I’ve been trying to figure out how to best characterize and/or mock the legal reasoning at play behind the Halbig decision, and I think it can be boiled down to one word: Moops.
I’m referring, of course, to George Costanza’s famous game of Trivial Pursuit against the Bubble Boy, in which Costanza tries to cheat his way out of losing by taking advantage of a misprint on the answer card: “Moops” instead of “Moors.”
“That’s not ‘Moops,’ you jerk. It’s Moors. It’s a misprint,” the Bubble Boy explains, accurately presenting the game manufacturer’s intent in spite of the minor technical error.
“I’m sorry, the card says ‘Moops,'” Costanza replies, adopting an absurdly narrow and nonsensical interpretation of the rules that furthers his own interests. It’s a pretty good match on the logic, and the happy coincidence that the situation pits a whiny, lying jerk against a person in need of substantial medical care only bolsters its relevance.
It’s not easy to get the public to care about bail. It’s particularly hard for people with little exposure to the criminal justice system to sympathize with those who get arrested, particularly for crimes of violence.
What people forget is that those who’ve merely been charged with crimes aren’t officially guilty yet. And not-yet-guilty people aren’t supposed to go to the hole, except under very narrowly defined sets of circumstances – for flight risks or for threats to the community. It’s certainly not supposed to be a punishment for not having $500.
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In the wake of Ferguson and Baltimore, there’s been a lot of attention focused on police violence, as a symbol of the unfairness baked into our justice system. But when it comes to civil rights issues and the Wealth Gap, bail is where the rubber meets the road. You can walk into any arraignment court, anytime, and see how bad it is. Is it really that hard to fix?
“Punting the Pundits” is an Open Thread. It is a selection of editorials and opinions from around the news medium and the internet blogs. The intent is to provide a forum for your reactions and opinions, not just to the opinions presented, but to what ever you find important.
Thanks to ek hornbeck, click on the link and you can access all the past “Punting the Pundits”.
The public is finally starting to learn what security experts have been warning for years: the US government has no idea what it’s doing when it comes to cybersecurity. Worse, the government’s main “solutions” may leave all our data even more vulnerable to privacy violations and security catastrophes.
The effects of the massive hack of the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) continue to ripple through Washington DC, as it seems every day we get more information about how the theft of millions of government workers’ most private information is somehow worse than it seemed the day before. (New rule: if you read about a hack of a government or corporate database that sounds pretty bad, you can guarantee it be followed shortly thereafter by another story detailing how the same hack was actually much, much “worse than previously admitted.”)
How many millions of people were affected by the OPM hack exactly? Well, no one has any idea. And we’re not just talking about credit card numbers that can be reset. The siphoned files include what are known as SF-86 forms, which contain the detailed financial, medical, and personal histories of anyone who applied for a federal clearance. It’s a goldmine for potential blackmailers. The government’s penance to those affected is to offer everyone 18 months of free credit report monitoring. How generous.
Commentary about the TPP and the Fed tells us a great deal about where the allegiances of elite commentators lie
The accidental timing of events can offer remarkable insights into underlying reality. Last week saw the Federal Reserve meeting to debate interest rate hikes at the same time that President Barack Obama and the Republican congressional leadership were desperately struggling to find ways to pass fast-track authority in order to facilitate passage of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade agreement. While it may not be immediately apparent, the views of elite commentators on these two events tell us a great deal about their views on economic policy.
The defeat of the original fast-track proposal, due to a revolt by House Democrats, infuriated the likes of George Will, David Brooks and members of The Washington Post editorial board, who all expressed deep dismay that Congress may block the TPP. They have raised various issues, but one recurring theme is that the TPP will promote economic growth and that the opponents are apparently willing to sacrifice this growth if they block the deal.
The claim the TPP will promote growth is dubious. After all, a study by the United States Department of Agriculture found the impact on growth would be a rounding error in GDP. Furthermore, none of the studies that have made growth projections incorporate any negative impact on growth due to higher drug costs or other price increases associated with the TPP’s stronger and longer patent protections.
Here is the reality of the American economy. Despite an explosion in technology and a huge increase in worker productivity, the middle class of this country continues its 40-year decline. Today, millions of Americans are working longer hours for lower wages and median family income is almost $5,000 less than it was in 1999.
