Ask Trump "Will you veto federal anti-abortion legislation?", not "Will you sign it?"

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Sunday April 28, 2024 · 7:26 PM PDT

2024/04/28 · 19:26

Federal bills passed by Congress do not need the President’s signature to become law. Any unsigned-but-unvetoed bill automatically becomes a law ten days after being sent to the President unless Congress is out of session, which it almost never officially is nowadays.

Since a Trump win would probably result in a GOP Congress that could decide to exempt abortion restrictions from filibusters, his current “I would not sign a federal abortion ban” statement may not even be a lie — it doesn’t need to be.

So he should be pushed to clarify his veto stance, which he may be uncomfortable doing since that might dampen evangelical support.

Why urge more news conferences? Why not civic conferences?

hunterellinger

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Sunday March 10, 2024 · 8:00 AM PDT

2024/03/10 · 08:00

no image description available — Give Em Hell, Biden, but don't feed the trolls

I agree that Biden needs to get out more, as he clearly plans to do. But why should Biden provide political reporters control over the process? I really liked his SOTU mention of speaking to a local Chamber Of Commerce. Add union, educational, and other non-political gatherings. Let the groups pick the questioners, and give them and him some time to explore each question looking for areas of agreement.

There are many civic-leader Republicans who are both conservative and sensible — just few who wish to be GOP politicians. I ran into many as a local elected official. Give them some non-partisan cover and let the media choose which events to report on, revealing their bias.

Of course Biden should also have flat-out political rallies. These will not be as entertaining as the SOTU but are easier to pull off. And I am sure that his political group understands the possibilities of civic forums (it was in the SOTU!). I just want to redirect our armchair generals.

Who “Dark” Biden really reminds me of is “Give-Em-Hell” Truman. I’m from Texas left-wing political family (yes, we exist), and my first datable memory is November 2, 1948, when my parents got so exited listening to the returns that they forgot to put 5-year-old me and my 7-year-old sister to bed. We fell asleep by the radio and woke to the aftermath of the celebration of a solid Democratic win.

Good or Bad, Impeachments Are Political Rather Than Legal

hunterellinger

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Saturday September 16, 2023 · 7:37 PM PDT

2023/09/16 · 19:37

I live about a mile from where the Texas Senate voted today not to remove Ken Paxton from office. No surprise there (the surprise was the House vote to impeach him, even though their case was well-founded). But it invites confusion to use legal-system terms to describe the result.

This vote is not an “acquittal” (i.e., “Not guilty”). It just means that most of the GOP-heavy Senate decided that his misdeeds were not enough to justify removing him from office. There wasn’t much defense of the misdeeds themselves, and Paxton may eventually find himself in a real court about them. There the question will be whether he did anything illegal (very likely yes), rather than whether Texans are entitled to elect crooks to office (by tradition, also yes).

This goes the other way, too. Bill Clinton was impeached for lying about an affair (which he did), but the Senate fell well short of removing him from office for it. Again, the actual issue was not guilt but whether the actions justified removing an elected official. The 1998 elections showed that most voters agreed with leaving him in office, but no one thought of him as innocent.

The Trump impeachments did involve serious “high crimes” that constituted misuse of office and merited removal, but that failed because (unlike with Nixon) most Republican senators put party before country. But that was a political failure, not a legal decision.

The Biden situation is different because there is no evidently no crime to be found, so if he is impeached the backlash should be even stronger than it was with Clinton. Especially after the accusations are examined in trial-like conditions with cross-examination.

US Covid-19 death rate last week was 12 times Canada, 18 times Germany, 5 times UK

hunterellinger

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Monday September 28, 2020 · 3:58 PM PDT

2020/09/28 · 15:58

The worst indictment of the US Covid-19 response is not the cumulative 204,493 death total reached last week. Much of that came from the initial wave, which most countries struggled with. The most damning numbers are the current ones – 5,247 US deaths last week, a 1.595 rate per week per 100,000 population. This contrasts with rates of 0.136 for Canada, 0.089 for Germany, and 0.317 for the United Kingdom.

See for yourself here. This site now gives graphs and tables for any selection of up to 6 of the 208 countries whose data is supplied by the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, as well as for groupings like continents, the EU, and the world as a whole. By copying the URL of a completed graph, you can save a graph to email or post. Examples: US vs. EU vs. World, Sweden vs. the rest of Scandinavia, Japan vs. South Korea. Or you can roll your own.

Graphs of COVID-19 history for all countries

hunterellinger

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Wednesday September 23, 2020 · 9:22 AM PDT

2020/09/23 · 09:22

Comparison Covid-19 history graphs and data for all countries, updated daily

The page http://www.tlok.org/covid/ now shows graphs of Covid-19 case and death rates for any of the 208 countries reported on by the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, updated daily. The population-adjusted histories are shown together with those for the US, EU, and world. In the graph above, red is used for the US, blue for the EU, green for the world, and black for the selection from the other 207 countries (Brazil in this case).

