Thread: Ron Paul on the Issues

Drudge Announces Bank Runs in Greece!

Submitted by CAH on Tue, 05/15/2012 - 16:49
Markets

Just wanted to make sure all of us skeptical of central banking saw this article, linked by the Drudge Report, that announced deposits are leaving the Greek Banking System.

I hope they stay in the Euro Zone. If Greece leaves the ECB, it will just substitute its own central banking to bring back a drachma that they debase regularly to try to devalue their way to prosperity.

The Greek STATE is bankrupt, and just needs to default already. Not a soft default, but the real deal.

Drudge Announces Bank Runs in Greece! | Peace . Gold . Liberty | Ron Paul 2012

The same is coming here; you have a chance to lesson the damage; or you can vote for Romney and get the full Monty... you have been warned over and over; well get ready because here it comes

So Simple A Caveman Would Own It

May 16, 2012 by John Myers

The gold market is so thin that it won’t take much buying to push the price of bullion to $2,500 per ounce.

The arrogance on Wall Street always amazes me. I have lived through three stock market crashes, one rolling recession, near hyperinflation and what was almost an economic depression. In all those cases, Wall Street was caught unaware. People who manage financial institutions were incredulous as the events transpired.

The Street’s ignorance was on full display this month when Warren Buffett’s top investment adviser Charles Munger explained that gold is a useless relic.

On May 4, the eve of the Berkshire Hathaway annual meeting, Munger, age 88, said: “Gold is a great thing to sew into your garments if you’re a Jewish family in Vienna in 1939, but I think civilized people don’t buy gold, they invest in productive businesses.”

Munger thinks people should either be facing a Nazi occupation or else be as stupid as cavemen in order to purchase gold. If this reminds you of the Geico cavemen commercials, you won’t be surprised that Munger is big on investing in that company.

Munger said he loves Berkshire Hathaway’s portfolio, which includes Burlington Northern railroad, specialty chemicals firm Lubrizol and insurance giant Geico.

“We just have a wonderful portfolio in business, if you average them out,” Munger said. “By and large they’re doing productive, useful work.”

So confident are Buffett and his associates on Burlington Northern that in 2009, Berkshire Hathaway bought the company for $34 billion. This is just one example of Buffett’s showing faith in Barack Obama’s management of America’s economy.

Buffett and Munger forgot to consider that Berkshire Hathaway’s portfolio is mostly traded in U.S. dollars. Perhaps Munger slept through the past decade. Only that would explain how he missed the worst bear market ever for the U.S. dollar and one of the biggest bull markets for gold.
When I began as the editor for Outstanding Investments in the autumn of 2000, I urged subscribers to load up on gold. Bullion was then trading for less than $280 per ounce. Today, it trades at about $1,600 per ounce.

During those same years, the value of the dollar has gone to hell. The evidence in the graph below shows the greenback’s dreadful decline.


Munger doesn’t seem to understand that when the dollar declines, even against other currencies, the purchasing power of the dollar declines. Even if we accept the Federal government’s cooked books on the Consumer Price Index, what cost $100 in 2000 costs $133 today.

Burlington Northern stock has gone from $25 per share in 2000 to $100 per share now (in large part because of the spike caused by the Berkshire Hathaway purchase). But you have to discount one-third of that increase because of the declining worth of the dollar.

Another Obama Term Will Send Bullion Soaring

Munger does not understand what the dollar will face if Obama is re-elected.

In the 1970s, dollar inflation decimated Big Board stocks. The Dow Jones industrial average hit 996 in 1966. That index stood at 742 in 1980, a loss of 25 percent. If you factor in the decline of the dollar’s purchasing power, the DJIA was really 321 in 1966 dollars. Over those 14 years, the DJIA lost more than two-thirds of its value.

Uncivilized people like my father got his subscribers into gold starting in 1970 at $35 per ounce; that investment climbed to $850 by January 1980. Using the same inflation calculator, the 1980 price of that gold was $428 per ounce in 1970 dollars. So even in real terms, the price of bullion, bought by cavemen, increased twelvefold.

The Wall Street establishment wouldn’t listen to a word the “gold bugs” said. In fact, my dad, Vern, was a guest on PBS’s “Wall $treet Week with Louis Rukeyser” in the mid-1970s. Rukeyser and his panel openly laughed at my dad’s suggestions that investors should buy gold. One came right out and said such advice was un-American.

