Thursday’s Forum
Steven L. Taylor
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Thursday, September 4, 2025
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47 comments
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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BLS jobs numbers out tomorrow morning.
It will be interesting to see how Trump’s new BLS commissioner is able to modify reality.
I’ve started rewatching VEEP as I do dishes at night, and they all seem so responsible and capable now. Quite the perspective change in 10 years!
Still in rehab. The young woman who was changing the dressing on my fasciotomy, which takes about 30-45 minutes, sweetly informed me that it’s okay to swear.
This is going to be a nightmare. Everybody will be having their hand out. Also: there will be “mandatory” tips on bills you get.
I’ll be damned if I tip a electrician or plumber or house painter.
All very predictable.
Podcasters and influencers: The unexpected jobs covered under Trump’s ‘no tax on tips’ plan
@Scott: Pastry chefs? They typically aren’t even customer-facing.
This is going to be a nightmare.
Tips?
When I drove the Carbondale Yellow Cab (1970-’73) the cars did not have meters. The town was divided into fare zones. Zone 1 was an area about one mile square and the Cab Stand was right in the center of Zone 1 that covered the center of town. If a passenger started their trip and ended their trip without leaving Zone 1 the fare was 60¢. If I crossed out of Zone 1 into Zone 2 the fare was 70¢. Some of the regulars that I carried lived in Zone 1 and worked at the local dairy or the dry-cleaning plant, both buildings on the other side of the railroad tracks from the cab stand. It didn’t take me long to learn that when a rider gave me a dollar bill for the trip to work that they needed the 40¢ change to add to the two dimes they had left in their pocket for the trip home.
+
Giorgio Armani, 91, has died. RIP.
How to win friends and influence people: Trump Edition
‘We’re at DEFCON 1’: India, bruised by US tariffs, cozies up to Russia, China
Contrast to 2019.
‘Howdy, Modi!’: Trump hails Indian PM at ‘historic’ Texas rally
Indian Americans vote at pretty high percentages.
I’m slowly watching season 3 of Foundation, just one ep per week as if we were back in the paleolithic era*.
On the one hand, it’s frustrating for those of us who’ve read the books. We think we know who most of the characters are and what is going on, except we don’t really. And from time to time when you expect something different, a page from the books is placed in (“What is the mule?”) One reason I find the scenes involving Demerzel and/or the various Cleons, is that they were not in the books.
On the other hand, the story is far more interesting in many ways, and the characters more developed.
And on the gripping hand, Demerzel seems to totally change in motivation every season. She’s like three different characters thus far. And that’s weird because she always acts the same way.
*Had I binged, I’d have run out of eps by the fourth or so, and then have had to wait a week for the next one.
@Kathy: I am actually enjoying the 3rd season. It been decades since I read the books so I remember very little of them. The deviation does not bother me much. I think they finally untied themselves from the book plots and have created their own narrative story line that works for me. More straight forward plotting.
Tips?
I delivered pizza’s in the late ’70s. Didn’t expect much in tips since this is a college town. I was no longer a college student but most of the customers that I delivered to were.
The only job that I remember getting tipped regularly was when I was in High School (class of 1966) and was a caddy at Idlewild Country Club, Flossmoor, Illinois. Club rules were that a golfer had to hire a caddy even if they rode the links in a golf cart. The charge for 18 holes was $4 and the men always gave us $5. The women, not so much. The highlight of the round was at the halfway house where the duffers would buy us a Caddy Special. A can of Coke and the best kosher hot dog anywhere!
@Gregory Lawrence Brown: I worked two jobs that had tips: newspaper boy and plant nursery. Delivering newspapers was always considered a tip type job especially if it involved special services like putting the newspaper inside of the screen door. More sporadically were the tips received for hauling out plants and sod to people’s trunks.
@Scott:
Yes and no. The actual crises have been pretty much the same, though handled in a different manner. I can’t even tell how the current crisis plays out in the books, since I’m sure something similar will take place in the show.
@Kathy:
A friend of mine is reading the Foundation and Robot books for the first time, and his comments make me want to read them all again. I’ve read them through maybe twice, once when I was 12 or 13, so nearly 30 years ago (wait, that can’t be right. Oh, goddamnit) and once in my early 20s. Which is to say I don’t remember much at all. In the past I read them in publication order, but I may by plot-chronology this time.
@Scott:
When I tip someone who does work at the house or delivers something to the house, it’s a cash tip and I don’t expect them to declare it as income anyway. Same goes for tipping a ski instructor (many years ago) or a tow truck driver (quite recently). The factory driver who delivered replacement windows to the house last year didn’t get a tip, but only because he wouldn’t accept it.
