TPM and Frum Forum have gone to an all-Rand Paul format, so why not join in the fun?
Q: What does Ron Paul want to do to fight the prospect of a North American Union and an Amero?
Rand Paul: Well I think publicizing it is the first thing, publicizing that it’s going on. Trying to get the legislature to stop it, through official acts of Congress. You know any time he talks about it, though, the media tries to make fun of him as if it doesn’t exist. But I think in Montana, your state legislature has talked about the North American Union. Texas has had several votes about the corridor, they just call it a different name, they call it the trans-Texas corridor.
Q: It comes right through here.
Rand Paul: Yeah, it’s the same thing. It’s gonna go up through Texas, I guess, all the way to Montana. So, it’s a real thing, and when you talk about it, the thing you just have to be aware of is that, if you talk about it like it’s a conspiracy, they’ll paint you as a nut. It’s not a conspiracy, they’re out in the open about it. I saw the YouTube of Vincente Fox talking about the Amero. So, it’s not a secret. now it may not be [inaudible] tomorrow, but it took ’em 20 or 30 years to get the Euro, and they had to push people kicking and screaming into the Euro.
I thought I was up on winger lore, but I had never heard about the Amero or the NAFTA superhighway before. Have you guys? What’s a good winger blog to read for this stuff? Increasingly, I feel out of touch.
Update. I see Wonkette has been talking about Ameros since forever. How did I miss it? I read every post.
Kid G
It must have been interesting to sit with the Pauls at dinnertime when little Randy was growing up.
Faux News
Oh Doug, come on! You need to read Wonkette more. But you have to pay to post on their website and they only accept Ameros :-)
licensed to kill time
DougJ, you obviously have never listened to Coast to Coast AM, probably because you have a life and all.
BR
The NAFTA superhighway is pretty well known.
At least, I thought it was well known.
The Amero on the other hand…
Egypt Steve
I never heard of the NAFTA superhighway either, but isn’t there already a “Pan-American Highway” that goes all the way from Canada down to Tiera del Fuego?
Moonbatting Average
Awesome post title, Dougj.
I think Rand may have been talking about the Mexi-Canadian Overpass.
Zifnab
There is actually a lot of talk in Texas about a “Trans-Texas Corridor” meant to facilitate trade from out of Mexico into the US and Canada. The big fight in Texas isn’t whether we should build it. Texas loves itself some huge fucking highways. The big debate is whether or not we should build it as a Toll Road.
And, frankly, it’s no secret that we’ve been trying to build and expand trade with our southern neighbors for the last few decades. So screeching about the Amero when we passed NAFTA with the full throated support of the Republican party under Clinton seems a wee bit insincere.
Say what you will about the Euro, it was inevitable. And given that the US Dollar is one of our nation’s primary exports, it’s a bit absurd to complain about a continental currency when we’ve been slowly building up a world currency.
It’s the same song-and-dance we always hear from libertarian wackjobs. Take good, sensible, widely popular policies and turn them into black helicopter conspiracy theories. Then act all confused when people call you nuts.
ThatPirateGuy
A senate pick-up in Kentucky would be a pleasant surprise. Rand Paul winning the seat is a frightening non-surprise, not unlike seeing the dog that always growls and strains it’s chain break free with a blood thristy gleam in it’s eye. You always knew it would happen some day, but that doesn’t make it any less terrifying as it eats your face.
QuaintIrene
Maybe they’re afraid the killer bees will use it to invade our fair land.
Dave
Really? This is one of the wacked-out Right’s prize pigs: fighting a mythological currency and political union. They’ve been talking about this highway since the 90s.
Oh, and first-rate title.
Splitting Image
My ex tried to get me interested in the NAFTA superhighway a couple of years ago. She kept promising to send me links to the important websites where she got her information, but it’s not hard to guess which ones they were.
We’d been dating for awhile when she told me she was joining a Pentecostal church and was doing some Bible study. I held out long enough to hear her declare that Barack Obama was the Anti-Christ, but when she started in on the British royal family and said that Prince Philip was the centre of an international Satanic conspiracy, I bid her good day.
J.W. Hamner
I’d heard about it, I just have never understood it. I just don’t know anybody would want such a super highway, and I don’t understand why the idea of it terrifies some people.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
A fistful of Ameros…
nah
Woo Woo! Take the Ameros and run…
lame
Hand over the Ameros, and nobody gets hurt…
ORLY? sersly?
The
DollarAmero storeWTF?
New! McDonald’s Amero Menu – you too can be an Amero-naire!
Now that’s more like it.
JZ
Don’t they realize it’s already here? It’s not perfect, but it begins at I-29 in North Dakota and ends as I-35 in Texas. Or how about I-15 starting in Montana and switching over to I-25 — a straight shot to Ciudad Juarez. Now bring on the Amero.
Here’s the map:
John Arbuthnot Fisher
DougJ, you really never heard about the amero? That’s one of my all time favorite wingnut delusions. They’re convinced that the Feds are fully prepared for an immediate transition and they are simply waiting to spring the amero on us any day now, seize all dollar-denominated and gold assets, and use SWAT teams to destroy offshore oil rigs and/or seed banks…any day now for the past 20 years.
