In Tenure Veritas: Libations From The Ivory Tower

 As we approached this point, I noted, both here and elsewhere, that a government shutdown had a probability of essentially 1.  The president is a Democrat, the House of Representatives is controlled by the post-Gingrich Republican Party, and that means there is a faction within the House convinced a) that the threat of a shutdown or the eventuality of a shutdown will force concessions from a Democrat, b) that any leader that doesn't extract those concessions is a RINO/squish, and hence, any Speaker under this arrangement is required by his caucus to shut down the government.  The underlying math has to do with the difference between status quo points, "reversion" points, polarization, and read my book, Incremental Polarization .  I have covered these points already. Yet no Republican leader since Gingrich has actually wanted  a shutdown, and Kevin McCarthy does not want a shutdown now.  Consider the difference between Kevin McCarthy and Tommy Tuberville....

 Oh, was that not how you read the ruling?  Allow me to clarify.  As you have probably learned by now, Judge Arthur Engoron issued a "summary judgment" in the fraud case against Donald Trump for how he reported the value of his assets.  In the most egregious example, leading to the summary judgment-- skipping the trial because Trump doesn't have anything even remotely resembling a legal argument-- he reported the size of his apartment in Manhattan as three times its actual size, in physical dimensions.  Trump has always been a little insecure about size.  The argument that his attorneys have tried to make is that value  is subjective, so he cannot be guilty of fraud in the subjective reporting of value .  The problem is that the physical dimensions of an apartment are not subjective.  They are objective.  This is not even a matter of disputing measurement.  I suppose one could be more or less crude in the process, and hence arrive a...

 As Kevin McCarthy heads toward the inevitable shutdown that he does not want and cannot figure out how to avoid, here is his dilemma.  A large faction of his caucus will demand his head on a platter, through a motion to vacate, if he cuts a deal with Biden and Senate Democrats.  Neither Biden nor Senate Democrats have any incentive to cave completely to GOP demands.  Biden caved almost completely on the debt ceiling, but he and Senate Democrats will let a shutdown extend until the public turns so strongly against the GOP that enough of the party breaks from the Freedom Caucus and cuts a deal, because the public will not side with the GOP on this, and the economic damage of a shutdown will be contained.  So, McCarthy cannot give the Freedom Caucus what they want.  He does not have the power to deliver them the total victory that they demand because-- and I know that this is some advanced political science-- the Freedom Caucus does not control the Senate nor...

 One of the questions Democrats either pose directly to Republicans, or claim they would like to pose, is as follows.  Is there anything, anything at all, that would get you to vote for a Democrat?  Is your loyalty to Donald Trump so strong as to be unbreakable?  Or alternatively, to those who claim to recoil from some Trump scandal, is this (whatever it is) enough to get you to consider voting for some Democrat?  Any  Democrat?  If this scandal (whichever scandal this is) remains insufficient, is there anything Trump, or any Republican, could ever do to get you to vote for some Democrat?  Any  Democrat? Beginning with the Access Hollywood  tape, Democrats started posing, or trying to pose such questions to Republicans, alternately puzzled and angered that Republicans just wouldn't turn on him, no matter what.  Eventually, the Alabama GOP nominated Roy Moore for a Senate seat, shortly followed by revelations of his regular pursuit o...

 I like books, and I don't care who knows it!  I even own a t-shirt which proudly proclaims, "I read banned books," with a devil icon on it.  Yet, banned by whom?  I teach at the collegiate level, and while I have had certain Deans get, I believe the phrase is, "up in my business," about my syllabi, I have been pleasantly surprised that I have not had anyone hassle me about even highly controversial texts on my syllabi, placed there precisely because they are controversial, and because I believe in reading and discussing controversial material.  Of all the shit I have seen, that is not shit I have seen.  What do we mean by "book banning?"  The nazis had book burnings , which is not merely reserved for Beatles records.  I mean, come on, we all know their later works were better, but did you have to burn  them?  Regardless, what does it mean to "ban" a book in modern, Western civilization?  Whatever it takes to call you  a book-b...

 Fall is in the air.  The leaves are about to turn lovely shades of every blessed color the eye can see.  A brisk breeze will contrast with the warm rays of the sun as we all prepare to gather with our loved ones for comfort food, and the fiscal year is ending.  Congress is doing as Congress does(n't), and the most natural pairing in all of biology is about to happen, in all its Darwinian beauty, for you see, this is how Republicans are made.  Peacocks strut their feathers, males of many varieties engage in spectacular combat, bowerbirds build... um... something, and Republican mating season begins and ends with the dumbest and most destructive reproductive ritual of all.  No, not the zombie brain parasite.  That was a one-time thing, even if it is still there.  No, a shutdown.  If you watch a bull elephant in heat, he not only goes on a destructive rampage, but dribbles as he goes.  This is dumber.  Go home, evolution, you're drunk...

 That's just math.  In fact, if you want a formal proof of the arithmetic, I went through the rigamarole.  It was in my second book, Incremental Polarization: A Unified Spatial Theory of Legislative Elections, Parties & Roll Call Voting .  The short version is this.  Most roll call votes pit a status quo point against a specific alternative.  A representative votes yes if he is closer to the alternative, and no if he is closer to the status quo.  Most status quo points are within a particular range of the middle because it is hard to get policy away from the floor median, and easier to move policy towards the floor median.  Hence, if you control the agenda and have noncentrist preferences, often your best move is keeping alternatives from reaching the floor. But. There are also these things called "reversion points."  Those are policies to which we revert when nothing passes, which are different from the status quo.  Fail to pass som...

