Eric The Blue

Smooth operator swings, misses

As a voting drudge, I must be unusually interested in healthcare policy—when it comes up in these candidate debates my attention is out of all proportion to the journalistic commentary afterwards. I wrote, here, that Trump’s “concepts of a plan” for replacing Obamacare, eight years after running on rescinding it and giving us “something better,” showed how bankrupt he and his party are on this matter. 

Smooth-talking J D Vance did nothing to change my mind the other night. 

When Walz brought up “concepts of a plan” and said that really there was no plan, unless you count throwing sick people off their affordable insurance, Vance parried with a flow of words that included: “We currently have laws and regulations in place, in place right now, that protect people with pre-existing conditions. We want to keep those regulations in place, but we also want to make the health insurance marketplace function a little better.”

I think a better debater than Walz would then have said something like:

Well, I’m happy to say I agree with one thing the senator said there. It’s true that there’s a law right now protecting people with pre-existing conditions. The name of that law is Obamacare. It’s the law Trump says he wants to repeal. And in fact, when he was president, he came within one Senate vote of succeeding. I doubt anything could show better than what you just heard how vacant Republicans are on this question of vital importance to millions of Americans. These guys tout the provisions of a law they hate and want to scrap in order to argue that everything would be just fine if that very law was repealed!

I don’t know how Vance would have responded—some anodyne nonsense, no doubt—but any talk of “the healthcare marketplace” or “market solutions” would have given Walz a chance to explain that, actually, the vaunted market is the problem. Insurers figure out how much you’re apt to cost them before deciding what policy to offer, at what price. If for example it’s auto insurance, they want to know about your car, how far you drive it, your age and gender, the number of moving violations you’ve had, etc. The analogous questions, transferred to the realm of health insurance, cause unhealthy people not to be able to afford it.  

As a society we’ve decided it’s okay if people with poor driving records pay more for auto insurance. But we haven’t decided it’s okay if people with poor health prospects can’t afford medical insurance. Only Republicans have decided that.

On the stump

Wasn’t able to watch The Interview but I bet an astute observer was able to detect how flustered Harris must be by Trump’s nimbleness on the campaign trail.

—“My administration will be great for women’s reproductive rights!”

—Free IVF for everyone who wants it!

—Harris is a phony, no core beliefs!

—Not my fault if the videographer I hired was there!

—Why won’t the fake news report that Walz was just the assistant coach?

—I’m not weird, you are!

You can tell my mind is closed cuz as of now I’m nevertheless leaning to Harris. Just need to hear more about if she’s actually black.

Schools and vaccines

Yesterday, en route to the first event of the new school year, I heard this interview (“As school nears, doctors worry about Minnesota’s undervaccinated kids”) on the radio. My reasonably accurate transcription of the depressing conclusion:

Interviewer: As a physician, how worried are you about the rising rate of measles cases in our state?

Pediatrician: That is a growing cloud storm. We’ve seen the rate of measles immunizations decrease over the past few years, and we’ve already had 34 cases this year, almost all of them in unvaccinated kids. We worry about the start of the school year, when people are coming together, and this very infectious airborne disease . . . .

Interviewer: Vaccines for measles, mumps, and rubella have been around since the 1960s. What do you tell parents who might be hesitant to have their kids vaccinated?

Pediatrician: You know, before the measles vaccine came out, the disease killed 2 to 3 million people per year worldwide. That number has gone down significantly and in many countries measles has been eliminated, including in this country until recently. The measles vaccine is very effective . . . . When you see one child with measles, you never want to see it again—high fever, often requiring hospitalization, horrible rash . . . . They’re really sick.

Waning support for mandatory school vaccinations among Republicans has been documented by, for example, the Gallup organization, here. After the Covid vaccines became available, public health researchers documented an increased risk of Covid mortality among Republicans: death rates were highest in counties Trump carried by the widest margins, and lowest in Biden’s best counties. The results of a study focusing on Covid mortality and political affiliation in Florida and Ohio, published in JAMA Internal Medicine, is here; an NPR summary of that study is here; and the same conclusions have been reached for other locales, in different studies: see, for example, here and here and here. 

It’s not too much to say that voting Republican is literally bad for your health. It’s also bad for your kids and for neighbors who try to cancel your vote. 

Trump has promised to defund school districts that require vaccinations. Now that the country’s most prominent vaccine opponent has endorsed him, I hope the two of them will campaign together on this issue in the suburbs of Philadelphia, Detroit, Milwaukee, Atlanta, Charlotte, and Phoenix. I trust it’s a loser for them, and if it isn’t, we’re screwed anyway.

(Corollary: my debate advice for Harris would be to try not to talk too much. No one can make the case against Trump better than Trump.)

The Senate

Regarding this fall’s Senate elections, it’s often said that “the calendar” favors Republicans since “by chance” the Dems this year are defending seats in West Virginia, Montana, Ohio, Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and maybe one or two other red to purplish states I’ve repressed for the sake of my cheerfulness. Meanwhile, there are really no prospects for Democratic pickups. Texas (Ted Cruz)? That would be delicious, but as a Minnesota Viking once said, there ain’t no Santa Claus and there ain’t no red nosed reindeer either. 

Democrats currently have a 51-49 Senate majority. West Virginia is gone for sure, which means that Dems, to hold the majority, probably need to win the White House again AND run the table in Montana, Ohio, Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and (I now remember) Arizona and Nevada. A tall order, even allowing for the normal allotment of crazed Republican candidates.

But it’s misleading to attribute such a state of affairs to “this year’s tough calendar.” For the Dems, it’s always a tough calendar, because the Senate for some time now has naturally favored Republicans. Here’s a rough-and-ready gauge of how hard it is for Democrats to win a Senate majority:

In two presidential races to date, Trump has never won the popular vote. Yet there are 25 states that he’s carried both times (compared to just 20 that he’s lost both times). Multiplying by two senators for each state yields a 50-40 Republican advantage as a rough base line. The Rs need only one of the other ten seats, or the presidency, to be the majority party in the Senate—when the country as a whole modestly favors the other side.

To have fewer than 50 seats, Republicans have to be under performing badly, and right now they have 49. Of course “the calendar looks tough for Democrats”!

That’s the view from 30,000 feet. Descending to Earth, the situation appears to me positively outlandish. Using these state population figures and the current partisan state-by-state lineup in the Senate, I worked out yesterday afternoon, with one eye on the disappointing Twins game, that the 51 Senate Democrats represent just over 58 percent of Americans. In other words, if representation was in line with population, there would be 58 Democratic senators, not 51.

According to polling data compiled at RealClearPolitics.com, Democrats are somewhat improbably leading in all the races for Senate seats in the above named states except for West Virginia and Montana. If that turns out to be the result on Election Day, control of the Senate will flip to Republicans, 51-49, but the 49 Senate Democrats will represent about 57.6 percent of the country’s population (and the 51 Republicans will represent the remaining 42.4 percent). The majority (of Republican senators) will be representing a minority (of all the American people). It’s no great mystery how this can be. The population of, for example, Los Angeles County is somewhat more than twice that of the combined populations of North Dakota, South Dakota, Wyoming, and Montana. Yet the people of these four states are represented by eight senators while the people of Los Angeles County share two senators with 30 million other Californians. The imbalance is grotesque. Once again, the redoubtable Alexander Hamilton in Federalist No. 22:

Every idea of proportion and every rule of fair representation conspire to condemn a principle, which gives to Rhode Island an equal weight in the scale of power with Massachusetts, or Connecticut, or New York; and to Delaware an equal voice in the national deliberations with Pennsylvania, or Virginia, or North Carolina. Its operation contradicts that fundamental maxim of republican government, which requires that the sense of the majority should prevail. Sophistry may reply that sovereigns are equal, and that a majority of the votes of the States will be a majority of confederated America. But this kind of logical legerdemain will never counteract the plain suggestions of justice and common sense. It may happen that this majority of States is a small minority of the people of America; and two thirds of the people of America could not long be persuaded, upon the credit of artificial distinctions and syllogistic subtleties, to submit their interests to the management and disposal of one third.

One “theoretical” result of an arrangement such as was decried by Hamilton might be: a president, having won in the electoral college despite receiving fewer votes than his main rival, serves a term during which there are several vacancies on the Supreme Court; he is able to appoint to the Court a slate of ideologues sympathetic to his goals because in the Senate, which is the theoretical check on his power, there is a majority of his own party, even though this majority also owes its status to a minority of the people in the country; the Senate confirms the president’s nominees, and the Court then delivers for the president and his party decisions and judgments that could never be attained in a popularly elected legislature. 

If anyone dare raise a voice in complaint, their reward is likely a lecture on our majestic constitutional system.

Who is Royce White?

Royce White is the Republican candidate for US Senate from Minnesota. His qualifications for the position aren’t the usual ones. He’s never held elective office, graduated from college, or served in the military. The Wikipedia article about him devotes the most space to his basketball career. He led his high school team to the state championship in 2009 and was named Minnesota’s Mr. Basketball that same season. He then accepted a scholarship from the University of Minnesota but left school before playing in a single game. The problem was brushes with the criminal law: some shoplifting and disorderly conduct at the Mall of America, a laptop theft in a dormitory that his lawyer negotiated down to trespassing. White transferred to Iowa State, where he played one season and was named to the All Big 12 first team. He entered the NBA draft and was selected in the first round by the Houston Rockets.

White only ever played in a few NBA games. The main culprit was unrelated to basketball skills—he has mental health challenges, preeminently acute anxiety, including an intense fear of flying, which is how NBA teams get from city to city. His career flamed out rapidly, unless you count some productive seasons playing for the Reno Bighorns and the Rio Grande Valley Vipers. He was in 2018 the NBL scoring champion as a member of the London Lightning—London, as in London, Ontario, Canada. He’s also fought in UFC mixed martial arts bouts and played in the 3-on-3 basketball league co-founded by the rapper Ice Cube.

Sometime around in here White started piping up on political questions. He’d shave his head and write messages on his bare scalp denigrating the World Bank and, on another occasion, declaring “Alex Jones was right.” (Alex Jones is the conspiracy theorist best known for arguing that the mass shooting of kindergartners at the Sandy Hook school was a staged operation set up by the government to defame supporters of gun rights.) On social media, some of his favorite targets have been homosexuals, Jews, and women who are “too mouthy.” Predictably, this kind of slop attracted the attention of Trump’s friend Steve Bannon. White has been a guest on Bannon’s podcast and, now that Bannon is in prison, has served as a guest host. His connection to the upper echelon of the MAGA brigade has raised his profile in Minnesota. A couple years ago, he ran for US House, but was defeated in the Republican primary by someone moderately less nutty than he. One upshot of that race: a watchdog group lodged a complaint alleging that White had misappropriated more than $150,000 in campaign funds for personal use, including $1200 at a strip club in Miami. The candidate did not exactly deny the charge. He says he paid back the money and that he liked the food at the strip club.

So that was 2022. This year, he won the Republican party’s endorsement for US Senate at their convention last spring. On Tuesday, he won the Republican primary by 10 points over his nearest rival. His campaign website is here. It’s an eyeful. I see that he emphasizes being a dad, and I understand he has four kids, though as far as I know he’s never married. That might be bad if he was a Democrat, especially considering that his name turns up in searches of family law records in at least two Minnesota counties—he’s been behind in court-ordered child support payments in both venues. 

I understand that Republicans don’t like being called “weird,” but this is their endorsed candidate for US Senate. Delegates to their state party convention plucked him from the field and the choice was then ratified by GOP primary voters. They should be thankful if the normies planning to vote for Amy Klobuchar have settled upon calling them only “weird.”

Tim Walz’s electoral record in Minnesota

Don’t get me wrong, I like the governor of my state, Tim Walz, and have happily voted for him, twice, against the weirdos—see what I did there?—with whom the GOP reliably counters. But some of the stuff being said about him on National Shows is the kind of hooey he occasionally falls into himself, like when after supplying the best answer to a question he proceeds to append the second best, the third best, and eventually the fourth worst answer before the need to inhale functions tardily as a period.

The largest chunk of hooey concerns how in Congress Walz represented a red district and is a proven vote-getter in the rural and small-town Midwest. Here’s a little electoral history [rolling up my sleeves in the manner of Kornacki]:

Before Walz defeated the Republican incumbent 53 to 47 percent in 2006, Minnesota’s first congressional district had been represented for six terms in the 1980s and 1990s by Democrat Tim Penny. After easily winning re-election in 2008, Walz’s races became progressively closer until, in 2016, the year of Trump’s presidential victory, he won his sixth term by 50 to 49 percent. He then announced his intention not to seek a seventh term in order to run for governor.

His district wasn’t actually red. It was purplish, and then became red, partly on account of redistricting, while he represented it. He’s ambitious and can tell which way the wind is blowing seems more accurate than He won over a lot of rural and small-town white Americans to the Blue Team.

