Veteran’s Day Forum
Steven L. Taylor
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Tuesday, November 11, 2025
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33 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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BlueSky.
Baby it is cold outside. 49 degrees to be exact today in South Florida.
49 will feel like a heat wave when Dear Wife and I are on our Antarctica cruise.
I had my annual check up with the eye doctor yesterday. Everything is good.
Effective Jan 1, I will be covered by medicare. I’m already signed up with a Humana HMO for people with cardiac conditions ( I have afib if you want the short story). My most important doctors- primary care, electrophysiologist, cardiologist, oncologist, dermatologist- are all in network as is my eye doctor. I’ll only need to find a new urologist and podiatrist. In the case of the former, I may have an option already. The urologist who was seeing me for my kidneys.
Dear wife is talking about us taking a 7 day Caribbean cruise out of Fort Lauderdale just after Thanksgiving. I’m not very interested in going to that tourist trap known as Nassau Bahamas, but DW is the boss. After playing bridge this morning and then having lunch, she is going to see the travel agent we use.
My next book will be off to an editor in the next few days. That makes book #8* since I went traditional publishing. I have another short story book plus a cold war espionage one up for me to write next. After that, I may put my pen down. I’m definitely going to slow down. My wife needn’t worry about finances should my cancer recur and I finally lose my battle with it. DW is very smart but she even admits that running my self-publishing business wouldn’t have been easy for her.
God bless the veterans today.
* But six of them were in various stages of completion (as is one of the two books up for me next) before I stopped self-publishing at the end of 2023.
‘
Thank you to all the Veterans and active duty around the world and within this forum.
List of all the freebies available for Vets today
Trump has had three brain farts in the last couple of weeks: $2000 tariff rebates, direct cash deposit to Health Savings Accounts, and the 50 year mortgage
What I find astounding is how serious the news media takes these random thoughts and makes believe that they are actual thought out proposals. All it does is create a lot of behind the scenes scrambling by his minions to 1) either walk back the ideas or 2) praise his genius.
No way to run an airline. But we know that.
Nothing is ever solved in the Israeli/Palestinian world.
IDF Reports Surge in West Bank Settler Attacks Against Palestinians, Says Police and Shin Bet Looking Away Amid Political Pressure
My black and white view has not changed since the Oct 7th attacks. The two states solution or full Israeli citizenship for all residents of Greater Israel.
Interesting factoid.
NATO now producing more ammunition than Russia
Pretty sure the navel gazing Americans don’t realize the impact they have on others around the world.
US military eyeing way to promptly pay Italian on-base staff amid moves to end shutdown
In the category “cuts have consequences”, the Air Force Academy’s academic accreditation is under review after sizeable cuts to the civilian faculty. Like all of the service branches, lots of career Air Force officers go to graduate school at some point. They won’t be eligible if the academy loses its accreditation.
@Scott: Maybe Jake Tapper and Jonathan Karl are saving their Trump dementia observations for their 2029 book releases. Every day Trump blurts out crap that puts him in the category of the drunk at the end of the bar, or the 10 year old who thinks he could solve all of the adult problems. If Joe Biden had said a tenth of the baseless, stupid and impossible things Trump has offered since January the media would have been in a tizzy. But for this mentally disordered clown it is just another day that ends in Y. When Trump speaks the 3-D rule applies….what he says will be: Dumb, Dishonest, Divisive.
Questions that pop into mind while listening to a Great Courses lecture on stock and financial crashes: Do plants excrete waste?
Yes, it turns out, but it’s not that interesting.
Regarding the cave in by the Democrats, won’t they get another shot at it at the end of January? This is just a continuing resolution bill isn’t it? I mean seems like the by that time everyone will have gotten the good news on their heath insurance going up. Seems like a good way to get a bit more leverage when people are getting insurance sticker shock. After all they can put more pressure on Johnson to take it up in the house. We know for a fact there won’t be a competing GOP health care bill to worry about. Short of real regulation on insurance rates with a public option, there is no real way to bring down insurance costs without subsidies which you know the Republicans hate.
@Rick DeMent:
Given their penchant for punitive measures, the GQP could pass a law that makes it a felony to get sick without insurance. Then either people would buy insurance somehow, or would become assets for private prison companies. Win-win!!111!!111
@Rick DeMent: I am not at all sure of the details, but the Senate appears to allow two reconciliation vehicles per year.
So maybe that will be used.
