Lives in a Shoe

This News Is Hard to Swallow

Dem candidate Hickenlooper explains why he watched an X-rated movie with his mom --Took her to see Deep Throat.

BETO!

Alt-Right Don't Care

Democrats don't feel your pain either.  It's all a con.
Ann Alhouse's reaction to "Republicans Don’t Feel Your Pain," by Thomas B. Edsall in the NYT.

Then this: Porter writing at the KakistocracyBlog has HAD IT after reading New York Magazine's explanation of the alt-right and it puts him in mind of a wildlife documentary:

Now here’s a houseful of pieties. You think the alt-right cares? It doesn’t give a shit. It goes right onto social media with its hate. How disgusting is that? Oooh, it’s so nasty. But look, the alt-right doesn’t care. It’s getting called racist like a thousand times. It doesn’t give a shit. It’s angry. It doesn’t even care about being called racist. Oh what crazy fucks!

 

 

 

 

Nordstrom Dropping Ivanka's Line

I'm not buying the official explanation, but what do I know?  

The change followed a weeks-long boycott campaign, organized by an anti-Trump activist group called “Grab Your Wallet.” The group demanded the department-store giant cease doing business with the president or his family.

In a statement, the Nordstrom representative said that Ivanka Trump products were being dropped because of poor sales. Its statement did not mention the group’s boycott effort.

Law professor (recently retired) Ann Althouse sees it this way:

The woman must be destroyed.

A woman with a business is subject to special rules. Political rules. And if she does not hew to them, she must be destroyed. By a gang of women. You know how women help women? They don't. They expect women to hit a higher standard. Backwards in high heels. And if she looks pretty dancing backwards in those high heels, we'll actively trip her and laugh when she falls.

But in case you've forgotten:

IN THE COMMENTS: Greg said: "I just checked, Ivanka's stuff is available on Amazon, free delivery for most items via prime. Maybe Althouse could show her some love." Good idea!

Here are: Ivanka Trump Baby Emma Ballerina Flat, the Ivanka Trump Women's Tamine3 Pointed Toe Flat, and an Ivanka Trump Women's Elbow Sleeve Fit and Flare Sweater Dress, and an Ivanka Trump Women's Sweater with Jewels.

A Welcome Light Moment

 

"A Simple Thank You Would Have Sufficed"

He was referring directly to Ms. Redgrave.  "Her winning an academy award is not a pivotal moment in history and does not require a proclamation."  A word from the wise, Ms. Streep.

 

 

Boom

It’s finally happened. Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC) has smacked a Twitter troll into last week.  William Smith, who was chief counsel of the Senate Judiciary Committee for more than a decade and now serves as chief of staff for Rep. Gary Palmer (R-Ala.), was in the hearing room for the second day of Sessions’ confirmation hearing for attorney general along with Senator Scott.

Well played, Senator Scott.  Well played indeed.

Scott, the only black Republican member of the Senate — previously, one of just two black Republicans in the House — said that he had removed Twitter from his phone years ago but sometimes felt the need to respond to critics.

“I have three or four pages of that kind of crap because of the Sessions nomination,” he said. “There were so many n-words and racially insensitive words coming at me over the Budget Control Act in 2011 that my employees were crying. Unfortunately, people feel like they have a license to say stupid stuff, and too often it comes from liberals. So I thought it was a good time to tell people what I thought.”

Democracy: Two Wolves and a Sheep Voting on What's for Dinner.

...and some of us maybe do not remember our civics lessons so well.  The good folks at The Peoples Cube are here to help:

Now that everybody has discovered that we have an Electoral College and that the cat's out of the bag, so to speak, let's take a quick look at why we have what on the surface appears to be a quirky method of choosing our executive head.

  We all remember the Great Compromise, right?  That was when at the Constitutional Convention of 1787 two plans of representation were proposed, each with a legitimate argument in favor of it. Virginia, the most populous state, naturally thought a legislature in which states were represented by population was fair. After all, why should the clear majority of the people be effectively thwarted by a small state? The New Jersey delegates, needless to say, saw it differently. Each state should be represented equally. After all, why should a small state be rendered irrelevant by a domineering large state?  

So, what to do? A Connecticut delegate, Roger Sherman, seeing the justice of both positions, proposed that both could be done. He wasn't the first to conceive of the idea, but he did manage to persuade the Constitutional Convention to buy into the idea. Thus was born a bicameral (two house) legislature in which there would be a House of Representatives in which states would be represented by population, and a Senate in which states would be represented equally. For a bill to become law requires the approval of both houses.

The Electoral College is an extension of the Great Compromise. As James Madison put it in Federalist # 39, "The votes allotted to them are in a compound ratio, which considers them partly as distinct and coequal societies, partly as unequal members of the same society." This is why each state has a number of electors determined by a simple formula: # of representatives + # of senators = # of electors. This allows for a larger voice for the more populous states, but also prevents the less populous states from being rendered voiceless in choosing a president.

But why a group of electors? Alexander Hamilton put it this way in Federalist # 68, "They [the delegates to the Convention] have not made the appointment of the President to depend on any preexisting bodies of men, who might be tampered with beforehand to prostitute their votes; but they have referred it in the first instance to an immediate act of the people of America, to be exerted in the choice of persons for the temporary and sole purpose of making the appointment." In the context of hampering a foreign power from influencing our elections (The Russians! The Russians!), the electors are to be temporarily assigned the task of choosing the president and going home. That they are not in public office nor a permanent institution means they are less likely to be subject to corrupting influences.

In one of my Government classes, we discussed hopeful Oregonians wanting to secede from the Union and perhaps join with California, Washington, and British Columbia to form the new country of Cascadia (apparently they presume Canadians will have the same fervor for secession), and henceforth choose their president strictly by popular vote. One of my students, a freshman, pointed out that if they did, California would dominate all the presidential elections making the votes of the other regions irrelevant. Precisely.

Kurtis On Perry

Kurt, Facebook, about Rick Perry

Kurty McDirt I've met him a couple times. Everything about him is douchey, from his fake tan, 3 inch heel cowboy boots (he's only 5'5"), to the fact he's drenched in a drakkar noir like fragrance that lingers long after he's gone.

Because I cannot figure out how to comment the way that was set up plus I do not want to hear from any of the other reindeers who, with one exception, do not seem to be as smart as my nephew -- me to Kurt:

I don't care if he wears Manolo Blahnick stilettos, drenches his armpits in Axe and invites me to go calf roping -- I love what he did in Texas.

Later:  I always sort of thought he looks like Clark Kent but this photo makes me believe that if he were the subject of a biopic it would be Tom Cruise as him.  No credit to either.

Speaking of -- I am a fan of the Jack Reacher books and when it turned out Tom Cruise was to play Reacher in the film I was seriously bummed.  After all, Reacher is six feet five or six, a serious badass.  But -- even so often I am wrong about something and to my amazement, Cruise nailed it.  What the heck.

Party Maybe Looking for a Fresh New Face

Biden Jokes About Presidential Run in Four Years.