People say, ‘Oh those Tea Party people, they’re angry.’ I say: ‘No, they’re concerned and they’re worried.’

No, they’re angry.

If vomit could walk and talk it would be called rand paul. Seriously, if the people of kentucky vote this pile of excrement into the senate, their state deserves to stripped of its electoral votes! We should all boycott the state of kentucky.

We should all boycott the state of kentucky.

Aren’t we all doing that already?

I know that Paul could be dangerous but I find him just silly. He’s like a child trying to play poker with the adults. And he’s nuts.

Not to mention stupid and delusional. The thing is that I don’t understand how anybody could get through college and know so little of our history, world history, science and the way government is supposed to work. And it’s not just Rand Paul. O’Donnell, Angle, Miller, Paladino, all of these people have degrees or post graduate degrees.

The man has a sphincter for a larynx.

He attended Baylor but never received his degree, making it unlikely he ever took a history course. What he knows about Hitler probably came from reading Reader’s Digest while awaiting evacuation.

From Wiki:

As founder and chairman of the anti-tax organization Kentucky Taxpayers United (KTU) since 1994, Paul regularly presents “taxpayers’ friend” awards to state legislators. KTU, which regards itself as nonpartisan, but ideological and conservative,[18][19] examines legislator records on taxation and spending to inform voters where their own lawmakers stand on the issues.

Just another run-of-the-mill richtard who never learned to share as a child.

Heh. I was going to say angry and ignorant, but I’m feeling generous this morning.

Man, i’m just so frustrated about that race you know. Why does a backward piece of garbage state like kentucky get to slime the rest of us across the country by putting him in the senate? The senate must be abolished!!!

We should all boycott the state of kentucky.

Where will I get my corn-cob pipes?

It’s a common theme for these tea partiers; I’ve seen them up close saying Obamacare = Hitler. It’s never the militarism or racism that’s the bad thing about Hitler, though. It’s always the social safety net Hitler inherited from Bismarck and later German Socialists.

I think that for these people the lamebrained analogy is an oblique, not even conscious way of minimizing what Hitler did.

…not to mention mint juleps.

He didn’t graduate from BAYLOR but he received a doctorate of medicine (MD) from Duke University. I’m sorry but you can’t become a doctorate of anything and be so confused about history. I call bullsh*t. He’s either playing down to the masses or both Baylor and Duke need to take a serious look at their programs.

Real issue is that that the Reaganomics of infinite tax cuts, massive deficits and debt are what is causing devaluation of US currency. If Paul were a real Libertarian, he would have to advocate for PAYING THE TAB FOR REAGANOMICS, a tax increase of $14T over next 10 years.

It’s not government spending, it’s not paying for it with realistic taxes, that cause the problem.

Mr. Paul needs to explain how he would pay for current budget since that is the same budget Congress will pass next year.

He can then tell us his fantasies about cutting government spending. Cutting military spending from $1T to $500B? Is he going to campaign on that in KY?

Lots of T-partiers attended good public schools back in the day when the US public education system was the envy of the world & high quality. Many also have college degrees from reputible universities, plus grad degrees.

That doesn’t preclude them from being delusional, from living in a fact-free fantasy world based on rightwing hyper fear mongering on steriods, where fiction is drummed out as absolute truth and where facts have a liberal bias.

T-partiers often have good cause to be very angry, indeed. Sadly the stupid junk that riles them up constitutes shiny objects of distraction from what’s really going on. Rand Paul is part of the problem; the Oligarchs love him for being yet another shiny object of distraction.

And he’s nuts.

If you think he’s nuts, what the hell do you call this?

Aren’t those also made in missouri?

“OMG we’ve got so much debt, we’re like Weimar!” is a common glibertarian meme.

But Paul is just seriously confused about a lot of things.

From 2006 – 2009 I worked closely with one physician who was very much right wing. He got into the whole climate change denial and revisionist history thing. I don’t doubt that these days he carries teabags around like the rest of those clowns. When he used to say stupid sh*t, I was the only one who would call him out. When he was denying evolution once in the break room, I pointed out that he’s a an of science and a physician and therefore KNOWS better than that. He got this smug little smirk on his face and walked away. After that he rarely held forth with that kind of rhetoric near me.

