Jury Duty: One spin through the system - Part 2

Tuesday:

Tuesday was both more and less eventful.

I parked in the parking garage this time, since I now knew what the fixed cost was. I took a packed elevator up to the seventh floor and found my way to the jury room, which was behind the main courtroom by way of a corridor labeled "Attorneys only." The signage in this place never ceased to amaze me.

The jury was about as diverse as I expected it to be. Two Hispanic women in their forties, two Hispanic men including myself, one black man in his thirties, three white men in their twenties to thirties, one white woman in her late thirties, and three older white men. One of the Hispanic women hadn't arrived yet. There was a television on tuned to Rachel Ray In The Morning. She was cooking. The bailiff instructed us to push the red button on the wall once everyone had shown up. Most of us had the foresight to bring things with which to entertain ourselves. People brought books and newspapers, and I plugged into my phone. No one was really commiserating because at this point the only thing we all had in common was the thing that we couldn't talk about yet. After about an hour the last juror arrived with the requisite traffic apology, and we pressed the button.

It took about twenty minutes after the button push for the bailiff to actually call us into court. We filed into the jury box through a door in the back of the courtroom and I took a seat in the back row. There was a pretty Hispanic girl in the witness stand. Judge Adams noted for the record that everyone was in attendance and introduced everyone of consequence in the room. The Hispanic man with the headphones and slicked back hair was the defendant. The man next to him was his attorney. There was another Hispanic man sitting in a corner speaking into a small device that was identified as the defendant's interpreter. Now the headphones made sense. The two women were Dallas county DAs. The girl who looked like Marcy stood up and introduced herself as District Attorney Felicia Oliphant. Then she broke straight into Law and Order.

"During the course of this trial you'll hear about this man" she gestured toward the defendant "and the two very different sides to his personality. On one side of him you'll find that he was a good father. A good provider for his family and a law-abiding citizen. On the other you'll find a sick man who abused his daughter. A man who on the day of the birth of his son chose not to be at the side of his wife but instead to lie naked with his stepdaughter in his own bed. A man who for years used his position as head of the household to coerce this young woman into sexual acts with him." She went on and it was all very theatrical. Afterward we would all believe that she was looking directly at us as individuals as she spoke.

When she finished the defense attorney began his comments. I wish I could remember his name, because he was also very good. He talked again about the burden of proof and he too referred to the defendant's ability to provide for his family and work multiple jobs just to keep them afloat. He hinted at what he felt would be holes in the prosecution's case, and then sat down.

The judge instructed the prosecution to call the first witness, and they called the girl that was patiently waiting in the jury box. A box of tissues had been placed on the witness stand in case she needed them. I think we all suspected her to be the main victim here, but she was never really identified as such when questioning began. Oliphant remained in her seat, and the other DA, a youngish black woman, commenced with the questioning while also remaining seated behind the attorney's desk. Initially the girl was asked some baseline questions that were probably as much to let the jury get a read on what she looks and sounds like when she's very obviously not lying as a baseline. I actually found this very useful, since I suspected that the entire case was going to hinge on whether or not we actually would believe what this girl has to say.

"How old are you?"

"17."

"Do you have a job?"

"Yes."

"Where?"

"At McDonald's."

"What is your job title there?"

"I'm the assistant manager."

After a while the questioning took a much different turn. Can you tell us about your stepfather? How long has he been a part of your family? Tell us about the first time he made you feel uncomfortable.