While Wall Street investors were losing their shirts, gold investors who followed people like James Dines, Harry Schultz and C.V. Myers made themselves tidy fortunes.

You would think an experienced man such as Munger would remember those times. And given the unprecedented increase in the U.S. money supply over the past three years, men like Buffett and Munger might even think it prudent to put some assets into gold.

Perhaps such men cannot think outside the box. I don’t know. What I do know is that modern money changers refuse to believe that anyone other than a caveman would even consider investing in gold.

Most people listen to the investment establishment. I have a friend who is an accountant. He knows several multimillionaires in Alberta’s oil patch. I asked him not long ago if he thought any of them owned gold. He told me he didn’t believe even one owned a single ounce. That tells me there is a lot of upside to gold prices even though bullion is undergoing a correction right now.

Unfortunately, I think Obama is going to be re-elected. After he is, he will move forward with socialist policies, which will mean even larger Federal deficits. More debt means more dollars, and that means the continued decline of the greenback. If successful people ever get a taste of stagflation (a stagnant economy and higher prices), I think investors are going to invest in precious metals. The gold market is so thin that it won’t take much buying to push the price of bullion to $2,500 per ounce.

They Thought My Mother Was Crazy

There are legions of men and women like Munger in the world. I still remember when I first met one.

It was 1970, and it was legal for Canadians to buy gold. My dad was heavily invested in gold along with his subscribers, and my mother had about $3,000 in savings. I went with her to the Bank of Nova Scotia one day.

The main branch in downtown Calgary had a trading desk. She told the man at the desk that she wanted to take the money out of her savings account and buy 1-ounce gold South African Krugerrand coins.

Gold was trading at $35 an ounce back then. Most people who worked in the financial industry believed that once the United States freed up, the price of gold would fall.
The man at the gold desk looked at my mother as if she were crazy. He tried to convince her that she was speculating with her life savings and that it would be much better if she left it in her account. When my mother insisted she wanted to buy the gold, we were escorted into the branch manager’s office. The manager urged my mother to reconsider her recklessness. When she wouldn’t, he said the bank would not accept the transaction. She then asked the manager to phone my father, who had a much more sizable account with the bank and a much more forceful personality.

I don’t know what my dad said to that bank manager that day; but after a very brief phone call, the manager was happy to help my mother purchase her gold.

I guess it is true what the kid said to me more than four decades ago on the playground: “Myers, you’re a caveman!”

Yours in good times and bad,
–John Myers

So Simple A Caveman Would Own It : Personal Liberty Alerts=

Romney’s Big Government Military Budget

May 16, 2012 by Sam Rolley

UPI

Mitt Romney wants to grow the military deficit.

Neoconservatives love big government.

If you are among the Americans who have continually said things like “We need to unite to back Romney” or “I’m not voting for Romney, I’m voting against Obama” throughout the Republican Presidential primaries, you are simply saying “I love big government.”

Throughout his campaign, Romney has claimed that his platform is based upon less spending, smaller deficits and a renewed fiscal responsibility that would slow the United States’ inevitable economic collapse. But Romney’s budget proposal greatly grows the size of government in the name of “safety.”

Romney’s plan for defense spending includes adding in excess of $2 trillion to the U.S. deficit over the next decade, according to an analysis conducted by CNNMoney’sTravis Sharp. The plan would allow for the Pentagon to spend $4 for every $100 the American economy produces.

Romney’s plan to grow the military budget is likely indicative of his plan for a continuation of the world policing and war-happy foreign policies of both the Administrations of George Bush and Barack Obama.

An article from the CATO Institute in 2011 states: “Cutting military spending without changing our foreign policies will put additional burdens on a force strained by a decade of war. Sticking with the status quo will translate into heavier burdens on U.S. taxpayers. If the powers-that-be inside the Beltway decide that we should continue to discourage wealthy allies from defending themselves, then they should explain that to the American people.”

The campaign of GOP candidate Ron Paul, who is no longer campaigning in primary States but is still seeking delegates, released a statement regarding Romney’s military budget saying that Romney and Obama will both increase deficits:

… Americans are stuck with two presumed presidential candidates who will essentially spend an equal amount of money, thus racking up further deficits and debt.

