Current Events

     I have not commented on immediately current events; two in particular have been all over the news, international talks with an eye to ending the war Russia initiated against Ukraine and President Trump's push to have Republican states redraw U. S. House districts ahead of the midterms.

     As for the peace effort, good luck to honest principals -- Ukraine, Europe, the UK and yes, even our President, who wants a Nobel Prize so badly that he may even be standing up to his good friend Mr. Putin to try for it.  The problem is, Russia -- and Vladimir Putin in particular -- started the war with the express purpose of absorbing Ukraine.  He went so far as to write (possibly with help) and publish a paper arguing at some length that Ukraine has no independent historical existence and is wholly a modern creation; actual historians do not agree.  His position does not augur well for even a "freeze the battle lines and draw the new border there" outcome (unacceptable to Ukraine and international law): Mr. Putin's Russia wants to take all of Ukraine and Ukrainians want to keep it.  So I'm not hopeful -- but I'm happily willing to be surprised.

     On mid-decade House redistricting to grab more seats for one party or another, it's cheating.  It's not the done thing; states redraw those districts every ten years, with the new census results in hand.  States have considerable latitude in where the lines are drawn and there's no black-letter law that says they can't do so in a partisan manner, though by long custom, the end result is not supposed to be too lopsided when compared to the state's proportion of votes for the main parties.  (And there's a whole Voting Rights Act thing in which districts should be arranged in such a way that racial minorities have a shot at proportional representation, but let's leave that for later: it's in the courts again, last I heard.)

     The Constitution puts it this way: 

     Clause 1, Composition:
     The House of Representatives shall be composed of Members chosen every second Year by the People of the several States, and the Electors in each State shall have the Qualifications requisite for Electors of the most numerous Branch of the State Legislature.
     [...]
     Clause 3, Seats:
     Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons. The actual Enumeration shall be made within three Years after the first Meeting of the Congress of the United States, and within every subsequent Term of ten Years, in such Manner as they shall by Law direct.

     Yeah, the Framers didn't leave us a paint-by-numbers.  They left the details for Congress, and Congress has tended to let the courts work it out (and the courts, in turn, have demurred on some of it).  Clause 1 comes in for some serious work.  Clause 3 does, too -- but the notion of only changing district maps in response to new decennial census data has been taken as axiomatic since the first time it was done.  In that light, it may be of some interest to note that the Supreme Court, when ruling that asking demographic questions above and beyond a simple count was a permissible action, said, "...that our interpretation of the Constitution is guided by a Government practice that 'has been open, widespread, and unchallenged since the early days of the Republic.'"  Thus, too, the time and timing of redistricting.  So if it feels kinda cheat-y, that would be because it is; it's not the way it's been done in the past, nor the way most people expected it to continue to be done.

     Nevertheless, Texas seems to be bound and determined to do it; my home state of Indiana is considering doing the same, to yank the rug out from under our two blue House districts (in Indianapolis and Chicagoland, about as blue as Indiana ever gets).  And the Trump administration is asking other red states to do so, too.

     Elsewhere, the latest Pew poll shows the President is underwater on approval ratings and especially on tariffs, the economy, peace talks and his administration's handling of the Epstein files.  Results run near 60% disapprove/40% approve on most items.  Being underwater by 20% is not the kind of thing that makes a party's ticket appeal to voters.  Why, it might almost tempt a political party to try giving the old pinball machine a good slam.