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Tag Archives: Ron Paul

Building Up the Tallest Midget

30 Jan

It's not March, but we're down to The Final Four

By any standard, the candidates running for the Republican presidential nomination are a sad bunch of retreads, weaklings, reactionaries and fatally flawed losers. Mitt Romney is the quintessential rich White man who can barely keep up a brave face when he’s mingling with the unwashed masses, but he’s willing to put on a brave face and hold his nose if that’s what it takes to win.

Newt Gingrich is a narcissist and an egotist whose intellectual racism and repulsive personality makes him hard even for conservatives to take. Then there’s Ron Paul. He’s a special case. He’s not a great thinker like Gingrich or a flip-flopping fake like Romney. No other candidate can claim the kind of enthusiastic support as Paul does. No other candidate seems as genuine and unpretentious as Paul.

There’s also no other candidate as extreme and out of the mainstream as Paul. I’ve made my case against Baby Doc Paul that he is an unworthy of the presidency. The Washington Post ripped away Paul’s ass-covering lies that he wasn’t aware of the racist material in his newsletters.

I don’t expect the Paul die-hards and dead enders to be the least bit disabused of their fantasy that he is a kindly old man who speaks truth to power and advocates a handful of positions that attracts uninformed liberals. Theirs is a separate reality where neither light nor truth penetrates.

The true believers are with Paul all the way until the last bomb falls on the bunker. It’s the rail-sitters and undecided who will have to finally make a call and choose between acknowledging Ron Paul either is a racist personally or just a cynical politician and manipulative businessman willing to exploit racial and homophobic fears to make a dirty buck.

What comes next in tomorrow’s primary in Florida?

Romney crushes Gingrich by double digits. The anti-Romney forces will continue to bitch and moan, but their failure to coalesce behind a single candidate makes them an annoyance, not an insurmountable obstacle.  Their choices will come down to holding their nose and pulling the lever for Mitt or watch Obama raising his right hand again next January.  Screw the Tea Party!  They will get nothing but insincere lip service from Romney and they deserve nothing.

Paul soldiers out looking for friendlier (and cheaper) caucus states and other places where the Ron Paul Race War Revolution might play well.  He’ll hang around like a bad odor while he decides whether to launch another rogue run as an independent.  Sonny boy Rand might tell dear old dad to sit his ass down in a rocking chair somewhere as not to cock block his inevitable bid in 2016.

Santorum is toast.  Put the pennies on the eyes.  His moment of glory came and went in Iowa, proving yet again that the best thing that unrepresentative state contributes to presidential contests is exposing weak candidates not ready for the real deal and croaking wannabees who had no business running in the first place.  One less repulsive right-winger gone.  No great loss.

Which doesn’t mean Rick Santorum isn’t deserving of scorn for his reprehensible remarks about rape victims and abortion. Isn’t it always the way that it’s the most pious and supposedly reverentially religious bastards who have so much love in their hearts for the unborn and nothing but contempt for the living?

On the way home the other day I passed a church where there were 150 little white crosses in the ground and a sign that read, “In the last hour there were 150 children destroyed by abortion.”

That’s pretty heavy-handed, but it takes a prick like Santorum to make it even worse for women facing the difficult choice whether to have an abortion. Piers Morgan interviewed Santorum and asked him if he could deny his daughter an abortion if she were impregnated through an act of rape.

Well, you can make the argument that if she doesn’t have this baby, if she kills her child, that, too, could ruin her life. And this is not an easy choice. I understand that. As horrible as the way that son or daughter and son was created, it still is her child. And whether she has that child or doesn’t, it will always be her child. And she will always know that. And so to embrace her and to love her and to support her and get her through this very difficult time, I’ve always, you know, I believe and I think the right approach is to accept this horribly created — in the sense of rape — but nevertheless a gift in a very broken way, the gift of human life, and accept what God has given to you.

I despise Santorum. He is one of those far Right extremists whom I am incapable of saying a good word about. Beyond his casual racism, there’s his overt hatred of women. I don’t know how you could characterize Santorum’s stupidly sanctimonious remarks as anything but the most repellent kind of misogyny.

Leave it up to a man who will never face an unwanted pregnancy brought out by an act of violence to make an awful situation even worse. Why is the same people who decry government regulation and intrusions into the private life of Americans espouse views where the womb becomes a state-owned asset?

I don’t have an answer, so I turn to the Church of Carlin for one.

Sanctimonious Santorum will be a historical footnote in a matter of weeks or days. Gingrich will soon follow, but after thwarting his threat to Romney in Iowa and again in Florida, the GOP will try to shoot Newt’s zombie campaign of White Rage in the head and put him down once and for all. The powers that be want an electable empty suit to take on President Obama, not a self-centered “big thinker” who wants to colonize the moon.

The Republican establishment wants Mittens vs. Obama and they’re determined to get it.

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Posted by on January 30, 2012 in News & Views

 

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There Will Be (More) Blood

21 Jan

You'd look like her too if you had to see Newt Gingrich naked all the time.

The Mitt Romney Inevitability Express went off the rails in South Carolina as the presumptive nominee of the Republican Party found himself losing a race he thought he had won to a fat, unlikable, career politician with an even stupider nickname than his, Newton Leroy Gingrich, also known and despised as Newt.

What made Mitt’s trip down South really suck was he thought after Iowa the torrent of negative ads he and the unaffiliated Super PACS had launched against the former Speaker of the House had finished him off..  However, the lust of GOP conservatives for someone to articulate their hatred of President Obama burns strong as does their desire for an alternative to the rich Mormon who stashes his cash in the Cayman Island.  Losing to Newt 40 percent to 27 percent should send a clear message to the Massachusetts millionaire: the rank and file just aren’t into you–still.