KC
Big libertarian friend of mine was going on about this stuff a few years back. I didn’t know what he was talking about until I looked it up after the conversation. It’s classic conspiracy stuff–a story built on anecdotes connected by perceptions of shadowy groups and assorted villains constructed with firm ideas about “how things really work.” In my case, it took less than a few clicks to convince me it was utter bullshit, which I strongly suspected anyway.
merl
they talk about the nafta highway when a democrat is president. that’s why you never heard about it when chickengeorge bush was in charge
Comrade Dread
Yeah, it’s part of the whole ‘New World Order’ thing that ‘They’ have planned for us, where we eliminate the Canadian/Mexican/American border and form our own United Countries of America or something.
It’s gotten a revival given all of the immigration (legal and illegal) from Mexico combined with good ol’ fashioned free trade NAFTA fears, add in a bit of Dispensationalist eschatology, and conservative’s undying belief that liberals want to hand all our wealth to Mexicans and adopt a Commie government model like those damn Canadians, and it all distills down into a level of conspiracy goodness the likes I haven’t seen since Clinton was going to send out the black FEMA helicopters to round us all up into Death Camps.
Tractarian
Trans-Texas Corridor = real thing
Plans for Amero or North American Union = teabagger/Bircher fairly tale BS
It’s truly amazing that Paul can’t tell the difference.
(Just joking; of course, it isn’t amazing in the slightest.)
Cacti
The more this guy opens his mouth, the more he sounds like amateur hour.
Just goes to show how far a family name can get you in our American “meritocracy”.
licensed to kill time
Here’s an article from Newsweek about Ron Paul and The Highway to Hell dated Dec. 2007. Runs in the family, I guess.
Zifnab
@J.W. Hamner:
Same reason anyone would want a superhighway anywhere. Because traffic jams are a bitch.
That’s one of the absurdities of the conspiracy. It’s not like you can’t get between the US and Mexico WITHOUT the highway. You just want to avoid rush hour.
John P
Google “NAFTA superhighway.” This was a big topic 3-4 years ago.
ThatPirateGuy
The thing that always throws me for a loop with most conspiracy theories is ‘why bother?’.
Seriously the rich and connected seem to do pretty well in the current set-up, why would they want an amero? What is in it for the hard working conspiracy planner?
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
Look up Trans-Texas Corridor. You’ll find Perry going on about it as well. Around Dallas, it was about whose land would be taken to build it, and how trucks from Mexico would break down all over the place.
thingsbreak
It’s of a piece with the whole fear of a one-world-government. Lots of Truthers (many of them [Ron] Paulites as well) used to talk about it, as well as the Council on Foreign Relations.
The Amero/NAU was also a big fear of the white supremacist crowd (again, a fair number of them Rondroids as well). You may have heard of Hal Turner.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_currency_union#Amero_coins
Comrade Javamanphil
Bitchin’ Amero Bitchin’ Amero
I ran over my neighbor
Actually, it’s not a bad nominee for libertarian theme song.
Cava
Up in Canada, this particular conspiracy theory is pumped by the far left, who want to protect Canadian sovereignty against the American colossus.
Third Eye Open
Naw, if you’re going for the mother-lode, Infowars and Prison Planet are great places to start. My favorite BS line goes something like this: “If only 5% of what I am saying is true, we are in deep trouble”. Which always made me scratch my head, because doesn’t that mean that 95% of the words coming out of his mouth are Grade-A crappola?
Anoniminous
Wikipedia is your friend.
Some not terribly Serious People are shooting around the idea of a North American “euro.” It’s going nowhere so, of course, the intellectually negligible are all in a pearl clutching frenzy.
All about the North American SuperCorridor. The idea is to be able to transport junk from the very tippy-top of O Canada (eh?) to the Pacific Ocean ports on the west coast of Mexico and the Gulf ports of Texas. Upon conclusion this transportation corridor will require every US citizen to start speaking Spanish and eating nothing but beef burritos and re-fried beans.
Apparently.
Chuck
This is pure Alex Jones loony toons. Watch one of his movies called “Endgame”, he rants about the corridor being a means to an end that’s … well let’s just say he makes his villains larger-than-life.
Why does it not surprise me in the least that Rand Paul runs with this crowd?
Toast
The NAFTA Superhighway is a winger classic. Pretty hilarious, actually.
The “Amero” is a new one on me. Like the impending VAT tax, it sounds like another thing they dreamed up to masturbate to.
Tsulagi
It’s a series of tubes.
ed
Credit where it’s due. This:
is high comedy. Absofucking hilarious.
TexasDan
Great title. Inspired me to hit wikipedia and see that the Dead Milkmen are back together.
dmsilev
I’m very disappointed that there aren’t any mentions of black helicopters or the International
CommunistHispanoIslamoFascist Conspiracy to Sap and Impurify Our Precious Bodily Fluids.dms
Trinity
@thingsbreak: I used to work for the Council on Foreign Relations. Now I work for one of its board members and you wouldn’t believe some of the hilarious wingnut mail we receive occasionally. I’m talking Grade A crazy.
Bill E Pilgrim
Amero? Really?
They do realize that “Euro” comes from the word “European”, right?
The only reason in the world to even imagine something called an “Amero” would be as a scare-name that’s intentionally parallel to the Euro, because otherwise the “o” has no reason to exist whatsoever.
In other words its a built-in tell that it’s a conspiracy theory.
This reminds me of the customs agent who wrote a book about all the crazy things people tried to bring in, and one story was about a couple who brought in ancient coins marked “300 BC”, wanting to claim duty-free because they were rare antiques.
The fact that it’s fake is minted right into the thing, in other words.
