After his utterly humiliating immigration policy leadership flame-out, FL Senator Marco Rubio is getting a “second look” as the GOP’s Great Brown Hope, according to MSNBC.
On Monday, the son of Cuban immigrants* delivered an impassioned polemic against communism from the Senate floor, lighting into his Democratic colleague Tom Harkin for praising the Castro government’s national health care system after a recent visit.
[snip]Rush Limbaugh, who has been a major critic of Rubio’s immigration position, called it the best speech on communism “since the days of Reagan.”
For an encore, Rubio could create an economic stimulus plan centered around a re-launch of the Commodore 64, Walkman and Betamax. If this is the best those bastards can come up with, I like our chances in 2016 even more, be it with Hillary Clinton or the proverbial yella dog.
Also — open thread.
* No longer peddling the “exile” adjective. Heh.
Linda Featheringill
” re-launch of the Commodore 64″
Heh.
ETA: By the way, Kiddies, the Commodore was crappy even by the standards of that time. Yuck!
Mark S.
Rubio/Mr. T ’16
max
After his utterly humiliating immigration policy leadership flame-out, FL Senator Marco Rubio is getting a “second look” as the GOP’s Great Brown Hope, according to MSNBC.
I read this as bandwagonners floating a trial balloon to find a Not-Chris Christie bandwagon that is still viable. They need a new ‘centrist’ candidate that they think will perform the optimal ‘centrist’ con job. Because they look at Jeb!/Cruz/Huckleberry/Rand (the polling leaders) the way you look at three-week old lettuce in the fridge.
Given the polling on Rubio, the response to the trial balloon would be a big 10-NO.
max
[‘I’m waiting to see if they go further back in the closet and start floating Guilani trial balloons.’]
cleek
communism?
way to stay current, Ruby.
but, i suppose the oldies still get the core GOP off the couch.
@Linda Featheringill:
the C64 beat the pants off of its rivals, when it came to sounds and graphics, and price.
max
@max: Because they look at Jeb!/Cruz/Huckleberry/Rand (the polling leaders) the way you look at three-week old lettuce in the fridge.
‘three-week old lettuce’ is a moderated phrase?
max
[‘Damn. Tough crowd.’]
schrodinger's cat
Betty Cracker @top
I has a review of Downton Abbey’s next to last episode.
schrodinger's cat
Why is Marco Rubio considered not white? He looks lighter skinned than many Italian-Americans I know. Also too, Cuban immigrants are their own special category, no one else gets a EAD (employment authorization document) and eventually a green card immediately after they set foot on the American soil. So they are not representative of the immigrant experience at all.
chopper
@Mark S.:
lol. instead of ‘my brother’s keeper’, Mr. T will offer up ‘treat your mother right‘.
mak
Red Menace!
C.V. Danes
Seriously, are we really worried at this point in time about the spread of communism, comrade? Seems to me, the Republicans might have more to fear from the spread of democracy.
NonyNony
@Linda Featheringill:
Why, why, why would you want to start a religious war?
While we’re playing classic hits, why not throw out that vi drools, emacs rules? And that Debian Linux is clearly superior to NetBSD?
schrodinger's cat
Another aside on immigration. Boehner will take it up after the primary season according an immigration lawyer’s blog I frequently read. Immigration stalemate helps with GOP base but not the general electorate. If he is right, this fall should be fun.
beltane
When will the embargo be lifted? I’ve been hearing the wonders of Cuba extolled by so many Europeans and Canadians that I am dying to see the place for myself.
cleek
@schrodinger’s cat:
for purposes of electoral demagoguery, Latin-American isn’t white. they’re still those people. totally different race. maybe even a different species. they might have three stomachs or something.
catclub
@schrodinger’s cat: “So they are not representative of the immigrant experience at all. ”
Cubans post Castro takeover – yes. Marco Rubio’s family, who came in 1954 fleeing Baptista ( since he was an ally of Castro)?
