Thursday’s Forum
Steven L. Taylor
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Thursday, November 20, 2025
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28 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.
The Florida headline of the day- Florida congresswoman charged with stealing COVID funds
Former baseball pitcher and Cy Young award winner Randy Jones has died at age 75. I remember Jones very well. He had two great seasons but overwork in the latter one led to arm trouble that derailed his career. RIP.
The headline of the day- Border Patrol is monitoring US drivers and detaining those with ‘suspicious’ travel patterns
The return-from-shutdown workload has made posting a challenge, anyway, but I’ll be traveling sans laptop through Sunday evening. I hope to resume blogging Monday.
@James Joyner: Safe travels.
@Bill Jempty: This is worthy of discussion.
The same article references similar technology in China
Silicon Valley enabled brutal mass detention and surveillance in China, internal documents show
I read once that China’s governing philosophy is not Communism but techno-authoritarian capitalism. I’m afraid we are heading in the same direction.
@Bill Jempty: @Scott:
It was a really long article put up just today. Here is AP’s summary of their own article:
Takeaways from AP report on how Border Patrol monitors US drivers for ‘suspicious’ travel
@James Joyner: since you’re here… I have been self-flagellating for a few days about my out of line comment to you a few days ago.
While I know we have our differences about some things, it is always clear to me you only have the nation’s interest at heart. We can balance our differences as loyal opposition. If you ran for office, I could pull the lever.
I will offer a bit of sympathy defense. There have been some health issues, not mine, that have interfered with my sleep and made me crabby.
@James Joyner:
Enjoy your time away, James.
Wednesday last week, the 12th, we get a request for a price study from a government healthcare agency. We get these all the time. This one, though required pricing over 150 products for 15 different units. Each a bit different in composition from the others. This means we have to enter each price individually, which is a lot of work.
I got started formatting the spreadsheets for the study, and asked the supervisor for prices. By late on Friday we still had no prices, but I was told we needed three different scenarios with different brands. I wound up doing that over the weekend.
Monday was a holiday, but I figured we’d surely get the prices early on Tuesday, as it was due on Thursday (today) by 10 am.
TL;DR: we finally got the prices from the higher ups Wednesday (yesterday), at around 4 PM.
I finished my part at around 11:45 PM. there was no time for exhaustive checks, so it will probably have some errors.
This is what happens when you compress one week’s worth of work into a few hours.
And the AI bubble hasn’t crashed yet…
Trump is calling for sitting members of Congress to be tried for sedition for their ad reminding the military that following illegal orders is a bad idea.
@Jen:
I suppose it’s too late to force-feed him a dictionary.
A man pardoned by President Donald Trump for storming the Capitol was arrested on child molestation charges, according to Florida officials, who said he tried to use an anticipated Jan. 6 payout to silence the victim.
Andrew Paul Johnson, 44, was arrested in Tennessee in August and extradited to Florida on charges of lewd/lascivious molestation, lewd/lascivious exhibition and transmission of material harmful to a minor.
@Scott:
1984… and here we are !
@Kathy:
Worth a try.
The entire OED.
We could allow salt and ketchup, I suppose.
@JohnSF:
Wouldn’t an unabridged OED be too much for him. it might k-…
Ok, you’re right.
Simple tips for less annoying living:
If you tend to get shocks when touching doorknobs, or people, or other conductive materials, try touching metal with a knuckle on the back of your hands now and then, or before opening a door or touching someone.
You’ll either bleed off any static buildup on you, or get the shock through a far less sensitive body part with far fewer nerve bundles (it won’t hurt nearly as much as through a finger). It’s especially necessary when moving on a carpeted surface, or before touching a photocopier.
You can also hold a metal key, keychain, pen, ruler, etc. and touch a metal surface with it. You may see sparks now and then.
This won’t work every time, especially if someone who’s built up a static charge touches you. But you’ll get far fewer shocks.
An interesting note on the Bureau of Labor Statistics employment status issued today.
A particular focus of Trump’s new US economy is manufacturing, BLS breaks down it’s data manufacturing employment data into several sectors, one of which is “goods-producing” manufacturing.
So here is the score card (final BLS data) comparing Trump and Biden for the same months (2024 vs 2025).
Biden’s economy ADDED 106,000 goods-producing manufacturing jobs in 2024 (Jan thru July)
Trump’s economy LOST 30,000 goods-producing manufacturing jobs in 2025 (Jan thru July)
Random question to any lawyers here…
1. The DOJ can withhold any of the Epstein files content involved in ongoing investigations
2. The president has called for Democrats mentioned in the file to be investigated
Has…the president inadvertently prevented the release of content relating to Democrats?
I mean, of course the DOJ can release that content, but then aren’t they essentially saying it’s okay to release content involved in an investigation?
November 20, 1945
80 years ago today:
The International Military Tribunal began in Nuremberg, Germany.
Source
@Bill Jempty: This is just the beginning. Palantir powered mass surveillance of every citizen is going to become the norm unless the citizenry can pressure the lawmakers to do something to stop it.
@Jen: I envy your continued belief that what the law says will have anything to do with what Trump’s Justice [sic] Department does.
@Roger: Oh, I’m nowhere near that naive. I’m just wondering if these rubes have managed to get their fingers caught in a hinge. They are the ones who have repeatedly said that they can’t release any files that could affect an ongoing investigation.
I mean, of course, expecting any kind of consistent train of thought acknowledges that thought exists somewhere, and I wouldn’t go THAT far with this crew.
@Bill Jempty:
@Scott:
I just read this AP article.
If we know they’re doing this, what else are they using these networks to do?
My town is currently in the process of introducing speed cameras. Which, on its face, seems like a small thing. But after a bunch of small things you won’t be able to take a dump without “them” knowing.
Who am I kidding. It’s probably already happened.
This is why we’re so fucking angry.
I was almost on this list this year.
As Mr Rogers would’ve put it, “Can you say cult? Of course you can.”
And being brought to the UK by our Labour government, biological ladies and biological gentlemen, it is my honor to present: Separate but “Equal”!
Barring trans people from public life in the UK is going to be wonderful. Starmer’s next proposal will be to pull the gold out of immigrants teeth before they’re tossed back in the Channel.
@Beth:
I don’t get exactly when the UK decided they had to beat their wayward colonies in f**ng stupid assholery.