Ron Paul has stressed time and again that to seriously tackle big government and debt we have to reduce both domestic and foreign spending. Paul’s Restore America Now plan allows for the strongest military force on earth, but within the confines of the Constitution and our budget.

Romney’s willingness to spend far more than our national deficit on just military alone does not bode well for anyone wanting to save this country from imminent bankruptcy.

Americans who now reject Obama also do not want to return to George W. Bush. Romney’s military budget alone spends more than Obama or Bush.

The Romney campaign lists as a top priority reversing military cuts put into place by the Obama Administration. For that, the candidate has received a large amount of support from conservative lawmakers from districts with military installations.

Romney=

Why We’re Entering the Age of Ron Paul

Sharif Christopher Matar
reason.com
May 16, 2012



Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) will no longer be actively campaigning in forthcoming primaries for the Republican presidential nomination. But the libertarian politician’s legacy – including controversial yet popular stands on everything from auditing the Federal Reserve to withdrawing troops from abroad to radically cutting government borrowing and spending – is just getting started.

Paul, says Brian Doherty, a Reason senior editor and author of the new Ron Paul’s Revolution: The Man and the Movement He Inspired, “is leaving in his wake a set of institutions, and a set of hundreds of thousands of energized intelligent youngsters who are unquestionably going to shape American politics moving down the line.”

Doherty argues Paul's long-term effect on the GOP will be similar to that of Barry Goldwater, the Arizona senator who, despite a crushing electoral loss to Lyndon Johnson in 1964, energized and transformed the Republican Party into the limited-government force that elected Ronald Reagan in 1980.

"His fans understand that Ron Paul is not just out to win an election," says Doherty. "Even if the [party bosses] shut the door in his face at the Republican convention as they did in 2008,...the ideas he injected into the party [and politics] are not going away anytime soon."

About 4:40 minutes. Produced by Sharif Matar, with camera by Matar and Tracy Oppenheimer.

Go to reason.tv for downloadable versions of all videos and subscribe to Reason.tv's YouTube Channel to receive automatic notifications when new material goes live.

Read more

» Why We’re Entering the Age of Ron Paul Alex Jones' Infowars: There's a war on for your mind!

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Romney refuses to mention Bush’s name after endorsement

By David Edwards
Wednesday, May 16, 2012 13:10 EDT



Topics: Bush ♦ george w bush ♦ mitt romney

Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney is refusing to even utter George W. Bush’s name after the former president endorsed him in an elevator on Tuesday.

“I’m for Mitt Romney,” Bush had blurted out to ABC News on Tuesday as the doors of the elevator closed on him in Washington, DC where he was giving a speech on human rights.

Speaking to a crowd of supporters in St. Petersburg, Florida on Wednesday, Romney would only refer to Bush as President Barack Obama’s “predecessor.

“[Obama] was very critical of his predecessor for the debts the predecessor put in place,” Romney remarked. “It sure is true that you can’t blame one party or the other for all the debts this country has because both parties, in my opinion, have spent too much and borrowed too much.”

“But he was very critical of his predecessor because the predecessor put together four trillion dollars of debt over eight years,” the former Massachusetts governor added.

The candidate later returned to the “predecessor” line again: “I find it incomprehensible that a president could come to office and call his predecessor’s record irresponsible and unpatriotic, and then do almost nothing to fix it.”

In a statement to CNN on Tuesday, Romney spokeswoman Andrea Saul “welcomed” the endorsement but also refused to mention Bush by name.

“We welcome the president’s support, as we welcomed his father’s,” Saul said.

Watch the video below from CNN, broadcast May 15, 2012.

Video at the page Link:

Romney refuses to mention Bush’s name after endorsement | The Raw Story

Obama makes it illegal for U.S. citizens to criticize the government of Yemen.

Submitted by Austrolib on Wed, 05/16/2012 - 10:33
Current Events

I'm pretty sure this won't make ABC Evening News tonight so...

"An Executive order seeks to punish U.S. citizens even for "indirectly" obstructing dictatorial rule in Yemen.

Jeremy Scahill, who has reported extensively from Yemen over the last year, reacted to the news of this Executive Order this morning by writing: ”This Executive Order appears to be an attack on Americans’ 1st Amendment Rights and Yemenis’ rights to self-determination“; he added: ”apparently the 1st Amendment had an exception about Yemen in it that I missed.”"

