Wednesday’s Forum
Steven L. Taylor
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Wednesday, January 21, 2026
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35 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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BlueSky.
BTW, It occurs to me that the approach that ICE has adopted to apprehend the “worst of the worst” is comparable to the Jeff Sessions “Family separation” tactic.
Broad support for the goal, but condemnation for the methods used.
Among other things, ICE somehow thinks they they do not need to be accountable. Specifically I would like to see the actual numbers of judicial warrants compared to the number of people that are being accosted (pulled from cars, confronted in stores, schools, courthouses, homes being broken into).
Personally, I am also distressed by the notion that an alien, having been convicted of some offense, served their time, and has successfully rehabilitated, is not acceptable in our society,
Every day, it is something. I’m used to writing my Congresscritters but rather than detailed, reasoned letters, I’m down to 2-3 sentence screeds along the lines of “Senator Cornyn, you ignorant slut…”. It does save time and I just cut and paste in the letter to Cruz.
Not that they care, though.
Texas defends law requiring schools to post Ten Commandments. Here’s what to know.
Ex-military leaders back Mark Kelly in lawsuit against Hegseth
A little history.
When the Air Force had a guy jump from the edge of space
You would think that would be enough excitement and achievement for a career. But no..
…
Responding to Kathy’s comment yesterday about needing to make a sauce creamy but not too creamy:
A long time ago I followed a NYTimes recipe for Fennel Gratin, and it had a genius little move of blending cannellini beans (maybe some of their water, cant’ remember) with a few tablespoons of heavy cream. The pureed beans provided a similar body as the cream without being too heavy. The cream added….well, the creaminess.
@Bobert: “ICE somehow thinks they they do not need to be accountable”
Existing evidence suggests that they actually are nearly unaccountable. When their most egregious acts are caught on camera the people they have wrongly assaulted and/or arrested get released with no charges but to date it’s very rare that the ICE officers face any consequences.
Steve
In round numbers there are 8 billion humans on planet earth. There are 335 million Americans. 40% of that 335 million, or about 135 million people think Donald Trump is not a moron.
98.4% of humans think Donald Trump is a moron. That is greater than the number of people who believe the earth is a sphere, or that the sky is blue, or that water is wet.
@Neil Hudelson:
One trick I use is to put cottage cheese and milk in the blender and liquefy the whole thing. In this case it would make the sauce more creamy than I want. It’s more about texture this time than flavor.
Halligan has left the misnamed justice dept.
Maybe she can get some other job she’s unqualified to do. How about El Taco’s personal physician?
@Kathy:
She’s very good-looking. According to Trump, doesn’t that qualify her to do everything?
Anyone read transcript of Trumps rant? Dude spoke of Greenland then later starts talking about Iceland, meaning Greenland, it is beyond bizarre. If that is not a sign of early dementia I am not sure what else to say. I understand that detecting early signs of dementia in narcissists is difficult, but it appears that is what it has to be. Maybe someone could plug in both Davos 2025 vs. Davos 2026 into AI and see if it can identify signs of dementia related cognitive decline. It is definitely there, man. Embarrassing non factual ranting, so bizarre.
@Jc:
“Link”
“Link”
“Link“
@Jc:
He is, for some reason, backing off threatening force. Perhaps some sort of counter threats, or maybe just how stock/bond markets are acting.
Law that I would like the see:
All official government communications (legislative, executive, and judicial) must be published on government funded media. Use of other media (such as X, Truth Social, 3rd party sites, etc.) may not be used.
Brain fart of the day.
@charontwo: I won’t use force! BTW, anyone want to buy some Venezuelan oil at a good price?
@Slugger:
FFS, Trump is nucking futs. I know it, you know it, the whole world knows it.
Holy shit folks, who wants to laugh at Tim Scott and the rest of these dumb motherfuckers?
Man, I want some of the drugs they got.
Assuming this population density map is accurate, how many people do you think are gonna vote for Republicans after this?