Sarcastro
‘Ameros to donuts’ just doesn’t have the same ring to it.
FormerSwingVoter
OH NO! NOT THE BEES! NOT THE BEES! AAAHHHH! THEY’RE IN MY EYES! MY EYES! AHHHH! AHHHRGBLBLBLE!
ed
Remember when ol’ Rand called us the “loony left” way back when yesterday? Yeah, good times.
Steve
Never ever heard of the amero, but the NAFTA superhighway, sure. It’s pure Alex Jones stuff.
I’m not surprised in the least, because Ron Paul always had at least one foot planted in that particular variety of crazy.
David Atkins
The Amero and Superhighway stuff is a favorite of the economic permabear community, and has believers of all sorts of political persuasions from far left to far right.
There’s all kinds of nutty ideas out there. All kinds.
Dan B
Noted whack-job Jerome Corsi has written about the Amero and the NAFTA Highway (or whatever it’s called) for years, both in his own books and on WND. I recall getting into an argument with some troll on a baseball forum over the topic — he swore that the Amero was a real thing that was happening AS WE SPEAK! His source? Jerome Corsi.
FormerSwingVoter
The first I had heard about the “Amero” and the “NAFTA Superhighway” was the “militias are dangerous” report from a while ago that had all the conservatives in a tizzy.
Mary
Weird…I was under the impression that a single North American currency already exists in the form of the American Dollar.
Tim Cooper
For me, I’ve heard the highway nonsense before, the Amero is new.
Brachiator
@licensed to kill time:
Exactamundo. Coast to Coast, which used to be pretty much all space aliens all the time, somewhat accurately reflects the small but persistent paranoid lunatic fringe. For example, they kept the birther fire smoldering even after it appeared to have disappeared from the mainstream media. Subsequent programs have echoed various wingnut fears.
Not too long ago, a psychic remote viewer claimed to have “seen” Obama’s Kenyan birth place. Other shows have placed Obama in the center of a conspiracy to either suppress or finally reveal evidence of our space alien overlords.
And it is also one of the places where the NAFTA Amero nonsense is regularly trotted out.
ThatPirateGuy
@Sarcastro:
Try Ameros to assholes.
Hell can we change it now? I’d love that to be the dominent phrase for campaign donations.
toujoursdan
I always love that these people never consider that maybe, just maybe, Mexicans and Canadians DON’T want to become part of a unified state.
Why would Canadians want to take on the U.S. dollar or link up through the Amero? It means that we’d be responsible for the U.S. $65 trillion debt burden.
Mark S.
@FormerSwingVoter:
HOW’D IT GET BURNED, HOW’D IT GET BURNED? HOW’D IT GET BURNED, HOW’D IT GET BURNED?
Warren Terra
I know a bit about the highway (there was a good article in the Nation 1-2 years ago), and there’s a little truth on which to build wild stories – but NOBODY is proposing anything LIKE the Amero.
qwerty42
@BR: …the Amero on the other hand…
Both the NAFTA Superhighway and the Amero have been on Wonkette for a few years. It started with Ron Paul, and the references are (usually) to “gold Ameros”.
freelancer
Beads, Michael!
Bees?
Beads!
BEADS?!
Gob’s not on board.
Bzzzzzzz! We’ll see who gets more honey!
DougJ
@Faux News:
I read Wonkette religiously. How did I miss this?
Steve
This resolution was introduced in Congress in 2007:
This batshit insane resolution was co-sponsored by FIFTY-TWO members of Congress. Frickin’ Kirsten Gillibrand co-sponsored it!
Midlayer
I call Progressives the “Anti-White Party”.
DougJ
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ:
Win.
jake the snake
I frequent a sport oriented message board that has a political sub-board. We have a pet conspiracy theorist who believes any agreement almongst, the US, Canada and/or Mexico is a harbinger of the North American Union.
The Amero is the NAU equivalent of the Euro.
DougL
@Sarcastro:
Ameros to churros?
mmm…. churros….
snoey
The other part of the NAFTA Superhighway conspiracy is that it will be full of Mexican Trucks!
Which are apparently driven by unlicensed drug addled illiterates and look sort of like what would happen if they made Mad Max using lowriders.
kay
I just think he’s a dummy. He sounds like Palin.
Now I’m wondering who started “it”, if “the legislature” is supposed to stop it.
Probably George H W Bush. He was the New World Order President, and all conspiracy theories involve him.
geg6
Oh, my yes. The NAFTA superhighway. All the crazies around here are sure that the impending Mexican invasion is coming from the NAFTA superhighway.
Because Southwestern PA is such a rockin’ place that all the Mexicans want to take it over in the name of Che.
Cat Lady
Rand Paul is apparently also leans towards being a truther, also too.
I’m thrilled Rand Paul got elected. The light is gonna shine on every wingnut tinfoil hat meme between now and November, and even the MSM is going to have to wade in. This is gonna be great!
Anne Laurie
No, the “Amero Superhighway” meme first went mainstream via Rush Limbaugh when Clinton rammed NAFTA down Real America(tm)’s throat (/snark). There are Book-of-Revelation overtones, but the basic theme goes back to the age-old paranoia that “Tha Gubmint” is going to sell our precious
bodily fluidsuniversal exchange medium to “Them Aliens” who will use those funds to cut us off from our Rightful Position atop the entire world. The fact that NAFTA was heavily promoted by the Robber-Baron sector of the Republican Party, and that it would actually have disasterous effects on working-class Americans (and Mexicans), got lost in the conspiracy-noise… not a bug, but a feature, I assume.Josie
Lou Dobbs used to get exercised over this stuff. He was quite serious about it and worried that America would be swallowed up by Mexico and Canada and lose its identity. That was about the same time I decided to quit watching Lou Dobbs, even before he decided to take Obama down.