Read here: Obama’s new free speech threat - Salon.com

Obama makes it illegal for U.S. citizens to criticize the government of Yemen. | Peace . Gold . Liberty | Ron Paul 2012

Obama’s new free speech threat

An Executive order seeks to punish U.S. citizens even for "indirectly" obstructing dictatorial rule in Yemen

By Glenn Greenwald

President Barack Obama speaks at the White House in Washington, Tuesday, May 15, 2012. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster) (Credit: AP)
(updated below)

There is substantial opposition in both Yemen and the West to the new U.S.-backed Yemeni President, Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi. Hadi was the long-time Vice President of the Yemeni dictator Ali Abdullah Saleh, and after Saleh finally stepped down last year, Hadi became President as part of an “election” in which he was the only candidate (that little fact did not prevent Hillary Clinton from congratulating Yemen “on today’s successful presidential election” (successful because the U.S. liked the undemocratic outcome)). As it does with most U.S.-compliant dictators in the region, the Obama administration has since been propping up Hadi with large amounts of money and military assistance, but it is now taking a much more extreme step to ensure he remains entrenched in power — a step that threatens not only basic liberties in Yemen but in the U.S. as well:

President Obama plans to issue an executive order Wednesday giving the Treasury Department authority to freeze the U.S.-based assets of anyone who “obstructs” implementation of the administration-backed political transition in Yemen.

The unusual order, which administration officials said also targets U.S. citizens who engage in activity deemed to threaten Yemen’s security or political stability, is the first issued for Yemen that does not directly relate to counterterrorism.

Unlike similar measures authorizing terrorist designations and sanctions, the new order does not include a list of names or organizations already determined to be in violation. Instead, one official said, it is designed as a “deterrent” to “make clear to those who are even thinking of spoiling the transition” to think again. . . .

The order provides criteria to take action against people who the Treasury secretary, in consultation with the secretary of state, determines have “engaged in acts that directly or indirectly threaten the peace, security or stability of Yemen, such as acts that obstruct the implementation of the Nov. 23, 2011, agreement between the Government of Yemen and those in opposition to it, which provides for a peaceful transition of power . . . or that obstruct the political process in Yemen.”

In other words, the U.S. Government will now punish anyone who is determined — in the sole discretion of the U.S. Government — even to “indirectly” obstruct the full transition of power to President Hadi. But what if someone — a Yemeni or an American — opposes Hadi’s rule and wants to agitate for a real election in which more than one candidate runs? Is that pure political advocacy, as it appears, now prohibited by the U.S. Government, punishable by serious sanctions, on the ground that it “obstructs” the transition of power to Hadi? Can journalists who report on corruption or violence by the Hadi regime and who write Op-Eds demanding a new election be accused, as it seems, of “threatening Yemen’s political stability”?

Jeremy Scahill, who has reported extensively from Yemen over the last year, reacted to the news of this Executive Order this morning by writing: ”This Executive Order appears to be an attack on Americans’ 1st Amendment Rights and Yemenis’ rights to self-determination“; he added: ”apparently the 1st Amendment had an exception about Yemen in it that I missed.” He then asked a series of questions, including: “What if a Yemeni citizen doesn’t believe in a one candidate ‘election’ and is fighting to change their government? US sanctions?” and ”How would Obama define an American citizen as ‘indirectly’ threatening the stability of Yemen’s government?” and “what if an American citizen doesn’t support Yemen’s government and agitates for its downfall? Sanctions from US Treasury? Wow.” Marcy Wheeler has some typically astute points to make about this as well.

The Post article notes that, as unusual as this Executive Order is, Obama issued a similar one for Somalia in 2009, and it has one other precedent: “In 2006, President George W. Bush issued a similar order regarding Ivory Coast in West Africa.” Newspapers should just create a template that says that for every article: this radical and controversial power that Obama has just seized for himself has its genesis in the executive power and war theories of Bush/Cheney. Except for the power to secretly target U.S. citizens for due-process-free assassination-by-CIA and the manic war on whistleblowers — those are Obama originals — that’s a reliable claim to make, which is the point.

When I first began writing about Bush’s War on Terror abuses, I would sometimes be asked whether America still protects certain liberties more than most other countries, and my answer would always be the same: First Amendment rights in the U.S. of free speech and a free press are still more robust than most other countries in the world. It was one realm which the Bush War on Terror had by and large — not entirely, but by and large — left alone. That is just no longer true. Under Obama, we have seen a series of aggressive erosions of even this right in the name of Terrorism.

