Annie Linskey and Laura Curtis, at Bloomberg News:
President Barack Obama’s $4 trillion budget proposal includes a major change to the Social Security Act that would allow same-sex couples to receive spousal benefits even if they live in states that don’t recognize such unions.
Under current law, gay couples who move from one of the 36 states that permit same-sex marriage to one that does not lose the Social Security benefits heterosexual couples enjoy. “Under this proposal, such married couples would have access to these benefits,” according to the budget…
The proposal in his budget would have to be passed by a Republican-led Congress that is deeply divided on gay marriage, stirring debate that would put the issue in the forefront as the party is trying to select a 2016 presidential candidate. Social conservatives staunchly oppose such unions, while the libertarian wing prefers the issue be left up to states. Many of the party’s most generous donors, including energy executive David Koch and hedge fund founder Paul Singer, support gay marriage.
Americans’ views on same-sex marriage have changed rapidly in the past decade, with 52 percent of respondents favoring gay marriages in a September 2014 poll by the Pew Research Center. That’s up from 31 percent supporting the policy in 2004…
***********
Apart from applauding efforts to do the right thing, what’s on the agenda for the evening?
Botsplainer
Never have seen the wisdom of connecting marriage to social security.
Personally, I’d like it to be a system based on the individual and scaled benefit payments.
gene108
What division?
To a man and woman Republicans are against gay rights, unless their kid ends up being gay and then they want some special exclusions for the kiddo.
Violet
It’s cold here. Cold front came through yesterday and it was supposed to rain but didn’t. I hadn’t watered the garden because they were forecasting a day of rain. I’ve got to go out and water now. Brrr…
Ohio Mom
@efgoldman: Well, it’s Groundhog Day, which means we are at the halfway point between the winter solstice and the spring equinox. But yeah, I’m tired of winter too.
Patricia Kayden
Good for President Obama but every newscast I’ve watched has announced that his budget is DOA. We’ll see if the Republicans sever parts they like for passage.
Mr. Longform
@gene108: This is one of my main gripes with the conservative mindset. Nothing for “undeserving” people in general; everything for people who are closely related to or just like me. It’s like their empathy bone was removed at birth and replaced with a Koch-shaped organ of selfishness. There was a right-wing nutjob douche-bag state senator here in Indiana (but I repeat myself …) who would gut any program for any working class or poor person you could possibly imagine – from medicaid to improvements in public education to unemployment benefits – you name it. Then one day he sponsors and pushes through a bill to fund a massive, expensive, state-sponsored study of chronic fatigue syndrome. You’ll never guess — his precious snowflake daughter was diagnosed with it! I know – shocking. And just imagine how disdainful he would have been about that condition without the personal connection.
currants
shoveling snow? OMG so much snow. 14 inches out here and Still.It.Snows. And it’s 8 degrees, so, gah. Catching a 7:30 train tomorrow morning might not happen…
Ohio Mom
@Botsplainer: I imagine connecting Social Security to marriage had something to do with it being insurance for widows and orphans, which it still is.
.
skerry
@Botsplainer: How would you accommodate a non-working partner in your SS benefit scheme? Or the lower earning potential most women have?
My mother did not work for years when she had young children. When she did work, she made not much more than minimum wage. Today, she collects SS benefits based on my father’s earning history – higher wages and no lapse in earnings.
Betty Cracker
Am I the only one who missed last night’s violent spectacle? I was watching the Super Bowl, so I didn’t catch up with Downton Abbey until today. I’ll say no more in case others haven’t seen it!
Villago Delenda Est
This will drive Santorum and Huckabee absolutely batshit.
Pass the popcorn.
SiubhanDuinne
@efgoldman:
Well, as of today (Groundhog Day, Candlemas, Imbolc) we are midway between the Winter Solstice and the Vernal Equinox. Take heart!
Edit: Curse you, Ohio Moon!!
Second Edit: Curse you, SiubhanDuinne! I meant Ohio MOM, not MOON.
Amir Khalid
Bob in Portland, may his armpits be infested with fleas, has resolved to spend 2015 belabouring your poor Malaysian correspondent with conspiracy theories involving MH370 and MH17.