I’ll admit that “no tax on tips” may marginally affect my math for non-cash tip amounts.
@Scott:
Everyone is talking about this being a humiliation for Trump and it absolutely is. It is inconceivable that any foreign leader would refuse a phone call from the President of the United States. The MAGAts still think Trump is respected around the world.
But it’s also a humiliation for Putin, who is in 3-shots with Xi in the middle, and Putin paired with Kim on the flanks. Not only is Putin reduced to begging for cannon fodder from NK, he’s being treated like Kim’s equal, one of Xi’s posse.
@Kathy:
The show got off to a rough start, but we are quite enjoying it now. It departs from the books in substantial and fundamental ways, but I don’t see that as a problem – the books in their original form are unfilmable.
Should democrats take a cue from the winning ways of those wacky Florida GOP?
“Chemtrails
The dangers of indulging the fantasies of the crazies.
Since the state law went into effect, the Floridians who backed it have grown increasingly angry by seeing the skies just as marked by white trails as they were prior to the state law.
Here’s a smattering of irate posts on X in the two months since the state law went into effect:
— “Yes, the spraying has taken place every single day since the Ban was put in place!”
— “The invasion continues. Florida skies are under constant attack.”
— “DeSantis, why do you lie? Why do you say that you signed a Florida Bill getting rid of these hideous chemtrails, and it is all a fat big LIE?”
— “Welcome to Florida, the chemtrails state. Now we are being sprayed from 4 a.m. to 5 a.m., so by 10 a.m. the skies are cleared but you are breathing heavy metals. Thank you DeSantis.”
— “See how the chemicals are spreading out. Trees are dying, crops are barely growing. Why is our government doing this to us?”
By humoring Florida’s free-dumb coalition on chemtrails, state lawmakers have unleashed a tornado of disappointment upon themselves.”
lol
I’m not usually a fan of this type of youtube style, but I recognize that audience they are trying to appeal to and subvert is very much attracted to this long form conspiracy-tinged content. An interesting watch today as I do some mindless data entry.
The Elephant Graveyard – How Comedy Was Destroyed by an Anti-Reality Doomsday Cult
The HHS Secretary is a disgrace. He’s currently testifying before a Senate committee, and is all ignorance and BS. Sen Warner asked him if he agreed that the Covid-19 vaccine saved lives, but he was unwilling to agree with that. Sen Cassidy and Sen Barrasso, both physicians and both Republicans, began their questioning with effusive praise of trump for the “Operation Warp Speed”* Covid-19 vaccine program, but the Secretary was unwilling to give any credit to the government for the success of that, or the success and state of vaccination programs in general. Instead, he had some weird answer about his new way that they’re gonna test vaccine safety with tests using placebos, for which I’m disappointed that Barrasso did not follow up with basically “explain to me WTF you’re talking about and when this is going to happen.” His answers also consisted of saying the he didn’t need all of these vaccines when he was kid so why do they need them now, and a deflection on general vaccine safety by saying that the CDC recommends Covid-19 vaccine for children (which is incorrect) but only fraction of children actually get it, which is expected based on the CDC recommendation.
*Covid-19 vaccine development was one of the few pandemic responses that the administration did not actively sabotage. It was obvious to everyone that the U.S. needed to go all-in on a vaccine, and we were in a good position to capitalize on recent advancements mRNA vaccines. Any other president would have done at least as well.
@Eusebio: Glad you’re watching so I don’t have to. I hope senators are punching rather than pontificating. And not nicely at all.
@Neil Hudelson:
I can’t recall when I last read them, but they all fell in an era of book scarcity, when I re-read many of my books rather often. So, I recall them quite well (and I did re-read the robot novels late last year).
@Andy:
they’d be rather easy to film. they just wouldn’t be very entertaining. A great deal of the plot revolves around “do nothing while Seldon’s invisible hand guides historical forces to a satisfactory conclusion.” That was the whole big argument between Riose and Barr in Foundation and Empire.
Then The Mule happens.
@Jen:
I would think this would be for servers who tip out kitchen staff?
@Eusebio:
I’m not sure I understand this, either. The COVID shots were tested in a double-blind study that used placebos and vaccines. The “double-blind” menas neither doctors nor patients knows what they got.
This is standard in most drug testing all over the world.
@Pete S: I mean, maybe? But it’s on a list with a bunch of other professions, all of which appear to be customer-facing, and there are no other back of the house occupations listed…it just seems weird to me.
Apparently cooking a labor report is hard
On related news, the push is on for flight attendant boarding pay.
