Wednesday’s Forum
Steven L. Taylor
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Wednesday, August 6, 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.
Trump (January 2025): “I always say ‘tariffs’ is the most beautiful word to me in the dictionary. Because tariffs are going to make us rich as hell. It’s going to bring our country’s businesses back that left us.”
Master of jerking people around.
This administration has just cancelled funding to our best bet at addressing certain cancers.
Kennedy Cancels Nearly $500 Million in mRNA Vaccine Contracts
mRNA shots are an amazing technology, and safe. They’ve been in development for YEARS. But this ridiculous know-nothing secretary has halted funding.
I’m not sure how we come back from this damage as a country. Even if the attempts at stealing the midterm elections through redistricting fail, even if we manage to elect a thoughtful Democrat in 2028–this damage is immense.
Jeffrey Epstein victims and family blast Trump for Ghislaine Maxwell prison transfer (CNBC)
They are right. But a plurality of the American electorate agrees that pedos should receive special treatment. They voted into the presidency a pervert who publicly sexualized his daughter on multiple occasions.
That president claims to have had nothing to do with leniency for his old pal Ghislaine. Who did, then? inquiring minds are asking.
Jake Tapper coins “Trump Math.”
Beautiful in its simplicity.
Could this be the weapon of ridicule, the bumper sticker, that finally proves effective?
@Jen:
Very slowly.
$500 million…would that some of the liberal or pragmatist billionaires would step in to fill the gap.
@Rob1:
Has anyone published a list of specific Canadian goods that are NOT currently covered by USMCA and therefore subject to 35% tariffs?
@Jen:
It’s a good opportunity for Germany and the EU to fund mRNA through companies such as BioNTech.
August 6, 1945
United States drops first atomic bomb on Hiroshima.
“I saw the moment that the Atomic Bomb exploded before my very eyes…”
I would love to see the actual wording of the government contracts that Trump, RFK Jr., and Elon’s Muskateers have unilaterally declared canceled. Breach of contract cases have loaded court dockets for ever. In general, if Party A refuses to pay Party B without just cause, Party B has a good case for damages. So I wonder just how many tax dollars will be used to settle the breach of contract cases that Trump et al have rung up. Of course that “cost” is nothing compared to the harm that will result from the MAGAfication of science, education and government efficiency.
@Bobert:
Haven’t found a discrete list, but have gleaned the following:
– Canadian goods that have origins outside the USMCA, or that are assembled in Canada (Mexico) with significant components originating outside the USMCA.
– Potash, steel, copper, aluminum, lumber.
Meanwhile the US continues to import from Russia:
@Jen:
But by all means, build a $200 million ballroom for the White House. If some future Dem occupies 1600 Pennsylvania Ave, I hope they turn it into a community food pantry and recreation center.
Meanwhile reports of rising Covid cases in the US and rising polio elsewhere (for the moment) in the world.
@Charley in Cleveland: It has been a while since I worked federal government contracts, all DoD. But most development contracts in DoD are cost plus or some variation of that. When a contract gets cancelled, there is an extensive contract closeout process that can take years to complete. The prime has to get info from its subs, then sends them to the government for disposition including payments. If there is any government furnished equipment, that has to be returned and dispositioned. The government owns all development and designs, that has to be inventoried and disposition. And on and on. It is not easy and it is not quick. And the folks on both sides of the contract hate working on them. Tedious, detailed, and no fun at all.
I’m sure it is going to occur to people that Trump is using tariffs as his only tool for foreign policy. Doesn’t like how Brazil is treating Bolsanaro? Tariffs! Doesn’t like India buying oil from Russia? Tariffs! He doesn’t get the respect that he thinks he deserves? Tariffs! He is a one trick pony and I think the world is on to him.
Here’s a headline of the day:
Police Arrest Armed Man for Threats to Kill Following Copulation with Trader Joe’s Refrigerator
@Scott: Headline for the day? Seems like at least for the year, probably a little early for the decade but it is certainly in the running. Amazingly enough, the headline appears to actually follow the story. Coincidentally, I’m headed off to TJs this afternoon. I’ll make sure to check out the refrigerated section.
@Scott: Tariffs, a floor wax and a dessert topping.
Yeah, Trump will continue to use tariffs as a general purpose tool until the Supremes tell him black letter law says he can’t. (Yeah, right.) You note he’s using them to try to muscle India into not buying Russian oil, Meanwhile, @Rob1: notes we’re continuing to buy fertilizers, uranium, plutonium, and platinum from Russia. Some sanctions regime.
@Scott: Police booked the suspect, a registered sex offender, into the King County Jail.
The suspect’s life might get a lot harder if he is not allowed to come within 500 feet of a fridge.
The police public affairs writer has my kind of sense of humor.
@Mr. Prosser: I think we have to ask whether there were any signs clearly stating that copulation with the refrigerator is a crime. Such signage may be quite helpful, as people may be unaware that this is illegal.
For a while, many Seattle busses had signs explaining that gang rape is strictly prohibited, referencing the specific section of the legal code that applies.
And, during that time, gang rape on the busses was an uncommon occurrence, happening on less than 10% of all bus trips.
Unfortunately, despite the signs being on only some of the busses, this was not a properly constructed test, and data was not recorded to determine if gang rape was less likely to occur on busses with or without the signs.
@Gustopher:
I expect there are statutes that apply, but yesterday we had a little discussion of not having statutes against what Trump has done. Same deal as here, no one thought anyone would actually do it.
@gVOR10:
I have not looked this up but do we have some sort of agreement with Russia to buy their uranium and plutonium as an incentive to not use these materials to make more nukes?
@Scott:
A distant relative of JD Vance?
@inhumans99:
Either way, verify and do not trust.
