Tuesday’s Forum
Steven L. Taylor
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Tuesday, October 28, 2025
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34 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
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BlueSky.
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Mike Johnson, in the words of the immortal Ruth Langmore form the TV show Ozark, “Doesn’t know s*it about f*ck“.
Mike Johnson is clueless all the time
Oh and one more thing … I’m so happy that the campaign season is now a never ending appeal for funding day in and day out without let up. Ever social media platform is stuffed with ads for fundraising and just general appeals for money. I blame Citizens United. Before that ruling things were bad but my god, the kraken has been unleashes and modern political campaigns are now a brand new tax on the American people even worse then the tax on the American people as a result of 50 different state level laws and races which are now all fully nationalized. You could run in Iowa and be drowned in money from California. Not only is it more expensive, but it’s dumber in execution.
Our adulterous, indicted felon Attorney General Ken Paxton is running for Senator against John Cornyn and Wesley Hunt. I root for injuries all around.
In the meantime, Paxton is using my tax dollars to aid his campaign by suing over RFK, Jrs bogus claims of Tylenol causing autism.
Texas attorney general sues Tylenol company over autism claims
When are we going to stop using correlation as a substitute for causation?
Because we need this.
Joyful images from this year’s Comedy Wildlife Awards finalists
This video of Trump wandering aimlessly around sort of adds a bit of context to the cognitive test he was bragging about.
His supporters are still running around suggesting Biden had issues. Pot, meet kettle.
Getting Paid: ICE agents are classified as “excepted” employees, meaning their roles are deemed critical to national security and public safety.
However, Air Traffic Controllers are not considered critical to national security and public safety, so they are not getting paid.
Got it
Due to a barrage of recent headaches and my Stage IV cancer history, I had a cat scan of my brain done this morning.
I hope they didn’t find anything.
@Bill Jempty: Good luck!
@Jen: Where’s Jake Tapper when you need him? This is likely the result of Trump being “un-coachable” on protocol – and basically everything else. Can’t tell a narcissist there is something he doesn’t know.
AND, the next time Grandpa Goofy claims he is slapping a new tariff on a country that dared to displease him, it would be nice if the legacy media mentioned the fact that the president does NOT have the legal/constitutional authority to levy tariffs.
I downloaded and ran the infamous Comet Ai browser from Perplexity yesterday.
Honestly, I couldn’t think of anything I wanted an AI agent to do with my web browsing. But then it was late and I was tired, and wanted to keep streaming TNG…
One thing, though, is that the prompt field is blank, and at best the browser shows some prompt examples, which may or may not apply to the particular user.
Some years ago, a small chain of convenience stores asked us for a catalog of sandwiches and such we could make in the company’s TIF certified plant (TIF is a very high level hygiene and food safety certification). The person in charge of the plant, sent back “anything between two pieces of bread or wrapped in a tortilla.” Of course this leaves the customer to do the work of figuring things out, which they had asked us to do to begin with.
That’s how I feel when I see the “ask me anything” blank prompt field. No notion of what it can do, how it can do it, or anything helpful at all.
Speaker Johnson was just babbling about Biden’s use of the autopen, stating that “every executive action” in which that was used should be voided.
A quick reminder that every accusation is a confession with this crew. Trump has recently publicly acknowledged a cognitive test and an MRI. Make of that what you will.
@Scott:
When the collective “we” stops swinging through the forest of their society on meme-vines and get serious about real “edjumacayshun.”
@Jen: Unreal. Time for Congressional Dems to loudly and publicly remind their colleagues across the aisle that ” what comes around goes around.”
@Kathy: Report back on the quality of the returned results to queries.
The auto pen fixation speaks volumes about the extent to which the Trump Adm is willing to go to distract the public from real issues – like why Deacon Mike Johnson is refusing to call the House to session; like murdering occupants of “drug boats” in international waters; like the Quatari jet bribe; the quid pro quo pardon of the bitcoin money launderer; and last but not least, the fact that Trump has also used the auto-pen, as has every other president since the device was fashioned. A legitimate media would ask Johnson dozens of times every day whether it is legal for him to refuse to call the House into session. (Hint: he’s supposed to get Senate approval for any recess that goes beyond 3 days.) There is no shortage of glib asshats in the GOP.
@Rob1:
I asked it to find an NFL follies video (it should be football follies) that contains Figaro’s aria. It found a short on youtube. that one has been hard to find without AI.
See, it can help you pointlessly kill time now. Progress!
I may ask it to look for food processors under a certain price, as soon as I find what a reasonable price is supposed to be.
@Kathy:
Some cease fire
I seriously can’t believe El Taco did not get the Nobel Peace Prize for this year, plus all the years following, for a cease fire that everyone in the world knew wouldn’t hold for as long as two months, likely less than that.
Fraud! Lies!1! They cheated in the ad! Reagan LOVED tariffs!!11!!1
@Bill Jempty:
I see what you did there.
Awaiting MRI results for prostate (again!) myself. Fingers crossed for both of us.
18 inning Game 3.
Love multiview. Even though the Monday Night Football game was not all that competitive, without it, I would not have watched the World Series until after the conclusion of the NFL game.
But the baseball was certainly a treat. 18 innings.
Ohtani: 4/4. 2 doubles. 2 home runs. 5 walks. In the 17th, with a runner on 1st, The Jays did not intentionally walk him. Technically. But none of the four pitches were anywhere near the plate. Even Bonds struck that kind of fear in opposing pitchers.
ETA: hell, Goose Gossage couldn’t even be persuaded to walk Kirk Gibson with first base open.
Yet, that is not the most amazing story from last night’s game. The Dodgers were down to their last relief pitcher. He pitched four scoreless innings, striking out 5 batters, to get the win. Total number of career MLB innings pitched prior to the postseason? 22.2.
