Tuesday with Tabs

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Steven L. Taylor
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

Comments

  1. Scott F. says:

    “Mr. Trump […] provoking alarm among ethics experts.”

    How quaint of the NYT.

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  2. Kathy says:

    On the backgrounds check tab, I find the claim that the felon will fire those in his cabinet who don’t do their job more salient.

    It means if the results of the policies he orders them to implement are not good, he’ll fire them.

    That’s chutzpah taken past the extreme.

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  3. CSK says:

    @Kathy:

    With Trump, it’s always someone else’s fault: “I take no responsibility for that.”

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  4. Jay L Gischer says:

    This is not Marshall’s first attack on trans people or LGBTQ+ people in general. In 2023, he introduced a bill to ban gender-affirming care for trans minors nationwide and one to ban federal funding for such care for trans people of all ages. Neither bill passed. He put out similar, equally unsuccessful, bills in 2021. In 2022, he led an effort to police LGBTQ+ content in children’s TV programs, which also went nowhere, as did his plan the same year to block school meal funding in protest of the Biden administration’s support for LGBTQ+ rights.

    Let’s hope this goes the same way.

    And this:

    Separate restrooms, locker rooms, and other single-sex facilities according to sex assigned at birth, plus separate sports teams and leagues organized in this fashion, “do not constitute unequal treatment under the law,” it goes on.

    Apparently Senator Marshall knows what the 14th Amendment says. And he thinks writing a statute can nullify it. I would say I don’t think it works that way, but who knows what this court will do.

    And finally,

    The introduction of his latest bill came on Transgender Day of Remembrance, an annual observance that commemorates trans people lost to violence.

    Do you suppose this to be an innocent coincidence? I don’t know what lies in is heart, but I know what he says, and he says there’s no such thing as a trans person.

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  5. gVOR10 says:

    Re Senator Marshall denying transgender identity. In my (very) long ago student days I wrote a short story about a southern state legislature deciding decimals are too hard for little Billy and passing a law that henceforth in their great state pi = 3. I had the capitol dome collapse on them. Like AGW and my beloved /s Guv DeUseless, he can declare it doesn’t exist, but it exists nonetheless.

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  6. Jay L Gischer says:

    @gVOR10: Truth is stranger than fiction: The Indiana Pi Bill

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  7. Jay L Gischer says:

    Dodging background checks is a problem, but it’s in the weeds. The better political line is likely to be how he was judged an Internal Threat. I’m not sure about that, it might fill certain parties with joy to hear that.

    Meanwhile, he wants to fire the Chair, a guy whom maybe 85 Senators voted to confirm as Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, with rhetoric that is easily identifiable as bigoted.

    Again, I don’t know where this is going, but many of those who voted against confirmation of C.Q. Brown as Chair are also those who voted for Rick Scott as Senate Majority Leader. Which is to say, not very many. But they are going to try to bully the rest of the Senate, that is certain. Because bullying – getting your way when you don’t have a majority – is what they do.

    They think it’s “manly” to do stuff like that, in fact. It’s “badass” and “righteous”. It’s an attitude I have despised my entire life, and I thought was fading away. It’s an attitude that comes from middle school: “I’m the biggest and strongest (or maybe just the nastiest), so I should get my way”. Those who do this are probably feeling threatened these days. So they are taking their stand, and they found their standard bearer.

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  8. rondo1342 says:

    Ok ok, I said I wouldn’t comment here for awhile….but I just found this bit from the Babylon Bee, and it totally sums up the commentariat here…my favorite bit is when the woman says “we’ll yell even louder!” Pleasepleaseplease take this approach next time, Democrats

    https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=N1e_C5Szfss&pp=ygUSYmFieWxvbiBiZWUgdmlkZW9z

  9. Jay L Gischer says:

    @rondo1342: My daughter, whom I love dearly, is a trans woman. Would you give up on someone you love so easily?

  10. rondo1342 says:

    @rondo1342:

    Tech note…I left out the word “woman” before the “we’ll yell even louder!” bit…three times I tried to edit it and it didn’t take. I’d see it right after the edit, but if I closed the site and re-opened it, the edit didn’t take….must be because I’m a Hitlerian fascist or something…or, more likely, I screwed something up

  11. rondo1342 says:

    @rondo1342:

    Tech note…I left out the word “woman” prior to the “we’ll yell out them louder!” bit…my brain and my thumbs aren’t always synched up. Tried to edit it three times, but it didn’t take…it maybe didn’t take because I’m a Hitlerian fascist, or more likely because I screwed something up

  12. rondo1342 says:

    @Jay L Gischer:

    I harbor no hatred whatsoever of trans people (as long as they are adults…I have VERY serious issues with people who want to transition minors, THOSE people I utterly despise…but that’s a different discussion…). I just refuse to go along with the fiction people suffering from gender dysphoria have….Caitlyn Jenner is a man; I’ll give him the name change, which is totally legal, but he is a biological male, and I’ll use the appropriate pronouns. And if you don’t like that, too bad

  13. charontwo says:

    @rondo1342:

    Pleasepleaseplease take this approach next time, Democrats

    I got bored and bailed too soon to know what you are talking about. I guess I just don’t have the patience to sit through conservative “humor,” e.g. the Babylon Bee.

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  14. wr says:

    @rondo1342: “And if you don’t like that, too bad”

    Oooh, you’re so butch!

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