Friday, July 1, 2022

Althouse

Althouse

Sunrise — 5:13, 5:22, 5:26, 5:28.

Posted: 01 Jul 2022 06:16 PM PDT

IMG_1398X

IMG_1401X

IMG_1414D

IMG_1415X

Write about whatever you like in the comments.

"A group of educators in Texas proposed referring to slavery as 'involuntary relocation' in second-grade classes..."

Posted: 01 Jul 2022 07:40 PM PDT

"... before being rebuffed by the State Board of Education.... Aicha Davis, a Democratic board member representing Dallas and Fort Worth... told The Washington Post on Friday that when looking through a hefty package of recommendations, she saw the proposed language the group wanted to suggest, and 'I immediately questioned it. I am not going to support anything that describes the slave trade as 'involuntary relocation'.... I'm not going to support anything that diminishes that journey.' Part of the proposed draft standards for the curriculum directed students to 'compare journeys to America, including voluntary Irish immigration and involuntary relocation of African people during colonial times,' the Texas Tribune reported and Davis confirmed to The Post. She said that such comparisons were 'absolutely' not fair. 'The journey for the Irish folk is totally different from the journey of Africans,' she said, adding that any comparisons 'will distort a lot of things in a young child's mind.'"

It was an invitation to the children to compare things, that is, to think for themselves. Why wouldn't you imagine that the children could grasp how much worse it is to be forced into slavery? 

What is wrong with teaching the tragic story of the Irish? Why diminish their suffering and slough them off as "Irish folk"? History isn't a matter of deciding which people suffered the most, then only telling their story and forbidding all comparisons, but what school boards do never has much to do with ensuring that history is taught in a soundly professional way. 

"Are We Still Monogamous? And 6 Other Questions to Ask Your Partner."

Posted: 01 Jul 2022 04:52 PM PDT

A NYT piece. I've extracted some snippets of advice for you if you're in a couple:
... look back over the past week or month and ask, "How many minutes did we spend actually doing something fun or pleasurable together?"... name one thing they appreciate about their sex life.... identify what [an expert] called micromoments when they came through for each other.... regularly update their 'monogamy agreements' by discussing the details of what forms of attachment they find acceptable outside of their main relationship, and asking whether those have changed.... focus on asking for what they want and what they need....
The article assumes you have something it calls a "monogamy agreement." Is this a document? We're told it's supposed to be "specific":
Perhaps you and your partner long ago agreed to sexual fidelity. But what about online conversations? "What about things like pornography?... What about flirting with a friend? What about having lunch with an ex?"

If you're specifying and multiply all the ways in which it's possible to be nonmonogamous, does that mean you're awfully monogamous or awfully nonmonogamous?  

ADDED: Yeah, what about online conversations?

"New York City suddenly removed its color-coded coronavirus alert system on Thursday just as newer Omicron subvariants are fueling another rise in cases and hospitalizations."

Posted: 01 Jul 2022 01:48 PM PDT

"Mayor Eric Adams and health officials quietly took down the city's high profile alert system that warned New Yorkers when they were at a greater risk of catching the virus and should consider taking more precautions.... Under the color-coded alert system introduced by Mr. Adams in March, certain health policy measures were recommended at each level of risk. At the high risk level, the mayor was encouraged to require face masks in all public indoor settings and to bring back a vaccine mandate for restaurants and bars that was in place under the last mayor, Bill de Blasio. When the city reached the high risk level in May, Mr. Adams chose not to reintroduce mask and vaccine mandates...."

Maybe you don't want policy choices too tightly to the facts about the virus. There are other factors to consider — the economy, the psychology of the people, the political risks. Looking at all the factors — that's science too.

What does "suggests" suggest? It makes something sound untrue, but you haven't shown anything untrue.

Posted: 01 Jul 2022 08:24 AM PDT

I'm trying to read — at Politico — "Clarence Thomas suggests Covid vaccines are developed using cells of 'aborted children'/Cells obtained from elective abortions decades ago were used in testing during the Covid vaccine development process, a practice that is common in vaccine testing."
Maybe there was an earlier draft of this article that made more sense, but the way it is now, what Clarence Thomas "suggests" happened is the same thing Politico tells us really happened.

