Thursday’s Forum
Steven L. Taylor
·
Thursday, March 13, 2025
·
57 comments
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.
Per NBC News, Trump is threatening a 200% tariff on European booze. It’s retaliation for a tax on U. S. whiskey.
@CSK: YIKES!
*sound of slamming door as Jen heads out to buy her favorite Scotch*
Which was in turn a retaliation for the US steel tariffs.
The EU tends to be extremely bloody-minded when someone picks a fight.
It will respond with something else aimed at maximum pain in either the Red States or among the tech-bro’s
@Jen:
No need to rush: remember the UK is out of the EU.
(lol, just hope Trump remembers that)
@Jen: @JohnSF:
Trump says it will be great for the U.S. wine and champagne biz.
@CSK:
Does Trump still bottle that rot-gut? Or did that fail like every other one of his businesses?
Edit; yes, it is still run by one of the failsons.
@Daryl:
Eric wants to launch a new line of Trump-branded vodka in the U.S.
@CSK:
Well, seeing as by definition there can be no champagne business in the US.
Unless he expects US sparkling wine makers to label their product “champagne”?
As their customers would mainly laugh at them, I suspect not.
@CSK:
Spotted a potential booming market for people wanting to get very, very drunk?
Next week: “Trump Tranquilisers! Soothe away those stock-market blues!”
Cybertrump:
“PNG“
Trump & his ideologically bent, misanthropic compatriots seek to “psychically” sever American attachment to Europe, it’s culture, its expression of liberal democracy. Canada, just next door, represents an extension of those liberal European sensibilities. It has to be absorbed and “converted.”
In this, Trump emulates Putin and Xi. In this, Trump’s affectation of positive regard for Kim Jun Un is particularly disturbing. Trump is building a “hermit kingdom” of sorts, for himself and his supporters, to impose their pathogy upon their sequestered world. This is the way of solipsists.
One might be inclined to level the same criticism at American and European liberals for “imposing” D.E.I. type ideals on a society. This week an OTB commenter attempted to suggest such, claiming that “D.E.I. is evil, because it, in itself, is discriminatory” and they could never support evil — presumably accepting a great “evil” to avoid being evil.
Such characterization of liberal policy pursuit is completely wrong. “Liberal inspired” policies of D.E.I. and CRT inquiry, seek to broadly expand personal agency of all groups especially those which have been marginalized and subjected to restricted access to a society’s resources and opportunities — the aim is to expand personal agency outward.
In contrast, the Trumpist movement seeks to consolidate “agency,” upward into greater vertical stratification of power. Creating a sequestered economy and isolating our society by breaking intercultural ties, to conform this community to a singular set of personality defined prerogatives. This is the predictable outcome of “all is he, and he is all.”
I am reminded of something a worldly wise friend who had spent a lifelong career as a social worker counselor serving the dispossessed, once told me as I struggled with the substance abuse of employees in my business: alcoholics don’t have normal family relationships so much as they take hostages.
The same can be said of raging narcissists.
Hmmm…
http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/trump-administration/white-house-pulls-cdc-director-nomination-day-confirmation-hearing-rcna196208
@JohnSF: This was exactly what my husband said, until he realized that HIS favorite whiskey (Connemara) is Irish and so he’s heading out shortly…
@Jen:
Business will be booming at the New Hampshire State Liquor Stores this weekend, for sure.
@JohnSF:
And that’s the block the felon wants to rearm and embrace hard power, against him no less.
The one very small consolation is that it will be climate change that sets the world on fire first.
In a complete shocker to absolutely nobody who’s been paying attention, Russia is signaling it’s not interested in the ceasefire proposal:
Putin aide dismisses short-term ceasefire with Ukraine as Trump’s envoy in Moscow for talks
Looking forward to seeing how Pres. Musk/Trump spins this as being the fault of Zelensky.
Yep. This is what that spectacle in front of the WH felt like…
@CSK:
One thing we know is that the reason the nomination was pulled will have nothing to do with accusations that Weldon being a drunk or boinking underage girls.
@LongtimeListener:
Oh, the full thing is quite something.
According to Reuters report the Russian counterproposal to the US delegations included
– guarantee of no NATO membership for Ukraine, ever
– no troops from NATO countries in Ukraine as peacekeepers
– recognition of Russian sovereignty over Crimea and the ENTIRE “four oblasts” including areas not held by Russia, both by Ukraine in particular and internationally in general
– Ukraine to renounce any aspiration to acquisition of nuclear weapons
– a “peace monitoring” procedure that allows Russia to veto any external assistance to Ukraine
– limits on deployments of NATO forces in countries bordering Russia and Belarus
– a new treaty with limits on European military force levels!
