Thread: Ron Paul on the Issues

The current view of the 2012 presidential election, based on HuffPost Pollster charts and analysis.

Updated: Thursday, Sep. 13 7:04 pm ET

Obama 243 Electoral Votes
Romney 191 Electoral Votes


270 electoral votes needed to win

Obama vs. Romney Electoral Map

The GOP and RNC have a Suicide Run~Away Train happening and they just dont get it... Romney, just like McCain wasnt picked to Win; he was picked by the Elites to knock out any and all contenders against Obama

These 2 ~ Obama / Romney are Globalists and the Elite have hedged their Bets... there is NO change Coming

Obama vs Romney
Last Updated: 9/13

State	Pollster	Poll Date	Obama	Romney
Florida	Rasmussen Reports	9/12-9/12	48%	46%
National	Rasmussen Reports	9/10-9/12	46%	47%
National	Democracy Corps	9/8-9/12	50%	45%
National	Gallup Tracking	9/6-9/12	50%	44%
Missouri	Rasmussen Reports	9/11-9/11	45%	48%
Montana	PPP	9/10-9/11	45%	50%
California	SurveyUSA	9/9-9/11	57%	35%
National	Fox News	9/9-9/11	48%	43%
Texas	WPA	9/9-9/11	40%	55%
Michigan	EPIC MRA	9/8-9/11	47%	37%
Florida	AIF/McLaughlin	9/9-9/10	47%	50%
National	Reuters Ipsos	9/7-9/10	48%	45%
Virginia	Gravis Marketing	9/8-9/9	44%	49%
New Mexico	PPP	9/7-9/9	53%	42%
Florida	SurveyUSA	9/7-9/9	48%	44%

More Obama vs Romney »

Rasmussen Tracking »

Gallup Tracking »


Battleground States: Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania.
General Election? Read the Karl Rove Playbook

Presidential Polls for 2012 Election - Latest Political National Polls

THE AGE OF DESPOTISM

By Chuck Baldwin
September 13, 2012
NewsWithViews.com

On August 7, 2012, The Washington Times ran an editorial entitled, "The Civil War of 2016." It begins, "Imagine Tea Party extremists seizing control of a South Carolina town and the Army being sent in to crush the rebellion. This farcical vision is now part of the discussion in professional military circles.

"At issue is an article in the respected Small Wars Journal titled 'Full Spectrum Operations in the Homeland: A "Vision" of the Future.' It was written by retired Army Col. Kevin Benson of the Army's University of Foreign Military and Cultural Studies at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., and Jennifer Weber, a Civil War expert at the University of Kansas. It posits an 'extremist militia motivated by the goals of the "tea party" movement' seizing control of Darlington, S.C., in 2016, 'occupying City Hall, disbanding the city council and placing the mayor under house arrest.'

The rebels set up checkpoints on Interstate 95 and Interstate 20 looking for illegal aliens. It's a cartoonish and needlessly provocative scenario."The article is a choppy patchwork of doctrinal jargon and liberal nightmare. The authors make a quasi-legal case for military action and then apply the Army's Operating Concept 2016-2028 to the situation.


They write bloodlessly that 'once it is put into play, Americans will expect the military to execute without pause and as professionally as if it were acting overseas.' They claim that 'the Army cannot disappoint the American people, especially in such a moment,' not pausing to consider that using such efficient, deadly force against U.S. citizens would create a monumental political backlash and severely erode government legitimacy."

The Times editorial goes on to say, "The scenario presented in Small Wars Journal isn't a literary device but an operational lay-down intended to present the rationale and mechanisms for Americans to fight Americans.


Col. Benson and Ms. Weber contend, 'Army officers are professionally obligated to consider the conduct of operations on U.S. soil.' This is a dark, pessimistic and wrongheaded view of what military leaders should spend their time studying."

See The Washington Times editorial.

