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Saturday Q&A

The last Q&A of the year!

Current Events

C.J. in Lowell, MA, asks: I realize you were basically passing along someone else's work, but I was wondering if you could provide more insight regarding Joe Biden making so many appearances on Glenn Kessler's biggest whoppers of the year list. I was surprised and disappointed that the President had three of the top ten entries, more than any other individual. Tucker Carlson had two entries, but surely, head-to-head, he lies (and knows it) a lot more than the President! Are the President's "lies" more accurately mistakes or gaffes—or yes, possibly the result of senior moments? Does a reporter ever ask him to clarify? The President has always struck me as a decent guy and straight shooter, as well as trying mightily to contrast with his champion-liar predecessor, so as a supporter I'm experiencing some cognitive dissonance here.

V & Z answer: First, let's talk about the list overall. Kessler gives absolutely no explanation for what the list is supposed to teach us, or what standards were used in compiling the list. He doesn't even rank the items. The only thing that's certain is that he's selecting from the last year's worth of "Pinocchio" fact-check items. Beyond that, we are left to speculate as to his thought process. So, let's speculate:

In the end, even conceding the constraints of fitting a campaign year's worth of lies into a 10-item list, the piece is not executed very well. We've run many lists of various sorts on this site. And when you're doing a list with dozens or hundreds of possible entries, and only 10 or 15 or 20 slots to work with, the first thing you have to do is select item [X], which represents not only item [X], but also similar items [Y] and [Z]. So, for example, when we did a list of the most impactful artists in U.S. history, we chose one modern political cartoonist as a representative for "modern political cartooning." The point here is that there should have been one Biden item, or maybe two, with the commentary noting similar sorts of errors/misstatements/lies. At the same time, what with it being a campaign year, it is inexcusable that only two entries involved people who appeared on a ballot this year. More specifically, how did Herschel Walker fail to make the list?

Taking a closer look at the three Biden entries, one was about his alleged youthful arrest for civil rights-related protesting (which also alludes to a similar story Biden has told about trying to meet Nelson Mandela). The Post says it can find no evidence of either arrest, and that the facts of the teenage arrest don't particularly line up (e.g., Biden's home, at the time, was pretty far from the house where he was supposedly arrested).

Keeping in mind that (Z) is a historian, and is tasked with evaluating evidence like this all the time, his sense of things is that Biden is not lying, per se. Biden's not really the type to make things like this up our of whole cloth. Whatever incident he's thinking of would have taken place nearly 70 years ago. That's plenty of time for memories to get fuzzy, and also for any and all records to disappear into the ether.

Further, not all arrests result in a paper trail. (Z) has been arrested once in his life, in part due to the fact that he was driving a car that he had just inherited (and thus, the pink slip and registration were still in the process of being transferred from the decedent's name), and in part because the police officer did not believe a white person could have legitimate business in a Black part of town at 2:00 a.m. (in fact, he did have business; he was delivering the pages of the Daily Bruin to the plant where it was then being printed). Anyhow, there were handcuffs and there was an hour spent sitting in the back of a police car, but there was no booking, and thus there is no record. That doesn't mean it didn't happen, though, because it most certainly did.

In Biden's case, we suspect there was a segregation-related incident, and that police were involved. Did Biden misremember that into "the police showed up and arrested me"? Or did they possibly detain him but then decide against a booking? Both of those things seem possible. Certainly, there's enough potential for the story to be basically true, or partly true, that it's kind of silly to rank it among the top 10 falsehoods of the year.

As to the other two Biden falsehoods, they involved gross statistical misstatements, one about how much families would save on their utility bills thanks to the American Rescue Plan, and another about how many jobs would be created by the CHIPS Act. These two statements (and the one about being arrested), to answer one of your other questions, took place in contexts other than press conferences. So, there was no real possibility for reporters to ask for clarifications. There is a distinct possibility that Biden (or whoever was writing his remarks) misread the data. Or they may have cherry-picked from one source. Or they may have used politician math. For example, one of the two "four Pinocchio claims" was that the CHIPS Act would create 1 million construction jobs. The Post says it's more like 6,000. But it is plausible that Team Joe projected not only the factories that would be built with the government's money, but also the privately funded factories whose construction would be encouraged by the government's investment, plus the housing that would be constructed for the workers in the factories, and the restaurants that would have to be built to feed those people, and so forth. This would be an incredibly generous-to-Biden way of presenting the data, but politicians do it all the time, and Kessler and The Post know it full well.

In short, we find it hard to get up in arms about Biden's three "lies," in part because we doubt they were baldfaced falsehoods, and in part because the statements are ultimately rather benign. And let us note that if the shoe was on the other foot, and these were Trump lies, our response would be: "Really? Of all the outrageous and damaging stuff that comes out of his mouth, this is what they focused on?" In the end, Kessler is trying to convey the message that he's fair and balanced, and that he's willing to speak truth to power. However, those are not the messages that he actually conveyed, on closer inspection.


A.R. in Los Angeles, CA, asks: In your item on the House speakers, you discussed the possibility of a compromise candidate. Who do you think are the most likely candidates to fit that bill? If it's a Republican, who can draw the most Democratic votes? And is there a Democrat who would be acceptable to moderate Republicans? What sort of power sharing arrangement could these folks work out?

