Welcome to July!
Steven L. Taylor
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Monday, July 1, 2024
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73 comments
About Steven L. Taylor
Steven L. Taylor is a Professor of Political Science and a 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).
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Looking for a high of 80 today. July will get it’s revenge eventually.
@OzarkHillbilly: Gonna be 107 with the heat index here. I … win?
In France looks like my early optimism that the falling out of “old style conservative/gaullist” leaders would favour the centre party has not worked out.
Seems a large chunk of the votes went to RN instead, and the lefts own splits led to them poaching some from Macron’s centre but also losing some to RN
(A French oddity: the current strongholds of RN map very closely to the former ones of the Communist Party)
So odds are: either a RN majority, or a hung parliament, with RN well-placed to take the lead t the next elections.
Macron remains President until 2027; but if RN majority is attained, Macron may have to appoint an RN cabinet. Who can then hamstring him.
Dammit.
@JohnSF:
Thanks. I was hoping you’d provide your perspective.
My wife would like me to say to everyone: Happy Canada Day!
July 1 – the 157th birthday of our friend and ally to the north.
The fact that SCOTUS has waited to the very last moment to rule on the Trump immunity issue tells me, they are going to rule he is immune in some overly broad way so they want to to be on recess while the crap hit the fan, they will rule that same way all the lower courts did but just decided to wait until there vary last minute to make sure the trial can’t happen before the election, or a sublet combination of both.
In any case it will only erode their credibility that much more.
@Rick DeMent: Nah, they just don’t want to be in the SCOTUS building when President Biden orders it to be targeted with a cruise missile – legally and without recourse.
@Not the IT Dept.: I won a bet with a former employee when I wished her Happy Canada Day on July 1 and she, a Canadian, responded that it was on July 2nd. I have always known it was on July 1 because it’s also my birthday. We have already exchanged appropriate greetings this morning.
Today is our anniversary, and we (unintentionally) kept alive what has been a 45 year custom: neither of us remembered until one of our kids reminded us. Before we had kids old enough to keep track of time, we would usually remember some time in, say, mid-August. There would be perplexed frowns and and innumerate attempts to do basic math, followed by shrugs and vague self-congratulations.
July 1 is not when we got married, it’s when we were first us, a couple. We were married about a year later, high as Spicolis, at a justice of the peace in Annapolis. The reason being that we needed to shield my wife from being forced to testify against me. Very romantic. Then about 22 years later we were married again so that we could adopt our daughter. We didn’t think the Chinese adoption agency would buy a marriage where one party was using an alias. But we don’t remember either date.
Will you, OCD handwashing depressive adult child of an alcoholic, take this sociopathic criminal fugitive with the fake name, to have and to hold, for forty-five fucking years? We could have gotten million to one odds against it working.
Sitting now on the balcony of a hotel in WeHo, sipping shitty K-Cup coffee, nursing a Cedars hip replacement (her) and waiting on UCLA biopsy results (me), we deal frankly with the reality that we are much closer to the end of the story than to the beginning. Still desperately in love, still K and M against the world.
@Rick DeMent: I’m waiting to see if they announce on the immunity case at all today. There’s speculation they’ll wait until Wednesday. Their schedule is fixed only by tradition. Precedent, if you will. And we know how they feel about precedent. And the day before the four day weekend is a great news dump day. My feelz is that if they’ve followed the law and granted no immunity, or invented just some token immunity, they’ll announce today, having provided about as much delay as they could. If they’ve found some excuse for substantive immunity, they’ll dump Wednesday and head for the hills.
Yesterday’s cooking was Italian fusion.
Fusion with what, you may ask. With Italian.
I wanted to make a pasta dish with ground beef. This would usually means some kind of red sauce dish. Instead I went with my take on aglio e olio (garlic and oil), mixed with ground beef. When done, I added carbonara sauce (beaten egg and Parmesan).
It was really good, and would have been better had I remembered to save some pasta water…
On the side I made pan fried potatoes with black pepper, garlic powder, and paprika.
I also decided not to make ice cream. The weather has improved to largely overcast days with little sunlight, and lots of rain and thunderstorms. Meaning it’s no longer hot all day. Therefore, I don’t need an ice cold desert after lunch.
@Rick DeMent:
@gVOR10:
They may avoid a ruling at all, and send it back to the lower courts because specious reasons. That would serve delay much better.
@Kathy:
Clearly you are not acquainted with the Hudelson Law of Yum Yums: there’s always room, and need, for ice cream.