He was traded in the offseason from the Athletics to the Mariners. Seattle sent him to the minors and ended up trading him to LA in June. Two months ago, he had no idea if he would even be on the Dodgers postseason roster.
But he’s a hero now.
He got a postgame handshake in the locker room from 89 year old Sandy Koufax, who, from what I can tell, managed to stay awake the entire game.
A more general sports take.
Between the Mahomes-Allen-Jackson triumvirate in the NFL, Ohtani in MLB, and Wembanyama in the NBA we are living in damn interesting times for otherworldly talents.
Too bad we cannot fully enjoy it because our government is full of malignant actors.
@Michael Reynolds:
Just an MRI? Did they at least also give you the pleasure of the manual exam so you could jam “Lookin’ Out my Back Door” on the way home?
Good luck to both you and @Bill Jempty.
@Kurtz:..He got a postgame handshake in the locker room from 89 year old Sandy Koufax, who, from what I can tell, managed to stay awake the entire game.
Damn. My TV at home doesn’t get any channels. Use it for DVDs so I had the game on the radio last night. I had it turned up loud to keep me awake as I lie in bed. Last I remember is the 16th inning. Woke up at midnight and saw the score on my phone.
And Koufax at 89 has 12 years on me! Go Sandy!
@Michael Reynolds: Good luck to you too.
‘They X-Rayed My Head and Found Nothing’
@Kurtz:
They don’t do DRE’s as they are affectionately known as much nowadays. Why do that for the cost of a rubber glove when they can use the expensive machine and charge Medicare thousands and me $66? Do you not understand the American health care system?
@Scott:
Not just yet, please. I like the correlation between Trump being re-elected and Measles Are Great Again.
More judges like this one?
Border Patrol chief leading Trump immigration crackdown in Chicago ordered to report daily to federal judge
@Scott:
I wonder if her honor can find him in contempt when he inevitably disobeys this order.
On completely unrelated matters, I’ve zero doubt in my mind that El Taco will at least attempt to run for a third term. Assuming he’s still alive (fingers crossed) and not completely incapacitated by dementia.
The question is how will he get away with it.
I can think of several means. The simplest one is to file to run in all states, enter primaries and caucuses, and dare anyone to stop him. No doubt all blue and bluish purple states would, perhaps even some red states. If this makes it to court, one can guess most will rule against him, as it’s plainly unconstitutional.
But then what does the fixer court do?
An amendment is part of the constitution, therefore it cannot be declared unconstitutional. That doesn’t mean the damned six won’t try. Or that they won’t find some originalist exception after they waterboard, twist, torture, and squeeze the text past all semblance of rationality or common sense.
Any decision the fixer court makes cannot be appealed.
At that, they may even decide the constitution is unconstitutional, and strike it all down.
Originalism!
The country was originally founded on the basis of the Articles of Confederation. these proved unworkable. A convention set up to revise them wound up proposing a new constitution to replace them. But the Articles made no provision for this. Therefore it doesn’t matter that the Congress voted for the constitution, nor how many states ratified it.
No, I don’t expect this, but we’re living in the crazy years.
There are other ways el Taco might try. He can declare a number of blue states to be in rebellion for any reason, and decree they’re no longer entitled to representation in Congress, nor to vote in the general election. With only mostly red states formally in the union, a repeal f the 22nd amendment would pas in like six hours.
I don’t think he’ll run as Vance’s VP and have the weathervane resign right after taking the oath. He’d think stepping off the number one spot makes him look bad (he is right, only insofar as he always looks bad).
The question should not be seen as “how would a president who wants a third term go about it?” But rather “how does an autocrat who cares nothing for the rule of law get to stay in power for life?”.
@Gregory Lawrence Brown:
I use YouTubeTV, but only during the NFL season. If Sunday Ticket was still DirecTV, I wouldn’t ever have it. I would find other means to watch games.
Really, to save money, I should just buy Sunday ticket and use an antenna for local games. But that also would mean no MNF on TV, except for the ones that are simulcast on ABC. I figure the cost of going to a restaurant to watch the MNF game a several times a year would result in spending as much on food and drink.
Plus, watching around a bunch of barfolk is just too annoying for me.
The absolute least expensive way to watch all NFL games is to carefully avoid seeing scores at any point, then rewatching whatever games with an NFL subscription.
But that is super hard to do.
@Kurtz:
Some movie chain used to show the Monday and Thursday games live until some years ago. I was tempted to go a few times, but never did.
@Kathy: “I don’t think he’ll run as Vance’s VP and have the weathervane resign right after taking the oath.”
He may be senile, but he’s not dumb enough to think for a second that Vance would actually step down after winning…
@Kathy: A legal way, Trump announces that Don jr is running. Jr says that if he wins dad will be back in the White House and in charge. Trump does all the campaigning with jr tagging along.
@Kurtz:..The absolute least expensive way to watch all NFL games is to carefully avoid seeing scores at any point, then rewatching whatever games with an NFL subscription.
My attempts to watch replays of games usually end up like this.
@wr:
I wouldn’t underestimate his dumbness.
@Scott O:
Jr might be that dumb, too.
@Gregory Lawrence Brown:
There’s an entire ep of How I Met Your Mother where the gang attempts to not find out the score of the Super Bowl, which they had to miss to attend a funeral of one of the staff at the bar they frequent every episode.
There’s been a lot of ink spilled about messaging and how Democrats can win working class voters back.
The short answer is, they can’t. There’s nothing messaging or finding the “right” Democrat can do. These people will not change their minds until it hurts them, personally, and it’s gonna have to hurt pretty bad. They must touch the stove.
Particularly in the “leans Republican” camp. And especially in the “always Republican” camp.