Nevada governor vetoes National Popular Vote bill

The New Neo Posted on by

You may have noticed that Nevada recently joined the club of state legislatures that have passed laws joining the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact and saying that they would go with the popular vote in an election. Well, this time the governor of the state involved, Nevada, has vetoed the legislation.

Good for him.

What’s more, he’s a Democrat, which makes his action quite unusual:

“After thoughtful deliberation, I have decided to veto Assembly Bill 186,” Sisolak said in a statement. “Once effective, the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact could diminish the role of smaller states like Nevada in national electoral contests and force Nevada’s electors to side with whoever wins the nationwide popular vote, rather than the candidate Nevadans choose.”

“I recognize that many of my fellow Nevadans may disagree on this point and I appreciate the legislature’s thoughtful consideration of this important issue,” he added.

The pact only would take effect once states totaling 270 electoral votes have signed onto it, but the group sponsoring this is determined to keep going and it seems that they may end up crossing that threshold. Even so, it’s possible that it wouldn’t come into effect for a long while, because it is somewhat rare (at least, it used to be somewhat rare) that a president wins without winning the popular vote. It’s also possible such a pact would be declared unconstitutional.

My guess is that, as soon as it happens that a Democrat were to win a presidential election and yet lose the popular vote—if such a thing ever occurs—these states would repeal the law so fast it would make your head spin.

Passengers

The New Neo Posted on by

Last night I watched “Passengers,” a movie that was made in 2016 and can roughly be described as science fiction. It’s no masterpiece, but I liked it, which is more than I can say for most movies I see these days (which is not too many).

I was surprised to see that, according to the critics, the movie was considered awful, although audiences seemed to like it.

Count me with the audiences. The film has a dull title, is kind of static, some plot points are shaky, and the action sequences that come towards the end are formulaic and predictable. But the film has an unusual combination of other pluses: effective acting, good design and sets, a great robot, a fabulous special effects scene involving a swimming pool and—perhaps most interesting of all—a plot that involves some pretty heavy-duty questions about ethics under extraordinary conditions, love, forgiveness, and what makes a meaningful and productive life.

Not bad at all.

Israeli politics is crazy

The New Neo Posted on by

I’m not too keen on parliamentary systems in general. Too many small parties are given power. The one good thing about parliamentary systems, IMHO, is that they are more responsive than ours and elections can be called if there’s no confidence in the leader. That can also be one of the bad things, though, leading to instability.

Netanyahu failed to form a coalition government due to the holdout from a very small party called Yisrael Beiteinu and its leader Avigdor Lieberman, and now the Israeli parliament has voted to dissolve itself and hold new elections.

A little background here [emphasis mine]:

When Lieberman’s refusal to join Netanyahu’s new coalition forced the Knesset to disband just days after it was sworn in, thrusting the nation into another costly and tumultuous election season, some in the Israeli press revisited the anecdote and wondered what made the politician who caved before Hamas stand firm against Netanyahu, with whom he disagrees on little of substance. Immediately after Netanyahu had won his fifth term as prime minister, back in the halcyon days of last month, Lieberman promised his support, announcing he would not endorse anyone else for the office. Why, then, did he turn his back on Netanyahu at this critical juncture?

To hear the chattering classes in Jerusalem tell it, four explanations are likely.

The first, and most straightforward, holds that Lieberman is truly committed to the policy question that drove him to his latest decision, namely his strong objection to any compromise that allows Haredi men to defer or altogether avoid being conscripted to the Israel Defense Forces. The history of this contentious debate is long, and it dates back to the birth of the state, but partisans on all sides of the question agree on a few cardinal issues. First, the problem may very well solve itself: As Haaretz reported last spring, “in reality, at least in the mainstream of Haredi society, enlistment is no longer a dirty word.” That is in part because the vanguard of Haredi soldiers discovered that it was possible to become a solider and remain true to the Haredi way of life…

With principle out of the way, passion is next on the lineup. Lieberman started his political career as Netanyahu’s right-hand man—his first big job was director of the prime minister’s office during Bibi’s first term. He has since come to develop a Dostoevskyan dislike for his former patron, calling him, on one unforgettable occasion, a “lying, cheating scoundrel.”…This week’s debacle, many in Israel believe, was Lieberman’s ultimate payback, a revenge plot of a scorned underling against his imperious boss.

