Tuesday’s Forum
Steven L. Taylor
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Tuesday, April 14, 2026
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24 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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So we have two Congressmen (one of each party) resigning due to their scandals.
Rep. Tony Gonzales to resign from Congress amid backlash over sexual misconduct allegations
Swalwell to resign from Congress
It is clear that the balanced dual decision was a political one, not a moral one. Which says a lot about our political leadership regardless of party.
Which leaves out the real question: Why can’t these assholes have the discipline (and basic morality) to keep their zippers up?
@Scott:
Sort of the sex-scandal-resignation equivalent to the near-simultaneous ratification of Alaska and Hawaii.
@Scott:
Except that Gonzales’ misconduct came to light months ago.
So an alternate take is that the Republican controlled House would not vote to expel Gonzales until they had the offsetting vote to expel Swalwell, which was to happen promptly upon Congress reconvening this week.
With the expulsion writing on the wall, each asshole resigned.
Outrage from MAGA Republicans forced Trump take down his Ai slop depicting a pedophile (himself) as Jesus.
Dang, cancel culture is out of control. Too bad Trump bowed to the antiwoke mob. This is why Magyar won.
No wonder Dems keep winning elections in 2025-26, when the right is so condescending, sanctimonious, and humorless. Whatever happened to free speech? Bring back comedy!
@DK: icwhdt. lol.
Instead of America “being back,” Trump has crossed the Rubicon by exposing the limits of US power.
Actual power is being able to get others to do what you want without using force.. and obviously in the case of Iran, nothing was achieved even with the use of force.
And there’s no going back.
Great job, Republicans!
NYT (gift link) did what I would regard as a standard issue editorial on the lessons of Orban’s defeat. A commenter there named “DC” critiqued it beautifully.
Being a student of Dr. T, I’m going back to NYT to comment that they didn’t mention the effect of a multi-party system or of our weak parties. The left parties came together to support Magyar. Magyar has been leader of TISZA for two years. Democrats won’t have a leader until a prez candidate has been nominated in ’28.
Kurt Weyland, in Democracy’s Resilience to Populism’s Threat, opines that presidential systems are more resistant to authoritarians than parliamentary systems. But maybe parliamentary systems have features that make it easier to depose an authoritarian. And let me object to his use of “populism” when he means “fake populism”, the most common kind by far. Dems need to adopt genuine populism.
Thus far the Taco blockade has succeeded in allowing the passage of three ships carrying Iranian products, at least two of which are sanctioned.
“You keep using that word, blockade. I don’t think it means what you think it means.”
Here is Parker Molloy with a detailed breakdown/analysis of J D Vance’ team strategy to falsely portray him as a war skeptic so as to position him for future political campaigns.
“Parker Molloy”
There is a lot more, above are relatively brief excerpts.
Back home after returning from the wedding weekend. We said goodbye to our pup on April 8, before heading out of town. The vet said that our dog’s symptoms sounded a lot like kidney failure, and that we were within days, maybe a week, of a situation where we could have needed to make an emergency call. Instead, it was a calm, quiet goodbye. I cannot say enough good things about Lap of Love, particularly if you have a bigger/more anxious dog (ours was both).
The house is very still.
@Jen: So sorry for your loss. Having been there I realize the decisions can be agonizing. Never heard of Lap of Love but I will keep it in mind when it is time for my pets.
About these ships leaking through the blockade:
I recall something from the Somalian pirates situation, a Chinese* ship was attacked but it did not go at all well for the attackers. Seems the Chinese pay their crews after a successful trip, something goes wrong and the crew gets screwed just like the owners, so when the Somalians boarded the ship the crew fought like bloody hell, barricading themselves in the aft super structure, made Molotov’s (it wasn’t a tanker), and multiple improvised weapons. Took about half a day but the Somalians gave up, probably because they ran out of ammo. Only had one mag apiece for their AKs -by the look of it. From the few video clips one of the crew made with his cell phone, the fierceness displayed by the captain and crew was quite remarkable.
Anywho, it is likely the US Navy took note, as it was about the only ship the Somalians boarded but failed to take over, and thinks it likely that if called on to stop a Chinese tanker may ignore it, and it will be necessary to fire on the vessel to stop it.
They can disable it with careful fire at the rudder, but then they have a loaded tanker in need of a tow. Very difficult, takes ocean going tugs with appropriate towing gear. Furthermore an act of war on China, if so flagged. A failed interdiction? Awkward. A bluff called.
*The ship was flagged Indonesian, but was Chinese owned and completely Chinese crewed,
It isn’t just helium, bromine is also critical for memory chip etching.
There is a high bromine concentration in the Dead Sea, so Israel supplies almost the entire world market. Iran missiles are a threat to that.