His twin?

I know what you mean about o’donnell man, but she has absolutely no chance against coons. Rancid Paul is far more dangerous because he has a much better chance to win.

Well I guess I should have said that Teabaggers are angry, ignorant and easily manipulated.

Until I see detailed demographic information on the masses of the movement (not the leadership–they are the manipulators), I will continue to believe that they are less educated than the average person.

Agreed, he’s confused about a whole lot of things but my question remains: how can anybody who is so confused and so deluded earn an MD? At some point he was exposed to reality and at least superficially accepted it or he never would have graduated.

My question is how did he get into med school if he hadn’t graduated from college. That fascinates me.

It might have something to do with the fact that Ron Paul also graduated from Duke Medical University….

Apparently, Duke Medical still accepted candidates without bachelor’s degrees back then. They changed the policy shortly after.

You need to read this. Mike Castle is a living legend in Delaware, but somehow he was defeated by a psycho. Delaware has a voting system that is completely unverifiable. I’m willing to bet the ranch that O’Donnell wins in November.

It’s just as ludicrous as glenn beck calling nazi germany “progressive” because they had universal health care, or how beck called Woodrow Wilson a “progressive pioneer” for signing in the federal reserve act. HOW IN THE WORLD can anybody take these bozos seriously?

A very good question. My “take” is that many of them – in their younger days – were not so weirdly deluded. Let’s face it: the really out-there completely nutty wackitude has been growing for decades but wasn’t as frackin’ delusional until after Obama was elected.

IMO, a lot of this crazed delusional crap is racism on steriods pumped out more recently by the rightwing corporate media machine. We didn’t really see this Hitler crap until Nov 2008.

My rightwing family members used to be very knowledgeable but their mental capacities continue to shrink, and their reasoning ability is down to zero lately. But it’s been gradual, since the inception of Buchanon’s 700 Club in the 1970s and other Doug Coe C Street “Family” shenanigans.

Most of it comes thru the churches.

Something tells me that there is a building, library or laboratory funded by and dedicated to Ron Paul at Duke.

Reportedly, he does eye surgery. Would you let him put a knife to you?

IMO, a lot of this crazed delusional crap is racism on steriods pumped out more recently by the rightwing corporate media machine. We didn’t really see this Hitler crap until Nov 2008.

Exactly what I was going to say until I got to your second paragraph!

Umm, Mr. Paul. You should wipe your chin. There is a dribble of sh%* on it.
Just more terror from the NeoCons. GOPterra!

Sh*t no!

Heh.

If you listen to RushGlenn constantly – as some members of my family do – it is called: brainwashing.

I note that when some family members unplug themselves from that sh*t, they truly return to a semblence of something more like sanity where rational conversations become possible once again.

It’s more than a little scary to witness it up close & personal.

Margaret, I sincerely feel that the problem is just that the Conservative party has warped so far that people don’t understand. This is not the old conservative party from the 50′s or 60′s. It is a major hate fueled power grab.

My own dad became a fire breathing conservative before he died. He was always conservative but he was more of the moderate kind who thought William F Buckley jr was a hero for saving the party from the John Birch Society. It makes me wonder if he was still alive today would he now revile Buckley for doing that? Would he even recognize that the Birchers then and the teabaggers of today are the same kind of people?

Now that is downright frightening! How can republicans pull off vote chicanery in such a true blue democratic state? Where is the state Democratic machine on this? They better be out in force in november to make sure coons doesn’t get castled!

I thought this country had put in place some sort of law that would keep broadcasts from scare mode. The Orwell piece caused such a panic when folks thought it was real.

I’m hip. It’s the John Birch Society redux. It’s just where today’s bigots are.

A lot of these people sleepwalk their way through college, treating it as a glorified vo-tech: They learn only what they want to learn, and remember the rest only long enough to get them through the final exams.

