Rand Paul Cohort is a racist, secessionist, neo-Confederate assbag? I am shocked!

 

Rebel Yell

Rand Paul aide has history of neo-Confederate sympathies, inflammatory statements

 

 



Well, you know what they say, scratch a Libertarian, find a Neo-Confederate!
Yes they do always say that!

A close aide to Sen. Rand Paul (R., Ky.) who co-wrote the senator’s 2011 book spent years working as a pro-secessionist radio pundit and neo-Confederate activist, raising questions about whether Paul will be able to transcend the same fringe-figure associations that dogged his father’s political career.

Okay, let's just stop here for a second to point out that Rand and Ron Paul don't associate with fringe figures. They ARE fringe figures.
The only reason they have the level of mainstream acceptance they have is that most of their supporters don't have any idea what they actually stand for past legalized pot and no more taxes.

 

Hard to believe these guys wouldn't be better informed!

Paul hired Jack Hunter, 39, to help write his book The Tea Party Goes to Washington during his 2010 Senate run. Hunter joined Paul’s office as his social media director in August 2012.
From 1999 to 2012, Hunter was a South Carolina radio shock jock known as the “Southern Avenger.” He has weighed in on issues such as racial pride and Hispanic immigration, and stated his support for the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln.

This is maybe the most extreme example of the "It's Okay If You're a Conservative" phenomenon,. If you're far enough to the right, you can actually celebrate the murder of an American President and still have a career in politics. You can still be welcome to spew your sicko views onto the public airwaves, and a Senator eyeing a presidential run won't even feel like he needs to shun you, even though you OPENLY CELEBRATE THE ASSASINATION OF A PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA!
Oh, and you can openly call for secession from the US of A and still be considered a good patriotic American of whom a potential presidential candidate need not be ashamed.

Prior to his radio career, while in his 20s, Hunter was a chairman in the League of the South, which “advocates the secession and subsequent independence of the Southern States from this forced union and the formation of a Southern republic.”

I hadn't ever heard of the League of the South before,

 

I honestly thought it was this.

So I checked out their webpage and it's pretty much what you'd expect. An exercise in wrapping polite language around the basic ideas of white supremacy and hatred of modernity. Here are a couple of highlights"

The League of the South asserts that Southern society is radically different from the society impressed upon it by an alien occupier. American society today is egalitarian and Marxist and is devoid of any grace or charm

 

Hell, yeah! Grace and Charm!

 



 

In contrast, we believe in a Southern society that:

Upholds the ontological or spiritual equality of all men before God and the bar of justice.  . .

Is structured upon the Biblical notion of hierarchy. In short, a recognition of the natural societal order of superiors and subordinates where Christian charity (as found in the second Table of the Law) toward our neighbors produces harmony and stability. Christ is the head of His Church; husbands are the heads of their families; parents are placed over their children; employers rank above their employees; the teacher is superior to his students, etc.

You know, equality!

 Teaches and practices good manners and the famed “Southern hospitality, which are outward manifestations of the recognition that our fellow men are made in the image of God and should be treated according to God’s law.

Except n***ers and Jews!

Some of the funniest (in a tragi-comic sense) parts are on the FAQ page:

Q: Does the LS advocate armed revolution or overthrow of the current US government?
A: No. We are not revolutionaries; therefore, we do not seek the overthrow of the US government. Rather, we seek, by peaceful and well-established legal and constitutional means, to separate ourselves from it

We would certainly not advocate violence. We believe in using Constitutional, legal means which don't exist, have never existed, never will exist and are the creation of our own wishful-thinking and just plain ignorance. You know, like the well-established legal principle of "but I really want to!"

Q:  What is the LS position regarding blacks in the South?
A: The LS disavows a spirit of malice and extends an offer of good will and cooperation to Southern blacks in areas where we can work together as Christians to make life better for all people in the South. We affirm that, while historically the interests of Southern blacks and whites have been in part antagonistic,

In part antagonistic! just like the sometimes strained relations between cats and mice. Or me and a pint of Cherry Garcia.

Oh, you are going DOWN, muthafucka!

 



Anyway, I don't to spend a whole lot of time on it, but if you have a few minutes, check out their website: http://dixienet.org/rights/2012/index.php it's laugh-out-loud funny (unintentionally) and surprisingly devoid of the N-word. (Although, if there's a comment section, hoo boy, I'd hate to even think about it.) Basically, they seem to be a group of deluded white guys who got their image of the Antebellum South from Gone With The Wind and think that if only they could get back to those halcyon days everything would be just fine and dandy once again, so basically, morons, I guess.