@Rick DeMent:
Perhaps whatever transpires between now and the end of January will compel one of the eight non-Republicans to change their position and leave it up to the remaining seven non-Rs plus all 53 Rs, including Rand Paul, to fund the government.
Hmm, apparently the CR advanced by the Senate to the House does not have the anti-trans riders on it.
That’s nice. I do like that. I’ll demur from any “Democrats cave!” rhetoric.
I’m a former Army brat, grew up on or around bases – Eglin, Belvoir, Lajes. For the first time in my life I find myself ambivalent about veterans, most of whom, it seems, voted for a man who has no respect for them, their service or their oaths. We may be rapidly approaching a crisis point where we will find out if the US military will follow the constitution or the president.
@Michael Reynolds:
It’s not that simple.
Most personnel simply cannot determine whether an order is illegal, much less unconstitutional. any who try disobeying such orders will likely undergo a court martial before being exonerated, and that’s in normal times. When the secretary of defense is a Taco ass kisser and the Fixer court pretty much lets El Taco do what he wants, chances for exoneration go down sharply.
Not that many people want to martyr themselves for their country.
What may happen is people will resign the armed forces at higher rates than normal.
@Gregory Lawrence Brown:
I read that book on the third year of junior high school. For part of the report, the teacher required one to quote and explain 3 passages or scenes from the book. One of the three I chose was that scene.
@Jay L. Gischer:
The rule is that each of the topics of revenue, expenditures, and debt can appear in at most one reconciliation bill per year. So a maximum of three bills if each topic gets its own bill, one if all three appear in a single bill, and two if split some other way. The OBBB hit all three topics. There are other rules, like there must be identical budget resolutions providing reconciliation guidance in both chambers. If control of the House and Senate are split between parties, there are typically no reconciliation bills because they can’t agree on the identical resolution.
Have I complained lately about how insane Congress’s procedural rules are?
@Scott: Attacks by settlers in the West Bank typically peak in the fall, during olive harvesting season.
@Kathy: Plus DoD has gotten rid of a lot of its attorneys who may challenge whether the laws or policies are legal.
@Scott: I believe all of the services have JAG. Navy has a Marine JAG for the first time ever. Hegseth just fired all of the holdovers.
@Scott: I believe all of the services have JAG. Navy has a Marine JAG for the second time ever and the first time since 1892. Hegseth just fired all of the holdovers.
Well, the utterly ridiculous 50-year mortgage idea from Bill Pulte that Trump tweeted out is being widely panned, deservedly so.
So much so that the White House appears to be tossing Pulte under the bus.
@Rick DeMent:
At least as far as the ACA subsidies, the ostensible goal of this past shutdown, January would be too late. Open enrollment will have ended, people will have made choices — including to go without healthcare coverage — so restoring subsidies would just be a random unexpected windfall.
A January shutdown would need a different goal. There are lots to choose from, but I don’t think the Senators will coalesce around anything after this fiasco.
Meanwhile, in the Carribbean:
UK suspends intelligence-sharing with US amid airstikes in the Caribbean
Looks like there are serious concerns in London about legal liabilty if UK intelligence leads to lethal action against clearly civilian targets.
Meanwhile in Africa:
Touadéra turns to Abu Dhabi to pay for Africa Corps
Russia is demanding payments of $15 million per month for its mercs who are now the main butress of the Centrl African Republic government.
The UAE seems to be offering to pay the bill, in exchange for CAR acting as supply route for the Emirati support for the busily genociding Sudanese RSF.
For their part, the RSF continue to promise UAE various favours (mining concessions, agricultural export operations, the UAE desire for a port on the Red Sea).
It had been reported the UAE was having second thoughts about Hemedti; it looks like, in the absence of serious US pressure, they are double-dealing, again.
So much for the claims of the “anti-imperialists” of the “Global South” that ending the French military role in the Sahel would usher in a new era of self-reliance.
Mali looks close to collapse.
And Burkina Faso is not in a good way either.
There is a serious threat of a trans-Sahel humanitarian crisis triggered by a combination of self-seeking local miliatry leaders, Islamist insurgents, Russian mercenary (in all senses) activity, and idiotic Emirs trying to play at being a regional Power.
@Jen:
From the article,
They should have run the idea by someone who has knowledge of real estate financing, such as an actual homebuyer who has had to take out a mortgage. Pulte and Trump are just a home construction company heir turned private equity manager and a New York real estate guy.
More on the AI front: the androids are coming!
I’ve seen a couple of videos of this thing. TL;DR: it can perform any and all domestic tasks, as long as someone operates it remotely. But it has the latestest LLM chatbot tech inside.
