Monday’s Forum
Steven L. Taylor
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Monday, June 23, 2025
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69 comments
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About Steven L. Taylor
Steven L. Taylor is a retired Professor of Political Science and former College of Arts and Sciences Dean. His main areas of expertise include parties, elections, and the institutional design of democracies. His most recent book is the co-authored
A Different Democracy: American Government in a 31-Country Perspective. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Texas and his BA from the University of California, Irvine. He has been blogging since 2003 (originally at the now defunct Poliblog).
Follow Steven on
Twitter and/or
BlueSky.
What a maroon.
Everyone who knows anything knows that you don’t know what you blew up til you get a bomb damage assessment. Even then, given that we’re talking about a BDA on a facility under a mountain, it’s going to be tricky and likely involve a lot of educated guesses. So if we mean to obliterate Fordo et al, we may have to, and probably should, hit them again and maybe again again.
I’m a little troubled by the lack of detected radiation. If you blow up centrifuges full of uranium, and stores of uranium, shouldn’t there be some noise from the Geiger counters? OK, a whole mountain may have fallen in and sealed everything up, so maybe that doesn’t mean anything. But still. . . nothing?
Which is why you don’t start bragging before even a preliminary BDA.
The headline of the day- Shooter opens fire outside of Michigan church
Russia hits Kyiv with huge attack while condemning US strikes on Iran (Politico EU)
I’m guessing JD Vance and company won’t be supporting US strikes on Moscow?
Now this is a scary thought. As if we need some more such thoughts:
Trump can pull the plug on the internet, and Europe can’t do anything about it
Example:
Military history not to be forgotten:
Her Medal of Honor was once revoked. Now her base is being renamed.
Desperation is the mother of invention:
Pringles cans on drones: Ukraine’s weapons ingenuity takes all forms
The heat is coming on and the humidity is life sucking. We are several degrees cooler with a lake breeze up our way from the city. We go out on the pontoon and let it spin like a teacup ride in slo mo and get dizzy looking up at the sky. We did that yesterday, listening and singing along to the Essential Steely Dan. Nice.
No static at all.
@becca: We were almost 90 the other day (almost unheard of at our elevation), it’s 26 degrees and hard frost this morning. I had to put a heater in my greenhouse last night.
@Michael Reynolds:
The consensus seems to be that the entire inventory of MOP bombs was 19 or 20. The Pentagon announced that 14 were used in the raids on Saturday. So enough to hit again, but probably only once more. With conventional weapons, that is. We do have hundreds of nukes sitting around that would be much more likely to accomplish the job. And a President who has been known to ask, “What good is having nukes if we can’t use them?”
It’s scorching here in Milwaukee, all weekend and today. Highs in the low 90s, feel like temp in the low 100s. Just brutal. Taking the dog out at midnight and the random early AMs. Poor guy.
@Michael Cain:
IMO, our CIC is a lot closer to a real-life Governor LePetomane than an Eisenhower or Bradley.
Regime change? Not so fast.
America still clings to the twin outcomes WWII produced in Germany and Japan, to fuel its “regime change” fever dreams. With perhaps only Grenada and Panama, being exceptions, nearly every US military intervention or foreign policy gambit aimed at regime change since WWII has resulted in a costly failure. Vietnam. Afghanistan. Iraq. The latter being a monumental debacle of which geopolitical repercussions continue to cascade into current events.
The list of failures include covert gambits including Chile in 1973, and Iran in 1953. The latter set up conditions for the subsequent Iranian Revolution of 1979. Here we are knocking on the same door some 70 years later after repeated failures, not having learned how cultural complexities can utterly cast aspirations into utter chaos.
Iranian society today is under the vice grip of a theocracy have three militant agencies of power to enforce its will.
– Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) with 125,000 active members.
– Basij Militia with 90,000 active members and a reserve estimated at 300,000 – 1 million
– Quds elite force with 5,000 (included in IRGC count)
The Iranian theocracy has at its disposal half a million enforcers (or more).
Consider that each one of those enforcers has a “familial” connection of dozens. Each one of those organizations is a society unto itself, and committed to self preservation.
Also consider that the theocratic “regime” in Iran disseminates its authority through an tens of thousands of Shīʿa Imams to approximately 40% of the the population. Also a society unto itself, woven deep onto the fabric of Iran’s culture and history.
Decapitating the leadership of Iran and its militant enforcers will not bring about a meaningful change in the beliefs or aspirations of the 40+ percent of the population deeply invested in their social groups and larger society’s status quo. More likely would be economic upheaval and civil strife, with a doubling down on ideological adherence at grassroot level. Unintended consequences could produce another ISIS like outcome. And then the US would be faced with the quandary of another stab at “nation building” with another costly commitment of our national resources. Which has not turned out well for us in that region as of late. Is we learning yet?