– a ban or at least a size limit on NATO exercises in eastern Europe
– a ban on all US intermediate range missile deployments in Europe and Asia Minor
If that reporting is genuine, the Russians have gone insane.
This week has dragged on like bad dream. That’s especially ironic given how little sleep we’ve had… With any luck, we’ll finish Friday a project due on Wednesday. We may have to stay late on Friday, because Monday is a holiday (birthday of Benito Juarez, the good dictator).
I’m also looking at what US products I can boycott. It’s not easy when NAFTA did succeed in integrating three economies. I may look up whether Nestle has something like Special K with low sugar or no added sugar. Other things, like meats, are harder to determine. A lot of beef is imported from the US, but not all is marked as such.
I know. Third World Problems(TM), right?
I want to make burgers and fries. I can do without Idaho Russet potatoes, but there’s no telling where the beef came from, nor what strain of H5N1 it may carry (wash your hands after handling and cook well, as if it were chicken).
@Sleeping Dog:
Steve Bannon is very upset by this move.
@JohnSF:
Will be interesting to see how much this resonates with insanity of the Trump regime.
@JohnSF: American champaign. Bottled in Champaign County, Illinois and Champaign County, Ohio.
It really sucks being governed by an infantile, narcissistic personality. Everyone’s pain serves his ego. Tit-for-tatting his way through life without regard for functional, mature ideals like cooperation, compromise, “win-win.”
All these marbles are mine, mine, MINE!
His arrested development is now our arrested development.
@JohnSF:
Do they think they won? A bunch of extra strong paint fumes in the Kremlin? Like if this was designed to piss people off it seems they’ve overshot and gone to plaid.
Like, I like to be annoying for fun and I know you gotta hit the sweet spot. Too little and they’ll just ignore you, too much and they’ll fight you, you wanna lock them in a simmer. That way they are kinda stuck with you and you can go for a ride. I mean, it’s only fun for me, but I have weird tastes. This seems like they just got drunk and puked on a wall.
https://www.erininthemorning.com/p/florida-sues-target-over-selling
Like, I don’t see how we’re going to be able to live with these people. It really seems to me that they’ve gotten drunk on their own bs. Like, how do we go about living with these people when they seem absolutely intent on destroying everything so they can control the shit heap.
I talked to my partner today and it really sounds like my inlaws have gone full MAGA. My FiL absolutely refuses to deal with my partner as a whole, independent, grown ass person. Not because she’s a woman, maybe a little, but mostly because she’s his kid and therefore must think exactly like him or she’s stupid. He’s absolutely disconnected from reality at this point.
I keep thinking that at some point someone is going to have to take extreme action against Fox News. I don’t know how things can continue where there is objective reality and then the Murdoch reality.
@LongtimeListener:
@Beth:
@JohnSF:
Thinking this over, really its just classic Russian (and Soviet) approach to negotiation:
Pocket any initial concessions.
Repeat you absurdly maximal demands.
Stonewall.
Wait for your opponents to start bickering among themselves, especially if on party wants a quick deal.
Pocket any further concessions.
Iterate.
If a deal that suits you looks likely “generously” drop your more absurd demands, demand more concessions in exchange.
Walk away from the table with the other sides wallet, clothes, a half-mortgage on their house, and the pen; graciously leaving them their arms, legs, furniture and garden shed.
Then break the deal as soon as it suits you.
The worry being, Trump is daft enough to fall for it, as long as all the concessions come at other peoples expense.
@JohnSF: Totally.
@JohnSF:
Oh, and forgot on that list:
Apparently they also want the full lifting of all sanctions upon ceasefire, and a guarantee
against any war-crimes charges.
I suppose we’re supposed to be grateful they’re not asking for reparations.
ANNA PONY!
@Beth:
From your link:
Oh, look. Nobody gave a shit for a decade. So the far-right engaged in gay-baiting. Now it’s an issue.
How long until that person or drew jack connor guarneri comes in to redefine it?
For the Christian Right, it’s almost is if Scripture does not make numerous references to free moral agency.
For those who believe in predestination: maybe it’s best to just let God’s will play out rather than ordain yourself as God’s instrument. And if you think God literally spoke to you, seek psychiatric help.
Also, keep the words “freedom” and “liberty” out your mouths, you don’t believe in them. Admit you’re an authoritarian and embrace being an enemy of the Constitution and the Enlightenment, to do otherwise would be a lie. No one thinks that’s good, unless Trump does it.
Related note: heard this on NPR:
It’s almost as if the Christian soldier types hate Muslims because they don’t like having to examine themselves.
Aside: it’s interesting to see Jehovah’s Witnesses in these polls, considering their doctrines on political participation.
Pervs of a feather flocking together
@JohnSF:
President Trump may fall for it, but I doubt Zelensky will.
