Welcome to the Thursday edition of your open thread. It’s a hot and humid Thursday, perfect for staying indoors and playing on the computer. Share your wisdom below.
Rand Paul angers even Kentucky Libertarians.
The Associated Press reported today that Party Vice Chairman Joshua Koch “said the idea of fielding a candidate has been an ongoing discussion among Libertarian leaders in Kentucky and hasn’t been an issue of contention internally.”
“The reason why we would even consider running somebody in this race,” Koch said, “is because we’re not going to let Rand determine what a Libertarian stands for. I’m here to say Rand does not have the Libertarian ideology.”
However, the state party chair denies that Libertarians will field a candidate against Paul.
The state chairman of the Libertarians of Kentucky has disavowed statements by the party’s vice chair, that suggest the group is considering running a real Libertarian candidate against Kentucky Republican Senate nominee Rand Paul.
Chairman Ken Moellman told TPM that those statements were “not an official communication or an official stance.” However, Moellman did insist that Paul’s views are not in line with those of Libertarians’.
The Kentucky Libertarians are saying Rand Paul is not a Libertarian but are declining the opportunity to run a real Libertarian to explain who they truly are. It’s a missed opportunity, if this is true.
Another one from the Republican hypocrisy file. This time it’s Texas Governor Rick Perry.
At the time, Perry said rejecting the money “was pretty simple for us. … We can take care of ourselves.” “I am so concerned about the belief that has gained a foothold in our national consciousness that the best and only way to solve our nation’s problems is to drown them with taxpayer dollars,” Perry also said, adding that, with regard to the stimulus, Texas should “look a gift horse in the mouth.”
The Texas state legislature eventually pushed Perry to accept the money, but even in his official acceptance letter, Perry wrote that “I believe there are better ways to reinvigorate our economy and believe [the bill] will burden future generations with unprecedented levels of debt.” However, as the Wall Street Journal noted this morning, the stimulus is the reason that Texas currently has a balanced budget:
[T]he economic downturn is catching up with Texas. Sales-tax revenue started falling in February 2009 compared with the previous year, and only started to recover a bit in April of this year. Although Mr. Perry has railed against the federal economic-stimulus program, billions of dollars from that initiative helped Texas legislators balance the current budget.
Perry is only a more extreme example of Mike Castle. Instead of showing up at stimulus funding events, Perry just pretends that he didn’t take any stimulus money at all.