Durable regime change has greater likelihood of success through localized organic process. And even then outcome and consequences are uncertain. Destabilization of any society is a risky roll of the dice.
@Jax: 26 degrees sounds completely delightful. It’s supposed to be 95 here today with a heat index of 105, and hotter than that tomorrow.
I don’t do well in the heat, so this is…not nice.
@clarkontheweekend: Yep, I am most worried about our pup. She’s old (14.5), and these temps are brutal.
@becca: @clarkontheweekend: @Jax:
These are normal temps and humidity in Houston. For the next 3-4 months. Thank goodness for A/C and mosquito trucks.
I was going to do a bit of mocking but I grew up on Long Island and I remember those heat waves. Not many people had A/C. In the 60s, the big innovation was the whole house fan set on high to draw the outside air in through your window while you slept on top of your covers. Good times.
@Jen:
Dogs are intelligent and, unlike some humans, quite adept at finding the coolest spot in which to collapse.
@CSK: Oh, yes, for sure…I meant more for walks/potty breaks!
@Rob1:
That. This is such an unnecessary tragedy. We started this and we don’t seem to have learned a damn thing since. Obama took a shot at breaking the cycle with the JCPOA, but, as often observed, Trump couldn’t grasp the concept of a mutually beneficial agreement.
Piece over at LGM with a really interesting take on Trumpy etc./current GOP politics:
“LGM”
excerpts:
@Jen:
Oh, I know. But your dog will probably make the walks/potty breaks as speedy as possible.
@Scott: Just a note, a clarification. While indeed most of the cloud providers, if not all, are American companies, by no means are all their sites located on US soil.
Also, I know people that have described, in a general way, the sort of contingency planning that they have done with regard to government requests that they consider inappropriate.
Turning off someone’s email is nasty, but not actually terribly consequential. Turning off and then erasing someone’s servers much more so. But if it isn’t on US soil, maybe it’s more difficult.
I would expect that non-US companies with a strong web presence might well be moving their servers already, or at least figuring out how to do that.
This can be done without changing providers. I am fascinated to hear what said providers are saying.
@Flat Earth Luddite:
For the last year or so of WWII, the British faced a manpower shortage. Because of a lack of replacements, they cannibalized on the western European front at least one whole division.
I don’t remember where I read it, it may be from AlanBrooke‘s war diary, that at some time Winston Churchill complained about the number of men needed to keep British troops in France properly supplied.
Many things can be said about Field Marshall Montgomery, but his attention to logistics- ammunition, food and medical care for troops etc-. before fighting a major battle is why he so rarely failed* at them. Critics called Monty slow, but outrunning your supply lines or not being adequately prepared before battle, gets men killed unnecessarily.
*-His biggest and probably only failure of the war the battle for Arnhem aka Operation Market Garden aka A Bridge Too Far, had major logistical consequences for the allies. Not just because of the men and resources wasted on MG but because it diverted Monty from opening up the port of Antwerp. The use of Antwerp was vital to the supply of American and British troops on the western front.
@charontwo: I refer to it as relying upon emotions but intuitionism works also. I am pretty data driven, probably a result of my profession but also due to running a corporation and multiple budgets. It makes trying to discuss stuff with conservatives, but especially MAGA conservatives very difficult. There is no data base that they think is valid unless it agrees with them. So, just to use an example, if BLS numbers support them they freely cite BLS numbers as evidence. If they dont like the numbers then BLS is just govt numbers and they are wrong, often a conspiracy against them.
It gets irritating when they cite “evidence” from some unknown person on Youtube when its actually part of my profession and day to day practice and involves stuff I have been reading and practicing for over 40 years. To be honest, yes, I occasionally become an instant internet expert on some topic, who doesnt, but I seek out multiple sources of data and actually read the studies. I actively try not to claim more expertise than I really have, and I probably occasionally fail at that. But, I have never and will not ever claim that any person, any politician that I support can never be wrong and is the only person that can solve our problems.
Steve
@Bill Jempty:
One of my favorite stories along those lines from WWII was when Rolls Royce licensed Packard to produce their Merlin aircraft engine in the US. As the story goes, Packard’s lead engineer stormed into a meeting with Rolls, waving the drawings, and said “We can’t build the engines this way!” The Rolls guy asked if it was because the Americans couldn’t meet the demanding accuracy standards. “Are you nuts?” demanded the Packard engineer. “We need the plans to be an order of magnitude more accurate so the parts are interchangeable, and engines can be repaired in the field.”