V & Z answer: We don't think a Democrat is a viable possibility, not in the current political environment. As to Republicans, there are three basic approaches, should a compromise candidate be wanted. The first approach would be to find the Republican with the strongest track record of bipartisanship. And, as we've already written a couple of times, that person is probably Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA), who is chair of the Problem Solvers' Caucus, which is the House caucus whose literal mission is to promote bipartisanship. Fitzpatrick was one of 35 Republicans who voted for the creation of the 1/6 Committee.

The second approach would be to find the member who would be taking the least political risk by participating in something like this. Here, we think the most probable candidate would be Rep. Young Kim (R-CA). She represents CA-39, which went for Joe Biden by about 2 points, but which she won by nearly 14 points. Given those numbers, and given that California uses jungle-style primaries, Kim would be less at risk of being primaried than any Republican, and would have an excellent chance of keeping her seat in 2024. Plus, progressive Democrats would have cover in voting for her, since they could talk about the importance of the first non-white Speaker of the House.

The third approach would be to choose some Republican who is a clear placeholder, and who would step down after 2 years. If that is how things shake out, then the most probable candidate would be Hal Rogers (R-KY), who is the current Dean of the House. At 84, he's clearly near the end of his career.

As to power-sharing, the Democrats don't have a lot of leverage here, since they are clearly in the minority. They would probably have to be satisfied with blocking Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) from becoming speaker, because they aren't in a position to demand more than that.


D.E. in Lancaster, PA, asks: In your item about the race for the House Speaker, one of the past examples you listed was Nathaniel P. Banks in 1855. You said this would be the nightmare scenario that many Democrats are probably rooting for. How so?

I can think of two scenarios: One where Democrats would join what's left of moderate Republicans to vote in a moderate, who will probably be able to keep the government running. Democrats would be cooperating with Republicans, something that either base would get mighty upset with but would show that the parties can compromise and mighty lead to the GOP moving back to the center. The other is that a fire-breathing Freedom Caucus member gets the Speakership but would be totally inept at running the House, causing government shutdowns and missing the debt level change. It would be a true nightmare of a dumpster fire that would show independents which party believes in responsible government, possibly.

V & Z answer: All we meant is that the 1855 speaker election was a sh**show that put Congress' dysfunction on display. If it takes 2 months to figure out the next speaker, then that would be bad for governance, but it would also make Kevin McCarthy and the Republicans look ridiculous. There would be a lot of Democratic schadenfreude in that.


T.K. in Half Moon Bay, St. Kitts, West Indies, asks: I know you find it very unlikely that a non-member of the House could be elected Speaker, and I agree. But let's say it happened. These are strange times. Would this person be paid for their service? It seems to me that they would not, unless some new legislation were passed, specifically to allocate funds for this purpose. But if not, that would be a highly unusual situation, serving in an official government position on a volunteer basis, especially one that was third in line for the presidency.

V & Z answer: The salary for the Speaker of the House is set by statute; it's currently $223,500. So, that is what the next holder of that office will be paid, regardless of whether or not they are a member of the House.

As the current speaker, Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) is entitled to that same $223,500. She is also entitled to a salary of $174,000 as a duly-elected member of the House. However, federal employees cannot collect multiple salaries; they just get the highest one to which they are entitled. And so, Pelosi's actual pay for 2022 was $223,500; next year it will drop back down to $174,000.


J.H. in Boston, MA, asks: I was reading a news item today about potential committee assignments for Rep.-elect George Santos (R-NY), which also mentioned Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) and her committee assignments and how they got taken away. And I found myself wondering how these first-term rather fringe candidates would even be considered for committees in the first place. Don't these assignments get determined by seniority? With 435 house members (maybe more, because don't nonvoting members get to serve on committees?), you'd think that freshman members would be at the back of a long queue. How many committee seats are there to hand out? Is it like the 500 caucuses that you recently covered? At least one for every member? How do they assign them if not seniority? Otherwise, why would MTG or Santos or Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) even be considered?

V & Z answer: Committee seats are awarded by the steering committees of the respective party caucuses. Overall seniority in the House is a key consideration, but so is seniority on that particular committee. Also part of the equation are the member's background/expertise and the member's preferences.

As to the number of seats available, that changes from congress to congress. Here is a list of the standing committees of the House, and the number of seats on each:

Committee Seats
Agriculture 51
Appropriations 59
Armed Services 59
Budget 36
Education and Labor 58
Energy and Commerce 58
Ethics 10
Financial Services 54
Foreign Affairs 52
Homeland Security 31
House Administration 9
Judiciary 41
Natural Resources 42
Oversight and Reform 45
Rules 13
Science, Space, and Technology 41
Small Business 27
Transportation and Infrastructure 68
Veterans' Affairs 31
Ways and Means 42
Total 827

As you can see, there are nearly enough seats on the standing committees for each member to serve on two of them. When you add in the half-dozen or so select committees, which have the same rank as standing committees, then there are definitely enough seats for each member to have two assignments. And generally, two assignments per member is the limit for top-level committees.

However, that's not the end of it. Nearly all committees have subcommittees, on which members can also sit. To take one example, the Agriculture Committee has these subcommittees: (1) Biotechnology, Horticulture and Research; (2) Commodity Exchanges, Energy and Credit; (3) Conservation and Forestry; (4) General Farm Commodities and Risk Management; (5) Livestock and Foreign Agriculture and (6) Nutrition, Oversight and Department Operations. Add it all up, including the standing committees, the select committees and the subcommittees, and there are about 250 different committees or subcommittees at any given time with about 2,500 seats between them. That means that the majority of House members get to chair one committee or subcommittee. And it also means that in addition to sitting on two top-level committees, most members sit on two to four subcommittees.


