The SoapBoxers

It’s been more than a week since the bombings at the Boston Marathon. I’d like to share a few random thoughts on the topic.

Shortly after the bombings, I saw a tweet where someone remarked that bomb sniffing dogs were seen BEFORE the blasts – noting how strange this was. Actually, it’s not unusual at all. The next time you are at a major event, pay close attention to the law enforcement presence. It’s very likely that you’ll see dogs.

Why is the younger brother talking? I have no idea. Generally, a suspect agrees to talk in exchange for some sort of plea bargain or leniency. In this case, Dzokhar Tsarnaev is being charged with federal crimes, and the death penalty is a possibility. In fact, I can’t imagine the feds taking the death penalty off the table – there would be a lot of public backlash if they did.

I’ve seen some people say that older brother Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s widow (Katherine Russell) must guilty because she has a lawyer. This seems very naïve to me. If you ever find yourself in a situation where the FBI is investigating you in connection with a major crime, I’d suggest that you hire a lawyer, even if you’re completely innocent. The feds are not like Andy and Barney – they play hardball.

Neil Diamond

The Boston Red Sox had their game canceled on Friday night, along with pretty much everything else on the Boston social calendar. On Saturday, Neil Diamond showed up at Fenway and asked if he could lead the crowd in their tradition of singing “Sweet Caroline”. The 72 year old singer had flown to Boston for the sole purpose of singing at Fenway. Obviously, the Sox agreed. That’s classy, Neil.

While the Tsarnaev brothers were Muslim, let’s not forget that terrorists can come from any background. James Holmes, Timothy McVeigh – terrorism is not exclusive to Muslims. Let’s also not forgot that Muslim terrorist are extremists and do not represent the vast majority of Muslims. Most Muslims are normal, peaceful people. Their customs and religious beliefs may be a bit different that yours, but odds are that they are looking for many of the same things in life. Don’t judge an entire population by the fringe elements.

Boston Strong.

Boston Marathon

An hour after the first runners cross the finish line at the Boston Marathon, two bomb blasts rocked Boston.  At the moment, two people are reported dead and 22 are injured.  I’d expect the numbers to rise as the day goes on.

The timing of the bombing was no doubt well planned.  An hour after the first runners finish is a time when the number of runners crossing the finish line is going to be growing larger by the minute (very few runners can run a marathon is less than three hours).  A marathon is also a pretty soft target – it’s just hard to completely secure both sides of a 26 mile route.  It’s always been my fear that a major sports event would be targeted by terrorists, simply due to the large numbers of people that attend these events.

Let’s do all we can to assist those who suffered due to this tragedy, and give law enforcement assistance and support in apprehending the terrorists who perpetrated this act.

“You’re choosing $50 lightbulbs,” Senator Rand Paul said. “Nobody understands that in America.”

There has been much discussion about Philips winning a $10 million award (the L prize) for affordable lighting – for a light bulb that costs $50.  Sounds crazy, doesn’t it?  Even with a 25,000 hour productive life, the bulb would cost far more than a bunch of incandescents that do the same job, right?  This seems to be a commonly held belief – but it’s wrong.

I believe that Senator Paul is correct, and this concerns me.  I believe that he is correct that many people don’t understand how a $50 light bulb could be a good thing, and I feel that this stems from a failure to understand some basic math and science concepts.

There are two factors in the total cost of ownership of a light bulb.  With a standard incandescent bulb, the cheap part is the bulb. The far more expensive portion is the electricity to power the bulb.

Cost Comparison

Let’s compare costs over a 25,000 hour lifespan :

 
I used the high end of the life for the incandescent bulbs (rated at 750 – 1500 hours), but even with this, you’ll have used 17 bulbs during the life of one of the Philips LED bulbs. So we’re comparing a $50 bulb to $8.50 worth of incandescents. OK, incandescents are still $41.50 cheaper, right?

Then we get to electricity usage. Assuming 10 cents per kWh, the $50 LED bulb will usage $25 worth of electricity. The incandescents will use $150 worth of electricity.

Total cost for the $50 LED bulb: $50 for bulb + $25 for electricity = $75

Total cost for incandescents: $8.50 for bulbs + $150 for electricity = $158.59

Now do you see why it might make sense to buy the “expensive” bulbs?

Criticism of the LED Bulbs

Here are some of the comments I hear about the LED bulbs:

If I break a bulb, it’s $50 instead of 50 cents.