The Obama DOJ persuaded the U.S. Supreme Court in Holder v. Humanitarian Law to adopt an extraordinarily broad interpretation of “material support” statutes, such that, as Georgetown Law Professor David Cole put it, the Court “–for the first time in its history—[held] that speech advocating only lawful, nonviolent activity can be subject to criminal penalty, even where the speakers’ intent is to discourage resort to violence.” We now routinely see from the Obama DOJ Terror prosecution of Muslim Americans grounded in the expression of their pure political views. Long before any alleged evidence emerged that U.S. citizen Anwar Awlaki had any involvement in any Al Qaeda plots, the Obama administration placed him on a “hit list” because of its fear of the efficacy of his anti-American sermons. American Muslims are routinely targeted by sophisticated FBI entrapment campaigns if their criticisms of U.S. foreign policy (constant bombing of Muslim countries) is sufficiently strident.

There seems to be little question that the Obama administration is devoted to imposing dictatorial order on Yemen through the use of force and liberty abridgment. As Scahill previously reported, Obama has played a direct personal role in the ongoing imprisonment of a Yemeni journalist who committed the crime of documenting the large number of civilian deaths from a U.S. cluster bomb attack on his country as well as exposing the joint lies of the Yemeni and U.S. Government. The latest U.S. drone strike in Yemen yesterday, even according to Yemeni officials, killed more civilians than alleged “militants.” The bombing campaign in Yemen now increasingly resembles the one conducted in Pakistan, though Yemen saw more drone strikes this month than any previous month in Pakistan. AP reported yesterday that there are now U.S. troops on the ground aiding Yemeni soldiers in their fights against alleged AQAP members.

What’s most amazing about all of this is how covert it is. What percentage of Americans even know that the Obama administration is continuously bombing and killing civilians in Yemen, or that American soldiers are now on the ground there in an advisory capacity? How many network news shows air any questions about any of this, and how many MSNBC shows (other than this one) have ever stopped talking long enough about all the supreme GOP Evil to even mention to their progressive audience that any of this is happening or aired questions and challenges about it? I’d be willing to bet that the vast, vast majority of Yemen mentions — almost all — entail little more than grave warnings about the scary threats emanating from there against the U.S., combined with gleeful celebrations of all the glorious Terrorist Kills our strong, resolute, brave Commander-in-Chief has commanded. In the meantime, not only endless militarism and war march on unabated, but so, too, does the erosion of core liberties which it entails.

* * * * *

Speaking of ongoing erosions of core liberties: a bipartisan group of House members is attempting to enact a law specifying that the indefinite detention powers vested in the President by last December’s passage of the NDAA does not apply to those arrested on U.S. soil; in other words, they are trying to ban military detention on American soil without charges. Even though President Obama, after he signed the bill into law, said he does not intend to use these powers for that purpose, the sponsors of this bill are concerned that — because the law does vest this power — Obama could change his mind at any time or a subsequent President could use those powers. Unfortunately, they are being opposed by key Democratic Senators such as Carl Levin in close cooperation with standard neocon members of Congress. As one tweeter wrote to me yesterday about this: “The fact that government has to be told NOT to do that is insane.” Indeed, and it’s easy to forget how frequently true that is. But the War on Terror has so normalized even the most warped powers — warrantless eavesdropping, torture, indefinite detention, renditions, due-process-free-assassinations, Executive Orders like the one today — that it’s sometimes easy to forget that this is the only real reaction that should be needed.

UPDATE: Those wishing to defend actions such as the issuance of this Executive Order typically argue that although it has the potential to sweep up legitimate and innocent political activity, the U.S. Government intends to use it only to constrain the Bad People: those who seek to use violence or other illegitimate means to achieve their end. Click here for a very partial history of that assurance and then decide if you feel comfortable trusting it.

Obama’s new free speech threat - Salon.com

FLASH: ALERT: Commander-in-Chief crossing the GOP Rubicon

Submitted by Joe Potus on Wed, 05/16/2012 - 10:57
Ron Paul 2012
Missouri

K.I.S.S.

If you were told that the campaign is spending all their remaining resources on helping lead us in the trenches: at the conventions themselves. ....That the commander in chief is getting on his horse and coming to the front line....

