Tim Hsu

When President Joe Biden announced Sunday he was dropping out of the presidential race, a chorus of Democratic Party officials breathed a sigh of relief. 

In recent weeks, Democratic bigwigs ranging from Nancy Pelosi to Barack Obama had been ratcheting up a pressure campaign to get Biden to step aside. Back in 2022, former Obama adviser and current political pundit David Axelrod was one of the first prominent Democrats to suggest Biden should withdraw. But yesterday’s news left him with mixed emotions. 

“When I got the news yesterday, I was very, very sad,” Axelrod told Today, Explained co-host Sean Rameswaram Monday morning. “I thought he was a tremendous asset in the White House. Always enjoyed being with him, always appreciated the points that he was making. I think history will be a lot kinder to him than voters are right now, for the things that he’s accomplished.”

Listen to Sean Rameswaram’s full conversation with Axelrod and follow Today, Explained on Apple podcasts, Spotify, Pandora, or wherever you find podcasts. Below is a transcript of their discussion, edited for length and clarity. 

Sean Rameswaram 

You were part of this mounting call for [President Biden] to step aside. Did you think that was actually in the cards? Did you think the party was capable of what it’s going through right now?

David Axelrod 

I thought it was almost inevitable after the debate. The debate kind of crystallized what had been a big and growing problem, which was doubts about his fitness to serve another four years. Those were not just magnified, but calcified by the debate. 

And then you had the bookend of Trump and the assassination attempt. And his preternatural marketing instincts to find the precise spot to take the hero pose. The two things read weakness and strength, which was the essence of the Trump message that the world was out of control. “Biden is not in command. He’s weak. Trump is strong. Vote for Trump.” That was their whole campaign. 

Now they have a complication because they don’t have Biden. So, it does change the nature of the race. 

Sean Rameswaram

A lot of the people who were calling for Biden to step aside are now jubilant, if not endorsing Vice President Harris. Your friend and former colleague, former President Barack Obama, has not yet done that. What do you think is going on there?

David Axelrod

I don’t think he wanted to prescribe for the party what the party should do, but rather be available to be a force for pulling the party together once the party made its choice. I think what’s very clear as we sit here this morning, the day after the president made his announcement, is that Kamala Harris is going to be the nominee of the Democratic Party. I don’t think there’s any real debate about that. 

She very quickly consolidated support in a way that should actually inspire some confidence, because that’s a political task and she did it. She did it very well. I think the last of the prospective opponents will endorse her and she’ll move on to the business of choosing a vice presidential candidate.

Sean Rameswaram 

So you don’t think she’s going to do what the Republicans did and wait until the DNC to announce who’s going to be on the ticket with her?

David Axelrod

I don’t think she can, because they are committed to an early vote of the delegates to nominate two candidates in order to accommodate all the states filing deadlines for the fall ballot. They’re scheduled to meet next week to codify the ticket. I don’t think that they really can put this off until the convention. I anticipate that we’ll know relatively quickly who the vice presidential nominee is going to be.

Sean Rameswaram

You host a podcast with a Republican strategist named Mike Murphy, who’s anti-Trump, but he’s one of the few voices saying that it’s happening too fast with Harris. Do you understand his perspective on that?

David Axelrod

I do, but I think that she would be the nominee if there were a process or if there were not a process, for a variety of reasons. 

One, she has more of a relationship with the delegates to the convention. Biden-Harris delegates were chosen by the Biden campaign. And so they’re naturally going to gravitate towards her. The composition of those delegates favors her. I think she might have benefited from more of a competition just to show that she could win. But I get Mike’s point of view. 

One of the reasons why I spoke out as early as I did about my concerns about the president moving forward was that had he made this decision last year, we would have had a Democratic primary. In the Democratic primary is how you pressure test these candidates. Remember, Ron DeSantis was viewed as a behemoth in the fall of 2022, and then he had to go through the nominating battle, and he ended up not faring as well. You do find out about people through that process. That said, she’s been vetted quite a bit. She ran for president. She’s been vice president for three and a half years. 

No matter what level of politics you’re at, there’s no training for it. There’s no simulator you can pop into to find out what the pressures of a presidential campaign are like. In many ways, the campaign simulates the sort of relentless pressure that presidents themselves will feel. She’s experienced that, she has been swimming in the deep end of the pool, and that, to me, is a big thing. 

The other thing is she has apprenticed. She has been in those rooms. She has been in those meetings. She knows a lot about what the presidency entails. That, too, is something that’s very hard to learn, on the fly. So I think she’s got a lot of arguments on her side for this.

Sean Rameswaram

It seems like the Republicans really want to come after Biden, and now Harris, probably, on immigration, on inflation. Does Harris have the same weaknesses as Biden there, if not even more so?

David Axelrod

Well, they will try to depict her as the immigration czar, and I’m sure they’ve got about 100 ads in the can on this. But the truth is, she’s not Joe Biden. She can chart her own course now. 

I’m old enough to remember the ’68 campaign when Lyndon Johnson quit. Ultimately, his vice president, Hubert Humphrey, became the presidential candidate, and the heavy burden of Vietnam hung over him. He ended up losing by a point, but he also was like 20 points behind when he got nominated. And if that race had gone another month, another week, I should say he would have won. So, you know, she needs to chart her own course. Talk about what she would do. I think there are also points on this immigration issue that are vulnerabilities for Trump.

Sean Rameswaram

Are you looking forward to that debate?

David Axelrod

Oh, yes. You know, what’s interesting is that the addled old man on the platform is not going to be Joe Biden this time.

Sean Rameswaram

Kamala Harris is a historic vice president. She’ll be an even more historic president, obviously. Do you think she leans into that, or do you think she leans into the issues? She leans into Donald Trump’s various criminal battles, what have you.

David Axelrod

Listen, when Barack Obama was running for president, we never talked about the historic nature of his candidacy because we thought that was obvious. Others might be talking about it, but he always said, I am proudly of the Black community, but I’m not limited to it, and I’m not running to be the first Black president or the Black president. I’m running to be president of the United States. The people who step forward and say, you can’t bypass her because she’s the first Black woman vice president? They were diminishing her. 

The case they should have been making and should be making today is why she’s the best candidate, why she has the best chance to win, what she brings to this race. I know there’s a lot of enthusiasm among some folks about the historic nature of the race. But there are a lot of voters for whom other things are more important. And they want to know, are we going to have someone who understands our lives and is fighting for us? The more she focuses on that, I think the greater her chances of success.

Sean Rameswaram 

You started saying that the news yesterday made you sad, but you obviously helped turn hope into a political strategy in 2008. Do you feel hopeful right now?

David Axelrod 

I do, because I think that what was not a race yesterday is a race today. I see the enthusiasm that the vice president has generated in the first 24 hours. She raised $46 million in a matter of hours, online and small donations. That’s a record. It’s a gauge of enthusiasm which has been absent. So I am encouraged by what I see. It’s better to have hope than despair. And this morning, a lot of Democrats have hope that they didn’t have yesterday morning. 

President Joe Biden just relinquished his claim on the Democratic nomination and handed it to Vice President Kamala Harris.

Since his disastrous debate performance last month, it has been clear that Biden could best prevent Donald Trump from retaking power by withdrawing from the presidential race. More than 70 percent of voters consider Biden unfit to seek another term in office. His poll numbers in swing states have fallen sharply in recent weeks, while the Democrats’ internal data has shown Trump only narrowly trailing in blue states such as Minnesota, New Mexico, and New Jersey. 

Plenty of candidates in American history have closed larger polling gaps than Biden’s in a campaign’s last four months. But in recent weeks, the president repeatedly demonstrated a gross inability to effectively communicate, with each public performance generating multiple misstatements or brain freezes that reinforced the public’s doubts about his cognitive functioning. 

Biden was undoubtedly right to step aside, but the wisdom of his decision to immediately endorse Harris — rather than clearing the way for a more open competition for the nomination at next month’s convention — is less clear.

After all, the vice president has many liabilities as a candidate, and the Democrats boast multiple popular swing-state governors whose hypothetical nomination might ease the party’s path to an Electoral College majority. Given the stakes of keeping Trump out of power, Democratic convention delegates may have been justified in picking whichever ticket seemed most likely to bring victory in November. 

Nevertheless, I think Biden made the right call. If there were some mechanism for instantly achieving party unity around nominating Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer or Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro — or one of the party’s other top-tier talents — then Democrats would be wise to take it. But no such mechanism exists. 

Failing to rally around Harris would have left Democrats bereft of a nominee until late August, giving Trump a month to campaign unopposed. And the vice president would have been highly likely to prevail at that convention anyway, given her official status as Biden’s heir apparent and the democratic legitimacy that comes with it.

At this point, it is unlikely that the most promising candidates on the Democratic bench would have chosen to compete, given the risks of alienating key constituencies within the party and the widespread sense that Republicans will be favored to win in November, irrespective of whom the Democrats nominate. 

Biden made a mistake in seeking a second term. And he made another by refusing to bow out swiftly once the debate made his unfitness plain. But on Sunday, he did the best he could to reverse some of the damage. It’s now incumbent on Harris — and all other Democrats — to put together a campaign strong enough to reverse the rest.

The (reasonable but probably wrong) case against Kamala

Before examining why endorsing Harris was (probably) the right call, it’s worth taking stock of the case for an open convention. 

