Thread: Ron Paul on the Issues

Propaganda, Lies, And War


Submitted by Tyler Durden on 06/21/2012 21:09 -0400

Submitted by James Miller from the Ludwig von Mises Institute of Canada

Propaganda, Lies, And War

If I asked what the cause of the American Civil War was, would your first answer be slavery? Would it surprise you to know that slavery was only one grievance the South had with the Lincoln administration?

Up until the first bullet was fired on Fort Sumter, Abraham Lincoln had been leading a type of economic aggression to force the South into initiating the official version of the conflict. When Lincoln ran for president, his platform was based on Henry Clay-inspired mercantilism where he promised to maintain a high protective tariff that would serve Northern industrial interests while impoverishing the South’s still predominantly agrarian economy. This, of course, angered the South much like it did when John Quincy Adams imposed the same type of tariff in 1828 which lead to the Nullification Crisis.

With the Morrill Tariff, which increased the tax on dutiable imports by about 70%, put in place by President Buchanan two days before he left office, the South stood ready to secede. After Lincoln’s inauguration, he began to maneuver the seceding South into firing the first shot by breaking a previously established agreement to not attempt to restock Fort Sumter. He secretly sent troops the Fort which escalated into what turned out to be the bloodiest war in American history.

Lincoln’s close friend and confidante Senator Orville H. Browning would go on to write in his diary:

He told me that the very first thing placed in his hands after his inauguration was a letter from Major Anderson announcing the impossibility of defending or relieving Sumter. That he called the cabinet together and consulted General Scott—that Scott concurred with Anderson, and the cabinet, with the exception of PM General Blair were for evacuating the Fort and all the troubles and anxieties of his life had not equalled (sic) those which intervened between this time and the fall of Sumter. He himself conceived the idea, and proposed sending supplies, without an attempt to reinforce giving notice of the fact to Governor Pickens of S.C. The plan succeed. They attacked Sumter—it fell, and thus, did more service than it otherwise could.

Contrary to popular belief, the Civil War was not a fight over slavery but a fight over whether the South was allowed to secede from the union.

Lincoln thought war would rally the North behind his special-interest driven agenda. The South sent numerous commissioners to Washington in the hopes of finding a peaceful solution to secession. Lincoln ignored all of them. As he stated in a letter addressed to Horace Greeley of the New York Tribune:

My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union.

So why is this version of the Civil War not taught in public schools?

It’s a simple answer when you consider the driving force of statism.

When Randolph Bourne opined “war is the health of the state,” he was referring to how war is used as a means to enlarge the authority of government over everyday life. In times of war, the citizenry is told to sacrifice their material well being and freedom for the sake of winning the war and bringing the troops home. Taxes are raised, central banks inflate, governments borrow massive amounts of money, and economic resources are confiscated to be used in the war effort. War quickens the state’s march toward totalitarianism as it rallies the public into unquestioned obedience.

Love of country replaces love of self and family. Mothers and fathers give up their sons (and now daughters) to fight in the state’s bloody crusade. The heads of government who initiated the conflict don’t let their offspring go and fight. Their pampered lifestyles usually don’t see the sacrifice taxpayers must endure.

Romanticized retellings of war assist in convincing the masses that the campaigns of murder carried out by political leaders were for the good of the nation. It enshrines the state as a life-saving guardian to those fortunate enough to not meet a gruesome death on the battlefield. In the case of the Civil War, Lincoln didn’t just save the union; he has forever made secession a nonviable solution to an overreaching Washington. Lincoln’s war of northern aggression turned these united States of America into the United States of America. It cost the equivalent of 6 million lives today for honest Abe to destroy the volunteerism which defined the union of the states in the decades that preceded the war.

Just as the Civil War was triggered by deceit, many of the wars or military conflicts of the past century have been fought based on the lies of a political class all too enamored with their own power and place in history.

Starting with World War I and Woodrow Wilson’s quest to “make the world safe for democracy,” the popularly spun tail is that America’s entering the conflict was in reaction to Germany sinking the supposedly innocent passenger vessel the Lusitania. After German subs sunk the ship, thereby killing women and children, popular support reversed and was now in favor of war. What wasn’t revealed immediately is that the Lusitania was really outfitted to carry armaments for the British. This was a strategy developed by then First Lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill to bait a German attack and bring America into the fight.

As classical liberal historian Ralph Raico writes:

The Lusitania was a passenger liner loaded with munitions of war; Churchill had given orders to the captains of merchant ships, including liners, to ram German submarines if they encountered them, and the Germans were aware of this. And, as Churchill stressed in his memoirs of World War I, embroiling neutral countries in hostilities with the enemy was a crucial part of warfare: “There are many kinds of maneuvres in war, some only of which take place on the battlefield. . . . The maneuvre which brings an ally into the field is as serviceable as that which wins a great battle.

Then there is the often neglected role big business, especially JP Morgan & Co, played in the propagandizing of the war. As one of the largest creditors and underwriters to war bonds issued by the governments of Britain and France, it was in the best interest of the House of Morgan to guarantee the Allies won the war.

As the American economy drifted toward one of top-down command where government cartelized industry to ensure adequate munitions for war, big business was more than happy to play along as it meant stifling regulations placed on their small-time competitors and the opportunity to keep prices elevated. This perverted form of capitalism would serve as a model to Western nations from the war’s end to the present day.

Murray Rothbard believed the first World War was really a victory for the fascist state:

More than any other single period, World War I was the critical watershed for the American business system. It was a “war collectivism,” a totally planned economy run largely by big-business interests through the instrumentality of the central government, which served as the model, the precedent, and the inspiration for state corporate capitalism for the remainder of the twentieth century.

The beginnings of World War II were engulfed by the same collusion of big business and government along with underhanded tactics to further chip away at the American public’s noninterventionist stance.

The Morgans still had their financial ties with Britain and France while the Rockefellers wanted war with Japan since the country competed for raw materials in Southeast Asia.

Both financial powerhouses lobbied for war early on. After Franklin Roosevelt was reelected on the platform of keeping America a neutral party, he set about provoking a Japanese attack sometime around the summer of 1941.

This resulted in an oil embargo, the forceful limiting of exports, and freezing the country’s assets within the U.S. It was the equivalent of an economic fatal wound to resource-poor Japan. Not only that, but in recent years it has been confirmed that Roosevelt had prior knowledge of the Pearl Harbor attack and actually withheld key information from commanders at the naval base. As Vice Admiral and aid to the Secretary of the Navy Frank E. Beatty noted at the time:

Prior to December 7, it was evident even to me… that we were pushing Japan into a corner. I believed that it was the desire of President Roosevelt, and Prime Minister Churchill that we get into the war, as they felt the Allies could not win without us and all our efforts to cause the Germans to declare war on us failed; the conditions we imposed upon Japan—to get out of China, for example—were so severe that we knew that nation could not accept them.

We were forcing her so severely that we could have known that she would react toward the United States. All her preparations in a military way—and we knew their over-all import—pointed that way.

Following World War II, every conflict the U.S. has engaged in has been either to the benefit of wealthy special interests or in reaction to its own misguided policies. The Cold War was a four decade long gift to the military industrial complex against a supposed world power that collapsed due to its state-run economy. The various bombings and occupations of Middle Easter countries which followed have only served as excuses to not end the flow of money into the pockets of politically connected military contractors. And the Iraq War, as everyone now knows, was based on the lie of Saddam Hussein possessing weapons of mass destruction.

One would think with such a rich history of political patronage in the death industry, Americans would be adamantly opposed to war. Yet the usual players in Washington are once again pounding on the war drums in the name of spreading American values. The target this time is Iran and at least one presidential candidate in this fall’s election has vowed to use military force on a nation that hasn’t bowed down and kissed Uncle Sam’s jackboot.

