Tuesday’s Forum
Steven L. Taylor
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Tuesday, January 13, 2026
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37 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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This will be must-see TV.
Jack Smith to testify, publicly.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/doj-fed-powell-golden-globes-2026_n_6964c61ee4b0b3be67eb8c89/liveblog_6965c3f0e4b0f3f37e77d8e5
The State Department is telling Americans to GTFO of Venezuela. Odd, since Trump is in charge of the country.
One thing this administration is doing that is totally under the radar is taking equity stakes in American companies. They took a 10% stake in Intel. Here is another example.
In one sense, this is crony capitalism. Who is actually benefiting? How are these transactions being monitored? Who is doing the monitoring?
I haven’t done the historical research but something tells me this is a trait of authoritarian regimes whether those of the left or the right. Another term is corporate socialism.
Keep an eye out. It can only get worse and is inherently corrupting.
Department of War Announces $1 Billion Direct-to-Supplier Investment to Secure the U.S. Solid Rocket Motor Supply Chain
At least they are recognizing a potential problem and threat from autonomous systems.
Army moves to assess AI’s ‘unpredictable behaviors’ and safeguard autonomous systems
@Scott: BTW, these are not new discussions. A lot of the discussion of the structure of the defense business is cyclical. Here is a long article on the history of the defense business that some may find interesting. I do because I lived it since 1980 when I joined the AF.
What Silicon Valley Gets Wrong About National Security
I love the WSJ take on the Jerome Powell stupidity. They call it “lawfare for dummies”.
@Michael Reynolds:
Very odd indeed, since Trump says he is the acting prez of Venezuela.
@becca: It will take some courageous judges to stop the law firm of Bondi & Blanche, also d/b/a the Department of Justice, from pursuing these frivolous, revenge-based legal actions against people who irritated our disordered president. The judges need to start sanctioning B&B attorneys who sign the pleadings and/or come into court and lie, and those sanctions should also apply to Bondi and whatever henchmen are ordering DOJ line attorneys to carry Trump’s vengeful water. Lawfare for Dummies won’t get too far if B&B attorneys are losing their licenses.
@Michael Reynolds:
@CSK:
Indeed, honesty from this so-called administration is odd. Few want to live in a country El Taco is in charge of.
DHS is using verbatim Nazi sloganeering.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/tom-morello-calls-trump-administration-215544388.html
Fatso continues to have no effect on inflation, in spite of self-serving claims to the opposite.
https://www.bls.gov/news.release/cpi.nr0.htm
Meanwhile, you can find plenty of clips of ICE acting like aggressive a-holes since the MN shooting. And clips of higher-ups glorifying the shooter. It’s just spiraling further out of control. What will it take for the GOP in Congress to find a conscience and do something about it? (Rhetorical question, sadly.)
The Steelers have become the most dependable team in the NFL.
They may or may not make the playoffs in a given year, but you can depend on them to lose the first playoff game, be it at home or on the road.
@Michael Reynolds:
Not so odd. Didn’t you GTFO of the U. S. because Trump is in charge here?
I commented here yesterday that the Renee Good shooting looked like a standard “she’s not respecting our authority” shooting. This morning NYT has “Trump Has Another Justification for the Shooting of Renee Good: Disrespect”.
We’re a long way from, “To protect and to serve”.
@gVOR10:
So if you disrespect a law enforcement person, he or she has the right to shoot you to death. Good to know.
@Scott:
The Pentagon. Intel is the only US supplier of random-logic integrated circuits based on below-7nm tech, which are critical if the Pentagon is really going to be serious about AI-based pattern matching. Trump has them burning through rockets/missiles at above current replacement rates, and L3Harris is a critical supplier. Look for them to take positions in Raytheon (sole supplier of Tomahawk cruise missiles) and Northrup Grumman (the B-21 and a major supplier for the F-35 and F/A-18 programs). Probably at least one of the major ship builders, because Trump is going to demand tangible progress on the battleship program, and someone is going to need capital to take on a major expansion.
The defense contractors have merger-and-acquisitioned themselves into a place where they’re too big to be allowed to fail.
We have all read that converting Venezuelan petroleum into something ready for your gas tank is not a simple process, and the oil companies want some sugar from the US government to undertake the project. Yesterday, I read that turning mineral deposits in Greenland into a commercially viable product is likewise not all that simple. I am thinking that I should buy some land in Nevada and sell the silver in the ground to Mr. Trump.
SNL
Dilbert
@CSK: “Very odd indeed, since Trump says he is the acting prez of Venezuela.”
