Thread: Ron Paul on the Issues

Red and Blue and Broke All Over by Charles Goyette

Listen Here!

USA Today ELIMINATES RP as a Candidate!

Submitted by Phoenix_Meetup_... on Thu, 04/19/2012 - 14:01
Ron isn't even listed in the drop-down filter as a Candidate!

Most Recent Political Campaign Ads: 2012 Election - USATODAY.com

AAAAAAAUGH!!! Ed in Phoenix - MAD AS HELL

USA Today ELIMINATES RP as a Candidate! | Peace . Gold . Liberty | Ron Paul 2012

I'll never buy that scrub paper again

No seats left for Ron Paul town hall

April 19, 2012 3:30 pm

Kaitlynn Riely / The Pittsburgh Press

Mitt Romney may have the money, the delegate lead and the momentum to become the Republican nominee for president, but the Ron Paul campaign keeps on rolling.

On Friday, it will roll into Pittsburgh.

No seats left for Ron Paul town hall | Peace . Gold . Liberty | Ron Paul 2012

Ron Paul Pandemic causes Romney split

All hell breaks loose in Alaska

By Doug Wead

There is a split at the senior levels of the Mitt Romney campaign over how to deal with the ongoing Ron Paul takeover of the Republican Party, this, from an old friend inside. Some are saying, “Let it happen, so what? We have the nomination, they represent youth and Hispanics and they are the future, we need them.” Others, I will call them Romney Hawks, are saying, “We don’t know exactly how many delegates they have and that, in itself, is dangerous. They already have enough to embarrass us at the Republican National Convention in Tampa.”

They point to the disastrous RNC of 1992 which many believe contributed to the loss of George H. W. Bush to Bill Clinton in the general election. They say, “We must stop the Ron Paul people at any cost.”

The Romney Hawks have been able to win in states like Alaska, Nevada and North Dakota, where they anticipated a Ron Paul takeover and carefully planned strategies to disenfranchise them. And the war, by the way, is not just with the Ronulans. The votes of Rick Santorum, Newt Gingrich and now, in many states, with any pro life delegates as well.

Part of the reason for the hardball is that the Romney team was caught by surprise in Missouri, Colorado, Minnesota, Iowa and other states. Even more worrisome for the Romney Hawks are the delegates that they are calling “stealth Paulies” lost in the mix, among the GOP faithful, going to Tampa as bound votes for Romney but Ron Paul activists at heart. Some estimates say that Ron Paul could end up with a third of the delegates on the floor of the RNC and “who knows what they can do?” That has galvanized the Romney hardliners. The purge is on.

Alaska is an example where the Romney hardliners pressed their advantage. Last Monday, GOP state party chairman, Randy Reudrich called a state committee meeting and announced that delegate fees would be accepted no later than 48 hours “from this date” setting a deadline for Wednesday, April 18. Then suddenly, the next day, the state party changed its mind, saying that delegate fees were required by 6:00 p.m. that very evening.

The massive Ron Paul delegation, which under fair, democratic circumstances would dominate the Alaska convention, had to move quickly to adjust, but nothing could prepare them for how dirty the fight would get and how fiercely they would be resisted.

First Reudrich’s GOP state party told delegates they could pay their $250 registration fee with personal check or by credit card online. Then they promptly pulled the online link. The Ron Paul-Santorum forces encouraged as many supporters as possible to make the long physical journey to the state convention a day early.

Alaska is a big state with many remote regions. And this was an operation that had to be planned and executed in a matter of hours, at a cost of time, money and arrangements for family and work. Miraculously it came together. But when delegates began arriving to pay their fee the Reudrich Rules had changed again.

Personal checks were no longer acceptable. Many rushed to the banks, while they were still open, to get money orders, barely meeting the deadline. Some missed it by minutes, making the long trek across the state for nothing. One was denied registration by a Party official who declared that even a money order was unacceptable.

The Alaska GOP told individual Ron Paul, prolife, or non-Romney supporters that they were prohibited from sponsoring the fee for surrogate delegates, and prohibited from covering any expenses for airfare or accommodations for anyone else. Of course, this was not true but it worked to send some of the less wealthy delegates back home, without a chance to participate, even after being elected as a delegate from their home District. One Ron Paul supporter who quietly, but firmly, pointed out the legality of the process, and listed Romney delegates whose expenses were paid by friends, was then told, “Yes, but they filed a state GOP waiver form.” He was then told that the party was out of forms. “Sorry.”

