http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V5z0r...layer_embedded
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Video: Jon Stewart Mocks the GOP Debate
Thursday February 23, 2012
Indecision 2012 - Three Men and a White-Haired Man-Baby
At the Arizona GOP debate, Rick Santorum explains the decision-
Indecision 2012 - Three Men and a White-Haired Man-Baby - The Daily Show with Jon Stewart - 02/23/12 - Video Clip | Comedy Central
Ron Paul - Friend of Israel
Submitted by Steve Dickson on Fri, 02/24/2012 - 12:19
In an unstable Middle East, Israel is the one anchor of stability. In a region of shifting alliances, Israel is America’s unwavering ally. Israel has always been pro-American. Israel will always be pro-American. My friends, you don’t have to -- you don’t need to do nation-building in Israel. We’re already built. You don’t need to export democracy to Israel. We’ve already got it. And you don’t need to send American troops to Israel. We defend ourselves.
- Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, speech to the US Congress, May 24th, 2011
Of all the objections to Ron Paul, perhaps the most prevalent one is in regards to Israel. This can become a very complicated subject, and it is often made that way to confuse and mislead. Arguably, the focus should be on three key things:
Israel's right to exist.
Israel's right to self govern.
Stop helping Israel's enemies.
On June 7th, 1981, Israel performed a daring raid (Operation Opera) on the Iraqi nuclear reactor at Osirak. I won't go into all the details here, since there are books written about it, but this much is clear: the world condemned Israel. The UN Security Council (unanimous, Security Resolution 487), the US State Department, pretty much everyone - except Ron Paul. He publicly broke with President Reagan, most allied leaders including Margaret Thatcher, and our own government in praising Israel's right to exit and determine their own course. Ron Paul believes in Israel's right to exist.
The government of the United States has continuously and repeatedly tried to tell Israel how to conduct itself with her own people and her neighbors. Our government has called for a division of Jerusalem, and return to 1967 borders, the end of construction in "captured" lands - and we have no right to do this. Much of the land Israel "occupies" it captured when attacked by other nations. They have held it as a security measure. Regardless of whether you think this is the right thing to do or not, it is between Israel, her people, and her neighbors. Ron Paul believes in Israel's right to self govern.
Foreign Aid is a part of the federal budget that most conservatives have wanted to end for a long, long time. Most of us would like to end the United Nations as well. After all, making the world "safe for democracy" was a goal of Woodrow Wilson, and it has carried forward with every Progressive/Liberal ever since. Crazily, many in the GOP now support Foreign Aid (which I should remind you is paid with borrowed money) because Israel gets some of that money.
Well, here's some facts, from the 2012 Statistical Abstract of the Census Bureau: in 2010 we gave Israel $2,692 million ($2.692 Billion) in grants and credits. Ron Paul opposes that - but he also opposes: $802 million for Jordan, $119 million for Lebanon, $48 million for Yemen, $687 million for West Bank/Gaza Regional, $2942 million for Iraq, $10,862 million for Afghanistan, $1216 million for Egypt, $1528 million for Pakistan, $46 million for Turkey - I'll stop there but those are countries that are at a minimum not friends with Israel, and the total for them is $18,250 million ($18.25 Billion). I have not included our "contribution" to the UN, but that certainly doesn't help Israel, nor have I included other countries in Central Asia, other African countries, and organizations (NGO's) not friendly to Israel. You tell me - is Israel better off with us giving her $2.692 Billion and giving her enemies $18.25 Billion, or would Israel be better off if we stopped all foreign aid? Ron Paul wants to stop helping Israel's enemies.
There are many people who have a vested interest in American Empire. It may be a financial interest, or a religious interest, or a political interest - but it is not in the interest of the American people. As a nation, we are going broke while we try to police the world, defending countries that are fully capable of defending themselves, and giving money to countries that don't need our help as well as our enemies. It is time to bring sanity back to the Republican Party, in the tradition of Robert Taft, Dwight Eisenhower, and the Founding Fathers. I leave you with the famous quote from Thomas Jefferson's First Inaugural Address (March 4th, 1801):
Equal and exact justice to all men, of whatever state or persuasion, religious or political; peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none
Ron Paul - Friend of Israel | Ron Paul 2012 | Peace . Gold . Liberty
Veterans for Ron Paul DC March Feb 20 2012 - YouTube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_i_moQMsM9I&feature=player_embedded
Feb 23, 2012Veterans for Ron Paul March on the White House, Washington DC, February 20th, 2012.
Ron Paul quietly amassing an army of delegates while GOP frontrunners spar
Paul Harris in New York
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 23 February 2012 15.59 EST
http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/...-Idaho-007.jpg Ron Paul shakes hands with some of his young supporters at Twin Falls Senior High School in Idaho. Photograph: Marcio Jose Sanchez/AP
While the Republican nomination race is focused on the ongoing battle between frontrunners Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum, the Ron Paul campaign is waging an under-the-radar "delegate strategy" that could make the libertarian-leaning Texan the surprise kingmaker of the race.
In states that have already voted via a caucus system – rather than a straight primary ballot – Ron Paul supporters are conducting an intensively organised ground effort aimed at securing as many convention delegate slots as possible, often in numbers that far outweigh the number of actual votes that Paul got in the ballot.
If successful, it means Paul's campaign could arrive at the August Tampa convention at the head of an army of delegates far larger than the proportion of votes that it won during the nomination contest.
It could also increase the chances of a contested convention – where no candidate has enough delegates to declare the winner – as well as give Paul much greater ability to inject his beliefs into the Republicans' 2012 policy platform.
The strategy is based on the fact the GOP race is in fact a "delegate contest" despite an overwhelming focus by the media and most campaigns on "winning" individual states by coming top of the popular vote. But in reality, each state, weighted proportionally by population, sends a number of delegates to Tampa where a nominee is then chosen.
A total of 2,286 delegates are sent to Tampa and so a candidate must secure the support of 1,144 of them in order to win the nomination.
However, a bewilderingly complex set of rules, often varying from state to state, exists to actually assign these delegates. Ron Paul's campaign is seeking to work that system in order to maximise its delegate count.
So far signs are that the campaign is being so successful at its strategy that it may be able to "win" delegate counts in states where it did not win the popular vote.