The problem is Iran has the hubris of refusing to be bullied around by the U.S. Such an attitude undermines American imperialism in front of the rest of the world. It must be stomped out by any means necessary.

And then there is the big financial push for an Iranian war going on behind the scenes. The pro-Israel lobbying group, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, has been aggressively pushing for war and appealing to top lawmakers and the heads of Washington’s warmongering apparatus.

President Obama has already assured the flush lobbying group that “the United States will not hesitate to attack Iran with military force to prevent it from acquiring a nuclear weapon.” Department of Defense Secretary Leon Panetta made the same promise.

Just last week, 44 Senators, including many Democrats, sent an AIPAC letter to the President urging him to consider military action if Iran continues with its nuclear program. The letter essentially makes war the only option on the table as Glenn Greenwald of Salon points out:

This implication is clear: a military attack by the U.S. on Iran is at least justified, if not compelled, if a satisfactory agreement is not quickly reached regarding Iran’s nuclear program. At the same time, the letter itself virtually ensures no such agreement is possible because the conditions it imposes as the “absolute minimum” are ones everyone knows Iran will never agree to (closing the Fordow facility and giving up its right to enrich uranium above 5 percent).

Not only is the push for war bipartisan, but much of the media establishment has been devoid of criticism of the constant war rhetoric. Even though Israel has nukes of its own, many of its supporters portray the country as a weakling in dire need of assistance from the bully of the Middle East schoolyard. Worse is the complete disregard of the fact that there is no actual evidence that Iran is concocting a nuclear weapon. According to the CIA’s own National Intelligence Estimate of 2007, Iran put a stop to the development of nuclear weapons in the fall of 2003. Other Western nations such as Germany, France, and Britain, deny the report’s conclusion.

Meanwhile Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has gotten impatient of the reluctance by the U.S. thus far to act militarily against Iran. Like a good politician, he wants prestige without the dirty work. That’s what America is for.

Despite already being engaged in drone wars in Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen, and still occupying Afghanistan, the U.S. is being duped into yet another war based on shaky evidence and at the behest of deep-pocketed special interests. This is coming even while a secretive cyber war already being waged to damage Iran’s nuclear capability. According to the Pentagon, “computer sabotage coming from another country can constitute an act of war.” Not only that, but the draconian sanctions thus far placed on Iran are doing enormous harm to the citizens who hardly have a say in what their government does. The Belgium-based SWIFT payment system that facilitates most international payments has already denied service to many Iranian banks. With the imposing of an oil embargo from the European Union just around the corner (July 1^st) that will all but make it impossible for oil tankers to be insured by Lloyd’s of London, an actual naval blockade is being floated by U.S. lawmakers. Much like the Antebellum South and Japan, Iran too is being pushed into a corner.

What makes the campaign to extend the War on Terror to Iran is that the anti-American sentiment in the higher echelons of its government are only a consequence of previous meddling. After Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh nationalized the oil industry in 1953, British Petroleum used the CIA to overthrow the popular leader and put the Shah back in power whose authoritarian rule would be financially supported by the U.S. up to the Islamic Revolution of 1979.

Then and now, wealthy special interests are a driving force behind American imperialism. Lies will be spun till they are seen as facts. When the truth comes out, the irreparable damage will already be done. Like anything the state lays its filthy hands on, war is a racket. The beneficiaries of the ruling class’s gleeful foray into mass murder are few in number. The masses, still brainwashed into feverish nationalism, end up paying the costs with their pilfered income, eroded liberty, and, ultimately, their own lives.

As Major General Smedley D. Butler wrote in his seminal essay War Is A Racket

WAR is a racket. It always has been.

It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives.

A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people. Only a small “inside” group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes.

The only weapon against such an immoral system of mass murder and cronyism is to know the truth and to not fall ill with the fever of war.

Propaganda, Lies, And War | ZeroHedge

Here We Go: Moody's Downgrade Is Out - Morgan Stanley Cut Only 2 Notches, To Face $6.8 Billion In Collateral Calls


Submitted by Tyler Durden on 06/21/2012 17:26 -0400

Here it comes:

• MOODY'S CUTS 4 FIRMS BY 1 NOTCH
• MOODY'S CUTS 10 FIRMS' RATINGS BY 2 NOTCHES
• MOODY'S CUTS 1 FIRM BY 3 NOTCHES
• MORGAN STANLEY L-T SR DEBT CUT TO Baa1 FROM A2 BY MOODY'S
• MOODY'S CUTS MORGAN STANLEY 2 LEVELS, HAD SEEN UP TO 3
• MORGAN STANLEY OUTLOOK NEGATIVE BY MOODY'S
• MORGAN STANLEY S-T RATING CUT TO P-2 FROM P-1 BY MOODY'S

But the kicker:
ONLY MORGAN STANLEY, HSBC CUT LESS THAN MOODY'S ORGINAL MAXIMUM.And there you have it - the reason for the delay were last minute negotiations, most certainly involving extensive monetary explanations, by Morgan Stanley's Gorman (potentially with Moody's investor Warren Buffett on the call) to get only a two notch downgrade. And Wall Street wins again.
Recall, from MS' 10-Q:

"In connection with certain OTC trading agreements and certain other agreements associated with the Institutional Securities business segment, the Company may be required to provide additional collateral or immediately settle any outstanding liability balances with certain counterparties in the event of a credit rating downgrade. At March 31, 2012, the following are the amounts of additional collateral, termination payments or other contractual amounts (whether in a net asset or liability position) that could be called by counterparties under the terms of such agreements in the event of a downgrade of the Company’s long-term credit rating under various scenarios: $868 million (A3 Moody’s/A- S&P); $5,177 million (Baa1 Moody’s/ BBB+ S&P); and $7,206 million (Baa2 Moody’s/BBB S&P). Also, the Company is required to pledge additional collateral to certain exchanges and clearing organizations in the event of a credit rating downgrade. At March 31, 2012, the increased collateral requirement at certain exchanges and clearing organizations under various scenarios was $160 million (A3 Moody’s/A- S&P); $1,600 million (Baa1 Moody’s/ BBB+ S&P); and $2,400 million (Baa2 Moody’s/BBB S&P)."

So instead of $9.6 billion, MS will face only $6.8 billion in collateral calls.
Still the firm is not out of the woods:

Any indications of control failures, a marked increase in risk appetite or deterioration in leverage or other capital metrics would lead to downward pressure on the ratings.
The negative outlook on the parent holding company reflects Moody’s view that government support for US bank holding company creditors is becoming less certain and less predictable, given the evolving attitude of US authorities to the resolution of large financial institutions, whereas support for creditors of operating entities remains sufficiently likely and predictable to warrant stable outlooks.

Sure enough, here is the immediately released Morgan Stanley statement. Odd that the firm knew in advance what the rating cut would be...

While Moody’s revised ratings are better than its initial guidance of up to three notches, we believe the ratings still do not fully reflect the key strategic actions we have taken in recent years. However, their acknowledgment of our long-term partnership with MUFG as well as our industry-leading capital and liquidity highlight some of the transformative steps we have taken. With our de-risked balance sheet, stable sources of funding, diverse business mix and strong leadership team, we are well positioned to deliver for clients and shareholders.

And let certainly not forget JP Morgan:

The negative outlook on the parent holding company reflects Moody’s view that government support for US bank holding company creditors is becoming less certain and less predictable, given the evolving attitude of US authorities to the resolution of large financial institutions, whereas support for creditors of operating entities remains sufficiently likely and predictable to warrant stable outlooks.