Walz’s statewide races for governor tend to confirm this view. For example, the contours of his 2022 gubernatorial re-election are almost a perfect match for Biden’s win over Trump in our state two years earlier. Both men won by between 7 and 8 percent of the statewide vote. Both won 14 of Minnesota’s 87 counties, and the rosters of their counties won overlap by 13. Both owe their victories to winning between 70 and 72 percent of the votes cast in the counties of Hennepin (Minneapolis and most of its suburbs) and Ramsey (St. Paul and many of its suburbs).

My parents both grew up in rural Minnesota and so I’m inclined to use their old stomping grounds as benchmarks. My mom was raised on a farm in Watonwan County (biggest town is St. James). Walz lost Watonwan County by 37 to 60 percent. Biden had lost it by 38 to 60 percent. My dad grew up in a town of fewer than 200 people in Kandiyohi County (biggest town is Willmar). Walz lost Kandiyohi County by 32 to 65 percent. Biden had lost it by 36 to 62 percent. 

It’s just not the case that Walz has a record of out performing other Democrats in rural areas of the Midwest. Compared to Biden, he’s performed, if anything, slightly worse in rural Minnesota. 

Of the things I’ve learned about him in recent days, my favorite relates to the gay kid in his social studies class who felt comfortable approaching a guardsman and football coach about starting a “gay-straight alliance” at their high school. Walz offered to be the new club’s faculty advisor. This would have been at least 20 years ago. Probably seemed “weird” to a lot of people in Mankato, Minnesota, but thanks in part to Walz, that adjective is now being applied to more deserving subjects.

 

State of the new race, same as the old race?

No one knows who’s going to win the presidential election, so it’s recreational to contemplate the effusions of confident pontificators. For example:

Rasmussen issued a Trump v. Harris likely voter poll today that should be as reputable as any:

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone and online survey finds that, in a two-way matchup, 50% of Likely US Voters would vote for Trump, while 43% would vote for Harris …..

So, a seven-point lead, which tends to confirm past data suggesting that Harris is not an improvement upon Biden, at least not before his final collapse.

This is John Hinderaker of the loony Power Line blog. He probably knows that the poll aggregate site RealClearPolitics currently shows the results of 15 surveys. Of these, eight are based on interviews conducted entirely after Biden dropped out. Hinderaker highlights Rasmussen’s result, which, of the eight, is by far Trump’s best: his second best, from CNN, is +3. The average of the eight is Trump +1.6. If you throw out the Rasmussen result and average the other seven, Trump’s lead drops below a single point. (Harris is ahead in two of the polls.)

According to Hinderaker, the Rasmussen survey “should be as reputable as any.” Why? Because it’s an outlier? I’ve sometimes wondered why Republicans, when they lose, leap to the conclusion that they were cheated—and actually appear convinced. One factor might be the way in which they spend their lives lying to one another and end by believing their own b.s. 

The New York Times’s take on the current state of the unsettled race is in line with the evidence and still pretty sobering for us Democrats:

In the Times’s national polling average, Trump is ahead of Harris by one point, 47 percent to 46 percent. That’s narrower than Trump’s recent lead over Biden, but similar to Trump’s lead over Biden before last month’s debate…. The race has in some ways reset to where it was. 

There are also a couple of important differences. Harris is a far stronger campaigner than Biden. She’s a fiery, skilled speaker who can describe her own agenda and make the case against Trump in ways that Biden could not. She has more potential to make gains than Biden did.

That said, polls point to a potential weakness, too: Harris appears to be a worse fit for the Electoral College than Biden. She is stronger among younger voters and voters of color but weaker with older voters and white working-class voters. Because swing states are disproportionately old, white and working class, Harris is likelier to win the popular vote and lose the election than Biden was.

Think of it this way: It’s a bad trade for a Democrat to win more votes in California and fewer in Pennsylvania. As a result, Trump’s narrow national lead is probably a bit stronger than it looks.

Though not “a bit stronger than it looks” on John Hinderaker’s Earth-2. That would be almost impossible.

I part ways with the Times’s take only with respect to what isn’t said. They’re essentially saying that Harris appeals to the wrong type of voter—young brown ones instead of the old white ones she needs to win. Weird that you can say that without commenting on how weird—undemocratic—it is.

Mountains of praise when a molehill would do

It must be a symptom of rightfully diminished expectations, or something worse, but it seems that people in public life who make the obviously correct choice—Pence declining to participate in his boss's coup, Biden quitting a race he wouldn't win against Pence's former boss—are treated as if they were George Washington not lying about the cherry tree. 

What of the fact that a problem with the foregoing is that Pence is regarded as moral royalty only by his political opponents? His own side thinks that making the obviously correct choice identifies a scoundrel.  As long as we're collecting symptoms, that one recommends a diagnosis of terminal moral rot. It appears the unfurling of scrolls of poor polling data persuaded Biden to "stand down," which distinguishes the motive for his retirement from George Washington's. But Trump would never tamp down his own aspirations, vanities, ambitions, feverish fantasies out of fealty to a principle higher than the wish to wield power, line his pockets, and avoid prison.

I see that a New York Times columnist, the high-minded David French (link is to an article behind a paywall), urges us to criticize but not demonize Trump. If by this he means Trump isn't a demon, I have counterarguments. Has he ever even laughed? Cartoon villains seem more human. In cases like his you have to wonder about the family of origin—by all accounts, it was rich and negligent. Too bad, but some people are able to overcome these disadvantages. 

Basketsful convene

I have received the information about the voting preferences of Kid Rock and Hulk Hogan but, to be frank, am still leaning in a contrary direction. Something about Donald Trump makes me think he might prove to be untrustworthy. 

It's the all-star break or else I would never have been watching when the author of Hillbilly Elegy told the assembled Republican delegates:

And while we're on the topic of grandparents, let me tell you another Mamaw story. Now, my Mamaw died shortly before I left for Iraq, in 2005. And when we went through her things, we found 19 loaded handguns. They were—[his momentum is interrupted by laughter and applause].

Now, the thing is, they were stashed all over the house. Under her bed. In her closet. In the silverware drawer. And we wondered what was going on, and it occurred to us that towards the end of her life, Mamaw couldn't get around very well. And so this frail old woman made sure that no matter where she was, she was within arms' length of whatever she needed to protect her family. That's who we fight for. That's American spirit. 

Kid Rock. Hulk Hogan. Loaded handguns in the silverware drawer. (Because you never know when granny will need to "protect her family" that doesn't live with her.)

Well, in the world according to them, they're putting their best foot forward.  Their nominee would soon have some thoughts on "the late great Hannibal Lecter." 

Reality bytes

Conservative jurists who have been nominated to be on the Supreme Court: We're just umpires calling balls and strikes.

Once they've been confirmed and have their lifetime appointment: We are writing a decision for the ages!

                                            ***********************

Mitch McConnell: I will not be voting to convict Donald Trump in this impeachment trial. We have the criminal law to deal with his behavior.

Supreme Court: Sucka!

                                                *******************

Sonia Sotomayor: If the president decides that his political rival is a corrupt person, and he orders the military to assassinate him, is that an official act for which he has immunity?

Trump Lawyer: It would depend upon the hypothetical, but we can see that that could well be an official act.

Six Supreme Court Justices (three appointed by Trump, two others with crazy wives they might not want to disappoint, and the boss of them all): Yeah, I agree with that. 

                                           ***************

Supreme Court: There's no constitutional right to abortion, because the Constitution is silent on the question.

Also the Supreme Court: The Constitution is silent on the question of presidential immunity, so if we want to get to our preferred conclusion, we're just going to have to make some stuff up. 

[They make some stuff up.]

 

The Supremes (not the ones who can carry a tune)

Lots of news, and my favorite nugget, possibly because it has nothing to do with the presidential campaign, concerns the Supreme Court of the Republican party. It took the Court a New York minute to rule that the 14th amendment's clause barring insurrectionists from holding elected office did not permit Colorado to keep Trump off its ballot. Meanwhile, it is dallying, and dallying and dallying, over the question of whether it's possible for a president to commit crimes. So hard! It should be safe to stop dallying now since Trump won’t be tried for attempting to reverse the result of the last presidential election until after the next presidential election occurs—and never, if Trump wins. The Court can rule anything now, because the goal of delaying the trial, and the airing of the evidence in the case, has been achieved.

Okay, all that does pertain to the campaign. I had in mind a couple other recent decisions. In Ohio v EPA, the Court allowed a "good neighbor" provision of the Clean Air Act to be put on hold while the suit of Ohio and some other "upwind states" is litigated. The details are varied and interesting, including the fact that the case came to the Court on the "shadow docket," an emergency application of parties that want to continue to pollute. Granted, and quickly decided in favor of the applicants! The detail that caught the attention of Chemistry 101 alums is that the 5-4 decision (boys against girls since Justice Barrett joined the liberals in dissent), written by Justice Gorsuch, refers repeatedly to "nitrous oxide," commonly known as laughing gas, a tool of dentists and anesthesiologists. Gorsuch meant to refer to "nitrogen oxide," a family of air pollutants under EPA control. 

I know, so what, you'd have to take an uber from science class to the part of the school curriculum where Gorsuch and his team of law clerks likely made their straight-A grades in the Ivy League. You might think these haughty nerds would do some proofreading and googling, but, whatever, the words are similar even if they refer to different things. The Court has now corrected the error in its official decision. Before the error was corrected, however, the Court issued another decision, in a case called Loper Bright v Raimondo, that had the effect of reversing a longstanding legal principle (the "Chevron doctrine") that gave federal regulatory agencies the power to interpret laws affecting their work. The Court now says, no, henceforth judges, not regulators, will decide what Congress meant. This will have the intended effect of making it a lot harder for government regulators to do their work. Scientists at the EPA, for example, will have to worry about the opinions of their overlords in the judiciary who don't know the difference between laughing gas and smog. 

Scylla and Charybdis

Luckily, one of my kids has a 6:30 piano lesson on Thursdays, after which we go out for hamburgers, so I turned on the debate just a few minutes before the protagonists began arguing about their golf games. Trump probably cheated his way to the recent "club championship" he bragged about, and Biden presumably was confusing his "6 handicap" with a 36 handicap. Perhaps a somewhat apt summary: the Lying Narcissist versus the Old Confused Guy. How hard would it have been for a half-wit, responding to Trump's "club championship," to say something like, "Ya, I guess you're a good golfer, and I've heard you have a lot of money, but it's weird how you think these are an adequate compensation for being a crook, an ignoramus, a blowhard, and an all-around piece-o'-shit human."

But Biden: "I have a 6 handicap!" Hard to believe that wasn't his worst moment but I defer to the unanimous opinion of people who subjected themselves to all 90 minutes.

The wise counsellors in Biden's inner circle: if they're so smart—and it appears they're smart enough to do a credible job of running the country—why didn't they tell him a few months ago that he had to retire? I suppose it's possible that they did and are just fighting an iron law of human frailty. Ballplayers: "When I lose a step, I'll be the first to know, and that's when I'm done." Justice Ginsburg: "Yes, I'm in my mid-80s, and have cancer in multiple body parts, but I really like my job." Biden: "Only I can beat Trump." All just slightly different flavors of something that should never be on a plate. 

As a somewhat partisan Democrat, I have to say that at least we're upset about our guy's infirmities. The other side seems to have no problem with:

Moderator: What are you going to do about the climate crisis?

Trump: Illegals are ruining America! Biden is the worst president ever!

Moderator: I asked about the climate.

Trump: Illegals are ruining America! By the way, I love the environment. Biden is the worst.

Moderator: Lots of families can't afford childcare. Do you have a plan to help them?

Trump: Did I mention that illegal migrants are ruining America? By the way, I did not have sex with Stormy Daniels.

Moderator: Question was about childcare.

Trump: I won the club championship. The illegals are stealing your social security.

"Flooding the zone with bullshit" is too pale a metaphor for his brand of blustery vacuity. Regarding the question of who he has or hasn't bedded, what even is the point of lying about something when everyone knows what the truth is? He's lied so much that it's now just a reflex. 

Don’t mix me up with this guy

I like to tell myself that I’m long past caring what anyone thinks about me, but yesterday, while playing around on this website, I discovered that someone with the name “Eric Jorgenson” contributes regularly to the political campaigns of such lowlifes as Gym Jordan and that senator-hillbilly guy who’d sell his soul for either ten cents or a job offer from Trump.

That Eric Jorgenson lives in Ohio. He’s a lawyer. Friends, it’s not me!

Vote blue for stocks

 

The above clip is from the last debate of the 2020 presidential campaign, on October 22, 2020. I could do without hearing ever again about how Biden is a ham-and-egger from Scranton, but when was the last time Trump was right about anything? I don't know what Ted Cruz's wife looks like—if she resembles a horse, I guess that would be a candidate. Here Trump predicts that the stock market will crash if Biden is elected. On the day he made the prediction, the Dow closed at 28,211. A couple weeks later, Biden was elected, and yesterday the Dow closed north of 40,000 for the first time. 