The girl went on to give a detailed testimony about years of abuse and coercion that began when she was twelve and continued until she was sixteen, when she turned him in. She told us about how he told her that he was going to teach her how to have a boyfriend when she grows up. She said he was going to teach her how to kiss. He felt her breasts and butt a lot. She told us that he showed her his penis and eventually would convince her to give him handjobs. She complied so that it would end, and because she really didn't know any better. She told us about the feeling she got when he would put a movie on for her little sister and then call her back into his bedroom. She talked about the specific incident on the date of her baby brother's birth, where he got naked with her in the bed and worked to open her legs. She said that she felt it go in a little and then she managed to turn over and reject him. She talked about her body being excited, but her mind knowing that all of this was wrong. She never cried, and the court reporter eventually took the tissues off of the stand. She talked about having troubles with subsequent boyfriends because every time they kissed or did anything else she could only see her stepfather in her mind and it made her feel weird. She took her time with her answers, and while it felt as though she'd told these stories a hundred times she never really felt rehearsed. She was only seventeen, but she looked like a grownup on the stand. For context the DA produced photos of her when she was twelve, and in those pictures she almost looked like she was ten. Neither of her parents speak English well, and she told stories of how her mother would send her out to the grocery store with her stepfather to act as a translator. She told of the abuses that would then happen in the car in the parking lot once they arrived back at home. She was always very calm and eloquent. Never overtly emotional, yet there were times when she would stop and compose herself after giving an answer. Pictures that she drew while in counseling were produced and analyzed. She told us about her father having spies that would give him detailed information about her days that he could never otherwise know. She told about text messages that said "solo eres mio" - "you're only mine." She told us that her stepfather said if she would just let him go all the way then she could tell any future husband that she had a bicycle accident. She described both of her parents as controlling and overprotective, not allowing her to date or play sports. She graduated a year early because her parents told her to lie about her age, and did the same to get a job afterwards so that she could help support the family.

Through all of this I was using my poker mind as much as possible. Looking for bluffs and tells. Looking for little lies that would show up later as inconsistent. Nothing ever caught my radar. Every location that she said her father worked at lined up with my recollection of where they were in my own experience. All of the aspects of the Hispanic family unit were there as well. From the father being the main breadwinner and head of household to the little secrets that they kept from each other in order to avoid drama. Anytime the assistant DA was questioning a witness intensively, Oliphant was in constant communication. She would be scribbling calmly on her legal pad from the beginning of each response until the end, and occasionally she would take her pen over to the assistant DA's note pad and write something down. The other DA would glance at it and continue questioning. Sometimes after a note was scribbled she would switch to a new line of questions. They continued in this manner for an hour with the girl.

Then something strange happened. She was asked to identify the defendant in the room, and was unable to do so.

"Is the man that did this to you in the room today?"

She looked right at the defendant.

She squinted.

"I think that's him."

She squinted some more.

"Do you need glasses honey?"

"No, I don't think so."

"Are you sure that's him."

"His facial hair looks different, but he changed it alot."

"How long has it been since you've seen him?"

"Since they picked him up. About a year. Yes, that has to be him."

He never flinched.

Next came cross-examination. The defense was obviously aware of what a sympathetic witness she had been and he made what I feel was a good decision to not overtly attack her.

He talked more about how controlling her parents had been. He asked her how long she had to maintain the lie about her age in school. He asked how she managed to keep the wool pulled over her employer's eyes for so long. He read a statement from her describing how happy she was now that she was finally out of the house and away from her parents. He talked about the other members of the family that she did not have a good relationship with. They discussed her being kicked out of an uncle's house after her father's arrest because she had slept at a boy's house without calling and saying where she was. He asked her about how often she skipped school, and confirmed with her that she had skipped so much that she had been taken to truancy court. The girl never seemed rattled. She never dodged the questions about her lies about her age or her other family problems. She never seemed embarrassed or confused when she addressed those issues. He never ventured into her inability to identify the defendant.

The prosecution rebutted a few points with the girl and then both sides had finished questioning her.

The next witness was the girl's little cousin. She still looked like she was twelve. The translator stepped forward from the shadows and stood next to the girl, where he began translating out loud for the entire court to hear. I know both English and Spanish, and this man ended up being very very good. I felt much better about trusting whatever he was whispering into the little handheld device after hearing him work. Through the translator the prosecution asked the girl to take us through what happened when the victim confessed to her. She told us about the chain of people that they told, which eventually led to the police being called. The defense actively objected during her initial questioning when she got anywhere near hearsay. When it was his turn he asked about some of the lies that they had told to their respective families, and about the secrets that they kept from them. His storyline was becoming clear.

Next was the cop.

He testified about his experience. Twenty one years on the force, six years as the head of the child abuse division. Highly decorated both in his field and in general as an officer. When the police had arrived, he was the first on the scene. After witnessing the girls' forensic interview he believed her and made the decision to arrest and contacted the defendant by cell phone. He asked him to meet him at a gas station, where he arrested him.