The lowering of the standalone credit assessment to a3 positions JP Morgan in the first group of firms with significant global capital market activities. This position reflects the risks related to JP Morgan’s (i) very large capital markets business (representing 26% of reported firm-wide revenues in 2011); (ii) relatively high absolute level of secured and unsecured wholesale funding within the overall balance sheet; and (iii) the recent control failure within its Chief Investment Office (CIO), which has tarnished JP Morgan’s otherwise strong track record of risk management. These factors are mitigated by (i) JP Morgan’s diversified and sustainable earnings streams from its five other lines of business; (ii) relatively low earnings volatility compared with the peer group; (iii) good structural liquidity and large liquidity pool; (iv) capital levels that are solid and resilient under Moody’s stress tests; and (iv) leverage that is below the industry median.

JP Morgan’s recently announced loss within the CIO was an important factor in the downgrade of the standalone credit profile. It illustrates the challenges of monitoring and managing risk in a complex global organization — and highlights the opacity of such risks. The firm has substantial earnings and liquidity, which affords it the time to work out of the positions. Management is also acting aggressively to stem the losses and has already added new controls to the CIO.

These risk factors have been fully incorporated into the current standalone assessment. Since JP Morgan is positioned in the first group of firms with global capital markets operations, upward pressure on the rating is unlikely, absent a material shrinking and de-risking of the investment bank, which Moody’s does not anticipate. Any further control failures, a marked increase in risk appetite or a willingness to increase leverage could lead to downward pressure on the ratings.

In Summary:

• Bank of America L-T senior unsecured debt cut to Baa2 from Baa1, outlook negative.
• Barclays L-T issuer rating cut to A3 from A1, outlook negatuve
• Citigroup L-T senior debt cut to Baa2 from A3, outlook negative
• Credit Suisse Group L-T deposit, senior rating cut to A1 from Aa1, outlook stable
• Goldman Sachs Group L-T senior unsecured debt cut to A3 from A1, outlook negative
• HSBC Holdings L-T senior debt cut to Aa3 from Aa2, outlook negative
• JPMorgan Chase L-T senior debt cut to A2 from Aa3, outlook negative
• Morgan Stanley L-T senior unsecured debt cut to Baa1 from A2, outlook negative
• Royal Bank of Scotland Group L-T senior debt cut to Baa1 from A3, outlook negative
• Royal Bank of Scotland plc L-T deposit rating cut to A3 from A2, outlook negative
• BNP Paribas L-T debt, deposit rating cut to A2 from Aa3, outlook stable
• Credit Agricole L-T debt, deposit rating cut to A2 from Aa3, outlook negative
• Royal Bank of Canada L-T deposit rating cut to Aa3 from Aa1, outlook stable
• Societe Generale L-T debt, deposit cut to A2 from A1, outlook stable
• UBS L-T debt, deposit cut to A2 from Aa3, outlook stable
• Deutsche Bank AG L-T deposit rating cut to A2 from Aa3, outlook stable

Of course, for what really matters we go straight to the clients, and show the top 5 issuers, not banks, all corporate issuers, who are most viewed by all of Moody's clients. Aka the real bucket list.

Full report:
Moody's downgrades firms with global capital markets operations
New York, June 21, 2012 -- Moody's Investors Service today repositioned the ratings of 15 banks and securities firms with global capital markets operations. The long-term senior debt ratings of 4 of these firms were downgraded by 1 notch, the ratings of 10 firms were downgraded by 2 notches and 1 firm was downgraded by 3 notches. In addition, for four firms, the short-term ratings of their operating companies were downgraded to Prime-2. All four of those firms also now have holding company short-term ratings at Prime-2. The holding company short-term ratings of another two firms were downgraded to Prime-2 as well.
"All of the banks affected by today's actions have significant exposure to the volatility and risk of outsized losses inherent to capital markets activities", says Moody's Global Banking Managing Director Greg Bauer. "However, they also engage in other, often market leading business activities that are central to Moody's assessment of their credit profiles. These activities can provide important 'shock absorbers' that mitigate the potential volatility of capital markets operations, but they also present unique risks and challenges." The specific credit drivers for each affected firm are summarized below.
Today's rating actions conclude the review initiated on 15 February 2012 when Moody's announced a ratings review prompted by its reassessment of the volatility and risks that creditors of firms with global capital markets operations face. In the past, these risks have led many institutions to fail or to require outside support, including several firms affected by today's rating actions. Today's actions, however, reflect not only the credit implications of capital markets operations. They also reflect (i) the size and stability of earnings from non-capital markets activities of each firm, (ii) capitalization, (iii) liquidity buffers, and (iv) other considerations, including, as applicable, exposure to the operating environment in Europe, any record of risk management problems, and risks from exposure to US residential mortgages, commercial real estate or legacy portfolios.
RATINGS RATIONALE -- STANDALONE CREDIT DRIVERS
Moody's assessment of each firm's standalone credit profile led to the following relative positioning of the firms:
--FIRST GROUP
The first group of firms includes HSBC, Royal Bank of Canada and JPMorgan. Capital markets operations (and the associated risks) are significant for these firms. However, these institutions have stronger buffers, or 'shock absorbers,' than many of their peers in the form of earnings from other, generally more stable businesses. This, combined with their risk management through the financial crisis, has resulted in lower earnings volatility. Capital and structural liquidity are sound for this group, and their direct exposure to stressed European sovereigns and financial institutions is contained.
Firms in this group now have standalone credit assessments of a3 or better (on a scale from aaa, highest, to c, lowest). Their main operating companies now have deposit ratings of Aa3, and their holding companies, where they exist, have senior debt ratings between Aa3 and A2. Their short-term ratings are Prime-1 at both the operating and holding company level.
--SECOND GROUP
The second group of firms includes Barclays, BNP Paribas, Credit Agricole SA (CASA), Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs, Societe Generale and UBS. Many of these firms rely on capital markets revenues to meet shareholder expectations. Their relative position reflects a combination of differentiating and sometimes adverse factors. Capital markets operations constitute a large part of the overall franchises for Credit Suisse, Goldman Sachs, Barclays, and Deutsche Bank, but less so for UBS, Societe Generale, BNP Paribas and CASA's cooperative group, Groupe Credit Agricole.
Other factors contribute to the relative positioning. For example, Barclays, BNP Paribas and Groupe Credit Agricole have, to varying degrees, relatively robust shock absorbers. Exposure to capital markets businesses is very high for Goldman Sachs, but this is balanced by a record of effective risk management. Barclays, BNP Paribas, Groupe Credit Agricole, and Deutsche Bank also have sizeable but varying degrees of exposure to weaker European economies. Some firms are relatively weak with regard to structural liquidity or reliance on wholesale funding.
Firms in this group now have standalone credit assessments of baa1 or baa2. Their deposit ratings range between A1 and A2, and their short-term ratings are Prime-1 at the operating company level. Their holding companies, where they exist, have senior debt ratings between A2 and A3 and short-term ratings between Prime-1 and Prime-2.
--THIRD GROUP
The third group of firms includes Bank of America, Citigroup, Morgan Stanley, and Royal Bank of Scotland. The capital markets franchises of many of these firms have been affected by problems in risk management or have a history of high volatility, while their shock absorbers are in some cases thinner or less reliable than those of higher-rated peers. Most of the firms in this group have undertaken considerable changes to their risk management or business models, as required to limit the risks from their capital markets activities. Some are implementing business strategy changes intended to increase earnings from more stable activities. These transformations are ongoing and their success has yet to be tested. In addition, these firms may face remaining risks from run-off legacy or acquired portfolios, or from noteworthy exposure to the euro area debt crisis.
Firms in this group now have standalone credit assessments of baa3. Their deposit ratings are A3 at the operating company level. Their holding companies, where they exist, have senior debt ratings between Baa1 and Baa2. Their short-term ratings are Prime-2 at both the operating and holding company level.
Moody's has today published a special comment titled "Key Drivers of Rating Actions on Firms with Global Capital Markets Operations" (http://www.moodys.com/viewresearchdo...cid=PBC_143246), which provides more detail, including the rating rationale for each firm affected by today's actions. Please refer to the following webpage for additional related announcements: http://www.moodys.com/bankratings2012
RATINGS RATIONALE - SENIOR DEBT AND DEPOSITS
Moody's systemic support assumptions for firms with global capital markets operations remain high, given their systemic importance, and have not been a key driver of today's rating actions. While Moody's recognizes the clear intent of governments around the world to reduce support for creditors, the policy framework in many countries remains supportive for now, not least because of the economic stress currently stemming from the euro area and the potential systemic repercussions of large, disorderly bank failures and the difficulty of resolving large, complex and interconnected institutions.
However, reflecting the view that government support is likely to become less certain and predictable over time, Moody's has assigned negative outlooks on certain supported ratings of entities affected by today's actions, particularly at the holding company level, as discussed in detail in the firm-specific summaries below. Moody's view on support considers efforts by policymakers globally to create resolution and bail-in regimes that allow for more flexible and limited support in a stress scenario.
RATINGS RATIONALE -- SUBORDINATED DEBT AND HYBRIDS
In addition, Moody's has today downgraded the subordinated debt and hybrid ratings of the firms whose senior debt ratings have been repositioned. The downgrades reflect the revised senior debt ratings and, in some cases, also the removal of systemic support assumptions from subordinated debt classes. In Moody's view, systemic support in many countries is no longer sufficiently predictable and reliable going forward to warrant incorporating systemic-support driven uplift into these debt ratings.
RATING IMPLICATIONS FOR SOME SUBSIDIARIES WILL BE ASSESSED SEPARATELY
Moody's has also today taken rating actions on a number of subsidiaries and legal entities of firms with global capital markets activities, as summarized below. However, for some other subsidiaries of firms included in today's announcement, Moody's will separately assess the impact of their parents' reduced credit strength.
RATING REVIEWS OF MACQUARIE AND NOMURA WERE CONCLUDED EARLIER
Of the 17 banks and securities firms with global capital market operations that were placed on review for downgrade in February, the reviews of two firms were concluded separately. Please see the following press releases for further information: "Moody's downgrades Nomura Holdings to Baa3 from Baa2; outlook stable, (http://v3.moodys.com/viewresearchdoc...ocid=PR_240381) published 15 March 2012, and "Moody's downgrades Macquarie Bank to A2, Macquarie Group to A3," (http://v3.moodys.com/viewresearchdoc...ocid=PR_240306) published 16 March 2012.