Because Republicans are widely regarded as the pro-business party, people tend to assume that the stock market performs better during Republican administrations. It's not true, as this fun interactive graphic from macrotrends shows. Over the 40 months of Biden's presidency, the Dow is up 33 percent. At the same point in their presidencies, it was up 28 percent under Trump, up 55 percent under Obama, up 71 percent under Clinton, and down 6 percent under Geo W Bush. That's going back several presidencies. Of course the picture doesn't change if you go back to the days of Hoover and FDR. Nor is it altered by exchanging the 40-month mark for end-of-term results. Here is the figure for the endpoint of the four most recently concluded two-term presidencies: Clinton, +229%; Obama, +148%; Reagan, +147%; GW Bush, -27%. 

I don't know why this is true. Probably has something to do with The Deep State. 

News consumption

The evidence presented at Trump's criminal trial has not so far raised my estimate of the defendant's moral character.

In other news, I read today that last month was the hottest April in the temperature register, and that it was the eleventh month in a row to set the record: March was the hottest March ever, February was the hottest February ever, and so on, going back to June of 2023, which was the hottest June ever. Meanwhile, the ten hottest years on record are . . . the last ten. 2005 was the first year in the 21st century to be the hottest on record, but it has now fallen to twelfth place.

Said criminal defendant's response to these data points is to yammer on about a climate "hoax" and to invite oil-and-gas execs to Mar-a-Lago, where, according to attendees, he promised to rescind the Biden admin's regulatory rules in exchange for super-sized campaign donations. I don't know why they'd sign up for that deal: he'd already promised to rescind the rules if elected, and any money you give him just makes bigger numbers on the Form 1040s of his lawyers, assuming they're more honest than he is. 

Brownstein on '24

For a while now, the conventional wisdom has been that a Democrat's path to 270 electoral votes in a presidential election would run through the Sun Belt, where the nonwhite part of the electorate is growing rapidly. And this view wasn't just theoretical. Here are the results of the last three presidential elections in Georgia:

2012 Republican +7.8
2016 Republican +5.2
2020 Democrat +0.2

And Arizona:

2012 Republican +9.1
2016 Republican +3.6
2020 Democrat +0.3

And Texas:

2012 Republican +15.8
2016 Republican +9.0
2020 Republican +5.6

You can see how, in a plausible interpretation, Arizona and Georgia are on their way to becoming a fairly dark shade of blue, as has in fact happened with Virginia and Colorado, and that when Texas inevitably joins them it will be game-set-match for the Dems.

But as the political journalist Ron Brownstein argues, here, that isn't what's happening—at least not so far in 2024. Forty-five states either voted for or against Trump in both 2016 and 2020. The other five, which all flipped from Trump in 2016 to Biden in 2020, are Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Georgia, and Arizona.  Of these five, the heaviest lifts for Biden appear now to be Georgia and Arizona, while his position is strongest in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. According to Brownstein and the political strategists he's interviewed, the reason for this is that Biden is slipping precipitously with nonwhites, upon whose votes Dems rely to compete in the Sun Belt. Meanwhile, however, he is doing better than expected with white voters, including older white voters, who are a much bigger share of the electorate in the Rust Belt. 

If you're interested in this subject of political demographics and voting patterns in America, the whole article is worth reading. The big takeaway, though, is that there's been something like a trade: Hispanics and African Americans (especially men) have drifted away from the Dems, while support from whites (especially more educated and affluent women) has ticked up. There has been evidence of this in recent election results too. I've always thought there was a racial dog whistle in Trump's kvetching, and worse, about election fraud in 2020 in places like Philadelphia and Detroit. Actually, he did about the same in these heavily minority cities in 2020, when he lost both Pennsylvania and Michigan, as he did in 2016, when he won both states. The erosion in his support occurred in suburban counties and those centered on mid-sized cities, like Grand Rapids, Michigan. You can look these things up. Here are the results of the last two elections in Michigan's Wayne County (Detroit), Oakland County (affluent suburbs northwest of Detroit), and Kent County (Grand Rapids):

Wayne
2016 Trump -37.1
2020 Trump -38.0

Oakland
2016 Trump -8.0
2020 Trump -14.0

Kent
2016 Trump +3.0
2020 Trump -6.1

Sorry about your feelings, MAGA-ites, but the evidence does not bear out the claim that "massive fraud" in Detroit swung Michigan to Biden in 2020. Better keep your eye on shifty white election officials this time around!

Brownstein dances a little lightly over the details of the electoral arithmetic, but I think it works pretty much like this:

A candidate needs 270 electoral votes to win. The 20 states (plus D.C.) never carried by Trump have 232 electoral votes. Winning Pennsylvania (19) and Wisconsin (10) would put Biden at 261.  The 25 states Trump has never lost plus Georgia and Arizona would give him 262. In this scenario, the outcome in Michigan would be decisive, and it's significant that Michigan's 15 electoral votes would land Biden at 276—because, of the states that have never voted for Trump, Nevada appears alarmingly wobbly, but with Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin Biden wouldn't need its 6 electoral votes to hit 270. I'm not mentioning (till now!) the wild card relating to the fact that, unlike the other 48 states, Maine and Nebraska do not necessarily award all their electoral votes to the statewide winner. Instead, the statewide winner gets two electoral votes (for its senators), while the rest are divvied up according to the outcome within congressional districts. Somewhat by chance, this complication probably results in a wash. Biden is almost certain to win Maine, but almost certain to lose the more inland and rural of its two congressional districts. The 1-vote deficit is likely then recaptured in Nebraska, where, though he's certain to lose statewide, Biden is a strong favorite in the congressional district that's home to Omaha—an especially strong favorite if he's doing well enough to win Wisconsin and Michigan. Biden won the district by 7 points in 2020.

All this is enough to make you jittery if, like me, you think another Trump term would be a catastrophe for our country. Note, for example, that Arizona's 11 electoral votes would not make up for losing Michigan: in this scenario, Biden also needs Nevada to win. It will always seem weird to me to talk this way, as if the opinions of people in more than 40 states mean nothing. Thanks electoral college!

Maybe events will change the cliff-hanger outlook. Like what? Law-and-order Republicans turn on Trump after he's convicted of a felony? Evangelicals head for the hills when he absurdly tries to "rebrand" himself on abortion? Dream on.

Call me an antisemite but . . .

An online subscription to the New York Times—mine, anyway—comes with a daily newsletter that highlights some topic of interest and then summarizes the day's news, with links to the full articles in the paper. Since there was a lot of news made in Gaza earlier this week, Wednesday's newsletter had a small section with bullet points, each one linked to a different article on the war there. The overarching event, of course, was the air strike on the convoy of aid workers from World Central Kitchen. Seven workers were killed in the attack. The second bullet point says:

Biden said he was outraged by the deaths, adding, "Israel has not done enough to protect aid workers."

The fifth bullet point says:

The Biden administration plans to sell F-15 fighter jets, worth billions, to Israel.

[Links in original.] People love a good Bible story, but we have to stop treating Israel like the prodigal son: Yes, you've behaved shamefully, here are some F-15s! What if, instead of privately fuming, Biden did something like cancelled military aid to Israel? They don't need it anyway. To fight Hamas? It's weird how, in discussions of foreign aid, assisting Ukraine is packaged with assisting Israel. Let's make some distinctions, beginning with the identity of the enemy in the respective cases: Russia, an outlaw superpower with the world's eighth largest economy, versus a terrorist organization.  

In another of the newsletter's bullet points, we are told that Israel "took responsibility" for the strike on the aid workers. What can this even mean? I think "took responsibility" means "acknowledge we did it"—as if there was some doubt on that point. Only question is, whether it was intentional.  Israel says, No, it was a "tragic mistake" (and now leave us alone while we proceed as before). I hate how despicable acts immediately get clouded over with vacant exercises in public relations. It's hard to be too cynical about Israel. I used to think the settlement movement in the West Bank was a way to change facts on the ground that would then have to be taken account of when one day a final settlement would be negotiated: a realpolitik means of obtaining favorable terms, in other words. In reality, however, the settlement movement is just illegal annexation of territory, and the coalitions that have governed Israel for a generation now have never had any intention of negotiating anything, ever. 

Outrage machine punches the clock on Easter

The above is sort of fun. Actually, "Trans Visibility Day" is always March 31. It's Easter that moves around on the calendar, and this year, by chance, it falls on March 31. But what does that matter if you are determined to believe that Biden, just to rub his dirty thumb in the eye of his fellow Christians, chose to "proclaim" Easter Sunday Trans Visibility Day?

Blasphemous! He must apologize! (No, you should take a Valium and watch a basketball game on TV.) 

It's tempting to say that the kerfuffle reveals too much about what, in the minds of a lot of American conservatives, Christianity amounts to—not much more than reflexive condemnation of "icky sex stuff I don't understand." There seems to be a lot that Team Trump doesn't understand, including about religion, as evidenced by the earnest claim that Biden has offended "Catholics and Christians across America."

Does a bear shit in the woods? (Yes.) Is the pope Catholic? (Yes.) Are Catholics Christians? (MAGA spokesperson delighted to field a real question.)

Pence joins the heretics

Pence saying he won't be endorsing Trump has resurrected stories about all the other Trump administration officials who aren't supporting him in 2024. An abbreviated list is here. In the news stories I've seen, the emphasis is on how long the list is, and I'm not saying that's not newsworthy. Trump, however, seems to have avoided condemnation from cabinet secretaries and other advisors with responsibility for domestic policy—those high up in the Departments of Labor and Transportation and Treasury and Interior and the like. I guess the Department of Justice is an exception, since former attorney general Barr has said Trump "shouldn't be anywhere near the Oval Office." But the GOP's 2024 nominee and former president has been flatly condemned by both his defense secretaries (Jim Mattis and Mark Esper), one of his Homeland Security secretaries (John Kelly, who was also his longest-serving chief of staff), and two of his national security advisors (HR McMaster and John Bolton.) The most commonly deployed adjective in their adverse judgments is "unfit."

Who else? Mike Flynn, Trump's first national security advisor, is still with him, but you have to consider that he'd probably be in prison but for a Trump-issued pardon. Mike Pompeo, his longest-serving secretary of state, said at the 2023 CPAC convention that it was time to trade in celebrities for serious conservative leadership. This was widely considered a swipe at Trump, and the only thing I've heard about Pompeo since then relates to his probable lying about how he lost 90 pounds. He's not a reliable source for anything, so I'm not claiming him as a Trump critic from within. 

For what it's worth, my theory about why the national security team is overrepresented among the apostates is that, after Trump was elected in 2016, there was a kind of dog-meet-car moment when non-crazy Republicans, aka The Establishment, realized that a reality tv guy was going to be president. They allowed him to have his clowns in domestic policy in exchange for accepting some more serious people in positions where they feared daffiness might more easily trigger a catastrophe. It's these "more serious" ones who first recognized the shit-show for what it was and eventually couldn't tolerate it. The others happily played their part.

I came upon the below video clip when looking up a couple things for this. Credit where it's due to Brett Baier of Fox News. 

 

 

 

Kitchen talk

I was out driving kids to and fro on Thursday and so missed the SOTU address, but we got home in time for the Republican rebuttal from the kitchen of Sen. Katie Britt of Alabama. Uff da, as my mom used to say. I was too mesmerized, or benumbed, to switch channels, a real shame considering that it must have been about the same time as Anthony Edwards's game saving block in Indianapolis.

Now that she's done, and my brain is working again, I have to laugh about some of her "zingers." Too long since Biden pumped his own gas? I had filled my tank that afternoon at Bona Bros. in Fridley, Minnesota, and remember noticing that another customer was vaping while tending the pump. Probably not presidential timber, in my opinion, and, anyway, what's her point? That Biden doesn't pump his own gas, therefore vote for Trump? Lol! It wasn't her intent, but the middle school drama act probably distracted attention from the dopey drivel emanating from the tidy kitchen in which, according to the senator, she and Mr. Britt are obliged to meet regularly in order to worry about their children. That's how bad Biden is. 

Oh, by the way, the serial rape story that she lays at the feet of President Biden occurred about 20 years ago, in Mexico, during the Bush-Cheney administration. Details, details!

In the lol category, Scott Shapiro commented that the great silent majority of Alabamians not embarrassed by Sen. Britt lie frozen in vats of liquid nitrogen. Someone else noted that, in Britt's defense, she is not Alabama's stupidest senator. 

 

 

 

IVF, my 2 cents

Preemptive confession: If you ever see me all emotional over the demise of a frozen embryo, it's an act.

My only contribution to the current debate is that I think controversy might have erupted earlier if those inclined to oppose IVF had thought very deeply about how the semen is collected. It's not as if they suck it out with a syringe while the dad-to-be watches a Prager U video to dull the discomfort. Pretty sure there is very little discomfort. 