Pavlov's Dog
Ran into someone I knew from childhood that had been living in rural Idaho and he was going on about the Amero and the super highway. He also believes the Prophecies have been deciphered using some code cracking system* and all the books of the bible were written by Jesus. Think he had the full collection of Tim LaHaye or some other nutball books. Told me I needed to read all of Ann Coulters books and only watch Fox news…also called me a secular progressive and I was the reason that we all were going to burn in hell. Then he asked if I could find him some pot.
*It’s the “Bible Code” in Wiki
licensed to kill time
@Brachiator:
I used to listen to Coast to Coast AM during a time when all I had for entertainment was a cheapo radio. Sitting on the porch late at night with some Negro Modelo, the stars for light, and Art Bell/George Noory (both have great voices) and their fantastic assortment of guests was kind of fun. Anyway, that’s where I first heard about the Amero and the supposed superhighway.
I think they had Alex Jones on once claiming to have actually held an Amero in his hand, or at least seen a photo of one, though it turned out to be an artist’s idea of one and he had to walk that claim back. Which made not a smidge of difference to the true believers. Everything’s a huge conspiracy.
ETA: I mean fantastic in the sense of…waaay out there.
Mainer
Rand Paul did a whole lot of campaigning for his father, so look for more gems like this to come out.
El Tiburon
The Trans-Texas Corridor Super-Highway is most definitely a real thing, at least it has been discussed and proposed by Rick Perry. Whether it will ever be built, especially in this economy is up for debate. (I’m too lazy to google but I think the Texas Observer and Austin Chronicle have several stories on this proposal.)
My understanding is that this Trans-Texas Highway would help faciliate commerce (ie: Truckers from Mexico) to travel easier from Mexico to destinations in Texas and beyond.
So I think there is a kernel of truth in this. Alas I guess there is also a kernel of truth in the claim Rush Limbaugh is a human being.
arguingwithsignposts
I’m concerned that Rand Paul can’t keep up the crazy ’til November. He’ll get on a message and the voters of KY will forget. I hope Conway (?) has a good advertising crew.
And growing up in Texas, I distinctly remember the “North American Union” conspiracy theory quite a bit during and after NAFTA, having only an AM radio in my car at the time.
Kirk Spencer
I could have sworn the first time I ran across the Amero conspiracy was while Clinton was in office.
For those who haven’t chased it yet, the Amero is for North America what the Euro is for the EU. Its great evil is twofold. First, it allows those Canadians and Mexicans to tell us what to do with our money. (See the screaming in the UK about the Pound and the Euro to get some idea.)
Second, it would allow a stealth devaluation of our money, making us poorer (unless we owned gold) slaves of The (race deleted) Man.
Though several have hit on the NAFTA SuperHighway, many of you are missing the biggest reason for their fear. According to the conspiracy, that highway will be International Territory, and as such will allow non-US citizens free travel without hindrance. This pipeline will allow “them” a much larger avenue of access to our heartland.
In short, both are tools at the pointy end of the New World Order’s takeover of America.
ThatPirateGuy
@El Tiburon:
Construction jobs getting added, Perry will never do that it might make Obama look good. Even worse it would better enable the feds to invade after Texas secedes.
Josie
@Josie: Here is a typical clip from his program.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2kjsy2Z3kdI
scav
ahh, but imagine the image. armed chubby guys wearing tri-corns slouching in lawn chairs, vigilantly guarding every north-south road (paved or not) all across ‘merca. We could whip up a quick little KML GoogleMap ap to record the wonder of the Million Man Sit.
EDIT: Make that the Million Man Slouch.
Brandon
Man, where have you been on the Amero? Lou Dobbs has been talking about this conspiracy on CNN years ago. It reached such a fever pitch leading up to the Republican 2008 primaries, that the Boston Globe had a massive feature article on this crazed conspiracy. Unsuprisingly, the Globe discovered that one of the leading intellectual lights behind proving this conspiracy was the one and only Jerome Corsi.
MikeJ
@Josie: .
I don’t know what he was so worried about, eh? Just because some of use enjoy hockey and curling and beer and Tim Horton’s doesn’t mean we aren’t United Statians.
licensed to kill time
@Kirk Spencer:
Yeah, I first heard about it in the late 90’s.
MaximusNYC
Buy yourself some genuine fake Ameros right here!
geg6
@arguingwithsignposts:
Dude, anyone who wears what looks like a dead ferret on his head can, I think, be reliably expected to keep up the crazy forever, let alone until November.
demo woman
Leave poor Rand Paul alone..accidents happen.
Why call the new currency Amero? Why not another name? Any ideas?
Jay C
@Splitting Image:
Why? That’s the most credible part…..
qwerty42
I believe this is the first reference to Ameros in Wonkette. They have been a staple ever since.
DBaker
Actually, Charles Pierce’s book found here (Idiot America) has a whole chapter describing said superhighway.
It is all part of a greater pattern of how the right exploits ignorant people, who have been part of the American landscape since it’s founding (as Pierce illustrates deftly) in a quite cynical matter. The problem that the GOP has on their hands now is that the insane, such as Mr. Paul and his son Rand, are running the asylum, even though the establishment GOP has tried quite hard to keep them out.
arguingwithsignposts
@geg6:
But can the national media maintain that level of poutrage over the crazy until November? That’s another part of the equation.