I have no idea. Betty Cracker pointed out the exile versus immigrant problem for Rubio.
catclub
@beltane: “so many Europeans and Canadians that I am dying to see the place for myself. ”
Book a flight from Montreal and see for yourself.
schrodinger's cat
@catclub: I don’t know either.
Bort
Marco “The Son of Cuban Immigrants” Rubio is going to ride that anti-communist wave to victory! Viva la wingnut!
schrodinger's cat
@cleek: Ted Cruz is pastier than a chalk.
gogol's wife
@schrodinger’s cat:
I left you a comment.
MrSnrub
Lots of good news / frustrating news here:
Good: I start my new job on Monday
Frustrating: French-toast-ageddon snow storm on Monday.
Good: wife is done with radioactive iodine treatment for thyroid cancer (and is done with treatment overall) and can come home today.
Frustrating: her car won’t start, she’s waiting for AAA.
As cancer goes, thyroid is the “good” cancer to have: excellent prognosis in general, relatively benign treatment regimen. We have 3 friends who all have much more severe forms of cancer, and all of our health karma goes out to them. Fuck Cancer.
beltane
@Bort: This will probably play well with the Republican base, most of whom checked out of the real world some time in the early 1960s.
dmsilev
@NonyNony:
Macs suck! Amigas rule!
NotMax
*cough* China *cough*
Tokyokie
@cleek: I went to high school with a couple of girls who were the children of immigrants from Spain. And as such, they qualified for scholarships targeted at Hispanic-surnamed students. I don’t think the groups offering such financial aid realized that well-heeled European kids fit their criteria.
jonas
@schrodinger’s cat: This is precisely why the GOP is fooling itself by thinking that putting people like Rubio or Ted Cruz out front is going to appeal to the broad swath of Latino voters: there’s a lot of resentment out there against the Cubans, many of whom, as far as their immigration experience goes, were born on third and act like they hit a home run. A lot of the older generation of Cubans were essentially the rich landowners and businessmen who fled the revolution and don’t elicit much sympathy from other Latinos who came here trying to get *away* from the poverty and lack of opportunity caused by rich landowners controlling all the wealth in places like Honduras or the Dominican Republic.
cleek
@schrodinger’s cat:
sure, but Cruz.
if he changed his name to Cross, Cruise or Croix, he’d be allowed in the white man’s bathroom. alas for him.
Mark S.
@chopper:
Wow
schrodinger's cat
@MrSnrub: Even “good” cancers are not so good actually. I have dealt with NHL as a caregiver and there was nothing good about either the treatment or the side-effects. I interpret good to mean that your odds of survival are better than 50%
maya
Rubio’s next act – “Mr Jinping, tear down your wall.”
schrodinger's cat
@gogol’s wife: Thanks, for the long thoughtful comment. I responded to your comment. BTW did you see the photo of Isis and Tom?
marduk
@cleek: “the C64 beat the pants off of its rivals, when it came to sounds and graphics, and price.”
My a@@ it did. Atari 800/800XL p0wned that piece of crap.
Frankensteinbeck
The ‘stuck in the eighties’ phenomenon with so many conservatives is eerie. The rest are stuck in an imaginary fifties. The national journalist class particularly shows ‘stuck in the eighties’ syndrome. They really flaunted that during the 2012 election.
Seanly
@MrSnrub:
Definitely fuck cancer. I’m glad to hear your wife is doing well. My wife is starting the second part of her first 6 week cycle (of 4) for Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia. She’s also positive for the Philadelphia chromosome so they need to give extra chemo that can penetrate the blood/brain barrier and protect her CNS from the leukemia infiltrating that.
And this is her second cancer treatment. Her first was Stage 1 Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma which was a cake walk compared to this.
