Three Republican House members have opted-out of their leadership’s ban on earmarks: Don Young, Anh ‘Joseph’ Cao and Ron Paul.
It’s easy to understand why the most crooked and the most vulnerable Republicans would opt out. Paul’s a more interesting case.
The Paul formula for staying in office is simple: he brings home all the pork he can, and he does top-notch constituent service, making sure that everyone his district gets their Social Security checks on time.
There’s nothing wrong with what Paul is doing, but “I bring home pork and keep the government checks flowing” sure wasn’t the centerpiece of his Presidential campaign.
(via)
cleek
so, Paul’s a fraud.
i
m
shocked!
eemom
Well, they came up with a theory about how being anti-choice was like, TOTALLY consistent with “libertarian” philosophy, so I guess they can explain this one too.
some other guy
As always, just head on over to Reason if you want to see what the faux-libertarian conservative apologist response is:
http://reason.com/blog/2010/03/25/guess-which-republican-congres
Summary: “Sure, he may be using taxpayer dollars on pork projects, but the money is already allocated so if he doesn’t use it then someone else will.”
Tom Hilton
And then there’s the Vanderboegh wackjob and his SSDI, and the Republican congressional candidate in TN with his 200K/year agricultural subsidy, and…
Look, can we all just stipulate that anti-governmentism is simply not a workable ideology in any way at all?
Bhall35
OT, but WTF?: Doctor tells Obama supporters: Go elsewhere for health care
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/local/breakingnews/os-mount-dora-doctor-tells-patients-go-aw20100401,0,5593120.story
Lovely.
Zifnab25
I wonder how long until the floodgates open and the rest of the GOPers pile on board the gravy train. One thing i’ll bet on, none of these guys will pay a political price for their decisions. :-p
Not that it will keep GOoPers from chanting “porkulus” and crying about government spending at town hall meetings.
r€nato
If Ron Paul had any consistency, he’d demand that his constituents’ SS checks be paid with gold, right?
Of course, he’s not consistent. After all, he’s a ‘libertarian’ but he’s also anti-choice.
Comrade Dread
Yeah, I honestly don’t get the obsession Republicans have with earmarks.
Paul is right, it’s not like turning them down means the money won’t get spent. All Republicans are doing is screwing their districts out of money.
But then since Michelle Bachmann is leading the crazy charge to kill the census which will mean less money for their constituents and less representation, maybe it all makes sense.
Fergus Wooster
I heard an interview with Paul on a Houston radio station. He was arguing for pot legalization on a states’-rights basis, and the interviewer was going along.
Then Paul sprung the trap – the Fed doesn’t have the right to intervene in state’s pot laws, just as they didn’t have the right to intervene with the Civil Rights Act. The latter helped set the evil precedent that led to the former. (The interviewer was mute and horrified.)
I’ve noticed this a lot with Paul-ites – it starts with anti-war, pro-legalization rhetoric, but usually leads to “we need to repeal the Civil Rights Act”.
El Cid
Surely Ron Paul is only getting earmark funds to build a machine to get perpetual energy from static electricity or whatnot so all the productive and bold and rape-y figures can vanish to Galt’s gulch.
Annie
@Bhall35:
From comments section of the article about this doctor:
r€nato
@Annie:
ah HA! I just knew the O-bots would smear this good doctor’s name for opposing socialized islamofascist health care!
TooManyJens
@Annie: Given that there were about 280 reviews when I checked that link an hour or so ago, I’m not sure they’re indicative of much. I assume a lot of people who just heard of this guy today are going and rating him.
Martin
@Bhall35:
Teabagger Oath > Hippocratic Oath, bitchez!
Bhall35
@Annie: Even if the ratings have been gamed, I’d say it serves him right. Free markets, free speech, bitchez!
General Egali Tarian Stuck
: @Annie:
Well, the reply thingy has gone a little haywire this morn.
I think it’s great this wingnut doctor is telling us he’s a wingnut, I wish they all would, so I can avoid them like the plague. I’d drether have Granny Clampett poltice me than a jackass like this. And that goes double for a pecker doc.