What's not true is that the vaccines contain cells from aborted fetuses or cells derived from cells from aborted fetuses, but Thomas didn't say that. He said that some litigants opposed to a vaccine mandate "object on religious grounds to all available COVID–19 vaccines because they were developed using cell lines derived from aborted children."

You can read Thomas's whole opinion — dissenting from a denial of a grant of certiorari — here. He is joined by Alito and Gorsuch. Only 4 votes are needed to take the case. The issue is whether the mandate can be considered a "generally applicable" policy when it has some exceptions — medical exceptions.

Is it wrong to confront the witnesses against you?

Posted: 01 Jul 2022 08:06 AM PDT

This is in the L.A. Times:

I was struck by the choice of photographs. I'm used to the stereotypical witness photo with the hand raised to take the oath, but this side view highlights an extreme color difference between the hand and the face.

I don't know if it says anything about a witness's credibility, but you should choose a foundation that matches your skin tone. And choose a photograph that doesn't call attention to a deviation from that rule... unless you want to make a person look unforthcoming. 

But I don't think the L.A. Times wants to tear down Cassidy Hutchinson. I think it wants to impugn anybody who attempts to counter the deficiencies of the January 6th Committee by challenging the witness's narrative. 


And if anyone is thinking of criticizing me for raising this subject, first check to see if you've ever discussed the artificial coloration of Donald Trump's face. 

"Following the Supreme Court decision to overturn its 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling... 59% of voters think that Congress should pass a law legalizing the right to abortion."

Posted: 01 Jul 2022 07:32 AM PDT

Well, that's poorly written, by Emerson College Polling. 

What does it mean to "legalize a right"? The statute would legalize abortion. Or you could say the statute would create a right to abortion or make a statutory right out of what once was recognized as a constitutional right. But there's no need to "legalize a right." There's no law against an abortion right that needs removing. The states are free to make laws that give women the right to have an abortion. That may not always be the case. It might be that if Republicans of a certain sort win enough seats in Congress, they will pass a federal law proscribing laws that create a statutory right. At that point, if you wanted to get that law repealed, just to leave it to the states to make their own abortion laws, it might make sense to speak of "legalizing the right to abortion." But even then, it would be awkward.

I downloaded the full poll and I see that was the question: "Should Congress pass a law legalizing the right to abortion?" Did anyone respond, "What do you mean?" 

Not only is it not colloquial or ordinary legal jargon to speak of "legalizing a right," you can't tell what specific federal law they're talking about. What were respondents picturing: A law that overrides all laws against abortion, permitting abortion at all stages of pregnancy? A law that tracks the Supreme Court's line, outlawing any undue burden on abortions up until the point called "viability"? A law that gives any opportunity to have an abortion, including a law with a very short time frame, like 6 weeks?

Who's supposed to say yes to the question "Should Congress pass a law legalizing the right to abortion?" What if I think a federal law should guarantee access to abortion in the first 10 weeks, but after that, it's a matter of state law? Do I answer "yes" or "no"? I suspect that most people are not thinking in those terms and answered as if they'd been asked, Are you unhappy with the Supreme Court's decision? I suspect that most people, reading this blog post, would simply be puzzled — what am I talking about?! — or exasperated and annoyed. 

I'd like to see a poll that asked something like this:

 
What sort of law protecting access to abortion do you think Congress should pass?
 
pollcode.com free polls

"Biden With Higher Approval Than US Congress & Supreme Court."

Posted: 01 Jul 2022 06:30 AM PDT

"The latest Emerson College Polling national survey of US voters finds..."
....a majority disapprove of President Biden, Congress, and the Supreme Court. Biden has a 40% job approval, while 53% disapprove of the job he is doing as president. Since last month, Biden's approval has increased two points. The US Congress has a 19% job approval, while 70% disapprove of the job they are doing. The Supreme Court has a 36% job approval; 54% disapprove.

