On Democracy

Regarding the future of democracy, I have to go back to Jefferson's advice that better education is the answer.  I don't see how anyone can look at the 2016 election and be enthused about democracy, as we had the two worst major party candidates in our history.

To take a step back, let's look at the nomination process. It can be shown rather easily that the problem with the nomination process for both major parties can be attributed to too much democracy. Since 1968, when Hubert Humphrey won the Democratic nomination without winning a single primary, and riots then broke out in Chicago, both parties have undertaken to democratize the process, with increasingly disastrous results. The broken nomination process is good evidence for the idea that there can be too much democracy.

The proverbial "smoke-filled room" has been bashed ever since it was supposedly used to nominate Warren Harding in 1920, but I think we have discovered that party bosses really need to have more say in who the party nominates. If this had been the case, we certainly wouldn't have had the nomination of Trump, and perhaps not Clinton either (though the latter is unclear).

When Jack Kennedy's brother Ted ran for the Senate in 1962, a journalist asked a Massachusetts voter who she was going to vote for. She said Kennedy, because "if he's good enough to be president, he's good enough to be a senator".  We don't like to admit it, but this sort of ignorance is quite common among the electorate. And it predates the internet. People have always been ignorant and gullible; it is not a recent product of this fake news era.

On Collusion and Commandeering

The word "collusion" has become exceedingly popular of late. President Trump used it 16 times in a 30-minute interview with two New York Times reporters back in December. What those who have been paying attention have learned is that "collusion" is not a legal term. The legal term for the crime being referred to would have to be a conspiracy to violate election laws. Trump insists on his innocence, but the special counsel is still on the job, so the final word has not yet been spoken.

This week the Supreme Court has brought a new word to our attention, "commandeering", in its sports betting decision. In that decision the Court relied on what has been known as "the anticommandeering principle", first set out in two decisions from the 1990s.  That principle says that Congress cannot dictate to state legislatures what they can and cannot do.

Congress can legislate in the substantive area involved; i.e., in the case of gambling it could prohibit all gambling nationwide, and federal law would then take precedence over state law under the "preemption" principle. However, Congress cannot prohibit states from allowing and regulating gambling, which it tried to do with the 1992 in question here.

It is surprising that "commandeering" is a legal principle, while "collusion" is not, but that's what we have learned recently.

It might be surprising to many that Congress does not have the power to dictate to state legislatures. What people need to understand is that we have a federalist system, meaning that power is divided between the federal government and the states, with the federal government possessing only those powers granted to it under our constitution. Indeed, in the recent Supreme Court decision, Clarence Thomas, in a concurring opinion, expresses doubt that the federal government has any power to regulate gambling. It is properly a matter for the states, and this most welcome decision makes that clear.

It seems odd that for 26 years we had a situation where states could legally hold lotteries, which 44 states have done, but could not allow gambling on sporting events. The difference here is twofold: 1) Lotteries are pure chance, while sports betting requires some thought; and 2) Lotteries skim off 50% or more of the proceeds off the top, leaving at most half for the players. Sports bookies, by contrast, only take 5% for themselves, making this a much fairer game to play compared to the ripoff lottery system.

The New CIA Director

Gina Haspel was confirmed yesterday as the new director of the CIA.  While I was initially strongly opposed to her confirmation, due to her involvement with torture and the destruction of the tapes depicting said torture, I have evolved to be cautiously in favor.

The reason is that the alternative would likely be worse. As a 33-year veteran of the CIA, Haspel knows the agency inside out. The alternative would likely be a political appointee, as most are, and therefore someone unfamiliar with how the agency functions.

Also, her involvement with torture occurred at a time when it was considered lawful, and also when she was not the person in charge of the agency. The destruction of the tapes she has explained as necessary to avoid outing CIA personnel.

The Senate confirmation vote was 54-45, with three Republicans opposed, Rand Paul, Jeff Flake, and John McCain, with McCain not voting due to his illness. Since the GOP majority is only 51-49, this meant that six Democrats voted yes. These six are Manchin of WV, Heitkamp of ND, Donnelly of IN, Nelson of FL, Warner of VA, and Shaheen of NH.

