Rand Paul Bullshits Howard University Audience that Understands the History of US Civil Rights Much Better than He Does

Rand Paul Bullshitting at Howard U.
Image via Opposing Views.

Yesterday, the Great Steve Benen had the obligatory take down of Rand Paul, who gets my vote as Best New GOP Bullshitter.

The Republican senator told his Howard audience, "I've never wavered in my support for civil rights or the Civil Rights Act." He added, "I've never been against the Civil Rights Act, ever."

Steve says it's a lie, and he has the video to prove it. But to be more accurate, Paul doesn't care what's true or not. He's merely trying to convey a certain impression to whomever he's speaking at the time. In this case, at a traditionally black University, Paul doesn't want his audience to think that he ever thought that the Civil Rights Act should not have been passed. So, he just bullshits about it--says whatever he thinks makes him look best in that situation. Steve has the actual facts:

As a candidate for the U.S. Senate in 2010, Paul told the Louisville Courier-Journal he opposed the Civil Rights Act's ban on discrimination on the basis of race in "places of public accommodation" such as privately owned businesses that are open to the public. He said the same thing on NPR. 

When Paul appeared on "The Rachel Maddow Show," Rachel asked, as part of a discussion of the Civil Rights Act, "Do you think that a private business has the right to say we don't serve black people?" Paul replied, "Yes." 

It was consistent with his approach to federal civil rights law dating back to at least 2002. 

Now, in fairness, I should note that Paul, as a candidate in 2010, eventually reversed course and said the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was necessary and he would have voted for it. 

But notice again what he said at Howard: he's "never wavered" in his support for the Civil Rights Act and he's "never been against the Civil Rights Act, ever."

Rand Paul on the Rachel Maddow Show

Since what he said up until 2010 was anti-Civil Rights Act, I think he's bullshitting when he says he would have voted for it. But who knows? Maybe he really did change his mind. That's one of the biggest problems with being a bullshitter. No one can ever be sure what you really think.

Today Steve gets into the meat of Paul diving into one of my favorite wingnut latrine holes: that the Democrats are the racists. Like most Republicans who bring this up, Paul wants to stop history in 1964, when LBJ signed the Civil Rights Act that Paul opposed until it was inconvenient to do so. As anyone who wants to read about it knows, LBJ famously said that the Democrats would lose the south for a long time because of that. He was right. The racists in the Democratic party, known as the Dixiecrats, switched parties to vote for the slingers of a new style of Bullshit--The Southern Strategy.

Here's Steve summing it up nicely, because I've done it here before, and I'm sick of doing it:

The Democratic Party, in the first half of the 20th century, was home to two broad, competing constituencies -- southern whites with abhorrent views on race, and white progressives and African Americans in the north, who sought to advance the cause of civil rights. The party struggled with this conflict for years, before ultimately siding with an inclusive, liberal agenda. 

As the party shifted, the Democratic mainstream embraced its new role. Republicans, meanwhile, also changed. In the wake of Democratic President Lyndon Johnson signing the Civil Rights Act, the Republican Party welcomed the white supremacists who no longer felt comfortable in the Democratic Party. Indeed, in 1964, Republican presidential nominee Barry Goldwater boasted of his opposition to the Civil Rights Act, and made it part of his platform. 

It was right around this time when figures like Jesse Helms and Strom Thurmond made the transition -- leaving the progressive, diverse, tolerant Democratic Party for the GOP. 

In the years that followed, Democrats embraced their role as the party of inclusion and civil rights. Republicans, meanwhile, became the party of the "Southern Strategy," opposition to affirmative action, campaigns based on race-baiting, vote-caging, discriminatory voter-ID laws, and politicians like Helms and Thurmond. (A Republican congressman from Texas named Ron Paul also criticized Abraham Lincoln for waging the Civil War, while also opposing the Civil Rights Act.)

Ronald Reagan campaigning in Philadelphia MS.
Image credit.

Who knows if Rand Paul knows all this or not? Maybe he was stoned during his 20th Century American History Class. Maybe he didn't have to study history to become a self-accredited opthamologist. Maybe someone from Kentucky can get elected to the US Senate without knowing the history of the Civil Rights movement. But one sure as hell can't bullshit a Howard University audience on the subject, and the fact that he would even try tells me that he really doesn't give a damn about the truth, or black people, or anything else, really, except saying whatever he needs to say in order to become President.

And with that fact in mind, I'm really happy that this bullshitting wingnut apparently doesn't know how to shut up.

Rand Paul Gets It Partly Right, Jeb Bush Adds a Footnote

Sen. Rand Paul and Bong, image from Salon.com 

Senator Rand Paul (just saying that gives me the giggles) told keep-the-wingnuts-talking champion Chris Wallace that the last two Presidents could have gone to jail for drugs (odd that he didn't mention his own past drug use). While I appreciate the Wingnut Party Senator for his correct conclusion that the drug war is a bad thing, I would like to point out that he should keep talking about this because it's an important subject, and because he apparently has no freaking clue about why people get arrested for drugs.

When George W Bush¹ was snorting coke, drinking whiskey, breaking SEC regulations, and God-knows-what-all, his Daddy was head of the CIA, Vice President of the United States, and, eventually, President, although W had supposedly become a cold-turkey dry drunk by the time he was a President's son. The odds of George W Bush being arrested for anything are so small that not even a penny bet to win $9.99 at Intrade would even get close to approximating them. Obama, on the other hand was approximately 12 times more likely to go to jail for drugs than a white man.

