Thigh rubbers dig deeper into the lady parts

You can almost feel the burn of this stupid.  It is astonishing how obsessed a "self-described libertarian" can be with women's contraception and how astonishingly ignorant about the basics of...um...insurance.

Matt Damon schools glibertarian reporter and her "shitty" cameraman

via Gawker

Updated to fix link

Libertarians discuss history and morality

Commenters at Hit & Run "discuss" Lincoln's many crimes and the fact that freeing a few slaves in a few states just wasn't worth the 600,000 that the president personally killed by "declaring war."

Smell the liberty!

Via Edroso, of course.

And of course, Lincoln neither started the war (unless you believe that by getting elected he was forcing South Carolina's hand), nor declared it since declaring war would have given legitimacy to the Confederacy as a government.

That libertarian paradise

Please consider this your Roy Edroso quote of the day:

I've always assumed these people were raised in Skinner boxes, but I'm beginning to think they never got out of them.

Markets aren't always "free"

I guess for that mustache-ode fool, a realtor can decide whom to show houses in which neighborhoods. Stossel wouldn't buy a house from that realtor, but the government should tell that private businessman how to sell houses...or where.

What Stossel, who is old enough to know better, but too enamored with his own "principles" to accept, conveniently ignores is that the "market" in 1964 in much of the South wasn't "free." It was institutionalized apartheid. The police enforced it. The government demanded it. Private businesses had to go along whether they wanted to or not. Moreover, all those businesses benefited from public expenditures -- roads, firemen, police, garbage men...

The same is true in terms of housing throughout much of the country. The housing industry -- including those "private businesses" that financed home sales -- enforced red lining.

Fucking libertarian assholes.

Ideas don't matter

At least that's the impression you get from watching media "analysts," not to mention Republicans in Washington, react to Rand Paul's "evolving" opinion of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. And I'm sure the same will be true when they respond to his argument that Obama's criticism of BP's response to the oil spill is "un-American" and that "accidents happen."

But TNC is spot on -- this isn't about rookie media training mistakes. Rand Paul's opinions -- his ideas -- should be discussed, not whether or not he should unleash those opinions in public. Maybe, in pure libertarian heaven, he's thought through his ideas on anti-discrimination laws and an interesting discussion may be undertaken. More likely, though, he's just an ignorant asshole whose idea of "liberty" is freedom from any constraints on...him. A senate candidate that doesn't know the slightest thing about one of the most important federal legislative acts of the past 50 years. That's what the focus should be on. Not on "what was he thinking?" when he agreed to do Maddow's show.

Rand Paul and the Tiger Woods defense

We're going to be spending a lot of time finding a lot to find loathsome in Rand Paul's glibertarianism, but this is a particularly interesting connection he made.

This morning on ‘GMA’ Republican and Tea Party victor in Kentucky’s Senate Primary, Rand Paul spoke with Robin Roberts about his victory. He’s already coming under fire for holding a victory party at a private country club while at the same time claiming to be a man of the people:

ROBIN: Some people find it a bit ironic that your victory party last night was at a private country club in Kentucky. Doesn’t that kind of send a mixed message there?

PAUL: I think at one time people used to think of golf and golf courses and golf clubs as being exclusive. But I think in recent years now you see a lot of people playing golf. I think Tiger Woods has helped to broaden that in the sense that he’s brought golf to a lot of the cities and to city youth, and so no, I don’t think it’s nearly as exclusive as people once considered it to be.

Actually, a Kentucky country club is probably a pretty good representation of the Tea Party demographic, but it's curious that "private country club" and "man of the people" set off "no blacks allowed" whistles in Ayn Rand Paul's fevered brain.

On the one hand, I don't think Paul is anywhere near ready for prime time and I'd like to think his libertarian views will be easy to mock and don't sit well with the culturally conservative but economically populist voters of Kentucky.

But then I recall who's seat he's running to take.

Glibertarian statistics

Meegardle is certain that the central reason we libtards are happy that health care reform legislation has passed is that it makes her unhappy. Amazing how, as with so many of her libertarian friends, it really is all about her.

Also very much the libertarian is the precise ways she uses, um, percentages.

1) Conservatively, Ezra's arithmetic implies a reduction in the death rate of people between 18-64 of at 20,000-45,000 a year. Let's take the low bound--20,000 deaths a year--and assume that we should see that, or something close to it, by 2020. That's about 3% of deaths in the relevant age group, which would show up as a very noticeably kink in the death rate. For comparison purposes, the entire fall in mortality between 1980 and 2000 was about 2.7%.

Contra Ezra, I am predicting that this will not happen. I'm about 75% confident that you will not be able to discern any effect from the health care reform among the statistical noise. But I am 95+% confident that the effect will not be as large as 3%.

The precision is breathtaking, as is the basis on those "predictions." Show your work, if you have any.

Mythical Republicanism

I'd like to see Baucus go as well, but now I remember why I never read Megan McArdle.

I'm sorry, I tried to be all breezy and cynical about this, but it's time for Democrats to tell Max Baucus that it's time for him to resign. Not because he had an affair with an employee, which doesn't bother me as long as it doesn't bother the employee. But nominating your girlfriend for US Attorney, and then withdrawing the nomination when a paper says they're about to break the story, clearly indicates that you know it's unsavory. Say what you want about Republicans, but they have a much better sense than their opponents of when it's time to grab one of their own and throw him off the sled to the wolves running behind.

Curiously, she provides no examples of Republicans grabbing "one of their own and throw him off the sled to the wolves running behind." She can't write nuther.

The free market is good for thee but not for me

They don't have a revenue problem, they have a spending problem.

UPDATE to provide a link.

Spittle flecked and dangerous

The Secret Service is so overwhelmed by threats against the president and his family that the agency may have to stop investigating financial crimes, according to a report in the Boston Globe.

The Southern Poverty Law Center says that antigovernment militias and white supremacist groups have strengthened in recent years, responding to an increasingly diverse population and what they see as an expanding government.

A center study released in August found a nearly 35 percent growth in racially based domestic hate groups since 2000 - from 602 to 926. The center concluded that opposition to Obama’s election has only increased the phenomenon.

“A key difference this time is that the federal government - the entity that almost the entire radical right views as its primary enemy - is headed by a black man,’’ the report said. “One result has been a remarkable rash of domestic terror incidents since the presidential campaign, most of them related to anger over the election of Barack Obama.’’

Threatening language has also found its way into talk radio broadcasts and social networking websites, raising fears that individuals not normally considered threats to the president could be incited to violence.

For example, the Secret Service in recent months has investigated a poll posted on Facebook about whether Obama should be killed. It has interviewed a Florida radio talk show host after a caller mentioned ammunition, target practice, and the president, and federal officials have raised concerns about several instances in which protesters carrying weapons showed up at Obama events, including a man at an August town hall in New Hampshire.

I'm sure Meghan McArdle and other libertarians will find this phenomenon encouraging since now we'll be able to identify whom we need to argue with calmly at presidential appearances.

The OC Register will not be going Gault

Ayn Rand would likely explain that "Freedom Communications" deserves bankruptcy protection on the grounds that the descendants of RC Hoiles remain heroic people, it's the newspaper industry -- with its freedom fencing need for "readers" and "advertisers" -- that is anti-heroic.