Can someone give old George the 3rd grade run through of how a bill becomes a law? Bushism of the Day by Jacob Weisberg
- posted by levinson @ 12/20/2000 11:30:00 AM

 
Can you imagine the shrill debatethis proposal would cause in this country?
- posted by levinson @ 12/20/2000 06:43:00 AM

 
Belaboring a point here (shocking, I know) but I'm sure one response to the question of why we aren't using electronic machines is that it's too expensive for state governments to afford. Well, the Brazillian machine costs under $1000 a piece. There are approximately 3112 counties in America. Let's assume that the machines cost exactly $1000. Now let's suppose each county will need approxiamtely 20 machines to cover their population (some will need more, some will need less but it should balance out). For the whole nation, it would cost approximately $62,240,000 to upgrade. That's $1,244,800 per state (holding all else equal) or .00318% of the federal budget (if the states let them pay for it). Spread that over 4 years, and each state annually needs to set aside $311,200 if it wants 20 machines per county. Or, if the feds pay, it's .000008% of the annual budget ($15,560,000 per year). Now there are other costs associated with the process, and a small learning curve, but if people in the deepest region of the Amazon jungle can use these things, I think even our most underprivileged counties can handle it.
- posted by levinson @ 12/19/2000 04:02:00 PM

 
It has begun. The "heal the nation" crowd is going to be really upset about this if it turns out that Gore got more votes. Even though the republicans will be screaming "MISCHIEF" from the roof-tops at every recount, I think it will have a profound effect on people and put extreme pressure on the congress to totally overhaul the election process if Gore turns out to have been the winner in Florida.

It would be truly pathetic if the US Government couldn't simply pass a bill in January calling for appropriations to local govenments for the sole purpose of buying something like this. It's from an American company. If every county in America isn't using either this or one of Diebold's competitor's machines in two years, it will be a signal that the government is broken for at least another generation. Not just the federal government either, people need to hound their state governments about these things. Also, poorer counties can now use the Supreme Court's extraordinary overreaching decision in Bush v. Gore to file equal protection violations to get themselves the machines.
- posted by levinson @ 12/19/2000 03:32:00 PM

 
In a little known piece of American lore absolutely anyone can be nominated for this job. Never one to miss a beat on the American scene, Doonesbury did something on this Thanksgiving week. I'm free next June in case anyone's interested.
- posted by levinson @ 12/19/2000 09:01:00 AM

 
An Op-Ed piece today shines a new light, from the media anyway, on the presidential electors and also brings up a good point about the ultimate reverence we give to the framers of the constitution and the frame-work they established for our government.
It's always interesting when a national lawsuit of constitutional significance comes to the fore to see the pundits on television talking about what the framers "meant" when they wrote the constitution. In his book, Original Meanings, Rakove goes to great lenghts to establish the circumstances around which the constitution was written. Moreover, he establishes that even Madison, the primary author of the document, didn't quite know exactly what all of these things meant.
As we learned in US History, Washington was writing to his cabinet very early on to find out what the Constitution meant when it established certain things. Even the framers disagreed on many issues, not the least of which was whether or not the government could establish a national bank. With each constitutional issue, we see the proponents for change pointing out these facts and also that, since it can be amended, the constitution was meant to adapt to the ideals of the time. While on the side of stagnation, we have people waving the constitution about reading fragments and phrases with missionary zealotry.

- posted by levinson @ 12/19/2000 08:38:00 AM

 
Just want to scoop Drudge and link to Hunter Thompson's weekly article on Monday instead of Thurday when Matt usually gets around to it.ESPN.com - Page2 - Ready for Sainthood
- posted by levinson @ 12/18/2000 10:44:00 AM

 
As we move into the debate over the legislative agenda for the next two years, Health Care will be made a huge issue. It may only be in the guise of Medicare or Social Security reform, but the real issue of how to deal with the problems of delivering medical care will be burbling beneath the surface, and a national case could ignite a furious backlash against the HMO's that may do substantial damage to a system that has promise but is too ruled by cost-cutting decisions in back rooms and policies of universal denial to claims. This article deals with an issue that I haven't seen advanced anywhere in the main-stream media. I think it's an interesting idea to have a kind of medical SEC, but it would difficult to get through congress as its opponents would decry the new "commission" as nothing more than larger government and heavily misguided spending. It's an argument more about sound-bite than substance, but it has resonance.
- posted by levinson @ 12/18/2000 08:37:00 AM

 
I didn't get a chance to see Gore's speech live last night (I did see clips of Bush, and the first thing he needs to work on is looking into the camera and not staring at the telestrator incessantly) but as I was going to sleep, I thought of how Gore may have missed out on an opporutnity to be a thorn in Bush's side throughout his first two years as President.