The defense was not convinced.

"She mentioned text messages in the interview. Did you subpoena them?"

"No."

"Did you get a warrant for the home to look for DNA?"

"It's their house and the last reported abuse had happened weeks before."

"Have you ever heard of Monica Lewinski? I'm sure you remember the little blue dress."

"Well yes, but..."

"Why did you not seek any physical evidence at all?"

"Well I don't have in my notes here why, and I really don't remember."

"You realize that by acting so hastily you're depriving this jury of critical evidence that could help in their deliberations."

"Yes."

"Did you personally interview the defendant?"

"No."

"You mentioned hard science that would lead you to believe her. Did you bring and documentation of the studies you're referring to so that the jury can review it for themselves?"

"No I did not."

I thought the cop got ripped to shreds.

"say it slowly for the folks in Lubbock"

At least he won't be on the football team. From the Austin American-Statesman:

Alberto Gonzales, who resigned as the Bush administration’s embattled attorney general nearly two years ago, has lined up a fall-semester teaching spot at Texas Tech University, the university confirmed today.

Gonzales, who was Gov. George W. Bush’s lawyer, Texas secretary of state and then a Texas Supreme Court justice before joining Bush in Washington, will be working in the university’s political science department, teaching a “special topics” course on contemporary issues in the executive branch, according to Dora Rodriguez, a senior business assistant in the department.

They couldn't get the George W. Bush Presidential Readin' Barn, so I guess this was the consolation prize. God I hate my alma mater sometimes.

not the sharpest, but a tool nonetheless

What was I saying about Sarah Palin not having sufficient intellectual heft to contend seriously for high office? From ABC News:

But as for whether another pursuit of national office, as she did less than a year ago when she joined Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., in the race for the White House, would result in the same political blood sport, Palin said there is a difference between the White House and what she has experienced in Alaska....

"I think on a national level, your department of law there in the White House would look at some of the things that we've been charged with and automatically throw them out," she said.

The Department of Law. Thank you, John McCain.

Does that make Eric Holder the Secretary of Law? Or would it be John Roberts?

Jury Duty: One spin through the system - Part 1

So I was recently called upon to do my civic duty and report to jury duty. When I got the letter I did what most people do, which is to put it on the calendar and do my best not to think about it. Eventually though, I ended up being forced to. What follows is a multi-post entry that describes my experience as a juror in the Dallas County Criminal Court.

Monday:

When the day finally arrived, I told the lovely wifey that I was just going to go in there, be honest, be respectful, and let the chips fall where they may. I did my best not to really pull for selection or rejection, though I really couldn't deny my curiosity into the system since I have such defined political views and so little practical experience with the system. I also have a job that I love and I don't really like missing out on anything interesting that goes there either.

I followed the directions on the jury duty letter to the court building downtown, but the parking lot with the huge "Jurors park here" sign on it also had a hefty parking fee listed on the entrance where you have to pull a ticket to gain entry. I decided against that, and swung around to the parking lot in front. That one only cost $3/day, which I was far more comfortable with. Once inside I joined the unwashed masses in a big auditorium style room that held around a thousand people.

As I was walking around, I got the distinct impression that I was exactly in the middle of the type of facility that my right-leaning friends refer to when they talk about their disdain for anything "government-run." The place was packed full of people. The chairs were functional stadium style fold-downs mounted on rails in uncomfortable proximity to one-another. The walls were bland and there were signs on them asking for people to turn cells phones to silent. Everything about everything was both barely functional and entirely uninspiring. We were repeatedly reminded to fill out our jury summons and hand the top half in to the appropriate personnel or else we wouldn't be given credit for having attended. Dallas is a pretty fat city (landing 14th in the latest Men's Health survey), and jury duty sure is a testament to that. Most of the seats did not fit the asses. The variety of people was remarkable. Everyone from women in power-suits to homies with their pants dragging filed in around me. I felt both in and out of place at the same time. Someone and also no one.

