John's 2nd Attempt At Pontification

"It’s important to get this information out there to the American public and important to get..."

Mon, 22 Apr 2013 19:00:03 -0700

“It’s important to get this information out there to the American public and important to get this information out there in general, but it’s much more important to make sure that we’re precise and accurate.”

- Wolf Blitzer on CNN at 1:51 pm EST on Wednesday 4/17/13. He was, of course, speaking of the arrest of the Boston bombing suspects. Which didn’t actually happen for two more days.

This was a screw up, and to their credit, CNN acknowledged this was a screw up. Other media outlets who screwed up last week were not as generous. The New York Post reported 12 fatalities in the bombing and then lamely and wrongly tried to accuse the NY Times as the source of its report. I don’t think the Post ever retracted its report. It also put two innocent men on the front page of the paper with the huge headline “BAG MEN” - although the story correctly noted that law enforcement officials briefly circulated the subject photo seeking information, they never implied that the two were suspects who were actively being sought. Rupert Murdoch attempted to offer a defense over the weekend which left out any discussion implication created by the use of “BAG MEN” (which most Americans understand to have an obvious criminal connotation beyond simply meaning men with bags) in humongous letters on the paper’s cover. But, hey, he only had 140 characters.

Back to CNN and the premise I quoted. Was it important for CNN to get the arrest news out there when they did? I’m not sure it was. If there really was an arrest, law enforcement authorities would be sure to rapidly brief the media. Or go on the record with the news. (On Friday, Mayor Menino went on the record to confirm the arrest before the press conference which followed about an hour or so later.) If you listen to podcasts, I’d recommend the Slate weekly political “Gabfest” which made this point very well this past Friday as the events were unfolding - this is not really a scoop in any sense of the word. Everyone will eventually - and even quickly - know this news. The race to be first is therefore more about inside-baseball bragging rights than it is any public service. (Listen to the podcast for more.)

Indeed, the public could be argued not to be served at all even if the news was true. It’s not hard to imagine some local law enforcement official leaking to John King (as we are led to believe by King as what actually occurred) the news of the arrest. But, does that source know that the criminals were acting alone? The source may or may not know that. It seems in hindsight that this was a federal investigation which the local authorities aided. I’ve read reports that local authorities were actively kept in the dark (maybe because of the Wednesday leak). So, isn’t it possible that the authorities would want to briefly embargo the news of the arrest so as to be able to surprise potential confederates? I don’t have a hard time imagining that at all even though it was apparently not the case here.

I used the term “inside baseball” above. I am reminded of sports. If you follow sports news closely, you may know that there is a bit of a rivalry between ESPN and other sports news outlets. Fox Sports has a football reporter, Jay Glazer, who is pretty well sourced with players and agents as well as some teams’ management. So, when a player is traded, Glazer is often the first to know (and tweet). ESPN occasionally latches onto these reports without giving credit and sparks fly. ESPN sometimes beats Glazer and promotes being “first” or “exclusive.” (Heck, sometimes they do this even after being beaten by Glazer or others but that’s another post.) Which is fine. But, all in all, no one really cares that much. And I don’t think Jay Glazer even thinks he’s providing a public service by being first. I do think he takes pride in being first (rightfully so) and he knows that being first improves his brand. And that’s fine.

But, Wolf Blitzer seems to be saying that rushing into that story (and I have no doubt that CNN knew who was and wasn’t reporting on this) was part of a public service. And I really don’t think that’s all that clear. In fact, I’m having trouble marshaling arguments that it would have been much of a service at all.

theatlantic: The Jobs Crisis at Our Best Law Schools Is Much,...

Tue, 09 Apr 2013 13:50:46 -0700

theatlantic:

The Jobs Crisis at Our Best Law Schools Is Much, Much Worse Than You Think

Could this just be a sign the U.S. News rankings are way off and don’t really reflect the job market? In part, yes. The magazine’s annual list does incorporate employment outcomes as part of its formula, and some law firms pay an absurd amount of attention to it. But after going back through the data and ranking the 25 schools with the lowest underemployment, I found that only 15 of them could be found in the U.S. News Top 25. The other 10 included schools like number #76 LSU and number #126 Campbell University.

Read more. [Data: Law School Transparency]

I think this is more of a sign of the actual unemployment being a far more variable factor than it was during the (two separate) boom eras of the last decade plus.

To quickly sum up: Francesa accepting the angle that the...

Tue, 02 Apr 2013 18:30:26 -0700

To quickly sum up:

Francesa accepting the angle that the assistant coach who aired this is “shaking down” Rutgers? Check.

