I have always been a huge reader. We were assigned JFC's "The Last of The Mohicans" in English, and it is the only text from any class I have taken from K through law school that I did not read. I just couldn't get though it - and relied on Cliff Notes (only time ever). A dozen years ago, when I had a new commute which required an hour in the car each way, I started listening to Books on CD. I thought I'd use the opportunity to listen to many of the classics in literature that I had never read (Ulysses, War and Peace, Crime and Punishment, etc.). I also wanted to give "The Last of the Mohicans" another chance. It was still horrible. (It did make a great movie though, Daniel Day Lewis in a relatively early role.)
I love the quote about Jeffrey Goldberg not waiting 2 years to put the Signal snafu in a book. Not sure how he could have handled this more responsibly.
Totally agree, and especially how he initially held back most of the receipts and waited for them to deny and deflect, then just posted everything to roast them alive.
I loved how everyone was like "Since they're saying it wasn't classified, ask them if it's OK to post the entire thing!" And he's like "Ask?" LOL This is the kind of journalism we sorely need. NYT and WaPo should take note (but won't).
I claim it’s irrelevant whether or not classified info was involved. Our European allies were slammed. Burger Boy has already threatened to bomb Yemen. What happened in there that everyone didn’t already know? The real issues are amateurness on the part of our top leaders and what kind of top secret stuff will they divulge in the future. Putin hasn’t stopped laughing from this happening and European leaders, supposedly our allies, are taking tranquilizers to keep from saying to Burger Boy what he deserves. By the way, Donald Dummy, European leaders are sponging off us? These countries are the ones that suffered through two world wars while we sat safely on our side of the Atlantic passing judgement. These are the countries within a stone’s throw of Putin’s expansion desires and Russian nukes. Why don’t you have someone smart show you a map and a basic history book. Our own economy would go right down the dumpster chute without international cooperation. But you go right ahead and play to your ignorant base.
Plenty of experts have corroborated that what was in the chat would automatically be classified. Just because Trump might have said he would carry this out doesn't mean the details of the operation should be public, especially since Hegseth outlined the timing of certain actions hours before they were to happen. That Gabbard would claim it isn't classified was immensely stupid, opening the door for Goldberg to release what he did.
The question now is whether the administration will reverse course and say it actually was classified, and charge Goldberg for releasing it. That would open a whole new can of worms for everyone involved.
You mean Trump lies for political reasons? I’m aghast! You’re absolutely correct. But it’s a tad late to take it back. With the cringing chickens running Congress, and his own Cabinet and Congress, no one is going to do anything about it anyway.
I meant it. Should I repeat it? These are countries that sat in the way of trouble while we smugly sat back and tried to say it was none of our business. We did it before both World Wars, and now Burger Boy is trying to do it again.
Goldberg said that he did call the DOD and State Department to tell them he was going to publish the chat. Each said 'we would rather you didn't' but made no national security claim.
The Bernstein firing is surprising only from the standpoint that it took so long for it to happen. He'd always survived before even though other episodes didn't come close to the one that finally pushed over the edge. He must have generated a good amount of income.
I am surprised that no one ever took a poke at him for real. Not that it happens much, especially with adults. The personal nature the guy took when insulting people always suggested to me that someone might run into him on the street and do something equally stupid. The guy that trolled him is right, he's a small guy and maybe that has something to do with it. I confess I listened to him when he was part of Boers and Bernstein. For some reason it worked. But I also said I didn't know how Bernstein would go down without a Boers chaser.
All you have to do is look at the comments made by the public on the news articles and X and Facebook posts. I see nary a defender. The reaction of most everyone tells you everything you need to know.
I have never been a Bernstein fan. He is a full of himself ass and one of the main reasons that I rarely listen to the Score. Actually I don’t listen to WMVP all that much any more, which is all Bears all the time. But I prefer them to WSCR.
Ralph Nader should know better than anyone that sometimes a formerly powerful voice can do more harm than good by staying in the public spotlight (remember 2000?). Also, I think it’s healthy for an anti-authoritarian society to let former presidents fade into the obscurity of private life. Saying you want ex-presidents to get involved in current politics feeds the idea that we just want some powerful guy to make things better. No thanks!
Yeah, far better that he should just keep his mouth shut while the Democrats respond to the annihilation of American democracy by making kung-fu fighter TikTok videos. No “haters”, right?
Nader should not be quoted by anyone saying anything ever again unless it's "sorry," which of course he will never do insofar as his ego is of Trumpian proportions.
Here we go with this shit again. At a quarter century’s remove, it is clear that there are many people who will never disabuse themselves of the pathetic need to find scapegoats on which to hang every Democratic presidential election loss, but really, how much good does it do? (“Ooh, it feels so good when I scratch this itch! I’ve ripped the skin right off my arm and am bleeding profusely and the wound is badly infected, but it FEELS SO GOOD!”).
