RSDavis
12-05-2007, 09:41 AM
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Ron Paul Roundup (12-05-07)
by RS Davis (http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=194780914&blogID=335114259&Mytoken=4C1D8452-D554-4601-BC087BDC8985669F2129823)
Hello Freedomphiles! Today is the beginning of Hanukkah, so shalom to my Jewish brothers and sisters! God's chosen people, you lucky bastards.
So, our diminutive hero was on The View yesterday, and according to USAToday, all they wanted to talk about (http://blogs.usatoday.com/onpolitics/2007/12/on-the-view-abo.html) was abortion:
Republican Rep. Ron Paul today became the first 2008 Republican presidential candidate to make an appearance on The View. According to ABC News' Z. Byron Wolf, much of Paul's 10-minute appearance was spent discussing abortion -- and the anti-abortion Paul "held his own" with the hosts, Wolf writes.
The Raw Story adds that "Paul was visibly agitated when co-host Joy Behar told him, 'you probably are not going to win and you know that,' then asked who among the Republicans he would be willing to vote for."
"You want those pro-war people to win?" Paul asked. "No, you don't. ... If they come around endorsing my anti-war views, and pro-free-markets and sound money, yeah I would consider it, but I don't have anybody now that I could vote for."
Here's the video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WJRu-FAwdtA
Now, for some great fucking news. Remember the botnet spam attack that purported to be supporting Ron Paul? At the time, I didn't think it was a Paul supporter. There were rumors that it may have been meant to throw a monkey wrench into the campaign. Well, we don't know for sure why it was done, but PC World is reporting (http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,140300-c,spam/article.html)about who did it, and it wasn't any of us:
Security researchers have shut down a network of computers responsible for sending out nearly 200 million spam messages supporting the U.S. presidential candidate last month, and after analyzing the server's software, it's clear that there is no such thing as a Ron Paul botnet, according to Joe Stewart, a senior security researcher with SecureWorks. "It probably wasn't even set up by a Ron Paul supporter," he said. "This whole system has been around since 2004. This [spam] somehow just landed in this underground spam economy."
When spam first surfaced, trumpeting Paul as the winner of a recent Republican presidential debate, the fact that it was being sent via illegally infected machines raised eyebrows. The spam messages have never been directly linked to the Ron Paul campaign, which has denied any involvement in the incident.
Washington DC's The Hill is reporting (http://thehill.com/campaign-2008/paul-looks-to-turn-big-bucks-into-a-big-boost-at-the-polls-2007-12-05.html)about Paul, and turning big money into poll numbers:
And though the money is helpful, Dennis Goldford, a political science professor at Drake University, said it is the fervor Paul's supporters show that could be his biggest asset, because their support "is an inch wide but a mile deep."
"In some cases in Iowa that's what you need — people willing to walk not just through snow and ice but through fire and water to show up," Goldford said.
Goldford said that for most candidates the strategy behind the Iowa caucuses is to "increase your share of the pie at somebody else's expense."
"The other way to do that is to bake a bigger pie," he said. Goldford said a candidate like Paul who enjoys support from so many outside-the-mainstream voters could bring more people into the caucus system, much like Pat Robertson did with evangelical voters when he won the state in 1988.
Try to keep your head from exploding when you get to the part at the end when they say he has no chance.
In The Republican American, Lawrence Cohen is writing about "The Campaign that Never Was: Dodd vs Paul (http://www.rep-am.com/articles/2007/12/04/opinion/syndicated_columnists/302307.txt):"
At 72, the Texas congressman was laughed off at first as an old guy running a campaign the way an aging professional might plan a final big vacation before retirement. But this Republican politician, a retired physician, had a little secret, known to few and forgotten by even fewer. This is Paul's second run for the presidency. He ran as the Libertarian Party candidate in 1988.
The national Libertarian Party is one part philosophy club, one part direct-mail catalog (the best bumper sticker from the old days: "We're pro-choice on everything"); and one part serious political party that's going to take over the nation, subsidize nothing, decriminalize almost everything and wish you godspeed in living your life in freedom.
Serious Libertarian-leaning politicians such as Paul tend to drift toward the Republican Party, if they want to get elected to anything more powerful than a county sewer commission in Alaska or Idaho or New Hampshire.