AD essentially admitting that he only made the decision he did out of secrecy interests? Check.

The AD is saying, yes, I knew all of the facts on this site but I thought this decision was in the best interests of “the program.” In essence, he is admitting that if he fired the coach, he’d have to explain why he fired the coach and, implicitly, yes, this video is explosive and its contents would damage Rutgers. So, suspension and secrecy were the correct course.

I tweeted about this earlier: a boss who does this is fired. A teacher who does this is fired. That NCAA coaches are not begs the explanation as to why these student athletes (the NCAA’s preferred term for them) are due less. This was a lame defense. If the AD is saying that public opinion may influence his future actions, that should tell you all you need to know - this program has no reliable ethical compass. The least we could do is point Rutgers in the right direction.

DOMA, SCOTUS, PROP 8, ETC...

Sat, 30 Mar 2013 13:13:36 -0700

Wow. What a week for Justice Scalia. His head must still be spinning by what he read and heard this week. There were two moments which I think summed up what could have been his frustration: one of active confrontation and one of silence.

First, the active confrontation. Justice Scalia made one of his ever-more-frequent straw man arguments and, in what I think was a rare occasion, someone punched back hard. Someone in this case being former U.S. Solicitor General Ted Olsen. In the Proposition 8 case, Justice Scalia strongly implied that because Olsen couldn’t define precisely when the Constitution started to protect the rights of gays and lesbians to marry, it must not. And sparks flew.

JUSTICE SCALIA: You — you’ve led me right into a question I was going to ask. The California Supreme Court decides what the law is. That’s what we decide, right? We don’t prescribe law for the future. We — we decide what the law is. I’m curious, when -when did — when did it become unconstitutional to exclude homosexual couples from marriage? 1791? 1868, when the Fourteenth Amendment was adopted?

Sometimes — some time after Baker, where we said it didn’t even raise a substantial Federal question? When — when — when did the law become this?

MR. OLSON: When — may I answer this in the form of a rhetorical question? When did it become unconstitutional to prohibit interracial marriages? When did it become unconstitutional to assign children to separate schools.

JUSTICE SCALIA: It’s an easy question, I think, for that one. At — at the time that the Equal Protection Clause was adopted. That’s absolutely true.

But don’t give me a question to my question.

(Laughter.)

JUSTICE SCALIA: When do you think it became unconstitutional? Has it always been unconstitutional?

MR. OLSON: When the — when the California Supreme Court faced the decision, which it had never faced before, is — does excluding gay and lesbian citizens, who are a class based upon their status as homosexuals — is it — is it constitutional -

JUSTICE SCALIA: That — that’s not when it became unconstitutional. That’s when they acted in an unconstitutional matter — in an unconstitutional matter. When did it become unconstitutional to prohibit gays from marrying?

MR. OLSON: That — they did not assign a date to it, Justice Scalia, as you know. What the court decided was the case that came before it

JUSTICE SCALIA: I’m not talking about the California Supreme Court. I’m talking about your argument. You say it is now unconstitutional.

MR. OLSON: Yes.

JUSTICE SCALIA: Was it always unconstitutional?

MR. OLSON: It was constitutional when we -as a culture determined that sexual orientation is a characteristic of individuals that they cannot control, and that that -

JUSTICE SCALIA: I see. When did that happen? When did that happen?

MR. OLSON: There’s no specific date in time. This is an evolutionary cycle.

JUSTICE SCALIA: Well, how am I supposed to know how to decide a case, then -

MR. OLSON: Because the case that’s before you -

JUSTICE SCALIA: — if you can’t give me a date when the Constitution changes?

MR. OLSON: — in — the case that’s before you today, California decided — the citizens of California decided, after the California Supreme Court decided that individuals had a right to get married irrespective of their sexual orientation in California, and then the Californians decided in Proposition 8, wait a minute, we don’t want those people to be able to get married….

JUSTICE SCALIA: It seems to me you ought to be able to tell me when. Otherwise, I don’t know how to decide the case.

MR. OLSON: I — I submit you’ve never required that before. When you decided that — that individuals — after having decided that separate but equal schools were permissible, a decision by this Court, when you decided that that was unconstitutional, when did that become unconstitutional?

JUSTICE SCALIA: 50 years ago, it was okay?

MR. OLSON: I — I can’t answer that question, and I don’t think this Court has ever phrased the question in that way.

JUSTICE SCALIA: I can’t either. That’s the problem. That’s exactly the problem.

