Yesterday, I got to see Virgil. He was in good spirits, and returns all greetings. I could not find the cards, so we payed Scrabble. I also got to meet a new resident in his area, a very handsome one, named JJ – I think either a black lab or a black lab mix – and very polite although not fully trained yet (I don’t know for what.) Anials in prisons truly warm my heart. That is just so good for everyone concerned – staff, inmates, even visitors, and of course the animals themselves. We got to talking about animals, and I menitioned I had been thinking lately an wondering which cats in my life would be there to meet me, as opposed to having already crossed the bridge with someone else. Baba, for instance – the very first sat in my life, so early I don’t een rememebr her and just know what I am told (that she was virtually my nanny. Virgil said, “No wonder you’re a cat person – you were raised by a cat.” She will have crossed the bridge with my mother, and my father will have been delighted to see her. Other cats who will have crossed the bridge with Mom include Tina (the first cat I remember), Sombra (adopted by Mom after I joined the Marines) and a few more, but I don’t know for sure which. Now I am sure that Archie will be there to meet me, and I hope also Sherlock, Moonshadow,and DJ, but there may be more. I’ll try for the roll call, but I may leave some out – Sugar Bear, Raffles, Bunny, Princess Fukutsu, Mr. Rochester, Cyclone, Debby, Cimarron, Cobrisa, Irene, Boss, Marcy, Nero, Raffles II, Cindy, and Jane. pluas the aforementioned Archie, Sherlock, Moonshadow and DJ. But we never had more than 12 at any one time. Jane we had already when I met Virgil, but from the moment the two of them met, she was HIS CAT. Period. Virgil and I had DJ in the Springs for a while, but after he passed away (his bilirubin was off the charts) we adopted a cat whose human had died, named Grey Mouser (the cat, not the person – and I’m sure the person’s family would have been astonished to learn that name is from the Sword and Sorcery genre) Mouse for short, and she took over Virgil completely. Even half-heartedly tried to kill me a few times. And that doesn’t include any animals Virgil had as a kid – including a cat named Squirrely and a dog named Zot – and others. All were distinct personalites, and some were real characters.
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Democratic Underground (LuckyCharms) – Health Care Terms
There’s no way I can get a quote from this – it is simply a list of all the terms Americans need to know to navigate out health care system. It is (therefore) also a list of terms which no one anywhere else in the world needs to know.You don’t have to completely read through the list – its sheer length will get the point across – but of course you certainly can. Click through for the full list. I’ll just throw this in –
Politico – Senators seek to stop shutdowns forever, after McCarthy’s spending stumbles
Quote – Senators and House members began circulating a letter on Friday pushing legislation that would automatically fund the government past spending deadlines like Sept. 30. It’s a longshot, but if passed it would amount to a permanent end to shutdown threats. Addressed to top party leaders on both sides of the Capitol, the missive asks for floor votes on the effort in both the House and the Senate, according to a draft copy obtained by POLITICO. Click through – This is very good news which would be even better if it had a chance in the House. An do one had better start going on about the Founders not specifying this kind of action. None of them knew about the Mafia. Grrrr.
Yesterday, I noticed the high for today should be 69°F – and tommorw, we drop back into the deep freeze for four days. March came in like a lamb here (a geouchy lamb, but still a lamb), which means it’s supposed to go out like a lion. Maybe a tame lion? I’ll just have to wait and see. Incidentally, today is the 55th anniversary of the My Lai massacre, and Steve Schmidt has some thoughts. I don’t know whether a hanky alert or a trigger warning is more appropriate, so I’ll just offer both.
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NM Political Report – Bill to protect LGBTQ individuals from discrimination heads to Guv desk AND Gov. signs safe gun storage bill into law
Quote 1 – The bill updates the language in the Human Rights Act, which was written in the 1970s. The updated language replaces the word “handicap” with “disability,” and updates the definition for sexual orientation and gender identity. It also ensures that public bodies, which receive public dollars, cannot discriminate against LGBTQ individuals. An individual who alleges discrimination would take their grievance to the state Human Rights Commission.
Quote 2 – Supporters have dubbed the bill the “Bennie Hargrove Act,” in honor of the 13-year-old Hargrove, who was shot and killed at Washington Middle School in Albuquerque in August 2021 as he tried to intercede in a bullying incident. Authorities say the boy accused of shooting Hargrove brought his father’s gun to school to commit the crime. “This bill would hold people accountable for their firearms,” Molina said during a news conference held at the Capitol on Tuesday.
