Archive for July, 2012

LaTourette Syndrome

16
10 months ago
by Michael Weiss in

Rep. Steve LaTourette

Yes­ter­day, nine-​​term Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Steve LaTourette (R-​​Bainbridge Town­ship, OH) announced that he will not be seek­ing another term in Con­gress. LaTourette marks the lat­est in an ever-​​growing list of politi­cians who are choos­ing to leave due to the rapid increase in extreme par­ti­san­ship in the Capitol.

Yet LaTourette is a mod­er­ate only when com­pared to the cur­rent crop of Repub­li­cans. His DW-​​NOMINATE score of +0.394 is well to the left of the 111th Congress’s Repub­li­can mean of +0.623 (a mean which is cer­tain to be more to the left of the cur­rent Con­gress), but also to the right of the Reagan-​​era Repub­li­can mean of +0.298. He is almost pre­cisely at the +0.384 mean of all mod­ern House Repub­li­cans dat­ing back to the Nixon admin­is­tra­tion. (more…)

The Shimmer Floor Wax Election

416
10 months ago
by Michael Weiss in

Waaaay back in 1976, NBC’s Sat­ur­day Night (now known as Sat­ur­day Night Live) ran one of their spoof adver­tise­ments, for Shim­mer Non-​​Dairy Floor Wax. In it, a hus­band (Dan Aykroyd) and wife (Gilda Rad­ner) are argu­ing over whether Shim­mer is a floor wax or a dessert top­ping. Chevy Chase enters the kitchen as the spokesman to clar­ify that Shim­mer is both a floor wax and a dessert topping.

In sim­i­lar fash­ion, Democ­rats and Repub­li­cans are argu­ing over whether this year’s Pres­i­den­tial elec­tion is a ref­er­en­dum on the Pres­i­dent, or a choice between two candidates.

I’ve got news for you: this elec­tion is a ref­er­en­dum on the Pres­i­dent and a choice between the two can­di­dates. (more…)

Getting the Special Treatment

18
10 months ago
by dcpetterson in

Two votes hap­pened in the U.S. Sen­ate last Wednes­day, votes which high­light how Repub­li­cans and Democ­rats feel about tax rates.

Sen­ate Repub­li­cans voted to raise taxes on all Amer­i­cans. Sen­ate Democ­rats voted to avoid rais­ing taxes on all Amer­i­cans. A Democratic-​​sponsored bill that lim­its tax increases was passed, despite Repub­li­can oppo­si­tion. Repub­li­cans are now insist­ing that the bill the Sen­ate passed has no chance in the Republican-​​controlled House. In other words, Repub­li­can votes could force everyone’s taxes to go up.

How in the world will Grover Norquist spin this?

That’s not the most amaz­ing part. Democ­rats have been try­ing to make the argu­ment that Repub­li­cans only care about the super-​​rich. Repub­li­cans have been try­ing to deny this charge. So to demon­strate their posi­tion, Sen­ate Repub­li­cans forced a vote on a bill to lower taxes on the super-​​rich as the quid pro quo for avoid­ing tax increases on every­one, appar­ently not notic­ing that this proves the Democ­rats’ point.

Let’s review how we got into this pecu­liar sit­u­a­tion. (more…)

One…Two…Three…FLUSH!

9
10 months ago
by filistro in

How many toi­lets are there in the United States? What would hap­pen if they were all flushed at the same time? How dan­ger­ous is it to use the toilet?

If these are the sort of ques­tions that haunt you not just on Novem­ber 19 (Inter­na­tional Toi­let Day) but on a reg­u­lar basis, urine luck because I have the answers. Respec­tively they are:

  1. some­where between 225 and 350 million
  2. noth­ing good
  3. pretty dan­ger­ous, actu­ally (more…)

Reëlection Watch: July 28, 2012

19
10 months ago
by Michael Weiss in

The past two weeks have been par­tic­u­larly busy for the poll­sters. What I found prob­a­bly won’t sur­prise you, but it’s still worth look­ing at.

How are things going for the Pres­i­dent now? Let’s dive in.
(more…)

Open Mic July 27

53
10 months ago
by Logarchism.com in

This week Sally Ride reached for the heav­ens, and Sher­man Hem­s­ley moved on up. We learned that Penn­syl­va­nia State Uni­ver­sity opted to remove the statue of Joe Paterno, rather than merely turn­ing it so he would look the other way. Mean­while, the uni­ver­sity agreed to retroac­tively retire from NCAA in order to be able to return in a few years. Chick-​​fil-​​A got plenty of beef from offi­cials in Chicago. And Repub­li­can Pres­i­den­tial can­di­date Mitt Rom­ney dis­cov­ered that he is just as good at insult­ing the Eng­lish as he is at insult­ing Americans.

It’s Fri­day, which means the floor belongs do you. Get out your brooms and start sweep­ing up the mess! Do you think you live in a barn???

Don’t see an arti­cle on a par­tic­u­lar topic, but want to talk about it some­where? This is Open Mic. Talk about what­ever you want, but stay respectful.

We cre­ate a new Open Mic every week to give a clean slate, but feel free to add to this topic at any time.

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