I missed the Republican debate the other night where Gingrich went right-the-freak-off on CNN’s John King for having the elephant balls to ask him about ex-wife, Marianne Gingrich’s accusation that the Newster wanted an open marriage so he could continue banging his booty call and eventual third wife, Callista.

Life is too short to waste it on bad movies, bad music, and bad politicians bumping their gums talkin’ loud and sayin’ nothin’.  I know there was a debate the other night.  I had far more important things to do than watch that crap.  Like peeling a potato or clipping my toenails or picking lint out of my belly button.

South Carolina doesn’t totally change the Republican race as much as it makes it possible  it might go on longer than the experts had though.  Romney believed he had things locked up once Chris Christie decided to stay home eating donuts.  Christie was the only candidate who could have pulled together the diverse wings of the GOP in a united front against President Obama.   His decision to sit out 2012 prompted most of the big money and establishment decided to fall in line behind Romney leaving the hard core Right with nowhere to go and no one to slow Mitt’s roll to the nomination.

But a funny thing happened on the road to Inevitability.   Here we are three contests in and the front-runner’s only victory came in a state he was supposed to win.   The scorecard so far reads Rick Santorum winning Iowa, Mittens taking New Hampshire and the Newster rising from the ashes to kick Mitt’s ass in South Carolina.  Now it’s on to Florida where the results could boost the winner of that state to a the inside track to the nomination or scramble the race so badly, Mitt and Newt might slug it out all the way through January into the spring.

South Carolina did us the great favor of ending the campaigns of Rick Perry and Jon Huntsman.  So why is Ron Paul hanging on for?  Paul’s support is loud but not broad.  He came in third in Iowa, settled for second in New Hampshire, was dead on arrival and if he steps foot in Florida the only reason will be to work on his tan and get a fresh-squeezed glass of orange juice.   Florida is heavily made up of elderly Jewish voters and though Paul is 76-years old, his anti-Israel, anti-Social Security rhetoric won’t play there.

In a normal year, a sleazy douchebag like Newt Gingrich would be bumping around in the lower strata with the rest of the also-rans, but this is not a normal year.  If his record of unethical behavior weren’t enough to sink him like a stone, Newt’s loose zipper would be enough to disqualify him from serious consideration as a serious contender.  Newt is such a man-whore that if he were elected president he would be our commander-in-briefs (tip of the hat to Sandra Booker for that one) whose roving eye means at any moment he might up and leave America for a younger and fresher country (and thank you Rena Marrocco for that).

Regardless of South Carolina, Newt is still big pimpin’ with small bills.  He doesn’t have Romney’s resources to wage a long, protracted and expensive war of attrition.   It may take Romney longer than he planned and cost him more money before he finally crushes the Newt under his heel, but the bet here is when the final drop of blood is spilled in the GOP Civil War, Mittens will be the victor.

But Mitt will have to try to get to the right of Newt to knock him out and the further he drifts away from his moderate reputation, the harder it will be for him to get back and disavow all the positions he’s taken that will be showing up in Obama 2012 attack ads.

Football is my favorite sport, but watching Republicans claw, fang and devour each other is my favorite bloodsport. It’s been simply splendid entertainment.

You don't like me. You REALLY don't like me.

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Posted by on January 21, 2012 in News & Views

 

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The 2012 Race Gets Real

03 Jan

Eight losers in search of the blessing from a winner's widow.

Tonight’s the night we get past the preliminaries and the 2012 presidential election really gets started.   All across the state of Iowa, the predominantly White, conservative evangelical populace will dutifully drag themselves into auditoriums, classrooms, living rooms and anywhere else they can congregate to caucus and make the case for their favorite Republican.

If the polls mean anything, Mitt Romney will come out on top by edging out Ron Paul and the recently returned to political relevance, Rick Santorum.  Newt Gingrich had his fling with Iowa, but he’s admitted he won win and with Romney likely to take New Hampshire as well, Gingrich along with Rick Perry and Michelle Bachmann will take their show on the road to South Carolina and Florida in search of somewhere to plant their flag and slow Romney’s roll to the nomination.

No, I didn’t forget Jon Huntsman, but everyone else has.  If he doesn’t show well in New Hampshire it’s hard to envision where he could win.  Ditto for Perry, Bachmann, Gingrich and Santorum.  They don’t have Mitt’s organization, endorsements or deep pockets.

That leaves Paul who says he has no intentions of running as an independent, but hasn’t said he won’t either.   If he does, Paul would draw some votes from President Obama, but would be more of a help to him than Romney.   If Fox News and the conservative establishment keep saying mean things about him and Mitt doesn’t incorporate any of Paul’s messages into his campaign, I predict Paul will run a guerilla campaign against Obama and Romney, but he’s more likely to hurt the GOP nominee.

One last thing about Paul.  When I wrote two consecutive posts about his racist newsletters and refusal to sufficiently distance himself from them,  I knew the Paulinistas would be pissed.  I had hoped they might offer some sort of intelligent defense of their boy.   That hasn’t happened.

if thats all you can come up with to complain about ron paul then you should find new material to waste your time on, if you think he’s such a bad guy what do you think about these real fuck holes that manipulate your views and form your opinions for you, if you knew anything you would know ron paul isn’t a racist and you are more the racist for portraying that kind of material on your blog, be a little more realistic when reporting on real people.

It wasn’t his newsletter, it was a newsletter that he leant his name to. He was not involved in the production of the newsletter. Since the incident he has stopped lending his name out in such a manner. Ron Paul is a prolific writer who tends to reiterate his beliefs over and over again in his writings. He had never written anything like the newsletter before the newsletter, nor has he since. Therefore, there is no reason to not believe him. He didn’t write it. Period. Let it go.

Ron Paul supported desegregation of government institutions but was against imposing the same laws on private businesses because doing so would increase government power. And because both parts are in the civil rights act, he would have voted against it. This does not make him a racist. It makes him an idealist who sticks to his priciples and applies them accross the board no matter how unpopular. And no he does not want to repeal the Civil Rights Act, as that would be a collosal wast of time. The first thing he would do is end the Bush/Obama wars.

