Recovery Act Boosts Jobs

A great ad from Americans United for Change:

Rand Paul: The same old story

In his column today, Leonard Pitts discusses Rand Paul:

[Social conservatives] have never been on our side and always, they have claimed "principle" to justify it. So remarks like the one... that got Kentucky senatorial candidate Rand Paul in trouble last week are surprising only in the sense that one is surprised to hear an oldie on the radio one hasn't heard in awhile.

He first told the editorial board of the Louisville Courier-Journal, then reiterated in last week's interview with MSNBC's Rachel Maddow, that he thinks the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964 overreached in telling private businesses they could not discriminate against black people. Paul, a Republican, a Tea Party favorite and an apostle of tiny government, considers private ownership sacrosanct.

If that sounds familiar, it's because it was also the reasoning of segregationists in '63 and '64.

Rand Paul's Libertarian La-La Land

Be sure to check out today's column from Eugene Robinson:

Not so fast, everybody. Rand Paul can't abruptly disavow the extremist views on civil rights that he's been espousing for years and expect us all to just move along. Was he lying then? Is he lying now? Or has the Tea Party movement's newly crowned Mad Hatter changed his mind?

Republican crisis managers wisely didn't allow Paul to stray within range of the Sunday talk shows, but they can't keep him hidden away in some Kentucky cave until November. Sooner or later, the Senate candidate is going to have to answer a direct question: Was he being untruthful on the occasions when he said the federal government has no authority to outlaw racial discrimination in private businesses such as restaurants? Or is he being untruthful now in claiming he would have voted for the Civil Rights Act of 1964?

...Now that he is running for the Senate as a card-carrying Republican, Paul is going to have to abandon, or pretend to abandon, many of his loopy beliefs. This won't be easy, as illustrated by the hemming and hawing he did before finally endorsing the Civil Rights Act. Even then, he suggested that the law was justified only by the prevailing situation in the South. As soon as Paul is allowed out of his cave, someone should ask him whether the landmark legislation properly applies to the rest of the country.

Rand Paul Meets the Press

Republican criticizes Paul's civil rights views

Reuters has the story:

The head of the Republican Party criticized Senate candidate Rand Paul on Sunday for questioning the landmark Civil Rights Act and said the Kentucky libertarian's views were out of step with the party and country.

...Michael Steele, the first black chairman of the Republican National Committee, said Paul's criticism of provisions in the 1964 Civil Rights Act arose from the candidate's libertarian philosophy but "his philosophy is misplaced in these times."

"I don't think it's where the country is right now. The country litigated the issue of separate but equal," Steele told the "Fox News Sunday" show. "I think in this case Rand Paul's philosophy got in the way of reality."

The 'Randslide' and Its Discontents

Frank Rich also discusses Rand Paul in his column today:

Paul is articulate and hard-line. When he says he is antigovernment, he means it. Unlike McConnell, he wants to end all earmarks, including agricultural subsidies for a state that thrives on them. (He does vow to preserve Medicare payments, however; they contribute to his income as an ophthalmologist.) He wants to shut down the Department of Education and the Federal Reserve. Though a social conservative who would outlaw all abortions, he believes the federal government should leave drug enforcement to the states.

It’s also in keeping with this ideology that Paul wants the federal government to stop shoveling taxpayers’ money into wars. He was against the war in Iraq and finds the justification for our commitment in Afghanistan “murky.” He believes that America’s national security is “not threatened by Iran having one nuclear weapon.”

...With Rand Paul, we also get further evidence of race’s role in a movement whose growth precisely parallels the ascent of America’s first African-American president. The usual Tea Party apologists are saying that it was merely a gaffe — and a liberal media trap — when Paul on Wednesday refused to tell Rachel Maddow of MSNBC that he could fully support the Civil Rights Act of 1964. But Paul has expressed similar sentiments repeatedly, at least as far back as 2002.

Rand Paul: Radical Ayn Rand rookie

Today's column by Clarence Page is all about Rand Paul. Here's an excerpt:

...a day after clobbering the GOP-endorsed candidate, Paul let himself muse on MSNBC's "Rachel Maddow Show" about the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the rights of businesspeople to discriminate. Paul repeatedly declared his support for the intent of the law, but he could not bring himself to support a key provision in the law.