Seriously, how many bulbs do you people break?  I’m 36, and I’ve broken one in my entire life – and it was a bulb I was removing.  If bulb breakage is a common problem, you might want to be a bit more careful.  Also, since LED bulbs are solid state, they are more resistant to shock and vibration – less likely to break.

There’s mercury in LED bulbs.

No, there isn’t.  You’re thinking of compact flourescent bulbs.

If I can’t recover the cost of an investment in 2-3 years, it’s not worth my time.

Anything that doesn’t have a ROI north of 33% isn’t worth your time?

Which would you rather have:

• Product A recovers the cost of the initial investment in 18 months and has a life span of 24 months.
• Product B recovers the cost of the initial investment in 4 years and has a life span of 10 years.

Obviously, product B is the better choice.  It takes longer to recover the investment, but it keeps saving you money for a longer period of time afterward.

The lighting is of worse quality

Honestly, I really don’t notice a difference between incandescent, compact flourescent, and LED.  Some people do.

If I sell my house or remodel, I won’t get the full savings from the bulbs.

Fair point.  It’s important to note that the break even point from the example above is 8300 hours, so even if you only have the bulb for half the life, you come out ahead.  In any case, I suspect that you have a number of bulbs in your house that are fairly resistant to remodeling efforts – perhaps the laundry room or garage?

If you sell the house, you may be able to use the existence of LED bulbs as a selling point.

These bulbs won’t last 25,000 hours

Possible.  If I had to bet, though, I’d bet that they come awful close to it.  If they even average half the estimated useful life, they still save money.

There will be cheaper bulbs next year

This is true – most likely, the cost of LED bulbs will continue to fall.  Should you replace now or wait?  The critical factor is how much you use the bulb.  If you have it on 8 hours a day, 365 days a year, that’s 2920 hours.  You’d save 146 kwH per year, for an annual savings of $14.60 (based on the 10 cents per kWh – if your cost is higher, the savings is more).  Use the bulb an hour per day, and the cost savings is  $1.83 per year (but, in theory, the bulb would last nearly 70 years).

It’s also worth noting that the Philips 10 watt LED isn’t the only game in town.  There are cheaper options, even from Philips.  You can currently buy a 4 pack of 12.5 watt, 800 lumen Philips LED bulbs for less than $100 (below) – half the price per bulb.  In fact, the total cost of ownership of the 12.5 watt bulbs will be less than the total cost of ownership of the 10 watt bulbs.  You’ll spend somewhere in the neighborhood of $6 – $10 more for electricity, but save $25 on the bulb.

A couple of points in closing:

Often, green choices cost more.  With the LED bulbs, you can save money at the same to you help control dependence on foreign energy (since the energy saved in lighting can be used elsewhere).

While much of the criticism of the bulbs pertains to their use by consumers, industrial use of LED bulbs are a big part of the cost savings.  The city where I work recently replaced bulbs in city parking garages with LED.  Not only is there cost savings from the energy usage, but it also reduces the maintenance of replacing the bulbs.  LEDs are also a popular choice for traffic lights, where extended bulb life can make the streets safer.

When I logged onto Facebook on Thursday evening, two of my friends has posted a link to an article proclaiming the great news.  Apple was going to bring 700,000 jobs to America – jobs that are now down by workers overseas (mostly in China).

The grand plan was to drop 70,000 on each of ten cities spread throughout the country.  By the end of 2013, all 700,000 jobs would be staffed.  Apple, a company that was fighting for its very existence just 15 years ago, would breath life into the economy and slash the unemployment rate from 8.3% to 7.8% – a tremendous amount of impact from just one company.

The news made sense for a few reasons:

• Apple’s never been one to follow the lead of other companies, often opting for unconventional paths.  Not only that, but with CEO Tim Cook out of the shadow of Steve Jobs, maybe Cook would make some decisions that Steve wouldn’t have.
• Apple has around $100 billion in cash and has a market capitalization in excess of a half trillion dollars.  That’s not a typo. Apple is the most valuable company in the world – and it’s not particularly close.  Oil giant Exxon Mobil trails by a hundred billion dollars – meaning that it is worth 20% less than Apple.  If Apple wanted to employ 700,000 workers in the US, it could afford to.
• Finally, Apple has been under fire for the working conditions at FoxConn, one of its major partners.  FoxConn is a large company that builds components for a lot of tech industry giants, but Apple has been the company taking the most heat.