Help! elebenty!1! Get him offa me!1!
gogol's wife
@Betty Cracker:
I didn’t miss it — it was hilarious! You should look at the NYTimes blog recap for how they described it. Pretty funny.
http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/02/01/downton-abbey-recap-rumble-with-lord-g/
trollhattan
@efgoldman:
On a barely related note, maybe Amazon ain’t as smart as they think, as they push-marketed a snowblower at me yesterday, a day it hit 67. Maybe they knew I was trimming trees but didn’t realize I was also wearing shorts and sunglasses.
Can you use one as a lawnmower?
trollhattan
@Amir Khalid:
HODOR! is Don Lemon? Who knew?
We figure it either got a new chip installed or got Vlad’s new years gift of a pallet of vodka.
jeffreyw
@Amir Khalid: You fed him and he followed you home.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym
Meh. Sometimes I forget that not all places are like Balloon Juice. Over on a different message board I’m dealing with the horribly hurt feelings of an Ohio State fan who objects to my calling her team a bunch of goons because they keep picking up major penalties for checking from behind and contact to the head. She’s deeply worried about the quality of the posts at USCHO if people are going to keep saying things she finds distressing.
Turgidson
Will be hilarious and infuriating at the same time to watch the GOP denounce Obama’s budget as class warfare and sockulism while simultaneously accusing him of making income inequality worse and bemoaning how the elites have made out like bandits during the recovery.
The Zombie-Eyed Granny Starver apparently took this laughable mendacity out for a test drive yesterday and managed to avoid the tarring-and-feathering anyone peddling such bullshit should receive. Another bang-up job by our failed media experiment.
SiubhanDuinne
@Amir Khalid:
Don’t forget to ask for Green Balloons!
Gin & Tonic
@efgoldman: I’m in the Adirondacks. It’s supposed to be -13 in the morning.
Karmus
@SiubhanDuinne:
Henceforth and forevermore, let this be the cry of the spellchecked everywhere.
Karen in GA
@jeffreyw: @Amir Khalid: Maybe you can trap him and have him fixed? He might calm down and stop marking everywhere, and then there won’t be any little BiPs yowling at all hours.
Karen in GA
@Turgidson:
I heard one from him today: “envy economics.” Is this a new one, or have they been batting this one around for a while?
Gin & Tonic
@Betty Cracker: Speaking of violent spectacles, I could have sworn there was a fight and an ejection at the end of yesterday’s game. Did that go down the memory hole? I have seen no coverage of that at all.
Keith G
Kevin Drum is highlighting the reviews of an interview between Martha Raddatz and Scott Walker.
Young Mister Walker (favored by some here to be a force to be reckoned with) shows what a not-ready-for-prime-time brainless putz he really is.
And is worse than that.
Many idiots want us to flex our militaristic muscles. The transcript clearly shows that when Walker started down this path, his brain had no idea where his mouth was going to end up. It was a performance worthy of Palin.
trollhattan
@Karen in GA:
This probably has him skipping in tiny circles.
Kind of interesting that he thinks he could arm and train that many Patriotic Volunteers. I wonder how that could remotely be possible…?
dmsilev
Rand Paul:
Paul added, “I was vaccinated as a kid and it gave me a bad case of libertarianism.”
trollhattan
@dmsilev:
Wow, he’s achieved parity (parody?) with Bachmann. Some heavy lifting, that.
Bobby Thomson
@Botsplainer: because millions of Americans have never been paid for their work as homemakers and therefore never paid into the system. So I guess they should just become prostitutes when their former breadwinners die?
? Martin
Someone’s countertops are in need of inspection.
Turgidson
@Karen in GA:
I’ve heard it, or variations on it, before, but it hasn’t entered heavy rotation in the wurlitzer’s talking point catapulting machine. Might be their attempt to rebut Obama’s “middle class economics” pitch.
raven
@jeffreyw: You don’t say much but when you do. . . zowies!
Villago Delenda Est
@trollhattan: Well, if he concentrates recruitment in Moscow and St. Petersburg, I’m sure he’ll find plenty of volunteers.
Not to mention unemployed oil workers…
RaflW
I hope the GOP trips on it’s own, uhh, shoelace on this one. And I don’t give a %&$# whad David Koch thinks of gay marriage. The vast majority of the candidates he shovels cash at are homophobes (or opportunistic homophobes).