If the first 6 months put her into remission then she will need a blood stem cell transfusion (previously bone marrow). Chance of finding a match is about 50% for Caucasians and drops for under-represented ethnic groups. Wife is part Cuban. I urge everyone to sign up at bethematch.org, not just for my wife, but for all the people out there suffering through lymphoma, leukemia and other blood disorders that need your blood stem cells. Registration is free for people 18-44.
We’re trying to take things one day at a time. Otherwise we wouldn’t have all this strength that everyone keeps admiring us for. I can’t even look at the survivability stats as I’m pretty sure that my wife doesn’t have a good chance to make it to 50 years old.
Another Botsplainer
Meh, Harkin should have just stood up on the Senate floor and flipped the bird at this asshole.
Mandalay
@catclub:
Do you think that US Immigration would have no idea that you had visited to Cuba when you returned?
beltane
@Tokyokie: It is absurd that the children of immigrants from a relatively well-off country like Spain are eligible for scholarships that are unavailable to the children of immigrants from poverty-stricken Albania, but Americans are awful with nuance when it comes to furriners. Despite being a 4th generation American on my mother’s side, in high school I was required to take an annual English proficiency test on account of my last name ending with a vowel.
schrodinger's cat
@Seanly: Good luck and hang in there.
beltane
@Mandalay: Yeah, the last thing I want to deal with coming home is an interrogation session with Homeland Security. It doesn’t happen to everyone but it does happen and I really don’t want it happening to me.
libarbarian
Jan Brewer’s Veto shows need for expanded Stand Your Ground laws.
It’s a sad day. Jan Brewer retreated. The State of Arizona retreated. Although many states have wisely abolished the supposed “duty to retreat” from violent predators and passed SYG laws, the week’s events in Arizona show that, in the realm of public policy, America is still burdened by duty to retreat when attacked by the liberal media and it’s homosexual masters.
That is why I am contacting ALEC and proposing new model legislation that merge the pure awesomeness of Stand Your Ground with the libertocity of Religious Freedom … and it will let you Stand Your Religious Ground. It eliminates this shameful duty to retreat from attacks by homos and the liberal media and allows good, honest, citizens the right to respond to attacks on their religious freedom with force, including deadly force if necessary.
Now, the liberal media will doubtlessly lie and tell you that this law makes for some kind of “open season” on gays/liberals and allows business owners to immediately open fire the moment some homo, or Rachel Maddow, steps foot into his/her establishment. This is, of course, complete nonsense. Business owners would not be allowed to shoot at Gays and/or Maddow unless and until they perceive an direct threat to their Religious Liberty. So, no one will shoot at you just for walking into their establishment. However, it might be a good idea to leave immediately if asked and probably refrain from mentioning anything about “suits” or “lawyers” or any other words that the proprietor might interpret as a threat to attack his liberty in or out of court.
Who among you brave patriots will support this needed law?
Punchy
Has anyone heard about this plan to allow guns on campuses in Idaho? Seems like it’s likely to happen.
Since the sight of just one gun nowadays almost always shuts down a campus and forces students to “shelter in place” (is there another type of sheltering?), I cant wait to see just how many false alarms….per day….this new policy will elicit. Especially when the blahs on the basketball team all start carrying.
Amazing.
Betty Cracker
@Seanly: Best of luck to you and the wife. Fuck cancer with a rust pitchfork.
Mandalay
For those deluded souls here who continue to insist that they are more afraid of the commercial world than the government when they go on line…
Thank God this could never happen here.
SatanicPanic
@jonas: No kidding. The GOP might consider for a moment why they’re popular with Cubans and no other Latinos and work it out from there. But they won’t.
flukebucket
@beltane:
I had a friend tell me it was the most disgusting shit hole she had ever seen. Worse even than Haiti. And that was just about 2 months ago.
The closest I have ever been was sailing around it on one of the cruise ships and it looked gorgeous through a pair of binoculars :-)
Betty Cracker
@schrodinger’s cat: I saw the photo, and all I can say is squeeeee! Why neither Edith nor Mary have thrown themselves at that adorable grief-stricken Irishman is beyond my comprehension. He’s a thousand times more attractive than those bloodless toffs their parents keep tossing into their paths.
