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Paulian Blowback
Posted on December 24, 2011 by LHR Jr.
If the MSM-GOP establishment continues it scorched-earth campaign against Ron Paul, copying what they ran against Pat Buchanan, it will propel Ron to victory for the nomination, says non-Paul supporter Steve Deace. This time, the American people are ready for a revolution, and the power elite has never dealt with an insurgent candidate like Ron. (Thanks to Brad Funkhouser)
xxx
"Desperate times call for desperate measures. Make no mistake -- voters are desperate. Therefore, trying to give Paul the Buchanan treatment will actually entrench Paul's support all the more, because voters don't trust the source of the attacks. It's impossible to underestimate how little regard the American people have for political parties, and the Republicrat ruling class and its crony capitalism. They will see Buchanan-type attacks against Paul as the system trying to defend its indefensible self, and rally to him all the more. Folks are much angrier and desperate then they were during Buchanan's presidential runs. Thus, the crankier and crazier Paul sounds the more they'll love him. He'll be getting attacked by all the people they can't stand and don't trust."
The Buchanan Treatment Won't Work on Ron Paul
By Steve Deace
12/24/2011
Should Ron Paul win the Iowa Caucuses, the media narrative is the Republican Party establishment will go scorched earth on the quirky libertarian Texas Congressman, just as they did Pat Buchanan back in the day.
But unlike that successful kamikaze mission of yesteryear, this one won't work. In fact, if the Republican Party establishment chooses to go down that road they might just propel Paul to the nomination.
That's because Ron Paul isn't Pat Buchanan, and the environment this go-around is dramatically different than it was back then for two reasons.
First of all, Paul's campaign apparatus is dramatically superior to anything Buchanan ever had. His Iowa Caucus campaign is a well-oiled machine, and the envy of the entire process. They're running the best commercials. They're the best organized. They're the most loyal. And look beyond Iowa, too. Paul wins straw polls all over the country, including CPAC and even at the 2011 Values Voters Summit. I know several of these people who are the masterminds of Paul's organization, and these folks don't put their phasers on stun when it comes to their opponents and know what they're doing. They're not kooks, they're sharp cookies and losing is not an option in their strategy. They have no problem burning down the entire system, because they distrust it anyway.
Buchanan still needed the system. He still needed jobs on cable news networks or help publishing/selling his books and columns. Paul isn't running to reform the system. He's running to reboot it. Buchanan has never had an organization this good. In fact, no insurgent candidate in modern American political history has had an organization this professional and well-funded.
Second, voter angst and anger towards Washington and Republicrats in general is at an all-time high. In 2004 the voters gave George W. Bush and the Republicans control of Washington. In 2006 they made Nancy Pelosi Speaker of the House. In 2008 they made Barack Obama President of the United States. In 2010 they fired over 700 Democrats running for re-election around the country. Meanwhile, marriage continues to remain undefeated at the ballot box whenever pro-homosexual activists attempt to challenge it, but at the same time the American people seem content with normalizing homosexual behavior in popular culture.
That's a schizophrenic swing of energy and emotion in less than one decade. In just six years the American people voted for a quasi-socialist welfare state they didn't want to have to pay for, and a return to Judeo-Christian moral values they themselves don't want to be accountable to.
That tells me the American people are looking for someone – literally anyone – to show some leadership on the issues. Voters aren't satisfied after trying both parties' milquetoast ruling class, and are looking to drain the swamp.
Enter Ron Paul.
Paul has already been heavily vetted. He's a national figure, who has run for president several times and has been running for the last five years. His quirks are known. His positions are known. Believing the American people will not vote for someone who wants to return us to 1789, is like believing the American people will never vote for someone who wants us to look like West Germany circa 1978 when they just did.
We are a confused people. We know what we're supposed to be and supposed to look like, and yet we have no idea for how to get there. We lack the spiritual and moral foundation to rebuild the wall, if you will. Minus a Nehemiah showing the way, a civilization will either choose one of two pathsself-indulgence and ultimately self-destruction, or hit the control-alt-delete button in order to start over again.
The liberals represent the former, and Paul and his libertarian brigade represent the latter.
Desperate times call for desperate measures. Make no mistake -- voters are desperate. Therefore, trying to give Paul the Buchanan treatment will actually entrench Paul's support all the more, because voters don't trust the source of the attacks. It's impossible to underestimate how little regard the American people have for political parties, and the Republicrat ruling class and its crony capitalism. They will see Buchanan-type attacks against Paul as the system trying to defend its indefensible self, and rally to him all the more. Folks are much angrier and desperate then they were during Buchanan's presidential runs. Thus, the crankier and crazier Paul sounds the more they'll love him. He'll be getting attacked by all the people they can't stand and don't trust.
The peasants want to storm the Bastille, and in many respects the philosophy Paul is espousing of individualized liberty for the sake of self is right out of the French Revolutionso it fits the mood of the country perfectly.
This brings us to how to defeat Paul.
Paul is a man with powerful ideas, some very good and some very bad. If human history has taught us one thing it's that bad powerful ideas can only be defeated by good powerful ideas.
