I think Keynes was right that for high-income countries, at least larger ones, the benefits of free trade become rather insignificant in most cases and begin to give way to the advantages of "bringing the product and the consumer within the ambit of the same national, economic, and financial organization."
"I sympathize…with those who would minimize, rather than with those who maximize, economic entanglement among nations. Ideas, knowledge, science, hospitality, travel - these are the things which should of their nature be international. But let goods be homespun whenever it is reasonably and conveniently possible, and above all, let finance be primarily national." (Keynes, "National Self-Sufficiency")
Can't speak to Colorado situation, but I believe studies have found that when cops have legal responsibility for at least some portion of the settlement/judgment, they almost always never pay anything. I believe that was just from looking for evidence of any such payment in the government records.
I can speculate that one such reason is the belief that the cop is judgment proof, so not worth the effort. Another related issue might be that lawsuits are primarily directed at police departments for failure to train/supervise probably for the same reason, that's where the money is, but they have to prove some sort of governmental culpability.
Most police department do not have insurance for police misconduct, at least in any traditional sense. In large cities, they tend to self-insure, passing on large judgments to taxpayers or with cuts in public services. Small communities do tend to get insurance, it basically smooths out less common, high-dollar claims from year to year. Others enter into intergovernmental mutual risk pools with other communities in which each pay into a fund, and receive money from the fund to cover any payouts. When payouts exceed contributions, then member contributions are increased. In those cases, the communities are sharing the risk with each other to prevent dramatic budget shortfalls.
I always feared Big Ten expansion would facilitate the further loss of geographic meaning.
I think Midwest has a pretty clear meaning. It refers in its original sense to the territories created by the Northwest Ordinance. Inspired by Jefferson's more idealistic visions of the future, it was a place of public schools, non-establishment of religion, surveyed and gridded townships and most importantly no slavery. The failure by one vote in 1784 for a common western policy meant there would be for a considerable time two frontiers, a northern one and a southern. Additional differentiation would originate with the Eerie Canal, the development of canals and railroads, and immigration particularly from Germany.
Three sides of the border are pretty clear, Canada to the North, the Appalachian mountains (the British Proclamation line prohibiting settlement) to the east, and the Ohio River to the South. The western extent is more murky. Pretty easy to include the entirety of Minnesota given part of it was in the Northwest Territory, and Iowa given that it was admitted to the Union before Minnesota and Wisconsin. The hard line is probably the 98th meridian, the line where rainfall drops perceptively and a lot of things don't work like they did to the east and the assumption that they did caused a lot of pain, hardship and death.
My take on the Gideon decision (not necessarily the courts) is that by the early 60s, the rights enforced under the Bill of Rights concerning criminal process had broadened so much, often with the creation of multi-factorial balancing tests, that legal training was necessary to implement them. The decision gets limited utility when courts appoint counsel who is not a public defender. The legal world has changed a lot since Atticus Finch who appears to have been a general practitioner was appointed to represent a defendant charged with a capitol offense.
As I recall from watching evictions, there were only three issues that the tenant can raise: (1) timely payment of rent; (2) lack of notice; or (3) some sort of defense amounting to breach of warranty of habitability. If you think about it, only the first one really matters in the long run. Inability to pay rent is not efficiently addressed by getting lawyers on the case. There are no such complicated Constitutional rights issues with rental agreements.
The official trailer says its based upon "powerful true events," but seems to be hiding what that story is, seemingly making it appear to be an early anti-colonial struggle against white slavers. I don't quite get the Marvel touch from the trailer, as much as some of the choreographed fighting that I associate with Asian cinema. In any event, it appears to be trying to appeal to different groups.
I don't think films do a good job on historical truths, but at least in this day and age, you could find good articles like this one that explain the background. I dislike some of the quotes in Lincoln that are of dubious authenticity that Spielberg intended to have contemporaneous political importance. Mostly though on certain topics are touched on like slavery, its going to be a minefield and there is almost no way to win.