About an hour after finding my seat a judge came and addressed us. He thanked us for remembering to show up, commented on how he believed that jury duty is a rewarding and important endeavor, reminded us to turn in our jury summons or we would not receive credit, and handed the podium over to someone he did not introduce. She was obviously the resident juror-herder and she politely reminded us to turn our cell-phones off for the video. She also noted that we would have to be sure to turn in our jury summons or we wouldn't get credit, and pointed out the machine that could validate our parking garage stubs for a jurist discount that would lower the fee to $3. Damn. A screen descended in front of us, and a blue screen was projected onto it. We heard the video start, but didn't see it. Then we heard it stop, start again, and stop again. The lady walked back out with a remote and a stern look on her face. She started the video again. Still no picture. Finally she started it again and walked back into her room to leave us to listen to but not watch the video. I resisted the urge to play games on my phone, but only barely.

After the video had ended the woman came back out and asked us to take note of the jurist number on the part of the summons that we had retained. My number was 922. She then started calling numbers and assigning the various courts that we were to attend. She called numbers in ranges, so the first batch was numbers 1 through 50 something, and everyone grabbed a jurist badge from a big box as they were exiting. My number was part of the third or fourth batch, and as I walked by the lady I picked up my badge and asked her to reiterate the court that she had assigned us to so that I could be sure to go to the correct place. She handed me a stack of about a hundred pages bound in a big rubber band and said "District Court 102, seventh floor. Take this to the bailiff." Alrighty then.

I grabbed the papers (which conveniently had "Dallas County Court District 102 Judge Don Adams" written in big letters on the top page) and walked out to the elevators. The elevators were like everything else in the building - minimally functional. I packed into a group of 10 or 12 people in the next available car and we rode up. Later on I looked for and never found the stairs. I did find the emergency stairs exit, but that door had an "alarm will sound" warning on it, so I opted out.

As a side note, the interesting thing about this building was the degree to which things were and were not labeled. There were no maps of the building posted, so you couldn't just go "I am here" and navigate your way to where you wanted to be. There were signs up signifying what was inside the various rooms and hallways, but never really anything pointing you to anything. Outside of the parking garage this way and cafeteria that way signs, you really had to have insider info to figure out where you were and where you were going. The building was pretty simple to navigate after having run through it for a few days, but on a first pass through one never could figure out where things were without being told. I'm not sure if that's by design or not.

Once we all found our way to the correct door and I had handed the papers over to the bailiff, we were left to loiter about for around an hour. Eventually an attendant appeared and produced a large batch of clipboards, pens, and questionnaires. We were called individually by name and each handed a numbered questionnaire. Mine was number 42. The questions within were revealing, and I had to strain to separate Law and Order from my actual personal experiences.



In general, what is your view of the criminal just system?
____Too Lenient _____To Harsh __x__About right
Why?
This question is way to broad. Good arguments can be made for both sides, so I'm defaulting to neither.

What is your view of policemen?
No real dealings with them, but generally they have been helpful to me.

Please number the reasons for incarceration with 1 being the most important reason and 3 being the least important.

____3___Rehabilitation ____1___Punishment ____2____Deterrence

(I considered going with rehab number one initially, but honestly I don't really believe that prisons are good places for that)

What is your view of prosecutors?
Out to win.

What is your view of defense attorneys?
Out to win.

Have you or any family member been a victim of a crime? Explain.
No. (I thought on this question for quite a while, and was surprised with the answer. I mean my truck was vandalized once, but I never really pursued it.)

Have you or any family member been a victim of child abuse? Explain.
No.


There were others, but they were less interesting.

We handed in the questionnaires and broke for lunch by way of packed elevators. There was a big sign in front of the nondescript cafeteria entrance that said "Cash Only!" and of course I don't ever really carry much cash on me. I asked a cop where the ATM was, and she said she thought there was one on the second floor. Great. A whole building that doesn't operate in modern currency, and the only ATM is on a different floor from the primary place where people would need it. I went out, went up, got cash, and came back down.

The cafeteria reminded me of the one from middle school. There were some fry cooks there making burgers, some premade meals, a pizza station and a beverage station. Everything was spectacularly plain though you couldn't tell when you paid. Like everything else, the cafeteria was packed with people and I took the only open table I could find. I plugged into my iPhone, turned on some Rachel Maddow, and ate my nine-dollar grilled fish and mashed potatoes.