That was the provision that banned discrimination by restaurants, hotels, theaters, lunch counters and other public accommodations. Opening up this long-settled area of law might have scored points in a law school class. But in a political campaign, saying you favor the law's intent without favoring the law is like saying you'll do anything to lose weight except diet or exercise.

...As a budding politician, Rand Paul obviously is a work in progress. Kentucky voters will decide whether they want to assist in his on-the-job training. For the anti-tax, anti-Big Government tea party movement that has embraced him as a champion, Paul's amateurism reveals a big challenge. It's easy to complain about incumbents. It's not so easy to come up with workable alternative ideas that won't make voters gag.

President Obama's weekly address

The President announces that the independent commission he created for the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling will be chaired by former Florida Governor and Senator Bob Graham and former EPA Administrator Bill Reilly.

Rand Paul and the Limits of Libertarianism

Rand Paul is the subject of an editorial in today's New York Times:

In a handful of remarkably candid interviews since winning Kentucky’s Republican Senate primary this week, Mr. Paul made it clear that he does not understand the nature of racial progress in this country.

As a longtime libertarian, he espouses the view that personal freedom should supersede all government intervention. Neighborhood associations should be allowed to discriminate on the basis of race, he has written, and private businesses ought to be able to refuse service to anyone they wish. Under this philosophy, the punishment for a lunch counter that refuses to seat black customers would be public shunning, not a court order.

It is a theory of liberty with roots in America’s creation, but the succeeding centuries have shown how ineffective it was in promoting a civil society. The freedom of a few people to discriminate meant generations of less freedom for large groups of others.

Kentucky newspapers on Rand Paul

The Herald-Leader weighs in on Rand Paul's outrageous statements about the Civil Rights Act:

Paul's comments on the Civil Rights Act and the Americans with Disabilities Act expose the flaws in his belief in a smaller government that leaves private businesses alone.

Take away the Civil Rights Act's application to private businesses, and we could see the return of segregation in public accommodations. Without the Civil Rights Act, restaurants could hang "WHITES ONLY" signs on their doors. Theaters could direct blacks and other people of color to the balcony.

...Paul can bob and weave and say "I abhor racism" until the cows come home. But his philosophy of government, applied broadly, would encourage racism, discrimination against the disabled, financial con jobs that tank the economy and practices that ruin our environment on land and sea.

The Courier-Journal adds:

This view was common back in the 1960s, and was espoused by all sorts of people who opposed the law, notably Arizona Sen. Barry Goldwater, who was the GOP nominee for president in 1964. But it is a view that most Americans disagreed with then, and virtually all do today.

The ultimate result of such thinking would be the acceptability of a situation where the current President of the United States could be legally denied service at a lunch counter or a department store. This is not mainstream American thinking. This is, in a word, extremism.

...even in the most generous assessment, Dr. Paul in this case -- responding to America's struggle to replace institutionalized racism with a decent and open society -- appeared to assign "property rights" a higher value than "human rights." He also seemed to argue that it is more to be desired to limit government's reach, than to allow government, on behalf of all the people, to promote equality under the law. (Dr. Paul's repugnant view on this issue was an important factor in this newspaper's unusual decision not to make a recommendation in the GOP Senate race.)

Governor Beshear's weekly address

Rand Paul: Too Extreme

Rand Paul wants to cut everything but his own pay

Here's a great new video from the DSCC:

Rand Paul: 'truly a classless act'

WCPO has the story:

HEBRON, Ky. -- After winning Kentucky's Republican primary Tuesday night, Bowling Green ophthalmologist Rand Paul refused to take the call of congratulations from opponent Trey Grayson, according to Grayson's campaign manager Nate Hodson.

Hodson did not elaborate, except to say "it happened."

"This is truly a classless act in politics," said Marc Wilson, a Republican lobbyist and friend of Trey Grayson.

Mitch gets fact-checked

The nonpartisan fact-checking website FactCheck.org busts Mitch McConnell for telling lies:

The Sunday talk shows contained ample misinformation this week. Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan was the subject of bogus claims...

On NBC’s "Meet the Press," Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell misleadingly claimed that Kagan and her subordinates had argued in favor of banning books and pamphlets.