I think there are two necessary conditions to JQ Adams' example. First, JQ Adams was relatively non-partisan in the sense that he was not a party man, sharing a trait of independence valued by Whigs generally. Northern Democrats were more willing to support repeal of the gag rule as a point of conscience as it wasn't draped in over partisan policies. Second, the Southern Democrats overplayed their hand by passing an extreme version of the gag rule in 1840. They did not know where the middle was, misunderstanding broad antipathy to abolitionism for support of restrictions on the Constitutional right to petition the government.
Doctor Jay was was contesting the claim that "Russia ain’t doing anything we don’t." Doesn't strike me as making excuses, just not seeing what Russia is doing as normal in a contemporary sense.
I'll repeat my disagreement with you from last year on this:
"She will be challenged regardless. The person the national media is looking towards and where the money is probably already flowing is Rep. Ruben Gallego, who represents a +24 D district. He is not a replacement level Democrat, he’s a Democrat who can beat Democrats in Democratic districts."
The Progressive billionaires club (which includes my governor and his wife) had already committed to fund a progressive person of color to challenge Sinema. All eyes were on Gallego, and he polls with about a three to one advantage over Sinema in the primaries. He was almost certainly running for the seat before and I don't see why he wouldn't now, unless Biden buys him off with a plum appointment.
Not on twitter, but even innocent outsiders get pulled into twitter drama. I listened to Robert Wright interview Harry McCracken on the ins and outs of Mastodon, and it seemed that many of structural differences were created with the expressed intent not to be twitter. I think Bob was disappointed in a lot of the particulars.
The one point that stood out to me was that its pretty common, perhaps more common than not, to ban politics on a given server/instance. A lot of people hate politics on twitter and migrated to strictly politics-free zones in Mastodon. Others presumably more hyper-politicized migrated away from twitter with their own agenda. The latest round of refugees probably fit comfortably within neither poles.
My contribution to controversy would be to axe "Birthday," as a far too topical song for an album. Cut these and the White Album fits on a single compact disc:
Wild Honey Pie (filler)
I Will (Paul's worst fluff instincts)
Birthday (but it's not my birthday)
Honey Pie ("going to the vaudeville well once to often")
Revolution 9 (make it stop)
Good Night (at an efficient 74 minutes, who needs sleepy time?)
OK, so the issue might be that in that county one can go to any precinct to vote, and it is the printing out individualized ballots for each voter that might be causing the problems. Upload the person's name/address to the server to determine which ballot to print out; download the ballot for printing. Where I live I think the County building is the only all-comers site.
Counties here comply with state and federal law in their own ways. I voted by filling in an optical-scan ballot in a booth and then feeding it into a machine that I presume scanned and recorded the entries. Nothing I observed needed continuous internet access, though I presume at some point the data would be uploaded to the Clerk's Office, just not that "internet down" would be a reason that votes couldn't be cast.
Reporting DOS attacks have halted voting in Champaign County, IL. Long lines have people leaving. I'm not certain why the in-person voting machines require continuous internet access to operate. The Clerk's Office had been under attack for the past month. Possible suspect, HAL from 2001.
Your state looks like a Gerrymander. Just for curiosity, are the basic principles set forth in legislation or did the independent commission program its own instructions? From a small "D" democratic perspective I don't like the North Carolina courts taking vague principles to make law, and probably don't think independent commissions should be making those decisions either.
Yeah, I might add another factor which is the degree of localization. The reason Congress passed a law mandating single-member districts for Congressional Representatives was to promote representation of localized minorities. This almost certainly meant African-Americans in the Southern black belt and in Northern cities, but would have benefitted other local groups. Getting rid of single-member districts and replacing them with multi-member districts or statewide races would make the results more majoritarian.
