US POLITICS SPRING 2011: Let's just call off this country.

way up thread I know, but I worked on the grounds crew one summer at the conservative-minded business college where Dick DeVos attended. mostly picked up trash.

oh FCC

http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/05/11/f-c-c-commissioner-to-join-comcast/

Hooray!

It figures that Obama is reading Tom Friedman and not Juan Cole or others...

At night in the family residence, an adviser said, Mr. Obama often surfs the blogs of experts on Arab affairs or regional news sites to get a local flavor for events. He has sounded out prominent journalists like Fareed Zakaria of Time magazine and CNN and Thomas L. Friedman, a columnist at The New York Times, regarding their visits to the region. “He is searching for a way to pull back and weave a larger picture,” Mr. Zakaria said.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/12/us/politics/12prexy.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1&nl=todaysheadlines&emc=tha22

soakin up all this wisdom:
http://www.thefinaledition.com/article/friedman-my-world-is-flat-right-now.html

hmmm just had a discussion last night with my dad about Friedman

always die a little inside when i hear of people taking him seriously.

RT @washingtonpost: Palin defends her love of rap: "I know the lyrics to 'Rapper's Delight'..."

always die a little inside when i hear of people taking him seriously

it came up cuz apparently he's against cap and trade and I was talking to my dad about a recent conference about CA's cap and trade market going into effect in 2012

Fareed Zakaria and Tom Friedman.

excuse me.

GAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Rand Paul quote equating health care with slavery:

Paul railed against the very idea of having a right to health care.

“[(Y)ou have realize what that implies. It’s not an abstraction. I’m a physician. That means you have a right to come to my house and conscript me. It means you believe in slavery. It means that you’re going to enslave not only me, but the janitor at my hospital, the person who cleans my office, the assistants who work in my office, the nurses.

“Basically, once you imply a belief in a right to someone’s services — do you have a right to plumbing? Do you have a right to water? Do you have right to food? — you’re basically saying you believe in slavery.

“I’m a physician in your community and you say you have a right to health care. You have a right to beat down my door with the police, escort me away and force me to take care of you? That’s ultimately what the right to free health care would be.”

So they're just not even putting up the facade of logic in these arguments anymore....

I would totally be fine with doctor-slavery, it's a shame they actually pay doctors in Europe

<3

Do you have a right to water? Do you have right to food?

http://www.matadorrecords.com/matablog/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/harvey_head_big.jpg

"hmmm"

Pretty good article in the NYT today on a related matter.

"Getting the government out of the mortgage business, however, is proving much more difficult than doling out new benefits. As regulators prepare to drop the level at which they will guarantee loans — here in Monterey County, the level will drop by a third to $483,000 — buyers and sellers are wondering why they should be punished simply for living in an expensive region."

lol @ being "punished" for choosing to live in an expensive place. It's hard to live in Carmel, in a $750,000 house! People who "can't afford" that without the help of the federal government are being "punished" for their choices.

maybe it will cause middle-class white people to reconsider who, really, gets taken care of by the indulgent, intrusive nanny state.

LOL!

i kind of like fareed zakaria tbh

he's okay

So does Rand Paul oppose the Constitutional right to legal counsel, and if not, why not?

Do you have a right to roads? Should asphalt pourers be forced to fix YOUR potholes? Surveyors forced to make sure its all straight and level? Where does it end in this collectivist nightmare!!

I suppose you even want teachers to educate your children for you...

he's in favor of slave lawyers iirc

posting the video because it's the craziest thing i've ever heard a senator say
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_HVyoT2PgM
how can supply-side economics still be carrying the policy debate with sub-quayle dudes like this and paul ryan ayn your fresh blood? i thought atlas shrugged bombed

it's still in print, dude

really. the way he says "doctor" is cringe-inducing. i want to ask him to spell "potato"

the movie bombed, aimless. posting the video because why not
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=diw6jHoD7AI

god that guy seems insufferable

very TA-like affect, sure, but fun facts

Mike Huckabee's history lesson:

In the teaser, a group of kids take a time travel machine to the recession-troubled 1970s, where they're confronted by a knife-wielding thug wearing a "disco" shirt. They then learn how Ronald Reagan "swiftly changed the course of the nation."

