All profoundly original work looks ugly at first.
Clement Greenberg
Political Potpourri
- RCP shows the previously undecided Kentucky House race has been called in favor of the leading Democrat, shrinking the GOP lead to 240-190, with 5 seats undecided, 3 of them led by Republicans.
- The Anchorage Daily News reports that the boost Joe Miller was expecting from absentee votes didn't happen, with write-ins edging Miller; Murkowski has now taken the vote lead 92,164 to 90,448 with another 600 absentee ballots to count and over 9000 write-ins left to tabulate, with the Miller team challenging 7549 Murkowski votes. If the pattern of 89% of undisputed Murkowski ballots among the remaining write-ins continues, Murkowski's undisputed vote total will easily exceed the disputed vote difference, making Miller's frivolous lawsuit moot. (For me, it's a matter of principle; I want to see the federal court uphold the principle of voter intent. In fact, I know among the residual 3% after challenges, probably two-thirds of those were intended for Murkowski.)
- I haven't discussed two of the major stories of what happened during the electoral tsunami, the biggest seat switch since the 1938 midterm, when the GOP converted 72 House seats and 7 Senate seats. The electoral tsunami also took 6 governor's seats (Minnesota's seat is undecided as GOP candidate Emmer ran an unexpectedly close race to former Senator Dayton; Dayton had consistently led Emmer in the polls since early summer.) An independent, former GOP Senator Linc Chafee took the Rhode Island governor's mansion. In addition, the Democrats had their worst year in state legislatures in over 80 years, flipping a minimum of 14 state houses or senates and putting the GOP in control of 25 state legislatures. The importance of the GOP controlling a majority of governor mansions and one or more chambers in over 25 states means that the Democrats will be playing their worst hand in decades given the influence of governors and/or state legislatures in the post-census redistricting processes (in particular, Congressional districts).
In-State College Rates for Undocumented Residents:
THUMBS DOWN!
State universities typically charge nonresidential students (e.g., children from out-of-state households not in some reciprocity agreement) higher tuition and fees. Federal law says that states cannot provide residential undocumented students better rates than nonresidential American citizens.
California's Supreme Court unanimously agreed today that physical residency is sufficient to qualify for state rates. Essentially, the argument is being made that since the state charges students who established residency in high school before their parents moved out of state residential rates, they are being consistent with federal law.
This type of argument is typical of California Alice in Wonderland legal thinking. I mentioned in a past post that California decided to claim its right to over 9% of installments (allowed by the IRS) to my 1998 Roth IRA conversion in Illinois after I moved to California in late 1999. I had no intention of moving to California when I converted the IRA and I would not have done so knowing California thought it had a right to a cut of my income not even earned as a California resident. California's position is because it didn't choose to chase Roth IRA converters in California for their cut AFTER the people moved out of state, it was being consistent. California also disallowed my credit for excess disability insurance contributions because they "lost" their copies of my W-2's (I had multiple employers that year, and I could prove that I paid the maximum with my first employer.) I had recently moved back to Illinois and my own copies of W-2's were packed somewhere in moving boxes, and the company which deducted the excess insurance costs was no longer in business.
I'm not disputing the eligibility of children whom were born in California to undocumented parents; those children are American and California citizens. But the way I read the federal law is that if a state offers in-state tuition to an undocumented resident, ANY US citizen student from another state is entitled to the same rate (i.e., no nonresidential rate), which California is NOT doing. I don't see another issue addressed in the newspaper, which I think is obvious after the kerfuffle involving Arizona's immigration: the idea was that the federal government decides legal residency and citizenship, not the states. In fact, that was my reason for opposing the Arizona immigration law. I do not believe that even the California Supreme Court can establish residency for unauthorized visitors. If foreign-born college students cannot establish legal residency in California (including US birth or naturalization papers), they should be charged the same as any visiting student from their home countries
John Tyner v TSA: Big Government Run Amuck:
THUMBS DOWN!