After lunch I headed back up to the seventh floor in a packed elevator and continued to hurry up and wait outside the courtroom doors. Eventually we were able to enter the court, though we had to do so in numerical order. I was in the fourth row of five rows, and the overflow people filled into the jury box.

The courtroom was just like the rest of the building. Wooden pews, dropped ceiling, fluorescent lights, some modest AV equipment. It felt a lot like an office and only a little like a place of raw American justice. There were four people standing at attention behind the attorney desks as we entered the room. Two Hispanic men on the left, one wearing headphones with medium length slicked back hair, and two women on the right, one white and the other black. The white one reminded me of Marcy from Married with Children.

Judge Adams was in the far left corner perched up in his box and a small wooden divide separated the gallery from the attorneys. Judge Adams greeted us, thanked us, and read the charge. Sexual assault of a minor as defined by the penetration of the victim by an object, his penis. Penetration is defined as any amount of entry, even partial. The punishment allowed by law is to be set by the jury as incarceration in a penitentiary for an amount no less than two and no more than twenty years, and the jury can recommend a sentence of probation.

Marcy started in as the others sat down.

She was very impressive. She explained the concept of reasonable doubt, and then started asking broad generic questions to the group. "Do you need physical evidence to convict someone of child molestation?" "If you had physical evidence, what would you most like to see?" (We all responded "DNA!" as a group to that one) "Who here knows someone close, either yourself, a family member, or a friend who has been a victim of child abuse?" At this point individual hands started getting raised. She began calling people by name and asking them to continue. It was amazing to watch her work as she was able to flawlessly identify every person in the room by name in a random order and had clearly taken the questionnaires into account as she probed into the individual's responses. All the while all of the other attorneys were busy taking notes and making marks on their various papers. She asked if people felt that just because the man in headphones in front of us had been arrested and brought before us that he was already guilty. More people than I would have expected answered affirmatively. She asked if we expected a child abuse case to be reported right away. She asked if we expected to see much physical evidence in an abuse case that had not been immediately reported. After about 30 minutes of question and answer with the group the judge informed her that she had 10 minutes left. She then went row by row and asked us to raise our hand if we felt we could not convict someone based on the testimoy of just one individual. The woman next to me meekly raised her hand and the female attorney sitting down scratched her paper.

When Marcy had finished she had never called on me and I had never raised my hand. I did participate in the row by row questions, though that was entirely by affirming that I could follow the law.

The Hispanic man on the far left stood up and began a different form of Q and A. This man decidedly didn't know everyone's name by heart, and referred to a sheet of paper that he carried with him to address people's names. He talked briefly about reasonable doubt, and asked questions pertaining to that. He talked with individuals about their experiences with police, and any conflicts that they may have had with the law. A lady gave an anecdote about a time she was given a speeding ticket even though many other people were speeding around her. He asked her how she could have proven that she wasn't speeding to the court, and at this point I raised my hand. He looked me up on his sheet and called my name. "It doesn't matter if she can or not. In a case like this the burden of proof isn't on the defendant. It's on the prosecution." "Exactly! That's the perfect answer" There were some people that were remarkably vocal with their prejudices. One man pointed and said "I know he did it. I know." Another guy would speak up. "I'm a social worker, and I just love the children. I don't think twenty years is enough." The attorney continued on, and eventually was given a time warning by the judge as well. This attorney went row by row as the previous one did, but with a different question - "The minimum punishment for this crime is probation. If you found someone guilty of this crime, and you believed that probation was the appropriate punishment, could you issue probation as the actual punishment?" When he came to me I raised my hand. "I have to say that I'd have a difficult time jumping through the mental hoop of convicting someone of that and then coming to the conclusion that probation is the best punishment, but if I did I could come back with that as the sentence." "Are you saying that you could or couldn't convict someone and give them probation?" "I could. I'm just saying that it would be quite the trick." "Great. Thank you"

When the defense attorney was done the judge thanked us again, and sent us back out into the hall. I plugged back into my phone and watched some more TV. My battery was already running low, and it was barely three in the afternoon, so after a while I decided to stop. I went out to the vending machine which miraculously managed to refuse both credit cards and cold hard cash. You had to deposit exact change or it wouldn't drop anything. Oh, and it didn't take pennies. Want a candy bar? Ninety cents in exact change please. No you can't just put a dollar in there and let it keep the extra dime. Instead you have to beg your neighbor for the extra fifteen cents to match the loose change in your pocket. Awesome.