Supremes say no to Colorado?

I've gotten used to thinking of the law firm Roberts Thomas Alito Gorsuch Kavanaugh & Barrett as the Supreme Court of the Republican party. It appears, though, that they are poised to overturn the Colorado Supreme Court on the question of Trump's ballot eligibility, and in that event I'll have to admit that they missed a chance to perform a service to the GOP. For if you're up to speed on the daydreams of the party's Big Thinkers, you know they're distressed by the prospect of Trump Again, and are praying for a miracle that the party's unwashed voters are plainly going to deny them.

But Roberts et al could have delivered the miracle. Actually, it wouldn't even have qualified as a miracle, since it would only have required them to be faithful to the school of constitutional interpretation they profess to revere. Words have meaning, the 14th Amendment says what it says, and Trump, having done what he's done, must be disqualified as surely as if he hadn't attained the age of 35. The justices might regret having to say it—hell, no president appointed more of them than Trump—but they're just umpires making the calls. Outside, ball, according to Amendment No. 14, Section 3, retire to a Florida country club and tee off from the red markers if you please. 

Side note: the founders are spoken of as if they resided on Olympus, not Boston or plantations in Virginia, and should probably be represented in print as The Founders, to convey the hushed reverential tones one adopts before pronouncing their names and bowing before their mighty works, yet I detect evidence of their fallibility in the existence of a minimum age (35) for holding the presidency, but no maximum one. 

To me, the most amusing aspect of the oral argument in the Colorado case was this notion that, oh my god, are we really going to say that one state can determine who becomes president? I think 2000 was an election year and that Florida is one state.  I'm also pretty sure that 48 states deliver all their electoral votes to the statewide winner, while two, Maine and Nebraska, divvy it up by congressional district. If every state can decide how it wants to do things, and apparently they can, then why can't Colorado exclude a traitor from its ballot? Besides, the idea that Colorado would then be determining the outcome of the election betrays innocence about how things actually work. Colorado would be depriving Trump of some electoral votes that he isn't going to win anyway. What would count for something is if Colorado didn't put him on the ballot in a national, popular vote election—but that's not what we have.

Our election laws and customs are so bizarre that an innocent observer might debate with himself whether a presidential race is a national election, or 50 state elections, the ambiguity arising from the fact that it's a hybrid with rules invented by judges when the contradictions achieve a certain critical mass. 

Political notes on Long Island &c

Scott Shapiro, one of the great shit-posters on Twitter, I mean X, likes to say on days like this that Trump is now, finally, "toast"—the point of course being just the opposite, else Shapiro would not be saying, for the 20 jillionth time, "Trump is toast." I think I mentioned once before that sociologist Brooke Harrington, whom I also know only as a tweeter, has supplied an explanation for why Trump is never toast. It has to do with the psychology of the mark: when you've been had by an obvious con, it's sort of hard to contact the Better Business Bureau, or whoever, and say, basically, "I fell for it." Turns out that this is the finding, or argument, of a famous paper in social science, "On Cooling the Mark Out," by Erving Goffman. In a weird dance, the sucker, who has an interest in saving face, and the con, who has an interest in keeping his frauds undetected, find themselves in league against the guardians of societal norms, such as the Better Business Bureau, the courts, "the Rule of Law," the state attorney general, and the favored sayings of school principals and Cub Scout den mothers. I'm updating some of the details for the Age of Trump. There has to be some way to account for his resilience. His "university" was a fraud. His "foundation" was a fraud. For a long time now, the only thing he's made money from is a reality TV show aimed at the same demographic from which the enrollees of Trump U were drawn. The presidency was just another hustle. Now he wants to be president again as otherwise he'll go to prison. Yet a sizable minority adore him, none more than his victims, who have on occasion compared his travails to those of Jesus. (Trump's been divorced twice and almost the least of his legal troubles arises from a campaign finance law he ran afoul of while trying to cover his fling with an adult film actress he was boffing while his current wife was home with baby Barron.)  

It seems to me that the psychology of the mark, as set out by Goffman, provides a way of making some sense out of this really pretty crazy fact background.

I was surprised to read that the Long Island congressional district formerly represented by another Republican con, George Santos, is the richest in New York State, and the fourth richest in the country. It contains a portion of eastern Queens, a NYC borough not famous for affluence, and doesn't extend anywhere near as far east as the Hamptons, which in my ignorance is where I thought the real money was. Anyway, another thing that needs explaining is how an election district of more than a half million residents could go for Biden by 8 points, then for Santos by 8 points, then for a Democrat by 8 points in last week's special election to replace Santos. My tentative theory is that when Trump is on their mind, the conforming normies recoil in alarm, but when paying less attention all they know is that they don't like taxes. The district's to-and-fro suggests that the Republican party, having become a wholly owned Trump subsidiary, is no longer the automatic choice of people who mainly want to be left alone to enjoy the stuff advertised on TV during golf tournaments. 

Getting the job done in Alabama

I've been reading, here and here, about Alabama's execution, last Thursday, of a man in a murder-for-hire plot instigated by a clergyman who evidently preferred a life insurance payout to the company of his wife. There isn't anything about the case that makes one proud to be human. Let's set aside questions of morality and consider basic competence. Alabama had tried to kill this guy once before, by lethal injection, but failed, because the warrant stipulates a certain timeframe in which the execution must occur, and the executioners were not able to find a vein in time. This has been a theme in Alabama's executions. In 2022, scrambling to kill a guy before the clock struck midnight, they just cut directly into his arm in order to expose a vein in which to dump the poison. That, anyway, is my interpretation of the following sentence in one of The New York Times's reports linked to above:

In 2022, executioners tried for hours to access Joe Nathan James's veins, ultimately slicing into one of his arms in what is known as a "cutdown" in order to administer the fatal drugs, according to a private autopsy.

"For hours." The warrant gives them a lot of time but it's not enough. In this more recent case, they instead gave up and escorted the minister's hit man back into the prison, where he waited for a new execution date while the authorities tried to figure out a better way to kill him. Eventually they settled on the method of nitrogen hypoxia and had another go at it after courts ruled that nothing about the state's bungling attempts had caused the penalty to cross a line into the realm of cruel and unusual.  This time they at least produced a corpse. Before the execution, Alabama had argued in court that nitrogen gas, administered through a mask, would "within seconds" render the condemned man unconscious and then kill him. After the execution, a spokesperson for the state said everything had gone smoothly and as expected. Journalists allowed to witness the execution disputed this assessment. One wrote:

For four minutes, he was gasping for air. He appeared to be conscious. He was convulsing, he was writhing, the gurney [to which he was strapped] was shaking noticeably.

Another witness, the son of the murdered woman, said:

We were told by some people that worked [in the prison system] that he'd take two or three breaths and he'd be out and gone. That ain't what happened. After about two or three breaths, that's when the struggling started. Other people kept saying he was trying to raise himself up. Yeah, he was. I'd probably try and do the same, try and get off the table. . . .  With all that struggling and jerking and trying to get off that table, more or less, it's just something I don't ever want to see again.

What actually happens when people are executed tends to reinforce the arguments against the death penalty. It's barbaric, and the barbarity is enhanced, I think, by ghoulish rituals, such as the last meal. From the Times's account, again:

Mr. Smith . . . ate his last meal on Thursday morning: a T-bone steak, hash browns and eggs, all from Waffle House and slathered with steak sauce. Prison officials said that to reduce the likelihood of Mr. Smith vomiting during the execution, he would not be permitted to eat after 10 a.m.

It doesn't mention that this was, presumably, Smith's second "last meal." Probably would have enjoyed the first one more if he'd known his executioners weren't up to the challenge of killing him. The manifest incompetence of people working in "the system" perhaps explains to a degree why death row inmates are quite regularly exonerated. Death penalty foes also argue that it's administered unevenly and capriciously, so I'll conclude by noting that, in the penalty phase of Smith's trial, the jury voted 11-1 for life in prison only to be overruled by the judge, who instead imposed the death penalty. What is the point of having a jury of the defendant's peers hear evidence in a penalty hearing if the judge can simply overrule their judgment? It seems Alabama couldn't answer this question. The state therefore withdrew this power from judges—but allowed the executions of those sentenced to death under the incoherent, rescinded rule to go forward.

Tin ear

 

In the category of favorite Trump obsessions, minor import only, I think the former president's persistent boasting about having "aced" the cognitive test used to diagnose dementia has slipped past his abiding interest in the volume of water flowing in bathroom fixtures and is now alone in first place. Probably it's a currency thing. If he's been talking lately about needing to flush thrice or the trouble he has getting his thick mane sufficiently wet in the shower, I missed it—but his pride in the dementia test result is something he won't stop talking about. I've attached above just one of the amusing installments from a few years ago; google something like "Trump brags cognitive test" if you want a full slate, including the most current specimens.

If you "ace" the cognitive test, and are unduly proud of it, to what degree is the test result called into question? I'm guessing that most people who can count backwards by 7s wouldn't think to brag about it. 

It's tempting to say that Trump has dumbed down the GOP to his own level, but to do so introduces a chicken-or-egg problem. However you account for the sights to be seen, you must admit they're arresting. Governor DeSantis ran against Disney, and that proved to be such campaign rocket fuel that now they want to run against Taylor and Travis, too!

Political consultant: Your side is bedeviled by an enormous gender gap, and young women in particular can't stand you.

GOP: I know, it's terrible! How about we gob spit on Taylor Swift?

 

 

 

No, no, that is not what I think, not at all

It's a first world problem, for sure, but I hate it when Trumpy people within my milieu assume I'm on their side and start in on their crazy talk with me. I get that I'm an old white man, but do they think that trumps living in the middle of the PRSM (People's Republic of South Minneapolis)? Part of the "both sides" fallacy is that both sides live in their own sealed bubbles. Here in the PRSM we read with interest the stories in the Times that are, basically, "Many people think the square root of 9 is 3, but at this diner in southern Indiana a lot of fellas wearing red hats aren't so sure." We wet the bed worrying that we're out numbered while the lunatics blandly assume that if they lost it can only mean there was massive fraud. What is the source of this confidence? And why would they think I'm in their cult? It's kind of offensive. 

Although others might have it worse—say, John Prine, who, besides being a white man, was a country singer and song-writer living in Tennessee (albeit, Nashville). I like to believe that his occasional forays into political subject matter, as in the first song below, are to be explained by his alarm at being thought sympathetic to the general drift of thought once you're 25 miles from the Ryman Auditorium. The second is just because I love it so, probably his last performance in Minnesota. 

 

 

 

Gazan plans

Though now shrouded in the mists of yesteryear, the question of Israel's "plan" for Gaza was a topic of journalism back when the most recent October 7 was less remote in time. As far as I can tell, the plan hasn't come into view, but the gyrating strobe of media attention has rotated. 

Sometimes, the joke is that there is no joke, and along that line it could be that the "plan" seems hidden because there isn't one. When some smarty described the "plan" of his next opponent, and asked Mike Tyson how he planned to counteract it, the informally educated fighter replied, "Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face." He might have continued, though at risk of sacrificing pithiness, that once that happens actions aren't governed by the part of the brain that lays plans and strategizes. You either cover up or, if you're stronger, punch back harder. Such a view of things does not appear inconsistent with what Israel is doing to Gaza. No plan, just a reflex to having been punched in the face.

Still, one expects government to have a plan, and Israel's prime minister says the first part of theirs is to destroy Hamas. I don't know if anyone knows how he will know when that has been accomplished, so that it is time to describe and execute the plan's unnamed subsequent parts. The first part might not be possible to achieve, ever, since what Israel has done so far cannot possibly have failed to create more terrorists than have been killed. Unless the plan is to kill all the terrorists and all the potential new terrorists. "I am in blood so far stepped," says Macbeth as the body count of innocents mounts, "that should I wade no more, returning were as tedious as to go o'er." 

It's possible to detect, for Netanyahu, an upside to vague or unattainable "plans." He's a crook whose whole political platform has related to a guaranty of "security" against precisely what happened on his watch. So a crook and a failure. Israel needs new leaders, but that's a job for the part of the brain that develops plans and strategies. 

Cold in Iowa

Federal holiday, no school, the fam is hanging out, eating doughnuts, dad drinking coffee and watching cable news before the sportzing starts. Did you know that it's cold in Iowa today? I fantasize about being interviewed on one of these shows:

Talking Head: What will you be looking for in the results tonight?

Me: Nothing.

It's cold in Iowa today and someone will come in second. Who might it be? If Haley, then Trump, and if DeSantis, then Trump, so you can see why it's all the talk. There is an entertainment component, I admit. When you're way behind, it's time to go on the attack—right?—draw distinctions, and it's not as if Trump doesn't offer a few openings, if you look hard enough and perform some oppo research. So here is Nikki Haley, girding her loins for battle, speaking of the criminal who's torching her:

Rightly or wrongly, chaos follows him.

