Trump Talking to Libertarians Did Not Go Well

 

"In the last year I've been indicted by the government for 91 different things, so if I wasn't a libertarian before, I sure as hell am a libertarian now." —Donald Trump, who apparently thinks libertarians like crime. https://t.co/pT8XUHLtqM

— Orin Kerr (@OrinKerr) May 26, 2024

Now, Trump is just enjoying the latitude of his pre-felon days.  He will most likely receive convictions by-and-by. The whole thing where Trump thought it would be great to talk to the Libertarian Party and try to win them over was kind of frustrated by his own teams' efforts. They planted MAGAs in the NY Young Republicans in Libertarian seats and got stroppy about protest shows like rubber chickens asking Trump to debate Bob (Kennedy--naturally). It was not great. 

Trump got uniformly booed--but who is speaking up for him? His Renfields. 

Look at Senator Mike Lee, head shaven, about to bang a tambourine to collect money for this entire asshole at the airport:

No other president in U.S. history could have done that—show up at the convention of a political party not his own and garner substantial support.

Joe Biden certainly couldn’t.

I’d love to see him try it.

In fact, I challenge Biden to do so.

Tomorrow!

— Mike Lee (@BasedMikeLee) May 26, 2024

What if, instead of Biden being dumb enough to do that, he was smart enough to not do that, which is actually being better than Trump is, because Trump is a desperate little fuck trying to stay out of prison?  Because Trump doing that was very desperate and dumb?  And Mike Lee's desperate clinging to Trump's unraveling bolero coattails is very embarrassing. For him, even if he is too stupid to feel it.

This is the cult-like ethos of "Trump cannot fail, he can only be failed." 

We're used to a certain level of TrumpWorld embellishment about crowd size--like the Bronx rally lies. This was an actual disaster--he couldn't seed his MAGAs in the crowd adequately to counter the actual Libertarians, and he couldn't avoid going off-script and negging them. 

They aren't my political cup of tea, but that doesn't make them stupid. They did not love being told their candidates get 3% anymore than Trump should love having done this because he has to hustle after points. They booed Mike Lee because they see the tyranny. 

Sociopaths Shouldn't Be in Government 3: Rand Paul

 

Being 16 months late in reporting the purchase of a particular stock could look like a mere oversight in some regards, like if one was updating one's portfolio as frequently as, say, David Perdue did. It stands out spectacularly when the purchase of one particular stock occurs one month after having been briefed on Covid-19 and if it were the only stock that had been singularly selected almost as if one was persuaded this particular stock was going places. 

So what the whole hell happened there? Did Kelley Paul get one hell of a tip from somewhere? And where oh where could that have been? Because you know, there were all kinds of tips going round back in the day. Only, it's only Rand Paul that misremembered what took place until 16 months later. Like he thought he'd be slick and avoid investigation, or something.

Now, whoa, whoa, whoa, you might say, doesn't the article suggest that the Pauls haven't earned money on that stock?  Well, whoa, whoa, whoa, yourselves, they haven't sold it, and the Senator from Kentucky was just out here being not at all helpful regarding arresting COVID-19 spread.  Do you suppose a man with 3/4ths the lungs he was born with and even had COVID-19 himself, and is actually trained as a doctor, thinks "What the hell, vector away you free-souled little sonsabitches?" without some kind of material impetus? I dunno. Maybe he's thinking remdesivir can make a comeback.

Senator AquaBuddha Visits Galt's Glitch

 

Rand Paul today: “It’s time for us to resist. They can’t arrest all of us .. No one should follow the CDC.” He then says he will introduce amendments to defund any govt agency that seeks to enforce CDC guidelines, including schools. pic.twitter.com/PYOQtKDYBN

— Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski) August 9, 2021

"They can't arrest all of us", but they definitely won't be arresting Rand Paul, because his shiny, likely  vaccinated ass isn't going to do anything putting himself sideways anywhere. He's encouraging dumbfucks that he is pretty certain love to be told they are wearing very special consequence-proof libertarian armor, because freedom, mom's apple pie, and the Sekret Lemon Juice Writing on the Real (TM) Constitution that you can only see when you set that bitch on fire. It's your thing--do what you want to do! Rand Paul, however, is definitely going to tell you who to sock it to, though. The CDC, The Man, and based on his regular sparring with Dr. Fauci, you know....competent medical professionals and people who actually understand what public service actually means.

Rand Paul has a peculiar idea of service--he's agin' it. Like, why are people with needs occasionally looking to people with means to accomplish those ends? (Or as we call it, a functioning society.)  Why listen to people who know what they are talking about when idiots can have opinions, too? 

Freedom Pox

Immunizations work, are safe, and people should have them unless very specifically medically counter-indicated. The earth is basically round and revolves around the sun. Trickle-down economics is bullshit because the rich get richer and crap rolls downhill. 