As I see it, the complaints about redistricting maps are mostly not about traditional concerns over (1) compactness. There are usually two other issues. People want (2) competitive races so that they have choices on the ballot. The advocates behind the unsuccessful challenge to Wisconsin's redistricting wanted (3) efficiency, in that they wanted the overall results in a statue to approximate the results if there were no districts (i.e. if 55% of state voters voted for a Republican legislator, only approximately 55% of the districts should produce Republican legislators).
I see all three of those in tension with each other, and where partisan distribution is not random, but in the case of Democrats concentrated in large cities, there is probably no way to get (2) or (3) with compact districts. There is probably no way to get both (2) or (3) without severely contorted districting.
Good piece, but I think it overlooks the broad political reconciliation that took place, at least in England, after the ascension of William and Mary. Parliament voted to require the most minimal oath of allegiance to the new monarchs by MPs, office-holders and the clergy. Specifically, they needed only swear that William & Mary are in fact king and queen of England to whom they will give allegiance. This de facto oath did not require recognition that they had lawfully become King & Queen (de jure oath).
The importance was that Tories had emerged as a faction supporting the prerogative powers of the monarch and the inheritance of the monarchy by birth. While they opposed the policies of James with respect to the Church of England and of France, they had no principled basis for what had happened. A Tory might point out that James left the country (implicating personal abdication), or that William rules as King now, but they were never going to accept the legal philosophy of radical Whigs that a monarch has contractual obligations to his subjects which authorize removal for breach. The political differences were set aside, arguments about the past ignored, and the Jacobite cause was marginalized. The issues were too serious to politicize at least until the situation stabilized.
No, the Petitioner's theory doesn't implicate any Congressional law. As Philip points out the Constitution expressly authorizes Congressional law in this area. The North Carolina Supreme Court did not invalidate the map based upon federal law, so it's not at issue.
However, the North Carolina courts arguably ignored Congressional law, which prescribes the outcome when a state has not "redistricted in the manner provided by the law thereof." There is a menu of options (2 U.S.C. 2a) and where as here North Carolina gained a seat, federal law requires the election to be held based upon the previous lawful districting, plus one at large seat. Petitioners never reach this point because they dispute that the maps were properly held invalid by "the law" of the State legislature.
I guess I assumed that was common, at least where justices are elected. Illinois has generally been more about local control and districting, and for a very long time preventing Chicago from having the representation in the legislature proportionate to its population (one-ninth of the representation of someone living in a downstate district).
The Illinois Constitution provides for ballot initiatives as a means of amendment. An imitative to amend the Constitution to have an independent panel conduct the districting was stopped from appearing on the 2016 ballot by the Illinois Supreme Court on a 4-3 partisan break. Supporters of the initiative targeted the only downstate Democratic Justice in 2020 when he was up for retention. He was the first S.Ct. Justice to fail a retention vote and then the legislature voted to change the state supreme court districts for the next election.
Illinois has now gone one step further and just gerrymandered the state supreme court districts to ensure that legislative gerrymanders are protected. I think most lawyers are opposed at least to some extent because those districts (which map onto the intermediate appellate courts) are more than just voting districts, they are the courts they need to travel to and sources of influence for various appointments. I think the notion that the courts will necessarily be fair arbiters of districting is not true.
Basically, all legislatures are bound by the Constitution that created them, so all their acts are subject to judicial review, but courts are not empowered to create districts (legislate) as part of their judicial review.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.
On “Maybe Domestic Manufacturing Should Come Back”
I think Keynes was right that for high-income countries, at least larger ones, the benefits of free trade become rather insignificant in most cases and begin to give way to the advantages of "bringing the product and the consumer within the ambit of the same national, economic, and financial organization."
"I sympathize…with those who would minimize, rather than with those who maximize, economic entanglement among nations. Ideas, knowledge, science, hospitality, travel - these are the things which should of their nature be international. But let goods be homespun whenever it is reasonably and conveniently possible, and above all, let finance be primarily national." (Keynes, "National Self-Sufficiency")
On “Police Brutality Rears Its Ugly Head in Memphis”
Can't speak to Colorado situation, but I believe studies have found that when cops have legal responsibility for at least some portion of the settlement/judgment, they almost always never pay anything. I believe that was just from looking for evidence of any such payment in the government records.