Seriously, for a high tech industry, aviation suffers from lots of Byzantine rules.
TL;DR: until recently flight attendants were paid only from the time the airplane doors closed and only until they open again. This means the time they spend getting the plane ready to receive passengers, the time they spend helping passengers board, and even the pre-departure service in premium class, went unpaid.
It can be a lot worse. Suppose you arrive the required time before flight, and then the flight gets delayed for whatever reason (weather, the plane hasn’t come in yet, the plane broke, the power’s out, etc.). You won’t get paid a dime until the plane boards and the doors close. This can be hours.
This is not very common, but it happens now and then. Also, most flights are delayed somewhat, you just don’t see it because of schedule padding.
Now, the boarding pay is limited in time, and it’s not the same as the hourly flight pay. So it’s still not right.
Mr. Trump has asked for $15 to get him to heaven, https://metro.co.uk/2025/09/04/donald-trump-asks-supporters-15-donations-get-heaven-24072996/
I’m in! Donald, give us a date. You can count on me to chip in, and I will also put a silver dollar under your tongue just in case the Christian idea is wrong.
@Jen:
On the Treasury Dept site it looks like all cooks, dishwashers, porters etc are covered. So I think it is for server tipouts. I am guessing the AP writer was just looking for funny things to list.
@Slugger:
And here I thought his base, largely Protestant, were doctrinally opposed to the sale of indulgences.
Of course, there’s the 11th Commandment: Unless there’s profit in it.
@becca:
I think SAF reduces the formation of contrails due to a lower production of soot or aromatics in the exhaust. Florida could require all flights over their state to use 100% SAF.
Except I don’t think they legally can (maybe flights within the state), not to mention it would be woke, and that the typical percentage of SAF per flight is somewhere between 0.0% and 0.5%, which helps about as much as you’d expect.
@Scott:
@Michael Reynolds:
And this all seems to come down to Modi refusing to “do Donald a solid” by giving him credit for the India/Pakistan de-escalation.
And then “both sides-ing” the entire issue.
Rights or wrongs to one side, India is neuralgic about both Kashmir and Pakistan’s record of “plausible deniability” operations.
(See the whole pre-2001 ISI linkages to jihadi groups based in Afghanistan)
No sensible leader would tread on India’s corns in that way, and then expect India to bow before them, and nominate them for a Nobel.
And then respond to Indian “ingratitude” by levying tariffs, while making kissy-face with Pakistan, which cleverly played to Trump’s vanity and greed by just such a nomination, and by floating a deal on “crypto”.
Trump’s vanity and petulance is playing into the hands of Xi.
See in particular also the campaign against Brazil for their impudence in prosecuting Trump’s mini-me, Bolsonaro.
And the ridiculous accusations of South Africa conducting a “white gneocide”.
You could not hope for better measures to solidify the, previously rather feeble, “BRICS alignment” if you had scriptwriters in Beijing.
That distant knocking sound you hear is foreign ministers from London to Berlin to Tokyo repeatedly banging their heads on their desks in despair.
Trump DOJ is looking at ways to ban transgender Americans from owning guns, sources say
Either the Supreme Court will knock this down under 2nd amendment grounds, or they will open a loophole to ban guns for others.
@becca:
Idiots will always be hungry for a further serving of silly-cake.
@Jen:
Sounds more like a ploy to pathologize trans people to the point they can be involuntarily committed or imprisoned to keep the poor macho MAGAt snowflakes safe.
@JohnSF:
Americans should be incensed that a young democracy, and a middle income country to boot, does a better job holding their criminal politicians to account.
The last two days have seen a lot of distractions from the Epstein scandal. And it was just yesterday that victims gathered and spoke to the public at the Capitol steps. In related House business…
Rep Ro Khanna expressed confidence yesterday that there would be enough votes on the Massie-Khanna discharge petition to force a full House vote on whether to release files associated with Jeffery Epstein. Speaker Johnson has predicted the discharge petition will not receive enough votes.
The petition will need six Republicans to sign on in order to pass. At last count it had four Republicans, namely:
Thomas Massie
Marjorie Taylor Greene
Lauren Boebert
Nancy Mace
Good on them for supporting the survivors of abuse. But still curious, considering:
-Greene chased after and harassed a school shooting survivor on the steps of the Capitol.
-Greene and Boebert began heckling Joe Biden during a SOTU speech as he was talking about his son Beau who had died of cancer.
-Mace, in her anti-trans furor, went on a crusade to prevent Rep Sarah McBride from using public bathrooms.
We’re waiting to see who the other two or more Republican reps will be.