In the end, it may be Governor Mitt Romney, and the GOP, who are sorry.

“They are saying that GOP state chairman, Randy Reudrich, was promised a Romney job in Washington,” says one of the Santorum organizers. “He better hope that’s the case because he is finished in this state.”

Cooler heads in the Romney camp are concerned that Romney Hawks are driving young people, Hispanics and Independents to a Third Party or a “sit at home” attitude in the general election. The recent Rasmussen poll which showed Ron Paul beating President Barack Obama in a general election and Mitt Romney not, may have been missed by the national media but it was seen clearly by people in both the Romney and Obama camps.

The good news for the Ron Paul people is that if no one else believes in the success of their campaign, the Romney Hawks obviously do and they are willing to cheat, lie and deceive to stop them. Said one of the staff at Ron Paul Headquarters today, “If Mitt Romney had this thing won, he would be telling his state chairs to make it easy for new people to come into the party.” The fact that they are shutting us out is revealing.”

Join the discussion at Doug Wead: Author, Speaker, Presidential Historian | Facebook


Ron Paul Pandemic causes Romney split « Doug Wead The Blog

double posted a story... just deleting one

Guest Post: Fake Conservatives As Dangerous To Freedom As Obama



Submitted by Tyler Durden on 04/18/2012 10:34 -040
Submitted by Brandon Smith from Alt Market

Fake Conservatives As Dangerous To Freedom As Obama



If Americans are looking for anything in the dark clouds of political dust and powdered ash that choke our air and leave us feeling naked against the elements, it is but a simple moment of sincerity. It sounds like an easily attainable thing, and yet, we continue to gasp and clamor. The visible surface of our nation is so devoid of honest connection with our social voice that we have turned to a cynical form of loneliness. We have embraced a life without clarity, and been made wretchedly bitter, desperate for even the faintest taste of truth.

The false two party paradigm that drives America gives us a measure of sustenance. Just enough to keep us from going completely mad, but not enough to end our hunger. As this process continues, however, and the establishment grows bolder, we too become savvy in the ways of the machine. Eventually, the old standards just don’t keep the masses distracted like they used to, and so, the system, not willing to give up power, decides instead to become “like us”, at least outwardly. It steals our vision and our song and goes on parade. It tries to make us believe again…

The campaign of Barack Obama in 2008 was a perfect example of the propaganda pageant, complete with visceral slogans like “Hope” and “Change”. After eight years of the clownish George Bush Jr., when our country spiraled down into a state of disturbed and vicious adolescence, people were looking for a renewal. They were looking for a path away from the edge of the abyss. Instead, they were given a better liar, with a brand new costume. The American Dream has become harder to sustain since…to say the least.

In 2012, what I see is like a lightning bolt in slow motion. I can sense it branching out across the sky towards the ground and tearing through our surroundings, upending everything we know. Both the President and Congress have some of the lowest approval ratings in history. The question of whether anything can be accomplished through government has been answered for most people with a resounding “no”. The citizenry is on the verge of total fury.

I wish I could say that most have abandoned the fleeting hollow satisfaction of choosing the “lesser of two evils”, but that would not be accurate.

Recently, I was invited (by several separate people) to a central event in the state elections of Montana called the “Lincoln-Reagan Dinner”, and promptly tried to avoid it like a rat infested plague ship. I know from experience what these kinds of political elbow rubbing parties can be like, and have been thoroughly unimpressed. Somehow, I ended up there anyway. If your only experience of the Republican Party was to attend such shindigs, you might think the stuffy anal-retentive caricatures we often see of conservatives are well deserved. In stark contrast to a Ron Paul rally, most of the attendees were little younger than 55, and few seemed very animated. Perhaps they were suffering from the same distaste of the whole thing as I was. Luckily, a solid 15% of the crowd were Liberty Movement oriented, which helped me to weather the overall painful proceedings (I also won a door prize; a coupon for a free dinner, mmmm…), but a pair of earplugs and a bottle of whiskey would have been far more comforting.

The party also gave me a momentary window into the future of the state in which I now reside, and even the probable nature of campaigns occurring across the nation. The prospects weren’t very pretty.

If Americans plan to look to the GOP to save them from the jaws of impending disaster, they had better reconsider that foolish notion. Obama may be riding the economic collapse straight at us like a wild Mako shark, but that’s no excuse to delude ourselves with fantasies of a Republican savior. Mitt Romney (a man whose legislative record is little different from Obama’s) is just the tip of the iceberg. At the state level, a much more dire charade is taking place.