I wasn’t born yesterday, however, so I hit Google and search for the news on other sites.  Nobody else was running the story.  That seemed odd.  Heck, Apple’s own site didn’t mention it.

Gotcha

Then I read the article more closely.  Really, 700,000 jobs by the end of 2013?  Was it even possibly to get factories built in that amount of time?  Sure, Apple could probably take over the facilities of some bankrupt companies and retrofit the facilities, but that still seems like a pretty aggressive timeline.

And the quote from the Chamber of Commerce seems a bit out of line:

“Just because corporations get the rights of American citizens doesn’t mean they should be burdened by the same responsibilities,” the statement said. “For example, everyone knows people can’t kill people — but sometimes job creators like corporations need to be able to kill people, as the Supreme Court is working on right now.”

So I look at the subject tags.  Yes, one of them was “satire”.  And in the comment, writer Shane Finnegan admitted that this was indeed a satirical piece.  And why not?  It’s his job to write satire for the Ocean Beach Rag.

Well played, Shane.

But why not?

Why doesn’t Apple, or some other tech company, bring jobs back to America?  It’s all about the money, of course.  Labor in China is far cheaper than in the United States, and there’s no hiding the fact that it’s also more expensive to comply with US safety regulations.

If there is ever a flood of manufacturing jobs back into the United States, tech companies will probably be the last ones to the party.  Why?  Because computers, TVs, and smart phones have a very high cost:weight ratio.  The cost of shipping an iPhone or a MacBook Pro from China is a tiny percentage of the cost of the item, so it’s really not that expensive to ship them.  Ramen noodles, on the other hand, have a low cost:weight ratio, so shipping them thousands of miles would be relatively expensive, percentage-wise.

At this point, there’s not much incentive for companies to bring jobs back to the US.  Sure, it’s what the citizens want, but the higher labor costs would make a company’s products much more expensive than those of their competitors.  At this point, I don’t see this changing at an point in the future, unless the government decides to make it prohibitively expensive to import the finished products.

Image via Wikipedia

Mitt Romney has released income tax information, any many people are shocked that he paid an effective rate of just 13.9% in 2010.  His opponent, Newt Gingrich, pays an effective rate of 30%!  Is Romney doing something illegal?

The reason for Romney’s rate

The reason why Romney pays a far lower rate than Gingrich isn’t due to some strange loophole that Romney pays his lawyers to exploit.  It’s simply due to the fact that capital gains are treated differently than ordinary income.  While tax rates on ordinary income (wages, interest, etc) range from 5% to 35%, capital gains are taxed at 15% (although taxpayers in the 5% and 10% brackets pay their ordinary rate on capital gains).

This means that if I have a $1000 capital gain and Mitt Romney has a $1000 capital gain, we will both pay taxes of $150 on that income.

Mitt’s income is nearly all derived from investments.  He doesn’t have a wage-earning job.  While he does make a few bucks from book royalties, it pales in comparison to his investment earnings.  Throw in some deductible charitable contributions, and Romney is able to chisel the 15% rate down to 13.9% without much work.

Why are capital gains taxed at a lower rate?

The basic idea behind a lower rate for capital gains is that this will encourage people to invest in capital assets (ownership of companies) instead of keeping their money in a mattress or a passbook savings account.  There’s more risk in doing this, of course, so one way to balance the risk/reward is to allow profits to be taxed at a lower rate.

Is the capital gains rate too low?

In my opinion, yes.  It seems absurd that a $500 capital gain and a $5 million capital gain would be taxed at the same rate, when $500 or ordinary income and $5 million of ordinary income would be taxed at different rates.

Do I think that capital gains should be taxed at the same rate as ordinary income?  No.  I do believe that there’s is value in encouraging investors to put their money into equities.  It clearly is a riskier proposition, and I’m OK with a lower capital gains rate being a reward for taking that risk.

My suggestion would be to make the capital gains rate 2/3 of the rate for ordinary income.  Under this plan, the capital gains rate would be 7% for those in the 10% tax bracket and would top out at 23.45% for those in the 35% tax bracket.  Mitt Romney would still pay a lower effective rate that Newt Gingrich or Alex Rodriguez, but would pay far more than he does today.

What’s an effective rate?

