The Legend Of The Lone Star Gold, Con't.

On Monday I talked about that truly weird state bullion depository that Texas Republicans will set up with legislation this week, a move that reeks of nullification and secession in an increasingly unhinged Republican party afflicted with Obama Derangement Syndrome. As TPM's Brian Murphy explains, the reality behind this move is far more disturbing.

As I said, if this looks like Ron Paul goldbug insanity to you, that's because it is.

According to this narrative, then, Texas isn’t just setting up its own depository, payments system, and a safe haven for gold that can’t be confiscated by the federal government. Instead, it is signaling a loss of confidence in the United States by pulling its gold out of the largest gold vault in the world eighty feet below the Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s Florentine-inspired headquarters in lower Manhattan. There, a special police force guards some 530,000 gold bars protected behind a 140-ton airtight steel and concrete framed door sealed with a 90-ton steel cylinder and time locks. Nobody enters the vault alone, ever; three people are present, even if it’s just to change a light bulb. Most of the gold in the vault belongs to other nations; the Fed stores and guards it as a courtesy to allies. Thus, the idea that Texas is somehow taking on an unwise risk by lodging $1 billion in bullion in the vault – so much so that it regards the New York bank as a foreign entity from whom gold ought to be justly “repatriated” – is to reject the practical and geopolitical realities of gold ownership in the 21st century. Even in fiction it is hard to recall a more secure site that has at its disposal more robust resources to guard and defend itself.

This is why, if you were suspicious about Gov. Abbott’s claim that “the [depository] law will repatriate $1 billion of gold bullion from the Federal Reserve in New York to Texas,” you were on to something.

Oh, but it gets worse.  This is all smelling like a giant gold bug con job, especially since the the work of guarding and administering the gold depository will be privatized.

But where did Texas get this gold anyhow?  That's an even stranger story.

Indeed, Texas has no gold bars in the Federal Reserve’s New York vault. And what the state has is not worth a billion dollars. Instead some 4,200 gold bars bought in 2011 by the University of Texas’s endowment fund (the second largest in the country after Harvard’s) are stored in the basement vault of HSBC’s headquarters at 450 5th Avenue in New York City, just south of the New York Public Library. For the last four years, the endowment has paid an estimated $1 million per year to store their gold there. (If it had been at the New York Fed the cost would have totaled about $15,400 over that period). And the new depository law does not require the university’s endowment fund to relocate the gold to Texas. 

In case you’re wondering why the university’s endowment fund ever bought real physical gold to begin with (not just paper assets), that's a story almost as odd as the state's new effort to bring its gold back to Texas to ward off financial Armageddon in the country's other 49 states. That story seems to begin and end with a hedge fund manager named Kyle Bass. Bass, a former Legg Mason and Bear Stearns managing director and outspoken Fed critic, was named to the endowment fund’s board of directors (listed – and pictured – here… ahem) and immediately began pressing his apparently suggestive colleagues to shift their gold options investments into a stake of physical gold.

Bass isn’t just a casual metals speculator. When he believed nickel was undervalued he bought 20 million nickel coins to prove his point (they’re stored on a pallet in a Brinks vault). A brave new world mix of country club and prepper compound, in a Michael Lewis profile, Bass revealed that he’d prepared for a collapse of the government and economy by accumulating – in his words – “guns and gold.”

Like the others mentioned in this story, Bass believes that gold has an intrinsic value. In 2010 and 2011, he steered the University of Texas Investment Management Company’s board of directors to put nearly 5% of the then-$19 billion university and pension fund they manage into physical gold by converting options into bullion. Many large institutions invest in gold through paper investments like options. But most agree that owning actual physical gold bullion is a poor choice for a number of reasons - unless you're expecting a financial cataclysm so great you need actual physical possession of the metal. But coming off the 2008 financial crisis that's what Bass was expecting and he managed to convince his fellow board members. So for $764 million, the fund bought 664,300 ounces of the stuff in 100-ounce bars. Each of those 6,643 bars has enough of what Auric Goldfinger called “divine heaviness” that they can chip a concrete vault floor if dropped.

And the best part?  Over the last couple of years that investment in physical gold has lost money.

No, this is 100% Tea Party nutjob territory we're in with this story, and it only will get worse. Remember, not even Rick Perry went this far.

