Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

“What are Republicans afraid of?” Everything.

I’m starting to think Jesus may have made a mistake saving people with no questions asked.

Republican also-rans: four mules fighting over a turnip.

The frogs are rarely mistaken.

I really should read my own blog.

Republicans firmly believe having an abortion is a very personal, very private decision between a woman and J.D. Vance.

The jury literally has a bell they can ring to force Trump to show up on command. Greatest thing ever!

Democrats are back in array!

… gradually, and then suddenly.

Trump makes a mockery of the legal system and cowardly judges just sit back and let him.

Following reporting rules is only for the little people, apparently.

Every one of the “Roberts Six” lied to get on the court.

Thanks to your bullshit, we are now under siege.

You’re just a puppy masquerading as an old coot.

Jack be nimble, jack be quick, hurry up and indict this prick.

Dead end MAGA boomers crying about Talyor Swift being a Dem is my kind of music. Turn it up.

Wow, you are pre-disappointed. How surprising.

My years-long effort to drive family and friends away has really paid off this year.

Republicans: slavery is when you own me. freedom is when I own you.

We’re not going back!

And now I have baud making fun of me. this day can’t get worse.

Narcissists are always shocked to discover other people have agency.

We’ve had enough carrots to last a lifetime. break out the sticks.

The Supreme Court cannot be allowed to become the ultimate, unaccountable arbiter of everything.

You are here: Home / Economics / C.R.E.A.M. / Another KY Senator Heard From: Little Prince Rand (Thinks He) Knows Better Than Your ‘Public Health Experts’

Another KY Senator Heard From: Little Prince Rand (Thinks He) Knows Better Than Your ‘Public Health Experts’

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*I* had it already, so I’m safe. Why should I care about what might happen to other people?

Look, if we let Those People get sick, we can harvest their plasma to protect *important* people… (No, really.)

Yes, but there was a black Democrat in the Oval Office, back then…

Reader Interactions

90Comments

  2. 2.

    Chief Oshkosh

    The biggest problem with Rand Paul is that his neighbor lacked sufficient upper body strength.

  3. 3.

    hells littlest angel

    It was good of Rand Paul to take time out from building pipe bombs and distilling moonshine to attend this hearing.

  4. 4.

    NotMax

    McConnell is injurious for the country. Rand Paul is Kentucky putting salt in that wound.

  5. 5.

    Mike in NC

    @Amir Khalid: Apparently Rand Paul felt the need to grow one of those celebrity “lockdown beards”. Otherwise he always has unkempt hair and clothes that he appears to sleep in.

  6. 6.

    SiubhanDuinne

    For the first time today — beneath the boyishly-tousled hair and the “I’m-all-gwowed-UP” beard — I saw Rand Paul the Old Man. The resemblance to his father is striking. And not in a good way.

  7. 7.

    germy

    Quick Rand Paul review:

    1. Didn't finish college.

    2. Got MD anyway from Duke, but found it too hard to get certified as an ophthalmologist, so started his own certification board, which was never deemed legit. Currently has no certification to practice medicine. https://t.co/Tb6Mr4EYSn

    — Virginia Heffernan (@page88) May 12, 2020

  9. 9.

    germy

    The President of the United States is fighting the release of his DNA in a rape case. Evidence that would exonerate him if innocent.

    Let that sink in.

    — Michael Little (@Michael_Little_) May 12, 2020

  13. 13.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @germy: The “didn’t finish college but somehow got an MD anyway” thing is too cute by half.  There are a number of medical schools that offer early admission to students who have finished the required courses and have really good grades.  There is plenty of real shit on Paul; let’s not twist an actual accomplishment into a false attack.

  14. 14.

    JaneE

    @Amir Khalid:  Rand may be trying to show how deprived he is by honoring the lock down.  The hair is pretty much his normal style but the visible grey seems new.

  16. 16.

    kindness

    Conservatives at one point were able to debate the ideas of conservatism.  Now it’s just whipped up fear & hate.  What ever it takes to get the populace to stop using reason and just knee jerk react (badly).  It’s their business model and it’s sad.  Republicans no longer stand for anything but obtaining power at any cost.  So here we are.