So Nader is supposed to apologize for costing Gore the 2000 election, am I right? Never mind that that theory has been debunked in numerous studies, including a thoroughly researched article that EZ posted in these very pages a couple of years ago. Does he also have to apologize for Bush’s re-election in ‘04? How about Trump in ‘16?(whoops forgot, that was all Jill Stein’s fault, right?). What about Trump 2.0 ? Or was that Stein’s fault again? Cornel West maybe? Well, I’m sure Ralph had SOMETHING to do with it, so maybe he should apologize for that one too.
The repeated refusals of the Democrats to field electable candidates in easily winnable presidential contests, and the refusal of their apologists to own up to this is THE existential crisis that the party must confront. It was known for over two years that Trump would be the Republican candidate, yet the Democrats responded to this by taking their $2 billion dollar war chest and using it to run Biden again (despite daily evidence of his unfitness), and when they finally pulled their heads out of the sand and realized their folly after June 27th, responded by back-dooring his wildly unpopular Vice President into the nomination without a primary. And then couldn’t figure out why they lost. Oh well, those are the breaks, I guess we’ll just try harder next time.
But Ralph Nader should keep his lip zipped unless he’s saying “sorry”? Please.
Wow — were you Nader’s local campaign manager or something? I didn’t say he “cost Gore the election,” though he damn well knew he wasn’t helping the causes he’s now shaming others to support. And I didn’t drag him into the convo — just responded to his criticism of others and disagreed with anyone who thinks it’s a good idea to get past presidents involved in our current problems because they carry their own baggage and political liabilities.
I was replying to Jake, who wrote that Nader should not be heard from, save for an apology. I assumed the apology would be necessitated for “costing” Gore the 2000 election, but who knows? Maybe Jake feels unduly constrained by seat belts and meant that Ralph should apologize for those.
Apologies — I was confused by the thread’s connections. Btw I do appreciate what Nader did for consumer rights and I sure hope all of that work doesn’t get torn down completely in the next few years.
I hadn’t thought of that, but considering how Trump supporters are exactly the sort of yahoos that would scoff at the value of seat belts, it would be no surprise if the Orange Wonder were to order their removal.
My presumption that Nader cost Gore the election, by which I mean simply, had Nader not run or if he had withdrawn his candidacy, Gore very likely would have won Florida and so the election, is based on simple math. Bush won the state by a mere 537 votes. Nader received nearly 100,000. That means that even if the Nader vote would have only *slightly* tilted toward Gore in a Nader-less election, Gore would have won. Even if a significant portion of Nader voters would have sat out the election, it still seems highly likely that Gore would have won.
I found an abstract of a study that says that while the Nader vote was not as universally pro-Gore-as-second-choice as might be assumed -- the study suggests that at least 40% of Nader voters, more centrist than commonly believed, would have supported Bush -- the study does suggest that, due to the closeness of the election, the other 60% did indeed cost Gore the election. It says further, before it cuts off, "In an election that turned on, among other things, 537 votes in the state of Florida, the conclusion that the 97,488 Floridians who opted for liberal crusader Nader would have in his absence broken in sufficient numbers for Gore so as to reverse the election in Florida, and thus in the nation, borders on logical deduction."
I find it hard to argue with that "logical deduction." But even if we can't prove it conclusively, the possibility that he could very well spoil Gore's chances had been apparent throughout the campaign, and yet he insisted on moving forward anyway to the bitter end. In other words, he was egregiously wrong to pursue his campaign to the end even before knowing the outcome.
Duverger's Law is the old idea from political science that a single-member first-past-the-post (i.e., plurality-wins) system will inevitably produce a two-party system (as it has in the U.S.) because such a system strongly disincentivizes third-party runs due to the potential for lane-splitting and spoiling an outcome, which is to say, handing the election to, even from that third-party candidate's perspective and that of most of their voters, the worst option rather than the less-bad alternative.
That incentive was certainly alive and well in 2000, when the polls were close. But Nader did not heed it. He might have run, and then extracted some concessions from Gore in exchange for dropping out and/or throwing his support to Gore (just as RFK Jr. did). But it was clear then that he was intent on running on principle and had no interest in cutting any deals. Instead, he gave voice to the old lie, then in wide circulation, that the two parties are basically the same, tweedle-dee and tweedle-dum. There are three simple words that disprove that thesis, once again bordering on "logical deduction": the Iraq War. (Not to mention two Supreme Court justices, one of whom, Alito, has turned out to be very far right.) To deny the point is to insist that elections don't really matter, which is obviously not true.