Instead of trying to cram milquetoast flip-floppers down voters' throats, the Republican Party needs to champion candidates who have good powerful ideas about how to return to the roots of the American Revolution -- which begins with the premise individuals have liberty and rights from God alone, and the role of government is to protect those God-given rights and then get out of the way to allow liberty to flourish.
The more Rudy McRomneys the Republican Party serves up, the more popular someone like Paul will become. Frustrated voters will use Paul as a blunt instrument, or maybe even a sharp object, to attack a failed system with.
The Republicrats deserve Ron Paul. The ruling class created the Ron Paul phenomenon by its own actions. And the more they persist in being tone-deaf to voters' angst, the more likely they are to suffer at his hands.
And as much as I disagree with Paul, I'd choose him over the Republicrat ruling class any day of the week, and twice on Sunday.
http://townhall.com/columnists/stevedeace/2011/12/24/the_buchanan_treatment_wont_work_on_ron_paul
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----------
How do you know your presidential campaign has legs in Iowa?
For Ron Paul staffers, it came with the realization that the crowds the
congressman now draws can no longer fit into the confines of a Pizza Ranch.
"We can't do a lot of the venues that the other candidates can," Paul's Iowa
co-chairman David Fischer said Thursday. "The Pizza Ranches are out."
Paul held eight town hall meetings this week in eastern Iowa, each drawing
crowds ranging from between 150 in Manchester to 800 in Bettendorf. None of the
events were booked at any of the state's 71 Pizza Ranch restaurants—sites which
routinely play host to other GOP candidates.
"The crowds have just been incredible," Fischer said. "There's a lot of
undecided voters who are curious about Ron Paul coming to these events."
The libertarian-leaning politician has also seen his base of supporters increase
over the past month, Fischer added
"It's blue collar, it's independent-thinking folks, you even get some Democrats
in there," he said, adding that business owners, Christians and families that
home school their children have also attended Paul events. "There's just a huge
variety of people interested in this message, and that tells you the power of
the message."
Polls now paint Paul as a front-runner, with Wednesday's Iowa State
University/Gazette/KCRG poll showing the 76-year-old leading in Iowa.
http://caucuses.desmoinesregister.com/2011/12/23/ron-paul-passes-pizza-ranch-test/
--- In truthquestonline@yahoogroups.com, L Larry <lzp3a@...> wrote:
>
> Frontrunner Ron Paul is blasting past all the corrupt Repug FILTH! The ONLY tea party candidate WORTH voting for!
> Ron Paul Now The true and only Frontrunner In Iowa ... The Media is getting desperate
> http://revolutionarypolitics.tv/video/viewVideo.php?video_id=17022
>
>
>
> Ron Paul - Iowa Frontrunner - On Neil Cavuto 12/23/11
> Ron Paul - Iowa Frontrunner - On Neil Cavuto 12/23/11
>
>
>
> CNN Poll: Ron Paul Most Popular Republican Amongst Non-Whites
> By: RON PAUL 2012
> Tags:
>
> CORPORATE MEDIA
> COVER-UP/DECEPTIONS/PROPAGANDA
>
> While the establishment media continues to hype a 15-year-old story concerning decades old newsletters as part of a dirty tricks campaign to smear Ron Paul as a racist, the latest CNN poll shows that Paul has the most support from non-whites
> http://12160.info/profiles/blogs/cnn-poll-ron-paul-most-popular-republican-amongst-non-whites
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Racist vs. Racial , Snoozeletters & The Howard Deaning of Ron Paul
> By: dcgraphics
> Tags:
>
> LIBYA
> POLITICS/ELECTIONS/CORRUPTION
> VIDEO
> VOTE FRAUD
>
> this is my first video, it's not great, but once I saw Obamabots posting links to the Weekly Standard I had to get some shit of my chest.
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UPVGyQZ5Ud0
>
>
>
>
> BEX alert - Ron Paul Newsletters: Ad Urging Subscription Warned Of 'Race War'
> Tags:
>
> CORPORATE MEDIA
> COVER-UP/DECEPTIONS/PROPAGANDA
> POLITICS/ELECTIONS/CORRUPTION
> PROTESTS/REVOLUTION
>
> A direct-mail solicitation for Ron Paul's political and investment newsletters two decades ago warned of a "coming race war in our big cities" and of a "federal-homosexual cover-up" to play down the impact of AIDS.
>
> Webmaster's Commentary:
>
>
> The real import of this story is that after combing through Ron Paul's life for the last twenty years, this was the best they could come up with to attack him; a subscription letter that "appears" to have his signature on it.
> Think any of the other candidates would survive a search of the last 20 years of their lives with so little to show for it?
>
> An Independent America: Voters leaving Republican, Democratic parties in droves
> By: ActivistPost
> Tags:
>
> CURRENT EVENTS
> POLITICS/ELECTIONS/CORRUPTION
> PROTESTS/REVOLUTION
>
> Activist Post
> A recent analysis conducted by USA Today showed that American voters are fed up with both mainstream political parties and are leaving them in droves.
> The newspaper claims that "More than 2.5 million voters have left the Democratic and Republican parties since the 2008 elections."
> Over the last decade this trend has only seemed to accelerate...