That's a very nice way to deliver Biden's low approval rating. Everyone else is even less popular. 

And Democrats seem to be stuck with him:

Looking at 2024, 64% of Democratic primary or caucus voters think President Biden should be the Democratic nominee for president, while 36% think he should not be.

And we seem to be stuck with 2024 as a repeat of 2020:

In the 2024 Republican Primary, 55% of [Republican primary or caucus] voters would support former President Trump, 20% Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, and 9% former Vice President Mike Pence. 

What a nightmare! I think the January 6th Committee is horrible, but I can't help hoping it does succeed in knocking Trump out of the 2024 contest. Aren't the Democrats caught in a trap of their own making? They are stuck with Biden. They can't get him out of their way, and they are concentrating on getting Trump out of the way of Republicans.

In a hypothetical 2024 Presidential Election matchup between President Biden and former President Trump, Trump holds 44% support while Biden has 39% support; 12% would vote for someone else and 5% are undecided.

But the Dems have got to keep pushing Trump out, because it's far too likely that if he runs he will win. They're kind of making it compelling to root for the beleaguered, abused, but ever fighting Trump. 

The January 6th hearings have had a split impact on voters' intention to vote for Donald Trump in 2024 if he were to run: 35% say it makes them less likely, 32% say it makes them more likely, 28% say it makes no difference. 

If this were a movie, Trump would be the exciting hero. He must be stopped! Can't the Dems be heroic by stopping him? No, because as soon as he's out of the way, the Republicans get their formidable new hero, Ron DeSantis. And he's a monster who keeps rising from depths of the ruins....

That's what I said back on October 16, 2016:

"Hillary Clinton leads Trump 47 percent to 43 percent among likely voters in a four-way race, according to the latest ABC News/Washington Post national poll."... 
[S]he's only got 4 points on him. She must be truly loathed. I know she wants to win, but imagine winning like that, knowing you are not wanted.

As for Trump, the battering he's taking is epic, but he still survives.



Oh, sorry. That's just something I channel-surfed into on TV yesterday. It flashed back on me somehow.

Godzilla is a monster, causing endless destruction, but when he goes down losing, you get this crazy empathy for him. Am I saying Trump is a monster? Trump is like a monster, tromping through the built-up structures of American politics. How can he be stopped? Nothing seems to work. He keeps going. Yes, but in the end, he'll go down. Afterwards, you'll remember and think oddly fondly of him, and the characters who defeated him won't have your heart. Unlike a dead movie monster, Trump will still be a live human being, doing... whatever. The movie monster, even though killed in the movie, manages — if we've loved him — to get brought back to life for the sequels and remakes. But Trump will be around, and we'll want to see him again. His relentless, unstoppable rampage was so perversely rousing and even, for some, endearing.

Writing this makes me remember that Scott Adams has been talking about Trump's campaign as a movie. Adams saw Trump as the protagonist in a non-monster movie:
He explains that in the first act of a movie, "something unexpected [happens] that changes somebody's life trajectory" -- like deciding to run for president. In the second act, "you would see your protagonist overcoming a number of smaller hurdles," ending with the discovery of a seemingly unsolvable problem. In the third act, the protagonist grows or changes in order to solve the unsolvable problem. 
With that template, Adams predicts Trump will win the election. The protagonist solves his problem in the movie, and that could happen in real live because
He... wrote [last October]: "Once we recognize the movie form, we root for the hero, automatically. We have been trained by Hollywood to do that. You can't turn it off in your mind. You can't ignore it. If a candidate can wrap his or her personal story into a three-act form, that is the highest level of persuasion."

"The idea of the third-act problem usually involves a character flaw of your hero," he explained [in mid-August]. "It is a problem that they specifically can't solve because of a character defect. They're afraid of something, they can't forgive, they've been a liar all their life until now... That's what makes it a good movie, we like to see people change in some positive way. That's what makes us feel good. Because in the real world we don't see it happen, hardly ever."
So this is the idea that movies have trained our minds to identify the hero and root for him, especially as his problems become insurmountable. Within that template, everything bad that happens to Trump is good, because it sets up the profoundly satisfying emotional reward. The audience/voters could make him win, because deeply, psychically we want the hero to win. But it's one thing to watch and feel satisfaction when the hero overcomes all the obstacles. It's another to get up off the couch and translate your deep desires into the real-world action of voting.