Just Like Dear Old Dad

WaPo's David Farenthold on Sen. Rand Paul's biggest barrier to the Oval Office: Dear Ol' Dad.

Rand Paul wants to lead the United States. On Saturday in Texas, his father was speaking at a conference about how to leave it.

“A lot of times people think secession, they paint it as an absolute negative,” said former representative Ron Paul (R-Tex.). After all, Paul said, the American Revolution was a kind of secession. “You mean we should have been obedient to the king forever? So it’s all in the way you look at it.” 

This weekend was a crucial one for Rand Paul, the Republican senator from Kentucky and un­declared candidate for the presidency. He was in California, trying to line up donors at an opulent retreat organized by the billionaire Koch brothers. 

At the same time, his father — retired after 12 terms in Congress and three presidential runs — was in the ballroom of an airport hotel here, the final speaker at “a one-day seminar in breaking away from the central state.” He followed a series of speakers who said that the U.S. economy and political establishment were tottering and that the best response might be for states, counties or even individuals to break away. 

“The America we thought we knew, ladies and gentlemen, is a mirage. It’s a memory. It’s a foreign country,” Jeff Deist, Ron Paul’s former press secretary and chief of staff, told the group. “And that’s precisely why we should take secession seriously.”

And this is why I always get a good chuckle when people say "Hey Zandar, your crazy-ass senator might end up as President, right?"

No. Not in a million years. Ron Paul and his merry band of rootin' tootin' gold bug Bell Curve dudebro Second Revolution glibertarian dumpster fires will never, ever stop being the Olympus Mons of baggage for Rand Paul's higher aspirations. He can't afford to alienate them because his supporters love the little garden gnome, and he can't afford to have them running around and talking about how great things like secession and Bitcoin and ending the Fed and the Civil Rights Act would be for the next 18 months because stories like this will eventually start becoming a real problem for the donor class.

And that's on top of Rand's own ridiculous statements on civil rights and his questionable hiring practices.

Not sure why the guy is even bothering to run.

Sins Of The Father

Reason number one why Rand Paul has no conceivable shot at winning the White House in 2016: his dad is a complete lunatic.

An institute named for the father of possible presidential candidate Rand Paul has published a piece saying the Charlie Hebdo massacre, like 9/11, was a false flag operation. The claim comes in piece titled, "Charlie Hebdo Shootings: False Flag?," put online today at the Ron Paul Institute. 

"The Charlie Hebdo affair has many of the characteristics of a false flag operation. The attack on the cartoonists’ office was a disciplined professional attack of the kind associated with highly trained special forces; yet the suspects who were later corralled and killed seemed bumbling and unprofessional. It is like two different sets of people," reads the first paragraph of the piece.

Yes, that's a Weekly Standard link, but if even those guys are calling out Rand publicly for this, it's because out of all the Clown Car '16 squad, the neocons hate Rand Paul the most.  It's not going to take long for Ron Paul's peanut gallery to completely ruin Rand's shot at the White House, and the best part is they think they are helping him.

I really hope that somewhere whichever Democrat goes after Rand's Senate seat next year is paying attention, because should Rand dump his White House bid and work on keeping it, the same opposition playbook should be used.  Ron Paul is 10 pounds of batshit crazy in a 5 pound bag, and unlike 2010, Rand's not going to be able to dodge his father's shadow.

Podcast Vs. The Stupid: Syria-s As A Heart Attack

Bon and I get back into the swing of things with a 30-minute PVTS show on Syria, President Obama, the GOP "response" and the passing of Sir David Frost.

Listen To Politics Progressive Internet Radio Stations with Zandar Versus The Stupid on BlogTalkRadio

You can download the episode here or look for it on iTunes.

Well, Somebody's Definitely Smoking Something

Paul Ryan came out this weekend in favor of states being able to decide if they want to legalize medical marijuana or not.

In a pre-taped interview based on questions submitted by viewers of KRDO in Colorado Springs, Republican vice presidential nominee Rep. Paul Ryan (WI) endorsed the view that states — like Colorado — should be able to decide their own laws on medical marijuana.