In addition, there are a lot of places that aren’t accredited, like Regent in Arlington, VA (the fancy diploma mill/right-wing madrassa from which various young conservative legal minds have sprung). These are the places where names like Stiglitz and Krugman and Keynes are uttered as curse words, and the Mises Institute is worshipped.

This is not the old conservative party from the 50’s or 60’s. It is a major hate fueled power grab.

Quite agree. It almost makes the days of McCarthy & the John Birch society look reasonable.

But the Koch brothers are shoveling loads of $$$$ into this crap, and their daddy was a big funder of the Birchers. I don’t know for sure, but it wouldn’t surprise me if Randy Paul gets $$$ from the Kochs (or one of their foundations).

Besides Doug Coe, I think the Koch brothers are the epitome of evil and a real blight on our nation.

My dad used to defend listening to Limbaugh by saying “he’s just a clown” but that never explained why my MENSA member father would then quote what the “clown” said as gospel,

“This guy’s supposed to be smart?”

Compared to the average teabagger this guy is brilliant.

His pop was a doctor and a politician, and he has followed his daddy. To me, Rand Paul comes across as a dangerous nincompoop – dangerous because he just doesn’t measure up to his dad, but he still wants to play in the big leagues. Whether I like or dislike his dad, I can still acknowledge that Ron Paul actually stood for something. Rand Paul is petty and is just trying to bring in the easy bucks, like any good child of a politician would do.

Did the ace “journalist” for GQ point out that Hitler wasn’t elected but appointed by Hindenburg, similar to GWB being appointed by the SCOTUS. What is called journalism in the U.S. is nothing more than stenography.

I think there’s something to that. And the longer you’re out of school, the more detail you forget, followed by the extreme campaign of disinformation carried on for the last 30 years. Constant repetition of big lies, and people start to believe it, at least superficially. Sometimes, if there’s someone to push back enough and lead the disinformed person through the reasoning steps, it’ll dawn on them that they’ve come to believe something without thinking it through.

But usually, nobody calls them on it, they keep hearing/reading/seeing the disinformation, and eventually find themselves saying things like “no taxation! Hands off my Medicare!:

The Tea Party Coloring Book (h/t Maddow) has a page claiming that the original Boston Tea Party was to protest taxation, and resulted in (paraphrase) ending taxation!
No, it wasn’t – it was about taxation without representation! Somehow, they have literally forgotten that part. Mention it, and thhey’ll be brought up short…briefly.

or compared to the brilliant journalists he’s a veritable Einstein.

Agreed. Ron Paul is a way out there for my taste socially but I admired his guts standing up against Bush’s wars, (now Obama’s wars). I imagine that didn’t sit well with DeLay or any other Republican leader of the time.

My dad wasn’t quite so rightwing, but he was a huge Reagan & Reaganomics fan. Of course he did well on the markets back in the day following Buffet’s advice (which no longer applies these days).

My dad started listening to Rush and started getting more irrational, angry and nutty. Interestingly, there was point in his descent into Alzheimers where he was still fairly lucid, but could no longer “follow” Rush on radio or the fear-mongers on Fox. In that brief period, when he unplugged from the corporate-owned rightwing media – during the mid-years of W’s Admin – he got really upset by how Bush was running the country and questioned the tax cuts, etc.

Interesting…. once he got off the brainwashing machine, he actually returned to some form of sanity even as he descended into Alzheimers. You do your own analysis of that, my friend.

Yeah , but that’s still not saying much!

The democratic machine is busy thinking up ways to depress progressive turnout.

The original “Tea Party” was as much about the monopoly granted by the Crown to a global corporation, but then “that’s the rest of the story.”

My dad thought he as “funny” too, although he could never explain to me why it was so “ok” for Rush to be abundantly rude and call people names – things that I had been raised not to do. Couldn’t explain that cosmic disconnect. But see my response @51 for what happened to my dad after he stopped listening to Rush: it was an eye-opener (and what I long suspected).

