I hate to say it, but he’s right. …
Month: September 2024
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Czech president: Ukraine needs to be realistic about its goals
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Are polls once again underestimating Trump’s support?
They did it in 2016 and 2020, i.e. polls underestimating Donald Trump’s level of support across the country, partly because many of his backers are reluctant to admit they like Trump. Is the same thing happening this year? This latest NBC poll paints a generally rosy picture for Kamala Harris. But the latest NYT/Siena poll is more sobering (for Harris backers). It shows Trump remaining ahead in the key battleground states of Arizona, Georgia and N.C. … My gut says the NYT/Sienna poll is probably more accurate. My rule of thumb: Always add an extra percentage point or two to Trump’s poll numbers, just to be safe, based on past disappointing experience.
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More over-the-top training exercises
This time it involves Tufts lacrosse players, not State Police cadets. … There’s an element of sadism behind all of this, pushing people to the limit and then seeing them break one by one.
Update – State Police have suspended the training academy’s boxing program following the death of a cadet. …
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Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine, Part 2: Panned and praised
I have to say I’m surprised by the overwhelmingly negative reaction, at least within the political circles I travel, to Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine’s NYT op-ed defending Haitian immigrants in his state. Where I saw very welcome moderation from a Republican governor, others saw only a politician who still backs Donald Trump and JD Vance, as evidenced by the biting anti-DeWine remarks in the NYT comments section and in the emails I’ve received since publishing the post below. I thought most of the push-back to DeWine’s op-ed would come from the Fox News right. Wrong! It seems many Dems are in no mood for nice-nice moderation.
Here’s a representative anti-DeWine comment at the NYT (and the last one posted before the section was shut down): “Still supports Trump and Vance. Unconscionable and emblematic of the insanity of the MAGA cult. There is nothing that will turn them from their dear leader. Zero respect for you governor and you debase your own good argument here by supporting its antithesis!”
After receiving similar emails critical of DeWine, I responded to a group of Dem friends: “At a critical point and on a critical issue, DeWine’s standing up to Trump and Vance, openly and forcefully. Are we not supposed to welcome this?”
Fortunately, another member of the email chain sort of came to my rescue, a fellow Dem with extensive experience in Haiti: “I have met DeWine multiple times, and he is a solid individual. He is saying exactly what should be said and is protecting Haitian immigrants more convincingly than many Democrats have. He is forcefully rebuking Trump and Vance, and this Op-Ed in the NYT will enrage them. So, on this one issue, he is spot-on. Not every Republican is going to be Liz Cheney.”
Fyi: I didn’t do an extensive search for right-wing reactions to the DeWine op-ed, but it seems there’s very little reaction in general. Ignoring it is a form of cancelling it, I suppose.
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Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine: One of the last sane people in the GOP
Maybe this guy should be our president. … Definitely read this morning’s op-ed piece by Mike DeWine, governor of Ohio and one of the last sane people in the GOP. … There’s hope yet that the ‘radical middle’ can still hold.
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The Pats: Playing not to lose?
From a reader after last night’s Pats loss: “I suspect someone somewhere in the analytics community has validated the premise that if you are playing not to lose, you are more likely to lose.”
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The enduring (sort of) popularity of police blotters
When I was a cub reporter way back when, the police blotter was by far the most popular feature of the weekly paper where I worked. They remain popular to this day, digitally and in dwindling print. … But this Globe story does raise an interesting issue of whether media outlets should be printing unfiltered police accounts of events. I think the Lexington newspaper cited in the article has found a correct balance: print the blotters with some editing changes that include not publishing suspects’ names. Sounds fair to me. …
Btw – One of the greatest practitioners of police-blotter writing: Universal Hub.
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The State Police academy: ‘It starts there — the whole culture’
The Globe’s Dan Glaun and Sean Cotter have a good piece on the paramilitary-style training at the State Police Academy, where Enrique Delago-Garcia recently died after a boxing exercise. Says one former cadet of the ridiculously over-the-top training program at the academy, ‘It starts there — the whole culture.’ And it’s a culture that’s helped produce scandal after scandal at State Police. It’s a culture that, from the very start, has prioritized brawn over brains, weeding out potentially excellent troopers who just weren’t macho enough for their boot-camp-style instructors.
Btw: Worried about police departments becoming overly militarized in general? Read the Globe article and all the source comments. It all starts in the hiring-and-training process.
Btw II: The Hub Blog mind drifts to this quote from the Untouchables, when beat-cop Jim Malone (aka Sean Connery) says of finding ethically sound police officers: “If you’re afraid of getting a rotten apple, don’t go to the barrel. Get it off the tree.”
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The non-policy psychological appeal of MAGA
The NYT’s David French gets closer to explaining a non-policy MAGA mindset than anyone I’ve read in a while. Basically, many MAGA types enjoy taking pokes at the establishment, saying outrageous things and seeing the reactions, hitting body-politic nerves every chance they get, provoking progressives in particular, etc. etc. There’s a cynical gleefulness and sense of belonging among many MAGA believers, as French notes. … But I’d add there’s also a little bit of the anarchist and libertarian in many MAGA types. I know this is generally true because I’ve talked to a number of Trump-supporter friends who, after readily acknowledging Trump’s obnoxious and toxic flaws, almost invariably say “I don’t care. I just want change.” I.e., there’s a strong anti-establishment, anti-status quo element to MAGA-dom, combined with an unmistakable anti-leftist obsession that finds comfort in seeking out and mocking progressive pronouncements and actions (see Instapundit on any given day to verify this point) …
The problem is, of course, these MAGA types don’t recognize their own anger/fury and how their words and actions are causing deep and lasting harm to a country they say they love. They also don’t see how they’re radicalizing and strengthening the resolve of their political opponents (or “enemies,” as some call them).
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Cannabis Control Commission: The most dysfunctional state agency in memory
The state’s Cannabis Control Commission is becoming a case study on how an organization can descend into near complete dysfunction by relentless scheming, backbiting and office politicking by just a handful of key players. The Globe has the latest CCC update. … There may indeed be some organizational problems that legislators need to address. But it sure looks like this is mostly about personalities, not organizational flow charts, and that will make it harder to fix short of firing the entire lot and starting from scratch.
Btw: The CCC and State Police are not too far apart in their consistent dysfunction. See post immediately below.
Hub Blog 