Good for Obama for heightening the contrast, as they say. It also happens to be a humane and much more fair policy, to boot!
JustRuss
@Mr. Longform:
This. I have a rightwing acquaintance who’s son has a learning disability, and the private school he’s attending refused to spend the money it would take to accommodate him (I know, quell surprise). But the public schools are required by law to give him all the help he needs. For free. Suddenly the union thug teachers and those meddling feds are the best thing ever.
RaflW
@efgoldman:
Beseech the FSM for that snow to move west. Things are Ok up here in the high country of Colorado (no pun intended) but the Sierras are a disaster of dryness and snowlessness. And even here around Breckenridge we could use another 2 to 3 feet. :)
Mandalay
Lindy West, a feminist journalist, wrote in today’s Guardian about how a troll wrote hate messages to her using her dead father as his ID. Pretty sick and creepy, but not too remarkable, except that the troll eventually had a crisis of conscience, apologized to her about what he had done, and revealed his real identity:
West also describes her experience with the hate troll on last week’s edition of This American Life. It includes a remarkable phone conversation between West and the (reformed) troll, who gave some interesting insights into his misogyny.
grandpa john
@raven: which should be a warning to all here of the consequences of troll feeding
Steeplejack
@Amir Khalid:
You had to hit the tar baby and then you got stuck. Folktales have a moral for a reason.
Cervantes
@Amir Khalid:
In private e-mail, you mean?
⌫ works, if dialog is not possible or desired.
Steeplejack
@gogol’s wife:
LOL. For fans of Richard E. Grant (Simon Bricker) I highly recommend the tiny series Posh Nosh—eight short episodes of foodie madness. It’s all on YouTube.
jeffreyw
@raven: Bah, i dont tipe gud, best to stay off this thing.
rikyrah
Tens of thousands raised for Detroit man who walks 21 miles to work
02/02/15 12:44 PM—UPDATED 02/02/15 02:08 PM
By Michele Richinick
A Detroit man’s daily 21-mile walk to work has inspired people across the country to raise more than $60,000 to buy him a car and pay for his auto insurance. And at least two car dealerships have offered to donate brand new vehicles to ease his travel.
Every weekday, James Robertson, 56, leaves his home in Detroit and travels nearly 28 miles to his factory job in Rochester Hills, Michigan. Public transportation doesn’t cover the full route of his commute, so he walks about eight miles to work and about 13 miles home. He also takes a bus ride part-way to work. He has endured the trek since his Honda Accord stopped working in 2005. But despite the challenges, Robertson reportedly has perfect attendance at his job, where he earns $10.55 per hour molding parts.
The Detroit Free Press published a story about Robertson on the front page of its newspaper Sunday. Evan Leedy, a 19-year-old student studying computer science at nearby Wayne State University in Detroit, read the article on the newspaper’s Facebook page around 10:30 a.m. on Sunday. People posted comments, calling on Robertson’s bosses to give him a raise, and even offering their vehicles, bus tickets and daily car services to him. Leedy, who has a similar daily commute but travels by car, wanted to help. In five minutes, he created a fundraising cause for Robertson on a GoFundMe website
………………………
Leedy, who attends school in Robertson’s Detroit neighborhood and works near the factory, said he drives about 70 miles each day. “I’ve complained about an hour’s ride home, but to see this guy, who walks eight hours a day, 21 miles a day, that’s incredible. He walks almost a marathon every single day.”
http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/tens-thousands-raised-detroit-man-who-walks-21-miles-work?cid=sm_tw_msnbc
p.a.
@Turgidson: yes. ‘Politics of Envy’ was the possible beta.
Pogonip
Did anyone see the news story about the man in Detroit who’s been walking twenty miles a day to and from work for ten years, since his cat broke down and he couldn’t afford to fix it? A crowdfund to help him is up to about 65K.
I’d have donated, but had no money left after paying car note and insurance…
Violet
Just heard on the news that Johnny Manziel is going to rehab.
Voluntarily? Hmmm…
Pogonip
@Amir Khalid: Maybe you can get some ideas from the story about the lady whose troll ended up being friendly.
Or you could forget how to speak English…
jharp
I love our President.