I think Gore should have started out saying he was through and blah blah blah, let's unite the nation. He did that last night, and very well I think (from reading the transcript and clips of the address). But having spent a minute on the above, I think he should have taken a page out of Clinton's book. Early in his first term, Clinton realized the most powerful thing in his political arsenal was his state of the union address. It gave him the opportunity, at the start of every year to effectively set the political agenda. He used this tactic to consistently outflank the Republican congess on myriad issues, and implicit paint them as partisans who want nothing but the ruin of the country in the process. Imagine if Gore had said something like the following:

"I'd like to call on my fellow Democrats still in Congress and on the majority of the populace of America who voted for me to continue working for the issues on which I campaigned. We have a nearly dead even Congress and now is the time for us to effect our most meaningful legislation. Let us learn from this past election campaign and pass meaningful campaign finance reform. Let us take the lessons of California's power problems and legislate in favor of cleaner, more environmentally sound forms of energy. And as the economy slows down from the remarkable proseperity of the last eight years, let us temper our desire to fritter away a surplus that may not hold with tax cuts and renewed spending intiatives that will once more imperil the economy..."

He could renew his populist agenda and put the onus on the Republicans to not look partisan and fanatical. He had the unique opportunity in being the guy who won the popular vote but won't be inaugurated to help set an agenda for next year and dare the republicans to once more defy the wishes of the country. Finally, he knew Bush would never respond to this because there simply wouldn't have been time to rewrite his speech in less than an hour. I think his speech was very good and heartfelt, but I think he missed an opportunity that would have preserved the legacy of his campaign and keep his agenda in the mind of Americans until the next election.
- posted by levinson @ 12/14/2000 07:33:00 AM

 
It would be disingenuous of me to write one of my longest diatribes on the problems of baseball, the uneven playing field, and the Yankees being able to buy the championship every year, and not address the signing of Manny Ramirez by the Red Sox. It is clear after the signings by the Rangers and Red Sox that other teams have plenty of money to sign players. Moreover, those teams, many teams, have the ability to sign players to outrageous contracts. As a Sox fan, I am happy that the Sox finally bagged their first big time free agent ever. My point about imbalance in the game doesn't address individual signings by teams. As it stands right now, baseball doesn't look too uneven. The reason the Yankees will take the world series again next year is not only due to these off season acquisitions, but to their ability, through an unlimited salary, to absorb disasterous contracts and still, through trades and waiver wire pick-ups, retool at midseason without any care for the payroll ramifications during that season or any subsequent one. To me, before baseball addresses the problem of paying its players too much money, they need to ensure that those players can be evenly distributed. Seattle is the best case in point. Five years ago they had Randy Johnson, Ken Griffey, and a young Alex Rodriguez. Now they have Aaron Sele, Mike Cameron, and some guy from the local coffee shop playing short. Therein lies the problem with the majors.
- posted by levinson @ 12/14/2000 07:14:00 AM

 
I told my family a few weeks ago that I felt the Supreme Court wouldn't get involved in this because a) there's absolutely no federal issue (if equal protection really did apply in the way Bush's lawyers were contending, our entire decentralized voting scheme would be unconstitutional) and b) the Justices work hard to remove themselves from partisan bickering even as they persue certain ideological agendas. Strikes one and two. Well, from now on I'm going to take a few pitches to see what's out there before swinging for the fences. It's obvious why politicians have been harping about who's going to get to appoint Justices for the last 20 years. They really are just political pundits in black robes. Too bad, but good to know. I honestly believe that it will take a very long time for the court to re-legitimize itself and the sanctity of its place after this. Every one of these justices, regardless of how they voted, will be remembered as being on "the bench" that put Bush in office.