A most noticeable trend is the language that fake conservatives (Neo-Cons) have adopted in the past year, switching from die hard statism to sudden “opposition” to Federal encroachment. What happened to the GOP’s love affair with centralized government? Well, the tides of the populace have changed considerably over the past few years, and in 2012, co-option is the name of the game.

While the media goes out of its way to ignore Ron Paul, the elites in the GOP have lately decided its better to sound at least a little bit like the Constitutionalist candidate. Now, the parasites are brandishing rhetoric they wouldn’t have been caught dead uttering not long ago; railing against EPA intrusion on state jurisdiction of natural resources mostly, and the Federal Government in general, but it wasn’t much help. Speech after speech, the candidates were heavy on flag waving placations, light on substance or honor. The general message of the assembly was repeated over and over again;

WHOEVER the chosen candidates were after the primaries, conservatives were “duty bound” to supplant Obama and the Democrats at all costs. That is to say, if we do not unify around the selected Republican con-squad, Obama’s reelection would be entirely the fault of the non-conformists. “Anyone but Obama” was the catch phrase of the evening…

Sound familiar? It should. It’s the same kind of campaign the Democrats were running against Bush back in 2004, and it will lead to the same kind of disappointment.

Two political front men in Montana in particular left me so disgusted I could barely digest dinner afterwards. The first, of course, was Neil Livingstone, who as far as I can tell, is the quintessential nightmare candidate from the seventh circle of hell. With ties to the CIA under Air America, Iran Contra (though he denies it), multiple Blackwater-style mercenary firms, a penchant for death squads, and backdoor deals with dictators like Moammar Qaddafi, it’s hard to imagine a worse governor for an anti-Federal pro-Constitutional state like Montana.

Though we have been covering this information since Livingstone’s entry into the race, it’s nice to see that other outlets are finally catching on: The Most Interesting Gubernatorial Candidate in the World | Mother Jones

Mother Jones treats Livingstone’s record as a kind of anomaly; an outlandish joke that makes him unelectable. However, I tend to take his presence in Montana a bit more seriously. Money and friends in high places are still viable strategies in our very corrupt electoral process, and Livingstone has both.

The fact that the man moved back to Montana barely a year ago just to run for the governor’s position is also disconcerting. His running mate, Ryan Zinke, a former Seal Team 6 member, stated his solution to Montana’s unemployment problems is to build predator drone factories (I’m not joking).

And, both have received backing from a local retired two star general by the name of Paul Vallely who wrote a book called “The Myths Of Gitmo: Torture, Abuse Or The Truth”, in which he defends the detainment procedures of the infamous facility and claims that no torture, or at least what he defines as torture, occurs there. Though, this is not half as disturbing as the paper “From PSYOP to MindWar: The Psychology of Victory” which he wrote with legendary military Psyop analyst and creepy occultist Michael Aquino (look this guy up for a lesson in dangerously weird).

Vallely has been posing locally and nationally as a Liberty Movement proponent with his organization “Stand Up America”, just as Livingstone and Zinke have been posing as Constitutional freedom loving traditional conservatives. Anyone who has studied the Cointelpro operations of the 1960’s and 1970’s would probably see a familiar pattern in all of this, but many Montanans I fear may not be quite so aware.

Livingstone gets consistent applause for his broken record jokes on the hot button wolf problem here in the Big Sky State. And his speaking style is well trained.

Like most political snake oil salesmen, he has the ability to talk a lot without saying much. It may well be that the Constitutionalist movement that is thriving here has garnered special attention, and men like those listed so far are not here by coincidence.

The second politician stealing our oxygen was Rep. Denny Rehberg, a self proclaimed Tea Party Republican who consistently votes for Neo-Con style legislation, including the NDAA. Rehberg washed patriotic during his substance-less speech during the Lincoln-Reagan dinner, wandering off on tangents about his mother and then back to push button topics like Obamacare.

The one saving feature of his campaign was his opposition to the bailouts.

Unfortunately, when confronted by Stewart Rhodes of Oath Keepers after the event on his support of the NDAA, Rehberg revealed his true colors.

Apparently not recognizing who Rhodes was, he accused the long time veteran of “not supporting the troops” because of his opposition to the bill.