And I love him even more when he trolls Republicans.
Pogonip
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym: That’s THE Ohio State University.
Don’t even try to reason with them. It will not work.
Pogonip
@RaflW: I wonder if the reason there’s all that snow is that it’s fucking snow, breeding more flakes?
Cervantes
@JustRuss:
Before celebrating his epiphany, I’d wait until the next time he gets to vote on an increase in property taxes.
Pogonip
@Pogonip: I see someone did, I put up my note before I saw someone had quoted the story. Sorry!
Pogonip
@Pogonip: His Car! His Car! God I hate Autocorrect!!!!!
scav
@Pogonip: Special BJ-specific autocorrect, tying to get a crowdsource funding thread going for fixing cats?
Ripley
@Amir Khalid: Disposable email accounts can cut down on being followed, in that you can choose to never check them for messages (and they’re automatically deleted after a day or two). The internet is quite full of Bobs, after all.
Pogonip
@scav: If Mr. Robertson’s cat had broken down, he’d probably be discussing it on Balloon Juice.
Why. Autocorrect? Why? “Car” is a perfectly cromulent word! Why change it to “cat”?
mdblanche
@Ohio Mom: When I look out my window at all the snow, well this sums up how I’m feeling about Groundhog Day.
Tree With Water
Obama may as well ask congress to print everyone a million dollars. And were even a single southern democrat left standing, I doubt he’d have run this up the old flag pole. That’s why I don’t place much stock in such proposals constituting an aggressive assault upon the vitals of the USS Congressional Loon schooner. Were the chips down in a close vote, enough congressional democrats would cave and flip their vote insuring defeat of the proposal- and you can take that to the bank.
Pogonip
@rikyrah: You just know all the other employees hate this guy. “Hey, I can’t come in, too snowy.”. “Whaddaya mean, you can’t come in? Mr. Robertson’s here blah blah blah.”
Maybe once he’s vehicular again they’ll forgive him.
Litlebritdifrnt
@Mr. Longform: The repub congress and senate here in NC are busy changing the law to make sure that people who ride scooters have to have a driver license and cannot have been convicted of DWI. It is well known within the State that if you see someone riding a scooter to work they have lost their license for some reason or other. My question is to the repub lawmakers, you want people to pull themselves up by their bootstraps. HOW THE FUCK CAN THEY DO THAT IF YOU TAKE THEIR BOOTSTRAPS AWAY? You don’t want people on welfare but if you take away their only way of getting to work what the fuck are they supposed to do? I really don’t understand the complete disconnect here.
Pogonip
@Litlebritdifrnt: They can walk to work, like that guy in Detroit!
At least till the Republicans figure out a legal way to cut their feet off.
SiubhanDuinne
@Pogonip:
The car-cat thing has happened to me on Facebook, and probably here as well. Also, I have found that, as often as not, when I type live it will come out love, and when I type love it will come out live. I realize the “i” and “o” are next to each other on the keyboard, but I’ve watched carefully and FYAC just changes it to be mean.
rikyrah
@Pogonip:
I always crack up when I hear it..they have trained their students well, because I’ve never met one that doesn’t call the college by that name.
Amir Khalid
@Ripley:
Fortunately Bob hasn’t been emailing me, since I haven’t been silly enough to give him my addy. He’s just pestering me here. It can’t be helped that he saw me mention my nationality and said to himself, “I know who I can bug now!”
Trollhattan
Well, well, well.
Yummy fracking–for Freedom!
Violet
@Litlebritdifrnt: Scooters aren’t licensed as vehicles? Like motorcycles? I’m surprised. I figured they would be.
Litlebritdifrnt
@Pogonip:
I just cannot understand their mindset anymore. People who ride scooters do so because they have no other way to work. There is no public transportation. So my question is do you want someone to sit home on food stamps and welfare or do you want them to earn a paycheck and support themselves. You can’t have it both ways. It is either one or the other. You either want someone to work for a living or you take away their ability to work for a living and force them onto food stamps and welfare. WTF?
JPL
@Gin & Tonic: Yes it did. It was an unfortunate end to an other wise good game.
JPL
@Betty Cracker: The ending was classic also since he still hasn’t forgiven Cora.
