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"The lone star tick... was first found on Martha’s Vineyard in 1985 but has become more established in recent years, feeding and breeding on the thousands of deer..."

"... that roam the island’s lush woods and beach grass.This is reflected in the rising number of alpha-gal diagnoses. Some 523 new cases were reported on Martha’s Vineyard last year.... [E]xperts fear the situation on Martha’s Vineyard is only going to get worse due to the island’s growing deer population. [Biologist Patrick] Roden-Reynolds said there are anywhere from 55 to 75 deer per square mile — up from 40 to 60 in 2011. This is up to ten times the amount of deer needed for a healthy forest ecosystem, he said, adding: “Each deer this time of year probably has a couple of hundred ticks on them that are attached and feeding and producing new ticks for the next year.” Locals have called for an increase in deer hunting to manage the island’s population. 'Even doing some sort of hunting tourism-promotion thing here would be helpful in a way,' said [Kate Sudarsky, a 26-year-old teacher on the island who was diagnosed with alpha-gal]."

I'm reading "'We can no longer eat burgers or ice cream — all because of a tick bite'/A bug-borne disease has taken over Martha’s Vineyard and is turning people vegan, locals claim" (London Times).

Not enough deer hunters on the island. Hard to imagine the kind of tourism they could set up that would bring in enough deer hunters to do the kind of thinning they'd need. Hire professional sharpshooters. 

Before you riff on the rich-people problems of Martha's Vineyard, take a look at this map showing the range of the lone star tick in the U.S.

"A recount in a political race in Massachusetts has flipped a state house of representatives election from Republican to Democrat by a single vote. "

"Democrat Kristin Kassner won against her Republican opponent and five-term incumbent Lenny Mirra earlier this week after a recount that shrunk the candidates’ narrow vote deficit to one.... In response to that outcome, Mirra said that he will 'absolutely' challenge the result.... 'Some [ballots] were filled out in pencil, some were filled out with different colored ink, some had stray marks. Some had a name written in the write-in and then an oval filled out.'...  Meanwhile, Kassner believes that there was no foul-play in the voting process...."

The Guardian reports.

"Florida can confirm the two planes with illegal immigrants that arrived in Martha's Vineyard today were part of the state's relocation program to transport illegal immigrants to sanctuary destinations."

"States like Massachusetts, New York, and California will better facilitate the care of these individuals who they have invited into our country by incentivizing illegal immigration through their designation as 'sanctuary states' and support for the Biden Administration's open border policies."

Said Ron DeSantis, quoted in "Gov. Ron DeSantis claims credit for sending 2 planes carrying migrants to Martha's Vineyard in Massachusetts" (CNN). 

Florida Democratic Chair Manny Diaz reacted: "Even for Ron DeSantis, this is a new low. There is nothing that DeSantis won't do, and nobody that he won't hurt, in order to score political points."

"Nobody that he won't hurt..." — he would even dare to impose on the super-elite of Martha's Vineyard. That's the ultimate in hurting.

As for "scor[ing] political points" — wasn't scoring political points the idea of designating the state a "sanctuary state"? Because if it wasn't, where's the "hurt"? These people who have reached out — who have declared themselves a sanctuary — should say thank you to Governor DeSantis — thank you for facilitating transportation of the migrants to the welcoming shores of Martha's Vineyard. 

"A Massachusetts Democrat is pushing a bill that would make it a crime to maliciously call someone a 'bitch' within the commonwealth."

"Foul-mouthed individuals who are found guilty under a bill introduced by Democratic representative Daniel J. Hunt would face a $150 maximum fine for the first offense, while repeat offenders would face up to six months' imprisonment, a $200 fine, or both. If enacted, 'bitch' would be the only word in the English language to receive such special consideration in Massachusetts."

The Washington Free Beacon reports. Hunt says a constituent asked him to file this bill, and that's why he did it. It's obviously unconstitutional, of course.

"I don't actually think the federal government will be executing people in 50 years."

"But if Barack Obama’s Department of Justice not only didn't stop using the federal death penalty, but also actively sought Tsarnaev’s execution, what are the odds that another, more liberal president will come along to do so in, say, the next 15 or 20 years?"