When confronted on the specific provisions of the bill which allow for indefinite detainment of any person the executive branch accuses of being an enemy combatant without trial, Rehberg denied that the bill opened doors to such action. This has been the typical response from other fake conservatives who voted for the draconian legislation.

Strangely, representatives of Rehberg have tried to contact Rhodes in the past to show support for a bill to “clarify” the language of the NDAA, but these drafts contained little to nothing to actually nullify the detainment sections.

If Rehberg has no remorse over his support for the NDAA, and feels it holds no threat to the American people, why try to draft a state bill to clarify the U.S. citizen issue? According to Rehberg, the only reason was to silence Constitutionalists who had been pointing out his non-conservative, pro-statist behavior.

“Clarity”, is not his true concern at all. The irrationality of the defense of the NDAA continues to escalate amongst closet neo-cons. From Alinsky style diversions and accusations, to full-on denial in spite of the evidence, they refuse to admit the nature of the legislation. Why? Because it is indefensible.

I have merely covered some local examples of fake-conservatives I have witnessed first hand, but this is a strategy being used all over the country.

The incredible threat these people pose cannot be underestimated (in a follow up article, I will cover some examples of legitimate liberty candidates).

With Obama sending America into a death spiral, the obvious and natural reaction by many will be to look to the conservative dynamic to put things right. Sadly, most Americans do not know what real conservatism and limited government looks like anymore.

Frankly, any hobgoblin in a suit can claim he is a conservative nowadays, and then implement the same globalist, collectivist policies as the fake liberal before him.

As I have said many times in the past, you have to examine the actions of these representatives, not their rhetoric. What they say is meaningless. What they do, and have done in the past, is everything.

This election year, we MUST NOT play the old game of the “lesser of two evils”. The fact is, there is no such thing, and there never was.

Guest Post: Fake Conservatives As Dangerous To Freedom As Obama | ZeroHedge

A Veteran’s Death, the Nation’s Shame

A photograph taken in Iraq of Specialist Ryan Yurchison (left), who died of a drug overdose on May 23, 2010, after returning home to New Middletown, Ohio.

By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
Published: April 14, 2012

HERE’S a window into a tragedy within the American military: For every soldier killed on the battlefield this year, about 25 veterans are dying by their own hands.

An American soldier dies every day and a half, on average, in Iraq or Afghanistan. Veterans kill themselves at a rate of one every 80 minutes.

More than 6,500 veteran suicides are logged every year — more than the total number of soldiers killed in Afghanistan and Iraq combined since those wars began.

These unnoticed killing fields are places like New Middletown, Ohio, where Cheryl DeBow raised two sons, Michael and Ryan Yurchison, and saw them depart for Iraq. Michael, then 22, signed up soon after the 9/11 attacks.

“I can’t just sit back and do nothing,” he told his mom. Two years later, Ryan followed his beloved older brother to the Army.

When Michael was discharged, DeBow picked him up at the airport — and was staggered. “When he got off the plane and I picked him up, it was like he was an empty shell,” she told me. “His body was shaking.” Michael began drinking and abusing drugs, his mother says, and he terrified her by buying the same kind of gun he had carried in Iraq. “He said he slept with his gun over there, and he needed it here,” she recalls.

Then Ryan returned home in 2007, and he too began to show signs of severe strain. He couldn’t sleep, abused drugs and alcohol, and suffered extreme jitters.

“He was so anxious, he couldn’t stand to sit next to you and hear you breathe,” DeBow remembers. A talented filmmaker, Ryan turned the lens on himself to record heartbreaking video of his own sleeplessness, his own irrational behavior — even his own mock suicide.

One reason for veteran suicides (and crimes, which get far more attention) may be post-traumatic stress disorder, along with a related condition, traumatic brain injury. Ryan suffered a concussion in an explosion in Iraq, and Michael finally had traumatic brain injury diagnosed two months ago.

Estimates of post-traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injury vary widely, but a ballpark figure is that the problems afflict at least one in five veterans from Afghanistan and Iraq. One study found that by their third or fourth tours in Iraq or Afghanistan, more than one-quarter of soldiers had such mental health problems.

Preliminary figures suggest that being a veteran now roughly doubles one’s risk of suicide. For young men ages 17 to 24, being a veteran almost quadruples the risk of suicide, according to a study in The American Journal of Public Health.

Michael and Ryan, like so many other veterans, sought help from the Department of Veterans Affairs. Eric Shinseki, the secretary of veterans affairs, declined to speak to me, but the most common view among those I interviewed was that the V.A. has improved but still doesn’t do nearly enough about the suicide problem.