That argument boils down to three fundamental claims: 1) Harris is not an especially strong candidate, 2) nominating the vice president prevents Democrats from getting a clean break from Biden’s vulnerabilities, and 3) the party has several strong alternative candidates.

All these claims seem right to me. 

Harris currently has a net disapproval rating of roughly negative 12 percent. And her electoral track record is unimpressive.  In her first statewide election in 2010, Harris beat a Republican in the race for California attorney general by less than 1 percentage point (two years earlier, Barack Obama had bested John McCain by more than 23 points in that state). In 2020, Harris began her run for the Democratic nomination with strong fundraising and an early surge in the polls. Yet her campaign collapsed before the primary’s first ballots were cast.

Further, as a Californian whose Senate voting record put her on the left wing of her caucus, Harris is not an ideal figurehead for a party anxious to appeal to Trump-curious Midwesterners. 

Making matters worse, Harris’s candidacy did not fall out of a coconut tree. It exists in the context of her current boss’s unpopularity and conspicuous cognitive decline. For many voters, Biden has become a byword for inflation and infirmity. A Democratic nominee with no connection to the Biden administration would have given the party distance from both of these liabilities: They would have faced much less of a compulsion to defend Biden’s record, while confronting few questions about their own hypothetical complicity in concealing the president’s frailty.

On both these fronts, Harris could find herself saddled with her boss’s baggage.

Finally, the Democrats have some formidable politicians on their bench. Pennsylvania’s Josh Shapiro and Michigan’s Gretchen Whitmer both boast majority approval in their critical swing states. 

Democrats would likely be better off with one of those governors as their standard-bearer, all else being equal. But this does not mean that the party would have been better off holding a completely open convention.

An open convention probably would have resulted in Harris’s nomination

The problems with withholding endorsements from Harris and pursuing an open convention are threefold.

First, the Democratic Party is poorly positioned to organize and legitimize a contested convention. It has been more than half a century since the Democrats chose a nominee through convention wrangling, rather than purely through the primary process. In that time, the institutional structure of the party has dramatically changed.

In the mid-20th century, Democratic delegates consisted in no small part of the leaders of trade unions and urban machines — individuals who were directly accountable to mass constituencies. This made it possible for them to credibly speak on behalf of key Democratic voting blocs. 

Meanwhile, since contested conventions were routine occurrences in American politics at that time, there was a great deal of institutional knowledge about how to broker such competitions and reach consensus. 

Today, by contrast, Democratic delegates are largely volunteers who speak for no one beyond the primary voters in their areas. In this context, a contested convention could be chaotic, and its nominee lacking in democratic legitimacy. 

To be sure, anointing Harris is not especially democratic either. She was not elected by primary voters, any more than any other non-Biden Democrat. But the US electorate did vote to make her the president’s heir apparent, and this gives her a source of legitimacy that any other selection would lack. 

Second, and more importantly, failing to coalesce behind a nominee today would have left Democrats without a standard-bearer for a month. This would inhibit fundraising, at a time when the Trump-Vance ticket is taking in serious cash. And it would mean ceding swing-state airwaves to the Republican message — or else, running exclusively negative advertising — for the next four weeks. This is especially risky in a context where Democrats face the challenge of introducing a new nominee to the country. 

As Biden’s default replacement, having been elected to fill in for him in the event of his death or disability, Harris was uniquely capable of becoming her party’s consensus nominee in the absence of a protracted process.

Finally, Harris would have been highly likely to win an open convention, anyway. Before Biden dropped out, South Carolina Rep. Jim Clyburn — a highly influential member of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) — let it be known that he would favor Harris were Biden to drop out. 

Due to her uniquely high name recognition, meanwhile, Harris would likely outperform any other individual Democratic candidate in opinion polls. And as such polls, in combination with her title, rendered her the frontrunner for the nomination, various Democratic interest groups would have had an incentive to line up behind her, so as to ensure their influence in the likely Democratic nominee’s hypothetical administration.

Assuming that congressional caucuses, Democratic interest groups, and poll respondents did indeed all indicate their preference for Harris, Democratic delegates would almost certainly have felt compelled to back her.

Most critically, it seems unlikely that Shapiro, Whitmer, or other top-tier Democratic talents would have entered the fray in any case. For the reasons already stated, any non-Harris candidate would have faced an uphill battle for the nomination. And merely trying to win that nod would have come at the cost of potentially alienating constituencies that they would need to win during a future primary: A white candidate hoping to one day compete in the South Carolina primary might be wise to avoid being the person who tried and failed to block the first African-American vice president from claiming a nomination that was hers to inherit, at least from the perspective of some Black Democratic elected officials. 

What’s more, even if the gamble of challenging Harris paid off initially, the prize would ultimately have been the mixed-blessing of serving as the Democratic nominee in a year when the Republican ticket is favored. We cannot know exactly how polls and betting markets would have shifted had Democrats endorsed Shapiro or Whitmer. But Republicans have long held an advantage over Democrats this cycle on the issues most important to voters, chief of all inflation and immigration. 

Given the balance of risks and benefits here, an ambitious and promising younger Democrat might prefer to sit back and position themselves for 2028 or 2032. At the very least, no swing-state Democrat let word of their interest in potentially running leak in the weeks since Biden’s bad debate. 

Harris may be stronger than she looks

Finally, although Harris has weaknesses, she is not devoid of political gifts. At 59, she is young by the standards of American politics. She is an able speaker, whose recent appearances have brimmed with more vitality and coherence than either Biden or Trump have mustered in years. Her recent remarks debunking the GOP’s claims of being the party of “unity” were especially effective.

Good stuff! pic.twitter.com/oJn05mzOdF

— Tim Hogan (@timjhogan) July 18, 2024

Harris does have a negative approval rating. But it is nevertheless better than Biden’s. And the public’s disapproval of her is less strongly held. As the political consultant Sarah Longwell has reported, voters in focus groups tend to have a negative impression of Harris — but it is just that, an impression, rather than a deep-seated evaluation. They do not know much about her and are aware of that fact.

Today, Harris’s political brand is essentially indistinguishable from Biden’s. Many of her detractors may therefore be simply giving pollsters their views of the president. Those who are actually familiar with Harris, meanwhile, may see her through the lens of her 2020 primary campaign, during which she joined many other Democratic candidates in a bidding war for the allegiance of the party’s left wing. Now that she has been vaulted directly into the general election, Harris has the opportunity to reintroduce herself to the public in a manner tailored to the sensibilities of swing voters by, among other things, leaning into her experience as a “smart on crime” prosecutor. 

Thus, if she can nail her campaign’s rollout, it is possible that Harris would see her numbers significantly improve.

Put all of this together and the case for uniting around Kamala is clear: Democrats can line up behind Biden’s logical successor today, put an end to their party’s internal chaos, and begin the work of rehabilitating Harris’s image — or they can pursue a path that likely ends with the same outcome, only after a month of internal disorganization, discord, and subpar fundraising. 

The former isn’t a perfect option, but it was probably the best decision available to the Democrats at this late date. Joe Biden deserves credit for making it.

It seems former President George H.W. Bush felt the need for speed in the waters off Maine, where he kept a nearly 1,000 horsepower speedboat. And for the right price, someone else can experience its excitement.

The vessel is set to go up for auction on Thursday during the 2024 Presidential Salute auction in Houston, said Hutton Higgins, a spokesperson for the George & Barbara Bush Foundation.

Proceeds from selling the 38-foot speedboat “Fidelity V” will be used to expand offerings at the George H.W. Bush Presidential Library & Museum and The Bush School of Government & Public Service at Texas A&M University in College Station, Texas.

Bush purchased the 2011-model Fountain 38CC after both he and his son, former President George W. Bush, had left office.

The watercraft is emblazoned with a presidential seal and boasts three Mercury outboard engines that can propel the vessel to 75 mph. The boat was used in the North Atlantic waters off Kennebunkport, where the Texas family has a summer retreat on the Maine coast.

It’s the fifth of George H.W. Bush’s speedboats to bear the name Fidelity. The first is on display at the Bush library and museum, and the fourth is still in use in Kennebunkport, Higgins said.

The universe $\mathcal{E}$ of dead-ending partizan games has emerged as an important structure in the study of mis\`ere play. Here we attempt a systematic investigation of the structure of $\mathcal{E}$ and its subuniverses. We begin by showing that the dead-ends exhibit a rich "absolute" structure, in the sense that they behave identically in any universe in which they appear.

We will use this result to construct an uncountable family of dead-ending universes and show that they collectively admit an uncountable family of distinct comparison relations. We will then show that whenever the ends of a universe $\mathcal{U} \subset \mathcal{E}$ are computable, then there is a constructive test for comparison modulo $\mathcal{U}$.

Finally, we propose a new type of generalized simplest form that works for arbitrary universes (including universes that are not dead-ending), and that is computable whenever comparison modulo $\mathcal{U}$ is computable. In particular, this gives a complete constructive theory for subuniverses of $\mathcal{E}$ with computable ends. This theory has been implemented in cgsuite as a proof of concept.

As an application of these results, we will characterize the universe generated by mis\`ere Domineering, and we will compute the mis\`ere simplest forms of $2 \times n$ Domineering rectangles for small values of $n$.