(Also, are we sure that’s a wig? Or just a bad hairstyle?)
scav
@MikeJ:
Oh, brilliant. In his universe, he has so little faith that everyone in the world wants to be American (which I foolishly assumed was a bedrock fundamental belief of all true Patriots ™ ) and so little trust in the Shock And Awe Of True American Culture that we could be obliterated by seeing too many Mexican and Canadian license plates?
Eeek! Guanajuato! PEI! Bring me some poteen with my molé!
JGabriel
@DougJ:
Apparently, I missed it too. I’d heard about the NAFTA Superhighway, but the Ameros are brand new to me too.
And isn’t there already a no-stop shipping route from Mexico to Canada known as the: Pacific Ocean?
.
Geeno
@Tsulagi: You, sir, are full of win and awesome.
Mike Kay
Lou Dobbs began pushing the NAFTA superhighway back in 2005/2006.
Plus,
Rand Paul = 9/11 truther
http://www.whas11.com/community/blogs/political-blog/PaulGrayson-now-feud-over-911-questions-79673512.html
Martin
Jesus, what a bunch of losers. They’re focused on the Clinis’s evil plans rather than Obama’s recent actions of detonating nukes under volcanos and initial efforts to turn the sea to fire. Catch up you jackasses!
Midnight Marauder
@arguingwithsignposts:
I have no concerns about this at all. I think this loon is an unlimited fountain of embarrassing examples of his inept, inherently flawed ideology. Honestly, what reason is there to believe that he is going to “get on message?” These are the principles and ideas this guy believes in. He can’t run from them; just look at his artful backpeddling on the Civil Rights Act and the ADA.
Beside, Jack Conway has been lighting his ass on fire so far:
Keep bringing the heat, Jack. We all know this clown can’t handle it.
geg6
@arguingwithsignposts:
Either way, it looks like a dead ferret and, honestly, anyone with an ounce of self-respect or self-awareness would NOT go around with a dead ferret on his or her head. Not unless it was Halloween, that is.
Martin
@JGabriel:
Shh! They don’t know about that yet! And if you tell them, they’ll want to build a wall from San Diego to China.
CoffeeTim
The Trans Texas Corridor has been pushed hard by Perry for years. It was suppose to go near here in East Texas but has been shelved because the local property owners didn’t want anything to do with it. Oddly, it was the conservative property-rights crowd that did in Perry’s dream. Or should I say proposed gift to his big supporters?
The local property folks are pretty much The Tea Party crowd around here. Funny how the Tea Partiers torpedoed Perry’s big plan, isn’t it? Perry is vowing to try the whole scheme again if re-elected. That does not endear him to his base around here. Make no mistake, he is vulnerable this fall if White runs a good campaign.
gwangung
Gawd. If there’s one thing that the US does well, it’s cultural imperialism.
We’ll take all the good stuff (food, comfortable fashion) and throw everything else way, and pretty much seduce every one else to our way of life.
I mean, jeeze. Look at second, third and fourth generation Asian Americans. Lose American identity, my ass….
Brachiator
@DougJ:
googling “wonkette Amero” produces all kinds of fun stuff, including this recent batch of Obama conspiracy illustrations.
There’s a great illustration of Obama dressed as an Amero. And John McCain …. well, let’s just say he looks smashing.
@licensed to kill time:
Me? I just claim occasional bouts of insomnia. And I once had a contract job that let me do computer work from home. I’d flip the dial for Coast to Coast just to see how crazy the stuff could be.
The ironic thing is that sometimes there would be an interview with a real scientist or with someone like Skeptic Society maven Michael Shermer who would bravely take on all crazies. The real scientists would be grateful to have two hours or more of airtime to discuss their work, when most of them couldn’t get two minutes on a mainstream show. They would also be kind to the more whacked out callers who would try to connect real science to alien abduction stuff.
geg6
@Midnight Marauder:
I think that every time you post something that Jack Conway has said in response to the latest spewing from Rand Paul, I fall in love with him just a little bit more.
MikeJ
@Martin: But with spikes on, so no chinamen could walk over.
Xenos
“I don’t want unleaded!”
That song was in heavy play on the college radio station back when I was a pup, along with a number of Mojo Nixon songs that are increasingly topical over the last few years.
Eric U.
the NAFTA superhighway has gotten quite a bit of notice on GOS and other left blogs. I used to work in an office with a batch of right-wingers, and they would occasionally take a day to have an in-office discussion of the Mexican hordes. At least they didn’t usually take a day off in the office to talk about lazy runabouts.
Josie
@scav: I love the image of “armed chubby guys slouching in lawn chairs.” Those fools were down here “guarding” the border for a couple of weeks and all the locals were puzzled as to what they thought they were accomplishing. No one, Gringo or Hispanic, wanted them here, and all were relieved when they left.
geg6
OT, but they are playing selections from the “new” Exile on Main Street on ‘DVE, if anyone is in Pittsburgh.
Awesome.
memory
You’ve never heard of the Amero or the NAFTA Super Highway? You’ve clearly never been down South.
