Should the President Be Elected by Congressional District?

William Jacobsen, Associate Clinical Professor at Cornell Law School, defends changing the way American elects its President by awarding electoral college votes by Congressional district rather than by state: 

As things stand now, the Electoral College favors Democrats because they are all but guaranteed to win a small number of large winner take all states, such as California, New York, Illinois, Michigan, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, plus a coalition of hopelessly blue states.

Democrats start off close to victory because of winner-take-all voting in those states, even if they win those states by a small margin in each state.

He notes these proposals come from Republicans (presumably in response to losing 6 out of 8 elections) and claims the "the system currently is 'rigged' to favor Democrats," but also states the change "may favor Republicans, or it may not, depending on the state and the presidential candidate."

More importantly, he writes: "Awarding electoral votes by district may have a positive impact of forcing candidates to campaign outside the large cities and bring a more geographically diverse electorate into the voting booth for them." 

To equate such efforts with cheating, he says, is "constitutionally ignorant." It's not entirely clear if he is endorsing the change, or defending the idea from the charge of cheating, and rigging the system. He also writes,

 "If [Balloon Juice and Maddow Blog ] are against it, it’s almost certainly good for the nation." 

In any case, the power to alter they way votes are counted to benefit your party in the next election is part of democracy.

The push and pull of redistricting as a result of state-level elections is part of the process, and if it impacts the Electoral College, so be it. Elections have consequences.  Including at the state level.

It does seem troubling at first that a party, having trouble winning elections, would resort to changing the elections rules. But this is certainly less so if the current method - and the electoral college is certainly peculiar - is in some unfairly tilted toward one party or disenfranchises, de facto, large numbers of people. The current system currently guarantees that Presidential candidates will barely campaign in certain states, while giving outsize attention to others - the 'swing states' in a winner-take-all election. Likewise, Prof. Jacobsen suggests certain areas with states ("large cities") receive more attention that others. This is presumably because there more people in a smaller geographic area in the cities. If one looks are winners of statewide elections (Governor, Attorney General, U.S. Senator) is this true? Do those candidates disproportionately spend more time campaigning in the cities? If so, is this an unfair situation which needs to be rectified? In addition, even if these rules changes are implemented, it's not clear that candidates will spend much more time in rural areas. After all, it will still be 'easier' to reach more people in shorter period of time, with less travel, in an urban area. However, if electoral college votes were distributed by Congressional district, it might change the policy positions emphasized by candidates - as with ethanol and the key primary state of Iowa (or it might not).

Another option, of course, would be to elect the President by counting national votes, just as members of Congress, Governors, Mayors, and others are elected by gathering the most votes in their respective districts or states . This would likely have the effect of further "nationalizing" elections, rendering them more about larger ideological issues and large national constituencies and less about local concerns.
 

Bank Allegedly Hid $12 Billion in Losses

Dec. 5 (Financial Times) - Deutsche Bank failed to recognise up to $12 billion of paper losses during the financial crisis, helping the bank avoid a government bail-out, three former bank employees have alleged in complaints to US regulators. 

Robert Khuzami, head of enforcement at the SEC, has recused himself from all Deutsche Bank investigations because he was Deutsche's general counsel for the Americas from 2004 to 2009. Dick Walker, Deutsche's general counsel, is a former head of enforcement at the SEC.  

 

Job swap. Sweet.  

Hostess With the Mostest

Hostess Brands Inc. won final court approval to sell its assets and eliminate about 18,000 jobs. U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Robert Drain also approved Hostess’s requests to pay as much as $1.83 million in incentives to 19 senior managers, while overruling objections to the bonuses.

CNN: Math. How Does It Work?

POLL: OBAMA, ROMNEY TIED IN OHIO

Pres' 4-point lead within sampling error

$64,000 in Bow Ties, Paid by the Taxpayer

Incredibly, taxpayers of Ohio bought $64,000 in bow ties for its university President, as well as a $500 shower curtain.

The story serves as a helpful reminder that the NCAA is one of, if the worst, institution in America.

Be Fair, or Look Fair?

Ezra Klein:

We’ve been conditioned to want to give both sides relatively equal praise and blame, and the fact of the matter is, I would like to give both sides relatively equal praise and blame. I’d personally feel better if our coverage didn’t look so lopsided. But first the campaigns have to be relatively equal. So far in this campaign, you can look fair, or you can be fair, but you can’t be both.

Navigating Post-Truth Politics

By David Roberts

Campaign reporters have deeply internalized the need to appear fair, to be above mere partisanship, to criticize or praise both sides in equal measure. The GOP is acutely aware of this dynamic and for years has used it to their advantage. But real fairness is geared to the facts, not to appearances, and today’s right simply lies more, misleads more, and denies established facts more. That is the conclusion a fair-minded appraisal yields. Empirics have a liberal bias, to paraphrase Colbert.

Revolt of the Savvy

“Professional journalists, whose self-image starts with: ‘We’re a check on…’ had to decide what to do about the truck that just ran their checkpoint, carrying the brain trust of the Romney campaign, laughing at how easy it all was.”