"They will be able to perform well enough that in some states where they came in third or fourth in the straw poll, they will come in first or second in terms of the delegate totals. I am fairly confident in making that bet," said Professor Josh Putnam, a political scientist at Davidson College who runs the Frontloading HQ blog dedicated to tracking the delegate fight.
How the strategy works
The strategy works because of the varying ways each state assigns the delegates that get sent to Tampa. Some states hold a "winner takes all" primary that will assign all its delegates to the candidate who tops the vote.
Others assign delegates proportionally according to the vote, splitting the delegates roughly according to the results and ensuring each major candidate gets some delegates.
But it is in the caucus states that the Ron Paul campaign is focused. There the method of assigning delegates is complex and lasts a long time. In caucus states that have voted so far like Iowa, Nevada, Colorado, Minnesota and Maine, the process of assigning delegates in support of each candidate has barely begun.
That process begins on caucus night when each precinct votes and then chooses delegates to send to a county convention to be held later in the year. Those county conventions will then choose a smaller number of delegates to send to a state convention or conventions held in each state's congressional districts.
Those state and district level conventions are the bodies that actually finally choose which delegates to send to the Tampa national convention.
However, at the start of the process – the precinct level meetings held on caucus day – the delegates selected to go to the later county conventions are frequently under no obligation to declare which candidate they are supporting or to support the "winner" of the day's actual voting.
Ron Paul's campaign strategy is to get enough of his precinct-level supporters to volunteer to become delegates to the county conventions so that they outnumber other campaigns. "Their strategy is to gobble up as many of these slots as they can," said Putnam.
Then, if you manage to stack the beginning of the process with Ron Paul delegates, as the system moves through the county conventions and the district and state-wide conventions the chances of Ron Paul-supporting delegates emerging at the end and being chosen to go to Tampa is greatly increased.
The entire strategy is helped by the fact that Paul's supporters are seen as far more organised and dedicated than other campaigns.
Is it successful?
It is currently impossible to say. No caucus state that has already voted has yet held any county conventions at which an idea of the number of Ron Paul-supporting delegates chosen at the precinct level may emerge. Those first indications should come in March.
However, the Ron Paul campaign itself, which is at pains to point out their strategy is entirely within the rules, has released information from Colorado that shows how they hope it could be playing out.
In one precinct in Larimer County there were 13 delegate slots available. Santorum had won the precinct's vote by 23 votes to Paul's 13, with five votes going to Romney. But Paul supporters took all the delegate slots.
In a Delta County precinct all five delegate slots went to Paul supporters though he came behind Santorum and Romney in the popular vote. In a Pueblo County precinct Paul supporters got the two delegate slots available despite the fact Paul finished fourth in the precinct's vote with just two actual votes.
Those examples are likely cherry-picked by the Paul campaign as best case scenarios. But Colorado party officials are – officially, at least – sanguine about what is going on as it obeys the party rules. "We are just here to play out the process. Whatever happens happens," executive director of the Colorado GOP Chuck Poplstein told the Guardian.
But Poplstein did say a successful delegate strategy was not easy to pull off. "It is difficult for any campaign. You have to be very well organised and in all of the counties. It is not an easy process. You have to have a very good ground game," he said.
But that might not be too much of a problem. The Ron Paul campaign is highly organised and focused. "We are also seeing the same trends in Minnesota, Nevada and Iowa, and in Missouri as well," the campaign said in its statement on the precinct performances in Colorado.
A recent report by the Washington Post from a caucus in Portland, Maine, revealed a dedicated activist organisation complete with pre-printed lists of which delegates should be voted for at the precinct level. That is likely true across all the caucus states.
"They do tend to be very organised and very enthusiastic for Ron Paul," said Professor Tim Hagle, a political scientist at the University of Iowa.
What impact could it have?
The fact is that Paul's delegate strategy would have little impact in a normal Republican race. The system is set up with enough winner-take-all and primary states to ensure that Paul's strategy has no chance whatsoever of picking up enough delegates via this method to actually win the nomination himself.
But it all changes when the Republican race becomes protracted and closely fought. If Santorum, Romney and Newt Gingrich all stay in the race beyond Super Tuesday and start to amass their own large piles of delegates, then reaching the vital 1,144 delegates needed to win starts to become more difficult.
If that scenario plays out – something most experts see as possible but unlikely – then Paul's delegate total becomes crucial. He could become a kingmaker, agreeing to throw his hefty delegate total behind one candidate who could then claim victory.
As a candidate with a very clearly defined agenda – on foreign policy, the role of government and fiscal issues, especially the Federal Reserve – Paul could demand a high policy price for that support.
However, even if a nominee emerges prior to the convention, Paul's delegates will still be important. If he amasses a loyal and large delegate total he will able to secure a high-profile, possibly primetime, speaking slot.
He will also be more able to get his agenda into the party's official policy platform. Given Paul's stance on issues like American foreign policy and the wars in Afghanistan, that could upset the party elite and the nominee.
Modern conventions are supposed to be highly organised, tightly controlled displays of party unity. At the very least a successful Paul delegate strategy could shatter that prospect.
Ron Paul quietly amassing an army of delegates while GOP frontrunners spar | World news | guardian.co.uk
Will the GOP Ever Understand the Importance of Millennial Voters?
Submitted by Dave P. on Fri, 02/24/2012 - 08:01Ron Paul 2012
Here is an interesting analysis that compares, among other things, Obama's ground game before his win and The Ron Paul revolution. Are we on track and will the Grand Ol' Party ever get it? Or will the Grand Old Party become just "the old party."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jSS8CxF6Jhg&feature=player_embedded
YOU BETTER WAKE UP AMERICA OR PLAN ON LOOSING IT ALL
RINOS Sold Out The Second Amendment Again
Submitted by emalvini on Fri, 02/24/2012 - 12:58
Ron Paul 2012
Lone Star Watchdog
February 24, 2012
A Message Alert from Gun Owners of America
Last week, we alerted you to a radical anti-gun nominee President Obama named to the federal bench, Jesse Furman.
To no one’s surprise, Furman is cut from the same judicial cloth as other Obama nominees such as Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan.