I can speculate that one such reason is the belief that the cop is judgment proof, so not worth the effort. Another related issue might be that lawsuits are primarily directed at police departments for failure to train/supervise probably for the same reason, that's where the money is, but they have to prove some sort of governmental culpability.
"
Most police department do not have insurance for police misconduct, at least in any traditional sense. In large cities, they tend to self-insure, passing on large judgments to taxpayers or with cuts in public services. Small communities do tend to get insurance, it basically smooths out less common, high-dollar claims from year to year. Others enter into intergovernmental mutual risk pools with other communities in which each pay into a fund, and receive money from the fund to cover any payouts. When payouts exceed contributions, then member contributions are increased. In those cases, the communities are sharing the risk with each other to prevent dramatic budget shortfalls.
On “I’m Not a Midwesterner; No One Is”
I always feared Big Ten expansion would facilitate the further loss of geographic meaning.
I think Midwest has a pretty clear meaning. It refers in its original sense to the territories created by the Northwest Ordinance. Inspired by Jefferson's more idealistic visions of the future, it was a place of public schools, non-establishment of religion, surveyed and gridded townships and most importantly no slavery. The failure by one vote in 1784 for a common western policy meant there would be for a considerable time two frontiers, a northern one and a southern. Additional differentiation would originate with the Eerie Canal, the development of canals and railroads, and immigration particularly from Germany.
Three sides of the border are pretty clear, Canada to the North, the Appalachian mountains (the British Proclamation line prohibiting settlement) to the east, and the Ohio River to the South. The western extent is more murky. Pretty easy to include the entirety of Minnesota given part of it was in the Northwest Territory, and Iowa given that it was admitted to the Union before Minnesota and Wisconsin. The hard line is probably the 98th meridian, the line where rainfall drops perceptively and a lot of things don't work like they did to the east and the assumption that they did caused a lot of pain, hardship and death.
On “Biden’s Renter’s Bill of Rights: Is it Time for the Right to Counsel to Evolve?”
My take on the Gideon decision (not necessarily the courts) is that by the early 60s, the rights enforced under the Bill of Rights concerning criminal process had broadened so much, often with the creation of multi-factorial balancing tests, that legal training was necessary to implement them. The decision gets limited utility when courts appoint counsel who is not a public defender. The legal world has changed a lot since Atticus Finch who appears to have been a general practitioner was appointed to represent a defendant charged with a capitol offense.
As I recall from watching evictions, there were only three issues that the tenant can raise: (1) timely payment of rent; (2) lack of notice; or (3) some sort of defense amounting to breach of warranty of habitability. If you think about it, only the first one really matters in the long run. Inability to pay rent is not efficiently addressed by getting lawyers on the case. There are no such complicated Constitutional rights issues with rental agreements.
On “The Woman King’s Historical Lies: Why They Matter”
The official trailer says its based upon "powerful true events," but seems to be hiding what that story is, seemingly making it appear to be an early anti-colonial struggle against white slavers. I don't quite get the Marvel touch from the trailer, as much as some of the choreographed fighting that I associate with Asian cinema. In any event, it appears to be trying to appeal to different groups.
I don't think films do a good job on historical truths, but at least in this day and age, you could find good articles like this one that explain the background. I dislike some of the quotes in Lincoln that are of dubious authenticity that Spielberg intended to have contemporaneous political importance. Mostly though on certain topics are touched on like slavery, its going to be a minefield and there is almost no way to win.
On “Conservatives Should Rediscover John Quincy Adams”
I think there are two necessary conditions to JQ Adams' example. First, JQ Adams was relatively non-partisan in the sense that he was not a party man, sharing a trait of independence valued by Whigs generally. Northern Democrats were more willing to support repeal of the gag rule as a point of conscience as it wasn't draped in over partisan policies. Second, the Southern Democrats overplayed their hand by passing an extreme version of the gag rule in 1840. They did not know where the middle was, misunderstanding broad antipathy to abolitionism for support of restrictions on the Constitutional right to petition the government.
