Category: Ron Paul

Ron, When You Accuse Israel Of Starting Hamas, You Need To Cite A Good Reference

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by Smitty


Ron, you can build a case that the history and politics are complicated, and unfortunate, and never moreso than the Middle East. But when you claim that Israel started Hamas as a means of checking Yassir Arafat, you had better back that up. Otherwise, you risk sounding like a tinfoil hat conspiracy theorist.

Some of the various tidbits I’ve seen indicate a general blend of the last century’s totalitarians and anti-Semites as informing the more radical and militant aspects of Islam and anti-Israeli organizations. More to the point: Ron Paul could have as easily discussed the fundamental theorem of calculus in two minutes as recapped the Gaza situation. Instead we hear the broken ‘blame Israel’ record.

It’s a shame that, since 1948, Yassir Arafat is the ‘best’ example of a statesmen that the West Bank or Gaza Strip have produced. Maybe this underscores the exceptional nature of the crop of thinkers who created these United States. The existential truth of human nature seems to be that the leaders of the West Bank and Gaza Strip find it simpler to perpetuate old evils than set about improving the situation.

Support Israel? Darn right I do, with a sad eye toward the common folk of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, who are the ones mostly getting burned by the oxymoron labeled ‘peace process’.

via Yid with Lid

Update: Israel Matzav amplifies the situation with some better accuracy than Ron Paul. Ron, Ron, Ron: two places for sloppy, sensational statements are (a) used car advertisements, and (b) tabloids. Just trying to help your career planning, sir.

Update II: linked by Surber.

VA Attorney General Cuccinelli On GOP Primary Ballot

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by Smitty

Virginia is for politics lovers, and those who love being loved by politics. He has a lengthy email newsletter, which is not a survival guide, but offers some behind the scenes insight on the candidates. Cooch is a Santorum fan, and had the dimmest of faint praise for the Ruling Class Overlord approved GOP front runners.

A Note On The Virginia Ballot
. . .it now appears that the only two candidates that will be on Virginia’s ballot on March 6th: Governor Mitt Romney and Congressman Ron Paul. While I’m glad for them, it screams out for making our ballot more accessible. Continue reading VA Attorney General Cuccinelli On GOP Primary Ballot →

Memo From the National Affairs Desk: How’s the Weather Today in Vanuatu?

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“Santorum is a social conservative, and everybody seems to have convinced themselves that social conservatives are a dead weight impeding the Republican Party and therefore no one should ever express support for any social conservative anywhere, under any circumstance.”
— Robert Stacy McCain, “Slouching Toward Cedar Rapids”

“How long, O Lord, how long? Where will it end?
“All I ever wanted out of this campaign was enough money to get out of the country and live for a year or two in peaceful squalor in a house with a big screen porch looking down on an empty white beach, with a good rich coral reef a few hundred yards out in the surf and no neighbors. . . .
“What worries me now . . . is the strong possibility that my involvement in politics has become so deep and twisted that I can no longer think rationally about that big screen porch above the beach except in terms of an appointment as Governor of American Samoa.”
– Hunter S. Thompson, Fear and Loathing: On the Campaign Trail ’72

Among the Christmas gifts I received from Mrs. Other McCain today: New luggage, thermal underwear and a wool overcoat — appropriate and much appreciated by a guy who’s about to head out on the campaign trail to Iowa and New Hampshire.

This trip wouldn’t be possible without the generous support of readers who have contributed to the Shoe Leather Fund, and there are more tip-jar hitters to thank on my last night at home before I fly the friendly skies to Cedar Rapids: Ronald in Charlottesville, Joe in Olympia, John in West Hartford, Victor in Virginia, Lamon in Missouri, Stephen in Alabama, Philip in Englewood, Dewayne in Evansville, Mike in New Hampshire, Barry in Florissant, William in Dallas, and Scott in Ontario.

Before I pack up the laptop and hit the Hawkeye State, however, there are a couple of things that probably need explaining, which might have been mysteriously puzzling even to longtime readers. Continue reading Memo From the National Affairs Desk: How’s the Weather Today in Vanuatu? →

I DENOUNCE THIS ATROCITY!