I think Olsen got the best of this exchange. To accept Scalia’s position is to accept that equal protection was being openly defied for almost 100 years. I think it more likely that the “framers” of the 14th Amendment had no intention to, for example, undo laws which prevented interracial marriages or integrated schools. This is the fiction from which “originalists” like to benefit - ignoring that rights denied by this view today are simply the mirror image of rights denied for more than 60 years before the Warren Court recognized them. What also got me was that even Chief Justice Roberts was seeming to get annoyed by this (largely irrelevant to the rest of the Court) diversion into Scalia talking points.

But, onto the (in my mind) more powerful silence. On the next day, while the case involving the Defense of Marriage Act (“DOMA”) was argued, I caught the words “moral disapproval” being tossed around and those words sounded familiar. DOMA is often viewed in the context of the political expediency of the 1990s - Bill Clinton being a centrist Democrat willing to “triangulate” Congressional Democrats in order to be elected. And that’s partially right - after all, 1996 was an election year. And when it began, Bill Clinton’s re-election was not assured (although I think the odds favored it). In the spring of 1996, near the end of the Supreme Court term, the Court issued its opinion in Romer v. Evans. At issue in Romer was a Colorado voter initiative which purported to ban municipalities in Colorado from protecting gays and lesbians from discrimination. In an opinion authored by Justice Kennedy, a 5-4 majority struck down the Colorado initiative as violative of the Constitution’s equal protection clause. In dissent, Justice Scalia wrote the following:

“The Court’s opinion contains grim, disapproving hints that Coloradans have been guilty of “animus” or “animosity” toward homosexuality, as though that has been established as Unamerican. Of course it is our moral heritage that one should not hate any human being or class of human beings. But I had thought that one could consider certain conduct reprehensible—murder, for example, or polygamy, or cruelty to animals—and could exhibit even “animus” toward such conduct. Surely that is the only sort of “animus” at issue here: moral disapproval of homosexual conduct, the same sort of moral disapproval that produced the centuries old criminal laws that we held constitutional in Bowers [v. Hardwick in 1986]. The Colorado amendment does not, to speak entirely precisely, prohibit giving favored status to people who are homosexuals; they can be favored for many reasons—for example, because they are senior citizens or members of racial minorities. But it prohibits giving them favored status because of their homosexual conduct—that is, it prohibits favored status for homosexuality. But though Coloradans are, as I say, entitled to be hostile toward homosexual conduct, the fact is that the degree of hostility reflected by Amendment 2 is the smallest conceivable.” Romer v. Evans 517 U.S. 620 (1996) (Scalia, J. dissenting) (emphasis mine)

So, in Justice Scalia’s view, moral disapproval of homosexuality is equivalent to moral disapproval of murder or polygamy and a rational basis for a state to act in this way. Two months later, as a Republican-led House was pushing DOMA, the House Judiciary Committee wrote in a report preceding passage of DOMA:

“This judgment entails both moral disapproval of homosexuality, [footnote omitted] and a moral conviction that heterosexuality better comports with traditional (especially Judeo-Christian) morality. ..It is both inevitable and entirely appropriate that the law should reflect such moral judgments. H.R. 3396 serves the government’s legitimate interest in protecting the traditional moral teachings reflected in heterosexual-only marriage laws.” Report of House Judiciary Committee accompanying H.R. 3396, the Defense of Marriage Act.

In a footnote supporting their right to act out of “moral disapproval,” the House Judiciary Committee cited the same passage in Bowers v. Hardwick that Justice Scalia did two months earlier as authority to use “moral disapproval of homosexuality” as a permissible basis for the statute. Fast forward to this week and Justice Kagan, questioning Paul Clement, counsel for House Republicans:

“JUSTICE KAGAN: Well, is what happened in 1996 — and I’m going to quote from the House Report here — is that “Congress decided to reflect [and] honor collective moral judgment and to express moral disapproval of homosexuality.” Is that what happened in 1996?

MR. CLEMENT: Does the House Report say that? Of course, the House Report says that. And if that’s enough to invalidate the statute, then you should invalidate the statute. But that has never been your approach, especially under rational basis or even rational basis-plus, if that is what you are suggesting.”