The beef so many of us have with Nader isn't that his candidacy merely *turned out* to change the election results in some sort of attenuated butterfly-flaps-its-wings way, but that, with no chance of winning himself, with no chance even of meaningfully adding worthy ideas to the mix, and knowing the risks of pursuing his candidacy to the end, he recklessly courted just the outcome that occurred, setting back not only the center-left liberalism of Gore but any views of his own as well. While he certainly had a legal right to run, that didn't make it right. Proceeding on a course of action that may well entail such dire consequences strikes me as wrong, as in ethically wrong. I don't see any way around it. His stubborn refusal to see it in that light, to measure his actions against their probable consequences in the real world, strikes me as obtuse, which is a fancy word for stupid or bonkers. I truly don't understand it. It represents the triumph of ego over common sense, to everyone else's detriment. It's absolutely maddening.
As for your other points, yes, Nader did good stuff on auto safety and as a consumer advocate and so on. I certainly had warm feelings toward him before 2000. But 2000 did grave damage to his legacy, just as Ginsburg's decision -- somewhat more understandable (everyone thought Hillary would win, and nobody wants to think about their death), but still a very bad call ex ante -- has tarnished hers. No, I don't blame Nader for Trump and so on. It's impossible to know what would have happened that far away from the event. I blame Nader for Bush/Cheney. Isn't that enough?!
I’m having trouble posting the link, but the article that I alluded to that was posted in PS is titled “No, Ralph Nader Did Not Hand the 2000 Presidential Election to George W. Bush” by Anthony Fisher from Reason. It can be accessed online with no paywall.
Certainly if you boil the entire election down to the 537 vote difference in Florida, then yes, subtracting Nader from the equation would probably have assured victory for Gore. But it’s grievously unfair the hang the whole thing on him when all of the far more significant variables are taken into consideration. To cite just one, the Reason article notes that thirteen times the number of registered Democrats voted for BUSH than voted for Nader in Florida. For those who coveted a Gore presidency, doesn’t that one little detail alone represent a catastrophic system failure far more relevant than the issue of Nader’s presence on the ballot? Take everything else into account (similar defections by registered Democrats to Bush throughout the country, usually reliable Democratic voting blocs disproportionally going for Bush, Gore losing his home state, etc.), and the reflexive scapegoating of Nader becomes a sick joke.
Anyway, my point was that there are far too many Democrats who are way too comfortable playing pin the blame on someone else whenever they lose at presidential politics, when what they should be doing is learning from their mistakes to ensure that they don’t happen again and, you know, save democracy. It’s always something or someone else’s fault. It’s Nader. Or it’s Sanders. Or it’s Stein. Or it’s Fox News. Or it’s all those pesky low information voters. It’s anyone and everything but us.
I won’t rehash the details of their criminal mishandling of the last campaign. The conscious and sentient among us watched it unfold before our eyes, mouths agape, but it’s all over now. Maybe we’ll have another chance, and maybe the Democrats can amass a $3 billon dollar war chest by then and maybe THAT will be enough for them to figure out how to cultivate a candidate who can close the deal. But I’m not holding my breath.
You know better than that. Rumors are like bungholes. Everyone has them and most of them stink. Say them often enough and people start to believe whether or not they have any basis in fact or reality.
I haven’t seen a hint of them. The closest thing I got was an interview with Jenna Bush from four years ago where she discusses her maternal grandmother’s battle with Alzheimer’s.
And the guy that could potentially provide the best advice to the party on how to move to the center and steal GOP positions, Bill Clinton, is probably unpalatable to the party and the target audience.
And the time that he attempted to burnish his “tough on crime” street cred by inviting the media down to Arkansas to watch him don an executioner’s hood and sign the death warrant of a lobotomised black man. Not too woke.
The Cabinet of Equals (they are all bozos) had no senior military in their insecure chat as they cosplayed as strategists. Now Waltz (the originator of this fustercluck) is implying that Goldberg (who has more integrity in his little finger than that bunch combined) somehow hacked his way into their discussions! I'd rather be ruled by a nest of rabid weasels.
One of the reasons I got a passport card (allows you to travel to Canada and Mexico by car/train/bus without your passport book) in addition to the standard passport book this fall was in case there became a need to randomly prove citizenship. I can keep the card in my wallet. Just a few years ago the idea that US citizens would need to carry their "identification papers" to please the Nazis was ridiculous; now, not so much.
You don't need to subscribe to the WaPo to read any articles there. Just click in the article. When the popup telling to subscribe comes up, just reload the page & quickly hit the STOP button on your browser & you can read it!
Alison Krauss’s version of "When You Say Nothing At All" is indeed lovely. It was recorded for a tribute album for Keith Whitley, whose likewise lovely recording was the second of the five #1 singles he racked up in just two years. Three of those were posthumous releases after his death from alcohol overdose.
It's a fine song, and would have found an audience no matter who got to it first. But Keith was first to record it and put it on the map.