There is nothing the will be able to do about it. In the South Carolina Senate primary this year Vic Rawl, the Democratic House Majority Whip who campaigned heavily, was defeated by an unknown who did not campaign at all. Rawl had no recourse because there was nothing to check.

Hey a little off topic here, but I’m wondering if any Lakers are heading to DC?
I’m heading down by bus tonight.

Evil they are! The only way to slow that monster down is to stop feeding it. Several of us have been discussing this for years now. We’ve thought of every way possible to slow or contain the misinfo but the only way we can see is to keep the dollars from going there.

Any prediction on turnout?

A lot of these people sleepwalk their way through college, treating it as a glorified vo-tech: They learn only what they want to learn, and remember the rest only long enough to get them through the final exams

Bingo! All of us probably pulled all-nighters occasionally to get through an exam in a course we weren’t very interested in – then forgot it all after the exam was over.
And way too many medical doctors concentrate so much in sciences they scoot through with very little “liberal arts” or “humanities” on their schedule…only as much as required. They aren’t really interested, so it apparently doesn’t sink in. Doctors can no longer be treated as necessarily “educated” in the old-fashioned sense, outside of their discipline. I remember some pre-meds I knew in college – narrow folks, many pretty conservative, not to say self-absorbed, even then.

They definitely are! Some are there now and still posting here.

Your story shows just how much influence Rush and his ilk could have on people. Some folks just eat this stuff up and become more and more miserable.

But usually, nobody calls them on it, they keep hearing/reading/seeing the disinformation, and eventually find themselves saying things like “no taxation! Hands off my Medicare!

Exactly. Karl Rove, Dick Cheney, Lee Atwater, etc, cleverly set it all up the media was so irrefutably liberal, that if anyone even tried to “call them” on their made-up delusions, lies and fantasy, they could fall back on the notion that teh eeevul LIEbruls was jest lyin’ ‘n stuff.

I was out of the country from the late 70s to the mid-80s, and I was really freaked out by the brainwashing that had occured, esp with my family ranting at me – back then – about the “evil liberal media.” It’s only gotten harder to have any kind of a conversation with them because everything is so d*mn loaded. They almost cannot *tolerate* hearing another point of view – it really freaks them out.

yeah thats a great point. its because they are trying to shut down a conversation, not to engage in a conversation. in their simple world view, “Hitler” is a conversation stopper. But they arent alone. AIPAC does the same thing all the time.

I can’t explain it. My dad, even as a lifelong Republican vigorously opposed Reagan. But by the 1990s, Reagan was the best president ever. I too questioned his hypocrisy between the things that Rush said and my dad repeated and the attitudes of the man who raised me. All he would do would be to deny it and when I offered examples, he’d get really angry and refuse to discuss such things with me anymore. I miss my dad but I don’t miss the man he turned into in the last five years of his life or so.

Again, I say there has to be a law on the books somewhere to keep media from spouting falsehoods that scare millions of people.

no not that I’ve seen we had to get extra buses for our group though that and a bigger parking lot to keep our cars.
1000 more people than they expected

It really is frightening. I witness the “fox delusion” in my parents also. And for them, it did come through their church at first. But after years of tabloid conservative propaganda in the guise of religion, they are now inured by the tabloid conservative propaganda in the guise of TV news. The allure of tabloid television is not new – it just wasn’t used as a political tool so much until Fox News came along.

then forgot it all after the exam was over.

Wow! Really? Not me. I remember it all or at least the salient parts of it. On the other hand, I rarely took any courses “for the credit”.

I know what you mean man by being brainwashed, it’s just that when someone like beck can get away with blatant bull like Woodrow Wilson is a progressive pioneer when it’s a documented official historic fact that repuglican big business fully championed creating the federal reserve, that to me is like saying 2+2=17 and people just lap it up. What has happened to American History in our schools?

I’m telling you, imo, it’s brainwashing. Nothing else. My family seems like zombies to me sometimes, and I’m not trying to be mean or disrespectful or condescening. I have real concern about them and their mental health. One of my siblings really has serious problems, and I attribute most of it to her steady diet of RushGlenn 24/7/365.