@Neil Hudelson:
How did your sister’s operation go?
My unfortunate rule on ice cream is that it always comes in a single serving size. Wife has the same issue with brownies.
On health care it looks like Trump is advocating for making Medicare into some form of privatized insurance, with Medicare Advantage as the default. This would in effect make Medicare patients subject to more narrow networks, which I dont think most people realize. Medicare is also not cheaper than regular Medicare in terms of what govt currently pays so not sure what that means but suspect some funding cuts.
https://www.joepaduda.com/2024/07/01/medicares-future-private-insurance/
Steve
Question for all the lawyers out there. Have the Supremes basically legalized bribery after the fact in that there is nothing wrong with a “consideration” after the act has been completed? If that is the case what would be wrong with a president Trump pushing for $5 billion in military aid to Ukraine, and then coming to them afterwards and saying where is my $250 million? Then, it would be understood that any future aid would be subject to his 5% cut.
@Michael Reynolds: Happy 45 years together!
Very well then. Declare Wannabehitler and the conservatives at the court official enemies of the state and have them shot.
That’s an official act.
The Supreme Court has ruled 6-3 that Trump has some immunity.
@Kathy: Can the legal eagles break down what that means in Trump’s case? Were the crimes he’s accused of in any way “official acts”? Or is that all up to the jury?
The “Biden is senile” narrative sounds so much like the “But her emails” narrative. Also remember there was a Hillary Clinton is too old and feeble narrative as well. Yes I get it Biden Biden is old. So is Trump. But the fire hose of BS is still a fire hose of BS.
https://www.jacksonville.com/story/news/reason/2016/08/26/fact-check-whats-real-scoop-hillary-clintons-health/15722103007/
This is where Biden needs to turn this Supreme Court decision into an electoral counter-attack. “Yeah, I’m old, but my opponent has just been given license to become a dictator. If you want a dictator instead of a president, vote for him. If you still want to be citizens of a free country, vote for me.”
@Kazzy:
It means a president has some immunity for official acts performed while he’s in office.
Ruh roh, Kevin Drum has a post up where he basically says Biden needs to step down.
I did not expect him to go down that path, Steven, maybe you need to send KD links to your posts on why Biden is not going to step down.
I did notice that my Amazon Echo Show device suggested a story this morning on why Democrats need to keep our eye on the prize, so maybe not everyone is certain that President Biden’s debate performance guarantees a Trump win.
I am still a glass half full guy that we got this, but I can’t deny that I am not nervous.
@Kazzy:
The worst part of this ruling is that the whole process starts over now; the district court has to answer that question based on the new ruling and that decision go through another round of appeals, possibly delaying the trial until the next Supreme Court session in October…
@Kazzy:
That means they’ll have to have a hearing to prove any acts they allege had no official duty aspect before they can try to prosecute on any allegations for things they allege were “unofficial”.
Welcome to the Kingdom of Trump.
I hope you enjoy your stay.
Reading scotusblog’s live blog. IANAL, but it looks like 6-3 they’ve pushed the “outer penumbra” of what they could get away with without being facially absurd. And having done so, it’s not clear to me they’ve helped Trump much in the actual cases, except by delay. They have, as @Kathy: suggests, left key things undefined, opening huge grounds for Trump appeals, which will have to wait ’til next term. “Core Constitutional” acts are immune, “unofficial acts” are not, big gray area between. Robert’s wrote the decision and clarifies discussions with Trump’s subordinates are immune (apparently without even the exceptions that apply to attorney-client). Other discussions, including with the veep, are up in the air. Sotomayor, writing for the minority, did not say “respectfully dissent”, she says “With fear for our democracy, I dissent.”
Again, IANAL, but the takeaways seem to be A) the election will decide the J6 and document cases. Possibly Georgia too. B) Biden, as Commander in Chief, can legally send cruise missiles into Thomas and Alito’s bedrooms tonight.
@Michael Reynolds:
What Biden really should do is say that the most basic responsibilities of the office of the President are to protect the Constitution and Nat’l Security. And thus he is remanding the MAGAt Justices, and Trump himself, to Gitmo.
@Michael Reynolds:
Congrats to the entire family!!!
@Daryl: Maybe take it a step further, declare Martial Law, dissolve the Congress, remand the traitors in Congress (Republicans). Then take all the magic supplements that make him coherent for three hours a day and go on national television and tell everyone the country is under attack from within. Also that from now on the media will under state control, and he’s also remanding Jake Tapper and Dana Bash for aiding and abetting.