People who worked in the Trump administration, for example in his cabinet, are able to say he's unfit, but I guess they aren't trying to make themselves attractive to The Republican Electorate.

Dirty tricks on the campaign trail

It appears that many of my fellow commies think the dumbest thing imaginable might be Nikki Haley saying that the cause of the Civil War was a word salad made of every ingredient except slavery when, actually, the dumbest thing imaginable is Big Thinkers on the right suggesting that the real story should be the insidious Democrats planting "citizens" to trip up high-flying Republicans with tricky questions.

Actually, of course, these "citizens" are on the payroll of George Soros, who, with a team of highly paid tricksters, writes the tricky questions. Stay tuned, if DeSantis ever has a good poll he'll be asked to supply the name of the longest river in America, while an especially aggressive "citizen" demands that Trump provide proof he’s mastered the multiplication tables through 10. Howard Stern did something a lot like that once and the result was in its way entertaining.  

I understand Republicans think Biden is too dumb for the job, but, supposing it to be true, how would they be able to tell?

Updates

I noted, here, that Florida Governor Ron DeSantis told Fox News that the grievous injustice suffered by Florida State's football team, which was not selected for the 4-team championship series, had forced him to seek a $1 million set-aside in the state's next budget to cover the cost of litigation with the selection committee. (Editor: he could save the taxpayers a million bucks by letting a dead dog lie, but, as I said, the injustice is grievous.) Now the state's attorney general announced, yesterday, that her office is investigating. It seems she means to prove that the committee broke anti-trust laws—she's requesting "more information about the nature of possible contracts, conspiracies in restraint of trade or monopolization of trade and commerce relating to anticompetitive effects of the College Football Playoff."

The executive director of the College Football Playoff issued a statement that said: "We will carefully review this demand for information, but it sure seems to be an overly aggressive reaction to a college football ranking in which some fans somewhere were bound to be disappointed." 

Meanwhile, there have also been developments in the case of the Dallas woman I mentioned in that same laser-focused essay. Her problem does not concern any of the football teams in Texas. She is carrying a nonviable fetus that, according to doctors, could if carried to term cause health complications for her. They advise an abortion but, as the fetus's condition was detected at 20 weeks and Texas has a 6-week ban, she sought and received a lower court's permission to do as doctors indicated. At the request of the Texas attorney general, the state supreme court reviewed the case and issued a temporary stay of the lower court's ruling. I had written that perhaps the justices would mull over the legal complexities until the woman went into labor, thereby rendering their reasoning skills useless except for when years ago they took the Law School Aptitude Test. That turns out to have been harsh. A day or two after issuing the stay, the Texas supreme court ruled that the circumstances did not merit an exception to the state's abortion ban, and it reversed the lower court's ruling. The woman has since left Texas to get an abortion. 

The supreme court's opinion is here. The rubber hits the road at approximately this passage:

Dr. Karsan asserted that she has a "good faith belief" that Ms. Cox meets the exception's requirements. Certainly, a doctor cannot exercise "reasonable medical judgment" if she does not hold her judgment in good faith. But the statute requires that judgment be a "reasonable medical" judgment, and Dr. Karsan has not asserted that her "good faith belief" about Ms. Cox's condition meets that standard.

Republicans have sometimes argued that their abortion bans aren't really bans since they allow for "reasonable exceptions." These "reasonable exceptions," however, are just a talking point. They don't refer to any set of conditions that might ever be shown to exist.  For example, Ms. Cox can't have an abortion in Texas because her doctor, Karsan, doesn't know what magic words have to be pronounced. 

If government is to be “limited,” maybe one thing it shouldn’t do is play word games with people who are in tough situations. 

Limited government

I had been meaning to make fun of Republicans for putting themselves forward as the party of limited government even though, in DeSantis land, the local variety is determined to get to the bottom of why their favorite football team, the Florida State Seminoles, was not invited to the 4-team bowl championship tournament. Rick Scott, who represents Florida in the US Senate, has sent a letter to Boo Corrigan, chair of the selection committee, demanding the committee turn over "emails, text messages and other communication between selection committee members, as well as any communication the members had with representatives of the SEC, the sports media outlet ESPN, and any[one] else outside the committee." It's a conspiracy, you see! Scott also asked for "vote sheets and notes or recordings from selection committee meetings."

Maybe this is their way of admitting that Biden's got the important stuff under control.

I said I had been meaning to make fun of them, and now I guess I have. Seems to be in questionable taste, however, considering that, in the day or two that's passed since Scott wrote his letter, a 31-year-old mother of two from Dallas obtained a restraining order allowing her to have an abortion in Texas. She had learned from doctors that her fetus was nonviable and that, to protect her health and preserve her fertility, an abortion was recommended. Texas bans abortion after 6 weeks, before many women even know they are pregnant, and their law also allows for the paying of bounties to people who squeal on Texans for seeking, procuring, or performing an abortion. More limited government! The Dallas woman with the nonviable fetus therefore petitioned a court for a restraining order to ensure that, after the procedure, there would be no legal consequences for her or her doctors. A judge granted her petition. The state of Texas immediately appealed to the state supreme court, which yesterday granted a temporary stay of the lower court's order. The supremes want to mull it over awhile. Perhaps they will be mulling until she has a still birth by c-section. The Texas attorney general called the judge who had granted the restraining order an "activist." 

Regarding the travails of the Seminoles, I forgot to mention that Donald Trump said they'd been treated "very badly" by the selection committee, which he attributed to the ineffective lobbying of Ron "DeSanctimonious." But it's not like DeSantis wasn't also on the case. He told Fox News that his next budget recommendation would include $1 million set aside in the event the state has to litigate the snubbing of the Seminoles. Probably will only happen if they run out of women to harass.

War in Gaza

Sometimes, I'll turn on the TV, start watching a football game, and, to work up a bit of artificial engagement, try to persuade myself that I like one team more than the other, so that I have a rooting interest, but usually I soon give up and just start vacuuming or something. It's a little like that when I contemplate the war between Hamas and the Israeli Defense Force, only instead of running the vacuum I just wish they'd both stop killing the other side's civilians.

But some people are really determined to have a rooting interest, and in our country, the home team is Israel. Here is right-wing blogger Paul Mirengoff trying to persuade us, or maybe himself, that the civilians of Gaza are not wholly innocent since—it has to do with their responses to public opinion researchers soliciting their view of Hamas. By the same logic, Jewish civilians of Israel aren't innocent, either. Here is the conclusion to an interview Daniella Weiss, a leader of Israel's settler movement, gave journalist Isaac Chotiner:

Chotiner: When Israel pulled out of Gaza, in 2005, it also closed down settlements in the region. This was under the Sharon government. And there's been talk by some settlers since October 7th about the need to repopulate Gaza with settlements. What are your feelings about what should happen with Gaza?

Weiss: Right now, I'm on my way to a TV interview where I'm going to speak about our movement's efforts to return to Gaza, the entire Gaza, and build settlements. 

Chotiner: So you think it was a mistake to pull out of settlements nearly twenty years ago?

Weiss: It was a mistake. The whole world is crying because of that. The whole world suffers from Hamas's rise. Not my problem. It's your problem. No country in the world said they were going to accept even a thousand people from Gaza. The world hates them. It was such a mistake to let them rise. 

Chotiner: Where should the Palestinians in Gaza go?

Weiss: To Sinai, to Egypt, to Turkey.

Chotiner: They're not Egyptian or Turkish, though. Why would they go to Turkey?

Weiss: O.K. The Ukrainians are not French, but when the war started they went to many countries. 

Chotiner: Their country was being bombed, and so many of them fled west.

Weiss: And the Gazan people want to get bombed by us?

Chotiner: Maybe one option, other than bombing them, would be to help try and develop a society for them in Gaza, right?

Weiss: O.K., I wish you luck. Go ahead. Go for it. 

Chotiner: Do you feel that Netanyahu and the people in his government are sympathetic to you and your cause?

Weiss: He's very sympathetic, but he is not as brave as we are. . . .

Chotiner: We saw some horrible images on October 7th of what happened to Israeli children, and now we see some horrible images in Gaza of what is happening to Palestinian children. When you see Palestinian children dying, what's your emotional reaction as a human being?

Weiss: I go by a very basic human law of nature. My children are prior to the children of the enemy, period. They are first. My children are first.

Chotiner: We are talking about children. I don't know if the law of nature is what we need to be looking at here.

Weiss: Yeah. I say my children are first.

In another part of the interview, she refers to "the Jewish nation," causing Chotiner to ask what the boundaries of this nation are. She answers that it extends from the Euphrates River in the northeast to the Nile in the southwest, so I guess it's not just the Gazans who will be relocating. When someone in Hamas says that a Palestinian state should extend "from the river to the sea," meaning from the Jordan to the Mediterranean, he's condemned for endorsing the removal, or even the extermination, of the Jewish people in Palestine. I don't know why Daniella Weiss and her fellow settlers get a pass—if anything, her views are, morally and practically, even more outrageous. And it's not as if she's a crazy outlier. She correctly points out that her preferred candidates are in power in Israel. 

Watching cable news

How much cable news do I watch? Enough to know by heart the practiced speeches of a "former federal prosecutor," now "legal analyst," about SOP in racketeering cases, such as might be pursued against a crime family like the Trumps. But not enough, apparently, ever to hear the interviewer ask my question, which would be something like:

Ok, the rubes at the bottom of the pyramid who heeded Trump's call to come to the Capitol and be "wild" have been prosecuted. Many are in prison. Now, as you describe it, the people toward the top of the pyramid are feeling the heat and taking pleas. But unlike the rubes, they aren't going to prison. No, they are suffering a worse fate, such as being compelled to write letters of apology to "the people of Georgia." I wish I lived in Georgia because it must be deeply affecting to receive a court ordered letter of apology from a gangster with a résumé. Would it violate the Constitution's prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment if they had also been forced to write on the chalk board ten times, "I will never again try to overturn the result of a presidential election"?

More like another speech than a question, I know, and it's a Promethean board, I'm dating myself. But, so far, if you're unburdened by a legal education, it looks as if criminals like Sidney Powell, Jenna Ellis, and Kenneth Chesebro have traded their status as top mob lieutenants for a get-out- of-jail-free card. Who's higher up the pyramid? Maybe only Meadows, Eastman, Giuliani, and Trump himself, whom the Republicans are going to anoint again. The number of scoundrels who might possibly be held accountable, in any meaningful way, looks to be small and dwindling.  

What do the "legal analysts" think about that?

Mitt Romney assesses the field

The new Speaker of the House: he owes his rise to good timing, right? It just happened that he was the nut whose name had been placed in nomination when non-crazy Republicans realized that the shit-show had to end. The members who voted against Jim Jordan "on principle" should have voted against the new Speaker for the sake of the same principles. But it was always going to be someone nutty, since only the "moderates" would cave in order to draw the curtain on the long-playing farce. The rest are too far gone to recognize a farce.

I'm inclined to think again when I agree with a Republican, but Mitt Romney's assessment of his party's dramatis personae, as reported in a new biography, strikes me as consistently apt, notwithstanding a few quibbles.

According to Romney, Chris Christie is just "another bridge-and-tunnel loudmouth." 

Ted Cruz is "scary," a "demagogue," and "frightening." Personally, I think Cruz is too absurd a figure to deserve such portentous adjectives, but, whatevs. 

Ron DeSantis shares "odious qualities" with Trump. That's why he was such a hot commodity for awhile—as repulsive as The Master. Romney also says DeSantis is "much smarter than Trump," which I guess is meant as a compliment? 

Newt Gingrich is "a smug know-it-all," "smarmy," and "a ridiculous blowhard." According to a journal Romney kept, his wife, Ann, has an even lower opinion of Gingrich. I'm on Ann's side.

Of Mitch McConnell, Romney said he couldn't figure out whether the "authentic" Mitch was the one who privately ridiculed Trump or the one who, in public, did Trump's bidding.

Regarding Trump's vice president: "No one had been more loyal, more willing to smile when he saw absurdities, more willing to ascribe God's will to things that were ungodly, than Mike Pence." 

Rick Perry, the former governor of Texas and Trump cabinet official: A "dimwit." True, but it's hard to understand why Romney saves that one for Perry. 

Rick Santorum, the former Pennsylvania senator, is "sanctimonious, severe and strange." True, but it's hard to understand why Romney saves those up for Santorum, a relatively obscure weirdo. 

Donald Trump: "He is unquestionably mentally unstable, and he is racist, bigoted, misogynistic, xenophobic, and prone to violence." MAGA America comments, "You say it like these are bad things." Romney doesn't call Trump a "dimwit," but he does say DeSantis is smarter, so maybe that covers it. 