Humans simply canNOT listen to that much insane ranting and hatred and negativity without it impairing you and causing some serious damage. It’s is toxic and unhealthy.

yeah its this process they go through every day of having all their fear and prejudice forcefully validated, and reinforced instead of questioned.

Yeah. What really burns me up is that when any “liberal” so much as hinted, during the Bush years, at some similarity of certain legislation (Patriot act, “unitary executive”, corporate-favoring legislation) to actual, historical fascist policies, let alone the name “Hitler,” and all the right-wing media went on a freak-out for days, forcing the MSM to follow along with their own “tsk-tsk” about “extreme” liberal name-calling.

And now – suddenl, once a black man was elected – it’s all-Hitler all-the-time.

It’s like a drug. They have to have it, even when they see and recognize what it’s doing to them. They have to have that fix. There are endorphins released into the brain when you feel like you’re part of a community, like you belong. This is ironically very clear evidence for biological and sociological evolution.

I’ll be wearing my Just Say Now shirt.
So if anyone sees, me say hello!

I hear you!! I had similar experiences with my mother more than my dad. My dad was a always a *bit* more reasonable than the rest of my rightwing family, but he definitely exhibited a lot of dysfunction after his brainwashing and indoctrination by Rush.

I think he was able to think clearly these days (he’s pretty out of it now), he would be freaking out by how bad a state this country is in. Yet he would find it difficult to grasp that he & everyone is being totally betrayed by those they view as their rightwing “saviors.”

Most of the time, I’m not that sad that my dad is out of it mentally. It’s actually “easier” for him this way, and that’s a really sad commentary on the state of this nation, imo.

Will Do! I plan to say hi to lots of folks I chat with.

It IS definitely an addiction. It’s also necessary to continue reinforcing what amounts to fiction. Their world-view is based on lies and fantasies that often have little to do with facts and reality. How does one cope with THAT?? You pretty have to go “insane” to keep it up, imo.

I agree.
I went to a customers house and the lady had FNC playing on a tee vee in every room and I mean every room.

Brainwashed you bet !!

And wasn’t the original Tea Party about the fact that taxes on British East India Company tea was TOO LOW — making local beverages unable to compete?

Onitgoes, you are right – it is brainwashing. And it’s ppurposeful. Rush can call himself an “entertainer,” but he knows what he’s doing. They are all on the same page, picking up the memes and focussing for days at a time.
The effect on your dad of stopping it is interesting. My mother used to listen to somebody, local I think, who was Limbaugh-like, and spout similar stuff. Where she lives now, radio reception is terrible, so she doesn’t anymore. On the other hand, she’s deluged by direct-mail propaganda, which I’ve described here before. I keep it away from her when I am there, picking up the mail, but that leaves 48-50 weeks where she gets it and reads it. It has to have an effect.
But, since my dad died, she really wants to get along with me, so she doesn’t bring up this s**t. We just avoid politics altogether, and watch baseball every night on tv, if possible.

And just a steady diet of hate-fear, hate-fear, hate-fear, hate-fear, scary, scary, scary, be afraid, be afraid, be afraid….

It’s unhealthy, and it serves no purpose other than to make them easy to manipulate. and all for nefarious purposes.

I suspect that a LOT of the T-party raging anger is rooted in the fact that somewhere deep inside them they KNOW they’re being manipulated, but it’s waaaaaay to scary and painful to admit that your “gods” are made of tin.

Hey now that would be cool wouldn’t it?

I can’t wait to get there, I’m leaving by bus at 11 pm for a 9 or 10 hour ride hoping to sleep on the bus some

Poppy Bush paid Rush and got him set up to radio the Rush show. You need know not much else.

Some of my family members live like that: Fox, RushGlenn: they’re on constantly. And of course, on the radio when they’re driving. Nothing else. It’s frightening.

I don’t even watch tv all that much, nor do I listen much to the radio. I frankly don’t know how anyone can cope with that without going at least a “little crazy.” It’s way dysfunctional and way out of balance.