MarkJ
I abhore pork because I think killing pigs (or any animals) is ethically wrong. But as long as that pig is already dead, gimme some!
AxelFoley
@Bhall35:
Wow. And did you see the poll in the article? Most of the readers agree with the doctor.
SMH
Brien Jackson
I believe Paul’s argument for this has been something along the lines of “the gov’t takes too much of your money, so my job is to get as much of it back for you as I can.” Whether or not that’s consistent is in the eye of the beholder I guess.
He also votes against the appropriations bills the earmarks are contained in, fwiw.
Brachiator
@Fergus Wooster:
States’ rights is a polite fiction that needs to be quietly done away with.
Is there anyone who seriously considers himself to be a citizen of his home state in exactly the way that he (or she) views himself as a citizen of the United States? Is there anyone who knows as much (or anything) about his or her state constitution?
Paul is a tool.
The rational libertarian argument would be “We need to reduce government so that less of everyone’s money is taken,” not some hypocritical version of “share the wealth.”
Wait a minute. Isn’t that income redistribution?
cleek
earmarks are the GOP’s budgetary bogeyman. the GOP leadership uses them to keep the rubes agitated – in lieu of actually cutting spending. they’ve convinced the rabble that “earmarks” are the cause of our budgetary problems the same way they convinced the rabble that Iraq was behind 9/11 and that Obama is a Marxist. it’s all ludicrous bullshit fed to credulous shitheads for the purpose of keeping their brains agitated and their wallets open.
anyone who complains about “earmarks” in the context of the federal budget deficit should be kicked in the crotch.
Martin
@AxelFoley: Which strategy you think will work better? Freeping the newspaper poll or freeping his physician ratings? I don’t endorse either, but let’s not assume that either of these are indicative of anything at all.
mistermix
@some other guy:
@Brien Jackson:
I agree that Paul’s explanation, by itself, is reasonable, and he’s not doing anything unethical. But in the context of his free market/goldbug rhetoric, it’s pretty laughable.
Joey Maloney
OT, but WTF is up with the dancing invisible-until-mouseover comment reply arrow?
PeakVT
To whoever is working on the “Reply” function, it would be nice if you could pull the “/comment-page-1/” section out of the code. kthxbai.
Punchy
A comment on TPM caught my eye — apparently, Paul stuffs all the pork into these bills, and as soon as he’s assured it’s going to pass, he votes against it. To keep his (phony) cred about being anti-gov.
What a joke.
Brien Jackson
@mistermix:
I suspect that Paul actually took the time to learn about budgetary policy and is aware that earmarks don’t actually add any new amount to spending, but simply directs portions of money that are being appropriated anyway, and so he feels that he owes it to his district to make sure they get some of the money back. It’s much better than the idiots/hacks who don’t get money for their districts and then carry on like it’s a badge of honor that they aren’t looking out for their constituents. But I agree that the optics are funny as hell.
Fergus Wooster
@Brachiator:
Don’t know too many Texans, do you?
Other than it was written by Jesus, based on the Ten Commandments, allows the hunting of homosexuals for sport, and is superior in every way to the US Constitution? No.
Seriously, though, if you listen to these guys, the agenda becomes clear: states’ right to restrict liberty trumps the Fed’s right to grant it. Hence the anti-Civil Rights Act stuff, anti-abortion position, and support for anti-sodomy laws. And the notion that the churches should be running social services.
Paulites are Neo-Confederates in libertarian drag.
cleek
any legislator could use that excuse.
the real question is: does Paul bring home more than is taken out ?
mantis
Notice how no one in the rightosphere cares about this? They whine about earmarks and pork, especially at election time, but in the end, IOKIYAR.
Svensker
@General Egali Tarian Stuck:
You want Granny Clampett to poultice your pecker?
General Egali Tarian Stuck
I have no problem with earmarks in principle, and it aggravates me to no end shallow morons like John Mccain demagogueing them morning noon and night, especially when Kay Bailey Hutchinson was pretty likely proxying them for Mccain when she was a leader on the Appropriation Committee during the Bush years.
