8
  56. Neil Hudelson says:

    So to be clear the poisonous toad Fortune’s big gotcha is that Trump didn’t say “transgender mice” he said “mice transgender?”

    That’s…that’s what has consumed him today?

    Fortune, do you really want to look like this much of a clown?

    I’ll repeat:
    CNN: Trump believes Haitian immigrants are eating dogs, cats.
    Fortune: He never said “cats” plural, just “cat.” The absolute gall of CNN, the fucking nerve, why I never!

    13
  57. Fortune says:

    @Neil Hudelson: I already answered this.

  58. Kathy says:

    @CSK:

    When you ask a liar a question, are you surprised when they lie in response?

    The rapist has to be translated because he doesn’t speak English, only a degenerate form of trumpish.

    6
  59. just nutha says:

    @Neil Hudelson: These things are why I no longer follow Fortune’s postings. Deconstruction is interesting as philosophy and makes unique literature essays (but only sometimes:-( ). Any argument can be deconstructed (or made an article of faith, correspondingly), so deconstruction is lacking as technique for discussion beyond the dorm room.

    2
  60. CSK says:

    @Kathy:

    The blithe insistence that we didn’t hear and read what we all heard and read is irritating. I know we shouldn’t touch the poisonous toads, and generally I don’t, but every once in a while…

    It’s odd. I’ve never had to have a U.S. president’s locutions explained to me prior to Trump.

    6
  61. Kathy says:

    I tried getting an online quote for car insurance from my bank a while ago. I’d avoided doing this because 1) I don’t believe their hype that they offer lower rates, and 2) you need to fill in contact info to see the quotes.

    But I decided to try this time.

    I was right. They offer tiny savings not worth dumping my insurance agent over*. But in the first place, not ten minutes after I did this, I got a call from the bank about car insurance… I actually told the caller I’d no idea what he was talking about. I expect more calls in the near future. As though I don’t get enough of them already…

    *The insurance agent can sometimes successfully intercede with the insurance company. Not often, but now and then. They’ve also managed to keep my policy active when I forgot to make a payment on time (like confusing April 5th. with May 4th. was unheard of?)

  62. Min says:

    Trump on NATO: “If the United States was in trouble and we called them. We said, ‘We got a problem, France.’ Do you think they’re gonna come and protect us? Hmm. They’re supposed to. I’m not so sure.”

    https://x.com/atrupar/status/1897755194386964843

    This is the president of the US. Once again alienating allies.

    3
  63. Kathy says:

    @CSK:

    If they were to admit to you the rapist said what he said, then they’d have to admit it to themselves as well, and how could they then carry on supporting a ridiculous, stupid, idiot, ignorant moron who has nothing but bluster and bigotry?

    4
  64. CSK says:

    @Kathy:

    I find it incomprehensible that they worship a person for whom so many explanations and excuses have to be made.

    This is someone who once enthusiastically agreed with Howard Stern, on the air, that it was fine to refer to his oldest daughter as “a piece of ass.”

    4
  65. Mister Bluster says:

    @CSK:..I’ve never had to have a U.S. president’s locutions explained to me prior to Trump.

    Tricky Dick had me scratching my head a few times.

    “Let me make one thing perfectly clear. I wouldn’t want to wake up next to a lady pipefitter.” –President Richard Nixon, quoted in Ms. Magazine in 1971

    “Solutions are not the answer.” —President Richard Nixon

    “Politics would be a helluva good business if it weren’t for the goddamned people.” —President Richard Nixon

    “I have often thought that if there had been a good rap group around in those days, I might have chosen a career in music instead of politics.” —President Richard Nixon, reminiscing about his life in an audio tape narration at the Nixon Library

    “I would have made a good Pope.” —President Richard Nixon
    Source

    2
  66. Jay L Gischer says:

    Were y’all aware that cisgender people get HRT? You know, estrogen replacement. It’s quite common, in fact. Far more cis people get HRT than trans people exist.

    And the research in question was intended to study whether HRT affects the transmission of AIDS. That seems important to me.

    Does it seem important to you?

    Because if it does, then perhaps you might decide to object to the vile calumny that our president voiced during his speech to Congress and broadcast to the nation. Because that calumny will stop the research from happening.

    (8 million is peanuts, by the way. I could give you a penny, and it would pay your share of it for the next 10 years. Maybe 20.)

    HRT with estrogen is quite common among menopausal women. So I ask again, are you in favor of knowing whegther this affects their likelihood of getting AIDS or not?

    5
  67. CSK says:

    @Mister Bluster:

    T see your point, but compared to Trump, Nixon’s as clear as a bell. Does Trump ever say anything that doesn’t need to be explained by his acolytes, other than when he’s stating his lust for Ivanka?

    3
  68. Bill Jempty says:

    @Min:

    Trump on NATO: “If the United States was in trouble and we called them. We said, ‘We got a problem, France.’

    France quit NATO. In 1966 if my memory serves me correctly.

    1
  69. Jen says:

    It’s almost like “move fast and break things” is a really f*cking awful idea when secret intelligence stuff is involved:

    A Sensitive Complex Housing a CIA Facility Was on GSA’s List of US Properties for Sale

    ETA: WIRED has been doing some absolutely phenomenal reporting lately.

    5
  70. Kathy says:

    @Min:

    The number of countries in and out of NATO that sent troops or personnel to Afghanistan in support of New York* was quite extensive.