There are a handful of things in this life that seem to me to be just obvious, but also have the benefit of being backed up with evidence, studies, and real life experience. That Vaccinations Are Good is one of those things. Once upon a time, people got things like smallpox and were terrifically disfigured or died, or they got polio and were disabled and died, or got measles or mumps and sometimes died, or were sterilized or became blind--basically, we think of history in mostly filmy costume set-piece terms because we watch a fuckton of television, but most of it was a nasty, brutish and disease-ridden hellscape. And then we learned about germs and viruses, got hygienic and developed vaccines for things, and lifespans improved a lot. 

Seems great to me. Then we developed the internet, and some dumb people fucked that up. Failed anti-vaccine scientists who are not considered very good at science make propaganda, and because there are people who think reality is democratic, think this is new knowledge and it becomes really difficult to disabuse them of the new thing they think they have "learned". 

One thing that surely doesn't help is the presence of international shit-stirrers who have made a job of weakening social norms and sowing division by furthering bad science memes. But there's something I've heard a couple of times this week that really concerns the hell out of me. There are US politicians who are making the vaccination "controversy" (which should, by all actual evidence, be a "nontroversy") into a political statement about "freedom!" and "certainly not being Communist!" and "the purity of our bodily essence" or something like that.

I wish I was kidding.

An Arizona state senator, Kelly Townsend, made a Facebook post that literally calls vaccinations "communist" because they are for the collective good:

The legislator, Republican state Rep. Kelly Townsend, wrote in a Facebook post on Thursday that "it seems we are prepared to give up our liberty, the very sovereignty of our body, because of measles."

"I read yesterday that the idea is being floated that if not enough people get vaccinated, then we are going to force them to," wrote Townsend, who has written controversial social media posts in the past. "The idea that we force someone to give up their liberty for the sake of the collective is not based on American values but rather, Communist."

 It could not possibly be the case that the United States was founded on any such principles as: establishing Justice, insuring domestic Tranquility, providing for the common defence, promoting the general Welfare, and securing the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, with any collective intent, right? Except our founders seemed to have had as much in mind by creating a government with any such principles in mind, with promoting the general welfare being among those things. The idea of bodily sovereignty to a nation that had a military draft and still has a selective service seems like a laugh. As Ms. Townsend is also pro-life, it appears her notions of bodily sovereignty certainly do have a (very selective) limit, based on her preferences, not necessarily any given individual's.

But as to the fear of the collective, maybe she has been flummoxed by the term "herd immunity".  Wouldn't a rugged individualist want to be anything but "one of the herd"?

Which takes us to Crazy Nephew Liberty, son of Crazy Uncle Liberty, Dr. Rand Paul. His recent statement took a very novel approach to ideas of both liberty and security:

“As we contemplate forcing parents to choose this or that vaccine, I think it’s important to remember that force is not consistent with the American story, nor is force consistent with the liberty our forefathers sought when they came to America,” said Paul, reading off a paper.

“I don't think you have to have one or the other, though. I'm not here to say don’t vaccinate your kids. If this hearing is for persuasion I’m all for the persuasion. I’ve vaccinated myself and I’ve vaccinated my kids. For myself and my children I believe that the benefits of vaccines greatly outweighing the risks, but I still don’t favor giving up on liberty for a false sense of security.”

(Shit, I will leave the formatting, because whev. ) Since he knows good and well vaccines work because he's getting his own kids vaccinated--where's the "false sense of security"? And if he wants to talk about "liberty" in terms this broad, why even have laws? I was vaccinated as a wee bitty thing, and never felt robbed of my liberty. The actual choice never intersected with my freedom to do anything--I have never said "Well, I would attend this meeting/take a vacation abroad/marry my spouse/pursue my chosen profession, but no, I had MMR and booster shots."  It did not even affect my credit. Given that there are people in this world who find their lives disrupted by their gender/orientation/race/religion, I just can't even with Rand Paul talking about the liberty of parents who want their special version of science to keep life-saving needles out of their experimental human spawn tushies.  And he is supposedly a doctor. 

I've also seen a narrative that we need childhood diseases to toughen up our immune systems, as if measles was like CrossFit, but for white blood cells. What's next? Calling them "freedom pox"? Deciding that mumps is the new "swole"? That fevers are the new "hotness"?

This is just sheer damn stupidity--but it's worse because it's politicized. Let's get real--vaccinate your damn kids. 

Climate Monday: A Humble Media Suggestion

Trump White House issues climate change report undermining its own policy https://t.co/SZb2vFpdJg

— Vox (@voxdotcom) November 26, 2018

I don't think that the narrative that the Trump Administration is necessarily "hiding" their National Climate Assessment report is correct because I don't think news cycles really have a "Friday news dump" lacuna anymore, but I definitely agree that the actions of the administration serve to undermine it (or as they probably see it, the damned scientists are trying to undermine them). But this isn't something that's just peculiar to President Trump's anti-intellectual, conspiracy-minded, staring up at eclipses sort of nonsense. This is a problem we specifically have with US conservatives, and sadly, with how our media screws up reporting fact-based issues "for balance".

