A few months ago, Rand Paul said some things that maybe didn’t go over so well vis-a-vis coal miners dying in explosions and black people getting their take-out food from the kitchen entrance. This caused him to go into seclusion, hiding from the press and their “gotcha” questions about policy positions he holds and laws he would attempt to pass if elected. But now he’s emerged from his shell, allowing himself to be tailed by a reporter from Details magazine, which, is that still trying to be the gay Esquire? Anyway, Rand Paul is ignorant of his “home” state’s history, and also would like the Federal government to stop trying to save the lives of his potential constituents.
You obviously don’t have the attention span to read this long article, but here, enjoy this from the opening:
Rand Paul and I are trying to remember why Harlan, Kentucky, might be famous. That’s where Paul is driving me, on a coiling back road through the low green mountains of the state’s southeastern corner, in his big black GMC Yukon festooned with RON PAUL 2008 and RAND PAUL 2010 stickers. Something about Harlan has lodged itself in my brain the way a shard of barbecue gets stuck in one’s teeth, and I’ve asked Paul for help. “I don’t know,” he says in an elusive accent that’s not quite southern and not quite not-southern. The town of Hazard is nearby, he notes: “It’s famous for, like, The Dukes of Hazzard.”
…
“Maybe for some of the coal battles,” a young campaign aide in the back seat suggests.Paul ignores this. “Maybe the feuding,” he offers. He mulls this for a moment and says, “The Hatfields and McCoys were more up toward West Virginia, though.”
“I think it was the coal battles,” the aide says.
Later in the article, the BIG REVEAL is that Harlan County was in fact famous for intense, violent coal battles. There was a documentary about it, which won an Oscar! You might want to Netflix that, Rand.
If you are losing interest at this point, just head on over to The Hill’s summary, where you will “learn,” in the sense that you will hear again, that Rand Paul loves the totally awesome practice of mountaintop removal, though he thinks it needs a new name because “we’re not talking about Mount Everest. We’re talking about these little knobby hills that are everywhere out here.” Ha ha, they are such tiny mountains, that it doesn’t matter when they are dumped into streams! They are so small that they render the local water supply barely undrinkable!
Also, Rand Paul believes that Kentuckyans (is that what they say? Kentuckyans?) know best when it comes to regulating how Kentucky’s miners are protected from Kentucky’s mine owners! Kentuckyans other than Rand Paul, of course, because he is “not an expert.”
“The bottom line is: I’m not an expert, so don’t give me the power in Washington to be making rules,” Paul said at a recent campaign stop in response to questions about April’s deadly mining explosion in West Virginia. “You live here, and you have to work in the mines. You’d try to make good rules to protect your people here. If you don’t, I’m thinking that no one will apply for those jobs.”
Yes, absolutely, Dr. Rand Paul, with the labor market being totally free and liquid, and unemployment being virtually nil, the well-informed laborer community will simply refuse to work in unsafe conditions when they could just get jobs as computer programmers or astronauts. Obviously mining companies are falling over each other attempting to woo these skilled coal miners, each one offering more and better in-house safety features than the last. We look forward to non-expert Dr. Rand Paul’s further explanation of how the Invisible Hand guides us all to victory, using arguments that have apparently gone unchallenged since he started impressing the dudes with them back in the 12th grade. Maybe now he will get those extra 40,000 Facebook friends, once people finally get their latest issue of Details in the mail. [Details/The Hill/Whas11]
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“..so don’t give me the power in Washington to be making rules,”
In other words, since I’m an idiot you shouldn’t vote for me.
He’s even more delusional than Linus who believed in the Great Pumpkin.
Still think Randi needs a blimp.
Why do I feel like the invisible hand belongs to a proctologist telling us all to bend over and relax?
Jeezus, it’s like he’s trying to kill the photographer with the LASERS he installed in his EYES.
And as I regular drinker of water, I feel I’m best qualified to determine what chemicals should and shouldn’t go into my body, thank you very much WASA.
If mining companies could still hire lots of professional strike breakers like back in the day we wouldn’t have such high unemployment.