Then again, there’s explanation No. 3, which sees Lieberman’s move as purely pragmatic. Sensing that Netanyahu’s days may be numbered—all those investigations and possible indictments don’t look too promising—Lieberman might have very well acted out of pure reason when he took the step that might be the one to finally put an end to King Bibi’s storied career. Believe in this theory, however, and numerous hiccups arise, including the fact that Lieberman refused to endorse any of Netanyahu’s rivals on the left…

Unless, that is, you believe in what’s behind door No. 4. The Israeli columnist Akiva Bigman advanced another theory in Yisrael Hayom, arguing that Lieberman, like a grizzly in Denali, was not motivated by anything save for disinterested, instinctual hunger. Craving more political power—the natural state of any politician—he spotted an opportunity to get some and took it, caring little about the immense damage he’d done to the stability of the political system and the state’s coffers.

Even before I’d read that article, I was thinking door No. 4: an opportunity for power was grabbed by a man who didn’t have all that much of it and wanted more. And the parliamentary system gave him the opportunity.

What will happen in the next election? No one knows, and I’m not making any predictions either. What a mess.

The spelling bee ran out of words

The New Neo Posted on by

The kids outlasted the testers, and eight winners were left standing:

Eight spellers were better than the dictionary. They were better than anything the Scripps National Spelling Bee could throw at them. And they all ended up with a hand on the trophy.

In the most extraordinary ending in the 94-year history of the competition, the bee ended in an eight-way tie on Thursday night. The eight co-champions spelled the final 47 words correctly, going through five consecutive perfect rounds.

Each will get the full winner’s prize of $50,000 in cash.

I’m glad they didn’t split the winner’s purse eight ways.

I watched the last half-hour or so of the bee. These kids are trained to near-perfection—maybe to perfection—in their chosen field. It’s a pursuit I don’t pretend to understand, but it seems to interest them. Yes, parents are pushing them, too, but from watching them it seems to me that these children are also strongly self-motivated.

Spelling bees appeal to a certain kind of OCD character. In recent years the winners have tended to be of Indian (Asian) descent, and in fact they dominate the competition. It’s no accident. Here’s an article that gives some of the backstory on that:

Indian Americans have won every Scripps National Spelling Bee since 2008…

Such deep involvement in a language arts activity may seem unusual for an immigrant community known for its prowess in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM). But I learned there is community prestige in placing competitively in spelling bees and great familial pride for having participated in something so challenging at a young age.

Champions often are groomed on the spelling bee circuit. Nearly every Indian American speller who has won the National Spelling Bee over the last decade has also won or done well in the South Asian Spelling Bee, founded in 2008 and run by a public relations firm…

Competing in bees also allows these young word nerds to make a vast social network of friends who also love spelling. For them, smart is definitely the new cool…

Through Indian American community involvement and word of mouth come more potential bee entrants. Many parents of Indian American spellers I met — including Dasari and his wife, Usha — earned STEM degrees in India that made them attractive to U.S. employers. They immigrated as part of the skilled migration solicited through the Immigration Act of 1990.

When their children aged out of the spelling bee competition in 2017, the Dasaris founded “SpellPundit,” a coaching company. It joins more established Indian American coaching enterprises, including “GeoSpell,” started by Dallas-area resident Vijay Reddy. When their son, Chetan, competed, Reddy and his wife programmed software and created extensive word lists for him. Chetan’s best national bee finish was seventh place. “We wanted him to win,” Reddy said. “It was our Olympics.”…

Kevin Negandhi, a former host of the broadcast, has said the bee fondly reminds him of his Indian American childhood, where education and homework were emphasized.

He sums up Indian American interest in the bee this way: “We know it is our night, and it is a night of pride.”