Take the Sunday shows. It's not hard for the chatty journalism format of the designated serious newsy shows to work in a "Friday news dump" item and give it a going over. Meet the Press, the ancient and venerable, bothered to mention it.

And they fucked it up. They let Senator Mike Lee get away with being stupid regarding the financial aspects of the substance of the report. The report specifically addressed the fact-based reality that real economic damage would be the fall-out of climate change, but libertarian Lee was able to burble that he saw no policy proposals that would not be economically damaging.

Let me rephrase that: is it that he sees no proposals that immediately address climate change that also permit entrepreneurs to capitalize on the deal? First off, that's short-sighted, but second, the turning a buck is their problem, not as a law-maker, his. His job would be legislation aimed at mitigating the effects for the safety and welfare of his constituents, which might not always be direct regulations (if he's so ideologically opposed), but could mean tax penalties or credits as a carrot and stick incentivization scheme to encourage better environmental practices. He doesn't seem to understand the question. He is, unquestionably, not a scientist--but you'd think he might understand the policy end a bit more, no?

Questions regarding the report were also put to regular MTP panel-member Danielle Pletka, of the AEI think tank. Her answers were also god-awful stupid.  And of course, she is not a scientist, and the AEI think tank she hails from gets a not-inconsiderable subsidy from Exxon, and maybe for all I know, other fossil fuel companies. This merits a disclaimer, I would think. But that MTP asked Pletka, and not, say, Tom Steyer, who was also on the program and actually has a committed and informed point of view on climate change, but was only asked about the 2020 horse race (really?) is, well.

Stupid.

But this isn't the worst stupidest thing. CNN actually pays my former senator, Rick Santorum of PA, for opinions about things when there is no evidence that he is actually, in any respect, a person with worthwhile and well-considered opinions. He actually fatuously repeated the dumb thing that Trump said about forest-raking, even though, once again, California does not manage all the forests, but the Federal government is in charge of most of it, and no, no one ever rakes forests because that is fucking stupid. Droughts are about less rain, and raking would actually pull more moisture out of the forest floor, and, you know, just read a book or something if you don't know why that is stupid. In the history of ever, there has never been a time when forest fires were managed by troops of people sent out into tens of thousands of acreage of trees, raking up shit.

But he also said a funny thing regarding climate change and the scientists who study it, to wit: they propound that global warming is real because of the sweet cash involved:

"I think the point that Donald Trump made is true, which is, uh… Look, if there was no climate change we’d have a lot of scientists looking for work," Santorum said. "The reality is that a lot of these scientists are driven by the money they receive, and of course they don’t receive money from corporations and Exxon and the like. Why? Because they’re not allowed to because it’s tainted, but they can receive (money) from people who support their agenda and that, I believe, is what’s really going on here."

Is he saying the people who support the thing where the established companies with all the money are going to have to make less money are somehow offering more compensation than the companies with all the money?* Because that is either really stupid or exactly what somebody who has been getting fossil fuel money and is also really stupid would say. And if Exxon and the coal companies and the natural gas guys and them could pay for Rick Santorum to say stupid stuff on tv (and also get paid by CNN, and provide no disclaimer about that whatsoever), than frankly, whatever stopped them from paying an actually very intelligent person or a hundred to put a scientifically shut-up-shutting up empirical stake in the heart of climate change science for once and for all?

Except, you know, the empirical facts?

So, my humble suggestion is this: If you have a political operative who might be swayed because of their income streams into siding with a corporate enterprise or entire industry opine on a subject pertaining to that industry, make it abundantly clear or don't have their asses on at all. And it you want balance, instead of "not a scientist" viewpoints dueling in a nebulous policy arena, maybe try to actually be informative and have a scientist weigh in! Also, maybe dedicate more of your staff to knowing this shit cold so they can respond to actually brain-damaged statements about raking forests and the glamorous pay of research scientists in real time.

I think it could be very helpful and serve the public a lot more than this farcical coverage.

*No. Tom Steyer is not paying all the other guys. It's, like 97% of scientists. He and Al Gore are not behind the whole global warming thing. The greenhouse effect was first described in 1824.

Gary Johnson? Stop, I'm Serious.

I know I brought this up pretty recently, but it still remains entirely true: Gary Johnson is a flake and not a real third party choice for anything. If more evidence was needed, might I suggest we look at recent comments regarding the silver (tin foil) linings he found to his lack of geographic knowledge:

Mitchell responded that Johnson was running to be commander-in-chief and that knowing how to answer such questions was "part of the portfolio."

Johnson replied that "the fact that somebody can dot the I's and cross the T's on a foreign leader or geographic location then allows them to put our military in harm's way."

