Monday’s Forum
Steven L. Taylor
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Monday, April 13, 2026
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22 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).
Follow Steven on
Twitter and/or
BlueSky.
A quick comparison of world leaders:
Last week, Mexico’s Claudia Sheinbaum by executive decree granted Medicare For All to the entire country – and the care starts today.
US citizens continue to receive the expected results of Trump’s ongoing stepping-into-the-beartrap in the Middle East.
One of these is not like the other.
2nd round of chemo is complete. This one hit a lot harder. Back home now, trying to wrap my head around packing to move to Oregon. I think I way overestimated how good I would feel. Guess I’ll just keep chipping away at it, and maybe burn my house down when I get tired of packing. 😉
@Jax:
I love your spirit.
@Jax: Sending all the good wishes and vibes I can muster
@Jax: Sending all the good wishes and vibes I can muster
Trump has posted an image of himself as Christ healing the sick.
@CSK: The only thing more obnoxious than Trump is his communications team. Trump is mentally ill* but what excuse can Steven “Odd Job” Cheung and Karoline Leavitt offer?
*Trump as Christ healing the sick would be less offensive if the sick person depicted was Trump himself.
Man oh man are the first 6 comments ever the encapsulation of what it’s like living today.
Related to @Jax and because it was in my newsfeed this morning:
Revolution Medicines’ potential breakthrough pancreatic cancer drug succeeds in late-stage trial
@Gavin:
I have to look up what Sheinbaum did, exactly. there were already lots of options for public healthcare for the vast majority of the population.
Trump’s ten billion dollar lawsuit against the Wall Street Journal has been dismissed by a judge.
Aaron Rupar remarks on something I’d noticed. While we have been in a military and diplomatic crisis, our Sec of State and National Security Advisor, Marco Rubio, has largely managed to keep his name out of the news.
Aaron Rupar remarks on something I’d noticed. While we have been in a military and diplomatic crisis, our Sec of State and National Security Advisor, Marco Rubio, has largely managed to keep his name out of the news.
Well, at least Orban had the dignity to concede and not drag the country through a horrible “it was stolen” narrative. That makes him slightly less of a asshole then Trump.
@Rick DeMent:
There was some speculation before the vote that Orban might try to use the military and security services to stay in power. It is a good thing for Hungary if he indeed sought support for a coup, that they turned him down.
Perhaps it will stop the felon from trying to seize power using ICE or the military.
Wonder what Rod Dreher is thinking these days. His Hungarian gravy train should be ending soon.
No, I do not care enough to actually look up anything he has written recently.
@Jax:
Best wishes.
@Sleeping Dog:
I was reading somewhere a little while bac, but forget where, that quite a few senior ex-intel, ex-military and ex-police leaders were quietly aligned with Magyar.
And presumably had reasonable contacts to current officer levels, and
The police because they dislike the corruption, and increasing links of some parts of Fidesz to organised crime. The military because they dislike the Russians and want to get back to being trusted by the rest of Euro-NATO.
Many parts of the Hungarian state and business leadership would be glad to no longer be pariahs in most other European capatals.
At first it sounds ridiculous. Upon further reflection, it’s preposterous. but then you begin to see opportunities.
Meta (formerly Fakebook) will create an AI clone of Mark Zucksberger, so employees can talk to the boss and ask him questions at any time.
As I said, ridiculous.
But there’s an oportnity, too. the board could replace Zucks with his AI clone, which would be a lot cheaper, and far less likely to waste tens of the company’s billion$ on a virtual world without legs.
@Rick DeMent:
@Sleeping Dog:
Orbán doesn’t deserve too much credit. Before polls closed, Orbán Inc. was already howling about alleged voting irregularities and fraud, to lay the groundwork for Bernie/Trump-esque “Rigged!” of “Stop the Steal!” sore loser shenanigans.
He was instead forced to concede quickly because the margin of his defeat was, unexpectedly, too big to plausibly contest: his party lost by over 13 points and gained under 40% of the vote. There was no room for doubt.
In a close contest, Orbán would still be
blaming the DNC for his failure to connect with black votersclinging to his office andinciting a terror attack on Congressthreatening to jail Magyar.@DAllenABQ: I wondered some time ago whether his Danube Institute was government funded. Somebody today mentioned them on a list of gov’t funded operation likely on the chopping block.
TAC is on my know your enemy reading list. I used to read Dreher regularly there. I think he’s still on their contributor list, but I haven’t seen anything from him for a long time. Like you, I’m not curious enough about his opinion on Orban’s loss to look for it.
@Gavin:
I found something (busy day at work). As per the article I found, it’s more about unifying existing public health services. Mentioned are IMSS, ISSSTE, IMSS-Bienestar, and Pemex.
These already operate and are huge in scope (and suffer from chronic shortages of some medications and supplies). In addition, there’s private healthcare, from doctor’s offices to large hospitals. these, naturally, charge for all their services. There’s also private health insurance.
What’s new is that starting in 2027, everyone who registers can seek attention at any of these places, regardless of whether they’re affiliated to them or not. For instance, IMSS provides service to private sector employees who pay a monthly fee deducted from their payroll. ISSSTE does the same for public sector employees.
This does help. As things are now, if you need medical attention you need to get to the clinic assigned to you, in whatever system it may be. Or, in the case of people affiliated to IMSS, you can also go to the emergency room in one (1) large general hospital.
If the problem is urgent enough, they’ll bend the rules and do the paperwork and help (this happened to a coworker many years ago). But if the new system works as advertised, this wouldn’t be an issue any longer.
This is reality now. Don’t try and tell me AI could have come up with this.