#santorumfail

A young Republican knocks on a house door.

“Hello, I’m a volunteer with Rick Santorum’s presidential campaign, and I’d like to talk to you about his vision for the country, if you have a few minutes…”

The black lady who answers replies, “Didn’t he say he didn’t want to help black people? Why would I vote for him?”

“Well, ma’am, he didn’t actually…”

“And why are you working for him? And not getting paid? You know how many of our people died because of this racist nonsense?”

“Ma’am, if I could…”

“Hell no, you can’t. Don’t come back around here. All Republicans do is use confused young people like you to spread their filth.”

This, my friends, is usually the end result of discussions about statements like these:

After suggesting that an expansion of Medicare is really just a plot to make voters more “dependent” on Washington, Santorum added: ”I don’t want to make black people’s lives better by giving them other people’s money.”

Is Bob Marshall Delusional?

No, I’m seriously asking…and here’s why.

Whopper #1:

Del. Bob Marshall said on FOX & and Friends Tuesday that fellow Republican, Gov. Bob McDonnell, was wrong to say that gays can’t be banned from the Virginia National Guard even though the federal government repealed the 17-year-old federal ”don’t ask, don’t tell” policy.

“The governor’s making an assumption that is not factually correct,” Marshall said. “We can have different policies. This is a separate unit. When you join the U.S. Army…you don’t join the Virginia National Guard.”

Marshall is drafting a bill to ban gays from serving in the Virginia National Guard, but McDonnell said that they must be able to openly serve.

Ok, he’s right on ONE thing…when a person joins the Army (or Army Reserve), they don’t join the National Guard. But when a person joins the National Guard, they become subject to the same laws and standards of…the active-duty Army. Why? Because that’s what the Constitution says. From Article 1, Section 8 (with emphasis added):

To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress.

Federal law has already established the National Guard as a recognized militia under the Army (or Air Force, in the case of the Air National Guard). So…if Congress is responsible for their organization (placing them under the Army’s command structure in federal mobilization) and arming (read: funding), seems like the “discipline prescribed by Congress”-in this instance, the forthcoming DADT repeal-also applies.

Maybe it’s because I’m a veteran, but that should be, like, plainly obvious.

Whopper #2:

The Commonwealth of Virginia would begin minting its own gold and silver coins as an alternative currency to the U.S. dollar under a bill that Virginia Del. Bob Marshall (R-Prince William) says he will file in coming days.

Marshall will ask the General Assembly to consider the idea when it convenes for its annual legislative session Jan. 12. It is a companion bill to a proposal he has already filed to establish a study committee to examine alternative currencies to that distributed by the Federal Reserve System “in the event of a major breakdown of the Federal Reserve System.”

…because the Commonwealth has the money to begin minting gold and silver coins, and our part time legislature is ready to start dealing with exchange rates, or…better yet, I yield the floor to Brian Schoeneman over at Bearing Drift:

In an environment where we are doing our best to cut and cut from the Commonwealth’s budget in order to ensure we don’t have to raise taxes to meet our obligations, I don’t know why anyone – especially a fiscal conservative – would propose any kind of plan like this that if implemented would require all kinds of new bureaucracy in Richmond. It’s not like we’ve got a Virginia Bureau of Engraving and Printing sitting around ready to strike gold and silver coins.  All of that costs money, money we don’t have and money we can’t afford to waste duplicating things the federal government already does.

…and might I add, does well. The Feds have NO problem printing money.

Marshall’s grandstanding. Really, that’s gotta be what it is. He wants to run for Senate in ’12 against Webb, and he’s playing to his base. I was good with the Healthcare Freedom Act that he sponsored last year, but…what’s going on in his head? This stuff is only going to appeal to people so far out on the right that they have their own time zone, and there’s not enough of them in VA to get elected in a primary, much less statewide.

It’s crappy politics…which, when mixed with crappy policy, doesn’t bode well for future electoral ambitions.

HB2DF,

-Coby