INTERESTING TIMES

He has kicked off quite the furor after beating the mainstream Republican in the Kentucky primary. The media is all over him, calling him nuts. The girls at my school were completely positive that he is a Racist. I wonder if they even know why they think he is a racist. The web is calling him racist because he doesn't agree with part of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Well I haven't studied the law, but I am positive that if I did I would find something about it that I don't agree with either. Does that make me a racist? We have a new definition of racist!! Are there not more ways to abolish racism than this one law? Is political correctness always so simple minded? I'd love to see a reasonable intellectual discussion of the issues before the witch hunt begins. His position is incomprehensible from the liberal groupthink mindset, hence he must be insane.
( Rant. )

She's running for congress. I met her today. I was downtown with a friend to go shoe shopping, and stopped by the festival in Heritage Square. It a marijuana legalization event and it was was fairly dead. ( She was trying to get my vote. )

She was born in Russia and immigrated to the US in 1905 at the age of 21. She wrote a bunch of interesting books in her time. I discovered Ayn Rand when I was in college in the 1980's. I read a pile of her books, and passed them on to my friends. The Fountainhead was the first that I read, followed by Atlas Shrugged and then plodding on through a few more before I burned out. In these novels she began to develop Objectivism, her very own philosophy. She became quite famous later in life and was associated with Alan Greenspan and a host of other intellectuals.
( more about Rand, Objectivism, and a little current events )

My favorite repeat presidential candidate was in the news yesterday. A group of conservatives in Washington DC had a straw poll and decided that they will support Dr Paul if he will run again. We sure could use his pragmatism and economic smarts about now. He is so much saner than most of his supporters. But now it appears that the Conservative Political Action Conference participants may well be seeing clearly past the idiocy that is the remnants of the Republican party.

Paul was preferred by 31% of voters in the Conservative Political Action Conference's presidential preference straw poll yesterday, one of the strongest wins in CPAC history. Sarah Palin, who skipped the group's conference, came in a distant third with 7% of the vote... I don't know if you heard about how Ms Palin tried to hitch her little red wagon onto the Tea Party in Nashville and didn't get pulled along as much as she would have liked....and the Tea Party protests were originally the idea of some Ron Paul supporters. The Tea Party turned into a "party" when everyone who was disenfranchised with Obama for any reason (including racism) joined in...but a crowd like that will never come up with a reasonable platform.

Back to the news: Mitt Romney, after topping CPAC's poll for the past three years, came in second, with 22% of the 2400 votes cast. So the Mormon is losing some ground but he's still up there. He's one to watch.

I knew he'd be hard at work. I had no idea he had such an elegant solution worked out! My favorite clear thinker Congressman Ron Paul has introduced several pieces of legislation in Congress to bring true change to health care. Imagine the impact if congress were to stop legislating as if they worked for big business, and begin legislating as if they actually had the health and best interests of private citizens at heart. The result would be something like what Ron Paul proposes.

H.R. 2629, the Coercion is Not Health Care Act
The intent of this bill is to stop government from railroading us into a scheme that requires us to buy health insurance, or makes the purchase of insurance a precondition for any government benefit or program.

H.R. 1495, the Comprehensive Health Care Reform Act of 2009
Allows us to pay health care bills as we choose. Provides a tax credit for all Americans for 100% of healthcare expenses (refundable against both income and payroll taxes). This bill also lets us roll over unused money in cafeteria plans and Flexible Savings Accounts (FSA), gives tax credits for premiums on high deductible insurance policies connected with Health Savings Accounts (HSA), lets seniors use their HSA moneys to cover the donuthole in medicare coverage, and repeals the 7.5% threshhold for the deduction of medical expenses, making ALL medical expenses tax deductible. This would lighten the burden on regular people, allowing us to seek care when we really need care.
( Several more bills worth supporting )

Nice, simple explanation here of what has happened with the federal reserve, banks, and the bailout. Spitzer gets it. This is why I still give Obama an F on the economy.

I was disappointed to watch Rachel Maddow's Thursday and Friday night shows. Most of what she has to say is astute and witty, a voice of productive discourse. But her report on the upcoming Tax Day Tea Party demonstrations missed the mark. She was having great fun with the fact that "tea bagging" means putting your testicles in someone's mouth. I suppose it could be indicative of the straightness/cultural cluelessness of certain Republicans that they didn't choose to name their event something else. Or perhaps they just never thought someone would make a big dirty joke out of "tea bagging" when it is so beside the point.

Rachel initially portrayed the Republican tea baggers as racist ignoramuses who could not tell you where Obama was born and suspected he wasn't actually the president because he was foreign. She correctly links the tea bag events to Ron Paul. Unfortunately she mocked those who desire to dissolve the Federal Reserve. She clearly had no clue, and I was saddened. We need discussion on this issue, not mockery. There is no doubt that the Republican party is fractured to its core. But there are still good ideas out there.

Does she not grasp what has happened with the banking system in this country, and on this planet? Does she not understand how much the revision of this system would mean for the future of humanity? I guess not. It's not easy to understand. I am only barely beginning to grasp it myself. And I sorely want Rachel Maddow to educate herself about it because she is a person who could really help educate the public.