Asks lawprof Noah Feldman, who thinks that if Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is actually put to death, "it will be a signal event in the history of" Massachusetts, "where I was born and have lived most of my life" and where "the death penalty has... come to seem distant, foreign and unfamiliar."

Even though "[a]lmost certainly, the execution won’t actually take place here."

"The two earliest statements as to [the origin of the term 'Yankee'] were published in 1789..."

"... Thomas Anburey, a British officer who served under Burgoyne in the War of Independence, in his Travels II. 50 derives Yankee from Cherokee eankke slave, coward, which he says was applied to the inhabitants of New England by the Virginians for not assisting them in a war with the Cherokees; William Gordon in Hist. Amer. War states that it was a favourite word with farmer Jonathan Hastings of Cambridge, Mass., c1713, who used it in the sense of 'excellent.' Appearing next in order of date (1822) is the statement which has been most widely accepted, viz. that the word has been evolved from North American Indian corruptions of the word English through Yengees to Yankees (Heckewelder, Indian Nations iii. ed. 1876, p. 77); compare Yengees n.

Says the (unlinkable) Oxford English Dictionary, in its entry for "Yankee," which sends us to "Yengee," where we see this quote from an 1819  history of the Indians: "When the Yengeese arrived at Machtitschwanne, they looked about everywhere for good spots of land." If it's Yengeese — with an "e" on the end — one might imagine the singular as "Yengoose," that is, if you're amused by invented false notions about words. In that form of play, the etymology of Yankee could be: that which has been yanked — a prick. As for the delightful word "Machtitschwanne," that's just another way to spell Massachusetts.

But to stick with the uprightly historical, Yankee is a word of uncertain origin, perhaps meaning slave or coward, perhaps excellent, and perhaps English. That's the OED. Wikipedia's entry for Yankee claims that "linguists" reject all the theories that the word comes from any Native American language.

Here's Wikipedia's article "Names for United States citizens," dealing with the pesky old problem of the inaccuracy of the term "Americans," which, taken literally, could refer to everyone on the continents of North and South America. That's nothing that could confuse anyone grounded in the real world, but the question of alternative terms remains amusing (or even important to someone looking to take offense at microagressions).

Several single-word English alternatives for "American" have been suggested over time, including "Usonian", popularized by Frank Lloyd Wright, and the nonce term "United-Statesian". The writer H. L. Mencken collected a number of proposals from between 1789 and 1939, finding terms including "Columbian", "Columbard", "Fredonian", "Frede", "Unisian", "United Statesian", "Colonican", "Appalacian", "USian", "Washingtonian", "Usonian", "Uessian", "U-S-ian", "Uesican", and "United Stater".

"Yankee" is one more alternative, but only non-Americans see it as referring to all Americans, rather than only to non-Southerners. (I was going to say "only to non-Northerners," but it was only yesterday that were were talking about the notion that, in the U.S., "the North" consists of little more than Minnesota.)

Why am I writing about this today? It's a complete sidetrack from the subject you'll see in the next post.

Can anyone explain the profound loserosity of Martha Coakley?

The Democratic Party's candidate for governor in the famously liberal state of Massachusetts weirdly lost a Senate race to a Republican in 2010, and now she's not just losing to her Republican opponent, she's 9 points behind in the new Boston Globe poll. Is this lady poison? Come on! It's just plain mean to be so rejecting of this poor woman. What's going on?

Meanwhile, in Wisconsin, 2 new polls came out yesterday, one putting the Democrat Mary Burke a point ahead and the other putting the Republican Scott Walker a point ahead. That's a good way to make everybody feel respected. Good work, Wisconsin. Everybody is a winner. Of course, in the end, one or the other candidate must win. But it's basically a crap shoot, right? It means nothing. Just a tie, out here in the land of peace, love and understanding.

Unlike Massachusetts, where there's some mysterious anti-Coakleyism raging. That poor woman...

"Do I have the best credentials? Probably not. ‘Cause, you know, whatever."

