From Aqua Buddha to "Typhoid" Randy

There are consequences to having "libertarian" notions about "freedom" and "government" when other people are involved.  This is why libertarianism is a bunch of bullshit by and for sociopaths and crackpots.  Actions always have consequences to others.

Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky, a nepotism if there ever was one to be elected to Congress, decided he was perfectly immune to things that happen to his lessers, so he went around after he had testing for whether he was COVID-19 positive and used the congressional gym and swimming pool, thus exposing everybody else to his germs.   He also ate with colleagues, helping to further the spread.  Despite being a physician by trade, or maybe because he is, he arrogantly displayed the righteousness of being a libertarian:  I've got mine and to hell with you.

Paul then admitted he was COVID-19 positive and is now in quarantine.  He and his father, former Texas representative and presidential candidate Ron Paul, are now having to eat crow because they proclaimed the pandemic was a "hoax" created to curb more personal freedoms.

I believe the pandemic is overhyped, even now, but it sure as fuck isn't a "hoax."

This story exposes the problem with the Pauls:

Prior to Paul's diagnosis, a recent article titled "The Coronavirus Hoax," by his father Ron Paul was published on March 16. In the piece, Ron Paul said that "governments love crises because when the people are fearful they are more willing to give up freedoms for promises that the government will take care of them."

He also called Dr. Anthony Fauci, head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the National Institutes of Health, the "chief fearmonger" who "did his best to further damage an already tanking economy," when Fauci appeared on the TV program Face the Nation.

"Over what? A virus that has thus far killed just over 5,000 worldwide and less than 100 in the United States?" Ron Paul wrote.

Rand is considered high risk because he had part of his lung removed as a result of being assaulted by a neighbor back in 2017.


The latest figures from Worldometer re USA are 41,569 cases and 504 deaths.  Roughly half of the cases total are in New York.

Speaking of Rand Paul, it is time for somebody to send him down to Texas to meet this dimwit politician:

Tx Lt Gov Dan Patrick says grandparents would be willing to die to save the economy for their grandchildren pic.twitter.com/wC3Ngvtsbj

— Andrew Lawrence (@ndrew_lawrence) March 24, 2020

News, Etc.

Ron Paul's weirdo beliefs began at a very early age.
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Obituary: Kennedy-trashing author John H. Davis, who supposedly had more "credibility" than most because he was a cousin of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, has died. He was 82 and suffered from Alzheimer's disease.
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Speaking of Kennedy trashing, a woman who has been claimed to have had an affair with JFK when she was an intern is now deciding to cash in herself.

Sorry if I don't believe her bullshit. Wait fifty years to tell "all"? Must be hurting financially.

JFK's "affairs" I believe have been wildly exaggerated. The man could hardly move because of his numerous health problems, and it strains credulity that he had women by the truckload.
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Perverted justice: While teachers accused of criminal misconduct, including child molestation, can be protected for years on end by school administrators, others find their lives destroyed by these same administrators for committing no offense at all. They have no means of fighting back in a legal system that is rigged against them.

I know this firsthand. It is hardly unique to LAUSD.

Still Crazy After All These Years

Of course Ron Paul has no chance of ever being president, but the following he has generated thanks to his off-the-wall ideas is far more scary than the man himself.

In the end he is just another Texas pol.

So don’t tell me about Paul’s political courage. It’s easy to be a fearless iconoclast when nothing’s at stake. That said, it was heartening to hear the Texas congressman, during a Fox News-sponsored Iowa debate of all places, stress the similarities between the current “bomb Iran” chorus and the 2003 propaganda campaign that led the U.S. to invade Iraq. Paul dismissed as “absurd” Rick Santorum and Michele Bachmann’s assertions that the Iranian government’s “theology” would lead it to start a nuclear war for the sake of national martyrdom.

Dennis Kucinich is the Democrats' version of Ron Paul. He can take "courageous" stances because he will never be held accountable for them.

The More Anybody Gives a Crackpot Any of His or Her Time,

the more "legitimate" that candidate looks despite the crackpot views. Ron Paul isn't going to get the GOP nomination anyway, so giving him any kind of attention is a complete waste of time.

He's no more a legitimate candidate for president than David Duke.

The Media Should Be Held Responsible

for making Ron Paul such a phenomenon by refusing to take this guy seriously and not even looking at his background. Now that this crackpot has made headway in the race for the Republican nomination, his words or the words from his newsletter are coming back to haunt him. This is at least four years later than it should have been.

In short, he should have been vetted and then marginalized.