> http://www.activistpost.com/2011/12/independent-america-voters-leaving.html
>
>
>
> FAIL! Gingrich, Perry, Bachmann, Huntsman and Santorum FAILED to get 10000 signatures to be in Virginia Primary! ONLY PAUL and Romney in Primary
> By: SherrieQA
> Tags:
>
> CORPORATE MEDIA
> CURRENT EVENTS
> POLITICS/ELECTIONS/CORRUPTION
> WHITE HOUSE
>
> This is just too good and funny!
> Gingrich, Bachmann, Huntsman, Santorum and Perry could not come up with 10,000 signatures to be in the Virginia Primary for their names to be on the ballot.
> But Paul and Romney did get the 10,000 signatures needed.
> Fox news reported about Gingrich and Perry.
> After verification, RPV has determined that Newt Gingrich did not submit required 10k signatures and has not qualified for the VA primary," the Republican Party of Virginia announced early Saturday on its Twitter website.
> Texas Gov. Rick Perry also fell short of the 10,000 signatures of registered voters required for a candidate's name to be on the primary ballot, but former
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Bill Buckley and National Review: Whites Are 'the Advanced Race'
Posted by Ryan W. McMaken on December 24, 2011 02:00 PM
I find it interesting that the remnants of the Buckleyite wing of the right wing are trying to read Ron Paul out of the movement for his alleged racism. Yes, much better to profess a belief in equality for all ethnic groups, and then proceed to favor policies like the drug war that overwhelmingly punish non-whites more than whites. And then there is the mass murder of various brown-skinned foreigners by Obama, which will no doubt continue under any successor to Obama who is not named Ron Paul.
The disciples of Buckley of course conveniently forget National Review's position on civil rights. Let us remember Buckley's comments on how the whites in the South have a right to government-enforced segregation because they are "the advanced race":
- "The central question that emergesand it is not a parliamentary question or a question that is answered by merely consulting a catalog of the rights of American citizens, born Equalis whether the White community in the South is entitled to take such measures as are necessary to prevail, politically and culturally, in areas in which it does not predominate numerically? The sobering answer is Yesthe White community is so entitled because, for the time being, it is the advanced race."
- "National Review believes that the South's premises are correct. If the majority wills what is socially atavistic, then to thwart the majority may be, though undemocratic, enlightened. It is more important for any community, anywhere in the world, to affirm and live by civilized standards, than to bow to the demands of the numerical majority. Sometimes it becomes impossible to assert the will of a minority, in which case it must give way; and the society will regress; sometimes the numerical minority cannot prevail except by violence: then it must determine whether the prevalence of its will is worth the terrible price of violence"
Later, Buckley said that Martin Luther King may have been to blame for his own assassination:
- "the cretin who leveled his rifle at the head of Martin Luther King may have absorbed the talk, so freely available, about the supremacy of individual conscience, such talk as Martin Luther King, God rest his troubled and compassionate soul, had so widely and indiscriminately made."
Newt Gingrich in 2005: I support Greenspan's inflation
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zrtFeV7C6Tk&feature=youtu.be
-----
Voters leaving Republican, Democratic parties in droves
By Richard Wolf, USA TODAY
Published: 12/22/2011 8:30:52 PM
WASHINGTON – More than 2.5 million voters have left the Democratic and Republican parties since the 2008 elections, while the number of independent voters continues to grow.
A USA TODAY analysis of state voter registration statistics shows registered Democrats declined in 25 of the 28 states that register voters by party. Republicans dipped in 21 states, while independents increased in 18 states.
The trend is acute in states that are key to next year's presidential race. In the eight swing states that register voters by party, Democrats' registration is down by 800,000 and Republicans' by 350,000. Independents have gained 325,000.
The pattern continues a decades-long trend that has seen a diminution in the power of political parties, giving rise to independents as Ross Perot and Ralph Nader and the popularity this year of libertarian Republican Ron Paul.
"The strident voices of both the left and the right have sort of soured people from saying willingly that they belong to one party or the other," says Doug Lewis, who represents state elections officials. "If both sides call each other scurrilous dogs, then the public believes that both sides are probably scurrilous dogs."
Registered Democrats still dominate the political playing field with more than 42 million voters, compared to 30 million Republicans and 24 million independents. But Democrats have lost the most — 1.7 million, or 3.9%, from 2008.
Democratic registration has fared worse than Republicans in Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Carolina and Pennsylvania — the eight swing states with party registration. Republican losses are biggest in Nevada, New Hampshire and Pennsylvania.
The decline is due to a variety of factors. People move, people die, people revolt in disgust. Many are stripped from registration rolls by states seeking to remove inactive voters.
By contrast, the number of independents has grown for years and is up more than 400,000 since 2008, or 1.7%. States with big gains: Colorado, Florida, North Carolina — and Arizona, a possible target for President Obama in 2012.
The 2012 winner, says North Carolina elections director Gary Bartlett, will be "whoever is attractive to the unaffiliated voter."
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Christopher Hitchens Remembered
By Edward Hudgins
December 16, 2011 – I first met Christopher Hitchens in the early 2000s at the Americans for Tax Reform's weekly meeting of conservative and limited-government activists, which Hillary Clinton deemed the "vast right-wing conspiracy." Sitting next to him, I introduced myself as with the Objectivist Center (as our organization was then known). "Oh yes, that's the good one," he replied, or words to that effect, showing that he knew the difference between our group and another one that took the thinking of Ayn Rand more like religious dogma than rational philosophy.
