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The Best Democracy Money Can Buy

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Nothing to see here:

The Kentucky GOP’s central committee voted Saturday to adopt a presidential caucus system next year, clearing the way Republican Sen. Rand Paul to run for president and reelection at the same time.

Paul, who is in his first term, had pushed Kentucky Republicans to move from a primary to a caucus system as a way to get around a state law forbidding candidates from appearing twice on the same ballot. He has pledged to pick up the tab for holding the caucuses, which could run $500,000 or more.

Only a half a million- a pretty good bargain.

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You’ll Have To Pry These Marriage Licenses Out Of My Cold, Dead Laser Printer

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Meanwhile, the saga of the quixotic enigma that is the Rowan County, Kentucky Clerk’s Office continues.

A federal judge on Wednesday ordered Rowan County Clerk Kim Davis to resume issuing marriage licenses despite her religious objection to same-sex marriage, but Davis quickly filed an appeal and continued her refusal to issue licenses.

Davis will ask Bunning to stay his injunction while she appeals it to the 6th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals, said her attorney, Roger Gannam.

On Thursday morning, Rowan County Deputy Clerk Nathan Davis turned away David Moore and David Ermold, refusing to issue the men a marriage license.

“Kim Davis is resolute in vindicating her rights,” said Gannam, senior litigation counsel at Liberty Counsel, a religious advocacy group. “Fundamentally, we disagree with this order because the government should never be able to compel a person to violate their sincerely held religious beliefs.”

The martyr-splosion that the GOP wants here won’t happen until Davis is fired or otherwise removed from office, and the instant that happens, it’s PERSECUTION OF CHRISTIANS BY GAY LIONS or something, not to mention an immediate headache for AG Jack Conway, who is busy both A) suing the hell out of the EPA to show he’s tough on that Obama fella, and B) trying to actually save the state from Matt Bevin as governor.
Anyhow, something’s got to give here, the county hasn’t issued any marriage licenses since the SCOTUS ruling came down in June, so we’ll see what current Gov. Dinosaur Steve Beshear decides to do about it. I still stand by my prediction that this case is destined for SCOTUS somehow.

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Texas, what a surprise:

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Color me completely unshocked from this report in the LA Times:

When the Affordable Care Act took effect in October 2013, there were 14 states in which more than 1 in 5 adults lacked health insurance; today only Texas remains, according to data released Monday….

Its uninsurance rate fell from 27% in 2013 to just under 21% in the first half of this year, making it the only state that has more than one-fifth of its residents uninsured.

By contrast, in Arkansas and Kentucky, both of which started above 20% uninsured, just 9% of adult residents lack insurance….

In addition to Texas, most of the states with the highest levels of adults lacking insurance are located in the South and interior West in states including Idaho, Montana, Wyoming and Nevada.

So states that did not expand Medicaid and are engaged in massive resistance to assisting people getting subsidized private insurance are sucking goat balls.

They are sociopathic sadists without safewords.

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Late Night Open Thread: Little Prince Rand in His Political Winter

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Dave Weigel and Ben Terris, in the Washington Post, say “‘The most interesting man in politics’ isn’t drawing much interest in New Hampshire“:

… “[It] depends on which polls you look at, you know,” Paul said when asked by the Boston Globe’s James Pindell about his sliding standing in the state. When asked about why he had fallen behind so many of his Republican opponents, Paul dodged.

“We actually have many polls where we actually lead Hillary Clinton,” he said. “So I think actually that some of our polling news is actually pretty good.”…

Last fall, Time magazine dubbed Paul “the most interesting man in politics.” But it has been a year since he led a national poll and months since he led in New Hampshire, a state where his father made strong stands in two presidential campaigns. According to the data firm Crimson Hexagon, roughly a third of all Republican-primary news articles in May were about Paul. In July, it’s been closer to 1 in 10.

Paul entered the presidential race on an unusually robust cloud of hype. When he is swarmed by autograph seekers, he is occasionally asked to sign the Time magazine cover. That cover appeared in October. This summer, the Wall Street Journal has dubbed him “no longer a first-tier candidate”; the Atlantic has politely described him as “struggling.”

The press sees a candidate slipping out of the conversation….

Politico‘s Alex Isenstadt, “Inside Rand Paul’s downward spiral“:

Rand Paul, once seen as a top-tier contender, finds his presidential hopes fading fast as he grapples with deep fundraising and organizational problems that have left his campaign badly hobbled.