"We put our military in this horrible situation where we go in and support regime change," he said. "They get involved in civil wars where hundreds of thousands of innocent people are in a cross-fire ... we're literally shooting at ourselves because we support both sides of a conflict. Syria is an example."

I feel like there is a slogan in there, somewhere. "Ban maps, end wars." Or something.  The GSA has denied the Libertarian Party ticket security briefings. I might suggest Johnson could invest in newspaper subscriptions. This might curtail him saying things like this:

In the Times interview on Wednesday, Mr. Johnson conspicuously sought to avoid another misstep. Asked if he knew the name of North Korea’s leader, Mr. Johnson replied, “I do.”

“You want me to name” the person, he said, then paused, before adding dryly, “Really.” But he declined to supply the name.

Yes. Providing the name would actually be more reassuring than questioning why one is being asked, especially when one is making moral equivalencies about aggression without reference to who is supported or why.

The reason I wonder about this is because there are still people who are leaning Johnson when there is no solid reason for them to do so. And when even his own running mate understands the reasons why Trump has got to go and the GOP has got to remedy the sickness that made him nominee, more than why third parties need to get heard out.

The argument for Johnson is not making a choice, but making an abdication from a stark one. You don't have to love Hillary Clinton. You just have to know she is the only person who is not Trump who will win and that she knows what she is talking about and cares about the issues. This is serious. Johnson...is not.

So Let's Talk About Gary Johnson, Youse Guys

I have personal experience of people who are not especially political for whom trying to choose between Trump and Clinton has become a hardship because for some reason, their education and sampling of news media has left them with a deficient read on signal to noise ratio. Some of these people sort of admire Gary Johnson, because he actually has been a Governor, which gives him some executive experience that Jill Stein has never had, and a lot of what he says seems pretty chill. Pot and guns--yep. Interventionism--nope. You see that peace symbol on his shirt and think to yourself: well, he might not be a terrible person because I can suss out where he's coming from.

Yeah. About that. If you were a Bernie Sanders supporter, take note that he is with Her--and that his agenda is better represented by Hillary Clinton than any Libertarian would ever be, because both Sanders and Clinton understand that huge undertakings require acts of government to smooth the path and make way for positive change. The Libertarians are not statists. They don't think government has a responsibility to act on the part of the people (regardless of how they  might have voted for action). This is important. Say you are an activist on any front: school choice, the environment, remedying social and legal inequalities, economic justice. His path basically says that you are on your own, and his idea of government will leave you to it. If there is bullshit enacted abroad he isn't interested, because his idea of peace is not about making aggression stop--it's about not pressing back against aggression. Call me a neoliberal all you want, but there are some kinds of aggression out there I think does need to be pressed back against--wisely, and not completely without knowledge--

And this is the scary part--he doesn't seem to have a sufficient understanding of current events or historical events--a broad concept of the American narrative, that would enable him to do this thing up proper. So he chokes on stuff like Harriet Tubman or Aleppo. He can't think of a current world leader he sees as admirable.

This is the kind of well-roundedness I want from a potential presidential candidate. I admire Justin Trudeau and Matteo Renzi. They are relatively young guys with great backgrounds in understanding government as public service, and they are optimistic and try to make things work better for their understanding of "better" for the citizens they serve--also with the understanding that they are world citizens--that the interests of their own nations are their first priority--contending among many. I understand that there are players throughout the world whose personalities and interests come into play when one is trying to make foreign policy happen--does Gary Johnson?

What I'm saying is, if you are going to vote for Gary Johnson and are liberal, why not pencil in "Vixen Strangely" if you want to cast a meaningless vote? I never was governor of anything, but I know what Aleppo is, who Harriet Tubman was, and can name world leaders I respect. My nom de blog doesn't actually represent a real person who will actually be president--but then again, neither does Gary Johnson. So there's that.

Grandstand for Brand Rand!

Senator Rand Paul of KY and also a presidential candidate, has expressed an intention to filibuster the bargain struck between House leadership and the White House to raise the debt ceiling, referring to the bill as "a steaming pile of legislation", which must have been the most dire words he could come up with for it. This would not be the first time he has used the filibuster--he did so at the confirmation of John Brennan as CIA Director over drones (John Brennan became CIA Director, we still use drones) and over the NSA surveillance program. "Stand with Rand" is a great slogan because of the rhyming.

I get it, but why filibuster this particular deal? Part of me thinks, well, he's in a tough primary and just wants to announce a filibuster before that ratbastard Ted Cruz comes up with it. But it also strikes me as a way to get back to Brand Rand. See, he's trying to take himself seriously in this presidential primary, and that might be part of the problem. If he tries to veer too middle of the road, he loses all his hipster cred. Staying weird and being anti-establishment reinforces Brand Rand.