Hitchens was at the meeting to talk about the case of Orlando Letelier, who had been the ambassador to the U.S. for Chilean Marxist President Salvador Allende. Allende died in a coup d'état in 1973 and Letelier was assassinated, along with an American assistant, in Washington, D.C., in 1976, no doubt by the Chilean right-wing military government's secret police. Hitchens believed that conservatives should be concerned about such unlawful acts, committed at the behest of a foreign government on American soil. But it was more than this narrow issue that brought him into the halls of the ideological right.
Moving From the Left
Hitchens, who passed away December 15 after a year-and-a-half battle with cancer, was an author, intellectual, polymath, and journalist who traveled to the worst war zones and trouble spots of the world to see things for himself. The subjects of his books spanned the spectrum from Thomas Jefferson to George Orwell to Henry Kissinger to Mother Teresa to the Clintons to the fallacies of religion.
He started as a Marxist but later abandoned dialectical materialism as the key for understanding the world and spurring revolution. He was too honest to treat Marxism as dogma: "There came a time when I could not protect myself, and indeed did not wish to protect myself, from the onslaught of reality."
Following the September 11, 2001, attacks on America as well as later attacks in London, Madrid, Bombay, and elsewhere, Hitchens expected his colleagues to see the dangers that Islamists posed to the values of liberty and an open society. But many on the left, rather than defending those values, offered knee-jerk denunciations of the West, epitomized by the malicious rantings of Noam Chomsky. Hitchens found himself being welcomed in right-wing circles.
In 2004 Hitchens accepted an invitation to speak at our Objectivist Center Capitol Hill conference on "What Are Western Values and Should We Return to Them?" While never glossing over the errors and crimes of any government or of imperialism, Hitchens spoke of the benefits of the British Raj in India, bringing railroads and technology to the subcontinent, for example, and abolishing wife-burning and other morally abhorrent practices. He didn't ask for a speaking fee, only cab fare to return home.
David Kelley, our organization's founder, asked Hitchens what he considered himself politically since he was now alienated from much of the left. A libertarian? Sort of, he replied. But his uncertainty was not simply a matter of not embracing laissez-faire capitalism. Hitchens was always seeking truth and perhaps he thought that labels might tie him to beliefs that he did not accept
Moral Sentiments
Hitchens is perhaps best known as one of the New Atheists. Indeed, he famously took on religious icon Mother Teresa. In his book The Missionary Position he showed that her goal was not to alleviate the suffering of the poor; rather, she saw suffering as something to be welcomed and wallowed in as part of God's will.
Hitchens with the author.
Hitchens with the author.
The title of Hitchens's book God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything certainly summarized his thinking, but it does not say it all. Hitchens argued that even without religion one can have fundamental moral values that are not simply a matter of your whim versus mine.
He was not a systematic moral theorist, falling instead into what might be called the "moral sentiments" school. He argued, for example, that the Children of Israel knew very well before God supposedly gave them the Ten Commandments that killing and stealing were wrong.
Evolutionary psychology today suggests that individuals indeed have hardwired "sentiments" or propensities. But these vary from one individual to another. So are all equally right? Aren't such differences the root of conflicts?
Hitchens was not an Ayn Rand fan, yet he would have benefited from better understanding her fundamental insights. Hitchens argued that we need not urge individuals to be "selfish" à la Rand since most individuals are inclined to such behavior anyway. But Rand understood that the path that will best lead to one's survival and flourishing must be discovered by rational inquiry and reflection, which were both favored by Hitchens.
Hitchens, by the way, did like Rand's essay "Requiem for Man," which denounced Pope Paul VI's stand on birth control. Hitchens wanted to include it in one of his compilations and complained to me that the Estate of Ayn Rand would not give him permission to republish the piece.
Free Inquiry
In spite of a lack of philosophical rigor, Hitchens did offer and defend positive values. He argued that what atheists, agnostics, and humanists "respect is free inquiry, openmindedness, and the pursuit of ideas for their own sake." That, he would argue, is how we attune ourselves to moral sentiments and, indeed, to all that is good in life. He stated that we "find that the serious ethical dilemmas are better handled by Shakespeare and Tolstoy and Schille
Hitchens, speaking at an Atlas Society event.
Hitchens, speaking at an Atlas Society event.
r and Dostoyevsky and George Eliot than in the mythical morality tales of the holy books. Literature, not scripture, sustains the mind and—since there is no other metaphor—also the soul."
Hitchens fought against religious ideas that fostered so much war and bloodshed throughout human history: "To … the plain horror of killing civilians in the name of some sacred wall or cave or rock, we can counterpose a leisurely or urgent walk from one side of the library or the gallery to another, or to lunch with an agreeable friend, in pursuit of truth and beauty."
Hitchens also denounced mindless desecration of those things of beauty produced by the religious, for example, the blowing up by the Taliban in Afghanistan "of one the world's greatest cultural artifacts—the twin Buddha statues at Bamiyan." When I saw Hitchens the week before he was diagonosed with cancer—he did not look well—he was discussing his autobiography Hitch 22 in the historic 6th Street synagogue in Washington, D.C.
