Edge of Helldiver
Death Of Ruth Bader Ginsburg : NPR
Other academics agree that Democratic court packing is likely. "If the GOP goes forward with trying to fill the seat this year regardless of the election result, I think there is a substantial likelihood (at least 50% or more) that the Democrats will respond with court-packing, the next time they get a chance to do so," George Mason University law professor Ilya Somin said via e-mail.
But court packing would be a "terrible idea," Somin warned, "as it would lead to a spiral that undermines the institution of judicial review." It would also open the door for Republicans to respond in kind. "I don't see any likely way of avoiding the spiral, once one party has passed a court-packing bill once," he said.
Expanding the court isn't the only way to respond to what Democrats would perceive as an illegitimate election-year appointment, however. In a paper authored this year by Yale Law School professor Samuel Moyn and University of Chicago law professor Ryan Doerfler, the two suggest several options to overhaul the court by reducing its power.
The authors said lawmakers could require a Supreme Court supermajority for some decisions, so that major federal statutes aren't invalidated by a simple 5-4 ruling. Congress could also insulate specific legislation from judicial review — known in legal circles as "jurisdiction stripping."
These changes "would shift important policy disputes from the judicial arena to the small-d democratic one, thereby substantially reducing the importance of which party has effective control of the courts," Doerfler told NPR.
Wolf Hill
I stopped for a while and looked out over Wolf Hill which is still quite green but will becoming colorful in coming weeks.
Taken on Sunday September 20, 2020 at Bennett Hill Preserve.Old Farm House
Looking out across the pastures and farm country off Bennett Hill Road from the trail.
Taken on Sunday September 20, 2020 at Bennett Hill Preserve.The Big Blowdown of 1950 – – The Adirondack Almanack
The Big Blowdown brought heavy rains and winds in excess of 100 mph. In a single day – November 25th – more than 800,000 acres of timber was heavily damaged. The storm caused a complete shutdown of the roads and trails across large swaths of the park, a historic suspension of the State Constitution, a temporary glut in the spruce market, and a political impact that continues to this day.
Despite several days of rain that preceded the storm, hundreds of hunters were out for the last weekend of the season, including Adirondack conservationist Paul Schaefer, hunting in heavy rain near Eleventh Mountain in western Warren County. “When the top 40 feet of a great spruce suddenly cracked and blew almost over our heads,” he remembered, “we knew it was high time to get home.”
Hikers huddled at Johns Brook Lodge thought it safer to leave the area altogether, but a number of hunters rode the storm out alone, already separated from their parties for the day’s hunt. Ronald “Bud” Brownell was sixteen at the time and hunting with his father at Russian Lake near Big Moose Lake. He cowered alone under a large tree for what seemed like forever and considered it a miracle when he was finally reunited with this father and uncle.
The Big Blowdown of 1950 – – The Adirondack Almanack
The Adirondacks is prone to powerful windstorms, isolated tornadoes, and occasional hurricanes, derechos, and microbursts. Perhaps the second most destructive of these in modern Adirondack history (next to the 1998 Ice Storm) occurred in November, 1950.
The Big Blowdown brought heavy rains and winds in excess of 100 mph. In a single day – November 25th – more than 800,000 acres of timber was heavily damaged. The storm caused a complete shutdown of the roads and trails across large swaths of the park, a historic suspension of the State Constitution, a temporary glut in the spruce market, and a political impact that continues to this day.
Despite several days of rain that preceded the storm, hundreds of hunters were out for the last weekend of the season, including Adirondack conservationist Paul Schaefer, hunting in heavy rain near Eleventh Mountain in western Warren County. “When the top 40 feet of a great spruce suddenly cracked and blew almost over our heads,” he remembered, “we knew it was high time to get home.”
The Great Appalachian Storm of 1950 in the Adirondacks.
The Great Appalachian Storm of 1950 – New England Historical Society
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration called the Appalachian storm one of the most ‘meteorologically unique’ storms ever because it produced both record high and record low temperatures. At 6:30 pm on November 25, snow battered Pittsburgh and temperatures fell to 9 degrees. But in Buffalo, 200 miles away, temperatures reached a balmy 54 degrees.
As a result, the Appalachian Storm was called ‘perhaps the greatest combination of extreme atmospheric elements ever seen in the eastern United States.’
The monster storm formed on Nov. 24 as an extratropical cyclone in southeast North Carolina. It brought warm Atlantic air northwestward even as an Arctic front moved to the southeast through Ohio. The storm caused high winds, heavy rains and coastal flooding from Maine to Florida.
It stretched as far west as Ohio. Blizzards struck the western slopes of the Appalachians, dumping the most snow ever on the mountainsides.
One of the oddest features of the storm was that it moved from east to west. But more than 99 percent of cyclones move the other way — from west to east.
The storm blanketed Ohio – including Columbus, where Ohio State and the University of Michigan played their annual game despite the weather.