So said Scott Brown, who — look at him, people! — puts the face in self-effacement. What can he do but admit to the short-comings of his residency in New Hampshire, which he'd like to represent in the U.S. Senate? But no other Republican was going to oust the Democratic incumbent Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, so if New Hampshirites want to contribute to tipping the Senate to a GOP majority, they'll have to accept a man with a lot of Massachusetts in him.

Brown moved to New Hampshire last December, but he moved into what had been their vacation house (since 1993). And he was born in New Hampshire, unlike Shaheen, who was born in Missouri, which makes it possible for Brown to say — jokingly? — “Sen. Shaheen is not from here, but apparently it’s a problem with me?” Shaheen has been a New Hampshire resident since 1973.

Massachusetts is closer to NH than Missouri is, but in the closeness there's "a complicated relationship":

They share a state line, professional sports teams and a major media market, but there are traces of resentment among some New Hampshire natives. Thousands of Massachusetts residents moved into New Hampshire in recent years, drawn by lower taxes and cheaper real estate. The migration helped give Democrats a slight voter registration advantage, although the state is considered far more balanced politically than solidly Democratic Massachusetts.

How does that cut for Scott Brown? He comes from Massachusetts, but he's a Republican, and other migrants from Massachusetts have tipped New Hampshire toward Democrats. Resentment toward Democrats from Massachusetts should translate into a vote for Brown, if the longtime New Hampshirites resist the liberalism of the newcomers. And Brown can also try to win the votes of those transplanted Massachusettans, who could see him as their guy.

Brown chuckled when 39-year-old Christine Kalinowski told him she was from “Southie,” or South Boston. She said she moved to New Hampshire just a few months ago, like him.

“I voted for him before,” she said, “and I’d definitely vote for him again.”

There's that dynamic. I suspect the newer residents from Massachusetts think they are the cool kids, and they will like seeing themselves in the gorgeous face of Mr. Brown.

I started thinking about Brown this morning because I was reading a Gail Collins column in the NYT called "The Season of the Twitch," referring to this being the "the season where center stage goes to whoever screws up the most" (and the Donovan song title). Brown's supposed screw up was that quote I put in the post title. Collins calls attention to that, I think, to dilute a truly damaging screw up by a Democrat, Bruce Braley, who was on track to win the Senate race in Iowa, until he got caught on video telling "a bunch of trial lawyers at a Texas fund-raiser that if they didn’t contribute to his campaign, Republicans might take control of the Senate and there would be 'a farmer from Iowa who never went to law school' running the Judiciary Committee."

Having begun with Brown and buried Braley in paragraph 12, Collins scampers back to the topic of Brown, declaring "New Hampshire’s still my favorite." She doesn't explain why, so I'm going to assume it's because it's a Republican screw up. Anyway, thanks to Collins for drawing my attention to this great — and totally not a screw up — ad by Joni Ernst, a Republican who's running for the Senate in Iowa, stating that she "grew up castrating hogs on an Iowa farm":



Ernst and Braley are running for the seat that Tom Harkin is vacating. Grassley is the other Iowa Senator. Braley attacked him as part of an argument for maintaining Democratic control of the Senate. Grassley is 80 years old and has served in Congress since 1975. He does have a family farm, operated by his son. His biography also shows him to have worked as a sheet metal shearer/assembly line worker for more than 10 years, and he has "PhD work" in political science. There's no reason to disparage Grassley for being a farmer. I see more reason to question whether he should be listing his occupation as "farmer," and certainly he deserves attack for hanging around Congress too long. But Grassley is not up for reelection this year. Braley is trying to say it's ridiculous for this man to chair the Judiciary Committee. The question for voters on this score is whether it's less ridiculous than having Patrick Leahy chairing the committee, which is what you get with a Democratic majority. Leahy is only 73, but like Grassley, he's been camped out in Congress since 1975.

Whatever. To sum up: Scott Brown is ultra-handsome, and Joni Ernst is an out-and-proud castrating woman.

"In truth, we have had a difficult time accepting the idea that this race might get close."

"At the same time, Democrats nominated a long-serving member of Congress at a time when Congress is an almost universally unpopular institution. It doesn’t help that [Ed] Markey has not had a competitive race in decades."

Here, pick one:



Ed Markey or Gabriel Gomez?

