Find out how Cooch took $55,000 from the disgraced "U.S. Navy Veterans Association," in apparent exchange for his promise to get the Virginia Office of Consumer Affairs (which had "notified Thompson's group that it no longer qualified for an exemption from state registration requirements") off the group's back. Can we say "pay-to-play?" Find out more.
In the 2006 U.S. Senate race in Virginia, it wasn't as if George Allen's lead collapsed the day the video of Allen tauntingly calling a Democratic staffer "macaca" came out. It was the first in a chain of events -- Allen's multiple, convoluted explanations, news of his Jewish heritage & his virulent rejection of it -- that prompted voters to ask themselves, "Do I really know who George Allen is?" When they took a second look at Allen's phony cowboy boots next to Jim Webb's combat boots ... well, you know how that went.
At TPM this morning, Josh Marshall says Rand Paul's inability to offer any coherent explanation to the Aqua Buddha controversy may have similarly shaken Kentucky voters' faith that they really know who Rand Paul is:
It's his response that seems weird. Why won't he just deny it? Or say it was a college prank and move on? And what's with the grandiose backing out of the final debate? Why won't he show up and face the guy who smacked him? (Paul's actually kept this one in suspense. He's going to announce [Friday] whether he'll show up for the second debate.)
In other words, it's sounding like a pretty good example of what I've called "bitch slap politics", a form of political gambit in which the substance of the attack is less important than showing the recipient can't or won't defend himself.
It took Webb weeks to close the gap with Allen, while Jack Conway has only days to catch Paul. But the gap is much smaller. Could we be looking at an upset in Kentucky?
...Your opponent then and coming George Allen would not have had the gall to write about the "myth of white privilege" even though I am sure he feels that way. In African culture, it is said, when people show & tell you who they are. Believe them!" Your written word has spoken volumes for your belief system.
It appears that you and U.S. Senate candidate Rand Paul are kith and kin. Do you really believe that affirmative action has hurt white, Anglo-Saxon Protestants or are you pandering to the divisive, conservative, Tea Bagger types whose votes you will need in 2012? The true beneficiaries of affirmative action programs are white, Anglo-Saxon women...overwhelmingly. If a white, republican, ultra-right winger, or Rush, Beck or O'Reilly had written or spoken it, the world would have known about it...
You have given cover & solace to those "who want to take their country back (from whom?), who want to reload not regroup, who think it is ok to spit on and use racial epithets against African members of the House of Representatives...
Rand Paul? George Allen? "Rush, Beck or O'Reilly?" Ee gads.
Charity breeds poverty, according to most libertarians, if I am reading correctly what many authors of investment news letters say, and what Tea Party-Republican candidates like Rand Paul indicated (before the Republican Establishment muzzled him). Hear what Doug Casey, wealthy investor, said about Gates' amd Buffets' well-publicized charities in an interview by Louis James in "Whiskey and Gunpowder" for 15 May 2010: (sorry, no link available)
"Charities are largely unproductive. Their main beneficiaries are not the intended recipients, but the giver. They get some tax benefits, but mainly get the holy high of do-goodism. Frankly, the idea of charity itself is corrupting to both parties in the transaction..... they {Bill Gates and Warren Buffet}.... should continue.... accumulating wealth---- as opposed to dissipating it by giving it away. Giving money away breaks up a capital pool that could have been used productively by those who built it for making new wealth (which increases the amount of wealth that exists in the world).
Worse, giving money away usually delivers it into the hands of people who don't deserve it. That sends the wrong moral message.... You deserve things because you earn them..... Endowing groups, or individuals, because they happen to have had some bad luck, or are perpetual losers, is actually immoral."
"The wrong moral message?" This puts one in mind of the popular Republican stereotype of the Welfare Queen, and of the implicit corollary to the Republican conflation of God with earthly benefits: the righteous are due wealth ("God wants you to be rich"); it confuses affluence with righteousness. In other words, if you are poor or down and out---- well, you deserve to be. This is the Republican form of entitlements.
Rand Paul is the political gift that keeps on giving. Rand may be an effete country club snob and a doctor, but he is also an idiot. He says Obama's remarks about BP sound "un-American." Apparently, Rand Paul doesn't know the BP acronym is for British Petroleum.