That said, they do need reforming with clear guidelines to discourage quid pro quos which is also a crime. I think each state should get a set amount of money for local projects that CC’ers can use, that is commensurate with their share paid into the treasury. It makes me ill and angry when poor states like wingnut Alaska and the deep south grab tax money from richer blue states and then rail about tax and spend liberals and all the other tea bagger horseshit.
General Egali Tarian Stuck
@Svensker:
er, I could have worded that a little better. But no, unless it absolutely needs one.
stuckinred
@General Egali Tarian Stuck: They’re going to figure out ways the fleece the flock no matter what. It’s all bullshit.
Eric U.
most of the doctors I know personally are somewhat wingnutty. But if a doctor doesn’t realize that our medical system is broken and unsustainable, they have their head in the sand. Or they mostly take medicare patients, like this guy probably does. Seems to me that the HCR bill just passed is about as doctor friendly an outcome as they could have asked for. Someone should get his “fact sheet” and see how fact free it actually is.
I’m impressed that the Republicans actually have an anti-earmark policy with teeth. But I’m wondering how they get around it.
Violet
I still love Ron Paul for going on Meet the Press and giving Timmeh a conniption fit. Russert simply didn’t know how to handle him because Ron Paul wasn’t talking in Washington-speak. Made for excellent TV.
I think I remember Ron Paul saying something like, “I don’t like earmarks and pork, and think it should all be done away with, but since that’s how we do things in Washington I’m not going to make my constituents go without.” It’s a sort of illogical logic.
stuckinred
@Eric U.:
facts? we don need no stinkin facts!
Ella in NM
Not that I am trying to defend Ron Paul, but for the sake of clarity I once heard him defend the earmarks thing in an interview.
Basically, he thinks that if he were to refuse to go after earmarks, and he was the only one NOT doing it, then only HIS constituents suffer. So, if that’s currently the way business is conducted in Congress, he’d be hurting them by not participating in the whole thing, which he feels is unfair to the voters.
Which actually makes sense, but then, when we’re talking about Ron Paul, even a broken watch is right twice a day.
El Cid
@Ella in NM: Yes, but this is the same exact argument made by people who created the income tax in the first place, and liberals who support the government’s role in creating a better and more productive society for all.
How is Ron Paul’s libertarian bullshit version of this really based on different principles than those who used income taxes and other taxes to fund New Deal spending to put millions of Americans back to work? Of *course* politicians justified these taxes being spent by government to better the lives of their constituents — just not in the absurd, uber-localist fetishism beloved by ‘libertarian’ types.
cleek
the problem with “i’m just getting your money back for you” is that it does nothing to incentivize his constituents to demand that the government stop taking the money in the first place. if he gets “their money” back, then they can just feel smug about it. if he was to let their money go to other districts, they would (i assume) get pretty angry and start demanding the govt stop taking their money in the first place – which i assume is the goal of all real libertarians.
Sly
@Comrade Dread:
It belongs in the “Fundraising” drawer as part of the “Inconsequential Nonsense We Can Pretend to Be Outraged About” file.
Brachiator
@Fergus Wooster:
RE: Is there anyone who seriously considers himself to be a citizen of his home state in exactly the way that he (or she) views himself as a citizen of the United States?
I am a Texan. Even though I live in California.
And to say “I’m a Texan” is much like someone who says “I’m a New Yorker.” It’s more a state of being than citizenship. And a New Yorker, by the way, is typically someone who sees himself or herself as a part of the 5 boroughs or particularly Manhattan, not a citizen of New York state.
RE:Is there anyone who knows as much (or anything) about his or her state constitution?
Yeah, that’s the one!
It’s an ironically negative view of “liberty” which essentially says, “I have the right to make sure that someone else cannot enjoy the rights and liberties that I reserve for myself.”
I think they are somewhat different. Paulites yearn with a false nostalgia, for an America as it was around 1870 (and with a gold standard), foolishly believing that a return to a simpler time will magically result in love and happiness.
And tea baggers want to live in an America pre-1780, and want to re-write the Constitution to undo the messy, wonderful reality of American history.