Click through for one or both. When Susana Boxwine was Governor, we very seldom got stories about actual legislative accomplishments of any kind. Besides the conten of these two, I’m impressed just at how much they are getting done.
Remembering former Rep. Pat Schroeder in Colorado and beyond
Quote – President Joe Biden said Schroeder “stood up for basic fairness, sensible policy, and women’s equal humanity. “I saw firsthand Pat’s moral compass, legal mind, and political savvy when we worked together on the Violence Against Women Act,” Biden said in a statement. “She was the primary sponsor in the House; I led the charge in the Senate. Together, we got it done. With Pat as my partner, I never doubted that we would.” Click through for full obit. There’s a lot in it that I didn’t remember, and one or two things maybe missing that I did remember. She was first elected in ’72, I settled in Colorado in ’76, and Focus on the Family was founded in ’77. Would I have come if I had known about that last one? I don’t know. It’s quite possible, certainly.
Experts in autocracies have pointed out that it is, unfortunately, easy to slip into normalizing the tyrant, hence it is important to hang on to outrage. These incidents which seem to call for the efforts of the Greek Furies (Erinyes) to come and deal with them will, I hope, help with that. As a reminder, though no one really knows how many there were supposed to be, the three names we have are Alecto, Megaera, and Tisiphone. These roughly translate as “unceasing,” “grudging,” and “vengeful destruction.”
Going into a New Year, a new Congress, and a new election cycle, after the end of a cycle which has produced some of the – to be charitable – weirdest candidates ever seen in the United States (at least in our lifetimes), I thought it might be a good idea to take a critical look at suggestions for how to find, draft, and elect candidates who will work for us. Let me say right now, I am not totally on board with the scoring system the author proposes – I see the possibiity (or probability, especially for Republicans) of ambitious legislators drafting and introducing large amounts of nonsense legislation in order to get high marks. Not everyone is, or should be, a creator. We also need analysts – and above all, votes. Good, sound votes. But it is a place to start.
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Workhorses, not show horses: Five ways to promote effective lawmaking in Congress
Americans dislike Congress, especially when it fails to act on pressing problems. They are then surprised by legislative accomplishments on climate change, gun control and maintaining competitiveness with China.
We have spent more than a decade exploring the thousands of bills and hundreds of laws produced by members of Congress each year. We find that individual representatives and senators vary dramatically in how interested they are in lawmaking and how effectively they advance their proposals. And we see opportunities to build a better Congress.
We have devised and generated a “Legislative Effectiveness Score” for each member of the House and Senate for each two-year Congress for the past 50 years. These scores are based on 15 metrics, capturing how many bills each lawmaker sponsors, how far they progress toward law and how substantively significant they are. The scores are politically neutral, with members of both parties scoring higher upon advancing whatever policies they think are best.
Voters can use these scores to see how their political representatives have fared in this measure, perhaps finding them among the 23% of representatives or 19% of senators who were highly effective in the most recently completed Congress. And researchers use them to determine the factors that make lawmakers effective in Congress.
Based on our work, we have identified five ways that legislators, reformers and voters can help promote effective lawmaking in Congress.
Lawmakers willing to work with those from the other party are the most successful at advancing their bills through Congress. GOP Sens. Mitt Romney of Utah, left, and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia talk during a joint session of Congress. Win McNamee/Getty Images
1. Lawmakers can focus their legislative agendas on their interests, committee assignments and constituency needs
Members of Congress face many demands on their time. They are almost always campaigning or raising money for the next election. Their time on Capitol Hill is punctuated with committee meetings and calls to votes on the House or Senate floor.
Such pressures leave little time to formulate new policies, build coalitions and advance their proposals. Effective lawmakers do not have more time than others – they simply align these various activities toward a common goal of lawmaking.
Effective lawmakers introduce bills that combine their own interests and passions with the needs of their constituencies and their committee assignments.
Thus, time spent away from Washington, in their home states and districts, is focused on identifying the policy needs of their constituents and highlighting their policy successes; time in committee is spent making and refining their policy proposals; time milling around between votes is used to build coalitions.
For the effective lawmaker, all these different activities form a coherent whole.
2. Legislators can view lawmaking as a team sport
No member of Congress can accomplish anything by himself or herself. Effective lawmakers recognize this and build a successful team.
