I'm a bad liberal
 

New Years is a football holiday. Christmas day is for NBA basketball. Pretty simple, really.

I'm a bad liberal
 

Read "Of Time, Space and Other Things" by Issac Asimov, and you will understand. It contains an excelelnt essay on the calendar, and why 13 days had to be skipped in order for the U.S. to catch up to the Gregorian calendar.

I'm a bad liberal
 

That innovation is pretty recent. Used to be it was the Blue-Grey Classic and the Aloha Bowl.

RT in incoherent sputtering rage. (spree: may require registration, so you can go to the WaPo article instead)

I'm a bad liberal
 

You must be thinking of the Golden Phoenix over by New York Bagels & Bialys on Touhy. I'm talking Golden Phoenix Dining Style on Broadway over by the Jewel's.

While i see how at first appearances, this looks bad. But then I realize we're in a democracy. And the executive branch is structured to have leadership provided by the party that wins in an election, and democracy would not be meaningful if it were otherwise.

And then, I think further, we have courts just in case. And for voting cases, we have special three judge courts, just to be sure, with direct appeals to the Supreme Court. And I realized that the plan has been upheld--twice--by that court.

So my curiousity is sated.

I basically agree, although I hate the result.

Political appointees and elected officials ultimately trump the professionals and set policy. Here, the Bush administration made the decision to push the boundaries of the law for the benefit of the GOP. They have that right.

The plan, unfortunately, held up in Court. The process was followed -- no secrets or deception. Does go to show you where the priorities lie.

S_A_M

P.S. This kind of stuff, as an exemplar of a general shift in administration policy and enforcement emphasis, may go a long way to explain the huge turnover in the Civil Rights Division at DOJ in the past few years.

They have a perennial notice posted, and the WaPo even wrote a piece on it a couple weeks ago. That turnover may give me the chance to sneak in. I am not Republican, but I do get the veteran's preference.

Not every lawyer there is a political appointee, right? That means lots of Democrats hiding out. So a group that studied the plan found it illegal "not even a close case." The senior management said screw that we think its good- AND wait for it.........A COURT AGREED IT WAS FINE!!!!!!.

Someone was grinding political axes- sure- but maybe it was the group that thought it illegal and not even close- or are you taking the position they are just shitty lawyers?

I'm a bad liberal
 

Read "Of Time, Space and Other Things" by Issac Asimov, and you will understand. It contains an excelelnt essay on the calendar, and why 13 days had to be skipped in order for the U.S. to catch up to the Gregorian calendar.

Hank -- The "senior management" who approved the plan were and are political appointees.

Sure, they are lawyers too, but relying on them for this substantive analysis is: (a) kind of like asking you or me whether something is an antitrust violation; and (b) a bit naive if you expect an unbiased review given the issue in question.

The "career" staff attorneys were in those in the group doing the analysis. [eta: They were the group picked to do the analysis because this is what they do for a living.] Moreover, the Chief of that section of the CRD wrote a special concurrence to their memorandum.

Thus, I don't understand your response. How does anything you said undercut my post in any way?

If you want to say that its a complex issue which could go either way legally, you're right.

If you wanna say that Delay and the folks who pushed this plan through were motivated by anything other than the desire to gain maximum advantage to the GOP in the 2004 elections you're a fool. To paraphrase Jim Baker from 1990: "Screw the ____, they don't vote for us anyway."

If you think that political appointees generally don't do exactly what the President wants, you're wrong. I didn't say there was anything more nefarious than partisan advantage as a motive -- and said only that they "pushed the boundaries of the law." I think that is a fair description.

S_A_M

[Further eta: One of the points of this process, though, is to be sure that substance triumphs over politics, which is why it is so unusual to have staff reccommendations like these overruled. Rather reminds one of the FDA -- where the reccommendations of the scientific/medical review panels on the "abortion pill" and the medicine designed to prevent HPV (?) have been overruled and/or stalled at the higher levels -- except that DOJ has always been more political than the FDA is supposed to be.]

S_A_M

I think what he was getting at, and I refrained from suggesting this, is that the staff may well have been hired by Clinton's folks, and thus political in their own way. Which means that their assessment should be given even less credence, because it's not detached apolitical analysis. Of course, there's no way to determine that without checking the backgrounds of each of the staffers on the memo (which are public, because the memo is).

One thing's for sure--someone's going to be learning about federal law on disclosure of confidential information.

As for hiring, I saw those turnover numbers--they didn't look much higher than usual under Bush. There were bigger drops in 2001 and 2005, which is not surprising--hold out for a democrat. But in 2000 and 2004 the numbers were lower, so they balanced out. I doubt the attrition rate was significantly (statistically speaking) different from prior years. But, even if it is, that's not a terrible thing--the staff ought to reflect to at least some degree the leadership. Otherwise one gets only antagonistic relationships.

I know that. You implied they were acting politically- I just said the guys on the memo had some political beliefs too, couldn't those have factored in?

