Instead of "obvious solution," you should have offered a modest proposal. I read a lot of relegation stuff on baseball blogs that seems to be completely disconnected with how the farm systems work. Also something about harvesting Notre Dame babies.
I read the Library of America collection of Jackson about 5-7 years ago, and was skimming it last week to refresh my memory of which story took place in New York. It was "The Tooth" (and I just double-checked, she does go down to New York), and my recollection is that this was an example of non-suburban story, even if the main character is from somewhere else. A minor observation, but in the process of making sure this was the story I was thinking of, I found a review or comment that concluded that the character's reactions were so extreme that it couldn't be just-a-toothache, but she must have undergone an abortion. That seems to ignore way too much of the factual background to connect some meaning to the story, which supports the notion that women of the 1950s live in a foreign land of which we lack a guidebook.
I thought "the Lottery" did not read so well the second time around, the power is in the surprise ending. The only other story I was reading for the second time was "The Summer People," which I still think is one of her best short stories. The collection included "Biography of a Story," in which she share the responses she received to "The Lottery," which ranged from wanting to know where this custom is taking place, to testing various allegorical readings, to anger and to humor (hopefully, some claimed they were starting this practice or at least starting to collect smooth round stones).
Also just noticed that there is a second LOA volume, which I'll probably get some day.
The Supreme Court may have bailed out the Democrats. Mandates (vax or test) in my state were targeted and required compliance by Oct. 4th for those employed in government, schools and health care providers. There have been numerous extensions (individual and by class) with the hospitals here needing an additional five months for compliance. An OSHA emergency rule can only remain in place for six months. Hospitals have several advantages in administering a vaccine mandate, most having started early in encouraging vaccination, having their own testing and vaccination capacity, and having had and enforced flu vaccine mandates for years.
Mandates later needed legislation to implement that was difficult to obtain even with a supermajority Democratic legislature. Lawsuits sprang up, including from public service unions, based upon an interpretation of a healthcare freedom of conscious law that would have eviscerated the mandates. Initially there were not enough votes for an immediate effective date (as opposed to June) due to opposition from the black caucus. In addition, employers needed liability protection if they were to enforce vaccine mandates -- the fear being that they would rubberstamp any medical / religious exemption otherwise. Again, the necessary votes were not there until language was removed expressly contemplating that employment could be terminated. There are legislators that support mandates, but not consequences.
Six months is probably not enough time to effectively implement this type of rule and the results would have been chaotic and arbitrary enforcement. I think people greatly undervalue how policies may have some degree of general support which evaporates in its implementation.
Yeah, I agree. Also need long term data because I think enrollment declines were occurring since the Great Recession enrollment bump.
On the other hand, surveys last fall had more than one-third of college students cancelling college, and a similar number of high school seniors saying they would defer or cancel college if it was on-line. I would think there would be some time-shifting which would have led to some increased enrollment this Fall.
I believe Rahm Emanuel did not meet the residency requirement for Chicago mayor under similar language to that of Oregon (except Illinois mayors only have to live one year in their city), but the Illinois SCOTUS disagreed and pretty much eliminated residency durational requirements in the state. The appeal to ignoring durational requirements is that they let the people decide -- it's more democratic. And Rahm got over 50% of the vote in the first round, so in some sense the court was vindicated. But its not necessarily more democratic to ignore democratically enacted laws, and I'll leave it to Chicagoans to evaluate whether Rahm was the indispensable man of the hour.
I guess this is his statement back in March: “We can kind of almost see the end,” Walensky told Maddow. “We’re vaccinating so very fast, our data from the CDC today suggests, you know, that vaccinated people do not carry the virus, don’t get sick, and that it’s not just in the clinical trials but it’s also in real world data.”
CDC clarified a few days later that “It’s possible that some people who are fully vaccinated could get COVID-19. The evidence isn’t clear whether they can spread the virus to others. We are continuing to evaluate the evidence,” a CDC spokesman told the Times.
