Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by Not Bob

I agree that WaPo is currently acting like the paper of Katherine Graham and Ben Bradlee, but it makes me nervous when a first-generation in the business rich individual owns a media company. See Rupert Murdoch and even Michael Bloomberg (who, for business reasons, reportedly spiked some stories in Asia that the Chinese government didn't like).

When Bezos bought the paper, I had concerns that he was going to use it to help Amazon deal with potential regulatory problems. I don't think it's happened yet, but I'm still a little nervous about him owning the only newspaper in the nation's capital.

Murdoch's father was a newspaper baron in Australia, which suggests to me that the problem you identify has more to do with having newspapers owned by rich people with other interests. But those synergies make media companies especially attractive, so what are you going to do?

Bezos, of course, bought the Post well before Trump was elected and at a point when no one could figure out how to make money with it. It's not clear that he has, but you can see why it would be interesting to him to try, and most of what he's done to try to change things seems to be focused on the business rather than in the newsroom.

One ought to be nervous about anyone owning the only anything anywhere, but since it is now very easy to publish news without owning a printing press and doing it on paper, which used to be very expensive, there's much less reason to worry about depending on the Post to cover what happens in national politics. TO the extent that the Post has a valuable monopoly, it is in covering local news for the people who live in the capitol, which is a service most Americans don't care about. Other news organizations can and do report national news, such as the NYT, WSJ, Bloomberg, Reuters, McClatchey, etc.

If I were going to be worried about the quality of the news, and I am, it is more around the fact that it is expensive to invest in reporting the news, and cheap to invest in faux reporting and commentary, a la Fox. Roger Ailes created an operation that does not do report, and twists the news that others report to please the biases and predilections of old people by telling them what they want to here. Facebook (and to a lesser degree, Google) do the same for different audiences. If that's where the money is, why report at all?

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy

Exactly.

I'll be interested in your reaction to Thomas's concurrence in this case - it's two pages, and he joins the majority opinion (!) but adds that in addition he would apply strict scrutiny simply because the legislature indicated it was creating a "majority-Black" district, and goes on from there.

Thomas doesn't like it when the government explicitly looks to race.

[Pretty Little Flower]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

They can and do. Trump's a cherry on the sundae. But let's face it... he's just a clown who conned a few million people. The much bigger and more ominous conversation Sullivan is ducking is what the fuck went so wrong that a guy like that got elected.

A sane, economically solid country does not elect Donald Trump to the Presidency.

And it's particularly important to remind people of the rot underneath which allowed Trump to win - cultural and economic - because a whole lot of apologists for that rot will be quick to pin blame exclusively on Trump after he's gone. You can hear it now... "Oh, everything was peachy, and there were no problems, and then along came Trump..." He's the perfect foil for the people who'd tell you, "What's the matter with the status quo? It's all great. Things can keep going like they are indefinitely!"

Uh, no. No, they cannot. And as proof that things are irredeemably fucked up, I offer this: We Elected Donald Trump President. Do I need a closing? Can I just drop the mic now?

Yes, please drop the mic. No need to pick it back up. You win. JK!!!! Don't run away again! But yes, let's keep talking about what systemic, deep-rooted, heretofore-ignored injustices against white people that caused Trump to be elected. Because it is SO TOTES UNFAIR that people keep blaming you and others who blithely voted for third party candidates while assuring us that it made no difference. How many points was Hill gonna win PA by? Never mind, let's try to find out how we can make the disaffected white people happy so this doesn't happen again. Like the Trump supporters who are trolling Ariana Grande (led by the Cernovich, whom you described as "independent media"), because she once said "I hate America" in reaction to seeing a giant tray of doughnuts, so the bombing TOTALLY IS HER FAULT!!!!!! Yes, I want to spend lots of time wringing my hands about what I have done wrong in my life that has turned these people into moronic half-wit hateful trolls. Maybe I wasn't sufficiently coal-friendly? Maybe I drove my hybrid with a look of judgmental superiority. Once I gave a disapproving look at someone who called the Washington Post retarded AND THIS CHILLED THEIR SPEECH AND MADE THEM FEEL ALL SAD AND CONDESCENDED TO. You can call someone a retard without being prejudiced against retarded people, right??? Yes, this is good. I think I'm making progress. I am beginning to understand just how much Trump is MY FAULT and the fault of others like me. I'm beginning to see the light. There are problems in these times, but oooh, none of them are mine. I can't believe people are still talking about Russia. ZZZZZZZZZZZZZ. That was so two weeks ago. The hysterical media has its head up its ass, navel-gazing from the inside about THE CRAZY FUCKING SHIT TRUMP IS DOING RIGHT NOW, instead of focusing on why white people got sad and made Trump in the first place. Preach the truth, Sebastian. Don't let's bullies like Thurgreed silence you. You see the game. It's a chess match between Bezos and Trump, but instead of Rooks and Knights, they have napalm and Twitter. And we're the pawns! Takes a cat like Sebastian to see what's what. You don't need a weatherman to see which way the wind blows. Because you can't see the fucking wind!!! Think. About. It. Sounds cynical, but scratch a cynic and you find a disappointed idealist. This cat Carlin said that. You should check his shit out.