Anyway, back to Jack Hunter, or, as he likes to refer to himself in the third person, "The Southerm Avenger!"

Take that, sense of irony!

I'm not sure who publishes his drivel, but his drivel includes drivel like this:


No Apologies for Slavery
by The Southern Avenger
4 March 2007

John Wilkes Booth Was Right
by The Southern Avenger
13 April 2004

Let's Invade Saudi Arabia  
by The Southern Avenger
16 October 2007

And my personal favorite:

White, Right and Ready to Fight  

by The Southern Avenger
10 September 2004

In which the Avenger encounters a black man passed out drunk at a bar and uses the drunkard to extrapolate to the entirety of race relations in the whole of the US, and includes this charming paragraph:
 
 The bartender politely told the man he could not sleep in the booth, that he should finish what was left of his beer, but then he must leave - and like clockwork - the man began cursing and threatening the bartender and then declared he was going to sue the bar for racism. There was no racism here. I should have told this A-hole that the Avenger got kicked out a month ago for having sex with a black girl in the exact same booth - but it didn't have anything to do with the fact that the girl was black. I got kicked out because she was the girlfriend of one of the bartenders.      

I don't even have a smart-alecky comment, just an apology for the mental image.

 

You're picturing me doing it right now, aren't you?

I would point out that just because an extremely inebriated man makes a baseless claim of racism, that hardly seems like a scientific sample from which to build your theory of race relations. Let's judge all white guys by what Mel Gibson says when he's drunk!

Oh, no wait. I just took another peek at the archive and now I have a new personal favorite:

Are White People Out of Style?  

by The Southern Avenger
22 November 2004

Um, short answer yes. Long answer yeeeeeeeesssssss.

So I'm going to guess that this article is going to be about how white people must bear the heavy yoke of some unfair double-standard?

Clothing company Abercrombie and Fitch settled a lawsuit last week in which they agreed to pay $50 million dollars in damages for alleged “racial discrimination.” This class-action lawsuit was filed last June by Asian and Hispanic groups who claimed the clothing company discriminated against racial minorities in order to convey a virtually “all-white image.” This settlement also requires Abercrombie and Fitch to hire  at least twenty-five “diversity recruiters” whose main task will be to make sure the company is not too white. This nonsense is just one more example of the racial double standard we have in this country

.

Bingo!

The three largest racial groups in the United States today are whites, blacks and Hispanics. But unfortunately, the mutual respect needed is not prevalent among all three groups. Black Americans are encouraged to celebrate their racial identity by appealing to their shared experience of injustice and African roots, and while hip-hop is a worldwide phenomenon, rap is still a musical culture that is defined overwhelmingly by black American youth.

It is so totally unfair of them to be better at it than us!

 

Also totally unfair!

 Hispanics indulge in an even more nationalistic form of racial identity by flying Mexican flags, listening to a foreign music that both black and white Americans have never even heard of, and turning everywhere they settle into northern outposts of their Mexican homeland.

Um, everyone but you has heard of Salsa, Conjunto, Norteno, and Selena. But that's probably not the point, is it?

 

What strange manner of foreign musicry is this?

And then there are white people. Not only are whites not afforded the same right to celebrate their own cultural identity – but anything that is considered “too white” is immediately suspect. Nobody talks about rap music being “too black.” No one would dare suggest that the agricultural work force is “too Hispanic.” But let something like NASCAR, country music or the Republican party become patronized mainly by white Americans, and you can bet your ass someone is going to scream racism. You never hear about the need for “diversity” when the group in question is black or Hispanic. But when the group is white – diversity somehow becomes the number one objective.

Oh my God. I never understand this. If these people are going to create their own alternate reality, why wouldn't they make it a pleasant place for them to live? In my alternate universe, I'm sort of a Joe Montana - Carols Santana hybrid who can't walk around the house without tripping over one of my Nobel Prizes. But in their alternate reality they're ALWAYS the victim. Look at that last paragraph: White people are "not afforded the same right?"  They can't "celebrate their cultural identity?" I guess that's why you never see anyone waving Italian flags at Columbus Day Parades?

 

 

If only we were Mexican!



And you never see Irish flags waving in the breeze outside of every other bar in town.

 



Or  British pubs in every city in the US

 

 

Or whatever the hell this is!

 

But, no. In the alternate universe of the right-wing sisters of perpetual victimhood, only Mexicans are allowed to fly their flags.

 



And when has anyone called NASCAR racist? It's been called boring. And stupid. And boring.

 

Also stupid!

 

but when has anyone ever said "oh, mainly white guys like auto racing. Pardon me whilst I go out and scream 'RACISM!'"