They then join with like-minded colleagues to take advantage of the added resources provided by legislative caucuses, such as additional staff support and independent policy analyses, apart from the help provided by party leadership.
Moreover, for effective lawmakers, their team is not limited to their political party. Those willing to co-sponsor bills written by members of the other party find more bipartisan support for their own efforts. Our analysis demonstrates that such bipartisan lawmakers are the most successful at advancing their bills through Congress.
3. Lawmakers can specialize and develop policy expertise
Members of Congress need to be generalists to vote knowledgeably on diverse policy topics on any given day. Many take that generalist view to their lawmaking portfolio, sponsoring legislation in each of the 21 major issue areas addressed by Congress.
But we find that the most effective lawmakers dedicate about half of their time, attention and legislative proposals to a single issue area. By becoming an acknowledged experts in issues of health or education or international affairs, for example, lawmakers become central to policy formulation in their area of interest.
4. Reforms can reinforce good lawmaking habits
Individual lawmakers in Congress could adopt any of the practices above to become more effective. But institutional reforms could help reinforce such good behaviors.
Election workers in Pittsburgh recount ballots on June 1, 2022, from the recent Pennsylvania primary election. AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar
5. Voters can reward effective lawmaking
Without electoral rewards for effective lawmaking, members of Congress may focus on being show horses rather than legislative workhorses.
The role of voters starts with the initial selection of candidates. Voters might consider whether candidates demonstrate policy expertise and speak about the benefits of bipartisanship, for example. They might consider our analysis showing that effective state legislators and women tend to be more effective lawmakers in Congress, on average.
On the whole, Congress can function much better. Effective lawmakers from the past have shown the path forward. Our analysis of 50 years of data offers lessons that any representative or senator can adopt, as well as reforms and electoral pressures that can nudge them in the right direction.
============================================================== Alecto, Megaera, and Tisiphone, I realize bipartisan action is pretty well necessary for change (in fact, for any change – positive of negative). At this point in time, however, broad bipartisanship is not going to be helpful … because any idea all, or even a good majority, of Republican legislators agree on is going to be guanopsychotic. Seriously. It was recently pointed out that there is a debate on whose fault it is that George Santos got elected, and the two candidates for blame are – the Democrats and the Media. No one seems to think Republicans are to blame – because everyone has come to expect that lies are simply who Republicans are. (See today’s video thread.) Of course that will hurt them in the long run, and when it does, the hurt will be long lasting. But, for now, we are stuck with it.
Glenn Kirschner – J6 committee recommends Trump be banned from office. The 14th Amendment to the Constitution agrees. (Sure. But the Amendment is not self-enforcing. The committee is correct. Legislation is needed.)
MSNBC – Why 2022 Was A Major Legislative Year For The Democrats [Yes, it was, and we are entiled to a victory lap]
Ring of Fire – Does Farron Need to CALM DOWN? [Spoiler: yes. And he’ll work on it.]
Nine year old Oksana cut 70 cm of her beautiful hair to sell it and buy a tactical helmet for a soldier fighting in Bakhmut. She has definitely saved someone’s life.
Yesterday, They are tentatively predicting snow for tonight (for anyone who doesn’t use Weather Underground, the ten-day view is a graph. The temperature is a line {red}, but the chance of precipitation is a filled-in area – purple if it’s snow, blue for anything else.) It’s purple from around nine tonight to 4 am tomorrow. But, we’ll see. Farther down the page, they show a predicted accumulation, and those are in the single digit hundreths of an inch.
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The Conversation – Congress passes legislation that will close off presidential election mischief and help avoid another Jan. 6
Quote – Presidential elections are complicated. But in a move aimed at warding off future crises like the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol, the Senate and House have passed legislation to clarify ambiguous and trouble-prone aspects of the process…. [A] bipartisan group of congressional leaders aimed to pass reforms to the 1887 law governing this process, the Electoral Count Act, before the end of 2022. As an election law scholar, I have suggested that Congress focus its reforms on a few crucial areas that could have wide bipartisan support. Now, it has done just that, and the omnibus government funding legislation that includes the Electoral Count Act reform passed the House on Dec. 23 and heads to the White House for President Joe Biden’s expected signature…. With these simple bipartisan solutions, Congress has instilled confidence in future presidential elections. Click through fpr details. Before you say “It’s not enough,” let me assure you that you are correct. But it does address the main avenues used by Tyrannosaurus Ex and his mob on and up to (and since) January 6th. Of course, in anything run by humans, there will be people with the desire and drive to cheat.
