Cross one more off the list

Rand Paul votes to dishonor the country, wreck its credit, and tank the world economy. Not gonna be President.

Glad to see that Rand Paul, as well as Ted Cruz, voted to dishonor the country, wreck its credit, and tank the world economy. The list of Republicans who might actually get elected President in 2016 continues to shrink. (And that’s leaving aside the delicious but implausible prospect of a Jesse Ventura/Howard Stern third-party ticket.)

 

Update  Make that two more. Purported grown-up Paul Ryan (who’s always struck me more as a five-year-old wearing her mother’s high heels) also voted for national bankruptcy and disgrace. Since he’s a favorite of the plutocracy, I doubt the Chamber would really withhold its cash were he the nominee. But it seems to me that Hillary could pound him into the ground with it.

Author: Mark Kleiman

Professor of Public Policy at the NYU Marron Institute for Urban Management and editor of the Journal of Drug Policy Analysis. Teaches about the methods of policy analysis about drug abuse control and crime control policy, working out the implications of two principles: that swift and certain sanctions don't have to be severe to be effective, and that well-designed threats usually don't have to be carried out. Books: Drugs and Drug Policy: What Everyone Needs to Know (with Jonathan Caulkins and Angela Hawken) When Brute Force Fails: How to Have Less Crime and Less Punishment (Princeton, 2009; named one of the "books of the year" by The Economist Against Excess: Drug Policy for Results (Basic, 1993) Marijuana: Costs of Abuse, Costs of Control (Greenwood, 1989) UCLA Homepage Curriculum Vitae Contact: Markarkleiman-at-gmail.com

12 thoughts on “Cross one more off the list”

    1. And about a third of PA House Republicans. But, as with most everything of importance, the no votes were largely a regional thing. A majority came from former Confederate states; about 80% of southern House Republicans voted no. In contrast, Republicans not from the former Confederacy were about evenly split-hardly acceptable, but manageable as a practical matter. The problem remains where it’s always been.

  2. If the GOP is smart (a big if, I know) they’ll choose as their nominee one of the governors, somebody who doesn’t have the taint of Washington. Currently, the elephant party holds 30 out of the 50 gubernatorial slots and there are more who have served but are not currently serving. The current president’s ratings are also pretty low these days, and it might not be in their favor should they choose to nominate somebody with too close an association with Obama.

    On the other hand, 2016 is a long way off and many things could happen in the meantime.

  3. I don’t know, Mark. This kind of fiasco may just make it more likely that some *house-broken* neoconfederate wingnut like Lindsey Graham will end up looking to a low-informatign voter like a Pres candidate that a moderate could get behind, just by virtue of his being potty trained.

    Remember, all Dems are paintable with the Dirty F****ing Huppie brush, whereas the fascist extremists of the RepublicanParty are always *separate* from the other Republicans. White House, here we come!

    No doubt the High Broderist press corps will help out with that. But I repeat myself (Washington press corps being functionally synonymous with “low-information voter”).

  4. Howard Stern? Why do Presidential candidates have this habit of choosing mediocre running-mates?

    Perhaps this is even stranger bedfellows, but I’d vote for a Jesse Ventura / Al Franken ticket in a heartbeat!

    1. Why Howard Stern? Maybe because:

      (a) in an ad lib situation like a press conference or a TV interview, he’s one of the few who can construct complete sentences and mold them into coherent paragraphs that exit his mouth smoothly, without stumbling over his own tongue or creating dead space with “um…uh…”

      (b) he’s very smart

      (c) and most important, he could pay for his own campaign.

  6. With the latest big debt-ceiling “little death” behind us…
    It feels like we are doing that movie thing and lighting up a cigarette-after-sex:
    Whew what a fucking our markets took!
    Was it good for you too?

    Here is the strangest save-the-day dynamic I saw over the last few weeks:

    John McCain’s absolute hatred of all things Cruz (AKA: The smartest bully in the room).
    Of late, Sen McCain has practically projectile vomited his allotment of purple Kool-aid onto Fox viewers…
    Why I believe he is almost ready to admit Sarah Palin was a mistake.

    2. (1) John McCain doesn’t admit mistakes.
      (2) Except when he’s courting the national media so they’ll puff him up for a Presidential Run.
      (3) Those days are behind him now, so see (1).

  7. The White House never seems to get things across in a way that fits into a viral sound bite. Why did Pres. Obama not just say this?

    ” Running up new debt is negotiable. Reneging on on existing debt is not.”

    It seems that this would be comprehensible even in Tea Party districts.

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