And one-to-one, in keeping with his own values, Hitchens could be civil with those he disagreed with but whom he considered on some level to be honest and decent; I've seen him in such conversations at parties with members of the religious right.
The Continual Conversation
When I told my wife, who was reading Hitchens's last book, Arguably, of his passing, she said it felt like she had lost a friend. No doubt part of this sentiment was because she had read many of Hitchens's books, heard him speak on a number of occasions, and chatted with him at events.
And no doubt part of this sentiment was because when one reads a book, especially by an interesting and engaging writer like Hitchens, one is in a kind of conversation with a friend. One is attending to the writer's thoughts and insights and has a dialogue in one's own mind about the ideas expressed in those pages. And Hitchens expressed himself beautifully.
Machiavelli wrote of going to his study to read in the evening: "At the threshold, I take off my work-day clothes, filled with dust and mud, and don royal and curial garments. Worthily dressed, I enter into the ancient courts of the men of antiquity, where, warmly received, I feed on that which is my only food and which was meant for me."
Hitchens loved inquiry, learning, and an intellectual exchange. He was a man of the mind. He continued to produce his weekly columns until shortly before his passing. In his final piece for Vanity Fair he stated that "writing is not just my living and my livelihood but my very life." His life is over and we'll have no new writings on politics and cultural trends to come. I will truly miss these. But he left us with thoughts and reflections that can continue to give us joy and enlighten us.
http://www.atlassociety.org/christopher-hitchens-remembered
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---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Bearing Drift
Date: Saturday, December 24, 2011
Subject: Gingrich out in Virginia
To: majors.bruce@gmail.com
Having trouble viewing this email? Click here
Gingrich falls short in Virginia petition drive
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich failed to qualify to appear on the Republican Party of Virginia's presidential nominating ballot for a primary vote which will be held March 6, 2012 - Super Tuesday.
After going through a validation process, the Speaker and now Virginia resident failed to obtain the necessary 10,000 signatures as required by the code of Virginia.
Bearing Drift reports that more than 2,000 of Gingrich's signatures failed to have addresses - a requirement.
The only candidates who have qualified for the ballot are former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and Congressman Ron Paul.
Both Romney and Paul turned in close to 15,000 signatures.
The ballot requirement is that 10,000 signatures and 400 signatures per congressional district must be submitted. The State Board of Elections recommends at least 15,000 and 700 per district.
Candidates could begin gathering signatures January 1, 2011.
Gingrich joins Texas Gov. Rick Perry, Congresswoman Michele Bachmann, former U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum, and former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman as presidential candidates seeking the Republican nomination who will not appear on Virginia's ballot because they could not qualify.
Learn more at BearingDrift.com
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Adopt A Terrorist -
Take a minute to read this... Its quite humorous!
A female Canadian libertarian wrote a lot of letters to the government, complaining about the treatment of captive insurgents (terrorists) being held in Afghanistan National Correctional System facilities.
She received the following reply:
National Defence Headquarters
M Gen George R. Pearkes Bldg, 15 NT
101 Colonel By Drive
Ottawa, ON K1A 0K2
Canada
Dear Concerned Citizen,
Thank you for your recent letter expressing your profound concern of treatment of the Taliban and Al Qaeda terrorists captured by Canadian Forces - who were subsequently transferred to the Afghanistan Government and are currently being held by Afghan officials in Afghanistan National Correctional System facilities.
Our administration takes these matters seriously and your opinions were heard loud and clear here in Ottawa .
You will be pleased to learn, thanks to the concerns of citizens like yourself; we are creating a new Department here at the Department of National Defence, to be called 'Liberals Accept Responsibility for Killers' program, or L.A.R.K. For short.
In accordance with the guidelines of this new program, we have decided to divert one terrorist and place him in your personal care.
Your personal detainee has been selected and is scheduled for transportation under heavily armed guard to your residence in Toronto next Monday.
Ali Mohammed Ahmed bin Mahmud (you can just call him Ahmed) is to be cared for pursuant to the standards you personally demanded in your letter of complaint.
It will likely be necessary for you to hire some assistant caretakers. We will conduct weekly inspections to ensure that your standards of care for Ahmed are commensurate with those you so strongly recommend in your letter.
Although Ahmed is a sociopath and extremely violent, we hope that your sensitivity to what you described as his "attitudinal problem " will help him overcome these character flaws.
Perhaps you are correct in describing these problems as mere cultural differences.
We understand that you plan to offer counselling, home schooling and a daily copy of The Toronto Star.
Your adopted terrorist is extremely proficient in hand-to-hand combat and can extinguish human life with such simple items as a pencil or nail clippers.
We advise that you do not ask him to demonstrate these skills at your next yoga group.
He is also expert at making a wide variety of explosive devices from common household products, so you may wish to keep those items locked up, unless (in your opinion) this might offend him.
Ahmed will not wish to interact with you or your daughters (except sexually) since he views females as a subhuman form of property.
This is a particularly sensitive subject for him and he has been known to show violent tendencies around women who fail to comply with the new dress code that he will recommend as more appropriate attire.
I'm sure you will come to enjoy the anonymity offered by the burka over time. Just remember that it is all part of 'respecting his culture and religious beliefs' as described in your letter.