@Kathy:
Many Brazilians, on all sides of politics, consider their Supreme Court has been given too much responsibilty for it to bear.
However, even most of the conservatives, outside Bolsonaro’s immediate family, who have lately been being milking the MAGA-circuit for all it’s worth, consider Bolsonaro to be an idiot who is reaping the consequences of his own folly.
Lula was actually in tricky position politically, until recently, due to his own mis-steps.
But the recent US arrogance has rallied Brazilian opinion on his side.
(A nephew is currently affianced to a Brazilian, whose father is a rather well-off and well-connected businessman of conservative leanings, who is currently vowing to vote for Lula because “f@ck the americanos”)
This will hurt low-income, rural students:
College Board Cancels Tool for Finding Low-Income High Achievers
[…] Among those who have pushed for a class-based approach to increasing college diversity, however, the withdrawal of Landscape seemed misguided. Richard D. Kahlenberg, who served as an expert witness for Students for Fair Admissions, said he viewed the decision as unfortunate.
The extent to which this administration is punishing its own supporters in pursuit of its own agenda is astonishing.
@Kathy: I think it’s probably bait. They know there isn’t a chance in hell Congress will ban guns from anybody, so their hope is Ds and the pundits arguing over whether or not “The trans must be armed!”
They are very good at getting people talking about the wrong things, but I suspect this one isn’t going to fly.
@Kathy: It’s been a long, long time since I’ve read the books, but I recall that the later books were adding new bits that reframed what happened in the earlier books. So, taking vast liberties with the source material is the most faithful thing an adaption could do.
If my memory is correct, that is.
@dazedandconfused: A friend of mine was saying that she thought having the liberals define themselves as the ones who don’t have guns was a bad idea, but lately she has been pointing out that defining yourselves as the people who don’t take vaccinations might be worse.
Go Measles!
(I’m assuming there will be a Florida team with the measles as a mascot before too long)
@Eusebio:
I’m curious as to who the Dem holdouts will be.
200+ well connected, wealthy Democratic representatives? There’s at least a few who are biting their tongues and hoping the Republicans kill this. I expect to start hearing about not wanting to prejudice future prosecutions or something.
Anyway, we all know that Bill Clinton is in there, per Trump, so I think people need to be asking their Republican representatives why they are protecting Bill Clinton.
And Hunter Biden (this is a nearly baseless accusation, based only in the fact that somehow Hunter finds his way into anything unseemly — mostly on the periphery, using his name for access, trying to grift)
@Scott:
If the mandatory tip is part of the estimate, I don’t care. I mostly hate the “do I tip dental hygienists, and if so, how much?” questions.
I just want people to make my life easier, not harder.
@JohnSF:
There’s a vein of anti-Americanism in all of Latin America. It’s not always manifest, but it’s always near the surface, ready to erupt at the slightest provocation.
Partly it’s things like the country haven usurped the name of the continent. Partly is the many military interventions and meddling in internal affairs in the region over the last 250 years.
El Taco underestimates it at his peril. China would love to grow its influence in the region
@JohnSF:
That jibes with what my one Brazilian buddy told me. He’s currently a pilot with Azul, one of Brazil’s airlines. He’s fully a Brazilian now and has been for the last 12 years.
He told me Bolsonaro is screwed. Trump’s act has ironically made it a sort of national duty to nail his hide to a wall somewhere (NTTAWWT in his opinion -Bolsonaro was awful), but it has unfortunately also completely shored up the less, but still deeply, flawed Lula as their leader.
@Gustopher:
Thu far, excluding a lot of what takes place with Demerzel and the Cleons, I’d brak it down this way:
Season 1 was about half of the first book (Foundation).
Season 2 was parts of the the first book and half of the second book (Foundation and Empire).
Season 3 is shaping up to be the second half of the second book.
There are two latter additions, all in the mid 80s to early 90s.
The first addition consists of two sequels, that reach almost the halfway point of the dark ages. In these books (SPOILER ALERT), the future changes from the completion of Seldon’s Plan and a new Empire secretly guided by the Second Foundation to something different.
So, yeah, this changes the earlier books.
The other addition consists of two prequels. most of it concerns how Seldon developed psychohistory. They change little for the subsequent books.
Partly the show has modernized the mix of old fashioned and early modern Sci-Fi. Partly they have allowed for longer term characters to appear through several crises. To the former, a download of Seldon’s personality still actively planning the future makes better sense than centuries old holographic recordings that are always right.
@Gustopher: There are no Democratic holdouts. The entire caucus has signed on to the discharge petition.