  17. 17.

    Josie

    @dmsilev:

    I was about to say Texas gives them a run for their money (and I am from Texas), but I still think McConnell tops them all.

  18. 18.

    West of the Rockies

    @dmsilev:

    Kentucky’s senators are far more damaging due to McTurtle’s power.  What is wrong with Kentuckians (Kenturkeys?) that they elected these two clowns.

  19. 19.

    TS (the original)

    They are incorrigible – GOP does it – good, Obama & democrats – very bad. The response to COVID-19 in the US has been abysmal. Too little, too late & making sure the deplorables scream for their rights when asked to stay at home.

    People die so the GOP can rule. The right to life does not extend to the poor and vunerable.

  21. 21.

    Mai naem mobile

    I am supposed to trust the guy who walked around putting many of his vulnerable colleagues for COVID19 whole waiting for his test to come back which was positive.   Also he looks like a chronically I’ll homeless perso. Not exactly the spokesmodel you want for post COVID positive quarantine who is fighting for reopening quicker.

  23. 23.

    TS (the original)

    @Frankensteinbeck:

    maintaining power for white Christian men at any cost.

    I would not call them Christians – no way any way. What they call themselves is irrelevant.

  24. 24.

    danielx

    @kindness:

    Conservatives at one point were able to debate the ideas of conservatism.

    Which would be, in no particular order: cutting taxes for people who already have more money than god, bombing brown people abroad, and keeping the wrong people from voting at home.

    Do I have all that right?

  27. 27.

    MomSense

    Sometimes it just kills me that these evil creeps have been elected.  WTF lurks in the hearts and minds of voters that they could see this freak (in a bad way) and think he is the leader they need?  He’s an obnoxious dullard.

  29. 29.

    Brachiator

    @TS (the original):

    People die so the GOP can rule. The right to life does not extend to the poor and vunerable.

    The GOP are willing to consume their own. They are not drawing at the Other, or the poor and vulnerable.

  31. 31.

    Mai naem mobile

    @MomSense: I don’t think they see Paul. They see the ‘R’ behind his name.. I admit when I am voting I am not familiar with all the candidates(State Mining Inspector!!!) and I will just vote for the D .

  32. 32.

    Obdurodon

    I don’t think I’ve ever met a libertarian who *didn’t* think they knew more about every subject than the experts. Very common in tech.

  36. 36.

    Gravenstone

    A thought on little Prince Randroid’s “positive” coronavirus test. Has he perchance had any follow up testing to confirm antibodies? And that he didn’t just get a singular false positive on his initial screening? I’m mostly curious, but it would also put a huge dent in his sense of invulnerability if it was proven that he isn’t immune by virtue of having already gotten it.

  38. 38.

    japa21

    Important special election in WI today. Fully expect the Republican to win. Trump won by 22 in 16 and Duffy (who is being replaced by tonight’s winner) won by 21 in 18.  If the Republican doesn’t win by at least 15, that is trouble for the GOP in November. Of course, if the Republican wins by 1% then both the GOP and the media will make sound like a repudiation of everything the Dems stand for and it means doom for Biden.

  39. 39.

    burnspbesq

    @Josie: 

    We have so many horrible Congresscritters that by comparison, Cornyn and Cruz don’t look so bad.

  41. 41.

    Patricia Kayden

    "Barack Obama’s efforts to replenish America’s stockpile of protective equipment for healthcare workers were repeatedly blocked by Republican lawmakers, an investigation has found"https://t.co/Wgf4MMYvui— Andrea Chalupa (@AndreaChalupa) May 13, 2020

  44. 44.

    Ruckus

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    And not in a good way.

    Being in anyway like his dad is not a good thing.

    But rand decided to go full dipshit asshole anyway, probably because that’s just who he is….

  46. 46.

    Kirk Spencer

    @danielx: Today? I think you have it right. Historically?

    If/when they dump the racism and misogyny and, well, you get the idea, I believe there is a role for conservatism.