"
JQ Adams never owned any slaves, nor did the White House, so emancipation was outside his power.
On “Why is MAGA Melting Down Over Zelensky?”
Doctor Jay was was contesting the claim that "Russia ain’t doing anything we don’t." Doesn't strike me as making excuses, just not seeing what Russia is doing as normal in a contemporary sense.
On “Ten Second News Links and Open Thread for the week of 12/05/2022”
I'll repeat my disagreement with you from last year on this:
"She will be challenged regardless. The person the national media is looking towards and where the money is probably already flowing is Rep. Ruben Gallego, who represents a +24 D district. He is not a replacement level Democrat, he’s a Democrat who can beat Democrats in Democratic districts."
https://ordinary-times.com/2021/10/21/senate-manchin-sinema-fillibuster-politics-senators-biden/#comment-3568469
The Progressive billionaires club (which includes my governor and his wife) had already committed to fund a progressive person of color to challenge Sinema. All eyes were on Gallego, and he polls with about a three to one advantage over Sinema in the primaries. He was almost certainly running for the seat before and I don't see why he wouldn't now, unless Biden buys him off with a plum appointment.
On “The American Spirit of Gratitude”
Thank you!
On “My First Monday Without Twitter”
Not on twitter, but even innocent outsiders get pulled into twitter drama. I listened to Robert Wright interview Harry McCracken on the ins and outs of Mastodon, and it seemed that many of structural differences were created with the expressed intent not to be twitter. I think Bob was disappointed in a lot of the particulars.
The one point that stood out to me was that its pretty common, perhaps more common than not, to ban politics on a given server/instance. A lot of people hate politics on twitter and migrated to strictly politics-free zones in Mastodon. Others presumably more hyper-politicized migrated away from twitter with their own agenda. The latest round of refugees probably fit comfortably within neither poles.
On “The Beatles: Sex and The Single Album”
My contribution to controversy would be to axe "Birthday," as a far too topical song for an album. Cut these and the White Album fits on a single compact disc:
Wild Honey Pie (filler)
I Will (Paul's worst fluff instincts)
Birthday (but it's not my birthday)
Honey Pie ("going to the vaudeville well once to often")
Revolution 9 (make it stop)
Good Night (at an efficient 74 minutes, who needs sleepy time?)
On “Election Night Open Thread: Talking about the Returns”
OK, so the issue might be that in that county one can go to any precinct to vote, and it is the printing out individualized ballots for each voter that might be causing the problems. Upload the person's name/address to the server to determine which ballot to print out; download the ballot for printing. Where I live I think the County building is the only all-comers site.
"
Counties here comply with state and federal law in their own ways. I voted by filling in an optical-scan ballot in a booth and then feeding it into a machine that I presume scanned and recorded the entries. Nothing I observed needed continuous internet access, though I presume at some point the data would be uploaded to the Clerk's Office, just not that "internet down" would be a reason that votes couldn't be cast.
"
Reporting DOS attacks have halted voting in Champaign County, IL. Long lines have people leaving. I'm not certain why the in-person voting machines require continuous internet access to operate. The Clerk's Office had been under attack for the past month. Possible suspect, HAL from 2001.
On “SCOTUS and Moore v Harper: To Be Democratic Or To Seem Democratic”
Your state looks like a Gerrymander. Just for curiosity, are the basic principles set forth in legislation or did the independent commission program its own instructions? From a small "D" democratic perspective I don't like the North Carolina courts taking vague principles to make law, and probably don't think independent commissions should be making those decisions either.
