So King, the man who raised funds for the IRA to murder people in Ireland accuses Paul of aiding terrorists? That is pretty rich.
Though Paul is also a shitweasel, seems he stole the text of his suit from the lawyer who wrote it!
Not so much spy vs spy, shitweasel vs shitweasel.
Not just that, but heâs dumped his Democratic co-plaintiffs, so as to avoid liberal cooties. The result is that reining in the NSA, an effort with broad bipartisan support, is starting to look like the project of right-wing nutjobs.
Incidentally, I can remember when Libertarians thought of themselves as a true third alternative, orthogonal to the left-right axis. But today, between the Tea Party and the Koch brothers, theyâve become the heirs to the John Birch Society. Itâs kind of too bad.
Like father like son: the only point of Rand Paul is to make libertarians think they have an advocate in the Republican party, while always ensuring that he never successfully advances libertarian policy.
Itâs a great grift. Wish Iâd thought of it!
The Koch brothers are literal heirs of the John Birch Society; their father was a founding member.
Have been co-opted by the far right.
And the family fortune was made in Stalins slave labor camps.
To be fair, what Fred Koch started building refineries in the USSR before Stalinâs big purges and collectivization famines, and seeing that stuff unfold turned him into a rabid anti-communist. OTOH, political analysis wasnât exactly his strong suit seeing as he thought public welfare was a secret plot to attract rural blacks and Puerto Ricans to Eastern cities to vote for Communist causes and start a vicious race wars.
Ron Paul at least generally voted against anti-libertarian policy, if not necessarily having much effect to get any positive libertarian policies enacted, but that is generally the fate of minority-position politicians. (There were a few exceptions - his anti-immigration positions are staunchly anti-libertarian.)
Rand Paul is a kind of meh Republican, occasionally borrowing Libertarian rhetoric if he thinks itâll be useful. Way better than Dick Cheney, but still meh.
And Hallam beat me to the punch on Peter King, terrorist scum.
My thoughts entirely - of course having someone who said of the âtroublesâ ,
âIf civilians are killed in an attack on a military installation, it is certainly regrettable, but I will not morally blame the IRA for it.â
as the chair of a Homeland Security Committee is unbelievable in itself.
Aside from the weirdness of Rand Paul being the voice of reason, is Peter Kingâs alarming stupidity. Supposedly, he has devoted his life to national security and yet his support of this type of data harvesting is simply terrible spy craft. Itâs like collecting enough hay bales to fill a football field and then not knowing (or caring) if you are looking for a needle or a pin.
I think that 99% of what comes out of Republicans mouths is projection. The best prediction for what they will try to do in office is to look at what they accuse Obama of.
Thats why they spend so much time trying to rig elections by stopping black people voting and blame it on Democrats engaged in unproven, âvoter fraudâ. So millions of people have been disenfranchised âto stopâ voter fraud running at less than ten cases per election. Most of which turn out to be Republicans trying to show how easy it is to vote twice.
The reason Barry likes the NSA so much is that George W. Bush was losing two wars when he left office and the NSA and CIA were the only barely competent parts of the military.
As a moderate liberal who hates the NSA but also sometimes wonders at our timid politically-correct responses to the Islamic terrorist threat, i have sometimes found myself in agreementâmuch to my horrorâwith both Paul and King. Seeing this now, I both encourage the far-right rift, and will at the very least note the two partiesâ consistency.
Yes but I donât see how we should be grateful when these parasites âgive backâ less than one percent of their income to charitable causes with their names shown prominently while they spend billions per election cycle buying politicians to reduce their taxes by tens of billions.
The reason Keystone is such a high priority for the GOP is that their owners have bought up much of the land in Canada where the shale is coming from. That pipeline will make their land worth tens of billions more.
Which is why the Democrats will make sure the pipeline never happens. Best way to do that right now is to constantly put the decision off so that it canât be reviewed in the courts - Not till Ginny Thomas isnât taking a million a year in bribes and stuffing it into hubby Clarenceâs pocket.
Perhaps Islam isnât the threat you think it is. Perhaps 99% of Moslems are as horrified by terrorism as you are. Or maybe Iâm just being politically correct and we should nukeâem back to the Stone Age.
Exactly. Iâm from VT/NH and people there swear up and down that Libertarians are these âIâm socially progressive but want low taxesâ kind of people. But really, they are not even wolves in sheep clothing. They are more like Karl Rove clones that have had the Republican voice module taken out and a slightly different, more twisted vocabulary module inserted, but the motivations driving them are the same. Itâs weird, and I donât trust 'em.
Some people get more active in their communities as they get older, because they see all the good they can do, etc., run for office, etc. Not me. Iâm the opposite. The older I get, the more politics and the world at large looks like the WWF to me. Yes, the World Wrestling Federation. I see politicians giving their speeches and I just cringe - itâs like something out of a wrestling movie. Iâd say âbad wrestling movieâ but theyâre all bad so the bad is a redundant repetition.
And yet these people are running things. Cringe.
The nice thing about casting such a wide net is that it also catches activists and any other political enemies along with a nice topping of profitable business secrets. No wonder these scumbags are so addicted to mass, suspicionless spying. Itâs a goldmine for corrupt thieves.
When we view (small-l) libertarians monolithically, we miss opportunities to work together with many of them on issues where we agree, for instance, virtually everything in the Bill of Rights.
But yeah, those in Congress who pretend to be Libertarian suck. If Team Democrat werenât also giving the Constitution lip service, weâd be able to sway some libertarians to the other side of the room.
The Kochs have donated to actual charities? The kind that help humans (what I think of as charity) instead of the kind that warp legislation (non-profits that somehow qualify as âcharitable donationâ on your taxes)?
the Islamic terrorist threat
Then why doesnât the right wing terrorist threat have you shivering in your seat?
Well, this might be whyâŚ
⌠That narrative is fundamental to understanding the skewed coverage of domestic terrorism. For instance, on the eve of congressional hearings on domestic Muslim extremism, chaired by Rep. Peter King (R.-N.Y.), a Wall Street Journal editorial (3/11/11) attempted to justify the bigoted proceedings by misrepresenting a RAND Corporation study as finding that Muslims are responsible for virtually all U.S. domestic terrorism.
What the 2010 RAND study actually found (FAIR Blog, 3/16/11) was that the vast majority of âhomegrownâ terrorist attackersâthose of all ideologies who successfully carry out an attackâwere not Muslims: Of the â83 terrorist attacks in the United States between 9/11 and the end of 2009, only threeâŚwere clearly connected with the jihadist cause.â
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