Friday’s Forum
Steven L. Taylor
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Friday, April 10, 2026
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48 comments
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About Steven L. Taylor
Steven L. Taylor is a Professor Emeritus 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).
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Fatso has no idea what’s in the deal he accepted from Iran!!!.
“The first casualty of war is truth” (often attributed to Gov Hiram Johnson of California)
Army survivors of deadly attack in Kuwait dispute Pentagon’s account, say unit “was unprepared” to defend itself
Court voids latest Pentagon press restrictions
Interesting thoughts.
Researchers propose ‘rewilding’ Europe’s borderlands to repel enemies
…
…
And cost effective.
Outrage culture is not a new phenomenon.
That time the Air Force proposed making a ‘gay bomb’
In the accompanying YouTube video is a rather silly news clip that take that one liner and blows it up into an entire story.
Do you think Cuba has stocked up on drones?
Albany (NY) Evening Journal April 10, 1865
One day after General Robert E. Lee surrendered to General Ulysses S. Grant on April 9, 1865.
@Gregory Lawrence Brown:
And today’s my birthday. Son of a gun.
This is the image I thought I posted in the comment above at 11:33.
Couch Boy has warned Iran not to play the US in the Islamabad talks.
I’d suggest then sending seasoned diplomats to the talks, rather than Larry. Curly, and Moe.
What should be a concern is that perhaps Witkoff, Kushner, and Vance are the best the Taco so-called administration has to offer for such talks.
Here’s some useful advice for them.
@CSK:
Happy birthday!
@Kathy: Not sure if it was Marco, JD, or Whiskey Pete, but of the 3 stooges responded to a question about Cuba being next by saying, “We have to keep China out of Cuba.” Doesn’t seem to occur to the MAGA administration that cutting off oil and food to Cuba might not be the best way to win the hearts and minds of the people who might see China as a better partner.
And….a righteously indignant John Kerry appeared with Jen Psaki last night and noted the JCPOA achieved what Mango Mussolini now hopes to gain after the murder and destruction spree in Iran, and that Trump walked away from that deal because, and only because, Obama’s fingerprints were on it. Kerry also noted that Bibi tried to get 4 other presidents to attack Iran (Clinton, W, Obama, Biden), and only Trump was gullible enough to accommodate him.
JCPOA took ~ 2 years to finalize with experienced diplomats and Iran/Middle East experts working on it. And Trump sends 3 know-nothings to hammer out a peace over the weekend. Pass the bourbon.
@Kathy:
Thank you. I’d not have mentioned it–I never have for the 14 years I’ve been commenting here–but for the fact that it’s my first birthday minus my lower right leg.
@CSK:
Please tell me you had the removed leg stuffed and you’ve made it into a lamp.
@Charley in Cleveland:
If the death, suffering, destruction, strengthening Iran’s strategic position, and massive hit to the world’s economy were not enough, El Taco also destroyed any trust Obama’s attempt at reproachment might have generated. This makes subsequent developments to improve stability in the region much harder.
For instance, Iran wants guarantees they won’t be attacked again. How is that accomplished, when twice within a year they’ve been attacked in the middle of negotiations? One partial solution would be to remove or reduce US bases in the region, which carries its own set of problems for the US, the Gulf countries, global trade, etc.
I don’t think this is in any way surprising: the acting CDC director has “delayed” publication of a CDC study that shows benefits of COVID vaccines.
Reviewing the methodology sounds reasonable, but it’s the same methodology the CDC has been using in similar studies for years.
If this keeps up, the US will come to know the joys of widespread infectious disease outbreaks which had been almost eradicated years ago.
What goes up must come down!
My auto insurance premium for 6 months decreased by $27.96 for the new 6 month term starting this month. I have checked the declarations and can not find any change in coverage.
Thank you Shelter Insurance!
The price of 120z. Kroger brand cookies that increased to $1.99 late last year has dropped back to $1.79.
The 1oz. bag of Panera brand Kettle Cooked potato chips that was $1.25 just a few months ago is now $1.45.
Unleaded Regular has been holding at $4.299/gal. at most places in town. If you want to you can go to the Shell station and pay $4.549.
@Charley in Cleveland: I caught the tail end of Kerry on Psaki last night. He’s looking pretty good for being even older, by 2-1/2 years, than me and Trump. But he must go home and bang his head on the desk contemplating what Trump has done.
@Kathy: Vaccines and AGW are the clearest examples of the corruption, financially and intellectually, of the Republican Party. In the 21st century, they oppose vaccination. And they ignore the greenhouse effect known since 1901 along with the mountain of supporting data. The AGW craziness is driven by fossil fuel money. The vaccine thing is just weird. I guess it’s mostly fallout from the interaction of Covid, Trump, and MAGA.