Bokonon
Just bread and circuses for the rubes. And proof of the contempt with which the GOP views its own base.
Betty Cracker
@flukebucket: A cousin of mine was able to visit some years back on a research visa. She said there are shithole parts, to be sure, but that the people were wonderful and there’s still a lot of beauty to be seen and fun to be had. Plus, you’ll never see a finer collection of 1950s American cars.
libarbarian
But seriously ….
After having amused myself for a few seconds ….
it might be fun to craft a Wingnut Superbill that would combine all the favorite Wingnut legislation into one amazingly tasty Casserole.
Stand Your Ground to Protect The Border against attacks on the Religious Freedom of Unborn Persons?
schrodinger's cat
@Betty Cracker: Isis has good taste!
libarbarian
@beltane:
How much do you know about those people? Cuba is one of those countries that is just loved by sex tourists seeking impoverished underage girls.
J R in WV
I am proud to be a Yellow Dog Democrat!
I will vote for the Yellow Dog before I vote for a Republican!
But what do we do if the Yellow Dog is on the Republican ticket?
Vote for the Democrat, dummy!!!
SO – That’s what we’ll do. This inspirational educational message brought to you by the coffee I can smell!
WereBear
@Linda Featheringill: Hey, I wrote my first book on the Commodore 64!
It was a huge leap forward from the VIC 20, which loaded from cassette tape. Back in the dark ages, children!
MrSnrub
@schrodinger’s cat:
Her odds are set to better than 95%. The last scan showed no uptake of radiation in any suspect site (which would be remaining thyroid cells absorbing the radioactive iodine).
Thyroid cancer is relatively non-aggressive, and for those who can’t be cured, it can be managed very effectively.
@SeanlySorry to hear it. Health karma to you and your wife as well.
MrSnrub
double post. Gah.
Tokyokie
@beltane: Well, if it’s any consolation, they qualified for “Hispanic-surnamed” scholarships but not ones directed toward “Chicanos” or something more specific. But even back then, I thought the “Hispanic-surnamed” criterion was weird. Would a lot of Filipinos qualify? How about somebody who legally changed his last name from “Smith” to “Gonzalez?” That’s the problem with drawing the criteria as wide as possible (and they still wouldn’t have covered Brazilians).
chopper
@marduk:
what was really awesome about the 800 was that you needed a cartridge just for the OS, and another one if you wanted to run BASIC. what a smart move that shit was.
Cervantes
Yes, McCarthy’s speeches were better.
chopper
@Seanly:
hang in there, dogg. and fuck cancer right in the fucking ear.
schrodinger's cat
@Betty Cracker: I didn’t really answer your question in the last comment, so here goes.
Handsome Irish man has no title, that’s the problem. Did you see how Mary’s eyes lit up when she found out about Blake’s inheritance in the last episode.
Jerzy Russian
@schrodinger’s cat:
That is because he is Canadian.
Bex
@Betty Cracker: Absolutely! The resulting dilemma of who’s going to convert to whose church would be an interesting storyline.
feebog
Someone should ask Senator Rubio if he thinks the Berlin wall should come down.
Frankensteinbeck
@Mandalay:
Well, no. It’s legal there. It’s illegal here. Britain’s surveillance laws are fucked up if that’s legal, but it is. This isn’t an abuse of power situation, it’s a ‘What the fuck is wrong with your surveillance laws, Britain?!’ situation.
Betty Cracker
@schrodinger’s cat: Yeah, and if I were Blake, that would have been reason enough to tell her to go pound sand. I’ve read that Mr. Fellowes is a conservative who has great sympathy for plight of the landed gentry. He’s either a mole or he’s doing it wrong.
schrodinger's cat
@Betty Cracker: He is a toff himself, think of him as a bald Lady Mary.