Interviews with more than a dozen sources close to the Kentucky senator, all of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity, painted a picture of an underfunded and understaffed campaign beaten down by low morale.

They described an operation that pitted a cerebral chief strategist against an intense campaign manager who once got into a physical altercation with the candidate’s bodyguard. And they portrayed an undisciplined politician who wasn’t willing to do what it took to win — a man who obsessed over trivial matters like flight times, peppered aides with demands for more time off from campaigning and once chose to go on a spring-break jaunt rather than woo a powerful donor…

I think we’ve all known middle managers who drove the entire division crazy by quibbling over every supply request and sending out blast emails about the shameful waste of copier paper. The inherent response of an “executive” who’s reached his Peter Principle level is an obsessive attention to those minutiae he can control…

show full post on front page

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The Lamborghini Of Douchebags

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Robert Tracinski over at The Federalist gives the quintessential Glibertarian Douchebag argument on the edited videos attacking Planned Parenthood: If we frame everything using my “facts” then I win.

Of course, it’s easy to use “context” as an excuse to explain anything away. But it’s also easy to view the Planned Parenthood videos through the perspective of your pre-existing animus and seize on the worst possible interpretation of their words, or focus on the one sentence that justifies your hatred while ignoring those that might undermine your justification.

I have (somewhat ironically) a very Christian attitude about this: do unto others as you would have them do unto you. God forbid anyone should pore through any of my own conversations and read them the way people are reading the Planned Parenthood transcripts. So if someone were to ask me what I’m writing today, and I were to respond, “I don’t know, the Koch Brothers haven’t told me yet” (and I’m not saying this exchange has never occurred), I would hope people would understand it as a joke. But someone who wishes me ill would inevitably come along and seize on this as final proof that I’m in the pocket of Big Oil.

If we want to keep the moral high ground when the left pulls this sort of trick on us—and they will—then we need to make sure we’re being scrupulously fair, even to people we hate.

“Let’s have a fair and reasonable debate over subject X using the criteria of fair and reasonable that I get to define in advance” really is one of the oldest tricks in the book. In fact, it’s the entire shtick of The Federalist in general.

Tracinski says the abortion debate in general and Planned Parenthood debate in particular is getting reduced to “memes” by a cartoonish and juvenile smear attempt by the right, then equates that to Dubya’s “Mission Accomplished” speech on Iraq as somehow an equivalent move by the left.

What I’m afraid of is that this whole Planned Parenthood controversy is becoming memified, i.e., turned into a self-reinforcing meme.

I’m thinking of the way the “Mission Accomplished” banner on the USS Abraham Lincoln was used against George W. Bush.

In context, it wasn’t President Bush’s expression of triumphalism; it was for the sailors and aviators on the aircraft carrier, who had in fact accomplished their mission. But it became a stand-in for a narrative about all the reasons lefties didn’t like Bush. Its original meaning disappeared, and the accuracy of that meaning no longer mattered. It became, not a real idea, but a meme, not an argument but a symbol for a collection of biases.

It’s a ridiculous comparison on its face and yet that’s the plan: define what “fair and reasonable” is through Both Sides Do It legerdemain, and then present your carefully defined argument as the only possible and acceptable course forward for any future discussions.  He’s literally setting up an argument he can’t lose because he’s made the rules.

If that’s not Glibertarian Douchebaggery 101, I don’t know what is.

 

 

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Late Night Horrorshow Open Thread

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Sure, like you could’ve resisted.

Guess Little Prince Rand is missing the attention of his Trump-curious bros. Because, seriously, from the Washington Post:

Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul is working on legislation to allow soldiers to carry guns on military bases, and could introduce it as soon as this week. That could establish him as a leader among conservatives who say last week’s massacre at a Chattanooga, Tennessee recruiting station should change how the military looks at the issue…

Paul’s commitment to gun rights has a stronger pedigree than Trump’s. He is closely tied to the National Association for Gun Rights, a group that positions itself to the right of the NRA.

“I think guns are a great deterrent anyway,” Paul said on Monday. “I’ve also had bills, for a couple of years now, making it easier to arm pilots. “

In the wake of Chattanooga, Paul has also criticized immigration laws, asking whether they are letting anti-American elements into the country. “I’m very concerned about immigration to this country from countries that have hotbeds of jihadism and hotbeds of this Islamism,” he told Breitbart News reporter Matthew Boyle last week. Paul expanded on those comments Monday, recalling how he had wanted “Rubio’s legislation” – i.e., the stillborn 2013 immigration reform bill – to add screening for potential terrorists.

