Places and facts. Mad about maps and the lines that connect and divide. Fascinated by the riddle of electoral system change.
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view profile on Bluesky octaviuz.bsky.social (@octaviuz.bsky.social) reply parent
Now I'm confused, she's not in leadership but you'd also like to ban her from having wrong opinions or backing the wrong horse (a man who's now providing nutrition to worms btw) in an internal election? If she had left her seat entirely, you know that her house in SF has a phone, right?
octaviuz.bsky.social (@octaviuz.bsky.social) reply parent
I do think Pelosi would do well to retire from office, but the number of people who think she's still in leadership and criticize her for it is scary.
octaviuz.bsky.social (@octaviuz.bsky.social) reply parent
100%, combined with Front Range HSR, you could turn Cheyenne into what Boulder was before they pulled up the ladder lol
octaviuz.bsky.social (@octaviuz.bsky.social) reply parent
This is the shocker for me, I had expected 1934 midterms, that is nowhere near what happened.
octaviuz.bsky.social (@octaviuz.bsky.social) reply parent
Actually all of those were basically existing Dem seats rather than lucky pickups because McCain's campaign was garbage
There probably is a lesson in the fact that Obama shepherded the most left-wing piece of federal legislation since the Great Society, over opposition in and outside his own party, and is chiefly remembered by the left now as a do-nothing moderate.
octaviuz.bsky.social (@octaviuz.bsky.social) reply parent
"Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations” is strangely absent from the ongoing discussion of this clause.
octaviuz.bsky.social (@octaviuz.bsky.social) reply parent
Wait, you didn't want a robotic shot girl but for produce? Have you no dreams or aspirations?
octaviuz.bsky.social (@octaviuz.bsky.social) reply parent
Bring the police action home!
octaviuz.bsky.social (@octaviuz.bsky.social) reply parent
Exactly, this goes back to Shelby County. Who in the ratification of the 14th Amendment would have suggested that state behavior should be treated completely equally? Are rebellion and loyalty basically equivalent? The equality that 14A and the VRA promote is that of citizens, not states.
octaviuz.bsky.social (@octaviuz.bsky.social) reply parent
You are at the end of all your troubles.
octaviuz.bsky.social (@octaviuz.bsky.social) reply parent
Also they apparently deleted a section of the county code without anyone noticing?
octaviuz.bsky.social (@octaviuz.bsky.social) reply parent
They're about to be marginally less terrible on that metric, I'm curious to see what difference it makes
octaviuz.bsky.social (@octaviuz.bsky.social) reply parent
If she's resisting, I don't get why all the department heads have resigned.
octaviuz.bsky.social (@octaviuz.bsky.social) reply parent
It's a shame no one acknowledges when he's actually right. In fairness, neither does he.
octaviuz.bsky.social (@octaviuz.bsky.social)
Yep, everyone should be able to come in via the 'right way' that immigration haters insist exists.
It has been wild to see what were always the two most paranoid pro-Second Amendment scenarios—the government snatching people away and sending occupying armies into communities—literally happen this year, to the delight of conservatives
This is evil -- the kind of evil you read about in history books, the kind of evil you would never mistake for a single second if you saw it in another country. When you ask, of historical evils, "how could they let that happen?" That's us. We're letting this happen.
octaviuz.bsky.social (@octaviuz.bsky.social) reply parent
That seems backwards, i think it's the 60% that need one, 40% clearly already had one.
octaviuz.bsky.social (@octaviuz.bsky.social) reply parent
It's an extremely serious question. The SCOTUS majority aren't Trumpers, they think they're using him. What they (and their backers) are is rich people. They aren't concerned about your rights, but they do care about their money. We shall see if they can contain the beast they unleashed.
Destroying Fed independence is almost the perfect example of latent opinion. Polls won’t tell you the effect on public opinion because most people don’t think about and/or understand monetary policy basics. But if you cause inflation or stagflation, future public opinion will be very disapproving.