Anchor Eric Singer asked Ryan, “In Colorado we have medical marijuana. Under a Romney Ryan ticket, what happens?” Ryan replied, “It’s up to Coloradans to decide.”

In response to a follow-up question from Singer, Ryan elaborated: “My personal positions on this issue have been let the states decide what to do with these things. This is something that is not a high priority of ours as to whether or not we go down this issue. But I’ve always believed is the states should make the right to decide.”

To recap, the federal government must decide who who can and can't marry because it might offend people and the federal government must override state's rights to decide, they must control every aspect of a woman's reproductive system because it might offend people and they federal government must override a woman's right to decide about her own body, but bogarting a joint is a "state's rights" issue.  

In other words, Ryan's playing for the GOLD WEED END THE FED vote.  Surprise!

A Blimp, A Verb, And 9/11

Ron Paul took time out of his busy schedule digging gold and burning pictures of Ben Bernanke on Sunday to remind us why he has no chance of ever being President of anything other than the Crazy Asshole Club Of America.

“Somebody — rather nationally —- said the other day on the Internet 'if those Paul people had been in charge Osama Bin Laden would still be alive.' But you know what I think the answer is? So would the 3000 people killed on 9/11 still be alive!” 

Gosh Ron, I'm sure all the 9/11 families are glad to hear that.  If it's not the Pareto 80/20 rule, Ron Paul Corollary getting in his way (20% of what Ron Paul says is sane, 80% is nucking futs) it's his preening smug ego that still wouldn't earn my vote.

I'm glad this jackass will finally be out of Congress in January.

The Libertarian's Libertarian

If you're a libertarian who somehow thought Sen. Rand Paul wasn't going to endorse Mitt Romney for President, you probably should avoid running with scissors too (although being a libertarian, you would be completely prepared to handle the consequences of running with scissors if you managed to stab yourself through the heart with them, and you would demand your right to be allowed to do so and call it "freedom" and crap.)

Anyway, libertarians are SHOCKED that this is happening.

The freshman senator said on Thursday night that he supports Romney for president, even though his father has not officially withdrawn from the race. The move was seen by many as a signal that the younger Paul is willing to compromise and work with establishment Republicans.

Politico quoted a Republican strategist who commended the Kentucky senator on what is seen as a savvy career move, “Rand’s endorsement of GOP nominee Mitt Romney clearly shows that in spite of those who try to marginalize him, he has keen set of political instincts and is very much aware that a successful national run will require more than just his father’s loyal following.”

Members of that loyal following, however, are not as impressed.

The Libertarian Party’s candidate for president, former New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson issued a blistering statement through the party’s website, in which he called Rand a turncoat, a traitor to his father’s legacy and a sellout.

“(N)o true libertarian, no true friend of liberty, and no true blue Tea Partier could possibly even consider, much less actually endorse or approve of, the Father of Obamacare, Big Government tax and spender, Republican Mitt Romney,” Johnson wrote.

Rejoice, Randroids.  Your leader is in fact adhering to that most sacred tenet of libertarianism, "I'm going to get mine any way I know how, and screw the rest of you."  He is reveling in the success of the individual, i.e. Rand Paul, over the Collective Moochers and Looters Weighing Down Rand Paul, i.e. the rest of the idiots who thought Rand Paul wasn't going to throw them under the bus in order to advance his political career giving more power to Rand Paul.

If Johnson's all butthurt over this, maybe he shouldn't be, you know, running for President on the Libertarian ticket.  Even better, maybe the EVOLution crew might want to ask why Rand's dad also ran screens for Romney, ostensibly to help his son.

I mean you guys can't all be that dense, can you?  Rand and Ron were playing you for saps to help Rand and Ron and at your expense, and you knew this as an informed consumer and chose to back them anyway, right?  Libertarian way, and all that?

OK, just checking.

Casting A Paul Over The Proceedings

Diggy Diggy Hole is out, presumably to spend more time with his gold and weed.

Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) said Monday in a surprise announcement that he will no longer be campaigning in states that have not yet held primary elections.

“Our campaign will continue to work in the state convention process,” he explained in a campaign email. “Moving forward, however, we will no longer spend resources campaigning in primaries in states that have not yet voted. Doing so with any hope of success would take many tens of millions of dollars we simply do not have.”