Meanwhile, the wealthiest people and the largest corporations are doing phenomenally well. Today, 99 percent of all new income is going to the top 1 percent, while the top one-tenth of 1 percent own almost as much wealth as the bottom 40 percent. In the last two years, the wealthiest 14 people in this country increased their wealth by $157 billion. That increase is more than is owned by the bottom 130 million Americans — combined.
Over the last 40 years, the largest corporations in this country have closed thousands of factories in the United States and outsourced millions of American jobs to low-wage countries overseas. That is why we need a new trade policy and why I am opposed to the 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership now before Congress.
Again and again the upcoming election you’ll hear conservatives claim that Medicare — the health insurance program for America’s seniors — is running out of money and must be pared back.
Baloney. Medicare isn’t the problem. In fact, Medicare is more efficient than private health insurance.The real problem is that the costs of health care are expected to rise steeply.
Medicare could be the solution — the logical next step after the Affordable Care Act toward a single-payer system.
Please see the accompanying video — #11 in our series on ideas to make the economy work for the many rather than for the few. And please share.
“Fast track” passes. Our Congress — the supposed representatives of the people — voted to cut themselves and us out of the process of deciding what “the rules” for doing business “in the 21st century” will be.
How do the plutocrats and oligarchs and their giant multinational corporations get what they want when a pesky democracy is in their way? They push that pesky democracy out of their way.
Because of fast track, when the secret Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and any other secretly negotiated “trade” agreements are completed, Congress must vote in a hurry, with only limited debate; cannot make any amendments, no matter what is in the agreement; and cannot filibuster. Nothing else coming before our Congress gets that kind of skid greasing, only corporate-written “trade” agreements — and it doesn’t matter how far the contents go beyond actual “trade.”
For many people, the forgiveness offered to Dylann Roof, the man charged with killing of nine black members of Emmanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina, at his arraignment by the families of his victims is impossible to understand – and worthy of veneration. “I forgive you” said Nadine Gardner, daughter of slain church member Ethel Lance. “I will never ever hold her again. But I forgive you, and may God have mercy on your soul”.
But how could someone forgive such a heinous crime so quickly, so easily? The answer lies in part with Christian interpretation of the New Testament, a history of racialized violence and the civil rights movement.
Forgiveness is a spiritual practice and biblical mandate from the New Testament that many American Christians engage in as a part of their faith. Familiar scriptures (such as Jesus forgiving the Romans while hanging on a cross, or saying that forgiveness should be given 70 times seven) are staples of Christian teaching and theology. Forgiveness is enshrined in the Lord’s prayer – forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. These scriptures point to the power of forgiveness not only as a way to absolve transgressions, but to ensure that the person extending forgiveness will be forgiven of theirs. For many Christians, these teachings form the foundation of their Christian faith, even when that forgiveness can be difficult to give.
Sometimes the Science section scares me and I have a hard time coming to grips with issues that are more immediately and politically important like Climate Change and the Environment, instead favoring those that are more esoteric and intellectual.
This is one of those weeks where the news in general has been uniformly depressingly bad and the only place we seem to be making any progress at all is on the silly issue of whether the Battle Flag of the Army of Northern Virginia represents racism and should be removed from government sponsorship.
Of course it does.
But it is just another in the littany of Social Issues the Plutocrat thieves and their NeoLib minions use to divide and distract us from the fact they are robbing us blind and destroying the Environment, the Economy, and Peace and Freedom in the process.
I like to think as a writer I’m a positive and cheerful person (and what you think doesn’t really matter to me, I write for myself) so I make an effort to select good news and there is just not as much of it as I had hoped today.
So instead of pointing out how Genetically Modified Organisms are likely to create a world full of health problems and unintended consequences (add ‘Space Germs’ to your reading list), and the pettyness of Scientists (see ‘Jellyfish Gene’ and ‘Sexism in Science’); or talking about the destruction of our environment for marginal monetary gain and the determination of our government to strip us of our last scrap of privacy, freedom, and dignity; I have chosen instead today to focus on just how lucky we are.