Roger Moore
@Botsplainer:
It’s there to protect “traditional” single breadwinner families. If you don’t have survivor’s benefits for stay-at-home spouses, they would be totally screwed when their retired breadwinner spouse died.
Pogonip
@Litlebritdifrnt: Patience. The idea is to take away their ability to work and THEN kill food stamps and welfare.
On a happier note, retrieverman.net has some good pictures of red fox tracks up.
Karmus
@Pogonip:
What I want to know is, will Obummercare pay for its therapy?
Trollhattan
@Litlebritdifrnt:
Are you talking about motorized two-wheelers too small to take on the freeway but still street-legal? They’re DMV-regulated in CA and also federal DOT and EPA-regulated WRT equipment and emissions. The even smaller 2-stroke gizmos aren’t even street-legal here.
I can’t see a way around the law on this one. Other than a bicycle.
As an aside, I found out that Vespas got really expensive somewhere along the line. Like as much as $10k.
Litlebritdifrnt
@Violet: It depends on the CCs, they are pretty much treated like ride on lawnmowers and golf carts. Depending on the CCs they are below the standards required for driver license and insurance. The exact reason that low income persons use them to get to work. If you can’t afford a car and insurance you can probably afford a cheap scooter. My point is that we should encourage people to use scooters to get to work so that they do not rely on food stamps and welfare. Do we want people to drive themselves to a paying job on scooters or do we want them to sit at home on welfare and foodstamps?
jeffreyw
@SiubhanDuinne: I texted Mrs J the other day that was making Tex-Mex lasagna for dinner. It auto corrected to tell her I was making tax exempt lasagna.
Litlebritdifrnt
@Trollhattan:
From what I understand they are not legal on the freeways, but are on the smaller roads. Which means that a person can get to and from work providing you don’t have to go on the freeway.
Roger Moore
@Tree With Water:
ITYM “white southern democrat”, since there are still a fair number of black southern democrats in Congress.
Bob In Portland
The Wells Fargo wagon keeps a rollin on…
WereBear
@Litlebritdifrnt: The long-term plan, Die Quickly, then? For Republicans, it’s not just for health care!
Iowa Old Lady
We have a bond vote tomorrow for the local community college. I hate these stealth election dates, even when they favor the side I vote on.
Our street is plowed and I still got stuck twice today going around a corner. I rocked the car out the first time, but had to shovel it out the second. That’s enough winter, thanks.
Central Planning
@Gin & Tonic:
The thermometer in my car said -20F on the way to Clarkson once. I got out just to take a deep breath to see what it would feel like. I did not like it.
WereBear
@Central Planning: Aw. -20 is not so bad. -40, now that you stay inside.
Woodrowfan
@rikyrah:
down in Athens we called it “that branch campus up north” Bobcats!
Pogonip
@Amir Khalid: What’s Malaysia have to do with Ukraine?
Pogonip
@jeffreyw: Only the 1% get to eat tax-exempt lasagna.
Woodrowfan
Where’s Spunkwheel to complain that Obama didn’t issue his executive order in 2008?
Belafon
This is for Spinwheel: Obama always supported vaccination. (LGF link) The only ambiguity is that if you don’t see the video, you don’t seem him pointing to the person to his right when he says:
He goes on to say:
Roger Moore
@WereBear:
Depends on how much wind there is. -20 and calm is quite reasonable, but it gets miserable really fast when the wind picks up.
Pogonip
Hey, Amir, your buddy’s here!
This would be a good time for a pupdate.
I swear I remember Cole saying Ginger had cancer? I really would like word on that.
Ohio Mom
@Karmus: Wait a second, I kinda like the sound of Ohio Moon. I have to change my handle because another Barbara showed up, and I have to say, Ohio Moon is definitely in the running for my new permanent identity.
But don’t curse me, SiubhanDuinnei. You’re the one who know the proper names for today, Candlemas and Imbolc.
rikyrah
Mother and father charged with abandoning toddlers in car while wine tasting in D.C.
By Peter Hermann and Mark Lieberman February 2 at 7:35 PM
A couple who left their two toddlers alone in a car on a Northwest Washington street while they attended a wine-tasting at an upscale restaurant was monitoring them with a cellphone left in the vehicle, law enforcement officials said Monday.
