Are you Ready for...Brian? [View all]

[Proud Public Servant]

On domestic surveillance:

It’s enough that they have illegally, knowingly violated federal law, violated constitutional rights, and are effectively spying on law-abiding American citizens. Look, I do not trust politicians. The only thing a politician cares about is getting re-elected. If they can collect information on their political opponents and use it in various ways to embarrass them, they’ll do it. If you don’t believe they’d do that if they got the chance, then you, my friend, are naïve.

On Afghanistan:

If it all goes to hell in a handbasket, that’s fine. That happened after Alexander the Great left; that happened after the Russians left. Who cares? They live in the Stone Age. If you ask generals whether we should stay in a war a little longer, that’s like asking a barber whether you need a haircut.

On legalizing marijuana:

Each society has to make choices about what’s against the law. You have a large percentage of the population that’s already using this. The war on drugs is another war that appears to have been lost. This experiment with prohibition of marijuana doesn’t seem have to been working. Colorado might have it more right than the rest of us.

On a better alternative to the ACA:

No. 1: You pass national health insurance laws that say you can’t discriminate against women, charge them higher premiums than men of the same age, you can’t discriminate against people with pre-existing conditions, you can’t have annual caps. Then you allow insurance companies to compete wherever they want, in any state. Boom. The second thing is, you say to every citizen in the United States, now you have the option to buy into Medicare.

On Obama and corporatism:

I called the president a corporatist. He seems to be OK transferring taxpayer dollars into pharmaceutical companies’ pockets. He’s certainly OK transferring them into the military-industrial complex’s pockets. He’s not unlike Woodrow Wilson, who was the last really big Democratic corporatist.

On whether he has a shot against Hillary:

Ask President Ed Muskie how it worked out to be the front-runner. Ask President Howard Dean how it worked out.

Well, are you Ready for Brian Schweitzer?

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2014/01/brian_schweitzer_interview_the_former_montana_governor_is_the_most_likely.single.html