Steve Hutkins at Save The Post Office, October 26, 2020 In response to several inquiries from members of Congress, the Office of Inspector General has issued a report on “Operational Changes to Mail Delivery.” The report discusses the Postal Service’s plan to eliminate 64 million work hours — the equivalent of 33,000 jobs — by […]

The Philosophy That Makes Amy Coney Barrett So Dangerous, NYT, Erwin Chemerinsky, October 2020, Opinion Piece If I did not know this man personally, I would have never looked to him for help and also advice from time to time.  It was only through a friend I wrote with at the old Slate site, I had […]

Abolish The Office Of The Director Of National Intelligence (ODNI)  A sign that this entity should be abolished, and I mean really gone, done in, not with its parts redistributed to other entities, is that it is an entity defined by its director, not itself.  In preparing to write this post I checked on it, […]

Or one would think so, given people resist wearing a mask, social distancing and they want to party like its 1999. Song written in 1982  .  .  .   “Don’t worry, I won’t hurt you. I only want you to have some fun,” Covid. Melissa Jeltsen, Huffpost; “The U.S. has entered an ominous new surge of the  coronavirus  pandemic, […]

Matthew Yglesias has a good discussion of why the poll-based models that give Biden a high probability of winning are probably right, despite the well-known polling errors in 2016.  Nonetheless, it seems reasonable to believe that the poll-based models (538, The Economist) are overstating Biden’s chances, for several reasons. Turnout this year will be unusually […]

Economic Policy Institute offers context for wage increases for farmworkers: How much would it cost consumers to give farmworkers a significant raise? A 40% increase in pay would cost just $25 per household The increased media coverage of the plight of the more than 2 million farmworkers who pick and help produce our food—and whom the […]

An examination of the Framers’ arguments as to how the US Supreme Court would function: The Federalist Papers No’s. 78, 79, and 81 This is a follow-up on yesterday’s post regarding the history of the Judiciary under republics. In that post I pointed out that the concept of an independent judiciary is a modern one that started […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]