Get Cynical

From the Washington Post:

Ron Paul, well known as a physician, congressman and libertarian , has also been a businessman who pursued a marketing strategy that included publishing provocative, racially charged newsletters to make money and spread his ideas, according to three people with direct knowledge of Paul’s businesses.

The Republican presidential candidate has denied writing inflammatory passages in the pamphlets from the 1990s and said recently that he did not read them at the time or for years afterward. Numerous colleagues said he does not hold racist views.

But people close to Paul’s operations said he was deeply involved in the company that produced the newsletters, Ron Paul & Associates, and closely monitored its operations, signing off on articles and speaking to staff members virtually every day.

“It was his newsletter, and it was under his name, so he always got to see the final product. .?.?. He would proof it,’’ said Renae Hathway, a former secretary in Paul’s company and a supporter of the Texas congressman.

Honestly, I’m gonna miss him when he drops out: (You would to if you ran a blog that mocks this type of idiocy)

Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum said Wednesday that “the left” uses universities to indoctrinate young people for the purpose of “holding and maintaining power.”

After saying “we’ve lost, unfortunately, our entertainment industry,” Santorum told a Naples, Florida, audience that “we’ve lost our higher education, that was the first to go a long time ago.”

“It’s no wonder President Obama wants every kid to go to college,” said the former Pennsylvania senator. “The indoctrination that occurs in American universities is one of the keys to the left holding and maintaining power in America. And it is indoctrination. If it was the other way around, the ACLU would be out there making sure that there wasn’t one penny of government dollars going to colleges and universities, right?”

He continued: “If they taught Judeo-Christian principles in those colleges and universities, they would be stripped of every dollar. If they teach radical secular ideology, they get all the government support that they can possibly give them. Because you know 62 percent of children who enter college with a faith conviction leave without it.“

NOT from The Onion

Triangulate this story and you’ll find it falls somewhere between laughable, maddening and ironic: A bill moving forward in the Florida Senate would ban state college and university employees, such as professors, from serving in the state legislature.

Cue up the “Yeah, no need to taint the Capitol gene pool with some smart people” joke.

Although the proposal seems far from certain (SB 1560 only passed the Senate Rules Subcommittee on Ethics and Elections by a 7-6 vote on Monday), it has nevertheless passed its first legislative obstacle.

The bill, authored by Sen. John Thrasher, is supposed to prevent conflicts of interest by folks from state colleges and universities. But banning them from serving in the legislature doesn’t make sense. Because, almost by definition, every person in the state has the potential for a conflict of interest. That’s true not just for the state legislature, but every county commission, town council and water district seat.

It’s how our citizen government works. We pick people who live and work in our communities and ask them to manage the affairs of those towns and counties and the state. That’s why every governing body already has conflict-of-interest rules that forbid voting on a bill or ordinance from which you could benefit.

(via Gerry Canavan)

(via I’ve Seen The Whole)

I know. We haven’t done this lately.

What’s the best restaurant you have ever eaten in. Note, best doesn’t mean the most expensive.