Tag: Ron Paul

Ron Paul On Ukraine

Former representative, Ron Paul, has made his feelings known about what he calls a ‘boondoggle’…..

Last week the world stood on the very edge of a nuclear war, as Ukraine’s US-funded president, Vladimir Zelensky, urged NATO military action over a missile that landed on Polish soil. “This is a Russian missile attack on collective security! This is a really significant escalation. Action is needed,” said Zelensky immediately after the missile landed.

But there was a problem. The missile was fired from Ukraine – likely an accident in the fog of war. Was it actually a Russian missile, of course, that might mean World War III. But Zelensky didn’t seem to be bothered by the prospect of the world blown up, judging from his reckless rhetoric.

While Zelensky has been treated as a saint by the US media, the Biden Administration, and both parties in Congress, something unprecedented happened this time: the Biden Administration pushed back. According to press reports, several Zelensky calls to Biden or senior Biden Staff went unanswered.

When US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan finally returned Zelensky’s call, he is reported to have said, “tread carefully” on claims Russia was behind the missiles landing in Poland. The Biden Administration went on to publicly dispute Zelensky’s continued insistence that Russia shot missiles into NATO-Member Poland. After two days of Washington opposition to his claims, Zelensky finally, sort of, backed down.

We’ve heard rumors of President Biden’s frustration over Zelensky’s endless begging and ingratitude for the 60 or so billion dollars doled out to him by the US government, but this is the clearest public example of the Biden Administration’s acceptance that it has a “Zelensky problem.”

Zelensky must have understood that Washington and Brussels knew it was not a Russian missile. Considering the vast intelligence capabilities of the US in that war zone, it is likely the US government knew in real time that the missiles were not Russian. For Zelensky to claim otherwise seemed almost unhinged. And for what seems like the first time, Washington noticed.

As a result, there has been a minor – but hopefully growing – revolt among conservatives in Washington over this dangerous episode. Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor-Greene introduced legislation demanding an audit of the tens of billions of dollars shipped to Ukraine – with perhaps $50 billion more in the pipeline. The resolution currently has eleven co-sponsors.

Rep. Matt Gaetz has publicly stated that he would not vote for one more dollar for Ukraine. Others, like US Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ), have gone even further. In a recent Tweet Rep. Gosar called US support for Ukraine a “corrupt money-laundering operation.” As the fallout from the recent collapse of the FTX crypto exchange points to possible political corruption, his claims may prove to be accurate.

When Sen. Paul introduced an amendment to the massive aid package to Ukraine calling for someone to audit the funds, he was ridiculed and attacked. Some seven months later, his position appears far more accepted. And that’s a good thing.

When the Ukraine war hysteria finally dies down – as the Covid hysteria died down before it – it will become obvious to vastly more Americans what an absolute fiasco this whole thing has been. Hopefully Republicans will accelerate that process when they take the House in January. It cannot come too soon!

(antiwar.com)

I am by no means a Libertarian but I will agree with Paul on several of his points….

I do not understand Americans that blindly accept whatever crap spread by the government and their agents, the media….money wasted and no one cares.

Taylor-Green, someone I do not care for, has led the charge in the House to audit the Ukraine aid packages….

A group of House Republicans introduced a bill Thursday to audit the funds that Congress has approved to spend on the war in Ukraine.

The effort is being led by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) and supported by a group of Republicans that have been critical of US aid to Ukraine. The resolution’s cosponsors include Reps. Thomas Massie (KY), Matt Gaetz (FL), Barry Moore (AL), Andrew Clyde (GA), and Cory Mills, a representative-elect from Florida.

According to The Hill, Greene introduced the bill as a privileged resolution, meaning it will be sent to the relevant committee, which will have 14 business days to either reject the legislation or approve it for a vote on the House floor.

If the bill is not discussed by the committee within 14 days, Greene has the option to force a House vote. Greene said she’s prepared to reintroduce the bill in the next Congress when Republicans have a majority in the House.

“I’ll introduce this resolution again, but I’ll also be calling for a full audit. We voted ‘no’ to send money over there, but we’re also going to audit what’s happening in Ukraine,” Greene said.

While most Republicans still support spending on the war in Ukraine, many have come out in favor of increasing oversight of the aid. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), who is expected to be the speaker in the next Congress, has said a Republican-controlled House wouldn’t send a “blank check” to Ukraine.