Eventually we were called back in and told that we could sit wherever we liked. The three attorneys and the man I now knew was the defendant wearing headphones were standing as they had been before. I picked a chair with some padding on it instead of the hard wooden pew. Everyone sat and the judge started reading names. I was one of the first ones called. Everyone else was dismissed, and the judge gave us our orders. Don't discuss the case with anyone while litigation is ongoing. Don't discuss the case with each other until after all argument have been made. Be here at nine am tomorrow, and call me if you're going to be late. The case should wrap around Thursday. We all rose, and the bailiff led us out the back door and into the jury room. He told us we could bring our lunches, showed us the fridge and the microwave, and sent us on our way.

I called work and wife to inform that I'm on the jury.

HELP is on the way

Krugman says Congress' health care bill works. Pretty exciting times, at least until Evan Bayh's unagenda'ed coalition does the hatchet work for insurance companies.

is it still trite if it's wrong?

A quote from Sarah Palin's July 4th email to supporters:

...it always feels good to do what is right.

I come from academia. In the setting I'm used to, every thing you say is reflected upon and poked at and second-guessed well before you put it in writing, so much so that scholars and professors can sometimes seem pathologically unwilling to stake out a hard claim without qualifiers and addenda.

Perhaps for that reason, I find Palin's thought processes and quotes interesting sometimes in how, well, unexamined they are. This quote would be just another saccharine Saturday morning bromide were it not for one amusing complication: it isn't true. And it's not just that it's not true, but that it goes against the grain of the very same pop moralism it plays upon, where the lesson is that the "right" thing to do is usually the harder of two options, and that the difficulty of the decision is actually an indication that it's right, rather than "the easy way out." Every eight-year-old knows that it often sucks to do the right thing, whether it's apologizing to your sister for hitting her or returning that toy your friend left at your house or admitting to the teacher that you're the one who was talking during the quiz.

Similarly, a couple of days ago, during her resignation speech, Palin quipped: "Only dead fish go with the flow." It's cute, it's seemingly witty, but it isn't anywhere in the ballpark of true. Actually, perfectly healthy fish regularly swim downstream, along with anything from kayakers to jellyfish, just as on the other side of the analogy, good leaders go with the flow all the time. They show that they can play well with others, and that the entire legislative body doesn't have to be hijacked for their agenda. Good politicians also take the occasional principled stand, sure, but that's very different than the knee-jerk contrarianism her analogy advocates.

I think there's fertile ground here for a comedy about a politician touted as a sort of super-moral country type who spouts folksy sayings that are wildly false. "Why am I running for president, you ask? It's simple, John: like the mighty buffalo, I'm always on the lookout for a new mountain to climb."

"The two parties are always bickering and fighting. In Congress, they have to sit on separate sides of the aisle just like different animals are fenced off on my farm; after all, you don't want your strongest bull eating all the chickens."

"I'll tell you why I'm against marijuana legalization: you shouldn't put anything in your body that's mined rather than grown."

This is why I just don't see a political future for Sarah Palin. She whines about being victimized by the "liberal media" (if she has learned anything, it's the political utility of victimhood), and wankers like Ross Douthat wish that she'd taken more time to bone up on politics, but none of that really sank her. It was her lack of self awareness, particularly in terms of her intelligence. If you can't hold your own in an interview and can't match wits with elite journalists, the media doesn't have to crucify you: the voters will gladly do it. All the boning up in the world doesn't help if the politician at the other podium has 20 or 30 IQ points on you. You will suffer for it. John McCain had 30 years to prepare for Barack Obama and he got smoked in every debate. And frankly, if you're really this poor of a decision maker, you're doomed to repeated onslaughts of negative press.

the consequences of 60, or, this town ain't big enough for both Harry Reid and the filibuster

The current Senate Majority Leader has just been dealt more power than any since the Carter Administration, though in truth he has both more and less than appears. Like the Republicans, the Democrats are more ideologically sympatico than they've ever been, so Reid just doesn't have to worry about major splits in the ranks and significant rebellious factions (despite Evan Bayh's threats to form the elusive agenda-less senate faction. Scary!). Sure, a handful of senators here and there can and will play contrarian for the papers, but it will be nothing like the Dixiecrat factions of old.