“War on the Rocks”
@Kathy:
@dazedandconfused:
“I saw three ships go sailing by, go sailing by…”
I’m still scratching my head and waiting to what the hell is actually going on with the “counter blockade”.
Some reports are ships are turning back to the Gulf, others they are sailing on, other that some are, some aren’t.
My personal guessology is Trump is, as ever, trying for “multiple murky options”
1) Internal economic crisis leads Iran to back down due.
Unlikely
2) Economic crisis leads “neutrals”, esp China to pressure Iran to back down.
Also unlikely.
3) Economic crisis forces some permutation of “US allies” to send forces to the Straits to fight Iran.
Not a hope in hell, Donnie boy.
4) TACO again. Trump does a performative “counter blockade” then pivots back to talks before the markets go sideways. This seems to be how the markets are betting; and I suspect what Iran, and everyone else, expects.
Trump’s problem is that his words now have very little credibility with anyone.
And that a counter-blockade simply does not remove his base problems of facing unacceptable domestic economic damage if the Straits are closed, the dire situation of the GCC likewise, and having no military means to secure the Straits.
On to the next iteration of the spiral of stupid, I suppose.
@Jen: I have had you in my thoughts every day. Thank you for letting us know. Warmth and comfort to you and Andrew.
Can someone, anyone, explain how US National Security was threatened by Iran? Anyone? Bueller?
https://x.com/atrupar/status/2044026611209527431?s=20
Meanwhile, Tump insults Meloni.
Setting aside Meloni being prime minister, not president, if I were Trump I’d avoid being alone with her absent Secret Service, lol.
She may be small, but she can glare daggers in the authentic Italian manner.
And insulting the Pope is not very popular in Italy?
Who’da thunk?
@JohnSF:
I think gasoline has greater thermal absorption than water*. That’s why it’s the preferred substance in the Taco so-called administration to put out fires.
I’ve given up expecting a rational explanation, even a grossly mistaken one, from a fundamentally irrational actor.
take the tariffs (seriously, please take them away). Can they be used to help incentivize domestic manufacturing? Conceivably so. But 1) not all on their own, and 2) not if you tariff raw materials and intermediate goods along with finished goods. No country produces everything the industries within it need to make stuff. Some things perforce need to be imported.
*I just made that up. But thermal absorption is a real thing.
@Daryl:
I believe the standard response is “nukes!”, “terrorists!” “terrorists with nukes!”
“They chant Death to America!” “They attacked our Embassy!”
@gVOR10:
The key thing to rmember about Magyar is he’s basically a pretty normal right-of-centre European politician; a Christrian Democrat/EPP type, as re Merz or Von Der Leyen or Tusk, etc.
A bit to the right of Macron, and to the left of Meloni.
And, ironically, that’s how Orban and Fidesz started out.
Fidesz was kicked out the EU EPP group in 2019, iirc.
So, a Domocrat/Tisza comparison is really rather misleading: it’s more as if in the US a large part of the Republican party revolted against Trump because of blatant corruption and malfeasance, and economic failure, and the Dems stood aside.
But it doesn’t really work, because of the Hungarian parliamentary system 😉
The really intersting thing is, in Hungary, the gerrymandered “favouring Fidesz” constituencies blew up in Orban’s face because the rural conservative voter base was so pissed off that absent a left-party competitor, Tisza just swept the board and got a larger seat return than share of vote. c 54% of votes, c 70% of seats.
Parlty due to an 80% turnout, and seconde prefrences and “surplus votes” (its complicated, lol)
Oopsie, Orban. lol
I have difficulty, for a whole bunch of reasons, imagining anything similar happening in the US.
@Jen:
It’s a hard thing, when it becomes unavoidable not to do what has to be done.
Sound like the Lap of Love might make it bit easier.
I hope so.
My condolences.
@JohnSF:
Ironically, that would make them less revolting 😀
@JohnSF: Latest reports are the tankers that cleared the strait east-bound all turned back after being confronted several hundred klicks SE in the Arabian Sea. The US Navy is keeping out of Iran’s assumed missile range.
It may be the Chinese have decided for the moment not to force the issue, knowing how unstable Trump decisions are, but if all Gulf oil is cut off from the world something’s gotta give. India, Australia, Japan, South Korea are a small part of the list of nations that will be practically without any oil in just a month or two. I suspect their collective outrage will force Trump’s hand before the KSA and the Gulfies run out of cash or the IRGC out of honey-badger…and the Iranians know it.
However, what seems even more likely to force Trump off this decision bef0re all the above will be US gas prices, which will skyrocket as a true crisis approaches. The US is perhaps just another $2.00 a gallon away from “revolution” and the Chinese and Iranians are probably betting on that too.
The Worst of the Worst
A French woman, 86 years old, was arrested, handcuffed, and locked up by ICE.