tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-165312452024-03-23T14:24:26.556-04:00Meanwhile, back at the Ranch...Don't mind me; just yelling at clouds again.el rancherohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03481794179892215503noreply@blogger.comBlogger1825125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16531245.post-53079874256208620772013-02-23T14:55:00.002-05:002013-02-23T14:55:22.908-05:00Congress: the size of the jobI read the story about John McCain sending a form response to the parent of a mass shooting casualty, and thought: "wow, that's despicable." As the day went by, though, I started thinking it obviously wasn't intentional, because who would do that? There had to be some reason for the bungle. It turns out, it was<a href="http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2013/02/did_astroturf_kill_constituent_service.php"> symptomatic of a much larger issue</a> in senatorial duties:<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
TPM Reader <em>PL</em> gives us more inside perspective ... <br />
I used to work on Capitol Hill as a junior staffer
responding to constituent letters and emails. I wanted to give a quick
bit of context for the McCain / Flake form letter scandal.
The first point is that the sheer volume of correspondence Hill
offices get. It is increasing dramatically. See this 2011 report from
the Congressional Management Foundation that found some offices
experienced over a 1000% increase in constituent mail from 2002 to 2009 .
And a good chunk of that volume is from interest groups who conduct
form letter email campaigns. [i.e. "click here to send an email to
Congress"] <br />
When I worked as an "LC" in 2007-08 the form letters were such I huge
part of our office's daily email traffic, I actually devised ways to
auto-filter them based on their IP address [Form letter services are
usually handled by a handful of specialty firms, so all the emails they
send are blasted from their servers and appear as coming from the same
IP address] Of course, my coworkers and I would then scrutinize the
filters letters to make sure we did not miss any important information
that people may have written in addition to the standard form letter
content. <br />
From your story about the Aurora parents it seems that Mr. Teves
wrote his heart wrenching and personal story within a form letter
campaign organized by Mayors Against Illegal Guns. Therefore, if
McCain's and Flake's offices use similar routing and filters procedures
to those that I used, I can absolutely see how there could have been a
mistake in how Mr. Teves' email has handled.</blockquote>
<br />
Like with the rest of the American workforce, senators and house representatives have task loads that are growing too big for them to handle. Recall, too, that the demands of the permanent campaign many reps and senators have to wage means they spend <i>four hours a day</i> <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/08/call-time-congressional-fundraising_n_2427291.html">doing telephone fundraising</a>. These people were hired to make federal law, which involves among other things reading bills thousands of pages long and gaining a basic understanding of who knows how many different issues, not to mention the broad competency they should gain with the matters their committee assignments pertain to, and they spend fully half of a 40 hour work week fundraising. It is by far the thing they spend the most time doing.<br />
<br />
Now consider, on top of all that, the advent of email communication. I've been thinking about this as an archivist and coming across materials in the newest collections that have printouts of email and listserv communiques. Most of the books on collection assessment breezily note that you should treat email like correspondence via snail mail. A quick browsing through a collection of emails, however, and it's abundantly clear that they're not the same. The ease with which one can shoot off an email to anyone, combined with the fact that it doesn't cost a stamp, means emails are much more frequent and informal than mail. Furthermore, knowing several instructors who teach online classes, I also know that people have a much greater tendency to say rude or ugly things in email, which is an emotional drain on a person tasked with sifting through an avalanche of the things.<br />
<br />
And they've increased 1000% in seven years. Congresspersons are now being sent not just more mail than they can read, but more mail than their interns can read!<br />
<br />
There are a lot of things that need to change with Congress, but we tend to focus on the problem of partisan polarization. Meanwhile, I happen to think congressional overwork is as much of a problem, and it pertains directly to how representatives deal with us, the constituents. The fundraising matter can probably be dealt with in several ways, the most elegant of which, in my opinion anyway, is making congressional campaigns purely publicly funded. Alternatively, the rules committee could perhaps mandate that representatives spend X hours of each day on the floor or in committee, or if possible, both parties could just get together and make a gentlemen's agreement that it's in everyone's interests to cap daily fundraising at an hour.<br />
<br />
The email issue is trickier. I'd be fine with representatives and senators no longer responding to emails and instead insisting that they'll only respond to snail mail. While we're at it, if I were dictator for life I'd ban congressional Twitter accounts. Unfortunately, however, we should stick with the politically possible.<br />
<br />
The two problems point to a larger issue as well, which is that the population is growing, but the size of Congress is not. The size of the House of Representatives has not been increased since 1911, when the USA was about one third of its current population. Why not increase the number of reps? Some argue that doing so would make it harder for reps to build relationships and forge alliances to pass legislation, but, uh, I think that ship left the harbor sometime around Election Day 2006. It's at least worth considering, I think.el rancherohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03481794179892215503noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16531245.post-23778532753699783442013-01-09T21:38:00.000-05:002013-01-09T21:38:20.551-05:00it's past time to start asking questionsIn a wake of the debacle that occurred on Monday, I'd like to ask a few questions. They stem from this graph:<br />
<br />
<table class="wikitable"><tbody>
<tr>
<td>2006</td>
<td><b>#2 Florida</b></td>
<td>41</td>
<td>14</td>
<td>#1 Ohio State</td></tr>
<tr>
<td>2007</td>
<td><b>#2 LSU</b></td>
<td>38</td>
<td>24</td>
<td>#1 Ohio State</td></tr>
<tr>
<td>2008</td>
<td><b>#2 Florida</b></td>
<td>24</td>
<td>14</td>
<td>#1 Oklahoma</td></tr>
<tr>
<td>2009</td>
<td><b>#1 Alabama</b></td>
<td>37</td>
<td>21</td>
<td>#2 Texas</td></tr>
<tr>
<td>2010</td>
<td><b>#1 Auburn</b></td>
<td>22</td>
<td>19</td>
<td>#2 Oregon</td></tr>
<tr>
<td>2011</td>
<td><b>#2 Alabama</b></td>
<td>21</td>
<td>0</td>
<td><b>#1 LSU</b></td></tr>
<tr>
<td>2012</td>
<td><b>#2 Alabama</b></td>
<td>42</td>
<td>14</td>
<td>#1 Notre Dame</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
This is a graph of the last 7 BCS championship games. The winner in every case represented the SEC, even though it only held the #1 spot going into the game twice out of seven. Not counting 2011, when both teams were SEC, the average margin of victory is over 16 points. Only one of these games (2010) was decided by less than 10, and Oregon was never ahead in that game. In none of these games did the non-SEC team have a lead at halftime or at any point afterward.<br />
<br />
In 2006, Ohio St. entered the game seemingly unstoppable, averaging 36 points per game and allowing only 10. They had a Heisman winning quarterback, and a first round tight end and wide receiver. Aside from returning the opening kickoff for a TD, they scored a whopping 7 points on Florida while allowing 41.<br />