    Badly analogizing it so as to be brief, I think conservatism is the keel. It provides a useful resistance to the sails interaction with the winds.

    Modern conservatism isn’t a keel. And that’s another thing I hate the modern Republican party for.

  48. 48.

    Redshift

    @danielx:

    Which would be, in no particular order: cutting taxes for people who already have more money than god, bombing brown people abroad, and keeping the wrong people from voting at home.

    Do I have all that right?

    There really was a time when conservatives seemed to have principles they sincerely believed in, and tried to construct plausible arguments for, and not just things that would coincidentally line their pockets. I still thought they were wrong about most of them, but I we were having a sincere debate, not inhabiting separate realities. Debates about what level of regulation was appropriate, or the tradeoffs between levels of taxation and what services could be provided. And there were genuine foreign policy debates, too. It wasn’t all of them, of course, even then there were also people for whom being conservative meant being openly racist and misogynist.

    I think all that started to turn to dogma and cultishness with Reagan, maybe it depended on them being out of power. Once they decided that academics didn’t agree with their ideas because they were biased, and set up their own parallel faux-academic “think tanks,” that rewarded “scholars” who produced the “right” answers instead of convincing arguments for them, it was all downhill to our present idiocracy.

  50. 50.

    Redshift

    @Ruckus:

    But rand decided to go full dipshit asshole anyway, probably because that’s just who he is…. 

    That, and that he wasn’t going to inherit dad’s cult followers if he didn’t. But I agree it’s probably mostly just who he is.

  51. 51.

    burnspbesq

    @Mai naem mobile:

    He’s a United States District Judge. With only a handful of exceptions, he can do whatever the fuck he wants. I’m reasonably certain that he could sit on his hands until October, sentence Flynn at that time, and force Trump to pardon him at the height of the campaign. The Biden ads would write themselves.

  52. 52.

    sdhays

    @Amir Khalid: I assume it means that Rand Paul has never shaved himself, and since all the beauty manly barber shops are closed due to COVID-19, he has no choice but to let it grow. Because his wife won’t do it, he’s not smart enough to figure it out himself, and if he gave his neighbor a razor and lifted up his neck, it just might be the last thing he ever did.

  57. 57.

    Patricia Kayden

    .@neal_katyal: "I've never heard of the crime called Obamagate, it doesn't exist. I think if you're the sitting president of the United States and you're going to accuse your predecessor of a crime, you darn well better specify what that crime actually is"https://t.co/0kwLFwQ60J— MSNBC (@MSNBC) May 13, 2020

  59. 59.

    Villago Delenda Est

    “The modern conservative is engaged in one of man’s oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness.” —  John Kenneth Galbraith

  60. 60.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Alec Baldwin hinted on the last SNL he’s done playing trump (which he’s said before). There are a couple of good candidates to replace him, but this woman should be considered

    Sarah Cooper@sarahcpr
    How to #Obamagate (take 2) (for hardcore fans only)

  61. 61.

    Jay

    Obamagate will prove to be nothingburger because DisBarr doesn’t prosecute crimes.

    Ever notice that the Millionaires on the Island were just dead weight and it was the Scientists always saving their ass’s?

  62. 62.

    Jinchi

    Rand Paul tells the government’s leading epidemiologist Dr. Fauci that he is “not the end all,”

    In Rand Paul’s mind, Fauci and the medical community are autocrats who have locked down America.

    In reality, Fauci hasn’t locked down anything. All he does is give medical advice, including describing the most likely consequences of returning to business as usual while a pandemic is raging. Politicians are free to ignore his advice, which is exactly what Republicans have been doing during this crisis. Paul is just mad that Fauci refuses to shut up.

    It’s absurd that we have to listen to the most powerful people in the country whine about how unfair the world is.

  65. 65.

    Bill Arnold

    @japa21:

    Of course, if the Republican wins by 1% then both the GOP and the media will make sound like a repudiation of everything the Dems stand for and it means doom for Biden.

    The media (not Fox et al) has been trained to do pieces that look at differences between the win percentage and the previous win percentage. They’re easy to write, and they .look (and are) sophisticated. Not the same media as 2016; the D.J. Trump administration has been 3 years of training wheels.