The statement would seem to indicate that while he’s giving up on the remaining primary races, Paul’s not out of the running completely.

Though badly trailing presumptive nominee Mitt Romney, Paul has been gaining marginal ground by helping his supporters take over local and state Republican parties, mastering the old rules of party politics to jam as many of his delegates into the Republican National Convention (RNC) as possible. 

So at this point, all he's got are parlor tricks and technical maneuvers that will at best embarrass Mittens and at worst make Paul look even more like a crackpot than he already is.

I'll tell you what, if Ron Paul's message was so awesome, how come he couldn't convince people to give him the "tens of millions of dollars" needed to win?  Seems to me in the "free market of political ideas" where people vote with their fundraising donations, Ron Paul was a product that not even nutjob Republicans actually wanted.

Don't let the door hit you on the way out, Ronny.

The Kroog Versus Diggy Diggy Hole

Paul Krugman.  Ron Paul.  The Bloomberg TV top card fight between the King of the Keynesians and the Gollum of Goldbugs is pretty gripping stuff here, even for laymen.  For econ nerds like myself, it's watching Optimus Prime and Megatron slugging it out for 20 minutes.  Grab some popcorn and pull up a chair for this one:

Love this. Ron Paul opens up with about 5 minutes of stump speech, but Krugman is having none of Paul's "get off my lawn" crap and goes after him on policy arguments and doesn't back down. It's a good battle and Paul gets increasingly desperate at it progresses as Krugman points out that austerity is killing Europe. I'd like to see a longer debate on this, frankly. Do watch the whole thing.

The Big GOP Primary Thread: Nor'easter

There was no surprise in Mitt Romney winning all five primaries in the Northeast and mid-Atlantic yesterday, but it was somewhat surprising to see him not do any better than he did.  Even though he was basically the only viable candidate left, anywhere from 33% to nearly 43% of GOP primary voters voted against him yesterday.   Newt got 27% of the vote in Delaware, and Ron Paul 25% of the vote in Rhode Island.

I'm not convinced that 100% of those non-Romney GOP voters are going to pick Romney over Obama.  A great many of them are, but some will stay home too.  A very small percentage may even vote for Obama, although I can't imagine it being more than a couple percent max.  Certainly there will be disillusioned Obama voters who will stay home or cast their vote for Romney too.  I'm not sure how many of each will be out there, but Romney certainly doesn't have an advantage over the President in that respect if he can't break 67% in a one man race.

On the other hand, last night was the end of Newt Gingrich's run whether or not he wants to admit it.  He's done.  On the gripping hand, Gingrich did as good or better than Ron Paul and nobody's expecting Paul to get out the race either, so why should Newt quit?  The latest PPP poll in Texas shows that state's primary is still in play, with Romney having a 45%-35% lead over Gingrich in the state (Yeah, Mitt Romney may not even get 50% in Texas.  Think about THAT for a while.)

Combine that with news that Ron Paul has managed to secure delegates in Iowa and Minnesota and this coronation isn't going quite as smoothly as Mitt would like.

Meanwhile, on the Dem side of things, two Blue Dogs went down in flames in Pennsylvania, primaried out due to redistricting.  Rep. Tim Holden voted against the PPACA and got shown the door as his district went far more blue, losing by 16 points to Matt Cartwright, who ran, shockingly, as a liberal and won.  Holden was expected to be redistricted out but the margin of victory was pretty telling.

But the real story was Rep. Jason Altmire's 2 point loss to Rep. Mark Critz, and the difference?  Organized labor came out big for Critz and gave him the win.  There's an important lesson there for Democrats if they're willing to listen.

But Is The Kroog A Boss Fight?

The Invisible Hand of the Free Market has a joystick, yo.

For Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX), 76, the 2012 Republican primaries are probably his last tango with presidential politics. But the aging libertarian will still achieve his life-long dream of crushing the nation’s Federal Reserve banking system… If a Houston-based video game developer is successful, that is.

Daniel Williams, 27, recently published a fundraising appeal for a forthcoming video game based on the candidate’s exploits. With the help of crowd-funding website Kickstarter, he hit the goal of $5,000 within a matter of days, based upon the commitments of just 40 backers as of this story’s publication.

