What I’m Reading, March 19, 2014

By John Martinez Pavliga from Berkeley, USA (Contemporary American Auto Dealer) [CC-BY-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia CommonsWhat Do Car Dealers Do? Gerard Magliocca, Concurring Opinions, March 17, 2014

What is the public purpose behind a statute or regulation that says that you can only buy new cars through a dealer? I’ll grant that the dealership model has been around for a long time, and dealers are a powerful lobby, but is there anything else to this regulation? For example, can you say that car dealers do a better job at protecting consumer safety or welfare than a store owned by the manufacturer? I find that hard to believe. I’m not sure these dealership statutes are constitutionally irrational, but they are ridiculous.

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What I’m Reading, March 17, 2014

How did Irish-Americans get so disgusting? Andrew O’Hehir, Salon, March 15, 2014

Irish-Americans rapidly absorbed the lesson that the way to succeed in their new country was to reject the politics of class and shared economic interests and embrace the politics of race. One disgraceful result was the New York draft riots of 1863, the low point of Irish-black relations in American history, when Irish immigrants by the thousands turned on their black neighbors in a thinly disguised race riot. Irish-Americans were under no delusions that the ruling class of Anglo Protestants liked or trusted them, and anti-Irish and/or anti-Catholic bigotry endured in diluted form well into the 20th century. But by allying themselves with a system of white supremacy, the Irish in America were granted a share of power and privilege — most notably in urban machine politics, and the police and fire departments of every major city.

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Paul Ryan: The Media is Biased Because Shut Up

Paul Ryan talked to Chris Wallace on Fox News today to start floating excuses in case Romney and he lose in November. Specifically, it’s the liberal media’s fault, because the media is liberal. Via the unabashedly-liberal blog PoliticusUSA:

WALLACE: But where have you seen it? Where have you seen it in this campaign where you feel they’re judging you and Romney by one standard and Obama and Biden by another?

RYAN: I don’t think — I’m not going to go into a tit-for-tat or litigate this thing. But as a conservative, I’ve long believed and long felt that there is inherit media bias. And I think anybody with objectivity would believe that that’s the case.

Shorter version: Paul Ryan believes the media have a liberal bias, and if you disagree, then you must have a liberal bias too, hippie.

(Note that I try to use “media” as a plural whenever I can, because that’s what they are.)

Since people never know anything except what their television spoon-feeds them, of course liberally-biased media would tip them to the Democrats, and that’s why Republicans never win elections!

Is that an unfair way to characterize Ryan’s words? I think not, but you’re welcome to try to prove otherwise.

Also, he said “tit.” Heh heh.

Anyway, he really shouldn’t give up hope yet. He’s still got voter suppression, and we now that he’s got registration fraud working for him!

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Republican Homoeroticism

20120815-232838.jpgGreat quote from John Cole on the fawning, occasionally drooling commentary on Paul Ryan:

The greatest irony of this election may be that one of the most anti-gay bigots in the House, Paul Ryan, who has been and will continue to be one of the most virulently anti-gay congressmen, will be the source of some of the biggest mancrush reporting we’ve ever seen. This stuff challenges even the thoroughly embarrassing David BrooksFifty Shades of Gay” reporting regarding John Thune that made us all hysterical, and you can bet your sweet ass we’ll be hearing this shit until we beat down these sociopathic Galtian douchebags on November 6th. This may be the gayest election ever (not that there is anything wrong with that), now that David Gregory and the rest of the lot have two full haired American beauties to dazzle them with their high cheekbones and lean bodies and to tell them they and the rest of the country will get the fiscal spanking they so clearly lust for and desire.

Photo credit: ‘Paul Ryan – Stoaty Weasel’ by ufansius, via Tumblr.

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