Doctors can no longer be treated as necessarily “educated” in the old-fashioned sense, outside of their discipline.

No doubt about it. I’ve met a few of them in my day and the majority are card-carrying Repugs – everything from Reagan-style to Palin-is-a-Brainiac. Climate change deniers, tax cut bullshit, cut government services (even as they are happy to cash the Medicare payments of their patients), too much foreign aid, but blow up them damned Arabs…The Works.

Just fucking…wow.

Yeah: there ya go. Poppy Bush was Mr. CIA, so no doubt, Bush Sr knew a thing or 2 about mind control. Not joking, either. this is all very deliberate.

And now – suddenl, once a black man was elected – it’s all-Hitler all-the-time.

Yep…this time without the accompanying media finger wagging and tongue clicking.

Where’s Elvis and his .38 when you really need him?

“And now – suddenly, once a black man was elected – it’s all-Hitler all-the-time.”

exactly. its like they’ve been using “liberal” all these decades when what they really meant was “black man” and the election of a Black man sent them over the top. They arent even going to discuss anything. Its all hitler hitler hitler, like that means “shut up the discussion is over. im gonna kill you if you come any closer”. its all about fear. and the fear is rooted in thier own growing economic marginalization and they vote for candidates who only make it worse. never mind that last line. we voted for those candidates too. apparently all candidates at this time are about grinding the working class and poor down.

That’s terrific. Were you majoring in something you really enjoyed, or that would lead to a career you were truly interested in?
I’m afraid I had a lot of malaise in my middle college years, resulting in my skating a few classes, and dropping out in junior year to get married.

Just as much because I had no earthly idea what I wanted to or could do; was just raised to believe I “had to go to college.” It wasn’t an option in my family or school, I was going, whether I knew why or not.
I’m old enough to have been right on the cusp of the women’s movement; raised to be wife and mother, so no guiding toward earning a living, or even making plans for my future, because my future would depend on my husband’s choices.
That left me confused and vague; discovering feminism changed my life, but I still never really had one focus. It’s been a problem all my life.

Remedy for Fox News.

I believe that while the judicial caste is attempting to take away an average citizen’s voice, the legislative and executive castes are trying to make the average citizen give up his/her voice.

On the other hand, she’s deluged by direct-mail propaganda, which I’ve described here before.

Yes, we’ve talked about that (you & me) here. My mom recently passed away (it’s ok; she lived a long, fruitful life), but in her later years she was deluged by a tsunami of rightwing propoganda direct-mail begging her for money. In her last few years, she probably donated a couple grand total to various rightwing shyster organizations.

That generation is very susceptible to that kind of scary-scary crap. The irony is that a lot of those emails were about “saving her Soc Sec” from the “booga booga scary people,” but in the end, they’re all trying to rip off Soc Sec from Seniors (and others) like my mom.

It’s dispicable. My mom stopped listening to Rush and became a much nicer person to me. It made her last years with me a lot nicer, I can tell you.

The same can happen when watching MSNBC all day.
The same message repeated 24/7 pretty soon that’s all you’re thinking.
Do your family a favor, cut the cable wire or something, just get them away from the noise machine

Good analyis; quite agree.

I was. I always wanted to be an astronomer until I figured out that I would never be good enough at math. Ten years later and I could have squeaked by with access to a scientific calculator. Oh well, design graphics was fun too!

LOL……………….. took a minute though

how can anybody who is so confused and so deluded earn an MD? At some point he was exposed to reality and at least superficially accepted it or he never would have graduated.

Well, MDs are people too, and even with all that schooling, a lot that is factual and scientific and reality-based can easily get assigned to psychologically-manageable categories of the mind like What I Need to Know for the Test/To Get My Degree, and can easily be trumped by one’s emotions, biases, or harsh pre-existing worldview. Upbringing and environment are mighty important, and people in the rational, reality-based world generally tend to overestimate reason and underestimate the importance of emotion.