W.S. in Austin, TX, asks: Suppose George Santos were seated on a committee that has access to sensitive information. Could the executive branch deny him a security clearance? Has a representative or senator been denied a clearance before?

V & Z answer: Elected members of Congress do not require security clearances. There has been much talk of instituting that requirement, most recently a 2011 proposal from the Congressional Research Service. However, the members of Congress would have to pass a law, and they are unlikely to do so. First, because they don't want to risk being turned down for clearances. Second, and probably more importantly, because they don't want to have to explain to the voting public why they were turned down for a clearance.

And so, as an alternative, all members have to take an oath of secrecy. And members of the Select Committee on Intelligence have to take an additional oath. Beyond that, everyone crosses their fingers and hopes for the best.


L.V.A. in Idaho Falls, ID, asks: To my minor frustration, your coverage of the recent budget bill passage by Congress seemed to lack clarity on exactly how long the bill covers (a month, until summer, through FY 2023). My frustration was heightened when scanning various major news outlets and several searches revealed a more widespread lack of clarity. Am I missing the obvious?

V & Z answer: Well, the amount involved, $1.7 trillion, implies a somewhat lengthy time period. Even the federal government can't burn through nearly $2 trillion in a few weeks or a month. Beyond that, the description of the bill as a budget for FY 2022-23 tells you that it covers the government until Oct. 1, 2023, which is the first day of FY 2023-24. Of course, Congress never gets a budget in place in time for the start of the fiscal year, so the newly adopted budget will surely be in place beyond Oct. 1, and maybe beyond Jan. 1 of 2024.


K.A.T. in Fairborn, OH, asks: I understand that the law requires the IRS to release any tax return requested to certain congressional committees. But does that law also allow that any citizen's tax returns can be made public? I was surprised that the returns could be released to the public by a simple vote of the committee.

V & Z answer: The tax returns are a part of the congressional record. And, barring the sharing of any information that is covered by privacy laws or that is related to national security, the members of Congress can make public any portion of the congressional record that they wish.

Thus far, the decision has not generated all that much controversy. We'll see what happens when the new year (and the news year) begins, and the Tucker Carlsons of the world are back in their seats. While there may (and probably will) be much talk of the Committee releasing the taxes for political reasons, the full story is more complicated than that. It is entirely possible that part of the motivation was political. But the fact is that the Committee discovered a legitimate oversight issue (presidential returns were not being audited as carefully and quickly as the law requires) and they wanted to make sure that issue gets fixed. Since Ways and Means chair Richard Neal (D-MA) and his colleagues got the returns so close to the deadline, their only hope for making their case was to write a report for all to see. That report requires evidence, and the evidence is... the tax returns.

Neal could have left the matter for the next iteration of the Committee, but with it under Republican control, it would have been quietly buried. Alternatively, he could have tried to pass the baton to the Senate, but that would take time, and maybe Senate Finance Committee Chair Ron Wyden (D-OR) didn't have the time, or didn't have the interest, or didn't feel he'd be able to do much more than Neal already did.


A.S. in Black Mountain NC, asks: Why did it take almost two years to get the Treasurer's and Secretary of the Treasury's names on the paper money?

V & Z answer: Because Treasurer Marilynn Malerba only took office on Sept. 12 of this year. Prior to that, the office was vacant for nearly 1,000 days, as the previous holder, Jovita Carranza, stepped down on Jan. 14, 2020.


D.C. in Atenas, Costa Rica, asks: What's your view on the plight of Southwest Airlines? Are they likely to fix things on their own? What would be the role of the FAA or Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg in the recovery?

V & Z answer: We assume that everyone is aware of this story, but just in case, Southwest had to cancel thousands of flights in the past week due to inclement weather. The airline's operations are such that if one flight gets screwed up by a blizzard, then it wrecks a whole sequence of flights, such that a flight from San Antonio to Los Angeles can be derailed (deplaned?) by a storm in Massachusetts.

Buttigieg is talking loudly about getting involved, but that will largely be limited to making sure that Southwest observes its passengers' rights. For example, if a flight is canceled due to weather, they can give the passengers credit toward a different ticket on the airline. On the other hand, if it's canceled due to Southwest's management choices, then the airline has to give a refund.

Beyond that, however, there is not much "fixing" to do, whether at the instigation of the government or of the airline. Maybe some, but not a lot. The passenger aviation business is very, very competitive. And the airlines that compete on having the lowest prices, as Southwest does, have only a few options for undercutting the major carriers. One possibility is to charge for absolutely everything, like for baggage and for snacks on the plane. A second possibility is to make the seats smaller, and to squeeze as many people on each plane as is possible. And a third—and this is Southwest's primary approach—is to operate with very small margins of error when it comes to logistics. If you have very few employees on emergency standby, and if your planes spend a bare minimum of time on the ground, then that reduces costs and the savings can be passed on to the customers. The tradeoff there is that if a few wrenches get thrown into the works, the whole thing collapses.