Basically the NAFTA Super Highway is going to be this enormous highway that the liberals in the federal government are going to build. It will go from Mexico to Canada. It will branch out all across the U.S. and come in through Texas (Conservatives in Texas have thrown hissy fits in the State legislature over this). Anyway, supposedly trucks coming in through Mexico carrying goods will not be stopped to check the papers of the driver or occupants because of NAFTA. Also, State and Local police will not be allowed to stop vehicles on this road because it is a Federal highway.
This is how many Illegal Immigrants from Mexico will get into the U.S. The Liberals want to do this in order to turn the U.S. into Europe. Liberals have been unable to do this because of the staunch conservatism of Good White Christian Real Americans. And when we’re all good and Europeanized do to Mexico we will follow through with the North American Union which will be our equivalent of the European Union and instead of using the dollar we’ll use our very own version of the Euro, the Amero.
Anne Laurie
@Martin:
Hah, you forgot Obama’s Navy minions using the supa-secret HAARP magnetic weapons to cause the earthquake in Haiti, thereby encouraging ten hundred million more not-white “refugees” to assault the coast of Florida while sending billions of American dollars out of the Chamber of Commerce’s hands into third-world secret bank accounts, and sending a message to Cuba that our new Kenya-Muslim-Socialist master wasn’t gonna be a commie-enabling pushover like That Not-A-Republican White House Guy circa 2000-2008.
Martin
@MikeJ: No, we need Chinese immigrants or else who will work in our mexican restaurants?
(It’s not uncommon here in SoCal to find Chinese restaurants staffed largely by latinos and Mexican restaurants staffed largely by asians. It’s rather amusing, actually.)
Mike Kay
Youtube Gold
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sZ1AgrkjT4k&feature=PlayList&p=9898A28139B01A50&playnext_from=PL&playnext=1&index=25
Ron Paul describes the NAFTA Highway conspiracy during a CNN presidential debate
gwangung
Well, yeah…once they started with Koreans staffing sushi and teriyaki bars, it went from there (I mean, folks should remember how the Koreans and Japanese HATE each other…).
licensed to kill time
@Brachiator:
It is true, there are hidden pearls to be found there. The long interview format is so unusual these days that when the guest really has something to say it can be wonderful. They really have a LOT of time to fill. Coast to Coast is also a lifesaver on long drives at night, unless you like religious hooey.
Brandon
All I have to say is that Daniel Carr is a genius. He is purposely stoking this Amero business to encourage these morons to pay $65 for a 2 penny piece of otherwise worthless stamped metal. It is clear as day to me now, wingnuts will friggin’ buy anything. I think I’ve actually figured it all out now, the right wing media machine is basically just a variation of QVC.
Sue
Ameros? I nominate Reagan to be on it. Putting Obama on would be too obvious.
Nazgul35
It’s all based upon a power point presentation given way back when that showed a corridor of already existing roads that played a prominent role in trade after NAFTA was passed…
You have to go deep into the wingnut weeds to believe in this stuff.
The Moar You Know
This is what happens when wingnuts get into Dad’s paint cabinet and start mixing the solvents with Robitussin.
Dude, you get so high!
Warren Terra
The Nation article about the NAFTA superhighway conspiracy hysteria is here – it’s from mid-2007, so at least some of these paranoid nuts sincerely feared this stuff back before we had a scary Muslin president. Although, given that Dubya claimed to be all chummy with Vicente Fox of Mexico (not that Mexico ever seemed to gain any benefit from this chumminess), the paranoids may simply have not trusted Dubya on that issue the same way they trusted him to fight Islam for Jesus.
But the Amero? Really? I mean, I suppose the Canadians could handle a monetary union with the US, though it isn’t obvious they’d get much from it – but anyone who thinks that a poorer country gains long-term benefit from pegging it’s currency to a richer country has only to look at what happened to Argentina a half-dozen years ago, and that’s the mild version. An actual monetary union between wildly dissimilar countries, and you risk what’s happening to Greece right now. Sure, the monetary union makes it easier for the poor country to borrow money in good times – but they’re seriously boned when tough times hit. The logical consequence of an Amero would be Mexico taking on the risk of an epic crash, and us taking on (more) responsibility to bail them out in hard times. It’s completely unclear why either side would want this – and, indeed, no-one is calling for it.
Martin
@Anne Laurie: Oh, good point. I forgot about that.
JGabriel
Clearly, it is only through the watchful eye of Ron Paul and his superhero son, Rand (secret power: The TRUTH!), that the NAFTA SuperHighway and the Ameros have not come to pass.
If it weren’t for them, you’d all be speaking Mexican-Canadian instead of mocking our saviors!
.
geg6
Digby has a ton of shit about the craziness that Rand and Ron Paul wallow in.
One example that I posted in the last thread:
http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2010/05/dr-fringe-by-digby-so-our-favorite.html
Almost her entire front page is dedicated to the insanity that is the Paulites. Go read it. Good stuff.
FormerSwingVoter
@memory:
Isn’t it amazing how many things liberals want to do that liberals have actually never heard of in their entire lives?
Brachiator
@Martin:
There is a Hilton hotel in the San Gabriel Valley section of Los Angeles county that has Chinese menu room service in addition to standard Hilton fare. Much of the service staff is Latino. These “lazy, shiftless” people not only work their butts off, but have also learned some degree of English, Mandarin and Cantonese.
Midnight Marauder
@geg6:
You and me both. From what I’ve been reading and learning about Conway, I keep liking this guy more and more. And of course, when he keeps spittin’ hot fire like this in Rand Paul’s direction, well…that is just like pure sex.
