Comments on: Democrats Reject Personal Responsibility, Delay Change

By: Ji Village News

Ji Village News — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 21:24:57 +0000

I was in DC area last week, staying in a Hilton in Rockville. At least the room I was at has the old TV. Then I thought, maybe the hotel industry has something to do with it?

By: dannyman

dannyman — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 08:00:28 +0000

Dang Sam! Thank you for the Civics refresher. I must be getting old.

Still, the thing will go through. Otherwise there will be that minority that recalls that a month after Obama was sworn in their TV stopped working.

By: sam

sam — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 07:29:37 +0000

I think you misunderstand the term pocket veto. If the President chooses to not sign a piece of legislation it becomes law after 10 days, Sunday excepted. The only time the pocket veto comes into play is if Congress adjourns before those 10 days are up. This is actually somewhat ambiguous legally as various presidents have interpreted “adjournment” differently (is it sine die only? is it at the end of a session? etc.). There have also been some Supreme Court cases that cleared things up a bit but not completely. For instance, it seems that there’s no pocket veto if the house that the bill originated in has adjourned but there are designated people available to receive the President’s veto message. During the last Congress it was rare that there was any adjournment due to fears of what Bush would do while they were away. During longer breaks there would be pro forma sessions that lasted only a few minutes.

In any case, no matter how you want to view the legal interpretations of it, neither side is likely to adjourn within the next 10 days. So Obama’s only likely options are sign it, pocket it and let it become law, veto it, and see if the Congress will override. Interestingly, there’s a good chance it wouldn’t. While the bill (S. 352) and its predecessor (S. 328) both passed the Senate with unanimous consent, there were a number of votes in the House. Given the numbers, even if the 10 Democrats who voted against it switched to voting for it, there still wouldn’t be enough for a 2/3 override. 23 Republicans already said yes. It would be very difficult to get more.

Anyway, I blather, but there you go.

By: coward

coward — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 05:00:46 +0000

I heard a compelling argument for having some pity on people, not coincidentally on the pbs news hour:

One of the main beneficiaries of analog tv are ‘disadvantaged’ children, watching sesame street or some other positive, educational show. These kids may not have a lot of influence over their parents’ behavior.

Of course it’s also nice to know that adults can pick a tv out of the trash, turn it on and see a quality show like the news hour.

I’m just not sure bandwidth is so scarce we need to turn this switch off today.

If you get into the politics, you soon see that bandwidth is artificially scarce so as to support various industries.

I do welcome our new digital overlords, hd is great in the long term. I’ll be happier turning off analog once there is a real hd set under $100.