For instance, in an article published a number of years ago—but from which Furman has not distanced himself—he writes that: “Probably the best explanation for the amount of violent crime in the United States is its fascination with guns.”
GOA members flooded the Senate with emails, and many Senators voted against Furman. But Majority Leader Harry Reid kept every single Democrat in lock-step with the Obama agenda, and Furman was confirmed to a lifetime appointment to the bench on a vote of 62-34.
Republicans Jon Kyl and John McCain (AZ), Bob Corker and Lamar Alexander (TN), Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe (ME), Jeff Sessions (AL), Lisa Murkowski (AK), Scott Brown (MA), and Lindsey Graham (SC) joined all Democrats in voting for Furman.
This vote serves to highlight the difficulty in protecting the courts from anti-Second Amendment nominees who come before the Congress. Obama will continue to nominate far left gun grabbers, and Harry Reid will be his go-to guy for confirmation votes.
And if Obama wins a second term, his agenda will become only more brazen. That’s why a top goal of GOA in 2012 is to help elect as many truly pro-gun friends as we can to the U.S. Senate.
It is crucial that Harry Reid does not retain the gavel next year. But it is not enough to just elect members of the opposing party. We need to elect strong candidates who understand the Constitution and who will not bow to pressure from the White House—whoever the occupant may be—or from the leadership of either party in the Congress.
http://www.infowars.com/rinos-sold-out-the-second-amendment-...
RINOS Sold Out The Second Amendment Again | Ron Paul 2012 | Peace . Gold . Liberty
Federal Aid Pushes Up College Tuition Rates (Drudge) - Where Have I Heard That Before?
Submitted by BetweenUnemployment on Fri, 02/24/2012 - 14:12Ron Paul 2012
...Oh, yeah, from Ron Paul.
http://www.smartmoney.com/spend/family-money/why-college-aid...
Federal Aid Pushes Up College Tuition Rates (Drudge) - Where Have I Heard That Before? | Ron Paul 2012 | Peace . Gold . Liberty
FEBRUARY 24, 2012, 9:26 A.M. ET
Why College Aid Makes College More Expensive
Hough: New research shows how federal spending on higher education can backfire.
By JACK HOUGH
Federal aid for students has increased 164% over the past decade, adjusted for inflation, according to the College Board. Yet three-quarters of Americans and even a majority of college presidents see college as unaffordable for most, and that sentiment has been steadily spreading, the Pew Research Center reports.
Two new studies offer clues on why. One measures the degree to which some colleges reduce their own aid in response to increased federal aid. The other suggests federal aid is helping to push college costs higher.
Recipients of federal Pell Grants have, by definition, limited means to pay for college, so they are likely to qualify for grants and price breaks given out by schools, too. But schools view a student's sources of federal aid before deciding how much to give on their own, rather than the other way around. The result is a crowding out effect, where some schools give less as the government gives more.
Lesley Turner, a PhD candidate at Columbia University, looked at data on aid from 1996 to 2008 and calculated that, on average, schools increased Pell Grant recipients' prices by $17 in response to every $100 of Pell Grant aid. More selective nonprofit schools' response was largest and these schools raised prices by $66 for every $100 of Pell Grant aid.
Aid from schools over the past decade has increased about half as fast as federal aid, according to the College Board.
Perhaps worse for students than a crowding out effect is the Bennett Effect, named for William Bennett, who 25 years ago as Secretary of Education wrote for the New York Times, "Increases in financial aid in recent years have enabled colleges and universities blithely to raise their tuitions."
If subsidies puff up buying power and shift prices higher, as economics courses teach, could federal aid for college help create an affordability problem? After all, the federal government began spending more on college aid with the Higher Education Act of 1965 and the full funding of Pell Grants in 1975. Since 1979, tuition and fees have tripled after adjusting for inflation. That's much faster than the increase for real estate and teacher pay.
There have been mixed findings on the Bennett Effect in recent decades, with some studies finding a dollar-for-dollar relationship and others, none at all. Determining why college costs are rising is a difficult task, after all. Stephanie Riegg Cellini of George Washington University and Claudia Golden of Harvard take a new approach, focusing on for-profit schools. Some of these are eligible to participate in so-called Title IV aid programs (named for a portion of the aforementioned Act) and some not.
After adjusting for differences among schools, the authors find that Title IV-eligible schools charge tuition that is 75% higher than the others. That's roughly equal to the amount of the aid received by students at these schools.
Studies like these suggest that if one goal of government is to make college affordable, aid should become more thoughtful instead of merely more plentiful. And the total cost of federal spending on college isn't fully known. That's because spending on loans dwarfs that on grants. Student loans recently eclipsed credit card debt.
With credit cards, borrowers pay high interest rates to make up for their lack of collateral. Many many student loans have subsidized rates; others have low rates based on the assumption that a college education is a good financial risk for lenders.
If costs outpace the ability of graduates to find jobs with good pay, and repayment rates on these loans slide, taxpayers could end up feeling the crunch.
Why College Aid Makes College More Expensive - SmartMoney.com
CNN: 3 of 4 GOP Candidates Would Add to Deficits
Hmm… I wonder which GOP candidate would actually cut spending? Reports CNN Money:
Newt Gingrich’s economic plan would do a lot of things. But reducing the debt and balancing the federal budget aren’t among them.
Same goes for Rick Santorum’s and Mitt Romney’s economic plans.
Indeed, a preliminary analysis by the independent Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget released Thursday estimates that the three candidates’ plans could add between $250 billion and $7 trillion of debt over the next nine years.
By contrast, the proposals of Ron Paul could reduce the debt by $2.2 trillion, the group estimated.
Newt Gingrich’s plan
Debt over next decade: Adds $7 trillion, increasing debt to GDP to 114%…
Rick Santorum’s plan
Debt over next decade: Adds $4.5 trillion, increasing debt to GDP to 104%.
Mitt Romney’s plan
Debt over next decade: Adds $250 billion, increasing debt to GDP to 86%…
Ron Paul’s plan
Debt over next decade: Reduces it by $2.2 trillion, lowering debt to GDP to 76%.