Thanks again for your concern. We truly appreciate it when folks like you keep us informed of the proper way to do our job and care for our fellow man.
You take good care of Ahmed - and remember we'll be watching.
Good luck and God bless you.
Cordially,
Gordon O'Connor
Minister of National Defense
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From: Congressman Tom Graves
Date: Thursday, December 22, 2011
Subject: Extending the Payroll Tax Cut
To: majors.bruce@gmail.com
District Update | December 22, 2011 Click here if you have trouble viewing this email
Extending the Payroll Tax Cut
Over the last few weeks, Congress has been trying to work out a way to extend the federal payroll tax cut, and I wanted to give you an update on this important issue.
In today's turbulent economy, the last thing the federal government should do is increase taxes on Americans. Yet, the payroll tax rate for employees is scheduled to increase to 6.2 percent from its current rate of 4.2 percent. That is why Republicans and Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives came together to pass H.R. 3630, the Middle Class Tax Relief and Job Creation Act. This legislation would extend the payroll tax cut for both employees and businesses. H.R. 3630 also contained spending cuts to prevent increases to the federal deficit and avoids additional shortfalls to Medicare and Social Security.
Despite this bipartisan effort, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid refused to adopt common sense spending cuts and instead amended H.R. 3630 to only extend the tax cut for two months. In response, the U.S. House of Representatives voted to send H.R. 3630 to a Conference Committee, where each Chamber will choose Members to work together in a bipartisan fashion to merge the House and Senate versions of H.R. 3630 into a final bill.
I voted in support of sending H.R. 3630 to Conference because I believe Congress should work together to resolve the differences within H.R. 3630 before the end of 2012, so we can extend the payroll tax cut for an entire year, not pass a short term delay so that Members of Congress can begin their Christmas vacations. Since our nation was founded, when both Chambers disagree on certain pieces of legislation, they have been able to rectify the difference through a Conference Committee. Just because the timing is inopportune for some Members doesn't mean we have an excuse to ignore the Rules of Congress.
There is overwhelming bipartisan support for extending the payroll tax cut for an entire year. In fact, President Obama stated, "It would be inexcusable for Congress not to further extend this middle-class tax cut for the rest of the year," and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi echoed those comments saying, "House Democrats will return to Washington to take up this legislation without delay, and we will keep up the fight to extend these provisions for a full year." Despite this bipartisan support, Majority Leader Reid refuses to negotiate with the U.S. House of Representatives in a Conference Committee.
Please know I fully intend to actively work to accomplish our work in Congress before the year's end. You can also be assured that I will only support legislation that does not create more volatility in our economy. Rather, I will support legislation that will provide certainty for the American people and in the marketplace, and enables the private sector to create jobs in America.
Honored to serve you,
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Republican Security Advisers Tied to $40 Billion in Contracts
By Roxana Tiron - Dec 23, 2011 12:01 AM ET
National security advisers to the Republican presidential candidates have ties to defense, homeland security and energy companies that have received at least $40 billion in federal contracts since 2008.
Five of former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney's 41 national security and foreign policy advisers have links to companies that last year alone received at least $7.9 billion in federal contracts, according to data compiled by Bloomberg Government analyst Christopher Flavelle. Of that, $7.3 billion came from the Department of Defense.
Romney and former U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich of Georgia, who are leading in the polls, have advisers who sit on the board of directors of BAE Systems Inc., which has received at least $37 billion in U.S. government contracts since 2008, the most of any of the companies with ties to Republican national security advisers.
William Schneider, an adviser to Gingrich, and Michael Chertoff, who counsels Romney, serve on the board of the U.S. subsidiary of BAE Systems Plc, Europe's largest defense contractor. The American company makes the Army's Bradley Fighting Vehicle and provides information technology systems to American intelligence agencies and repair services to the U.S. Navy.
Missile Maker
Schneider, a former State Department undersecretary for security assistance, science and technology under President Ronald Reagan, is head of International Planning Services Inc., a consulting firm based in Arlington, Virginia.He also serves on the board of MBDA Inc., the U.S. subsidiary of Europe's largest missile maker. MBDA, which has at least $12 million in U.S. contracts, according to the Bloomberg data, is owned by BAE Systems Plc, Paris and Munich-based European Aeronautic, Defence and Space Co. (EAD) (EADS) and Italy's Finmeccanica SpA. (FINMY)
Schneider also serves on the board of Falls Church, Virginia-based Defense Group Inc., whose focus includes research and development in intelligence and cybersecurity. Defense Group has received about $208 million in contracts since 2008 from agencies that include the Defense and Homeland Security departments and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, according to data reviewed by Bloomberg. In 2010, the company had $82.2 million in federal contracts, according to the data.
Gingrich has called for securing U.S. borders to "prevent terrorist organizations from sneaking agents and weapons" into the country. During a national security debate on Nov. 22, he said the U.S. must strengthen the tools to detect and deter threats because "all of us will be in danger for the rest of our lives."
A Bigger Toolbox
As a presidential candidate, "you want a competition of information," Gingrich said in Manchester, New Hampshire, on Dec. 21. "I want a wide range of advice from a wide range of people."Schneider didn't respond to an e-mail requesting comment.