The natural proclivity for law enforcement is to avoid high crime areas, which are the areas that would most benefit from policing. I don't agree with Swami's particular analogies, but police presence deters crime, and its not natural for the police to be in high crime neighborhood, they had to be subjected to a court order here (which I think they are no longer following and ACLU is too scared to enforce under the current climate).
Shooting for "no reason"? I thought this was a discussion of negligence?
Cops avoiding certain neighborhoods is long established:
"The ACLU of Illinois filed a lawsuit in October 2011 to challenge the long-time practice of failing to ensure that police are deployed equitably across the City of Chicago’s many diverse neighborhoods, resulting in delayed police responses to emergency calls in neighborhoods with higher minority populations. Neighborhoods with significant ethnic minority populations in Chicago are more likely to have slower response rates to emergency calls and higher rates of serious violent crimes, as compared to predominately white neighborhoods. Overall, in July 2013, residents in minority districts waited approximately twice as long for an officer to be dispatched to calls where life or property were in danger."
His sentence was based upon six counts of first degree assault (minimum 60 yrs overall) plus ten counts of attempted first degree assault (minimum 50 yrs overall). These penalize intentional misconduct, or its closest cousin (depraved heart). I don't know that his training or experience are legally relevant, though more on this might have made the jury more sympathetic. Perhaps he received all of the best training and still wanted to cause serious bodily injury; he would still be guilty if that is what he intended or if he didn't care if others lived or they died.
If he had been convicted of reckless driving, perhaps. The sentence here will be used by the employers and the insurance companies to deny responsibility. Generally the more egregious the individual's conduct, the less likely third parties will be liable for it.
And here is the strength and the weakness of the jury system. The jury certainly would have known the road, would have seen past any misdirection. My experience crossing the Divide on I-70 is that its pretty intimidating for a flatlander, and an engineering marvel at some points.
OTOH, the "Golden Rule" for improper jury argument is that the prosecutor cannot attempt to persuade the jurors to put themselves in the victim's place. They didn't have to say a word to that effect, right? The inherent dangers are obvious to those familiar with the road, and they probably took some comfort from the availability of runaway ramps.
That seems to be a very high sentence and a wide range for 1st degree assault. (In Illinois, aggravated assault w/o a firearm is a misdemeanor).
There are a lot of situations covered by the statute, but this appears to be the one that was likely at issue here: "Under circumstances manifesting extreme indifference to the value of human life, he knowingly engages in conduct which creates a grave risk of death to another person, and thereby causes serious bodily injury to any person."
That language resembles the "depraved heart" murder charges that come up in police abuse cases. The classic example is the teenager who initiates a game of Russian roulette which kills a friend; he may not have intended his friend's death, but he was utterly indifferent to the inherent dangers of the game. I suspect one just roles the dice as to whether jurors understand how these circumstances stack up to other circumstances.
It's kind of like a small poll taken in August of a BBB plan that didn't pass the House is not meaningful. Also, a poll concluding that 56% of WV Republicans support BBB should be treated with skepticism.
A more recent national poll from NPR Marist, has the BBB that passed the House supported by 41% of adults, opposed by 34% with 25% unsure. Link That breaks down to approval of 74% of Democrats; 36% of Independents; and 13% of Republicans.
If you believe statements such as "polls show BBB is super popular in West Virigina!" then I have a bridge over the Monongahela River to sell you. BBB polls just barely better than breakeven nationally. It is not going to be popular in a state Biden lost by 39 points.— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) December 20, 2021
The new coal mines in Illinois are counting on exports. Most Illinois energy is from nuclear. I think four new coal mines have opened in the last fifteen years, all using longwall mining technology, which essentially involves a two-mile wide cutting tool that scrapes coal from the seam, which drops onto a conveyor belt to be hauled to the surface. As the machine advances the earth drops behind it. Fewer jobs than traditional coal mining and more profitable. Illinois has a plan to move to net carbon zero that has nothing to do with stopping coal mining. The sin does not lie with those who supply it, just those that burn it.