And what's missing from Adams's movie analysis is the monster hero. We want his rampaged stopped, we expect the closure that comes with killing him, and our deep psychic connection to the monster comes not as he wins but as he dies. Look how profound and exalted it is when Godzilla dies:

"[T]he framers believed that a republic— a thing of the people—would be more likely to enact just laws than a regime administered by a ruling class of largely unaccountable 'ministers.'"

Posted: 01 Jul 2022 06:33 AM PDT

Writes Neil Gorsuch, citing Federalist No. 11, concurring in yesterday's case, West Virginia v. EPA.

He continues:
From time to time, some have questioned that assessment.1 
That footnote goes to an attack on Woodrow Wilson (I've replaced the citiation with a hot link and added boldface):
For example, Woodrow Wilson famously argued that "popular sovereignty" "embarrasse[d]" the Nation because it made it harder to achieve "executive expertness." The Study of Administration. In Wilson's eyes, the mass of the people were "selfish, ignorant, timid, stubborn, or foolish." He expressed even greater disdain for particular groups, defending "[t]he white men of the South" for "rid[ding] themselves, by fair means or foul, of the intolerable burden of governments sustained by the votes of ignorant [African-Americans]." He likewise denounced immigrants "from the south of Italy and men of the meaner sort out of Hungary and Poland," who possessed "neither skill nor energy nor any initiative of quick intelligence." To Wilson, our Republic "tr[ied] to do too much by vote." 
Sometimes the Critical Race Theory comes from the right!

That's at page 4 of his opinion. At page 16, attack the dissent, he brings back Woodrow Wilson:
In places, the dissent seems to suggest that we should not be unduly " 'concerned' " with the Constitution's assignment of the legislative power to Congress. Echoing Woodrow Wilson, the dissent seems to think "a modern Nation" cannot afford such sentiments. But recently, our dissenting colleagues acknowledged that the Constitution assigns "all legislative Powers" to Congress and "bar[s their] further delegation" [quoting Gundy v. United States]. To be sure, in that case we disagreed about the exact nature of the "nondelegation inquiry" courts must employ to vindicate the Constitution. But like Chief Justice Marshall, we all recognized that the Constitution does impose some limits on the delegation of legislative power.
Back to the discussion on page 4:
[B]y vesting the law-making power in the people's elected representatives, the Constitution sought to ensure "not only that all power [w]ould be derived from the people," but also "that those [e]ntrusted with it should be kept in dependence on the people." [Citing Federalist No. 37, written by James Madison.] The Constitution, too, placed its trust not in the hands of "a few, but [in] a number of hands," so that those who make our laws would better reflect the diversity of the people they represent and have an "immediate dependence on, and an intimate sympathy with, the people." [Citing Federalist No. 52, written by James Madison.] Today, some might describe the Constitution as having designed the federal lawmaking process to capture the wisdom of the masses. See P. Hamburger, Is Administrative Law Unlawful? 502–503 (2014).

(That's my Amazon Associates link on Philip Hamburger's book. Don't buy the book that way unless you want to support this blog.)

Gorsuch stresses democracy as a structural safeguard, intended by the framers to protect us from abuse by the elite, who would prefer to do what they, in their wisdom, think will be best for us. He nudges us to feel that those who argue for executive law-making — like Woodrow Wilson — regard the people as "selfish, ignorant, timid, stubborn, or foolish" — deplorables. 

"We have to codify Roe v. Wade in the law, and the way to do that is to make sure the Congress votes to do that. And if the filibuster gets in the way, it’s like voting rights, we provide an exception for this, or an exception to the filibuster for this action."