Speaking to Raw Story on Wednesday, Williams said his main inspiration for the game was the 1992 8-bit classic “Krusty’s Fun House,” where Krusty the Clown from “The Simpsons” has to set traps for mice and capture them.

For the Ron Paul game, instead of mice it’s delegates. And he collects gold coins — lots and lots of gold coins — naturally. And who could forget the most epic political video game cover art of all time, featuring candidate Paul and his wife Carol in a “Star Wars”-like pose in front of a giant screeching eagle, the Statue of Liberty and exploding red fireworks?

"Faux hipster retro crap-ass crowd-source funded schlock based on one of the worst NES games ever made" so perfectly encapsulates the entire Ron Paul experience on so many different levels that it really is hard for me to imagine that it wasn't tried before. Blimp versus Helicopter Ben writes itself. Kinda sad I didn't think of it first.

No, seriously. It's this awesome.



Behold insanity.

Last Call

And with folks around here in the Ohio/Kentucky/Indiana tri-state area still cleaning up from Friday's tornadoes, Ron Paul tells each and every one of the victims to go to hell and rot.

Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, stood by his libertarian beliefs on Sunday, saying that victims of the violent storms and tornadoes that have battered a band of states in the South and Midwest in recent days should not be given emergency financial aid from the federal government.

"There is no such thing as federal money," Paul said, on CNN’s State of the Union. "Federal money is just what they steal from the states and steal from you and me."

"The people who live in tornado alley, just as I live in hurricane alley, they should have insurance," Paul said.

Ron Paul isn't running to be President of the United States.  He's running to replace it with the Hunger Games.  Let the districts fight among themselves and may the odds ever be in your favor.  Isn't it nice to know that if a tornado rips through where you live, Ron Paul won't lift a finger because the other 305,000,000 of us shouldn't have to help?  It's your fault you happened to be where the tornado was, so screw you and your family and your neighborhood.  Move to a better state.

But you see, Ron Paul isn't the only one.  Gov. John Kasich feels the exact same way about his state.

Ohio Gov. John Kasich said thanks but no thanks to immediate federal disaster relief Saturday, even as governors in Indiana and Kentucky welcomed the help.

Kasich did not rule out asking for assistance later, but his decision means tornado-ravaged towns in Ohio will not get federal aid now and are not eligible at this time for potentially millions of dollars in payments and loans.

The governor said Ohio can respond to the crisis without federal help and he would not ask federal authorities to declare the region a disaster area.

“I believe that we can handle this,” Kasich said while visiting a shelter for storm victims at New Richmond High School. “We’ll have down here all the assets of the state.”

Can anyone ever recall a governor turning down disaster aid for multiple tornadoes?  That would be a first.  Of course, there's another first in the White House right now, which most likely explains this first too.

Needless to say, donating to the Cincy Red Cross is much more necessary now.  Donate here.

The American way, indeed.

Walla Walla Ding Dong

Mitt Romney has taken the Washington State caucuses from last night, 38%-25%...over Ron Paul.  Santorum came in a close third at 24%.

Mitt Romney won the Republican caucuses in Washington state, according to unofficial results early Sunday, giving the former Massachusetts governor a shot in the arm heading into Super Tuesday contests.

With 99% of the vote in, Romney had 38%. Texas Rep. Ron Paul had 25% and former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum had 24%. They were trailed by former House Speaker Newt Gingrich at 10%.

At stake in the contest are 40 delegates.

"We're in a good second place, but the good news is we're doing very, very well in getting delegates," Paul told supporters in Seattle, when about half of the vote had been counted. "The enthusiasm for the cause of liberty continues to grow exponentially."

It's certainly a blow to Santorum to come in third, making Ohio all that much more important for all four candidates.  Gingrich, Santorum and Romney were in Cincinnati yesterday rather than Seattle or Walla Walla.

With 72 hours to go before Ohio voters go to the polls, the Republican White House hopefuls made a mad dash across the state Saturday – with the three leading contenders targeting Greater Cincinnati.

They revved up fervent supporters, sought converts and threw jabs at each other in the home stretch of this pivotal primary contest.