But what Paul and the Libertarians know from campaigns past is that when an articulate Libertarian gets to strut his stuff before voters, a fair number sit up straight and say something like,"That's the first one of these creatures that's ever made any real sense."
Word. That 80's hip-hop catch phrase never felt so right in my mouth.
Now, The Charleston City Paper has an op-ed (http://www.charlestoncitypaper.com/gyrobase/Content?oid=oid%3A36886)about Ron Paul's foriegn policy views, and how they're so kooky, they're 100% right:
When it comes to the dangers of American empire, Paul has been proven 100 percent correct, and President Bush and the entire Republican establishment have been proven 100 percent wrong. As Paul predicted as early as 1997 in a letter to President Clinton, "Policy toward Iraq is ... not designed to protect U.S. national security. It is instead a threat to our security because it may lead to war and loss of American lives, increase terrorism, and certainly an additional expense for the U.S. taxpayer. The hyped rhetoric coming from Washington which describes Hussein as the only evil monster with which we must deal in the world is a poor substitute for wise counsel."
When it comes to why the U.S. was attacked on 9/11, the former head of the CIA's bin Laden unit Michael Scheuer validates Paul. As he told CNN, "We're being attacked for what we do in the Islamic world, not for who we are or what we believe in or how we live."
The 9/11 Commission Report also validates the claim that U.S. foreign intervention facilitated 9/11. Furthermore, it demolishes the childish fantasy-land idea that we were attacked simply because terrorists "hate our freedom," a notion that every single Republican presidential candidate subscribes to — except Ron Paul.
History News Network has a new piece (http://hnn.us/articles/45267.html), an open letter from academics Jonathan Bean, David T. Beito, Nelson Borelli, Joe Michael Cobb, Keith Halderman, David R. Henderson, Karen Kwiatkowski, Mark LeBar, William Marina, Charles W. Nuckolls, Ivan Pongracic, Jr., D. Eric Schansberg, Ken Schoolland, James Yohe, throwing their support to Ron Paul:
Americans have lost faith in politicians, and for good reasons. Taxes, spending, and the national debt continue to rise, special interest bribes riddle the Congress, courts, and executive branch, and our schools are in shambles. Yet our government continues to wage a ceaseless assault on the American people's rights to make their own choices. It has done so through the USA Patriot Act, the REAL ID Act, the War on Drugs, McCain-Feingold, and countless other initiatives. The endless and inept foreign policy of interventionism of the establishment politicians has put our country in grave danger not only of a destructive war with Iran but a new financial crisis.
The 2008 election thus comes at a critical time in the history of the United States and the world.
We endorse Ron Paul for president because we believe he is the candidate best able to solve these profound problems. We come from a broad and diverse range of academic fields and specialties. We unite under the banner of liberty and are proud to announce our support for Ron Paul...
...A Paul administration will dramatically reduce the size and scope of the federal government over our lives and liberties. President Paul will work to abolish the Internal Revenue Service, emphasize free trade and diplomacy over confrontation, cease the war on drugs, which has destroyed the lives and liberties of the poor in inner cities, and end our error-ridden system of federal capital punishment. To accomplish these goals, and ensure that those in greatest need do not suffer during the transition, Paul will bring home the troops and abandon our ruinously expensive and futile effort to police the world.
Paul is the only presidential candidate with a proven record of defending academic freedom across-the-board. He has stood against efforts by both the political right and left to restrict the free discourse of ideas in higher education. He strongly opposes the use of speech codes to restrict academic freedom. For the same reason, he has spoken out against the so-called Academic Bill of Rights and other proposals that would empower politicians to impose "ideological balance" in the classroom. As Paul points out, these "speech codes of the right" would, if implemented, create a chilling effect on free and creative academic inquiry and teaching.
Ever wonder what the money bomb mastermind Trevor Lyman looks Like? Wonder no more:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sr06hlS8S70
So, did you hear the news (http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/editorialsopinion/2004052807_iraned05.html)yesterday? Iran has no nukes, no program, no ambitions:
Only weeks after President Bush invoked the specter of World War III to dramatize resistance to Iran's nuclear ambitions, he stood before reporters Tuesday to acknowledge his spies said the effort ended in 2003.
The Ron Paul campaign responds (http://www.allamericanpatriots.com/48738434_ron-paul-iran):
"We needlessly and foolishly threaten Iran even though they have no nuclear weapons. I find it incomprehensible that as the failure of our Iraq policy becomes more evident, some want the same kind of policy toward Iran. A policy of peace, trade and diplomacy, is superior."