On a side note, it seems pretty clear that Scalia was working so hard to get the Florida Court overturned so that Bush could appoint some more conservative justices in his mold or, at the very least, the mold of Clarence Thomas. My only question is, how is Bush going to appoint conservative justices when the Democrats look at Scalia and Thomas as exactly what they don't want on the court and gave the dems all the ammo they'd want against conservative appointments in this ruling? The Senate is 50-50 now, and could very well be majority democratic in 2002, especially given the current republican leadership and its track record of losing seats in every election since '94. It seems that an itchy trigger finger may have gotten the better of Scalia's long term politicial and judicial goals.
- posted by levinson @ 12/13/2000 02:18:00 PM

 
This guy will do absolutely anything to induce America to forget one Richard M. Nixon. Salon.com News | Party without a conscience
- posted by levinson @ 12/11/2000 06:52:00 AM

 
Well the fragile peace that Rehnquist had sculpted on the Supreme Court has been shattered into a million pieces. We now know exactly how the Court will vote either on Monday night or Tuesday morning. (Scalia and Stevens clash) Clearly the justices in the minority opinion wanted to make sure everyone knew who they were and how the court was voting. To that end, they released a rare dissenting opinion on the granting of a stay. No case has been argued or even a brief presented in the case, and the court is issuing a dissenting opinion. I think what the minority wants to avoid is an action similar to the one last week when the court vacated the lower court's opinion without disclosing a vote or having a dissenting opinion. The four in the minority have now forced the majority to take the steps in public.

I think now, despite Justice Scalia's legitimate efforts to stop it, a larger portion of democrats will view a Bush presidency as illegitimate. More importantly, I think Scalia is off the mark when he worries that counting these votes will call the legitimacy of a president into question because under Florida law, we will eventually count all the votes.
- posted by levinson @ 12/10/2000 08:33:00 AM

 
Today's New York Times has an op-ed on the "Nader effect." It's the first piece in the national media that addresses the consequences both real and speculative of his presidential bid. Personally, I think it's Gore's fault that he wasn't able to blunt more of the Nader vote. He did a good job of sweeping up all but the furthest of the left wing. In the end though, whether you blame Gore or Nader for it, both have lost whole heartedly on almost all of their issure (barring a miracle today from the courts) including environmentalism, campaign finance reform and the possibility of a viable third party candidate in 2004. No matter who you fault for it, it was a wholesale loss for the left.
- posted by levinson @ 12/08/2000 07:32:00 AM

 
I find it a little hypocritical that the college admissions officers get together to talk about how to take the stress off of college admissions. Moreover, they've offered no true solutions. To me, they could start by eliminating the SAT as any kind of valid indicator of student performance. The SAT (it used to be called the Scholastic Aptitude Test, but once it was shown to be neither a scholastic test nor an indicator of aptitude, the name was changed to simply SAT) has been shown to test nothing but how well a student takes the SAT. As institutions of higher learning and the supposed centers of American idealism, I find it disturbing that they continue to rely on an antiquated and irrelevant statistical measure to decide, even in part, who is admitted to their ranks.

The difference between a 1340 and a 1350 is one question. Don't tell me that the 1340 kid doesn't deserve to get in to Harvard. Yet with the deluge of applications they continue to cling to this method of eliminating "unqualified" students. Harvard would like their applicants to spend more time on meaningful activities rather the puffing up their resume. I think if they would make more of an effort to have those activities increase one's chances of admission instead of ignoring anyone who doesn't reach a certain score on a meaningless test. They are also disturbed that kids with financial advantages are prohibitive favorites for having the best resume. Well, if you ignore the SAT then parents aren't dropping thousands of dollars on courses, books and tutors.

I realize it's a hell of a lot easier for these colleges to decide who's in and who's out using the test, but isn't a college supposed to work for what's right and not what's easy?
- posted by levinson @ 12/07/2000 07:27:00 AM

 
I'm not dumb enough to think this guy reads this page, but this is one of the most assinine pieces of sports writing in recent years. He discredits his entire argument less than one screen scroll into the article. He compares the new contracts of two middle relievers (one of whom he bags on because he hasn't recorded a save without mentioning that he's been in the bullpen behind Tom Gordon or Derek Lowe. It's like asking why Ramiro Mendoza or Jeff Nelson don't get saves.) to the one the Yanks gave El Duque three years ago after he hopped off the boat from Cuba. In the spring time, we'll be able to compare the contracts of Jeter and Garciaparra to A-Rod. Are we to believe that the team sigining A-Rod is too stupid to look at the current contracts of Jeter and Nomar and offer the same amount? Idiot.