As to the price, $20,000 to buy, or $499 per month to rent (unclear whether teleoperation so it can, you know, be useful is included or not), it seems relatively reasonable, but who knows? How long will the walking chatbot last? A few years? Decades? What about upgrades? What guarantee is there it won’t become a brick if the company goes out of business, or if support for this version of the ‘droid ends? What about hacking and malware?
I’ve seen videos about it on Youtube. One I watched claimed it can do two things all on its own: get the door, recharge its battery.
I think you can get a “smart” doorbell for far less than 20 grand.
BTW, as a message to future generations (aka 2-5 years from now): remember LLMs were this bad before they were enshitified.
@JohnSF: Just listened to The Daily Podcast The Gold Rush Behind a Civil War. Apparently the UAE is the evil behind the evil. Truly awful.
BTW, the link is to the transcript of the podcast which is very helpful.
@Scott:
It’s been a concern for some time that military personnel refusing to carry out illegal orders will not be the bulwark that we once thought it was. As @Kathy: said above, most personnel “simply cannot determine whether an order is illegal, much less unconstitutional,” and the administration will take personnel actions necessary to produce legal opinions justifying whatever they want to do, providing military personnel with official assurance that they are acting on legal orders.
@Scott:
Thanks for that.
The UAE role in all this stinks to high heaven.
This article summarises, but also rather sanitises, their role in other parts of Africa.
It omits, for instance, their part in helping finance Russian Wagner operations, and in the expulsion of the French from the Sahel.
Which was largely because the French told the military leaders in the Sahel that trying to fight the Islamists by massacring nomads, without considering group grievances, would not work, and they would not condone or support such folly.
The UAE has not always been wholly malign, to be fair: they did provide usefaul assistance for Kenya and Somalia re al-Shabaab. But on the whole it seems to be motivated by material profit more than anything else.
Mixed with a desire to poke Turkiye in the eye, and a rather bull-headed approach to “anti-Islamist” operations.
The whole northern/north east African situation is a mess, and getting worse.
And seems to largely off the US radar.
While Europe is worried, but can’t afford to divert effort away from Ukraine and rebuilding its force posture re Russia.
@Eusebio:
And I don’t mean just the individual soldiers or sailors who might get iffy orders, say to shoot protesters or blow up boats. I also mean people higher up, like company or squadron or ship or regiment commanders. And even higher than that
They have to assume their orders are legal. Was it legal to nuke Hiroshima?
Remember admiral Holsey who announced he’s leaving by the end of the year? that’s the kind of reaction we can expect. Perhaps more so lower down the chain. Will you stay in the National Guard if EL Taco or the lush can pull you out and get you to intimidate civilians and pick up garbage in some city in another state?
A bit more on AI.
I realize I bring this up a lot. But bubble or no bubble, these things are getting integrated into browsers, novelty domestic service androids, failed smart phone replacements (see the Humane AI pin), and soon maybe to a coffee maker* near you.
I’d installed Comet, the agentic AI browser made by Perplexity, and had allowed it to import data from Chrome. I then heard of prompt injections, and decided it would be a bad idea to let the AI browser have some of the saved data in Chrome, such as credit card numbers, addresses, passwords, etc.
I uninstalled it, then reinstalled it without any imported data.
I’ve also, before this, removed Copilot’s ability to share my screen (and I don’t use Edge at home often, as it takes forever to launch). But these days with LLMs integrated into Google search (can be disabled as the default option), and apps like Copilot and ChatGPT installed on the PC, who knows what they do when they’re not even running.
I’ll be taking a look at their settings, and maybe uninstall some.
I ran a different test on Comet, and it was a miserable failure. I instructed it to find bubble skirts or dresses of midi length, wither for sale online in Mexico or available to ship there, at a price of no more than $40.
I got results like links to an Etsy search page with the words “bubble dress” in the search box (I kid you not), and lots of links to US sellers of typical Mexican outfits, some of them genuine and imported from Mexico (and resembling a bubble skirt as much as an ant resembles an elephant).
It had done well on a prior search for a food processor. Maybe it resents not being given private data and gets passive aggressive.
* Speaking of coffee makers, I got a new one for the office, and I love it. It’s very much like all others we have, with programable start time, auto shut off, etc. But the spout on the carafe is a bit narrower and a bit longer than most. I literally have not spilled a drop with it either filling the reservoir or pouring the magic dark nectar that gives one strength to face a whole workday with something approaching equanimity.
And it was just a bit over $20