MDs can not only be intellectually but morally deficient. As with the many reported instances of US/western-trained doctors engaging in highly unethical medical experiments on unsuspecting human subjects (see today’s news story re US doctors from the 1940s using Guatemalan prisoners for medical research on std’s).

Someone like Rand Paul, MD, doesn’t surprise with his warped political pov and shaky understanding of history. The medical schools may not crank out the cranks in huge numbers, but they can’t entirely prevent some from getting through and staying wacko. Instead of lamenting this, our side should be putting more of our own reality-based experts in positions to wield power. Not enough Dem MDs out there, imo, running for higher office. (Or the Deepak Chopra highly spiritual alternative medicine types, either.)

Watching or listening to anything 24/7 is unhealthy. That’s why I watch tv seldom and don’t listen to the radio much either.

I don’t know that much about MSNBC except for RM & KO, and I only watch them sparingly. I avoid Tweety at all costs, and I’d rather drive a spike through my eye than watch Lawrence O’Donnell.

Here and there, I watch some of the “news” shows on PBS. They’re much more rightwing than they used to be, but at least most of the shows are presented in a more, uh, adult?? fashion – less of this “in your face” style and an attempt (at least) at being sort of intelligent and thoughtful. Easier to take.

The irony is that a lot of those emails were about “saving her Soc Sec” from the “booga booga scary people

Yeah, exactly. Those were the ones I first opened. This last trip I considered trying to explain to her what was wrong with the claims in the letters, but given that Obama had just appointed the Cat Food Commission, I gave the idea up.
Those are the only ones she’s ever given money to (I helped with her checkbook while she recovered from surgery), and only very small amounts that she can afford. I hate it, but probably not worth opening the can of worms.

And now – gaaaa – look at the time! Even we unemployed-obsessively-job-hunting folks have a few things that must be done during working hours, so I’d better get off the intertoobz and get moving.

Lovely having a community with whom to talk sensibly!

apparently all candidates at this time are about grinding the working class and poor down.

True, but at least some of us recognizing that, and not clinging to tin gods. It’s a start, I guess.

Authorization to turn off Fox News. Thankyouverymuch.

I gotta run, too. Good discussion here today folks.

Thinking about you, Margaret; I know it’s very stressful without a job and I cross my fingers for you every day.

Toodles all. Enjoy the rest of the day.

Don’t let the bastards grind ya down!

it really seems that way to me too. sometimes i think its just as simple as the profit motive. we are f-ing up their money just by existing. we cause existential problems to their pursuit of endless profit. That would be the structural analysis, capitalism is the problem and its structural. it cant be reformed, of fixed or saved. unfortunately most Americans arent even willing to THINK about that and what it means

Ah…the calculator! Might have made a difference in my science courses, too. I liked the science, couldn’t cope with the math.

And when I think of the time devoted to pencil and paper calculations by my first husband while in grad school in organic chemistry – reams and reams of it, spread all over the couch and the floor as he worked.
Expensive calculators first appeared in his last year of grad school – I remember we gazed at them in awe, behind the glass at the MIT Coop…out of our reach.
A few years later, he gave me my first one for Christmas, and showed me how to use it. *g* It was very helpful; otoh, glad I learned my multiplication tables, I can do basic arithmetic in my head, and tell when the calculator’s acting funny.

aagh, really gotta go!

This guy’s supposed to be smart?

He’s a physician. After working with docs for over 35 years one thing I can tell you is that 95% of them are abysmally uninformed about almost anything not directly related to medicine. Sad, but true.

Hey BillyB how goes it back there in Taxachusetts? You getting wet the last few days?

Basic math I can deal with. Geometry and trigonometry I enjoy. Algebra and calculus though… Fuggetaboutit!

Poured to beat the band this AM!
Rains moving out now though but boy did it rain!

Hey, I’m heading to DC tonight gonna march!

I want to see some pictures Billy be sure and share!!
Have a great trip and I do wish I could make it… It would be fun to be there, I haven’t been in DC since the 80′s..