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I’m not sure which is more profoundly offensive: The song itself, or Richard McEnroe posting it under the title, “A Ron Paul Christmas”:

There are so many layers of sick humor atrociously bad taste hate crime involved, I’m not sure where to begin:

  • Orthodox Jews will be horrified by this shiksa‘s expression of carnal lust for Jew-flesh;
  • Ron Paul supporters will be insulted by the suggestion that a politician hates Jews merely because he has been known to rant about the  “Israel lobby” (nudge, nudge, wink, wink); and
  • Islamic fanatics will be infuriated by this taunting reminder their relentlesss efforts to annihilate every Jew on the planet have failed.

These are just three of the most obvious human rights violations involved and therefore:

I DENOUNCE RICHARD McENROE

Because, hey, being denounced by me? It’s like the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval with the ADL, SPLC, Media Matters, etc.

Perry Heartache In VA: Just A Bit Outside

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by Smitty

Via the Washington Post:

Republican presidential candidate Rick Perry failed to submit enough valid signatures to qualify for the Virginia primary ballot, state GOP officials said Friday evening.
Perry’s campaign told state election officials it had submitted 11,911 signatures, but a Republican source familiar with the situation said that the Texas governor did not submit the required 10,000.
Earlier Friday, the Republican Party of Virginia certified former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney and Rep. Ron Paul (Tex.) to appear on the March ballot.

One other amplifying bit of information:

How pathetic will it be if Virginia Republicans’ primary ballot choices are only Mitt Romney and Ron Paul? (Write-ins are NOT allowed in primaries.)

While the situation is not quite as freakish as being doused in gas and having my ear cut off for a Tarentino flick, there is a noticeable “clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right” feel to it all.

For all I think Ron Paul has excellent ideas on monetary policy, the handwriting is on the newsletter for his campaign. His foreign policy ideas are simply unrealistic, and disqualify him from consideration, even before the fringe ideas come into play.

I thought that the Herman Cain ejection from the race was grossly out to lunch. Yet those supporting Ron Paul need to review that and note that this is just the primary. In the hypothetical case that Ron Paul held the GOP nomination, or even show up as VP somehow, we’d have a new tidbit every hour on the hour from the nomination to the election. The Obama campaign would distort Ron Paul’s corpus to the point where BHO would be saving the country from electing Adolf Mao Stalin. Ron Paul supporters need a good night’s sleep, a cup of coffee, and some reflection.

Irrespective of anyones regard for the fellow (and I don’t personally care about any of the candidates) there is a time for idealism, and a time for pragmatism. The Constitution itself has already been substantially corrupted. There isn’t much need for idealistic defense of any virginity there, since the molestation has already occurred before most of our lives began. Thus, I really hope that the 1992 debacle of Perot does not recur. You can argue that Mitt is as big a Ruling Class knob as Bush41, and I won’t defend either gentleman, but BHO is far more diabolical than Billy Jeff. There is no idealistic argument for splitting the conservative vote, only foolish ones.

Given his high mileage, is Gingrich some kind of a compromise between the silly and RomneyCharybdis*? From the WaPo:

State party officials are spending Friday certifying the signatures. They have not examined Gingrich’s signatures yet, but expected to do so by late Friday night. His campaign said it submitted 11,050 signatures .

Gingrich is actually a Virginia resident. If he can’t figure out the Newtonian mechanics of getting on the primary ballot in his own state, can he be relied upon to Win The Future?

I can’t resist the thought that, if Sarah Palin was actually running, she could have mustered a cool 20k signatures without excessive effort.

*For a bit of late-night, overly literary snark, compounded through the use of a cutesy little footnote.

Classics of the Golden Age of Fringe, Or: Ron Paul Digs the Beatles’ White Album

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IYKWIMAITYD:

Question: What do Ron Paul and Charles Manson have in common?
Answer: Both warned their followers of an impending “race war.”