One of the reasons Rolls couldn’t increase output was because they manufactured sloppy parts, then had craftsmen choose the parts that matched best, and hand file as necessary for final fitting. Packard built an engine with far fewer man hours, and required a much lower skill level. British field mechanics were ecstatic when they started getting the Packard-produced engines.
@CSK: Sadie has taken to literally jumping in the lake to cool off during our morning walk. She also rolls in the grass so wet from morning dew you slosh through it. Nothing like the smell of wet dog with morning coffee.
@becca:
Thanks. I was hoping for a Sadie update. It sounds as if she knows how to tend to her cooling needs.
Nobody knew spelling was so complicated!!
@Kathy:
Obviously he composed and typed this himself with no one proofreading it for him.
Oh shit.
Missile strikes on Doha reported.
Tonight might get a bit spicy.
@JohnSF:
Hooda thunk?
How fast can TACO back away from this one?
@Michael Cain:
This is very true.
British manufacturers were capable of innovative designs.
But American engineering tended to be far more consistent.
The Merlin engine swap enabled the P-51 to be massively more effective; but US produced Merlins enabled much higher levels of “planes in service”.
My father flew in B-24’s, and said the RAF ground crew loved how well engineered they were, compared to some British planes.
Speak loudly and carry three big sticks.
It appears all the missiles aimed at Qatar were intercepted.
And it’s also reported that Iran notified Qatar in advance that a strike was incoming.
So, is this just a performance?
@charontwo: I saw that piece, and I’ve been thinking about it this morning. I have lived with people like this. I tend to like them.
I think they have always been part of life. Modern life is very, very complicated. We know as a culture far more things than any one person can know. We keep learning new things too. Sometimes those things invalidate what we thought we knew before. Sometimes it just seems that way. It is an enormous amount of work to keep up with it all.
So some people, no, most people, fall back on intuition, rules of thumb, heuristics we call it. I think this has been true for a long time.
The thing that is changed is that the Great Sorting means that they aren’t around people like me, people who are very interested in rationalism, and are willing and eager to spend time learning about details. What used to happen is that you would have casual conversations with people, or set up some system in your house differently, which is observably an improvement, and build credibility on a personal level.
The folks at my high school reunion may not all like me that much, but they trust me. Because they spent 12 years in school with me. They have a lot of experience with that. So if I say that doing X will probably work out better for them, I will get listened to. I might not get agreement, but I will get attention.
These sorts of experiences are rare these days. And half of them turn out to be with “rationalists” that are out to grift them, and have hacked the process by which the intuitionists trust people.
I don’t have a good solution, but demeaning the Intuitionists as “stupid” is not it.
@Jay L Gischer: How much of this framework is confirmation bias? Everyone is impressed with his own research. We all remember the biggest mistakes our opponents make while discounting our own. We know more about the subjects we care about and trust our intuition about the others.
@JohnSF:
Israel says that Trump knew in advance about these attack, and yes, they were coordinated for show purposes.
I’ve been blasted with a ton of pro-Cuomo and anti-Mamdani ads on YouTube over the past week, warning the latter is going to defund the police and other such claims, in favor of a governor who resigned in disgrace not too long ago. I have a sneaking suspicion these ads will have the opposite effect from what they’re intended to do.
@CSK:
Also, seeing some reports that the IDF used that advance notification to rapidly fix and hit a bunch of launchers.
Oopsie.
@charontwo: This is one of the downsides to being the party more rooted in reality, because a lot of reality is distinctly counter-intuitive. Look at how far people’s perceptions of the relative dangers of things differ from the reality. Fear of flying in an airplane is far more common than fear of riding in a car, even though the latter is vastly more dangerous. Hippopotamuses are responsible for more human deaths yearly than lions and tigers combined, and garden snails put all three to shame.
The fact is, humans suck at risk assessment.
That’s why medical quackery has become increasingly a thing in the GOP. It was there years before Covid. It’s something that thrives in part due to the counter-intuitive nature of mainstream medicine. Despite what a lot of people believe, you cannot determine the effectiveness of a medical treatment simply by trying it and seeing if the symptoms persist or go away. What complicates this a little is the fact that medicines and treatments don’t have the same effect on everyone, so some trial and error on the part of the patient is a normal part of the treatment process. But the fact is that any approved medicine is expected to have gone through clinical trials, tested against placebos. Those trials are not sufficient to know how well they’ll work for any individual, but they are necessary to learning whether they work at all. But loads of people (across the political spectrum, frankly) get into a mindset of thinking they personally have the ability to tell a medicine’s effectiveness–not just for themselves, but across the broader populace–by trying it and seeing if it works. When you add a little confirmation bias and distrust of authority, it’s not hard to get sucked in by alternative medicine. Ironically, the most gullible people, the ones who get lured in by the folks peddling snake oil, tend to perceive themselves as the true independent thinkers simply because they’re flouting the claims of the mainstream.