<br />
In 2007, LSU entered this game with 2 losses, to #18 Kentucky and unranked Arkansas. They hung 10 more points on Ohio St. than anyone else managed all season.<br />
<br />
In 2008, Oklahoma had set a record for points scored in one season (702), scoring 60 points in 5 consecutive games, 3 of which games were against ranked opponents. They had not scored less than 35 in any game before this one. Florida held them to 14.<br />
<br />
In 2010, #1 Oregon's offense was described as a "death star," clocking in at 49 points and 573 yards per game. Auburn's middle-of-the-pack SEC defense held them to 19. At the end of the game, #1 Oregon had scored fewer points on Auburn than had:<br />
<ul>
<li>#9 Alabama (27)</li>
<li>#12 Arkansas (43)</li>
<li>#12 South Carolina (27)</li>
<li>Georgia (31)</li>
<li>Ole Miss (31)</li>
<li>Kentucky (34)</li>
<li>Clemson (24)</li>
<li>Arkansas St. (26)</li>
<li>Chattanooga (a non-FBS team) (24)</li>
</ul>
In 2012, #1 Notre Dame led the nation in scoring defense until this game, averaging 10 points per game. Alabama scored 42 on them. In fact, the Crimson Tide offense had a better than average day against Notre Dame, scoring more points on the Irish than they had against 8 other teams on their schedule, including such powerhouses as Ole Miss, Florida Atlantic, and Western Kentucky.<br />
<br />
7 BCS championships. 7 SEC victories. 6 SEC blowouts.<br />
<br />
How is this possible? How can one conference possibly have this much success, and four different teams in that conference, seven years in a row? How can they have better production against the best of the non-SEC than against non-AQ patsies on a regular basis? el rancherohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03481794179892215503noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16531245.post-26625760237614437822013-01-03T14:28:00.002-05:002013-01-03T14:29:21.761-05:00getting the lead outA few years ago a friend of mine was putting together a syllabus for a history course on the 1980's, and was soliciting ideas for topics to discuss. He got a lot of political ideas -- the Reagan revolution, the mobilization of the Christian Right, anti-Communism -- and a lot of "fun" cultural things to comment on, like New Wave, for instance. I tried to think of something that was important to people's everyday lives but that was a bit "unsexy," and what I came up with was the spike in urban crime that sometimes is associated with crack or gangs or whatever.<br />
<br />
Then I decided to read up a bit on it, and the more I read, the more I discovered just how big, and how inexplicable, this crime wave was. Violent crime in US cities began a significant rise in the 1960's, peaking in around 1991. By that time, rates of murder, rape, and robbery had increased to 4 and 5 times what they were in the '50's. And then the Times Square ball dropped on 1992, and just like that, the crime rate stopped and then began a precipitous fall. By 2012, we had a crime rate <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_the_United_States#Crime_over_time">similar to what we had in Nixon's first term</a>. Violent crime in NYC, for example, is down 75% from its 1991 peak.<br />
<br />
The effects of that crest and ebb must have affected us in significant ways, even if we're too close to it see. The trend of gentrification of old city neighborhoods, the population declines of major cities, suburban sprawl, the continued concentration of African Americans in urban ghettos and higher rates of incarceration, all could possibly be connected to this trend. Imagine what a war zone Washington, DC or inner city Atlanta looked like in 1991, and that only 20 years later, those are hot spots for young, educated couples looking for a cool place to live.<br />
<br />
There are two aspects of this tremendous transition in our social landscape that I find absolutely baffling. One is that not only has it gone largely unnoticed, but <a href="http://www.gallup.com/poll/150464/americans-believe-crime-worsening.aspx">most people actually believe America is getting more dangerous</a>. The second puzzler is that such a sea change occurred with no obvious cause. Lots of people have ideas on why it might have happened, but there's no clear cause we can point to for the fact that cities became 4 to 5 times more violent between 1960 and 1990, and then returned to the same rates as rural areas.<br />
<br />
Kevin Drum thinks he may have hit upon the answer, and it's shockingly mundane: <a href="http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2013/01/lead-crime-link-gasoline">lead exposure from leaded gasoline emissions</a>. I would really have expected a more sociological answer, but his case seems quite strong to me.el rancherohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03481794179892215503noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16531245.post-78048707555413584242013-01-02T01:49:00.000-05:002013-01-02T01:49:24.986-05:00GunsI've waited a while to write anything about Sandy Hook and the gun control debates that have spun out from it. To be honest, I haven't thought about gun control in a long time, and it's never been a very important issue to me. It's also long been one of my last conservative hold-outs; I share the libertarian skepticism that gun legislation would disarm many criminals.<br />
<br />
TNC posted <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2012/12/more-guns-less-crime-a-dialogue/266576/">the script of a conversation</a> on the subject between him and Jeffrey Goldberg that I found somewhat insightful and, if nothing else, pleasantly civil. Like probably most liberals, I don't actually want to "take everyone's guns away;" I just think some sensible regulation is in order. Still, I feel like the conversations about guns and the solutions proposed don't have much to do with the scenarios they purport to solve.<br />
<br />
In the Newtown story, for instance, Adam Lanza raided his survivalist mother's arsenal and walked into an elementary school with her guns. How, exactly, does registration or a database or an assault weapons ban prevent something like that? Lanza used an AR-15, sure, but I would imagine he could have racked up a similar death toll with any semiautomatic weapon. People suggest a mental health angle, but what solution lies that way? I'm pretty sure most psychiatrists would find the idea of a mental health "no fly list" database for guns repellant. How can you square that with patient confidentiality? And what if the person trying to buy a gun has never had a psychiatric evaluation? Are we going to mandate them for firearm purchases? That sounds like a good idea, admittedly, but I wonder how hard it is for a potential shooter to fake their way through something like that. And again, remember, Lanza didn't buy his guns. He took them from his mother's house.<br />
<br />
Meanwhile, most violent crimes committed with guns are the mundane street violence that gets less play on the national news. Perhaps there's some way to prevent felons from buying guns, but a great many gun crimes of this sort are committed with stolen handguns. How do you stop the flow of illegal guns into the streets? An assault weapons ban makes more sense here, but street crime is usually more about one dude vs. one other dude, in which case the difference between an "assault weapon" and a revolver is negligible. If there's a way to prevent purchases of handguns by people likely to have them stolen from them, it isn't obvious to me.<br />
<br />
In more general terms, now is actually not a great time for such matters. It's usually a bad idea to go crafting sweeping legislation in the immediate aftermath of a tragedy. That's how we end up with things like the USA PATRIOT Act. Plus, we have to remember that the odds of being involved in a mass shooting are vanishingly small, and that as a whole America is safer than it's been since Eisenhower was in the White House. Though now may be the moment when the political iron is hot, the issue of gun violence is probably less important than it's been in a very long time.<br />