Police said the children — a 22-month-old boy and a slightly older girl — were strapped in car seats and wearing coats when they were found Saturday afternoon near the Ritz-Carlton Hotel, in the 1100 block of 23rd Street NW. Neither child had gloves or hats, police said, and the youngest did not have shoes or socks. The girl was “hysterically crying,” according to a police report.
The temperature was 35 degrees, and police said the doors were locked and the windows were rolled up. Police said the father and mother were at the restaurant Ris, about 400 feet away around the corner, in the 2200 block of L Street. The father, Christopher Daniel Lucas, who also goes by Christophe, told police that he left an iPhone in the car with an open connection to the children’s mother, Jennie Teresa Chang. The restaurant’s manager told police that the couple was at a wine tasting for about an hour, according to a police report.
“I left to go inside the restaurant,” Lucas said, according to the report, “but I’m watching them.” Police said the phone line had been open 58 minutes when officers arrived and got the children out of the gray Volvo station wagon and into a warm police car.
Lucas, 41, and Chang, 46, who live in a $1 million rowhouse near Dupont Circle, about a 10-minute walk from the restaurant, were arrested and charged with two counts of attempted second-degree cruelty to children, which carries a maximum 10-year prison sentence. They spent Saturday and Sunday night in a precinct lockup until their initial appearance in court Monday afternoon. Both identified themselves to police as the children’s parents.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/crime/two-charged-with-abandoning-toddlers-in-car-while-at-wine-tasting-in-northwest-dc/2015/02/02/f77b5244-aafb-11e4-9c91-e9d2f9fde644_story.html?wprss=rss_crime&tid=sm_tw_pl
Elizabelle
The Guardian’s Groundhog Day quiz. Go to it. Go to it.
Central Planning
@WereBear:
Or, open the door, throw a glass of water into the air and watch it turn into snow (or something like that). It doesn’t get _that_ cold here in Rochester.
Woodrowfan
@Pogonip: the Malaysian airliner shot down by the pro-Russian rebels. BiP likes parroting the Moscow line that it was the Ukrainian govt or the CIA that shot it down… or elves, maybe it was elves…
Tree With Water
@Roger Moore: I stand corrected. Still, when the republican national brand implodes- a scenario I’ve envisioned as inevitable since California’s GOP committed suicide- it will be with little or no help from democratic party stratagems (as was the case in California).
scav
@Pogonip: Ah, but our betters in high-tech have decided that predictive text is at least among the Next Big Things, so it’s beginning to pop up. FYWP could be learning new tricks. They know what we’re going to say and buy and do before we do! So, on beyond suggesting — nay, insisting on — correct (to its mind) spellings, it also suggesting thoughts and words. Installing programs is often getting easier and easier, it’s turning off the damn options that is now eating up all the time.
/generic software bloat rant
Pogonip
@Woodrowfan: I’m sure it had something to do with Ibama.
Note my typo, above. FY Autocorrect can change “car” to “cat,” but it doesn’t know the name of the president of the United States.
Pogonip
Tall and tan and young and lovely, Ibama from Ipanema goes walkin’ by..
WereBear
@Roger Moore: Yes, a few days ago it was around 9, but sunny and windless, and I went around with my coat open.
Granted, I’ve lived up here a while :)
Pogonip
@scav: According to Charles Duhigg, Target knows you’re pregnant before you know.
SiubhanDuinne
@jeffreyw:
Let’s not mention this to Yatsuno.
Violet
@Litlebritdifrnt: In my neck of the woods the first transportation purchase by Latino immigrants is a bicycle. Perhaps that wouldn’t work as well where you live, although my Minnesota relatives ride bikes to work even in the winter. In my miserable hot climate I rode mine to work year around, even in the summer.
I know we’ve got varied laws governing the use and regulation of those kinds of vehicles but I find them dangerous on the road. There’s a golf cart that a couple use in my neighborhood and I’m surprised they haven’t been creamed by the construction vehicles. The scooters, even on local low-speed-limit roads, can be very hard to see, especially at night. The drivers seem to drive more slowly than the surrounding traffic so they tend to cause traffic issues. Because they tend to be driven more like cars and less as bicycles–at least the ones around me–I personally would be glad if they were regulated somewhat to make them safer for all drivers.