As a last bit of explanation, let’s look at the difference between a marginal rate and effective rate.  You might be in the 25% tax bracket.  This doesn’t mean that you pay a 25% tax rate on all your earnings.  Tax rates on ordinary income are marginal.  If you are single and make $50,000 (this would be in the 25% bracket), you would pay 10% on the first $8500 of taxable income , 15% for the amount between $8500 and $34500, and 25% on the amount that exceeds $33950.  That would be a total tax of $8625 on $50,000 of taxable income – or 17.25%.

The second point is that there is a big difference between your gross earnings and taxable income.  You’ll reduce gross income by the exemptions for yourself, spouse, and children, and well as a variety of deductions (mortgage interest, property taxes, charitable contributions, etc), and credits (earned income credit, child tax credit, etc).

effective rate is often calculated against gross income (AGI), his effective rate drops to $12.5%.

A married couple with two dependent children who have an AGI of $50,000 and take only the standard deduction and personal exemptions (no itemized deductions or credits) will pay $2690 in federal taxes … an effective rate of 5.4%.  This is achieved by excluding a total of $26400 via the $11,600 standard deduction for married filing jointly and $14,800 in personal exemptions (four exemptions @ $3700 each), dropping the couple’s taxable income down to $23,600.

Joe Paterno passed away on Sunday morning this past weekend. He leaves a legacy of coaching and giving to the University that he called his home and his career for over a half of a century. His philanthropic efforts at the school are without comparison for a man who was an employee of that same University. In many ways Paterno defined Penn State as much as Penn State defined him.

As usual when any public sports figure passes, there has been the chance to get a comment from any and all former players, fellow coaches, other members of the sporting world. I think in many cases these comments are very sincere, very thought out, and very supportive toward the family. After all, Paterno held the longest tenure of any coach in any sport. He has touched many folks in his time at the helm of the Nittany Lions. Unfortunately, many of these comments from sports figures, announcers and others seem to be more out of necessity than heartfelt. In our media age of 24 hour sports programming networks, Twitter and the like, you are often criticized as much for what you don’t say – – in times when it is felt you SHOULD say something.

It will be an interesting period at Penn State. A new coach, the Sandusky trial proceedings, and now dealing with the death of the biggest icon of this proud University.

A lot of talk is happening right now about what is the proper way to honor Joe Paterno. What is “appropriate” given the recent developments and his perceived role or lack thereof in them? Many are bitter with how the media has handled everything in Happy Valley as of late. Many criticize the former coach. Many support him. Many are still searching for how they truly feel.

The flip side of a celebrity passing is that people try and cash in. It is likely that various books written now about Paterno and the “scandal” . Online mega-giant Ebay shows a that 3500+ items are listed when searching JOE PATERNO in the search field. It never surprises me the amount of vultures that want to cash in upon the death of someone famous. Unfortunately people are always looking to make a quick buck. It is the times that we live in.

I am sure the University and the people associated with Penn State will make appropriate decisions in the upcoming days, weeks and months after his death in terms of how to best remember Joe Paterno. I am sure that some of his legacy will forever be tarnished given the scope and nature of the allegations that have happened during his watch. I am sure he will not be forgotten.

Until next time…Stay Classy Brooklyn, New York

Joran Van der Sloot is expected to plead guilty to charges of murder today.  He faces as much as 30 years in prison for the death of Stephany Flores.

This means that Van der Sloot, still just 24, will be released before he turns 55.  Depending on the leniency of the judge, perhaps long before then.  This disturbs me greatly.  If the allegations against Van der Sloot are true, he is a cold, calculating monster with no conscience.  Even his own mother is distancing herself from him.

Let’s do a run-down.  Note that these are all allegations – none of the charges have been proven in a court of law.

• Van der Sloot first popped up on the radar as a 17 year old in 2005 when he was arrested for involvement in the disappearance and presumed murder of American teenager Natalee Holloway.  Holloway’s body was never found, and eventually van der Sloot was released from custody.  In my opinion, it’s unlikely that Van der Sloot will ever go on trial for Holloway’s murder.
• In 2010, he extorted money from Beth Holloway (Natalee’s mother) in exchange for disclosing the location of Natalee’s body.  Beth and her representative participated in a sting operation, and van der Sloot got $25,000.  Before charges could be filed, van der Sloot traveled to Peru.  The information about the location of Natalee’s body was determined to be false.  Talk about rubbing salt in the wound.
• While in Peru, he strikes up a relationship with Flores.  After spending time in a casino, they go to his hotel room early in the morning of May 30, 2010.  Violence ensues – likely due to a discussion of his involvement in Holloway’s murder – and Flores ends on the floor with a broken neck and blunt force trauma to the head.  By the time her body is discovered on June 2, van der Sloot has fled to Chile.  He was arrested on June 3 and eventually extradited to Peru.
• And the one that nobody talks about much – his involvement in the sex trafficking trade.  An investigate report by Dutch journalist Peter R. de Vries shows that Van der Sloot, at the time an owner of a restaurant in Thailand, sold Thai girls to groups involved in the sex trafficking trade.  Van der Sloot posed as a representative of a modeling agency to lure the girls, who were shipped to the Netherlands to become sex slaves.  For his efforts, Van der Sloot received a heathy fee of $13,000 per girl.

