In his on-going effort to appeal to DC elites as a different kind of Republican, Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) says it’s “dumb” of Republicans to emphasize their support for voter ID laws which have been shown repeatedly to cut voting rates for minorities and poorer voters. He still they’re awesome. But it’s “dumb” to make a big deal out of them because black voters can get the wrong impression. Watch.
Does basically everyone under the age of 40(?) wonder why Ben Stein is even famous? A Nixon speechwriting gig can carry you for a long time.
Santa Cruz would definitely be on my short list of towns where you could get attacked for wearing a Fox News costume for Halloween.
A flurry of polls have been released over the last 24 hours, all of which you can follow at PollTracker. But here are a couple of notable ones in the key Senate races that have come out this morning:
John Oliver on ALEC and the crazy emerging from state legislatures. Watch.
Joni Ernst says Tom Harkin wouldn’t have been commenting on her looks — he compared her to Taylor Swift — if she were a man.
We’re finishing up election 2014 with a spirited debate about whether there’s ever been a race issue in the South. Edwin Edwards, former Governor, former prison inmate and current candidate, says he disagrees with Mary Landrieu about the South “not always [being] the friendliest place for African-Americans.”
It’s easy to dismiss as typical far-right crazy. But it’s worth stepping back and thinking about what Ben Stein means when he says that President Obama is the “most racist president there has ever been in America.” Watch.
It is one of the great pillars of American democracy that ignoramuses and douchebags are able to propose and place before the people for a vote new laws which are either stupid, awful or in some cases merely ridiculous. Then the people, perhaps first agreeing to the proposition, see through the nonsense and vote the measure down, thus vindicating the great, silent non-jackass majority and reconfirming the virtuous cycle of democratic self-government.
Of course, the system does not always work perfectly.