See how that works?

Politics is so easy!

Massachusetts SOS miffed that John Roberts said Massachusetts has "the worst ratio of white voter turnout to African-American voter turnout."

The Chief Justice was questioning  Solicitor General Donald Verrilli in the oral argument about the federal Voting Rights Act (which treats some states differently from others based on voting statistics from 1972). The Chief also pointed out that Mississippi has the "best" ratio.

Massachusetts Secretary of State William Galvin defends his state:

“It’s just disturbing that the chief justice of the United States would spew this kind of misinformation.... He’s wrong, and in fact what’s truly disturbing is not just the doctrinaire way he presented by the assertion, but when we went searching for an data that could substantiate what he was saying, the only thing we could find was a census survey pulled from 2010 … which speaks of noncitizen blacks...We have an immigrant population of black folks and many other folks. Mississippi has no noncitizen blacks, so to reach his conclusion, you have to rely on clearly flawed information.”

The 2010 tables show that Massachusetts does have a high discrepancy between turnout of white and black voters, but is in line with several other states, including Minnesota, Kansas and Washington, which actually has a wider ratio. The states are also similar on registration numbers. Additionally, the margin of error on each of these states’ data is over 10 percentage points, and many states on the list had populations of blacks so small, data wasn’t even available.

I'm sure the Chief was relying on something. Anyone know what it was? In any case, the basic point is intact: There's a disconnect between the problem the act seeks to rectify and the conditions among the states today. 

ADDED: Roberts was apparently referring to material in the dissenting opinion in the court below (the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals).  The underlying data is from the Census Bureau. Nina Totenberg having talked to "Census officials" who explain why their data is unreliable, writes an article that I critique here.

"I’m not a politician, and there will be times when folks will ask me questions about the inner working of politics that I don’t know about."

"I’m a quick study, I’ll figure all the political jargon out, but I’m not going to adopt it.

Says Gabriel Gomez, running for the Senate seat vacated by John Kerry.

Look at my training – serving my country, U.S. Naval Academy, Navy aircraft carrier pilot, Navy SEAL, successful private sector, business career.... I’m not saying governance or being a Senator is easy, nor am I saying I don’t have some things to learn – I am saying I am up to the task.  And let’s look in the other direction – maybe Washington has something to learn – they clearly need some new ideas and sending career politicians would be the same old same old. 

We'll see how well that pitch works in Massachusetts.

"Power-hungry Bay State Democrats — eyeing another potential Senate opening if U.S. Sen. John F. Kerry joins the Obama Cabinet..."

"... are quietly discussing reinstating a 2004 law that would let Gov. Deval Patrick appoint a permanent replacement to help keep the seat under party control until at least 2014."

... The move comes eight years after Democratic lawmakers stripped then-Gov. Mitt Romney of his appointment powers in an effort to keep Republicans out of the office, and three years after they changed the law again to let Patrick appoint a temporary replacement.

Politico identifies "5 landmines" for the Democratic convention.

#1 is: Bill Clinton. 

I'd say Obama should not trust Bill Clinton. Hillary has too much to gain from an Obama loss.

The other 4 are:

2. "Rebuilding 'You didn’t build that.'" (Especially with Elizabeth Warren as a prime-time speaker. She's "a political novice who will be making her debut on the national stage," and whose personal goal is winning in Massachusetts, and thus in being much more liberal than the average American.)

3. "Actual class warfare." (The Occupy protesters, who might have once seemed to be boosting the Democratic Party, are taking it to the streets of Charlotte. What if there's something 1968-ish?! And then there's just the danger of various convention-goers saying something non-mainstream.)

4. "Not a sell-out audience." (And with extra tickets being given away, there's an unusual danger of hecklers and protesters.)

5. "Can Charlotte cut it?" It's pretty small and ill-equipped for a city hosting an event this size.

MIT researcher and undergrads figured out a way to win the lottery and — over 7 years — spent $40 million to win $48 million.

Daily Mail reports:

Officials at the Massachusetts state lottery knew one of their games had essentially been taken over by the group of highly-intelligent gamblers but did nothing because their syndicate generated $16million.