CNN: 3 of 4 GOP Candidates Would Add to Deficits*|*Ron Paul 2012 Presidential Campaign Committee
16 U.S. Intelligence Agencies in agreement with Ron Paul...
Submitted by MrBibbins on Fri, 02/24/2012 - 12:36
The audience chuckled at Ron Paul during Thursday's debate when he made the "claim" that there is no hard evidence Iran is actively pursuing a bomb. However, a recent report indicates that the 16 U.S. Intelligence Agencies are actually in agreement with Ron Paul's assessment...
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-iran-int...
16 U.S. Intelligence Agencies in agreement with Paul... | Ron Paul 2012 | Peace . Gold . Liberty
U.S. does not believe Iran is trying to build nuclear bomb
The latest U.S. intelligence report indicates Iran is pursuing research that could enable it to build a nuclear weapon, but that it has not sought to do so.
http://www.latimes.com/media/photo/2012-02/68333297.jpg
Revolutionary Guard personnel watch the launch of a Zelzal missile in June 2011 near Qom, Iran. (Raouf Mohseni / Mehr News Agency / June 28, 2011)
By Ken Dilanian, Los Angeles Times February 23, 2012, 6:11 p.m.
Reporting from Washington— As U.S. and Israeli officials talk publicly about the prospect of a military strike against Iran's nuclear program, one fact is often overlooked: U.S. intelligence agencies don't believe Iran is actively trying to build an atomic bomb.
A highly classified U.S. intelligence assessment circulated to policymakers early last year largely affirms that view, originally made in 2007. Both reports, known as national intelligence estimates, conclude that Tehran halted efforts to develop and build a nuclear warhead in 2003.
The most recent report, which represents the consensus of 16 U.S. intelligence agencies, indicates that Iran is pursuing research that could put it in a position to build a weapon, but that it has not sought to do so.
Although Iran continues to enrich uranium at low levels, U.S. officials say they have not seen evidence that has caused them to significantly revise that judgment. Senior U.S. officials say Israel does not dispute the basic intelligence or analysis.
But Israel appears to have a lower threshold for action than Washington. It regards Iran as a threat to its existence and says it will not allow Iran to become capable of building and delivering a nuclear weapon. Some Israeli officials have raised the prospect of a military strike to stop Iran before it's too late.
It's unclear how much access U.S. intelligence has in Iran, a problem that bedeviled efforts to determine whether Iraq had weapons of mass destruction before the U.S.-led invasion in 2003.
The assessment that Saddam Hussein had secretly amassed stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons and was seeking to build a nuclear weapon, cited by the George W. Bush administration to justify the invasion, turned out to be wrong.
Iran barred inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N.'s nuclear watchdog group, from visiting Parchin, a military site, this week to determine whether explosives tests were aimed at developing nuclear technology.
An IAEA report in November cited "serious concerns" about "possible military dimensions to Iran's nuclear program," but did not reach hard conclusions. Another IAEA report is imminent.
Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, insisted Wednesday that Tehran had no intention of producing nuclear weapons. In remarks broadcast on state television, he said that "owning a nuclear weapon is a big sin."
But he said that "pressure, sanctions and assassinations" would not stop Iran from producing nuclear energy for peaceful purposes.
The U.S. and European Union have imposed strict sanctions on Iran's oil and banking sectors, and unidentified assassins on motorcycles have killed several nuclear scientists in Iran, attacks for which Tehran has blamed Israel.
For now, U.S. military and intelligence officials say they don't believe Iran's leadership has made the decision to build a bomb.
"I think they are keeping themselves in a position to make that decision," James R. Clapper Jr., director of National Intelligence, told the Senate Armed Services Committee on Feb. 16. "But there are certain things they have not yet done and have not done for some time."
Clapper and CIA Director David H. Petraeus told a separate Senate hearing that Iran was enriching uranium below 20% purity. Uranium is considered weapons grade when it is enriched to about 90% purity, although it is still potentially usable at lower enrichment levels.
U.S. spy agencies also have not seen evidence of a decision-making structure on nuclear weapons around Khamenei, said David Albright, who heads the nonprofit Institute for Science and International Security and is an expert on Iran's nuclear program.
Albright's group estimates that with the centrifuges Iran already has, it could enrich uranium to sufficient purity to make a bomb in as little as six months, should it decide to do so.
It is not known precisely what other technical hurdles Iran would have to overcome, but Albright and many other experts believe that if it decides to proceed, the country has the scientific knowledge to design and build a crude working bomb in as little as a year. It would take as long as three years, Albright estimated, for Iran to build a warhead small enough to fit on a ballistic missile.
Albright said a push by Iran to build a nuclear weapon probably would be detected.
Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta, the former CIA director, told a House committee that such a decision would be a "red line" prompting an international response.
Stephen Hadley, who was President Bush's national security advisor, said it would be too late to respond then.
"When they're assembling a bomb, that's going to be the hardest thing to see," said Hadley, now a senior advisor at the U.S. Institute of Peace, a government-funded think tank.
Some developments have bolstered the view that Iran is secretly pursuing a weapon.
In 2009, Western intelligence agencies discovered a clandestine underground facility called Fordow, near the city of Qom, that is said to be capable of housing 3,000 centrifuges for enriching uranium.
Israel worries that such facilities may be invulnerable to conventional bombing if Iran begins building a weapon. Israeli officials have warned that Iran could create what they call a "zone of immunity" by year's end.
And some U.S. officials have come to different conclusions about the intelligence. Among them is Rep. Mike Rogers, a Michigan Republican who is chairman of the House Intelligence Committee. "We know that [Iran is] aggressively pursuing a nuclear weapons program," Rogers said this month.
U.S. intelligence on Iran's nuclear ambitions has vacillated over the years. After Iranian dissidents exposed a long-hidden program in 2002, U.S. intelligence warned that Tehran was "determined to build nuclear weapons."
In 2006, Bush asked aides to present him with options for a U.S. attack. But newly recruited informants, intercepted conversations and notes from deliberations of Iranian officials led U.S. intelligence to reconsider its warning.
In December 2007, the National Intelligence Estimate judged with "high confidence" that Tehran had halted its nuclear weapons program in the fall of 2003. It judged with "moderate-to-high confidence that Tehran at a minimum is keeping open the option to develop nuclear weapons."