David Dayen has a fresh cross-post available: Two Years Later, President Calls for Fast Confirmation of Federal Judges

Thanks nahant.

Ps the camera was the first thing I thought of

Great! I got me a Nikon D5000 in April because we had a mating pair of Cooper’s Hawks Check out some of the Pictures I was lucky enough to get. It was quite a show as they fledged their chicks and feed them small birds they would catch for them.
Good luck and be safe driving down to DC Billy.

A lazy, complicit, corrupt media and a dumbed down electorate. It’s easy.

Not to quibble with Blue Texan, but. . . .yes, Hitler was appointed Chancellor by President Hindenberg. But all Chancellors were appointed by the President if no party had a majority. The previous Chancellor was appointed when his party only had 11.3% of the Parliament. In 1933 the National Socialists were the largest party with 34% of the seats and Hitler was the logical candidate to lead a coalition government.

OT but thinking of Hitler and unscrupulous physicians……..I guess you all have heard the latest and almost most outrageous atrocities committed by the US government medical people on the helpless in Guatamala. in the 1940s

Words fail me.

This guy’s supposed to be smart?

No, and it’s pathetic that anyone would assume he is. I don’t care who handed him a degree; the instant he opens his mouth on any topic, all you can hear is another ignorant racist yahoo, dog-whistling his supporters.

Rand Paul’s point is:
Hyperinflation led to the collapse of the German economy, which allowed a psychopath like Hitler come to power. And in Paul’s reckoning, it can happen here.

You are focusing on the trees not the forest.

Uh, if I got lots of basic facts wrong while making a bogus historical analogy, I too would probably say, “meh, details.”

And again, it wasn’t hyperinflation — it was the Great Depression, it was rampant unemployment, it was the Treaty of Versailles, it was the fact that Weimar’s social democracy replaced a constitutional monarchy and didn’t have sufficient legitimacy with the German people to overcome a whole host of crises, it was the fact of backroom deals and clever maneuvering by the Nazis, it was that Bismark, who won the election, was senile when he appointed Hitler, etc., etc., etc.

Therefore, this statement: “the collapse of the German economy allowed a psychopath like Hitler come [sic] to power” is absurdly reductionist.

The United States’ economy and Great Britain’s economy and France’s economy and most of the world’s economies also collapsed, and yet, there was only one Hitler.

Rand nuts so moving on …the true neo-cons are always thinking ahead: run up a debt Reagan, Bush-2 and then demand the democrats balance the budget. Reagan supply side w/ a side of rich tax cuts and bush-2 2 wars, tax cuts and unpaid for medicare part-D. Sen. Moynihan said this in 1981 and it stands to be true -pay attention. It’s the only way to get the Deems to cut SS. Medicare and Medicaid- the third rails- by themselves.

I notice this phenomenon too.

When folks are scared, they will let almost any idea, no matter how irrational, find purchase in their head if it provides a comfortable answer for their anxiety.

It’s the Two Minutes Hate. It’ll get you every time.

it was that Bismark, who won the election, was senile when he appointed Hitler

Errm, I think you mean Hindenburg? Bismarck died 1898.

But you’re of course right. there are a lot of factors besides the economic situation which contributed to the nazi takeover of the government.
The SA street terror, the Preußenschlag, and so on.

Yep, typo. I have this above:

Finally, Hitler wasn’t even “elected” or “voted in” — he was appointed Chancellor by a senile Hindenburg in 1933.

How did he get into med school? Or didn’t he? I cheerfully confess I don’t always dig into the personal histories of loonies with a center of attention jones.

Now, c’mon, of course you can. Most of what I took in college has flown my coop at this point. The better point is contained in this article http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/joe_conason/2010/06/14/rand. Rand is a liar and he’s practicing a medical specialty illegitimately. Not, I’m sorry to say, illegally because board certs are not usually a legal requirement. I don’t know if board certs are ever a legal requirement, now that I mention it, anywhere. Witness the botox boutiques.

I don’t think you can use the title of the specialty if you haven’t done the residency. But you can do the work.