In short, for Southwest to "fix" things in a substantive way, the airline would have to change its entire business model. That's not likely to happen. The real lesson here is to take advantage of the cheap Southwest fares in spring and summer, and to consider a more expensive airline in the fall and winter.


S.S. in West Hollywood, CA, asks: Is the movement to ban TikTok from the phones and computers of government employees based in legitimate fear of Chinese spyware or is it really a dogwhistle for anti-Chinese racism? If it's legitimate, where else might there be Chinese/Russian/Iranian, etc. spyware that should also be considered for banning from government employees?

V & Z answer: There are three obvious things that TikTok could theoretically do with their app. The first is collect vast amounts of data about users. The second is to track the movements of selected users. The third is to target selected users with specific videos (e.g., propaganda).

It should be fairly obvious how the Chinese government might abuse any or all of these things. In particular, it would be very problematic if Xi Jinping & Co. could track the movements of CIA officers. So, the only real question is whether the Chinese government might take advantage of the situation (or already is taking advantage). Inasmuch as there have already been cases of the Chinese government putting spyware on products manufactured by "private" business concerns, the answer to that question is "yes." There is a real risk. So, it's not just anti-Chinese racism.

As to other apps, it would mostly be apps of Chinese origin, with the obvious one (besides TikTok) being WeChat. The Russians have had no particular success in getting apps onto American devices, and the other countries that might try such a scheme (Iran, North Korea, Cuba, etc.) don't have the resources and are already tech-embargoed six ways to Sunday.


M.V. in Lake Worth Beach, FL, asks: You seem to be very confident that pot smoking does not cause cancer.

From what I understand, any form of smoke inhalation is cancer causing. While there may be something about marijuana that counteracts this, this article seems to indicate that pot smoking is actually more dangerous than cigarette smoking, not less. It seems like valid research to me. Is there something I am missing?

V & Z answer: Marijuana smoke is indeed carcinogenic, and probably more so than tobacco smoke. However, what we wrote was about the public-health impact of marijuana versus the public-health impact of tobacco. And, outside of the occasional Snoop Dogg, marijuana users do not generally smoke the equivalent of two or three or four packs a day. So while each marijuana cigarette may be more dangerous than each tobacco cigarette, the tobacco cigarettes do more harm collectively, since many, many more of them are consumed each year.

Politics

A.C. in Aachen, Germany, asks: Regarding the item about the known unknowns in 2024, isn't one rather important "known unknown" the person Joe Biden would chose as his running mate, in case he decides to run again?

The vice-presidency may not be worth more than a bucket of warm p*** under usual conditions, but this seems to be rather different when the president is beyond 80. So the person who might replace him in case of inability to serve—be it by death or mental/physical incapability—would be very important. And this obviously opens the discussion whether or not Biden would run with the not so popular Kamala Harris again. To me, this seems to be a rather obvious unknown regarding the 2024 race.

V & Z answer: While not impossible, we think that it is unlikely that Biden would toss Harris overboard. There would be at least two big downsides to that. First, it would be the equivalent of saying, very loudly: "I blew the first big decision of my presidency." Second, it could alienate whatever demographic groups she was chosen to appeal to.

Meanwhile, we don't see any great upsides to kicking her off the ticket. It is true that Harris' approval is around 40%, but Biden's is around 43%, so it's not like she would drag the ticket down. If Biden is putting that much stock in approval ratings, then he himself shouldn't run. On top of that, the big problem for a VP candidate who is running with a "delicate" president is if it seems they aren't really up to sitting in the big chair. Think Sarah Palin in 2008. But Harris has a long résumé, and is clearly capable of handling it if she gets a promotion.


T.G. in Salem, OR, asks: It's starting to look like Republican officeholders are less and less in the "Trump camp," even if they aren't willing to say so publicly, for fear of alienating the MAGA cult. More and more seem to see Trump as a bad nominee that could have negative coattails.

There also seems to be a great deal of concern that Trump could win the 2024 nomination by default (sane Republicans split the vote between several less-bat**it-crazy candidates, thus giving Trump a "win" in each state, and with it all the state's delegates).

So why doesn't the RNC Rules Committee just change the nomination rules from "winner take all" to "proportional," like the Democrats do? That would require Trump (or whoever gets the nomination) to actually get a majority of Republican voters' support to be the GOP nominee.

V & Z answer: First, it's not clear that the RNC Rules Committee, which is populated by Trump loyalists, has turned on their Dear Leader yet.

Second, If the RNC starts changing the rules every cycle, so as to put their thumbs on the scale for one candidate or another, then the Party's voters will not be happy. Any change made will have to be semi-permanent.

And third, the RNC likes things the way they are. The approach they use is designed to identify a nominee as quickly as is possible, so the voters have as much time as possible to coalesce around that person.


L.S-H. in Naarden, The Netherlands, asks: Your answer to C.C. in St. Paul the possible end of the filibuster has me thinking (as I have been for some time) that this could somehow come back to bite the Democrats in the ass.

Currently, there is no filibuster in the Senate for the approval of judges (thanks to Harry Reid going "nuclear"), but otherwise Democrats are stymied from passing important legislation (voting rights, civil rights, statehood, etc.) by the lack of a filibuster-proof majority of 60 votes. What if—in a new era of no filibuster for any legislation, and when the Republicans have the trifecta—the Republicans pass some sort of onerous bill that Democrats cannot filibuster simply because the Republicans will need only 51 votes to pass such legislation instead of the currently required 60 votes?