Randi needs to go to the Green River in Muhlenberg County and get hit upside the head by Mr. Peabody’s gianormous coal scoop.
Yes, because in the worst period of unemployment since the Great Depression, NO ONE would ever accept a job knowing that conditions might be less than 100% safe. Rand Paul really and truly needs to work in a coal mine for six years, not sit around in the Senate chamber staring into the blackness of his own private mental mine shaft.
FYI, i believe Details is the hetero/metrosexual Maxim, not the gay Esquire.
RE: family pic #1. Rand Paul is the new Rick Santorum? Discuss.
This stupid and a doctor, too?
Theo other end of the spectrum would be Stephen Hawking working at Burger King.
And, by the way, all this damned safety stuff is really holding back the space program. Think of how many more astronauts we could have without all those pesky government checklists. If it was unsafe, they wouldn’t want to be astronauts!
How does one get a “shard” of barbecue in one’s teeth? What the hell are they barbecuing — sparrows?
I’m trying to think of a really good way for Rand to die unexpectedly, with lots of karma. Like, as he’s driving down the road in his GMC Yukon, late for his next campaign stop, a semi-trailer truck owned by a fly-by-night coal company with no insurance, with bald tires and lousy brakes, because everyone gets to decide how much money they care to spend or not spend on brakes and tires….well, you see where this is going….
So is he saying we should allow the workers to control the means of production? Marxist.
More fail from Wonkette having no effect:
http://www.whas11.com/community/blogs/political-blog/Paul-leads-Conway-by-eight-in-new-poll-99703184.html
The bottom line is: I’m not an expert
You got that right douche-knuckle. You couldn’t even pass your specialty boards.
What. A. Shit. Stain.
[re=631182]V572625694[/re]: I was just about to ask the same thing.
Perhaps the reporter meant to say “shart”? This is Rand Paul were talking about, after all.
I would’ve thought he would want to start his own mine safety certification agency in his breakfast nook.
I remember Harlan and Perry County from spending time in and around Hazard circa 1964. Paul would probably have gotten killed there then. The miners must have mellowed some since.
Funniest part of this thread, for me, is the poor clueless aide that keeps piping up from the back seat. Fucking hilarious.
Is anyone else having problems with their HTTPWWWWonkette.com website today?
Mine is more unusable than usual — pages barely/won’t load, “Comment” box takes minutes to appear, my comments aren’t “Win”, etc…
[re=631191]RoscoePColtraine[/re]: “Coal battles” is his safe word.
[re=631191]RoscoePColtraine[/re]: Yes! Rand Paul, without even looking toward the back of the vehicle: “Shut the fuck up, Donny!”
[re=631195]Extemporanus[/re]: Can’t say “union battles” because, you know…unions. Ew.
[re=631194]Extemporanus[/re]: WIN, WIN !!!
But you will have to get rid of your CompuServe dial-up account to get ur prize.
I love that fisking Rand Paul is like getting an astrophysicist to explain to a three-year-old that the sun isn’t “hiding” from us.
Good thing he’s not running in Georgia, the state Hazard County was supposed to be in, or the people wouldn’t forgive him for getting that so horribly wrong.
Of course we can trust the coal companies; I mean it’s not like there have been a bunch of miners killed in accidents in mines where the owners had consistently broken the regulations or anything.
“I’m not an expert.”
‘Nuff said.
“OK, everybody. Move on. Nothing to see here.”
[re=631191]RoscoePColtraine[/re]: I can imagine what was going through that aide’s mind:
Oh, time for brownie points! “Maybe for some of the coal battles”.
Uh, that’s a reporter there, Mr. Paul. “I think it was the Coal Battles.”
COAL BATTLES, You Dumb Fuck!
Oh hell. I quit.
[re=631194]Extemporanus[/re]: I think you might have an infection. I don’t want to say your computer is a whore or anything, but….
[re=631185]RPPTT[/re]: Hey no one said it would be easy. Kentucky is chock full of people whose demographic destiny is to vote GOP this year and only colossal stupidy could break the trend. Paul is on his way however.
[re=631195]Extemporanus[/re]: Epic.