And specifically:

MORGAN STANLEY
Morgan Stanley’s senior unsecured long-term debt ratings were downgraded to Baa1 from A2 and the long-term deposit and issuer ratings of Morgan Stanley Bank, N.A. were downgraded to A3 from A1. The short-term ratings of both firms were lowered to Prime-2 from Prime-1. Moody’s also downgraded Morgan Stanley’s standalone credit assessment, to D+/baa3 from C/a3. The outlook on the standalone credit assessment and the ratings of Morgan Stanley’s operating subsidiaries is stable, while that on the senior debt and subordinated debt ratings of (or guaranteed by) the parent holding company is negative.
Morgan Stanley’s ratings benefit from three notches of uplift due to external support assumptions. This includes one notch of uplift from its largest shareholder, Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group (MUFG, deposits Aa3, standalone credit assessment at C/a3 at Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ, Ltd), and two notches of uplift owing to Moody’s belief that there is a high likelihood that Morgan Stanley, as a systemically important financial institution, would receive support from the US government in the event such support was required to prevent a default. The one notch of uplift reflecting potential support from MUFG is the reason the downgrade was less than the guidance Moody’s provided on 15 February.
The lowering of the standalone credit assessment to baa3 positions Morgan Stanley in the third group of firms with significant global capital markets activities. This position reflects (i) the firm’s commitment to the global capital market business, on which it relies heavily for earnings; (ii) its historically high level of earnings volatility; and (iii) the problems in risk management and controls the firm suffered during the crisis. Partly mitigating these factors are (i) the firm’s gradually increasing "shock absorbers" in the form of earnings from other more stable businesses (albeit still below that of most peers); (ii) its reduced risk appetite, improved liquidity profile and stronger capital position; and (iii) enhancements to risk management, internal processes and controls.
The stable outlook on Morgan Stanley’s standalone credit assessment and the ratings of its operating subsidiaries reflects the view that the capital markets-related risk factors have now been fully incorporated into the ratings. Moody’s does not expect significant upward pressure on the firm’s ratings. Any indications of control failures, a marked increase in risk appetite or deterioration in leverage or other capital metrics would lead to downward pressure on the ratings.
The negative outlook on the parent holding company reflects Moody’s view that government support for US bank holding company creditors is becoming less certain and less predictable, given the evolving attitude of US authorities to the resolution of large financial institutions, whereas support for creditors of operating entities remains sufficiently likely and predictable to warrant stable outlooks.

Here We Go: Moody's Downgrade Is Out - Morgan Stanley Cut Only 2 Notches, To Face $6.8 Billion In Collateral Calls | ZeroHedge

Guest Post: The Master Narrative Nobody Dares Admit: Centralization Has Failed



Submitted by Tyler Durden on 06/21/2012 12:13 -0400

Submitted by Charles Hugh Smith from Of Two Minds

The Master Narrative Nobody Dares Admit: Centralization Has Failed


All centralized systems, open and shadow alike, act as heavy taxes on the society and economy. This is why they cannot compete with the forces of networked decentralization.