That’s a pretty extensive resume for a 24 year old.  While Van der Sloot often seems portray a lone wolf psychopath working along, it seems unlikely that this is actually true.  It’s fairly obviously that he has cultivated some relationships with other criminals.  How else could he have possibly gotten involved in the Thai sex slave enterprise?

I’m hoping the judge decides to impose the maximum penalty of 30 years in prison – and fear the day that Van der Sloot is able to walk out of the doors a free man once again.  How many other women will he kill after his release from prison?
 

 

A lot of sites are highlighting the top news stories of 2011.  It’s pretty easy to do them in hindsight – how about a look forward at the top news stories of 2012.

Here are my three news stories to follow in 2012.

The presidential election

Hundreds of millions (or even billions) of dollars will be spent to obtain a job that pays a mere $400,000 per year.  Since I live in Iowa, I’ve been deluged with commercials for many months.  I can’t wait for the caucuses to be over, so that the politicians can focus on New Hampshire.  My prediction is that the economy will bounce back and Obama will ride the economic uptick to a re-election.  I’m not saying that he’ll cause the recovery, just that he’ll get the credit for it (which is fair, since presidents also get blamed for things they don’t cause.

In addition to the presidential election, there will also be elections for all of the seats in the House of Representatives and 1/3 of the seats in the Senate.  These don’t get as much attention, but they are just as important.  While the political writers on The Soap Boxers will cover the serious political news, I’ll handle the snarky stories (which coven will Christine O’Donnell join in 2012) on my new site, Donkey and Elephant Show.

The world will end

December 21 is just 359 days away.  If you happen to be in Australia on November 13 and fear that the end of the world has arrived early, don’t worry – you’re just seeing a total solar eclipse.  You’ve still got 38 days to live.

I’ve given some advice for the end of days.  Sadly, I do expect that quite a few people will saddle themselves with debt under the assumption that the world will end on December 21 and they won’t have to repay the money.  If the sun rises on December 22, we may see a spike in the number of bankruptcies.  (Sadly, I’m not kidding).

Olympics

I’m an Olympic junkie.  During the 2012 Summer games in London, I will once again learn the nuances of many sports that I pay no attention to at any other time (kayaking?).  Of particular note to me is that fact that 2004 Olympic gold medalist Cael Sanderson will attempt to win another gold in 2012.

Not only are the Olympics a great showcase for sports, but it’s also a great way to learn about other countries and cultures.  Certainly we’ll learn a lot about London during the Games, but also about countries like Trinidad and Tobago.  Have kids who hate geography but love sports?  Let them watch the Olympics and they’ll pick up some geography (and maybe even learn something about world politics).

While I’ll like watch just about anything, my main focus will be on track and field, especially since baseball has been dropped as an Olympic sport (sigh).

Your thoughts

What stories will you be following in 2012?
 

 

This is our third article on the topic of Jerry Sandusky’s arrest and the subsequent impact on Penn State.  That’s a lot of virtual ink for our little publication to give to one story.  However, nearly every writer on the staff is a pretty big sports fan, and this is one of the biggest sports-related stories in recent years – it warrants considerable coverage.  You might even see 1-2 more stories today, as I sent a couple of emails late last night soliciting articles responding to the breaking events.

Last night, heads began to roll, as Joe Paterno was fired after 46 years as head coach at Penn State and university president Graham Spanier was also fired.  I doubt these will be the only people fired. 

Here are some questions about the scandal.  These are presented as they pop into my head, and are not intended to be in order of importance.

What are the rioters thinking?

I understand the mindset of sports fans.  I’m a huge sports fan myself.  I spend much more time thinking about how to abolish the designated hitter than I do comparing the tax plans of Ron Paul and Herman Cain.