 

If Abercrombie and Fitch want to hire and promote only blonde-haired, blue-eyed Swedish models, what's wrong with that?

 

Um, really? You actually have to ask "what's wrong with blatant racism?"

 

Abercrombie and Fitch is a company that appeals mainly to preppy white people and I think it's ridiculous that they are being punished for it.

 

How exactly are they being punished for having a mainly white clientele? They are being sued for pushing out non-white employees in order to maintain their lily-white image. No one is saying punish Abercrombie for having mainly white customers.

 

 

 

Although I am saying punish them for this bullshit!

 

Anyway, I seem to have wandered off topic a bit. I huess my main point is that Rand Paul associates with racist neo-Confederate douchebags mainly because he is one and that no one is going to call him out on this because It's Okay If You're A Conservative!

 

 

 

John Stossel continues to be the worst excuse for a human being on the planet. (Now that Andrew Breitbart is dead)

John Stossel just might be the biggest bag of douche on the entire FOX payroll.

In praise of 'price gouging'

By John Stossel

Published November 01, 2012

FoxNews.com

Because for some reason, price gouging has gotten a bad reputation somehow?

Desperate New Jersey drivers wait in long lines to buy gasoline. One line was two miles long
The media blame “a lack of electricity”

Why the quotes? Is there some doubt as to whether there really is a lack of electricity in Jersey? I don't know, there's no explanation given for the quotes.

The media blame “a lack of electricity” and report that “Governor Christie has acted to boost supplies of gasoline…by directing Treasury officials to waive licensing requirements that affect merchants’ ability to buy fuel from out-of-state suppliers.”

Ordinarily, removing any sort of licensing requirements gives John Stossel a boner for which he needs to seek medical attention, so what is he going to find to complain about in this scenario?

That would help, but Christie would help more if he could suspend New Jersey’s foolish law forbidding price increases of more than 10% during an “emergency,” and if he’d apologize for bragging that the state will crack down on price “gouging!”  

 

Allowing gas companies to jack up their prices would help. . . help what, exactly?

Complaining about greedy profiteers is probably politically smart. But if you're one of the people the law "protects," you won't fare as well.

As well as what? You won't fare as well as. . . ? How is that the end of the paragraph? Did you ever take high school English?

What politicians call “gouging” is just the free market.

 

Holy cow! John Stossel just said something that's sort of true. Gouging isn't actually the "free market," but it is the free market that allows suppliers to engage in price gouging. Now, to a normal person, that would be an indication that maybe the "free market" isn't such a great idea, but if you're someone like John Stossel, well, you're not going to go around thinking logically!

See, if you're a free marketeer like Stossel, you begin with the conclusion that the free market is inherently good, then make everything else fit that conclusion. So if price gouging is a symptom of the free market, and we know that the free market is entirely good and awesome in every way, then ipso facto presto chango, price gouging can't possibly be bad.

It's like when a fundamentalist is confronted with something unsettling in his religious scripture. Instead of thinking "hmm, maybe I can't take the entire book literally," he is forced to come to the conclusion that  whatever it is that seems disturbing, like the Bible justifying slavery, or God ordering the Isrealites to kill every living creature in the city of Jericho (aka genocide) must somehow be good because otherwise his whole world view falls apart.

What politicians call “gouging” is just the free market. When markets are allowed to work their magic, lines disappear.  The high price is a big flag planted in the ground that says, “Hey, come over here and make money.”

You know, any economic philosophy that relies on "magic" is probably not all that sound. 

 

 

 

  

Economics!

But yeah, if the price goes high enough, lines would disappear. Because most people wouldn't be able to afford super-expensive gasoline. But how does that help anybody?

Today, some car owners wait in line just to top off their tanks. If gas stations could raise prices, many of those drivers would wait, and drive less.  Drivers who really need gas would be able to get it.    At the same time, entrepreneurs would rush gasoline to gas stations that have the highest prices.   The lines would quickly vanish, and prices would come back down.

 

Really? People are waiting in two-mile-long lines just to top off their tanks? Look at the picture that accompanies your column:

 

See anyone "topping off?" People appear to be buying gasoline to run generators, not cars. These people are not buying gas on a whim. They are buying gasoline to be able to get back to some semblance of a normal home life. How much do you think the price of gas should be raised to get these folks to forgo that gallon or two that will power their kids' nightlight or provide a little heat, or refrigeration? 

And if I'm getting your theory, the idea is to raise prices to lower demand which would cause supply to increase (somehow) which would lower prices. If that convoluted ridiculous theory worked, we end up right back where we started. So what's the point? 