<br />
I will say this, though: I said at the beginning that I'm skeptical about gun laws disarming criminals. The truth is I'm less skeptical of that than I used to be. It is indisputable that all other developed countries have far fewer guns than we do, and all other developed countries have a tiny fraction of our rate of gun violence. All other countries, however, also have a black market for firearms, just like we do, the very same thing American criminals use to get their guns. Ergo, if it were true that gun control only took guns out of the hands of law-abiding citizens, all of those other countries have the same rates of gun crime as us, since just like our criminals, their criminals have access to guns via the black market.<br />
<br />
Except apparently the guns are far more expensive, or there aren't enough to go around (two sides of the same coin, I know), or they just don't bother going through the trouble. In any case, crimes committed with firearms here are committed with knives and baseball bats in Britain and Japan and Finland and Argentina. That's important, because the presence of a firearm makes an assault many times more likely to be lethal, especially a mass assault like what happened in Newtown.el rancherohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03481794179892215503noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16531245.post-8817391972850910782012-11-28T14:11:00.001-05:002012-11-28T14:11:46.324-05:00why Mitt Romney lost<a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/a-good-man-the-right-fight/2012/11/28/5338b27a-38e9-11e2-8a97-363b0f9a0ab3_story.html">A very telling op-ed here</a> from Romney's chief campaign guru on the kind of moral victories Romney won. The piece begins with a bunch of tired campaign rhetoric you should probably skip: "from a small field in blah blah grew into A NATIONAL MOVEMENT..." Yawn. Later in the piece, Romney "captured the imagination of millions of Americans," whatever that even means. I guess Mitt Romney is Steven Spielberg or something.<br />
<br />
What's helpful about it, though, are the things Stevens considers the campaign's great victories. First:<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
When much of what passes for a political intelligentsia these days
predicted that the selection of Rep. Paul Ryan meant certain death on
the third rail of Medicare and Social Security, Mitt Romney brought the
fight to the Democrats and made the rational, persuasive case for
entitlement reform that conservatives have so desperately needed. The
nation listened, thought about it — and on Election Day, Mitt Romney
carried seniors by a wide margin. </blockquote>
The only people who matter for "entitlements" are seniors? Then the much bigger tell: <br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
On Nov. 6, Mitt Romney carried the majority of every economic group
except those with less than $50,000 a year in household income. That
means he carried the majority of middle-class voters. While John McCain
lost white voters under 30 by 10 points, Romney won those voters by
seven points, a 17-point shift.</blockquote>
Those who make less than $50k/year aren't middle class, apparently. That should come as news to a tremendous number of people in that bracket. Also, it turns out that voters under 30 aren't important, just <i>white</i> voters under 30. I don't think I've ever heard anyone separate out the white youngsters from the rest, and that tells us something about how these people think. Who would even think to go there? <br />
<br />
That's how the rest of the piece goes, finding different ways to say "black, black, black." "Angry bitterness." Barack Obama turned the Democratic party's "dependence on minority voters" into an advantage. "Charismatic African American." "A media that often felt morally conflicted about being critical." <br />
<br />
I'm actually with Stevens in that I think rumors of the Republican Party's demise are greatly exaggerated. They lost by around 4 points with a strong incumbent and a weak challenger. They'll be fine. Nevertheless, how does one look at the subtext of this op-ed and not see that racism was a common thread binding most of the rhetoric of this campaign? el rancherohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03481794179892215503noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16531245.post-87242322450152881252012-11-11T14:21:00.001-05:002012-11-11T14:21:10.349-05:00the split decisionRemember how people were dreading a so-called "split decision" in the presidential election, whereby Mitt Romney loses the electoral college but wins the popular vote, as happened to Al Gore in 2000?<br />
<br />
It actually did happen this year, just not to Mitt Romney. In the 2012 elections for the House of Representatives, <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/wp/2012/11/09/house-democrats-got-more-votes-than-house-republicans-yet-boehner-says-hes-got-a-mandate/">Democrats received about half a million more votes</a> than Republicans, but because of extensive Republican gerrymandering in 2010, Speaker Boehner still enjoys a roughly 30 seat majority.<br />
<br />
30 seats, by the way, is not rough parity. That's a sizable majority by historical standards, bigger than any Newt Gingrich ever enjoyed during the halcyon days of the Contract with America.el rancherohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03481794179892215503noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16531245.post-13714938719434654592012-11-10T17:56:00.000-05:002012-11-10T17:56:50.646-05:00Republicans are not one immigration bill away from winning the Hispanic voteIn the aftermath of President Obama's re-election, a lot has been made of the fact that not only did the Republican candidate receive a lower percentage of the African American, Asian, and Hispanic votes than they've gotten in a very long time, but that those margins appear to have been decisive. People are saying that the Republican party needs to moderate on immigration, and then it will suddenly be an attractive competitor for Hispanic votes.<br />
<br />
On <a href="http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/46979738/ns/msnbc-up_with_chris_hayes/#49770716">Up with Chris Hayes</a> today, though, Hayes makes an important point: Hispanics have always been a Democratic constituency. George W. Bush secured 40% of the Hispanic vote, but that was the high water mark for the Republicans. Furthermore, exit polls show that on issue after issue, Hispanics are more liberal, not more conservative, than the country at large. People talk about Hispanics (and sometimes even African Americans) like they're a conservative demographic that just doesn't feel welcome in the GOP, but that isn't really the case.el rancherohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03481794179892215503noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16531245.post-11551006134469860482012-10-27T04:35:00.000-04:002012-11-06T01:46:48.815-05:00the big day 2012<b>EDIT (11/5/12): At this point, the day before election day, the polls have moved slightly in Obama's favor, to the point where he's much more likely to win the popular vote, if only barely. I'm now thinking it's going to be a rough tie, probably with Obama edging Romney by perhaps a point. Maybe I'm just falling for <a href="http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2012/11/final-election-forecasting-update-5-november-2012">the groupthink</a>, I dunno. In any case, none of the big aggregator guys think he'll lose it, and like I said, for me evidence trumps gut.</b><br />
<br />
I did <a href="http://meanwhilebackattheranch.blogspot.com/2008/11/big-day.html">one of these</a> in 2008, so I thought I throw up another "signs to watch for when watching election night" post now that we're in the last week and a half, far too late for any significant poll movement.