“We wrote a letter to Harry Reid, saying we should slow the bill down, and have a discussion about putting the National Security Entry-Exit Registration System in,” said Paul. “It gave extra scrutiny to countries that had radical elements that were professing a desire to harm Americans or America. I don’t think it has to say one religion or not, but I think you find out that most of the anti-American movements around the country do seem to be coming from predominately Islamic countries.”…

Guess it’s not pandering if he really believes that being scared of the correct “radical elements” is more important than eliminating redundant and worthless government paperwork, right, men?

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Ayn Rand so far away

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What’s the deal with VICE? I’ve read a lot of internets about it, and I’ve learned that it’s worth over a billion dollars, but when I read articles from it, they all sound like dumber, douchier, more bro-tastic versions of stuff from Reason (example). That comparison may be unfair to Reason.

What makes the people who write for it think they’re so cool? I don’t understand it at all. I’ve never seen anything quite like it before. Is there some large cohort of young Ayn Rand-loving VICE-reading idiots who keep the operation afloat or how does it sustain itself?

I ask all of this as someone who understands how the Daily Beast and Free Beacon exist.

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Open Thread: Little Prince Paul Seeks Support From Fellow Free-Thinkers

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Sovereign citizen rebuttal: “Sure, you lie-brals say ‘feudalist’ like that was a bad thing!!!… ”

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Open Thread: Rand Paul Explains How Libertarianism = IGMFU

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The libertarians I’ve known personally hold the view that marriage shouldn’t be a government function at all, but if it must be regulated it should be at the state or even the local level, because freedom. Unfortunately, in our imperfect world, there are so many legal rights & responsibilities tied up in the status of married-v-‘single’ (taxes, inheritance, support, child custody… ) that the best we can probably hope for is further removing the civic licensing of one’s ‘marriage state’ from the myriad religious iterations. Little Prince Rand, forced to step outside his ideological fiefdom to explain his GOP-primary-voter-friendly objections to Obergefell v. Hodges, once again steps on his own…. tongue. As reported by Amanda Marcotte at Slate, “Rand Paul Would Rather End Marriage Than Share It With Gay People“:

While most of the football team’s worth of Republicans running for president have reacted to the Supreme Court’s same-sex marriage decision with straightforward rejections, Rand Paul decided to get cute about it. “Perhaps the time has come to examine whether or not governmental recognition of marriage is a good idea, for either party,” he argues in an editorial in Time. “So now, states such as Alabama are beginning to understand this as they begin to get out of the marriage licensing business altogether. Will others follow?”

Paul suggests that marriage shouldn’t be a standard-issue government contract but instead be treated like a business contract, written from scratch by couples for every new marriage…

Paul’s plan to privatize marriage rather than share it with gay people is reminiscent of how segregationists reacted to Brown v. Board of Education… As my colleague Jamelle Bouie explained recently, the decline of the public pool is also a symptom of this reactionary urge to privatize an institution rather than share it with people who conservatives consider undesirable. That the same logic is being whipped out by Paul is no big surprise. This is a man who famously opposed the Civil Rights Act that made the “privatize instead of share” goal harder to achieve.

But although this strategy has a lengthy conservative pedigree, it’s hard to imagine it really taking off as a way to shut gay people out of marriage. If the government really did stop issuing standard marriage contracts and couples were forced to write their own contracts, all that would do is make marriage a privilege of those who can afford lawyers. … The only thing Paul’s brilliant plan would do is ensure that most Americans, gay or straight, would never legally marry at all…

Don’t try to be cunning, Rand. Only your momma thinks you’re that cute, and she might be having her doubts by now.

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The Super-Genius Shitweasel Strategy (Updated — Open Thread)

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scott_nose

Today’s Supreme Court decision on Obamacare makes the law about as settled as it can be given that congress and most statehouses are run by hairspray-huffing shitweasels who occupy an alternative dimension where “flush billions down the toilet” = “fiscal conservatism.”

Shortly after the Supreme Court decision today, our shitweasel governor here in FL announced that he’s dropping a lawsuit he filed against the Obama administration in an attempt to extract a $2 billion handout via a low-income care program — after declining to expand Medicaid to the 800K Floridians who would qualify under Obamacare.