BC
@Brachiator: Yeah, when people were “nationalistic” about their states was the time when people. for the most part, lived in one state for their entire lives and were descended from people who lived in that state. When it became easier to move from one state to another, the tie to the state was cut and people became more citizens of the country than citizens of a state. We are now a people who think nothing of moving from one state to another just to get good weather, you know.
tamied
cleek at 12:20 (I seem to have lost the reply-to link)
Also, tort reform will solve all our health care problems.
artem1s
Seriously, though, if you listen to these guys, the agenda becomes clear: states’ right to
restrict libertyfight the Civil War over and over again trumps the Fed’s right togrant itoperate efficiently and for everyone.fixt
also, Ron Paul supporters are the tools. not Ron Paul. He’s just the Flim Flam Man who knows that the easiest mark is another greedy, stupid conman.
Fergus Wooster
@Brachiator:
Didn’t mean offense – I’m a Texan myself, still living here. And I know too many people, some family, who do consider themselves “Texans First, Americans Second”, and who argue for secession. It’s a shockingly widespread sentiment.
Of course they have no answer for how, post-secession, to defend our borders, sustain the loss of Federal money. As far as the loss of military bases and personnel, they say “we’ll just keep them”. Riiiiiiiiiiiiight.
I agree with your assessment of Paul himself as the 1870, gold-standard idealist. But I think the neo-Confederate label applies to a lot of his followers, especially the ones who come to my door.
BottyGuy
“he does top-notch constituent service, making sure that everyone his district gets their Social Security checks on time.”
As a North Carolina resident I should mention that this is the main reason Jesse Helms (R) was re-elected time and time again. During his years in office you could ask any one of your neighbors how Jesse had helped them, and the would relate a story about some friend or relative getting something corrected by Helm’s staff in Washington.
This is also why no other senator from NC has been re-elected, nobody can duplicate that service, and people remember it. Oh I don’t remember him but Sam Ervin (D) had the same ability.
Violet
@tamied:
Something has changed with that today. If you mouse over the bottom right corner of the post, you’ll see the arrow and a larger, bolded “Reply” come up. Click that to do the old reply-to thing you used to do with the reply arrow by the timestamp.
Anyone else have this happen? I’m using Firefox.
Ultra Command Master Chief Militia soonergrunt
@Tom Hilton: Well, anti-government actually is a viable position for these guys. They just don’t actually believe in it for themselves.
When you realize that they are grifters, liars, hypocrites, and cheats and that they think everyone else as well, you can kind of begin to undertand their distrust of any system that gives anything to anybody. They know in their own hearts, in those rare moments of honest introspection, that they would best serve society by shooting themselves in the head while laying down in a ditch. They think that everyone else is this way as well because they are. Libertarianism is nothing but conservatism in slightly less offensive clothing. It’s still all about justifying cruelty and selfishness.
El Cid
Remember, for ‘libertarians’ and ‘small gubmit’ types, abuses which are horrendous when done by the fedrul gubmit are less objectionable or maybe okay when done by state & local gubmits, particularly when it’s a Confederate state.
stevie314159
Does anyone remember what page in Atlas Shrugged the speech about earmarks was on? I can’t seem to find it.
I think it was right after John tore Dagny’s clothes off, before the cigarette.
freelancer
OT- Oy, but does the white house press corps have BJs on the brain!:
morzer
@Tom Hilton:
Seems to be a pretty workable lifestyle for the dirty fucking rednecks though.
morzer
@stevie314159:
It’s in the appendix, after the passages which explain why older female cult leaders have the right to force younger men into sexually degrading behavior.
cleek
@Violet:
yep.
anyone else having problem with comment editing ? (FF, very latest version). it broke yesterday. when i try to edit now, the editing window shows up at the very top of the page (have to scroll up to find it), in a tiny little frame in the left corner.
also the “click to edit” and “request delete” links are big, bold and ugly.
JenJen
@AxelFoley:
Yeah, this seems to be the “shiny object of the day” in conservablogland, and seeing as how he tweeted it, I bet CNN’s newest employee brings it up at some point today.
Violet
@cleek:
Going to post now to check. I think I didn’t get the edit/delete options with my last post. Testing on this one.
Edit – Both edit and delete are here and links look the same as before. Edit box seems to be working, if you can see this post, it did!