Remember The 1970s “gas crisis?”  The media claimed it was caused by a lack of gasoline.  It wasn’t.  It was caused by President Nixon’s price controls.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure the gas crisis was caused by the OPEC oil embargo. And I'm pretty sure that once Venezuela broke the embargo, gas prices came way back down again, just in time for Ronald reagen to take credit. Of course, I was a child in the 1970's, but I'm pretty sure I have a better understanding than you do, you ridiculous libertarian hack. I mean, if Nixon's price controls were so onerous, how is it that the price of a gallon of gas managed to skyrocket?

 Remember the lines in the Soviet Union?   Most shortages are caused by politicians interfering with the market.

That one example proves it! Also, New Jersey having a law against price gouging? Yeah, totally  like the Soviet Union's complete governmental control of every aspect of their economy. Exactly the same thing.

Here's the real question: What is the best way to help people after a disaster?

Yes, obviously helping people is your main concern. Your such a caring individual!

What is the best way to help people after a disaster?Any number of services -- roofing, for example, carpentry, tree removal, and gasoline -- are in overwhelming demand.  If this were a totalitarian country, government could just order gasoline tankers roofers, carpenters, etc., to travel to New Jersey. But in a free society, entrepreneurs must be persuaded to leave their homes and families and drive from say, Texas, to the East Coast. If they can't make more money in New Jersey, why make the trip?

Um, I'm pretty sure that they can make more money in New Jersey because there are so many more potential customers there? Whereas in Texas, a contractor might bid on a job and have three other guys under-bid him so he has to lower his price so much that it's hardly worth doing? But in a disaster area, people don't have time to entertain multiple bids and it's either their insurance company or FEMA paying the bill so they don't feel like they need to bargain all that aggressively? I don't know, I'm not a contractor.

Some want to be heroic, but we can't expect enough heroes to fill the need.  Most travel for the same reason most Americans work: to make money. Most tradesmen will go to a disaster area only if it wins him higher pay than he would get in his hometown.  
Yet if he charges enough to justify his venture, he's likely to be condemned morally or legally by the very people he's trying to help.

Trying to help?  You just said, just one sentence ago, that the only reason he's going there is to make more money. And according to you, this is perfectly fine, and he has no obligation to be heroic, so why one sentence later, do you have to paint him as making some sort of noble sacrifice? Oh, he only wanted to help these poor people! You know, assuming he can make more money that way. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with wanting to make more money, but you can't have it both ways!

 

Of course I can! I'm on FOX!

 

 

They just don't understand basic economics. Force prices down, and you keep suppliers out.

Okay, that's probably true, but that's not what's happening. Chris Christie isn't forcing prices down. He's just not allowing them to go up as much as they might otherwise. Not only are prices not being pushed down, they are allowed to be pushed UP an extra 10%.

It's price "gougers" who bring the water, ship the gasoline, fix the roof, and rebuild cities. You might not believe me but will you believe Nobel Prize-winning economists Gary Becker, Vernon Smith and Milton Friedman? All three have said “ gouging” is good. Milton Friedman said, “price ‘gougers’ save lives.”

Well, I don't know anything about Becker or Smith, but I do know that Milton Friedman has been proven completely dead wrong about everything. I know supply-siders like to pretend that his theories have some sort of magic in them, but the Reagen deficits are really all the evidence we need that Friedman was full of shit.

God damn it, John Stossel is a piece of shit. What kind of a human being looks at the devastation on the East Coast and says, hmm, those people are really suffering. If only amoral companies were allowed to extract more money from these desperate people? How does someone like Stossel sleep at night?

This is Who They Are.

Ohio governor puts libertarian ideology into practice:

Kasich turns down federal disaster aid

Ohio Gov. John Kasich said thanks but no thanks to immediate federal disaster relief Saturday, even as governors in Indiana and Kentucky welcomed the help.

John Kasich, a man said to have presidential aspirations, would rather do a little political grandstanding than allow the federal government to help the people of his state in a time of tragedy. Never mind that the good people of Ohio pay in to the federal disaster relief program with their income taxes and are absolutely entitled to receive funds from it. No, Kasich would rather burnish his anti-government bona fides than do the sensible, practical, moral thing. Your house got knocked down? You have nothing left? Too bad, I'd rather thumb my nose at Washington than allow you to get help rebuilding.

Apparently, he's been listening to Ron Paul:

Ron Paul: No federal tornado aid

• 03/05/12 at 12:30pm 

Republican Presidential candidate Ron Paul said he doesn’t think the federal government should help. “The people who live in tornado alley, just as I live in hurricane alley, they should have insurance,” Paul said
“There is no such thing as federal money,” Paul said, on the show, according to the National Journal. “Federal money is just what they steal from the states and steal from you and me.”
He also said FEMA has led to nothing but “frustration and anger.”