I well remember when my friend LT CDR Ernest "Guy" Cunningham conducted his "Combat Arms Survey" to 300 active-duty Marines at the USMC's Air-Ground Combat Center, Twentynine Palms, California, back on May 10, 1994. A couple of questions in this survey were especially revealing (and startling). John McManus picks up the story at this point: "One of the questions asked the Marines if they would be willing to be assigned to a 'national emergency police force' within the U.S. under U.S. command. The survey showed that 6.0 percent strongly disagreed, 6.3 percent disagreed, 42.3 percent agreed, 43.0 percent strongly agreed, and 2.3 percent had no opinion."

Commenting on these results, Cunningham said, "Do you realize that 85.3 percent agreed with assigning troops to a mission that violates the Posse Comitatus Act?" Remember, these were active duty Marines back in 1994.

Responses to another question were even more startling. Cunningham's question: "Consider the following statement: I would fire upon U.S. citizens who refuse or resist confiscation of firearms banned by the U.S. government." The result: "42.3 percent strongly disagreed with this statement; 19.3 percent disagreed; 18.6 percent agreed; 7.6 percent strongly agreed; and 12.0 percent had no opinion." This equates to approximately 61% of Marines saying they would defy orders to turn their weapons on US citizens in order to disarm them; 26% saying they would not disobey such orders; and 12% refusing to say one way or the other, which means you could probably add them to the 26% who would not disobey orders to turn their weapons on American citizens.See McManus' report here.

Speaking of Commander Cunningham, back in 2009, he told me that America was entering "The Age of Despotism." Cunningham is no slouch. He was a Green Beret (who served in the same Special Forces Company alongside his father and two brothers), an infantryman with the 101st Airborne Division, Navy pilot, mission commander and analyst. He is also the author of the previously mentioned Twentynine Palms Survey. His military credentials are unassailable. When Commander Cunningham speaks, people should listen.

Commander Cunningham shared his insight with me into the stranglehold that the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) holds over the U.S. military by estimating that "75% of military admirals and generals with two stars or more have been trained by the CFR."

In supporting his ominous conclusion that America was entering "The Age of Despotism," Cunningham noted former President Bill Clinton's introduction of PDD 25 (a Presidential Directive that is still in place), which reportedly authorizes the President to use and declare martial law at any time, for any reason. He reminded me of how the US military has been used several times for action on US soil.

The US military was used directly in the government attack against the Branch Davidians at the private residence of Mount Carmel outside Waco, Texas. The military was stationed outside Los Angeles, California, during the LA riots. The military was used in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. The military even patrolled the streets of the tiny town of Geneva, Alabama, after a man went on a short, albeit bloody, shooting spree.Commander Cunningham also reminded me of how President George W. Bush virtually expunged Posse Comitatus and set the table for despotism and martial law by signing the USA Patriot Act into existence. As a result, we now have an entire Army division (NorthCom) assigned to the American homeland, a first in US history. He noted that even FEMA has the authority to declare martial law.

Add the advent of NDAA 2012 and 2013, which authorizes the federal government to seize and incarcerate American citizens on American soil without court order, legal representation, or any other constitutionally-protected right--and now Col. Benson's treatise that military officers should be prepared to turn their weapons on American citizens--and Cunningham's prognostication seems even more accurate.

All over America, NorthCom is currently engaging in urban military training exercises, including right here in my backyard in Northwest Montana. Given Col. Benson's treatise, people are justifiably concerned as to what the actual purpose of these exercises might be. Plus, if you are paying attention to what both President Obama and President Wannabe Mitt Romney are saying, both of these gentlemen seem all-too-content to continue to swell the scope of military interventionism into domestic law enforcement duties.

Of course, the problem is the military do not operate under the same rules of engagement as do domestic law enforcement agencies. There are no constitutional rights and protections at play when military personnel target an enemy, which is why America's founders were absolutely adamant that military personnel never be used against the American citizenry. And with the way the above-mentioned recently enacted laws read, an "enemy" is anyone the President (or any subordinate he authorizes) says is the enemy. And remember, this is the same federal government that has recently categorized people who voted for Ron Paul, Bob Barr, or yours truly, people who are pro-life, people who believe in the Second Coming of Christ, veterans of the Iraq and Afghan wars, people who oppose the New World Order, etc., as "extremists," "dangerous," etc.