Putin wants a time machine where he can go back a bit over 3 years to when he was supposed to takeover Ukraine/install Russian friendly puppet ruler in less than 3 days.
If Putin wants to declare victory because Trump said he will give him everything he wants even with no buy in from Zelensky I suspect most of Europe and other regions will hit the floor laughing their butts off at Putin.
If only it were that simple, life does not work that way even if your name is Trump or Putin.
@Rob1:
Weird. Waiting for QAnons to start storming megachurches looking for the basement.
@inhumans99:
Yes, but the problem will be if Putin maneuvers Trump into cutting off Ukraine and walking away again.
Trump wants his “deal”, and may try to get it at everyone elses expense, and throw a tantrum if they defy him.
While some in his circle have stupid delusions of US/Russian pact.
High stakes games with one of the players on one team being an utter fool.
It’s not good for the nerves
@Kurtz:
So far, they appear to be assiduously ignoring the news about Morris.
@JohnSF:
Just an aside, but my granddaddy used to make wine as a hobby. He had been a chemist in his professional life. Used to make pretty good stuff out of remarkably weird sources of sugar. There was of course the standards, grapes and blackberries, but where things got strange was onion wine, carrot wine, beet wine, and the weirdest of all, believe it or not, left-over beef stew wine. Shockingly, it wasn’t half-bad. Does wine taste at all like grapes? Not really, and that beef-stew wine didn’t taste like beef stew. He had to filter the shit out of it to get the stuff looking clear though.
Anywho, one day he hears bangs coming from the basement. Intermittent and widely spaced, the source was hard to tell for a bit. Turned out that he had messed something up in a batch of blackberry wine and had made blackberry champaign by accident. The corks weren’t wired down so they were blowing off.
@Beth: Log Cabin Republicans will doubtless be concerned that the Florida state government is lumping in all the gay folks in with those dirty queers and trans people.
@LongtimeListener:
I wouldn’t expect the Russians to sign a truce while consolidating their take-back of the Kursk salient. However, as it appears the Ukrainians are not trying to defend Sudzha, that should only be a few days away.
Only after that settles down will we know what their position really is on that truce deal, I reckon.
I think this would get almost any ordinary CEO in some pretty hot water:
Tesla billionaire Elon Musk shared a post on his platform X this week that declared Hitler “didn’t murder millions of people,” but that public employees did.
This was the post:
The image Musk shared read, “Stalin, Mao, and Hitler didn’t murder millions of people. Their public sector employees did.” The original poster later wrote on X, “After the Nuremberg trials, the so-called ‘superior orders’ defense – ‘I was just following orders’ – is considered invalid under international law. Individual rather than collective responsibility for your actions is enshrined in law.”
@Lucysfootball: As he and Trump are working to destroy Civil Service and bend public sector employees to Trump’s will. Tom Leher was right,
@dazedandconfused:
I suspect the UAF decided trying to hold Kursk without targeting data was going to be too costly; better to fall back.
The Russian, or rather, Putin’s, position will be as it has always been; Ukraine subordinated to Russia.
Anything else is gravy, but that’s the essential goal.
Either they get it now, or maneuver for a position to try for it again in a couple of years.
From Ol’ Doc Joyner’s thread on the government workers:
I appreciate all efforts to avoid the phrase “final solution.”
Because I am so, so very well versed in Jesus Christ Superstar, however, I immediately thought of the blood libel scene*, where one of the Jewish elders (Ciaphas?) starts “we need a more permanent solution to the problem…” which ends with everyone singing “for the sake of the nation, this Jesus must die. Must die, must die, this Jesus must die.”
Yes, I got all of my knowledge of Christianity from the Gospel of Andrew Lloyd Weber and Tim Rice. And I’m going to spend the rest of the day listening to it again.
*: the scene itself is blood libel, but not as awful as most presentations. There’s a very clear political calculation about living as an oppressed people under Roman rule, and needing to keep the Romans from getting agitated. And this is reiterated a couple songs later with Simon the Zealot wanting to turn Jesus directly against the Romans.
Honestly, Jesus Christ Superstar does a far better job of placing Jesus in a historical context, with historical influences, than nearly any other telling I have seen since.
A bit more dissent among the Jewish Elders would have helped a lot though. No city council meeting has unanimity, why would the Elders get to it? I don’t know what is in the Bible, but I would have been fine adding a new character with a stereotypically Jewish name offering dissent.
Adaptations should take liberties like that were needed. Would it be any more of a radical change that Judas descending from heaven at the end, surrounded by foxy angels, and singing the big closing number?
Or background characters singing about how they always hoped they would become an apostle and will retire and write the gospels? (I just love apostle as a career choice. Brilliant, especially when Jesus then sings that he had “exceeded expectations”.)