The primary "news" narrative may be the failure of the euro, but the master narrative is much, much bigger: centralization has failed. The failure of Europe's "ultimate centralization project" is but a symptom of a global failure of centralization.
Though many look at China's command-economy as proof that the model of Elite-controlled centralization is a roaring success, let's check in on China's stability and distribution of prosperity in 2021 before declaring centralization an enduring success. The pressure cooker is already hissing and the flame is being turned up every day.
What's the key driver of this master narrative? Technology, specifically, the Internet. Gatekeepers and centralized authority are no match for decentralized knowledge and decision-making. Once a people don't need to rely on a centralized authority to tell them what to do, the centralized authority becomes a costly impediment, a tax on the entire society and economy.
In a cost-benefit analysis, centralization once paid significant dividends. Now it is a drag that only inhibits growth and progress. The Eurozone is the ultimate attempt to impose an intrinsically inefficient and unproductive centralized authority on disparate economies, and we are witnessing its spectacular implosion.
Centralization acts as a positive feedback, i.e. a self-reinforcing loop that leads to a runaway death spiral. Centralize the entire banking sector into five corporations and guess what happens? They buy access to the highly centralized power centers of the Federal government. Like the HIV virus, centralized concentrations of capital like the five "too big to fail" banks disrupt the regulatory "immune response" that was supposed to control them.
This feedback between centralized capital and centralized government cannot be controlled by more rules and regulations--the two partners in domination will subvert or bypass any such feeble attempts with shadow systems of governance and control of the very sort we now see dominating economies and governments around the globe.
Centralization itself is the disease, and devolving power to decentralized nodes based on the transparent power of the Web is the cure. The authorities and Elites attempting to maintain their centralized fiefdoms of power are desperately trying to control the technology of the Web, but disruptive technology that offers stupendous improvements in efficiency and productivity cannot be put back in the genie's bottle. The authorities can try, but they will fail.
The analog to the printing press is but one example. The centralized authorities of the Holy Roman Empire tried to limit the citizens' access to the Bible and other books, and as their failure became evident they ramped up their oppression to extremes: printing the Bible was a "crime" punishable by death.
Despite their almost total dominance of society and the economy, the centralized authorities failed to limit the technology of printing and distributing books.
Centralized authorities face an impossible double-bind: if they limit access to the Web, their economic growth is doomed, and thus eventually so is their power as the impoverished and oppressed populace rises up to overthrow their failed Elites. But if they enable widespread access to the Web, then the populace eventually realizes the centralized authorities and Elites are burdensome hindrances to liberty and prosperity.
The highly centralized Elites controlling China are engaged in a desperate campaign to constrain the Web in China to what they deem supportive of their regime. The "Great Firewall of China" reportedly has tens of thousands of employees monitoring and censoring content. Hyper-nationalistic rants are "enabled" to spread virally, while inquiries into official over-reach and misconduct are quickly suppressed.
You can't fool Mother Nature for long, and the Chinese are trying to tame forces akin to Nature.
We already saw this dynamic play out with the Soviet Union. In the former U.S.S.R., networked computers were understood to be a serious threat to political control by centralized authorities, so access was strictly limited. Scientists and mathematicians in the U.S.S.R. were relegated to working with paper and pencils because this was "politically acceptable."
Denied access to transformative technologies, the economy and society of the U.S.S.R. withered and eventually expired.
China has played a very quick game of catch-up based on a unique set of factors:
1. An abundance of low-hanging fruit to be picked, both domestically and globally. If you watch documentaries filmed in China in the early 1980s, villagers were harvesting bamboo by hand and the village "theater" was one black-and-white television. By the time I first visited China in 2000, there was already a glut of cheap TVs and massive overcapacity in TV manufacturing.
2. An abundance of mobile global capital to fund the initial industrialization.
3. The ease of stealing/copying existing technology. It's always easy to steal/copy existing technologies: strip down the motorbike to its parts, machine-tool a factory to make the parts and voila, you are soon producing "Yamaka" motorbikes in quantity (and drinking "Starbuck" coffee).
But once the low-hanging fruit has been picked, you have to develop new technologies on your own to keep growing. The U.S.S.R. was able to keep up by stealing technology for decades, but once the pace of innovation slipped from centralized labs (where spies could be highly effective) to decentralized networks of innovation, the game was over: stealing technology became inefficient and/or impossible on the necessary scale and timeline to keep up.
The Web also feeds social innovations. Centralized authorities move with glacial trepitude because any change, no matter how modest, steps on the exquisitely sensitive toes of some vested interest, protected fiefdom or favored Elite. So while the centralized Elites and their apparatchiks in government are detailing more regulations of the buggy-whip industry, the entire industry is bypassed by social and technological forces beyond the control of the Elites and their flunkies and factotums.
The forces of centralized authority will not relinquish their power easily. In Egypt and many other quasi-feudalistic nation-states, the Empire of centralized Elite authority is striking back, often via the "shadow" systems of governance and control they established behind the thin veneer of legitimacy created by their organs of propaganda.
But all centralized systems, open and shadow alike, act as heavy taxes on the society and economy. Their attempts to retain control will fail because of the conundrum outlined above: if they succeed in stifling the Web and the powers of decentralization, their economy will wither and their impoverished people will eventually tire enough of poverty to rise up and crush their oppressive Elites.
If they allow access to the Web and the innovation-driven power of decentralized networks of knowledge, collaboration and information, then their political and financial control will be eroded. Either way, disruptive technologies will dismantle their power base and wealth.
Here in the U.S., our Central State and Financial Elites are also desperately trying to maintain their control, even as their control strangles the economy and social innovation. Being controlled by five "too big to fail" banks and six media corporations is like being dominated by the buggy-whip industry and the horse-manure-collection industry.
The way forward is to dismantle the five banks and six media companies and allow 500 banks to compete in a transparent market but be unable to buy other banks or other companies. If there are 500 banks that are forced to compete in a transparent marketplace, it will be very difficult for those corporations to purchase the political power the TBTF banks own.
The Federal Reserve is the ultimate centralized horse-manure-collection industry. Like the Catholic Church trying to control Gutenberg's printing press, the Fed is terrified of transparency, liberty, competition and the technological forces of networked decentralization. Though those in power cannot dare contemplate it, their highly centralized institution and the chokehold of its authority are already doomed.
Centralized control leads to stagnation and poverty, which leads to the overthrow of oppressive political Elites. If the centralized Elites attempt to corral the Web to serve their own narrow self-interests, it will overflow their narrow channels and erode their power. Either way, their attempts to control disruptive technology will fail. Their only choice is which path to destruction they wish to tread.

Guest Post: The Master Narrative Nobody Dares Admit: Centralization Has Failed | ZeroHedge

June 21, 2012, 10:48 pm
152 Comments

For the Ron Paul Wing, Now What?

By BRIAN DOHERTY

Richard Perry/The New York TimesRon Paul, left, on the campaign trail with his son Rand in January.

Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul has admitted that he won’t have enough delegates at the Republican National Convention in Tampa in August to win the nomination.

But right after that announcement he racked up another win: his supporters now make up the majority of the delegation from the caucus state of Iowa. That’s the state allegedly “won” by Mitt Romney in January, which was later revealed to have been “won” by Rick Santorum.

Paul’s campaign has risen from many deaths. In mid-May, he announced he’d no longer campaign in upcoming primary states. He encouraged his forces to concentrate on caucus states, where dedication to a long process of local, district and state party meetings can trump just getting a mass of voters out on primary day to dutifully record a vote for the frontrunner.

Everyone spun that May announcement as “Paul drops out.” Since then, following his strategy, Paul’s people won delegations in Minnesota, Louisiana (in a victory contested by a rump Romney faction), and now Iowa. He already had Maine.

What can Paul and his movement do with these victories? Paul’s ratcheting back of his campaign in May came directly on the heels of two Republican state conventions, in Oklahoma and Arizona, which fell into wild tumult because of fights — sometimes literally physical fights — between the Paul and Romney forces. The Paul people in Oklahoma held their own rump convention in a parking lot. The Arizona Paul fans made news for booing Josh Romney.

That booing is symbolic of the struggle between two significant competing visions of what the Republican Party will be, a struggle, by the way, that is no longer between a vast majority and a tiny fringe. Paul people consider themselves not weird outsiders, but the true conservatives who actually want to rein in government within affordable, constitutional limits. Ron Paul’s campaign spokesmen are quick to distance themselves from any hint of the Paul movement being an angry, raucous anti-establishment rabble — the words “respect” and “decorum” flow from their lips as much as “limited government” and “end the Fed now.”

But Paul’s supporters want to keep fighting, and ferociously. Some in the radical Paul grassroots darkly assumed that the winding-down announcements were deliberately designed by sellout campaign pros to damp down their wildest enthusiasms.

One California lawyer, Richard Gilbert, got disgusted by what he saw as the official campaign’s lack of will to fight what he thinks were rampant dirty tricks and cheating on the state level by Romney forces. He filed (without the approval or support of the campaign) a federal lawsuit against the Republican National Committee. The suit argues that the R.N.C. cannot legally bind any delegate to vote for Romney. Paul’s more ardent fans believe that in an open convention, Paul still could win outright.

While Ron Paul has no future in politics, the Ron Paul machine and his son, Kentucky Senator Rand Paul, will. That’s why the political pros in the Paul movement don’t appreciate acting-out like Richard Gilbert’s lawsuit.

That’s also why Rand Paul risked the wrath of his father’s hardcore fans by endorsing Mitt Romney, just as soon as Ron Paul admitted he would not win.

Senator Paul knows he needs to reach beyond his father’s 10-15 percent base in the primaries to more mainstream, red-state, talk-radio Republicans. He can’t do that by marking himself as a traitor to the party. So he stands behind nominee Romney and plans to actively campaign for him.

But he also can’t mark himself a traitor to the Ron Paul cause. So Rand Paul followed up his endorsement by calling out Romney in the pages of National Review for Romney’s declaration that he would have the authority as president to start a war with Iran. That sort of foreign policy adventurism — especially when done without respect for Congress’s traditional constitutional power over declaring war — is anathema to the core Ron Paul crowd, and Rand Paul condemned it.