The Monster Lie algebra $\mathfrak{m}$, which admits an action of the Monster finite simple group $\mathbb{M}$, was introduced by Borcherds as part of his work on the Conway-Norton Monstrous Moonshine conjecture. Here we construct an analog $G(\frak m)$ of a Lie group, or Kac-Moody group, associated to $\frak m$. The group $G(\frak m)$ is given by generators and relations, analogous to the Tits construction of a Kac-Moody group. In the absence of local nilpotence of the adjoint representation of $\frak m$, we introduce the notion of pro-summability of an infinite sum of operators. We use this to construct a complete pro-unipotent group $\widehat{U}^+$ of automorphisms of a completion $\widehat{\mathfrak{m}}=\frak n^-\ \oplus\ \frak h\ \oplus\ \widehat{\frak n}^+$ of $\mathfrak{m}$, where $\widehat{\frak n}^+$ is the formal product of the positive root spaces of $\frak m$. The elements of $\widehat{U}^+$ are pro-summable infinite series with constant term 1. The group $\widehat{U}^+$ has a subgroup $\widehat{U}^+_{\text{im}}$, which is an analog of a complete unipotent group corresponding to the positive imaginary roots of $\frak m$. We construct analogs Exp:$\widehat{\mathfrak{n}}^+\to\widehat{U}^+$ and Ad:$\widehat{U}^+ \to Aut(\widehat{\frak{n}}^+)$ of the classical exponential map and adjoint representation. Although the group $G(\mathfrak m)$ is not a group of automorphisms, it contains the analog of a unipotent subgroup $U^+$, which conjecturally acts as automorphisms of $\widehat{\mathfrak{m}}$.

We also construct groups of automorphisms of $\mathfrak{m}$, of certain $\mathfrak{gl}_2$ subalgebras of $\mathfrak{m}$, of the completion $\widehat{\mathfrak{m}}$ and of similar completions of $\frak m$ that are conjecturally identified with subgroups of~$G(\mathfrak m)$.

I had wanted to end my work evening on the post I published just after 8 PM. Let me conclude on this note. Tonight's revelations (by which I mean those which preceded Michael Flynn's resignation) make it even more clear that there is much more going on out of view than we realize.

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Donald Trump’s electoral map seeks to turn a lot of blue states red.

His political director told Republican lawmakers last week that he’d target 17 states, including typically Democratic-voting states of Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania.

Trump later added the reliably blue states of Washington, Oregon and Connecticut to the mix, according to Rep. Peter King, who was at a meeting with the presumptive Republican nominee.

And in a meeting with Republican Senators, Trump promised to win Illinois too.

That’s not to mention New York, California and New Jersey, three Democratic heavyweights that he previously said he would win.

But the Trump campaign and the Republican National Committee aren’t airing TV ads and sending paid staffers to all of these states, a tipoff that some of Trump’s predictions are little more than bluster.

Which blue states can Trump win? Here’s a look at the evidence for seven of them.

Washington

Claim: “We can win; we’re going to win Washington state.” — Trump, speaking to a crowd in Washington in early May, a claim he again made last week.

Evidence: Washington state hasn’t backed a Republican presidential candidate since 1984. Clinton led Trump by 12 percentage points in a poll in mid-June. Trump’s political director is not focusing on the state, and the Republican National Committee has not sent any paid staffers.

Advantage: Clinton. There’s no reason to believe Trump will win Washington.

Oregon

Claim: “In November, we are going to carry your state. Some people say it’s inclined toward the Democrats. And then they tell me, ‘Mr. Trump, you have something we’ve never seen before. You’re going to win this state.'” — Trump, speaking in early May, a claim he again made last week.

Evidence: Oregon hasn’t backed a Republican presidential candidate since 1984. Clinton led Trump by 11 percentage points in a poll in May. Trump’s political director is not focusing on the state, and the Republican National Committee has not sent any paid staffers.

Advantage: Clinton. Again, there’s no evidence Trump will win Oregon.

New Jersey

Claim: “I love New Jersey. I am New Jersey. Like a second home. I have property there. I have a lot of employees there. And frankly, I think we’re going to do well.” — Trump, in an appearance on Hannity in early June.

Evidence: New Jersey hasn’t backed a Republican presidential candidate since 1988. Clinton led Trump by 12 percentage points in a poll in late June. Trump’s political director is not focusing on the state, and the Republican National Committee has not sent any paid staffers. The state went for Republican Gov. Chris Christie twice, but his approval ratings are at an all-time low since he endorsed Trump.

Advantage: Clinton. There’s no reason to believe that Trump will win New Jersey.

Illinois

Claim: “I put so many states in play: Michigan being one. Illinois.” — Trump, speaking in late May, a claim he made again last week.

Evidence: Illinois hasn’t backed a Republican presidential candidate since 1988. Clinton led Trump by 25 percentage points in a poll in early March. Trump’s own political director is not focusing on the state, and the Republican National Committee has not sent any paid staffers.

Advantage: Clinton. The poll is more out-of-date than in some other states, but there’s little evidence things have changed since then.

Maine

Claim: “I will win states that no Republican would even run in.” — Trump, speaking with the Associated Press in May for a story that included his Maine efforts.

Evidence: Maine hasn’t backed a Republican presidential candidate since 1988. Clinton led Trump by seven percentage points in a poll in mid June. Trump’s political director is targeting the state, though the Republican National Committee has not sent any paid staffers. The state twice elected Republican Gov. Paul LePage, who once said he was Trump before Trump was popular.

Advantage: Clinton, with a caveat. She’ll win statewide, but Trump has a shot at picking up an elector in the Second District. (Maine awards an elector to the popular-vote winner in each congressional district.)

Michigan

Claim: “I’m going to win Michigan by a lot. Republicans don’t go there, horror show, closing factories there.” — Trump, speaking in late May.

Evidence: Michigan hasn’t backed a Republican presidential candidate since 1988. Clinton led Trump by four percentage points in a poll in late May. Political forecasters say the state leans Democratic but is not a lock. Trump’s political director is targeting the state, while the Republican National Committee has sent 34 paid staffers.

Advantage: Clinton. The state still leans Democratic and Trump has a long way to go to swing it in his direction.

Pennsylvania

Claim: “I think we’re going to win Pennsylvania easily.” — Trump, speaking in late May.

Evidence: Pennsylvania hasn’t backed a Republican presidential candidate since 1988. Clinton and Trump were essentially tied in a poll in early June. Forecasters say the state leans Democratic but is not a lock. Trump’s political director is targeting the state, while the Republican National Committee has 53 paid staffers here for the presidential race, while

Advantage: Toss-up. Among the seven states on this list, Trump probably has his best shot here, though Democrats have an advantage among registered voters.

The second season gets more in depth, for better and for worse.

When Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt was first announced, I remember feeling deeply nervous.

A show about a kidnapped and abused woman escaping the bunker she was held in for years would be hard to pull off even as a drama. Making the series a comedy would require a hell of a tightrope walk between making light of an awful thing and taking its scenario too seriously.

The first season (released in 2015) quickly made clear that Tina Fey and Robert Carlock's second series — their first was the much loved NBC sitcom 30 Rock — was up to the challenge.

As played to defiantly sunny perfection by Ellie Kemper, Kimmy Schmidt is an effervescent heroine worth rooting for. As that first season continued, the supporting cast made Kimmy's bright new world even richer, with Tituss Burgess (as Kimmy's roommate Titus Andromedon) in particular turning out one hilarious line reading after another.

The second season takes Kimmy, Titus, their landlady Lillian (Carol Kane), and Kimmy's old boss Jacqueline (Jane Krakowski) and throws them even further down the rabbit hole of the series' scrappy New York City.

Increased running times for each episode (about which more in a bit) make the second season feel longer than the first — I can't recommend binging this run of episodes.

But season two is so dense with jokes that finishing it doesn't mean you've necessarily caught all of the punchlines. They layer on top of each other and twist into something more bizarre and perverted than you could ever have hoped for. In fact, watching it all at once to file this review just made me wish I could go more slowly to catch them all.

So just like the first season, season two isn't flawless. It can drag on for the sake of cramming in another joke, and there are a few plots that lose their punch by being too on the nose. Most of it, though, is wonderfully weird — and even kind of poignant.

The best thing season two does is let its characters grow

Netflix

Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt's best moments come when the characters take a step back from joking about their shortcomings, and acknowledge their problems for real.

Kimmy's issues run deep, which makes sense. Again, she was kidnapped and held in an underground bunker for 15 years. But while the first season acknowledged her problems, it didn't dissect them, and the second season's willingness to do so makes for some of the show's best moments.

To delve into Kimmy's issues, Fey joins the cast as Andrea, a therapist who swings between straitlaced professionalism and wreaking drunk havoc on Kimmy's life. It's hilarious, until it becomes clear that her running marathons and eating shrimp salads by day can't the fact that Andrea is a raging alcoholic.

Fey and Kemper are excellent together, as Kimmy gets entangled in Andrea's life to the point that the two are basically giving each other therapy. Andrea's advice — drunk or not — even gets Kimmy to confront her own refusal to deal with what happened to her. It's surprisingly poignant moment for a story that also features someone slurping vodka out of a Camelbak strapped to her body.

Netflix

Then there's Dierdre, a seemingly perfect wife-slash-socialite who tries to make Jacqueline her nemesis. Deirdre fears she's wasting her smarts on throwing charity balls and desperately wants to feel something, anything. She's also played by the incredibly good Anna Camp, who gives the character a manic bloodlust that's so much fun to watch that she often outshines the reliably great Krakowski.