The words have had to get more and more difficult over the years. But nothing was too difficult last night for the eight well-deserved winners.

Here they are:

Bill Barr opines

The New Neo Posted on by

Bill Barr gave a long interview to Jan Crawford, and you can find a transcript here and the recording here.

I haven’t read the entire thing nor have I listened to it, but Ace has taken the time and trouble to do so, and he’s excerpted some of the most interesting parts.

Even before this, I’ve liked just about everything I’d seen and heard from Barr so far. He’s exhibited a rare combination of traits: clarity and simplicity of expression, a straight-shooter who goes to the heart of the matter without being in the least offensive or careless. He’s precise without getting bogged down in arcane legalese. You can see all of this demonstrated in the interview, as well, and if you want the shorter version (it’s not short, though) go to Ace’s post.

My favorite quote is this one, although there are so many favorites it’s difficult to choose just one:

AN CRAWFORD: But when you came into this job, you were kind of, it’s like the US Attorney in Connecticut, I mean, you had a good reputation on the right and on the left. You were a man with a good reputation. You are not someone who is, you know, accused of protecting the president, enabling the president, lying to Congress. Did you expect that coming in? And what is your response to it? How do you? What’s your response to that?

WILLIAM BARR: Well in a way I did expect it.

JAN CRAWFORD: You did?

WILLIAM BARR: Yeah, because I realize we live in a crazy hyper-partisan period of time and I knew that it would only be a matter of time if I was behaving responsibly and calling them as I see them, that I would be attacked because nowadays people don’t care about the merits and the substance. They only care about who it helps, who benefits, whether my side benefits or the other side benefits, everything is gauged by politics. And as I say, that’s antithetical to the way the department runs and any attorney general in this period is going to end up losing a lot of political capital and I realize that and that is one of the reasons that I ultimately was persuaded that I should take it on because I think at my stage in life it really doesn’t make any difference.

Much more at the links.

Politics: do you care?

The New Neo Posted on by

I used to care much less about politics. I think I know why that was. I was younger and there was a lot more activity in my life (school, motherhood, taking care of a house, career stuff, all that jazz). But it wasn’t just that. It was mostly that the two parties were much closer to each other (or certainly seemed to be) in philosophy and in particular in attitudes towards this country and its people as a whole. So although it mattered and although I cared somewhat, most of the time it didn’t seem to matter all that much.

That has changed, and now I care deeply. And I think more people care these days, and that is one of the reasons political discussions have become so heated and people have gotten so angry at each other for their politics, angry in the personal sense, although I don’t engage in that at all (except now and then as the recipient of the anger).

But ever since I’ve been in the blogosphere—and that’s a long long time—I’ve noticed there are people who say they don’t care because both parties are the same. Now, you can say that both parties are dumb, or venal, or too in love with the deep state, or any number of things of that sort, because they certainly have things in common. But they are not the same, and the consequences of electing one over the other matter. Does anyone really think the country and the world would be in the same condition today if Hillary Clinton had been elected rather than Donald Trump? I don’t.

So I think most people care, and most people who don’t care don’t care for one of the reasons I just explained: they are distracted by other things in life, and/or they think the two parties and whatever candidates they’re offering this time around are essentially the same.

This post was sparked by something I saw in Ann Althouse’s comments section. It was written by Althouse herself, and it goes like this:

You’d probably be surprised if you knew how little I care about who wins the various elections I write about.

Now, that’s interesting. I note that she didn’t write that she didn’t care at all, so I suppose she might care but just not as much as one might expect from someone who spends a great many hours a day writing posts that often pertain to politics and elections. But it seems to be a disclaimer about caring a whole lot, which I find puzzling. Maybe she means it to be puzzling; I don’t see much of an explanation in the thread, although I didn’t read every word.

But this isn’t about Ann Althouse; I just use her as an example and a springboard for discussion. Why care? Why write about politics or even talk about politics if you don’t care very much who wins? Isn’t the outcome of a big election more important, for example, than who wins the World Series or who wins the other things people care so deeply about?