Righteous Victims

 

Benny Morris is a Jewish historian and the author of Righteous Victims: A History of the Zionist-Arab Conflict, 1881-2001. I think "righteous victims" is intended as a description of how, in Morris's view, both sides see themselves, and the subtitle indicates the subject matter of virtually all his work. Though a Zionist and an Israeli, he has said that his work as a historian has been motivated by deep curiosity about what actually happened. I don't know in what context he made this remark but it seems likely that he was defending himself against countrymen wondering about how a Jew could write such things. I re-read last night the chapter in Righteous Victims on "what happened" at the time of the formation of the Jewish state, beginning with the vote on the UN partition of Palestine in November, 1947, and then on to the aftermath of war. Some excerpts:

On November 28, in the hours before the crucial vote, the Arabs succeeded in obtaining a short delay. But only a serious compromise proposal could have warded off the vote for partition, and this the Arabs proved unable to put together. . . .

The voting was broadcast live on radio around the world. Nowhere was attention more riveted than in Palestine. When the tally was complete, thirty-three states had voted yes, thirteen no, and ten had abstained. Partition had passed, but not very comfortably (had three of the ayes voted nay, the resolution would have failed). The nays had consisted of the Arab and Muslim states, Cuba, and India; the ayes, of the United States, the British Commonwealth states, Western Europe, the Soviet bloc, and most of Latin America. Among the abstainers had been Britain, Argentina, Mexico, Chile, and China.

The Zionists and their supporters rejoiced; the Arabs walked out of the hall after declaring the resolution invalid. They could not fathom, a Palestinian historian was later to write, why 37 percent of the population had been given 55 percent of the land (of which they owned only 7 percent). And "the Palestinians failed to see why they should be made to pay for the Holocaust . . . they failed to see why it was not fair for the Jews to be a minority in a unitary Palestinian state, while it was fair for almost half of the Palestinian population—the indigenous majority on its own ancestral soil—to be converted overnight into a minority under alien rule." The Arab delegates asserted that any effort to implement the resolution would lead to war. [Zionist leader and later Israel's first Prime Minister David] Ben-Gurion knew that there would be war. But still, he said, "I know of no greater achievement by the Jewish people . . . in its long history since it became a people" . . . .

The Zionists had effectively exploited the unusual situation, in which, for a brief moment, there was Soviet-American agreement on the Palestine problem. Helped to a great extent by the nations' feeling of guilt about the Holocaust, the Zionists had managed to obtain an international warrant for a small piece of earth for the Jewish people. What remained was for the Jews to translate the formal leasehold into concrete possession and statehood, in war—and for the Palestinians to pay the price. . . .

Operation Hiram resulted in the IDF [Israeli Defense Force] occupying all of northern Palestine up to the international frontier, as well as a small slice of southern Lebanon, and in the crushing of the ALA [Arab Liberation Army], which ceased to be a military force. The Syrian and Lebanese armies failed to interfere significantly in the fighting, leaving Qawuqji for all practical purposes to fight alone. During Hiram, IDF troops carried out at least nine massacres of Palestinian civilians and prisoners of war (at Eilaboun, Saliha, Safsaf, Jish, Hule, Majd al-Kurum, Bi'na, Deir al-Assad, and Arab al-Mawassa). . . .  

During the first stage, there was no Zionist policy to expel the Arabs or intimidate them into flight, though many Jews, including Ben-Gurion, were happy to see the backs of as many Arabs as possible. And, without doubt, Jewish—both Haganah and IZL—retaliatory policies and the IZL/LHI terror bombings were precipitants. . . .

During the second stage, while there was no blanket policy of expulsion, the Haganah's Plan D clearly resulted in mass flight. Commanders were authorized to clear the populace out of villages and certain urban districts, and to raze the villages if they felt a military need. Many commanders identified with the aim of ending up with a Jewish state with as small an Arab minority as possible. Some generals, such as Allon, clearly acted as if driven by such a goal. . . .

In the course of 1949-50, most of the abandoned Arab fields, groves, and orchards were parceled out to and cultivated by kibbutzim or immigrant settlements. . . .

It was mainly the plight of the Palestinian refugees that fueled Arab animosity toward Israel. Their massive presence served as testimony to the Arab world's humiliation, as proof of the injustice that had befallen the Palestinian people, and as a spur to anti-Israel action. Of the 700,000 or so refugees, about half were in Jordan, most of them in the West Bank. Another 200,000 were in the Gaza Strip; about 100,000 in Lebanon; and more than 60,000 in Syria.

The epigraph to Righteous Victims is from a poem of Auden's, "September 1, 1939":

I and the public know
What all schoolchildren learn,
Those to whom evil is done
Do evil in return.

The Republican House Speakers of my Lifetime

I've been amusing myself by recalling, and researching, the recent history of Republican speakers of the house. Maybe "recent" isn't the right word considering that Newt Gingrich was the first Republican speaker of my lifetime, and I'm on Medicare: by a plausible definition, then, "recent" means "all of them." 

Gingrich ascended to the speakership after Republicans swept the midterm elections of 1994 and he lasted till 1999. His fall was precipitated by the unpopular and unsuccessful effort to drive Clinton from office, and it didn't help his cause when it came to light that, like the antichrist Clinton, Gingrich had himself been pursuing extra-curricular frolics. He resigned, and it appeared that Bob Livingston, of Louisiana, would be his successor. But then Larry Flynt, publisher of Hustler magazine, announced that, should Livingston become speaker, he would divulge the details of his (Livingston's) afterschool activities. Livington responded by withdrawing his candidacy for the speakership and resigning his seat in the House of Representatives. This is the story of how Dennis Hastert, of Illinois, a former high-school wrestling coach, became Gingrich's successor as speaker. Hastert served from 1999 to 2007 and didn't go to prison until 2016, after his unusual banking activities attracted the attention of law enforcement. It turned out that Hastert was making large payments to a former high-school wrestler who was extorting him. The wrestler had been sexually abused by Hastert, and the investigation uncovered at least three more teenaged victims of their coach. 

Republicans had lost their majority in the 2006 midterms, the immediate cause of Hastert's resignation, and didn't regain it until 2011. John Boehner, of Ohio, was then elected speaker with less drama than we have now been educated to expect. Boehner, whom I regard with affection while disagreeing with him on nearly everything, lasted for three terms before he could no longer tolerate the tea-party yahoos, who might have driven him out if he hadn't removed himself. Wikipedia politely summarizes:

Sources in [Boehner's] office indicated he was stepping aside in the face of increasing discord while trying to manage passage of a continuing resolution to fund the government. Conservative opposition to funding Planned Parenthood as part of the resolution, and stronger threats to Boehner's leadership on account of the controversy, prompted the resignation. 

Sound familiar?

Paul Ryan, of Wisconsin, was next to bat. For some reason, he had a reputation as a "policy wonk," though his only idea, the solution for every ailment, was to slash taxes and then count the money that would flow into the treasury as a result of, I don't know, something having to do with Ayn Rand, whose books Ryan had read in college during the interludes between frat keggers. I think it's fair to say this idea was not original with him and that no result of its implementation could ever cause the assertion to be withdrawn. The more salient point is that we are now into the age of the appeasement of Trump. During the 2016 campaign, Ryan had called for Trump to stand down after the I-grab-'em-by-the-pussy tape was made public. Of course Trump didn't, and when he won anyway, Ryan bowed his knee and kissed not just the hand of the new president. He may have found it distasteful, however, as he chose not to seek re-election in 2018, and he would have lost the speakership in any event since Democrats won a majority in that year's midterm elections.

And now we come to the recently deposed Kevin McCarthy, who had to grovel before Trump, Gaetz, Greene, et al in order to become speaker. They have now axed him with the axe he supplied. No one knows for sure what will happen next, but it appears that McCarthy's likely successor will be Jim Jordan, who won't need to grovel before the lunatics, being one himself. I think that is the rift within the Republican party: there are the grovelers, sometimes referred to as "moderates," and then there are those who are out of their minds. It appears the second faction is larger, but this might be explained by members of the first group sometimes imitating members of the second group, in order to advance within the party. 

So that is the history of Republican speakers and near-speakers of my lifetime: Gingrich—Livingston—Hastert—Boehner—Ryan—McCarthy—Jordan. There is a view going around that the Republican party has recently become "broken” and “consumed by chaos.” I can see why people would say these things, but the truth is that for 30 years Republican control of the House of Representatives has always been a clown car demolition derby. 

Mea culpa, Max Kepler

Since I was back in April, May, and June, and for whole seasons before that, one of the biggest Max Kepler anti-fans, I want to go on record saying that the team's turn-around over the past 70 games or so hasn't been due only to the hitting provided by guys barely old enough to drink who, back in the spring and early summer, were either injured or tearing the cover off the ball in Triple-A—I mean Julien, Kirilloff, Wallner, and, especially, Lewis. Today, with two games left in the regular season, Kepler is batting .259 with an OPS of .811. That may not sound like anything to crow about, but you can estimate where he was in late July from the fact that in August and September he has batted slightly over .300 with an OPS a tick north of .900. He's always been a good outfielder, and for two months now he's also been an all-star level hitter.

The Twins, who were 45-46 at the all-star break, stand at 86-74. Lots of guys have played well, including Wallner who I saw play last summer for the Twins Double-A team in Wichita, and Julien who was at Wichita too even though I don't remember him, but Kepler's play has been for me the biggest surprise of all. I withdraw for now my carping complaints, Max.

I'll post another retraction if evidence turns up of Trump being a scholar and a statesman. I see that he said, under oath in a deposition, that he could not possibly overvalue one of his properties as the Saudis would always be happy to pay him as much as he asked for anything he owned. It's his successor, of course, who is guilty of corruption and influence peddling. Every accusation is a confession. 

Lauren and Kristi; Harmon and Tony

Lauren Boebert: any classier and she'd qualify for a trial membership in the demographic group sometimes designated "white trash." With some, it's heritage; for her, it's aspirational. The pregnant lady sitting behind her was upset by the vaping but, from the looks of things, Boebert's date probably wished even more fervently that both her hands were free. 

True confession: I was so taken by the video of Boebert enjoying herself at the performance of Beetlejuice that I only just now learned that the governor of South Dakota has been boinking Trump pal Corey Lewandowski for I guess a number of years. Family values dictate that they should introduce their respective marooned spouses to each other. Everybody has a hungry heart.

If anyone's saying that either Noem or Lewandowski deserves better, I demur: they're perfect together.

Now for something completely different, the online equivalent of a shower after I've made you contemplate gross stuff:

 

Watching Tony and Harmon run around the bases after a homer reminds me of what Bud Grant is said to have told players about how they should comport themselves after scoring a touchdown—"like it's not the first one you ever scored, and you're sure it's not your last, either."

Meandering

1. When I turned on the Twins game last night, they were already ahead 9 to 1. I kept watching, and the Guardians soon brought in a position player to pitch. This is now a common strategy in one-sided games as it allows the team getting beat up to get through the last innings without using up pitchers who might be needed tomorrow, or the day after that, in a game that can be won. The Twins ended up scoring 20 runs last night. 

Baseball has enacted some recent reforms, almost all of which, imho, have made the game better. How about one more?—a 10-run rule after, say, 6 innings. If the trailing team has given up, and is no longer doing its best to get the other guys out, why should the game continue? It begins to be a little farcical. The team ahead by a lot should keep trying, right? So they get hits, home runs, that they can't even feel too good about. Run around the bases, get back in the dugout, don't show anyone up. Come to think of it, not a bad idea no matter the score, especially if the alternative involves gesturing toward God in heaven as you cross home plate. What, is the pitcher an atheist?

I also don't understand the evident stoic mindset of the non-pitcher who's "pitching." You'd think he'd want to have some fun, see what he could do, try out his curve and his knuckler, but no, they all just keep lobbing it in there until, eventually, blessedly, three outs are recorded. These guys are all great ballplayers with live arms. If they'd zip it in there, make it at least look like they were doing their best to retire hitters, the farce would be harder to detect.

But, in any event, the 10-run rule: a solution for a problem. Would there be unforeseen consequences? You're down 8 in the sixth inning, and you don't want to wear out your bullpen, so you instruct your guys to give up two runs so that the game will end. Now a farce reduction act has resulted in a bigger farce. What if, after the sixth inning, you just allowed a trailing team to surrender, like when the cornerman for a boxer who's getting pummeled requests that the fight be stopped? When you call on your second-string catcher to "pitch," you're really surrendering, so why insist that the surrender be artificial and unsightly?

2. On the topic of stuff I don't understand, what's with the obsession with Biden's age and alleged "decline"?  My only theory is that the explanation relates to this journalistic rule about "playing it down the middle," which requires, apparently, that if one side has in fact committed felonies, you better find that the other side has at least committed some petty misdemeanors and then play them up as something to be balanced against the felonies. Thus, "whether it's 80-year-old Joe Biden free-associating goofily, or 78-year-old Donald Trump subverting democracy by seeking to remain in power despite having lost the election, both sides have a problem with their geriatrics." 