Just as in the first season, there are so many other fun guest cameos that I wouldn't want to ruin other surprises for you. But trust: Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt has one of the deepest Rolodexes in comedy, and it continues to use it brilliantly.

But no matter how many great choices Kimmy Schmidt makes, it still could've used a sharper eye towards paring down some of its more scattered instincts.

Unfortunately, this season could have used more of an edit

Netflix

Kimmy Schmidt was originally developed as an NBC sitcom (and, indeed, NBC is still the studio that produces the series). Thus, the first season is tightly edited, packing in jokes and only splitting stories when strictly necessary.

But the second season was completely developed for Netflix, where run times don't matter. Accordingly, most of the second season's episodes clock in around 30 minutes — and you can feel the weight of those extra minutes as plots drag on just for the sake of including yet another joke.

Even aside for jokes, though, the show's ballooning episode length also leaves room for a few side tangent storylines that don't add much of anything at all.

For (the most egregious) example: You might have already heard about the season's third episode, which has Titus mount a one-man show as his alter ego from a past life, a Japanese geisha, and get a world of shit online from a petulant advocacy group. The ensuing back and forth between Titus and angry Asian bloggers is jarring, ugly, and confusing.

On the surface of it, "Kimmy Goes to a Play!" calls back to controversies surrounding all-white productions of The Mikado, but the whole storyline is impossible not to think of as a middle finger to the critical backlash Kimmy Schmidt got in its first season for revealing that Krakaowski's character is supposed to be Native American.

It's never clear if the show considers all criticism to be mindless and pointlessly myopic, or if it's arguing that good intentions — in this case, Titus's — matter. Both, probably?

But with only lazy "what do we do if we're not offended?!" jokes to go on, the episode doesn't have much to say outside of basic jokes about the internet, and you can tell it's trying so hard to make a larger point. There's absolutely material to be mined from circular internet debates and kneejerk outrage culture, but "Kimmy Goes to a Play!" doesn't find it.

What's most frustrating about a botched storyline like this is that when Kimmy Schmidt is good, it's very often great.

Kimmy Schmidt's second season is at its best when it deals with its characters at their most insecure

Netflix

Last season, it was all Kimmy could do to get through the day without revealing her secret past as a "mole woman." But now that her secret is officially out, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt isn't just about Kimmy surviving. It's about learning to thrive, in a more significant way than just getting through the day — and the same holds true for just about everyone else.

As Lillian, Carol Kane has always stuck out a little. She mostly just sat on Kimmy's stoop and yelled at passersby for the fun of it in season one, and Kane's slower delivery has never quite gelled with Kimmy Schmidt's lightning-fast repartee. But Kane at least gets more to do this season, as Lillian launches a doomed pushback against gentrification.

But as much as season two gives Kimmy and Lillian to do, it's Titus Andromedon who steals the show — again.

Titus is an incredibly rich character, thanks to Burgess's committed performance and the show giving him the room to be more than the usual flamboyantly gay punchline. This second season also gives Titus a boyfriend in Mikey, Mike Carlsen's earnest construction worker whose confused catcalls in season one quickly made him a fan favorite.

Titus and Mikey's relationship is genuine, sweet, and funny beyond what a more basic "look how different these two are!" approach would have allowed. Watching Titus grow as a person — at first reluctantly, and then (once he realizes how good it feels) wholeheartedly — is a true joy. Burgess' Titus is irreverent, prickly, and earnest all at once.

He is, in other words, the best encapsulation of Kimmy Schmidt's biggest strengths. The second season might be shaggy around the edges, but when it embraces that combination — and it very often does — it's hard not to fall for it, anyway.

The second season of Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt is now available to stream on Netflix.

The New York Times released an Op-Doc today called “A Conversation on Asians on Race.” This is an ongoing series of online videos part of the “Conversations on Race” series where PoC talk about how stereotypes unfairly confine them — in the case of the Asian Americans who recall their experiences growing up, it runs […]

In the strike-shortened 1982 season, the Miami Dolphins made it to the Super Bowl on the strength of an incredible defense that allowed the NFL’s fewest yards, first downs, passing yards and net yards per pass attempt. The offense wasn’t very good, but the defense — known as the Killer Bees because the last names of six starters began with the letter B — guided the team to the Super Bowl, as Miami ranked second in points allowed and third in takeaways.

Just two years later, the Dolphins were back in the Super Bowl, and once again, the team was one-dimensional. But, remarkably, it was the offense that was the dominant unit, as Miami led the NFL in points, yards, first downs and net yards per pass attempt, while a second-year quarterback named Dan Marino set single-season records for passing yards and passing touchdowns.

It’s rare for a team to be incredibly dominant on one side of the ball, and then similarly dominant on the other side just two years later. By selecting Marino in the first round of the ’83 draft, Miami became one of those teams. The first overall pick in that draft, John Elway, is now the architect of another. The 2013 Broncos were a lot like the ’84 Dolphins: Peyton Manning, like Marino, set single-season records for passing yards and touchdowns, while Denver, like Miami, led the NFL in points, yards, first downs and net yards per attempt. This year’s Broncos led the NFL in yards allowed, while becoming just the fourth defense since 1970 to lead the league in both net yards per pass and yards per rush.

That sort of transformation is remarkable. After losing to Seattle in Super Bowl XLVIII, Denver added three Pro Bowl players in outside linebacker DeMarcus Ware, cornerback Aqib Talib and safety T.J. Ward the following offseason. Denver then added safety Darian Stewart in March, and it has turned nose tackle Sylvester Williams and linebacker Brandon Marshall — role players on the 2013 Broncos — into starters. As a result, the 2015 Broncos defense doesn’t look or feel all that similar to the 2013 one. Only Von Miller (who missed seven games because of injury or suspension in 2013), Chris Harris Jr., Malik Jackson, Danny Trevathan and Derek Wolfe played at least 45 percent of the team’s snaps in both 2013 and 2015; of course, that’s a pretty excellent core to build around.²⁰ And the Broncos added defensive coordinator Wade Phillips, long respected as one of the game’s top defensive minds.

On the offensive side, the turnover has been even more drastic. The team has turned over four of its five starting offensive linemen (only guard Louis Vasquez remains), while losing starting wide receivers Eric Decker and Wes Welker, tight end Julius Thomas and running back Knowshon Moreno. And offensive coordinator Adam Gase, who earned great praise for his coaching in 2013, has moved on. That means just three of the team’s offensive starters from Super Bowl XLVIII are still around, and all three — quarterback Peyton Manning, wide receiver Demaryius Thomas and Vasquez — were playing a lot better two years ago. The difference is most stark with Manning, of course, who has gone from having one of the best seasons ever by a Super Bowl quarterback to one of the worst.

As a result, Denver has had a remarkable turnover from an unbalanced team with an offensive identity to a one-sided team with a defensive identity. This can be seen clearly even with basic stats such as points and yards.

Points

Broncos games were extremely high-scoring in 2013, as Denver and its opponents combined to average 62.8 points per game (Denver averaged 37.9, while allowing 24.9). This year, only 40.7 points are being scored in the average Broncos game, courtesy of 22.2 points by Denver and 18.5 points by opponents. That’s a decrease of 22.1 points per game in Broncos games, the largest swing, positive or negative, in any two-year stretch following a given season since 1970.

			TOTAL POINTS/GAME
	TEAM	ENDING YEAR	STARTING	ENDING	DIFF.	WIN%
1	Denver Broncos	2015	62.8	40.7	-22.1	78.1%
2	St. Louis Rams	2000	41.4	63.2	+21.8	43.8
3	Buffalo Bills	1977	55.4	33.8	-21.6	39.3
4	Atlanta Falcons	1979	22.0	43.0	+21.0	43.8
5	Buffalo Bills	1975	34.9	55.4	+20.4	60.7
6	St. Louis Rams	2002	63.2	42.8	-20.4	53.1
7	Denver Broncos	2013	43.7	62.8	+19.1	65.6
8	San Diego Chargers	1987	56.4	38.0	-18.4	51.7
9	Chicago Bears	1995	29.0	47.0	+18.0	50.0
10	Kansas City Chiefs	2006	57.4	40.4	-17.0	50.0
11	New Orleans Saints	1982	48.6	32.1	-16.5	25.3
12	Washington Redskins	1985	54.6	38.1	-16.5	75.0
13	Oakland Raiders	2006	47.6	31.3	-16.4	21.9
14	Washington Redskins	2001	51.3	34.9	-16.3	56.3
15	Detroit Lions	1990	33.3	49.1	+15.8	31.3
16	Atlanta Falcons	1977	37.8	22.0	-15.8	39.3
17	Cleveland Browns	2007	33.3	49.0	+15.7	50.0
18	Washington Redskins	1977	42.9	27.5	-15.4	60.7
19	Minnesota Vikings	1998	38.3	53.3	+14.9	75.0
20	New England Patriots	1982	47.9	33.3	-14.5	59.0
21	Minnesota Vikings	1995	35.4	49.8	+14.4	53.1
22	Cincinnati Bengals	1985	40.5	54.9	+14.4	43.8
23	Chicago Bears	2013	43.4	57.7	+14.3	50.0
24	Kansas City Chiefs	1975	30.2	44.5	+14.3	46.4
25	New York Jets	1977	49.4	35.1	-14.3	21.4

In an interesting bit of symmetry, the 2013 Broncos show up twice on the list: Not only do they form the first leg of the 2013-2015 Broncos row, but they form the back end of the Tebow Broncos, the 2011 Denver team that snuck into the playoffs despite a very inefficient offense. Most impressively, Denver ranks as the team with the largest swing in total scoring since the merger while being excellent both years, with an average winning percentage of 0.781. Teams like the 2000 Rams made the list courtesy of some terrible years in ’98 and ’02; Denver’s appearance wasn’t due to a massive dip in quality, but from a complete transformation of its identity.