Rick Santorum rallied hundreds of his supporters with a passionate speech about “liberty” and “American exceptionalism” in an overheated hotel conference room in Blue Ash. Newt Gingrich talked about gas prices and energy issues at the Back Porch Saloon in West Chester. And Mitt Romney wrapped up a three-stop tour of the state at a “Ribs With Mitt” gathering at Cincinnati’s Montgomery Inn Boathouse.

I can tell you about the venues.  Any hotel in business park laden Blue Ash says "I'm a grown up, why won't you listen,"  The Back Porch in IKEA country of tony West Chester says "I'm pretending to working class but so is everyone else here" and the Montgomery Inn boathouse location down by the levee says "I'm pretending to be working class and failing miserably."  He probably ruined a lot of people's evenings who were planning to go eat ribs, it's pretty much the busiest restaurant in Cincy and he and his Secret Service detail probably put a whole bunch of hungry people out.

In other words, completely a Mitt thing to do.  Douchebag.

The Long, Stupid Defeat Of Willard Romney

At this point Mittens is just plain giving up.

A Republican debate that was set to be held on March, five days before Super Tuesday, now appears to be on ice — with Newt Gingrich the only candidate confirmed for it, and the others either turning it down or not accepting.

The debate is (or was) set to be held in Atlanta, and was set to be hosted by CNN and the state Republican parties of both Georgia and Ohio. Recent polls have shown favorite son Newt Gingrich with a big lead in Georgia, and Rick Santorum pulling ahead comfortably in Ohio.

But the dominoes really started falling Thursday, after Mitt Romney opted to not accept the invitation.

And now the Georgia debate has been canceled.  To recap, the front runner is now pulling out of debates because he can't out-argue Rick Santorum, Newt Gingrich, and Ron Paul.

I submit that Mitt Romney is now running the worst campaign in American presidential history.  And unless something dramatic happens, Mitt will *be* history...and the nominee will be Santorum.

That can't happen.  It would prove God exists, and that She's trolling the Republicans.

Ron Paul Gets Brutally Honest

There's candid, there's revealingly honest, and then there's too much information.  Pretty much everything out of Ron Paul's mouth goes into the third category.

In an interview from Las Vegas on Piers Morgan Tonight, Morgan asked whether as a man with daughters and granddaughters, Rep. Paul (R-TX) thinks that abortion is warranted if a woman has been impregnated by a rapist.

“If it’s an honest rape,” Paul replied, “that individual should go immediately to the emergency room, I would give them a shot of estrogen.” He claimed, however, that if a woman is “seven months pregnant” and says that she was raped, “It’s a little bit of a different story.”

The candidate was not forthcoming as to precisely how the “story” is different or what constitutes an “honest rape” versus a dishonest one.

Given Ron Paul's known views on social issues from his newsletter, my immediate thought is that Paul meant "honest rape" as "physically against the woman's will as part of a brutal crime, probably committed by a slope-brow minority" as opposed to a dishonest one, which is "she really meant yes all along, the bitch."

Not sure which is worse.  I am sure that Ron Paul is arguably one of the least deserving human beings on earth to have a leadership position in US politics.

Last Call

So Mittens had the Florida primary sewn up by 8 PM apparently, and now we have a month with no debates and several smaller caucuses up until Arizona and Michigan at the end of the month, and Super Tuesday on March 6th.

I don't see the Non-Romneys going too much further past Super Tuesday, frankly.  Shame too.  I was really hoping for an ugly primary season.

Now it's still possible that it could go on.  Newt especially has a lot of ego and could get the fundraising once Santorum leaves...but I doubt it.  Mitt just has too much money and he sent a clear message that he has the juice to swamp anyone who goes up against him in the primary.

On the other hand, it's looking like Romney can't top 50% even when he's basically running unopposed.  Santorum and Paul left the state days ago, and Mitt outspent Newt by more than 6 to 1.  Mitt still couldn't crack 50%.

He should get used to that 47% number in Florida, I think.

Last Call

In all seriousness, if you still actually believe that Ron Paul was somehow unaware of the awful racist things being said in his own newsletter, you deserve the grifting you get from people like him.

The Republican presidential candidate has denied writing inflammatory passages in the pamphlets from the 1990s and said recently that he did not read them at the time or for years afterward. Numerous colleagues said he does not hold racist views.