Okay, if the Federal Government has "stolen" this money from the states and the people, why would you object to getting some of it back?  How does it help anything to refuse needed money that, according to you, belongs to the people anyway? Do you not see the flaw in your logic here? Also, does it really need to be pointed out that the "frustration and anger" at FEMA is based on the perception that they haven't done ENOUGH to help in recent disasters?
And I'm quite sure that most people in tornado alley do have insurance, but the deductibles on these policies generally run in to several tens of thousands of dollars before the insurance companies begin to pay a dime. If, like most people, you don't have 25 or 50 thousand dollars in the bank, your insurance policy isn't going to do you a lot of good.

This is who these people are. When they talk about "small government," this is what they mean. They don't mind a government large enough to force trans-vaginal ultrasounds on unwilling women. they have no problem with a government big enough to tell people who they can marry. They don't mind a government big enough to invade every country in the world where a Muslim looks at us funny. They only want government to be small in areas where it it might help people.

Because the whole point of tea-party libertarian, small-government conservatism is the fear that somehow, somewhere someone might be getting over on them. Their world-view is based on the resentment they feel when they think that someone might be getting something paid for by their tax dollars. They have no problem with their tax dollars being used to hurt someone, like, say an Iraqi civilian or an Occupy protestor, they just can't stand the thought that someone might be getting helped at their expense.
For some reason, the fact that the government funnels billions of their tax dollars to companies like Haliburton or Blackwater, but if some farmer in Illinois gets help rebuilding his house at their expense, it's time to put on the pointy hat and throw tea in the fucking harbor!

Crazy Candidate of the Day

Today's Crazy Candidate is Arizona's Jesse Kelly.

Jesse Kelly is a teabagging Libertarian running for Congress from Arizona's 8th District. Jesse don't like no government regulations, and if a few people have to get Salmonella, well that's just their problem.

Via C&L:

During a question-and-answer period, a voter asked Kelly about the recent salmonella outbreak, which led to recall of more than half a billion eggs.The voter asked if Kelly, if elected, would he help pass a law that would allow the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and other government agencies to shut down companies that have too many safety violations, such as the companies that allowed millions of eggs that sickened people to be sold to the public.

Sounds reasonable. Sounds more than reasonable, it really sounds like a no-brainer. Why aren't we able to shut down companies like Massey Energy, Deepwater Horizon, and Farmer Bob's Salmonelleggs when they have demonstrated repeatedly that they don't give a shit about safety?

Kelly responded that he doesn’t “believe what we’re lacking right now is more regulations on companies,” complaining that “you could probably spit on the grass and get arrested by the federal government by now.”

We don't need any dang guvmint reg'lations, and to prove it, here's a blatantly untrue scenario I just thought up!

When the voter followed up by asking, “Who’s protecting us?” Kelly responded, “It’s our job to protect ourselves.”

Seriously, if you don't have the scientific acumen to be able to test your food for salmonella before you eat it you really have no business eating eggs!

And when the lady asks “Am I supposed to go to a chicken farmer and say I’d like you to close down because all of your birds are half dead?” Kelly first demonstrates a stunning level of ignorance saying "I don't know much about chicken farmers or salmonella outbreaks. I really haven't heard much about that" (paraphrase) as if that's a defense. Then spouts some ridiculous completely untrue bullshit about regulations:

But I know this: Every part of our economy that is regulated by the government doesn’t have fewer disasters, it has more”

Does he have any evidence, any statistics to back this up? No. He does have a bizzare interpretation of the recent oil spill to offer as support for his stupid bullshit argument.
Kelly claims that the BP oil spill was the fault of the government because they wouldn't allow the oil companies to drill directly in the offshore fisheries. Never mind that BP consciously decided to violate safety procedures. Never mind that their penny-wise approach led them to omit a blowout valve that might have prevented the disaster. No, the real problem is that they couldn't just set up an oil derrick next to Bubba Gump's shrimp boat.

Check out the video:



This is what we're going to get if, as predicted, the teabaggers and their allies in the "mainstream" Republican Party retake the House and/or Senate this year. No regulations, if you get salmonella it's your own fault. Better a few people die of food poisoning than our libertarian ideals be compromised! No rules for oil companies, they can drill wherever they want and we'll just trust that they know best. And no matter how fucked up things get, we'll just wrap ourselves in the comfortable delusion that government interference would make it even worse.