@gVOR10:
It’s not so much what the decisions says, though that matters, but how Wannabehitler will abuse it. For one thing, he will now claim everything he did between the 2017 inauguration and today, was an official act. This will include the falsification of business records he’s been convicted of. In other words,t he claim will be everything he’s done while titular president is an official act, including begging Melania for the time of day.
That’s just for starters. Should he win in November and take the White House again, he won’t give a damn whether what he does or orders is legal or not, should anyone even bother to remind him. After all, its all “official acts,” and he’s immune from prosecution for them. Meaning Wannabehitler cannot break the law, even if he breaks the law.
So, after legalizing bribery, the law firm of Leo and Crow have now legalized absolute dictatorship.
@CSK:
That’s very kind of you to ask. It was a bit of an emotional rollercoaster. My sis arrived at the hospital at 9 am for a full day of physical and psychological final tests to make sure she was ready for this. They did all the various preps, disinfected her body, put her in a disinfected bed, wheeled her to the surgery room at 11 p.m.
At 11:05 p.m. they wheeled her out. The heart had atrophied too much. This is a danger with heart transplants–it is always the last organ to be harvested, and combined with travel time it’s not that uncommon for heart transplant recipients to go through this a couple of times.
It was emotionally heart breaking, but there’s a very bright shining silver lining to it–other than having a robot heart, my sister is in incredible health, and so they made the decision that they could afford to keep waiting for a good heart. If she was on death’s door, that atrophied heart would be in her right now.
So, we continue to wait. My sister first went into the hospital mid-August, a few months before my wedding. I’ll be married 11 years in October. After 11 years, what’s a few more months of waiting.
It occurs to me as I write this, and reflect that it’s been 11 years since I got hitched, that I started commenting here during my senior year of college, sometime in ’07 or ’08. Ya’ll have been around for every major milestone of my adult life–first career step, unemployment, new career, marriage, starting a family, all of it. That’s something for a bunch of yahoos I only know through aliases and avatars.
Love and peace you all, even JKB. Actually, especially JKB.
ETA: I see I’m crowding Michael’s emotional reflection of the inevitable passage of time with my own emotional reflection of the inevitable passage of time. Must be something in the air.
Still no separate thread for the beginning of the end of the American experiment.
From The Guardian:
So, that’s that.
It was a nice country, while we had it.
I am not a lawyer, and I’m barely even an amateur historian. But in the increasingly unlikely scenario that there still is a United States 100 years from now today’s decision will be right up there with Dred Scott in terms of the disdain in which it’s held. It might be Trump who uses this decision as a license to turn into a totalitarian nightmare or it might not, but it is almost inevitable someone will. This is the sort of guardrail that, once broken, cannot be restored without actual, literal, bloodshed.
Curious what James (and others) think of today’s ruling with regards to illegal orders from the commander in chief. After all, if orders issued as part of his official duties (and commander in chief certainly qualifies) are above the law, is it even possible to refuse to obey that order on the grounds it’s illegal?
Glad I’m old and don’t have kids.
@Neil Hudelson:
I’m very glad to learn that your sis is in robust health otherwise.
I know what you mean about OTB. It got me through some tough times myself.
@SenyorDave:
Interesting. Do you have actual proof of “magic supplements”? Or are those just your MAGAt emotions talking?
@Kylopod:
There is now.
@Daryl: I thought I was being sarcastic, but if you have to explain your sarcasm you failed at sarcasm. Or maybe I’m being sarcastic about my sarcasm.
@SenyorDave:
Ah…thankfully. I thought your response was odd.
I’m a more than a little torqued of by this ruling, so maybe that explains my obtuseness.
@Kylopod:
I think we are way past the beginning.
Hard to convince me we aren’t in the end stages.
It sounds like the SCOTUS is much worse than I thought initially. This seems pretty bad:
The President may discuss potential investigations and prosecutions with his Attorney General and other Justice Department officials to carry out his constitutional duty to “take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed.”
Maybe I’m wrong but isn’t this almost a mandate for the president to tell the AG who he/she wants the DOJ to go after?
@Neil Hudelson:
The smell of hospitals?