I bet you would be excited and the last 48 hours would have been a love fest and a rally to an 8 figure, record breaking May 17 money nuke.

But we were told what they were NOT going to do. Yes, that was a mistake. George Washington would not be telling his men on the eve of crossing the Delaware that they are not going to go and help their comrades in arms fight other battles as they will most certainly lose.

We are doing a great job getting the message out. Some here have a gift on communicating the message. They are not in the paid campaign. What do you expect, Dr. Paul to fire someone because they are not a good communicator?

Right.

So Soldier

There is no gold in this fight for you.

Your feet are wrapped in rags.

You have lost many battles.

Public sentiment is against you.

The enemy has more powerful weapons and are right now feasting and celebrating their victory.

Your commander-in-chief (literally) is on his horse and headed to the fight in MN.

He has called to focus all guns on the march.

Will you stand at attention with honor?

Will you take up your arms again?

Will you honor your oath to this cause?

It is time to be at your best.

It is time to be cunning and quick.

It is time to make as many allies as possible.

It is time to look like a fiscally conservative patriot of peace.

We will not scorch the earth of the land we love.

We will stand up and be of glad heart as we charge into battle.

Tomorrow the tide changes with you.

Charge if necessary.

Time to use the only weapon the enemy respects.

MONEY

Do you think we will be ignored if 100,000 of us give $100?

We have the numbers, it is time to show it.

I am in.

Put up the ticker.

I am crossing the Rubicon with Dr. Paul. Will you?

Bump to close ranks.

FLASH: ALERT: Commander-in-Chief crossing the GOP Rubicon | Peace . Gold . Liberty | Ron Paul 2012

I'm In 5 fold of what you got Battle Buddy ... Close Ranks, tighten Up. I'll Match any Senior Enlisted

Robin Koerner: It's Romney's to Lose: Here's How He Does It

Posted: 05/16/2012 12:09 pm

Many of Ron Paul's supporters are currently abuzz with a letter that was written by Jennifer Sheehan, the RNC's legal council in 2008, which appears to state that no state delegate to the GOP convention is bound by his state to vote for a particular candidate. The excitement derives from the fact that if it were true, an outright Romney victory in the first round of voting at the convention in Tampa would be rather unlikely. But if it is not true -- and I am sure the GOP will change rules if necessary to make it untrue -- there may be just as much excitement to be had in the possibility of something that is rather more in the control of Paul's supporters.

It's the big "What if?" question that the letter begs but that few have asked.

What if Paul's supporters just ignore the binding rules and vote their consciences? What if, in Tampa, all those Paul supporters who are bound by state rules to vote for Romney put the ball firmly back in the GOP's court, and say, "Your move"?

One's first reaction might be to point out that if that were possible, it would have happened before.

But that would be a mistake. The GOP is now in uncharted territory.

Romney's support has proven so shallow and Paul's so deep that, all over the country, at GOP meetings in which delegates are selected to represent a county at the state convention or a state at the national convention, there are too many Paulites in the room to allow pro-Romney party officials to get their favored slates pushed through without underhanded shenanigans. This is having important effects. The most immediately important of these is that, in states where delegates are bound to vote for the candidate who won the state's primary vote (often Romney), the delegates who care enough to actually participate in the process are Paul supporters, and they are selecting Paul-favoring delegates. For example, whereas of the 28 delegates that Nevada will be sending to Tampa, eight are bound to Paul and 20 are bound to Romney, 14 of Romney's eight are really Ron Paul supporters who'd only be voting for Romney because they are "bound" to. And in Colorado, where 14 delegates are bound to Romney, and only two to Paul, what the official numbers don't say is that the 16 uncommitted are probably all Paul supporters.

So if the Paul supporters were not bound, they may indeed have the numbers, and therefore the means, to stop Romney in the first round of voting. But would they have the chutzpah to unbind themselves -- and a reasonable expectation that if they caused such creative chaos, the outcome could be favorable? I think they do -- courtesy of the GOP itself.

Romney's Achilles' heel is a moral one. It is the sum of all of the cheating that has been done in his favor by the party. For example...

In Oklahoma, party officials pulled out a ballroom divider to cordon off Ron Paul supporters and shut them out of participation. Later they turned out the lights. Voice votes that were clearly lost were declared won.