My Pilgrimage to Cooperstown

I took a wonderful two and a half day trip last month with my friends Rich and Tom. We left on Tuesday after lunch and drove to Cleveland, where we had a leisurely supper across from the ballpark, and then went to a night game between the Indians and the Tigers. This April has seen much bad weather, with a record number of MLB games being postponed. The night before, the Indians had played a game with a game-time temperature of 33 degrees, a record cold in the history of the Indians current ballpark, now called Progressive Field. This night, however, the starting temperature was 43 degrees, with little wind. While not very good baseball weather, it was at least tolerable. Still, the attendance of 10,078 was only slightly higher than the previous night's attendance of 9,843.

We had seats down the left-field line, which gave us a good view of the Indians' two best players, shortstop Francisco Lindor and third baseman Jose Ramirez. Lindor made a sparkling play in the very first inning, diving to his right to smother a ground ball, and then getting up and nonchalantly throwing out the batter at first. A few innings later, left fielder Michael Brantley made a nice running catch in the left field corner near the foul line. And late in the game, Lindor made another fine play, backhanding a sharp grounder on the first hop, and then taking his time to throw out the runner at first. Jason Kipnis also made a couple of nice plays at second, going far to his right to backhand grounders, and then throwing out the runners on close plays at first. (A guy sitting in front of us was bad-mouthing Lindor the whole game, but backed off a bit towards the end and claimed that it was only his hitting he was complaining about.)

Despite the cold weather, the game was well-played in a crisp 2:47.  There were few walks, few mound visits, and only one error. Ramirez started the scoring in the first with a solo homer. Indians' starter Mike Tomlin made the lead stand up during his time on the mound, though he had to pitch out of trouble a few times, and his strike-ball ratio was so bad that he was lifted after the 5th due to his high pitch count.

Three Indians' relievers shared the next two innings, with the Tigers tying it up in the 7th. Then in the 8th star reliever Andrew Miller came in, to much fanfare highlighted by fire showing on the scoreboard around the phrase "Miller time". Light-hitting back-up catcher Roberto Perez broke the 1-1 tie with a homer in the bottom of the 8th, and closer Cody Allen pitched the 9th for the save, giving Miller a rare win.  This win put the Indians over .500 at 6-5, and at this writing they are in first in their division despite still being only one game above .500.

After the game we drove about an hour and stopped at a motel in Ashtabula for the night. The next day we continued to Cooperstown, driving through the northwest corner of Pennsylvania, then through the finger lakes area of New York, where there were few signs of farming, and arriving at Cooperstown at about 2:00 P.M.

We spent three hours at the museum, then had a leisurely supper and evening. I got to watch more TV than at any time during the past three and a half years. A program on the moose in Canada, and then the Rachel Maddow show, discussing the latest chaos of the Trump presidency.

The next morning was spent at the museum, taking in the part containing the plaques. Then we explored downtown Cooperstown, visiting several souvenir shops filled with baseball memorabilia. Since it was the offseason, the shop proprietors had little to do and were quite happy to converse with us. (Being the offseason also helped enormously with the motel rates.)

The visitors guides at the museum were uniformly helpful and friendly. One talked with us for quite some time, relating the visits from the new Hall members set to be inducted this summer. Trevor Hoffman and his wife cut the cake and served it to the museum staff, the first time this has ever happened, according to the guide. Alan Trammel also impressed the staff, as someone married since he was 20 and very much the unassuming and humble family man.

Chipper Jones was just the opposite, someone the women took a dislike to as he apparently is a well-known womanizer; he's now on his third wife, and has a son born out of an 18-month affair with a Hooters waitress during his first marriage. An interesting factoid about Chipper is that he and his current wife are expecting a child, the due date being on his induction date! They have checked out the Cooperstown hospital and plan to name the child "Cooper".

Some of the museum patrons were also quite friendly. One guy from Boston fired some trivia questions at us; the one I remember is "Who is the only player to play on each of the Sox' first four world championship teams?" I knew this was in the 1910s and made a few guesses, with the guy explaining why each was wrong, before he told us the answer: outfielder Harry Hooper.

We started back, stopping for a fast food lunch in Otego, coincidentally the same exit at which we had stopped for lunch the day before. Our last stop was a gas stop, which was, again coincidentally, in Astabula. Much good conversation the whole way. A most memorable and pleasurable trip.