In his 2010 memoir, "Decision Points," Bush questioned whether analysts had reversed course to atone for their errors on Iraq.
Michael Hayden, who was CIA director in 2007, said the analysts who wrote the report had no political motivation. "It was intelligence professionals calling balls and strikes the way they saw them," he said in an interview.
He said the 2007 estimate was poorly worded and "quickly got translated into 'Iran stopped its nuclear program,'" which he does not believe is accurate.
The more important finding, Hadley said, was that Iran was continuing its efforts to develop fissile material and to build ballistic missiles capable of delivering warheads.
"They are doing everything they can to put themselves in a position so that they have a clear and fairly quick route to a nuclear weapon," he said.
ken.dilanian@latimes.com
U.S. does not believe Iran is trying to build nuclear bomb - latimes.com
Why Does the Military Love Ron Paul?
Servicemembers are giving way more cash to the anti-war GOP candidate than any other—but not for the reason you might think.
—By Adam Weinstein
| Fri Feb. 24, 2012 3:00 AM PST
http://mjcdn.motherjones.com/preset_...st_master2.jpgVeterans and supporters rally for Ron Paul in Iowa in December. Patrick Fallon/ZUMA
Conventional wisdom on politics in the military can feel almost as age-old as the Constitution itself: Conservative Republicans are strong on defense, and the military skews conservative and Republican. Foreign wars? Bring 'em on! Unwavering ally of Israel? You betcha. More dollars for defense? If not, you must be with the terrorists.
The 2012 presidential race tells a different story: The lion's share of political contributions by servicemembers and defense industry workers is going to anti-war, "soft on Israel," also-ran candidate Ron Paul. In fact, the battle for their dollars isn't even close: Paul has raised at least $282,868 from individual active-duty servicemembers and Pentagon employees—more than four times what the other three Republican presidential candidates have raised, combined. (President Obama has fared slightly better, drawing $123,644 from that group, but still less than half of Paul's total. For more, jump to the charts below with the numbers by candidate and branch of the armed services.)
"Clearly there's something about Paul that appeals to some members of the military," says Viveca Novak of the Center for Responsive Politics, which provided Mother Jones with the most recent tally of military contributions. "Whether it's that he speaks his mind, wants to end foreign engagements, has a libertarian's view of the world—we can't say."
One easy explanation has been that Americans in the service have grown tired of a decade of war and identify with Paul's isolationist anti-interventionist rhetoric. But if the military men and women with whom I spoke this week are any indication, it's hardly that simple.
Paul's anti-war stance is certainly part of the draw. Last weekend, the group Veterans for Ron Paul 2012 organized an anti-war President's Day march on the White House. That organization's leadership includes notable Iraq Veterans Against the War member Adam Kokesh, who unsuccessfully ran for Congress as a libertarian Republican candidate in 2010, and Jake Diliberto, a former Marine who's previously worked on Rethink Afghanistan, an anti-war project funded by the left-leaning Brave New Foundation. "I have always been a conservative, and I recognize that I am the kind of conservative that doesn't exist anymore," Diliberto told me. As for what unites servicemembers behind Paul, he said, "It is fair to say, we all do not like the current trajectory of US foreign policy, and we are cynical about US national security policy." He added that he's personally concerned about Obama's "targeted killing campaign" against alleged terrorists.
"Ron Paul is not opposed to the defense of this country," says one active-duty soldier. "He's not opposed to fighting wars that are declared."
One of the speakers at last weekend's rally was retired Air Force Lt. Colonel Karen Kwiatkowski, a former Pentagon analyst and key figure in revealing how the Bush administration sold the Iraq war based on bogus intelligence. "I'm 95% in harmony with Ron Paul's candidacy and his philosophy," Kwiatkowski—who's running for Congress in Virginia as a Republican—told me in an email. "I hold the DoD as a federal bureaucracy in a bit more contempt than he does because I spent way more time in it, and I saw close up the actual conscientious, direct political lying to promote war, invasions and occupations—none of which were sanctioned or even reviewed in accordance with the Constitution."
But Paul's supporters say the candidate's "anti-militarism" shouldn't be confused with being anti-defense. "He's not opposed to the defense of this country. He's not opposed to fighting wars that are declared," a 27-year-old active-duty enlisted soldier in the Army said. (He spoke on condition of anonymity; after a uniformed soldier spoke out at a Paul rally in Iowa, the military warned soldiers about politicking publicly.)
There's a certain irony in supporting a small-government candidate while working for the largest federal bureaucracy. The politics of it are, well, complicated. "I do wrestle with this conflict of being a Paul supporter while also being a government employee," the active-duty soldier said. "Ultimately, in my support for Paul, I care more for the restoration of the ideals this country was founded upon than my current well-being." At the same time, he added that the military saved him from student debt, while many of his friends are struggling to make it "as baristas and waiters" in the civilian world. "I didn't join the Army to be some hero that defends the Constitution," he said.
Soldiers tend to see Paul as understanding the pressures they face better than the other candidates because he's the only one in the group who served in uniform, as a flight surgeon in the Air Force and Air National Guard during the Vietnam era. The libertarian's service gives him "street cred," Kwiatkowski noted. "We often in the military have no idea what the foreign policy or the military policy is. All we know is we get told to do things, and often these things are costly, dangerous, and unproductive, and create more insecurity for us and for the country."
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Meanwhile, Paul's support from defense contractor employees—who donated more than $177,000 to him in 2011—has outpaced that of his competitors, according to Defense News. (Obama leads in that category overall, having pulled in about $348,000.) That may seem downright counterintuitive: Why would workers for companies that profit from war back an anti-pork candidate (self-proclaimed, anyway) who opposes, as Kwiatkowski puts it, "fraud, waste, abuse, warmongering, idiotic leadership, political correctness, and a host of other things"? It's a matter of ideology, military analyst Loren Thompson explained to Defense News. "There's a strong libertarian streak among many in the sector," he said. "Just because people work in the defense industry doesn't mean that they always vote their economic interests." (Interestingly, in the 2008 election cycle, Obama and Paul were for a time beating out that other vet in the presidential race, John McCain, for military contributions.)