Meters for the Daily Dose. "Pungee." Slow, funky groove with a backbeat that pushes it forward.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BZybD2r6I4E

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally Posted by Pretty Little Flower

Yes, please drop the mic. No need to pick it back up. You win. JK!!!! Don't run away again! But yes, let's keep talking about what systemic, deep-rooted, heretofore-ignored injustices against white people that caused Trump to be elected. Because it is SO TOTES UNFAIR that people keep blaming you and others who blithely voted for third party candidates while assuring us that it made no difference. How many points was Hill gonna win PA by? Never mind, let's try to find out how we can make the disaffected white people happy so this doesn't happen again. Like the Trump supporters who are trolling Ariana Grande (led by the Cernovich, whom you described as "independent media"), because she once said "I hate America" in reaction to seeing a giant tray of doughnuts, so the bombing TOTALLY IS HER FAULT!!!!!! Yes, I want to spend lots of time wringing my hands about what I have done wrong in my life that has turned these people into moronic half-wit hateful trolls. Maybe I wasn't sufficiently coal-friendly? Maybe I drove my hybrid with a look of judgmental superiority. Once I gave a disapproving look at someone who called the Washington Post retarded AND THIS CHILLED THEIR SPEECH AND MADE THEM FEEL ALL SAD AND CONDESCENDED TO. You can call someone a retard without being prejudiced against retarded people, right??? Yes, this is good. I think I'm making progress. I am beginning to understand just how much Trump is MY FAULT and the fault of others like me. I'm beginning to see the light. There are problems in these times, but oooh, none of them are mine. I can't believe people are still talking about Russia. ZZZZZZZZZZZZZ. That was so two weeks ago. The hysterical media has its head up its ass, navel-gazing from the inside about THE CRAZY FUCKING SHIT TRUMP IS DOING RIGHT NOW, instead of focusing on why white people got sad and made Trump in the first place. Preach the truth, Sebastian. Don't let's bullies like Thurgreed silence you. You see the game. It's a chess match between Bezos and Trump, but instead of Rooks and Knights, they have napalm and Twitter. And we're the pawns! Takes a cat like Sebastian to see what's what. You don't need a weatherman to see which way the wind blows. Because you can't see the fucking wind!!! Think. About. It. Sounds cynical, but scratch a cynic and you find a disappointed idealist. This cat Carlin said that. You should check his shit out.

Meters for the Daily Dose. "Pungee." Slow, funky groove with a backbeat that pushes it forward.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BZybD2r6I4E

The other thing that should make the mind spin is Sebby's suggestions that we're in dire economic times.

White unemployment at the close of law year exceeded 5% in precisely three states - Mississippi, Kentucky and W.Virginia. Median income has been on a plateau, but that plateau is one of the highest in the world. Yes, income inequality is an issue: the gains in the economy have gone heavily to the Trumps, less so to the Sebby's, and not much at all to the folks anywhere below Sebby on the income scale. But find a country whose economy you'd like more than ours.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally Posted by Not Bob

Namaste.

After catching up, I'll agree with GGG on this. Traditional gerrymandering seems to be ok so long as race isn't involved (or presumably some other protected class - maybe religion in some areas? Like Hasidic Jews in NY or non-Mormons in Utah?). But as GGG noted, lots of the South is politically paralyzed by race. Ironically, the gutting of the Voting Rights Act may come into play against the GOP in one sense - the idea of creating majority black districts was originally a way to comply with the redistricting pre-clearance provisions of the VRA.

Also, I was a little shocked that Justice Thomas joined the majority on this one. I guess NC went too far even for him to stomach.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michig...ince_2013).tif
Look at the 11th and 14th district. In the middle of the 11th it jumps up and over a city called Pontiac, which in lumped into the 14th, stretching way up. Pontiac is black/Mexican people. I cannot think of a second reason for those districts to look that way. On the other hand, there are majority white areas in the 14th, but I think those might be needed to connect to Pontiac.

NC seemed a bit more extreme, but there is little question in my mind as to why they look that way.

[ThurgreedMarshall]

Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski

Amazing this got not one response, but Sebby got a dozen.

Originally Posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy

Exactly.

I'll be interested in your reaction to Thomas's concurrence in this case - it's two pages, and he joins the majority opinion (!) but adds that in addition he would apply strict scrutiny simply because the legislature indicated it was creating a "majority-Black" district, and goes on from there.

I guess my question is, how effective is this two-step test?:

"In striking down the North Carolina map, the Court also affirmed a two-step analysis for legal challenges over whether a state violated the law by considering race in its legislative map. First, a plaintiff must show that race was a predominant factor in the map’s redrawing. If that condition is met, the state must then prove that it had a compelling interest to predominantly consider race — such as protecting minority voting power under the Voting Rights Act. This is essentially what the Supreme Court held in other cases, including decisions regarding Virginia and Alabama."