Getting boosted later this morning, so I've issued myself a hall pass for the next 24 to 48 hours. I might do some Christmas shopping -- the people who make Bunn coffee are selling tins of a tea mix that the Lincolns would have enjoyed. Seems like a fun gift, even if 19th century central Illinois tea is unlikely to be both authentic and good.
Yes, its a procedural issue about whether there is a proper party for this type of lawsuit (pre-enforcement constitutional litigation). From Gorsuch's opinion: "In this preliminary posture, the ultimate merits question—whether S. B. 8 is consistent with the Federal Constitution—is not before the Court. Nor is the wisdom of S. B. 8 as a matter of public policy."
WW1: I'm not impressed with Sotomayor's effective use of historical analogies: "The Nation fought a Civil War over that proposition, but Calhoun's theories were not extinguished." If anybody was throwing shade on federal law, it was the Republicans and a populace energized by the Dred Scott decision, which was wrongly decided.
WW1: This seems within the Ex Parte Young precedent, and it serves the purpose of getting the issue into federal court. But it doesn't preserve the pre SB-8 status quo in any meaningful was as far as I can tell. The district court will enter a preliminary injunction against regulators, but people are still feel free to file lawsuit, they just won't result in the added consequences from the various regulators. And assuming this is all a game of whack-a-mole, what if the regulators lose, the preliminary injunction becomes permanent, but they don't appeal? The district court judge's opinion is not binding on anyone except the parties.
Frankly, the DOJ lawsuit made more sense, but it sounds as if the DOJ may have said something in arguments that they would be happy if one of the private suits went forward instead. I believe this was speculation.
The court packing plan was not popular. It was unveiled by FDR on Feb. 5, 1938, and Gallup polling showed that it never had majority support:
"Over the entire period, support averaged about 39%. Opposition to Court packing ranged from a low of 41% on 24 March to a high of 49% on 3 March. On average, about 46% of each sample indicated opposition to President Roosevelt's proposed legislation. And it is clear that, after a surge from an early push by FDR, the public support for restructuring the Court rapidly melted."
The Senate voted against the court packing scheme 70 to 20, amid pubic backlash from Democratic elites and the American Bar Association.
FDR's court-packing plan hastened the end of the New Deal; liberal Democrats in the North lost their seats in the 1938 mid-terms (while FDR unsuccessfully campaigned against Southern Democrats), giving conservative Democrats and Republicans effective control of the legislature.
At the same time, FDR was able to nominate (judicial restraint) conservatives to the Bench (Frankfurter, Reed, Jackson, and also Stone as Chief Justice). I'm skeptical that today's Democrats would push for judicial restraint nominees to the Court or anything that would weaken the Court.
I'm not sure the situations are all that symmetric: (1) abortion is very time sensitive, any slight disruption / uncertainty about the right can be fatal to it; (2) abortion rights are uniquely in a state of uncertainty; nobody expects gun rights to change much; (3) federal law (Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act) prevents lawsuits against "manufactures, sells or distributes" firearms. (And fwiw, Illinois courts had already ruled against this type of civil liability)
On “We Should Unfix the College Football Postseason: A Rebuttal”
Instead of "obvious solution," you should have offered a modest proposal. I read a lot of relegation stuff on baseball blogs that seems to be completely disconnected with how the farm systems work. Also something about harvesting Notre Dame babies.
On “Sunday Morning! Five short stories by Shirley Jackson”
I read the Library of America collection of Jackson about 5-7 years ago, and was skimming it last week to refresh my memory of which story took place in New York. It was "The Tooth" (and I just double-checked, she does go down to New York), and my recollection is that this was an example of non-suburban story, even if the main character is from somewhere else. A minor observation, but in the process of making sure this was the story I was thinking of, I found a review or comment that concluded that the character's reactions were so extreme that it couldn't be just-a-toothache, but she must have undergone an abortion. That seems to ignore way too much of the factual background to connect some meaning to the story, which supports the notion that women of the 1950s live in a foreign land of which we lack a guidebook.
