Combat! - Page 125 of 406 - A blog by Dan Brooks

Rand Paul joins race to formalize American aristocracy

By Dan Brooks in Republican Candidates April 7, 2015 1 Comment

“Does this fit with my absolutist ethic of individual responsi—end the Fed!”

Rand Paul, son of Ron, scourge of government overreach and champion of that species of liberty which flows naturally from being somebody’s kid, has announced his candidacy for president. He joins Ted Cruz in challenging that guy who is the son of one president and the brother of another for the nomination to run against the wife of yet another former president. The tree of liberty must be watered from time to time with blood of the same type as whoever watered it before. But although his father has drawn a paycheck as a US Representative since he was 14, “Rand Paul has been fighting big government his entire adult life.” So says his announcement page, which mentions his father exactly once. He’s his own man. All his father gave him was a ready-made constituency, a bunch of contacts in Washington—which he despises as his sworn enemy, of course—and a famous name.

Right now, more people in Montana are from Montana than in 1900, 1950

By Dan Brooks in Uncategorized April 6, 2015 1 Comment

Montana is extremely popular with people who live in Montana. In terms of the portion of the population wearing shirts advertising where they are at that moment, it is the Creed concert of states. The flip side of this admirable spirit is nativism—the perception that people from California and other, unforgivably non-Montana states are flocking here in droves and, you know, ruining everything. “If I find out someone’s from somewhere far away I am rude to them,” says H.J. Schmidt, who may just be sensitive about his name. “I get annoyed and angry. I feel [like] ‘you were in your place and it got ruined. Now you are coming to my place to ruin it.'”

Friday links! Captive to others’ rights edition

By Dan Brooks in Friday Links April 3, 2015 0 Comment

Mexico City seen from above—photo by Pablo Lopez Luz

More than seven billion people live on planet Earth right now, and each of them is as important as you are. I haven’t checked his math, but Gabor Zovanyi of Eastern Washington University has something sobering to say about population growth:

“If our species had started with just two people at the time of the earliest agricultural practices some 10,000 years ago, and increased by one percent per year, today humanity would be a solid ball of flesh many thousand light years in diameter, and expanding with a radial velocity that, neglecting relativity, would be many times faster than the speed of light.”

To paraphrase Kurt Vonnegut, I suppose they will all want dignity. Today is Friday, and your rights end where my nose begins. Won’t you find yourself enclosed in a thicket of sharp elbows with me?

In Helena, Art Wittich overplays his hand

By Dan Brooks in Uncategorized April 2, 2015 1 Comment

Rep. Art Wittich (R-Belgrade) reviews a bill to outlaw puppy mills in favor of puppy incinerators.

I’m sure you remember, but around New Year’s I boldly predicted that 2015 would be the year conservative Republicans in Helena overplayed their hand. I didn’t know what I was talking about, of course, but I happened to be right. Last week, the Montana House passed campaign finance reform and narrowly defeated a “religious freedom” ballot initiative. Meanwhile, the Senate moved incrementally closer to accepting federal funding for Medicaid expansion.

All three of these squeakers came about because moderate Republicans voted with Democrats. I can’t prove it, but I think we have Art Wittich to thank. That’s my contention in this week’s Missoula Independent, where I argue that the Representative from Belgrade has inadvertently encouraged bipartisan cooperation with his relentless attacks on moderates in his own party. The snowball became an avalanche last week, and it all started with the dark money bill.

Wittich said that bill to require disclosure of donors to 501(c)4 organizations was about “hurt feelings and elections.” Either that or it was about the obvious scumbaggery of Western Tradition Partnership, a group whose connection to Wittich is currently the subject of his own political practices indictment. His trial is set for January 2016; if he loses, he will be fined and removed from office. I kind of hope he sticks around for a long time, though. He’s just brazen enough to be likable, and—as last week in Helena suggested—just clever enough to fuck up. We’ll be back tomorrow with Friday links.

Arkansas passes religious freedom law, because what could go wrong?

By Dan Brooks in Church People April 1, 2015 0 Comment

Rep. Bob Ballinger of the Arkansas House (not pictured: puppets)

Arkansas House member and sponsor of religious freedom Rep. Bob Ballinger (not pictured: puppets)

I’m not saying that if a wizard transformed all the members of the Arkansas House of Representatives into animals, Rep. Bob Ballinger (R–Berryville) would be a walrus who goes “harrumph!” But he wouldn’t be a mallard, would he? That’s because a mallard is gay, and Ballinger sponsored the religious freedom law that Arkansas passed yesterday. That law is totally not designed to let businesses refuse service to homosexuals. That would be discrimination, and that’s not what Ballinger is about. Earlier this session, however, he did sponsor another bill that forbid Arkansas towns and cities from passing anti-discrimination ordinances protecting gays and lesbians. But that’s a coincidence, owing to the widespread discrimination against Christians in America and the comparative absence of bias against gay people. Here’s Ballinger explaining to the Times why he didn’t think to clarify that his bill wasn’t about anti-gay discrimination:

“All the way through this I thought it was unnecessary because of the fact that it didn’t do everything that everybody was saying it was doing. In hindsight maybe I would have done it to maybe avoid all the pain.”

He said that a few minutes after the bill passed.