SiubhanDuinne
@Elizabelle:
Ha.
Ha.
jl
Sorry to bring up vaccines, after two threads today, but Rand Paul is giving a bravura performance in pandering and backpedaling and obfuscating. This time on CNBC. I guess Rand is getting lots of air time because he is a ‘respected’ figure who is making news by saying crazy things.
Rand Paul: Vaccines Can Cause ‘Profound Mental Disorders’ (VIDEO)
” I have heard of many tragic cases of walking, talking normal children who wound up with profound mental disorders after vaccines,” Paul said.
…
“I think vaccines are one of the greatest medical breakthroughs that we had. I’m a big fan,” he said. “But for most of our history, they have been voluntary. So I don’t think I’m arguing for anything out of the ordinary.”
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/rand-paul-vaccines-mental-disorders
That is some whirling being done by the hideous Paul.
Not sure what he means by “But for most of our history, they have been voluntary… ” Is he talking about measles vaccine? Measles vaccine did not even exist most of our history. Maybe he means all public health measures, like, say, smallpox vaccination. Surely no government would sully freedom by making any kind of public health measure, and surely not something like compulsory vaccination (Big Gummint making you put something in your body) while our sacred blessed Founders were alive.
Oh, wait a minute:
” In the United States… the first to impose compulsory vaccination being Massachusetts in 1809. There then followed sequences of compulsion, opposition and repeal in various states. By 1930 Arizona, Utah, North Dakota and Minnesota prohibited compulsory vaccination… ten states, including Washington D.C. and Massachusetts, infant vaccination was compulsory.[37] Compulsory infant vaccination was regulated by only allowing access to school for those who had been vaccinated.[38] Those seeking to enforce compulsory vaccination argued that the public good overrode personal freedom, a view supported by the U.S. Supreme Court in Jacobson v. Massachusetts in 1905, a landmark ruling which set a precedent for cases dealing with personal freedom and the public good. ”
Smallpox Vaccine
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smallpox_vaccine
fuckwit
@Mr. Longform: If “those people” are not human, are not worthy of life, and are SCARY, then you can feel no guilt or shame about whatever horrors you make them endure. It’s the oldest trick in the book. Religions and empires have used it since the beginning of “civilization”.
bemused
Mpls Star Trib reported that MN Rep John Kline, WI Paul Ryan and MI Fred Upton were picked to draft a GOP approved alternative to Obamacare if the SC votes ACA subsidies illegal. Statement from Kevin McCarthy’s office said the team will formulate a replacement and larger full plan if ACA is repealed, promising their plan will be more patient-focused and want to give Americans the option to be “in the driver’s seat” of their own healthcare. Over the cliff is my guess. A commenter called the team the Republican death panel.
@Central Planning:
In the -60 degree week we had in MN about 1996, employees at local car dealership tossed different types of oil in the air to see which crystalized faster.
RSA
@jl:
Out of curiosity, I looked up this: About a year ago, even the libertarian magazine Reason came out in favor of “coercive” vaccination.
Chris
@Mr. Longform:
This is a big part of why I don’t even bother talking politics with conservatives anymore. The mindsets just don’t compute. To me, if a rule’s not applicable across the board, it’s not a rule. But they don’t see it that way, because they don’t see the world in terms of good and bad rules, they see it in terms of good and bad people. Everything’s fluid and subject to change; the same rule they’re decrying when applied to one person will become good when applied to another.
Which makes any conversation about “how should the government work?” meaningless. We can have a conversation on defense policy, and it’ll end up with them saying that the government should be tougher and more proactive on terrorism… but you know that the minute the terrorists in question become white conservative ranchers grousing about Big Gub’mint, all their arguments will get walked back. We can have a conversation on economics, and they’ll say socialism is bad and give me a ridiculously comprehensive list of all the spending that qualifies as socialism, but as soon as the spending under discussion is affecting them, all their arguments will get walked back. Etc. It’s all just bullshit.
Chris
@Mr. Longform:
Incidentally and just for Godwin’s sake, this is what that “National Socialism” Jonah Goldberg is always on about actually means – yes, all the goodies of socialism, but only for those who are part of The Nation. Everything for me and mine, nothing for the inferiors and the race traitors.