Very interested to listed to “Fueling Knowledge." Lest we completely despair, there are lots and lots of universities committed to studying climate change and more sustainable fuel sources. One example: Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo developed a bio-fuel that is now used for the Kalamazoo regional buses. To thank WMU, Kalamazoo allows WMU students to ride the buses for free. Gets students out into the wider community using public transport - good for everyone.
What do the billionaires want? Gee, I wonder! Maybe they want to control society and have been pushing for this for 50 years? Maybe they have a Master Plan that theyve been implementing through the Federalist Society and media capture that allows them to make more money while we get hosed. Idk, just a thought...
The article points out, as I have in the past few week, that Citizens United completely changed the game for them and their power. 2008 they donated a few million, now its 2.5 billion... just to elections. This says nothing of their donations to certain policy organization (which they absolutely make AND expect a return on their investment from.)
Why is Illinois always in a budget crunch? Why do we have BS arguments over fair taxation of the rich?
These billionaires have been stealing from us and they are going to continue to steal until we wake up. This isnt a conspiracy theory, Eric sees it, its just a plain old conspiracy.
I am completely aware of them. The current crop of billionaires are trying to become the new robber barons. Just because it is not new does not mean it is not happening again
With regard to Ralph Nader's criticism of former presidents not speaking out, I have assumed that they are following what seems to have been a longstanding policy that former presidents do not comment on the actions of the current president. It has been a sign of respect for the office and the idea that we only have one president at a time.
You're right that it has been a long-standing norm - another norm of a myriad that Trump wiped his you-know-what with. These are extraordinarily precarious times and I wouldn't mind Clintons and Obama being more in the public eye, as they have been during Harris' campaign, helping the resistance. But I do respect their right to do whatever they feel like as private citizens. They served as well as they could and earned it, they don't owe anyone anything.
"According to Guinness World Records, Robert Wadlow of the United States (1918–1940) was the tallest person in recorded history, measuring 272 cm (8 ft 11 in) at the time of his death. "
What is left out of that is he had health issues because the human body wasn't designed to that tall. Hopefully Mr Rioux doesn't grow much taller.
All those old B-movie horror flicks from the '50s about animals or humans growing to enormous sizes (usually due to nuclear fallout) fall apart when faced with the physical reality -- for every doubling of that creature's dimensions, its mass would grow eight-fold. An ant the size of a truck would collapse under its own weight.
Mostly true. What you left out is that sometimes people get that big because of disease. Wrestler Andre the Giant was big in every way, from his height to the size of his head, hands and feet. He was pretty much born with growth hormone issues that caused him to have medical and physical ailments most of his life. He got pretty painful later in life and died young. More than one “giant” has been know to get medical treatments to retard growth because of what we now know.
Wadlow's height was due to elevated levels of HGH caused by hypertrophy of his pituitary gland. He died at 22 when one of his leg braces caused a sore on his ankle that got infected.
Rule Tweak for football: the 12 men on the field penalty. If there actually are 12 men trying to rush the Quarterback, i.e. they are trying to be sneaky or someone blew their assignment, sure, give the QB a free play. But if the player is trying to get off the field and the QB snaps the ball, just let the play go.
And yes, I know that penalty has benefitted my team a few times as well.
Given how hard David Leitschuh @davidleitschuh588045 went after Brittney Griner for possession of less than a gram of cannabis oil in her luggage, I'm sitting here waiting for his stern admonishment of the Trump Administration for TextGate.
Trump’s goal is to go down in history as the next Genghis Khan, which means he needs to be a conqueror. Greenland, Panama, even Canada could be initial targets.
In regard to Dan Bernstein, I’ve been listening to him since he was with Terry Boers. I’ve noticed over time he has sounded more and more intense.
Thanks for the link to Conan O’Brien’s Mark Twain Award acceptance speech.
Mark Twain will be irrelevant only when cockroaches rule the earth.
Unfortunately, we seem to be approaching that time rapidly.
Loved Twain's takedown of James Fenimore Cooper. He nailed it!
I have always been a huge reader. We were assigned JFC's "The Last of The Mohicans" in English, and it is the only text from any class I have taken from K through law school that I did not read. I just couldn't get though it - and relied on Cliff Notes (only time ever). A dozen years ago, when I had a new commute which required an hour in the car each way, I started listening to Books on CD. I thought I'd use the opportunity to listen to many of the classics in literature that I had never read (Ulysses, War and Peace, Crime and Punishment, etc.). I also wanted to give "The Last of the Mohicans" another chance. It was still horrible. (It did make a great movie though, Daniel Day Lewis in a relatively early role.)
I love the quote about Jeffrey Goldberg not waiting 2 years to put the Signal snafu in a book. Not sure how he could have handled this more responsibly.
Totally agree, and especially how he initially held back most of the receipts and waited for them to deny and deflect, then just posted everything to roast them alive.
I loved how everyone was like "Since they're saying it wasn't classified, ask them if it's OK to post the entire thing!" And he's like "Ask?" LOL This is the kind of journalism we sorely need. NYT and WaPo should take note (but won't).