And this is different from what has been done in States forever how? Where does the name Gerrymandering come from Uncle SAM?

Boil it down- Texas does something politically based- that wasn't the point, you claimed Bush is again fucking people-
Because his people at DOJ declined to follow a memo that siad "it is an illegal plan, not even close."

I agree there might be political hackery involved, I'm just asking you if it wasn't by the guys who wrote the memo. You know the ones who said a plan a court later found fine and legal- WASN"T EVEN CLOSE TO LEGAL. They were either itching a mean political streak or fucking imcompetant.

We can complete the circle by inquiring as to who appointed the judges.

Our entire system is political - political appointees, careerists, cooks, bottlewashers and all. From all appearances, DeLay pushed partisanship to the line, but in this case, at least, he seems to have bet well as to where the line was. Republicans should applaud, Democrats attack, and everybody gear up for the next election.

This is why Jefferson was happier to make a political issue out of the Alien and Sedition Acts than to repeal them. Sometimes, when the pigs get greedy, the better trial to hold is the one on the front pages of the paper.

I understand what you're saying. But why did you say "even less credence?" Many of them may well have been hired between 1992 and 2000, but why does that mean that their analysis is so suspect that it is entitled to "less credence.'?

Your statement would apply to any memorandum on any sensitive subject written in any department at any time. Taken to its extreme, it makes one wonder why we even have career civil servants instead of full turnover with each administration. Where is the benefit?

S_A_M

Seems to me that the Bush administration agrees. There are obviously 6 too many lawyers working in the Justice Department.

Do you think Lawyers in the "voting rights division" might have some political beliefs? I bet 99% of those guys are voting straight party line one way or the other.

Higganbottham, C.J.--Reagan
Rosenthal, D.J.--Bush 41
Ward, D.J.--Clinton

Of course, district judges can't really be assessed by the appointing president because they're typically handled by the senators.

They might. I've found that most government lawyers are more interventionist, regardless of the area of law, than the typical defense lawyer. Adverse selection in both ways I suspect.

I should have said less credence. Same point as Hank's--nothing tells us it's not political too. Although we do know for sure the political appointees were political.

Maybe so. A little harder to see than in political appointees, though.

The term comes from the name of Eldridge Gerry, I believe, and the practice has existed for centuries. Although, back then, there was no real issue about suppressing/minimizing the vote of minority groups. heh. heh.

Didn't say it was different, Hank -- just that it was wrong. I strongly support the idea that every state should put the redistricting process in the hands of a non-partisan commission, rather than the state legislatures.

Where did I say that Bush was fucking people -- aside from the politics of it? I think that Bush and the GOP were out to fuck the Democrats. Do you disagree?

Neither of us are qualified to judge the competence of the attorneys involved. You should have enough experience to know that the outcome in Court (or the PTO) doesn't necessarily reflect the quality of the legal analysis behind the losing side.

S_A_M

P.S. Besides, I think you're misusing that [alleged] quote -- "illegal -- not even close."
[eta: I don't see it in either of the articles linked or any suggestion that the staff memorandum said that -- it is hardly "beaurocratese." The closest language I found to it was a statement by one of the lawyers for the plaintiffs suing the state.]

Them's the two choices, eh? I wouldn't know, because I'm not a voting rights lawyer, but I'm impressed with your unshakable conviction.

Let's talk some more about how you wanted to have the GCs of Enron, Worldcom, Global Crossing and others sent to jail.

Not the GCs, i want the heads of the staff attorneys. f'ing asleep at the switch.

SAM starts with his impassioned deconstruction of how horrible the Bush DOJ is, and by inference the entire administration I suppose. SAM is horribly bothered because the political appointees at the top of the department didn't follow the memo written by the political hires. Some lawyer fighting for the Texas Dems says "The memo said is isn't a close case," how could the DOJ not follow that memo?

My short answer- the memo was wrong, turns out. If I write a memo that says the law point to X- NOT EVEN A CLOSE CASE. you think I should complain when boss man throws it away and it turns out NOT_X wins? WTF are you even arguing about? The memo writers were either biased or real hacks.

You know what DOJ management did wrong? They should have made sure the Texas plan went to recent (read Bush) hires for that memo writing.

Agreed.

But doesn't this go to the quality of the political appointees?

Penske-style a posting style of peace!
 

Am I the only person who finds it interesting the faux-intellectually elitist ivy-tower dwelling dimwits on the board trumpet every last bit of negative spin about America and yet blatently and in bald-faces ignore the good?

A new Fox News poll shows President Bush’s job approval numbers on the rebound. Bush’s approval rating jumped six points over last month’s result to 42 percent among Americans surveyed.