"
Yeah, I might add another factor which is the degree of localization. The reason Congress passed a law mandating single-member districts for Congressional Representatives was to promote representation of localized minorities. This almost certainly meant African-Americans in the Southern black belt and in Northern cities, but would have benefitted other local groups. Getting rid of single-member districts and replacing them with multi-member districts or statewide races would make the results more majoritarian.
"
As I see it, the complaints about redistricting maps are mostly not about traditional concerns over (1) compactness. There are usually two other issues. People want (2) competitive races so that they have choices on the ballot. The advocates behind the unsuccessful challenge to Wisconsin's redistricting wanted (3) efficiency, in that they wanted the overall results in a statue to approximate the results if there were no districts (i.e. if 55% of state voters voted for a Republican legislator, only approximately 55% of the districts should produce Republican legislators).
I see all three of those in tension with each other, and where partisan distribution is not random, but in the case of Democrats concentrated in large cities, there is probably no way to get (2) or (3) with compact districts. There is probably no way to get both (2) or (3) without severely contorted districting.
On “The King Over the Water”
Good piece, but I think it overlooks the broad political reconciliation that took place, at least in England, after the ascension of William and Mary. Parliament voted to require the most minimal oath of allegiance to the new monarchs by MPs, office-holders and the clergy. Specifically, they needed only swear that William & Mary are in fact king and queen of England to whom they will give allegiance. This de facto oath did not require recognition that they had lawfully become King & Queen (de jure oath).
The importance was that Tories had emerged as a faction supporting the prerogative powers of the monarch and the inheritance of the monarchy by birth. While they opposed the policies of James with respect to the Church of England and of France, they had no principled basis for what had happened. A Tory might point out that James left the country (implicating personal abdication), or that William rules as King now, but they were never going to accept the legal philosophy of radical Whigs that a monarch has contractual obligations to his subjects which authorize removal for breach. The political differences were set aside, arguments about the past ignored, and the Jacobite cause was marginalized. The issues were too serious to politicize at least until the situation stabilized.
On “SCOTUS and Moore v Harper: To Be Democratic Or To Seem Democratic”
No, the Petitioner's theory doesn't implicate any Congressional law. As Philip points out the Constitution expressly authorizes Congressional law in this area. The North Carolina Supreme Court did not invalidate the map based upon federal law, so it's not at issue.
However, the North Carolina courts arguably ignored Congressional law, which prescribes the outcome when a state has not "redistricted in the manner provided by the law thereof." There is a menu of options (2 U.S.C. 2a) and where as here North Carolina gained a seat, federal law requires the election to be held based upon the previous lawful districting, plus one at large seat. Petitioners never reach this point because they dispute that the maps were properly held invalid by "the law" of the State legislature.
"
I guess I assumed that was common, at least where justices are elected. Illinois has generally been more about local control and districting, and for a very long time preventing Chicago from having the representation in the legislature proportionate to its population (one-ninth of the representation of someone living in a downstate district).
"
The Illinois Constitution provides for ballot initiatives as a means of amendment. An imitative to amend the Constitution to have an independent panel conduct the districting was stopped from appearing on the 2016 ballot by the Illinois Supreme Court on a 4-3 partisan break. Supporters of the initiative targeted the only downstate Democratic Justice in 2020 when he was up for retention. He was the first S.Ct. Justice to fail a retention vote and then the legislature voted to change the state supreme court districts for the next election.
"
Illinois has now gone one step further and just gerrymandered the state supreme court districts to ensure that legislative gerrymanders are protected. I think most lawyers are opposed at least to some extent because those districts (which map onto the intermediate appellate courts) are more than just voting districts, they are the courts they need to travel to and sources of influence for various appointments. I think the notion that the courts will necessarily be fair arbiters of districting is not true.
"
I like the solution offered by William Baude and Michael McConnell in the Atlantic: In Moore v. Harper, the justices should not side with the views of either party
Basically, all legislatures are bound by the Constitution that created them, so all their acts are subject to judicial review, but courts are not empowered to create districts (legislate) as part of their judicial review.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.