Mnemosyne
@some other guy:
That’s the excuse they all use for taking the government benefits they claim they don’t want — “Well, if I don’t apply for Social Security disability payments, then they’ll go to someone who doesn’t deserve them like I do.”
Yet somehow they can never explain what their plan is when their utopia arrives and their disability or Social Security checks stop arriving and their doctor starts demanding cash up front because he’s not getting money from the government to pay for their Medicaid/Medicare anymore.
cleek
@Violet:
rats.
i test now.
John Cole
Calm down. I’m updating plugins to avoid any future site problems.
Also notice that the arrow reply has moved, and siappears until you mouse over a comment.
ericblair
@Ella in NM: Basically, he thinks that if he were to refuse to go after earmarks, and he was the only one NOT doing it, then only HIS constituents suffer. So, if that’s currently the way business is conducted in Congress, he’d be hurting them by not participating in the whole thing, which he feels is unfair to the voters.
So, Mr. Libertarian figured out about the whole free rider thing and the necessity for collective action when individual incentives lead to an overall poor outcome. Good to know. Now he can start using his newfound knowledge in areas, like, say, economics, to see whether anything might apply there too. Just a thought.
And remember, folks, that while States’ Rights is perfectly acceptable for keeping differently-hued individuals in their place, it is somehow absolutely improper to assert states’ rights for things like medical marijuana, assisted suicide, or gay marriage. It’s in the Constitution, somewhere, probably after all those boring “begats” I think. Wolverines!
Martian Buddy
@Violet: Yep, it’s like that for me on FF 3.6.3, too. Also. And since I’ve accidentally clicked the reply arrow before when I was just trying to select a comment before refreshing the page, I <3 the new style.
And on topic, I'm totally stealing a comment from TPM re. Cao: "He votes like a man who has a party switch coming."
Loneoak
There is one simple way to eliminate 90% of Ron Paul’s fervid support. I’ve actually used this argument with two different Paul supporters and it worked:
“Ron Paul believes that the government has the power ban oral sex. He may call himself a libertarian at times, but it is an odd sort of Constitutionalist Libertarian that is more worried about a very narrow reading of State-Federal relationships than freedom of personal behavior or protection of individual liberties. He thus believes it is entirely constitutional for a state to make oral sex illegal and the federal government may not do anything about it.”
This works because everyone, regardless of race, creed, sexual orientation, socio-economic status, etc., thinks oral sex is more important than Constitutional law. Even if Paul were actually right on the merits (not even remotely true), there’s no way they are going to listen to him after this.
tamied
I don’t know, my mouse doesn’t appear to do any revealing. Maybe it’s afraid of Tunch.
Andy
@Punchy:
Yes. He’s my rep, and he’s one of the biggest earmarkers in the region, to the tune of almost $400M last year, a full third more than the Democrat=Replublicans-love-to-hate, Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Houston).
Not that I’m complaining, you understand.
El Cid
@ericblair: States’ rights are good when they would lead to things conservatives & reactionaries prefer. States’ rights are bad when they would lead to things conservatives & reactionaries would oppose.
It’s really simple, and I’m tired of you librul ay-leetisses acting all uppity ’cause you don’t understand it.
gex
What? Color me shocked that a fiscal conservative behaves in a money for me, but not for thee fashion.
Yawn.
ETA: It is simply a subset of the larger Venn circle containing all the other IOKIYAR contradictions.
tamied
I disagree with the principal of earmarks but as a resident of a state, it’s hard to criticize earmarks that come to my home turf. I guess it’s fyigm.
Brachiator
@Fergus Wooster:
No offense taken.
I know what you mean, although when you scratch the surface, some of these folks like to imagine themselves as independent of the need to follow any Texas state government, especially those Texans (including some of my family members) who believe that all ethical standards can be supplied by the Bible.
Three words: Remember the Alamo. Didn’t work out too well for those who thought that they could hold off indefinitely against a larger military force.
You may be right here. I haven’t personally run across to many Paul supporters, and your take on their motivations sounds spot on.
slippy
@Brachiator: You lost me at “rational libertarian.” I couldn’t make those two words fit into the same sentence, no matter how hard I tried. Unless I added the clause “there is no such thing as a.”
ericblair
@El Cid: It’s really simple, and I’m tired of you librul ay-leetisses acting all uppity ‘cause you don’t understand it.