Why should that be odd? Trump is the acting president of the US as well, and America citizens aren’t safe here either.
Will the press ever ask Trump when the citizens of Venezuela and Greenland elected him to rule their countries?
Inquiring minds want to know.
@Slugger:
I’m sure that’s true, but it’s not the kind of thing that trump even tries to understand. But he does like to watch TV, and there are at least two cable channel series on treasure hunting in Greenland: Frozen Gold (the Weather Channel) and Cold Gold (Discovery).
Not sure about silver, but if the land has gold, oil, or utility connections for data centers (and zoning approvals in the bag), then he might want to buy it with other people’s money.
@Gregory Lawrence Brown:
Scott Adams died today.
@wr:
I was being ironic.
@Scott:
wrt the administration taking equity stakes in American companies, Jonathan Last wrote a column a couple of months ago titled Donald Trump Is a Commie, the first part of which is not paywalled. He noted that the administration has taken government stakes in Westinghouse, Nvidia, Intel, AMD, US Steel, MP Materials, and Lithium Americas Corp., and has exerted influence over corporate decisions such as Microsoft’s executive staffing, law firms’ pro bono client/case selection, and the terms of the sale of TikTok to political allies.
Trump wants the oil price to be $50 a barrel. It costs $80 a barrel to get Venezuelan oil to market. Now, I’m no economist, but I’m having trouble seeing how that works.
It’s times like this I miss our old friend Drew who was very, very bullish on oil exploration and drilling stocks. Down 17% in a strong bull market.
Trump went to war for worthless oil, and now Americans are fleeing the country.
@CSK:..
Yes he did…
I guess I could have said something like RIP you ofay sob.
But that would have been insensitive.
Well, that was a surprise. The Steelers and Tomlin parted ways.
It seems from hasty reading of other sources he resigned, but I’m unclear. The Steelers haven’t fired a head coach since at least 1969. Since then they’ve had three.
Just today I told someone Tomlin’s job was safe. The team is averse to changing head coaches, see above, and he has a pretty impressive record: Not a single losing season, 13 playoff appearances in 19 years, took the team to 2 super bowls and won the first.
Wonder what he’ll do next. The common options are retirement, broadcasting, or coaching another team.
@Michael Reynolds:
It’s more than $50 now.
@Gregory Lawrence Brown:
I’ve no problem being insensitive to high-magnitude jerks: some people can best improve the world by leaving it.
Tom Tillis is sick of stupid.
Tillis call his comrades stupid for not standing up to Stupid, bigger than s&#t. We must wait and see what happens to Tillis for his act of high treason but I suspect this a fight which Trump doesn’t want to have. Greenland is the place to draw the line, well past it though it be.
@Eusebio: To me the only equity stake that should be taken is that of a city taking a stake in a sports team in return for building the damn stadiums for billionaire owners.
@CSK: “I was being ironic.”
Yeah, I got that.
@Kathy:
And that is the special magic of Charlie Kirk — he made the world a worse place both by being in it, and leaving it.
Speaking of Greenland, here’s Trump’s explanation of why he wants it: “Because that’s what I feel is psychologically needed for success.”
Trump later confirmed that ownership of Greenland was psychologically necessary for him, not the American people.
Per the NYT.
If anyone would like to watch a left wing version of QAnon forming in real time, search for “Sasha Riley.”
(Maybe not on an empty stomach. Or a full stomach. I don’t know.)
He is an Epstein victim who was traumatized, and is now making claims that are far more likely to be the result of his brain trying to organize and deal with the trauma than anything that is literal truth, and people are beginning to believe them as the literal truth.
Disgusting, graphic claims.
But, hey, he’s naming Donald Trump, Clarance Thomas, and Jim Jordan, so it’s gotta be true, right? Never mind the number of bodies that would be popping up, and that any group so eager to kill children for their own arousal would have killed him to keep him quiet long ago.
I don’t get it. There’s plenty of evil shit Trump is doing right out in the open that I don’t see why anyone needs to latch onto outlandish conspiracy theories.
We have a conspiracy theory at home. It even has a pedophile ring, and using the power of the state to protect it! And mountains of evidence that can be confirmed. (A lot of that being circumstantial evidence, to be fair) And so much more!
@Kathy:
Over the past few weeks, Mike Florio has mentioned multiple times that the talk in league circles has been that he already had a television deal in his back pocket for when he decided to move on.
IIRC, there were rumors at the end of last season that he may decide to retire.
@CSK:
He’s more self-aware than I had imagined, but
even more stupid. Saying that publicly is nucking futs.
@CSK:
“Dead Carl”
Excerpt: