musing minds

Yesterday, as in the post below, Shep was talking to Mary Ann Marsh and she said (paraphrased because I hadn’t set the TiVo and I was listening to the show on my phone on my walk to pick up the Little Guy at school)

For 20 of the last 26 years Republicans were in charge of the whole thing.

She said this in relation to John McCain having been in the senate and doing nothing to regulate banks, etc, so as to keep them from going belly up…

I made myself a note to check that claim out.

The last 26 years would seem to be starting with the 98th Congress (1983-1985; 1982 elections)

** In the 107th Congress, the Senate majority passed from party to party so that each party held the majority twice during that Congress.

As you can see from the chart above, Mary Ann Marsh’s statement doesn’t work in any way.

The House was held by the Democrats 14 of the last 26 years.

The Senate was held by the Republicans 14 of the last 26 years.

The White House was held by the Republicans 18 of the last 26 years.

Republicans held both the White House and both houses of Congress for two congresses (and part of one), the Democrats for one congress in the past 26 years. But if you go back a little further, Jimmy Carter’s Administration was completely Democrat. Both houses and the White House were in Democrat hands.

And that’s around the time Joe Biden started out in the Senate…

Barack Obama again today talked about John McCain and old boys’ networks and “he’s been in Washington for 26 years”, yada, yada, yada.

Joe Biden’s been in for 36 years.

Isn’t 36 years 10 years more than 26?

On with Shep Smith this afternoon, Mary Ann Marsh said (paraphrased):

Barack Obama is taking private donations from people. John McCain is using taxpayer dollars.

So…

because Obama’s taking “private donations” some as small as $100 from real people

Obama = Good.

and because McCain is taking the public financing that every presidential candidate in the past except for Obama has taken

McCain = Bad

Obama is the first presidential candidate to decline public financing.

His fundraising isn’t working as well as predicted.

I think he’ll be the last presidential candidate to decline public financing.

International Talk Like a Pirate Day!

And since it’s on a Friday this year, make it a Talk Like A Pirate Weekend!

That’s the number bandied about by the Obama camp and surrogates trying to say that McCain’s been in Washington that long so he doesn’t represent a change.

Joe Biden’s been in the senate for 36 years.

Isn’t 36 longer than 30?

Saturday, in a completely separate storm from Ike, we got a record amount of rain. We didn’t sleep well from rain all night (Friday into Saturday), and then in the morning we realized the sump pump wasn’t going on.

Hubby went down into the dungeon (our 4 foot, concrete floored crawlspace) and found 6 inches of water. He got the sump working (the float was caught on something and didn’t trip the switch to start the pump). We’re going to have to start removing everything that was stored down there. Lots of video tapes, but we don’t even have a tape player anymore… Everything else that was down there was also ruined. No Christmas tree – have to get a new one this year…

The front and back yards also were flooded on Saturday.

Sunday, Ike arrived. More rain. Sump running on and off, on and off, on and off…

Birds are sheltering on the front porch.

One is sheltering inside the house. We found her last Monday just before it started raining. She’s a baby Cockatiel.

Sunshine the baby cockatiel

Althouse hates it and so do a lot of people.

and now they’re rolling back to the previous version.

SiteMeter page 9.14.08

As an alternative, one can

This video was made by the son of one of our local County Republican Committee Chairs, returned from Iraq.

Watch as he walks away.

The Red Cross needs money, volunteers, and blood donations…

Click to help The American Red Cross

Your humble blogger won FIRST PRIZE!

Yay!

Thanks Kate!

Click on over to Electric Venom to see the winning entries!

We’ve been having some server issues. We’re on a shared server and apparently someone has been putting a heavy load on the server which has resulted in intermittent outages for my domains…

My host is telling me that they are working on the issue.

This is the first time in the about three and a half years that I’ve been with them that there’s been any issues of any kind for me. I have been very happy with them.