Moe Lane

I like Rep Thaddeus Cotter (R, MI): I truly do.  But there’s Good Thad, and then there’s Bad Thad; and sometimes you don’t know which one that you’re going to have show up.

Here’s Good Thad, talking this morning about Led Zeppelin and the Democrats’ decision to shut down the government in order to keep trying to subsidize abortion providers with your tax money*.  Don’t worry: he ties the two together.

Via @diggerbii.

Moe Lane

*Subsidizing the troops, on the other hand, is a completely different story.

In fact, I didn’t bother to read after the quote below:

Forget water or Gatorade. The drink of choice to rehydrate after a workout is beer.

…for fear that I might see something that would distress me.

Ah, Science: you always come through in the end.

Moe Lane

…in his latest performance of his shtick (using pretty numbers and graphs to tell people things that they already knew). In this case, Silver’s explaining that no, Waukesha County didn’t create 14,000 votes out of nowhere.  Which you already knew, because you saw the press conference where this was already explained, complete with the Democratic canvassing board representative who signed off on it.

But it’s still a waste of time, because Silver’s usual customer base doesn’t want to hear it.  They’ll much prefer to be told that their pretty shiny Quest Object was stolen away from them by the nasty Republicans, oh yes; that way they can still be right.  Not being right is bad.  And actually losing that election after they too-hastily declared victory makes them look foolish, which is worse.

So… no sale, Silver, I’m betting.

Smart of him:

Justice David Prosser appeared on Fox News Thursday night and told host Greta Van Sustern, “I’m not conceding, and I’m not congratulating. And I’m not claiming victory.”

“We’re simply waiting out the process,” Prosser added.

One of the single most foolish things that you can do in this business is prematurely declare victory.  Sure, when it works it’s great; but if it doesn’t… (more…)

…yeah, you know what’s in it already, don’t you? That “People’s” bit is what we call a tell: a promise of big, honking wholesale confiscation of Other People’s (Not Really The Real People) Money.  And lo! – this is precisely what the Congressional Progressive Caucus wants to do:

• Increase payroll taxes. Both sides.
• Reintroduce the tax hikes on small businesses that were threatened last year.
• Impose new tax hikes on highest bracket, reaching 47%.
• New taxes on foreign earnings.
• “Crisis responsibility fee.” Which sounds better than “Soak stockholders of banks for accepting TARP money tax.”
• “Financial speculation tax.” Which sounds better than “the twenty-first century equivalent of the Stamp Act:” it’s a tax on electronic stock transactions.
• $1,450,000,000,000 in new spending.
• Public option.
• Cuts to military.

(more…)

This is even better than 7,000 votes.  Brothers and sisters: what was lost, and now been found.

(more…)

I get the impression that some people out there need something soothing.

Peaceful Easy Feeling, The Eagles

Because I’m a giver.

“Mainlining schadenfreude.”

Duuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuude.

Moe Lane

PS: It’s still going to be a long, grinding recount process in Wisconsin.  But a seven thousand vote margin changes the dynamic.

Interestingly, After Dachau is only nominally alternate history, as I would define it: the change point is not really well-developed and it’s mostly there to help set up the question of What do you do about the consequences of an evil done by another, and that cannot be either redressed or undone? It’s a pretty tough question; more accurately, it’s a pretty tough most likely answer.  Good book, but a depressing one*.

And so, adieu to The Jersey Sting: A True Story of Crooked Pols, Money-Laundering Rabbis, Black Market Kidneys, and the Informant Who Brought It All Down – which was a lot more cheerful, mind.

(more…)

This is a great headline:

27% of communication by members of Congress is taunting, professor concludes

Short, sweet, to the point, and funny: it tells you something that you already knew, but you want to read the article anyway. This is a headline made out of win.

Via Hot Air Headlines.

Moe Lane

PS: I would have guessed higher, too: but then, that might cut into all that time that certain politicians spend telling the world how awesome they are.

Come, I will hide nothing from you: probably Jim McDermott is not a male chauvinist pig, per se.  Even if things like this are being written about him:

Doing double duty as a member of Congress and chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee might “strain” Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, a fellow House Democrat said Wednesday — an assessment that critics say would not be leveled at a man in a similar position.

Or at least McDermott’s probably not any more of a male chauvinist pig than the rest of his male, Democratic colleagues.  What’s actually probably just happening here is that McDermott isn’t really bothering to think about what he’s saying before he says it.  And why should he?  He’s been able to get away so far with being a duplicitous, drunken, seditionist suckweasel who took Saddam Hussein’s blood money in order to agitate against the GWOT while on foreign soil.   If his fellow-Democrats can swallow that, then they’ll probably end up not doing anything about this. (more…)

Gov. Kasich is, of course, one of the freshmen Republican governors that took over large swathes of the Midwest last election cycle. We discussed both union reform (in the form of SB 5) and the upcoming budget battle – including about why both are so necessary for Ohio.

The Midwest is probably the most interesting region of the country right now, from a political science point of view: there are a lot of things being tried out in the social laboratories which are the individual states. It’s best that people pay as much attention as possible to what’s going on out there.

Moe Lane (crosspost)