Please, please go Galt again

Jason Lewis was a conservative talk radio host in Minneapolis, and a couple of years ago he quit, on air (most likely this was totally staged — his colleagues weren’t particularly convincing actors, and for people shocked about his abrupt departure, they sure spend a lot of time plugging his new website). This is his very Libertarian on-air announcement.

He’s an amazing jerk. He’s so Libertarian, he doesn’t see a problem with slavery.

In 2009, Lewis complained that “real Americans” believe Hurricane Katrina victims were “a bunch of whiners.” Last year he claimed, “the median income for blacks in America would make them rich in most African nations, not most – all.” He went on to argue that the United States government lacks the authority to outlaw slavery.”

“In fact, if you really want to be quite frank about it, how does somebody else owning a slave affect me?” Lewis said in an audio commentary added to his book Power Divided is Power Checked: The Argument for States’ Rights. “It doesn’t. If I don’t think it is right, I won’t own one, and people always say, ‘Well, if you don’t want to marry somebody of the same sex, you don’t have to, but why tell somebody else they can’t?’ Uh, you know if you don’t want to own a slave, don’t. But don’t tell other people they can’t.”

It’s rare to see a Libertarian quite so open about the fact that his philosophy is entirely “ME ME ME” and not at all about individual human liberty, since he doesn’t even consider the rights of the slaves. It’s very nice that if he disagrees with slavery, he just won’t own one…but what if he agrees with slavery, but his slave doesn’t?

Well, he’s come back from Galt’s Gulch to run for congress, and has actually won the Republican primary in Minnesota’s 6th district. We know you all miss Michele Bachman, so there’s a chance he’ll be there in congress to make Minnesota look just as ridiculous.

He’ll be running against Democrat Angie Craig in November. A woman. This could be interesting, considering what Jason Lewis thinks of women.

I never thought in my lifetime where’d you have so many single, or I should say, yeah single women who would vote on the issue of somebody else buying their diaphragm. This is a country in crisis. Those women are ignorant in, I mean, the most generic way. I don’t mean that to be a pejorative. They are simply ignorant of the important issues in life. Somebody’s got to educate them.

There’s something about young, single women where they’re behaving like Stepford wives. They walk in lock step – is that really the most important thing to a 25-year old unmarried woman – uh getting me to pay for her pills? Seriously?! Is that what we’ve been reduced to? You can be bought off for that?

You’ve got a vast majority of young single women who couldn’t explain to you what GDP means. You know what they care about? They care about abortion. They care about abortion and gay marriage. They care about ‘The View.’ They are non-thinking.

Sadly, it looks like it’ll be a close race, when it shouldn’t be.

Zika and political obstructionism

Maki Naro has a very good overview of the Zika virus in comic form.

naro-zika-2c

naro-zika-3a

The effects of the virus are actually easy to understand: mild, flu-like symptoms in adults, but a significant chance of debilitating brain damage to developing fetuses. You don’t want to get Zika because it’s unpleasant and nasty, but your fetus must be protected from it because it’s devastating.

Unfortunately, the USA has a dysfunctional congress that can’t respond to serious problems anymore. An effort to dedicate money (to the tune of almost two billion dollars) to preventing the spread of the disease was killed because Republicans loaded it with irrelevant, poisonous addenda — baggage to snipe at Planned Parenthood (an organization that is vital to putting together a response) or to allow Confederate flags to fly, for instance.

But especially unfortunately, diseases that cause birth defects are a vector for the pro-life-at-any-cost fanatics to gallop in and wreck any process with their delusional antics. We are supposed to love that tiny slug of human fetal tissue so much that we’ll defy any attempt to combat a virus that will poison its nervous system, and don’t you dare think about abortions. A fetal slug with a deformed, shriveled brain is still to be regarded as a full human person!

If you think I’m making this up, listen to Marco Rubio.

Obviously, microcephaly is a terrible prenatal condition that kids are born with. And when they are, it’s a lifetime of difficulties. So I get it.

I’m not pretending to you that that’s an easy question you asked me. But I’m pro-life. And I’m strongly pro-life. I believe all human life should be protected by our law, irrespective of the circumstances or condition of that life.

No, he doesn’t get it. He’s lying.

He also doesn’t believe in protecting life, because he’s also in favor of the death penalty, and in fact thinks the big problem with capital punishment is that we don’t shuffle the condemned into the death machine fast enough.

zikacuts

Meanwhile, Donald Trump thinks we have Zika under control, and is praising Florida governor Rick Scott for how he’s handling it. His little PR helpers are arguing for inaction because birth defects are nothing new.