Does all this mean when the President (any President) adds the word "enemy" to the lexicon that NorthCom plans to order military troops to turn their weapons against us? It would appear that Col. Benson believes this is true.

Think of it: in the name of the 9-11 attacks, the United States is being transformed into the kind of despotic countries that we are told we are being protected from!

I would be very interested to know what the answers would be among our nation's military personnel if CDR Cunningham were to give his Twentynine Palms survey today!

• If you appreciate this column and want to help me distribute these editorial opinions to an ever-growing audience, donations may now be made by credit card, check, or Money Order. Use this link.

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© 2012 Chuck Baldwin - All Rights Reserved

Chuck Baldwin is a syndicated columnist, radio broadcaster, author, and pastor dedicated to preserving the historic principles upon which America was founded. He was the 2008 Presidential candidate for the Constitution Party. He and his wife, Connie, have 3 children and 8 grandchildren. Chuck and his family reside in the Flathead Valley of Montana. See Chuck's complete bio here.


E-mail: chuck@chuckbaldwinlive.com

Website: ChuckBaldwinLive.com


Chuck Baldwin -- The Age Of Despotism

Grassroots Blowback Coming To Bully GOP

The Take Down Of Ron Paul

Originally Posted by kathyet

Ron Paul's Political Director Jesse Benton Quits Campaign for Liberty

Brian Doherty|Sep. 11, 2012 6:30 pm
Jesse Benton, Rep Ron Paul's controversial political director and the de facto guy in charge of the political end of the Ron Paul operation (though never officially the "campaign manager") has left the position in the larger Paul machine he held between the 2008 and 2012 runs, senior vice president of the Campaign for Liberty. (Benton also managed Rand Paul's winning Senate campaign in 2010 in the interim.)

Campaign for Liberty is the grassroots activism group launched in the aftermath of the 2008 Paul run, most closely associated with "Audit the Fed" activism.
Benton said this in his public resignation letter to Campaign for Liberty president, and Paul 2012's official campaign manager, John Tate.

After much soul searching, I have decided that my passion lies in direct electoral politics, and I plan to work on campaigns rather than resume my work in grassroots advocacy.

It is therefore with a heavy heart that I write to tell you that I will not rejoin Campaign for Liberty’s staff this fall. Please know that you, our team, Dr. Paul, and all our wonderful members have my undying friendship and loyalty. I am of course happy to be a resource and friend to any and all of you, for whatever is in my power to provide.

Benton is also married to Paul's granddaughter Valori Pyeatt. Ron Paul appended this to the letter:

As Jesse moves on to new opportunities, I wanted to take a moment to thank him for his tireless efforts on behalf of our cause these past few years.
Jesse remains committed to building on the historic progress our movement has made, and I wish him all the best in his future endeavors.
I look forward to seeing the great things I know he and Valori will accomplish together in the years to come.

Benton, in my reading of the campaign, was the leading strategist behind the idea that it was best for the Paul machine to normalize itself within the Republican Party, and is also known for being eager to segregate the campaign from the Paul grassroots' more radical edges. Taking that tack often earned him the enmity of many of Paul's more hardcore fans, especially the ones who wanted a loud and vigorous and messy fight-to-the-death against the establishment until the very end.
The comment thread at this afternoon's Daily Paul post on his resignation is a fair representation of the sort of vituperation regularly aimed at Benton.
I'm hearing unspecific and unsubstantiated tales that Benton will be announcing his next political job very soon, and that the specifics of it may further aggravate Paul hardcore fans. (Not that there is any other political campaign around that's as good in libertarian terms as Paul's.) Benton himself is not commenting about that as of this afternoon.
The history of the Paul campaigns is told in my book Ron Paul's Revolution.