The Demon rats are trying to pound away at this apparent uneasiness with false attacks on the president’s credibility coming from the usual marxist and moderate-radical-Islamic-sympathising suspects, such as Senators Ted Kennedy, John Kerry and Joe Biden, as well as Reps. Nancy Pelosi and, the cowardly liar, Rep. John Murtha.



http://www.thoseshirts.com/images/sq...e-redefeat.gif

Penske-style post!TM

Listen you motherfucking cocksucker (quite an image) -- that's not what I did at all. I also said that this is how the process works. Why are you incapable of comprehending the least bit of nuance or tolerating the least bit of disagreement?

You also continue to make up what the memorandum said -- although you clearly read my post because you've tweaked your dishonest description.

Where's _your_ vaunted intellectual honesty, what with your degree in SCIENCE and all? What is wrong with you?

S_A_M

Where does it say that, Hank? You keep putting that in big letters, but where is that in the memorandum?

from WP article

• J. Gerald "Gerry" Hebert, one of the lawyers representing Texas Democrats who are challenging the redistricting in court, said of the Justice Department's action: "We always felt that the process . . . wouldn't be corrupt, but it was. . . . The staff didn't see this as a close call or a mixed bag or anything like that. This should have been a very clear-cut case."

from the other

• Hebert said when a case is a close call staff lawyers usually include counterpoints to their conclusions in their memo. But he said there is nothing in the 73-page memo suggesting a plausible reason for approving the map. "So that raises a lot of suspicions about the motives" of the senior officials who are political appointees, he said.

It's a 73 page memo, and i ain't reading it for free. If fringey gives me a fake file to bill I'll plow though it, otherwise I'm going with this. They couldn't come up with any arguments to support it's validity- obviously someone was able to come up with some- because it was upheld. I'm done on this- I win.

Hank Chinaski

198-6

Fake file? Sure. 1986-001. Go for it.

Let's clarify. Your real answer is: "I don't know what the memorandum says, because I haven't read it. However, I know two courts disagreed with the bottom line."

You rely on the words of the plaintiff's attorney characterizing the memorandum to act as if the words you made up appeared there so that you can put those words in big type and scream about the alleged incompetence and partisanship of the attorneys who did not write those imaginary words.

Well played, sir. You should get two wins for that. Channelling SEF today?

S_A_M

And as far as I can tell, the issue was only looked at once by the three judge panel, in the original review in 2004. They concluded that politics, not race drove the maps. (There is a dissent on the VRA issue on District 23.)

The original SCOTUS remand on the redistricting issue was to throw it back to the three panel judge, in light of the Court's opinion in the Pennsylvania case. I don't think that the SCOTUS ever looked at the VRA issue.

The three judge panel in the June 2005 opinon of Henderson v. Perry were looking only at whether or not the redistricting was overly partisan, not whether or not it violated the Voting Rights Act.

ETA: Reading the memo and the opinions, I forgot how complicated this area of law is. I took a VRA seminar when I was a senior in college from a non-lawyer, and I don't remember much other than it's really fucking hard to draw lines given all the considerations that have to be made. I think Molly Ivins once said that redistricting is like playing three dimentional chess.

Geez Rt it's not like the Texas legislature is giving them Mexicans and blacks small pox blankets- those guys were the real criminals.

It wasn't the Jews
 

I hate to get nitpicky here, and I don't want to look anti Italian, but the Romans killed Jesus. Crucifixion was a Roman form of execution. The Jews considered it unclean (which is what it was) so they beheaded people. So if the Jews had killed Jesus he would not have been crucified.

I'm a bad liberal
 

No - it was after Passover.

I'm a bad liberal
 

That is an excellent questions. Wasn't isn't it Pope Gregory that came up the Calender (the modification of the Julian Calender). If you go by the Gospels then Jesus was born sometime during the Spring.

Good Friday was put on Friday so Easter could be on Sunday. The Romans changed the Sabaath from Saturday to Sunday I think to appeal to pagans. Only the Jews and the Seventh Day Adventists observe the real sabaath.

I'm a bad liberal
 

There is interesting news going on all over the world, but it is a damn sight cheaper to have a schmuck like Bill O'Reilly at a desk fulminating about the War On Christmas than it is to pay reporters to go places and find stuff out.

This is what makes the whole thing ridiculous. Dividing districts based upon racial grounds should be unconstitutional (not the other way around). Assuming that you can only be properly represented by someone of your own race is beyond absurd. However, the these minority voting districts usually help Republicans because minority voters are concentrated all in one district preventing them from being spread around to various Democrat leaning districts. Texas seems to be the exception not the rule.

But I still think the whole idea is absurd.

I'm a bad liberal
 

Less used to call this the talking heads syndrome. We were roomates during the Gulf War and he pointed out that on every channel there was some idiot babbling and no real footage or reporting of the war.

They are being Lazy and Cheap.

They don't get paid as much, so they have to get their jollies (read: utils) in other ways.

The staff attorneys didn't have the juice to get political appointments, so they had to get civil service jobs. Not so for the guys at the top, who are predictably much more partisan -- in any administration, in any branch of the government, I'd wager.