The BAE Systems board is comprised of "some of the most experienced national security experts" who have advised "presidents, secretaries of defense and other prominent national security officials for both Republican and Democratic administrations, as well as members of Congress," said Brian Roehrkasse, a BAE spokesman, in an e-mailed statement. "All of our board members adhere to conflict of interest agreements."
It is not uncommon for candidates to recruit advisers with ties to the defense industry, said Steve Ellis, vice president of Taxpayers for Common Sense, a Washington-based organization that tracks government spending.
More Voices Needed
"These are the people who have knowledge of the industry, but those can't be the only voices in the room," Ellis said in a telephone interview. "The candidates have to get a diversity of views from other areas if they want to have a responsible national security policy."The Romney advisers with ties to military contractors include Chertoff, a former Homeland Security secretary; former National Security Agency Director Michael Hayden; former CIA and State Department Counterterrorism Director Cofer Black; former Undersecretary of Defense Dov Zakheim; and former Assistant Secretary of Defense Mary Beth Long.
In addition to BAE Systems, those former government officials are linked to companies that include Alion Science & Technology Corp. and Blackbird Technologies Inc.
Romney has called for boosting shipbuilding and missile defense and a strategy to defend against cyber attacks, terrorism and espionage.
Romney Shipbuilding Initiative
He has said that, as president, he would announce an initiative to increase the shipbuilding rate to 15 a year, up from the current nine ships annually. The Navy paid $3.2 billion in contracts last year to companies now associated with Romney advisers. Those companies include BAE and Alion, according to the Bloomberg Government analysis.At least six companies that are tied to advisers to Romney's campaign provide cybersecurity services to the federal government, the data shows. They include BAE, InfoZen Inc., and security-clearance company KeyPoint Government Solutions Inc., all of which count Chertoff as a board member; Motorola Solutions Inc. and Alion, whose boards include Hayden; and Blackbird, where Black is a vice president.
Romney advisers also have business ties to each other. Hayden is a principal at Chertoff's consulting company, the Chertoff Group, which in turn is a client of Metis Solutions, owned by Mary Beth Long, another Romney adviser. Another client of Metis, according to the company's website, is Alion, on whose board Hayden sits.
Final Decisions
Andrea Saul, a Romney spokeswoman, said in a statement to Bloomberg Government that the final defense policy decisions rest with Romney."Mitt Romney has assembled a diverse group of highly respected foreign policy thinkers. He fields their opinions, evaluates them and ultimately makes his own decisions on policy," she said.
Gingrich has called for the implementation of an energy plan "to reduce the world's dependence on oil from dangerous and unstable countries, especially in the Middle East," according to his campaign website.
R. James Woolsey, the former CIA director who serves as an adviser to Gingrich, is a venture partner at Lux Capital, an investment firm focused on emerging technologies, including energy. Woolsey also leads the strategic advisory group of Paladin Capital Group, a private equity fund in Washington with a portfolio that includes alternative energy and cyber security. Woolsey serves as the chairman of his own firm Woolsey Partners LLC.
Republican presidential candidate Rick Perry has several informal foreign policy and national security advisers with ties to oil companies. John Bolton, a former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, is on the board of Diamond Offshore Drilling, Inc. (DO), a Houston-based deep-water drilling contractor. Another adviser to Texas Governor Perry, Zalmay Khalilzad, a former U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan and Iraq, is a director on the board of United Arab Emirates-based Rak Petroleum.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-12-23/republican-security-advisers-tied-to-40-billion-in-contracts.html
The "Racist" Newsletter Gambit, Revisited: The Smearbund Escalates its Assault on Ron Paul
Posted on 23 December 2011 by William Grigg
Brandishing a handful of inconsequential quotes from ancient newsletters, the opinion cartel is pretending that Ron Paul is a covert racist who secretly pines for a "race war" in the United States. In a week that witnessed the death of North Korea's mass-murdering dictator, and the first tentative but unmistakable steps toward war in Iran, Huge amounts of bandwidth, broadcast time, and column inches have been devoted to affected outrage over the idea that Ron Paul once permitted "insensitive" things to be published in a newsletter bearing his name.
The coordinated assault on Dr. Paul began with Fox "News" media personality Sean Hannity, whose unabashed whorishness would bring down the moral tone of a Tijuana brothel. For several days following Dr. Paul's emergence as front-runner in the Iowa caucus polls, Hannity – no doubt working from notes written in small words with big, crayon-inscribed letters – tirelessly flogged the supposedly scandalous Ron Paul newsletters on his radio program and TV show.
From there this reheated pseudo-scandal – a casserole of stale, leftover smears from the 2008 campaign – was taken up by the entire corporate media establishment, from the neo-Trotskyite Weekly Standard and the CIA-controlled National Review and CNN.
In apportioning moral outrage, the collectivist left employs a sliding scale. The late Ted Kennedy killed an innocent girl through depraved indifference and lived a life of impenitent debauchery, and yet was hailed as a moral titan because of his devotion to official plunder and regimentation. The same devotion to the holy cause of State-sanctified theft purchased Robert Byrd a plenary indulgence for his membership in the Ku Klux Klan as a young adult – a background he shared with more than a few Democratic Party luminaries.