Why not list some of the recent civil rights legislation that Paul voted no on. I can garuntee that he did so because they increased government power.

Yes Paul voted against giving a congressional metal of honor to Rosa Parks. He votes against ALL congressional metals of honor including one for Mother Teresa. Why? Because he does not believe that congress has the authority spend the People’s money without the consent of the People. He did however offer to put up $100 of his own money for Rosa Park’s metal, and asked the other members of congress to do so also. They all declined.

Oh, and I’m Black and I support Ron Paul.

You have my sympathies, but being Black and a Ron Paul supporter is your problem.  You have the right to be wrong.

Ron Paul is not a racist. He’s just opposed to the 1964 Civil Rights Act, published, but never read the racist essays run in his own newsletters, and is “clueless” to Black and Latino culture and particularly of Mexican-Americans and “intolerant” of anyone speaking Spanish in his presence.

Adios, puta madre.

Ron Paul is not anti-Semitic. He just yelled at a group of Republican Jews until they walked out and thinks saving the Jews from Hitler’s Final Solution in WWII was a bad idea.

Ron Paul is not homophobic. He just doesn’t want to shake a gay man’s hand or use the same toilet a gay man uses and prefers to hold it until he can find a nice, clean public toilet in a restaurant where he can take a dump.

Ron Paul was a doctor. He obviously is fearful of getting gay cooties.

It’s a terrible thing to believe in someone who isn’t everything they present themselves are, but I don’t care if I haven’t convinced the Paulinistas their messiah is a bigot.  I’m convinced.  You’re on your own.

Maybe you’re not mistaken.  Maybe Ron Paul is your hope for a president you can believe in.

But if you’re not Black, possibly not gay, probably not in need of an abortion or of the Jewish faith, by all means, cast your fate to a bigoted wind.

Whatever happens in Iowa tonight will not produce the key moment in the 2012 race that totally altered it.  When Obama beat Hillary Clinton in 2008, it was a huge upset, but Clinton blunted Obama’s bounce by winning New Hampshire a week later.  Romney is the prohibitive front-runner and until someone emerges as the Anti-Romney, he’s still the most likely Republican to take on Obama.

Before we get to the main event we still have to suffer through the qualifying preliminaries.

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Posted by on January 3, 2012 in News & Views

 

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The Ron Paul Race War Revolution

30 Dec

The (im)plausible defense of the typical Paulinista when faced with Ron Paul’s racist newsletters is to say, “He didn’t write them. He didn’t even read them. He definitely doesn’t agree with them. He only published them.”

Uh-huh.

The hardcore true believers in St. Paul’s divinity are living life in 3-D: Denial, deflection and dismissal. They see conspiracies everywhere and blame everywhere but where it belongs–with Ron Paul.

Nothing will shake the faith of the faithful in Paul and that is fine by me. I hope he wins Iowa and causes Karl Rove and Sean Hannity’s heads to explode and the GOP establishment to commit ritual seppuku.  That would give me great pleasure and much joy.

Paul’s rap won’t translate far beyond Iowa, but he would throw a severe monkey wrench into the Mitt Romney Coronation. Paul might even be emboldened enough to go the independent route and send GOP hopes of ousting President Obama crashing and burning.

I’d like that.

The New Republic posted excerpts from some of Ron Paul’s newsletters from the Nineties.

Race
“A Special Issue on Racial Terrorism” analyzes the Los Angeles riots of 1992: “Order was only restored in L.A. when it came time for the blacks to pick up their welfare checks three days after rioting began. … What if the checks had never arrived? No doubt the blacks would have fully privatized the welfare state through continued looting. But they were paid off and the violence subsided.”

The November 1990 issue of the Political Report had kind words for David Duke.

This December 1990 newsletter describes Martin Luther King Jr. as “a world-class adulterer” who “seduced underage girls and boys” and “replaced the evil of forced segregation with the evil of forced integration.”

A February 1991 newsletter attacks “The X-Rated Martin Luther King.”

An October 1990 edition of the Political Report ridicules black activists, led by Al Sharpton, for demonstrating at the Statue of Liberty in favor of renaming New York City after Martin Luther King. The newsletter suggests that “Welfaria,” “Zooville,” “Rapetown,” “Dirtburg,”and “Lazyopolis ” would be better alternatives—and says, “Next time, hold that demonstration at a food stamp bureau or a crack house.”

A May 1990 issue of the Ron Paul Political Reportcites Jared Taylor, who six months later would go onto found the eugenicist and white supremacist periodical American Renaissance.

The January 1993 issue of the Survival Report worries about America’s “disappearing white majority.”

The July 1992 Ron Paul Political Reportdeclares, “Jury verdicts, basketball games, and even music are enough to set off black rage, it seems,” and defends David Duke. The author of the newsletter—presumably Paul—writes, “My youngest son is starting his fourth year in medical school. He tells me there would be no way to persuade his fellow students of the case for economic liberty.”

A March 1993 Survival Reportdescribes Bill Clinton’s supposedly “illegitimate children, black and white: ‘woods colts’ in backwoods slang.”

The further we go into the depths of Paul’s past in peddling prejudice the more examples there emerge indicating perhaps Paul was not as unsympathetic to the sentiments expressed in his newsletters as he says now.