Mike Kay
Paul went on good morning america and called Rachel Maddow a big liar.
Oh boy, talk about stirring a hornet’s nest.
Mike Kay
Tweety just called Paul, “a male sarah palin”
HA!
MikeJ
@geg6: Yesterday I was listening to Pússy Galore’s cover of the whole album. Today it’s been Liz Phair’s answer. I still want to know which Galaxie 500 video she was pretending to be in.
Chuck Butcher
It has been a few years, but I used to have to take the show on the road and in E OR that does mean distance and it means FM ain’t happenin. The cassette player in the work truck ate itself and left me with radio (since died). I have had extensive exposure to Coast to Coast. Funny stuff in limited doses, mind boggling with too much exposure. A little ways past middle of nowhere in the middle of the night with 0 traffic and your mind can … start to lose traction.
Lisa K.
The crackpot is also a weasel, ala Sarah Palin…
http://twitter.com/davidgregory/status/14451438041
JGabriel
Actually, if turning America into Europe gives us better health care outcomes at lower cost, more vacation time, more and better public transportation options, and a literate well-educated populace, then this liberal is all for it.
.
Lisa K.
@Mike Kay:
Sarah Palin is far more devious, if infinitely stupider.
licensed to kill time
@FormerSwingVoter:
Liberals – so crafty we don’t even know how crafty we are!
Mnemosyne
@memory:
I guess they think the California Highway Patrol just sits on their asses all day long if it’s illegal for CHP to do their stated job of patrolling state and federal highways in California.
Either that, or they have no idea how the federal highway system actually works, except that it has the scary scary word “federal” in its name so therefore it must be bad. Hmm, I wonder which it could be?
;-)
Brachiator
Too much crazy. Too little time.
JGabriel
@Mike Kay:
Jesus. Now that’s a frightening equation:
Sarah Palin without tits = ?
.
Chuck
By golly, we don’t want to base our currency on no furriner money, not our precious Real De a Ocho … er, I mean Thaler … er DOLLAR, that’s it. Nope nosir, not the same thing at all.
scav
@JGabriel: Don’t forget the cheeses.
DougJ
@geg6:
My CD just came in the mail. I’m listening to it when I get home.
srv
Does Bernanke use a black helicopter or a UN one?
Midnight Marauder
@Lisa K.:
And a damn quick one, at that:
Paul Backs Out Of Meet The Press Appearance
I’m sure he is “exhausted.” Being on the fringe is hard work.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@Brachiator: My theory is that when an alien race comes down to take one person with them to represent the human race, it will be a Hispanic cook working at an Indian Restaurant in Richardson, TX.
JGabriel
Well, we know it can’t be Haley Barbour.
.
JGabriel
@scav: Mmmm, cheese …
.
TomG
I’d heard of this whole thing several years back when I was still admiring Ron Paul, but I dismissed it for the same reasons you all do.
Does this mean I have to hand in my libertarian membership card?
djork
Ironically, the calls for less government spending and a balanced budget only hasten the day when the Amero will buy beer all acorss the continent. But wingnuts aren’t known for consistency.
ibid
Texas has had several votes about the corridor, they just call it a different name, they call it the trans-Texas corridor.
Wouldn’t they call it the trans-Texas corridor because it only goes through Texas? Which is different, than, you know, a trans-USA highway. And if its just something the states are doing, wouldn’t “trying to get the legislature to stop it, through official acts of Congress” violate his federalist principles? And we all know, you have to stick to your principles no matter what ugly consequences might result.
les
Even scarier: it’s already here!1!1 The highway thingie, at least. Kansas City is an inland port, and goods from/through Mexico come here by I-35 and rail, unchecked by customs!! Well, until they’re, like, unloaded and shipped on, at least. I can hear the withering of our true Americaness from where I sit.
les
@Midnight Marauder:
I read he’s already whining because he didn’t get his post-election victory “honeymoon” form the press. Whatta loser.
maus
I bought a fake Amero coin off the eBays, but I never had a chance when I knew I was going to be around a bunch of wingnuts to use it as a conversation piece.
jl
The commie Ike Eisenheffer started it all back when in the fifties, when he was persecuting good old Joe McCarthy.
Southern Beale
I have heard about the NAFTA superhighway, most definitely, but from the lefty perspective: that it’s a way to crush the Teamsters Union by bringing in Mexican truck drivers.
Hob
When are we going to just get it over with and switch to the Rasbucknik?
gocart mozart
Are you telling me that I can drive my car on a road all the way into Mexico and whats worse, I can drive back on a road! When did this happen? I want my country back!
DaddyJ
@ThatPirateGuy: I congratulate you, sir, on your most vivid metaphor!
Downpuppy
You can drive, but we have Heimat Sicherheit checkpoints set up about 100 km up in the northbound lanes.
Fairly scary when you hit one for the first time.
gocart mozart
@ibid:
Well, I’m sure if they were shipping Medicare reimbursments across the border he would be 100% behind it.
JoeJack
No one’s mentioned the Dead Milkmen yet??
maus
@Southern Beale: Which, of course, the libertopians are more than fine with.
gocart mozart
@ThatPirateGuy:
Sick balls Rand!
Faux News
@ DougJ: it’s easy to miss things if you are regular on multiple sites like I am. Please tell me you do know what “whore diamonds” are? (Wonkette quiz).
maus
@Faux News: Escort rating system, I believe the reference was from that DC intern/hooker who was friends with Anna Marie Cox.