@Michael Reynolds:
I certainly did. You may view it here::
http://www.redriderleglamps.com
@gVOR10:
All these things come from the interaction between the plutocrats and the rubes. I’ve long believed–as did our dear, departed Steve Story–that it goes back to the creationist movement, which started to be seized on by the GOP in the late ’70s, at around the time they were attempting to court white evangelicals in the South over such issues as abortion, homosexuality, and prayer in public schools. In 1980, the resolutely nonchurchgoing Reagan made an explicitly evolution-skeptical claim on the campaign trail. That may have been just as significant as his infamous stop at the town of the infamous Klan lynching in Mississippi.
By contrast, there’s nothing in the Bible that should lead directly to doubts about global warming. It’s just that creationism became a powerful tool among the GOP elite for sowing doubts about science in general.
There’s a long-time myth that the anti-vax movement was once predominantly left-wing, possibly in part because for a while its most vocal supporters were Hollywood celebrities who were presumed to be liberals. I found a poll from 2015 which found that 10% of Republicans and 12% of Democrats held anti-vaccine views–so, basically a wash between the parties, and not particularly widespread among either. That very year, Candidate Trump explicitly flirted with the claim that vaccines cause autism. Four years earlier, Michelle Bachmann had suggested vaccines caused “mental retardation.” The context for her remarks were that she was attacking her rival in the GOP primaries, Rick Perry, for mandating the HPV vaccine among schoolgirls. That vaccine had long been a target on the right, who claimed it encouraged promiscuity.
Covid wasn’t so much a cause of the large-scale embrace of anti-vaxxers in the GOP as an opportunity they took advantage of to bolster their agenda of destroying the social safety net.
@CSK: That is delightfully weird. Was yours made in “Fra-GEE-lay”?
@Gregory Lawrence Brown:
Costco, Cypress TX
Feb 28: $2.29
Apr 10: $3.59
56.7% increase
Another loss for the US. A clear rejection of the unstable, unclear Trumpian objectives.
EU industry chief says Europe won’t follow the US on China
@Scott:..Costco
The closest Costco to my home is 90 miles in Saint Louis. The website shows unleaded Regular at $3.699.
In 1983 I worked storm damage for the telephone company after Hurricane Alicia ripped up the Houston area. Might have spent time in Cypress. It’s been too long ago to remember.
I do recall driving by the Astrodome to show up for work. The Cubs were in town but I was working 12 hour days and couldn’t get there for a game.
I don’t commute, so I don’t care much about gas prices. I do however drink and Costco has Four Roses single barrel on sale here for $30, at least a $20 a bottle saving.
@Scott: A similar story of WMD development.
Speaking of climate change, weather in Mexico City took a weird turn around late February.
Around the third week of February, things began to heat up. That’s “normal” under the abnormal general warming conditions our planet is suffering. But then in the last week, things cooled down. That was the old normal, of no more than 10 or 15 years ago…
March remained cold for a week, then began to warm up. and then we started getting unseasonal cloudy days and even rain*. This persisted the rest of the month, with occasional clear, hot days. As April marches on, it’s been more of the same. just today it was hot until around noon, then got cloudy, then there was some heavy but brief rain.
I’m not complaining. The cooler weather allows me to fall asleep sooner, and to sleep through the night. I don’t wake up in the middle of the night bathed in sweat, for instance.
But I’m baffled as to what’s going on.
*The rain season in most of central Mexico is summer, around from mid May to September.
As the fallout from President Trump’s agreement with Iran is still in the process of sorting itself out, I have to say that I genuinely believe that we have finally witnessed the end of President Trump ultimately always getting his way by being a bully in his interactions with our allies.
Trump has been throwing some very harsh shade at NATO the past couple weeks and they have pretty much held firm.
As more time passes I suspect many European countries will start to directly reach out to Iran to get them to understand that what is in Iran’s best interest is far from what is best for NATO aligned countries and the dynamics in the SOH will once again shift to something different from where they are today, but Europe stepping up to involve themselves in interactions with Iran will clearly no longer be a case of saying how high when President Trump said jump.
It is long overdue that the world as a whole almost in unison acted to neuter our President’s uncanny ability that up until the past few weeks allowed him to just verbally bludgeon countries around the world into accepting his actions.
In case anyone’s interested in Artemis, CNN has a live blog with very basic near real time telemetry, of the re-entry and splashdown.
The first space launch I saw live was Columbia in April 1981. Hey, just shy of 45 years ago. Normal for me means landing your spaceship on a runway. Descending suspended on a parachute and landing on the open sea seems old fashioned. A bygone era the Shuttle was supposed to have made obsolete.
Oh, well. Best laid plans and all that….
@Kathy:
Columbia… the first space shuttle landing. It was a big deal back then. I was in high school and our teacher for that period, understanding the gravity of the event, offered to let those interested move to a room with a TV so that we could see the landing in between work on our assignment that day.