Whoa! You might be thinking, but how does this help his actual electability?  Well, I dunno. See, he's running for Senate and President. Now, a reasonable person might ask if it shows good "optics" for a candidate for president to show that he doesn't believe in bipartisan compromise, and it might actually be terrible optics to contribute to continued Congressional dysfunction. But as a fundraising gimmick for selling "Stand with Rand" swag? Da bomb.

You know, he gets prickly when people point out that his made-up quotes or plagiarism devalue his ideological output. Deep down, I don't think he wants to be president. He wants to be a blogger and make dope money at it. Pshhh. He is dreaming. I blog 'cause I love, and money don't mean a thing.


(Update: It was 19 minutes.)

The Rand Paul Campaign Is a Thing

You could go ahead and let somebody like Erick Erickson tell you that Rand, son of Ron, Paul, should pack things up or rather, take this campaign into the backyard and shoot it. (There is precious little overlap between me and Erick Erickson--there's "People shouldn't be sexist towards Megyn Kelly", and "Eric Cantor wasn't shit for his district anyway", but for the most part, we do not front for the same shit.) But let me tell you--while Rand Paul is pretending to run for Senate and the US Presidency at the same time, there is a discrepancy here--

Who wants him to be president, and who also wants him to be the senator from Kentucky? He can't be both, and his place in the presidential polls suggests that getting to be president is a hard row to hoe. If something spontaneously moved him up like crazy in the presidential poll, yeah, this would justify his staying in. But his poll numbers are basically on the decline. Part of his campaign has definitely suggested he is not a "Happy Warrior".

But he's taken a break to imply he wants to be KY Senator, and he also fundraises for Senate. Then he turns around and puts money from his surer thing Senate campaign to the weirder and more whimsical Presidential campaign. Nah, really:

Rand Paul clinging to his presidential dreams. The Paul campaign spent more last quarter than it raised, bringing in $2.5 million and spending $4.5 million. They’ve only got $2.1 million left. The FEC filing shows Paul moved another $57,000 this past quarter from his Senate reelection fund to his presidential campaign, bringing the total transferred to $1.6 million so far. Federal law only allows one-way transfers. A Paul adviser says that saying the campaign transferred funds is an oversimplistic reading of the FEC report. Paul has a joint fundraising account that lets him raise money for both his presidential and Senate campaigns, called “Rand Paul Victory.” The money transferred from that fund was the presidential campaign’s share of joint events or donations. The Kentucky senator has insisted that he’s not dropping out of the presidential contest anytime soon, even though he continues to seek reelection in the Bluegrass State.

I bolded the interesting part. He's moving funds from his plausible Senate Campaign to his less-plausible presidential campaign, and I don't know how "yay, Paul for Senate" people feel about his also trying to be "get into the White House people". If there's a group that likes him pretty well, but don't like the way he's duplicitous and not-staying, there could be issues.  I think there certainly should.

What are we doing tonight, Brain?

Same thing we do every night, Pinky, try to take over the world!

--Brain, a cartoon mouse.


I've been a little irreverent regarding the ACORN-hoax-like "Big Scoop" of the several videos that seem to be negotiations for the sale of itty-bitty baby body parts, but are actually a fake organization revealing, boringly enough, that Planned Parenthood, which does do abortions, also collects tissue donated by the parent(s) to be used in fetal tissue research for a variety of things. Which is entirely legal. What does anyone actually believe the itty-bitty baby body parts in question (the people on Twitter most belligerent about the hoax enjoy saying "baby body parts"--I believe this is best enhanced with the phrase "itty-bitty" for both aesthetic and factual reasons, as these "baby body parts" are, in fact, from fetuses, and your fetus prior to, say, the 20th week is definitely under a pound in total weight and most abortions are first trimester) are used for fascinates me. Because clearly, the people who have wholeheartedly adopted this claim believe there is a brisk market in itty-bitty baby body parts. An itty-bitty baby body part marketplace--an Itty-Bitty Baby Body Part 'R'Us sort of establishment? Do they believe these itty-bitty baby body parts are whisked into protein smoothies or dried out to be sprinkled on salads? For folk art? Is there an Itty-Bitty Baby Body Part Auction House where organs are sold to be used in frightful rites that would make liberals pray that these weirdos just used endangered rhino horn next time? What, just what, do these hyperventilators think is going on?

Some of them think scientists are putting baby brains in mice. Mice, but with a human brain. I totally feel like I have been here before--for one more time, The Secret of NIMH was not a documentary!

Now, admittedly, this is coming from the folks who believe that there is an Obama Weather Machine.  But do people really think this thing makes sense?  Why in the world would we want to make mice smarter? Build a better mousetrap--the world beats a path to your door. Build a better mouse--bupkis!

Of course, I'm mostly kidding--the real research is like this. Mice are marginally smarter for having stem cells from humans. They aren't having human baby-brain transplants. But we might isolate why humans have the kind of unique intelligence we do. It's legitimate research, because I really can't think of a super villain way to capitalize on really smart mice. Really smart mouse circus? 