I thought "the Lottery" did not read so well the second time around, the power is in the surprise ending. The only other story I was reading for the second time was "The Summer People," which I still think is one of her best short stories. The collection included "Biography of a Story," in which she share the responses she received to "The Lottery," which ranged from wanting to know where this custom is taking place, to testing various allegorical readings, to anger and to humor (hopefully, some claimed they were starting this practice or at least starting to collect smooth round stones).
Also just noticed that there is a second LOA volume, which I'll probably get some day.
On “Supreme Court Mandates Rulings: Read Them For Yourself”
The Supreme Court may have bailed out the Democrats. Mandates (vax or test) in my state were targeted and required compliance by Oct. 4th for those employed in government, schools and health care providers. There have been numerous extensions (individual and by class) with the hospitals here needing an additional five months for compliance. An OSHA emergency rule can only remain in place for six months. Hospitals have several advantages in administering a vaccine mandate, most having started early in encouraging vaccination, having their own testing and vaccination capacity, and having had and enforced flu vaccine mandates for years.
Mandates later needed legislation to implement that was difficult to obtain even with a supermajority Democratic legislature. Lawsuits sprang up, including from public service unions, based upon an interpretation of a healthcare freedom of conscious law that would have eviscerated the mandates. Initially there were not enough votes for an immediate effective date (as opposed to June) due to opposition from the black caucus. In addition, employers needed liability protection if they were to enforce vaccine mandates -- the fear being that they would rubberstamp any medical / religious exemption otherwise. Again, the necessary votes were not there until language was removed expressly contemplating that employment could be terminated. There are legislators that support mandates, but not consequences.
Six months is probably not enough time to effectively implement this type of rule and the results would have been chaotic and arbitrary enforcement. I think people greatly undervalue how policies may have some degree of general support which evaporates in its implementation.
On “National Undergraduate Enrollment Falls Again in 2021”
Yeah, I agree. Also need long term data because I think enrollment declines were occurring since the Great Recession enrollment bump.
On the other hand, surveys last fall had more than one-third of college students cancelling college, and a similar number of high school seniors saying they would defer or cancel college if it was on-line. I would think there would be some time-shifting which would have led to some increased enrollment this Fall.
On “Nick Kristof and The Moosylvania of Politics”
I believe Rahm Emanuel did not meet the residency requirement for Chicago mayor under similar language to that of Oregon (except Illinois mayors only have to live one year in their city), but the Illinois SCOTUS disagreed and pretty much eliminated residency durational requirements in the state. The appeal to ignoring durational requirements is that they let the people decide -- it's more democratic. And Rahm got over 50% of the vote in the first round, so in some sense the court was vindicated. But its not necessarily more democratic to ignore democratically enacted laws, and I'll leave it to Chicagoans to evaluate whether Rahm was the indispensable man of the hour.
On “Thursday Throughput: Fetal Gene Edition”
I guess this is his statement back in March: “We can kind of almost see the end,” Walensky told Maddow. “We’re vaccinating so very fast, our data from the CDC today suggests, you know, that vaccinated people do not carry the virus, don’t get sick, and that it’s not just in the clinical trials but it’s also in real world data.”
CDC clarified a few days later that “It’s possible that some people who are fully vaccinated could get COVID-19. The evidence isn’t clear whether they can spread the virus to others. We are continuing to evaluate the evidence,” a CDC spokesman told the Times.
https://thehill.com/changing-america/well-being/546234-cdc-reverses-statement-by-director-that-vaccinated-people-are-no
"
9 -- I don't recall the CDC director ever saying that the vaccinated couldn't transmit disease. Biden has said it a few times though:
https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2021/dec/22/joe-biden/biden-says-vaccinated-people-cant-spread-covid-19-/
On “Kim Potter Found Guilty in Killing of Daunte Wright”
The natural proclivity for law enforcement is to avoid high crime areas, which are the areas that would most benefit from policing. I don't agree with Swami's particular analogies, but police presence deters crime, and its not natural for the police to be in high crime neighborhood, they had to be subjected to a court order here (which I think they are no longer following and ACLU is too scared to enforce under the current climate).