TALLAHASSEE — Florida Gov. Rick Scott is dropping a lawsuit against the Obama administration after reaching an agreement over federal hospital funds.

State and federal health officials reached an agreement in principle earlier this week to continue funding Florida’s hospital low-income pool for two more years, but at a lower cost. Florida will receive $1 billion this year — about half of what the state had been receiving — and $600 million next year. In a statement Thursday, Scott said his lawsuit was essential to getting the funds extended.

Scott’s lawsuit accused the federal government of tying the funds to whether or not the state expanded Medicaid.

The Obama administration and the Florida Senate wanted to expand Medicaid to roughly 800,000 Floridians. But Scott and Florida House Republicans opposed to taking money tied to so-called Obamacare.

Yes, you read that right: These morons turned down $6 billion or so annually because it has Obamacare cooties but were prepared to go to court to shake the feds down for a relatively paltry $2 billion. As a result of this super-genius bluffing strategy, Scott got $1 billion this year and $600 million next year, and he deems it a victory for fiscal prudence.

As far as I know, Scott hasn’t yet outlined his double-secret negotiating strategy for next time the money dries up, which will be 2017. God willing, President Hillary will send him home pants-less with a $400K mortgage note on Stately Scott Manor. This would all be laughable if people weren’t literally dying because of Scott & Co.’s pigheadedness.

ETA: Open thread for anyone who wants to use it for one. We’ve had a lot of Obamacare threads today. In other news, the AP says Chris Christie is going to announce a run on Tuesday. They’re gonna need a bigger clown car (and no, that’s not a fat joke — there are just so MANY clowns!).

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Open Thread: Failing to Respect the “Norms” of the Internet

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You may threaten random women in cyberspace without fear of retribution. You may even, usually, threaten women celebrities in cyberspace. But it’s a bad idea to threaten women who happen to be Federal attorneys in cyberspace, because the Feds have no sense of humor. Buzzfeed reports:

The Justice Department has issued a federal grand jury subpoena to Reason, a prominent libertarian publication, to unmask the identity of commenters who made alleged threats against a federal judge.

In the June 2 subpoena, first published by the blog Popehat on Monday, the Justice Department orders Reason to provide a federal grand jury with “any and all identifying information” on the identities of commenters who mused about shooting federal judges and/or feeding them through a wood chipper.

A May 31 article on Reason’s blog about the prosecution of Silk Road founder Ross “Dread Pirate Roberts” Ulbricht spurred the anonymous commenters’ vitriol. Ulbricht pleaded for leniency, but a federal judge sentenced Ulbricht to life in prison without parole for setting up the illicit online drug market.

“It’s judges like these that should be taken out back and shot,” one Reason commenter wrote.

“It’s judges like these that will be taken out back and shot,” another responded.

“Why waste ammunition? Wood chippers get the message across clearly,” a third wrote. “Especially if you feed them in feet first.”

Another comment suggested shooting such judges on courthouse steps instead.

Other comments flagged by the Justice Department were less violent, such as one that wished for “a special place in hell reserved for that horrible woman.”

In the subpoena, the Justice Department says it is seeking evidence regarding possible violations of federal laws against interstate threats…

Kimberly Chow, an attorney for the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, said the comments on Reason clearly fall within the internet’s regular, if outrageous and often vile, discourse.

“In terms of the comments, everybody knows the internet is a forum where exaggeration and hyperbole take place,” Chow told BuzzFeed News. “These comments are in that category. Nobody believes that these people are going to go and put this judge in a wood chipper.”…

I just hope the Reasonoids aren’t depending on their old pal Rand Paul to speak up in their favor, because I misdoubt that Rand will risk getting crosswise with anybody possessing actual power.

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Tuesday Morning Open Thread: Whiter Shade of Pule*

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More from the “Life Among the Repubs” file, via McKay Coppins’ twitter feed: evidence that Hugh Hewitt may have inhaled too many paint fumes while hagiographing Dubya, from the nutball eccentricly conservative Washington Examiner:

Saying it’s “obvious,” best-selling author and national talk show host Hugh Hewitt is urging all of the nearly two dozen potential Republican presidential candidates to pick 2012 GOP nominee Mitt Romney as their vice presidential choice.