But people close to Paul’s operations said he was deeply involved in the company that produced the newsletters, Ron Paul & Associates, and closely monitored its operations, signing off on articles and speaking to staff members virtually every day.

“It was his newsletter, and it was under his name, so he always got to see the final product. . . . He would proof it,’’ said Renae Hathway, a former secretary in Paul’s company and a supporter of the Texas congressman’s.

The newsletters point to a rarely seen and somewhat opaque side of Paul, who has surprised the political community by becoming an important factor in the Republican race. The candidate, who has presented himself as a kindly doctor and political truth teller, declined in a recent debate to release his tax returns, joking that he would be “embarrassed” about his income compared with that of his richer GOP rivals.

Yet a review of his enterprises reveals a sharp-eyed businessman who for nearly two decades oversaw the company and a nonprofit foundation, intertwining them with his political career. The newsletters, which were launched in the mid-1980s and bore such names as the Ron Paul Survival Report, were produced by a company Paul dissolved in 2001.

He's a snake oil salesman just like the rest of them.  And like every other hack, huckster, cheat and thief, his message is tailored to the gullible and those who want to believe.  Whether or not Ron Paul actually believes that racist nonsense isn't the point: the point is he was willing to use it in order to reach a particular demographic of people who did, and he purposefully sought their political and financial support in order to win.

That makes him a complete scumbag in my book.  Period, point blank.  He traded on the politics of hate for years.  The 2012 race was made for him, and lo and behold, he's getting enough attention now to be considered a threat.  He's either a liar willing to push racism and bigotry as a fundraising tool, or he actually believes this foul idiocy.  I'm not sure which one is worse overall, because either way the poison he's infected this race with will ravage the body politic for a long, long time.

There is nothing that Ron Paul can possibly say that qualifies as "a good point" while he's pushing garbage like this.  And if he is saying things that you believe America needs to hear, then you had better find another messenger than this fool, because American will rightfully never take that message seriously as long as Ron Paul is the voice of that message, and with ample cause.  He's too tainted.  End of story.

The Big GOP Debate Thread: Flori-duh

Naturally, the big topic at the final Florida GOP debate before Tuesday's primary was immigration, and all four candidates traded shots on the subject.

Early in the evening, Romney drew frequent applause when he pushed back attacks by Gingrich over immigration.

Gingrich called Romney the most anti-immigrant candidate on the debate stage, repeating a charge in a campaign ad Gingrich eventually pulled after a complaint it was unfair by Republican Sen. Marco Rubio.

Romney responded with outrage, accusing Gingrich of using "highly-charged epithets" irresponsibly and denying he wants to deport all of the nation's estimated 11 million illegal immigrants.

However, Gingrich and Santorum also agreed with Romney that at least some illegal immigrants would be likely to "self-deport" if the government were to crack down on employers who hired illegal immigrants. All three men advocated a system of identification for immigrants that would help employers verify an employee's legal status.

Ron Paul chimed in with much the same, that if businesses made the economic climate uncomfortable for undocumented immigrants, they'd leave.  In a state where the Latino voting population could make or break a candidate, all four of these clowns agreed that the chief role of government as far as immigration was concerned was to make life as miserable as possible for Latinos, even Ron Paul.

Not a one of them noted that enforcement under President Obama increased deportations much higher than under previous Presidents either, they were all too busy attacking the President's "weak" immigration policy.

On the issue of health care, Gingrich didn't have too much ammunition.  Rick Santorum saw his chance and took it.

After Romney described his health reforms and noted his pledge to repeal Obamacare, Santorum shot back that Romney said “government-run top down medicine is working well in Massachusetts and he supports it.”

“That’s not what I said,” Romney replied. But Santorum kept rolling.

“Think about what that means going up against Barack Obama, who you are going to claim, ‘well, it doesn’t work and we should repeal,’” he said. “He’s going to say, ‘Wait a minute, governor. You said it works well in Massachusetts.’ Folks — we can’t give this issue away in this election. It is about fundamental freedom.”


Almost confirming Santorum’s point, Romney responded by defending the aspects of his own law that were most directly reproduced in the Affordable Care Act: a mandate to require people to have insurance and a subsidized exchange in which individuals can choose between private health care plans.