Shooting for "no reason"? I thought this was a discussion of negligence?
"
Cops avoiding certain neighborhoods is long established:
"The ACLU of Illinois filed a lawsuit in October 2011 to challenge the long-time practice of failing to ensure that police are deployed equitably across the City of Chicago’s many diverse neighborhoods, resulting in delayed police responses to emergency calls in neighborhoods with higher minority populations. Neighborhoods with significant ethnic minority populations in Chicago are more likely to have slower response rates to emergency calls and higher rates of serious violent crimes, as compared to predominately white neighborhoods. Overall, in July 2013, residents in minority districts waited approximately twice as long for an officer to be dispatched to calls where life or property were in danger."
https://www.aclu-il.org/en/cases/cana-v-city-chicago
On “Wednesday Writs: Out Of Control Trucks and Runaway Prosecutor Edition”
His sentence was based upon six counts of first degree assault (minimum 60 yrs overall) plus ten counts of attempted first degree assault (minimum 50 yrs overall). These penalize intentional misconduct, or its closest cousin (depraved heart). I don't know that his training or experience are legally relevant, though more on this might have made the jury more sympathetic. Perhaps he received all of the best training and still wanted to cause serious bodily injury; he would still be guilty if that is what he intended or if he didn't care if others lived or they died.
"
If he had been convicted of reckless driving, perhaps. The sentence here will be used by the employers and the insurance companies to deny responsibility. Generally the more egregious the individual's conduct, the less likely third parties will be liable for it.
"
And here is the strength and the weakness of the jury system. The jury certainly would have known the road, would have seen past any misdirection. My experience crossing the Divide on I-70 is that its pretty intimidating for a flatlander, and an engineering marvel at some points.
OTOH, the "Golden Rule" for improper jury argument is that the prosecutor cannot attempt to persuade the jurors to put themselves in the victim's place. They didn't have to say a word to that effect, right? The inherent dangers are obvious to those familiar with the road, and they probably took some comfort from the availability of runaway ramps.
"
That seems to be a very high sentence and a wide range for 1st degree assault. (In Illinois, aggravated assault w/o a firearm is a misdemeanor).
There are a lot of situations covered by the statute, but this appears to be the one that was likely at issue here: "Under circumstances manifesting extreme indifference to the value of human life, he knowingly engages in conduct which creates a grave risk of death to another person, and thereby causes serious bodily injury to any person."
That language resembles the "depraved heart" murder charges that come up in police abuse cases. The classic example is the teenager who initiates a game of Russian roulette which kills a friend; he may not have intended his friend's death, but he was utterly indifferent to the inherent dangers of the game. I suspect one just roles the dice as to whether jurors understand how these circumstances stack up to other circumstances.
On “Senator Joe Manchin on Build Back Better: “This Is A No””
It's kind of like a small poll taken in August of a BBB plan that didn't pass the House is not meaningful. Also, a poll concluding that 56% of WV Republicans support BBB should be treated with skepticism.
A more recent national poll from NPR Marist, has the BBB that passed the House supported by 41% of adults, opposed by 34% with 25% unsure. Link That breaks down to approval of 74% of Democrats; 36% of Independents; and 13% of Republicans.
"
"
The new coal mines in Illinois are counting on exports. Most Illinois energy is from nuclear. I think four new coal mines have opened in the last fifteen years, all using longwall mining technology, which essentially involves a two-mile wide cutting tool that scrapes coal from the seam, which drops onto a conveyor belt to be hauled to the surface. As the machine advances the earth drops behind it. Fewer jobs than traditional coal mining and more profitable. Illinois has a plan to move to net carbon zero that has nothing to do with stopping coal mining. The sin does not lie with those who supply it, just those that burn it.
