-- Chinese democracy advocate Liu Xiaobo won the Nobel Prize for Peace. Expert at making bad press for them worse, news of the prize was blacked out in Chinese state media and Internet websites. The Chinese also recalled their ambassador to Norway. Bravo to the Nobel committee and shame on the Chinese government.
-- A few days ago, there was a piece on PBS Newshour about the Senate race in Kentucky pitting Democrat Jack Conway against Rand "Sprinklerhead" Paul. Gwen Ifill interviewed a "businesswoman" at a Paul event and she managed to capture in a sentence or so exactly what the Rethug ethos is all about. Paraphrasing her, she asked why a productive, wealth-producing businesswoman like herself should be forced to have her wealth redistributed to those who are less productive. This at a time of unprecedented and growing income disparity between the middle class and the wealthiest Americans. We will hereby update our "Consequences" blog post to reflect this common far right Rethug view that there is no such thing as a social contract among Americans and that it's everyone for themselves, i.e., the Social Darwinist view of society. That's pure Paultard/ Ayn Rand nonsense, and it's disturbing -- but not terribly surprising -- that such a large swath of the Rethug base selfishly subscribes to it.