My, how things change. Although this isn’t much of a concession, “moral disapproval” has gone from an acceptable rational basis for a state to discriminate to - potentially - grounds to strike down DOMA. Justice Scalia, amazingly, had no comment during this exchange. Chief Justice Roberts instead, once current Solicitor General Verilli was speaking, attempted to argue that surely 86 Senators couldn’t have voted out of this motive. Again, how things change. Of course they could have so voted. Justice Scalia was telling them in 1996 that it was OK to do so. Funny how no one mentioned that part.

say no to vertical videos - very funny (and very true)

Fri, 15 Mar 2013 09:47:46 -0700

say no to vertical videos - very funny (and very true)

kiuchitatsuro: Please March 2013 (by Tatsuro Kiuchi)

Sun, 03 Mar 2013 12:17:43 -0800

kiuchitatsuro:

Please March 2013 (by Tatsuro Kiuchi)

parislemon: nevver: Frankie says “I will punch you in the...

Wed, 20 Feb 2013 10:12:31 -0800

parislemon:

nevver:

Frankie says

“I will punch you in the mouth.”

Letter > email (also love the copyright notice).

ourpresidents: The Yalta Conference Cloak The photos of the Big...

Sun, 10 Feb 2013 10:44:24 -0800

The Big Three - Winston Churchill, FDR, and Joseph Stalin- outside of the Livadia Palace at the Yalta Conference. 2/9/45

Franklin D. Roosevelt's U.S. Navy boatcloak that he wore to the Yalta Conference. Made at the Brooklyn Navy Yard in NY, August 1942.

ourpresidents:

The Yalta Conference Cloak

The photos of the Big Three at the Yalta Conference are well-known, but have you ever looked closely at what FDR was wearing?

In contrast to the double-breasted coats worn by Winston Churchill and Joseph Stalin, Franklin D. Roosevelt wore a distinctive wool and velvet cloak during his trip to the Crimea, Ukraine, in February 1945.

The garment is a U.S. Navy regulation officer’s boatcloak. President Roosevelt’s was made at the Naval Clothing Depot at the Brooklyn Navy Yard in New York City in August 1942. It is a standard officer’s boatcloak, ordered and unaltered for FDR’s use.

The cloak is designed to be worn during movement by a boat to protect the wearer from the cold and his clothing from the effects of spray. It opens at the front and is fitted with two frogs (knotted lengths of braided cord), which engage to secure the cloak closed. The relative ease with which such a cloak could be put on and taken off made wearing it an attractive alternative to a more conventional garment—especially for someone whose ease of movement was hampered by the effects of polio.

Roosevelt wore similar boatcloaks during other trips he made during his Presidency. The image of FDR in these cloaks is one of the most enduring of the war years.

Photo Gallery -FDR meets with the Big Three, the Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia, and King Ibn Saud of Saudi Arabia during his Yalta Conference Trip

-from the FDR Library

parislemon: nevver: I honestly think you ought to sit down...

Mon, 07 Jan 2013 11:45:36 -0800

parislemon:

nevver:

I honestly think you ought to sit down calmly, take a stress pill and think things over.

Life-size replica. And it’s voice-activated.

Want. Nay, need.

Leverage

Fri, 04 Jan 2013 18:00:07 -0800

The President thinks that he has some leverage in the upcoming debt ceiling debate. It boils down to this:

The Republican party wants to slash Social Security and Medicare. And, because they know this is unpopular, they are willing to create a global economic crisis to get their way.

That’s the backstory behind what should be the White House’s messaging campaign in two months if things get crazy. Republicans are very, very averse to getting specific when it comes to proposing entitlement cuts. Because they know that they are still politically toxic. If the GOP has nothing left to trade for them (and the tax deal is the last thing they had to trade if the President refuses to accept a shutdown as a bargaining chip), it simply becomes a matter of the President sitting back and saying:

(1) I’m against a default. Americans are against a default. Big business is against a default.

(2) I’m against massive cuts to entitlements borne entirely by the poor and the disabled and those who care for them. Americans are also against this. Big business largely does not care.

This is Senator John Cornyn in today’s Houston Chronicle: “It may be necessary to partially shut down the government in order to secure the long-term fiscal well being of our country.” So, even simpler than my two points might just be editing Cornyn’s last sentence for clarity.

Translated, this really means: “It may be necessary to partially shut down the government in order to achieve cuts to Social Security and Medicare.”

If the President can do what I just did - translate statements like Cornyn’s (and Pat Toomey’s)? There won’t be a shutdown.

And I’m against a shutdown because of what it could do to the economy. I’m for making changes to entitlement programs so as to preserve their viability. I’m not for privatizing them. Changes made at threat of an economic bomb are not going to be well thought out. And they won’t be supported by the voters.