  66. 66.

    Yutsano

    @Amir Khalid: Rats revert to their natural state outside of civilisation*?

    *my apologies to all the various species of rodentia I slandered here…

  67. 67.

    Miss Bianca

    @Redshift: I don’t know…I’m starting to wonder if all conservatism has always been inherently a crock of shit, or, of it’s just that the modern variety, that the GOP has exhibited for literally my entire life.

  68. 68.

    Gbbalto

    @Yutsano: SIR, you insult all respectable rats! As a Baltimoron, I see a lot of them, and they are all better groomed than that dude.

  70. 70.

    danielx

    @Mike in NC:

    Nobody has managed that feat yet, and how could they? He doesn’t WANT to shut up, and why would he? Emitting a continuous stream of incoherent bullshit put him where he is today. Plus which it’s as necessary to him as breathing.

  71. 71.

    John Revolta

    Kara Eastman wins her primary in NE-2 and will get a rematch against the loathsome
    Don Bacon in November. She lost in 2018 by less than 2%.

  75. 75.

    Brachiator

    @Jinchi:

    In Rand Paul’s mind, Fauci and the medical community are autocrats who have locked down America.

    In reality, Fauci hasn’t locked down anything. All he does is give medical advice, including describing the most likely consequences of returning to business as usual while a pandemic is raging.

    Yep, this is what it comes down to. Trump, his plutocrat buddies and stooges like Rand Paul are trying to pitch their supposed right to freedom against the cold hard reality of a virus. But since they can’t possibly win that argument, they instead want to rail against Fauci or government officials.

    It’s tiring to watch people so dedicated to stupidity and futility.

  76. 76.

    Jay

    Embarrassing. Pompeo asking for help from the very people who just killed women and children in a maternity ward. When your policy is so twisted that you have to pretend the enemy is your friend. The Secretary of State is so afraid of Trump, he’s afraid to speak the truth. https://t.co/UQ6pJ7w6xS— John Sipher (@john_sipher) May 12, 2020

  77. 77.

    James E Powell

    @Redshift:

    There really was a time when conservatives seemed to have principles they sincerely believed in,

    When was that? I remember them making the same arguments back in 1978 and it was transparent bullshit back then. It was all just fancy words & euphemisms for rolling back the New Deal and the Great Society. Tax cuts and service cuts. Nothing more.

  83. 83.

    dww44

    @Baud: Late though it is, I’d have to agree except for the fact that my two, who don’t have nearly so much power, are both supremely lacking in judgment and ethics…. Perdue and Loeffler.  God, I hope one of our Dem candidates is able to grab one of those seats.  It would be selfish of me to want Dems to get both of them, wouldn’t it? Can’t be too greedy for real change next November, can I?

  86. 86.

    Another Scott

    I’m finally reading through Dr. Bright’s whistleblower complaint – https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/05/politics/rick-bright-full-complaint/index.html

    p.46 (of 89)

    […]

    Alarmed by HHS’s inaction, on January 27, 2020, Dr. Bright emailed Dr. Disbrow to complain that Prestige Ameritech’s requests for support to accelerate mask manufacturing “seem[] to be falling on deaf ears.” Understanding that HHS was not taking the necessary steps to prevent a mask shortage, Dr. Bright asked Dr. Disbrow whether BARDA should “put in a budget request to assist.”12 Id. Later that day, Dr. Falcon emailed Dr. Bright to assure him that her office was “having discussions” about the mask concern. See email from J. Falcon to R. Bright (Jan. 27, 2020), attached hereto as Exhibit 12.
    Also on January 27, 2020, Dr. Bright received an email from Dr. Larry Kerr, Director of Pandemics and Emerging Threats in HHS Office of Global Affairs, expressing an urgent need to talk about the CDC’s failure to take appropriate actions to respond to the pandemic. See email from L. Kerr to R. Bright (Jan. 27, 2020), attached hereto as Exhibit 13. He stated: “CDC just told the Secretary for his call with Minister Ma that [virus] samples from China are not needed and to de-prioritize it on the upcoming call. We fought back and I think he is still going to raise it butwe need BARDA, NIH and FDA to speak up. The USG needs requirement is clear but CDC leadership is not saying that.” Id. Dr. Bright replied that “[w]e cannot emphasize enough the critical need to access virus to initiate MCM development.” See email from R. Bright to L. Kerr (Jan. 27, 2020), attached hereto as Exhibit 14. Dr. Kerr responded that, as of that day, no one had officially asked China for samples. He further noted that Secretary Azar had had a call with China’s Health Minister that morning but did not raise the need for virus samples.13 Dr. Bright expressed disbelief at Secretary Azar’s failure to request virus samples, to which Dr. Kerr replied that “Bob (Kadlec) was on the call but didn’t speak up.” Id.