However, when the same news story involves kids getting raped and a coach getting fired, the coach is not the victim.  Focus on the kids.

What did Graham Spanier know?

Spanier insists that he knows nothing.  But if he really knew nothing, would he have been fired?  If he was fired without just cause, he’d have a great case for a wrongful termination lawsuit.  I can’t imaging that the trustees would be dumb enough to walk into a lawsuit.  (However, I’ve been wrong about that sort of thing before – sometimes state officials really ARE that dumb).

Interestingly, Spanier is president of the Bowl Championship Series (BCS).  If he is removed from this role, will this cause any changes to the BCS?

What did McQueary Tell Paterno?

There’s a discrepancy here.  McQueary says that he told Paterno the details of the shower encounter between Jerry Sandusky and the young boy.  When Paterno spoke with Athletic Director Tim Curley, he says that McQueary told him that Sandusky was fondling the boy or doing something of a sexual nature.

Was Paterno downplaying Sandusky’s activities?  Is McQueary lying?  Is Paterno lying?  Was there a misunderstanding?

However, the point becomes a bit moot when you consider that McQueary then met with Curley and VP Schultz (in charge of the campus police).  Regardless of what Paterno told Curley, McQueary had the opportunity to give his full story to Curley during that meeting.

Why didn’t McQueary stop the assault?

That’s a great question.  The only thing I can say in his defense is that perhaps he was in shock and temporarily lost the ability to make good decisions.

Why didn’t anyone go to the cops?

Another great question.  I heard Mike and Mike on ESPN raise a good point on this issue.  VP Schultz was in charge of the campus police.  Perhaps McQueary and Paterno saw his involvement as police involvement.

It would have been better, of course, to go to the police.

Why did Sandusky have access to university facilities?

Finally, an easy question.  He negotiated a status of coach emeritus, which gave him access to the facilities.

Why did Sandusky retire?

Sandusky stepped down in 1999 shortly after Paterno told him he would not become head coach at Penn State.  The official reason for Paterno’s proclamation was that Sandusky was spending too much time with his charity, and would thus would not be able to devote sufficient time to a head coaching role.

Is is possible that Paterno’s real reason was that he knew what Sandusky was doing and didn’t want to put a pedophile in the head coaching role.  (Isn’t it also interesting that the sitting head coach is making decisions on the future coach instead of the Athletic Director?)

Is it possible that Sandusky’s frustration at losing his shot at the head coaching job served as a trigger to his criminal activities?

Did Sandusky create The Second Mile charity just to troll for victims?

That’s a scary thought, isn’t it?

Where’s the grand jury report?

http://www.attorneygeneral.gov/uploadedFiles/Press/Sandusky-Grand-Jury-Presentment.pdf

Frankly, Democratic congressman Anthony Weiner is in a lot of hot water these days.  He sent racy photos (of his, well … use your imagination) to several women over the internet and lied about it when he was confronted.  (His acting was definitely not Oscar-worthy.)  When he finally came clean, it turns out that he was having online relationships with six women.

The media frenzy around the scandal has reached a boil, and many inside the Washington power circle are attempting the skewer the congressman.  The Republicans are relishing this opportunity, pushing Weiner to resign.  Members of Weiner’s own party are turning against him, joining the Republicans in the chorus, in an attempt to distance themselves from the congressman.

The most likely situation is that Weiner will resign, a special election will be held, and the democratic candidate will win.  The Democrats will continue to represent New York’s 9th congressional district.  They’ll lose Weiner’s seniority, but also distance themselves a bit from Weinergate.  It’s possible that a Republican can would, but it would be an uphill climb in the left-leaning 9th district.

My question is this:  why are the Republicans in such a hurry to see him go?  Time and time again, the opposition party tries to force someone to resign when they become embroiled in ethical issues.  Wouldn’t it be better to allow Weiner to keep his seat?

Here’s my logic.  If Weiner resigns and is replaced, the scandal will eventually fade, another Democrat will be elected to represent New York’s 9th congressional district, and the country will forget about Anthony Weiner (since the vast majority never knew he existed before this scandal).  The lasting impact will be minimal.

However … if Weiner stays in office, the Republicans have an albatross to hang around the neck of President Obama and the rest of the Democrats.  Find a photo of Democratic Senator John Doe giving Weiner a high five and use it in a commercial to support Doe’s opponent – painting Doe as a friend of Weiner, and painting the Democrats as the Weiner party.

The best plan for the GOP: keep Weiner in the House!