From the decision.
i.e. no mind reading. As Joe Friday used to say, “Just the facts”
@SenyorDave: Interesting and potentially effective suggestions all. Still, the difference between Democrats and Republicans is what Democrats won’t do to retain power. (So far. [Fingers crossed emoji])
@SenyorDave: @Daryl: Hmmm. I saw both comments as equally snarky and reciprocal of each other. “What you heard is not what I meant” extends far beyond what I imagined when I taught the idea to comp. students 25 years ago.
A campaign ad I would like to see:
Start out with audio of the “Access Hollywood” tape.
Then voice over:
Two question:
1. Do you want a man who says this to be president of the United States?
2. Would you let this man be anywhere your teenaged daughter?
At this point the Democrats might as well go all in on negative ads, remind people of Trump’s character, or lack thereof. The American people have no memory or they might remember what a shitshow Trump’s time in office was. At least remind them of what a piece of shit he is as a person and use is own words when possible. Don’t worry about context, in fact bonus points for things taken out of context.
@Daryl: Maybe it’s because I’m close to my own personal end stages (though not particularly or in any meaningful sense compared to anyone else), but I think it’ll take a significant time to dismantle the nation. Someone else and on another thread talked of “if there still is a US 100 years from now.” I expect there will be. And it probably won’t be any more like the US of today than the US of today is like the US of 1o0 years ago. But maybe not any more different either.
Speaking as an attorney, am appalled by SCOTUS’s decision. I suspect the right-leaning crowd went along with this because they can’t ever see how this might backfire and that this will allow the right to stay in power forever. They still think that Trump will adhere to the unspoken guardrails. Or maybe they don’t care.
Roberts will go down in history as the most gullible chief Supreme Court justice ever.
Kamala Harris tries cheap fake with lies on X. Community rebutes
@JKB:
“Community?’ Bullshit. Wannabe Brown Shirts like you.
Trump’s promises mean nothing. Nothing at all. As you know perfectly well.
A rapist’s promise. A traitor’s promise.
@Michael Reynolds: But but but both Elon and Catturd say Trump won’t allow abortion to be outlawed!!!! JKB wins!!!
Life, alas, goes on.
We seem to be on the threshold of a very intense hurricane season. There have been three named storms already, one, Beryl, a category 4 hurricane.
Some destructive things like hurricanes can have upsides now and then. It’s possible a more active hurricane season will bring enough rains to end the drought in central Mexico. Not all at once like the storms in California did, or like Alberto did a few days ago in northern Mexico, but the cumulative rainfall from now until the end of hurricane season.
And on cheerier news, a slob is getting a minimum security makeover. No doubt he’ll even make an orange jumpsuit look bad.
@Kathy:
Will they delouse him?
@CSK:
Isn’t that classiest thing about him?
On other things, Greece is moving to a six-day workweek.
Not a good idea.
Notice this part:
May I point out tons of refugees begging for asylum in Europe?
Also:
And this will not entice them to come back. If anything, it will be incentive for more of them to leave.
@CSK: I would think they would have to delouse the whole prison population after exposure to Bannon.
A little update on France:
RN bloc have 38 confirmed seats from the first round.
Popular Front (the left alliance) 32
Macron’s centrists 2
Run-offs will now take place in the seats where no party got over 50% votes first time.
The second round of voting automatically incluses the top two from the first, plus any others who got over 12.5% of the local electorate
The PF and Macrons Ensemble are now in talks about their candidates in third place dropping out to give the best hope clear run against RN; but the actual decision is legally down to the candidate, not the party.
The Republican conservatives seem undecided what to do.
And a lot of Ensemble and Republicans are OK with standing aside for the Socialists; but NOT for the LFI led my Melenchon, who many of them regard as hard left nutcases almost as repellent as the RN.
French politics give me a headache trying to work the odds, tbh.
But if an alliance is made, there is still hope for a Left/Centre win in the second round
@Kathy:
Yeah, that is a dumb move by the Greeks. It is the opposite of what they should be doing.
First of all, longer hours and fewer days off do not make people more productive. France, with its much-mocked four day week is more productive than Japan or South Korea, two notoriously workaholic societies.
Second, robotics, AI, drones, a lot of jobs are going away, so the issue going forward is likely to be much more about apportionment of resources.
How is the entire human race going stupid at once?
Oh, and here’s a happy thought: if Israel and Hezbollah go to actual war, it will be very, very bad. Gaza will be to a Lebanese war what the Mexican-American War was to the Civil War. I think there’s a better than average chance that Israel will use a nuke.
May you live in interesting times.