It's actually worse than that, since Trump, in his prime, managed to run casinos into the ground. 

3. I've been reading Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics, which may account for this current tendency to discern moral problems in baseball games. His subject is how to live a good life and be happy, topics that might interest anyone, but I'm not sure that a happy good life will include a reading of the Nicomachean Ethics, which for long stretches is a colossal bore. Aristotle is a wooden writer, assuming it's not the translator's fault, as well as a relentless taxonomist. How much of this sort of thing must be endured?

(1) Some things are pleasant by nature, and of these (a) some are so without qualification, and (b) others are so with reference to particular classes either of animals or men; while (2) others are not pleasant by nature, but (a) some of them become so by reason of injuries to the system, and (b) others by reason of acquired habits, and (c) others by reason of originally bad natures. This being so, it is possible with regard to each of the latter kinds to discover similar states of character to those recognized with regard to the former . . . .

Answer: Lots, if for some reason you persevere to the end. Also, this idea that the solution to every problem involves discovering the golden mean between extremes deserves whatever satire has been directed at it over the past 23 centuries. How devoted to your children should you be? Well, somewhat devoted, but not too devoted. I'm not making things up, he says that, only in a gray dull way. 

I might be with him on money, however. Many philosophers have recommended poverty, on the ground that wealth, or possessions of any kind, distract from the contemplative life. Aristotle held—I don't have to tell you, but, not too much, not too little, same as everything else. Interestingly, I just read somewhere that the philosopher Spinoza had a little problem with his sister after their father died. She wanted the entire estate. He countersued, and it was only after the court entered judgment in his favor that he gave her everything and went back to his books and lenses. I wonder whether he knew that she knew that he didn't care about money, also that she was eager to exploit this circumstance to her advantage, and that his course of going to court before assigning everything over to her was Spinoza's version of a golden mean. 

4. Today's the first day of school. Older daughter was supposed to read The Catcher in the Rye over the summer. I think once in June, twice in July, and three times in August I asked how that was going. Vague replies. Last night I looked over her shoulder as she sat at her desk reading a screen: Sparks Notes to The Catcher in the Rye.

How diligent should a student be? Not so diligent as to read the book, but diligent enough to consult Sparks Notes.

Some notes on the debating Repugs

1. First, I'm surprised that Trump didn't time his date with the authorities in Fulton County to coincide with the debate. Seems unlikely his rivals would have had much of an audience if Republican primary voters could instead have watched his motorcade cruise Atlanta's freeway system. 

2. Nikki Haley doesn't appear to be crazy. I conclude she has no chance.

3. She did say, however, that voters, not courts, should determine Trump's fate. Probably focus-group tested but it's stupid. There was an election. Trump lost. So the voters did decide. He then committed crimes in an effort to retain the office that the voters had denied him. How many cycles of losing and criming does she recommend?

4. Most representative moment: earnest appearing college-aged Republican lad asks question about climate change. Candidates take turns telling him to f-off. 

5. Of the eight debaters, six say they'd support Trump if he's the nominee even if, on election day, he's been convicted of felonies. Just as strategy, I don't get it, unless they're all angling to be his running mate. (Though that doesn't explain the case of Pence.) Generally, you criticize the front runner. Only way to catch up. Some might say that his criminality provides a possible opening. 

6. I'll never understand those who continue to carry a torch for DeSantis. But so what? I'll never understand any of it. See (2) above. 

7. Tim Scott says that, if elected, he'll replace the current attorney general. Whoa, Tim, slow down!

8. The debate occurred in the evening of the day on which Putin murdered Prigozhin and seven others. When Haley chastised the tech bro guy for taking the side of a murderer in his war with our ally, Ukraine, the audience of Republican primary voters loudly booed her. 

9. There's a lot to dislike about the tech bro guy, but the thing that'll sink him with Republicans is when Trump makes fun of his name. 

10. That Pence is too proud of having done the obviously right thing on January 6 reminds me, vaguely, of the DeSantis ad wherein his beaming wife says that, after her cancer diagnosis, "He took care of my kids when I couldn't." 

TDS relapse

Some pretty large part of the sensations Trump's legal troubles stir within me arise, I've come to believe, from my immature notion that corruption at the highest levels, while expected, should possess a certain elevation, dignity, and sophistication, as befits the lofty positions of the criminal plotters. But it's never like that, apparently. Just before I was old enough to vote:

Setting: Oval Office

Minions: These guys could squawk. 

POTUS: It wouldn't be hard to raise a ton of hush money, pay them off.

Minions: OK, sure, yeah, we can do that. 

And now, a week into my life as a Medicare beneficiary, I still feel a slight twinge when, on the morning after a former president is indicted in Georgia for trying to steal 16 electoral votes, he announces:

It's just embarrassingly shoddy and threadbare. When you zoom in, you notice the 8th-grade, C-level language errors: for example, if the report is complex (or Complex) and detailed (or Detailed), that would obviously make it harder to refute (more Irrefutable), and the conjunction therefore should be "and," not "but." Of course it's worse when you are zoomed out. I guess we're supposed to believe that, nearly three years now after the election, and on the morning after the indictment comes down, he's putting the final touches on the magnum opus proving that he won Georgia. What a coincidence! If the Irrefutable EVIDENCE had taken a week—or 30 months—less to develop, things would be different. Though inevitably, two days later:

He's sometimes been called a "con man," but if you're this bad at it, do you even deserve the title? The stream flows continuously. "I have people in Hawaii investigating whether Obama was really born there, and let me tell you, the stuff they're finding is amazing." I think it's been more than a couple of weeks since the details of his health plan replacing Obamacare were to be announced in "probably about two weeks." Et cetera. 

 

Sabato's crystal ball, take one

The Republican party in America is too detached from reality to allow confidence about what's going to happen next, but I have to say that I'm feeling good about having made this call about the governor of Florida when he was riding a wave in the way-back time of December, 2022. 

For those interested in early prognostications related to the 2024 presidential election, the Sabato Crystal Ball, named for the political scientist Larry Sabato, of the University of Virginia's Center for Politics, pegs the electoral college competition at Biden 260, The Unknown Republican 235, with just 43 in the toss-up category. The four toss-up states, with their allotment of electoral votes noted, are: Georgia (16), Wisconsin (10), Arizona (11), and Nevada (6).

Since it takes 270 to win, you can see that, were this scenario to play out, Nevada is irrelevant: to win, the Republican needs to sweep Arizona, Wisconsin, and Georgia, because Nevada plus the larger two of the other three results in a 270-268 victory for the Blues. Though if it turns out to be that close, we'd have to consider what happens in Nebraska, since, while deep red, it awards electoral votes by congressional district, and by winning the one centered on Omaha the Republican could then pull into a 269-269 tie. But Biden won that district by more than 6 points, so if he loses it in 2024, he's probably losing Georgia, Wisconsin, and Arizona, too. The working assumption here is that a presidential election is like an interrelated system in which the individual parts do not operate independently of the others. It follows that the winner of, say, Wisconsin, is a good bet to win Arizona, Nevada, and Georgia, too. If that were to happen, in Biden's favor, then the ubiquitous blue-red map would be unchanged from 2020.

The most striking aspect of this preview is probably the shrinking number of competitive states.  Suppose we add to the list of toss-ups the states Sabato and his team think only "lean" one direction or the other. That captures only North Carolina (leans Republican) and, leaning the other way, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, and Michigan. There are then still 42 states that aren't competitive. At least many of the residents of those states might be spared from the advertising onslaught. I'm a little worried for myself, living as I do in the Twin Cities, with media tentacles extending well into western Wisconsin. 

It's odd how so much can seem to happen without altering anything. I might have thought that there's justice in the sorry plight of the DeSantis campaign, but it's not as if Republican voters appear poised to render an apt judgment upon his candidacy. Trump's an indicted criminal defendant, and it's going to happen again, and again, with overwhelming evidence of his guilt in each case—here, for example, is the audio and transcript of the phone call to Georgia officials in which he clearly solicits election fraud and makes thinly veiled threats about what could happen to them if they don't do as he says. Poor DeSantis is trying his best to be an a-hole, but how can he compete with that? He likely hasn't even raped anyone. 

She wants a divorce!

I made a tofu dish for supper tonight (recipe), which the kids declined on patriotic grounds. I reminded them of the hot dogs we had for lunch, but of course, "What have you done for me lately?" Well, eat some bread, cuz we're not going to Dairy Queen, children's services is closed for the holiday, and HUAC was disbanded in 1975.

I can hear one of them in the kitchen right now making herself a milk shake. 

This article, by Ron Brownstein, concerning whether the United States will crack up like in the 1860s, is perhaps the tofu of Fourth of July political journalism. But it's Marjorie Taylor Greene who has called for a "national divorce," and if it would make her a foreigner, my ears are open, twitchy, and q-tipped. Ted Cruz wouldn't have to go skip out in a crisis as he would already be living in another land. 

But, as a political scientist quoted in the article asks, "What do you do with upstate New York? And Memphis?" What do you do with anywhere, really. The divide is not between regions of the country as it was in 1860. In Minnesota, we have 87 counties, and in the last election Trump got more votes in 74 of them. But in one of the other 13, Hennepin, home to Minneapolis and most of its suburbs, his deficit of about 327,000 votes was greater than his aggregate advantage in the 74 counties he carried, and he lost the state by 7 points. 

The above map, which I mentioned once before, here, is someone's version of what the family court settlement would look like in the divorce Marj recommends. The two "countries" resemble gerrymandered congressional districts—the blue one is mostly just population centers connected by land bridges. Before the last census, a congressional district in Ohio, the 9th, included Toledo, some suburbs west of Cleveland, and, in between, was often about as wide as the right-of-way taking for a highway. Blow air into that balloon and you get the above Blue Nation. I think the mapmaker's point might be to show that he's set himself an impossible task. Suppose Brownstein's political scientist had asked, "What do you do with Dallas?" The answer to that question, apparently, is you make it the capital city of the Red Nation—even though Dallas County is overwhelmingly Democratic. 

The geography of the mind is a different matter, and harder to make out, though the tells have accrued rapidly in the recent past. I remember that after the 2016 election, when Trump won despite having lost the national vote by around 3 million, some Republicans argued that it was no matter because Clinton had won California by about the same margin.  In other words, Trump hadn't really lost the popular vote, because Clinton's entire margin was secured in California, where the voters I guess aren't real Americans? It seems that being an American means agreeing with them about who's an American, but by what logic can only one side play the game? Let's instead discount the votes cast by white men residing in states that once seceded from the Union. Now she won by a lot more than 3 million. 

It's almost as if underlying the impulse to seek a divorce lies deep uneasiness about who can vote. 

 

I borrow money, develop a man crush on Karl Marx

I think of myself as a garden-variety Democratic voter, neither Joe Manchin nor a Bernie Bro, but once in a while something happens that nudges me toward Bernie or, indulging daydreams, into the arms of AOC. I recently had a $15,000 home repair—$15,350, to be exact, for a new "combi boiler." (I live in a 100-year-old house with radiators for heat; there's no separate hot water heater, the "combi" does it all.) I was going to transfer money around in order to write a check that wouldn't bounce, but then the company doing the work told me they offered 0% financing for 18 months. You can get about 5% on bank deposits these days, so I thought I might as well pay them slow, and I took the financing.

First sort of weird thing that happened is I got in the mail a credit card issued by Wells Fargo. So it's not actually the HVAC company that "offers 0% financing for 18 months." Rather, the HVAC company has some arrangement whereby they toss over to Wells Fargo their customers who don't have, say, 15 grand lying around. Uh-oh. I'm not using that credit card (though some people, especially if they're more desperate than I, might). 

Not long after that I get a statement in the mail. It's four pages long, very small print, and includes all the terms, which are apparently somewhat more complicated than "0% for 18 months," unless perhaps what happens after 18 months is positively Byzantine. I sit down to read it. Have to take off my glasses and hold the paper with the tiny print close to my face—ok, whatever, I'm old and both near- and far-sighted, but it's almost as if they want you to give up on comprehending. As you persist, so does the suspicion that the unknown authors don't want you to understand. I think I'm a pretty good reader, and I wouldn't say the document is impenetrable, but it certainly tends in that direction. Lots of people wouldn't understand it, or would grow weary of trying. For one thing, it uses a sort of private vocabulary for rather ordinary concepts, and defines these terms elsewhere within the document, so that instead of just reading something that makes sense you have to scan around to figure out what the weird stuff means and then make the needed substitutions as you forge ahead. There are many sentences along the line of, "Please note that 'accrued interest' may also be referred to as 'deferred interest' and 'subaccount(s)' may also be referred to as 'balances.'" Noted, thanks!

Well, I put in some time and feel confident that I grasp the principal details of the shit deal Wells Fargo has for the customers of their friends in the HVAC business. 