    That same morning, Dr. Bright participated in a COVID-19 meeting chaired by HHS Deputy Secretary Eric Hargan in Dr. Azar’s absence. During the meeting, Dr. Bright expressed frustration with the slow pace of accessing virus samples and/or clinical specimens from China, which he explained were critical to begin development of vaccines, diagnostics, and medicines.

    Dr. Bright asked pointedly why the CDC, which was securing viruses from other countries, was delaying providing them to BARDA or to companies to allow for MCM development. Dr. Nancy Messonnier, Director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases (“NCIRD”) at the CDC, who was participating by telephone, responded that Dr. Bright should know better than to make that request because he was well aware that the CDC had agreements with other countries that restricted it from sharing virus specimens with other entities, even within the government. Dr. Bright asked Dr. Messonnier to explain why these restrictions were in place and why BARDA could not use the material to get started on MCM development critical to save American lives. Dr. Messonnier became angry and chastised Dr. Bright, insisting that he “take In BARDA’s initial budget formulation documents, a line item was included to expand domestic mask manufacturing lines. In the various internal discussions with ASPR, ASFR and BARDA, mostly lead by Mr. Shuy, BARDA was told to remove the budget request for mask production, that it purportedly was already covered in the ASPR and SNS budget line.

    According to Dr. Kerr, in the pre-brief before Secretary Azar’s call with the Chinese Health Minister, it was emphatically expressed that BARDA, NIH, and FDA all disagreed with CDC’s position and emphasized to Secretary Azar that there was an urgent need to secure a panel of viruses from China
    for MCM development.

    […]

    Lots of people need to answer a lot of serious charges in that complaint.

    Grr…

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  88. 88.

    tokyokie

    It goes back even further than that.

    As John Stuart Mill said in the 1860s, in reply to an attack made upon him by Sir John Pakington for calling the Conservative Party “the stupid party,” Mill, admitting the phrase to occur in his Representative Government, went on to say, “I never meant to say that the Conservatives are generally stupid. I meant to say that stupid people are generally Conservative. I believe that is so obviously and universally admitted a principle that I hardly think any gentleman will deny it. Suppose any party, in addition to whatever share it may possess of the ability of the community, has nearly the whole of its stupidity, that party must, by the law of its constitution, be the stupidest party; and I do not see why honorable gentlemen should see that position at all offensive to them, for it ensures their being always an extremely powerful party.”

  89. 89.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @sdhays: … and if he gave his neighbor a razor and lifted up his neck, it just might be the last thing he ever did.

    I think you just made my day – & it’s only 6:45 AM! Now if I can just pick myself up off the floor I am rolling on laughing…

  90. 90.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @Miss Bianca: I’m starting to wonder if all conservatism has always been inherently a crock of shit, or, of it’s just that the modern variety, that the GOP has exhibited for literally my entire life.

    “Conservatism” is at its most socially useful when it’s acting as the keel on the boat of progress**, saying Not so fast, let’s think this through. But even at its best it inherently retains at least a whiff of the shit-crock. Opposition to change necessarily means keeping power in the hands that already hold it – and those hands are almost always unable to cope with changing conditions, usually illegitimate from the day they took power, and frequently outright criminal.

    ** Kirk Spencer in #46 supra introduced that analogy; I think it’s a good one, A keel, not an anchor.

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