It's all so breathtakingly stupid. Of course we're not Frankensteining mice into sentient beings. Of course itty-bitty-baby body parts aren't for sale. How weird a line of thought is all that?

The Fire in Baltimore this Time

There's a "disaster porn" aspect of looking at protests gone off the rails like the protest in Baltimore did last night. The more peaceful aspects of the conflict get underplayed (well, mostly). Following a lead about possible gang violence, the Baltimore police stopped mass transit while schools were being let out, leaving a lot of young people on the street, with not-unpredictable results. 

It's a dumb game though, trying to point out why things went the way they did. Baltimore's protest, like Ferguson before it, and others, is triggered as much by the past as by the latest injustice. Freddie Gray was arrested because he had a knife on him, which isn't in itself a crime. After being placed in the police van, he wasn't belted in and did not get prompt medical care when he expressed a need for it. His neck was broken and his voice box crushed. It looks like he very probably was the recipient of what is sometimes called a "joyride", a "nickel ride", or a "rough ride"--a kind of nasty way of letting police brutality happen "accidentally on purpose". (As opposed to "on purpose-on purpose" which has also been a problem.) And by the numbers, this neighborhood was in trouble.

Why Is Senator Aqua Buddha Trolling the War on Drugs?

There are folks who claim there's a case to be made in favor of Rand Paul from a libertarian point of view, but I have had a hard time seeing it. For one thing, "libertarian" has become one of those nebulous labels that means what the people who use it want it to mean. For another, I'm not that sure how libertarian Rand Paul actually is--and by that I don't mean whether he wants to smother Big Government so that men can breathe free(ly of coal dust and who the fuck knows what else they'd put in the air without regulations), because you know he's on board with that. I mean I wonder whether he's in love with the iron glove, babies, and here's why:

Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) has thrown his support behind legislation that Republicans could use to force President Barack Obama to crack down on legal marijuana in states like Colorado and Washington. 

Speaking to Fox News on Thursday, the libertarian-leaning senator said he supported the Enforce the Law Act, which has been approved by the House. The legislation would allow Congress to sue the president for failing to faithfully execute laws.

Now, follow my thinking on this--we have states that are copacetic with personal use of a substance Big Daddy Government is not okay with--and Rand Paul is in favor of a law that says Big Daddy must spank. That doesn't sound so libertarian to me. So what gives?

I'd say he's buying into the narrative that President Obama is some kind of tyrant who just makes up laws as he goes along, which is basically paraphrasing what Sen. Paul says in the article. But the thing of that is--it's bogus. For one thing, part of the reason that some Republicans want to go after Obama has to do with the the idea that he's strategically trying to delay parts of the ACA for political reasons--in other words, they want to force him to implement a law they don't like and many of them want to repeal! But there's a catch--that isn't even tyrannical on his part--it's built-into the law that there will need to be leeway with repects to implementation.  It's a little like the nonsense claim that he's a tyrant because of aaaalll those executive orders that...he doesn't even have, comparable to other presidents. It sounds great to the Obama-hating base--it's just not real-world factual.

(B)rand Paul Takes Things. Seriously.

I'm pretty much always skeptical about Senator Rand Paul, because there's just something about him that strikes me as being breakfast-cereal-flaky and squirrel-turd-nutty. What's worse is, I have a feeling this is a cultivated impression. In other words, I think he's fashioning himself politically as a guy who marches to the beat of his own drummer--

You know, just like his old man did.

Basically, he's a real unoriginal original. A libertarian down with the Christian Right. A states' rights authoritarian. A pal of neo-Confederates who chats up the youth at HBCU's . So he filibusters about drones to no particular end and files a suit against the NSA because "Liberty". Or "liberty-ish". In the vicinity. Of. Bills of Rights. And stuff.

So, a funny thing happened regarding his suit against the NSA--it really looks like some part of it was...plagiarized. 

Now, Sen. Paul has been accused of plagiarism before. But, even allowing that the lawyer whose work product his (and Ken-freaking-Cuccinelli's) lawsuit rips off seems to be copacetic with it now (although some of his earlier correspondence indicates--not very!) this is kind of in line with how seriously Rand Paul takes this whole Constimatutionalism thing. It's his brand. Brand Paul.

And this is probably how he's selling himself on the libertarian side (and to some potential sugar daddy for 2016, right?) rather a bit more than because he cares. Because caring would mean not playing, but as Rude Pundit makes scatalogically clear, he's totally playing. For a particular audience. And it's kind of obvious to people who pay attention. Which could be, well, anybody, anymore. 