Pangloss
I am sending Rand Paul a set of invisible horsehead bookends.
Batocchio
I hadn’t heard about the Amero before, but I’ve seen the NAFTA superhighway come up every now and then.
Origuy
Since I still have family in Indiana, I check the local media once in a while. Interstate 69 from Indianapolis to Evansville has been getting a lot of attention in this respect. If it’s ever completed, I-69 would connect Port Huron, MI with the Mexican border. South of Kentucky, though, there’s not much happening with it.
They named I-469 around Fort Wayne, “Ronald Reagan Expressway”. You would think the magic of that name would be enough to keep the evil aliens from sapping our vital fluids.
asiangrrlMN
@Faux News: I thought it was vavajazzling or whatever that monstrosity is called.
I am saddened to say that this news about Ameros and the NAFTA Super Highway is rather…boring to me. Paul the Younger needs to ratchet it up a notch or two if he really wants to bring the crazy.
Has Conway set up an ActBlue page yet?
mclaren
Wow. Really? You never heard of the Amero?
This fringe lunatic myth of the “one world UN government”-sponsored North American Union has been going around on the far right since the early 90s. Ever since the days of the miltias under Clinton, the far right has been fantasizing about the alleged “threat” of the Amero and the trans-American highway.
Go to a gun show. You’ll see all kind of crazy stuff like this popping up out of the fevered collective unconscious of the far right.
Gun shows are a fantastic way to explore the psyche of the extreme right. I strongly recommend every liberal attend a gun show every 3 or 4 years. The anti-Clinton frenzy was on full display back in the early 90s in gun shows, with popular T-shirts featuring Bill Clinton (then president) in the croshairs of a gunsight with the logo “REACH OUT AND TOUCH SOMEONE,” while the anti-Obama racism was fully out and proudly displayed with “Li’l Sambobama” T-shirts and posters back in mid-2008, long before Obama even got elected.
SectarianSofa
@memory:
Except that it’s Rick Perry, the GOP governor, who has pushed the trans-texas corridor thing, for years. Not liberals.
Not to take away from your comment — it is basically correct that it is somehow the Left’s fault if there’s anything proposed anywhere that a reactionary dislikes. Punch those hippes, and Al Gore. Also.
jerry 101
@Sarcastro: OTOH, Ameros to Churros has a decent ring.
Or should I just get over it and say:
Por otra parte, suena bien “Ameros a churros”?
Me pregunto, sin embargo, cómo la mente tuerca mariposa es capaz de conciliar la Unión de América del Norte con la conspiración reconquista?
24AheadDotCom
Guess who, in March 2008, referred to “the fact that there’s this highway being built in Texas that will facilitate more transportation and travel between Mexico and the intercontinental United States, on up to Canada”.
Hint: his initials are BHO. If you give up, see the link.
Zuzu's Petals
Oops, wrong thread. Ne-ver mind.
Hob
@jerry 101: It’s no contradiction at all. The crypto-Islamocommie hippie fascist one-world black freemason overlords have already been conquered by Latin American invaders; but it’s a secret. So then when the U.S. conquers the rest of the hemisphere, it’ll be absorbing itself back into Aztlan.
It makes just as much sense as “the socialists encouraged the banks and oil companies to get so greedy that they would inevitably fuck up everything and discredit capitalism,” doesn’t it?
Hob
Oh wow, I just got moderated! My first time! I said the S-word. I should’ve called them soviagrists.
poicephalus
Sorry Dougj,
arcane conspiracy theory reading comprehension FAIL.
C
Faux News
@ Maus; Win! I think it may have been former Gov. Spitzer’s also started this. The escort service he used rated the women by “diamonds” on their website. Sadly Rand Paul only rates 1 whore diamond.
Anne Laurie
@Faux News:
Yep, and it ties back into the Hollywood-leftie complaints about “blood diamonds” from Central Africa. Which are due for a conspiracy comeback, now that the Hague wants to subpoena Naomi Campbell in Charles Taylor’s war crimes trial on the word of Mia Farrow!
chopper
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ:
come to think of it, amero amero bill y’all has a certain ring to it.
Hawerchuk
The Nafta superhighway is highway 75. There is a small marker in the middle of Pembina Hwy in Winnipeg, MB noting that this highway goes all the way to Mexico. I saw that marker around, oh, maybe 1986.
Comrade Javamanphil
@JoeJack: Check comment 27. Perhaps I was being too obtuse. If this blog don’t have Mojo Nixon than this blog could use some fixin’.
Brachiator
@mclaren:
Also, the currency is so heavy that it is denomiated by weight.
Hence the term “One Ton Amero.”
DougJ
@Faux News:
From Eliot Spitzer, right?
RSR
so few Dead Milkmen references in comments (but there’s at least a couple); DougJ you amaze me with your musical repertoire. You win the obscure Philly punk band reference on the net tonight!
RSR
@RSR: PS “now I’m in all the papers”
Josh
I heard about the NAFTA superhighway from Orcinus. Neiwert doesn’t blog much there any longer, but his and Robinson’s old posts on protofascists, Right Wing Authoritarians, and other meshugass is still valuable and relevant.
Onkel Fritze
Something about that highway just seemed so familiar.
Joshua Holland
I laid that whole North American Union BS bare over at AlterNet years ago.
goatchowder
Must be; Bahamas are Islands!!!!
Awesome 80’s reference. Crystal Shit, indeed!