In his upcoming book The Queen, directed at Hillary Rodham Clinton, Hewitt said that Romney has the influence and status of former Vice President Dick Cheney, making him a formidable campaigner and White House partner.

That, he added in the book provided to Secrets, will force Clinton to make an equally top-notch pick, not somebody like Joe Biden, the “lovable dolt” chosen by Barack Obama.

The eventual GOP nominee, wrote Hewitt, should pick Romney for just one term, using his fundraising power and credibility to beat Clinton. By serving just one term, Romney wouldn’t be a political threat to the president he serves and it would create loyalty from potential successors…

That’s a strategic proposal absurd in so many and various ways as to approach the Wingnut Event Horizon. And, before the question of nutpicking is raised, remember Hewitt is not just another wingnut on the internet — he’s going to emcee the second GOP primary debate. (I know the usual verb would be ‘moderate’, but Politico notes that Hewitt “will not moderate the debate… but he will participate in a question-and-answer session.”) I can only hope some humorist will convince him to wear a red jacket and a top hat…
***********
Apart from mocking the RWNJ circus, what’s on the agenda for the day?

*not a typo

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Tiny Violins Open Thread: Poor Little Princeling

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From the Politico article:

… While his rivals cultivate wealthy backers who will pump millions of dollars into their candidacies, Paul has struggled to find a similar lifeline. It’s led to considerable frustration in his campaign, which, amid rising concerns that it will not be able to compete financially, finds itself leaning heavily on the network of small donors who powered his father’s insurgent White House bids.

It hasn’t been for lack of trying. In recent months, Paul has sought to woo a string of powerful Republican megadonors — from Silicon Valley executives to a Kentucky coal mogul to the billionaire Koch brothers — who, it was believed, would be philosophically aligned with his free-market views. In each case, he met disappointment.

At the top of the list was Peter Thiel, the eccentric Northern California venture capitalist who funneled $2.6 million to Ron Paul’s presidential campaign. But Thiel is being far less generous this time around, leaving Paul’s crestfallen advisers with the distinct impression that he won’t give them a dime. They’ve been left guessing as to why. One speculated that Thiel, who didn’t respond to requests for comment, was unhappy with the rollout of Paul’s policy platform. Another surmised he was skeptical of Paul’s 2016 prospects or that he’d become tired of political giving and would sit out 2016 entirely.

There was Sean Parker, the flashy Napster co-founder who was portrayed by Justin Timberlake in the hit 2010 movie “The Social Network.” But Parker, who has known Paul for several years and has met with him to discuss 2016, isn’t expected to endorse Paul — or any Republican candidate, for that matter. Those familiar with Parker’s thinking say he’s most likely to provide financial support to Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton.

There was Larry Ellison, the former Oracle CEO known for his penchant for megayachts. In October, Ellison hosted a Silicon Valley fundraiser for Senate Republicans that Paul attended — an event that led to speculation that Ellison, whose net worth is said to hover around $54 billion, would get behind the Kentucky Republican. But he’s instead thrown his support to Florida Sen. Marco Rubio and will host a fundraiser for him on June 9.

“It was love at first sight,” one person close to Ellison said of his feelings toward Rubio.

Not even two months into his presidential campaign, Paul is scrambling to compete with opponents who have established fundraising vehicles underwritten by well-heeled contributors. Jeb Bush has tapped his family’s formidable network of donors, a wide-ranging list of names that includes real estate developer Mel Sembler and Anheuser-Busch distributor John Nau, to fund a super PAC that’s expected to raise an historic $100 million by the end of this month. Rubio has won the backing of Norman Braman, a Miami auto dealer who’s expected to pour anywhere from $10 million to $25 million into his bid. Ted Cruz is expected to receive around $30 million of support from Robert Mercer, a New York hedge fund manager.

Even Rick Santorum, who barely registers in polls, is expected to have a deep-pocketed benefactor: Foster Friess, a businessman who helped keep Santorum’s 2012 presidential bid alive, has said he will donate again…

“Philosophical alignment” be damned, what the deep-pocket Silicon Valley disruptepreneurs like is winning, and when they look at Prince Rand they’re not seeing a winner.

Second best tactic for a political sugar baby, if you don’t look like a strong winner, is to provide that extra level of customer service so prized by the .0001 Percenters. Marco, Ted, Rick: those boys know how to please the most demanding customer. His foibles are their foibles, his philosophical alignment shadowed, whether it’s fetal-viability regulation or flat-tax celebration. Even Jeb, for all his family’s clout, has a proven track record of assiduously sucking up to guys with money — just ask Florida’s real estate developers or charter school owners.

