Archive for May, 2010

Dan Calabrese

Rand Paul was supposed to go on Meet the Press today, but he canceled that appearance when it started to become clear that he was ill-prepared to handle tough questions about his doctrinaire libertarian positions on issues.

But there’s one show where Rand Paul feels right at home.

Paul is not only the “darling of tea partiers” as the mainstream media keeps reminding us. He is also the darling of 9/11 conspiracy nut Alex Jones, who rants on about globalists, fascism and all kinds of other insanity.

If you’re a fan of Alex Jones, well . . . do you sleep with that tinfoil hat on? If you’re unfamiliar with him, you might want to check out his YouTube Channel. My favorite is the one about how the globalist forces are going to attack and eliminate 90 percent of the world’s population.

At any rate, Rand Paul is a regular guest on Jones’s radio show, and Jones continually refers to Paul and his father as the real deal, those rare politicians who embrace the worldview of Alex Jones and would govern in accordance with it.

On Friday, I wrote a column defending Paul from media implications that he is a racist. I still think that defense was warranted. But in that column, I warned of the danger when you take ideological principle to ridiculous extremes. One of those dangers is that you end up getting embraced by – and perhaps embracing – complete lunatics like Alex Jones.

Those of you who are simply troubled by the creeping growth of the state, I can understand that. And if you’re attracted to Rand Paul and his father because they speak out against said creep, I can understand that too – on the surface. But you have to recognize that such dalliances often have a dark side, and in the case of Rand Paul, you simply can’t ignore the reality that Kentucky Republicans have just nominated a guy who’s afraid to go on Meet the Press, but is right at home on the Alex Jones Show.

This is not good. Take a look at one of Paul’s appearances with Jones.

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Steven Hutson

Just last week, I was asked to serve as a judge for a public speaking competition at a local elementary school.  (Apparently, someone thought a local author was uniquely qualified for this duty; how could I refuse?)  Modern Woodmen, a financial services company based in Rock Island, Illinois, has sponsored this annual contest since 1948.

I arrived an hour early to acclimate myself to the surroundings, and to meet the other judges who had all done this before.  The plan: each student would speak for 3-5 minutes, and they would be judged on criteria such as organization, presentation, and the overall effectiveness of their argument.

Our group of 12 fifth-graders was assigned the topic, “If I were president…”  What would they do, how would they feel, what character traits would they need to carry out this all-important position?

As could be expected, some were more at ease than others; some shouted, others mumbled, almost all fidgeted.  Some buried their

Hotbed?

faces in their notes, while others memorized every word and made eye contact with just about everyone.  Hey, they’re eleven years old!  At that age, I’d feel lucky just to make it through without hurling.

Professional speaking skills aside, I was struck by the narrow range of viewpoints expressed by this group.  Some examples:

“I would give free healthcare to everyone.”
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Bob Franken

Will someone please tell me why there is so much attention paid to the newly announced scientific development, where researchers, using computers, were able to create synthetic life? What’s the big deal? We’ve had synthetic life in Washington like forever.

See, what I meant to say was...

How real could it be here when we find out some of our senators have never used an ATM? Ben Nelson, D-Nebraska, for one, told the Omaha World Herald this week “It’s true, I don’t know how to use one”. He isn’t great at withdrawing his own money, in other words, just spending ours.

It shouldn’t surprise anyone who watches our leaders flounder around. The first impression anyone gets is that they are really out of touch. It’s also the second impression…the 10th, the billionth. If you don’t believe me, just ask anyone with the Tea Party.

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Dan Calabrese

I’m not thrilled about defending Rand Paul, and I’m only going to go so far in doing it. But worse than Paul’s purist libertarian thinking is one of the media’s cheapest ploys in the service of opinion writing disguised as news.

Twisted in libertarian knots, but not racist

This morning, Yahoo! News deploys this tactic against Paul with a piece titled “How Rand Paul’s civil-rights views escaped media scrutiny”. The piece by media writer Michael Calderone, referencing Paul’s recent comments about the Civil Rights Act of 1964, pretends to be a critique of journalists for not having done their jobs, but it doesn’t take a genius to figure out this is not the piece’s true agenda.

The real agenda is to aggressively imply that Paul is a racist. Otherwise, why would “media scrutiny” of his civil rights views even be necessary? This is how the media indicts people with plausible deniability.

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David Karki

Mexican President Felipe Calderón addressed a joint session of Congress today, in which he had the unmitigated gall to effectively give America the finger for Arizona’s passage of a law to try and clean up the mess resulting from his country being a drug cartel-controlled, crime-riddled, corrupt-to-the-core, third-world craphole which he simply wants to keep shoving north of the border rather than clean up – a law not nearly as stringent as Mexico’s own against illegal immigration, by the way.

The America Sucks party.

This disgusting and hypocritical display by itself is not entirely surprising. Nor was President Obama and Congress’ stupidity in having given him the chance to insult us on our own soil to begin with. What was a bit surprising and a lot infuriating and outrageous was seeing Obama wholeheartedly agree with him, Democrats leap to their feet to give him a standing ovation, and Republicans do nothing, too gutless to even get up and walk out much less boo the crap out all of them as they richly deserved. Read the rest of this entry »

Bob Batz

Here are a few of those silly questions we are all asked to respond to daily with some suggested answers . . .

Q.”Cash or charge?”

A. “Cash, which is probably the reason I laid a $10 bill in front of you on the counter.”

Overloaded.

Q.”For here or to go?”

A.”To go. That’s why I’m sitting here in this abysmally slow takeout lane wasting $3.65-a-gallon gas while you keep asking me dumb questions.”

Q.”Regular or high-test?”

A. “Regular because as you can plainly see I’m driving an 11-year-old car with three dents in every fender and four bald tires.”

Q.”Catching anything?”

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Mark Watson

Twelve poll workers started arriving at Louisville’s Highland Baptist Church at 5 a.m. on Tuesday to transform the church’s dining room into three voting precincts for the day’s primary. Fourteen hours later, the weary guardians of electoral integrity agreed that the long day saw a modest and steady arrival of voters in good cheer and few scowls could be detected.

Not what you think.

There certainly were no incidents at this polling location indicating any unusually important campaign was coming to an end.

So, while many in the punditry class have opined on the significance of the top race in this year’s Kentucky primary, these poll workers and their fellow Kentucky voters looked at it as merely another election.

The U. S. Senate primary race between Trey Grayson, Kentucky’s Secretary of State, and Rand Paul, son of Congressman Ron Paul (R-Texas), generated national attention. Pundits offered their analysis of the race’s dynamics before the election.

Among observations offered by commentators outside of Kentucky were that Paul was the ultimate outsider. Paul has never held nor run for political office in the past.

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Bob Franken

So many questions: Will Arlen Specter switch back to the Republicans? Will this setback cramp his style when it comes to asking really inane questions this summer at the Judiciary Committee hearings for the season’s Supreme Court nominee? I guarantee you, we’re going to miss his loopy musing.

R? T?

Moving right along: Does Super Tuesday winner Rand Paul run as an “R” for Republican or a “T” for Tea in November’s Kentucky Derby? Does he now plan to kiss the hand of godfather Mitch McConnell or continue to tell McConnell just what it is he can kiss?

As for the Democrats, will Nancy Pelosi and Barack Obama promise Democratic candidates they will not campaign for them and, in fact, deny knowing them?

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