A newly unearthed subscription pitch circa 1993, this time bearing the signature of Paul himself. It reads like a caricature of the conspiratorial, unhinged, early ’90s militia movement, the kind of thing that would make the John Birch Society blush. Written in the first person, it warns of threats from the “demonic fraternity” we know of as Yale’s Skull and Bones society, the Trilateral Commission, the “perverted, pagan” rituals at Bohemian Grove, a global government, “the coming race war,” the Council on Foreign Relation, and FEMA. Paul (or his ghostwriter, at least) carefully explains that you can trust his view that the federal government is behind AIDS, because he’s a doctor:

Paul’s newsletters weren’t just a form of political expression or “educational” (as he bragged in a 1995 C-Span interview)—they were a highly lucrative endeavor. In 1993 alone, Paul’s publishing company brought in a million dollars. The newsletter was published for decades, which suggests that Paul stood to make a lot of money from it. Paul has attempted to laugh that charge away, but that’s a lot different than refuting it. And from the pitch letter sent out under Paul’s name, his was a hard sell, perfectly calibrated to cash in on fears. “[B]ad times offer the greatest profit opportunities,” he writes. The government’s plans will “chill your blood.” “Help me help you survive.” “The holocaust of the underground economy.” “You may not have much time left.” By imparting this information, Paul claimed he might be placing his life at risk: “I’ve been told not to talk, but these stooges don’t scare me.” The letter concludes with these stirring words: “There’s no time to waste. The new money may not come until next year. Or it may be imposed tomorrow. You should subscribe today.”

If the Ron Paul Survival Report wasn’t a sincere expression of the congressman’s views, it was nonetheless a scheme to profit by stirring up the worst fears of a small group of the population. Which is why as long as Paul continues to duck and weave rather than address the very real questions posed by his newsletters, the controversy will not go away.

Remember in 2008 when Obama had to give his speech in Philadelphia distancing himself from Reverend Wright and publicly rebuking him? That’s the sort of speech Ron Paul needs to give. NOW.

It won’t change my mind about him. That ship has sailed. But for  others who like some of Paul’s positions but are troubled by the way the supposed straight shooter keeps changing his explanations and won’t address the matter directly and forthrightly it could be the difference between victory and obscurity.

Paul would have you think he’s not your garden variety Republican. His willingness to pander to racial fears and to profiteer from that fear places him squarely in the GOP mainstream.    He wants Americans to think only he has the moral fiber and courage to be president.

As it stands, he’s just a coward.

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Posted by on December 30, 2011 in News & Views

 

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Ron Paul Can’t Run From His Racist Roots

28 Dec

Just say no to Dr. No

As a writer and journalist since 1992, I have written hundreds of articles, editorials and essays and thousands of words on hundreds of topics, but the one thing that connects each and every one is I own all those words.  It does not matter if the words are wise, silly, entertaining or dull as a dish rag.

They are all my words and no matter how much distance time puts between me and my words, they’re never too far and never too distant for me to be held accountable for them.

The reality for every writer is we may forget what we’ve written, but as long as it is written down somewhere those words are never truly lost and once found, they are potentially capable of returning to bedevil us anew.

This is a reality Ron Paul would rather not face.

Paul’s appeal to voters isn’t lost on me.  He seems like the perfect anti-politician.  He’s not a pretty boy with polished teeth and a fussed over hairstyle and a meticulously managed media image.  Paul is rumpled, short, not particularly photogenic or worried about tailoring his message to fit a particular focus group or demographic.   What Paul is strong on his message of individual freedom, non-intervention in foreign affairs, not spending money on non-essential frills and pet projects

Paul is also strong on his ties to the racist newsletters published under his name and weak on answering  questions about them.

You can’t blame the Paulinistas for trying to frame the debate on their own terms on the issues they think are winning ones for them. Unfortunately for them (and Paul), he can’t run from his coziness with the racism he permitted to be published under his name.

Pile up enough of Paul’s hostility toward civil rights, his indifference to racist rants on a publication with his name on the title, and his refusal to distance himself from his ties to extremists like the John Birch Society and you can conclude once you get past the kindly, but slightly crazy old uncle act, if Ron Paul isn’t a bigot himself you couldn’t slide a piece of paper between him and those that are.

Claiming he never read the newsletters is an extraordinary admission to Paul’s lack of accountability and responsibility. If Ron Paul can’t be bothered to care about running a raggedy newsletter, why should anyone trust him to run the whole damn country?

Separating Ron Paul’s various explanations over the years about the newsletters is a laborious process, but it comes down to this: if you’re a publisher, you may not read everything that goes into your publication, but it stretches credulity to say you had no idea what was going in it, never read it, didn’t disavow the statements when they originally occurred. don’t know who wrote them and only disagreed with them after you decided to run for president.

Paul’s dilemma is once upon a time he seemed quite aware of what the content of his newsletters were as he explained in 1995 to CSPAN.

Along with that I also put out a political — type of business investment newsletter, sort of covered all these areas. And it covered a lot about what was going on in Washington and financial events, especially some of the monetary events since I had been especially interested in monetary policy, had been on the banking committee, and still very interested in, in that subject. That — this newsletter dealt with that.

That is a completely weak and inadequate explanation of the bigoted content of his newsletters. It’s also a reason to ask—no, DEMAND that Paul explain himself totally, fully and completely.

So far he hasn’t.

WASHINGTON – Rep. Ron Paul has tried since 2001 to disavow racist and incendiary language published in Texas newsletters that bore his name, denying he wrote them and even walking out of an interview on CNN Wednesday. But he vouched for the accuracy of the writings and admitted writing at least some of the passages when first asked about them in an interview in 1996.

Some issues of the newsletters included racist, anti-Israel or anti-gay comments, including a 1992 newsletter in which he said 95% of black men in Washington “are semi-criminal or entirely criminal.”

Paul told The Dallas Morning News in 1996 that the contents of his newsletters were accurate but needed to be taken in context. Wednesday, he told CNN he didn’t write the newsletters and didn’t know what was in them.

Paul, who leads polls in Iowa leading up to the caucuses there on Jan. 3, published a series of newsletters while he was out of Congress in the 1980s and 1990s called The Ron Paul Political Report, Ron Paul’s Freedom Report, The Ron Paul Survival Report and The Ron Paul Investment Letter.