The Yanks took a gamble on Duque and won out. They deserve credit for that. They also spent a hell of a lot of money (at the time) on another foreign free agent touted more fervently than Hernandez. Where have you gone Hideki Irabu? Gambling and winning or losing on prospects is something common to all teams. The Yanks have a lot to be proud of, but this guy degrades their fans (a fan sent me the article touting it as "the facts") to the level of troglodytes.
- posted by levinson @ 12/05/2000 04:12:00 PM

 
I need to correct a couple of things in that last post. The simple method given in the Constitution of one representative for every 30,000 citizens has been changed. In 1910, the number of Representatives was frozen at 435. This freezing was omitted from the US Code and replaced with a "Reapportionment of Representatives." Basically, every ten years, they shift around how many reps each state gets. 2 USC 2(a) provides the "method of equal proportions" for redistricting. That thing assigns a priority to each state in getting a representative. After assigning one rep to each state, they go in order of state priority to give additional members. From the census: "Priority value is determined by dividing a state's population by the geometric mean of its current and next House seats." I still can't find any provision for adding members to the total number of representatives. Regardless, the four million under-count, significantly effects the number of representatives/electoral votes for the heavily urban communities.
- posted by levinson @ 12/04/2000 12:48:00 PM

 
Currently 4 million people contribute to the popular vote without having their vote counted in the electoral college. In other words, their votes don't count.

There is an aversion to the census in the Congress. Rather, there is an aversion to census counting in a mid-20th century manner. Statistical sampling has been shown to be a more accurate method of counting millions of people than the current door-to-door method, when trying to count as many people as humanly possible. The point to the census is laid out in the Constitution (Article 1, Section 2). In order to have a house of representatives, we need to know how many representatives each state gets. Since that determination is based on population, we need a census. Perhaps you are now thinking, "with all that's happening in the country right now, who gives a shit about the stupid census?" Simple, had an accurate census been done in 1990, there may have been a fundamental shift in whether or not this election mess would have occured. Looking at the map in the USA Today of how each county in the country voted; we see an infinitely telling message. For the most part, those states with heavily urban population voted democratic. The rural areas went republican. (Blah blah blah, Pete we know this.) An article in Salon today about the possibilty of heavily minority counties in Florida having their voting rights infringed upon got me wondering whether those votes, once counted would be given their proper electoral weight. (Claims are as yet unsubstantiated, Jesse Jackson on one of his crusades again, WHO CARES??)

The combination of those things got me thinking again about why someone would oppose a counting method that's proven to be more accurate? Look at the map again and ask yourself, if a more accurate census were rendered, would there be more blue counties, or red counties? If you have some time, read a census timeline put together by CivilRights.org. The main thrust is what happened to statistical sampling. Here are three quotes, "The net undercount rate of 1.6 percent (4 million people) in 1990 was 50 percent greater than in 1980." "In July [of 1997], Congress revisited the issue when the House Appropriations Committee passed the FY98 Commerce Department spending bill with a provision banning the use of sampling for counting the population in the Census. An amendment was offered by Rep. Mollohan (D-WV) to remove the sampling restriction, however, the amendment was defeated by a vote of 33-25, with every Republican voting against the amendment and every Democrat voting in favor." Finally, "In late January [of 1999], the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that the federal Census Act of 1976 prevents the Census Bureau from using statistical sampling to determine the population for purposes of congressional apportionment." Why? I haven't read the opinion, but I'll give you one guess [I don't know the answer] as to how the voting broke down among the justices.

How does this apply to this year's election? The appotionment under the Constitution says that the number of representatives per state shall not exceed one per 30,000 citizens. With 4,000,000 people not counted (the difference between the undercount of whites and the undercount of ethnic minority groups (known as the `differential undercount') was the highest ever recorded since the Census Bureau began conducting post-Census evaluations in 1940, missing 4.4 percent of African Americans; 5 percent of Americans of Hispanic origin; 2.3 percent of Asians and Pacific Islanders; and, more than 12 percent of Native Americans living on reservations), there would be an extra 133 representatives, if the census were used for Congressional apportionment, accordingly adding 133 electoral votes to the current total . Once again, one can speculate with some certainty that those not counted are primarily in major cities. The question then is, had the census been done properly and used for congressional apportionment, would Gore or Bush have won a majority of the electoral college without Florida? Looking at the USA Today map, it is fairly obvious which party has the most to lose with such a restructuring.

A stict, "rule of law" reading of the Constitution means that those people are being taxed without being properly represented. Any remedial student of US History understands how we citizens used to repond to this.
- posted by levinson @ 12/04/2000 08:41:00 AM