Campaign contributions aren't necessarily a great indicator of a candidate's chances. The figures can't predict how, or how many service members will actually vote, and even if all of them did, they'd represent a tiny fraction of the US electorate. And these donation figures are a drop in the bucket when it comes to overall campaign spending: Even excluding super-PAC money, Obama's reelection campaign pulled down $29.1 million in January alone; Paul got $4.5 million in that time, according to filings with the Federal Election Commission.
Still, military voting jumped 21 percent in the 2010 election cycle, according to federal statistics, and it rose fastest—33 percent—among 18- to 24-year-olds, a demographic that heavily favors Paul (and Obama) over traditional conservatives. In an era in which presidential elections turn on a few battleground states, which can turn on a few thousand votes, the military's love affair with Ron Paul could play a role in determining the eventual GOP nominee.
"We veterans know about the mistakes that previous presidents have made, and we don't want to repeat them," Diliberto said of young vets who are loyal to Paul. "We need to change what we do."
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http://motherjones.com/files/imageca...l/photo/aw.jpg Adam Weinstein
Reporter
Adam Weinstein is Mother Jones' national security reporter. For more of his stories, click here or follow him on Twitter. RSS | Twitter
Why Does the Military Love Ron Paul? | Mother Jones
Salute the New Camouflaged Warriors in the Grand Old Party
Submitted by Priscilla Jones on Wed, 02/22/2012 - 04:45
http://dailypaulradio.com/radio/wp-c...eran_beret.jpgConservative Republican values—I remember them well from my rural, independently-minded Idaho upbringing: limited government, personal liberty and responsibility, fiscal restraint, and respect for human life, right? As proof of my dyed-in-the-wool Republican childhood, Reagan’s portrait had such a prominent place on my family’s mantle I always assumed he was one of our uncles. When George W. Bush changed his address to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, I was squarely in the middle of a growing young voter demographic. That’s when I got to know the heavy-hitting Grand Old Republicans in the behemoth states of California and Texas.
It has since taken me a decade to realize that the GOP is run by three types of people: busy-bodied heifers who dominate others through gossip and intimidation, their emasculated sidekicks who meekly fall in line, and shrewd business people who have figured out how to game the system for personal profit, prestige or, if they’re exceptionally shrewd, both.
Try as I might over the years to recruit fresh blood to the Republican Party, the mighty missing alpha males with their well-toned leadership abilities and hearts full of devotion to our country were invariably engaged in more noble, rewarding pursuits. It seemed the guys and gals who could turn the GOP and the country around were deployed overseas, hunting deer at the ranch, raising strong sons, running a business, or throwing a football with friends. Heroes like this have better things to do than dedicate countless nights and beautiful weekends to GOP meeting minutia. Over time, I abandoned my goal to change the GOP from within by introducing pure-hearted, limited government, common sense warriors. I then picked up a few hobbies of my own that did not result in me beating my head against the wall in a room full of mean heifers and girlie men manipulating Robert’s Rules of Order to their advantage.
Cue the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) 2012. By this stage in my political exposure to the GOPandemic, I knew I was witnessing the party of Uncle Reagan flatline. Mitt Romney of Taxachusetts is your pick? Really, CPAC? Congratulations. Your brand is officially ruined. Thanks for driving the stake through my party’s undead corpse.
Dejected does not begin to describe how I felt when I realized I wasted my twenties as a GOP activist. I wondered if I was the only longtime Republican who had chosen to swallow the Truth Pill in spite of its permanent side effects.
Imagine my delight this President’s Day when I found myself among 544 impressive military members and veterans excited to enlist in Republican politics! My heart soared as Veterans for Ron Paul marched in step toward Chancellor Obama’s pretty white palace, chanting for serious reform in deep-voiced unison. “End this War!” and “Legalize the Constitution!” reverberated like cannon fire off the cheerless government buildings. Upon reaching the Presidential gates, they promptly did an about face and stood in formation with their backs to the Commander-in-Chief’s residence, silently saluting the servicemen lost to war and suicide under his administration.
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The Veterans for Ron Paul’s mission is to galvanize tens of thousands of their comrades standing for peace and liberty and march them to the Republican National Convention (RNC) 2012 in Tampa. This organic veterans’ movement is noteworthy due to its leaderless leadership. It grows by word-of-mouth and is assisted by social media outlets. It has no non-profit status or mailing address. It doesn’t even have a real website. Yet, Veterans for Paul are everywhere and are poised to infuse the Republican party with good-old-fashioned American reform that would make our founders proud.
It’s a shame that the same people we send off to fight foreign wars must return only to do battle with the political machine to save their country and revive the GOP.
http://dailypaulradio.com/radio/wp-c...rans_crowd.jpgRon Paul is the clear choice of the troops. They both oppose the endless wars that have bankrupted our nation.
Dr. Paul represents the real Republican Party, old school style. Liberty is indeed popular and his message resonates with young and old, rich and poor, military and civilian. Fortunately, he’s bringing back into the GOP fold real leaders with sound philosophies concerning the proper role of government. The fresh faces are idealistic, to be sure, but they also have iron wills, strong stomachs and are battle-hardened thanks to our misguided policies.
Mean heifers, girlie men and shrewd opportunists be forewarned: you’re about to get some serious camo-wearing competition.
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Salute the New Camouflaged Warriors in the Grand Old Party | Ron Paul 2012 | Peace . Gold . Liberty
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WOOOOOO HOOOOO .... THANK YOU PATRIOTS
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Around 2,400 people at the Boise, Idaho Rally!
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Ron Paul attracted more than 1,200 supporters and undecided voters at his latest Washington event, continuing his pattern of drawing triple-digit crowd numbers along the Pacific Northwest campaign tour he began yesterday. In this photo he is motioning to his wife Carol, to the excitement of event attendees.
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Congressman Ron Paul surveys the crowd of about 1,350 in Twin Falls, Idaho. In the foreground are stage props for the Alfred Hitchcock play ‘The 39 Steps.’
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We had 2500 at the Minneapolis Convention Center Rally tonight!
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We had around 700 people at our Rochester, MN town hall
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Getting my daily exercise and seeing some of the Nevada countryside.