I’ve had discussions with people in recent years who say they don’t care about politics, even though they talk about it a lot. “I don’t have a dog in this race” they say (the sports analogy). Usually the reason given for being so blasé is that they don’t have kids or grandkids, and they themselves aren’t young anymore, so there’s no reason to care. I care, and it’s not just tied to my family or how much longer I may have left on this earth. I hope to continue to care.

How about you? My guess is that the readers of this blog may be somewhat self-selected for caring. But what do you think?

It wasn’t just Russia that ran a disinformation program to influence our elections…

The New Neo Posted on by

…although Trump and his aides had nothing to do with the Russian effort in 2016, as even Mueller was forced to admit.

Iran ran one, too, particularly in 2018:

This is the biggest revelation of its kind, highlighting Iran’s ability to influence the media and spread misinformation to shape U.S. public opinion. The FireEye’s research shows how Iran created an elaborate set-up to penetrate the U.S. social media landscape to wage psychological warfare. Will the liberal mainstream media, still looking for the smoking gun in Russian collusion more than two years on, put the same spotlight on Islamic Republic of Iran for this act of blatant hostility?

I think that last question is a rhetorical one. If it can’t be pinned on Trump, or even theoretically pinned on Trump, the answer is “no, of course not.”

I wouldn’t be at all surprised if other countries engage in efforts of the Russian and Iranian type. In fact, I assume some do. Do these efforts actually influence anyone? I doubt that all that many people are affected, but certainly nowhere near as many as the disinformation campaign mounted by much of the homegrown US media.

Meryl Streep says women can be toxic, too

The New Neo Posted on by

To anyone with an ounce of sense (which certainly isn’t everyone), the point Meryl Streep makes is quite self-evident:

Actress Meryl Streep criticized the use of the term “toxic masculinity,” arguing that toxicity is a trait that afflicts both sexes as women can be “pretty f**king toxic too.”

Appearing on a cast panel ahead of the season two premiere of Big Little Lies, Streep made the comments in response to a male audience member who said he enjoyed the primarily female-targeted show.

“Sometimes, I think we’re hurt,” Streep said. “We hurt our boys by calling something toxic masculinity. I do. And I don’t find [that] putting those two words together … because women can be pretty f**king toxic.”

“It’s toxic people. We have our good angles and we have our bad ones…We’re all on the boat together. We’ve got to make it work.”

Ordinarily I could not care less what some actress says, and I barely pay attention to Streep, although I’m under the impression her politics are generally the same as those of most of Hollywood: liberal/left. But it’s interesting to me that she’s saying this now, because it may possibly indicate that quite a few Democrats, liberals and leftists alike, find the war on men a bridge too far.

Streep has been married to the same man for 40 years; there’s definitely something to be said for that. She has four grown children; three are women and one is a man. She’s got some skin in this game, as do most women.

Is it a trend? Let’s hope so.

Dershowitz is completely fed up with Mueller

The New Neo Posted on by

From Dershowitz [emphasis mine]:

The statement by special counsel Robert Mueller in a Wednesday press conference that “if we had confidence that the president clearly did not commit a crime, we would have said that” is worse than the statement made by then-FBI Director James Comey regarding Hillary Clinton during the 2016 presidential campaign…

Comey was universally criticized for going beyond his responsibility to state whether there was sufficient evidence to indict Clinton. Mueller, however, did even more. He went beyond the conclusion of his report and gave a political gift to Democrats in Congress who are seeking to institute impeachment proceedings against President Trump…

Until today, I have defended Mueller against the accusations that he is a partisan. I did not believe that he personally favored either the Democrats or the Republicans, or had a point of view on whether President Trump should be impeached. But I have now changed my mind. By putting his thumb, indeed his elbow, on the scale of justice in favor of impeachment based on obstruction of justice, Mueller has revealed his partisan bias. He also has distorted the critical role of a prosecutor in our justice system.