Which is basically our current conservatives’ approach to socialism: don’t give it to These People in the inner cities, but pleeeeease don’t cut the subsidies our states have been gorging themselves on for eighty years. The Germans were just honest enough to call it “socialism.”
scav
@jl: Similarly, Typhoid Mary, also known for knowing more than her contemporary medical establishment, and insisting on going out in public and working as a cook even when told (and promising) not to, it was her choice to do so (Freedom!). First quarantine, 1907-10, second 1915-1938.
Roger Moore
@Pogonip:
No, they know you’re pregnant before you’ve told anyone. It does make sense. Many women change their consuming habits when they’re pregnant- the ones I remember them mentioning were buying vitamins with folate and getting unscented personal care products- so a big retailer might know before the women tell anyone.
Davis X. Machina
@Ohio Mom: Candlemas is conflated with the Feast of St. Blaise, on the third, bishop and martyr, because of the candles used for his blessing — protects us against illnesses of the throat.
Like zinc, for the flu, but older.
lol
Why must Obama stab us in the back and throw retirees under the bus full of catfood with his obscene proposal to privatize social security? Wurst Democrat ever.
lol
@Pogonip:
Target’s not *that* good. They screwed up the targeting and sent baby merch mailers to a bunch of the wrong people, one of whom happened to be actually pregnant. Now their data analysts are having to deal with executives expecting some Minority Report type shit.
SiubhanDuinne
@Ohio Mom:
The cursing you was only because you got in there first with the observation about being halfway between Solstice and Equinox.
The cursing me was for misreading your handle and turning Mom into Moon. I love the Moon in all her incarnations, but that just seemed rude, somehow.
drkrick
@Belafon: It’s worth remembering WRT Obama’s 2008 vaccine statements that the Wakefield study hadn’t yet been formally exposed as a fraud. That didn’t happen until 2010.
Frankensteinbeck
Bullshit. They support…
IE, removing the blocks that stop other people from oppressing minorities, so they can pretend they’re not bigots. For supposed social liberals, they’ve got quite a record of supporting hardcore social conservatives against merely pro-business Republicans.
@Karen in GA:
‘Envy economics.’ That’s good. You know how that sounds to anyone who’s even slightly racist, right?
trollhattan
@Woodrowfan:
Surface-to-air unicorns.
Ohio Mom
@SiubhanDuinne: No hard feelings at all, and I am seriously thinking of becoming Ohio Moon. So pretty.
Central Planning
@jl:
How many vaccines has he had??
Central Planning
@bemused:
While I say to you “holy crap!”, that would be awesome to see.
Randy P
@Central Planning: I’m thinking surely there are sports like this in Antarctica and we need to hear more about them.
One I’ve heard of is the “200 degree club”, which you qualify for by going from a sauna to the ice on a day when the difference in temperature between them is 200 degrees. Fahrenheit, I think. 200 Celsius takes you from boiling water to frozen CO2 (dry ice)
Cervantes
@Randy P:
Founded by a bunch of Seabees at the South Pole.
AndoChronic
Does Dr. Jack Wolfson come off as a complete sociopath or is it just me?
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/jack-wolfson-vaccines-doctor-measles
Cervantes
@AndoChronic:
If anything, he strikes me as incomplete.
burnspbesq
@Trollhattan:
Vespa somewhere along the line became Piaggio’s aspirational brand. And over the years there has been a power race in the scooter market; you can find them now with 350cc engines, which strikes me as bat-guano crazy.
You can get a Piaggio Typhoon 50, which is about as entry-level as they come, for $1,999. I’ve talked to the kid about possibly getting one for his use in London, but he doesn’t seem too enthusiastic about having to do UK driver’s ed.
burnspbesq
@Central Planning:
I remember driving through some little town up that way, on the way back to Schenectady after broadcasting a basketball game at St. Lawrence, and seeing -29 on the time-and-temp sign in front of the bank.
Matt McIrvin
@drkrick: I do remember being pissed off at Obama for implying that the vaccine/autism connection was even an open question at the time. But, if I recall correctly, it was at a moment when John McCain and Hillary Clinton were saying roughly similar things.