What I don't like from the president's administration is this sort of, you know, "I'll put my boot heel on the throat of BP." I think that sounds really un-American in his criticism of business. I've heard nothing from BP about not paying for the spill. And I think it's part of this sort of blame game society in the sense that it's always got to be someone's fault. Instead of the fact that maybe sometimes accidents happen. I mean, we had a mining accident that was very tragic and I've met a lot of these miners and their families. They're very brave people to do a dangerous job. But then we come in and it's always someone's fault. Maybe sometimes accidents happen.
He [wrote] into the local paper to complain that a fair housing act that had passed 34 years before was unjust and a free society should tolerate hate-filled groups excluding people based on the color of their skin. This is very frightening stuff, it's the kind of stuff that happens when you see this kind of extremism run wild. And I think the Republican Party needs to get on record...get their leaders out there saying, "we're against this and we condemn this kind of thinking." thinking
UPDATE: Charles Lane explains why Rand Paul's "argument makes no sense." It's also beyond laughable, unless you're an Ayn Rand afficionado, an extremist, or an imbecile. But I repeat myself... :)
We had a good night last night. So why am I complaining? I'll tell you why. The so-called MSM (shame-stream, not lame-stream, Sarah), in its outrageous and fawning coverage of Rand Paul (more on him in a moment), eclipsed the fact that Democrats had a far better night than Republicans.
The Democratic base turned out in far greater numbers. Joe Sestak unseated a former Republican-turned "Dem". Mark Critz won Murtha's seat in a real contest, the special election, against a Republican. And Blanche Lincoln, a DINO and Republican in Dem clothing, was forced into a run-off. Bill Halter now leads Blanche Lincoln -- 48% to 46% -- in overnight polling for the June 8 Run-Off! But you'd never know this if you listen to the so-called MSM. Yet all the corporate media can talk about is Rand Paul and the so-called Tea Parties. A so-called movement spawned by Dick Armey and Peter Peterson and populated by mostly conservative Republicans IS NOT a populist movement, nor a movement of any kind. And the populist yearnings of some individuals, albeit some duped individuals they have roped in notwithstanding, it is still not a populist movement.
Today, Kentucky Republicans selected Rand Paul as their Senate nominee, handing Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell a stunning loss. In a show of weakness for the Minority Leader, and in a race that symbolized the fight over the heart and soul of the Republican Party, Rand Paul overcame McConnell's handpicked candidate by a large margin. Unfortunately for Republicans, ordinary Americans are unlikely to be receptive to extreme candidates like Rand Paul in the general election this November.
Rand Paul's positions fail to resonate beyond the far-right Republican segment of the electorate that supported him tonight. Middle-class Kentucky voters want to elect a Senator with clear ideas about how to create jobs and opportunities for Kentucky families. But Rand Paul is more interested in talking about abolishing the Department of Education and disbanding the Federal Reserve than about supporting economic recovery.
As a result, Democrats are now in a better position to win Kentucky's open Senate seat.
Let's hope Tim Kaine is right about this. For now, I'm just enjoying watching Mitch McConnell get his butt kicked. Couldn't have happened to a nicer guy.
P.S. This should play really well among Kentucky voters this fall.
UPDATE: After the "flip," check out the analysis I received from a politically astute friend via email.
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In the 2006 U.S. Senate race in Virginia, it wasn't as if George Allen's lead collapsed the day the video of Allen tauntingly calling a Democratic staffer "
Charity breeds poverty, according to most libertarians, if I am reading correctly what many authors of investment news letters say, and what Tea Party-Republican candidates like Rand Paul indicated (before the Republican Establishment muzzled him). Hear what Doug Casey, wealthy investor, said about Gates' amd Buffets' well-publicized charities in an interview by Louis James in "Whiskey and Gunpowder" for 15 May 2010: (sorry, no link available)
We had a good night last night. So why am I complaining? I'll tell you why. The so-called MSM (shame-stream, not lame-stream, Sarah), in its outrageous and fawning coverage of Rand Paul (more on him in a moment), eclipsed the fact that Democrats had a far better night than Republicans.
Tim Kaine 