V & Z answer: It's not only possible that this might happen, it is a certainty that it would happen. The calculation is whether the gains the Democrats would make, if the filibuster died, would outpace the gains the Republicans would make. At the moment, most members of both parties have decided that killing the filibuster would be net win for the Democrats. Bigly. In fact, the Democrats believe, with some reason, that if they can get rid of the filibuster, then they can make changes (voting protections, statehood for D.C., etc.) that will keep the Party in power the great majority of the time.


C.Z. in Sacramento, CA, asks: My local weekly newspaper has a half-page entitled "CLG News Updates." All the "update" headings appear to be right-wing propaganda. However, what I found in trying to google CLG, was this: "Citizens for Legitimate Government is a multi-partisan activist group established to expose the Bush coup d'etat and to oppose the Bush Occupation in all of its manifestations."

Can you enlighten me?

V & Z answer: Let's talk about Michael H. Hart for a moment. He did legitimate scholarly work as a physicist, and also published the bestseller The 100: A Ranking of the Most Influential Persons in History. Then, as he entered his senior years, he became... an outspoken white separatist.

Or, how about Kevin MacDonald? He had a long and successful career in the psychology department at Long Beach State, and made important contributions to the field of evolutionary psychology. Eventually, he concluded that Judaism isn't a religion, and instead it's an insidious evolutionary strategy designed to undermine white civilization. To use his own words: "Jews are just gonna destroy white power completely, and destroy America as a white country." Incidentally, he's still got tenure at CSULB, because propagating antisemitic ideas is not an excludable offense.

To give a third, particularly famous, example, James Watson earned eternal fame for his work in figuring out the structure of DNA. But eventually he began to share his views that there are key differences in racial groups that are hardcoded into those races' genetics. He thinks that melanin leads to a greater sex drive, and that is why Latinos and Black people like sex so much. He thinks that Chinese people lack the genes that make people creative and that Indians lack the genes that make people assertive. He is particularly keen on the notion that white people are genetically predisposed to having higher IQs than Black people.

The point here is that there are numerous cases of highly educated people (usually men) who produce perfectly normal contributions to the world of ideas and then, at some point, go full whackadoodle. Were the unpleasant ideas always there, lurking beneath the surface? Did these folks become so committed to theorizing that they forgot the human element? Did they suffer some sort of cognitive issue related to aging or other lifestyle factors? Who knows? But Hart, MacDonald and Watson are far from the only exemplars.

CLG, by all indications, is a one-man operation. And that one man is Michael Rectenwald, who has had a long and successful career in academia, teaching at Duke, NYU, Carnegie Mellon and others, while racking up a lengthy list of publications. He used to publish the sorts of books that you might see on any C.V., like Global Secularisms in a Post-Secular Age and Academic Writing, Real World Topics. However, since 2019 or so, he's written books like Springtime for Snowflakes: "Social Justice" and Its Postmodern Parentage, Thought Criminal, and The Great Reset and the Struggle for Liberty: Unraveling the Global Agenda.

The left-right political spectrum doesn't really work for people like these. Nominally they are right-wingers, but what they really are is anti-authoritarian conspiracy theorists. And that means that they turn their sights on Republicans and Democrats fairly equally. In terms of someone familiar to readers of this site, they are very much like Steve Bannon, who is a blend of intellectual, radical populist, and nutty conspiracist.

Civics

A.G. in Tampa, FL, asks: With all of the nose-thumbing that happens between the legislative and executive branches, has the executive branch ever simply ignored a Supreme Court stay? Ignoring a terrible precedent, what would happen if the Biden team simply ignored the Title 42 stay? Can the President be held in contempt of the U.S. Supreme Court? Could the Marshal of the Supreme Court push past the Secret Service and cuff the President?

V & Z answer: Certainly presidents have ignored Supreme Court decisions. The most famous example, in terms of stays, is Ex parte Merryman. The actual details of the ruling are a little murky, because Roger Taney was simultaneously Chief Justice and chief judge of the United States Circuit Court for the District of Maryland, and it's not clear in which capacity he was ruling. However, what happened was that the Abraham Lincoln administration put John Merryman in jail without charging Merryman with a crime, Taney effectively stayed the imprisonment and ordered Merryman released, and Lincoln said "no."

A president can be found in contempt of any court, including the Supreme Court. However, the judicial branch has no power to enforce any penalties, Marshal of the Supreme Court or no. Only the Department of Justice can do that. And, as everyone knows thanks to Donald Trump, the DoJ won't pursue a sitting president.


M.B. in Montreal, QC, Canada, asks: Is there anything to prevent a state in which the Republicans have a trifecta—Ohio and Texas come to mind—from putting in a property qualification for voting, this preventing all those poor tenants in Cleveland and Houston from voting? This would cement Republican control for generations.

V & Z answer: Under the terms of the Twenty-Fourth Amendment, the right to vote in a federal election cannot be predicated on the payment of a poll tax. A requirement that voters own property is considered a form of poll tax. And in Harper v. Virginia Board of Elections (1966), the Supreme Court ruled that this applies to state elections, in addition to federal elections. The Court also noted that a property requirement would be a violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

One other problem is that when people are denied the vote, particularly if they are white and male, they tend to rebel.