Yep.
“None of it was classified.” Oh, really? How about now?
I claim it’s irrelevant whether or not classified info was involved. Our European allies were slammed. Burger Boy has already threatened to bomb Yemen. What happened in there that everyone didn’t already know? The real issues are amateurness on the part of our top leaders and what kind of top secret stuff will they divulge in the future. Putin hasn’t stopped laughing from this happening and European leaders, supposedly our allies, are taking tranquilizers to keep from saying to Burger Boy what he deserves. By the way, Donald Dummy, European leaders are sponging off us? These countries are the ones that suffered through two world wars while we sat safely on our side of the Atlantic passing judgement. These are the countries within a stone’s throw of Putin’s expansion desires and Russian nukes. Why don’t you have someone smart show you a map and a basic history book. Our own economy would go right down the dumpster chute without international cooperation. But you go right ahead and play to your ignorant base.
Plenty of experts have corroborated that what was in the chat would automatically be classified. Just because Trump might have said he would carry this out doesn't mean the details of the operation should be public, especially since Hegseth outlined the timing of certain actions hours before they were to happen. That Gabbard would claim it isn't classified was immensely stupid, opening the door for Goldberg to release what he did.
The question now is whether the administration will reverse course and say it actually was classified, and charge Goldberg for releasing it. That would open a whole new can of worms for everyone involved.
You mean Trump lies for political reasons? I’m aghast! You’re absolutely correct. But it’s a tad late to take it back. With the cringing chickens running Congress, and his own Cabinet and Congress, no one is going to do anything about it anyway.
"These countries are the ones that suffered through two world wars while we sat safely on our side of the Atlantic passing judgement."???
I meant it. Should I repeat it? These are countries that sat in the way of trouble while we smugly sat back and tried to say it was none of our business. We did it before both World Wars, and now Burger Boy is trying to do it again.
Goldberg said that he did call the DOD and State Department to tell them he was going to publish the chat. Each said 'we would rather you didn't' but made no national security claim.
Right? He could not have handled this better, but all they do is insult him.
The Bernstein firing is surprising only from the standpoint that it took so long for it to happen. He'd always survived before even though other episodes didn't come close to the one that finally pushed over the edge. He must have generated a good amount of income.
I am surprised that no one ever took a poke at him for real. Not that it happens much, especially with adults. The personal nature the guy took when insulting people always suggested to me that someone might run into him on the street and do something equally stupid. The guy that trolled him is right, he's a small guy and maybe that has something to do with it. I confess I listened to him when he was part of Boers and Bernstein. For some reason it worked. But I also said I didn't know how Bernstein would go down without a Boers chaser.
All you have to do is look at the comments made by the public on the news articles and X and Facebook posts. I see nary a defender. The reaction of most everyone tells you everything you need to know.
I have never been a Bernstein fan. He is a full of himself ass and one of the main reasons that I rarely listen to the Score. Actually I don’t listen to WMVP all that much any more, which is all Bears all the time. But I prefer them to WSCR.
The Score fired Bernstein -- how do I find it on my digital radio? ;)
i haven't listened to bernstein [or WSCR, for that matter] for 12-15 yrs. but i was a listener for 12-15 yrs from its founding.
bernstein has always been an arrogant a-hole [duke syndrome]. he & boers shared in common a regular verbal disdain of anyone who disagreed with them.
i cdn't care less that he was fired.
Ralph Nader should know better than anyone that sometimes a formerly powerful voice can do more harm than good by staying in the public spotlight (remember 2000?). Also, I think it’s healthy for an anti-authoritarian society to let former presidents fade into the obscurity of private life. Saying you want ex-presidents to get involved in current politics feeds the idea that we just want some powerful guy to make things better. No thanks!
Hearing Ralph Nader scold anyone is like nails on a chalkboard at this point.
Yeah, far better that he should just keep his mouth shut while the Democrats respond to the annihilation of American democracy by making kung-fu fighter TikTok videos. No “haters”, right?
Nader should not be quoted by anyone saying anything ever again unless it's "sorry," which of course he will never do insofar as his ego is of Trumpian proportions.
Here we go with this shit again. At a quarter century’s remove, it is clear that there are many people who will never disabuse themselves of the pathetic need to find scapegoats on which to hang every Democratic presidential election loss, but really, how much good does it do? (“Ooh, it feels so good when I scratch this itch! I’ve ripped the skin right off my arm and am bleeding profusely and the wound is badly infected, but it FEELS SO GOOD!”).
So Nader is supposed to apologize for costing Gore the 2000 election, am I right? Never mind that that theory has been debunked in numerous studies, including a thoroughly researched article that EZ posted in these very pages a couple of years ago. Does he also have to apologize for Bush’s re-election in ‘04? How about Trump in ‘16?(whoops forgot, that was all Jill Stein’s fault, right?). What about Trump 2.0 ? Or was that Stein’s fault again? Cornel West maybe? Well, I’m sure Ralph had SOMETHING to do with it, so maybe he should apologize for that one too.