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Congressman Paul and Carol at a Nevada Press Conference today where he presented her flowers for their 55th anniversary.
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55 years ago today, I married the most incredible person in the world!
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And in Denver... around 1150 people at today's rally!
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Over 1200 at CSU Town Hall
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WOW! This was the OVERFLOW room to see Congressman Paul on closed circuit TV today in Gorham Maine!
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A huge crowd at our town hall in Bangor, Maine on a snowy Friday!
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With Cleveland Browns' Tony Pashos in the green room prior to the debate.
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Aiken Whistle Stop!
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1,050 People at the College of Charleston in South Carolina
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Overflowing crowd at the York County Town Hall Meeting in Rock Hill, South Carolina
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At a rally that just wrapped a little while ago in Myrtle Beach, SC, Senator Davis announced he is endorsing me for the Republican nomination! Over 500 were at the rally! Ron Paul 2012 Official Campaign Website
Senator Davis has been one of the most sought-after endorsements in this South Carolina primary race.
Matter of fact, one of my establishment opponents, Rick Santorum, recently told The Hilton Head Island Packet that, “To get an endorsement from someone like Tom Davis is a big deal. It would speak volumes to folks and make them take notice and give us a look.”
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A jam-packed town hall in Meredith, New Hampshire
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Kelley Paul and Carol Paul are making get out the vote calls today. You can too, go to http://phone.ronpaul2012.com/ and sign up!
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RON PAUL’s BLOWBACK CLAIMBetty is a researcher specializing in education, a freelance journalist and a regular contributor to www.NewsWithViews.com
By Betty Freauf
February 24, 2012
NewsWithViews.com
I checked my dictionary only to find there is no such word as “blowback” but one definition for “blow” said it is a sudden shock, calamity, reversal, etc. Is that what happened on 9/11/2001? So GOP Presidential candidate Ron Paul has invented a new word and ironically, I’ve been hearing talk show pundits like the King of Talk radio, Rush Limbaugh, use it to define other instances such as the reversal by Susan B. Komen regarding grant money to Planned Parenthood receiving lots of “blowback” from pro-lifers. And why, all of a sudden, are the other GOP presidential candidates suddenly talking about “Liberty and Freedom” which have been used over and over again by Ron Paul for eons. Could it be that a CNN poll way back in December showed this so-called “unelectable” Ron Paul tied with President Obama? Even if Ron Paul doesn’t win, he’s gotten his message out and awakening some sleeping giants.
Limbaugh continues to mock Ron Paul about “all those wars” wasting money. Rush has dumped on Paul, the “conservative” press treats him as a joke, and conservative talking heads routinely dismiss him; however, a UTube by Neil Cavuto on the Internet takes his fellow pundits at Fox News to task for their blatantly dismissive attitudes toward Paul. Limbaugh claims to have had an epiphany that Romney will ask Ron Paul’s son, Senator Rand Paul to be his Vice President, who says he’d be honored to accept. He’s noticed that Ron Paul has not attacked Romney in the debates- a strategy that has not gone unnoticed by the British press.
The one thorn in Romney’s side is his Massachusetts health care plan much like Obama’s, otherwise he has no federal voting record to attack and that could be an advantage in the debate with President Barack Obama. And Romney seems to regret promoting that health care plan which he says came from Heritage Foundation, a think tank that often sounds British and delivers talking points to the conservative talk show pundits who recruit for Heritage and then parrot their ideas throughout the air waves. This V.P selection could get interesting because Ron Paul in a recent campaign stop said he thinks strong Constitutionalist Judge Andrew Napolitano would be a great vice president and the crowd roared with approval. According to a New York Times op-ed by columnist Nicholas Kristof, Romney has several Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) members as advisers who favor globalism and one world government which could be a problem.
So let’s set out to vindicate Ron Paul and his talk about “all those wars.” I am not by any means an expert on foreign policies so I must rely on others to refresh my memory about “all those wars” that Ron Paul claims were not necessary and were initiated without Congressional approval.
In M. Stanton Evans 1966 book entitled THE POLITICS OF SURRENDER, he goes into great detail how Americans were deceived during the Cold War era with a continual flow of propaganda. He writes about “Those Missing ‘Gaps’” and says there have been at least four major instances in which important industrial-defense capability has been attributed to the Soviet Union on the strength of “intelligence” or Soviet assertion, only to prove out an illusion. In each of these, Moscow claimed and Western spokesman acknowledged vast Soviet attainments. Yet we now know the thing so freely granted on the basis of assumed “intelligence” information or otherwise were not true and should not have been granted.
The first of these instances occurred during the Korean War, when the concept of “stalemate” was employed to prevent resolute response to Communist aggression. We could not afford to hit Chinese communist staging points to the north and west of the Yalu River, it was asserted because such action might escalate into a nuclear war, involving the Soviet Union and its supposed atomic capability. This argument was based on the rather scanty evidence that the Soviets had set off some kind of nuclear explosion in 1949 – from which it was reasonable by stalemate theorists that Moscow had achieved a nuclear arsenal comparable to our own. Further Evans writes it was determined by the Rand Corporation in 1957 and is now universally acknowledged, however, that the Soviets in fact had no such nuclear arsenal at the time of the Korean conflict; the 1950 “stalemate” which prevented decisive action by the U.S. was a hobgoblin based on Soviet bravado and Western concession.
Does any of this sound familiar now that there is talk about war with Iran? Regarding the Cold War, Evans goes on to say: There is, of course, no intrinsic reason why Moscow could not at some future date catch up with or surpass the U.S. in nuclear armaments and delivery systems – particularly if we grant them all the time in the world to achieve such things while simultaneously cutting back our own work in these fields. It should be noted in the 1966 book by Evans, THE POLITICS OF SURRENDER, the U.S. had given the USSR by 1964 $186,000,000 and billions more to other Communist nations. Once again we accommodated the Soviets that eventually put Barack Obama in the White House.
Evans said a sustained program of technological advance by the communists, and a long-term contraction of our own arms program, could have ultimately produced a situation in which the two curves met and crossed, with the Communists emerging on top. It was the crowning irony of the “safe assumption” that it had conjured up a world in which precisely these two lines of development – or, in our case, non-development, were being pursued. In the name of safely assuming Moscow to have immense power relative to our own, we may have as well been on our way to making precisely such a transformation of strategic relationships a reality. Now if this statement by Evans doesn’t sound like the hype we are getting recently about Iran, then I’m a monkey’s auntie!