Just consider the current uproar over the racist political newsletters that were sent out under Paul’s name (and used to fund his political activities) in the early 1990s. The story is hardly new, but to many voters it feels new because — like Paul himself — it’s been ignored by the press all year.

This is a perk of being dismissed by the press as a fringe figure. In 1996, when he made his comeback bid for a House seat in Texas, Paul briefly had to confront the newsletters, but once he was elected and became an entrenched incumbent, the issue was largely dropped by the local press (old news) and ignored by the national media, who saw him as just a gadfly backbencher. And when he ran for president in 2008, it didn’t come up until very late in the cycle, when some staggering fundraising numbers briefly compelled the political world to notice him. But almost as soon as it exploded back then, the story went away, with the media regarding Paul’s relatively weak early primary showings as proof that his base of support was very loud and very narrow and that he wasn’t worth taking seriously.

And that, more or less, was how the media treated Paul’s current campaign until the past few weeks.

Paul shouldn't have been elected to the House, let alone be taken seriously at all as a presidential candidate. He should have had just as much chance of being president as yours truly.

Not That Ron Paul Ever Had a Shot in the First Place,

but his latest "hits" seem to seal the deal.

Romney, for all his flaws and flip-flops, seems more and more a sure thing for the GOP nomination.

Libertarianism Is Always About Protecting the Privileged

at the expense of the masses. The key to its success is how well it can con the masses into supporting something so antithetical to their interests.

The way they do it is to wrap their elitist fascism into a facade of populism. Use all the right buzzwords to get the "people" to support you yet have utterly no intention of doing anything right by them.

Ron Paul fits this to a tee. I am surprised there are people who fall sucker for it.

News, Etc.

Since Obama is a Republican and holds Republican ideas about jobs, he won't do anything about creating more of them.
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Goodbye and good riddance.
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The Republicans have no intention of bargaining with fellow Republican Barack Obama when it comes to the idiotic debt ceiling, but business interests are becoming pissed off:

A source who worked on the letter said privately that the missive is the tip of a much larger, behind-the-scenes lobbying effort to educate Members of Congress, particularly freshman Republicans, on the perils of not raising the debt limit. The chamber’s Bruce Josten and other top business lobbyists have been privately meeting with Members for months, the source added.

The source said the letter Tuesday has been in the works for a couple of weeks.
Chamber President Tom Donohue said in a statement announcing the letter that an “unprecedented default on the nation’s bills would have dire consequences for our economy, our markets, and Main Street Americans.”

We will soon find out who REALLY calls the shots: the Tea Party extremists or the U.S. Chamber of Horrors.
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I am glad somebody had the guts to say a home is a lousy investment. Homes should NOT be seen as investments anyway but as places to live and to put roots in a community.

Many, many people were shut out of the housing market because of the mentality of a house being a giant credit card or something to get rich on.
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Vast wasteland television show creator Sherwood Schwartz, 94, has died.

He created the sitcoms The Brady Bunch and Gilligan's Island. Enough said.

Campaign Follies.

A group of Ron Paul supporters in northern Nevada held a "renegade" convention.
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If Kucinich hadn't been so busy shitting all over John Edwards during the campaign on behalf of Obama, maybe he would have known Obama was no liberal.

Campaign Notes.

The Obama campaign is diligently trying to get support from Clinton donors, but more than a few of them, like many of her less-wealthy supporters, are angry enough with the way Hillary Clinton was treated this primary season to say "no deal" to any such overtures.

A priority at this point for Democrats, however, is replenishing the coffers of the Democratic National Committee, which has suffered from the extended primary campaign. Traditionally in election years, most of the party’s cash, which can be used on behalf of the presidential candidate, comes in after a nominee is chosen. As of the end of May, the Republican National Committee had nearly $54 million in the bank compared with the $4 million the Democrats had on hand.

But several Clinton fund-raisers said they harbored too much ire for Mr. Dean to raise money for the party, even if they said they were willing to support Mr. Obama.

“Howard Dean and the D.N.C. will not get one penny from me or any of my friends,” Mr. Davis said.

If Obama loses in a landslide, as I believe he will if Democrats actually nominate him, the DNC chair will likely be sacked.

He should be regardless. It's been a travesty.


It's not just donors who are shying away from supporting Obama, either. A few elected officials are worried about their re-election chances if they are lumped together with a loser like Obama.

That's another reason I oppose his candidacy: he hurts Democrats in down-ballot races. He has no coattails whatsoever; if anything, he has negative coattails.
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Ron Paul is quitting his campaign tonight.

Nevada Caucus.