To Dershowitz—who, whatever his politics (and he remains a Democrat as far as I can tell) is a strong defender of liberty and the safeguards against abuse of power by the legal system—that latter offense, “distoring the critical role of a prosecutor in our justice system,” may even be worse than the first offense, because it is systemic. When you destroy a system of protection, there is danger to everyone, not just to partisans.

Dershowitz continues [emphasis mine]:

Virtually everybody agrees that, in the normal case, a prosecutor should never go beyond publicly disclosing that there is insufficient evidence to indict. No responsible prosecutor should ever suggest that the subject of his investigation might indeed be guilty even if there was insufficient evidence or other reasons not to indict. Supporters of Mueller will argue that this is not an ordinary case, that he is not an ordinary prosecutor and that President Trump is not an ordinary subject of an investigation. They are wrong. The rules should not be any different.

Remember that federal investigations by prosecutors, including special counsels, are by their very nature one-sided. They hear only evidence of guilt and not exculpatory evidence. Their witnesses are not subject to the adversarial process. There is no cross examination. The evidence is taken in secret behind the closed doors of a grand jury. For that very reason, prosecutors can only conclude whether there is sufficient evidence to commence a prosecution. They are not in a position to decide whether the subject of the investigation is guilty or is innocent of any crimes.

And that is why, whatever a person’s feelings are about president Trump, all people should be outraged at this. But they are not; not at all. And that’s a terrible sign of the ignorance of the populace, and the partisanship that would overrun basic guarantees of liberty to us all.

I keep putting this video out there, but it keeps (unfortunately) being relevant:

Of course, the way the impeachment rules are written in the Constitution, it’s pretty clear that the House can impeach by saying a president committed a certain high crime/misdemeanor, and if the Senate is willing to convict, the president will be removed from office. But that’s a separate issue from the one here, which is that a special counsel should say only what Dershowitz indicates: whether there is “sufficient evidence to commence a prosecution” and if so, what that evidence might be. To suggest there is insufficient evidence but that the prosecutor can’t prove innocence, and therefore the political remedy is to impeach, goes way beyond whatever a special counsel should be doing and is an abuse of power.

Another nail in the coffin of women’s sports

The New Neo Posted on by

Here we have another example of a phenomenon that’s become more common lately [emphasis mine]:

A transgender woman who competed as a man as recently as last year won an NCAA women’s track national championship on Saturday.

Franklin Pierce University senior Cece Telfer beat the eight-woman field in the Division II women’s 400-meter hurdles by more than a second, with a personal collegiate-best time of 57.53…

As recently as January 2018, Telfer had been competing as an athlete for Franklin Pierce men’s team as Craig. Telfer finished eighth in a field of nine in the Men’s 400 meters at the Middlebury Winter Classic in Vermont.

The NCAA allows male athletes to compete as women if they suppress their testosterone levels for a full calendar year…

According the NCAA’s Transgender Handbook, “According to medical experts on this issue, the assumption that a transgender woman competing on a women’s team would have a competitive advantage outside the range of performance and competitive advantage or disadvantage that already exists among female athletes is not supported by evidence.”

Does anyone believe that last bit, including the “medical experts” themselves? I’ve read some of their arguments, and they just don’t hold up (I discussed it somewhat here and here). Simply put, particularly if a person has gone through puberty as a male (and most of these athletes have), then some of the changes are quite permanent and cannot be reversed by taking hormones or suppressing hormones afterward.

However, of course not all trans women are going to beat all the biological women against whom they compete. The trans woman must be a really good athlete to begin with. But once that is accomplished, that person has a tremendous advantage that is conferred not by training alone or natural talent alone but by virtue of having been a male. The reason we divide competitions into male and female divisions in the first place is because there is an undeniable advantage to being male, and if women competed against men then virtually all the qualifiers and not just the winners would be male. People seem to want and like women’s sports, too, and so we have different divisions just as we do within each sex for weights in boxing, for example.

The only reason transgender women don’t totally dominate women’s sports is because there aren’t so many yet who are highly-trained athletes, and because allowing transgender women to compete against biological women is also not a universal at present.