Tuesday’s Forum
Steven L. Taylor
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Tuesday, February 17, 2026
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35 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).
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Jesse Jackson 84
RIP
Today I’m gonna listen again to the greatest political speech I ever heard, Jesse Jackson’s address at the 1988 Democratic Convention. The man had his faults. He didn’t always live up to his legacy. But sometimes he got it just right. RIP Jesse. Keep hope alive.
What’s happening in the Ukraine-Russia conflict? Other than the Trump administration’s continued effort to sell Ukraine out.
From the Institute for the Study of War: Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, February 16, 2026
• Russian officials are unlikely to deviate from their original war demands during the upcoming February 17 to 18 trilateral US-Ukrainian-Russian talks in Geneva, Switzerland.
• Russia may try to exploit another temporary moratorium on strikes against energy infrastructure to falsely claim that Russia is making a concession.
•Russia appears to be investing in centralized incubators for drone technology and is setting up bespoke roles and units to support specific drone capability development efforts. These drone capability development efforts include supporting drone units’ ability to conduct tactical tasks that support Russia’s battlefield air interdiction (BAI) campaign, as well as drone-based air defense.
• The Kremlin appears to be adapting its tactics to conduct sabotage attacks in Europe.
• At least one Ukrainian FP-5 Flamingo cruise missile did not cause damage to Russia’s Kapustin Yar launch site in Astrakhan Oblast in January 2025.
• Ukrainian forces recently advanced in the Kostyantynivka-Druzhkivka tactical area. Russian forces recently advanced in the Kostyantynivka-Druzhkivka tactical area and near Pokrovsk
@Scott: Zelenskyy’s patience and ability to suffer fools is incredible. Imagine having to sit with Trump and/or his stooges as they recite Putin’s wish list and deem it non-negotiable. In any setting other than the Oval Office the odious JD Vance would have been knocked on his ass for demanding to know when Zelenskyy was going to “thank President Trump.” Since then, other Trump fluffers, like Pam Bondi and Tokyo Rose Garden Leavitt, have morphed that into “when are you going to apologize to President Trump” for myriad, imagined slights. Putin is certainly getting his money’s worth from Trump.
Her is Brad DeLong explaining that AGI (Artificial General Intelligence) developed based on LLM’s is an example of “you can’t get there from here.”
“DeLong”
After the examples the conclusion:
The Epstein class”
“Robert Reich”
@charontwo:
In Europe, people are resigning, getting fired, and being investigated over their connections with Epstein.
In America the government wants to move on, and is considering pardoning Maxwell or commuting her sentence.
@Roger: I remember that speech well. Even though I disagreed with him, I felt the persuasive, almost thrilling, power of his speech. And I am, by nature, cynical as hell.
What unique skill did Epstein have? What did he discover that gave him power? What situation enabled him? I see nothing special about Epstein other than solipsism and a lack of morals. Is it really just Epstein? Is there any reason to believe there aren’t dozens of fixers and procurers like him operating within the “Epstein class”?
This country needs a really conservative fix, reinstating Eisenhower era tax rates
@gVOR10:
His talent is schmoozing and developing relationships, add in amoral sociopathy and a talent for determining a deviancy in others and you have an evil stew.
@charontwo:
I’ve been reading and watching videos about the use for LLMs. There seems to be a growing consensus they’d work better as features in apps, rather than stand alone as they are now.
Microsoft has been integrating Copilot in its apps, as has Adobe in at least Acrobat. This may be useful, but right now it’s very intrusive and not immediately obvious how ti can be useful. Adobe in particular seems to want to atrophy my brain. I get a prompt saying “Geez, this document seems very long! Would you like me to do a summary for you?”
Ok, not in that childish way, but it’s how it comes across to me. Especially when it appears on a two page payment format.
The big problem continues to be these things keep making shit up (aka hallucinations). You have to check everything they do, even simple short tasks like rewriting an email (you want to know what you’ll be saying, won’t you?). I shudder at letting them actually do things in the real world, like placing a grocery order online, and don’t even bring up buying airline tickets or booking a hotel.