But, more fundamentally, if the debt ceiling can be used as a bargaining club, what won’t any President who cares about not cratering the economy give up? I am confident that President Clinton would do anything he had to do to win this clash between branches of government. I’m equally confident that President Bush 43 would have as well. Circumventing the rest of the post-FDR era (which wasn’t as polarized mostly due to frequent Democratic domination of Congress not because they were nicer), I’m convinced FDR, Lincoln and Andrew Jackson would have as well. It’s time for President Obama to protect his lunch money. I’m fine with him cutting deals to streamline entitlements but he shouldn’t to it to save a hostage economy. No self-respecting Federalist would.

My vote for winner at last night’s pie contest… on...

Tue, 01 Jan 2013 18:24:35 -0800

My vote for winner at last night’s pie contest… on Flickr.

Side yard before the snow hit.. on Flickr.

Sat, 29 Dec 2012 12:21:48 -0800

Side yard before the snow hit.. on Flickr.

Cliff (Fiscal)

Thu, 27 Dec 2012 10:39:43 -0800

This seems pretty simple. John Boehner is to weak to get a tax hike, any tax hike, through his caucus. His Plan B (a slight tax hike for those earning over $1 million) proved that last week. We are going off of the cliff and will not take any action until January 3 hits. Then, the only bills considered in the new Congress will be tax cut bills which will differ only in degree. This isn’t a case where the parties need to “come together.” This is a case where one party, the Republican party, needs to grow up. That this semantic difference is holding back a solution which a majority of the House supports is beneath a junior high student council, much less a Congressional party. I’ve seen a few people argue that parties are entitled to behave in a way which is contrary to public opinion and use the passage of Obamacare as an example. Of course they are. But Obamacare was, like it or not, supported by the majority of the House and Senate. A tax package resetting tax rates at Clinton levels would be supported by the public and a majority of the House and Senate. Only a weak Speaker is preventing it from passage.

theatlantic: Gun Buyback Programs Are Thriving Like Never...

Thu, 20 Dec 2012 05:32:08 -0800

theatlantic:

Gun Buyback Programs Are Thriving Like Never Before After Newtown

This weekend, a state-sponsored cash-for-guns program in Camden County, New Jersey, saw the return of 1,137 firearms — the most successful buyback in state history, and not the only record-breaking return haul since Friday’s massacre.

Read more. [Images: AP]

This says something, but I’m not really sure what.

newsweek: aaknopf: Take note. Helpful!

Tue, 11 Dec 2012 10:48:00 -0800

newsweek:

aaknopf:

Take note.

Helpful!

latimes: It’s not only Winston Churchill’s birthday today, but...

Sat, 01 Dec 2012 15:31:58 -0800

latimes:

It’s not only Winston Churchill’s birthday today, but Mark Twain’s as well. (Churchill was born in 1874, Twain in 1835.) This report on an event at which the latter introduced the former appeared in The Times on Dec. 14, 1900. Churchill wouldn’t become Britain’s prime minister for nearly four decades.

Just starting vol 3 of the Churchill bio. So far, so good.

michellelegro: It’s an oligarch Thanksgiving! newyorker: I...

Thu, 22 Nov 2012 14:41:40 -0800

michellelegro:

It’s an oligarch Thanksgiving!

newyorker:

I took a spin through the archives and—lo and behold, I discovered something quite fascinating: today, even the richest among us do not eat Thanksgiving like the rich of 1900.

Click-through to read Macy Halford on the time Mark Twain tried to move Thanksgiving, and for more on Thanksgiving menus in 1900.

Kind of curious what “frozen pudding” is, clearly not ice cream. And, yes, 1900 did see some excess.

laphamsquarterly: One of three photographs that show Abraham...

Wed, 14 Nov 2012 20:01:30 -0800

laphamsquarterly:

One of three photographs that show Abraham Lincoln arriving at Gettysburg for the consecration of the Soliders’ National Cemetery. Lincoln arrived around noon, and the headliner for the event was Edward Everett, who spoke for more than two hours.

When Everett had finished, Lincoln got up and delivered the 272-word Gettysburg Address, which took about two minutes.

I’m about to go quiet for a few weeks. I may still tweet...

Wed, 19 Sep 2012 21:03:59 -0700

I’m about to go quiet for a few weeks. I may still tweet here and there but I won’t be doing any extensive posting for a while.

At what point does your inept campaign say something about how...

Wed, 19 Sep 2012 17:57:29 -0700

At what point does your inept campaign say something about how you would govern?