Wasn't Joe Conason a liberal, years ago?

[Archae]

Why is he a right-wing flack now?

(Read the comments below the article too, people really take Conason to task for his bullshit.)

Rand Paul’s Plan to Save the Cities

By Joe Conason

If Americans are divided today—and they are—the most obvious and pronounced divisions are between those who live in cities and those who don’t. If you split America into two countries, one rural and one urban, you would have two very different nations—in philosophy, in governance, in economics, in liberty.

One of those Americas is functioning today. The other is a basket case—on life support, bankrupt, riddled with crime, hopelessness and poverty. Few politicians of either party have addressed this division or proposed specific policies to address it. It is undeniable that most cities are under the control of Democrats, while most rural areas are under the control of Republicans.

Democrats want to follow the same prescriptions they have been promoting for decades, the very ideas that have resulted in dysfunction: bailouts, higher taxes and more redistribution of wealth. Republicans, generally and surprisingly, don’t have much to say about the mess created by the old, failing ideas of their political opponents.

Then along comes Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., with a bold idea delivered last weekend to the Detroit Economic Club: turning cities like bankrupt Detroit into “economic freedom zones.” Depressed areas would see Washington lower personal and corporate tax rates, eliminate the capital gains tax and lower the payroll taxes for employees and employers, thus providing real incentive for entrepreneurs and businesses to invest, creating more jobs, stimulating real estate development and bringing people back to dying communities.

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/rand_pauls_plan_to_save_the_cities_20131217?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%253A+Truthdig+Truthdig%253A+Drilling+Beneath+the+Headlines

[Hassin Bin Sober]

1. Wtf? Yes, he was.

[Marie Marie]

8. WTF Indeed!

I always liked him. What happened??

[NRaleighLiberal]

2. what sort of kool aid did he drink? He is still considered left wing...but that came out of left

field (if not another universe).

Glad to see him taken to task in the comments....what is it with the Pauls? Why doesn't everyone see them as batshit crazy?

[Jamaal510]

12. Because some people

are single-issue voters who can't read the fine print after the Paul clan discusses drugs and shrinking the military budget.

[JHB]

30. ...or, the column syndication service screwed up

It's not his article.

[Pretzel_Warrior]

3. well, THAT was a shitty read. no other alternatives, Joe? Either Rand Paul's Ayn Rand paradise

or be stuck in the "same old same old"? WTF, dude? Are you turning Libertarian on us too? JAYSUS!

[RainDog]

4. If rural areas are Republican controlled and are failing

doesn't that indicate that Republican approaches are also failures? Doesn't the national economic crisis for the middle and working class also show that Reaganomics is the political equivalent of creationism or climate change denial?

Doesn't Wisconsin, with the lowest rate of job increases under a libertarian Republican wunderkind, indicate that economic policies that redistribute wealth create more wealth for the nation, rather than a few?

Admittedly, Democrats, as well as Republicans, have been loathe to address the reality that we need wealth redistribution via taxation and investment in infrastructure to create a 21st c. America. But that would require those who finance and purchase the American govt. to actually do something for the benefit of the nation and, ultimately, they don't give a shit.

...as the "fear" of Warren demonstrates.

[Hassin Bin Sober]

5. And here I always thought it was the cities and blue states that supported...

.... the rural areas.

My father in law, before he passed, drove a bus part time for a rural school district that was almost 100% federally funded. Buses and all.

Federally funded schools, federally funded busses and picked up in front of their FDA mortgage funded homes with Ron Paul or Romney signs in front of the house.

[grasswire]

6. he married into a wingnut family

His sister in law is that dreadful blonde woman from FAUX. The one who I am convinced is Richard Nixon's love child. Her name escapes me right now.

[grasswire]

7. Monica Crowley

That's his sister in law

[JI7]

15. do you mean Alan Colmes ? he is the one who married Monica Crowley's sister

[abelenkpe]

9. Wow

Total bummer.

eta: Wait....why is this Rand Paul fan letter on Truthdig?

[SidDithers]

10. Wow. He and Gene Lyons wrote that great book about Clinton way back when...

sad to see that he's gone over to the dark side.

Sid

[Archae]

13. He also exposed the Swiftboaters.

The strangest part about this is his previous column at that site rips the Mandela-hating GOP a new one.

Yet he pens this fan letter to Rand Paul.

[Narkos]

11. Something smells about this

Wonder if truth dig got hacked

[GeorgeGist]

14. Third way ...

Building the new third world one city at time.

[deutsey]

16. This is why we can't have nice things

[quaker bill]

17. A really bad idea

All this does is to create a super competitor in the low wage, low tax, low service economy. In short it creates larger drains that we can swirl around ever faster on our way out of the community of first world economies.

[JHB]

18. He was a liberal just yesterday, as far as I can tell

His Twitter feed doesn't show any obvious signs of Paulophilia, and his last column in The National Memo (Dec. 5) was:

Why Republicans Can’t Address Rising Inequality
December 5th, 2013 6:00 am Joe Conason

So far, the Republican response to President Obama’s historic address on economic inequality has not veered from the predictable clichés of Tea Party rhetoric. It was appropriately summarized in a tweet from House Speaker John Boehner, complaining that the Democrat in the White House wants “more government rather than more freedom” – and ignoring his challenge to Republicans to present solutions of their own.

But for Republicans to promote real remedies – the kind that would require more than 140 characters of text – they first would have to believe that inequality is a real problem. And there is no evidence that they do, despite fitful attempts by GOP leaders on Capitol Hill to display their “empathy” for the struggling, shrinking middle class.