@Scott:
JFC, let a guy have a hobby.
@gVOR10:
For quite some time Washington didn’t have any laws prohibiting bestiality, until … the incident.
The legislature had removed the prohibition on July 1st, 1776 — not for the celebration of the bicentennial as you might guess, but because they were removing the sodomy laws so adults could touch each other wherever and whenever they wanted to (in private). But the law they repealed also covered bestiality. Oops.
After the incident, the laws were updated.
For more information, there’s a very informative Wikipedia article, which covers the incident.
Also, the animal was not named in any of the articles at the time, and was referred to by a pseudonym. Whether this was to avoid subjecting the victim to public ridicule and abuse, or whether this was just poor reporting is debatable.
——
Also, the signs in the bus saying the gang-rape was strictly prohibited were one of the best bits of vandalism I’ve ever seen — the signs looked so official.
@Gustopher: I…
…
…
More on space.
I’ve gone over the absence of profits in space exploration. Another thing that’s lacking is suitable places to live. This should be self-evident, seeing as there are no other habitable worlds besides Earth, but the heady talk of colonizing the Moon and Mars thoroughly glosses over this.
It’s not impossible to make human habitats on other worlds. the question is how much would it cost. The well documented colonization of the Americas by Europeans (never mind there were people living there already) was not cheap, and those endeavors did not require shipping air and water across the Atlantic. And even on lands eminently habitable, fertile, with plenty of animal life, and abundant fresh water, somo early colonies managed to starve to death.
There’s a lot of talk about using local resources. As it turns out, oxygen is rather abundant in both Moon and Mars. But it’s bound up in rocks, rather then free floating in the atmosphere. It needs to be extracted somehow.
Hydrogen, on the other hand, is scarce.
Water may exist under the surface. In the case of the Moon, a likely place is at the poles, where some craters provide shadow during daytime, so the temperatures there are always well below freezing. Water ice may be preserved there.
Getting it in useful form, too, is not as simple. There’s an ep in For All Mankind where they illustrated how to get at underground water on Mars. You need to pressurize the setup so the water won’t boil at very low temps under the thin atmosphere (around 1% that of Earth).
Then there’s the matter of whether crops can grow in lunar and Martian soil. There have been experiments with the former, and the results fall short of common Earth dirt. There’s concern about concentrations of toxic compounds in Mars’ soil. To be sure, hydroponics can be used. It might even be necessary as a means of recycling air, given plants are good at making oxygen from CO2.
So, it’s possible. It’s also likely to be exceedingly expensive and chancy. Far, far harder than anything done before on Earth.
I can see a government, or several governments, expend trillions to get a few exploration missions to Mars for some reason. I can’t see them expend a lot more on long term settlements, the chief nazi’s paranoid fantasies notwithstanding.
More later.
Before there was a space age, there were space travel and rocketry enthusiasts pushing for the development of space travel. One selling point was the many ways satellites in orbit could perform useful functions in manya reas, which were completely impossible otherwise.
As I’ve noted before, low Earth orbit is where there is money to be made off space (well, also at 36,000 km for communications satellites, which may be the largest segment).
Governments own and operate most of these satellites (again, excluding comsats), but the economic benefits are tangible. A simple one to illustrate, the GPS on your phone, or the daily weather report.
No such case exists for settlements on Mars, the Moon, the satellites of the gas giants, etc.
A case does exist for intensive exploration of asteroids.
As is well known, an asteroid strike caused a mass extinction that killed off most dinosaurs (birds are a point of contention). Such a strike is not only likely, but rather certain given enough time.
For now, efforts are underway to find and track any asteroids that cut through Earth’s orbit in their paths around the Sun. There is no plan in place to divert any that may pose a high risk of striking our planet. There have been studies, including probes to a few asteroids (notably NASA’s DART mission which impacted one and measured small change in its orbital speed as a result).
There are many proposals on what could be done. One of the simplest is to match speeds with the asteroid and detonate a nuclear bomb near it. Not to blow it up, but to change its trajectory so it misses Earth.
All methods would benefit from a thorough survey of asteroids to get a general notion of their composition and properties, which vary among several types. For one thing, you don’t want to blow them up. Contrary to what may be seen in some movies, a blown up asteroid would proceed in much the same trajectory as before, and cause multiple strikes on Earth rather than just one huge strike. This may not be worse, but it’s certainly not any better.
BTW, both Yavin and Endor ought to have rings of Death Star debris and imperial corpses orbiting them.
@Scott:
Fridge, couch, who am I to judge?
Today in Whatever The Fuck This Is…
JD Vance’s team had water level of Ohio river raised for family’s boating trip
@Gustopher:
Remember when Christie closed a beach?
I think it should be simple: if conditions are unsafe, go somewhere else.
I wonder if next they’ll nuke a hurricane to protect a Caribbean vacation.
@Kathy: Remember when Vance had the Coliseum cleared so he and his family could visit? And then skipped it and killed the Pope instead?
(To be fair, killing a pope is a much rarer experience, as countless people have been to the Colliseum)
From the Guardian’s news scroll (I don’t know how to link to a post on it…)
ICC arrest warrant for Putin limits where any summit with Trump could take place
@Gustopher:
You look near the top where the timeline is, and if there’s an entry for the item you ant, click on it and copy the link.
In this case there was, and this is the link.
Of course, if you get a different story, then I got it wrong.
And not every item you may want to link to has a link in the timeline.
I wouldn’t put it past El Taco to suggest Yalta, if he knew what it is and why it’s significant.
@Scott:
I have to admit this wasn’t on my bingo card today. Additionally, this is not the kind of reporting we see in Puddletown. Not saying it doesn’t happen just at the police don’t bother reporting it