It can’t be that simple. We’ll need to run it through the wingnut welfare think tanks to add a bunch of eye-glazing pseudoacademic horseshit onto it and misquote a bunch of conveniently dead Founding Fathers to make sure the sort-of educated halfwits at the Georgetown cocktail parties will nod knowingly when it’s explained to them.
Fergus Wooster
@Loneoak: Brilliant. I’ll have to use that next time they come to my door.
More often than jehovah’s witnesses actually.
henqiguai
@Violet (#48):
Yep. Just this morning I’m seeing that phenom, and I’m running Firefox v3.6.2 and just checked IE v8.0.6001[ad nauseum]; ditto.
Bob L
So apparently States governments are governments to much for the TRUE Libertarian(tm)
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100402/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/us_governors_extremists
So apparently the Sovereign Citizen Freemen Wolverines are on the march.
Who would have though Ron Paul in in TRUTH a stateist?
cleek
@ericblair:
don’t forget about the “sprinkle liberally with demonization of Democrats” step!
cleek
FYI, fixed my comment editing prollem : cleared my FF cache.
Brick Oven Bill
I do not think that oral sex is more important than Constitutional Law Loneoak. But then again I think that Constitutional Law is very important.
Mark S.
@Comrade Dread:
I don’t either, and I blame the press a lot on this one. If every time Walnuts was one of the Sunday shows railing about earmarks the host said, “But Senator, even if we eliminated earmarks it would not affect total spending at all,” Gramps would turn red and fidget but eventually he would give up the issue. But if he would have to be called on it consistently.
I would be in favor of a rule that you can’t get any earmarks if you voted against the overall bill. Suck on it, Paul.
geg6
@Fergus Wooster:
This.
http://www.tnr.com/article/politics/angry-white-man
Perry Como
@Bhall35: So that doctor only works on dicks?
jeffreyw
OK, I’ve held off for 80 comments, can’t stand it no more.
Fergus Wooster
@geg6:
Eek! Even The Liberal New Republic agrees?
I had forgotten about the old newsletters. Some repugnant stuff therein.
geg6
@jeffreyw:
OMG, those are the cutest things evah!
arguingwithsignposts
@Perry Como:
He only works on fish sticks. He’s a gay fish!
Loneoak
@Brick Oven Bill:
Well, that’s because you have only ever had constitutional law. Get out of your mom’s basement some day and your opinion might change.
Brachiator
@slippy:
There was all kinds of irony embedded in my statement. Libertarians always like to pretend that they are more rational than the ordinary guy.
And for me, libertarians lost any pretense of even being taken halfway seriously when they threw away all their supposed values and meekly submitted to every excess of the Bush/Cheney crime regime.
Also, even though libertarians like to talk about the Constitution, they only use it for cover, and instead ground their beliefs in some mystical adherence to “natural law.” They might as well claim allegiance to the Easter Bunny and admit that their is no intellectual coherence to their views.
Calouste
@Comrade Dread:
In GOP speak:
Earmarks are: any money spend on blacks, environmental projects, gays and liberal coastal ivory tower university professors.
Earmarks are not (by definition): any military spending or agricultural subsidies.
Fergus Wooster
Choice quote:
The Main Gauche of Mild Reason
In other news, George Will wants to do away with birthright citizenship. Asshole.
arguingwithsignposts
@Loneoak:
You know, the pie filter doesn’t allow me to appreciate these sorts of gems. Thank you, Loneoak, for pulling that quote out. One for the ages.
ericblair
@Comrade Dread: Yeah, I honestly don’t get the obsession Republicans have with earmarks.
My impression is that this was one of Senator Walnut’s bullshit content-free spending reform things that didn’t require a lot of thought or analysis and wouldn’t really change anything, but would fill some airtime on any of the eight thousand bobblehead shows he gets booked on.
Then again, knowing him, he probably got pissed off at some other senator getting a bigger earmark than he did and this is all petty spite about something that happened years ago.