The repeated refusals of the Democrats to field electable candidates in easily winnable presidential contests, and the refusal of their apologists to own up to this is THE existential crisis that the party must confront. It was known for over two years that Trump would be the Republican candidate, yet the Democrats responded to this by taking their $2 billion dollar war chest and using it to run Biden again (despite daily evidence of his unfitness), and when they finally pulled their heads out of the sand and realized their folly after June 27th, responded by back-dooring his wildly unpopular Vice President into the nomination without a primary. And then couldn’t figure out why they lost. Oh well, those are the breaks, I guess we’ll just try harder next time.
But Ralph Nader should keep his lip zipped unless he’s saying “sorry”? Please.
Wow — were you Nader’s local campaign manager or something? I didn’t say he “cost Gore the election,” though he damn well knew he wasn’t helping the causes he’s now shaming others to support. And I didn’t drag him into the convo — just responded to his criticism of others and disagreed with anyone who thinks it’s a good idea to get past presidents involved in our current problems because they carry their own baggage and political liabilities.
I was replying to Jake, who wrote that Nader should not be heard from, save for an apology. I assumed the apology would be necessitated for “costing” Gore the 2000 election, but who knows? Maybe Jake feels unduly constrained by seat belts and meant that Ralph should apologize for those.
Apologies — I was confused by the thread’s connections. Btw I do appreciate what Nader did for consumer rights and I sure hope all of that work doesn’t get torn down completely in the next few years.
I hadn’t thought of that, but considering how Trump supporters are exactly the sort of yahoos that would scoff at the value of seat belts, it would be no surprise if the Orange Wonder were to order their removal.
Do you have a link to that study?
My presumption that Nader cost Gore the election, by which I mean simply, had Nader not run or if he had withdrawn his candidacy, Gore very likely would have won Florida and so the election, is based on simple math. Bush won the state by a mere 537 votes. Nader received nearly 100,000. That means that even if the Nader vote would have only *slightly* tilted toward Gore in a Nader-less election, Gore would have won. Even if a significant portion of Nader voters would have sat out the election, it still seems highly likely that Gore would have won.
I found an abstract of a study that says that while the Nader vote was not as universally pro-Gore-as-second-choice as might be assumed -- the study suggests that at least 40% of Nader voters, more centrist than commonly believed, would have supported Bush -- the study does suggest that, due to the closeness of the election, the other 60% did indeed cost Gore the election. It says further, before it cuts off, "In an election that turned on, among other things, 537 votes in the state of Florida, the conclusion that the 97,488 Floridians who opted for liberal crusader Nader would have in his absence broken in sufficient numbers for Gore so as to reverse the election in Florida, and thus in the nation, borders on logical deduction."
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/241583809_Did_Ralph_Nader_Spoil_Al_Gore's_Presidential_Bid_A_Ballot-Level_Study_of_Green_and_Reform_Party_Voters_in_the_2000_Presidential_Election
I find it hard to argue with that "logical deduction." But even if we can't prove it conclusively, the possibility that he could very well spoil Gore's chances had been apparent throughout the campaign, and yet he insisted on moving forward anyway to the bitter end. In other words, he was egregiously wrong to pursue his campaign to the end even before knowing the outcome.
Duverger's Law is the old idea from political science that a single-member first-past-the-post (i.e., plurality-wins) system will inevitably produce a two-party system (as it has in the U.S.) because such a system strongly disincentivizes third-party runs due to the potential for lane-splitting and spoiling an outcome, which is to say, handing the election to, even from that third-party candidate's perspective and that of most of their voters, the worst option rather than the less-bad alternative.
That incentive was certainly alive and well in 2000, when the polls were close. But Nader did not heed it. He might have run, and then extracted some concessions from Gore in exchange for dropping out and/or throwing his support to Gore (just as RFK Jr. did). But it was clear then that he was intent on running on principle and had no interest in cutting any deals. Instead, he gave voice to the old lie, then in wide circulation, that the two parties are basically the same, tweedle-dee and tweedle-dum. There are three simple words that disprove that thesis, once again bordering on "logical deduction": the Iraq War. (Not to mention two Supreme Court justices, one of whom, Alito, has turned out to be very far right.) To deny the point is to insist that elections don't really matter, which is obviously not true.