These tendencies cannot be dismissed by simply calling the people idiots. You find an overreliance on anecdote to make a point even among Mensa members. Even though anecdotes prove nothing, they are powerful at influencing people, including smart people.
(Ironically, I just used an anecdote to make a point in that last paragraph, and you probably didn’t question it!)
@charontwo: You quote LGM,
The subject book, Enchanted America, is IMO a pretty good insight into contemporary politics. It applies Daniel Kahneman’s System 1 thinking (intuition) and System 2 (deliberate reason) to politics. I tend to apply it broadly, seeing Republicans as largely faith (intuition) based while Ds are more the party of utilitarianism (reasoning through consequences).
I’d like to pair Perry Bacon’s column (gift, I still have a month left) today with your LGM piece. Bacon points out there are very few swing voters, maybe 6%. The bigger game is unreliable voters, something like 12%, and turnout. And those tend to be low information, gut feeling (intuition) voters. I often say no one votes on policy. I should probably limit that to these gettable unreliable and swing voters. Bacon writes,
So much of the advice we see is move to the center, harden on immigration, throw the trans, and maybe the gays, under the bus. The GOPs have moved away from the center and embraced their extremes. They’re winning.
@Kylopod: “I’ve been blasted with a ton of pro-Cuomo and anti-Mamdani ads on YouTube”
It is astonishing to me how much money Bloomberg is pouring into this race (along with another billionaire and Doordash — according to the small type on their flyers). And that, along with the gerontocratic Democratic establishment members like Jim Clyburn and Bill Clinton, who have endorsed Cuomo, actually makes me understand why people looked to someone like Trump.
It all feels like a corrupt and decadent establishment circling their wagons around someone they know is a sleazy crook who will do a terrible job — but will make sure never to rock the boat their money rides in. Anything to keep out someone who isn’t an insider.
@wr:
Yes, that magic money that propelled him to front-runner in the 2020 primaries and later helped carry Florida for the Dems.
@Fortune: I don’t see it as much as confirmation bias corrupting the argument as presenting statements of faith as based on reason. A significant amount of anecdotal content goes into “reason-based” arguments that show mostly IYKYK.
Of course, that may well be what you’re describing as confirmation bias, too.
@Fortune:
This–and Dunning-Kruger needs to be factored in as well, as it’s easy to misjudge how much we actually know compared to others in both those categories too.
http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/supreme-court/supreme-court-allows-trump-deport-certain-immigrants-third-countries-rcna209419
@CSK: from the article:
Is it an unfair reading to say that this allows the Trump administration to deport people to foreign death camps?
It kind of removes the anonymity of an unsigned opinion to have all the liberal justices publicly dissent. Good for them.
@CSK:
There is no bottom for these people.
Trump announces ceasefire now in effect
Well.
If correct, what is the settlement likely to be?
Could it be that Trump and his advisors have actually calculated this correctly
@CSK:
Also from the NBC article,
But, according to NPR reporting,
and
@Eusebio:
Is there any country in the world, other than authoritarian dictatorships, that will now allow their own citizens to enter?
@Gustopher:
The District Court decision that is stayed by the Supreme Court stems from the case of criminal deportees destined for South Sudan, but diverted to a US military base in Djibouti by the administration to keep them in US custody while the decision was being appealed.
An administration filing at the time resulted in breathless reporting on a group of ICE agents “stuck” or “stranded” in a metal shipping container with a group of detainees in Djibouti amid acrid smoke from burn pits. The outrage was that a judge’s ruling resulted in the rather dramatic detention location and conditions, although the judge did not specify where on earth they were to be held–just that they were to remain in DHS custody.
As reported by NPR at the time, they were being held at Camp Lemonnier, located south of Djibouti–Ambouli International Airport:
Not so clearly reported at the time was that the deportees were being held in “a conference room in a converted Conex shipping container,” per the DHS filing, which means it was apparently a space designed for human occupancy, and likely an expandible containerized shelter that’s actually fairly roomy. Also, the ICE agents had separate sleeping quarters in a trailer with bunks, and both quarters almost certainly would’ve had power and air conditioning.