Link: http://pressthink.org/2012/08/presspushback/#p43 

A turn to a culture of truth? 

We know that we’re not posting an honest LIBOR

"So, we know that we’re not posting um, an honest LIBOR."

 

http://www.newyorkfed.org/newsevents/news/markets/2012/libor/April_11_2008_transcript.pdf

Peachy Paterno

A huge downtown mural shows many figures in Penn State history. The artist, Michael Pilato, said he had no immediate plans to remove Paterno or Spanier. He already painted over Sandusky, replacing him with a Penn State grad who is an advocate for abuse victims and issues.

The Paterno family is well known in the State College community for philanthropic efforts, including millions of dollars to the university to help build a library and fund endowments and scholarships. Even Penn State's creamery has a famous flavor named after the coach, Peachy Paterno.

Obama Leads Romney on Handling the Economy

July 13 -- President Barack Obama has gained an advantage over Republican Mitt Romney in a Pew Research Center poll of public confidence in handling of the economy. Obama leads Romney by 50 percent to 43 percent among registered voters surveyed, Pew reports, with Romney losing 3 percentage points since its previous poll in early June.

Forrest Gump For Secretary of Defense?

If elected president, presumptive Republican nominee Mitt Romney should add some star power by seating Gary Sinise on his cabinet, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich told Human Events this week in an interview.

Gingrich suggested that Romney could make the CSI: NY star, best known for his 1994 breakout role as Lieutenant Dan in Forrest Gump, his Secretary of Veterans Affairs, saying Sinise cares deeply for military veterans and could bring fresh eyes to the job.

Spanish Protesters Shot With Rubber Bullets

Madrid (AP) -- Riot police fired rubber bullets Wednesday at Spanish coal miners protesting in the streets of Madrid over subsidy cuts they fear will jeopardize their meager livelihood. Miners who walked 18 days from northern and eastern mining regions were received as heroes on Tuesday night as they entered the Puerta del Sol, one of the city's main plazas.

At least one volley of rubber bullets was fired directly a miners, relatives and sympathizers Wednesday as they gathered outside Spain's Industry Ministry after marching up Madrid's bullet hit. "We were walking peacefully to get to where the union leaders were speaking and they started to fire indiscriminately. There was no warning," Gonzalez said.

ROMNEY LAUNCHES 'I'M RUBBER YOU'RE GLUE' PHASE OF CAMPAIGN

July 10 (Washington Post) -- GRAND JUNCTION, Colo. –
Mitt Romney responded aggressively to President Obama's attacks on his career in private equity here Tuesday by trying to turn Obama's lines against him and saying it was not he but the President who is the "Outsourcer-In-Chief."

"If there's an outsourcer in chief, it's the president of the United States, not the guy who's running to replace him," Romney said.

ROMNEY EXCITED BY OBAMA'S PLAN TO CUT TAXES

"He has a plan, he said, to lower taxes," Romney said. "Now, we were all excited when we heard that.

ROMNEY CAMPAIGNING LIKES IT'S 1988

Romney took a wide assortment of questions from supporters here, over second amendment gun rights (he said he supports them), abortion rights (he said he opposes them) and criminal justice (he said he favors the death penalty).

Romney told another questioner that he believes he faces a biased national media, saying, "I realize now and then I'm fighting an uphill battle in some organs of the national media."

That's Commitment

July 10 (UPI) - Connecticut Man Donates 18 Gallons of Blood

Gov. Christie Addresses Image of Jersey Shore as Loud Obnoxious Jerks

July 6 (New York Times) -- Here is a video of Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey in a verbal altercation with a constituent, apparently filmed on Thursday night at the Jersey Shore and posted on Friday by TMZ.com, the celebrity gossip Web site.

Christie, who clutches an ice cream cone during the video, was with his family on the boardwalk, TMZ reported. The Governor, 49, at one point marches toward the critic as an entourage follows him.

Citizens May Not Portray Police in Negative Way or Be Labeled Public Agitators

“Be aware that above subjects are known professional agitators,” read the flyer, warning cops that the “subjects’ MO” is to videotape officers “performing routine stops and post on YouTube.”

“Subjects’ purpose is to portray officers in a negative way,” the poster reads.

This is What Global Warming Looks Like

"What we're seeing really is a window into what global warming really looks like," said Princeton University geosciences and international affairs professor Michael Oppenheimer. "It looks like heat. It looks like fires. It looks like this kind of environmental disasters."

Since Jan. 1, the United States has set more than 40,000 hot temperature records, but fewer than 6,000 cold temperature records, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

While at least 15 climate scientists told The Associated Press that this long hot U.S. summer is consistent with what is to be expected in global warming, history is full of such extremes, said John Christy at the University of Alabama in Huntsville. He's a global warming skeptic who says, "The guilty party in my view is Mother Nature."

But the vast majority of mainstream climate scientists, such as Meehl, disagree: "This is what global warming is like, and we'll see more of this as we go into the future."