The beef so many of us have with Nader isn't that his candidacy merely *turned out* to change the election results in some sort of attenuated butterfly-flaps-its-wings way, but that, with no chance of winning himself, with no chance even of meaningfully adding worthy ideas to the mix, and knowing the risks of pursuing his candidacy to the end, he recklessly courted just the outcome that occurred, setting back not only the center-left liberalism of Gore but any views of his own as well. While he certainly had a legal right to run, that didn't make it right. Proceeding on a course of action that may well entail such dire consequences strikes me as wrong, as in ethically wrong. I don't see any way around it. His stubborn refusal to see it in that light, to measure his actions against their probable consequences in the real world, strikes me as obtuse, which is a fancy word for stupid or bonkers. I truly don't understand it. It represents the triumph of ego over common sense, to everyone else's detriment. It's absolutely maddening.
As for your other points, yes, Nader did good stuff on auto safety and as a consumer advocate and so on. I certainly had warm feelings toward him before 2000. But 2000 did grave damage to his legacy, just as Ginsburg's decision -- somewhat more understandable (everyone thought Hillary would win, and nobody wants to think about their death), but still a very bad call ex ante -- has tarnished hers. No, I don't blame Nader for Trump and so on. It's impossible to know what would have happened that far away from the event. I blame Nader for Bush/Cheney. Isn't that enough?!
I’m having trouble posting the link, but the article that I alluded to that was posted in PS is titled “No, Ralph Nader Did Not Hand the 2000 Presidential Election to George W. Bush” by Anthony Fisher from Reason. It can be accessed online with no paywall.
Certainly if you boil the entire election down to the 537 vote difference in Florida, then yes, subtracting Nader from the equation would probably have assured victory for Gore. But it’s grievously unfair the hang the whole thing on him when all of the far more significant variables are taken into consideration. To cite just one, the Reason article notes that thirteen times the number of registered Democrats voted for BUSH than voted for Nader in Florida. For those who coveted a Gore presidency, doesn’t that one little detail alone represent a catastrophic system failure far more relevant than the issue of Nader’s presence on the ballot? Take everything else into account (similar defections by registered Democrats to Bush throughout the country, usually reliable Democratic voting blocs disproportionally going for Bush, Gore losing his home state, etc.), and the reflexive scapegoating of Nader becomes a sick joke.
Anyway, my point was that there are far too many Democrats who are way too comfortable playing pin the blame on someone else whenever they lose at presidential politics, when what they should be doing is learning from their mistakes to ensure that they don’t happen again and, you know, save democracy. It’s always something or someone else’s fault. It’s Nader. Or it’s Sanders. Or it’s Stein. Or it’s Fox News. Or it’s all those pesky low information voters. It’s anyone and everything but us.
I won’t rehash the details of their criminal mishandling of the last campaign. The conscious and sentient among us watched it unfold before our eyes, mouths agape, but it’s all over now. Maybe we’ll have another chance, and maybe the Democrats can amass a $3 billon dollar war chest by then and maybe THAT will be enough for them to figure out how to cultivate a candidate who can close the deal. But I’m not holding my breath.
As I commented separately, rumors are W has dementia!
You know better than that. Rumors are like bungholes. Everyone has them and most of them stink. Say them often enough and people start to believe whether or not they have any basis in fact or reality.
Considering that W hasn't been seen in public for a long time sort of does confirm the dementia rumors.
I think he was at Carter"s funeral a couple months ago.
He was also at Trump's inauguration. I have not heard these rumors myself.
I haven’t seen a hint of them. The closest thing I got was an interview with Jenna Bush from four years ago where she discusses her maternal grandmother’s battle with Alzheimer’s.
Good point Steve T. Obama chastising black men for not supporting Kamala Harris enough probably was not a big plus for the campaign.
And the guy that could potentially provide the best advice to the party on how to move to the center and steal GOP positions, Bill Clinton, is probably unpalatable to the party and the target audience.
I like Bill Clinton & don't see him as anything but a terrific president!
Except for when he pulled out his dick for an intern? Remember that?
And the time that he attempted to burnish his “tough on crime” street cred by inviting the media down to Arkansas to watch him don an executioner’s hood and sign the death warrant of a lobotomised black man. Not too woke.
I'll go you one better. I believe the (dreadful) Juanita Brodderick! https://www.chicagotribune.com/2018/10/11/fords-testimony-made-me-reconsider-bill-clintons-accuser/
Excellent article, Eric.
The Cabinet of Equals (they are all bozos) had no senior military in their insecure chat as they cosplayed as strategists. Now Waltz (the originator of this fustercluck) is implying that Goldberg (who has more integrity in his little finger than that bunch combined) somehow hacked his way into their discussions! I'd rather be ruled by a nest of rabid weasels.
Well, you have had your wish granted although it is by deranged Muskrats rather than rabid Weasels.
My current favorite meme is I've seen smarter cabinets in IKEA.
One of the reasons I got a passport card (allows you to travel to Canada and Mexico by car/train/bus without your passport book) in addition to the standard passport book this fall was in case there became a need to randomly prove citizenship. I can keep the card in my wallet. Just a few years ago the idea that US citizens would need to carry their "identification papers" to please the Nazis was ridiculous; now, not so much.