R.R. in Potomac, MD, asks: What is the point of a caucus with just one member? I assumed the point of a caucus was to: (1) discuss an issue and figure out the best position on it and (2) to present a unified bloc to advocate for a position. But if there's only one member in the caucus, how does it accomplish either of these goals? Or what other purpose could it serve?

V & Z answer: We assume you are referring to the list of caucuses that we provided. However, when there is only one name listed, that just means the caucus has one chair or one sponsor, not that it has one member.

That said, a major purpose of the caucuses is to provide a point person for Congress to hear from outsiders about key issues. If chicken farmers have an issue, for example, it is better for them to speak to members who know about and care about chicken farming, as opposed to some random member. This is a purpose that can be served even with a one-person caucus.


A.B. in Wendell, NC, asks: You wrote that the House would have 440 Members until the next reapportionment if Puerto Rico gained statehood. But what happens with electoral votes? Currently, of course, there are 538 (270 needed to win). Would it just go up to 543 (and 272 needed to win) and stay that way till the next reapportionment, or would they adjust states' EVs to keep it at 538?

V & Z answer: There would be 543 EVs. It's unconstitutional to have fewer EVs than members of Congress.

The last presidential election to be affected by this was the 1960 contest between John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon. JFK won 303 EVs, Nixon 219 and Harry F. Byrd 15. That adds up to 537 because there were two extras for Hawaii and Alaska, but Washington, DC, had not yet been granted its 3 EVs. By 1964, reapportionment had taken place, but the Twenty-Third Amendment had been adopted (1961), and so the total had settled on its current 538.

History

J.P.R. in Westminster, CO, asks: My mind is absolutely blown. I do not ever recall hearing that Congress didn't use to take its seats until 13 months after the election. I have so many questions.

Why was it finally decided that this should change? Was a constitutional amendment needed? (Which one was it, if so? My guess is it was changed when the inauguration for POTUS was moved from early March to late January, but my question would apply to that as well.) This was for both Senate and the House? Why was it this way for the legislative branch and not for the executive branch?

V & Z answer: There are three things to keep in mind. First is that for 150 years, the terms of both Congress (the House and Senate) and the president ended in March. The second is that long-distance travel was very onerous in that era. The third is that Washington, DC, was built on top of a swamp and nobody wanted to be there in summer unless they absolutely had to be.

As a result of these considerations, each sitting of Congress generally had a six-month session and then a 4-month session, with each beginning in December. So, for example, the Congress elected in November of 1822 sat from December 1, 1823 to May 27, 1824 and then again from December 6, 1824 to March 3, 1825.

By the 1930s, the travel problem had largely been solved by the advent of trains (and, later, planes). And the crappy summer weather problem had sorta been solved by the advent of air conditioning (though Congress still vacates town in August, even today). And so, the Twentieth Amendment (1933) changed it so that Congressional terms (House and Senate) begin on Jan. 3 and presidential terms begin on Jan. 20.


M.M. in San Diego, CA, asks: I have to ask: Was the Anti-Masonic Party the nutter conspiracy theorists of their day, or was Freemasonry really underhanded and deserving of suspicion then? The Masons always struck me as little more than a good ol' boys social club.

V & Z answer: There was more than a touch of nutty conspiracy theorizing, but the Anti-Masonic Party was basically a populist movement. That is to say, their defining characteristic was suspicion of, and hatred for, elites. The Freemasons were just a convenient symbol of "the elites."

The Anti-Masons definitely weren't "good ol' boys," since they were largely outsiders.


J.D. in Los Angeles, CA, asks: You often use the quote, "Every senator looks in the mirror and sees a president," but do you know who the original source was?

A quick Google search brings up a single blog entry that claims the source is a book written by Al Gore Sr. (eponymous father of the vice-president) but any further Internet sleuthing has resisted my attempts at confirmation short of buying the book.

Your website is my favorite source of politics-related trivia, but I would be remiss to repeat what I learn from you guys without proper attribution. Thanks!

V & Z answer: Unfortunately, the original source is probably unknowable. Even Gore Sr. did not claim to have coined the phrase; in his book he referred to the line as an "old congressional cloakroom joke." And it's known that Lyndon B. Johnson used the line at least 5 years before Gore's book was published in 1970.

Inasmuch as there was only one senator-turned-president between 1889 and 1945 (Warren Harding), and then four of the next five presidents (Harry S. Truman, John F. Kennedy, Johnson, and Richard Nixon) were former senators, it is probable the line emerged sometime in the 1950s or early 1960s, and then caught on. In particular, the subtext of the joke, namely that the person looking in the mirror is fooling themselves, could well have been snark at the expense of Truman (who was seen by some as not having "earned" the presidency) or the expense of JFK (who was seen by some as too young or too Catholic to be president).


R.M. in Norwich, CT, asks: Not to nitpick a fine opening statement, but didn't Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) get the year George Washington resigned his commission wrong?

V & Z answer: We assume this is in reference to Sean Spicer confusing the dates of D-Day and Pearl Harbor. In response, we will point out two things.

First, (Z) has multiple degrees in U.S. history. And while he would be willing to bet everything he has that D-Day was June 6, 1944, and that Pearl Harbor was attacked on Dec. 7, 1941, he doesn't know for sure when Washington laid down his commission, because that's a much more obscure piece of information. The Revolutionary War ended in 1783, and Washington probably resigned his commission shortly thereafter. But he might have waited until 1784, since it was nearly winter when the war ended.