    *It must have been to support New York, because otherwise the comment made by the rapist is rendered ipso facto more moronic than usual.

    2
  71. dazedandconfused says:

    @Michael Reynolds:

    Israel will base them.

  72. Kathy says:

    @CSK:

    I wonder how many men think that about their daughters, and look up to the rapist for admitting it.

    @Mister Bluster:

    “Solutions are not the answer.” —President Richard Nixon

    I think that by itself outdoes all of Yogi Berra’s malapropisms.

  73. restless says:

    @Fortune:

    Back from tai chi, just wanted to respond to this.

    my reply was only mocking CSK

    Well, that’s just rude.

    My point is what Trump said is true

    And that’s just wrong. Trump said the thing he said. Even if he misspoke, as Jay L Gischer said, the actual research is completely reasonable and hard to consider wasteful.

    Of course, Trump did use a childhood cancer victim as a prop, while simultaneously slashing funding for research into childhood cancer. So who knows what Trump thinks is reasonable.

    All done, off for a jog!

    10
  74. just nutha says:

    @Min: Projection. I’m reminded of an All in the Family episode where Archie objects to his grandson being named Stanislaus because the kid’s nickname will be Louse. When Archie is pressured about why he’s so sure he collapses into his chair lamenting “because that’s what I’d do.”

    2
  75. Mister Bluster says:

    @CSK:..Does Trump ever say anything that doesn’t need to be explained by his acolytes,..

    Agreed.

    2
  76. Michael Reynolds says:

    @dazedandconfused:
    Doesn’t get them around overflight issues if Europe doesn’t play along.

    1
  77. CSK says:

    @Kathy:

    I can only speak for my late father, who was not in the least given to physical violence, despite the fact that he was 6’4″ and weighed 200 lbs. If Trump had called me a piece of ass, or allowed anyone to do so, that guy would be flattened.

    5
  78. dazedandconfused says:

    @Michael Reynolds:

    Why fly over Europe to get to Israel, or to get from Israel to Iran?

  79. Just nutha ignint cracker says:

    PREDICTION: Gavin Newsome is running in 2028

    California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a pioneer for LGBTQ+ rights who decades ago upset leaders in his own party when he defied state law and issued marriage licenses to same-sex couples, suggested Democrats were in the wrong in allowing transgender athletes to participate in female college and youth sports.

    “I think it’s an issue of fairness, I completely agree with you on that. It is an issue of fairness — it’s deeply unfair,” Newsom said in his debut podcast episode of “This is Gavin Newsom.” “I am not wrestling with the fairness issue. I totally agree with you.”

    Newsom’s comments on the issue roiling political debates nationwide came in a conversation with influential MAGA-world figure Charlie Kirk, the campus culture warrior who leads the organization Turning Point USA and is a close ally of President Donald Trump and his son, Donald Trump Jr.

    Whether this is 1) another “the center is where progress goes to die” event, 2) a necessary stand he is cleverly finessing to tack to the center, 3) bad news, or something else is a topic I’ll leave up to all y’all.

    3
  80. Beth says:

    @Franklin:

    More or less permanent escape. I want to come back eventually. Chicago is and will always be my home, but not now.

    @Grumpy realist:

    Not yet. I’m in an Airbnb in Hackney (London) for the next two and a half weeks. My most important job is to find us housing. That will start in earnest tomorrow. I gave myself two days for jetlag and crying.

    @Scott:

    It should be at a point well before its the only option. The answer to the second question is yes.

    @Michael Reynolds:

    Not yet. I realized that I didn’t have enough time to bring Dr. Tinycat here (started the process too late) and he probably won’t travel well because he screams everytime he goes in a carrier. I mean, he screams all the time period, but he never ever ever actually stops once he’s in a carrier. My partner isn’t going to bring him because of the same problem plus two kids. Looks like he’s gonna cost us $4500 to get here.

    Lol, I’m loopier than I thought I was. I started this hours ago and got distracted. Guess it’s bedtime.

    1
  81. Kathy says:

    Meantime in Germany, a bunch of far right criminals were sentenced to prison for a plot to kidnap the health minister.

    The rapist will be so mad when he finds out he can’t pardon them.

    3
  82. Grumpy realist says:

    @Beth: I vaguely remember going to a real estate agent to get suggestions and paying a certain amount of money for their services.

    I was there just before the dot-com crash and it was freaking me out that I was paying higher rents in London than in Tokyo, where I had just moved from.

  83. Kathy says:

    I see congratulations are in order, as the nazi in chief’s latest rocket blew up.

    They’re still going with the sickeningly coy “rapid unscheduled disassembly” bit. By now it’s not even true: the things blow up when scheduled to fly.

    2
  84. Eusebio says:

    I could do without the cheering crowd in the audio of the launch video used by media such as the AP. It’s apparently a corporate audio feed, with a mission control voice, two people doing commentary, and an unseen crowd of supporters who cheer and whoop at each successful launch event (e.g., booster separation) like a crowd at a football game. Just weird.

    No cheering, or any other crowd noises, though, when the video showed the craft start to tumble out of control.

  85. Min says:

    @Kathy:

    Apparently that’s what Trump was told!

    I wonder if someone will actually tell him how wrong he is. Or if they did and as usual he just doesn’t care

    1
  86. Min says:

    @just nutha:

    It’s always projection with him

    1