Yesterday Cheryl Rofer quoted and linked (paywalled) to Stephen Walt in Foreign Policy. Walt thinks names need to be named with consequences to follow. After summarizing what a debacle Iran is for Trump, and us.
He goes on to name a few names, some familiar to me, some not.
– Bret Stephens of the New York Times
– Matthew Kroenig of the Atlantic Council (James?)
– American Enterprise Institute: Danielle Pletka, Marc Thiessen, and Michael Rubin
– Niall Ferguson of the Hoover Institution
– Retired four-star Gen. Jack Keane
– Mark Dubowitz and his various associates at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD)
– former U.S. National Security Advisor John Bolton
At least in Rofer’s non-paywalled quotes there’s no advice on how to punish them. But they certainly should be. I would add we need to find a way to punish Netanyahu et al without collectively punishing Israel. History will keep repeating until we get it right.
Not surprisingly, Trump Promises to Pardon Everybody Before He Leaves Office (link is to TNR article on WSJ story, since I can’t see behind WSJ paywall).
So she’s saying joking — not joking. Anyone counting on a pardon is playing a risky game, as he could become more enfeebled, forgetful, and malevolent, perhaps demanding more and greater favors as the price for a pardon.
@Eusebio:
I woke up very early twice to see the launch live. I think I taped it. I do remember I taped the landing, but I don’t recall whether I saw it live or not. I couldn’t take time off school for that.
@inhumans99:
Most Euopean governments are fed up to the back teeth with Trump.
And most European publics, right, left and centre, still more so.
The ongoing European dilemma is the reliance on US for satteliite intel/coms, SEAD, theatre BMD. etc.
This can be replaced, but it will take time.
And not helped by the continuing lack of seriousness of some politicians on the matter:
In the UK we have Reform and some Tories wishing a bit of Trump-crawling and playing up to the GoP can bring us back to the “good old days”.
While the Greens and Corbynites are still pushing “leave NATO and disarm, and all shal be well. and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well”
The Treasury still hopes that if we ignore it and put off military spending to the Greek calends, everything will be just fine, because it has to be.
And the majority of MP’s are OK about defence spending in theory; just so long as that can miraculously be achieved without spending cuts and/or tax increases.
As in the 1930’s, it’s horribly difficult to get people to wake up to a unpleasantly changed reality, and that we are running out of time for easy options.
So, re Iran, we need to balance the possible need to deal with them re Hormuz, with the reality that that could screw the Gulfies, and thus the entire ME power balance.
And the current reality that there are, regretably, limits to our ability to tell Trump to just f@ck off
Another factor is, I supect that in the longer term the Asian Powers are not going to put up indefinetly with an Iranian surcharge on their imports from the Gulf.
@CSK:
Happy birthday!
@JohnSF:
Thank you!
@Scott:
Interesting idea.
It’s notable that in the 2022 invasion of Ukrine, the Russian army was limited in its ability to envelop Kyiv from the west by the Prypyat wetlands.
@JohnSF:
The problem I see is how to get Iran not to charge protection money for vessels transiting Hormuz.
If they don’t give that upon their own accord, what will the rest of the world do? Bomb them, place sanctions? That’s been done, and bombing them is what got the “tolls” charged in the first place. And they can keep hitting oil and gas production facilities, and ports, all over the gulf, too.
So, bomb their civilian infrastructure, nuke them? I don’t see Europe consenting to war crimes like that.
Bomb Kharg Island off the map? That could work, but see what I said above Iran can attack as well.
Invade them, or maybe just Kharg Island? Again, see above.
I suppose the “solution” might be to agree to a “temporary” fee charged to oil and cargo shippers, the proceeds to be divided among states along the Gulf for purpose of reconstructing the damaged infrastructure, with most of it going to Iran as it suffered the most damage. Say a far lower fee than $1 per barrel. Maybe just $0.25 per barrel (times millions on every ship, remember that).
The hard part is, what currency will it be paid in? IMO Iran would prefer Yuan or maybe even some form of crypto (for reasons); but absolutely not US dollars. While Europe and the US would certainly insist on dollars. Someone will propose Euros as a compromise. I can see that question taking months of talks, threats, additional bombings, etc., to be resolved.
Now, if we can locate a certain Dr. Emmet Brown and persuade him to loan us his DeLorean…
@Kathy:
Well, given that the Shuttle was only really “reusable” by virtue of effectively having its entire underbody heat-shield reconstructed after every flight, capsule re-entry seems eminently sensible.
iirc the only alternative to high-hypersonic re-entry is having huge amounts of delta-V (and therefore fuel) for braking.
That’s my vague memory of the requirements; please correct me if I’m mistook.
@Kathy:
I suspect China, India etc are going to be more subtle than “concede or we bomb you!”