Yards

If we look at total yards per game, Denver once again stands out as the team that has suffered the biggest decline. However, the Broncos are no longer the most extreme team, as the ’82/’84 Dolphins had an even larger move, albeit in the direction of more yards. In 1982, there were 552.2 total yards of offense per game — combined among the two teams — in Miami games. Two years later, that number was a whopping 772.3, which represents an increase of 220 yards per game in just two seasons. There were 813.3 total yards of offense per game in Broncos games in 2013, but just 638.6 yards of offense in Denver games this year; that difference of 174.7 yards per game is the seventh-largest shift in a two-year period since 1970. And, given the general movement toward offensive efficiency, it also stands out as the largest decline in total yards per game during this period:

Biggest two-year differences in total yards per game

			TOTAL YARDS/GAME
	TEAM	ENDING YEAR	STARTING	ENDING	DIFF.	WIN %
1	Miami Dolphins	1984	552.2	772.3	+220.0	82.6%
2	Atlanta Falcons	1979	463.4	668.0	+204.6	43.8
3	St. Louis Rams	2000	584.5	785.6	+201.1	43.8
4	San Francisco 49ers	1979	503.6	685.4	+181.7	24.1
5	Buffalo Bills	1975	571.4	752.9	+181.4	60.7
6	San Diego Chargers	1981	627.4	805.0	+177.6	68.8
7	Denver Broncos	2015	813.3	638.6	-174.7	78.1
8	New Orleans Saints	2012	678.8	851.0	+172.3	56.3
9	Chicago Bears	1995	523.1	694.7	+171.6	50.0
10	Kansas City Chiefs	1975	507.9	674.5	+166.6	46.4
11	San Diego Chargers	1987	800.0	636.1	-163.9	51.7
12	Oakland Raiders	2006	693.1	531.0	-162.1	21.9
13	Green Bay Packers	1983	627.8	785.9	+158.2	50.0
14	Baltimore Colts	1971	651.9	494.5	-157.4	66.1
15	Atlanta Falcons	1977	619.5	463.4	-156.1	39.3
16	Minnesota Vikings	2006	765.1	609.1	-155.9	43.8
17	Pittsburgh Steelers	2014	608.6	764.4	+155.9	59.4
18	Cincinnati Bengals	1995	566.9	721.3	+154.4	31.3
19	Green Bay Packers	2011	663.5	816.7	+153.2	81.3
20	Atlanta Falcons	1980	530.8	682.1	+151.3	65.6
21	Carolina Panthers	2013	767.4	618.1	-149.4	56.3
22	Washington Redskins	2001	729.4	580.1	-149.3	56.3
23	Detroit Lions	1995	582.9	732.0	+149.1	62.5
24	Pittsburgh Steelers	1990	688.1	540.0	-148.1	43.8
25	Philadelphia Eagles	1991	638.4	490.7	-147.7	65.6

While yards and points are hardly perfect measures of performance, they do the job in this instance. Using Football Outsiders DVOA and Estimated DVOA, I measured similar swings in team imbalance — i.e., going from heavily slanted toward offense or defense in one season, and then the other way two years later — and the ’13/’15 Broncos also stood out as the most extreme team since 1970 by this measure. The ’82/’84 Dolphins had the fourth-largest swing using this methodology, behind the ’04/’06 Vikings and ’91/’93 Eagles.

By any metric, Denver’s turn from an offensive powerhouse to a defensive colossus is among the most extreme makeovers since the merger. The only question left is whether the Broncos can avoid the fate suffered by those ’80s Dolphins teams: losing both Super Bowls, with the second game coming against a 17-1 team.

Check out our live coverage of Super Bowl 50.

A Super Bowl statistics special from our sports podcast Hot Takedown. Listen above, or subscribe on iTunes.

After a series of brilliant peekaboo teases, Marvel and Netflix finally released the full-length trailer for Jessica Jones. The first episode debuted at New York Comic Con earlier this month.

(Marvel/Netflix)

The trailer plunks us down into a dark world where we get our first look at Jones (Krysten Ritter) as she throws a guy face-first through her office door. (It's exactly how her comic book, Alias, opens.)

(Marvel/Netflix)

"A big part of the job is looking for the worst in people," Jones says in a voiceover. "Turns out I excel at that." We then get a glimpse of what she can do (punch through walls, stop slow-moving cars, execute high-flying leaps):

(Marvel/Netflix)

We also see how damaged Jones is at the hands of a mind-controlling villain, a man she refers to as Killgrave (played by David Tennant) — a.k.a. Purple Man in the comics. There's blood, sex, fire, gunshots, broken glass, and one creepy stalkerish poster — it's all pretty chilling, goose-bump-inducing stuff. And there's Jones's final line, which seals the deal:

"God didn't do this, the devil did. And I'm going to find him." she says.

(Marvel/Netflix)

For the past few weeks, Marvel has done a splashy job teasing out the character. We would see bits of her powers — a crushed alarm clock, a slew of crumpled bodies strewn across the bar, a superhuman landing — but never got a full view of what she could do.

From what we've seen, Jessica Jones will occupy the same noir world as Daredevil, but there's also something more confused and messier than what we see with Marvel's other superheroes. That's true to her comic book origin story.

Jessica Jones debuts on Netflix on November 20.

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Update: The trailer was leaked early and taken off of YouTube when this post went up. Netflix has since released the full trailer.

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Our main object of study is a $3$-valent graph with a vector function on its edges. The function assigns to each edge a pair of $2$-adic integer numbers and satisfies additional condition: the sum of its values on the three edges, terminating in the same vertex, is equal to $0$. For each vertex of the graph three vectors corresponding to these edges generate a lattice over the ring of $2$-adic integers. In this paper we study the restrictions imposed on these lattices by the combinatorics of the graph. As an application we obtain the following fact: a rational balanced polygon cannot be cut into an odd number of triangles of equal areas. First result of this type was obtained by Paul Monsky in 1970. He proved that a square cannot be cut into an odd number of triangles of equal areas. In 2000 Sherman Stein conjectured that the same holds for any balanced polygon. We prove this conjecture in the case when coordinates of all vertices of the cut are rational numbers.

Tesla Motors is following up its well-reviewed insanely expensive Model S by releasing the Model X, an all-electric SUV that is … even more expensive, with vehicles starting at a mind-blowing $132,000. This isn't an unprecedentedly high price for a car, but even luxury automakers like BMW and Mercedes offer entry-level products for a quarter the price of a Model X.

Musk is, of course, aware that his vehicles are far too expensive to be mass-market successes. He has signaled that cheaper versions of the Model X will be "coming later," and promises that by 2017 there will be a car — the Model 3 — in the $35,000 range. But Tesla has missed deadlines before, so there is some reason to doubt that they'll be able to deliver on that target.

But even more, the whole idea of starting with an incredibly expensive, incredibly high-end product flies in the face of a lot of emerging conventional wisdom about the process of technological disruption and the desirability of shipping "minimum viable products" that improve iteratively over time.

Yet there's a method to the madness. In some ways, the actual car is the least of the obstacles to creating a mass-market electric car. Under the circumstances, the focus on high-end products as a support system for the infrastructure Tesla needs to make a a mass market product makes perfect sense. And so far, the strategy is working. But it does have one potentially fatal flaw — it's slow, and leaves Tesla potentially vulnerable to having its legs swept by another new entrant.

Electric cars' chicken and egg problem

If electric cars were widely owned and nobody had a gasoline-fueled car, nobody would buy one. Getting regulatory approval to cruise past people's houses with such a noisy and toxic device would be a nightmare, of course, but it would also be insanely inconvenient. Where would you refuel?

In the real world, of course, the shoe is on the other foot: people with conventional cars can easily find a gas station, while electric car charging stations are few and far between.

Regardless of the price of gas, the volume of subsidy, or one's personal commitment to the environment it just makes an awful lot of practical sense to buy a car that uses the same fuel as everyone else's car. Tesla is aware of this and has a solution in the form of a growing network of "Supercharger" stations that, when complete, would make electric cars a reasonable thing for a typical family to consider.

The Model S (and Model X) are priced to appeal to people who don't need to worry too much about the practical aspects of car ownership. And they offer gross margins high enough to subsidize the build-out of the charger network.

Similar logic applies to the costly batteries that are the heart of an electric car. Tesla is building a "Gigafactory" that it says will reduce unit costs on its batteries by 30 percent. This is the kind of breakthrough you need in order to make an affordable electric car. The early expensive cars provide the funds necessary to build the factory, as well as practical experience with integrating batteries into cars that would be necessary to actually take advantage of it.

Disruption from above

Like any good disruptive business strategy, Tesla's has the virtue of being essentially impossible for incumbent automakers to compete with. Companies that are already making money selling internal combustion engines aren't going to invest in a broad infrastructure that would make gasoline obsolete. Nor are they going to attempt to engineer a manufacturing breakthrough that would have the same impact.