“Rick, I make enough mistakes in what I said not for you to add more mistakes to what I said,” he began. “I didn’t say I’m in favor of top down government-run health care…If you don’t want to buy insurance, then you have to help pay for the cost of the state picking up your bill because under federal law if someone doesn’t have insurance, then we have to care for them in the hospitals, give them free care. We said no more free riders. We are insisting on personal responsibility.”

But given the fact that some 400,000 Floridians have already cast absentee ballots, the final debate may not have mattered much.  We'll see what happens on Tuesday.

The South Shall Rise Again

Please tell me again how Ron Paul loves black people, because he sure digs the Confederacy, man. Imani lays it out, via News One:

Here is Ron Paul giving a speech about how the South was right, and the Civil War was awful because it destroyed “individual choice.” Never mind “individual choice” vis-à-vis the enslaved; they weren’t people and thus could lay no claim to “individuality” or “liberty.” What Paul means by “individual choice,” is “white men’s (specifically white property-owning men) individual choice.”

Just look at this silly little man, standing proudly in front of a Confederate flag talking about the enslavement of black people in transactional terms. In the Ron Paul Gospel, adherence to the quintessential American values of “individual choice and” “liberty” would have required the Yankees to buy the slaves’ freedom. A detestable notion, to be sure, but also historically inaccurate since, as we all know, the South started it.

Ultimately, when it comes to black people, the world “liberty” seems to disappear from Paul’s vocabulary. Funny, that.

At this point, with Paul's anti-war stance and civil liberties stance thoroughly debunked, he's got nothing left but this nasty coded "state's rights" nonsense.  And that hasn't changed since 1860.

Any "progressive" backing Paul was never a progressive, liberal, lefty, or hippie or whatever in the first place.  Please feel free to defend him in the comments, so we know who you are.

Iowa-nder Who Will Win?

The most useless political beauty contest of the year gets under way today, and final polling out of PPP shows a 3-way race among the government-hating bigot, the spineless millionaire, and the frothy God-botherer. 

The Republican caucus in Iowa is headed for a photo finish, with the three leading contenders all within two points of each other.  Ron Paul is at 20%, Mitt Romney at 19%, and Rick Santorum at 18%. Rounding out the field are Newt Gingrich at 14%, Rick Perry at 10%, Michele Bachmann at 8%, Jon Huntsman at 4%, and Buddy Roemer at 2%.


The momentum in the race is completely on Santorum's side. He's moved up 8 points since a PPP poll earlier in the week, while no one else has seen more than a one point gain in their support. Among voters who say they decided who to vote for in the last seven days he leads Romney 29-17 with Paul and Gingrich both at 13.

Santorum's net favorability of 60/30 makes him easily the most popular candidate in the field. No one else's favorability exceeds 52%.  He may also have more room to grow in the final 48 hours of the campaign than the other front runners: 14% of voters say he's their second choice to 11% for Romney and only 8% for Paul. Santorum's taken the lead with two key groups of Republican voters: with Tea Partiers he's at 23% to 18% for Gingrich, 16% for Paul, 15% for Bachmann, and only 12% for Romney.  And with Evangelicals he's at 24% to 16% for Gingrich, and 15% for Paul and Romney.

It seems the anti-Romney with the best timing is indeed Santorum, who could very well win this thing.  Of course, four years ago Mike Huckabee won in Iowa, and he promptly crashed and burned as everyone threw their support behind John McCain after his win in New Hampshire.  On the other hand, Barack Obama won Iowa in 2008, and that ended up putting him on the map...and eventually in the White House.  You can't say Iowa is meaningless, although for Republicans, South Carolina is the primary that seems to flag down the eventual winner.  The Palmetto State has picked the eventual GOP nominee every year since Reagan in 1980.

And Newt Gingrich had a commanding lead there before Christmas.  Now?  Who knows.  But today at least, we'll find out if Romney can win...and what the GOP base's reaction will be if he does.  If he doesn't win (and the polls show he could end up third or even fourth behind Gingrich) things get very interesting going into New Hampshire, where Romney has a 26 point margin.  If Romney doesn't win in Iowa, and finishes worse than second (very, very possible) and whoever does win in Iowa comes in second in New Hampshire, things get really crazy.

We'll see what happens today.  My gut says Romney won't win here.