More likely:
“You surcharge your exports to us, we do likewise to you, and play hob with your intricate fiancial arrangements.”
Then China privately lays out the entire hacked details of the Iranian finacial networks, even more privately takes some IRGC guys aside with and indicates they know exactly how much they have squirreled away in Swiss accounts, and possibly get the Ukrainians to “terminate with extreme prejudice” an Iranian liason party in Turkey (again).
And indicates that unless the surcharges go away, no more missiles for ayatollahs.
(And also Beijing tells Putin not to play silly buggers on the matter)
Iran needs imports, and leverage works both ways.
There’s more than one way to skin a cat.
Just because Trump is a bloody idiot, doesn’t mean every other Power on the planet is.
@Kathy:
Also, Kharg is pointless, and always has been, outside the silly fantasies of Trump.
The US Navy could stop the Iranian oils tankers in the Arabian Sea.
With the consequence of oil prices going north even faster, and pissing off all of Asia even more.
The only viable (for an arbitrary value of “viable”) plan for a US-Iran war was, is, and always will be, a full scale land invasion to at minimum secure the northern shore of the Straits.
Which is precisely why every US President with an above room temperature IQ looked at the problem and went “nope”.
Then along comes Trump.
And Netanyhu says: “Donald, you strategic genius you, I have a cunning plan …”
Looks like Swalwell is toast
@JohnSF:
Yes, but also due to the ceramic tile cladding all over the orbiter. Without that, structural pieces would suffer thermal damage. Nothing dangerous, but enough to not make it reusable. See any spent Apollo capsules. That’s one reason the command modules, or the Gemini and Mercury capsules for that matter, were not reused.
I might be wrong. I’ve really not looked up whether XspaceS reuses their Dragon capsules, and those have only a heat shield on the bottom like all gumdrop designs.
Delta V to break enough to make a stately, cooler entry back into the atmosphere would require a LOT of extra fuel.
@Kathy:
Yeah, that’s my understanding.
Probably needs orbital refueling from Lunar derived volatiles.
And likely atomic rockets!
Back to the 1950’s future!
Not happening anytime soon, I suspect.
Space elevators for the win?
(Assuming arbitrarily high tensile strength materials; and why not?)
Who knows, an actual Lunar base just might drive some solutions to near-Earth space operations problems.
And with any luck, get Elron off to become God-Emperor of Mars on a one-way ticket. 😉
@JohnSF:
I wouldn’t have thought of any of that.
Still, I suppose Iran might try allowing China, India, and a few others free passage (or at least paid passage with a refund), while blocking ships bound for other destinations. Leaving Europe and the US on the hook for “tolls.”
Perspective does amtter, too.
Suppose Khamenei the elder had tried to close off Hormuz to pressure El Taco into more concessions. I assume he’d know, and his advisers would have told him, such an action would lead to armed retaliation. And that would be bad.
As is, having been attacked first, Iran had nothing left to lose by closing off the strait, and it was about the most potent weapon they had anyway.
TL;DR: There’s some schadenfreude in watching El Taco try to unscramble an egg.
@JohnSF:
You pretty much return to Earth by losing all the speed you gained from your boosters. It might not take the same rocket to slow you down as it did to speed you up, but it would be in the neighborhood of the order of magnitude.
So instead you lose only enough speed for the atmosphere to grab you and slow you down through drag and friction.
That’s for regular low Earth orbit. When doing something more energetic, like returning from the Moon, the capsule pretty much crashes into the atmosphere on a very specific trajectory and angle. Too high and you bounce off, too low and you burn up worse (beyond the ability of the heat shield to handle).
You’d need some magical tech, like a zero-point energy source (theoretically possible), and antigravity (theoretically no one knows). Or something more exotic, like a negative mass shield.
I read somewhere carbon nanotubes have the required tensile strength for a space elevator. To date, I think the longest ever made measured half a meter. So, 40,000 kilometers is about 40 million meters… or 80 million half meters…. We’ve a ways to go.
@Kathy:
Ah, I have long experience of being a sneaky bastard, and studying the exploits of sneaky bastrads in history.
My favourite is King Ferdinand II of Spain
Iran trying to get round by tolling Europe not has the problem of cargoes asigned to passing the Straits then sailing merilly on to Europe.
Besides, Europe only takes about 4% of Gulf hydrocarbons exports.
Meh.
And if it was decided to make a point of it, there an awful lot of of IRGC related persons happily living in flats in London, apartments in Paris, chalets in Switzerland, villas on the Riviera.
What a shame if some accidents might befall them, to be sure.
Trump was, is, and always will be, an idiot.
I wonder how grateful Netanyahu is for the ineffable workings of providence and the American electorate?
(Except, Netanyuahu is also an idiot; just a clever one.)