January 2011
27 posts
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Conservatives latch onto prison reform →
Reduced sentences and rehabilitation programs once were branded as liberal. But now, states such as Republican-dominated Texas are seeing success after adopting the approach.
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This came from alexholzbach’s discussion of marriage last night:
I support it because I believe the Constitution clearly states that the United States should not respect an establishment of religion. Because marriage is religious, I don’t think the government should get involved. To me, it’s that simple.
Marriage is not an exclusively religious exercise, but also a cultural exercise. The...
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Watching the TX Lege
Even if you don’t live in Austin or don’t work in the Pink Building, you too can watch the Texas Legislature at work, which is going to be very entertaining this session.
You can watch the Texas Senate here.
You can watch the Texas House of Representatives here.
The Senate will start debating voter identification tomorrow, which will be interesting.
And I’m such a nerd that I...
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Fair Competition Among Competing Capitalisms →
Robert D. Hormats has this post on the State Department’s blog (which I recommend following). In it, he discusses the emerging role of state capitalism on the issue of trade, specifically open markets. He is attending a conference to discuss Competitive Neutrality, the goal of which would be “to identify policy measures that would put enterprises with extensive state support and other...
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Texas, Our Texas →
lemkin:
But unsaid, and what ought to scare the pants off the GOP in Texas: that any potential candidate would poll as losing Texas to Obama right now is, shall we say: interesting.
I would point out this is the same polling outfit (PPP) who said Sen. Hutchison would wipe the floor with Perry, so I don’t know how reliable they are. But the reason they give Pres. Obama a chance against...
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The Founders and Government Healthcare
After perusing Twitter for a few seconds, I cam across a couple of posts (here and here) dealing with the “Act for Sick and Disabled Seamen.” I have previously addressed whether or not this was an individual mandate (it was not) or a precedent for the current healthcare legislation (it’s actually more analogous to VA hospitals than the healthcare reform which was passed last...
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Where Texans Go To Drink →
There’s no denying Texans like beer; on average, we each drank 22 gallons of beer in 2010, according to the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission. We also drank 1.1 gallons of distilled spirits, AKA liquor. At 1.5 ounces a shot, that equals 94 mixed drinks for each of us last year.
There also an interactive map showing you where the most alcohol is sold.
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Texas Senate Doesn't Change 2/3 Rule →
In a party-line vote, the Texas Senate adopted its rules today without making any changes to the rule that requires the consent of 2/3 of the body in order to bring an issue to the floor.
For which I am thankful.
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Book that disappointed you
Unintended Consequences: The United States at War by Kenneth J. Hagan and Ian J. Bickerton
The authors did a poor job of arguing their thesis: that unintended consequences were unpredictable and/or unforeseeable, and thus war is folly; because many of the “unpredictable” examples were indeed predicted and foreseen, such as the problems arising from slavery discussed on p. 30 in...
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“Comedian Bill Maher took issue with the Tea party’s identification with...”
– Bill Maher lashes out at ‘Teabaggers’ identification with ‘Founding Fathers’ (via ryking)
Maher makes the same mistake that many Tea Partiers, as well as others make, i.e., assuming that the Founding Fathers were a monolithic ideological group. Not all the Founders studied science, read Plato...
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10 Things We Hate About Luke →
Sure, Luke Skywalker is a terrorist and a Jedi but there are loads of other reasons to hate him. Here are ten of the best.
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For Democrats, a TX Sized Challenge →
Texas, because of its growing Hispanic population, is sometimes thought of by Democrats as representing the next frontier in the party’s electoral aspirations. So far, however, the party has been able to make only a few inroads.
For this analysis, keep in mind that no Democrat has won statewide in Texas since 1994.
The only problem with Mr. Silver’s analysis is that Bill White...
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Hutchison won’t run again in 2012 →
Texas’ senior U.S. senator, Kay Bailey Hutchison, announced in a letter to supporters today that she will not run again in 2012.
And the floodgates were opened; it’s going to be a packed primary.
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Kant's Great Hope
In the Will to Power, Nietzsche wrote, “The supposed instinct for causality is only fear of the unfamiliar and the attempt to discover something familiar in it.” Immanuel Kant looked out on the world of 1784 and saw challenges to Newtonian science and Enlightenment ideals. The world of dignified freedom Kant so desired, and with which he had so familiarized himself, appeared to be lost. Kant saw a...
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Hispanic Vote Crucial to Republican Future →
To follow up on my previous post about the Texas Republican Party:
Writing in the Miami Herald, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush (R) notes only 38% of Hispanics voted Republican in the 2010 congressional elections and center-right candidates have failed to win more than 40% of the Hispanic vote nationally since 2004. “While the reason for such low numbers is debatable, the way to turn ...
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The Rise of Two-Party Texas
A lot has changed since John Knaggs wrote about the growth of the Republican Party in Texas [1]. Today there are 101 Republicans in the Texas House of Representatives (2 of them being Democrats who switched in December). Back in 1986, this would have seemed implausible, and in 1961, it would have seemed impossible, but now it’s reality.
Read more…
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Political Heavy Hitters Take On College Bowls →
College football’s bowl system has long been a target of sports fans, newspaper columnists and even President Obama. But now a different kind of group is weighing in on the way the sport’s champion is determined: a Washington political action committee.
As much as I dislike the BCS, I dislike involving the federal government in college football even more.
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An American Ideal
In his essay On Cosmopolitanism, Derrida largely ignores the role of the State, but in a brief passage, he identifies the State as being “the foremost guarantor against the violence which forces refugees or exiles to flee.”[1] But while Derrida may have given up hope in the State, it is the international actor to whom we must look to enforce out ideals, for all others, such as the U.N., lack...
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Shooting prompts legislation to protect lawmakers →
Rep. Robert Brady, D-Pennsylvania, said he will introduce legislation making it a federal crime for a person to use language or symbols that could be perceived as threatening or inciting violence against a Member of Congress or federal official.
As for support for the bill, Brady said, “Why would you be against it?”
This proposed law seems rather vague, so why would I be...
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Something of the Jeffersonian Religion
The majority of Jeffersonians were deists, meaning that they held a belief in one only God. Some others, such as Dr. Benjamin Rush, were avowed and practicing Christians. But for all Jeffersonians, Deists and Christians alike, their God was a being to be imitated, rather than worshipped.
Read more…
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Texas and New York, different →
If you read Paul Krugman on a regular basis, the Economist provides a reply to this post on why New York and Texas have had different experiences during the recession and its aftermath.
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Democrats Plan Push to Curtail Use of Filibusters →
There has been a lot of debate about changing the filibuster rules. Some of the rules, such as requiring “senators to be on the floor if they seek to derail legislation,” are good rules. In Texas, the filibustering senator must remain on the floor the entire time he is filibustering (one senator had a catheter and bag so he would not have to to go to the restroom) and must only speak...
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All Politics Is Local? The Debate and the Graphs →
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Structurally Unbalanced: Cyclical and Structural... →
As state legislatures reconvene this month, numerous states are contending with substantial budgetary turmoil, aggravated by the recent Great Recession and slow recovery. Such turmoil has visited substantial hardship on citizens and threatens to weaken many states’ ability to provide basic services and make in vestments for their long-term economic vitality.
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Texas Is $95 Billion In The Red: Why Is No One... →
Reblogged from takethispolitically and liberalsarecool:
This article comes from businessinsider.com, and I’ve already had to debunk it on another forum. Let’s look at this quote from the authors - Mssrs Weisenthal and Lubin:
But if you want to make comparisons between US states and ailing European countries, think of Texas as being like America’s Ireland. Ireland was once...