JoyfulA
@Mandalay: My very respectable bil has been to Cuba twice.
Ben Cisco
@WereBear:
Which we rewound by hand. Using pencils. That we made ourselves.
FROM STICKS!
JoyfulA
@Punchy: I can’t believe Idaho is just now thinking about guns on campus. In Pennsylvania, our state-owned universities have each been tasked with developing a statement on where and when guns are allowed on campus. It’s just one more reason for Gov. Corbett’s popularity.
When I went to college, a lot more young men were hunters and I’d guess a lot more “ordinary” people had guns, but the concept of guns on campus would have been unthinkable.
cleek
@WereBear:
my C64 loaded from tape!
i had to save many allowances before i got my first floppy drive.
(and how thrilling it was when i learned that the floppy drive itself was a computer that i could run programs on!)
Paul in KY
@MrSnrub: Glad to hear about the good things! Best wishes for wife.
JCT
@Seanly: Strong thoughts your way, I’m a fellow spouse of a leukemia patient and it’s been a rough ride. Avoid those survival stats – they don’t apply to individuals. My husband was 47 when he was diagnosed with a “not so bad leukemia” – until the markers came back and his survival prediction plummeted to 5 years. That was a bad day.
We just passed that mark and though he has now in an accelerating relapse phase he got into a new clinical trial last week – we have just decided to never give up hope. And we try to live in and enjoy the present -every single day.
Hang in there and best wishes to both of you.
JT
Paul in KY
@Ben Cisco: And we liked it!
RSR
hahaha, someone in the last day or so posted (here or at Atrios’ digs) some GOP’er long for the days of the Cold War, when men were men, and communists were communists, and mutually assured destruction was best game of chicken evah.
In the same vein of ‘if the GOP ever won their abortion battle, with what would they rally the troops?’ I wonder if Cuba isn’t still communist so as to give them something about which to pound their fists and stamp their feet.
Villago Delenda Est
@cleek:
Modren Kid: WTF is a floppy drive?
Mandalay
@JoyfulA:
Was he challenged when he returned? Did he go as a tourist? I’d like to go independently myself, but really don’t want to face a load of crap when I return.
WereBear
@Seanly: Nothing to say except to wish you and your wife the best luck possible.
Suffern ACE
@max: I saw a CNN segment of a poll where Jeb! is now the leader. Do we really need a weekly poll of Republican candidates? Frankly, I think the parties should pay for their own polling and leave the rest of us alone until December 2015.
WaterGirl
@MrSnrub: Great news on the job situation! I had been wondering about you. So is job the result of interview #1 or interview #2? Or #3, I guess, though I kind of wondered if you would skip the #3 interview.
So glad your wife is done with treatment and gets to come home, too. A new chapter for you guys, probably in about a dozen ways. So happy for you both, lets go with some easy times for awhile.
WaterGirl
deleted, as MrSnrub answered schrodinger’s cat’s question himself.
Jay C
@Mandalay:
A late friend of mine was Cuban-American, and had gone there several times to see what family still lived there; supposedly Cuban officials will not stamp passports of visiting Americans (who often come in via the Bahamas) to spare them hassles on re-entry. I suppose if you go to Cuba, and don’t try to come back with your bags stuffed with cigar boxes, the chances of “interrogation” are no more than normal….
teiresias
@Linda Featheringill: Don’t. You. Dare. The C64 was the ultimate 8-bit hacker machine — arcade cabinet sound and graphics, completely and totally unbrickable. The only current computer I can think of that comes close to it is the Raspberry Pi, which is approximately as powerful as a cheap smartphone, and you still have to put an OS on an SD card for that.
chopper
@teiresias:
now the PET, on the other hand…
David Koch
@Mandalay: you have to go transfer in Mexico. Lawrence O’Donnell did a good primer on how to travel to cuba without hassle. Scroll down to the “rewrite” segment.