Rand has the support of Don Blankenship of Massey Energy. Remember the coal miners at the Teabag Rally on the mall? I’m beginning to think that thinking of this country as divided right and left is the wrong dimension. Its divided top and bottom and the right/left thing gets too many of the people on the bottom supporting the people on the top because they think its right. Or some such.
It’s the Free Market. Once enough people die from mining coal, people will quit taking jobs as coal miners.
[re=631203]JMP[/re]: “Of course we can trust the coal companies; I mean it’s not like there have been a bunch of miners killed in accidents in mines where the owners had consistently broken the regulations or anything.” Exactly. Thank Gawd that’s all in the past. Like racism and such. USA Number One! USA Number One!
I wonder if it ever occurs to idiots like Rand Paul and His ‘Tards that if they confess to not knowing enough to regulate this or that dangerous industry that they are also admitting they don’t know enough about it to say whether someone who does know, shouldn’t regulate? Does that make sense to you? Does to me.
If a miner believes that the work is too dangerous, he can just switch jobs and become a rich, heartless mine owner.
Isn’t Harlan County the setting for “Justified”, where Raylan Givens goes all shooter-ey on the bad guys?
I like that show. Rand Paul, not so much.
[re=631199]weejee[/re]: [re=631206]RoscoePColtraine[/re]: Who knew spending two grand on a computer, and another two grand a year for a high speed internet connection, would make it so difficult for me to leave vulgar comments on a political humor blog. Maybe I should switch to a PC — at least then I’d know what the problem was — namely, it’s a fucking PC.
Closing the 27 tabs of bestiality porn I currently have open might improve my ‘pooter’s performance as well. (Don’t judge me! I am an animal lover who has trouble picking a favorite — one day I feel like a dog, the next day, a duck. You know how it is…)
[re=631224]queeraselvis v 2.0[/re]: Hey! It’s working again!
So Angle doesn’t want anything but friendly questions, and Paul admits he’s too limited to take any responsibility for crafting legislation. Ladies and Gentlemen, your 2012 GOP Dream Ticket.
I mean, I know we all longed for the straight up insanity of Palin/Bachmann, but let’s face it – the corporate overlords of the GOP are never going to let those crazies anywhere near real power. They’d much rather have 2 self-professed non-experts who they can manipulate like Rove/Cheney did to ol’ Smirky. So we have to settle for this B team of vapid inanity
“..so don’t give me the power in Washington to be making rules,”
No problem, dude.
After poisoning his kid with those chicken wings and Bud Lite, the kid may as well go work in a coal mine for a few years. There seems like too many females in that family photo. Does Randi have three wives?
I guess the aide in the back seat had long since given up on trying to get Paul to use his “inside” voice instead.
Are the Details in the asshole or the asshole in the Details?
If it matters, the interview was actually given before the primary, came out initially weeks ago, and was just widely picked up. So the seclusion came later.
Also, Rand Paul’s opponent also is tickled pink by mountaintop removal mining and wants to get those permits out ever faster. Kentucky is just that way.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hU1E4lvsAqg
[re=631185]RPPTT[/re]: “More fail from Wonkette having no effect:”
But of course. The people of Kentucky would actually have to read the site for the fail from Wonkette to have any effect!(or even, you know, just read)
[re=631178]Baby who ate the Dingo[/re]: He founded his own “ophthalmology board” probably because he couldn’t pass the boards given by the regular American Academy of Ophthalmology. At least, that was my first reaction when I heard of msnbc that he founded his own board, comprised with what? five of his family members? Someone who went to medical school with him should go public about him.
Also, Harlan, Hazard, Hyden, Kentucky is full of the worst stereotyped backward, knuckedragging, Republican, uneducated hillbillies. Hyden has a two-bit distance ed program to train health care workers for places like bumfuck, the Confederate South. They can’t get “real doctors” or “real nurse practitioners” to go there. Also, eat a bag of poisoned rat dicks, “Doctor” Paul -bend over while I insert this enema into your ass. Don’t piss off the nurse any more.
It doesn’t sound like he knows how to be a politician either. Why is he running?
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