On “Weekend Plans Post: The Week From Heck”
Getting boosted later this morning, so I've issued myself a hall pass for the next 24 to 48 hours. I might do some Christmas shopping -- the people who make Bunn coffee are selling tins of a tea mix that the Lincolns would have enjoyed. Seems like a fun gift, even if 19th century central Illinois tea is unlikely to be both authentic and good.
On “Wednesday Writs: The Most Concise Synopsis I Can Come Up With on The Supreme Court and SB 8”
Yes, its a procedural issue about whether there is a proper party for this type of lawsuit (pre-enforcement constitutional litigation). From Gorsuch's opinion: "In this preliminary posture, the ultimate merits question—whether S. B. 8 is consistent with the Federal Constitution—is not before the Court. Nor is the wisdom of S. B. 8 as a matter of public policy."
"
WW1: I'm not impressed with Sotomayor's effective use of historical analogies: "The Nation fought a Civil War over that proposition, but Calhoun's theories were not extinguished." If anybody was throwing shade on federal law, it was the Republicans and a populace energized by the Dred Scott decision, which was wrongly decided.
"
WW1: This seems within the Ex Parte Young precedent, and it serves the purpose of getting the issue into federal court. But it doesn't preserve the pre SB-8 status quo in any meaningful was as far as I can tell. The district court will enter a preliminary injunction against regulators, but people are still feel free to file lawsuit, they just won't result in the added consequences from the various regulators. And assuming this is all a game of whack-a-mole, what if the regulators lose, the preliminary injunction becomes permanent, but they don't appeal? The district court judge's opinion is not binding on anyone except the parties.
Frankly, the DOJ lawsuit made more sense, but it sounds as if the DOJ may have said something in arguments that they would be happy if one of the private suits went forward instead. I believe this was speculation.
On “Is the Supreme Court Afraid of Democrats?”
The court packing plan was not popular. It was unveiled by FDR on Feb. 5, 1938, and Gallup polling showed that it never had majority support:
"Over the entire period, support averaged about 39%. Opposition to Court packing ranged from a low of 41% on 24 March to a high of 49% on 3 March. On average, about 46% of each sample indicated opposition to President Roosevelt's proposed legislation. And it is clear that, after a surge from an early push by FDR, the public support for restructuring the Court rapidly melted."
The Senate voted against the court packing scheme 70 to 20, amid pubic backlash from Democratic elites and the American Bar Association.
"
FDR's court-packing plan hastened the end of the New Deal; liberal Democrats in the North lost their seats in the 1938 mid-terms (while FDR unsuccessfully campaigned against Southern Democrats), giving conservative Democrats and Republicans effective control of the legislature.
At the same time, FDR was able to nominate (judicial restraint) conservatives to the Bench (Frankfurter, Reed, Jackson, and also Stone as Chief Justice). I'm skeptical that today's Democrats would push for judicial restraint nominees to the Court or anything that would weaken the Court.
On “The Creative Destruction of Sears”
The Sears close to my home is being converted to government offices for roughly 700 employees. Viva Free Market!
On “From the Wall Street Journal: California’s Gavin Newsom Favors Gun Suits Modeled on Texas Abortion Law”
I'm not sure the situations are all that symmetric: (1) abortion is very time sensitive, any slight disruption / uncertainty about the right can be fatal to it; (2) abortion rights are uniquely in a state of uncertainty; nobody expects gun rights to change much; (3) federal law (Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act) prevents lawsuits against "manufactures, sells or distributes" firearms. (And fwiw, Illinois courts had already ruled against this type of civil liability)
On “Mastermind of Racist, Homophobic Attack of Jussie Smollett found Guilty of 5 of 6 Counts by Jury”
Is brunch something you eat, or is it a metaphor here? I can understand the latter; metaphors give me indigestion.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.