SCOTUS thought they could ride the tiger and get what they wanted ideologically. In exchange, they would give him everything he wanted except the Fed. Just leave the Fed alone and you can ignore all federal law. But it ended the same way it has for everyone who tried to ride the tiger since 2016.
octaviuz.bsky.social (@octaviuz.bsky.social) reply parent
SCOTUS signaled that they intended to preserve for-cause protection for the Fed. Unfortunately, that signal was to a man who wouldn't know a hint if it were engraved on an anvil. This is more proof that I don't think Trump is committed to Project 2025 or Leonard Leo ... he's for Trump himself.
octaviuz.bsky.social (@octaviuz.bsky.social) reply parent
I'm not sure what this is referring to because Obama made a nomination (not a particularly good one perhaps), and Mitch sat on it in service to an ancient principle he pulled out of his ear.
Reading an article titled "Why didn't Brazilian democracy die?" and a key part of the story is a Supreme Court that actually did its job
octaviuz.bsky.social (@octaviuz.bsky.social) reply parent
It helps that democratic collapse is not an intriguing theoretical question for those citizens. Since Jim Crow and the 'pacification' of the Philippines have been written out of the conventional narrative, we're stuck with 'it can't happen here'.
one of a zillion ways FedSoc originalism breaks down under any bona fide historical analysis In 1798, two SCOTUS justices riding circuit split on whether *a statute defining the offense even needed to exist* to charge the defendant with a federal bribery offense tile.loc.gov/storage-serv...
“America’s political gerontocracy is a genuine problem. It fuels dysfunction, distrust, and concrete negative policy consequences. We can’t sweep it under the rug any longer: too many of our high officeholders, including a disproportionate number of Democrats, are simply too old.”
octaviuz.bsky.social (@octaviuz.bsky.social) reply parent
Yep, it's interesting that despite his billionaire bluster, the guys who do building space planning didn't go that route (more building costs more money and even for this bonfire of the Benjamins, they apparently have limits.)
octaviuz.bsky.social (@octaviuz.bsky.social) reply parent
Huh, it looks like they're pretty committed to WFH (unless RTO means sitting in the cafeteria with a laptop lol)
local gov't in the US should exist mostly to administer local budgets and that's it. city/town/county boundaries should be subject to regular review and changed at the whim of state gov't
octaviuz.bsky.social (@octaviuz.bsky.social) reply parent
Sounds exciting (note, I do not reside in the UK)
octaviuz.bsky.social (@octaviuz.bsky.social) reply parent
Oh Canada lol
octaviuz.bsky.social (@octaviuz.bsky.social) reply parent
I doubt he has even that much sense.
Ohh current LLMs are absolutely overblown, but 10 years from now, 20, 50 eventually someone's gonna make an automated system that does stuff well enough and cheap enough that it's more profitable than hiring people. Most jobs are not that complicated. It's already happening, little by little.
20 years ago an automated taxi service, or food delivery, or warehouse management was scifi and you are now seeing the first generation of those, that's not gonna stop.
octaviuz.bsky.social (@octaviuz.bsky.social) reply parent
We'll all be home by Christmas. *touches ear* I'm hearing 'Christmas' and 'all' are both wildly optimistic estimates, as is the notion of a 'home' to return to.
octaviuz.bsky.social (@octaviuz.bsky.social)
And the Supreme Court has already allowed the president to remove an NLRB member (pending a ruling on the merits)
octaviuz.bsky.social (@octaviuz.bsky.social) reply parent
Congress can do this too, maybe one of the geniuses who proposed an amendment to let him have a third term will put forward some legislation at the federal level.
octaviuz.bsky.social (@octaviuz.bsky.social) reply parent
Thos reminds me of the question I've always had about discrimination by private actors. Why would I want to shop at a store or sleep in a hotel with people who think I'm scum? Why would I be trying to give them my money?
octaviuz.bsky.social (@octaviuz.bsky.social)
Glad to see a reference to Congress here. Too many commentators are saying Feds have no role when that's only because of a failure to wield the Elections Clause. (In other contexts I've pushed a broader federal role, but not now lol) Trump could take over using legislation, but he's too impatient.
octaviuz.bsky.social (@octaviuz.bsky.social) reply parent
It's like correlation and causality
octaviuz.bsky.social (@octaviuz.bsky.social) reply parent
It's also remarkable given the fully captive congress. He could have passed recision legislation but instead illegally impounded federal spending. Congress can take over the operation of elections from the states but there's no evidence he plans to use that power, he'd rather use the National Guard
octaviuz.bsky.social (@octaviuz.bsky.social) reply parent
Not located in the Canadian River watershed?