In 1996, Paul told The Dallas Morning News that his comment about black men in Washington came while writing about a 1992 study by the National Center on Incarceration and Alternatives, a criminal justice think tank in Virginia.

Paul cited the study and wrote: “Given the inefficiencies of what DC laughingly calls the criminal justice system,“These aren’t my figures,” Paul told the Morning News. “That is the assumption you can gather from the report.” I think we can safely assume that 95 percent of the black males in that city are semi-criminal or entirely criminal.”

Nor did Paul dispute in 1996 his 1992 newsletter statement that said,”If you have ever been robbed by a black teenaged male, you know how unbelievably fleet of foot they can be.”

Paul believes the Civil War was unnecessary. A better alternative would have been to buy the slaves instead.

Paul voted for the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday, but says he would have voted against the 1964 Civil Rights Act as he explains at the 4:20 mark during an interview with Chris Matthews.

On July 3, 2004, He cast the only vote against a bill commemorating  the 40th anniversary  of the Act as he explained in remarks from the floor of the House of Representatives.  Taken from his own website, Paul is obviously proud of his opposition.

Ron Paul: Mr. Speaker, I rise to explain my objection to H.Res. 676. I certainly join my colleagues in urging Americans to celebrate the progress this country has made in race relations. However, contrary to the claims of the supporters of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the sponsors of H.Res. 676, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 did not improve race relations or enhance freedom. Instead, the forced integration dictated by the Civil Rights Act of 1964 increased racial tensions while diminishing individual liberty.

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 not only violated the Constitution and reduced individual liberty; it also failed to achieve its stated goals of promoting racial harmony and a color-blind society. Federal bureaucrats and judges cannot read minds to see if actions are motivated by racism. Therefore, the only way the federal government could ensure an employer was not violating the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was to ensure that the racial composition of a business’s workforce matched the racial composition of a bureaucrat or judge’s defined body of potential employees.

(snip)

Thus, bureaucrats began forcing employers to hire by racial quota. Racial quotas have not contributed to racial harmony or advanced the goal of a color-blind society. Instead, these quotas encouraged racial balkanization, and fostered racial strife.

Of course, America has made great strides in race relations over the past forty years. However, this progress is due to changes in public attitudes and private efforts. Relations between the races have improved despite, not because of, the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

In conclusion, Mr. Speaker, while I join the sponsors of H.Res. 676 in promoting racial harmony and individual liberty, the fact is the Civil Rights Act of 1964 did not accomplish these goals. Instead, this law unconstitutionally expanded federal power, thus reducing liberty. Furthermore, by prompting raced-based quotas, this law undermined efforts to achieve a color-blind society and increased racial strife. Therefore, I must oppose H.Res. 676.

Maybe there is a good explanation for Paul’s out of touch views on race, but I haven’t read or heard a good one yet.  The 1964 Civil Rights Act made life easier for minorities and harder on racists, but Paul considers this to be a bad thing.  I consider this makes him unelectable and unworthy to be seriously considered presidential material.

The Atlantic’s Ta-Neshi Coates isn’t buying the “Ron Paul is the Victim” rap either.

Racism, like all forms of bigotry, is what it claims to oppose–victimology. The bigot is never to blame. Always is he besieged–by gays and their radical agenda, by women and their miniskirts, by fleet-footed blacks. It is an ideology of “not my fault.” It is not Ron Paul’s fault that people with an NAACP view of the world would twist his words. It is not Ron Paul’s fault that his newsletter trafficked in racism. It is not Ron Paul’s fault that he allowed people to author that racism in his name. It is anonymous political aids and writers, who now cowardly refuse to own their words. There’s always someone else to blame–as long as it isn’t Ron Paul, if only because it never was Ron Paul.

Next:  What’s actually in the Ron Paul newsletters and some strange comments from Paul about race.

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Posted by on December 28, 2011 in News & Views

 

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Seven Clowns in Search of a Car

04 Dec

Newt and Mitt are good names for clowns don't you agree?

Clowntime is over for the Herman Cain Comedy Tour, but the season in hell for the Republican Party continues to plumb even greater depths of idiocy.  With Pee Wee Herman on house arrest for the remainder of the presidential campaign he can stop being an embarrassment to the race, and I mean that in all senses of the word.

The seven remaining bozos keep finding new and novel ways to make asses of themselves.

When a guy best known for reality TV and endless, egotistical self-promotion, Donald Trump, is chosen as the moderator for a Republican presidential debate, it’s a sure sign we’ve strayed over the double line between comedy and outright insanity.

Donald Trump apparently didn’t take kindly to Ron Paul’s decision to skip the NewsMax-hosted forum moderated by the developer and reality TV star, saying it created a circus-like atmosphere around the presidential race.

 ”As I said in the past and will reiterate again, Ron Paul has a zero chance of winning either the nomination or the presidency,” Trump said in a statement in response to Paul, adding, “my poll numbers were substantially higher than any of his poll numbers, at any time.”

“Few people take Ron Paul seriously and many of his views and presentation make him a clown-like candidate,” he said.

“I am glad he and Jon Huntsman, who has inconsequential poll numbers or a chance of winning, will not be attending the debate and wasting the time of the viewers who are trying very hard to make a very important decision.”

Trump referred to his book that’s coming out and his claim he is worth more than $7 billion, and asked why he is “not the right person to lead this country out of economic chaos or at least to moderate a debate. I would like to see how Ron Paul would fair in the world of big business.”

Paul was the first candidate competing in Iowa to reject the invitation for the Dec. 27 event. His move may give cover to other candidates to do the same – although Trump’s comments are a reminder of the potential problem with skipping it.

The Eight Dwarfs: Dopey, Sleazy, Crazy, Goofy, Drunky, Nutty, Horny and Clueless.