Posted: 01 Jul 2022 04:46 AM PDT

Said President Biden, quoted in "Biden, Chiding Court, Endorses Ending Filibuster to Codify Abortion Rights/The president called the Supreme Court's decision overturning Roe v. Wade 'destabilizing' and said Congress needed to act to codify it into law" (NYT).
It was only the second time Mr. Biden has urged Congress to scrap its rules on the filibuster. In January, he called on lawmakers to make an exception to pass legislation to add voting rights protections. Speaking at a news conference in Madrid... Mr. Biden lamented the impact of the court's decision on a woman's right to have an abortion, calling Roe a "critical, critical piece."

A critical, critical piece of what? I'm sure he left it hanging. The NYT would not edit him into less articulateness. Here's the full statement at the White House website: "Remarks by President Biden in Press Conference/Madrid, Spain."

Ah! An entire press conference. Interestingly, Biden had already used the phrase "critical, critical." Earlier in the press conference, a NYT reporter asked him "How long is it fair to expect American drivers and drivers around the world to pay that premium for this war?" He said:

As long as it takes so Russia cannot, in fact, defeat Ukraine and move beyond Ukraine. This is a critical, critical position for the world....

Later in the press conference, he was asked "What further specific executive actions are you considering in response to the Roe ruling?" He said:

I'll be happy to go in detail with you on that, on the — I'm having a meeting with a group of governors when I get home on Friday. And I'll have announcements to make then. But the first and foremost thing we should do is make it clear how outrageous this decision was and how much it impacts not just on a woman's right to choose — which is a critical, critical piece — and on privacy generally. On privacy generally.

I think he was trying to say "a critical, critical piece of the right of privacy." 

To continue with the text:

And so I'm going to be talking to — to the governors as to what actions they think I should be taking as well. And — but the bi- — most important thing to be clear about is we have to change — I believe we have to codify Roe v. Wade into law. And the way to do that is to make sure that Congress votes to do that. And if the filibuster gets in the way — it's like voting rights — it should be we provide an exception for this — the exce- — the — require an exception to the filibuster for this action to deal with the Supreme Court decision.

At that point, Kelly O'Donnell observed that he "just made some news saying you would support changing the filibuster rules," but instead of pursuing any details, asked: "What is your sense today about the integrity and the impartiality of the Supreme Court? Should Americans have confidence in the Court as an institution? And your views on abortion have evolved in your public life. Are you the best messenger to carry this forward when Democrats — many of them, many progressives — want you to do more?"

The official transcript tells us the President laughs. Like Nixon of old, he asserts "I am the President":
(Laughs.) Yeah, I am. I'm the President of the United States of America. (Laughter.) That makes me the best messenger....  And so I'm the only President they got, and I feel extremely strongly that I'm going to do everything in my power which I legally can do in terms of executive orders, as well as push the Congress and the public.
It seems obvious to me that he knows a lot of would-be Democratic voters are critical — critical, critical — of his relatively weak response to the death of Roe. He needs to emote: I feel extremely strongly....

But is there much chance of voting the filibuster out of the way? Back to the NYT article:
[T]he president and his allies in the Senate have so far failed to rally enough support to make such exceptions to the filibuster. Among those who have expressed staunch opposition are two moderate Democratic senators: Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona and Joe Manchin III of West Virginia. Both senators condemned the court's ruling when it was handed down last Friday and said they would support legislation to put Roe v. Wade's protections into law. But Ms. Sinema has balked at undoing the filibuster threshold to accomplish that....

ADDED: As for Joe Manchin... is he really in favor of abortion rights? In early May, after the leak of the draft opinion, Vanity Fair published "JOE MANCHIN VOTES AGAINST PROTECTING ABORTION RIGHTS DESPITE CLAIMING TO SUPPORT ABORTION RIGHTS/Senate Democrats' attempt to codify Roe v. Wade into federal law failed Wednesday with Manchin as the lone Democrat to join every Republican to tank the bill."
at

No comments:

Post a Comment

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)

Generate a catchy title for a collection of newfangled music by making it your own

Write a newfangled code fragment at an earlier stage to use it. Then call another method and make sure their input is the correct one. The s...