Ron Paul's Political Director Jesse Benton Quits Campaign for Liberty - Hit & Run : Reason.com

Tom Woods: My Memories of Jesse Benton

September 13, 2012


Ron Paul campaign chairman Jesse Benton is going to head up the campaign of Mitch McConnell. Gee, now why did those incorrigible naysayers have so many unkind words for him?
People who said Benton was positioning himself all along for bigger things in the GOP were scoffed at. Why, Jesse has a secret plan to get Ron Paul the nomination at the last minute!
Well, now we know the real secret plan.
Ask yourself this: how much money would you have to be paid to work for an enemy of the things you’re supposed to stand for? Maybe now people will understand why Jesse would fly into a tirade after some of Ron’s most heroic moments, when the rest of us were cheering.

I could go through a lengthy catalogue of problems with Benton. The grassroots folks already know a lot of them, so there’s probably no need. What’s done is done.

Not that the world revolves around me, but just a word about how I was treated. Early on in the campaign I posted a note that under the circumstances I thought was astonishinglyrestrained. I said that if the fundraising success of 2008 was to be surpassed, the grassroots would have to be persuaded that professionals would be brought on this time, that debate coaching would take place as it does in all other campaigns, etc. Nothing could have been more obvious than that. And this was obviously the note of a friend, not an enemy.

Now here’s how a professional would have handled a situation like this, in which a longtime supporter is unhappy but obviously still on the team in the broad sense. “X, we understand your sentiments, which are shared by practically everyone, and we’ll be ensuring that these changes are made. Your input is always welcome,” etc.
Jesse, on the other hand, denounced me in a series of emails, and made perfectly clear that I was to be cut off from everything — the campaign, Campaign for Liberty, etc. He referred to my “boorish behavior” (you know me — always the boor), and told me from now on to leave him and his family alone. Nice touch, that last part, implying that I was likely to stalk his wife.






Tom Woods: My Memories of Jesse Benton [continued]


Naively, I assumed another top person, whom I will not name, would be as appalled at Jesse’s behavior toward a longtime supporter as I was. So I (gleefully) forwarded the correspondence to him, only to be told that Jesse’s conduct was not unprofessional at all [!]. But I would not technically be banned from C4L, I was told.

So I just went ahead and made a whole bunch of videos, viewed by hundreds of thousands of people, and wrote a whole bunch of articles (here’s my favorite), on my own during the campaign in defense of Ron against his critics. I was not earning a five-figure monthly salary for this.

I then went ahead and signed on with Revolution PAC. (I resigned from it in March of this year, because I had said from the beginning that I would be on board only through Super Tuesday. Also, it was a very busy time in my life, and I felt I couldn’t contribute enough.) The excuse for my absolute exclusion from everything, put forth by the official yes-men, is that my involvement in the PAC erected a legal obstacle to any involvement in the campaign.

This particular lie has the sequence of events reversed. I joined the PAC only after I had been blacklisted. But I kept my mouth shut during the campaign every time I saw people say, “Woods isn’t allowed to work with the campaign because of the PAC.” I never corrected anyone. I kept the real story a secret for Ron’s sake. No one on earth can fail to understand why I might want to tell it now, to set the record straight.

And no, I wasn’t looking to be hired so I could get that five-figure monthly salary. I was prepared to work for free.

Another potential excuse would be that as a radical libertarian, I wouldn’t know how to pitch Ron to a GOP audience. This is as wrong as wrong can be, and I have the converts to prove it. As a former mainstream GOPer myself, I know exactly how to frame the argument to win them over.

For months and months, the top two people spun everything I did in the most negative light possible, in order to poison my reputation with people I respect. They don’t know I know this. But I’m happy to say I have friends everywhere, and they are loyal.
Again, I kept my mouth shut. And again, no one on earth can seriously expect me to continue doing so.
Of the various lies Jesse told about me, the least damaging was the claim that I had called him a — well, it’s a word I would never say. The actual story was this: in 2010 I was having drinks with Iowa Ron Paul GOP people, and Jesse was there. I mentioned the name of an old college friend of mine I thought Jesse might know, and Jesse shouted out, with an important Christian Right Ron Paul guy right there, “X [my college friend] is a —-sucker!” Classy. I reminded Jesse of this incident when he complained of my allegedly boorish behavior. At that moment, the story began to spread that I had called Jesse a you-know-what.