octaviuz.bsky.social (@octaviuz.bsky.social) reply parent
Law was also taught this way well into the 19th century. Law school is a fairly recent innovation.
octaviuz.bsky.social (@octaviuz.bsky.social) reply parent
Those guys are the embodiment of the two nickels joke. It's not a lot, but it's weird that it happened twice.
octaviuz.bsky.social (@octaviuz.bsky.social) reply parent
They don't seem so bad, they have the exact same question about reiki that I have. I believe Edwin Starr had a similar concern about armed conflict.
octaviuz.bsky.social (@octaviuz.bsky.social) reply parent
Yep, I support a system with the possibility of snap elections, but they wouldn't do much in this particular situation where there have been no defections from the ruling majority
octaviuz.bsky.social (@octaviuz.bsky.social) reply parent
Remember when Julian Castro was insane for proposing to decriminalize illegal entry. Wow, what a crazy notion! [sarcastic]
octaviuz.bsky.social (@octaviuz.bsky.social) reply parent
I'm a proponent of the London model. One unified city but divided into boroughs for accessible scale. Importantly, this would have to replace counties and a host of other special districts not add to them.
octaviuz.bsky.social (@octaviuz.bsky.social) reply parent
This sort of thing happens everywhere, including the American past. Toronto and London and New York City are the product of municipal consolidation. No rational person would make the San Francisco Bay 100 different jurisdictions now but somehow we are prisoners of old maps. Why?
octaviuz.bsky.social (@octaviuz.bsky.social) reply parent
And there you have it, we absolutely can, the grand ballroom isn't a bad idea because American ingenuity can't handle the scale lol
We stopped expanding the House in the 1920s, decided the Supreme Court should freeze in the 1930s, added the last states in the 1950s, amended the Constitution only once in the last fifty years. The USA and its government continued to grow, but almost all that growth came in the executive branch.
octaviuz.bsky.social (@octaviuz.bsky.social) reply parent
This is the way. Once the constitutional structures are addressed and a rational new ratification process is put in place (perhaps Swiss style referenda, i.e. majority of voters and states) you can dissolve all the little states.
octaviuz.bsky.social (@octaviuz.bsky.social) reply parent
Quadrupling starts to run into logistical issues (which can be resolved, Danielle Allen has some cool ideas about expanding the Capitol) but we're at minimum 150 seats short of where we should be. Do that now and then regular further expansion every census. States shouldn't lose seats when they grow
octaviuz.bsky.social (@octaviuz.bsky.social) reply parent
The American Congress is like the cliche about liberals, they refuse to take their own side in an argument.
octaviuz.bsky.social (@octaviuz.bsky.social) reply parent
INS v. Chadha (greetings, it's uninvited cite guy) Still, the Framers would have expected well over 2/3rds votes for contests between the branches. They were not supermen, but it wasn't insane of them to assume that when punched in the face, the legislature would hit back.
octaviuz.bsky.social (@octaviuz.bsky.social) reply parent
It helps that the misreading appears to support their criticism of Stancil. Odd. LIke LLMs, human minds are pattern recognizers. It's why little children say goed instead of went and why we see images in clouds and toast. LLMs may well not scale to AGI (birds fly but human sized ornithopters can't)
fighting gerrymanders can seem hopeless, but there is a solution. big moment right now for people to see districting and the two-party system as inherently linked, and a relic of our archaic electoral rules. congress has the power to ban partisan gerrymandering and establish multi-member districts.
octaviuz.bsky.social (@octaviuz.bsky.social) reply parent
Yep, they see themselves as law and order guys . They're now stuck with a leader who cares for neither law nor order.
octaviuz.bsky.social (@octaviuz.bsky.social)
Yggy is right and I'm not afraid to say it (well, I'm a little afraid to say it).
octaviuz.bsky.social (@octaviuz.bsky.social) reply parent
This is true, but it speaks ill of the voters and politicians. There is a key difference between senators and representatives overstaying their welcome (which they often do) and Justices doing the same. Elections. Our failure to throw the bums out is not the same as rule by an inescapable dead hand.