“It’s an epidemic that is not being addressed fully,” said Bob Filner, a Democratic congressman from San Diego and the senior Democrat on the House Veterans Affairs Committee. “We could be doing so much more.”

To its credit, the V.A. has established a suicide hotline and appointed suicide-prevention coordinators. It is also chipping away at a warrior culture in which mental health concerns are considered sissy. Still, veterans routinely slip through the cracks. Last year, the United States Court of Appeals in San Francisco excoriated the V.A. for “unchecked incompetence” in dealing with veterans’ mental health.

Patrick Bellon, head of Veterans for Common Sense, which filed the suit in that case, says the V.A. has genuinely improved but is still struggling. “There are going to be one million new veterans in the next five years,” he said. “They’re already having trouble coping with the population they have now, so I don’t know what they’re going to do.”

Last month, the V.A.’s own inspector general reported on a 26-year-old veteran who was found wandering naked through traffic in California. The police tried to get care for him, but a V.A. hospital reportedly said it couldn’t accept him until morning. The young man didn’t go in, and after a series of other missed opportunities to get treatment, he stepped in front of a train and killed himself.

Likewise, neither Michael nor Ryan received much help from V.A. hospitals. In early 2010, Ryan began to talk more about suicide, and DeBow rushed him to emergency rooms and pleaded with the V.A. for help. She says she was told that an inpatient treatment program had a six-month waiting list. (The V.A. says it has no record of a request for hospitalization for Ryan.)

“Ryan was hurting, saying he was going to end it all, stuff like that,” recalls his best friend, Steve Schaeffer, who served with him in Iraq and says he has likewise struggled with the V.A. to get mental health services. “Getting an appointment is like pulling teeth,” he said. “You get an appointment in six weeks when you need it today.”

While Ryan was waiting for a spot in the addiction program, in May 2010, he died of a drug overdose. It was listed as an accidental death, but family and friends are convinced it was suicide.

The heartbreak of Ryan’s death added to his brother’s despair, but DeBow says Michael is now making slow progress. “He is able to get out of bed most mornings,” she told me. “That is a huge improvement.” Michael asked not to be interviewed: he wants to look forward, not back.

As for DeBow, every day is a struggle. She sent two strong, healthy men to serve her country, and now her family has been hollowed in ways that aren’t as tidy, as honored, or as easy to explain as when the battle wounds are physical. I wanted to make sure that her family would be comfortable with the spotlight this article would bring, so I asked her why she was speaking out.

“When Ryan joined the Army, he was willing to sacrifice his life for his country,” she said. “And he did, just in a different way, without the glory. He would want it this way.”

“My home has been a nightmare,” DeBow added through tears, recounting how three of Ryan’s friends in the military have killed themselves since their return. “You hear my story, but it’s happening everywhere.”

We refurbish tanks after time in combat, but don’t much help men and women exorcise the demons of war. Presidents commit troops to distant battlefields, but don’t commit enough dollars to veterans’ services afterward. We enlist soldiers to protect us, but when they come home we don’t protect them.

“Things need to change,” DeBow said, and her voice broke as she added: “These are guys who went through so much. If anybody deserves help, it’s them.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/15/op...hame.html?_r=1

4,400 for Ron Paul in Ithaca

Submitted by legalizeliberty on Thu, 04/19/2012 - 19:41 Ron Paul 2012

Ron Paul packed the house again tonight at Cornell University. The Revolution continues…

4,400 for Ron Paul in Ithaca*|*Ron Paul 2012 Presidential Campaign CommitteeRon Paul 2012 Presidential Campaign Committee

We Are All Patrick Henry!

4,400 for Ron Paul in Ithaca | Peace . Gold . Liberty | Ron Paul 2012

{Ron Paul Does It Again!} Over 4,400 Pack The House In Ithica To See Ron Paul...WOW!

Submitted by emalvini on Thu, 04/19/2012 - 20:47 Ron Paul 2012

{Ron Paul Does It Again!} Over 4,400 Pack The House In Ithica To See Ron Paul...WOW!

Ron Paul packed the house again tonight at Cornell University. The Revolution continues…

4,400 for Ron Paul in Ithaca : dcrevolt.org


{Ron Paul Does It Again!} Over 4,400 Pack The House In Ithica To See Ron Paul...WOW! | Peace . Gold . Liberty | Ron Paul 2012

Where is RON PAUL? Let's find out