Ron Paul antiwar appeal won him friends on the left, but it was also why this politician with impeccable credentials on core Republican issues like taxes (he wants to eliminate the income tax), spending (he’s the only Republican candidate with a budget that balanced in three years with no new taxes), and regulation (he thinks they strangle the wealth-creating properties of free markets) had such a hard time gaining traction with the Tea Party base, who don’t see the connection Paul sees between a constitutionally limited, affordable government and a less expansionist foreign policy.

If the Tea Party really were transpartisan outsiders dedicated to fighting bailouts and shrinking spending, Ron Paul should have been their man. In 2012, they’ve revealed themselves more as loyal Republicans than as a rebel army. Paul’s campaign is trying to gently guide the Paul movement through that same transition.

Related Room for Debate: What Happened to the Tea Party?

It’s a hard maneuver, if they wish to stand for his libertarian principles.

Still, Paul’s appeal within the party is growing, not shrinking. He raised more money this time around than last time, despite having little concrete to show his supporters from the last campaign. He got more than twice as many votes and percentages of votes. He will have hundreds of delegates on the floor in Tampa. He will likely have many more hundreds of supporters rallying in the streets in Tampa.

On the one hand, Ron Paul’s refusal to run as the candidate of a third party shows that he sees his cause’s fate linked with the future of the Republican Party. On the other, his refusal to endorse Romney shows that if they want to help shape that party in a more libertarian direction, he and his supporters can’t just go along to get along.

Indeed, despite the Rand Paul endorsement, Romney will be hard-pressed to win the votes of many Paul fans in November, though he’s clearly trying not to offend them intentionally by openly disrespecting their man.

Paul’s fans are driven by a sense of crisis.

For his whole political career, Paul has been predicting big trouble based on government overreach — with spending, with monetary policy, with managing Americans’ choices, and with a world-straddling, expensive, imperial foreign policy. Paul’s devotees see those crises as no longer looming, but here right now. America, they think, could soon be Greece.

And they don’t see how a Romney who supported bailouts, who thinks a trillion-dollar spending cut would harm the economy, who helped lay the groundwork for ObamaCare, who believes in more overseas wars, can save America.

It’s easy for establishments to mock that sort of fervor. But the Republican Party has seen young, radically anti-government, quirky, curious movements conquer before. The Goldwater kids did it in the ’60s; the Religious Right did it in the wake of Pat Robertson’s failed presidential bid in 1988.

When Paul announced last July that he wouldn’t seek re-election for the House seat he’s held since 1997, he said, “I don’t think I have a political career so much as trying to change the course of history.” That’s what his supporters still want to do. Many of them have decided that they need to do that by taking over the Republican Party from the bottom up. Many of them also realize that they can’t change the course of history sufficiently by voting for Mitt Romney. Even when Ron Paul is gone, his supporters will be continuing the Ron Paul campaign.

Brian Doherty is a senior editor at Reason magazine and the author of “Ron Paul’s Revolution: The Man and the Movement He Inspired,” which was published last month.

For the Ron Paul Wing, Now What? - NYTimes.com

Fallujah Hospital Of Horrors - Courtesy US DU
April 26, 2012

The Children of Fallujah
The Hospital of Horrors

by ROBERT FISK
The pictures flash up on a screen on an upper floor of the Fallujah General Hospital. And all at once, Nadhem Shokr al-Hadidi’s administration office becomes a little chamber of horrors. A baby with a hugely deformed mouth. A child with a defect of the spinal cord, material from the spine outside the body. A baby with a terrible, vast Cyclopean eye. Another baby with only half a head, stillborn like the rest, date of birth 17 June, 2009. Yet another picture flicks onto the screen: date of birth 6 July 2009, it shows a tiny child with half a right arm, no left leg, no genitalia.
“We see this all the time now,” Al-Hadidi says, and a female doctor walks into the room and glances at the screen. She has delivered some of these still-born children. “I’ve never seen anything as bad as this in all my service,” she says quietly. Al-Hadidi takes phone calls, greets visitors to his office, offers tea and biscuits to us while this ghastly picture show unfolds on the screen. I asked to see these photographs, to ensure that the stillborn children, the deformities, were real. There’s always a reader or a viewer who will mutter the word “propaganda” under their breath.
But the photographs are a damning, ghastly reward for such doubts. January 7, 2010: a baby with faded, yellow skin and misshapen arms. April 26, 2010: a grey mass on the side of the baby’s head. A doctor beside me speaks of “Tetralogy of Fallot”, a transposition of the great blood vessels. May 3, 2010: a frog-like creature in which – the Fallujah doctor who came into the room says this – “all the abdominal organs are trying to get outside the body.”
This is too much. These photographs are too awful, the pain and emotion of them – for the poor parents, at least – impossible to contemplate. They simply cannot be published.
There is a no-nonsense attitude from the doctors in Fallujah. They know that we know about this tragedy. Indeed, there is nothing undiscovered about the child deformities of Fallujah. Other correspondents – including my colleague Patrick Cockburn – have visited Fallujah to report on them. What is so shameful is that these deformities continue unmonitored. One Fallujah doctor, an obstetrician trained in Britain – she left only five months ago – who has purchased from her own sources for her private clinic a £79,000 scanning machine for prenatal detection of congenital abnormalities, gives me her name and asks why the Ministry of Health in Baghdad will not hold a full official investigation into the deformed babies of Fallujah.
“I have been to see the ministry,” she says. “They said they would have a committee. I went to the committee. And they have done nothing. I just can’t get them to respond.” Then, 24 hours later, the same woman sends a message to a friend of mine, another Iraqi doctor, asking me not to use her name.
If the number of stillborn children of Fallujah is a disgrace, the medical staff at the Fallujah General Hospital prove their honesty by repeatedly warning of the danger of reaching conclusions too soon.
“I delivered that baby,” the obstetrician says as one more picture flashes on the screen. “I don’t think this has anything to do with American weapons. The parents were close relatives. Tribal marriages here involve a lot of families who are close by blood. But you have to remember, too, that if women have stillborn children with abnormalities at home, they will not report this to us, and the baby will be buried without any record reaching us.”
The photographs continue on the screen. January 19, 2010: a baby with tiny limbs, stillborn. A baby born on 30 October, 2010, with a cleft lip and cleft palette, still alive, a hole in the heart, a defect in its face, in need of echocardiography treatment. “A cleft lip and palate are common congenital anomalies,” Dr Samira Allani says quietly. “But it’s the increased frequency that is alarming.” Dr Allani has documented a research paper into “the increased prevalence of birth defects” in Fallujah, a study of four fathers “with two lineages of progeny”. Congenital heart defects, the paper says, reached “unprecedented numbers” in 2010.
The numbers continue to rise. Even while we are speaking, a nurse brings a message to Dr Allani. We go at once to an incubator next to the hospital delivery room. In the incubator is a little baby just 24 days old. Zeid Mohamed is almost too young to smile but he lies sleeping, his mother watching through the glass. She has given her permission for me to see her baby. His father is a security guard, the couple married three years ago. There is no family record of birth defects. But Zeid has only four fingers on each of his little hands.
Dr Allani’s computer files contain a hundred Zeids. She asks another doctor to call some parents. Will they talk to a journalist? “They want to know what happened to their children,” she says. “They deserve an answer.” She is right. But neither the Iraqi authorities, nor the Americans, nor the British – who were peripherally involved in the second battle of Fallujah and lost four men – nor any major NGO, appears willing or able to help.
When doctors can obtain funding for an investigation, they sometimes turn to organisations which clearly have their own political predetermination. Dr Allani’s paper, for example, acknowledges funding from the “Kuala Lumpur Foundation to Criminalise War” – hardly a group seeking to exonerate the use of US weaponry in Fallujah. This, too, I fear, is part of the tragedy of Fallujah.
The obstetrician who asked to be anonymous talks bleakly of the lack of equipment and training. “Chromosome defects – like Down’s Syndrome – cannot be corrected prenatally. But a foetal infection we can deal with, and we can sort out this problem by drawing a sample of blood from the baby and mother. But no laboratory here has this equipment. One blood transfer is all it needs to prevent such a condition. Of course, it will not answer our questions: why the increased miscarriages here, why the increased stillbirths, why the increased premature births?”
Dr Chris Busby, a visiting professor at the University of Ulster who has surveyed almost 5,000 people in Fallujah, agrees it is impossible to be specific about the cause of birth defects as well as cancers. “Some very major mutagenic exposure must have occurred in 2004 when the attacks happened,” he wrote two years ago. Dr Busby’s report, compiled with Malak Hamdan and Entesar Ariabi, says that infant mortality in Fallujah was found in 80 out of every 1,000 births, compared to 19 in Egypt, 17 in Jordan and only 9.7 in Kuwait.
Another of the Fallujah doctors tells me that the only UK assistance they have received comes from Dr Kypros Nicolaides, the head of Foetal Medicine at King’s College Hospital. He runs a charity, the Foetal Medicine Foundation, which has already trained one doctor from Fallujah. I call him up. He is bursting with anger.
“To me, the criminal aspect of all this – during the war – was that the British and the American governments could not go to Woolworths and buy some computers to even document the deaths in Iraq. So we have a Lancet publication that estimates 600,000 deaths in the war. Yet the occupying power did not have the decency to have a computer worth only £500 that would enable them to say “this body was brought in today and this was its name”.
Now you have an Arab country which has a higher number of deformities or cancers than Europe and you need a proper epidemiological study. I’m sure the Americans used weapons that caused these deformities. But now you have a goodness-knows-what government in Iraq and no study. It’s very easy to avoid to doing anything – except for some sympathetic crazy professor like me in London to try and achieve something.”
In al-Hadidi’s office, there are now photographs which defy words. How can you even begin to describe a dead baby with just one leg and a head four times the size of its body?
Robert Fisk writes for the Independent, where this column originally appeared.