Her assertion that incumbents couldn’t be term-limited even by a constitutional amendment is patently absurd. It’s the supreme law of the land! Of course it could say you stop being a justice in 2029 or whatever, and that’s how the amendment should be drafted, to phase it in for the incumbents.
18 year fixed terms, one up every odd year (so two per presidential term), and the incumbents get phased out in descending order of seniority on the same schedule. Do that and they’d all end up having been on the court 18+ yrs. and reached a reasonable retirement age, nobody “unfairly” cut short.
octaviuz.bsky.social (@octaviuz.bsky.social) reply parent
The issue is that such a modification would mean no substantive change for 18 or more years. A well drafted amendment would place the longest tenured justice on senior status as soon as the first term appointment was made. That important provision is what Sotomayor's comment would endanger.
octaviuz.bsky.social (@octaviuz.bsky.social) reply parent
That it violated the state constitution (I'm not a lawyer but apparently amendments =/=revisions). Not related to federal questions but I found the attitude to voters concerning (which is funny because I'm actually deeply suspicious of ballot measures, representative democracy exists for a reason)
octaviuz.bsky.social (@octaviuz.bsky.social) reply parent
California State Supreme Court overturned an amendment on basically that basis. The relevant language doesn't exist in the Federal Constitution but it is evidence of the lengths that jurists are willing to go to.
I just posted a new paper on @ssrn.bsky.social, titled "The Chadha Presidency". Here's the link, and I'll post the abstract in the next post. papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....
octaviuz.bsky.social (@octaviuz.bsky.social) reply parent
A lot of what, Marxists or debates? Who am I kidding, you can't have one without the other.
octaviuz.bsky.social (@octaviuz.bsky.social) reply parent
Monochromatic perhaps?
octaviuz.bsky.social (@octaviuz.bsky.social) reply parent
Know Nothings were still stressed about the Papist menace of the Irish at this point
octaviuz.bsky.social (@octaviuz.bsky.social) reply parent
Could something like the Free Association that former Pacific territories work? It'd be a constraint on foreign policy, but I imagine visa-free migration would be a draw.
octaviuz.bsky.social (@octaviuz.bsky.social) reply parent
Northern Mexico was quite underpopulated, and I believe Polk actually wanted more territory than what was ultimately seized, which leads me to believe that there were folks who considered a few more brown Americans an acceptable risk (even in an extremely racist historical period)
octaviuz.bsky.social (@octaviuz.bsky.social) reply parent
I mean, that's OTL as far as it got. Puerto Rico and the Philippines were retained as colonies while Cuba was not (though it was very much under the US thumb).
octaviuz.bsky.social (@octaviuz.bsky.social) reply parent
Most states have electoral rules that privilege the largest two parties. Laws establishing state election commissions generally explicitly include representatives from the winning governor's party and the runners up but no other party.
octaviuz.bsky.social (@octaviuz.bsky.social) reply parent
Seems like "Fighting!" works both as description and encouragement.
octaviuz.bsky.social (@octaviuz.bsky.social) reply parent
The last paragraph or the article quotes him as saying "...the French Republic was not built through tolerance..." I don't think he's saying there'll be a guillotine set up in Yeouido but he's definitely not not promising that lol
Everything that needed to be done to safeguard 🇺🇸 democracy could have been done with 10 GOP Senators fulfilling their damn oaths. Yes we can be angry at Biden, but also it’s hard to fault him for miscalculating about Sodom & Gomorrah as Avraham did. It was reasonable to expect 10 people to love 🇺🇸
- Enlarge the House - Add DC/PR/USVI as states - Multi-member districts - Automatic universal voter registration - A new VRA - Adding seats to SCOTUS + term limits Presidentialism was a mistake & amending our Constitution is ~impossible, but there are ways to make 🇺🇸 an actual multiparty democracy
octaviuz.bsky.social (@octaviuz.bsky.social) reply parent
Sorry, I suppose my justifications weren't needed lol
octaviuz.bsky.social (@octaviuz.bsky.social) reply parent
It didn't matter, you want to change the outcome of the Slaughterhouse cases.
octaviuz.bsky.social (@octaviuz.bsky.social) reply parent
McGovern would have been vastly better than the crook but I'm guessing McG and Mondale (also far superior to Reagan) were left out because not many branches of the multiverse lead to their victories
octaviuz.bsky.social (@octaviuz.bsky.social) reply parent
This anti "both sides" reaction consistently fails to reckon with the content being reacted against. Anyone who read that article and found the two dueling perspectives somehow morally or intellectually equivalent, is illiterate.