The report's finding that Iran halted its nuclear weapons program in 2003 supports Congressman Paul's view that military action against Iran is contrary to American national security. The report found that any Iranian nuclear weapon capability is not imminent, and noted that the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research judges that Iran is unlikely to have the capability to produce a nuclear weapon before 2013.
"While candidates with virtually zero foreign policy experience like Rudy Giuliani are advocating escalation, Dr. Paul – an Air Force veteran and member of the House Foreign Relations Committee – has been a staunch opponent of expanding war into Iran," said Ron Paul spokesman Jesse Benton. "More than any other candidate, Ron Paul understands that America cannot afford to make the same mistakes with Iran that were made with Iraq."
Stratton Lawrence writes (http://www.charlestoncitypaper.com/gyrobase/Content?oid=oid%3A36863)in The Charleston City Paper that Ron Paul may be South Carolina's perfect candidate:
Who is Ron Paul? If you ask most media outlets, he's a radical, a dark horse, and at best, a fringe candidate. But he's raised nearly $10 million in campaign funds during the fourth quarter, as much as Mitt Romney, Rudy Giuliani, and Fred Thompson. And he's done it without taking money from corporations with special interests.
The other Republican candidates must be feeling the heat. The basis of Paul's campaign (and 30-year Congressional voting record) is that the United States should strictly adhere to the Constitution. He advocates smaller government, abolishing the income tax, border control, and first and foremost, individual liberty. Did we mention he's a veteran, against gun regulation, and pro-life? As an obstetrician, he's helped deliver over 4,000 babies. He opposes Roe v. Wade, believing that states, not the federal government, should decide the legality of abortion.
The Charleston County Republican Party's website states that they're "dedicated to promoting conservative principles that include less government, lower taxes, a good education for our children, and the protection of our country through controlled borders and legal immigration." Paul's agenda certainly matches that description. So why is he considered so radical?
And let's finish off today's Roundup with a reminder about next Sunday, December 16th:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hsg4ZjD9kQw
http://www.brendangates.com/forumlogo.jpg
Ron Paul Roundup (12-05-07)
by RS Davis (http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=194780914&blogID=335114259&Mytoken=4C1D8452-D554-4601-BC087BDC8985669F2129823)
Hello Freedomphiles! Today is the beginning of Hanukkah, so shalom to my Jewish brothers and sisters! God's chosen people, you lucky bastards.
So, our diminutive hero was on The View yesterday, and according to USAToday, all they wanted to talk about (http://blogs.usatoday.com/onpolitics/2007/12/on-the-view-abo.html) was abortion:
Republican Rep. Ron Paul today became the first 2008 Republican presidential candidate to make an appearance on The View. According to ABC News' Z. Byron Wolf, much of Paul's 10-minute appearance was spent discussing abortion -- and the anti-abortion Paul "held his own" with the hosts, Wolf writes.
The Raw Story adds that "Paul was visibly agitated when co-host Joy Behar told him, 'you probably are not going to win and you know that,' then asked who among the Republicans he would be willing to vote for."
"You want those pro-war people to win?" Paul asked. "No, you don't. ... If they come around endorsing my anti-war views, and pro-free-markets and sound money, yeah I would consider it, but I don't have anybody now that I could vote for."
Here's the video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WJRu-FAwdtA
Now, for some great fucking news. Remember the botnet spam attack that purported to be supporting Ron Paul? At the time, I didn't think it was a Paul supporter. There were rumors that it may have been meant to throw a monkey wrench into the campaign. Well, we don't know for sure why it was done, but PC World is reporting (http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,140300-c,spam/article.html)about who did it, and it wasn't any of us:
Security researchers have shut down a network of computers responsible for sending out nearly 200 million spam messages supporting the U.S. presidential candidate last month, and after analyzing the server's software, it's clear that there is no such thing as a Ron Paul botnet, according to Joe Stewart, a senior security researcher with SecureWorks. "It probably wasn't even set up by a Ron Paul supporter," he said. "This whole system has been around since 2004. This [spam] somehow just landed in this underground spam economy."
