"I know I harp on Rand a lot, but I can't get over the outsized influence over public life commanded by an utter nutball. If we had prominent members of Congress running around citing the theories of Lyndon LaRouche, people would freak out. That's the situation we're in." —The New Republic's Jonathan Chait considers Kentucky Senator Rand Paul's argument that wanting to give everyone health care "means you believe in slavery."
Ben Quayle: Competing to represent Arizona's 3rd congressional district. Figured that enough people would have forgotten his blithering not-Jack-Kennedy father to make his unfortunate genetics a non-issue, yet had the paterfamilias announce his candidacy on Fox News' "America Live" (a factless daytime chat show hosted by Greta Van Susteren's understudy) because he is a sniveling and fearful child. Tried to compensate for this transparent cowardice with the ad above attacking Barack Obama-who is not one of his nine Republicans opponents in the upcoming GOP primary-as the "worst president in history," and delivered his lines as though he were trying to convince an underage hooker to run away with him [...]
Bowing to political reality, Kentucky Republican Senate candidate Rand Paul has issued a clarification of his beliefs which includes the words, "I unequivocally state that I will not support any efforts to repeal the Civil Rights Act of 1964." Poor guy. What have we become as a country when a man can't affirm his belief in the rights of private businesses to discriminate based on race without then having to explain that he himself does not believe that businesses should discriminate based on race, just that they should be allowed to discriminate based on race? This is not the America I knew.
Now-fired Rand Paul campaign worker Tim Proffitt wants an apology from the woman whose head he was forced to stomp yesterday. His point being, she's a professional activist. You know, just like ACORN, or the NAACP, or "Americans for Prosperity," or "FreedomWorks," or Congress. Other people's points being that Lauren Valle is an UNHINGED ATTACKER PAID ACTIVIST. (Calling her an attacker is an extreme distortion, of course, of what happened.) But it's actually fascinating that the agitated right is now going after this woman, because her line of work is… mounting opposition to corporate fat cats. I mean, isn't that at heart the Tea Party line? Except [...]
Being from the state of Kentucky, you get pretty used to being the butt end of tired jokes. Whether it's one of those uproarious "marrying your cousin" numbers needlessly tacked onto the end of an Alicia Silverstone movie or the classic "rides your horse to school" bit from some drunken Long Island-bred friend, the hits keep coming. And coming. And coming. Ironies be damned.
It happens so much that at some point you become inured and stop being appalled and hurt, at least outwardly. Whether it's through attrition or ambivalence, you learn to chuckle it off with a knowing "Yeah, we're pretty hilarious" and move on, forgoing [...]
In an attempt to be charitable about Kentucky Republican Senate candidate Rand Paul's political views (Paul takes issue with parts of the 1964 Civil Rights Act on the grounds that private institutions should be allowed to discriminate), the best the Washington Post's Ezra Klein can come up with is, okay, he might not be a racist, but he is an ideological extremist. Which seems to be a fair, if not terribly helpful, characterization. Klein also notes that, "When you can't answer the question 'Should [the] Woolworth lunch counter have been allowed to stay segregated? Sir, just yes or no,' it's fair to say you're off-message," which is indisputably true. [...]
There still don't seem to be any arrests in the matter of Rand Paul supporters detaining and stomping on a liberal lady. Then Paul rather shrugged it off on the TV.
Mmm, look at that, Jeb Bush out hosting private fundraisers. For none other than former teabagger darling and current sort-of teabagger sell-out Rand Paul! I'm not sure who beats whom in the rock-paper-scissors of Big Republican Dynasty v. Teabag Radical Upstart, when a Rand Paul and a Jeb Bush meet. Or do they both lose? I mean, this is weird, as they actually don't have that much in common! Bush is also speaking today at the National Conference of State Legislatures.
Rand Paul, son of Ron Paul, whose real first name is Randal and so you shouldn't worry too much about the whole Ayn Rand thing, honest, is running for Senate in Kentucky and also he is kind of a downer. "Rand Paul's stump speech can be a downer. Although he is not above offering some anti-Obama red meat — 'Sarah Palin said he's been palling around with terrorists; now he's palling around with the world's communists' — his remarks drift into dark idiosyncrasy: He criticizes population-control policies by saying governments fear 'too many breathers,' as in humans. He reminds supporters that the 'Bridge to Nowhere' was built by [...]