A Less Than Entirely Rigorous Defense of Megan McArdle's Column

One is tempted to pile on regarding the rather uniform left-wing condemnation of the rather stupidly-concluded piece McArdle turned in regarding the hopelessness of actually preventing another massacre such as the one in Newtown. Sure, any Johnny on the Blog with a talent for using the Googler can make noises about how gun laws were tightened in the UK after the Dunblane massacre in 1996, or note that after the Port Arthur massacre in the same year, Australia also enacted strict gun laws, with the effect of not enduring another mass killing in that time.  But I think there is value in taking McArdle seriously because of the very serious suggestion she has made regarding individual as opposed to state responsibility being used as a means of, not preventing these mass killing events, which she alleges is just too hard, but at mitigating the body counts, which we all know is a laudable goal.

Now, I have reason to believe that McArdle is not necessarily as well-versed in the mechanics of the high-capacity clips available to our determined mass-shooters these days, and has possibly not given thought to the physics involved in placing human bodies in the direct line of fire of that type of killing weapon with the intent of taking down a perpetrator. It is likely that our mass killer would have ample ability to amass quite a body count if several dozen persons were to rush at him owing to the likelihood that their increasing proximity to the shooter would make them so much more likely to be hit by bullets.  It is likely that blood and fallen bodies would hamper the progress of the civic-minded souls who continued their rush to stop the killer. But let's just look at this thing from a libertarian viewpoint, shall we? You or I might simply be seeing lives needlessly mowed down before a nearly tireless killing mechanism. But a libertarian might well be seeing a civic action composed of individuals fully willing to lay down their lives for the rights of the gunman to possess the weapon with which he killed them. And isn't individual rights what it's really all about? Those mangled, bloodied bodies, perhaps of schoolchildren, would really mean something if they died for a right like the right of people to pay for a thing that could only be used to smash the fuck out of bodies and then, you know, kind of have and use that thing sometimes.  Because seriously, even if you're only six years old, and still believe in Santa Claus, and sometimes want a nightlight just in case--shouldn't you die with a sense of purpose, as you might have rushing towards a gunman with the hopeless aim of stopping his killing spree in mind?

Well?

Anyhow, to follow out that kind of thinking, I've long wondered if arson is just the price we pay for such civil amenities as warmth and cooked food. And for that matter, if an arsonist goes to the trouble to actually set a fire, isn't he really the owner of that fire? I'm not sure why we have a government agency (or several) throughout the country aimed at actually controlling fires even if intentionally set--because let's be honest, we aren't ever gonna really stamp out fire? That's a thing that will still exist even if individual fires get controlled--right? And yet people will dicker with their neighbors about fire due to things like loss of life and property, so I would hope, in the interest of liberty and civic action, that Megan McArdle and those like-minded, in the presence of such a conflagration, might fling themselves upon it in the interest of snuffing it.

I leave it to my Gentle Readers to determine if I am joking.

Random Thought--

If I could locate every person who puts on record that they are influenced by Atlas Shrugged, visit them by time machine, and knock that silly book out of their hands, I think I'd probably put Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath in their hands instead. If anything else, they'd be reading a better book, even if they failed to understand what he was on about.

Wow. I think we've seen Peak Ron Paul.

Every time I checked in on the internet today, there was some new information about Ron Paul.  What amazes me is, all of this stuff for the most part has been out there for awhile, and although Reason covered it four years ago--well, I guess Ron Paul was never really considered as much of a contender as he is right now. Or, probably, was, like, days ago. So it's only now that everything gets rounded up, whereas before, it was only occasionally that some media types would even bother checking up on Ron's World.

I think this post from former staffer Eric Dondero, though, is the most--how do I put this? Entertaining. It's framed like a defense of his former boss against charges of being racist and homophobic, while giving glimpses of really racist and homophobic attitudes. Insights like Paul being "most certainly intolerant of Spanish and those who speak strictly Spanish in his presence" and being unwilling to use the bathroom in a gay person's home just sound so ignorant, but fold in nicely with the image we already have of Ron Paul as the person who either wrote or approved of the person who wrote about a gay/government conspiracy regarding AIDS, or who in 2008 had this kind of alarmist crap as his message on immigration.

This recent pile-on gives me a particular satisfaction for a specific reason:  Paulites (I can not bring myself to accept the ablist term, "Paultards") put themselves in front of cameras at Occupy sites, as if maintaining that Paul and Occupy had things in common.  Paul wants to hew away at the government in ways that would empower the 1% even more. There would be no EPA standing between you and mercury in your fish, water, or anything else; asbestos in your breakfast cereal; or whatever the hell else businesses could get away with. And he's a dumb naive cluck if he thinks consumers can fix the inequality themselves.  Government should serve the people--it isn't the problem so much as people have tried to use it to make imperfect solutions. It isn't perfect, but that doesn't mean it should be done away with. 

And there would be no one standing up for the equal protection of minorities in a Paul government. That's a major unremedied bit of inequality right there.

And don't get me started on his denial of a woman's right to choose. 

I will reiterate that I do not understand how any intelligent person can support this guy.

Ron Paul: "Not a racist, but..." or "A racist butt."