The United States has been paralyzed by the Republican virus. They know nothing, they do nothing, and they actively interfere with necessary responses to problems. We need to do something about that. Never vote for any Republican, ever.

Dangerous times

This long list (taken from The Atlantic) is a collection of prominent Republicans who have endorsed Donald Trump for president. That they’ve done so already speaks poorly of their character.

Bob Dole
John Boehner
Trent Lott
Dick Cheney
Newt Gingrich
Reince Priebus
Rick Perry
Mike Huckabee
Bobby Jindal
Eric Cantor
Ben Carson
Rick Santorum
Herman Cain
Paul Ryan
Kevin McCarthy
Steve Scalise
Cathy McMorris Rodgers
Raul Labrador
Mitch McConnell
Jeff Sessions
John McCain
Kelly Ayotte
Rand Paul
Marco Rubio
Rob Portman
Richard Burr
Roy Blunt
Ron Johnson
Pat Toomey
Tom Cotton
Bob Corker
Orrin Hatch
Tim Scott
John Cornyn
Chris Christie
Paul LePage
Nikki Haley
Pete Ricketts
Mike Pence
Pat McCrory
Scott Walker
Donald Rumsfeld
Ann Coulter
Bill O’Reilly
Sean Hannity
Matt Drudge
Sarah Palin
Rush Limbaugh
Rupert Murdoch
Michael Reagan
Hugh Hewitt
Sheldon Adelson
Peter Thiel
Stanly Hubbard
T. Boone Pickens
Foster Friess
Woody Johnson
Mel Sembler
Jerry Falwell
Ralph Reed
James Dobson
Richard Land

Given Trump’s latest outrage — suggesting that assassination would be a possible way to prevent Hillary Clinton from appointing judges who would restrict gun ownership — it’s time for these people to do the right thing and renounce the man.

Not that I expect they will.

His behavior is beyond the pale. A demagogue has now broached the idea of murdering his democratic opponent to a mob of dangerous loons.

These loons.

I call that incitement to violence.

I voted, and I partially disagree with Charles Pierce

We got out and voted in the Minnesota primary this morning. We were the first ones there — I was #1! — and it looks like it’ll be a low turnout. Get out and vote! If you’re not a Minnesotan, here’s a list of important election dates all across the country.

I also read a piece by Charles Pierce which filled me with horror. There are vague noises, which I hope are entirely false, that Clinton wants to consult with…Henry Goddamn Motherfucking Kissinger on foreign policy.

On Monday, there was a fascinating piece in Tiger Beat On The Potomac in which some unnamed people in the campaign of Hillary Rodham Clinton whispered to a reporter that the campaign was sending out feelers to what the story laughingly referred to as the foreign-policy “elders” of the Republican Party. The list of foreign policy “elders,” according to TBOTP’s sources, included the following examples of the Republican Undead:

Henry Kissinger: war criminal and abettor of abattoirs around the world.

James Baker: political survivor, mastermind of the Great Florida Ratfck of 2000, Bush family retainer.

George Schultz: potential Iran-Contra stool pigeon.

Condoleezza Rice: National Security Advisor during Worst National Security Disaster in U.S. History.

No. No no no no no. This is not tolerable. If true (and again, I hope it is not), it would confirm my worst fears about Clinton. This is nightmare material.

It will cost her votes, too.

If Hillary Clinton actively seeks, or publicly accepts, the endorsement of Henry Kissinger, I will vote for Gary Johnson and Bill Weld on November 8. (Jill Stein, you might’ve been a contender, but going off to Red Square to talk about Vladimir Putin and human rights? Being an honored guest of a Russian propaganda channel? I don’t think so.) Kissinger is a bridge too far. He is responsible for more unnecessary deaths than any official of a putative Western democracy since the days when Lord John Russell was starving the Irish, if not the days when President Andy Jackson was inaugurating the genocide of the Cherokee. He should be coughing his life away as an inmate at The Hague, not whispering in the ears of a putatively progressive Democratic presidential candidate. I can tolerate (somewhat) the notion of her reaching out to the rest of the wax museum there, but Kissinger is a monster too far. He is my line in the sand. I can choose who I endorse to lead my country, a blessing that Henry Kissinger worked his whole career to deny to too many people.

I agree with Pierce that Kissinger is an abominable monster who ought to be in prison, and he’s one of the small number of people whose inevitable death will provoke cheers from me. If Clinton were to be even more chummy with Kissinger than she already is, I’ll be in line for “Anyone But Hillary” — in four years. But not this election. She has my vote locked up, which is not a good situation to be in, but I’ll definitely vote for the lesser of two evils.