McCarthy later downplayed his comments and said the lack of oversight was the issue, and other Republican leaders insisted they would keep arming Ukraine. But McCarthy’s comments were still enough to prompt a push to approve a massive new Ukraine aid package before the next Congress is sworn in, and the White House has asked for $37.7 billion.

If the new aid package is approved, it will bring total US spending on a proxy war on Russia’s border to about $105 billion. If it’s spent at the rate of other aid packages, the White House will likely be looking for more come spring.

I agree with the principle of the audit but I fear this bill is nothing more than grandstanding by the Repubs….after all the people on the committees are owned by the contractors that are making out like bandits from these aid packages.

Speaking of more aid…..

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen announced Tuesday an additional $4.5 billion in direct budgetary aid for the Ukrainian government.

Yellen said that the new funds will bring total US budgetary aid for Ukraine to $13 billion, and more is coming as Ukraine expects the US to help pay for its massive budget deficit in 2023.

The aid is being disbursed by the US through the World Bank. According to the US Agency for International Development (USAID), the funds will be sent to Ukraine in two tranches before the end of 2022.

The budgetary aid is meant to fund Ukrainian government services. USAID said that there will be “robust safeguards” and third-party monitoring to “ensure accountability and transparency in the use of these funds,” but it’s not clear how much real oversight there will be.

(antiwar.com)

Ukraine demands and expects the US to pay all their bills….and yet no one cares.

Thoughts?

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Ron Paul suggests support for Jill Stein

I am a supporter of a 3rd Party candidate, Jill Stein of the Green Party.

The Libertarian Party candidate, Gary Johnson is polling better than Stein…if true then the US is more center-Right than the media wants to acknowledge…plus I cannot understand the popularity of this candidate.

The Green Party foreign policy is more in line with my thoughts than the Libertarians even though they are all for non-intervention….Johnson is just a moron on foreign policy……I cannot support him.

Looks like I am not alone.

Even hard-core Libertarian Ron Paul will be supporting Dr. Stein……

“She’s probably the best on foreign policy at the moment,” Paul said of the Green Party nominee on Monday

Former Texas congressman Ron Paul, a longtime hero of the libertarian right, surprised many on Monday when he told MSNBC that he has no plans to back Libertarian Party presidential nominee Gary Johnson.

Paul, who himself was the Libertarian nominee in 1988 and ran as a Republican primary candidate on several subsequent occasions, said he actually prefers Green Party nominee Jill Stein on important issues like civil liberties and foreign policy.

“She’s probably the best on foreign policy at the moment,” Paul said, stressing that he hasn’t endorsed anyone for president yet.

Source: Ron Paul suggests support for Jill Stein, admits he is “disappointed” by Gary Johnson – Salon.com

Ron Paul may be voting for Dr. Jill Stein…..maybe now you alternate voters will take notice…..the key is Paul’s statement…….“She’s probably the best on foreign policy at the moment,” Paul said……..can you hear me now?

If a Right leaning politician can see that Stein is the better candidate….why can;t you?

THINK GREEN!

Rand Paul, Electoral Surprise?

Not really!

But in case you have been asleep after eating a drugged apple, let me refresh your memory…..just two days ago the son of Rep. Ron Paul won the Repub nomination for the senate seat in Kentucky after beating the fav of the GOP…this in a state that the Senate Minority leader is from and endorsed the other candidate……it was big news that he went against the established leadership of the Party and won the nomination……

But that is NOT the surprise!

Just hours after his win he had a couple of interviews and was asked if he believed segregation was okay in the private sector…..basically, he said it was fine if a privately owned company wanted to discriminate and that it was none of the governments business (I am paraphrasing)….

Immediately the media was all a gaga at his answer…they were caught by surprise….instantaneously they began to condemn him for his beliefs and saying that he needs to get out in front of the story…..

They were surprised!

(Thinking…..thinking……thinking…..)  What part of Libertarian do they NOT understand?  Do any of these “well informed” journalist ever pay attention to what is going on around them?  Where is the surprise?

Rand Paul is a Libertarian!  While there are some of their positions that I can agree with, most notably….anti-war, anti_IRS and anti Federal Reserve…..but that is where I cease to agree with them……other beliefs, of which there are many, that I cannot understand is their belief that capitalism will end racism or that capitalism will end poverty or CEOs deserve their massive bonuses or cheap imports do NOT destroy American jobs……just a few of the beliefs that I have a problem with….