In Alaska, party officials defeated the majority by retaining the committee which "interpreted rules" and later, after taking the delegation, reluctantly gave up the party control to the new majority but transferred all of the money out of the Republican Party accounts.
In Virginia, at a district convention, officials coaxed the Ron Paul delegation outside and then locked the door. The pastor of the church that was hosting the event was, himself, locked outside.

In Missouri, officials had all the delegates sign up at county conventions and then had their county chairman take the rolls outside and lock them in their car trunks so they could block roll call voting and have their chairman declare lost voice votes as won.

And so on, and so on.

The full list, of which is the above is a tiny part, not only provides a moral justification for Paul's people to refuse to play ball at the convention: more importantly, it explains why such hardball could actually work. After all, which fair-minded American wouldn't like to see powerful partisans punished for their arrogance? Which Democrat or Independent or even average American who doesn't care much for politics but feels seriously let down by a political elite who act out of a sense of entitlement rather than a sense of service -- which of them wouldn't think the Paul people were doing no more than giving as good as they had gotten... especially when the nation is reminded that the GOP wasn't bound by its own rules when it chose to provide material support to Romney while the race was still ongoing.

Imagine it. At last, their rEVOLution would have to be televised, and what good TV it would be -- the very stuff that cable infotainment is made of.
When a reporter from CNN interviews a delegate from Nevada with faintly disapproving confusion, the delegate might say, "We wish we didn't have to do it, but at the state convention in 2008, the party officers turned out the lights and left in the middle of the meeting just so our vote for Ron Paul wouldn't be counted. So we think it's payback time."

And when that airs, I don't think many Americans would disagree with him. Yet, plenty would think that in a small way, the Paulbots had just landed a punch on behalf of a nation that has wondered for too long how to get through to that special elite that long ago forgot who works for whom.
What could the GOP do about it?

If it were to disqualify all those self-unbinding delegates, the fracture -- and more importantly, the story that it told -- would huge. The Democrats would eat it up and the GOP would have just told 20% of its own base that they are not wanted. Even if Romney could still win the nomination, the GOP would have just lost the election.

So the better course would be for the GOP to count Paul's delegates' votes, and Romney would be unlikely to win on the first round. His mantle as the one who could obviously beat Obama would be tarnished if he couldn't clearly beat his one Republican rival. Not only the liberty Republicans, but also the social Conservatives who never really trusted Romney anyway, would be in a position to choose a candidate they really cared for in the subsequent rounds.
And that's when the narrative would really change.

Everyone knows that in a second ballot, Romney's vote would fall, making him less credible, and (here's the safest bet in American politics) Paul's rises, making him the most exciting ticket in town.

Once the inevitability of Romney's nomination disappears, everyone will be free to admit that it was only the illusion of inevitability that made him look like, well, the inevitable nominee in the first place.

If the Mormon halo flickers, that very human capacity that has so far served Romney so well -- the post hoc justification of something believed to be in one's self-interest -- would swing, in short order, in Paul's favor. People get very excited about an underdog who can win -- especially if he is an underdog that was kept down by nefarious means.

Is this possibility or fantasy? At the time of writing, the official bound state delegate counts out of the few states that have already held their state conventions are 33 for Paul and 73 for Romney, but the number of delegates from these states that are known to favor Paul and Romney are 65 and 59, respectively. All other delegate numbers are at this point projections or speculation.

Those who look at the mountain that Ron Paul has to climb and wonder, "How?" might find their answer by looking at the mountain that Romney has to tumble down, and asking the very same question.

Robin Koerner: It's Romney's to Lose: Here's How He Does It

Federal Judge Puts NDAA on Hold!

Submitted by pmpowell001 on Wed, 05/16/2012 - 20:41
Politics & Law

Bloomberg:

Military Detention Law Blocked by New York Judge (Update 1)

A federal judge temporarily blocked enforcement of a part of the National Defense Authorization Act that opponents claim could subject them to indefinite military detention for activities including news reporting and political activism.

U.S. District Judge Katherine Forrest in Manhattan today ruled in favor of a group of writers and activists who sued President Barack Obama, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and the Defense Department, claiming a provision of the act, signed into law Dec. 31, puts them in fear that they could be arrested and held by U.S. armed forces.

Continue Military Detention Law Blocked by New York Judge - Bloomberg

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