Some physicists consider it a puzzle that certain constants they have discovered have the particular values they do because they seem random and arbitrary. Those who argue this way are fond of pointing out that should any of the values vary the Universe as we know it wouldn’t exist.
There are 3 main camps of thought on this issue. The first is called ‘Weak Anthropomorphism’ and basically contends the Universe is a fluke and we should all just be happy it is the way it is. The second is called ‘Strong Anthropomorphism’ which says the Universe responds to observation like the Quantum State of Schrodinger’s cat.
The third, and this is the one to which I subscribe, says simply that if the values were different the Universe would be different. Everyone pretty much accepts now the idea that the Universe will keep expanding until all the energy in the system is equal and after that nothing much will happen. It’s called the Second Law of Thermodynamics.
It was fashionable for a time to think this would not occur, that a limit would be reached where the energy expanding the Universe would be overcome by Gravity and it would collapse on itself in another Big Bang. Indeed for quite a while the existence of a Big Bang was denied entirely and a Steady State Universe was proposed where everything was always the same.
What changed?
Well, as we checked out the values of specific items predicted by each of the discarded theories we found out they weren’t that, they were something else.
But if they were that then that’s the kind of Universe it would be.
Now those who subscribe to the first two camps (and indeed physicists who insist this is a very important question) tend to dismiss this attitude as a mere multiverse cop out, but it’s much more subtle than that.
In complex equations there are often more than one right answer and their very nature frequently depends on the results of the previous ones.
Our mathematical structure is fundamentally arbitrary and derives it’s validity from internal consistency and practical use. That means it’s not impossible to imagine a different mathematical structure.
Rejecting the possibility that this was nothing more than a lucky accident, physicists have been looking for some underlying principle – a compelling explanation for why everything could only have unfolded in this particular way.
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But physics isn’t played that way: If a number called alpha, which governs the strength of electromagnetism, were infinitesimally larger or smaller, stars could not have formed, leaving a lifeless void.
Alpha’s value seems no more predictable than digits randomly spit out by a lottery machine: 0.0072973525698.
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Other values, like the mass of the Higgs, or the strength of the force that binds together the cores of atoms, appear to be just as finely tuned. Bump the dials just barely, and nothing like our universe could exist.
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Finally there are followers of a middle path, who seek to prove that the universe is not accidental but inevitable, with its set of defining numbers as constrained and mutually consistent as the solution to a Sudoku puzzle.
That was the goal of string theory when it rose to prominence three decades ago. The mathematics, with its extra dimensions and pretzel geometries, was so mesmerizing that the theory seemed almost certain to be true – a tightly woven description, when ultimately deciphered, of a universe just like our own.
Instead, string theory spiraled off in another direction, predicting a whole multitude of other universes, each with a different physics and each unobservable except for our own. Maybe some of the other universes have spawned different kinds of conscious beings, made from something other than atoms and just as puzzled (in some unfathomable equivalent of puzzlement) as we are.
What fundamentaly drives this issue is our collossal, egotistical, anthropomorphism that insisted for centuries that the world is flat and the Sun revolves around us.
Plenty of multiverse skeptics remain open to some version of string theory, one that doesn’t require redefining what counts as real. Maybe, lurking still hidden in the thicket, is a magic equation, showing that this universe is, after all, the only one that can be.
See? It’s the same attitude that faced Copernicus. What doesn’t change is people and their self centered ignorance.
Science Oriented Video
The law that entropy always increases holds, I think, the supreme position among the laws of Nature. If someone points out to you that your pet theory of the universe is in disagreement with Maxwell’s equations – then so much the worse for Maxwell’s equations. If it is found to be contradicted by observation – well, these experimentalists do bungle things sometimes. But if your theory is found to be against the second law of thermodynamics I can give you no hope; there is nothing for it but to collapse in deepest humiliation.
In 1875, Sitting Bull created the Sun Dance alliance between the Lakota and the Cheyenne, a religious ceremony which celebrates the spiritual rebirth of participants. One had taken place around June 5, 1876, on the Rosebud River in Montana, involving Agency Native Americans who had slipped away from their reservations to join the hostiles. During the event, Sitting Bull reportedly had a vision of “soldiers falling into his camp like grasshoppers from the sky.” At the same time, military officials had a summer campaign underway to force the Lakota and Cheyenne back to their reservations, using infantry and cavalry in a three-pronged approach.
