Sunday’s Forum
Steven L. Taylor
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Sunday, January 4, 2026
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9 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.
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I don’t usually have the patience to watch videos, but this is really good – Jamelle Bouie on yesterday’s action:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-yUi-0vNlDA
ETA: Also suggest mosey over to BJ to catch Adam Silverman’s take yesterday, main points:
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/072Vg9dVecY
Just want to share that Mr becca is up and about and making a pretty miraculous comeback. I credit stubborn Yankee genes.
I would wish everyone a Happy New Year, but that sounds so hollow with the horror show going on here in America. I just hope we make it through the year as a nation.
@becca:..
Good news from your household!
Keep us posted.
@becca:
I’m delighted to learn of Mr. Becca’s comeback. Yep, it’s those Yankee genes. Trust me on this.
NYT has a map of proven oil reserves. Looking at it, it’s easy to speculate that Trump, or some minion, is looking at a US/Saudi coalition controlling almost all the world’s oil. Perhaps with Putin included. If so, it would seem to be arguably feasible, and an effective limit on China. But it seems such a 20th century ambition.
@gVOR10:
That map is incredibly misleading, as most of the so-called “reserves” in Canada and Venezuela are heavy oil that is very expensive to produce – the Athabasca tar sands and the Orinoco heavy oil. The Orinoco oil even more difficult and expensive than the Athabasca glop. (These countries do also have more conventional oil, most of Venezuelan current production is conventional crude).
I put “reserves” in scare quotes because, back in the day, the term reserves was understood to be what is economically recoverable.
@charontwo: Economical is a matter of technology and oil prices. We keep putting off oil exhaustion, but we can’t forever. And Canadian and Venezuelan quality issues aside, that map shows a real dearth of oil in the Asia Pacific area. (Perhaps a false picture due to lack of exploration or poor reporting.)
That said, I didn’t say it was a good plan, only that it might be some Trump minions plan.
At around 1:25 in this video you can see an engine fail on an A330 at the best possible time.
Dan Bongino has resigned from the FBI’