They don’t do too badly at search. So maybe an LLM “agent” could find options for a flight from, say, Mexico to Malaga. Maybe they can do this faster than I can checking various websites (ie Air France, KLM, Aeromexico, Iberia, Expedia, etc.), and maybe not. I would let them do that, but not pick a flight and much less book it.
@charontwo:
I just wanted to say that I really appreciate your contributions here. I seek them out.
@Charley in Cleveland:
“Tokyo Rose Garden Leavitt” belongs up there with “cadre of asshats.” You sure do have a way with words.
@charontwo:
There are exceptions. There is a growing body of evidence that machine learning supercomputer models produce superior global weather forecasting results out to about five days relative to the physics-based supercomputer models. They are better at optical character recognition and recovery of damaged historical documents than any other models we have. They are quite good at limiting experimental spaces in some aspects of material science. Are they what the techbros claim? No. Are they a useful tool to keep in our applied-math bag of tricks? Yes, absolutely.
ETA: The physics-based weather models also hallucinate hurricanes, but no one complains about that.
At LGM Erik Loomis quotes Eric Rauchway, “esteemed historian of the New Deal” in the Boston Review :
Commenters point out that restoration of the Republican Party to that of the 70s just recreates the conditions that spawned the current Party. And restoration back to the 50s or 60s recreates the conditions that spawned the GOPs of the 70s. Commenters also point out that FDR was able to do reconstruction, not restoration because of the disaster Republicans left him and ask whether Dems will be able to reconstruct if Trump doesn’t leave a disaster in his wake. I’m conflicted, should we hope for a sufficient disaster short of war?
@gVOR10:
Wasn’t 2008 a complete disaster including war?
@charontwo:
I’m not an AI booster, at least this current crop of generative AI, but part of that is that I think our goals in artificial intelligent should be a bit better.
Honestly, that sounds like my brother. And a lot of other people.
LLMs are very mockable for being built entirely around pattern recognition, but we really don’t understand how humans actually think, except that there are a lot of widely different variations — think of people who can or cannot picture an Apple, or who do or do not have an internal monologue. Or who see colors in relation to numbers. Or the terrifying split brain experiments, where people are shown to just confidently make up a story that explains what they were doing even if that story has no bearing in reality.
Pattern matching and completion running wild is definitely a part of how people work.
Anyway, if we are going to be putting so much effort and energy into artificial intelligence, we should be aiming for something a bit more sophisticated than my brother. Dumbasses are pretty cheap to get the natural way.
@gVOR10:
If only to protect the billionaires from their own worst impulses.
Can you imagine what you would be up to if you had the money and power to indulge your every whim until you got bored of it and then had to find something else, over and over?
Pedophile Islands, rocket companies, eugenics and an appreciation for Ayn Rand are common outcomes. Terrible things.
@Gustopher:
To quote the Adam Savage Maxim: There’s your problem!
@gVOR10: What unique skill did Epstein have?
Occam’s Razor. Epstein procured underage girls for the rich and powerful to screw. No questions asked. IMO there is no doubt that this was one of the main draws.
@Michael Cain:
Oh, no doubt, there are plenty of niche uses where they are more efficient or better than people. One I came across was picking out unusual galaxies from astronomical survey photographs.
Having more unusual galaxies to study won’t put any astronomers out of work though.
@Lucys Football:
@gVOR10:
@charontwo:
There’s more to it than just the sexual crimes.
After all, Epstein’s orbit included men with zero interest in females of any age (eg Mandelson) and women (Ferguson, etc).
Mandelson’s connection, for instance, seems to have focused on trading financial information.
And Epstein’s “day job” was as a “private wealth” adviser/manager.
Then there was the “Epstein Foundations”, which provided a useful front, and a locus for connections to people who may not have had any knowledge of the nastier busieness at all.
Then his links to “crypto” and offshore banking: which both relate to his “day job” in re enabling tax avoidance, and might provide useful channels for pay-offs of all sorts.
And the still unanswered questions of: how did a mid-level trader suddenly rocket to “demi-billionaire” wealth, the connections of some of his early associated to “mobs” various, and the Ghislaine Maxwell link.
And why exactly did the 2005 federal investigation end up with just a rather leniet plea bargain for one case in a Florida state court?