Seriously Republicans, what the hell is wrong with y’all?

Donald Trump moderating a debate?  Seriously?  What’s next?   Survivor: Devil’s Island with the Republican presidential candidates?  Maybe The X Factor or Ultimate Fighting?  A WWE bout with John Cena and the Rock in an electrified steel cage match against Mitt and Newt?

The utter weirdness of the Republican crop is beginning to devolve into a political version of the Insane Clown Posse.

The rest of the world is taking notice of this horror show as Der Spiegel blasted the Republiclowns as “a club of liars, demagogues and ignoramuses.

Africa is a country. In Libya, the Taliban reigns. Muslims are terrorists; most immigrants are criminal; all Occupy protesters are dirty. And women who feel sexually harassed — well, they shouldn’t make such a big deal about it.

Welcome to the wonderful world of the US Republicans. Or rather, to the twisted world of what they call their presidential campaigns. For months now, they’ve been traipsing around the country with their traveling circus, from one debate to the next, one scandal to another, putting themselves forward for what’s still the most powerful job in the world.

As it turns out, there are no limits to how far they will stoop.

It’s true that on the road to the White House all sorts of things can happen, and usually do. No campaign can avoid its share of slip-ups, blunders and embarrassments. Yet this time around, it’s just not that funny anymore. In fact, it’s utterly horrifying.

It’s horrifying because these eight so-called, would-be candidates are eagerly ruining not only their own reputations and that of their party, the party of Lincoln lore. Worse: They’re ruining the reputation of the United States.

When the only two candidates with enough dignity left to say they want no part of a Trump extravaganza are Ron Paul and Jon Huntsman, two bottom-feeders tracking in the single digits nationally (though Paul is polling in second place in Iowa and dropped Romney into third looking up at Paul and this week’s frontrunner, Gingrich), can there be any further doubt this is the most pathetic assemblages of wannabee presidential aspirants in decades?

Instead of the “best and the brightest” the GOP is placing their hopes of deposing President Obama with “the worst and the dumbest.”

When the crusty curmudgeon and social critic, H.L. Mencken quipped, “In this world of sin and sorrow there is always something to be thankful for; as for me, I rejoice that I am not a Republican,” he couldn’t have envisioned the supreme awfulness of the 2012 Republican presidential candidates.

But Mencken was lucky.  Being dead, he’s not stuck with having to choose from the least-awful of a bad bunch to vote for next November.  He also never had to live in a world with a Donald Trump.

Clowns are creepy enough as it is.  They get even creepier when they run for president.

"I always serve the ladies my Meat Lover's Special' sez Herm.

 
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Posted by on December 4, 2011 in News & Views, Rantology

 

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Neutering Newt Gingrich

01 Dec

“…a stupid man’s idea of what a smart person sounds like.”  ~ Newt Gingrich as described by Paul Krugman

At various times another candidate pops out the Republican clown car to enjoy their moment as the media darling and the new Flavor of the Month.   Previously, I’ve chronicled the misadventures of Michele “Batshit” Bachmann, Jon “Hopeless” Huntsman,  Horny Herman Cain, cranky old Ron Paul, and Slick Rick Perry.

Time to neuter Newt Gingrich while he suns himself on a rock.

There isn’t a nastier, more egotistical, unpleasant, and negative candidate than the former Speaker of the House.   He combines Perry’s sleaze,  Romney’s hypocrisy, Bachmann’s fondness for crazy ideas and stupid statements and a lack of moral scruples that would make Cain blush, if he weren’t Black and incapable of doing so.

Newt comes up with these weird, but stupid ideas like firing the unionized janitors and hiring schoolkids to clean their own schools.  Gingrich says child labor laws are “stupid” and thinks taking jobs away from adults and giving them to kids instead is a swell idea.

If Mitt believes in nothing, what Newt believes in is flat-out wrong.

Whenever another one of these fatally flawed candidates bubble up to the top of the murk that is the Republican presidential pool, the speculation begins that while they may be less electable than Romney, it positions a Gingrich or Cain as a possible running mate for Mittens.

I dunno. I’m trying to see the upside for Mitt to tap Newt (Mitt & Newt 2012?) and I can’t find it. The conservative base doesn’t like Gingrich that much more than Romney and he does nothing to stir up evangelicals, Tea Party patriots, and Latinos.

Also, Gingrich is already 68 years old. If Romney were to win and serve two terms, Newt would be 76 by the time his opportunity to replace Romney came up.  He doesn’t seem to be a guy who’s going to age gracefully into his seventies.

We are a month out from the Iowa caucuses where we will get the first meaningful stress test of the GOP field and not everyone will emerge in good condition to carry on to New Hampshire and South Carolina.   Mitt is all-in for Iowa after not being able to make up his mind (surprise!), Newt is surging in the Hawkeye state and don’t sleep on Ron Paul’s ability to make things interesting.  The rest of the also-rans, including Horny Herman are pretty much mashed potatoes, gravy and a roll.

 “In Iowa, it’s long been a two-person race between Romney and someone else,” said J. Ann Selzer, president of Selzer & Co., which conducted the poll for Bloomberg. “It is now a four-person race between Romney and three someone elses.”

Poll participant Nate Warwick, 34, a machine operator at a packaging factory who lives in Story City, Iowa, is leaning toward Romney, primarily because he thinks he has the best chance of defeating President Barack Obama in 2012. Still, he’s not excited about his choices.

“There’s nobody out there who is really grabbing my attention, wholly,” he said. “I don’t think the Republican Party has a candidate that can beat Obama right now.”

Everything people disliked about Newt Gingrich before they still don’t like and no matter how “old news ” it is, they still aren’t going to get into a guy who talks smack about “values” while living a life that is the antithesis of it.