A couple of notes about this election:<br />
<br />
Currently all but one of the big-time poll aggregrator peeps are projecting an Obama re-election, but a squeaker. In fact, there's a significant chance of the Democrats getting karmic payback for 2000, with Romney losing the electoral college, but winning the popular vote thanks to ridiculous margins in the South, where he is on average the <i>22 point favorite</i>.<br />
<br />
In a perhaps correlated note, this is predicted to be the most racially polarized election since 1988.<br />
<br />
For my part, I'm struggling between anecdote and data. Every indication I see in daily life, on Facebook, looking at individual polls, etc., shows Romney ahead. Everyone who does the math, however, seems pretty confident that President Obama has the edge. In the end, I'm going with the evidence and against my gut, predicting that Obama will indeed win re-election. That being said, I also think Romney will win the popular vote by about a point. As with the rest of our nation's history, the South will have to be dragged into modernity kicking and screaming.<br />
<br />
Still, I'm very discouraged by the way this election turned out. The last thing our country needs is a super-close, racially polarized election centered around the first African American president. No matter what happens, the result will foster long-term resentment within a major demographic of the populace for years to come. Sadder still is the fact that, despite all the whining about how terrible the candidates are, this year both the Democrat and the Republican tickets are better than average. President Obama can boast a list of achievements in one term that most presidents this side of Lyndon Johnson would envy, and Mitt Romney, as cynical and plutocratic as he is, is the best candidate the Republicans have nominated in 16 years at least, and perhaps longer. Both are intelligent, accomplished, pragmatic, and make serious efforts to work with the other side of the aisle.<br />
<br />
Since I always say elections are no fun if you don't take a crack at predicting them, I'm predicting 271 EV for Obama to 267 for Romney, with Romney winning the entire south, including VA and FL, along with IA, CO, and NH. It's pessimistic compared to, say, <a href="http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/10/26/oct-25-the-state-of-the-states/">Nate Silver's odds</a>, and Silver's odds are pessimistic compared to most others, but I think white independents are going to break strongly for Romney, putting him over the top in the old Confederacy and in states without a lot of minority voters.<br />
<br />
All this being said, remember: they're not saying Obama is going to win. They're saying he has around an 80% chance of winning. I'm going to roll this die, and I'm telling you chances are it's going to come up somewhere between 2 and 6. But I could roll a 1! <br />
<br />
<b>EDIT (11/5/12): If you're interested, Ezra Klein has pulled together <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/wp/2012/11/05/pundit-accountability-the-official-2012-election-prediction-thread/">a great roundup of all of the final predictions</a> of the various big-name poll watchers. Apparently I am pessimistic; the only person matching my prediction is NYT professional conservative Ross Douthat. This will also give you a sense of how little Jim Kramer is taking this seriously (not a bad idea, honestly), and what a nutball Dick Morris has become.</b> <br />
<br />
Here's what specifically to watch for on Election Night:<br />
<br />
<b>6:00pm ET</b>: Polls close in the eastern time sections of Indiana and Kentucky. There is no chance of Obama repeating his 2008 miracle in the Hoosier State, but my old congressman, Joe Donnelly, amazingly has even odds of beating Jim "God intended for that to happen" Mourdock for the open Senate seat once held by Dick Lugar before he got teabagged. I'm not normally sanguine about Democratic prospects in Indiana, but Donnelly outperforms the polls every time he runs for office, and the latest polls show him up slightly. I don't know what kind of mojo he uses, but it works.<br />
<br />
If Lugar had not been primaried, Donnelly would never have had a prayer. If he wins, he should send Michele Bachmann a box of chocolates. Like Tea Party primaries, you never know what you're going to get.<br />
<br />
<b>7:00pm ET:</b> Polls close in a slew of southern states, including most of Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, and Virginia, and also in Vermont. Virginia is the one to watch here, as I don't think the networks will be allowed to project the winner of Florida until the panhandle polls close an hour later. If President Obama carries Virginia, it becomes very difficult for Romney to pull off the upset. Still certainly possible, but it makes both Ohio and Florida must-wins for him.<br />
<br />
There's also a very close Senate election in Virginia between Tim Kaine and George "Macaca" Allen. Yeah, I know, they're considering voting for that guy. Kaine has the slightest of leads, but it's so close it's really a tie. Meanwhile, Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Bill Nelson (D-FL) are expected to win easily.<br />
<br />
<b>7:30pm ET (aka "The Big One"):</b> Polls close in North Carolina, Ohio and West Virginia. As Tim Russert famously said, "Ohio, Ohio, Ohio." There's <a href="http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/10/23/oct-22-ohio-has-50-50-chance-of-deciding-election/">about a 50-50 chance</a> of Ohio deciding the presidential race, and it's almost certain to if Mitt Romney carries Florida, as is expected. If Barack Obama wins Ohio (where's he's currently up by 2.2%) and carries all of the states where his current margins are higher than that, he'll get his 270 electoral votes.<br />
<br />
It's somewhat possible for Obama to win North Carolina again, but it's unlikely enough (Romney +3 in the current Nate Silver aggregate) that we're into "systemic pro-Romney poll bias" territory. That's unlikely indeed. It also means Obama supporters can start celebrating, because there's no way the president carries NC without racking up 270 on the way there.<br />
<br />
In the Senate, Sheldon Brown (D-OH) holds a slim but consistent lead, and Joe Manchin (D-WV) is a lock for re-election.<br />
<br />
<b>8:00pm ET (aka "Le Deluge"):</b> Polls close in Alabama, Connecticut, DC, Delaware, the Florida Panhandle, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, eastern Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Tennessee, and Texas outside of El Paso. Unless things went horribly wrong for Romney along the way, this should be the first point in the night where Obama starts raking in the EVs. If the Republican party is still winless in the Senate at 7:59, it's almost certain that Harry Reid will remain Senate Majority Leader for the next two years. <br />
<br />
This is the first point where there is a realistic chance of either Obama or Romney gaining an insurmountable numerical advantage, and you probably don't need me to tell you which state can deliver it. If one candidate wins both OH and FL -- either candidate -- it's time to pop either the champagne or the Wild Turkey; this baby's over. If the president carries Florida, it becomes all but impossible for Romney to catch him, <i>even if Romney wins all of the other typical battleground states. </i>It will require an upset in Wisconsin for Romney to get back in the game.<br />
<br />
Pennsylvania is the other big battleground, but Obama's lead there is pretty solid. If he loses the Keystone State, it's definitely over, but frankly if it's this bad, we will almost assuredly have already gotten an Ohio-sized hint to that effect. <br />
<br />
The president has a slight lead in New Hampshire, but it's wildly unpredictable and very, very white. Expect an upset here. <br />
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Senate-wise, this hour will feature several unopposed Republicans and a bunch of Democratic blowouts. It also features a couple of races were supposed to be close, but the Republican candidate faded down the stretch, including Massachusetts, where Elizabeth Warren now appears poised to unseat Scott Brown, and Missouri, where Claire McCaskill has a pretty safe lead on Todd "legitimate rape" Akin.<br />
<br />
If Donnelly has already won in Indiana, at this point the night will feature two separate Senate races the Republicans should have won, but lost due to rape-related adlibbing by teabagger candidates. That may be especially relevant when we learn the final tally in the Senate.<br />
<br />
Pay attention also to a close contest in CT, where Democrat Chris Murphy has a tiny lead on Linda McMahon of WWE fame.<br />
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<b>8:30pm ET:</b> Polls close in Arkansas. You won't notice; everyone will be talking about Florida.<br />
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<b>9:00pm ET:</b> Polls close in Arizona, Colorado, Kansas, Louisiana, the rest of Michigan, Minnesota, Nebraska, New Mexico, New York, the rest of South Dakota, the rest of Texas, Wisconsin, and Wyoming.<br />
<br />
Colorado is a true swing state this year, and it's anybody's guess who'll win it. Wisconsin is the one place Romney has a shot at stealing a normally reliable blue state. If Romney lost Ohio, Wisconsin is one of his last avenues to the White House. If he lost Florida, it is his last avenue.<br />
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There's also a scad of close Senate races at this hour, in Arizona, Nebraska, New Mexico, and Wyoming. Fisher in Nebraska is one of only two Republican Senate candidates currently leading in an opposed race. She's leading the execrable Bob Kerrey, so as long as it doesn't cost the Democrats the chamber, I'm happy to give that one to the GOP.<br />
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<b>10:00pm ET:</b> Polls close in Iowa, part of North Dakota, Idaho, Kansas, Montana, Nevada, part of Oregon, and Utah. Iowa and Nevada are up in the air, but both lean very slightly Obama (+2 and +2.8, respectively). They have the same number of EVs, and they are the final significant states of the 2012 presidential election. In all likelihood, Obama will need one of them to win re-election.<br />