The annoying spam texts destroying the Democratic brand: $678M raised through those spam tactics $282M to one consulting firm: Mothership Strategies. $11M to actual campaigns (1.6%) The party isn’t just treating donors like marks—it’s being fleeced itself yet continues to back Mothership.
octaviuz.bsky.social (@octaviuz.bsky.social)
This is a question I've had as a PR aficionado. Clearly, the leadership was aware of it (particularly STV), given its appearance in Ireland and the Lib-Lab relationship was taking the same course as on the continent (oh noes, socialists!). Why didn't the Liberals protect themselves?
octaviuz.bsky.social (@octaviuz.bsky.social) reply parent
I keep trying to get PR included on the list of essential reforms in the post-Trump regime
octaviuz.bsky.social (@octaviuz.bsky.social) reply parent
I've no specialized knowledge but I think hypocrisy is often not lying about one's beliefs but rather inability/unwillingness to implement them. It's no more moral to truly believe but not act than to merely pretend to believe, but they are slightly different kinds of terrible people.
Matteo Ricci (1552–1610) was an Italian Jesuit who lived in China for decades, pursuing his order’s goal of spreading the Catholic faith. He mastered both spoken Chinese and the classical written language. Ricci was well positioned to explain Chinese writing to his fellow Europeans. 1/🧵字
octaviuz.bsky.social (@octaviuz.bsky.social) reply parent
It's a meme reference (how do you do fellow kids?)
octaviuz.bsky.social (@octaviuz.bsky.social) reply parent
The last recruitment video of theirs that I saw was quite chillingly set to God's Gonna Cut You Down by Johnny Cash, you know, a song about how you can't outrun the consequences of your evil deeds. They genuinely don't understand the function or the purpose of art.
octaviuz.bsky.social (@octaviuz.bsky.social) reply parent
We made a mistake in the first decade of the 20th century. Just a few years before the UK established that the Lords are subordinate to the Commons, we passed an amendment to elect senators directly. This gave them democratic legitimacy, which they didn't need.
octaviuz.bsky.social (@octaviuz.bsky.social) reply parent
This is an area where I'm a prescriptivist. You should not be allowed to be a citizen who doesn't know the difference between the state legislature and Congress etc etc I don't care that this is an accurate description of the knowledge level of the median voter, there is an OUGHT here lol
octaviuz.bsky.social (@octaviuz.bsky.social) reply parent
Maxwell Frost has talked about this too
We should ban elected officials from trading individual stocks AND pay them much, much more
octaviuz.bsky.social (@octaviuz.bsky.social) reply parent
Not suggesting Singapore as a universal example (I dislike two party politics and they have half that many), they get this right though
octaviuz.bsky.social (@octaviuz.bsky.social) reply parent
Especially state and local, there are lots of local governments that pay nothing at all. Many state legislatures pay a pittance. New Mexico has no salary at all, but New Hampshire legislators make even less ($100 a year) because NM covers per diem expenses.
Wow. A group of top scholars at Harvard just sent a letter to its president, Alan Garber, warning against surrendering to Trump. Signatories include Steven Levitsky, Dani Rodrik, Ryan Enos, Theda Skocpol, and Steven Walt. Someone forwarded it to me. Read it here:
octaviuz.bsky.social (@octaviuz.bsky.social) reply parent
To be fair, so is everything west of Spokane to the Cascades
octaviuz.bsky.social (@octaviuz.bsky.social) reply parent
The total (on books) spending im the 2024 cycle was only 16 billion.
octaviuz.bsky.social (@octaviuz.bsky.social) reply parent
As insane as American campaign finance is, the upfront cost of even a presidential run isn't large compared to a major billionaire's fortune. Maybe Musk doesn't do it, but one will eventually pull the trigger (imagine buying a few state legislatures, those are dirt cheap)