This is something else to damn Trump for. He is so appallingly awful that the Democratic candidate is free to wander off into unthinkably ugly territory with few consequences.

Not only would I prefer just about anyone else to anyone who strokes Kissinger, but I’d also like to see the return of a viable, rational Republican party.

It works both ways

Martin Shkreli, the repellent pharma-bro, is now publicly diagnosing Hillary Clinton with Parkinson’s Disease.

He has no qualifications at all for offering medical advice.

Shkreli dropped out of high school his senior year but graduated because he had the necessary credits and got his bachelor’s degree in business administration, not medicine, from Baruch College in 2004. He did not go to medical school.

Yet he has a video that’s over 2 hours long in which he meanders on about this.

If you find this as revolting and inappropriate as I do, I’ll just mention…do you feel the same way about all the non-psychiatrists claiming that Donald Trump, or his mobs of cheering fans, are mentally ill?

Don’t be like Martin Shkreli.

Minnesotans! You have an election on Tuesday! Vote!

Go to the Office of the Minnesota Secretary of State to get a sample ballot. Then show up and vote on Tuesday. I want to see a good turnout by responsible citizens on an election that is not presidential. You’ve got to build a collection of people working for your causes at all levels, and stop expecting that you’ll put a magic person in place at the top of the pyramid and make everything work.

And I will unabashedly recommend that if you really despise Trump, you have to vote a straight Democratic ticket. I’m holding my nose and voting for Collin Peterson, Blue Dog Democrat, for the first time ever in this election, despite not liking him at all. Note to all you Stein/Johnson fans: another strike against them is that most of us won’t even find a Green/Libertarian candidate to vote for or against in these lower level elections.

In addition to local representatives, we’re voting on a Minnesota supreme court judge position. We get to choose between 3 people running for the job. Foss, a guy who wants to be a supreme court judge because, as he admits, he can’t find a job; MacDonald, who was endorsed by the state Republican party and lost her last election because she was caught driving while drunk; and Natalie Hudson, the incumbent and a Mark Dayton appointee, who is the only one with experience as a judge.

You might want to vote for the qualified candidate, Hudson.

Go find out who your candidates are and be sure to get out there and vote.

I will be nagging you again on Tuesday, Minnesotans.

By golly, Trump is negging us!

The slimy orange turd is actually going to be speaking in Minnesota on 19 August — he must be really confident if he’s bothering to campaign in a state that’s practically guaranteed to vote for anybody but Trump — and he’s warming us up with trash talk.

So the Washington Times reported, of a Somali refugee program in Minnesota, that, “the effort to resettle large groups of Somali refugees, is having the unintended consequence of creating an enclave of immigrants with high unemployment, that is both stressing the state’s” — I mean, the state is having tremendous problems, its safety net — “and creating a rich pool of recruiting targets for Islamist terror groups.”

It’s hapenning. It’s happening. You see it, and you read about it. You see it. And you can be smart, and you can be cunning, and tough, or you can be very, very dumb, and not want to see what’s going on, folks.”

I don’t think he knows us at all well, which is another reason he’s going to lose here. The City Pages dismantles his claim that we have tremendous problems.

Here, Trump is referring to the terrible scourge of unemployment in the Twin Cities, where, as of June, the unemployment rate was all of 3.7 percent, second lowest among American metropolitan areas. Statewide, the jobless rate is 3.8 percent, tied for the eighth-best in the country.

As for the “tremendous problems” for our safety net, let’s compare Minnesota to Maine, where Trump was speaking. Maine, with 1.3 million people, has about one-fourth of Minnesota’s population (roughly 5.4 million, give-or-take a few hundred people in town claiming to be relatives of Prince.) Maine finished its budget year with a $93 million surplus. Minnesota entered the 2016 legislative session with a $900 million surplus. Four times the population, ten times the leftover money. A tremendous problem.

That same Washington Times story Trump cited faults Minnesota for spending more than all but one other state (Alaska) on social welfare, according to the local conservative think thank, the Center for the American Experiment. That study found Minnesota spent $4,000 more per-low income person than the average American state.

Leave it to conservatives to believe that spending more on the poor is a black mark against the state, or to assume that Somali is synonymous with terrorist.

I’d love to attend for the frisson of horror, but unfortunately, Trump is charging $1000 a person just to attend, and is looking for $100,000 donations from couples. Somehow, I don’t think attendance will reflect the political preferences of the state at all.


In other important Trump news, it is now an established scientific fact that he has tiny little hands.