This particular lie I made no special effort to refute. I joked with people that if the grassroots heard that I had called Jesse that name, I’d be a hero.

So Benton is gone, but is Bentonism alive and well? Bentonism is the playing down of Ron Paul’s most popular and important ideas, the impatience with and purging of people who champion those ideas, and an obsessive eye to GOP respectability. Is that what the “liberty movement” is? Then count me out.

Finally, please note that I stand to gain nothing by clearing the air like this. Nothing but grief and more burned bridges. But sometimes you have to do what you have to do, regardless of the consequences for yourself. It’s quite possible that this person will make his way back into our circles at some point, and I want to urge people not even to consider donating to anything with his name on it.

Incidentally, if Rand Paul intends to run in 2016, the single most effective way he could convey to the public that he is not really serious, and that people should withhold their donations, would be to hire Jesse Benton.


Tom Woods: My Memories of Jesse Benton

Ron Paul Correctly Predicts Al Qaeda Will Move Into Libya After Gaddafi

September 13, 2012




From YouTube comments: Ron Paul warned what would happen when the US continues to police the world and prop up and remove dictators of their choosing. Despite not being attacked by Libya, President Obama unlawfully used the cop out of NATO to police the world how he sees fit, in this case Libya. Ron Paul warned against this because not only is it not authorized by the Constitution, but unintended consequences always seem to hit us in the form of blowback. Now, as Paul predicted, Al Qaeda is moving into Libya to recruit more extremism against the intervention of the US.


Ron Paul Correctly Predicts Al Qaeda Will Move Into Libya After Gaddafi

Sep 14, 2012

Ron Paul supporter quits Electoral College



By Catalina Camia, USA TODAY
Updated 33m ago

A Republican from Iowa who was appointed to the Electoral College resigned her post yesterday because she indicated she would support Ron Paul over Mitt Romney.

Melinda Wadsley told the Associated Press early on Thursday that she planned to vote for Ron Paul because the Texas congressman has never been given a "fair shot" by Republican leaders. But after the AP report was published, the Iowa Republican Party talked to Wadsley and she stepped down so the state GOP could appoint a Romney supporter, the Des Moines Register reports.

"I have always been a straight-ticket Republican, and for the first time in my life I am an undecided voter, therefore, I need to resign my position as a Republican presidential elector," Wadsley told the AP in an e-mail.

The AP reported GOP electors in Nevada and Alaska were also considering withholding their support for Romney.

Each party chooses people to serve in the Electoral College, which meets after the popular vote has been cast to formally elect the president and vice president. In 2000, George W. Bush won the Electoral College but received fewer popular votes than Al Gore.

With the 2012 election expected to be a close one, the possibility of defections by several members of the Electoral College could deprive Romney of the presidency. His campaign has said repeatedly that Republicans are united behind the cause of defeating President Obama in November.

Wadsley's resignation underscores the tensions that still exist between Ron Paul supporters and the GOP establishment. At the GOP convention in Tampa last month, some Paul supporters protested a rules change that will make it more difficult for insurgent candidates to win delegates to future party conventions.

Ron Paul supporter quits Electoral College

Libertarians win a round in Pa. petition challenge

Libertarians win a round in Pa. petition challenge - AP State Wire News - The Sacramento Bee


Here comes some of the Blow Back

We are NOT going to Vote For Romney

The RNC / GOP started a Fire Storm and they dont even know it

Read more here: Libertarians win a round in Pa. petition challenge - AP State Wire News - The Sacramento Bee

Zogby: Romney Running Behind McCain in '08

Oooooh Poop ... then again... the RNC and GOP was WARNED not to give us another McCain Wannabe... So There you have it... Weeks before the Election

Romney is Losing to McCain that LOST to Obama

oooooh Poop