“There’s no question at times of my life, partially driven by how passionately I felt about this country, that I worked far too hard and things happened in my life that were not appropriate.”

Feeble explanations and short-term memories aside, Gingrich is still the same unlikable loser he was three or four months ago.  Sure, he has ideas as opposed to dopes like Cain, but a lot of them are bad ideas like this one.

Newt Gingrich is facing criticism for yet another idea he has floated during his presidential campaign — that the country bring back tests for voting, which were banned by the Voting Rights Act of 1965 as a tool used to suppress African-American voters. Now, Think Progress reports, none other than Tea Party favorite Rep. Allen West (R-FL), an African-American, is disagreeing — and referring to the sort of discrimination that his own parents faced.

Think Progress asked West about Gingrich’s position that there should be a required knowledge of history in order to vote.

“I mean, that’s going back to some, you know, times that my parents had to contend with,” said West, who then segued into discussing his concerns with America’s education system failing young people, and his admiration of a high school student in his district who has sought to be an intern for him.

He returned to the subject in conclusion: “I think that we need to do a better job educating our young men and women in school, but we don’t need to have a litmus test, no.”

Fun fact about Gingrich and West:  The Newster once said he would consider West as a potential  vice-president running mate.  Throw another folder in the Newt Gingrich Opposition Research File. How many cabinets does that make anyway?

The splendid humor in this is how it reaffirms yet again how unappetizing Mitt Romney is to the mainstream Republican palate.  The more the GOP establishment tries to force feed him to the base, they more they back away like balky three-year olds shaking their heads saying, “Nuh-uh.  Don’t want none.”

A guy named Newt versus a guy named Mitt to decide who earns the right to take on a guy named Barack.   This is good stuff.

It gets better as Ron Paul rips the Newt a new hole in a web ad.

I for one, say bring it on. Clash of the Right-Wing Whackjobs. This is better than ultimate fighting and whatever is on NBC.

Newt is a smart guy who has some interesting things to say about the presidency.  That said, he’s also a hopelessly greedy, unethical and morally challenged career politician who should never be elected president.

An egocentric egomaniac.  A hack politician who hasn’t held a job outside of politics and influence peddling in 40 years..  A philandering hypocritical man-whore who dogged Bill Clinton for his sexual escapades while excusing his own..  A really mean S.O.B. with delusions of grandeur.   That’s your new frontrunner, Republicans.   Hope you like him..

 
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Posted by on December 1, 2011 in Rantology

 

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Ron Paul On Race: Even Worse Than You Thought

05 Sep

I like Ron Paul's campaign and I think it's good for America and the political process in this country that he is running for president. -- David Duke

When you’re a political person and you’re engaged in the social network you often find yourself sparring with others whose own beliefs clash with yours.  That’s the back drop of how I found myself going heads up with a rabid Ron Paul supporter.

Things got real, real quick.  Paulinistas are passionate defenders of their boy.   I work with some and they make for great debates, but sometimes I think they’re living in a separate reality same as Paul.

You have to admire any politician who tells you exactly what he thinks and doesn’t care what you think about it. I watched Paul at a debate in 2008 that was sponsored by Tavis Smiley at a Black university. All the big guns skipped the debate (Romney, McCain, Giuliani) leaving it to Paul and non-entitites like Tom Tancredo, Sam Brownback and Duncan Hunter.

Paul stole the show. The audience applauded loudly when Paul said he would end the War on Drugs, but booed just as loudly when he said a President Paul would have nothing to do with the genocide in Darfur. Give Paul credit: he doesn’t tailor his message to please a specific crowd.

But he’s still unelectable. I will always regard his opposition to the 1964 Civil Rights Act as a deal breaker.

As a rule, libertarians have an unhealthy tendency to apply their principles without due regard to America’s history of state-enforced slavery, apartheid, and sexism, or to the many ways in which the legacy of these insidious practices persists to this day. Paul represents this tendency at his worst. The Civil Rights Act of 1964, Paul has argued, led to “a massive violation of the rights of private property and contract, which are the bedrocks of free society.”

It’s hard to interpret Paul’s position on this matter in a kind light. During the last campaign season, James Kirchick revealed in the pages of this publication that in the late 1980s and early 1990s Paul had published newsletters under his name containing rank bigotry against African Americans and gays. Paul claimed he did not write the columns in question or even know about them. Whether you believe that or not, the newsletter scandal highlighted Paul’s longstanding ties with figures, such as Lew Rockwell, with a history of catering to racist and nativist sentiments for political gain.

"Can you believe I get away with saying this crazy stuff?"

When you’re the publisher it’s pretty much a given that the positions expressed in your publication reflect your positions.

It’s disingenuous for Paul and his supporters to claim, “hey, he didn’t write these racist things. He can’t be blamed for it.”

Doesn’t work that way. A publisher is responsible for the content that goes into the publication. If the editor is pushing material that runs contrary to the publisher’s beliefs that’s an editor that needs to be fired.

Ron Paul didn’t do that. He didn’t run any retractions. He didn’t apologize for the racist drivel that ran in his newsletter.

PAULINISTA:  What amazes me is the same people who said he was crazy in 2008 for his anti-war, economic and Drug War views, who claim he’s unelectable today, who claim he can never recover from his loose association with a racist, are ignoring a very recent similar example.

I think people are mostly pissed that he’s actually manned up and refuses to throw his version of Rev. Wright under the bus by naming him. But we do know some things about the author of those rants.

We know that Ron Paul didn’t set in a pew every Sunday for 20 years nodding sagely at the wisdom of the rants of the author of those articles.

We know that Ron Paul has never claimed the author of those newsletter articles was “a close spiritual adviser for over 20 years.

Trying to make Ron Paul taller by cutting down Barack Obama isn’t the best way to sell Ron Paul.   When you can come up with a series of racist and homophobic articles that Barack Obama gave his tacit approval to when he was the editor of the Harvard Law Review, maybe you’ll have a point. Right now, you don’t.