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There are also two knife's-edge Senate races here, in Montana and Nevada. Jon Tester (D-MT) is ever so slightly ahead; Shelley Berkeley in Nevada is ever so slightly behind. If Democrats won all the Dem-leaning contests up to this point, they'll control the Senate next session no matter what happens at 10pm. If they win all the toss-ups including these two, they could control as many as 57 seats.<br />
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<b>11:00pm ET:</b> Polls close in California, the rest of Idaho, western Oregon, Washington, and Hawai'i. There won't be any surprises here. If the Obama campaign took care of business in the rest of the country, he'll be declared the winner right at 11. If he didn't, we'll already be watching his concession speech by this point.el rancherohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03481794179892215503noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16531245.post-46068669900401771632012-10-02T19:25:00.000-04:002012-10-02T19:25:40.849-04:00conservatives are weird<iframe allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen" frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/ofbUK85bnwY" width="420"></iframe><br />
<br />
Supposedly the conservative media circuit is going absolutely gaga over this video as the big "game changer" they've been looking for. I don't get it. I tried to guess from the Youtube comments, but I can't make out any point underneath the cesspool of generalized obscenity. Something about Obama being a racist because he magnifies his African American accent when talking to African Americans and gave a shout-out to Reverend Wright in 2007.<br />
<br />
People can be really, really stupid.el rancherohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03481794179892215503noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16531245.post-9148299742019644702012-10-02T10:27:00.001-04:002012-10-02T10:27:08.597-04:00Today is the first day of "Obamacare" for the hospital system<a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/wp/2012/10/01/for-hospitals-health-reform-starts-today/">Ezra's on the case</a>:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
There are two big parts of the health reform law going into effect
today. One penalizes hospitals if patients are re-admitted to the
hospital within one month of a visit for a condition that should have
been dealt with on the first trip. The other seeks to redistribute
higher Medicare payments to the hospitals that are delivering better
care.</blockquote>
He goes a little deeper into the weeds in his post. For my part, I've always been skeptical of models that target low performing organizations and cut their funding, whether in terms of hospitals or schools. If the organization is suffering from some problem that inhibits the quality of their output, whether bad management or perverse incentives or incompetent personnel, isn't cutting their funding only going to make things worse?<br />
<br />
Nevertheless, speaking of perverse incentives, putting hospitals on the hook for delivering bad care is a great idea. I would have preferred a system that spends a little more money and audits the hospital in an effort to pinpoint the problem, but the ACA is about broad directions more than perfect solutions.el rancherohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03481794179892215503noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16531245.post-74016463202782522002012-10-02T02:15:00.000-04:002012-10-02T02:15:12.366-04:00The perfect is the enemy of the less badConor Friedersdorf and some Facebook political identity test have set off a conversation in the last week or two about whether liberals should vote for Obama. Drone warfare is traumatizing the citizens of Afghanistan something awful, and as we have discussed here before, Obama has been surprisingly bad on civil liberties, chasing down whistleblowers to a degree unmatched even by the Bush Administration.<br />
<br />
Still, I have a few thoughts about this sentiment:<br />
<br />
1. First of all, just to get it out there, Conor Friedersdorf is not a liberal; he's a right-leaning centrist with libertarian sentiments. Thus, there is an element of concern trolling going on here. Friedersdorf doesn't approve of much anything the president has done, including all the stuff liberals are (or should be) gaga over, so <i>of course</i> he doesn't plan to vote for Obama!<br />
<br />
2. Conor Friedersdorf is not only not a liberal, but if I recall correctly he's also too young to have been suckered into this line of thinking in 2000. I wasn't too young, and I and many other idealistic rubes cast votes for Ralph Nader, which as we all now know turned out really to have been a vote for George W. Bush. <br />
<br />
Sure, if you had told me at the time this would be the result, I might not
have cared. After all, what does it matter which Republicrat gets into
the White House, right? Except, as Kevin Drum points out today and which I've argued with others about since that fateful year, even if you make the worst possible assumptions about an Al Gore Administration, there would be one indisputable difference between it and what really happened: we would never have gone to war in Iraq. The Iraq War was a project of Dick Cheney and the neoconservatives, one which there was no reason for Gore to have any investment in. That's hundreds of billions of dollars, 4000-ish American troops, and Lord knows how many civilian lives that would have been saved had a few hundred Nader voters in Florida and/or New Hampshire voted more realistically.<br />
<br />
I want to emphasize here, again, that we didn't know George W. Bush was going to be the disaster he turned out to be. He ran as a borderline isolationist, saying in one debate that he didn't believe the US should be in the business of "nation-building." He was an unremarkable governor, not good but not particularly bad, either, aside from his zeal in signing death warrants. He talked up a big game about "compassionate conservatism," about reaching out to Democrats. By all appearances in November 2000, a Bush Administration really wouldn't be all that different from an Al Gore Administration. <br />
<br />
Fast forward to 2008. I knew some LGBT and ally voters who considered not voting for Obama because he seemed squishier than they'd like on gay rights. I'm not sure any of us would have guessed that he would end Don't Ask, Don't Tell by the end of his 2nd year in office, and would become the first president to support marriage equality by the end of his 3rd. Meanwhile, we know from John McCain's reaction that he would <i>never</i> have signed DADT away.<br /><br />
What I'm saying, I guess, is that the major party candidates are generally more different, and your vote means more, than the cynics would have you believe, and often in ways that surprise us. While it really is impossible for Jill Stein to win the White House herself, it is certainly possible for her to hand it to Mitt Romney, just as Nader unwittingly did for George W. Bush. It turns out that the primary consequence of a vote for Nader was a vote
for the Iraq War, while a nose-holding vote for Barack Obama was a vote
to end DADT. el rancherohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03481794179892215503noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16531245.post-18692766591415581092012-09-18T21:19:00.000-04:002012-09-18T21:19:57.519-04:00back to the future: who is middle class?<a href="http://meanwhilebackattheranch.blogspot.com/2008/04/corollary-to-class-conversation-who-is.html">Here we are again</a>: Barack Obama is running for president and we get mired in a debate about what constitutes "middle class."<br />
<br />
I'm definitely less comfortable than I was four years ago drawing lines between the classes. I'm more cognizant now of the fact that people's income levels shift dramatically over the course of their lives, one key fact among many that Romney clearly is clueless about in his ignorant, elitist tirade against "the 47%."<br />
<br />
Last time we talked a lot of median incomes and buying power and whatnot, but I think our whole conversation missed a crucial point: class is about much more than income levels. Either that, or in our society people frequently move from working class (college) to middle class (first job) to upper middle class (highest position) to working class (retirement) over the course of a lifetime. If that's the case, then "class" is nothing but a shorthand for how much you make at a particular moment, with no identifiable indicators of culture or power or anything else. <br />
<br />
The point of "class" as a political concept is its connotations of privilege or the lack thereof, or as a sociological concept, in its connotations of a distinct sub-culture. The fact that we can't adequately define our classes, can't point to many things that are obviously exclusive to this or that class, is a good thing. The fact that the few things we can point to generally have a racial subtext is, obviously, less good. Conversations about privilege are mucked up by the prominent role of racism and modern-day segregation in shaping American attitudes toward each other, and the homogenizing forces like television have flattened cultural distinctions between classes.<br />
<br />
I still think this it's ridiculous to put those making $200k/year in the same class as those making $40k/year. These two groups live worlds apart. Beyond that, it's harder to say.el rancherohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03481794179892215503noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16531245.post-63184222907065755022012-09-17T13:30:00.002-04:002012-09-17T13:30:35.485-04:00the United States will not be pulling out of the Middle East, sorrySteve Cook's <a href="http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/09/14/meet_the_new_boss">great article on why the United States will remain the dominant diplomatic force in the Middle East</a> is a helpful corrective to the talk about us losing influence that's become chic as of late.