Well, the lower basin states that rely on the Colorado River (Arizona, Nevada, California) are going to have an interesting year. We’re in a snow drought here in the Rockies and Western Slope. Colorado’s snowpack is the lowest on record for this time of year, and major river basins are running at about 50 percent to 75 percent of normal. The Colorado River headwaters are at 58%. December 2025 was also the warmest ever on record, with over 1,000 daily high temperature records set across the state, according to the Colorado Climate Center. Their latest report called it “Exceptional. Record-smashing. Disturbingly warm.”https://www.cpr.org/2026/01/20/winter-drought-threatens-spring-water-supply/?utm_source=npr.org&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=local_headlines&utm_content=homepage
@Mr. Prosser: It’s going to be an interesting year in the Upper Basin states, as well. Our mountain snowpack is at or slightly below normal, but there is no snow in the valleys at all. It rained on Christmas Day in what’s called “The Icebox of the Nation”. I went to Oregon to take my first load of stuff out this last weekend, and it was warmer in Wyoming than it was in Oregon!
People around here lose their minds when a winter storm is predicted. I got stuck at Kroger for three hours yesterday. I hope the storm is more snow than ice, but the weather models keep updating to more chances of an ice storm and less snow. I can’t ugh enough.
I will make chili and some creamy chicken and wild rice soup. Easy to heat up in the microwave if we lose power and go on generator. We have two 100 gallon propane tanks. One is close to empty, but the other is full. Very fuel efficient and no worries about gasoline rationing. We should be good.
@Jax:
Embarrass, MN will fight you for that title.
@becca:
This happens everywhere. I do like the fact that the shopping carts are full of perishables… And I wonder what happened to the shovel that they bought for the last storm.
@Jax:
Those Chinese hoaxers are really thorough, aren’t they?
@charontwo:
Those links ought to be good for a few million nightmares.
What I wonder is why so many in his cabinet and advisors play along, and especially why so many in his base also play along. it reminds me of a rare psychiatric diagnosis, Folie à deux, writ very large.
IMO psychiatrist should study this. If there’s something to it, they can call it trump derangement syndrome.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jan/21/ice-arrest-pepper-spray-protesters-minnesota
Awesome. Perhaps The Guardian is misrepresenting things, although they tend to be pretty reasonable.
Meanwhile, the weather for Minnesota includes … exploding trees?
https://973kkrc.com/exploding-trees-minnesota-iowa-south-dakota/
If the Second American Revolution is sparked by people on edge reacting to an exploding tree, we will clearly be living in the stupidest of all possible timelines.
@Jax: Same down here and even the rain wasn’t much, less than 0.10″. I’m sure BuRec will draw down Blue Mesa Reservoir to a trickle to keep Glen Canyon generating and I won’t be surprised if Flaming Gorge up in your neck of the woods gets the same treatment.
@charontwo:
@Jc:
I listened to a good chunk of that statement by Trump.
Ye gods.
He really has totally lost it.
Just rambling inanity.
@JohnSF:
Ambient -20F and below brings lots of interesting sounds, you’re sitting there by the fire with a good book and a favorite bourbon/scotch/cognac and then there is a bang similar to a gunshot and you start poking around looking for the source and can’t find anything. It’s just the houses structure reacting to the cold.
@Sleeping Dog: You know, I’ve always wondered about that! Apparently there were two towns in the upper midwest claiming the title years back, and one finally won the “official” title, but nobody ever mentioned our tiny little town of 325 in BFE, Wyoming. 😉
@Beth: First question on the campaign trail: “So, Michelle, do you think that ICE should be allowed to kill civilians if they don’t show proper respect?”
@Sleeping Dog:
The coldest I’ve ever known it here was -15; but that of course is C, not F.
Minus 28C is scary cold.
But I recall someone I knew who lived for a time in Calgary, who maintained it was bearable, because compared to British winters, which are raw and soggy, it’s a dry cold, with the atmosphic moisture having simply frozen out.
So she said, as long as you wrapped up, and had a warm house, the humidity chilling effect was much less.
Personally, I’ll rather credit it than experience it in person.
Stay warm!
https://bsky.app/profile/jensfoell.de/post/3mcpbrjmf3225
Kyle Rittenhouse says he would have shot Renee Good.
He’s as pathetic as he is dangerous.
Not that I expect the Taco DOJ to do anything about it, or even the Spinless Party in Congress to hold hearings, but now we have proof.
A whistleblower has disclosed a memo to the Associated Press which asserts “sweeping power to forcibly enter people’s homes without a judge’s warrant, according to an internal Immigration and Customs Enforcement memo obtained by The Associated Press,”
More from the piece:
Emphasis added.
This clearly shows the higher functionaries who run ICE know their actions are illegal, but are undertaking them anyway.
If the Democrats take the presidency in 2028, and there’s no immediate, full, and through investigation of the Taco regime, we may as well bury America alongside Rome and Persia.