...although Whites and African Americans use and sell drugs at about the same rates, Black men in 2003 were almost 12 times as likely to go to prison as White men. Although Black people are 12 percent of the population and 14 percent of drug users, according to Mauer and Cole, they comprise 34 percent of those arrested for drug offenses and 45 percent of those incarcerated in state prisons for such offenses.

1. Jeb Bush provided some context on GW's state of mind Friday, talking to Jake Tapper on CNN.

JEB BUSH: He is like the most focused, disciplined guy to imagine being a former president and not having an opinion on anything over the last four years, really? I mean, to have that discipline, to be respectful of the president that hasn't been as respectful of him as he should have been? Man. I could have never done that.

Either GW's smarter then Jeb and realizes he should keep his fool mouth shut after lying us into a $6 trillion dollar unpaid-for war and crashing the world economy with a recession bigger than the last 4 combined, or he's on some serious meds, the abuse of which is fast becoming the biggest addiction problem in America (20% of all Americans have used a prescription drug for non-medical reasons), and prescription drug abuse is predominantly a white suburban problem. Since we don't police the white suburbs like we do the black inner cities, we don't see as many arrests of prescription drug crimes as we do for other illicit drugs more popular in those inner cities. And, since rich white suburbs in the Dallas area probably have very little police presence (of the kind looking for drug abusers, at least), then GW Bush could be tripping on Oxycontin all day and never get busted for it. Come to think of it, that might help explain why W is painting puppies and scenes of his guilty mind reflected in a shower mirror, instead of talking to the press every time he gets a buzz on, like Jeb apparently does.

Rand Paul is Not Casting Aspersions on Murderer President Who is Gay and Believes in Slavery

Rand Paul, who said the President was acting like a King during his filibuster today:

I’m not casting any aspersions on the President. I’m not saying he is a bad person at all...

Later in the hour:

The President’s response to the killing of al-Awlaki’s son, he [the President’s spokesman] said he should have chosen more responsible father.

No, Gibbs didn't say that. He said:

I would suggest that you should have a far more responsible father if they are truly concerned about the well being of their children. I don't think becoming an al Qaeda jihadist terrorist is the best way to go about doing your business.

See, Rand, that's a bit different, isn't it? It's about the father being more responsible, not who the kid "chose" as his father.

Rand Paul last May:

“Call me cynical, but I wasn’t sure his views on marriage could get any gayer,” Paul said. “It did kind of bother me though that he used the justification for in a Biblical reference. He said, ‘A Biblical goal caused him to be for gay marriage.’ And I’m like, what version of the Bible is he reading?”

Rand Paul in May of 2011:

With regard to the idea of whether you have a right to health care, you have realize what that implies. It’s not an abstraction. I’m a physician. That means you have a right to come to my house and conscript me. It means you believe in slavery. 

The President wants to cover more people with health insurance instead of, cough, enslaving ER Doctors who cannot say no to a patient (see the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act, signed by Ronald Reagain in 1986), and Rand Paul calls that slavery. But he's not casting any aspersions on the President. He's not saying he's a bad person. Just a murdering tyrant who says kids should pick better parents if they don't want to be murdered by a President who just might be gay and isn't reading from the same Bible as he is.

OK, then. Please proceed, wingnut.

Rand Paul Takes the KTW Challenge!

From Chasing Glenn Beck, a conservative's site!

When I started this little blog last week, I had no idea that the King Wingnut himself would take my advice and keep talking, and talking...

The point isn't that anyone in this country is Hitler...

Good that he got the Godwin's Law thing out of the way right off the bat. Also, remember, this is from a man who would force rape victims to give birth to their rapists' babies, because small government! Or Liberty! Or something.

Preppers beware! The black helicopters drones are coming for you!

If you're going to kill people in America, you need to have rules and we need to know what those rules are. ... I don't want to find out that having seven days worth of food in your house is on the list.

We have over a month's worth of food in our house. Should we be worried?

Anyone have any links to Rand Paul bitching about constitutional rights trampled by King GW Bush, or did his concern over these matters suddenly start in 2009?

I would be here if there was a Republican president doing this.

Paul says he would have voted against the Iraq war. Unfortunately, I can't find any quotes from him standing up against the war at the time, so excuse me if I don't believe him.

Luckily, the guy has a long history of saying ignorant shit, so the odds are good that he'll be keeping me busy here.

Just because a couple people on the Supreme Court declare something to be ‘constitutional’ does not make it so. The whole thing remains unconstitutional. While the court may have erroneously come to the conclusion that the law is allowable, it certainly does nothing to make this mandate or government takeover of our health care right.

Of course, Senator Franklin nails the wingnut, who apparently doesn't have a clue what it means to save more money later by spending some money now.

 SEN. RAND PAUL: Um, I appreciate the great and very, um, I think collegial discussion, And we do have different opinions, you know, some of us believe more in the ability of government to cure problems, and some of us believe more in the ability of private charity to cure these problems. I guess what I still find curious is though that if we are saving money with the 2 billion dollars we spend, perhaps we should give you 20 billion. Is there a limit? Where would we get to? How much money should we give you in order to save money so if we spend federal money to save money, where is the limit? I think we could reach a point of absurdity. Thank you. 

SEN. AL FRANKEN: I think you just did...