The incumbents aren't dumb. They can (and do) make electric cars. But they make EVs that are designed to live in a world dominated by conventional cars — semi-affordable small cars useful for daily local driving by people with an eccentric interest in green living.

By contrast, Tesla, by simply accepting the reality that its early cars will be too expensive for the vast majority of people to even consider, has achieved something really impressive: near-universal acclaim for the quality of its products including a determination from Consumer Reports that the P85 D variant of the Model S is so good that it broke their quality scale.* This is a kind of free marketing campaign for the eventual Model 3 that money can't buy.

Tesla's achilles heel is speed

The strategy of starting from the top and then working down, though alien to the software-heavy business models that dominate the startup sector these days, makes perfect sense for the infrastructure-intense car industry. The real risk for Tesla is that their roadmap may be unfolding too slowly. The Model X was originally supposed to have shipped in 2013, and even with delivery of preordered vehicles beginning this week they don't think new orders will be fulfilled until the back half of 2016. In other words, Tesla is evidently facing significant production bottlenecks that make it difficult for them to make cars in large quantities.

That's another good reason for the company to charge high prices but it adds up to significant reason to doubt that they'll really have a mass-market Model 3 ready in 2017. They would need to develop the car, obviously, which is difficult. But they would also need to develop a process by which the cars can actually roll of assembly lines at mass scale. There's no point in selling a car that normal people would consider buying if you can't actually get them built.

This isn't a huge problem if you view the competitive set as legacy carmakers. A year or three, more or less, doesn't really change anything.

The problem is that other new entrants could attempt a similar strategy, and despite Tesla's years-long lead their slow pace of execution means they're not un-catchable. Companies like Google and Apple that are known to be interested in the car market have much more free cash flow available from their existing businesses than Tesla can obtain by selling high-end cars. If they can manage to build a good car (admittedly a big if) then these companies have the ability to leapfrog Tesla in terms of capital investments in manufacturing and vehicle charging facilities with ease. To stave off that kind of competition, Tesla needs to rely on its actual expertise in building cars. And so far even though the cars they've built have been extremely well-regarded, they haven't actually demonstrated the ability to make them at the kind of scale that a successful car company needs.

* Correction: An earlier version of this article said it was the Model X, rather than the P85D, that broke Consumer Reports' quality ratings scale.

Voting for Obamacare was supposed to be lethal for congressional Democrats from conservative districts. But five years after it passed the House, only three Democrats who voted against its final version still remain.

One of Hillary Clinton's emails released by the State Department Monday contained a list of the 39 Democrats who voted "no" when the Affordable Care Act went through the House in November 2009. The message is a testament to the degree to which Clinton was paying attention to the outcome of the vote. She advised Obama and his aides behind the scenes and felt very much invested in the outcome, according to both administration officials who worked for her and some who did not. But the names on the list show that a "no" vote on Obamacare was hardly enough to save conservative House Democrats from defeats.

Of the 39, only Minnesota Rep. Collin Peterson has been reelected in each of the ensuing congressional elections. Out of the slightly larger universe of 45 House Democrats who voted against either that version of the bill, the version that became law in March 2010, or both, only two others remain in the House: Stephen Lynch of Massachusetts and Dan Lipinski of Illinois.

Obviously there are a lot of factors that contribute to whether a member of Congress makes it through three elections, including whether he or she retires or runs into scandal. And plenty of Obamacare supporters lost their seats after it became law. But Democrats who opposed Obamacare in hopes of keeping their seats often wound up disappointed.

Here's the list of House Democrats who voted against it both times:

• John Adler (NJ)
• Jason Altmire (PA)
• John Barrow (GA)
• Dan Boren (OK)
• Rick Boucher (VA)
• Bobby Bright (AL)
• Ben Chandler (KY)
• Travis Childers (MS)
• Artur Davis (AL)
• Lincoln Davis (TN)
• Chet Edwards (TX)
• Stephanie Herseth Sandlin (SD)
• Tim Holden (PA)
• Larry Kissell (NC)
• Frank Kratovil (MD)
• Jim Marshall (GA)
• Jim Matheson (UT)
• Mike McIntyre (NC)
• Charlie Melancon (LA)
• Walt Minnick (ID)
• Glenn Nye (VA)
• Collin Peterson (MN)
• Mike Ross (AR)
• Heath Shuler (NC)
• Ike Skelton (MO)
• John Tanner (TN)
• Gene Taylor (MS)
• Harry Teague (NM)

Here are the House members who voted against it on the first trip through the House but not in its final form:

• Brian Baird (WA)
• John Boccieri (OH)
• Allen Boyd (FL)
• Bart Gordon (TN)
• Parker Griffith (AL)
• Suzanne Kosmas (FL)
• Dennis Kucinich (OH)
• Betsy Markey (CO)
• Eric Massa (NY)
• Michael McMahon (NY)
• Scott Murphy (NY)

And this is the set who voted against the final bill but not the earlier version:

• Michael Arcuri (NY)
• Marion Berry (AK)
• Dan Lipinski (IL)
• Stephen Lynch (MA)
• Mike McMahon (NY)
• Zack Space (OH)

On one sweltering night in Continue reading →

"It’s a restaurant so personal and passionate and satisfying that it was easy to name AL’s Place this year’s best new restaurant in America." [ more › ]

Syriza, Greece's ruling party, is a disaster. Hugo Dixon's indictment is as good as any:

Tsipras [the leader of Syriza] has made a series of wild promises that he cannot deliver. Before January’s election, he pledged that he would tear up the country’s bailout programme while staying in the euro. The two are almost certainly incompatible goals, as the Greek people are now discovering at huge cost.

In advance of Sunday’s referendum, he has given further assurances. One is that savers’ bank deposits are safe. He also said he will have a deal with Greece’s creditors within 48 hours of the plebiscite, if they vote no to the bailout plan. In fact, deposits are at risk and the chance of a deal in two days is virtually nil. A good democrat only promises what he or she can deliver. Tsipras is a demagogue.

But, as they say on the infomercials, that's not all! Greece is a weak state with a failing economy that is, ultimately, dependent on the goodwill of the rest of the eurozone — and Syriza has done everything possible to squander that goodwill and isolate Greece. As Matt Yglesias writes:

Alexis Tsipras and his Syriza party took office in January and were greeted with a good amount of optimism in international circles. After all, their basic critique of the status quo in Greece had a lot of merit. To improve on it, they needed to do two things:

Persuade Greece-skeptical foreigners that an outsider political party that had no role in creating the mess in Greece was going to be able to deliver on reform in a massive way — so much reform that Greece should be allowed to engage in less austerity.

Form a broad front with the Social Democratic politicians who lead the governments of France and Italy and play key roles in coalitions in Germany and the Netherlands to shift Europe's overall strategy to one more focused on creating adequate aggregate demand rather than cutting wages.

They delivered on neither of these things, instead alienating all potential partners with irresponsible rhetoric about Nazis and unreasonable demands that the main left-of-center parties elsewhere in Europe wouldn't endorse.

Syriza's failures are being taken, in some quarters, as evidence that Greece doesn't deserve further leniency. But the truth is the opposite: Syriza shows what will happen if Greece does get further leniency.

What did the rest of the eurozone think was going to happen? The Greek economy has been crushed. Greece's recession is now worse than America's Great Depression — and with less hope of recovery. Decisions that are causing the Greek people immense suffering are being made by foreign technocrats.

@EzraKlein Here is by how much Incomes in Greece decreased. Our research at: http://t.co/t6xk3L6fTu pic.twitter.com/dx6D7q2flc

— Max Roser (@MaxCRoser) July 6, 2015

Did someone, somewhere, think this situation was going to lead to improvements in the Greek political system? Electorates that are half-crazed by economic pain do not tend to make wise political decisions. Among the many hard lessons Europe learned during the 20th century, surely that was foremost among them.

This is where the eurozone deserves some blame for the rise of Syriza. If the foreign technocrats thought the politicians who were running the country before Tsipras swept into power were so great, maybe they should have cut them a better deal so they would have a better record to run on than 25 percent unemployment and unending economic pain. But permitting Greece to fall into this kind of perpetual economic crisis and then being shocked when they elect untested politicians who promise radical change is a bit odd.

This is why I'm confused by pieces like Tyler Cowen's, where the main point is that Syriza is a disaster. Of course Syriza is a disaster. But what does it mean to say that "the Greek government has handled the last few months so badly it really is incumbent on them to show they will do better"? Or else what? The eurozone will take out its frustrations on the Greek people, who will likely, in turn, embrace yet worse demagogues?

Much of the divide in commentary around Greece has less to do with which solutions people support than which voters they identify with. Paul Krugman and Tyler Cowen, for instance, both agree that the eurozone should offer massive debt relief to Greece. But Krugman is focused on all the reasons Greek voters are right to be furious with European technocrats, while Cowen is more sympathetic to all the reasons non-Greek voters are right to be furious that the Greeks haven't elected better technocrats.

The irony, of course, is that the best way to get Greeks to vote more like Germans would be for Germans to vote to help Greeks. But so long as the suffering of the Greek people continues to deepen, the quality of the leaders they embrace is likely to continue to deteriorate.

In President Obama's interview with comedian Marc Maron for Maron's WTF podcast, which was posted Monday, Obama made a vague but worthwhile point about racism in America: Some kinds of explicit racism might be considered bad manners now, but that doesn't mean underlying problems have been addressed:

Racism, we are not cured of it. And it's not just a matter of not being polite to say 'ni**er' in public. That's not the measure of whether racism still exists or not. It's not just a matter of overt discrimination. Societies don't, overnight, completely erase everything that happened 200 or 300 years prior.

