Tag Archives: politics

From Mark Tushnet: Here’s a thought in the event that there is a Biden appointed commission on court reform.  What about a Joint Resolution on Judicial Power: “No court shall hold a federal statute unconstitutional unless it concludes that the statute is manifestly unconstitutional.” Tushnet discusses this suggestion and some limitations here. I am somewhat sympathetic to this idea.  I certainly agree with the substantive idea that underlies it; we have...

So, here is the thing about the arguments the Republicans are making regarding mail ballots based on this article at Slate. “the court held that Florida’s recount used procedures that violated “the equal dignity owed to each voter.” Because the standards used to recount ballots varied between counties, the court concluded, the process violated the U.S. Constitution’s equal protection clause. “ Being that “equal protection” is the issue as to getting a...

The 2020 Presidential and Senate nowcasts: in 2020 the “blue wall” looks very likely to hold, but expect surprises in the Senate Here is my weekly update on the 2020 elections, based on State rather than national polling in the past 30 days, since that directly reflects what is likely to happen in the Electoral College. At only 9 days from Election Day, the polls, while actually nowcasts rather than forecasts, are probably less than 1.75% off the final...

It is very likely that the candidate who wins Pennsylvania will become president. A problem is that the election officials are not allowed to look at absentee ballots before November 3rd. It is likely that Trump will lead the in person vote and try to declare victory. However, the party registration of absentee voters is public. The US Elections Project 2020 General Election Early Voting Statistics webpage is fascinating. It shows the amazing early...

A brief history of the Judiciary under Republics; the radical departure of the US Constitution, and how to reform it now I’ll have a note up, probably at Seeking Alpha tomorrow, on new home sales, which get reported later this morning. In the meantime, especially with the likely confirmation of the 6th movement conservative Justice today, who will probably immediately start to rule on election issues, I want to flesh out in outline form my thoughts on...

Lauren Martinchek at Medium magazine has a brief article suggesting there is another reason why trump chose Amy to be the next SCOTUS Justice and why Republicans are in such a hurry to nominate her. It is an alarmist viewpoint; however, it does have a foundation to it and has merit for her to claim it. This may be old news to some readers. Pulling from the Washington Post, Beth Reinhard and Tom Hamburger lay the foundation from which Lauren lays out some...

“I don’t know about the two gentlemen you mentioned.” Rudy Giuliani and Steve Bannon join a long list of people Donald Trump doesn’t know about. Igor Fruman and Lev Parnas “I don’t know those gentleman. Now, it’s possible I have a picture with them because I have a picture with everybody. I don’t know them, I don’t know about them, I don’t know what they do.” Jeffrey Epstein “I knew him like everybody in Palm Beach knew him, I was not a fan of his, that...

The Period Of Short Term Memory  The election is two weeks from today.  When I took an intro psych course over half a century ago, I was taught in it that two weeks is the period of short term memory, the period in which we remember events with special salience.  I do not know if this is still the official view of the profession, but it has since then made sense to me: I seem to be able, even now, to remember what happened day by day for the previous two...

Last I heard (6:52 PM EST October 10 2020) Donald Trump wants to sign a huge new stimulus bill. I don’t try to read his mind, but I think he is sincere. It is the only way he can win re-election. On the other hand, Mtich McConnell does not want the Senate to pass a huge stimulus bill. I assume that he assumes that Trump will lose and has already switched to the worse it is the better it is. What is a poor President to do ? 1) Mitch McConnell is not...

The 2020 election nowcast: Biden widens national lead; Senate races likely to follow Presidential result in each State Here is my weekly update on the 2020 elections, based on State rather than national polling in the past 30 days, since that directly reflects what is likely to happen in the Electoral College.At only 16 days from Election Day, the polls, while actually nowcasts rather than forecasts, are probably less than 2% off the final result. With...