Maybe Lisa Graas isn’t the first blogger to make that comparison, and if some other blogger wants to accuse Lisa of “stealing” their material . . .

Well, lots of that going around lately. Back of the line, pal.

Being a huge Beatles fan myself — quick, somebody tell Charles Johnson — and feeling in a rather contrarian mood today, I’m going to hazard an extremely limited defense of Ron Paul on this newsletter controversy.

Stipulate from the outset that those newsletters contained a lot of bad, wrong, racist and paranoid stuff. Further stipulate that Ron Paul authorized some cranky ghost-writer to use such fear-mongering to raise money, thereby attracting to his core following a bunch of the kind of people who enjoy reading stuff like this:

“I’ve been told not to talk, but these stooges don’t scare me. Threats or no threats, I’ve laid bare the coming race war in our big cities. The federal-homosexual cover-up on AIDS (my training as a physician helps me see through this one.) The Bohemian Grove — perverted, pagan playground of the powerful. Skull & Bones: the demonic fraternity that includes George Bush and leftist Senator John Kerry, Congress’s Mr. New Money. The Israeli lobby, which plays Congress like a cheap harmonica. And the Soviet-style ‘smartcard’ the Justice Department has in mind for you.”

Considering myself something of a connoisseur of lunatic gibberish, I stand in awe of whatever unknown genius wrote that demented paragraph of paranoia-for-profit. One of these days, when some shrewd publisher hires me to edit a college textbook (The Norton Anthology of Right-Wing Extremist Literature), I’ll probably cite this as a classic example of late 20th-century direct-mail fundraising appeals.

By God, he pushed every button, didn’t he? Racism, homophobia, secret societies, currency manipulation, Jew-hating, anti-communism, Big Brother surveillance — it’s all there in 94 cleverly crafted words of undiluted 100% pure fearmongering. You have to appreciate the prophetic vision of the thing, foreshadowing in the dead-tree era the subsequent development of e-mail solicitations from MoveOn.org, Organizing for America and other such radical groups.

Lament this as politics, if you will, but as literature, it just might be the finest example of its genre ever written. It is to hate-hustling what Michelangelo’s David is to sculpture. Continue reading Classics of the Golden Age of Fringe, Or: Ron Paul Digs the Beatles’ White Album →

‘So Critical’

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by Smitty

Mitt Romney has a blog post up that sounds real swell. I wouldn’t damn this notion with anything but faint praise:

The first step in returning to an Opportunity Society is scaling back our vast federal government. I will put every single government program to a simple test: Is this program so critical to our nation’s future that we should borrow money from China to pay for it?

Read Romney’s entire focus-group approved message.

Mitt sounds like he’s unwilling to admit that the Progressive penetration, however slight, has sodomized the Constitutional order. What is required is a straightforward Enumerated Powers check against the Federal government, and then a transition plan to unwind the substantial over-reach that has accumulated.

Governor Romeny, this ‘so critical’ test is piffle. Where DC has over-reached in the last century, the correct remedy would be to amend the Constitution to legitimize the over-reach. Am I making this up? Check out the million-plus hits on emergency extension of unemployment benefits. How many acute, critical extensions of unemployment benefits do we need before we have the integrity to admit that this is a chronic, status quo, business-as-usual situation?

May I double down, please? ‘So Critical’ is precisely the sort of code phrase that targets two audiences. It sounds reassuring to the proles, delivered in those practiced tones, and gives them something to vote for. It also re-assures that bureaucrats that, within those deep down devilish details, there Will Be No substantial reform. Business as flipping usual, boys. The subtext of the campaign is that if bureaucrats want to keep their gravy train going, they had better subvert the GOP primaries and make sure Mitt wins. Or Newt, who is also likely to be ‘reliable’, IYKWIMAITYD.

Is anybody curious why Ron Paul has such traction? Is it really a phalanx of over-caffeinated supporters running about? Or maybe, just maybe, does the notion of going after the Federal over-reach with hammer and tongs actually have some appeal?