Second, anyone making noise about Cheney's error (ahem, right-wing media) is just showing that they weren't paying attention. Here's what the Representative actually said:

There in the rotunda, these brave men and women rested beneath paintings depicting the earliest scenes of our Republic, including one painted in 1824 depicting George Washington resigning his commission, voluntarily relinquishing power, handing control of the Continental Army back to Congress. With this noble act, Washington set the indispensable example of the peaceful transfer of power.

Cheney obviously did not say Washington resigned his commission in 1824. She said that the painting of him resigning his commission was made in 1824. And that is correct, "General George Washington Resigning His Commission" was completed by John Trumbull in 1824.

Gallimaufry

M.A. in Knoxville, TN, asks: We're all familiar with the "man in the middle of the map", where Minnesota down to Louisiana looks like the side profile of a man wearing boots. Many years ago I read about there being a second person, up in the northeast area. That was so long ago I don't even remember where I read it, and I've been unable to find anything about it since, despite having good Google search skills. I can vaguely see a figure there, with Maine as the head, New York and New Jersey forming legs and Massachusetts maybe being a hand. (Looks a bit like it's shooting marbles.)

Are either of you aware of this second figure and what exactly it's said to be doing? I'd love to put this minor mystery to rest.

V & Z answer: Just so everyone is on the same page, the man in the middle is shown here:

A map that shows Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri, Arkansas and Louisiana

Sometimes, Tennessee and Kentucky are included so it looks like he's serving a plate of food.

As to your mystery, we think you might be recalling the wrong part of the country. The man in the middle is meant as a mnemonic to help students learn the states. And so, he's usually called MIMAL, which are the first letters of all those states, in order. The other "man in the map" mnemonic we are aware of is not in the Northeast, but instead in the mountain states:

It shows Montana and Idaho and says 'Face of the old Mon (man) who says I don't know Idaho.'

We hope that is what you were thinking of.


J.M. in Silver Spring, MD, asks: So, how old are Otto and Flash? In the picture, Flash (with what looks like a lot of grey on his face and paws) looks much older.

V & Z answer: Flash does have more grey, and so does look older. However, as with humans, that's just genetics, and is not necessarily instructive. In fact, the two dogs are only 5 days different in age, and Otto is actually the older. He was born on Dec. 20, 2010, while Flash was born on Dec. 25, 2010. So, they both turned 12 last week. And they therefore got two rounds of juicy beef bones.

And to answer the question that always comes next; no, they are not from the same litter. Even dogs don't have 5 days' worth of labor. What happened was that they both began attending the dog park at the same, age-appropriate time (around 9 months), and so (Z) and Otto became friendly with Flash and Flash's owner Bob. After all, same breed, same age. And eventually, Bob (who was retired), became Otto's dogsitter when (Z) was teaching. When Bob passed away suddenly 3 years ago, Flash came to live with (Z) and Otto.


L.C. in Amherst, MA, asks: My initial response to the final answer to the question of bad politicians was to wonder who the other L.C. in Amherst is, but then I remembered that I was the one who compared Donald Trump to the former mayor of Toronto. However, that was about 6 or 7 years ago. Do you keep an archive of comments and questions you decide not to use when they come in for possible future deployment?

V & Z answer: We do keep all the comments and questions, though not for the reason you speculate. We keep them because sometimes people forget to give us their initials and/or location. Most of the time when that happens, we can find the correct information in some other message they have sent in.

In your case, it took us a few moments to figure out what happened, since we do not often run months-old or years-old messages. And we certainly wouldn't have done so here, since it dishonestly represents your message as a response to the question, which it was not. As it happens, we set it up so that the e-mails submitted on the question had the subject line "Bad Candidates." And when we were choosing answers, we searched for all e-mails with "Bad Can" as the beginning of their subject line. We did not notice, until you sent this question, that the subject line of your original e-mail was actually "Bad Canadians." Oops.

Reader Question of the Week

Here is the question we put before readers last week:

S.A. in Salisbury, MD, asks: Could provide examples of unpopular presidential decisions which later have come to be viewed as the right choice?

And here some excellent answers we got in response:

T.B. in Leon County, FL: "Seward's Folly!"—the purchase of Alaska in 1867. While neither Abraham Lincoln nor Andrew Johnson get the credit (or blame), it was under their presidencies that Secretary of State William Seward negotiated the purchase. I'm sure the president was involved somehow...


T.K. in Warsaw, IN: One good example, I think, is FDR's decision to endorse the Europe First strategy in World War II, where U.S. forces would be concentrated against Nazi Germany, while a smaller portion would be deployed against the Japanese in the Pacific. At the time, American public opinion was that the Japanese were the biggest threat to America, and that the Nazis were less dangerous and savage than the Japanese. Americans wanted revenge and blood for Pearl Harbor, now.

FDR was proven right; Germany was the greatest threat of the Axis, with the ability to directly threaten both Great Britain and Russia; and supply lines to the European theater were shorter. American propaganda efforts did a very good job in swaying American citizens to support Europe First, getting them to hate and fear the Nazis (despite there being plenty of pro-German sentiment in America), so FDR suffered little backlash compared to what he would today, if a similar situation occurred.