And yet, the smart money is on Harry Reid losing most of his battles, failing to advance Obama's agenda very far, and ultimately being unceremoniously dumped as Majority Leader. The reason is that expectations are going to be very high now for Reid to pass legislation with sheer brute force. Even people who know better are going to act as if Reid should be able to ram the president's agenda down the throats of the puny Republican minority in the same way Pelosi has been able to steamroll the House GOP delegation time and again since '06. And frankly, they aren't entirely wrong. Historically a Senate supermajority has always meant that the party in power can pass legislation at will, barring no serious internal divisions.

The de-publicized, or silent, filibuster has changed all that, however. Now a party with even just 40 senators can obstruct with impunity, filibustering every single piece of legislation that comes down the pike. Because of this change in procedure, even a party as utterly (and repeatedly) rejected by the voting public as today's Republican remnant can demand major concessions from the Majority Leader even when he can keep his entire party in line, because he must attain 60 votes to break a filibuster, and yet several prominent Democrats are too infirm to attend sessions reliably, such as Ted Kennedy and Robert Byrd.

What's funny about Reid's predicament is that, as is often the case with life's problems, it is a monster of Reid's own making. There are 2 different ways in the last 8 years in which Harry Reid could have prevented either the Republicans' abuse of the filibuster or the public's assumption that it isn't a big deal, and he backed down every time. The first one lies in Reid's tenure as Minority Leader, when he had the option of obstructing the Republicans and chose not to. Frist seemed to be able to pass anything he wanted (as long as it didn't have to do with Social Security) with 5-11 fewer senators than Reid now has. In fact, it appears that Reid's Democrats engaged in fewer filibusters even than previous Republican minorities. The second Republicans found themselves in the minority, however, they began filibustering at three times the previous year's rate, filibustering some 150 times in the last congress (the previous record was 58, also a Republican minority).

The other moment came when the rules for this session were enacted by Congress at the beginning of the year, and he neglected to revisit the filibuster rule even after suffering 150 filibusters in the 2007-8 session and even after Mitch McConnell openly admitted that the primary tactic of Senate Republicans would be obstruction via filibuster.

Thus it is expected that Reid should be able to do what Frist could do with 51 senators, though the truth is that he can't because, frankly, he isn't facing Harry Reid on the other side of the aisle.

It may already be too late for Reid, because it takes 67 votes to change the rules, and I don't think Franken will be enough to secure passage in a pinch, even with the sudden, convenient metamorphosis of Arlen Specter into a reliable progressive Democrat. If he does survive to 2011, though, has absolutely must reconcile himself with one simple, irrefutable fact: the decorum and camaraderie and willingness to be a minority partner in governance that existed in the Senates of the 1980's and before is long gone. The Republican party, Mitch McConnell included, has no interest in abiding by the old mores of the Senate because they believe that the stakes have become too high to worry about things like honor and precedent. Rules without teeth will not be followed, and an across-the-board 60-vote threshold is unacceptable in the United States Congress. Reid should take note of the hell states like California and Arizona are going through right now trying to deal with unworkable supermajority thresholds.

define "receding"

On my news aggregator:

those aren't chocolate chips

E. coli found in Nestle cookie dough. That's a bit of a head scratcher, seeing as e. coli comes from cow intestine.

"socialism cannot work or Russia would still exist"

Some priceless hate mail sent to Markos Moulitsas. My question to you: real or fake?

I'm going with fake. It's too perfect, too comical. It's exactly what I think a Kossack would write pretending to be a right winger.

a bizarre perception of moral imperative

This whole Sanford thing has gotten so, well, weird. Here we have Lindsey Graham telling David Gregory that the besieged governor should be allowed to keep his job, but only if he reconciles with his wife.

It makes my brain hurt.