What with Time magazine selecting Volodomyr Zelenskyy as “Person of the Year,” and pretty much everyone except MAGAts being in agreement, I hope I can be forgiven for writing a bit like a fangirl. I’m putting three sources together for this short take. First is a Zelenskyy origin story – I’ve seen it before, but without sourcing, and it seemed too good to be true. But now that I can trace it to Zelenskyy himself, in a video speech, on his own official page, I feel confident to share it. Next, there is the Crooks & Liars announcement of a Crookie Hero Award. Finally, and I warn this is a 45 minute video,here is a link to a documentary based on Dave Letterman interviewing Zelenskyy. Letterman does speak with other people, and gives some of his own impressions of the nation and the war (including the fact that one village he visitied gave him the honor of certifying his beard as the best in the village.) It really is worth every minute, even if you may have to save it for later.
Yesterday, I finished knitting a sweater, finished knitting a collar extention onto a sweatshirt, started a new sweater – and took a fairly deep dive into Joyce Vance’s newsletter, which was in the category of “The Week Ahead” – she doesn’t do one of those every weekend, but she often does. For this coming eeek, she is anticipating the circus (not her term, my interpretatin only) than can be expected in the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals pursuant to Jack Smith’s demolition of Judge Cannon. It’s long and nerdy (she says so herself), and I’ll not try to boil it down further here, but I do provide a link. I do hope she is 100% correct – and I feel there is a good chance of it. ALso, I did a few December cartoons – just enough to take me several days past my next visit to Virgil (this Sunday).
Cartoon – 28 Blackbeard loaded
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Democratic Underground (multigraincracker) – Her mother was also her uncle, DNA test.
Quote – The mother had XY chromosomes in her blood and saliva, but her hair and cheek cells had XX chromosomes. Parts of the daughter’s genome matched each kind of her mother’s mismatched DNA. The daughter had inherited some DNA from her mother which originally belonged to her mother’s fraternal twin brother, who was never born. That makes the mother a chimera, the result of an embryo that had absorbed and incorporated cells from a twin who had vanished before anyone knew he had existed. Click through for article, and don’t neglest the comments, which include more links to other anomalies. We are constantly learning so much more about genetics – and all of it makes the arrogance of people who insist there are two sexes, period, more outrageous.
Mother Jones – Hundreds of New York Women Are About to Sue Alleged Rapists (and Enablers) Under a Revolutionary New Law
Quote – Now, Carroll and thousands of other sexual assault survivors in New York state are getting a new chance to seek legal accountability against people who harmed them years or decades ago. Under the Adult Survivors Act, New Yorkers who were sexually assaulted as adults but who have run out of time to seek accountability in court will have a one-year “lookback window” to sue their abusers, as well as institutions that were negligent in responding to the assault. Click through for details. To me, in a kind of rarefied way, this is analogous to the Federal statute of limitations’ exception for availability. But here, its society’s contempt for and distrust of women which conctitutes the unavailability.
DNYUX (also the NY Times, which is paywalled) – At Protests, Guns Are Doing the Talking
Quote – Across the country, openly carrying a gun in public is no longer just an exercise in self-defense — increasingly it is a soapbox for elevating one’s voice and, just as often, quieting someone else’s…. Whether at the local library, in a park or on Main Street, most of these incidents happen where Republicans have fought to expand the ability to bear arms in public, a movement bolstered by a recent Supreme Court ruling on the right to carry firearms outside the home. The loosening of limits has occurred as violent political rhetoric rises and the police in some places fear bloodshed among an armed populace on a hair trigger. Click through for more – examples and analysis. This is what happens when people (I’m looking at you, SCOTUS) are allowed to conflate speech with something which isn’t speech at all.
Yesterday, I got the emails down to under 1700. I also found a way to increase how many I can delete at a time, so one more day may possibly do it. After that, I need to deal with some notofications and updates, but not all that many. So there is a light at the end of the tunnel.
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CNN – Arizona Republican House speaker effectively dooms GOP bill to allow state legislature to reject election results
Quote – The speaker assigns all new bills to a committee for consideration before they can have full House votes, a choice that often has a great effect on a measure’s chance of success. But on Tuesday, Bowers took the unprecedented step of ordering all 12 House committees to consider the elections bill, virtually ensuring it will never reach the floor. Click through for more. I have to say this is creative – and Democrats should pay attention. This is a technique which could be useful.