All of this requires a serious investigative prosecutor being appointed, with subpoena powers, a whole battery of forensic accountants, and depostion under oath of everyone and their grandmothers.
Though we should never forget the sexual crimes, the financial aspect must also be considered. imho the two are likely to be connected
“Follow the money.”
Because that’s where hard evidence is likely to be uncovered.
@Gustopher:
Rocket companies are not frivolous pursuits, and they can provide benefits to society. It’s so obvious I wonder how the broligarchs didn’t notice it.
I mean, you use GPS, right? You get weather reports, and watch sports live (sometimes from the other side of the world). All that and more depends entirely or in part on satellites.
Regardless of how big a nazi trumphole Adolf is, XpaceS has lowered launch costs (albeit by running an ISP first and launching rockets second). And that’s good for everyone in the long term.
What’s deranged is the idea of building cities on Mars within the next few years. Adolf doesn’t have a rocket that can get a person to Mars, never mind thousands. He also doesn’t have the money. If he were serious, he’d be lobbying the so-called administration he bought into investing in the development of nuclear powered rockets.
@Michael Cain: @charontwo:
According to some people at work, AI techniques are also looking very useful for screening medical examination data at scale and at speed for things people may have missed and flagging them for review.
The same is likely to apply to lots of things where information is “hidden in the noise”.
But is still going to require skilled human review in case the AI is just “overconnecting”
Notes on the local scene.
As noted earlier, Winter ended abruptly and Spring is on, not yet at full blast. It’s been warm, with stagnant air, little in the way of cloud. It cools down at night just enough to sleep well with a blanket on, but this will end in weeks if not in days. This is perfectly normal late March weather. Except normal weather is long gone.
So, the hot temps and lack of wind have led to increased levels of air pollution, in particular elevated ozone levels. In turn this has led the authorities in Mex City to enact measures to try to reduce pollution. Namely private cars and other transportation is taken off circulation according to a system that accounts for the level of emissions control per vehicle. EVs and hybrids are exempt.
Today my car was taken off circulation, though it complies with the lowest emissions level. It happens.
I had to take an Uber. I tried calling a cab, but the lines for the cab place were all busy. Either there was that much demand, or the numbers on the fridge magnet are way out of date. In any case, it took three tries. The first vanished when it was 6 minutes out, no explanation. the second gave an arrival time of 22 minutes; yeah, right. The third was 4 minutes out, and actually arrived.
Dynamic pricing jumped all over the place. In the end it cost my employer about $38.90, or $3.50 per kilometer.
That’s highway robbery by a greedy robber. It’s long past time for regulating this “industry.”
@Scott: The Ukrainians are trying to go on the offensive. Syrskyi has adopted the Russian assault tactics of small batches of men establishing points which can hopefully be reinforced. As the Ukrainians have long described, the tactic is effective but costly in terms of casualties. Trading men for time instead of space, really. But it should produce a negative affect on Russian troop morale if it can stop the slow creep of small victories they have enjoyed in the last few years.
I’ve almost despaired that the leaders will stop this. Maybe the troops will, ala the French army’s semi-mutiny against assaults in WW1.
This is incredible.
The guy begging everyone to put his name on airports, etc., has now trademarked his name
https://apnews.com/article/trump-family-trademark-airports-d636dc340af72e6f2c8997b83745ff1d?utm_source=copy&utm_medium=share
@Scott:
@dazedandconfused:
I think the main thing is: four years in, Russia is still hung up in central Donetsk and bleeding.
I suspect the UAF have spotted a window of opportunity, and decided to exploit.
Likely to shift back to defensive soon, but then, who knows how open the window they’ve spotted is?
The other thing is, another Russian attempt to exploit the winter against civilians by energy attacks is running out of time. Once again, Ukrainian air defence, repair teams, and European supplies of parts has weathered the storm, and spring is coming.
Meanwhile in Geneva, UK and and French teams have turned up at the US/Ukraine/Russia talks.
Apparently to the surprise of the US and Russia (though I suspect not of Ukraine).
