In many ways, yes. Though I never thought of it that way! Much of our trial systems depend on precedent, which is just the history of how laws have been interpreted by the courts. Understanding the history around a law can be vital to understanding that law. Then there is whole realm of “legislative intent” when interpreting laws. Legislative intent is simply the legislative history of the law. Some of the most fun classes I had in law school studied the historical trends in laws and court decisions.
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This explains why so many lawyers have history degrees, too… 
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I wish that the public sector would actually think more about the intent of law and regulations when performing their duties.
(That said, I’m primed by the written law cultural sphere, not the case law tradition. This might - just might - colour my perception. 
)
Anyway, ceterum censeo: can those goop-publicians please get on with it, FFS? There are real people out there, real things at stake for the US and the world while they play silly buggers - didn’t they get this message?
By now I suspect even the self-destructive streak the republicans are cultivating is part of a secret cunning plan to make even the most liberal voters long for a strong leader who would tidy up the mess.
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October 13, 2023 (Friday)
Today marks ten days since the United States House of Representatives voted to toss out the speaker, leaving the House unable to conduct business. This situation is unprecedented. And yet the Republicans cannot manage to elect a new speaker from among their ranks, and the party’s leadership refuses to work with the Democrats, who remain united behind House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY). Jeffries has repeatedly offered to work with the Republicans.
Now the House has recessed for the weekend.
With a war in Europe and a war in the Middle East and government funding running out on November 17, not to mention all the other work that falls to Congress, the House did not hold a single floor vote this week.
Essentially, the Republican extremists have paralyzed the government in the midst of an unusually dangerous time. While President Joe Biden and the Democrats are trying to demonstrate that democracy works better than authoritarianism, they seem bent on undermining that idea.
Here’s how the day played out: After Louisiana representative Steve Scalise withdrew from the contest yesterday, Ohio representative Jim Jordan was the only one running until a relatively unknown representative, Austin Scott of Georgia, threw his hat in the ring as an anti-Jordan candidate. Scott, who had previously taken a stand against the extremists, said: “We are in Washington to legislate, and I want to lead a House that functions in the best interest of the American people.” When the conference voted, Scott won 81 votes to Jordan’s 124, with 16 of the members not showing up for the vote.
When the conference held another secret vote to count how many people would support Jordan in a floor vote, only 152 said they would. Fifty-five said no, and one voted present. Jordan remains a long way from the 217 votes he needs to win the chair if all members are present, and his allies’ threats to vulnerable members that if they did not support him they could expect to face primary challenges did not endear him to the holdouts.
Some Republicans are now calling for acting speaker Patrick McHenry (R-NC) to have more powers than simply arranging for the election of a new speaker. But since the Constitution specifies that “[t]he House of Representatives shall chuse their Speaker” and McHenry was tapped by former speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) alone to replace him in case of an emergency, that’s likely going to be a hard sell.
Others are hoping to reelect McCarthy himself. While McCarthy says he is backing Jordan, he is also spending time in front of the television cameras acting like a leader. Being begged to reclaim the speakership would undoubtedly give him more power than he had before the extremists toppled him.
It remains astonishing that the Republicans would consider making Jordan speaker. The hallmarks of that position are an ability to negotiate and to shepherd legislation through Congress (think of all former speaker Nancy Pelosi got done with the same slim majority the Republicans have). Jordan has none of those qualities; he is a flamethrower who, in 16 years in the House, has not managed to get a single bill through the House, let alone into law. Jordan’s elevation would reflect that for many years now, Republicans have elevated those who disdain government and whose goal is to stop it from working.
Jordan is also a key Trump ally who worked to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. Former representative Liz Cheney (R-WY) has been clear she opposes Jordan’s elevation to House speaker. Today she wrote:
“Jim Jordan was involved in Trump’s conspiracy to steal the election and seize power; he urged that [former vice president Mike] Pence refuse to count lawful electoral votes. If R[epublican]s nominate Jordan to be Speaker, they will be abandoning the Constitution. They’ll lose the House majority and they’ll deserve to.”
The Republicans plan to hold yet another conference on Monday and hope to elect a speaker on Tuesday. But it is not at all clear they can agree on a candidate. Representative Don Bacon (R-NE) is one of those who is beginning to talk about bipartisanship as a matter of practicality. “A lot of folks are in denial but you’re never gonna get eight or 10 folks on board. And so I think the bipartisan path is going to be the only way out,” he told Arthur Delany of HuffPost.
(Another limited letter tonight, just to mark events that are U.S.- and time-specific. I’ll catch up on other big stories in the next few days.)
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I got this in the mail yesterday, which had to have been mailed after McCarthy got the boot. I’m not sure how I got on this mailing list, but I’m tempted to fill out the survey.