But, in fact, what Kagan and lawyers working for her said was that corporations should not be allowed to finance printed materials that advocated the election or defeat of a candidate for federal office.

The hypocrisy of Geoff Davis

Yesterday's Herald-Leader highlighted Geoff Davis's blatant hypocrisy regarding government spending:

CARROLLTON — Shortly before Christmas, U.S. Rep. Geoff Davis called for fiscal conservatism while voting against a successful $154 billion extension of the economic stimulus package that paid for schools, roads, unemployment benefits and other items.

These "unsustainable policies rely on excessive spending, endless debt and the promise of increased taxes," Davis, R-Hebron, warned.

The same day, Davis announced that he helped get more than $1 million for the Carroll County School District to expand its Head Start program for poor children. The money came from the stimulus he had just denounced.

Editorial comic roundup

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President Obama's weekly address

The President explains how Wall Street Reform will not only end bailouts and bring accountability for big banks, but empower consumers, shareholders and community banks.

Gov. Beshear Honors Fallen N.Ky. Officers

WCPO reports:

Governor Beshear's weekly address

More hypocrisy from Mitch McConnell

A great catch by Think Progress:

Soon after President Obama announced that he had nominated Solicitor General Elena Kagan to the Supreme Court, Republican Sens. Mitch McConnell (KY) and Jim DeMint (SC) attacked his choice because Kagan has never served as a judge...

Yet back in 2005, both DeMint and McConnell praised Harriet Miers’ nomination to the Supreme Court before she withdrew. Like Kagan, Miers had no previous judicial experience, yet both GOP senators expressed admiration for Miers, specifically citing her “experience.”

Tax bills in 2009 at lowest level since 1950

USA Today has the story:

Amid complaints about high taxes and calls for a smaller government, Americans paid their lowest level of taxes last year since Harry Truman's presidency, a USA TODAY analysis of federal data found.

Some conservative political movements such as the "Tea Party" have criticized federal spending as being out of control. While spending is up, taxes have fallen to exceptionally low levels.

Federal, state and local taxes — including income, property, sales and other taxes — consumed 9.2% of all personal income in 2009, the lowest rate since 1950, the Bureau of Economic Analysis reports. That rate is far below the historic average of 12% for the last half-century. The overall tax burden hit bottom in December at 8.8.% of income before rising slightly in the first three months of 2010.

Editorial comic roundup

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President Obama's weekly address

The President goes through the benefits in health insurance reform that are already kicking in for young adults, retirees, and families, and says more benefits are coming down the pike.

The Republican Party: Wrong Then, Wrong Now

Governor Beshear's weekly address

Letterman: George W Bush Memoirs Top Ten

Mitch's approval numbers drop

A new Kentucky Poll from Research 2000 finds that Mitch McConnell's job approval numbers are dropping:

QUESTION: Do you approve or disapprove of the job Mitch McConnell is doing as U.S. Senator?

Approve - 41%
Disapprove - 49%

For comparison, Mitch's numbers in the last Kentucky Poll (in October 2008) were 48% Approve, 45% Disapprove. Clearly, Kentucky does not endorse Mitch's obstructionist tactics.

Democratic Senate candidates debate

Did you miss last night's debate of Kentucky's Democratic Senate candidates on KET? You can watch it online at KET's website by clicking here.

Participating are James Buckmaster, Jack Conway, Daniel Mongiardo, Darlene F. Price, and Maurice M. Sweeney.

Manufacturing expands at fastest pace since 2004

The Republicans love to say that the Recovery Act was a failure. Today's economic news provides more evidence that the Republicans are wrong:

Manufacturing grew at the fastest clip in six years last month, providing an additional boost to the nation's economic recovery behind consumer spending and car sales.

The manufacturing sector grew for the ninth straight month as the Institute for Supply Management's factory index increased to 60.4 in April, the highest level since June 2004, according to a report released Monday. A level above 50 reflects expansion.

The 12-month low was 43.2 in May 2009, with steady growth since then. The numbers topped 50 in August 2009 hitting 52.8 with gradual increases since then.

Editorial comic roundup

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President Obama's weekly address

As the President beats back lobbyists seeking to weaken Wall Street Reform, he talks about an even broader threat that would vastly expand the influence of massive industries and their lobbyists in Washington.

'Behind Closed Doors'