Col. John Gibbon’s column of six companies of the 7th Infantry and four companies of the 2nd Cavalry marched east from Fort Ellis in western Montana on March 30, to patrol the Yellowstone River. Brig. Gen. George Crook’s column of ten companies of the 3rd Cavalry, five of the 2nd Cavalry, two companies of the 4th Infantry, and three companies of the 9th Infantry, moved north from Fort Fetterman in the Wyoming Territory on May 29, marching toward the Powder River area. Brig. Gen. Alfred Terry’s column, including twelve companies of the 7th Cavalry under Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer’s immediate command, Companies C and G of the 17th U.S. Infantry, and the Gatling gun detachment of the 20th Infantry departed westward from Fort Abraham Lincoln in the Dakota Territory on May 17. They were accompanied by teamsters and packers with 150 wagons and a large contingent of pack mules that reinforced Custer. Companies C, D, and I of the 6th U.S. Infantry, moved along the Yellowstone River from Fort Buford on the Missouri River to set up a supply depot, and joined Terry on May 29 at the mouth of the Powder River.
The coordination and planning began to go awry on June 17, 1876, when Crook’s column was delayed after the Battle of the Rosebud. Surprised and, according to some accounts, astonished by the unusually large numbers of Native Americans in the battle, a defeated Crook was compelled to pull back, halt and regroup. Unaware of Crook’s battle, Gibbon and Terry proceeded, joining forces in early June near the mouth of the Rosebud River. They reviewed Terry’s plan calling for Custer’s regiment to proceed south along the Rosebud, while Terry and Gibbon’s united forces would move in a westerly direction toward the Bighorn and Little Bighorn rivers. As this was the likely location of Indian encampments, all Army elements were to converge around June 26 or 27, attempting to engulf the Native Americans. On June 22, Terry ordered the 7th Cavalry, composed of 31 officers and 566 enlisted men under Custer, to begin a reconnaissance and pursuit along the Rosebud, with the prerogative to “depart” from orders upon seeing “sufficient reason.” Custer had been offered the use of Gatling guns but declined, believing they would slow his command.
While the Terry/Gibbon column was marching toward the mouth of the Little Bighorn, on the evening of June 24, Custer’s scouts arrived at an overlook known as the Crow’s Nest, 14 miles (23 km) east of the Little Bighorn River. At sunrise on June 25, Custer’s scouts reported they could see a massive pony herd and signs of the Native American village roughly 15 miles (24 km) in the distance. After a night’s march, the tired officer sent with the scouts could see neither, and when Custer joined them, he was also unable to make the sighting. Custer’s scouts also spotted the regimental cooking fires that could be seen from 10 miles away, disclosing the regiment’s position.
Custer contemplated a surprise attack against the encampment the following morning of June 26, but he then received a report informing him several hostile Indians had discovered the trail left by his troops. Assuming his presence had been exposed, Custer decided to attack the village without further delay. On the morning of June 25, Custer divided his 12 companies into three battalions in anticipation of the forthcoming engagement. Three companies were placed under the command of Major Marcus Reno (A, G, and M); and three were placed under the command of Capt. Frederick Benteen. Five companies remained under Custer’s immediate command. The 12th, Company B, under Capt. Thomas McDougald, had been assigned to escort the slower pack train carrying provisions and additional ammunition.
Unbeknownst to Custer, the group of Native Americans seen on his trail were actually leaving the encampment on the Big Horn and did not alert the village. Custer’s scouts warned him about the size of the village, with scout Mitch Bouyer reportedly saying, “General, I have been with these Indians for 30 years, and this is the largest village I have ever heard of.” Custer’s overriding concern was that the Native American group would break up and scatter in different directions. The command began its approach to the Native American village at 12 noon and prepared to attack in full daylight.
Sometimes the Science section scares me and I have a hard time coming to grips with issues that are more immediately and politically important like Climate Change and the Environment, instead favoring those that are more esoteric and intellectual.
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