ETA: there was a second picture here, showing that this was a survey. It had my name and address on it, and @Jesse13927 kindly poked me to let me know, so I deleted it. I’m not going to bother editing the photo and re-uploading. It’s standard GOP “Do you agree that Joe Biden is Satan” survey stuff.
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You should hide the name and address.
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Shit. Thanks. That’s what I get for posting something when I’m not fully awake.
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October 14, 2023 (Saturday)
The nights I post a picture are often harder for me than the nights I write. I am not a visual artist, and so I struggle for way too long over what picture to post and then struggle even longer over how to caption the image I choose.
But tonight’s picture and its caption were easy.
I learned this information last Sunday, and it was just about the best birthday present ever.
And writing the caption was a breeze. It reads:
Thank you. Thank you all for helping me to write this book, and for helping me make sense of the chaos we’ve been enduring now for far too long. And, above all, thank you for helping me keep the faith, no matter how bonkers things have gotten.
I am honored to be part of this community, and I am eager to see where we go from here.
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omg, books 2 & 3. ( and honestly, even #1. )
it’s the school of failing upwards vs. laborious academic research. i suppose we’re all lucky the art of the deal isn’t still somewhere on that list 
( eta: who am i kidding. that would be under the fiction column anyway. )
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The new list that came out today (which weirdly is dated Oct 22, while last week’s is dated Oct 15):
- Going Infinite - Michael Lewis (about SBF and FTX)
- The Democrat Party Hates America
- Killing the Witches
- Elon Musk - Walter Isaacson
- Making It So - Patrick Stewart
- Enough
- Astor - Anderson Cooper
- Democracy Awakening
- Outlive - Peter Attia with Bill Gifford (aging and longevity)
- Thicker Than Water - Kerry Washington
Depressing that the books by the right wingers who aren’t criticizing the right are staying at the top, but it’s still an amazing accomplishment to get on that list at all.
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What depresses me is that the Times doesn’t factor the rightwing scammery that results in inflated sales figures into their bestseller lists.
In addition to Crenshaw’s book, Republican organizations have made large bulk purchases of books by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) and Donald Trump Jr.
The Senate Conservatives Fund, a political action committee founded by former senator Jim DeMint (R-S.C.), committed nearly $90,000 to bulk purchases of Cotton’s book, “Sacred Duty: A Soldier’s Tour of Arlington National Cemetery,” which became a bestseller.
In February, the organization paid nearly $65,000 to Regnery Publishing, Cruz’s publisher, for advance copies of Hawley’s forthcoming book. Hawley’s book was supposed to have been published by Simon & Schuster, but the contract was canceled in January after Hawley came in for widespread criticism for challenging Joe Biden’s electoral victory, leading up to the mob attack on the U.S. Capitol.
New York Times columnist Brooks resigns from think tank amid conflict-of-interest controversy
Another Republican book-buying binge, led by the Republican National Committee, accompanied the release of Trump Jr.’s book, “Triggered,” in 2019. It was followed in October by the RNC’s expenditure of more than $300,000 on a second Trump Jr. book, entitled “Liberal Privilege: Joe Biden and the Democrats’ Defense of the Indefensible.” In both cases, the RNC gave away copies in exchange for donations.
Yes, considering that nearly all of HCR’s book sales are likely individually purchased copies, it is indeed impressive that hers get anywhere near the top of that list.
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That list is damned depressing.
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But faked. The fascists (as pointed out above) have organized an effort to make it look like they have far more influence on the public mind than they do. They are a small minority, and they really, really hate that.
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Ok, so I decided to look up Amazon’s nonfiction best sellers list. LMAO, what a joke. They have a problem with categories. There is apparently a niche subgenre of romance fiction dealing with hockey. I knew about biker romance, and Amish romance, but hockey romance I was unaware of. And it’s fine. But the authors have tagged all their books with Hockey as well as Romance, and that’s a problem. Because Hockey is a subcategory under Sports & Outdoors, which is under nonfiction. So two of the books in the top 10 nonfiction best sellers on Amazon right now are fictional hockey romance books.
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The fact that this piece of crap is number one is annoying. This and the Isaacson book… we don’t need hagiographies of billionaires or scam artists, but here they are on the NYT best seller list. I hope Musk at least had to buy a bazillion copies to get Isaacson on the list like those right wingers, but I honestly doubt that he had to (and am pretty sure that the Lewis book is organically number one as well).
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I assumed the book was a takedown of SBF, but I suppose an honest takedown of him and that whole affair could accurately be described by simply saying “SBF is a con artist.”
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does this mean that “fantasy hockey” is really hockey and fantasy? i could see gandalf and sarumon as coaches for the grey and white teams i guess. but only if the one ring is actually the puck
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Icebreaker
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