The first step seems very difficult to meet in all but the most obvious cases. However, the analysis in this article (https://www.vox.com/policy-and-polit...north-carolina) seems to say that one cannot just pretend that racial decisions are political ones just because blacks (for example) tend to vote Democrat. If Kagan's footnote controls (and Rick Hasen's analysis is on point), this case is very important.

"Kagan also attempted to wrestle with the “conjoined polarization” issue in two footnotes — which Hasen called “bombshells.” One footnote concludes, for example, that “the sorting of voters on the grounds of their race remains suspect even if race is meant to function as a proxy for other (including political) characteristics.” So lawmakers may no longer be able to use race as a predominant factor even if they argue it’s used as a proxy for partisanship — and that will make it much harder to avoid strict scrutiny."

Color me skeptical, though. And this piece seems to confirm that skepticism: https://electionlawblog.org/?p=92700

Thomas, as usual, is a fucking prick. Without North Carolina's admission that it used race, he'd be dissenting no matter how ridiculous the pretext. And we know he's all about pretext when it comes to race.

TM

[Pretty Little Flower]

Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michig...ince_2013).tif
Look at the 11th and 14th district. In the middle of the 11th it jumps up and over a city called Pontiac, which in lumped into the 14th, stretching way up. Pontiac is black/Mexican people. I cannot think of a second reason for those districts to look that way. On the other hand, there are majority white areas in the 14th, but I think those might be needed to connect to Pontiac.

NC seemed a bit more extreme, but there is little question in my mind as to why they look that way.

The graphic in this article is worth the click:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...=.c9af0792d85a

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally Posted by Pretty Little Flower

The graphic in this article is worth the click:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...=.c9af0792d85a

wow. I guess mi's Rs are fairish.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy

The other thing that should make the mind spin is Sebby's suggestions that we're in dire economic times.

White unemployment at the close of law year exceeded 5% in precisely three states - Mississippi, Kentucky and W.Virginia. Median income has been on a plateau, but that plateau is one of the highest in the world. Yes, income inequality is an issue: the gains in the economy have gone heavily to the Trumps, less so to the Sebby's, and not much at all to the folks anywhere below Sebby on the income scale. But find a country whose economy you'd like more than ours.

It is true, however, that participation in the workforce has been dropping. Because many people have stopped looking for work, this doesn't show up in the unemployment rate.

Also, many people have crappy service-industry jobs instead of the manly industrial man jobs of yesteryear. Which goes to your point about inequality.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by ThurgreedMarshall

Thomas, as usual, is a fucking prick. Without North Carolina's admission that it used race, he'd be dissenting no matter how ridiculous the pretext. And we know he's all about pretext when it comes to race.

Just for the fun of it, I'm going to defend Thomas a little here. He joined with the left wing of the court because he thinks it's wrong for the government to be considering race, and he was willing to do that in a hard, close case against the political interests of his party. He had a principle, and he stood by it.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by Pretty Little Flower

The graphic in this article is worth the click:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...=.c9af0792d85a

My solution: Let anyone propose a districting map, and the one that gets used is the one that both equally apportions the number of residents in each district to a certain statistical degree, and has the shortest aggregate boundaries.

It will never happen but it would be great.

[ThurgreedMarshall]

Originally Posted by Pretty Little Flower

The graphic in this article is worth the click:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...=.c9af0792d85a

I wish I could read that. But Bezos probably drew those graphics with a lefty reporter's penis.

TM

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

Just for the fun of it, I'm going to defend Thomas a little here. He joined with the left wing of the court because he thinks it's wrong for the government to be considering race, and he was willing to do that in a hard, close case against the political interests of his party. He had a principle, and he stood by it.

And he joined the opinion, not just concurring. His concurrence is, I think, troublesome, but by endorsing the opinion he made those footnotes law.

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

My solution: Let anyone propose a districting map, and the one that gets used is the one that both equally apportions the number of residents in each district to a certain statistical degree, and has the shortest aggregate boundaries.

It will never happen but it would be great.

The thing is, under current law, gerrymanders are constitutionally endorsed when you're just doing a political hack job on your opponents. It's only when you use them to do a hack job on opponents of a certain shade they become a problem.

It would be nice if Congress would decide that drawing crazy maps to limit the other party's chances is a bad thing, but right now, if you're a politician, it is a good thing.

[ThurgreedMarshall]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

Just for the fun of it, I'm going to defend Thomas a little here. He joined with the left wing of the court because he thinks it's wrong for the government to be considering race, and he was willing to do that in a hard, close case against the political interests of his party. He had a principle, and he stood by it.

This is fun?

I find your post to be non-responsive to my point, which was, the only thing he did in this decision was point out that NC conceded that they used race. If they had not and all evidence pointed to it anyway, but they came up with a bullshit pretext like, he would have abandoned his principle in a second.

TM