The data shows that while most countries had trouble dealing with the virus in the spring, the US looks more third-world than first-world since then. Canada, for example, saw about 2/3 of US death rates in spring (when adjusted for population), but is down to less than 10% since mid-summer.

But look for yourself. And let me know if you have questions or suggestions for improvements.

How does recent US performance on Covid-19 compare to other countries? Answers, updated daily.

hunterellinger

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Saturday September 12, 2020 · 5:14 PM PDT

2020/09/12 · 17:14

While current attention is rightly on Trump’s deadly misbehavior at the beginning of the pandemic, the recent contrast between the US and other countries could be even more damaging politically. Over the last 4 weeks, for example, the US had more than 5 times as many covid-19 deaths as the entire European Union, whose population is 32% larger.

On a population-adjusted basis the US had more than 50 times as many covid-19 deaths as Germany that month, which indicates what competent leadership here might have done. I would love for Biden to bring numbers such as these out in the debates.

The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (the EU version of our CDC) posts daily covid-19 case and death data for all countries, going back to the beginning of the year. You can use my web app at http://www.tlok.org/covid/covid_history.php to examine the relative performance of the US, the EU, and various other countries for as many weeks back as you choose.

I will update the site daily with new data as it is posted. I also welcome suggestions for improvements, or for variants of the site such as adding more countries or groups of countries.

Could voter suppression lead to fewer US House seats?

hunterellinger

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Tuesday November 27, 2012 · 7:47 AM PST

2012/11/27 · 07:47

Part of the 14th Amendment to the US Constitution provides that if the right to vote is denied to citizens of a state, that state's share of the US House of Representatives shall be correspondingly reduced. The recent set of GOP state laws and administrative actions to suppress voting seem to me to clearly qualify as such denials. If this argument were found legally compelling it would force a redistribution of House seats; in any case the litigation would force states to defend their actions. Note that the representation penalty does not depend on the voting restrictions being illegal, just that they are effective.

Here's the relevant text from the 14th Amendment:

Section 2. Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the Executive and Judicial officers of a State, or the members of the Legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such State, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such State.

Presumably the references to "male citizens" were effectively expanded to all citizens by the 19th Amendment, but that would not really matter for this argument. There may have been some earlier court cases based on this provision during the Jim Crow era, but everything on this topic that I remember was direct action to let people vote rather than penalizing a state for denying them access. Any lawyers out there want to pick this up and run with it?

The "doesn't affect you" lie on Medicare changes

hunterellinger

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Monday August 13, 2012 · 4:10 PM PDT

2012/08/13 · 16:10

Obviously Romney/Ryan think that they can defuse negative reaction to voucherizing Medicare by promising to limit the changes to people born after the 1950s. Since it is the over-50 voters who have the heaviest voter turnout, they reason, they will not care if we shortchange the younger people. We can even say that we are doing it "to save the program" for the current recipients.

They are probably wrong about how older people will react (a similar plan for Social Security got a very poor response even among those who "would not be affected"), but if anyone you know is tempted by this promise, tell them that here is what is going on:

HOW TO DESTROY AN ENTITLEMENT
[1] Label it a welfare program that results in successful people supporting those who are failures. In the case of Medicare, this involves always talking about it together with Medicaid and emphasizing that many people have better employer-supplied insurance (ignoring the fact that most of this shrinking group are either union workers or government employees). The GOP has been doing this for years.
[2] Means-test the program, either directly by excluding those who are financially independent or indirectly by making the benefits taxable in some way for such people (as has already been done with Social Security). This helps weaken support for the program even from its most powerful and politically-active recipients. It is always a bit difficult for the GOP to make a "let the rich pay more" argument of this kind with a straight face, but they can usually find some short-sighted Democrats to front for them here. This will be the short-term GOP fall-back position if they get into power but lose some of their troops on outright voucherization.
[3] Exclude a large portion of the population from the program. For Medicare do this based on date of birth, reinforced by the existing exclusion of even those undocumented workers who pay the taxes to support it. These exclusions insure that a growing proportion of the population no longer benefits from the program. When that proportion gets big enough, move on to step 4.
[4] Abandon the program altogether as soon as the next fiscal crisis arrives (or can be manufactured). If this cannot be done all at once, starve the program to death by freezing its funding despite inflation and growing need.

Short form: "If the GOP succeeds now in making it so that most voters will not benefit from Medicare-as-we-know-it, don't you think that in about 10 years they will declare that 'fairness' demands that we apply the same rules to everyone?"

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