As a voting public, we're pretty ignorant on foreign policy; thus the old joke that war is God's way of teaching Americans geography. I don't think many people understand why we continue to have bases in the Middle East, and from what I can tell there are very few talking heads interested in explaining it. That is, of course, aside from those who think we should just shut the whole thing down and those who think we're waiting for Jesus to convert Israel to Christianity.
I suppose the main reason for that is it's complicated, and there are both good reasons and bad reasons. Yes, we are there for oil. Yes, we are there to protect Israel. Yes, we are there to keep peace. Yes, we are there to plant and nurture the seeds of democracy. We're also there, however, because virtually no other countries want to be there, and the one other one that really does (Russia) is, in fact, a force for authoritarianism and brutality in that region. Our allies, meanwhile, benefit from our presence there.
In fact, in terms of foreign policy the Obama Administration has greatly clarified this last point for me, the role of our allies' dependence on us in our foreign policy. As we discovered during the Libya conflict, the reliance on NATO and the Soviet Union for all foreign conflict for 50 years means that the US military is the only entity in the world capable of projecting significant military force and coordinating the forces of multiple nations. It is similar in Middle East foreign policy, where our diplomats and bases are also the proxy diplomats and bases of Europe and NATO.el rancherohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03481794179892215503noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16531245.post-32508089722491823702012-08-30T13:01:00.000-04:002012-08-30T13:01:37.993-04:00fact checkingI was talking with a friend recently about "non-biased, objective fact-checkers." My point I was trying to make to her was that in most journalistic circles, it appears that "non-biased" just means "centrist," but those are not the same thing. The facts are not always directly in between the Democratic and Republican parties.<br />
<br />
"Objective," meanwhile, doesn't mean anything at all: nobody is objective and nobody can be objective, but everybody believes they are objective.<br />
<br />
What I told her I prefer are wonky policy types who are more concerned with dealing with the evidence conscientiously than with being accused of being liberal or conservative. Perhaps that's just a fancy way of saying "non-biased, objective fact-checkers," but I feel like what Ezra Klein does is different than what Politifact or NBC News' in-house fact-checker does. <br />
<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/wp/2012/08/30/a-not-very-truthful-speech-in-a-not-very-truthful-campaign/">Here's</a> a really interesting example of that from Ezra. Ezra attempts to make a circumspect post on the truths, lies, and misleading points in Paul Ryan's speech, but fails to find enough compelling true points to finish the post. In my opinion, most people who call themselves "fact-checkers" would have either added some questionable points to the "true" section to maintain "balance," or alternatively would have deleted the whole thing and just not said anything. Ezra posts anyway and shows his work, since his inability to complete such a post is a very important insight into Ryan's speech.el rancherohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03481794179892215503noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16531245.post-62860238334398626232012-08-11T05:41:00.000-04:002012-08-11T05:41:20.247-04:00Romney's running mateDid the Romney campaign really telegraph their choice before he made the official pick? That seems exceedingly silly to me. Are people supposed to get super jazzed over Paul Ryan? If he really does pick Ryan, my suspicion is a bunch of Beltway morons told him everyone would be ecstatic over this, when the truth is that probably fewer than 10% of voters know who the hell this guy is.<br />
<br />
And let's be honest, the ones who do know him, know him as either nasal-voiced snoozefest or a faux-serious economic charlatan. <br />
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My record of predicting running mates is admittedly atrocious, but I would have put money on Marco Rubio.<br />
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I'll give Romney this, for what it's worth: Paul Ryan isn't Sarah Palin, and will never be Sarah Palin. This might make for one seriously boring ticket, but he's unquestionably a better choice than the one John McCain made. <br />
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Interestingly, a debate between Paul Ryan and Barack Obama on budgets, in a non-campaign setting, could actually be intensely interesting. Both of them are gifted at civil, polite, detail-oriented debates, and are of similar temperament if dramatically divergent political perspectives. We'll get no such thing in this campaign, though.el rancherohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03481794179892215503noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16531245.post-57235057113333789372012-08-11T01:15:00.000-04:002012-08-11T01:20:45.008-04:00calling foul<a href="http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2012/football/nfl/08/07/saints-cardinals-replacement-referees/index.html">Interesting development</a> here in the preseason. An important detail: the usual refs are locked out due to contract negotiations between the officials' union and the NFL. These "replacement officials" are, in fact, scabs being double-teamed by the union whose picket lines they're crossing and the players, who are themselves unionized.