El Cid
@ericblair:
You might need all these complications, but as long as I can do Revolutionary War cosplay and hold up Obama=Hitler signs, I’m good with it.
maus
Not a big fan of Paul on the whole, but he’s right on the earmarks thing, while we shouldn’t have them, focusing on them exclusively ignores FAR GREATER drains on our economy. Paul seems to be aware of a good many problems in our society, but the conclusions he comes to are god-awful mad max libertopian.
Will
Ron Paul is a hypocritical turd.
Brick Oven Bill
The Teabagger does not brag on the Internet of his sexual conquests.
The Teabagger just smiles, and fondly reflects, and plans.
He is mildly disappointed when his overtures towards Rachel are removed from the comments section, but recognizes that this represents an awareness, and fear, of his potency.
El Cid
@ericblair:
Not to mention how all the billion dollar media loved to kiss John McCain’s ass as some fantasy responsible guy on budget issues, so every time he’d talk ‘earmarks’ they’d treat it as serious, even headline material.
licensed to kill time
__
Stalker.
Menzies
@ericblair:
Senator Walnut? Who indeed has received that most wonderful nickname?
El Cid
@The Main Gauche of Mild Reason:
You know, remember how conservatives always opposed those Republican-voting Cuban exiles from gaining citizenship and awarding any of their children citizenship even before their parents had gained it.
This is another Republican principle directly related to the voting tendencies of the group under question.
Mark S.
@The Main Gauche of Mild Reason:
Will is such a dishonest hack. The Supreme Court decided this issue in US v. Wong Kim Ark. If he thinks that case was incorrectly decided, fine, make the argument. But to not mention it at all and imply that this is some open question is bullshit.
me
@The Main Gauche of Mild Reason: Why not go the next step and end natural-born citizenship entirely? Or maybe the Starship Troopers route?
Brachiator
@The Main Gauche of Mild Reason:
This is an even more stupendous exercise in mental masturbation than the ramblings of Brick Oven Bill.
Will not only tries to trot out the phony notion of original intent, but also claims that the ratifiers of the 14th Amendment had an opinion about laws and situations that did not exist in 1866.
In other words, for Will, original intent covers hypotheticals and alternate universes, as well as actual cases and written opinions.
TomG
As long as we are discussing Dr. Ron Paul, may I point out that during the 2008 election season, there were SEVERAL libertarian sites who were adamantly ANTI-Paul, for the same reasons you all are. I’d be happy to provide links if you’re curious.
It should be also noted that many of the same sites also were dead-set against the Barr/Root official LP slate.
bayville
As opposed to the guy who won who based his campaign on open government, closing Gitmo, ending the Iraq War, healthcare reform w/Public Option and restructuring the financial sector, including more regulations.
Yeah, why can’t Ron Paul be more like him?
Hob
@Brachiator:
Well, public employees might. I know when I realized a condition of my employment was that I swear or affirm to uphold the California constitution, that motivated me to go read the thing, with some trepidation. Fortunately it turned out to be more or less okay, despite a few goofy areas that certainly do cause problems but weren’t related to my job.
Dee Loralei
@Menzies: John McCain is Senator Walnuts.
geg6
@bayville:
Well, for one thing, Ron Paul is a racist piece of shit. So it would be kinda hard for Obama to hate black people and be wistful for the Confederacy, wouldn’t you think?
El Cid
@geg6:
Be careful lest you inspire the Next Great Contrarian Essay in Slate or where ever.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@Brick Oven Bill:
This is what happens when you pass through the abstraction portal and become an Abstract Noun (note the capitalization) rather than an ordinary person. Apparently you can “get some” in AbstactNounWorld, but the interaction is with other Abstract Nouns. I heard thru the rumor mill that Constitutional Law is the sexy librarian of AbstactNounWorld, which goes a long way in explaining BOB’s priorities.
El Cid
@Brachiator:
The Founding Fathers surely felt that Bizarro World was illegal, and only Superman was Constitutional.
geg6
@El Cid:
True. Well, I’m being an idiot all over the Toobz today. I saw a post at Sully’s that was so full of misogyny and that he called “totes LOL!” and wrote him an email. The post has a video of some Harvard group of guys who think they are being funny and “imitating” their girlfriends. I told him that if it was labeled, instead, as a group of straight guys “imitating” a group of gay guys, I didn’t think he’d see as so amusing.