Their system became an almost full-time business as the sophisticated gamblers snapped up hundreds of thousands of lottery tickets at $2 each.

By 2005 they had essentially monopolised the game....

It is thought lottery officials found out about the loophole in 2010 - or maybe earlier - but did not act because it was bringing in so much money....

So much for the notion that the lottery is a "tax on stupidity"? Actually, it still was a tax on stupidity for everyone outside of this syndicate, and since it was draining money from the amount that would otherwise be distributed to the stupid people, the stupid people were being taxed at a higher rate than usual. And the lottery officials were negligent (in creating the loophole) and then knowing as they enjoyed getting the money that they raised taxing stupidity.

Mitt Romney says "The Supreme Court has the final word. And their final word is that Obamacare is a tax."

Interviewed by Jan Crawford, Romney takes the clear, straightforward separation-of-powers position. The judiciary has the work of saying what the law is:

So it is a tax and it's constitutional. That's -- that's the final word. That's what it is. Now, I agreed with the dissent. I would have taken a different course. But the dissent wasn't the majority. The majority has ruled. And their rule is final.

Crawford moves in with the challenge Romney will always have to deal with: You did the same thing in Massachusetts. If this was a tax, then that was a tax. And we expect him always to answer in about the same way: There's a difference between doing something at the federal level and doing it at the state level.

As a lawprof, I see the consistent separation-of-powers theme.

The veterans monument and the giant bunny statue.

"When the veterans want to do something, we allow them to do those things. Why can't the town of Dedham put the bunnies that show the spirit of Dedham where they want to go?"

"The Brown-Warren agreement does not seek to equalize spending between the two candidates, both of whom are well funded."

"It is a sort of suicide pact, providing... that the two 'donate to charity half the price of ads that are run in their name in the state.' Says Brown: 'By having 50 percent of that negative or positive ad buy go to charity of the other person's choice, it's an incentive to keep those groups out.'"

Brown is pandering to Massachusetts liberals who hate Citizens United and don't understand the underlying principles of free speech.

Massachusetts legislature passes a transgender civil rights bill.

But "it was not a total victory for advocates."

The bill does not include language to protect transgender people in public accommodations, which advocates had sought. They will continue to fight to expand transgender protections to include public accommodations, such as hotels, restaurants, and clubs, she said. Opponents had decried those proposals as “the bathroom bill,’’ arguing that they would enable biological men to demand access to women’s restrooms and locker rooms.

During the last episode of "Sarah Palin's Alaska," TLC put up this teaser for its special "Kennedys' Home Movies."

Yes, they are both TLC shows, but why did TLC think the people watching a show about Sarah Palin and her family would be susceptible to a show about the Kennedys? (Meade raised this question in the comments to the post earlier today about "Sarah Palin's Alaska.")

Your first thought might be that it doesn't make much sense because liberals love the Kennedys and conservatives love the Palins. But let's assume TLC isn't run by idiots, that they know how to appeal to viewers. If you had to argue that a good chunk of the "Sarah Palin's Alaska" audience would like to watch "Kennedys' Home Movies," what would you argue?

I'd say: Not all American TV-watchers are strongly grounded in one political party or the other. These people are not cemented to abstract ideology. They may feel their way into politics through personalities. Or they may not care that much about politics at all and simply enjoy peering into the family lives of celebrities, and politicians are a special, elite breed of celebrity, like royalty. The Kennedys have been, for many people, America's royalty, and the Palins may be the new royal family that people who like that sort of thing like.

Obviously, there are differences. The Kennedys posed as European-style aristocracy, and the Palins present themselves as working-class Americans. But both are very much big, colorful families with a strong sense of geographical place — Massachusetts/Alaska — and a mesmerizingly beautiful and feminine woman to fascinate us. Both families have a lot of children who we get to see looking robust and active in outdoor settings — especially boats.

There's a romanticism of the family about it all. I'm not saying that's good. It's a point of entry by which political opinion seeps into a certain very common type of American brain. And it happens through television. Pay attention.

***

By the way, what do you think of the crazy culture clash that is Johnny Cash singing the Beatles ("In My Life") over home movies of the Kennedys?