@Daryl: @just nutha:
Thanks. I cannot overemphasize just how bizarre it is that I turned out to be good at marriage. It’s like finding out your Chihuahua can make an excellent paella.
On a cheerier note, in the UK, the latest Electoral Calculus outcome of plugging in “poll of polls” data into their MRP modelling gives the following seats outcome:
Labour 470
Liberal Democrats 71
Conservative 61
SNP 15
Reform 7
Green 3
Plaid Cymru 3
Have to admit, I don’t quite believe it. I suspect their MRP model may be little off in how firm Reform inclined will hold up on the day, how efficient Lab + Lib anti-Tory tactical voting will be, and how the “actually voting undecideds” will break, I suspect a good number of “shy Conservatives” in that group.
My problem is that with the often new constituency boundaries, my 2017/2019 votes spreadsheets a now often useless.
(Boo, hiss. John is now an irked politics geek, who lacks the resources of the big boys to re-allocate the numbers effectively)
Having said that, my guess right now would be:
Labour 400 at least
Conservatives, around 100
LibDem 45 to 50
Reform 1 (Clacton) or maybe 2
(but my word, I’d love to see the frog-faced fart Farage lose in Clacton. “Oh, hear me, Lord”)
It would still be the most monumental Parliamentary victory EVER in the era of universal suffrage.
I have personal reason to hope against hope the the EC model might just be accurate: its latest seat prediction for my constituency, Bromsgrove, that has been Tory since 1983 (when it was separated off from Bromsgrove and Redditch) is a 66% to 26% probability for Labour.
If that happens, I shall be a very happy bunny indeed. 🙂
@Michael Reynolds:
I’d not place high odds of it being localised to Lebanon, either.
Pretty fair bet IDF will go after the IRG command nexi and Syrian AD net in SW Syria.
And that Iran will at minimum try to ramp the Houthi Red Sea war to 11; and possibly play up in Iraq and the Gulf; and target remnant bases US in Syria.
Meanwhile, the al-Saud are sitting back and smirking:
“We did warn you about the Houthi, but “back off” you said. Now be our guests”
The Houthi are coming very close to having the hammer of god land on their silly heads.
Their Red Sea antics are pissing off a lot of serious players, including Egypt, India, and the Europeans, as well as the US.
@Michael Reynolds:
Congrats and best wishes on the anniversary!
@Michael Reynolds:
But nuke use?
Not unless it really comes down to it being existential for Israel.
Because that could break the Israel/Germany linkage.
Which in turn underpins the Israeli trading relationship with Europe: around a quarter of all Israel’s trade, both imports and exports.
By comparison US is similar re. exports, c.11% imports
@Michael Reynolds:
It’s been going on for a while.
Exhibit A: World War I. Not just the war itself, but letting it drag on, and on, for as long as it did when the western front was a stalemate meat grinder, and the other theaters of war were meat grinders as well.
But I think it all boils down now to the combination of trickle down economics, and shareholder value as the main purpose of business.
The latter does not mean a relentless and ruthless pursuit of profit. I wish it did. Profit takes time and investment. Shareholder value does not.
Point is these two things have allowed a small segment of the population to amass large amounts of wealth, and they use it to manipulate politics for their further benefit.
@Michael Reynolds: “It’s like finding out your Chihuahua can make an excellent paella.”
Maybe if you swap it out for the chicken…
Another incident of turbulence causing injuries.
I repeat, do not take off your seat belt at all unless you need to get up.
The problem is the contradictory indication: do get up and walk around a but on a long flight, the better to prevent deep vein trombosis. But of course, this puts you at risk for turbulence injuries.
I wonder if a helmet could be taken as a personal item in the cabin. I’m serious.
@Michael Reynolds:
No! Spare the chihuahua!
Use chicken and chorizo instead, that’s traditional. 🙂
@JohnSF:
Just in case you haven’t seen it, John Oliver’s hilarious take on UK politics from last week.
The Houthis sank a coal carrier headed to India with a load of Russian coal recently. They are pissing off everyone, including Iran, right now. I don’t think it likely they will be doing this much longer, and have been doing it for internal political reasons. The most likely reason is they imagine a common enemy would unite Yemen around their flag. It’s not working.
@SenyorDave:
Correct.
@wr: @JohnSF:
God dammit, this is why I avoid metaphors.
@dazedandconfused:
Link gets a: “Video not available in your country”
Doubt that; the most likely response of southern/coastal Yemenis to anyone striking the Houthi would be “Aha! An ally! Hit them again!”