It isn’t “manning up” by refusing to distance yourself from a racist buddy. What it says is even if Paul doesn’t hold those views personally he’s comfortable with those who do. That’s not the kind of person that should be appointing Cabinet members and nominees to the federal judiciary.

You can’t claim to be free of racism and protecting racists within your inner circle. Jeremiah Wright has had zero presence in the Obama Administration. Where would Paul place his bigoted buddies? Running the Justice Department Civil Rights division?

PAULINISTA: I go more on his voting record, the fact that there are no racist comments anywhere directly attributable to him, and statements like that from Austin NAACP President Nelson Linder, who’s known Paul for 20 years and said the charges were unfounded, or Wolf Blitzer, who expresses his open disbelief based on his knowledge of Dr. Paul in the interview I linked. Or maybe the word of Steward Rhodes, a Hispanic former staffer, is worth noting.

I’ll go on Paul’s voting record too and according to the NAACP scorecard he has accrued a mixed record of only 39% on civil rights issues such as affirmative action, which Paul opposes.

Does anyone still think a “some of my best friends are..” line of argument works? A Black guy in Austin nobody outside of Austin has ever heard of and a former Hispanic staffer think Paul is a swell guy and everyone is supposed to forget about his voting record, racist newsletters and say, “Ron Paul must be an okay dude. Two minorities say so.”

According to the NAACP’s most recent civil rights legislative report card for the 112th Congress (2009 – 2010), Ron Paul compiled an impressive 8 percent voting record on issues of interest to the nation’s oldest civil rights organization.

Maybe they should have called up Mr. Linder to see if he could put in a good word for his old buddy of 20 years. It might have inched that number up to 10 percent.

PAULINISTA: It’s also worth noting that in the many books that Ron Paul has written the only time he talks about blacks is to praise MLK, Rosa Parks and to condemn economic policies that he thinks are adversely affecting blacks. His oratory on the War on Drugs always emphasizes the over-prosecution of minorities as one of the big sins of the War.

Overall, hardly the record of a Strom Thurmond, Al Gore Senior, George Wallace, or Robert Byrd, just to note a few.

It’s also worth noting Paul has made it clear he would have voted the same way as Thurmond, Gore and Byrd did to oppose the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

Just as Paul voted against the Martin Luther King Jr. Holiday (though he did choose the holiday as an occasion for one of his “money bomb” fundraisers).

Just as Paul voted against awarding Rosa Parks a Congressional Gold Medal. He did offer to kick in $100 to pay for one. What a big-hearted guy!

Beyond Paul’s support on ending the War on Drugs (and people of color) there’s little to support the suggestion he’s the right man on race. His platitudes to King and Parks are rendered empty by his votes against them. Calling out the opposition of dead Democratic Senators from the South to the 1964 Civil Rights Act might play better if Paul and his idiot son weren’t endorsing the same historially indefensible position (because property rights supersede civil rights).

Taking “responsibility” for racist and homophobic material submitted in your own newsletter isn’t responsible while you continue to refuse to distance yourself from the racists responsible.

Ron Paul is no Barack Obama when it comes to disavowing a friend who espouses repugnant thoughts and spews hateful words.

That’s the problem.  When you strip away the rhetoric, the rubber doesn’t meet the road with Paul and his supposed color-blindness. It’s more like color blinders.

There are some things Ron Paul thinks are great ways to spend money. He says Abraham Lincoln was wrong to have waged the Civil War with the South and there was a better way to free the slaves. The government should have bought the slaves instead.

That is such a fascinatingly deranged perspective I could watch that clip all day long and wonder, “Just how crazy is this old man?”

PAULINISTA:  His voting record is consistent as well. Article 1 Section 8 guides his votes, and there’s a whole crapload of stuff that everybody wants that’s not in there. He votes against handouts for corporations as readily as he votes against any handout.

That’s why he’s named Dr. No.

I can agree with you on that. He says “no” to the 1964 Civil Rights Act. He says “no” to affirmative action. He says “no” to U.S. involvement in trying to prevent the genocide in the Sudan. He says “no” to a woman’s reproductive rights. He says “no” to repealing Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.

“No” to stem cell research. “No” to modifying bankruptcy laws to avoid mortgage foreclosures. “No” to gender-equal pay. “No” to allowing shareholders to vote on executive compensation. “No” on $84 million in grants to Black and Hispanic colleges. “No” to enforcement of anti-gay hate laws.

He even said “NO” to establishing a nationwide AMBER alert system for missing children.

Paul does say “yes” to some things. He says “yes” to guns as his A+ rating from the NRA indicates and “yes” to taking away a woman’s right to an abortion.

That’s your “Dr. No” and you can keep him.

 PAULINISTA: You can keep the pretty boy with the peerless pedigree and the condescending smile every time someone asks him when we’re gonna stop killing our children in the streets over herbs, or innocent civilians in foreign lands over oil, and who thinks the Patriot Act is just groovy and every president should have the power to assassinate American citizens.

I’ll go for the political pariah who actually proposes to change those things.

Because some Americans can see that the Barack Obama of tomorrow is the Barack Obama of yesterday… and so, in large part, are Rick Perry, Mitt Romney, and Sarah Palin.

Yeah, the political pariah wants to change things alright. The problem is he wants to change things back to when restaurant owners could refuse service to a customer because they had the wrong skin color or to when women had to risk their lives to end an unplanned pregnancy or gays stayed nice and quiet locked in a closet or to a time when America walled itself off from the world in paranoid isolationism.

As his recent crazy talk about FEMA as Hurricane Irene approached indicates, you are absolutely right: Ron Paul wants to change America. He wants to change it back to 1900.

Ron Paul's Black support. Singular, not plural.

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Posted by on September 5, 2011 in Rantology

 

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