Jonah Golberg wants to, but seems closer to Romney:

Paul routinely says that he’s the only candidate who promises real change. For instance, he proposes cutting $1 trillion from the budget in the first year of his presidency. Now, show of hands: Who thinks Ron Paul could get those kinds of cuts through Congress?

It’s like all of the debates and discussion are just “Whacky stuff candidates say to get elected.” I mean, we’re not here to reform anything; we’re here to talk about reform as though it was something we genuinely meant, right? I would argue that cutting $1 trillion would require three things:

  • President Paul does not get ventilated for trying.
  • President Paul goes all Thermopylae, fighting off the Bureaucratic Hordes of Xerxes with his +5 Vorpal Pen of Veto.
  • Most importantly, the people would have to back him up. The transition would not be pleasant. Neither is getting sober. But we really can’t all be Vodka Pundit. Some of us have to work at it.

Thus, I’d contend that Ron Paul and Mitt Romney are the bookends of the GOP field. Notwithstanding the foreign policy, I think Ron Paul is spot on with the bulk of what he says. The unworkable foreign policy is almost a feature: it allows him to advocate domestic policy sense and drive the GOP in a necessary way, while ensuring that nobody with a realistic view of foreign policy is going to vote for him.

Finishing off with the faintest possible praise, Mitt’s ‘so critical’ test is slightly better than nothing. Which is about where I am on the United Nations, as well. See if you can borrow some sack, Mitt, and offer a substantial way forward, eh?

Of the rest of the field, Bachmann, Perry, and Santorum seem like the candidates who pick up the most of Paul’s sense, while keeping the foreign policy sensible.

via Orit Sklar on Twitter

Fear of a Ron Paul Planet

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“Newt Gingrich’s lead in the race for the GOP presidential nomination has evaporated, according to a new national survey.”
— Paul Steinhauser, CNN

“The model gives [Ron Paul] a 44 percent chance of winning Iowa based on the current standing of the candidates and the historic uncertainty of polling-based forecasts. Mr. Romney has a 32 percent chance of winning, while Mr. Gingrich’s chances have crashed to 15 percent.”
— Nate Silver, New York Times

“If Iowa picks Ron Paul as its caucus winner, two things will result. First, Mitt Romney will probably run the table as Republicans everywhere else but Iowa recoil in horror. Second, Iowa will likely end up losing whatever cachet it has managed to build over the last three decades as a first-in-the-nation proving ground for presidential candidates, and the drumbeat to unseat both Iowa and New Hampshire from the front end of the primary system will prove irresistible.”
— Ed Morrissey, Hot Air

“[T]he GOP establishment has so invested itself in Romney’s candidacy that it has increased the likelihood of the one thing that would hand Barack Obama the election, a Ron Paul third party candidacy.”
— William Jacobson, Legal Insurrection

Everybody chill, OK? It’s merely a poll. And despite the impressive increase in Ron Paul’s Iowa poll numbers, he’s still Ron Paul — a candidate with a “high floor, low ceiling,” as they say.

Furthermore, the panic over the evident “collapse” of Newt Gingrich’s support reminds me very much of the panic over Rick Perry’s collapse in September. Like Perry before him, Gingrich was cloaked with the mantle of “The Only Viable Alternative to Romney” and, when things went wrong, the argument was (and is being) made that those who fail to rally to the designated Not Mitt are objectively pro-Romney.

This argument was absurd when I was hearing it from Perry’s people three months ago, and is equally absurd — indeed, more absurd — when it is made on behalf of Newt Gingrich. His serial disloyalties to the conservative grassroots make Newt a strange choice as the Last Hope of the conservative moment. He joined Nancy Pelosi to endorse global warming theory. He supported RINO Dede Scozzafava in the crucial NY-23 special election. He collected big bucks from Freddie Mac. And yet Gingrich, of all the candidates in the GOP field, is to be the final repository of conservative hope in the 2012 race?

Are you people on drugs? Continue reading Fear of a Ron Paul Planet →