Tuesday’s Forum
Steven L. Taylor
·
Tuesday, September 24, 2024
·
30 comments
OTB relies on its readers to support it. Please consider helping by becoming a monthly contributor through Patreon or making a one-time contribution via PayPal. Thanks for your consideration.
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 and/or
BlueSky.
There was a piece at Balloon Juice I linked to yesterday, but I missed something when I first read it. I read it as describing the Trump 2024 campaign, but it really was about the way Trump always operates, always has e.g., the Trump Organization.
A brief excerpt (read the whole thing at the link though):
“Link”
” … ”
Some background stuff, then this:
Long description following, of the way Trump/Trump Organization has always operated, the internal workings of the company.
Sales examples: Trump’s name on his buildings, the letter T on his golden sneakers, his face on commemorative coins, etc. etc. And he sure likes the color gold. Melania seems now to have learned from the master.
Trump thinks people who criticize the Supreme Court should be jailed.
https://x.com/tedlieu/status/1838401876963827834
Trump thinks people who criticize the Supreme Court should be jailed.
https://x.com/tedlieu/status/1838401876963827834
Just got tickets to Weird Al’s 2025 tour, with Puddles the Clown as his opener. Weird Al has been a bucket list experience for me. And, for a musician who tours constantly and who doesn’t tend to charge extravagant prices, it’s been a strangely difficult bucket list item to cross off. July 3rd, white river state park amphitheater, it’s going to be a great way to kick of July 4th weekend!
@Neil Hudelson: Enjoy! (And your definition of “extravagant prices” is more generous than mine. Then again I thought the last concert I paid to go to–David Bowie: Serious Moonlight, in 197mumble–charged extravagant prices. I bought the ticket anyway.)
The pug lost her mind in the night and dropped turds in the hallway, on the bedroom floor and on the brand new comforter under which I was sleeping.
The cause may be the cat. We have an astroturf dog poop area on the balcony – in Vegas you don’t do midday walks until November. But the cat has taken to peeing on their astroturf, so the dogs are scared to use it. She’s also eating their food. Evidently neither dog has the moral fortitude to stand up to a 900 year-old cat. The pug, who will leap and froth and growl at puzzled 100 pound Huskies, is helpless when faced with a cat.
Nevertheless, the pug had to be punished. So on the morning walk I threw rotten food at her – and invited the homeless we passed to do likewise – while intoning, “Shame. . . shame. . .”
@Michael Reynolds:
Knowing pugs, the turds were deposited in the proper place and rotten food is, well food, and would be consumed quickly.
Ann Althouse embraces the woke tankies attack on the Matt Walsh movie “Am I Racist?”
Whataboutism Same apply to Michael Moore’s or Katie Couric’s “Under the Gun,” excellent according to the commenters here documentaries?
@charontwo:
This response made me smile.
Matt B. I am researching the Gish gallop pushed as a logical fallacy by you and Mehdi Raza Hasan.
Listened to Mehdi’s interview with Preet Bharara, It seems like a excuse and cope for someone having swatted/batted away every political narrative and tangent that was thrown at them to discredit them.
Damn, it’s a slow news day if we’ve been reduced to chatting bout dog droppings.
Another Pennsylvania Trail
I am not a road builder however I suspect it will be several years after the initial planning phase that this project is completed. I drove Interstate 70 through Breezewood in 2016 on my way to Washington DC just to check it out. I’m 76. Even if I am still alive when the new alignment is open for traffic I suspect that my days of piloting the Hrududu will be behind me.
@CSK: Damn, it’s a slow news day if we’ve been reduced to chatting bout dog droppings
It’s either that or talk about Trump, but that would be redundant.
Why didn’t Biden think of this?????
Matthew Yglesias @mattyglesias
Trump’s plan for addressing the budget deficit:
“Maybe we’ll pay off the $35 trillion US debt in Crypto. I’ll write on a little piece of paper ‘$35T crypto we have no debt.’ That’s what I like.”
What a maroon!
@Lucysfootball:
One HUGE (excuse me, YUGE) difference between the two: It’s easy to clean up and get rid of dog droppings.
@Mister Bluster: considering that people have been trying to redesign the Breezewood mess ever since the original highways were built, I suspect that there are still too many entities with financial reasons as to why this will never go through.
@Mister Bluster: Breezewood, PA is a national treasure (cesspool) that would dry up and blow away if travelers who were trying to stay on controlled access interestate highways were not forced to drive an approximately one-mile downtown strip glutted with fast food, gasoline and a couple of souvenir shops that strangely feature a lot of Western Native Americana. If they build a by-pass, it’s good bye Breezewood.
@charontwo:
Speech that directs to incite or produce imminent lawless action and it is likely to produce such action.
@Grumpy realist: @Joe:..Breezewood…
Some of the remarks on FB about this plan state that Breezewood, an unincorporated place, is not as vibrant as it once was. Old motels and restaurants boarded up and apparently no new enterprise to take up the slack. My first thought was that any environmental impact statements will take months if not years to be approved before the first shovel of dirt is turned.