No doubt the most memorable line of this year (after 2007's "don't taze me, bro") will be: "You touch my junk and I'm going to have you arrested." John Tyner, a software engineer, thought that he was heading out of San Diego with his father-in-law to South Dakota for some pheasant hunting. Like many, if not most, people, Tyner has privacy-based objections to full-body scanners, which yield explicit photos of a traveler's genitalia; he claims that he first checked a TSA website to see if the San Diego airport had any such machines. Tyner won the dubious full-body scan lottery at the airport; he opted for the alternative metal screener plus patdown; he had an objection to the nature of the patdown, which apparently got a little too intimate.
The audio of the encounter was recorded by Tyner in a series of posted videos: video 1, video 2, video 3. (You can hear the referenced line in the first video. His cellphone was on during the encounter, but other than an occasional shot, e.g., of 3 TSA managers discussing the incident, mostly you are hearing the conversation between Tyner and various TSA/security personnel.) His personal statement on the encounter is available here.
I think that most people will simply endure the indignity precisely because of the unconscionable, Draconian response of the TSA bureaucrats. I myself believe that these type searches are blatantly unconstitutional. It's one thing to search based on known risks; it's when this process is extended arbitrarily, simply to document that the process is nondiscriminatory. It's when a single incident, say, of a shoe bomber or of a female suicide bomber hid explosives in her intimate garments results results in increasingly time-consuming, convoluted, intrusive universal search procedures, or adding to a variety of heavy-handed rules and regulations regarding the nature and extend of various liquids, products, etc., as safety administrators try to react against an almost infinite variety of potential threats made possible by advancements in technology.
I do appreciate due diligence for public safety in the air, but let us remember it's probably far more risky to travel by car than by air, and more people die by homicide than by air travel. We can control but probably never eliminate risk. I would argue that there are ways to monitor passenger behavior in a preventive manner, e.g., by discreetly hidden video cameras and to make more use of fellow passengers to monitor or report suspicious behavior. Full-body scanner technology, if used, should include masking technology to safeguard passenger modesty and anonymity. More intrusive procedures, including patdowns approaching private areas, should be performed minimally, based on reasonable suspicion, not arbitrary procedure.
Congratulations, Drudge, On 9 Billion Pageviews!
I would be lucky to get in the high five figures... I have to admit I occasionally visit Drudge, and a few of my past segments were inspired by links on Drudge Report.
Political Humor
A few originals:
- When outgoing Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, as the odd person out, decided to take Hoyer's job as Minority Leader, and Hoyer decided to take Clyburn's position of Whip, Clyburn cried foul. So Pelosi did what any good liberal would do in her position--she created a new federal job/role for Clyburn: assistant leader.
- If Nancy Pelosi had been King Solomon settling the case of which woman was the mother of a baby, she would have resolved the issue by giving the odd mother out custody of a baby of her own: a rich woman's baby, of course. After all, the rich woman has other children and won't miss just one child. A childless couple must have a right to that child since they don't have the means for fertility treatments...
- I can just imagine a conversation between Obama and his doctor. Obama starts off saying, "I'm open to listening to any suggestion, any new ideas..." The doctor says, "Well, stop smoking, cut down on the burgers and fries..." Obama goes on, "Really, would you like me to do? Money is no object; I've got an automatic tax hike on rich people next year..." The doctor repeats, "I would like you to cut down smoking; it's not good for your health. I can show you pictures..." Obama continues, "Did you see that basket I made in front of news cameras during the campaign? Do you remember what Eli Saslow of the Washington Post wrote about me? 'The sun glinted off chiseled pectorals...'" The doctor responded, "Mr. President, STOP SMOKING!" Obama notes, "They don't talk about Bush's pectorals or Clinton's pectorals... I didn't need a doctor to tell me to workout in the gym 4 days a week and play pickup basketball games. What about my six-pack abs, doc? I bet you don't see those everyday!" The doctor repeats, "DON'T SMOKE...DON'T SMOKE...DON'T SMOKE..." Obama concludes, "What do you think about my taking creatine? How do I build my biceps bigger? Do you think free weights or universal machines will do the trick? Well, I can see you're busy... If you have any new ideas, message my Blackberry..."
David Soul, "Don't Give Up On Us"