This statement can be interpreted as a critique of the media, as much as anything. There's much more interest in covering discrete incidents of outright racism than there is in covering subtler but still influential ways that racial bias shapes society. Donald Sterling got pushed out as owner of the LA Clippers for telling his girlfriend not to bring black men to games, not for his history of lawsuits over racist housing practices.

So how did the media respond to Obama's critique? By leading with his use of the n-word:

(USA Today)

(CNN)

(Politico)

Of course, Obama isn't the first president to use the word. Other presidents have used it, not to criticize racism but to, well, be racist. Only a few years before Lyndon B. Johnson signed the biggest civil rights laws in American history, he routinely described an earlier civil rights bill as "the ni**er bill." Harry Truman referred to pioneering black Congressman Adam Clayton Powell as "that damned ni**er preacher." (This column by Randall Kennedy, who literally wrote the book on the subject, goes into much more detail about the history of the word.)

But because Obama used it after it's become impolite, people are pouncing on it — and doing exactly what Obama said the problem was: focusing on the expressions of racism that aren't considered polite anymore, rather than the ones that are.

It's just plain easier to write about violations of social norms than it is to point out the problems hidden within those norms.

WATCH: Race isn't biologically real

The White House Correspondents' Dinner has become a strange event. It is, ostensibly, an evening when the president and the press can come together to share a few lighthearted laughs. But it's evolved into a recital of brutal truths — albeit one neither side ever really admits happened.

The joke of President Obama's performance on Saturday was that he wasn't joking. Everyone just had to pretend he was. Take this section, from the official White House transcript:

After the midterm elections, my advisors asked me, "Mr. President, do you have a bucket list?" And I said, "Well, I have something that rhymes with bucket list.’" (Laughter and applause.)

Take executive action on immigration? Bucket. (Laughter.) New climate regulations? Bucket. It’s the right thing to do. (Laughter and applause.)

The tip-off there is, "It's the right thing to do." That's not a joke. That's Obama's actual justification for the aggressive executive actions of his second term — "fuck it, it's the right thing to do." But the norms of politics are such that he typically has to frame his actions as routine, dull, even necessary. He has to search for precedent and downplay the consequences.

It's only on the evening of the White House Correspondents' Dinner when he can say what everyone already knows: his actions are huge, they are controversial, they push the norms of American politics, but fuck it, at a moment when American politics seems increasingly broken, Obama has decided to just go ahead and do what he thinks is right.

Then there was this line:

A few weeks ago, Dick Cheney says he thinks I’m the worst President of his lifetime. Which is interesting, because I think Dick Cheney is the worst President of my lifetime. (Laughter and applause.) It’s quite a coincidence.

It's funny, sure. But he's not kidding. It's just the thing Obama can't usually say. The humor is in the shock of him actually saying it.

But the place where Obama stopped being polite and started getting real was when he brought out Luther, his personal anger translator. This was, itself, a way of giving up the game. The Luther joke comes from the Comedy Central sketch show Key and Peele, and the point of it is that Obama, as the first black president, is not allowed to express his anger, as America is terrified of angry black men. And so he's got Luther — the angry black man who can say what he can't.

On Key and Peele, though, it really is a joke. Key plays Luther. Peele plays Obama. It's two comedians commenting on race and politics. But at the White House Correspondents' Dinner, the whole point was that the joke isn't a joke at all. It was Key playing Luther, but it was Obama playing Obama. Obama's anger translator was actually translating for Obama, working off a script that had to be approved by Obama. And so when Luther spoke, now he really was speaking for Obama:

THE PRESIDENT: In our fast-changing world, traditions like the White House Correspondents’ Dinner are important.

LUTHER: I mean, really, what is this dinner? (Laughter.) And why am I required to come to it? (Laughter.) Jeb Bush, do you really want to do this? (Laughter.)

THE PRESIDENT: Because despite our differences, we count on the press to shed light on the most important issues of the day.

LUTHER: And we can count on Fox News to terrify old white people with some nonsense! (Laughter.) "Sharia law is coming to Cleveland. Run for the damn hills!" (Laughter.) Y’all, it’s ridiculous. (Laughter.)

THE PRESIDENT: We won’t always see eye to eye.

LUTHER: Oh, and CNN, thank you so much for the wall-to-wall Ebola coverage. For two whole weeks, we were one step away from the Walking Dead. (Laughter.) And then you all got up and just moved on to the next day. That was awesome. Oh, and by the way, just if you haven’t noticed, you don’t have Ebola! (Laughter.)

THE PRESIDENT: But I still deeply appreciate the work that you do.

LUTHER: Y'all remember when I had that big, old hole in the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico and then I plugged it? Remember that? Which "Obama’s Katrina" was that one? Was that 19? Or was it 20? Because I can’t remember. (Laughter.)

There are no jokes there. There's just Obama saying what he has to say and Luther saying what Obama actually believes.

And what Obama believes is that the press is often sensational, trivial, and fearmongering. He thinks they hype negative stories for weeks on end and then refuse to admit their mistake when the horror fizzles. He thinks he gets the blame for catastrophes but little credit for solutions. He thinks the media has a deep bias toward negative stories (which, of course, we do).

But if Obama is annoyed at the press, he is appalled at Republicans who deny climate change — and are trying to block him from taking action to stop climate change. Obama believes global warming a generational threat, and so when he sees James Inhofe, the chair of the Senate's Committee on Environment and Public Works, throwing snowballs on the chamber's floor, well, his thoughts on that would likely be seen as unpresidential if he gave them voice.

Except on the night of the White House Correspondents' Dinner:

THE PRESIDENT: The science is clear. Nine of the ten hottest years ever came in the last decade.

LUTHER: Now, I’m not a scientist, but I do know how to count to 10. (Laughter.)

THE PRESIDENT: Rising seas, more violent storms.

LUTHER: We’ve got mosquitos. Sweaty people on the train, stinking it up. It’s just nasty. (Laughter.)

THE PRESIDENT: I mean, look at what’s happening right now. Every serious scientist says we need to act. The Pentagon says it’s a national security risk. Miami floods on a sunny day, and instead of doing anything about it, we’ve got elected officials throwing snowballs in the Senate!

LUTHER: Okay, Mr. President. Okay, I think they’ve got it, bro.

THE PRESIDENT: It is crazy! What about our kids? What kind of stupid, shortsighted, irresponsible bull -- (Laughter and applause.)

LUTHER: Wow! Hey! (Applause.)

THE PRESIDENT: What?!

LUTHER: All due respect, sir. You don’t need an anger translator. (Laughter.) You need counseling.

So the joke here was that Obama is so angry about the Republican Party's climate denialism that he even managed to scare his anger translator. This isn't a joke. It's just Obama's opinion, delivered with a fury that's rarely allowed in American politics.

Read these sentences again: "Every serious scientist says we need to act. The Pentagon says it's a national security risk. Miami floods on a sunny day, and instead of doing anything about it, we've got elected officials throwing snowballs in the Senate!" Is there a single one of them that you think Obama doesn't believe? He gets right up to the first syllable of calling it "bullshit." But since he said it at the White House Correspondents' Dinner, he can just say he's kidding, even though everyone knows he's not kidding in the least.

To paraphrase Bruce Banner, Obama's secret is he's always angry, at least about this stuff — but the White House Correspondents' Dinner is the only weekend of the year in which he's allowed to show it, because the press has promised, for that one day of the year, to pretend they didn't notice.

If you were wondering why I didn’t blog yesterday, which you probably weren’t (confession: I don’t read other peoples’ blogs and I don’t listen to any podcasts. So I would never, ever ask anyone to read my blog or listen to my podcast), it was because I was completely confused and irritated by this NYTimes opinion piece on the rising cost of college, written by University of Colorado Law Professor Paul Campos.

I really think the Times needs to either have footnotes or hyperlinks in their opinion pieces, because this guy was playing so fast and loose with his numbers that I had really no idea what he was talking about most of the time. That’s saying something considering that this, the cost of college and its causes, is something I have spent many hours thinking about and researching.

So what happened was, I didn’t have time to completely formulate my opposition to why his reasoning was muddled and confusing. I spent way too much time trying to figure out where he was getting his data. Waste of time.

Good news, though, my Slate Money co-host Jordan Weissman has done all that work for us, in his piece aptly entitled The New York Times Offers One of the Worst Explanations You’ll Read of Why College Is So Expensive. Who says procrastination doesn’t work?

As usual, if you’ve ever listened to my podcast (and this isn’t a request for you to do so!), I don’t agree completely with Jordan. However, my delta of agreement with Jordan is very manageable compared to the delta of disagreement I had with Campos. Basically I would quibble with laying any of the blame at the feet of instructors, but since he barely does that, let’s just go with his awesome take-down.

Take-down of what? Well, Campos basically hates college administrators, and pretends there’s no other problems in the world except them. It’s a mistake that he doesn’t have to make.

I mean really, who doesn’t hate college administrators? As a former college administrator myself, I know it’s universal; I certainly hated myself the entire time.

But that doesn’t mean there’s no other factors at all. Reduced public money for colleges is in fact a huge problem, especially when you pair it with the increased federal aid money going to students at corrupt for-profit colleges. Corinthian obtained $1.4 billion in federal grant and loan dollars in 2010 alone, more than the 10 University of California campuses combined for that same year. This system is in terrible need of repair.