When spam first surfaced, trumpeting Paul as the winner of a recent Republican presidential debate, the fact that it was being sent via illegally infected machines raised eyebrows. The spam messages have never been directly linked to the Ron Paul campaign, which has denied any involvement in the incident.
Washington DC's The Hill is reporting (http://thehill.com/campaign-2008/paul-looks-to-turn-big-bucks-into-a-big-boost-at-the-polls-2007-12-05.html)about Paul, and turning big money into poll numbers:
And though the money is helpful, Dennis Goldford, a political science professor at Drake University, said it is the fervor Paul's supporters show that could be his biggest asset, because their support "is an inch wide but a mile deep."
"In some cases in Iowa that's what you need — people willing to walk not just through snow and ice but through fire and water to show up," Goldford said.
Goldford said that for most candidates the strategy behind the Iowa caucuses is to "increase your share of the pie at somebody else's expense."
"The other way to do that is to bake a bigger pie," he said. Goldford said a candidate like Paul who enjoys support from so many outside-the-mainstream voters could bring more people into the caucus system, much like Pat Robertson did with evangelical voters when he won the state in 1988.
Try to keep your head from exploding when you get to the part at the end when they say he has no chance.
In The Republican American, Lawrence Cohen is writing about "The Campaign that Never Was: Dodd vs Paul (http://www.rep-am.com/articles/2007/12/04/opinion/syndicated_columnists/302307.txt):"
At 72, the Texas congressman was laughed off at first as an old guy running a campaign the way an aging professional might plan a final big vacation before retirement. But this Republican politician, a retired physician, had a little secret, known to few and forgotten by even fewer. This is Paul's second run for the presidency. He ran as the Libertarian Party candidate in 1988.
The national Libertarian Party is one part philosophy club, one part direct-mail catalog (the best bumper sticker from the old days: "We're pro-choice on everything"); and one part serious political party that's going to take over the nation, subsidize nothing, decriminalize almost everything and wish you godspeed in living your life in freedom.
Serious Libertarian-leaning politicians such as Paul tend to drift toward the Republican Party, if they want to get elected to anything more powerful than a county sewer commission in Alaska or Idaho or New Hampshire.
But what Paul and the Libertarians know from campaigns past is that when an articulate Libertarian gets to strut his stuff before voters, a fair number sit up straight and say something like,"That's the first one of these creatures that's ever made any real sense."
Word. That 80's hip-hop catch phrase never felt so right in my mouth.
Now, The Charleston City Paper has an op-ed (http://www.charlestoncitypaper.com/gyrobase/Content?oid=oid%3A36886)about Ron Paul's foriegn policy views, and how they're so kooky, they're 100% right:
When it comes to the dangers of American empire, Paul has been proven 100 percent correct, and President Bush and the entire Republican establishment have been proven 100 percent wrong. As Paul predicted as early as 1997 in a letter to President Clinton, "Policy toward Iraq is ... not designed to protect U.S. national security. It is instead a threat to our security because it may lead to war and loss of American lives, increase terrorism, and certainly an additional expense for the U.S. taxpayer. The hyped rhetoric coming from Washington which describes Hussein as the only evil monster with which we must deal in the world is a poor substitute for wise counsel."
When it comes to why the U.S. was attacked on 9/11, the former head of the CIA's bin Laden unit Michael Scheuer validates Paul. As he told CNN, "We're being attacked for what we do in the Islamic world, not for who we are or what we believe in or how we live."
The 9/11 Commission Report also validates the claim that U.S. foreign intervention facilitated 9/11. Furthermore, it demolishes the childish fantasy-land idea that we were attacked simply because terrorists "hate our freedom," a notion that every single Republican presidential candidate subscribes to — except Ron Paul.
History News Network has a new piece (http://hnn.us/articles/45267.html), an open letter from academics Jonathan Bean, David T. Beito, Nelson Borelli, Joe Michael Cobb, Keith Halderman, David R. Henderson, Karen Kwiatkowski, Mark LeBar, William Marina, Charles W. Nuckolls, Ivan Pongracic, Jr., D. Eric Schansberg, Ken Schoolland, James Yohe, throwing their support to Ron Paul:
Americans have lost faith in politicians, and for good reasons. Taxes, spending, and the national debt continue to rise, special interest bribes riddle the Congress, courts, and executive branch, and our schools are in shambles. Yet our government continues to wage a ceaseless assault on the American people's rights to make their own choices. It has done so through the USA Patriot Act, the REAL ID Act, the War on Drugs, McCain-Feingold, and countless other initiatives. The endless and inept foreign policy of interventionism of the establishment politicians has put our country in grave danger not only of a destructive war with Iran but a new financial crisis.