I recently took my passport card out of my wallet so I wouldn't lose it. I guess it's time to put it back in the wallet again...
I wonder how many former WaPo subscribers are now signing up for The Atlantic.
You don't need to subscribe to the WaPo to read any articles there. Just click in the article. When the popup telling to subscribe comes up, just reload the page & quickly hit the STOP button on your browser & you can read it!
Alison Krauss’s version of "When You Say Nothing At All" is indeed lovely. It was recorded for a tribute album for Keith Whitley, whose likewise lovely recording was the second of the five #1 singles he racked up in just two years. Three of those were posthumous releases after his death from alcohol overdose.
It's a fine song, and would have found an audience no matter who got to it first. But Keith was first to record it and put it on the map.
Very interested to listed to “Fueling Knowledge." Lest we completely despair, there are lots and lots of universities committed to studying climate change and more sustainable fuel sources. One example: Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo developed a bio-fuel that is now used for the Kalamazoo regional buses. To thank WMU, Kalamazoo allows WMU students to ride the buses for free. Gets students out into the wider community using public transport - good for everyone.
What do the billionaires want? Gee, I wonder! Maybe they want to control society and have been pushing for this for 50 years? Maybe they have a Master Plan that theyve been implementing through the Federalist Society and media capture that allows them to make more money while we get hosed. Idk, just a thought...
The article points out, as I have in the past few week, that Citizens United completely changed the game for them and their power. 2008 they donated a few million, now its 2.5 billion... just to elections. This says nothing of their donations to certain policy organization (which they absolutely make AND expect a return on their investment from.)
Why is Illinois always in a budget crunch? Why do we have BS arguments over fair taxation of the rich?
These billionaires have been stealing from us and they are going to continue to steal until we wake up. This isnt a conspiracy theory, Eric sees it, its just a plain old conspiracy.
https://www.levernews.com/masterplan/
Nothing new there. Look up the robber barons of the late 19th century.
I am completely aware of them. The current crop of billionaires are trying to become the new robber barons. Just because it is not new does not mean it is not happening again
With regard to Ralph Nader's criticism of former presidents not speaking out, I have assumed that they are following what seems to have been a longstanding policy that former presidents do not comment on the actions of the current president. It has been a sign of respect for the office and the idea that we only have one president at a time.
You're right that it has been a long-standing norm - another norm of a myriad that Trump wiped his you-know-what with. These are extraordinarily precarious times and I wouldn't mind Clintons and Obama being more in the public eye, as they have been during Harris' campaign, helping the resistance. But I do respect their right to do whatever they feel like as private citizens. They served as well as they could and earned it, they don't owe anyone anything.
"According to Guinness World Records, Robert Wadlow of the United States (1918–1940) was the tallest person in recorded history, measuring 272 cm (8 ft 11 in) at the time of his death. "
What is left out of that is he had health issues because the human body wasn't designed to that tall. Hopefully Mr Rioux doesn't grow much taller.
All those old B-movie horror flicks from the '50s about animals or humans growing to enormous sizes (usually due to nuclear fallout) fall apart when faced with the physical reality -- for every doubling of that creature's dimensions, its mass would grow eight-fold. An ant the size of a truck would collapse under its own weight.
Mostly true. What you left out is that sometimes people get that big because of disease. Wrestler Andre the Giant was big in every way, from his height to the size of his head, hands and feet. He was pretty much born with growth hormone issues that caused him to have medical and physical ailments most of his life. He got pretty painful later in life and died young. More than one “giant” has been know to get medical treatments to retard growth because of what we now know.
Wadlow's height was due to elevated levels of HGH caused by hypertrophy of his pituitary gland. He died at 22 when one of his leg braces caused a sore on his ankle that got infected.
Rule Tweak for football: the 12 men on the field penalty. If there actually are 12 men trying to rush the Quarterback, i.e. they are trying to be sneaky or someone blew their assignment, sure, give the QB a free play. But if the player is trying to get off the field and the QB snaps the ball, just let the play go.
And yes, I know that penalty has benefitted my team a few times as well.
Given how hard David Leitschuh @davidleitschuh588045 went after Brittney Griner for possession of less than a gram of cannabis oil in her luggage, I'm sitting here waiting for his stern admonishment of the Trump Administration for TextGate.
Is there a petition to support Medill firing Thrasher? Link please if so.
Thrasher comes across as an idiot with nothing but grievances in his head!
Trump’s goal is to go down in history as the next Genghis Khan, which means he needs to be a conqueror. Greenland, Panama, even Canada could be initial targets.
In regard to Dan Bernstein, I’ve been listening to him since he was with Terry Boers. I’ve noticed over time he has sounded more and more intense.
Thanks for the link to Conan O’Brien’s Mark Twain Award acceptance speech.