Steve Crickmore
@Mandalay: I flew last year , in April, from Domincan Republic via Panma Air Copa to Cuba and back and never had my paspport stamped either..and I’m Canadian.. I wrote about my trip on my Facebook timeline so i will just insert as is, since others are curious about Cuba as I was Just back from an
extraordinary week in La Habana..a little like Alice in Wonderland’, it is very bizzarre..but recommended. An airport painted in red, women walking around with large cigars out of their months, ten cent movie houses where everyone talks in the movie house to one another before the film goes up, no billboards, live music everywhere, overflowing discoteques, street baseball on practically every other corner, convertible taxis from the fities with large swaths of downtown neigbourhoods with almost no cars, lots of european tourists but few Americans except those on ‘humanitarian’ reasons, very little internet and the Disney cartoon channel on televison was ubiquitous and in large city safer at 4:00 am than Toronto, because if you carry so much as a pocket knife, a prison term could await you.
Steve Crickmore
@Mandalay: I flew last year , in April, from Domincan Republic via Panama Air Copa to Cuba and back, and never had my paspport stamped either..and I’m Canadian.. I wrote about my trip on my Facebook timeline so i will just insert as is, since others are curious about Cuba as I was
Just back from an extraordinary week in La Habana..a little like ´Alice in Wonderland’, it is very bizzarre..but recommended. An airport painted in red, women walking around with large cigars out of their months, ten cent movie houses where everyone talks in the movie house to one another before the film goes up, no billboards, live music everywhere, overflowing discoteques, street baseball on practically every other corner, convertible taxis from the fities with large swaths of downtown neigbourhoods with almost no cars, lots of european tourists but few Americans except those on ‘humanitarian’ reasons, very little internet and the Disney cartoon channel on televison was ubiquitous and in large city safer at 4:00 am than Toronto, because if you carry so much as a pocket knife, a prison term could await you.
mclaren
The good news: Hillary Clinton is at this point a shoo-in for the presidency in 2016.
The bad news: Hillary Clinton is at this point a shoo-in for the presidency in 2016.
Prepare yourself for more endless unwinnable foreign wars under Hillary, more tax cuts for billionaire bank fraud criminals and even fewer prosecutions of Wall Street crime lords (ever since Hillary made that $400,000 speech explaining that “we need to stop bashing the bankers” who wrecked the world economy with their scams in 2008) and yet more police state surveillance and Stasi-style militarization of America.
Of course it’s just a coincidence that Chelsea clinton is married to a Goldman Sachs hedge fund trader and that
Chelsea Clinton to buy $10.5 million apartment on Madison Square Park: Chelsea Clinton and her husband, Marc Mezvinsky, are in contract to buy a four-bedroom, 5,000-square-foot apartment in The Whitman, on the north end of Madison Square Park.
The corruption of the Clintons continues apace. The American people can get ready for epochal new scams and nepotism and insider trades when Hillary becomes president in 2016.
Mnemosyne
@mclaren:
That’s what everyone was saying at this point in the presidential campaign cycle in 2006.
Just thought I’d point that out.
Cervantes
@mclaren:
Marc Mezvinsky is the son of two former members of Congress. In 1992, his mother, Marjorie, won a seat that had been Republican for 76 out of the previous 76 years. Despite winning it by a margin of less than 0.5%, she cast in 1993 and 1994 a number of very unpopular votes to support Bill Clinton (and his 1993 budget, in particular, for which she had to cast the deciding vote). Her Republican constituents were livid. She lost the seat in 1994.
In ’93 and ’94, and especially after her loss in ’94, she and her family became close to Bill, Hillary, and Chelsea Clinton. That was long before her son grew up and went to work on Wall Street.