@CSK:
I’ve been writing and watching even more Mythbusters eps. I’ve been at it since late June; they made a lot of eps…
I’ve also been pondering the way to cook beef in onion sauce next week. The sear/sauté function on the multipot uses up too much electricity and has less than satisfactory results both for caramelizing the onions and searing the beef. I figure I can do those parts on the stove, then transfer to the pot.
Yesterday I managed to caramelize two onions on the stove. We’ll see how it does with five onions…
I was thinking today that if I were an undecided low information voter I would probably vote for Trump. He’s promising everybody a pony – gigantic tax cut that will be paid for through tariffs. And tariffs are good he says because we’ll stick it to other countries. Much lower crime because he’s for law and order. And food will cost less under Trump. I just hope the undecideds don’t decide the election because they probably did in 2016.
@Mister Bluster:
Breezewood, the exit of perpetual planning, it has been this wagon stop of travelers all of my natural life. And I suspect will still be in plan version 633.46 by the time I shuffle outa here.
NPR says Kamala has a 31 point lead over Trump when it comes to the youth vote, which strikes me as a a big deal.
I get it, the race is super tight, but if a small percentage of younger voters actually step up this can really end up with Trump in our nations rear view mirror.
Trump has the Nazi/extremist, and “dude influencer” vote all locked up, but I like to picture more youthful and optimistic voters stepping up, the folks who will be around long after Trump has crossed the great divide.
@Lucysfootball:
The man’s going to solve the problem of CA forest fires with a giant Canadian faucet and end the national debt.
Why, one would have to hate America or something to not to vote for him.
@MWLib:
@dazedandconfused:
See, this is a perfect example of El Weirdo doing things wrong. You don’t write $35 trillion crypto. That would be stupid. You write $70 trillion crypto, and you get a $35 trillion surplus in addition to paying off the debt.
@inhumans99: You are too optimistic. I said in 2016 and again in 2020 that we are never going to hear the end of Trump until the day he dies, no matter if he wins or loses.
He is NEVER going to shut up, and will continue to be a cancer upon the Untied States of America (Yes, I meant that typo). Even when he’s dead, the cancer will continue, now that they’ve seen what they can do as far as cancelling votes and governing with a minority.
@Mister Bluster:
Nice to meet another Watership Down fan. I re-read it when I turned 50, with trepidation, fearing that it would not live up to my glowing adolescent memories. I needn’t have worried.
@Joe:
Exactly. Breezewood was the “city of motels”, the place where everyone spent the night because it’s too far from A to B to make it in one day, and everyone had to pass through Breezewood on the way. And then we built the interstate highways, and suddenly you could get from A to B in one day, or if not, could get far beyond Breezewood on the way to B, and spend the night in Zanesville OH (westbound) or Frederick MD (eastbound).
…So they made sure that nobody could just blast past Breezewood without noticing it, by making everyone stop at the stoplights and make a left across traffic and generally curse Breezewood, even while stopping at the Starbucks or the Exxon or what have you. Most of the motels went away, but it still brought in some local bucks even while pissing everyone off.
This short video claims to play the voice of David Prowse as recorded on the set of Star Wars. There’s a bit at the beginning, and a contrast with James Earl Jones’ voice at the 4:50 mark.
I’ll understate and say there is quite a difference.
@DrDaveT:..Watership Down…
I knew someone in this crowd would get it. It’s been years since I read it and I know that I saw the film. I live on a private road with woods on both sides. I see rabbits scurry about all the time so I drive slow and maybe sometimes say “hrududu” under my breath to be sure they get out of the way.
@Paul L.:
I’m sure it can seem that way. It isn’t–it’s simply a way of calling out someone who is throwing every argument they have at once and then moving on to even more arguments rather than staying on point (or addressing the counterarguments that someone raised to your initial arguments).
Yes, it can be used in a way to handwave away a point (similar to how you seem to use “bothsiderism”). But that’s the limit of any logical fallacy. If you feel I am using it in that way, then make that argument by showing how I am doing what you are accusing me of.
To “eat my own dog food” let me demonstrate what I mean. In your post you seem to suggest that Ann Athouse’s critique of Matt Walsh has no merit because of bothsiderism.
You then follow it up with:
The problem with this is you are not applying “bothsiderism” to the subject of your critique (Ann Athouse’s comments about Walsh). You instead don’t address the validity of her point and then show how she contradicted herself in the past. Instead you seem to actually agree with her point and then accuse an entirely different group of people (not Athouse but commenter’s here) of engaging (or perhaps failing to engage in “bothsiderism”) by no applying Athouse’s critique to Michael Moore or Katie Couric.
You also claim that posters here celebrate Moore and Couric without any proof. Honestly I don’t follow these threads closely, but for the life of me I cannot remember the last time anyone said ANYTHING about Moore or Couric.
So on this way, you seem to be inventing situations in order to make a bothsiderism argument that holds no weight.