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Steven L. Taylor
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Monday, June 1, 2026
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17 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.
Today in “well, now THAT’S disturbing,” there is apparently a second vote.gov on non-government cloudfare account.
This, and the moves the USPS is making that will disallow mail delivery of ballots to people that aren’t on the government’s list, is frightening and some next-level bullsh!t. Where are the courts? Where is the press?
At least one judge is stepping up – the one who was assigned the Trump v IRS case has smelled a rat and notes there are rules that apply:
BAM! That’s the sound of a nail being hit squarely on the head. And what ABC and CBS would have heard had they not knelt to Trump. The judge has ordered the parties (both Donald Trump and President Trump) to do some explaining:
35 former federal judges filed a motion to have a voice regarding the settlement that prompted Judge Kathleen Williams’ order. Williams is based in Florida and was nominated by Barack HUSSEIN Obama. Trump and Blanche filed the case in FL (probably) hoping to draw Aileen Cannon.
@Charley in Cleveland:
This is as likely to be incompetence as it is fraud. These people aren’t very smart.
@Daryl:
If, as the NTT’s is reporting, the Fed gov has lost 10,000 experienced attorneys, these briefs may have been written by AI.
That creepy feeling is the ghost of Windows 8 walking on your grave.
TL;DR:
Nvidia is releasing a super powerful chip that can run an AI agent right there in your laptop rather than the cloud.
Now, this may have some value, but replacing the mouse and keyboard ain’t it. try and do a spreadsheet, especially one where you need to copy data from Word documents and even other spreadsheets*, by instructing an LLM rather than selecting, clicking, and copying and pasting yourself.
Or just web browsing. What’s faster and more convenient? Clicking on a link, or telling ChatGPT to click on it, and hope it doesn’t get it wrong, or tell you there’s no link for what you want?
*I do that almost daily in Hell Week season.
Why the Attacks on Graham Platner Don’t Work
I know nothing about this website or the writer, but his analysis pretty much aligns with mine regarding the Platner candidacy. This doesn’t mean that Maine wouldn’t be better served by a candidate with less baggage, but that ship has sailed.
Iran says No More Mr. Nice Guy, and threatens to open new fronts if Israel continues to destroy Lebanon.
There are no good guys in this fight.
I’m not even sure there’s a clear lesser evil. Usually this would be the side attacking Iran, even if unjustified. But this time that side carries with it attempted genocide and economic damage to the whole world.
And then there were three.
After Adolf announced his XpaceS/XAI/Xitter IPO, and OpenAI its own, it’s now Anthropic’s turn.
Use of enterprise AI seems to be largely focused on churning out computer code. Though there’s a push to use it more on other fronts. But if code is king, even just for now, Anthropic’s Claude Code seems to be the better tool as yet.
They’re also third in line. Will there even be any money left for their IPO?
@Sleeping Dog: Interesting piece.
I was particularly struck by this:
It’s fascinating to see a candidate whose offensive remarks have effectively inoculated him against the “greatest hits” of the opposing party.
A friend of mine is a fairly staunch supporter of Mills. When I asked this friend about the latest allegations against Platner, her response was basically “no one gets to clutch their pearls over that when we have who we have in the White House.” I think people have become absolutely deadened to stuff that used to routinely sink candidacies.
@Jen:
After reading your “inoculated” comment, I was thinking of this where the felon has led us and your friend is right.
Political positions are a journey, for most that was in a fairly narrow band, say center-right to center-left, a change in parties w/o a change in positions. But some swings are large, Ronald Reagan from being a trade unionist to busting the air traffic controllers union. Some of the early neo-cons, from CP members to staunch anti-communists.
@Jen:
Some stuff. Eric Swalwell’s misbehavior was just kicked out of both the California governor’s race and Congress, along with Tony Gonzalez on the other side. Meanwhile, Virginians elected Jay Jones attorney general last November, despite his violent text that wouldn’t have flown way back in the pre-2016 olden days.
I guess there’s somewhat of a line between sleazy sexual antics and crazy uncle chatter.
Plus, Swalwell and Gonzalez were easily-replaceable backbenchers with viable alternatives. Maine Dems are now all-in on Platner the
working class oyster farmercommie rich kid oyster hobbyist and his treasure chest of red flags like VA Dems were on Jones and the Texas GOP is on its criminal nominee, Paxton the Pedo Protector. It’s too late for buyer’s remorse; whataboutism, But Biden, BlueNoMatterWho, etc. are all that’s left.@Sleeping Dog:
And back again? Bill Kristol is now a Democrat. God help us.
@DK:
Yes–although I’d note that there WERE alternatives to Platner when stuff *first* started coming out, but nothing landed. Specifically, the sitting governor. I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again: Mills’s issue was that she just felt like she’d be Collins 2.0, D-edition. Older white lady, careful, etc. I get the sense that a lot of Mainers are fed up with Collins’ “concern” act, particularly as it relates to her decisions affecting Trump, and this leaked over into Mills’s race. There just didn’t feel like much contrast, and people are big mad and want contrast.
If nothing else, Platner is a contrast to Collins.
@Sleeping Dog:
The Free Press is a Bari Weiss project. I think it’s officially part of the Ellison Empire now. Think National Review, but with more ideological diversity.
The gravy au gratin potatoes were an unqualified success (ie they taste exactly as I imagined they would).
In addition to using gravy instead of milk for the sauce, this time I didn’t mix the cheese in the sauce, either. It was a spur of the moment decision. Instead, I layered potatoes, gravy, and shredded cheddar. I did parboil the potatoes, after cutting them in half, then let them cool before slicing them.
Problem is I have some potatoes left (the issue with buying a big bag with 3 kilos of potatoes). I don’t want another iterations of cheesy potatoes. Instead I think I’ll try garlic roasted potatoes, either in the air fryer or the cast iron pan.
On other things, Republiqans in Minnesota held a moment of silence for Derek Chauvin (I won’t link to this indecency).
I didn’t realize he was dead.
@DK:
Bill’s father, Irving, made the transition from CPer, at least as a fellow traveler, to conservative, Bill was always a conservative. Neo-cons pretty much cared about only two things, anti-communism, mostly totalitarianism and free markets. The range of positions on social issues varies greatly, from fairly liberal to conservative, with a lot “don’t care.” That they’d turn against the Felon’s authoritarianism isn’t really a surprise, as they see it as a threat to free markets. Plus many long have accepted that many democratic socialist programs are the price required for a market system.
….and, now Mills is out there reminding everyone she is still on the ballot…sigh.