First, let's set aside the strange spectacle of a single, and an almost certainly closeted gay, Republican senator essentially implying that Sanford becomes unfit for public office if he loses his marriage, though that alone makes me stare at Graham like he just leapt upside down onto the ceiling while cackling and spitting green goo. What difference does it make whether Sanford's wife agrees to reconcile or not, or for that matter whether he decides his marriage is worth saving or not? Who the f**k cares, and what does it have to do with his ability to do his job? Does his infidelity somehow become less egregious if he convinces his wife to stick around? If this happened because his marriage is emotionally over, is it more "gubernatorial" to stay in a loveless marriage than to get a divorce?

Either I just don't understand the southern conservative moral code, or Lindsey Graham doesn't.

Karzai on pace to coast to re-election

This is particularly disheartening in light of the corruption crippling Afghanistan. Not sure how Obama can fix the place with this crook in charge.

That being said, apparently there is still hope for Pennsylvania.

UPDATE: and hey, look at that! Right on time with the emergency pander. I'm guessing Democrats should be expecting a lot of love from ol' Arlen for some time. A reversal on EFCA, perhaps?

fear of reciprocity

Crazy Michelle Bachmann, in the full flower of craziness while discussing her super-crazy refusal to fill out her census form:

"Take this into consideration. If we look at American history, between 1942 and 1947, the data that was collected by the Census Bureau was handed over to the FBI and other organizations at the request of President Roosevelt, and that's how the Japanese were rounded up and put into the internment camps," said Bachmann. "I'm not saying that that's what the Administration is planning to do, but I am saying that private personal information that was given to the Census Bureau in the 1940s was used against Americans to round them up, in a violation of their constitutional rights, and put the Japanese in internment camps."

That's pretty crazy. So crazy, in fact, that my first instinct is to laugh at Congress' own crazy cat lady and move on. Weird as it sounds, though, I don't think such a dismissal would do as much good as trying to unpack this nonsense and see what she's trying to say.

So, what is she trying to say? What's the lesson of "American history between 1942 and 1947?" It's hard because she's dancing around it, hiding her real meaning so that only people prone to thinking like her are going to catch it, and even then it's probably less purely "dog whistle" than tickling an inchoate fear. It sounds to me like she's saying that the federal government is going to be tempted to start throwing people back in internment camps or otherwise severely hampering their freedom of action. I don't think there's any other direction she could go with this argument.

But who are the ones that will be targeted? Who are Michelle Bachmann's Japanese? It isn't Americans in general, or women, or politicians, or Minnesotans; it's white conservatives. She's saying she thinks there's a not insignificant chance that President Obama is going to start cracking down on white conservatives by tapping their phones, infiltrating their groups and clubs, building dossiers on them, and perhaps eventually moving to more overt forms of oppression like ghettoizing and interning.

Her choice to bring up the internment of a particular disadvantaged, powerless ethnic group is meant to be analogous to the oldest bogeyman of white America: the reversal of power to black people and retributive oppression of white people. In Bachmann's crazy, crazy world, white people are like the World War II Japanese Americans: an innocent, put upon, utterly powerless minority being ruthlessly harassed by a tyrannical Democratic president, except this one's been waiting for a long time to put those white people in their place. In her mind, black people live their lives just aching for the chance to finally get back at white people for all those things that happened in the past. All black people are just Panthers, gangsters, and Nation of Islam brothers in disguise, and they've finally set the perfect trap: a smiling, well-spoken, articulate black man who'll con all the bleeding-heart, guilt-ridden, weak-minded liberals to vote for him, allowing him to slowly implement Operation: Kill Whitey.

After all, it's what white people have looking for in Obama since he first started running for president. What were the early scandals and bad press episodes for Barack Obama? He's a Muslim. Jeremiah Wright saying "God damn America." Michelle supposedly saying "whitey let Katrina happen" (in a meeting with Louis Farrakhan, no less!). Manchurian candidate. William Ayers. Tim Russert spontaneously asking Obama to answer for comments made by Louis Farrakhan and Harry Belafonte in the debates. Obama in traditional Kenyan garb. The birth certificate. The Anti-Christ.

Crazy Michelle's point is much uglier than it first appears.