The more I look at the surprising things found in all manner of newsletters, etc. published by Ron Paul and his companions, the less I care what he actually thinks, because he let this garbage go out under his name.  Regardless of what he thinks, he didn't think that that sort of thing either would be associated with him (which is a sign that he was stupid and careless) or he didn't see the problem with it (in which case, that's some offensive stuff).  Either way, it doesn't reflect well on him, and strikes me as disqualifying.

The contention that he didn't know what was being published under his name is already weakened by a 1995 interview where does discuss the content of the newsletters. Linkins points out something that undoes a part of the Paul defense on these--that the newsletters' more racist content can't be his because he doesn't talk that way in his current appearances.  I think the internet age has made us a little lazy--we're used to a degree of total information awareness.  But there was a plausible time when politicians could say stuff in front of one audience, or send stuff out to a select mailing list, and actually think it would never be disseminated to a wider public, so long as they didn't say anything really screwed up on camera or in front of the wrong reporter.

The bigger question of "Is Ron Paul a racist? (or a homophobe?)" is one I just don't see the point in--if someone thinks it's okay to use material that is racist or homophobic, regardless of their own professed beliefs, then they have totally sided with the racists and/or homophobes.  It's like when someone you're speaking with says, "I'm not a racist, but...."  You know something totally offensive is coming. I would say the person who professes not to be racist is even more culpable if he or she uses that kind of material--because he or she knows better.  It's still ignorant, it's just a different kind of ignorance.

But going beyond the "fleet-footed African-American street thug" trope, or the "dangerous HIV-spreading gay male" trope, there is plenty of up-fuckedness just on policy grounds that should be flashing warning signs against taking this guy seriously.  Goldbugging. IRS tax-denialism. And regardless of the way it's being packaged right now, his foreign policy is isolationism, not non-interventionism, and his economic bent is deregulation, not old-school anti-corporatism. The guy is just problematic every which way.

Also, I think Sullivan is probably click-baiting with his Paul endorsement. I'm just throwing that out there. I do not see how Ron Paul appeals to intelligent people.

Rand & Ron Paul: Social contracts? How do they f-ing work?

With regard to the idea of whether you have a right to health care, you have realize what that implies. It’s not an abstraction. I’m a physician. That means you have a right to come to my house and conscript me. It means you believe in slavery. It means that you’re going to enslave not only me, but the janitor at my hospital, the person who cleans my office, the assistants who work in my office, the nurses.



Basically, once you imply a belief in a right to someone’s services — do you have a right to plumbing? Do you have a right to water? Do you have right to food? — you’re basically saying you believe in slavery.


I’m a physician in your community and you say you have a right to health care. You have a right to beat down my door with the police, escort me away and force me to take care of you? That’s ultimately what the right to free health care would be.

That's so dumb that I'm going to address the stupid instead of addressing where the moral-fail occurs. If I'm a paying customer, I have a right to make a contract with someone for their labors. My right to health care is the right to be a consumer.  No one is saying Rand Paul has to get up out of bed and look at some eyeballs or the cops are going to force him to do jack shit. The health care debate is about allocating the resources of the community so that when any individual needs Rand Raul to come look at their eyes--Rand Paul gets paid.  He gets paid for what he does. The people in his office get paid.  That's not slavery. That's getting paid.   If he doesn't like looking at people's eyeballs for money, then he should have gone into a different business (OFFS, he went into politics, didn't he?)

Rand Paul is all about Choices--in the Bathroom

I'm going to try and retrace Rand Paul's steps to see if I can figure out where he left his logic--

The Kentucky Republican began making the link between the personal, the political and the plumbing-related when he asked Kathleen Hogan, the DOE deputy assistant secretary on energy efficiency, “I was wondering if you’re pro-choice?”

“I’m pro-choice of bulbs,” Hogan responded.

“Actually, that’s the point,” Paul said, during an appliance efficiency hearing at the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee.

“The point is that most members of your administration probably would be frank and characterize themselves — and upfront — as being pro-choice for abortion,” he said, “but you’re really anti-choice on every other consumer item."

and this is where it got really odd:

Frankly, my toilets don’t work in my house, and I blame you and people like you who want to tell me what I can install in my house,” Paul said. He added, “I find it insulting.

Light bulbs, toilets, women's bodies and self-determination, it's all really the same thing, right?  I'm pretty sure regulation is the problem with everything, some days, myself. Lead paint was sturdy and it tasted better than what's out there today. Why is it that I can't get lead paint and heroin on my way down to the abortion store? It's un-American I tell you!

But let's leave light bulbs out of it, because deep down, I don't think any of this is about light bulbs, really. It's about the toilets and uteruses. Surely there's a connection somewhere between a man getting his flush on and a woman making an intimately personal decision about her health and future--Oh wait.  The answer has to be in the form of a question and compares uteruses to toilets, not women.  Okay--"What are useful receptacles?"

(That *thud* you just heard was my head hitting the old desk again in disquietude that I might have actually "got it".)