 With every piece I read by K.J. Parker (Tom Holt), the more fascinated I get.  This gentleman is becoming one of my favorite writers, although he seems to be very polarizing.  I can understand why.  His main characters are difficult protagonists to like, not necessarily villainous, but often horrifying, and Parker's writing style can be slick and cold, even when he writes moral parables.  Yet even with some flaws in The Hammer , this one comes with highest recommendations.  The protagonist, Gignomai met'Oc, can be read as a cold-blooded villain, an avenging angel, a heroic leader and founding father to a new nation, all, or none, set in Parker's continuing parallel world, this time with a story meant to be a reference to the colonization of North America and the eventual American revolution, complete with the industrial and scientific innovations taking place in the 18th Century.  Brilliant. Here's the deal.  One of the old world empires (known o...

 The House of Representatives is opening an "impeachment inquiry" into President Biden.  Why?  The real reason is vengeance.  Stripped of pretense, this is vengeance.  The Democrats impeached Donald Trump, twice, and several members of the Republican Party admitted that they would turn around and impeach the next Democrat.  Donald Trump, who identifies as vengeance, and whose pronouns are vengeself etc., has demanded that Biden be impeached, basically because he was impeached.  Any sensible observer knew, as soon as the GOP took the House, that the probability of Biden's impeachment became 1.  For what?  It didn't matter, and no one knew.  It was merely inevitable because the Trumpiest wing of the party would demand it.  The first step is the "impeachment inquiry."  The impeachment itself will follow.  What would it take for Biden to not be impeached?  A few heart attacks, strokes, or other maladies.  That's abo...

 Miles Davis, "Shhh, Peaceful," from In a Silent Way .

 I contemplated a sarcasm-laced introduction, feigning surprise at the announcement of an "impeachment inquiry" into something-something Biden, but I simply could not bring myself to type it.  This is retaliation for Trump's impeachment, and nothing more.  I will spill some virtual ink this weekend attempting to manage the informational morass amid such disingenuousness, but for today, I have a simple prediction.  I may be right, and I may be wrong, but consider.  This is retaliation for Trump's impeachment, further fueled by Republican furor over the criminal charges against Trump.  Hence, when Biden is inevitably impeached-- and this was inevitable from the day the GOP took the House-- the timing will be as follows.  Hearings will coincide with criminal proceedings for Trump.  This is going to be counter-programming.  Trump is going to do everything possible to keep his hearings and the trials, themselves, off camera, but he may not be able...

 There is an old cliche that a stopped clock is right twice per day.  There are military-style clocks which, when stopped, would only be right once per day.  Donald Trump is a different kind of mechanism.  I have dubbed him, "the lying-est liar who ever lied a lie."  He would be closer to a digital clock that skips and skitters across the domain of the day in an attempt to be incorrect at all times based on a random number-generating algorithm rooted in quantum computing.  Such a clock will still stumble onto a correct time, despite the programmer's best efforts to be otherwise, every once in a while.  It is possible to be wrong at all times, but only if the algorithm is generated based on the absolute correct time at all times, adjusted with an error.  Otherwise, dumb luck of the dumbest possible varieties will give you a correct answer some  time, and Donald Trump is not a smart man.  My point, ladies and gentlemen, is that I am not wh...

 Today is September 11, but the September 11 attacks were 22 years go, which means that almost none of my students were even alive when the attacks happened, and none remember them anymore.  Terrorism is no longer really on our collective minds, and while one might expect a hectoring political science professor to bemoan the younger generation and their lack of historical memory or perspective-- this is certainly a thing that I do-- I have a different observation for today.  We cannot spend our days and our nights thinking about everything in history.  I would like my students to have studied 9/11, our response in Afghanistan, the Iraq War, and how all of these events contributed to the world we see today.  I would like my students to have read about these events, with sufficient attention that when I reference say, Colin Powell's WMD speech, they know what I mean.  Of course, I am realistic about what students know and their imperfect historical knowledge,...

 This morning, we have an opportunity for fun of a different sort.  I often deride Politico's  coverage for the fallacy of "insiders know best," along with some particularly egregious sensationalization of non-stories, but every once in a while, I will admit that their particular proclivities lead to something amusing, not because it matters in any objective sense, but because it gives me the opportunity to write something more pleasant than the contemplation of uncontemplatables.  Consider.  A few days ago, Politico  published this piece listing several of the presidential candidates' favorite songs.  As both a political scientist and the snobbiest of music snobs, I shall cast stones.  To my bemusement, Cornel West wins by a country mile.  His list, abbreviated though it is, is so far superior to the others that there can be no discussion.  I share little with West's politics or scholarly views, but he and I would have a blast talking ...

 In an interesting turn, the Supreme Court rejected Alabama's latest district lines.  There are few legal or constitutional guidelines for congressional districts, and the Court rejected the lines for dilution of the racial vote, which was interesting.  Let's unpack. Prior to what we call the reapportionment revolution, which is highfalutin jargon for a series of court cases beginning with Baker v. Carr , states could do essentially whatever they wanted with their districts.  They could have such egregious malapportionment that a district could have 1000 times more people than an adjacent district and according to the Court, that was kosher.  We stopped doing that about 60 years ago, when we started requiring equal population.  We also require "contiguity," which means that you need to be able to get from anywhere in the district to anywhere in the district without leaving the district.  Beyond that... nothin'.  Except for the weird and semicontra...