Even though John McCain is the nominee for the GOP, things were so contentious at yesterday's Nevada's Republican convention in Reno, no delegates were even selected for the national convention:

But as the convention continued into the evening, chairman Bob Beers said the party’s contract for the hall at the Peppermill Resort Casino had expired and the event would be rescheduled.
“Due to a rules change that left us on an overtime basis, we will recess the convention until a date that we are going to announce next week,” Beers told a shocked crowd, which stood silent for a few seconds before erupting in boos.
As Beers was escorted out of the building, a short-lived effort to rescue the convention was launched by party activist Mike Weber. Although several hundred Paul supporters stayed, they weren’t strong enough to make a quorum to continue the convention.
Throughout the confusion hecklers battled for the attention of delegates who supported U.S. Sen. John McCain of Arizona.
“McCain supporters leave!” one man shouted.
“McCain supporters stay!” a woman answered.
“We’re supposed to be on the same team!” another woman shouted.

Campaign Notes.

Ron Paul is all but out of the GOP race.

No, he will not run on a third-party ticket.
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There is a bit of a shakeup of Clinton's campaign staff.
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A mole tells all, or some, about his dealings with Tony Rezko.
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Obama won Maine, yet another caucus state.
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Nevada Caucus.

A Las Vegas judge has decided to let that shithead come onstage at tomorrow night's debate for the sole reason of crapping on John Edwards.

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Obama was in Vegas Sunday making his pitch to whoever was listening.
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Republican candidate Ron Paul had good taste when he made a visit to the now-legendary Peg's Glorified Ham & Eggs on Sierra Street.
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Obama packed the house in Churchill County, with more than 1,000 there, and an estimated 2,200 were in Carson City at the event I attended tonight.

Obama ran 80 minutes behind, but you don't hear the media bitch about that. Only if Edwards does it is it newsworthy.

Strangely enough, just 1,100 people showed up in Reno to hear him, but considering it was a workday, perhaps not so strange.

Everybody decided to go to Carson City instead.
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Nevada Caucus.

My God, does Hillary Clinton want to lose Nevada? Talk about shooting herself in the foot.

I don't like caucuses either, greatly preferring primaries, but this is a dumb remark by her.
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Ron Paul has decided to expand his Nevada operations.
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So Is Mike Huckabee

a fascist?

Campaign Notes.

Competence is next to godliness or some goddamned thing for the GOP, which is certainly more important than ever after the faith-based presidency of that godawful Bush.
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Bill Shaheen of the Clinton campaign got sacked over remarks about Obama's long ago drug use.
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Ron Paul made another trip to northern Nevada.

Ron Paul's Supporters

are willing to go all over the country to help him win, but what do they want?

There is also an interview with Paul here.

Campaign Notes.

Just as he battled the corporations as one of the top trial lawyers in the country, John Edwards is doing battle again, this time against the media narrative of the two surefire general election losers for the Democrats.

It's a tough row to hoe, and while I believe he will win Iowa, the media are sure to discount it if he does.
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How anybody takes Kucinich seriously is a mystery to me. He should get out now.
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More About

the Cleveland nut going off the deep end:

Kucinich, the Cleveland congressman running in a longshot bid to become president, suggested it himself today.

"I'm thinking about Ron Paul" as a running mate, Kucinich told a crowd of about 70 supporters at a house party here, one of numerous stops throughout New Hampshire over the Thanksgiving weekend. A Kucinich-Paul administration could bring people together "to balance the energies in this country," Kucinich said.

Jesus Christ. And to think this guy is allowed in the Democratic debates.

Campaign Notes.

Ron Paul receives an endorsement from a somewhat unlikely source.
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If Hillary Clinton becomes the nominee of the Democratic Party, you can BET her husband is going to be an issue--THE issue, I'm afraid, and it has nothing to do with the bogus "scandals."

This "two-for-one" shit isn't going to work. She will lose.
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If this article is to be believed, years of right-wing smears have taken their toll on Hillary Clinton, for many resist her candidacy.

I would remind the reporter that there are other people besides certain GE loser Obama running against Clinton, including the likely victor of the Iowa caucuses, John Edwards.
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It's time for the psychobabble crowd to examine how Rudy is the way he is, whatever that is.
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Say what you want about John Edwards, but he has great taste in television series.

The Fugitive and Perry Mason are among my favorite shows of all time, and yes, I have the DVDs of all of the episodes of each series currently available.
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Bill Clinton will be hanging around in Iowa trying to persuade skeptical Iowans that his wife should be the one who will win the caucuses.

It's not going to happen, of course.
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