The Hospital of Horrors » Counterpunch: Tells the Facts, Names the Names

WaPo: Drones vs. Diplomacy? U.S. Ambassador Quits


Submitted by sfofreedomrider on Fri, 06/22/2012 - 11:28

Peace / War

This article discusses a fierce debate between the CIA and diplomats. Unfortunately, the article is correct in that the "drones" have for the most part won. Let's be surprised; the increase in drone use under Obama has led to severe "blowback" from the Pakistanis.

As America’s relationship with Pakistan has unraveled over the past 18 months, an important debate has been going on within the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad over the proper scope of CIA covert actions and their effect on diplomatic interests.
The principals in this policy debate have been Cameron Munter, the U.S. ambassador since October 2010, and several CIA station chiefs who served with him. The technical issue was whether the ambassador, as chief of mission, had the authority to veto CIA operations he thought would harm long-term relations. Munter appears to have lost this fight.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/david-ignatius-an-emb...


WaPo: Drones vs. Diplomacy? U.S. Ambassador Quits | Peace . Gold . Liberty | Ron Paul 2012

Important National Convention News


The Republican National Convention begins on August 27, and you and I have some critical work to do to get ready. As I shared last week, my campaign will have as many as 200 bound delegates and several hundred more on the convention floor who support our issues.
To stand with my delegates, I will be holding an important rally in Tampa on Sunday, August 26th. Everyone is welcome to attend. In fact, I’m hoping we’ll have a wonderful crowd.
The goal of this rally is to kick off the week for our delegates, set the proper respectful and positive tone, and prove to the GOP establishment that you and I are the future of the Republican Party – and that we stand behind our beliefs 100%.
Today, I shot a video sharing my thoughts on my campaign’s successes and how we will advance our ideas in Tampa. I do hope you’ll take a moment to watch it.



Of course, my campaign is still competing in several state conventions still yet to come. And we have a lot of planning to do to prepare for the convention.
If you are a delegate, please stay tuned for communications from my staff laying out our plans and offering assistance.
If you are not a delegate but would like to come celebrate with us, you will hear more details in the coming weeks.
There is no doubt that you and I can win the future.
Tampa is an important step toward restoring liberty in our country and setting the stage for victories yet to come.
I hope I can count on you to join us.
For Liberty,

Ron Paul

Important National Convention News*|*Ron Paul 2012 Presidential Campaign CommitteeRon Paul 2012 Presidential Campaign Committee

Ron Paul wins Iowa!


Long-term strategy pays off this weekend as Dr. Paul wins 21 of 25 delegates elected in the nation’s most politically important state

LAKE JACKSON, Texas – 2012 Republican Presidential candidate Ron Paul has won a significant majority of Iowa’s Republican delegates to the national convention in Tampa.
Dr. Paul won 10 of 13 delegates elected at today’s state convention in addition to having won 11 of 12 delegates elected at last night’s district conventions, for a weekend total of 21 of 25 contestable delegates, all unbound.
Dr. Paul’s victory in the Hawkeye State affirms his delegate-attainment strategy and it has the added benefit of having occurred in the first-in-nation voting state, also a swing state.
“We thank the many Iowa Republican activists for working tirelessly toward this meaningful victory, in particular the work they performed in the service of constitutional government and personal liberty. This win is a real validation for our campaign and its many supporters in Iowa and across our great nation,” said Ron Paul 2012 National Campaign Chairman Jesse Benton.
“We look forward to bringing the Ron Paul delegation to Tampa and to making a significant, positive contribution to the 2012 Republican Party Platform,” added Mr. Benton.

Ron Paul wins Iowa!*|*Ron Paul 2012 Presidential Campaign CommitteeRon Paul 2012 Presidential Campaign Committee

Ron Paul on Outsiders Becoming Insiders

Ron Paul’s take on how our movement is making significant inroads into the Republican Party, via MSNBC:
Ron Paul’s third campaign for president may not lead to the Texas Congressman being nominated at the Republican Convention in Tampa this August… but, from Maine to Alaska, the “Paul Revolution” has swept state Republican parties.
Out of the national spotlight, Paul activists have mastered obscure local party rules to win key positions of power at state conventions, infiltrating the Republican establishment across the country, including in the key swing states of Iowa and Nevada…
Paul’s strategy has always been to motivate “the remnant” to gain influence by getting involved in party politics, and described how that would happen to a small group of reporters in Columbia, S.C., in mid-January.
“We don’t win over the insiders by becoming like an insider,” Paul said. “We win the inside over by making the outsiders become more appropriate.”
But what Paul activists have done in many places is learn the rules of the insiders and use them against them.
After being described as “an outlier for the Republican Party,” Paul Wednesday morning on MSNBC, explained how supporters will achieve his long-term goal of bringing the GOP around to accepting his political philosophy.
“I want to work on the platform,” Paul said, “but we know platforms don’t change people’s attitudes. That’s what we want to do — get attention to changing the attitude, so that we, who are perceived as outliers, become the insiders. And that’s what’s happening… We’re winning state delegations, state chairmen and small offices, anywhere from city councils to county commissioners.”
Paul supporters are winning elections and becoming party insiders: chairmen, national committeemen, executive board members, elected officials, candidates and delegates.
- In Iowa, four of Paul’s former aides hold leadership positions at the state party, including chairman A.J. Spiker – who was Paul’s state co-chair. At least six members of the Iowa State Central Committee are Paul supporters.
- In Alaska, Republicans voted Russ Millette as the party’s new chairman and Debra Holle Brown as co-chair, both Paul supporters. Local reports call this a sea change in state politics, after “at least 12 years of the Alaska GOP being run by what those party newcomers call ‘establishment Republicans.’”
- In Nevada, Paul supporters won 13 of 14 new elected executive board spots at the Clark County GOP. Four years after having the lights turned out on them at the state convention in 2008, Paul supporters now hold positions at local and county GOP offices across the Silver State.
- In Minnesota, the state Republican Party endorsed Paul supporter and economics teacher Kurt Bills for the GOP Senate nomination. He will face incumbent Democrat Amy Klobuchar in November.
- And in Maine, 21-year-old Paul supporter Ashley Ryan was elected as the state’s new Republican national committeewoman. The Paul campaign claims she is likely the youngest national committeewoman.
“Look at the next generation,” Paul said on MSNBC. “I mean, there is so much excitement out there…
Paul also explained that the goal of his movement “is to show that there’s a political benefit toward accepting some of the views that we have.”
“I believe we’re actually doing a favor for the Republican Party. If they would look to us for guidance and to realize that if they would accept some of these things, they might have an easier time winning…”
Nearing the end of his career, Paul, 76, calls his movement an “ideological revolution,” one he says is “alive and well.”
And this year, as Paul disciples become more involved and win elections, it’s a movement the Republican Party is being forced to deal with.