Incidentally, she’s running again this year. If I could I’d vote for her, as many times as possible.
mclaren
@Mnemosyne:
Under most circumstances that would be a good point. We’re in a situation now, though, where
A) The Republican party has gone so insane that even mainstream pundits are starting to realize it and talk about it;
B) The current Republican presidential front-runners (Paul Ryan and Ted Cruz) were either destroyed utterly in the last presidential campaign, or disgraced themselves with that lunatic debt ceiling stunt;
C) There isn’t anyone else on the horizon among the Republican presidential hopefuls with even a marginal amount of credibility, since the party has cast out everyone sane;
D) …So the only issue at this point seems to be whether other Democrats will be able to challenge Hillary for the presidential nomination. She has enormous name recognition and immense funding, but, as you point out, it’s possible someone else might challenge Hillary. Elizabeth Warren gets mentioned, but she has no major funding backers as far as anyone knows and she appears to lack insider beltway connections compared to Hillary. Wendy Davis looks like she’s in trouble in her race, so she’s probably out as a Democratic presidential candidate. Russ Feingold and Alan Grayson are both Jewish, which puts them out of the running in this racist religiously fanatical fundamentalist Christian country.
Is there anyone else with the funding and name recognition of Hillary in the Democratic party?
I can’t think of anyone. Barney Frank would be a great choice but of course he’s gay and therefore once again out of consideration. Joe Biden (aside from being a Republican-lite cryptofascist who has publicly announced that “we need a D-Day in the War On Drugs” and “Snowden is a hi-tech terrorist” and “the Patriot Act, that’s my bill!”) is now older than Reagan was when he ran back in 1980, and that probably makes Biden too old for a viable presidential bid (thankfully).
Anyone else in the Democratic party?
2016 isn’t likely to be the kind of open primary we got back in 1976 or 1992 because the Democratic party isn’t in disarray right now the way it was at the end of the 1970s, and the Republicans are so completely discredited and so utterly bereft of sanity and credible ideas for public policy that if Democrats ran a dead dog in 2016, it would win over Paul Ryan or Ted Cruz. To give you an idea of just how nuts the Republicans have gotten: Rand Paul, a major figure with big name recognition in the Republican party, gave a speech not that long ago talking about eugenics.
I mean…seriously?
Eugenics?
This is going to win mainstream voters over in 2016…?
With this kind of stuff being spouted by the major players in the Republican party as of 2014, it’s hard to see how the Democratic front-runner could lose in 2016.
…But I suppose anything is possible. Time will tell.
mclaren
Source: “What does this remind you of?” Edinburgh News, 24 July 2013.
As I predicted, Barack Obama’s public proclamation of a reduction in the War on Drugs has been followed by a quiet yet ferociously savage escalation in the War on Drugs. Obama is a point guard. He fakes left and moves right.
mclaren
@Cervantes:
This has got to be one of the most peculiar defenses of nepotism and corrupt cronyism ever penned.
Why should anyone care whether Marc Mezvinsky is the son of former congressmen? Why does it make any difference to the fact that after her daughter married a superwealthy hedge fund banker, Hillary Clinton gave a speech at the investment bank Goldman Sachs explaining that ” the banker-bashing so popular within both political parties was unproductive and indeed foolish”?
You might as well try to defend the Bush administration’s funneling of Iraq war reconstruction contracts to the Halliburton corporation by saying that Dick Cheney grew up as a close friend of the family of the Halliburton CEO.
Cervantes
@mclaren:
Oh, dear. You’re usually a better reader than that.
I was responding, as you can see above, to one, and only one, of your several statements, namely:
It was not “just a coincidence.” They have known each other since before he worked on Wall Street.
As for the rest of your response:
1. You don’t have to care about this fact, but it helps explain how Marc M. and Chelsea C. got to know each other long ago; they met as teen-agers in 1996. Is it possible you found something offensive about their relationship in part because you did not comprehend this fact? I am guessing the answer is yes.
2. Who says it makes any difference? I did not. If you’re searching for someone to take issue with your comments re Hillary Clinton, you’ll have to keep looking; I am not doing so here.
Don’t play the fool. It does not become you.