S.B. in Portland, OR: I propose that Warren G. Harding's pardon of Eugene Debs, while unpopular and opposed by his advisors, was the right decision for the healing of the country and demonstrated Harding's greatest strength... which was also his greatest weakness. I've always admired Harding for his willingness to believe in the best of people, even when that trust turned out to be wrong.


J.L. in Chicago, IL: I doubt I will be the only one to submit this decision but President Truman's 1948 executive order to integrate the military had only 26% support at the time.


L.T.G. in Bexley, OH: On April 11, 1951, Harry S. Truman relieved General Douglas MacArthur, Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers in Korea, of all his commands. This may well be one of the least popular decisions any president has ever made. The clamor surrounding MacArthur's return to the United States rivaled, and perhaps surpassed, that for Charles Lindbergh's flight and Dwight D. Eisenhower's return from Europe. MacArthur's address to Congress, though it now seems self-serving and bathetic, was wildly successful; in the words of Truman's biographer Alonzo Hamby, "[t]he ovation was akin to an eruption; the congressional eulogies that followed were as overheated as lava from Vesuvius." After firing MacArthur, Truman's approval rating never exceeded 33 percent, and any thoughts he might have had of running in 1952 were quelled.

But MacArthur had it coming. He was self-aggrandizing, vainglorious, and insubordinate. Two examples of the latter: announcing his own peace terms without consulting with his superiors in Washington and, most famously, disregarding instructions and pressing north of the Yalu River, thus bringing in masses of Chinese troops and forcing a retreat to the thirty-eighth parallel. His unsuccessful maneuvering to secure the Republican nomination in 1944, while still an active field commander, at best showed questionable judgment. (Winfield Scott and George McClellan were on active duty, but did not have field commands, when they ran.) President Roosevelt said that MacArthur and Huey Long were the most dangerous men in America. Notwithstanding MacArthur's occasionally brilliant strategizing, the main objection one can make to Truman's action was that he hadn't canned MacArthur earlier.


D.O. in Portland, OR: All of LBJ's Civil Rights moves were unpopular with large chunks of the population, though within a couple decades those people largely deny which side they took in the struggle.


C.S. in Charlotte, NC: Many consider Gerald Ford's pardon of Richard Nixon to have cost him the election in 1976. It may have. With that being said, it still probably was the right thing to do. While Ford had pardoned Nixon before the 1974 elections, in which the GOP got hammered badly, it was clear that Nixon's and the GOP's popularity were damaged. Unlike a capital crime, Nixon's shenanigans were political and his resigning and destroying his legacy ensured his ignominy for the remainder of his life. It was clear he was finished as a political figure and partisanship was a bit more fluid than it is today, so even Republicans had had enough. The country needed to move on. Ford provided that. Had he not it would have hung over his presidency. Ford's pardon provided closure. In the end, Ford's reputation was yet intact enough that he was seriously considered to be Ronald Reagan's VP.

With that being said, I think there is an opportunity for Joe Biden to do the same with Donald Trump if the situation arises. I am not sure Biden would do it before the 2024 elections, although it would be the ultimate baller move if he did. Eventually, we will get to a denouement with Trump in his legal battles (Federal). There would be a strong incentive for the success of a pardon, even if the left would scream bloody murder, for two reasons: (1) much like Nixon, it would spare the country all of the drama; (2) on a political level, it certainly would put the GOP and the Always-Trumpers wing in quite a pickle. The GOP would tear itself apart trying to react to it. As most know, acceptance of a pardon generally implies some degree of guilt. Truly innocent people generally will defend themselves in court (and in the public eye) as far as they practically can. In Trump's case, he is probably guilty of many things and he may reach a point of no return with his legal cases. Biden would only offer a pardon if it looked like Trump was almost certainly going to be convicted of something. The left would scream, and some on the far right would too, but no future GOP candidate would be able to defend Trump and expect to win a national election. There may still be 15-20% of GOP voters that wouldn't accept the legitimacy of a pardon (or the alleged crimes) and the question is what they do afterward. Independent and very soft GOP voters would probably approve of the pardon wholeheartedly. Like Ford, it would be forever cemented in Biden's legacy (along with all the other stuff he did). That, and assuming Russia eventually gets defeated in Ukraine, would make Biden perhaps one of the most consequential presidents since World War II. It would be taught in Constitutional Law classes everywhere. Future E-V websites would be writing about it, as we are now.


A.B. in Wendell, NC: I keep coming back to Jimmy Carter installing solar panels on the White House (which were taken down under Reagan). And then solar panels got installed again under Barack Obama (and those are still there).

So one might point to that as a presidential decision that was unpopular and later proved to be right, particularly given that the new solar panels stayed there even while the White House was occupied by The Orange One.


M.J.M. in Lexington, KY: Perhaps Carter's "giving" the Panama Canal back?


Here is the question for next week:

S.B. in Laurel, DE, asks: In your item "What's a Woman?," you relayed a list of legal definitions that The Independent Women's forum is working on and several legitimate points of how difficult it would be to enforce. Rather than (again) defend what it means to be a transgender woman, I'd love it if you posed your question to your readers. I'm eager to hear what your cisgender readers think, especially the women. What is a woman?

Submit your answers here! As per usual, we won't include full names. But if you choose to include your gender identity with your response, we'll include that in the answer.


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