I know. I know. Lost cause and pissing in the wind. I totally know.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@El Cid:
I’m almost afraid to ask what the Founding Fathers thought of Spock with a Beard.
El Cid
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ:
It depends on what bearded Spock thought about universal health care.
patrick II
I have little problem with libertarian Ron Paul asking for earmarked funds for his constituents. You play by the rules as they are. How many Democrats (and lets suppose some of them are actually sincere) campaign for public funding of elections to avoid corporate dominance of politics but ask for donations from corporations?
There seems a difference to me between having to deal with the reality of political practices and sincerely trying to change them. I have the sense Ron Paul actually works to change the scale of government. Most republicans, when given the chance from 2000 to 2006, were instead gluttons feeding themselves and their friends and only want to change those rules when they no longer control who gets what.
Paul impresses me as someone who, if he were actually in charge, would actually try and change the scope of government which is one reason (among several) why he will never actually be in charge.
Brachiator
@El Cid:
This is a true fact, as attested by the annotated copy of Action Comics Number 1 found on Thomas Jefferson’s desk.
John Adams, on the other hand, was a Marvel Comics fan, and really liked Spiderman.
By the way, I always thought that Dubya was a Bizarro president.
El Cid
The Founding Fathers were also un-Constitutional soshullists who imposed an individual mandate to purchase goods.
Annie
@Brick Oven Bill:
teabagger — yawn………
me
@patrick II:
And, by the way, I’ve got a bridge to sell you.
LD50
@The Main Gauche of Mild Reason: I would like the GOP to push very hard on this idea for the next several years. By 2014, they’d have their share of the Hispanic vote down to about where their share of the Black vote is now.
patrick II
@me: Maybe, but I think he is a sincere bigot, not just a self-aggrandizing nominal one.
someguy
I agree. The Constitution promises there will be free speech. It doesn’t say anything about us not making you pay dearly for it. I have no problems with creating severe career repercussions for this showboating quack. In fact, somebody ought to report him to his state board – I’m betting it violates medical ethics to turn patients away based on political criteria.
liberal
@bayville:
Heh.
Alex
Patrick II:
Do you honestly value “sincerity” over quality and ability to govern?
Hal
Yep. I don’t consider Cao vulnerable simply because, even though he is a Republican, he isn’t exactly towing the party line. Though a party switch seems necessary and inevitable.
grumpy realist
Notes to George Will:
1. You understand as much about Constitutional law as a pig understands quantum physics.
2. Ditto for your comments on Constitutional interpretation. Look up stare decisis in the law dictionary, nitwit. And quoting a looney legal interpretation doesn’t help your case, either. Your so-called “expert” seems to understand Constitutional Law about as much as Orly Taitz understands the rules of civil procedure.
Brachiator
The thought experiment involving Schrödinger’s pig demonstrates that Will may be right or wrong in his interpretation of the Constitution, depending on the random event of whether or not a pig flew out his butt.
patrick II
@ Alex
I thought the choice would be between sincere and insincere. However if we build a matrix my ranking order would be
1. sincere and quality government: Obama
2. insincere and quality government: Clinton
3. sincere and bad quality government: Paul
4. insincere and bad quality: McCain and Palin
The thing about a sincere Ron Paul is that I don’t think he could ever be elected president. And if he was elected after sincerely telling people what he was going to do (the friggin gold standard?) we would deserve what we got. It is a democracy. What I hate is “compassionate conservatism” and a “humble foreign policy” getting you close enough to the white house that you could steal it. or whatever b.s. mccain/palin are saying today that might get their incompetent asses elected to something.
If Bush had borrowed enough to hold off the financial crisis a few more months, don’t be too sure we wouldn’t have a McCain presidency.
BruinKid
@Violet: Yeah, that rationale can be used to justify all sorts of crazy shit.
Hey, I don’t like looting, but if there’s a riot and everyone else is looting shit… loot on!!
See how easy it is? :-)