@Lucysfootball:
I don’t know why only now I recalled this Babylon 5 reference. It fits the nazi in chief perfectly: Ah! Arrogance and stupidity all in the same package. How efficient of you.
@gVOR10:
No he’s not. You think he’s winning over government employees? Or replacing them with lackeys? I’m surprised he’s not, but he isn’t.
@Kurtz: All of the pedophile Republicans and Church leaders leave me wondering a few things:
– are we just not catching the Democrats?
– does some shocking number of men want to fuck children? Like 30% or something?
– does the position just enable them?
– do they seek out the position?
– are pedophiles just naturally better at leadership that we get so many in positions of power?
It’s not like Epstein didn’t have lots of clients, or that any of his potential clients went straight to the police when they learned what he was offering. Fucking children is apparently just accepted and expected in those circles.
The craziest thing about QAnon is not the belief in a global ring of pedophiles, but that they think Donald “I want to fuck my daughter” Trump is working at stopping it. Well, that and the Jewish Space Lasers, and the child sex camps on Mars.
Rep. Raul Grijalva, D-Arizona, has died at 77.
@Gustopher:
I figured that they choose positions that provide both trust and access to children.
@Lucysfootball:
The other things, is that nasi in chief seems to be laying the ground for mass murder he will then blame on those whom he orders to carry it out.
@dazedandconfused:
One of my brothers has recently bought a small vinyard in south-west Cornwall; aims to retire there and make wine.
Problem may be, Cornwall is warm-ish, but ends to the moist, and erratic sunshine in summer.
Wine grapes like lots of sun to ripen, and dry conditions to avoid mould.
OTOH there are some successful vinyards not far away: Bosue, for one
It should keep him out of mischief, at any rate.
Almost ANYTHING can be used to make “wine” as long as you add the right amount of sugar and tough enough yeasts.
Making proper wine from grapes requires grapes that ripen enough to have enough residual sugar, but also the other requirements of flesh plus tannins, and can be fermented with “wine yeasts”.
I’m looking forward to helping with the harvest in few years time.
Whether I’ll look forward to opening the vintage remains to be seen, lol.
@JohnSF: Pretty much how he described it. “My yeastie-beasties will chew through most anything if I can keep them alive long enough.”
He had a minor problem with our state laws at the time, btw. Besides needing a license to make any alcoholic beverage, the beer companies had managed to pass a law that made it illegal for private parties to make “beer” period. Grandpappy like to make his own beer too…so he applied for and got a license to make “malt wine”.
@JohnSF: Korbel, Cook, and Andre are 3 Cali vintners who bottle champagne. Have for 100 years or more (and it’s not terrible stuff either). Sorry.
@JohnSF: I hate to be the one who keeps contradicting you today, but Russia isn’t crazy either. It’s signaling to (the) Ukraine that Trump’s been played and has no leverage in their conflict. It’s a pretty typical power negotiations move. Like the last warehouse contract negotiation I was in where the opening position of management was a $3/hr. wage reduction (generous– only ~20%) and elimination of any additional contributions to the pension and medical benefit contracts.
(In the bad news part of the story, they broke the union 3 years later and moved out of the region completely over 5 additional years.)
@gVOR10:
Wow that person’s answer to this post is something else. As if “winning over” is the only way to bend employees to one’s will.
Coercion comes in many forms.
I heard something on NPR the other day. Unfortunately, I only heard part of the segment, so I don’t have a link at the moment. Trump’s claim of firing only unproductive employees is false. (Shocker, I know.) Those who have looked at the employee profiles of those let go found that some of the most productive workers have been fired.
I immediately wondered what the criteria actually were for who got fired.
@Kurtz: I was going to comment on that particular toad’s comment, too, but restrained myself from licking the toad. 😉
My beloved Toyota Highlander shit the bed today. Transmission, I think. I’m just glad it didn’t die on me in Jackson Hole yesterday. Or Hoback Canyon, with no cell service at all. I would’ve been “old school”, dependent on the generosity of strangers to pick us up and get us to town to call a tow truck.
Man, times have changed.
@Jax: I have a 2008 Highlander. I bought it new, when my Jeep Cherokee got rear-ended at a stop light. I’ve put something like 270K miles on it. I’ve driven the length of I-5 multiple times with it, and I-10 from Houston to LA.
It is not much longer for this world, but still going strong today.
@Jax:
I subreplied for that reason. Weening myself off direct engagement. I mean, if that person replies, I can honestly say I wasn’t talking to them. Rude? Probably. Juvenile? Perhaps. Deserved? Hell, yeah.
I’ve taken to using “that person” because it conveys derision without the dehumanization. A recognition of personhood with a minimal amount of respect accorded.
An inarticulate, stupid person is still a person, after all.