The reason they can say "0% for 18 months" is that I pay no interest if I give them something every month and the whole $15,350 by the "special terms end date," which is what they call the end of the 18-month period. That's it for the good news. I said the print is small and the language hard to understand, but one exception to that is a box at the upper-right of page 1 that says "Minimum Payment Due-----$505.75." I'm sure a common reaction to this information is, "Well, why would I pay them more than the minimum?" But notice that $505.75 x 18 = $9103.50 < $15,350. By paying the monthly minimum, you have only paid back about 60% of the debt at the "special terms end date," and now you pay interest.

The interest rate is 28.99%.

I guess that in my innocence I would have thought it was illegal to charge that amount of interest. It should be, but . . . lobbyists, Republicans, probably Joe Manchin. Willing lender, willing borrower, some will say. Not really. Remember, I got steered into this deal because I needed to heat my house and have hot water. I'm going to pay them off within 18 months but lots of people couldn't. According to Fortune, 57% of Americans cannot afford an unexpected $1000 expense. Wells Fargo: "Let's get these people to pay us for the rest of their lives!"

Send them a credit card in case they'd like to make some additional purchases.

I've now made two $900 payments, which is why my "special terms balance" on the portion of the statement shown below is down to $13,550. 

But the "deferred interest charge" of $502.65 puzzled me until I read, on a different page:

We begin accruing interest on a purchase with No Interest if Paid in Full Terms on the date the purchase posts to your Account. We calculate interest on the purchase balance. This amount is called the deferred interest charge (see "Deferred Interest Charges" shown in the SPECIAL TERMS CALCULATION section of your statement). The deferred interest charge will not be added to the regular balance unless you do not pay the balance in full by the end of the special terms period (see Special Terms End Date shown in the SPECIAL TERMS CALCULATION section of your statement). You may avoid interest on the balance by paying it in full before the end of the special terms period.

This means that, while I am paying them at a rate that will result in no interest, they are keeping track of what the interest payment would be on the unpaid balance. If my rate of pay slows, and there is outstanding debt when the "special terms end date" arrives, the 28.99% is not applied against only the amount that remains unpaid at that time. Instead, all the "deferred interest" is added to the balance due, going back to the first month, when the 28.99% was applied to an average daily balance of roughly $15,000, plus the next month, when the exorbitant rate was calculated on an average daily balance of about $14,000, and so on—a total of thousands of dollars of interest, since the rate is usurious. The impact upon someone seduced into making the “minimum payment” would be calamitous.

And that's if they don't accept the invitation to use the credit card sent to them in the mail.

A perennial argument between "liberals" and "conservatives" concerns the degree to which private enterprise should be overseen and regulated by the government. "Get big government off our backs!" cries one side—because, it appears to me, they want to be free to boost their bottom line by gouging vulnerable people of modest means who are prone to landing in desperate situations. And they're succeeding—they're gouging them. I mean, I assume this loan they have me in isn't breaking any laws, and in that case they aren't being regulated enough. 

It might get worse

These website designers and wedding cake bakers—why is it always the money of homosexuals that's too dirty for them to take? I'd think there'd be artisans whose faith barred them from working for people "living in sin," or people who have been divorced (unlike homosexuality, flatly condemned by Jesus himself), or who mean to marry someone of a different race, or a different faith, or are known to have met their beloved at a swingers' convention, or whose faults combine items from this extremely abbreviated list in ways that overwhelm the pious businessowner's impulse toward charity (and profit).  

I'm tempted to say it's just homophobia, but maybe there are plans to "call my bluff" by recruiting bigots from some new taxonomic categories for more Supreme Court fun. Let's hope not. I saw today that the Supremes have agreed to hear a case next term about whether the Second Amendment can abide a federal law, on the books for 30 years, that requires someone under a restraining order arising from a domestic violence complaint to surrender his firearms.

The case was brought by a Texas man who was indicted by a federal grand jury for violating the 1994 law that prohibits gun ownership by a person subject to a domestic violence restraining order. The man, Zackey Rahimi, was under a restraining order granted to his former girlfriend in February 2020 when he threatened another woman with a gun and was involved in a series of five shootings in December 2020 and January 2021. 

When police searched his home after identifying Rahimi as a suspect in the shootings, they found a .45-caliber pistol, a .308-caliber rifle, pistol and rifle magazines and ammunition. 

Rahimi attempted to dismiss the indictment against him, arguing it violated the Second Amendment. A federal district court denied his motion, noting that a federal appeals court upheld the constitutionality of the firearms law in 2020. 

Rahimi pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 73 months in prison, but appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals [for] the Fifth Circuit. While the appeals court initially affirmed the lower court's decision, it withdrew its original opinion after the Supreme Court last year invalidated New York's rules for obtaining a license to carry a concealed handgun in public. 

After its additional review, the 5th Circuit reversed course and held that the 1994 gun restriction for people subject to domestic violence restraining orders violated the Second Amendment, as the government failed to meet its burden of showing that the law is "consistent with the nation's historical tradition of firearm regulation."

That should be enough fun!

Kennedy boy goes to the gym

I've been wasting my time being interested in the Robert F Kennedy Jr kerfuffle, the one arising from the shirtless photos of him circulating on social media. It might not have been the Ur tweet, but my first notice came when I saw some nut had posted this picture of Kennedy (left) alongside one of Dr Peter Hotez, a medical researcher. Kennedy is a notorious anti-vaxxer, and Hotez, a professor at Baylor University's medical school who resembles a standard-issue doughy middle-aged American, predictably is not, because . . . education, knowledge, expertise. The tweeter, who thinks that Hotez should debate Kennedy on vaccine efficacy, asserted that the side-by-side pictures of the two men clearly showed who knows more about good health. In my favorite response, someone said that the professor obviously had flunked the dead lift component of organic chemistry class. 

Seriously, though, the anti-vax idiots are really tiring. As far as I can tell, what they have going for them are a couple of facts:

i. humans are subject to illness and death

ii. most Americans are vaccinated

It follows, naturally, that vaccinated people get sick and die, which, when it happens, proves how deadly the vaccines are. Latest example is Madonna. Sixty-something woman hospitalized with illness! And she was vaccinated! Connect the dots, fool.

By this kind of "logic," every day on the nation's streets and highways people are being killed by seat belts. (I can almost hear the wingnuts now: "Yes, and it's pretty ironic if you think about it, because the elites persuaded them that seat belts made them safer.")

While it's not my area of expertise, I'm inclined to think that a physique like Kennedy's on a 69-year-old is a sign not of health but of an unhealthy obsession. He wants to be president? Ok, he's got the last name for it, but maybe, if he'd spent less time at the gym, he could have made some modest incursions upon the impressive facade of his stupidshittery. 

Sam in Alaska

Did they even go fishing? I ask because the picture accompanying the story in Pro Publica looks like a print ad for Marlboro Man wear in an online catalog. Maybe the guy on the left, never so far as I know identified, is a little chubby for the role. The other two are Justice Samuel Alito and hedge fund billionaire Paul Singer, whose business plan involves frequent appeals to the Supreme Court. But Alito doesn't know about that. Says so himself in the Wall Street Journal. 

Even after a long day in the boat, their nearly identical fishing wardrobes appear pressed, dry, and unsoiled. This could be explained by guides having done the work or, in the alternative, the resort's amenities might have included outer wear, photography services, and props, such as big fish. I'm pretty sure that the ranch on which Dick Cheney shot his friend in the face imports birds for the "hunt," a possible source for my cynicism re the manly activities of right-wingers. 

It's all on the up-and-up, however. As Alito explains in his essay, the seat on Singer's private jet would have been empty if he hadn't tagged along. It was him or nobody (as opposed, say, to him or someone without a vote on the Supreme Court). 

 

Don takes a dump

Tip o' the hat to the clever people writing captions for the above FBI photo of a Mar-a-Lago bathroom included within the pages of the Trump indictment:

Don's Document Dump
The Seat of Power
Republicans Suddenly Silent on Proper Use of Bathrooms
Trump Esthetic: Bathroom Overfilled with Crimes & Chandeliers
Bed Bath & Beyond a Reasonable Doubt

Presumably the documents of highest sensitivity are secured behind the tension rod. 

In news "below the fold"

For those of us already persuaded of Trump's criminality, yesterday's newsworthy news was that Kavanaugh and Roberts joined the Supreme Court's reality-based minority to strike down Alabama's congressional maps. It's the 7th congressional district, the only one represented by a Democrat, and pictured at left, that triggered litigation. The population of Alabama is 27 percent African American, but the 7th district is 57 percent African American. That's partly because most of the district's land mass is made of a huge chunk of rural west central Alabama that's sometimes referred to as the "Black Belt." But suppose that a computer was asked to generate a million different divisions of Alabama into seven districts of more or less regular shape and equal population. In how many of them would you have one district including a large swatch of the rural Black Belt together with much of the (heavily African American) Birmingham metro and much of the (heavily African American) Montgomery metro? On account of the "more or less regular shape" requirement, I think the answer to that question is zero. In its actual man-made configuration, however, Alabama's 7th congressional district pulls of this feat: Birmingham sits near the terminus of the narrow weird arm extending northeasterly in a kind of anterior tail to the main part of the district, and Montgomery is at the little bulbous dragon's head forming the district's most easterly point.

I've only scanned some journalistic accounts of the Court's reasoning, but my probably unusual initial take is that in this case we got the right conclusion for the wrong reason. The Supreme Court has in the recent past exhibited an extreme reluctance to interfere with the effort of state legislatures in red states to screw over Democrats. That's what's going on in Alabama, but because of political apartheid in the American South—virtually all the African Americans are Democrats and virtually all the whites are Republicans—screwing over Democrats means screwing over African Americans, with the result that a partisan gerrymander in Dixie almost by necessity, and plausibly by accident, runs afoul of the Voting Rights Act. In other words, I think an honest defense by Alabama might be: We're not limiting the clout of African Americans by packing them all into a single district, we're limiting the clout of Democrats by packing them all into a single district, which in the recent past this Court has indicated is fine. Evidence for such a defense might be that the district includes—just to the south of a northerly boundary at about the point that the odd tail begins its northeasterly stretch to Birmingham—the city of Tuscaloosa, which is home to the University of Alabama and many of the few white Democrats in the state. "See? It's Democrats, of any color, that we want to screw over! It's not our fault that most of them are black!"

Well, I would have guessed that a majority on this Court would have resolved the issue by raising a middle finger to the Voting Rights Act, and Kavanaugh and Roberts deserve credit for not doing that. No doubt it's in the dissents. 

Though I think any partisan gerrymander, not just a racial one, violates constitutional principles, this Supreme Court decision, for the reason mentioned above, will shift the political ground in the South. When the ruling was announced, Cook Political Report immediately changed its characterization of the "partisan lean" to five Dixie districts in the Democrats' direction: two in Alabama and two more in Louisiana went from "solid R" to "tossup," and one in North Carolina went from "tossup" to "lean D." These changes are made without knowledge of how the new maps will be configured and reflect, mainly, expert opinion on how difficult it is, given voting patterns and the location of population centers across southern states, to draw (for example) six districts in Alabama that can be won by a Republican: a 4-3 Republican advantage is natural, and 5-2 might be possible, but 6-1 requires the above monstrosity. 

The situation is almost identical in Louisiana, where the only district represented by a Democrat, the 2nd, is shown below. The two biggest cities in Louisiana are New Orleans and Baton Rouge. Since they are about 80 miles apart—for local reference, it's about 65 miles from Minneapolis to St. Cloud—it would seem natural to have one congressional district centered on New Orleans and a second on Baton Rouge. But in that case both districts would elect a Democratic representative. That's why the 2nd district is thin and oddly elongated—in order to take in both cities without surpassing the population limit for a congressional district, thereby ensuring a 5-1 Republican advantage in the state's congressional delegation. The Supreme Court seems to be saying this would be okay if it could not plausibly be understood as an effort to diminish the voting power of African Americans, who are 32 percent of the statewide population but 62 percent of those residing within the 2nd congressional district. 

The Republican majority in the House of Representatives is so slim that, holding every other factor in place, it will be wiped out by this decision. 

Candid camera

The family Christmas cards of some of the gun fetishists in the Congress put me in mind of Diane Arbus, the photographer of freaks and misfits who took her own life in 1971. Did she come back from the dead to contribute her skills to spreading right-wing holiday cheer?

Holiday card of Rep. Thomas Massie, Republican from Kentucky:

Arbus:

Holiday card of Rep. Lauren Boebert, Republican from Colorado:

Arbus:

The most recent holiday card of Rep. Andy Ogles, the Tennessee Republican whose district includes the Covenant School, where in March eight people were killed in a mass shooting:

Arbus was sometimes criticized for exploiting her subjects in the pursuit of "art." Well, what about the kids in the photos that are meant to warm the heart?