But Rand, Son of Ron is used to being the crown prince of his daddy’s backwater little duchy. As long as he didn’t stray too far from the free-market serfs in their Objectivist kingdom, he was free to have advanced notions about substance deregulation and military defunding. The yokels were even proud of their free-thinking maverick and all those wacky proposals, bless his heart. Rand grew up considering himself a deep thinker, an eloquent orator, and probably (as the Yiddish proverb would have it) a better-than-karaoke level singer. Like a lot of aspiring conquerors before him, Rand Paul seems to have mistaken himself for a shark in the ocean, when he was just a pike in a pond…

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The Kentucky Horse Race Is Set

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The GOP gubernatorial primary here in Kentucky got pretty wild earlier this month, in one of the ugliest campaigns I can remember.  When the smoke cleared, Glibertarian punching bag Matt Bevin led state Ag Commissioner James Comer by a mere 83 votes.  The re-canvass of the state’s voting machines didn’t change that lead in the least, and today was Comer’s last chance to file for a full recount, on his own dime.

Comer instead threw in the towel a few minutes ago, and it’ll be Matt Bevin versus current Democratic state Attorney General Jack Conway for the big house in Frankfort.

Comer released a statement emphasizing his support for Bevin, “Within minutes of receiving the results of the recanvass, I called Matt Bevin to concede and congratulate him on a hard fought victory. I asked Matt to afford me the opportunity to personally contact a few of my strongest supporters across the state to again thank them for their support and tell them about my concession. I promised Matt that I would release my statement prior to his Friday morning press conference with the Republican down ballot candidates.”

Comer had until Friday afternoon to request a recount. Bevin will face Democratic candidate Jack Conway in the 2016 race for Kentucky governor.

And as I’ve said before, Bevin is the guy that lost to Mitch the Turtle in last year’s Senate primaries because even Republicans here thought he was bonkers, because he couldn’t bring his glibertarian self to condemn illegal cockfighting in the state when a reporter caught him on tape at a cockfighting rally. McConnell smoked him like a turkey. And now he’s the candidate because about four percent (one-third of the 12% total primary turnout) of the state’s registered Republicans voted for him a few weeks back.

Conway better not screw this up, because if this asshole Bevin ends up Governor, believe me when I say he’s going to make Greg Abbott of Texas and Rick Scott of Florida look sane by comparison…

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Hoocoodanode On Rand Paul And Drones?

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Another week, another audience, and Sen. Rand Paul has changed his position yet again on the use of drones in military and combat, this time when cornered by FOX News. Dave Weigel:

“I do think that there is a valuable use for drones and as much as I’m seen as an opponent of drones, in military and warfare, they do have some value,” Paul said. “I think this is a difficult situation. You have hostages being held; some of them are American. You have people holding hostages; some of them are American. I’ve been an opponent of using drones about people not in combat. However if you are holding hostages, you kind of are involved in combat. So I look at it the way it is in the United States. If there’s a kidnapping in New York, the police don’t have to have a warrant to go in.”

Of course, as Weigel notes, this is the totally opposite position as to where Paul has been on the question of drones.

Had Paul never spoken out about drones before, this would have been a newsless answer, comparable to what other Republican candidates and politicians had been saying. But Paul has a long, dramatic record of pronouncements about drones. He’s said that a drone that flew over his home would meet the business end of a shotgun. He’s demanded stronger justifications from the Obama administration before it targets any American citizens. That talk has won him praise from the left and the libertarian right.

Yet on Fox, Paul declined the chance to criticize the administration. “You really don’t get due process or anything like that if you are in a war zone,” said Paul. “I tend not to want to blame the president for the loss of life here. I think he was trying to do the right thing.”

Paul’s comments perplexed Glenn Greenwald, the journalist and co-founder of The Intercept who has written extensively about drone warfare. “I don’t get his strategy: he’s never going to attract GOP hawks, so why dilute what makes him interesting/unique?” asked Greenwald on Twitter. “If his big maverick view is now reduced to ‘no drone killings of Americans on US soil,’ it’s hardly interesting.”

You tell me, Double G.  You’re the one who’s been backing the guy for the last year. But hey, he’s got all kinds of rubes to fool running for President, right?

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