President Obama is presently slaughtering innocent "people of color" in at least three countries. His administration continues to imprison young black and Hispanic men for drug "offenses." This is done by way of a "Justice" system riddled with racial profiling and sentencing guidelines that result in wildly disproportionate sentences for black offenders – a system that has been denounced, in detail, by Dr. Paul, who has called for an end to the insane and terminally corrupt exercise called the "War on Drugs."
Newsweek-affiliated blogger Andrew Sullivan, a self-described conservative who supported Obama in 2008, has been grudgingly impressed by Dr. Paul's ethical and ideological consistency. Referring to the contrived controversy over the supposedly racist newsletters, Sullivan writes: "[A]sk yourself: you've now heard this guy countless times; he's been in three presidential campaigns; he's not exactly known for self-editing. And nothing like this [the purportedly shocking quotes from the newsletters] has ever crossed his lips in public. You have to make a call on character. Compared with the rest on offer, compared with the money-grubbing lobbyist, Gingrich, or the say-anything Romney, or that hate-anyone Bachmann, I've made my call."
Nelson Linder, president of the Austin, Texas chapter of the NAACP, has known Dr. Paul for decades. Speaking for himself on the basis of that long and close association, Linder emphatically denies that the mild and avuncular Congressman is a racist or bigot of any kind, and commends him for his repeated denunciation of police repression of black people.
Linder points out that Dr. Paul has made powerful enemies by his public opposition to the Federal Reserve System and its allied War Lobby.
"If you scare the folks that have the money, they're going to attack you and they're going to take [your statements] out of context," Linder points out "What he's saying is really really threatening the powers that be and that's what they fear."
While the collectivist Left is assailing Paul as a secret "racist," the proto-Fascist Right continues to execrate him as an "appeaser." Rep. Michelle Bachmann, who has endorsed pre-emptive war on Iran and publicly expressed support for a bizarre Islamo-Communist cult called the MEK – a terrorist group that seeks to seize power in Tehran – recently told a group of schoolchildren that Dr. Paul would permit them to be killed by non-existent Iranian nuclear weapons.
Political consultant and notorious foot fetishist Dick Morris, who made a lucrative living as an adviser to Bill Clinton and then a fortune condemning him on Fox News, insisted on Sean Hannity's radio show that "no true patriot could be for Ron Paul." Dorothy Rabbinowitz of the Wall Street Journal , offended by Dr. Paul's campaign to end Washington's deranged interventionist foreign policy, traduced the candidate as "the best-known of our homegrown propagandists for our chief enemies in the world." That description wouldn't be recognizable to the countless military personnel – both active-duty and veterans – who have donated to Dr. Paul's presidential campaign. Ron Paul is the uncontested front-runner among military donors in the 2012 presidential election cycle.
"As of the last reporting date, at the end of September, Paul leads all candidates by far in donations from service members," observed Tim Egan of the New York Times. "This trend has been in place since 2008, when Paul ran for president with a similar stance: calling nonsense at hawk squawk from both parties. This year, Paul has 10 times the individual donations – totaling $113,739 – from the military as does Mitt Romney. And he has a hundred times more than Newt Gingrich, who sat out the Vietnam War with college deferments and now promises he would strike foes at the slightest provocation."
Bellicose blatherskites like Gingrich and Romney are indecently eager to propagate war and bloodshed. However, those "who actually fought in Iraq know better," Egan observes.
"They can tell a phony warrior from a real one. And in Ron Paul, the veteran who served as a flight surgeon for the Air Force, the man some call crazy, they hear a voice of sanity – at least in the realm of war and peace."
For decades, as a private citizen, activist, and elected representative, Ron Paul has espoused and lived by a philosophy of individual liberty protected by law. No public figure in recent memory has more consistently preached and practiced the non-aggression axiom – more properly called the Golden Rule – than Dr. Paul. In political terms, this means the categorical rejection of aggressive violence, including state-licensed coercion.
His fidelity to principle has entailed a considerable degree of personal sacrifice: As a private obstetrician, long before he was dragged reluctantly into politics, Paul refused to accept government subsidies through Medicare or Medicaid. He also refused to have anything to do with abortion – thereby displaying the same unqualified respect for the sanctity of human life that led him to become an outspoken opponent of war, and a proponent of abolishing the death penalty.
During the past two decades, those deemed to be "respectable" have supported more than a half-dozen foreign wars – two in Iraq, as well as one in Kosovo, Afghanistan, and Libya, in addition to low-grade but bloody proxy conflicts in Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen, Columbia, and Mexico – that have slaughtered millions of people. In 1996, at roughly the same time that Ron Paul's supposedly intolerable newsletters were in circulation, Madeleine Albright, the Clinton administration's UN representative, blithely said on 60 Minutes that the death of 500,000 Iraqi children through starvation and disease as a result of a U.S.-imposed embargo was "worth it." Those words resonated in the Muslim world – and their deadly echoes were heard on the morning of 9-11.
Ron Paul, a guileless and principled man, has seen his reputation come under pitiless assault because he has adamantly refused to endorse genocide in Iraq, or aggressive war anywhere. According to the canons of collectivist piety, bombs and drones may break our bones, but only politically incorrect words can hurt us.
http://www.republicmagazine.com/news/the-racist-newsletter-gambit-revisited-the-smearbund-escalates-its-assault-on-ron-paul.html
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