Without having watched the games, it's hard to say whether it's true that these refs were "clueless" or were just being judged ungenerously by a hostile audience.<br />
<br />
Frankly, I'm not sure it matters, either. Union workers may or may not be better or more qualified or more diligent than non-union workers, but that isn't the point of supporting unions or the reason to despise scabs. Unions should be supported because the alternative is to hand all power over wages and workplace conditions to the bosses. We've had that situation before, and it wasn't pretty.<br />
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Sadly, these are also the circumstances under which the NFL is <a href="http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2012/football/nfl/08/07/female-nfl-official.ap/index.html">hiring its first female referee</a>. It's sad that Shannon Easton has to cross a picket line to break through this glass ceiling.el rancherohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03481794179892215503noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16531245.post-54152776839215559722012-07-24T01:16:00.001-04:002012-07-24T04:37:37.742-04:00the best Tex Mex cooking site IN THE WORLDDid you know there's a Tex Mex-specific analog to Smitten Kitchen? I didn't. I've now tried 3 recipes from <a href="http://homesicktexan.blogspot.com/">Homesick Texan</a>:<br />
<br />
<a href="http://homesicktexan.blogspot.com/2007/04/everythings-better-with-biscuits.html">This biscuit recipe</a> is what I used to make my first successful attempt at fluffy biscuits without resorting to shortening. I even used white-whole wheat flour!<br />
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<a href="http://homesicktexan.blogspot.com/2008/06/with-beans-comes-rice.html">The Mexican rice</a> turned out better than any restaurant version I've ever had.<br />
<br />
The sauce in <a href="http://homesicktexan.blogspot.com/2008/07/marfa-and-plate-of-stacked-enchiladas.html">this stacked enchiladas recipe</a>, however, brought me to a new state of consciousness. Also, I just washed the dishes afterwards, and my fingertips are burning.el rancherohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03481794179892215503noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16531245.post-77170630206958715122012-07-14T18:20:00.000-04:002012-07-14T18:20:24.724-04:00The Worst Congress Ever, in 14 relatively nonpartisan ways<a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/wp/2012/07/13/13-reasons-why-this-is-the-worst-congress-ever/">Told like it is</a>. Fewest laws passed of any Congress, lowest popularity of any Congress, most polarized of any Congress, but most importantly, an explication of all the very important ways they have failed us at critical moments this year, and have done more harm than good.el rancherohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03481794179892215503noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16531245.post-80172138279291767882012-07-14T16:48:00.001-04:002012-07-14T16:48:36.270-04:00credit card surcharges and youUnderneath all the election year garbage, some news of actual import to everyone who uses credit cards or runs a business that accepts them. Via <a href="http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2012/07/todays-geeky-financial-world-excitement">Kevin Drum</a>, it appears that, thanks to a major anti-trust settlement against Visa and Mastercard, merchants are no longer barred by contract from passing along card companies' 2.5% swipe fee on to consumers.<br />
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Drum is mainly looking at the possible effects of this settlement from a wonky point of view, but what does it mean for the consumer? 2.5%, if added as a surcharge to every credit card purchase, swamps any savings gained by most rewards programs, as they all give in the neighborhood of 1% back. Will it still be worth it not to carry cash? Will this apply to debit cards as well? Will we find, as Drum suspects, that the swipe fees were too high in the first place, and now businesses will get a respite from the grift of a greedy oligopoly? Will this mean the end of rewards programs?el rancherohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03481794179892215503noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16531245.post-37969686513752066142012-07-03T14:30:00.000-04:002012-07-03T14:30:10.964-04:00ACA not a very good issue to demogogue<a href="http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2012/07/02/cadillac_tax_vs_health_care_tax_deduction.html">Yglesias</a> on why we keep getting articles and interviews where someone viciously denounces Obamacare and then proposes in its place something identical or almost identical:
<br />
<blockquote>
Still, as a matter of forward-looking policy, I think that what's going
on here is that in order to stay "onside" in the political debate, a
number of moderate conservative commentators are drastically
exaggerating the extent of their disagreements with the law. Saying you
think Obamacare's increase in taxation of investment income should be
rolled back and replaced with more aggressive implementation of the
excise tax is a far cry from positing a deep-seated philosophical
disagreement with the overall approach. At some point, everyone had to
look at the overall legislative package and decide if they were "for" or
"against" it, and ever since that moment the debate about the <i>specific elements</i> of the progam has gotten extremely fuzzy and overly polarized.</blockquote>
It's true, I definitely think he's right that this happened, but I think he's being too charitable here. Yes, there is definitely an element here of David Brooks playing a side, and so trying to find excuses to denounce Obamacare. This point about how people have generally approached debate on the ACA by taking a side on the whole thing first and then letting that color how they feel about, and argue, each individual piece is I think unquestionably true. There is something of a smart calculus there, though: while nice discussions can be had on the merits of each piece, if you analyze the pieces and then try to argue a position on the whole thing based on those, the "ban on denial of coverage for pre-existing conditions" pieces is going to crowd out everything else, and the anti-Obamacare position is pretty much indefensible on TV if you allow that.<br />
<br />
That being said, I'm pretty sure there's also a strong element here of David Brooks not actually knowing what the law does. Coverage and debate of the ACA has really exposed just how little the journalists in our television and newspapers present or even understand the major bills they purport to be discussing. Brooks' misunderstanding here is quite minor compared to the general idiocy we've been subjected to.el rancherohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03481794179892215503noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16531245.post-78927522274089961742012-07-03T13:53:00.002-04:002012-07-03T13:53:50.691-04:00Outsourced Justice: not blind, but only sees greenI've joked a bit with friends that now, having lived in the deep south for almost a year, I get why southerners are so distrustful of government: they're so terrible at it. There are so many terrible ideas in <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/03/us/probation-fees-multiply-as-companies-profit.html?smid=tw-share">this piece</a> that I don't know where to start. It's about municipalities down here outsourcing <i>traffic fines and probations</i>. There are a lot of individual sentences in this piece that will leave your jaw agape. Here was one that did it for me:<br />
<br />
<blockquote>
J. Scott Vowell, the presiding judge of Alabama’s 10th Judicial Circuit, said in an interview that his state’s Legislature, like many across the country, was pressuring courts to produce revenue, and that some legislators even believed courts should be financially self-sufficient. </blockquote>
What kind of an uber-Randian weirdo do you have to be to believe that the courts should generate their own revenue?el rancherohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03481794179892215503noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16531245.post-2775047310345031202012-06-27T17:35:00.000-04:002012-06-27T17:35:23.338-04:00Fast and Furious: what it is and what really happenedAre you curious? Have you been avoiding all the articles about it because it looks like more pointless Republican b.s.?<br />
<br />
I had been. It turns out that there's actually a very interesting story in it, just not the one House GOPers are trying to write. <a href="http://features.blogs.fortune.cnn.com/2012/06/27/fast-and-furious-truth/">Fortune Magazine</a>, of all places, has released the findings of its detailed investigation. It's an amazing story, tragic on many levels. The story answers an important question about the connection between the evisceration of state and federal firearm regulation and the frightening bloodbath in Mexico, a question about the macro-level consequences of massive gun deregulation.<br />
<br />
It all starts, however, from a much smaller question: how does ATF stop an alleged Sinaloa cartel gun-runner in Arizona, where it's legal to buy guns in infinite amounts, legal to turn around and sell them to whomever you want, illegal to construct a database to track gun sales and buyers, and the penalty even for getting caught selling guns to criminal organizations carries only a minor penalty?<br />
<br />
Read to the end: the story has a killer punchline.el rancherohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03481794179892215503noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16531245.post-12498215886898688572012-06-25T17:57:00.000-04:002012-06-26T16:55:53.357-04:00"The Newsroom" and ideological centrismI can't speak to the problem with "The Newsroom" because I haven't seen it. That being said, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/25/business/media/aaron-sorkins-newsroom-as-a-lofty-map-for-cnn.html?partner=rss&emc=rss">David Carr's critique</a> in <i>The New York Times</i> comments on the show as clearly inspired by CNN and Sorkin's vision for what cable news should be, and well, it's problematic.