The second instance reported by Evans was the so-called “bomber gap,” allegedly discovered in 1955 and reported by Democrat spokesmen and later universally conceded to have been false. At the time the Democrats were throwing fears into us as being at another “stalemate”, the United States superiority far exceeded anything that the Russians had. Similar testimonies came from numerous authorities and contested by no one.
The third instance concerned about which Evans writes was the matter of the Soviets’ economic “growth rate.” This was an important indicator in any assessment of “stalemate,” since an advanced industrial base would have been necessary to support a military system even remotely comparable to the gigantic establishment of the United States. If the Soviet Union really was enjoying a fabulous splurge of productivity and industrial advance, that would argue in favor of the stalemate. If it were not enjoying such an advance, that would do the reverse. Today (2012) our United States economy is in trouble which if the foregoing statement is true, may mean America is vulnerable and Presidential candidate Ron Paul re-iterated that same fear at the Mesa, AZ. Debate on 2/22 reminding us we are bankrupt and can’t afford any more wars.
That the splurge was on, and that the Soviet Union was experiencing an economic renaissance of epic dimension, was a favored argument of presidential candidate John Kennedy back in 1960. We were, Kennedy said, falling dangerously behind the Kremlin in the matter of industrial growth, and this constituted one of the chief reasons why we had to “get this country moving again.” Like the nuclear capability of 1950 and the bomber gap of 1956, however, this asserted excess of economic vigor wasn’t so. But today (2012) both Europe and the U.S. are in similar financial trouble while Communist China excels.
Because it’s past history, I won’t go on to give more examples which Evans wrote about so let us jump to 1957-1960 that saw the United States terrorized by the idea that the Soviet Union had taken the lead over us in military rocketry. This so-called “missile gap” had been conjured up by the assertions of the Soviets about their space performance (Sputnik I) and their arsenal of ICBMs, and by the emotional response of many Western spokesmen including most prominently, Senators Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson., who decried the “missile gap” and the consequence existence of nuclear stalemate or worse from every available forum. Kennedy stressed this theme early in his campaign and never relinquished it. On August 26, 1960, he said,” “The facts of the matter are that we are falling behind in our rate of growth. The missile lag looms large.” On October 1, he derided the Republican Party as the “party which gave us the missile gap.” On October 4, he said “we do not have a defense second to none, and we are not in the lead in missiles…” On November 4, he said “we are now entering the age of the missile gap.” Similar utterances were proffered by Johnson. A 2/19/2012 AP headline said the U.S. nuclear arsenal is cut by half by the GOP and then, “Obama’s cuts could be deepest in history.” Go figure.
By 1959 or 1960, most Liberal spokesmen and military people – who had different motives for crying up the nonexistent “bomber gap” – admitted no such thing had transpired. The Soviets, it was acknowledged, didn’t have the kind of air force attributed to them; it had all been a mistake.
Now I probably have bored you silly with this information from the 50s but there is the old saying, if we don’t learn from our mistakes in the past, we are bound to repeat them. I have no idea how vulnerable we might be from possible missile attacks by Iran which I now hear are capable of hitting the U.S. and that war may be imminent. If this is so, it’s World War III.
But may I suggest that Congressman Ron Paul, who has been in Washington, D.C. for twenty some years, may be right when he says, let’s be more diplomatic with the alleged fears rather than rushing off to another war. He wants the people and a Declaration of War by Congress to determine intervention. Once again, the other presidential hopefuls, who have never worn a military uniform and while keeping their children safe, are willing to send ours into battle! When asked at the 2/22 Mesa, Arizona debate to explain in one word what they believe about themselves – Ron Paul said “consistent.” Rick Santorum said “courageous.” Romney said “resolute.” And Gingrich was funny!
So Ron Paul’s “blowback” claim is far more accurate than anything the remaining three candidates for President have to say. He criticizes our intervention policies and is called “dangerous” and “nuts.” He said to a cheering crowd of supporters after his second-place finish in January’s New Hampshire primary, “I have to chuckle when they describe you and me as being dangerous. We are dangerous to the status quo in this country.” By the way, it has been rumored that GOP insiders falsified the votes in Maine and Paul won but do you see that possibility in the mainline media or FOX T.V.? It’s more desirous to promulgate fear in the American citizens. Accusations by neoconservatives were thrown at Barry Goldwater in 1964 when he ran for President that believed in a brand of “American exceptionalism” holding that the U.S. both can and should police the rest of the world and that it should intervene in the affairs of other nations initiating violent “regime change” against foreign leaders who have neither attacked nor threatened us, and do not have the technological means of attacking us. These threats and intervention policies of the past are causing the “blowback.”
How many saw Congresswoman Michele Bachmann (R-Minn) in one of the debates label Ron Paul “dangerous” for him being reluctant to start something with Iran, which, like Barry Goldwater, Ron Paul is now being vilified and widely denounced by the members of his own party during the primary campaigns. Goldwater was accused of being “reckless” and “trigger happy” because he was willing to go to the brink of war if necessary to deter the Soviet Union or its client states from efforts to advance Communism through aggression.
So Ron Paul wants to be diplomatic and he’s called “dangerous” and “nuts.” It’s difficult to placate these sycophants in politics and the media. Thomas Jefferson wanted “Peace, commerce and honest friendship with all nations entangling alliances with none.”
With the examples I gave above from the fifties and all the false alarm bogies brings us up to date with the nine-years-long war with Iraq that followed our government’s effort to eliminate “weapons of mass destruction” that were not there, the American public might be eager to embrace a Romney/Rand Paul ticket or a Ron Paul/Napolitano ticket.
© 2012 Betty Freauf - All Rights Reserved
Betty is a former Oregon Republican party activist having served as state party secretary, county chairman, 5th congressional vice chairman and then elected chairman, and a precinct worker for many years but Betty gave up on the two-party system in 2004.
E-Mail: bettyfreauf@gmail.com
Betty Freauf -- Ron Paul's Blowback Claim