Ron Paul on Outsiders Becoming Insiders*|*Ron Paul 2012 Presidential Campaign CommitteeRon Paul 2012 Presidential Campaign Committee

Saturday, 23 June 2012 10:36

Ron Paul Keeps Winning the Battles, but What About the War?

Written by Joe Wolverton, II

Word out of Iowa is that Ron Paul won a majority of that state’s delegates to the Republican National Convention to be held in August in Tampa, Florida. This is contrary to the story told on election night in January when first Mitt Romney and then, after a recount, Rick Santorum was declared the winner of the Hawkeye State’s caucus.

After what the Des Moines Register described as a "two-day tug-of-war marked by bouts of angry shouting," backers of the Libertarian-leaning Texas congressman won 23 of the state’s 28 total delegates.

This isn’t the first such example of a Paul Paradox. State convention delegates elected pro-Paul slates in Minnesota, Maine, Nevada, and Louisiana, although Paul didn't win the popular vote in any of those states (or any other state for that matter). The results are indisputable, but the million-dollar question is whether the Republican National Committee will allow these delegates to vote their consciences or will “bind” them to vote for the “presumptive nominee,” former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney.

Some who support Ron Paul have decided not to wait on the RNC to rule and have taken their case to the courts.

As we have reported, a lawsuit was filed by the law firm of Gilbert & Marlowe in Santa Ana, California, asking a federal court to determine:

… whether Plaintiffs are free to vote their conscience on the first and all ballots at the Federal Election known as the Republican National Convention or whether Plaintiffs are bound to vote for a particular candidate as instructed by Defendants' State Party Bylaws, or State Laws, or the preference of political operatives….

Named as defendants in the lawsuit are the chairmen of every state’s Republican Party, as well as the state party itself.

In all a total of over 143 delegates (presumably national delegates, otherwise the federal court would have no jurisdiction) have joined or asked to join as plaintiffs in the suit.

Among other complaints, the lawsuit alleges that the RNC violated its own rules and applicable federal voting statutes by:

Certifying “unlawful slates of Delegates that were not elected in accordance with the US Statues and US Supreme Court Decisions cited, nor in accordance with the proper Bylaws of Defendants;”

Engaging “in a scheme to intimidate and harass Delegates who were supporting a Candidate that Defendants did not approve of;”

Forcing delegates to “sign affidavits under penalty of perjury with the threat of criminal prosecution for perjury as well as financial penalties and fines if the Delegate fails to vote as instructed by Defendants rather than vote the Delegate's conscience as mandated by the US Statutes and US Supreme Court;”

Denying “a quorum or to manipulate Delegates supporting a particular Candidate to be deprived of a fair election as a Delegate;”

Using “threats of violence including dressing security type people in dark clothing searching out supporters of a Candidate Defendants do not approve of to harass and intimidate said Delegates from voting their conscience;”

Unlawfully using “State Bylaws and in some cases State Laws to harass and intimidate Delegates from voting their conscience;” and

Altering “the voting ballot results to fraudulently reflect an outcome that is inconsistent with the actual voting ballot results for the purpose of certifying a fraudulently selected slate of Delegates to support the Candidate of Defendants' choice rather than the Delegates properly elected.”

If the court does not issue an immediate injunction blocking these actions, the plaintiffs argue, they will suffer irreparable harm.

This notion of “binding” delegates to vote for one candidate despite their own allegiances (and the allegiances of those state convention delegates who voted for them) is one of the many bones of contention being fought over by those loyal to Ron Paul and those who accept Mitt Romney as the “presumptive nominee.”

The RNC argues that the winner of the popular vote (Mitt Romney in most cases) should also received at least a corresponding percentage of that state’s delegates elected at the state conventions, while the plaintiffs in this lawsuit (and the Paul campaign itself) insist that delegates are empowered by RNC Rule 38 to vote their consciences and cannot be forced to vote for the winner of the state primaries.

Promising to “carry on the fight,” the executive committee of the Lawyers for Ron Paul is actively seeking new plaintiffs to add to the lawsuit and they continue to promote the message that the war is not over and that despite the fact (as they see it) that Ron Paul’s national campaign staff has “thrown in the towel,” the grassroots supporters around the country still have the power to get their man into the White House.

Assuming for a moment that a federal judge rules that all Republican delegates to the national nominating convention are unbound and may vote for the candidate of their choice, what would the practical effect of such a holding be? Ron Paul himself has conceded that he does not have the numbers necessary to put him over the top and onto the top of the ticket. Is there any scenario that can convert these victories into anything other than the Pyrrhic variety?

First, Ron Paul maintains that he is not ready to follow in his senator son’s footsteps and endorse Mitt Romney.

In an interview on CNN’s The Situation Room, Ron Paul said, “No. Not ready. No way,” when asked by the host Wolf Blitzer if he was ready to throw his support behind Romney. That firm denial seems to indicate that despite having suspended his active campaign in May, Ron Paul remains a candidate for president.

Then again, there is the message to supporters posted last week on YouTube where Ron Paul told viewers that he had “a lot of good news,” describing a roster of goals for all the delegates and alternates elected to represent him at the Republican National Convention in Tampa in August.

First, delegates should work to “influence the platform.” Next, they should “fight for our values,” and finally, “do whatever they can to promote the cause of liberty.”

Running about eight minutes, Dr. Paul’s message does not sound like an attempt to either compromise or concede. He sounds confident that the fight for liberty and limited government will continue.

But without him in the Oval Office.

Another Paul Paradox is the man’s adamant denials that he will mount a third party campaign for president. This hardline would seem to indicate that Ron Paul considers the GOP to be the most reliable vehicle for taking his message to the masses. Why then does he refuse to endorse the Party’s candidate?

Principle. The answer is that in a world where pseudo-statesmen trip over themselves to be the first to get to the Party’s altars so they can sacrifice all their principles to the god of Power, Ron Paul stands back, humbly and boldly proclaiming liberty like the voice of one crying in the wilderness.

Whatever the outcome, when the smoke clears on this Republican war of ideas, there is little doubt that there will remain yet alive millions of American freedom fighters devoted to the cause of the Constitution and to the protection of our civil liberties.

Many of these patriots are young, so they must be reminded that there will come others from their ranks that will run for office and promote this cause and stand firm against the Establishment’s gradual march toward absolutism.

Truly, Ron Paul is not the first and he will not be the last candidate to lead the fight for freedom, but he may be the best.

Ron Paul Keeps Winning the Battles, but What About the War?