Almost lost in all of this was ICE’s description of the quarters being in close proximity to “burn pits”, which are used as a method of disposing trash and human waste in the country, and “create a smog cloud” that causes throat irritation and difficult breathing. The obvious question is, WTF are we doing still housing our personnel, and in this case about 4,000 US and allied personnel, on military facilities adjacent to burn pits? Is this not a huge issue that has caused sickness, death, and healthcare burdens, not to mention tremendous costs to the US military?
@Eusebio:
Myanmar and Laos, those notorious centers of intenational criminal cartels.
@Kathy: I don’t know what countries will not allow their own citizens to enter, but those decisions are the result of foreign policy negotiations, which themselves may have credibility issues.
@Michael Cain:
How quickly can a MOP be made?
I suspect that with a bit of effort, the US could get them available quite rapidly.
They hardly seem to be enormously sophisticated weapons.
The UK was capable of producing rather similar “Grand Slam” bombs at the rate of about 100 a year in 1944.
The US now should surely be able to do at least as well.
@Eusebio:
There’s been a bit of a hub-up in Washington state about a boy who came over (legally) from Vietnam, grew up here, murdered someone, went to jail, served a 25 year sentence, and had his residency revoked while he was in jail.
I think he’s in a shipping container in or around South Sudan, and may have been part of this particular restraining order.
Given the number of people the Trump administration is hurting, a murderer is pretty low on my list of priorities — a fully adjudicated and convicted murderer, that is. (Matt Bernius will probably audibly growl at me if he reads this)
I don’t like that he’s being used to set a precedent for deporting people to third countries against their will, though. Especially when we know that a lot of these people will not be getting any due process.
That said, I would have no objection to dropping him off in Vietnam, as he’s had every bit of due process one can get (including any opportunities to challenge losing residency), and that is where he’s from. I wouldn’t even mind shoving him off an airplane with a parachute over Vietnam if they refuse to take him back and he can find nowhere else willing to take him.
But not South Sudan. Unless he really wants to go to South Sudan, but all reports are that this is not the case.
@JohnSF: 20 does not seem like an adequate stockpile. I’m a little annoyed with the Biden administration for not recognizing this problem and building more. And any previous administration that also failed in this.
@CSK: Yet another victory for the “rule of law.” Hooray, I guess.
@JohnSF: We shall see how ceasefirey this ceasefire is. Also from the Guardian:
I would normally assume that this was just the Israeli military putting out planned announcements, as news of the ceasefire winds through the chain of command, but there’s also the distinct possibility that Trump is entirely full of shit (I am taking his pronouncements seriously, but not literally)
Meanwhile, also from The Guardian, “the national security committee of Iran’s parliament approved the general outline of a bill meant to fully suspend Tehran’s cooperation with the UN nuclear watchdog”
@JohnSF: So is this, like, another Gaza-variety cease fire, or is this a real one? And considering the parties involved, why should we take anyone’s word on any of it?
Magic 8-Ball says “highly unlikely.” I’ll be a stickler for details and wait to see if anybody actually stops shooting. ETA: And for how long.
“Fool me twice, won’t be fooled again.”
@JohnSF:
Wow, Marjorie Trailer Queen is really, really mad at Trump, accusing him of bait and switch to please the neocon warmongers.
And for once, MTG is actually right, at least about it being bait and switch. Though probably not to please the neocon’s so much as get praise from TV personalities about how strong he is.
God he’s pathetic.
@Gustopher:
@Just nutha ignint cracker:
@CSK:
We seem to be deep inside the moronic inferno right now, so who knows?
The fucker (if you will pardon my diplomacy) in all this is if Bibi decides it’s best for Bibi for the war to continue.
Then you have the rather evidenced Iranian Pasdarani record of duplicity and hubris.
And Trump of being an idiot.
All told, not much basis for happy joy.
@Just nutha ignint cracker:
Must now play The Who at high volume.
@JohnSF:
Gee, Trump told NBC News tonight that the ceasefire would “last forever.”
@CSK:
ffs
What an utter gibbon
@JohnSF:
@Just nutha ignint cracker:
Meet the new boss, same as the old boss (circa 2022)
@Gustopher:
Which is a farce.
The mullah/IRG leadership decides.
The Iranian parliament has no real power in such situations.
It’s just a vehicle for the leadership to stake out a position.
@Rob1:
I used to be able to play the chords/bassline (my guitar playing was always a bit odd) and sing the chorus.
Lucy sang the verses, and played the violin.
Dammit, I miss the 1990’s
Trump declares ceasefire in ‘12-day war’; IDF reports Iranian missile launches
Nothing is true.
All is permissable.
@Michael Reynolds:
I would be shocked to see any real radiation considering it’s basic uranium under a great deal of ground/concrete. Uranium radiation tends to be of the alpha variety which is absorbed easily by basically anything.