The 2008 election thus comes at a critical time in the history of the United States and the world.
We endorse Ron Paul for president because we believe he is the candidate best able to solve these profound problems. We come from a broad and diverse range of academic fields and specialties. We unite under the banner of liberty and are proud to announce our support for Ron Paul...
...A Paul administration will dramatically reduce the size and scope of the federal government over our lives and liberties. President Paul will work to abolish the Internal Revenue Service, emphasize free trade and diplomacy over confrontation, cease the war on drugs, which has destroyed the lives and liberties of the poor in inner cities, and end our error-ridden system of federal capital punishment. To accomplish these goals, and ensure that those in greatest need do not suffer during the transition, Paul will bring home the troops and abandon our ruinously expensive and futile effort to police the world.
Paul is the only presidential candidate with a proven record of defending academic freedom across-the-board. He has stood against efforts by both the political right and left to restrict the free discourse of ideas in higher education. He strongly opposes the use of speech codes to restrict academic freedom. For the same reason, he has spoken out against the so-called Academic Bill of Rights and other proposals that would empower politicians to impose "ideological balance" in the classroom. As Paul points out, these "speech codes of the right" would, if implemented, create a chilling effect on free and creative academic inquiry and teaching.
Ever wonder what the money bomb mastermind Trevor Lyman looks Like? Wonder no more:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sr06hlS8S70
So, did you hear the news (http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/editorialsopinion/2004052807_iraned05.html)yesterday? Iran has no nukes, no program, no ambitions:
Only weeks after President Bush invoked the specter of World War III to dramatize resistance to Iran's nuclear ambitions, he stood before reporters Tuesday to acknowledge his spies said the effort ended in 2003.
The Ron Paul campaign responds (http://www.allamericanpatriots.com/48738434_ron-paul-iran):
"We needlessly and foolishly threaten Iran even though they have no nuclear weapons. I find it incomprehensible that as the failure of our Iraq policy becomes more evident, some want the same kind of policy toward Iran. A policy of peace, trade and diplomacy, is superior."
The report's finding that Iran halted its nuclear weapons program in 2003 supports Congressman Paul's view that military action against Iran is contrary to American national security. The report found that any Iranian nuclear weapon capability is not imminent, and noted that the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research judges that Iran is unlikely to have the capability to produce a nuclear weapon before 2013.
"While candidates with virtually zero foreign policy experience like Rudy Giuliani are advocating escalation, Dr. Paul – an Air Force veteran and member of the House Foreign Relations Committee – has been a staunch opponent of expanding war into Iran," said Ron Paul spokesman Jesse Benton. "More than any other candidate, Ron Paul understands that America cannot afford to make the same mistakes with Iran that were made with Iraq."
Stratton Lawrence writes (http://www.charlestoncitypaper.com/gyrobase/Content?oid=oid%3A36863)in The Charleston City Paper that Ron Paul may be South Carolina's perfect candidate:
Who is Ron Paul? If you ask most media outlets, he's a radical, a dark horse, and at best, a fringe candidate. But he's raised nearly $10 million in campaign funds during the fourth quarter, as much as Mitt Romney, Rudy Giuliani, and Fred Thompson. And he's done it without taking money from corporations with special interests.
The other Republican candidates must be feeling the heat. The basis of Paul's campaign (and 30-year Congressional voting record) is that the United States should strictly adhere to the Constitution. He advocates smaller government, abolishing the income tax, border control, and first and foremost, individual liberty. Did we mention he's a veteran, against gun regulation, and pro-life? As an obstetrician, he's helped deliver over 4,000 babies. He opposes Roe v. Wade, believing that states, not the federal government, should decide the legality of abortion.
The Charleston County Republican Party's website states that they're "dedicated to promoting conservative principles that include less government, lower taxes, a good education for our children, and the protection of our country through controlled borders and legal immigration." Paul's agenda certainly matches that description. So why is he considered so radical?
And let's finish off today's Roundup with a reminder about next Sunday, December 16th:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hsg4ZjD9kQw
http://www.brendangates.com/forumlogo.jpg