“Hi Steve, hi Jared. Good morning. How are we all? Would ya consider…”
@JohnSF:
Something from The New Yorker:
As the Robert Reich piece I linked above indicated, Epstein was facilitating nexus of a web of influential and/or wealthy people benefiting from trading confidential information. It isn’t only DJT that is motivated to suppress what is in the “Epstein Files.”
@charontwo:
Yup.
It’s actually been obcvious to anyone clueful for decades that Mandelson has been sleazing around financial power-players. Because he’s desired to get seriously rich off their leavings and his links.
Look at his Deripaska links, for instance.
I rather suspect what can’t now be said is that it was a large part of why he was picked as ambassador in the first place.
Because he knew who was who in the cesspit of Washington.
Big mistake, McSweeney.
Funny thing, in a way: no other major Conservative or Labour politician have (yet) turned up in the Epstein inner circles.
One can imagine various motives for all such to avoid him.
And another odd point: Silvio Berlusconi, who was known for his, shall way say, rather exotic parties, apparently despised Epstein as a nasty piece of work.
All told the indications are that anyone who got in deep with Epstein (as opposed to just being a finacial partner, or on the surface layers of the Epstein foundation) was wilfully ignoring obvious warning signs.
Which raises the question: why the hell was Andrew MW not told to sheer off?
Meanwhile in Europe:
Marco Rubio pledges US economic support for Hungary.
Well, always nice to see the US limiting its overseas finacial pledges, eh?
And building bridges.
Rubio may think this sort of thing will all be erased as the tides of time erase the sandcastles of stupidity.
Trust me: it will not.
The US is building up a lot of red in the ledger.
Such things tend to come due, sooner or later.
Meanwhile, in the Middle East:
The quantity of USAF aircraft transiting to European and ME bases is getting almost silly.
Latest wave includes F-22’s, additional AWACS and other airborne intel, tankers to Lajes (Azores) and Candia (Crete).
USAF F-35’s departing RAF Lakenheath for the ME.
The Ford CSG has today transited the Straits of Gibraltar.
RAF Akrotiri is now at “significant threat” alert level.
I suspect things are coming close to the boil.
@JohnSF:
Do you figure he intends to kidnap the supreme leader?
At least Iran has better quality crude than Venezuela. Better infrastructure, too.
And better armed forces.
@Kathy:
Two options:
1) Blockade ploy: start seizing tankers, compel Iran to escalate or capitulate.
2) Strike.
If 2) it won’t be a a kidnap ploy, it will be a concerted combination of decapitation strikes and force-destruction aimed at missiles, naval bases, and command structures,
The Iranian armed forces may be superior to the Venezuelan, but they have no answer to the firepower now being assembled.
Not even factoring in whether or not the Iranian government can rely upon a avoiding a large scale revolt if the Pasdaran/Basiji forces are chopped up.
The main question will be: can the US rapidly defeat Iranian state coherence, and/or supress capacity for a counter re Gulf oil assets.
My bet as of now is that the US can.
Because that’s what the al-Saud and Emiratis will be calculating also, and they’re unlikely to green-light an attack unless pretty certain.
And the the USAF air assets moving in will need Saudi/Emirati permission to operate.
The sheer amount of US forces now in the area are unlikely to be sustainable over a prolonged period.
Therfore we can look for either an Iranian offer or war in a rather short time frame, imho.
Intersting: Netanyahu was previously urging a general enforcement against missiles and proxies.
But just a day ago shifted to a demand for full nuclear disarmament, in line with US apparent bottom line, and what Iran has been sorta-hinting.
This might be just falling in with US; or an attempt to “queer the pitch”: if that’s what Israel demands, it makes it difficult for the ideologues in Tehran to agree.
If that blocks agreement by Iran, the probability of war goes up.
And Netanyahu may then hope for his maximal gains to eventuate anyway.
All told, I’d advise against visiting Tehran right now.
Or Dubai, come to that.
@JohnSF:
The US switched sides on that war at 9:00am Eastern Standard time on Jan 20, 2025. We have represented Russia’s side in negotiations, even calling for Ukraine to accept Putin’s demands just yesterday, yet a lot of people are still having a hard time accepting it. A river in Egypt.
Unfortunately, Putin is not one of them.