Back when Occupy Wall Street briefly shook up the national conversation, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor and Budget Committee chair Paul Ryan both professed concern over the nation’s growing disparities of wealth and income. But their promises of proof that they care – and more important, of policy proposals to address what Cantor admits are “big challenges” – simply never materialized.
***
Congress could begin to address the income gap, which conservative policies have exacerbated for three decades. Raising the minimum wage significantly would be a first step toward restoring fairness. Rebuilding the nation’s infrastructure and school systems, rather than letting them continuously decay, would raise employment substantially and improve incomes. Removing obstacles to unionization would begin to level the gross disparities in economic power between the 1 percent and the rest of us.

It's not exactly the Rand Paul prescription. Has his Creator's Syndicate column been hacked?

The column was posted on Truthdig some 11 hours ago, and Conason's last activity on Twitter was 16 hours ago. I'd kind of like to hear what he has to say after he gets up this morning.

[Mass]

19. As somebody who often gets frustrated by the lack of ideas Democrats have

to get people out of poverty, I can see why he could be attracted by what is really a fairly classic proposal (I do not subscribe to it, but more SNAPs and unemployment benefits (which are very necessary) without anything else is not a solution either, just a bandaid).

This said, I am shocked by theacceptance that rural zones (led by Republicans) are better than the urban zones (led by Democrats). First, it is not true and secondly, it implies a causation that is not correct (Democrats at least want to help, even if their solutions are imperfect, so urban zones vote Democratic. Republicans have shown they do not care).

[JHB]

20. I want to hear what he has to say today

The tone and underlying presumptions of that column seem far enough out of line with things he's said recently that I'm willing to entertain the possibility of a Paulite hack and wait until he can verify that it's actually his.

Compare, from the column:

America faces many serious problems today that run deeper than economics. But if we are ever to return America to the kind of freedom, prosperity and tranquility we once enjoyed, the one-size-fits-all, command-and-control dictates of Washington must be abandoned. There is no money for more bailouts, especially when they have proven not to work. It’s a fact that you cannot tax communities into prosperity. And robbing Peter to pay Paul is an un-American idea and a hopelessly counterproductive measure for the kind of blight we see in Detroit.

with 21 hours ago on Twitter, about a WAPo column by Dana Milbank:

Joe Conason ?@JoeConason 21h

Auto rescue saved millions of jobs, billions in fed $, and a basic US industry. Why do "conservatives" hate America?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/dana-milbank-auto-bailout-could-be-harbinger-for-obamacare/2013/12/16/affcc512-66a8-11e3-8b5b-a77187b716a3_story.html …

Anyone can get a hair up their ass, but I'd like to know for sure that he actually wrote it, and if so offer a "here's why".

[Mass]

23. Interesting...

Indeed a lot more in line with the Conason I knew.

[JHB]

26. Oops, meant to post to OP (Breaking: Conason says column is not his)

wrong place

[H2O Man]

21. In 2004, DU was literally

the cutting edge in reporting and analyzing the Plame scandal. Older forum members will recall DU's classic "Plame Threads." I was not only one of the participants, but I reported information that was not found elsewhere, specifically about who was testifying on what day before Patrick's grand jury.

Another forum member contacted me, and said Joe Conason wanted to speak with me. At first, I thought that if that was the case, he should contact me. Eventually, I gave him a call. He wanted me to put him in contact with my source(s). I explained that if they wanted to speak with him, they would have contacted him. He became obnoxious, something few if any can do as well as I. He said that he could reach a far larger audience than I; thus, I noted that two journalists on MSNBC were already reading DU specifically for the information on the Plame Threads, and that Joe's biggest audience came when he appeared on their shows.

His goal was obviously career-enhancement. Mine wasn't. I suspect he is simply looking for a platform -- any platform -- to revive a career in decline.

[mmonk]

22. No, never as far as I was concerned.

[Arkana]

24. The hell? Did Conason drink bleach?

[Lex]

25. Why are people fleeing the "red areas" to live in the "blue areas" if the red

areas are so good? Per capita, I'm wondering if the red areas don't get more federal money than the blue?

Not sure his premise is correct.

[JHB]

27. BREAKING: Conason says the column is not his, likely human error by someone at Creators

https://twitter.com/JoeConason

Joe Conason ?@JoeConason 5m NO. It's an error by someone at Truthdig (and a truly stupid column) RT @Phostir: @JoeConason did you write this?
http://m.truthdig.com/report/item/rand_pauls_plan_to_save_the_cities_20131217 …

Joe Conason ?@JoeConason 3m More likely human error compounded by right-wing stupidity RT @JHB0034: Did your Creators Syndicate column get hacked by Rand Paul fans?


UPDATE: error was by Creator's Syndicate, not TruthDig

[Blue_Tires]

28. Even then I wouldn't have been surprised...

Some columnists have that once-every-five-years "WAY out there" moment of WTF?

I need to dig up Dan Savage's uber-hawkish, "You liberal peacenik hippies stay home while the TRUE patriots fight the forces of evil to defend your anti-American freedoms!" tripe during the buildup to the Iraqi invasion...

[muriel_volestrangler]

31. True author: Joseph Farah of World Nut Daily

http://www.creators.com/conservative/joseph-farah/rand-pauls-plan-to-save-the-cities.html

Wow, that's a screw-up.

[Dawson Leery]

29. Conason on twitter says this article is not his.

https://twitter.com/JoeConason

[Lex]

32. good

because it was an article full of shiyte