Instead of simply hating on college admin, or rather, in addition to hating on admin, can we start thinking about an alternative no-frills state college system that is truly affordable and gives honest and basic instructions without trying to compete on the US News & World Reports stage?

Routing and scheduling problems are fundamental problems in combinatorial optimization, and also have many applications. Most variations of these problems are NP-Hard, so we need to use heuristics to solve these problems on large instances, which are fast and yet come close to the optimal value. In this thesis, we study the design and analysis of approximation algorithms for such problems. We focus on two important class of problems. The first is the Unsplittable Flow Problem and some of its variants and the second is the Resource Allocation for Job Scheduling Problem and some of its variants. The first is a packing problem, whereas the second is a covering problem.

BANGOR, Maine — Facing a familiar foe in the postseason can often be a basketball coach’s best friend, or worst nightmare, depending on the outcome. Such was the case for Central and Piscataquis Community High School as the rivals met for the third time this season. No. 4 Central of …

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker—a leader in the 2016 Republican presidential sweepstakes—prompted some stateside head-scratching this week when he dodged a British journalist’s question about evolution.

Walker said, “I’m going to punt on that one… That’s a question that a politician shouldn’t be involved in one way or another.” He was in London on a trade mission.

Among those who questioned Walker: the chair of his high school science department, Ann Serpe, 73. “Answer the question when they ask you!” Serpe said in an interview. “He could have manned up a bit. That’s what I would tell him.”

Serpe, who taught chemistry and chaired the math and science department at Delavan-Darien High School in Delavan, Wis., before her retirement in 1998, now lives in nearby Elkhorn. She recalls that Walker, her pupil and an advisee in student government, was a bright, committed participant in class. Walker graduated in 1986.

What would Walker have learned in high school? “We taught the theory of evolution, and human evolution, as a prerequisite to understanding biological classification. I went out and looked at my biology textbook just to make sure.”

Serpe says, “I don’t know the dogma of the Baptist church where Scott’s father was the minister, as it concerns evolution. But I do recall that Scott was very accepting of everything in science class. He had a good sense of it.”

Walker’s onetime teacher has seen him a few times since his high-school days. She even attended one of Walker’s fundraisers in Milwaukee. Darwin, though, hasn’t come up in their conversations.

She says she hopes he—”as an intelligent young man”—would understand the importance of scientific thought, that evolution and creation are not mutually exclusive. Walker, who may be two decades removed from Serpe’s classroom, said on Twitter that science still informs his worldview.

BEVERLY HILLS, California — Bradley Cooper, who earned a best actor Oscar nomination for his performance as a deadly marksman in Clint Eastwood’s “American Sniper,” said Monday he did not foresee how the Iraq war biopic could become a charged political conversation. “You never know when you make a movie …

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This is a guest post by Luis Daniel, a research fellow at The GovLab at NYU where he works on issues dealing with tech and policy. He tweets @luisdaniel12. Crossposted at the GovLab.

What is Evidence-based Sentencing?

For several decades, parole and probation departments have been using research-backed assessments to determine the best supervision and treatment strategies for offenders to try and reduce the risk of recidivism. In recent years, state and county justice systems have started to apply these risk and needs assessment tools (RNA’s) to other parts of the criminal process.

Of particular concern is the use of automated tools to determine imprisonment terms. This relatively new practice of applying RNA information into the sentencing process is known as evidence-based sentencing (EBS).

What the Models Do

The different parameters used to determine risk vary by state, and most EBS tools use information that has been central to sentencing schemes for many years such as an offender’s criminal history. However, an increasing amount of states have been utilizing static factors such as gender, age, marital status, education level, employment history, and other demographic information to determine risk and inform sentencing. Especially alarming is the fact that the majority of these risk assessment tools do not take an offender’s particular case into account.

This practice has drawn sharp criticism from Attorney General Eric Holder who says “using static factors from a criminal’s background could perpetuate racial bias in a system that already delivers 20% longer sentences for young black men than for other offenders.” In the annual letter to the US Sentencing Commission, the Attorney General’s Office states that “utilizing such tools for determining prison sentences to be served will have a disparate and adverse impact on offenders from poor communities already struggling with social ills.” Other concerns cite the probable unconstitutionality of using group-based characteristics in risk assessments.

Where the Models Are Used

It is difficult to precisely quantify how many states and counties currently implement these instruments, although at least 20 states have implemented some form of EBS. Some of the states or states with counties that have implemented some sort of EBS (any type of sentencing: parole, imprisonment, etc) are: Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Vermont, Kentucky, Virginia, Arizona, Colorado, California, Idaho, Indiana, Missouri, Nebraska, Ohio, Oregon, Texas, and Wisconsin.

The Role of Race, Education, and Friendship

Overwhelmingly states do not include race in the risk assessments since there seems to be a general consensus that doing so would be unconstitutional. However, even though these tools do not take race into consideration directly, many of the variables used such as economic status, education level, and employment correlate with race. African-Americans and Hispanics are already disproportionately incarcerated and determining sentences based on these variables might cause further racial disparities.

The very socioeconomic characteristics such as income and education level used in risk assessments are the characteristics that are already strong predictors of whether someone will go to prison. For example, high school dropouts are 47 times more likely to be incarcerated than people in their similar age group who received a four-year college degree. It is reasonable to suspect that courts that include education level as a risk predictor will further exacerbate these disparities.

Some states, such as Texas, take into account peer relations and considers associating with other offenders as a “salient problem”. Considering that Texas is in 4th place in the rate of people under some sort of correctional control (parole, probation, etc) and that the rate is 1 in 11 for black males in the United States it is likely that this metric would disproportionately affect African-Americans.

Sonja Starr’s paper

Even so, in some cases, socioeconomic and demographic variables receive significant weight. In her forthcoming paper in the Stanford Law Review, Sonja Starr provides a telling example of how these factors are used in presentence reports. From her paper:

For instance, in Missouri, pre-sentence reports include a score for each defendant on a scale from -8 to 7, where “4-7 is rated ‘good,’ 2-3 is ‘above average,’ 0-1 is ‘average’, -1 to -2 is ‘below average,’ and -3 to -8 is ‘poor.’ Unlike most instruments in use, Missouri’s does not include gender. However, an unemployed high school dropout will score three points worse than an employed high school graduate—potentially making the difference between “good” and “average,” or between “average” and “poor.” Likewise, a defendant under age 22 will score three points worse than a defendant over 45. By comparison, having previously served time in prison is worth one point; having four or more prior misdemeanor convictions that resulted in jail time adds one point (three or fewer adds none); having previously had parole or probation revoked is worth one point; and a prison escape is worth one point. Meanwhile, current crime type and severity receive no weight.

Starr argues that such simple point systems may “linearize” a variable’s effect. In the underlying regression models used to calculate risk, some of the variable’s effects do not translate linearly into changes in probability of recidivism, but they are treated as such by the model.

Another criticism Starr makes is that they often make predictions on an individual based on averages of a group. Starr says these predictions can predict with reasonable precision the average recidivism rate for all offenders who share the same characteristics as the defendant, but that does not make it necessarily useful for individual predictions.

The Future of EBS Tools

The Model Penal Code is currently in the process of being revised and is set to include these risk assessment tools in the sentencing process. According to Starr, this is a serious development because it reflects the increased support of these practices and because of the Model Penal Code’s great influence in guiding penal codes in other states. Attorney General Eric Holder has already spoken against the practice, but it will be interesting to see whether his successor will continue this campaign.

Even if EBS can accurately measure risk of recidivism (which is uncertain according to Starr), does that mean that a greater prison sentence will result in less future offenses after the offender is released? EBS does not seek to answer this question. Further, if knowing there is a harsh penalty for a particular crime is a deterrent to commit said crime, wouldn’t adding more uncertainty to sentencing (EBS tools are not always transparent and sometimes proprietary) effectively remove this deterrent?

Even though many questions remain unanswered and while several people have been critical of the practice, it seems like there is great support for the use of these instruments. They are especially easy to support when they are overwhelmingly regarded as progressive and scientific, something Starr refutes. While there is certainly a place for data analytics and actuarial methods in the criminal justice system, it is important that such research be applied with the appropriate caution. Or perhaps not at all. Even if the tools had full statistical support, the risk of further exacerbating an already disparate criminal justice system should be enough to halt this practice.

Both Starr and Holder believe there is a strong case to be made that the risk prediction instruments now in use are unconstitutional. But EBS has strong advocates, so it’s a difficult subject. Ultimately, evidence-based sentencing is used to determine a person’s sentencing not based on what the person has done, but who that person is.

Rota's basis conjecture states that in any square array of vectors whose rows are bases of a fixed vector space the vectors can be rearranged within their rows in such a way that afterwards not only the rows are bases, but also the columns. We discuss an online version of this conjecture, in which the permutation used for rearranging the vectors in a given row must be determined without knowledge of the vectors further down the array. The paper contains surprises both for those who believe this online basis conjecture at first glance, and for those who disbelieve it.

Is that really stupider than any of their beliefs?

Points or PointsPlus® - whatever you call ‘em, I don’t like ‘em. I actually hate Weight Watchers points. I hate counting them and I hate even thinking about them. I hate them because I hate limits and I hate precision. There! So now it’s out. Jackie Conn, general manager of Weight Watchers of …