One should preface such a discussion by stating that discussing the "perfect" news show is a perilous path. There be dragons!
Still, this sentence irked me:
<br />
<blockquote>
CNN has stuck with, well, a version of the news, and gotten clobbered in the process. ...
In Mr. Sorkin’s series, and out there in the big, bad world of television, there is a battle for the souls and eyeballs of the American viewing public, and CNN finds itself in a competitive business where simply delivering the news is no longer sufficient. </blockquote>
Except the CNN doesn't simply deliver the news, does it? Here I think is where CNN has been unable to fix itself: its board or producers or whatever haven't grappled with the fact it's every bit as ideological as any other channel, but lacks their convictions. It's the media version of the political centrist, and it's losing cache among the public for the exact same reasons.<br />
<br />
FOX is a news channel full of conservatives and run by a conservative. They may be trying to make as conservative a news channel as possible, but more likely it's a group of conservatives covering the stories they believe is important in the manner they believe is most accurate and most fair. Thus, discussions and editorial choices on that channel display all manner of conservative assumptions, biases and philosophical points of view. That being said, those assumptions and biases and philosophy are probably unconscious at the time of newscrafting; rather, the reporters and producers are reporting and producing what they believe is The Truth.<br />
<br />
I loathe FOX News as much as any self-respecting liberal. I believe it's deeply unbalanced and unfair, that it places low value on journalistic integrity and is as much as an arm of the Republican Party as a news organization, but I think the anchors and talking heads and producers on there generally believe what they're saying.<br />
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It's largely the same with MSNBC. When it's liberal, it's liberal because Ed Schultz and Rachel Maddow are liberals conducting a news show in the way they believe is most accurate and fair and meaningful, not because the producers are thinking: "Hmm, what would be the most liberal stories to cover, and how can we make them as liberal as possible?"<br />
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This is the problem with centrism, whether practiced as a news organization or a politician. Centrists begin not with their own first principles, but with everybody else's. The answer to every question lies directly between what the conservative said and what the liberal said. It matters not if the conservative and the liberal are both more conservative than they were 20 years ago, or whether the conservative was arguing what is now the liberal line only 3 years ago, or whether one's facts are demonstrably false according to every nonpartisan source in the country.<br />
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This hermeneutic of looking at two arguments and crafting a middle one is hardly "simply delivering the news." In fact, in my opinion, it's ideological in a much more calculated way than either of the ideological networks.el rancherohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03481794179892215503noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16531245.post-54837698222953131822012-06-23T18:54:00.000-04:002012-06-23T18:54:02.655-04:00Longer life, thanks to the government<a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/wp/2012/06/19/want-to-live-longer-move-to-new-york/">Ezra Klein</a> notes findings in <i>The Lancet</i> that the average life expectancy of the citizens of the New York City have gone from being the shortest lived in the country to the longest over the course of about 20 years.
And what do New Yorkers have to thank this remarkable turnaround?
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New York City, meanwhile, was accustomed to trailing the rest of the country in life expectancy by a full three years through the 1980s. That changed in the 1990s for two main reasons, according to The Lancet, a British medical journal: The city’s murder rate dropping 75 percent and new antiretroviral therapies that could combat the cities AIDS epidemic.
The next decade saw the advent of Mayor Mike Bloomberg’s public health crusade, replete with public smoking bans and restrictions on trans fats.</blockquote>
What Ezra isn't mentioning here is that the city's murder rate dropped precipitously in the '90's for one very specific reason: Mayor Rudy Giuliani's focus on aggressive law enforcement.*
New York City's two liberal Republican mayors engaged in prolonged programs of government intervention in the life of the city, one relentlessly arresting and prosecuting offenders for even minor crimes and flooding the streets with police officers, and the other enacting a stringent program of government regulation of the marketplace in the form of health code tightening and enforcement. People complained about the "Disney-ification" of gritty old NYC, having to stand outside in the cold to have a smoke with your beer, and Nanny Bloomberg making people's decisions for them. 20 years later, however, the effects of those programs are not just undeniable, but transformative.<br />
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Who knows? Maybe New Yorkers would still argue that the benefits aren't worth the changes in the character of NYC, that they'd prefer old New York with its crime, drug dealers, trans fats, smoke-filled bars, and shorter life spans. I doubt it, though.<br />
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The lesson? Government policy can be a force for good. It can change things for the better. We saw it nationally in the '60's when President Johnson's Great Society cut the poverty rate in half in 10 years, and now we've seen it more recently in New York. Reagan's nonsense about how government can never fix anything just isn't true.<br />
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* Yes, crime rates dropped nationwide during the 1990's, and yes, the drop in NYC's crime rate began during Dinkins' last term as mayor, but the drop in NYC's crime rate dwarfs the drops everywhere else. It's pretty clear nationwide factors don't sufficiently explain it.el rancherohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03481794179892215503noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16531245.post-19764977106421609352012-06-19T15:51:00.000-04:002012-06-19T15:51:19.525-04:00personal experience as a crutch for empathyI've wondered for a while exactly how a guy like Marco Rubio balances his beliefs on immigration with otherwise being a hardcore social conservative. Yglesias <a href="http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2012/06/19/the_wisdom_of_marco_rubio_on_illegal_immigration.html">helpfully elucidates</a>. Note this reporting here about the man's position:
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Many people who came here illegally are doing exactly what we would do if we lived in a country where we couldn't feed our families," he writes in An American Son, which was released Tuesday. "If my kids went to sleep hungry every night and my country didn't give me an opportunity to feed them, there isn't a law, no matter how restrictive, that would prevent me from coming here."
Rubio is the son of Cuban immigrants and has been among the more vocal members of the Republican Party about the need to soften rhetoric on immigration. He planned to introduce a bill that would help young undocumented immigrants gain legal status -- although he said Monday that the legislation is unlikely to come up -- but also opposes comprehensive reform that would grant legal status to many.</blockquote>
That quote is exactly, <i>precisely</i> the liberal critique of anti-immigration legislation. There are various reasons to favor more open immigration policies from an intellectual standpoint, but this is the emotional reason, the one that animates people to actively oppose rather than merely grumble. The people who are willing to brave the guns of soldiers and vigilantes, the high fences, the scorching Arizona sun, the tumultuous Atlantic waters, and the double-crossing <i>coyotes</i> for the chance to secure a better life for themselves and their loved ones are the very people we should want here the most. Their actions bespeak bravery, inner strength, an unwillingness to settle for less than they and their loved ones deserve.<br />
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How does he square the circle of opposing "path to citizenship" legislation for those who came here illegally? Well, as Matthew helpfully notes, it's <i>always</i> legal in American law for Cubans to come here; it's only illegal on the Cuban side. Thus, it's only Mexicans and Guatemalans and Hondurans who come here "illegally," not Cubans.<br />
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Here we are again: a so-called "thoughtful conservative" who wants liberal policy for himself and his own but conservative policy for everyone else.el rancherohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03481794179892215503noreply@blogger.com0