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v335/gypsyfrocksbedlam/alg_knife_weilding_man.jpg

shirt should say DJ KOOL HERC obv

Huck's take on the Civil Rights Movement should be illuminating

http://thumbsforhire.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/dancing-blue-footed-booby.jpg

LOVE THIS DUDE

rong thred lol

Rand Paul quote equating health care with slavery:

Paul railed against the very idea of having a right to health care.

“[(Y)ou have realize what that implies. It’s not an abstraction. I’m a physician. That means you have a right to come to my house and conscript me. It means you believe in slavery. It means that you’re going to enslave not only me, but the janitor at my hospital, the person who cleans my office, the assistants who work in my office, the nurses.

“Basically, once you imply a belief in a right to someone’s services — do you have a right to plumbing? Do you have a right to water? Do you have right to food? — you’re basically saying you believe in slavery.

“I’m a physician in your community and you say you have a right to health care. You have a right to beat down my door with the police, escort me away and force me to take care of you? That’s ultimately what the right to free health care would be.”

― curmudgeon, Thursday, May 12, 2011 1:41 PM (2 hours ago)

see i respect this - he's being honest! he truly believes that children whose parents are too poor to afford to put a roof over their heads should be homeless, those who can't afford education should be left illiterate, and those who can't afford medical care should be left to die. instead of poking fun at him (paranoid bullshit aside), which is what i guarantee the blogeratti will be doing, if they pay any attention to this at all, democrats should use this to elucidate their positions - yes, we believe that every person in our society should be entitled to medical care when they are sick; yes, we believe that education is a right, and that a child shouldn't be deprived of education because their parents couldn't afford it; yes, we believe that government is necessary to protect the most vulnerable and unfortunate members of our society.

if we can't win these kinds of battles, it's time to give up

http://assets.nydailynews.com/img/2011/05/13/alg_reagan_animation.jpg
http://zeroshop.files.wordpress.com/2009/02/lux1.jpg?w=450&h=363

"that's why it's important to learn the history of your country. when the cramps played new hampshire in 1980, it blew my mind"

yes, we believe that education is a right

but see, now you want to enslave teachers. privatize education!

Into the Sewer: the American right wing, 2011

grazie

Talk to any pretty much any state legislator these days and they'll tell you that they're broke because of the economic downturn, and that's why they have to slash billions from education. While it is true that states coast to coast are hurting, and there are plenty of examples of misplaced funding priorities to be found, I haven't heard one as egregious as Texas' plans to slash education budgets and layoff almost 100,000 teachers, all while agreeing to pay $25 million per year through 2022 to Formula One auto racing.

Investors are "building a 3.4-mile (5.5-kilometer) track to bring the event to Austin" and the $25 million government handout from the state will subsidize the costs Formula One will incur. The office of one of the project's main investors, Clear Channel Communications Inc. co-founder B.J. “Red” McCombs, told Bloomberg News that "Formula One race in Austin next year will spur $300 million of spending" and building the "$242 million track, which has begun, is projected to add 1,300 temporary jobs and pump $400 million into the economy."

What's left out of that rosy scenario is that Formula One racing is known as a sport for the uber wealthy—think the Monaco Grand Prix—and attempts to get it going in other American cities, like Indianapolis and Las Vegas, have been complete failures.

German teacher Ewa Siwak, who teaches at Bowie High School in Austin and is being laid off said she has "to wonder why the state of Texas is all over funding for this racetrack and not the school-funding crisis."

Indeed.

Sure, that $25 million a year won't pay the salaries of all the teachers Texas plans to pink slip, but it could "pay more than 500 teachers an average salary of $48,000." It definitely sounds like there are some screwed up priorities if the state is funding a race track backed by wealthy corporations and individuals instead of education.

i am learning to hate GOOD magazine more and more

Is the Hippocratic oath slavery?

Up to and not including the bit where the original version frowns on abortions.

doctores of physick are forbade from the cutting of the stone!

I just kinda like the way this guy hand-waves 'duty' as 'slavery'.

randians think any concept of duty IS slavery, that the only duty you have is a kinda masturbatory self development

every once in a while i remember that rand paul's first name is RAND and i go 'oh right'

it's just short for Randall! Total coincidence!

ayn rand paul bremer

i think the more interesting questions for people like paul would have to do with christian charity. ok, so they don't want to be coerced by the government into helping the poor and suffering. but what kind of twisted pseudo-christian justification do they come up with for contriving to be bothered by the resulting continued poverty, and suffering, of the poor and suffering?