Rand Paul is a Libertarian and he believes in some if not ALL of the things that I mentioned……So where is the surprise?  I am NOT surprised in the least…and the morons making the big bucks should be less surprised than me…..But then I do not search for a sound bite on which to make a story…..

A Revolution Or A Cultural War?

Inkwell Institute

2010/12 Election Series

Lots has been said by many in the media of a possible revolution in politics…..it began in New York with the failed attempt of a political outsider and continued on to Mass where Brown won in a landslide over a traditional Dem and now we come to the latest CPAC and their straw vote on a presidential candidate and for the last three years everyone has been enamored with Mitt Romney…but this year he had to settle for the “also ran” category for the winner was Rep. Ron Paul of Texas a Libertarian in the GOP…….the GOP was surprised at the vote, but they are NOT paying attention….anyone that is watching politics was not caught off guard…..at least we see the anger, even if the Repubs do not…..

Looks like a culture war is brewing….maybe even as pronounced as the one during the Nixon years…..Marc Ambinder of the Atlantic has a few observations of the battle brewing:

1. The Tea Partiers are a movement within the Republican Party; it is increasing the energy density inside the GOP; very few Tea Partiers are true independents. It remains to be determined how many of them are not registered to vote, or how many of them are unreliable Republican voters.
2. There are different Tea Party movements; some parts seem more influenced by different issue sets than others; it is mostly a shared sensibility; a few common strands run between them: outrage and anger at Washington, and a diffuse but palpable sense that the Elites and the Obama administration are changing the way American works — and looks and acts — for the worse.
3. The Republican primary base is different than the Ron Paul revolutionaries, many of whom are not registered Republican. They’ll be more influential in open primaries than closed primaries.
4. Ron Paul is really the only libertarian with street cred. (Gary Johnson, the former New Mexico governor? He gets the issues but doesn’t speak the language well.)
5. The Tea Partiers and Ron Paul’s libertarians overlap to some degree, but they differ strongly on national security, and the Tea Partiers are, generally, more ready to identify as Republicans than Paulites are. They’re also older.
6. Sarah Palin seems like a natural candidate for the Tea Party crowd; from a very un-elite state, anti-technocrat; anti-shades of gray; she’s taken on the elites and lost, and has a cross to bear; their embrace of her, for the most part, reveals how orthodox the TP movement actually is.  Problem for Palin: if she’s seen as part of the establishment, she won’t play as well with the Tea Partiers. She really will have to run as an outsider and forcibly reject, for example, the Weekly Standard types who are rooting for her.
7. Uniting the Paulites and the Tea Parties is a view about the the role of government, expressed in the familiar cliches: low taxes, creeping socialism, lay off.  And, I would argue, a geo-racial-ethnic anxiety about the emerging majority-minority nation and its attendent economic effects. When the immigration debate flares up, watch out.
8. Mitt Romney and Tim Pawlenty have no chance whatsover to share the sensibility of the Tea Partiers and the Paulites, certainly not in their current incarnations. They don’t speak the language; and because the movement is not about particular issues, their resumes don’t particularly matter. Romney and Pawlenty have a much better chance with that portion of the GOP base which does not identify with the Tea Party movement — which is, by definition, more establishmentarian and hierarchical. The Tea Partiers, at least, have a vehicle for advancing a candidate; Libertarians (the Paulites) really don’t, because they are…libertarians and don’t like to be all collective-y.

9. Romney could not be positioned more poorly to harness the Tea Partiers, the Paulites, and the social conservatives right now: protestant evangelicals still think he’s a Mormon of the suspect kind (unlike, say, John Huntsman Jr., who comes off as a real guy); he is a national security hawk at a time when there is a growing “get us out of there” movement within the base of the GOP; he is unlikely to embrace libertarianism (gambling, marijuana, civil unions) that would transform his political image and attract some of the Paulites; his immigration positioning is solid enough, but his association with the GOP establishment — he’s seen as the establishment candidate — will make anything he says suspect. A deft candidate, which Romney can be, can find a way to articulate a muscular vision for national security (pro “enhanced interrogation,” anti-Gitmo closing) but simultaneously argue that American strength ought not be projected, lest it be diluted.

There seems to be a mounting opposition to the standards set by the GOP…the Tea Partyers, Libertarians, and others are preparing for a run at the 2010 and 2012 elections…..the young voters are tired of the crap in Washington and they showed their disappointment with the GOP at the CPAC……

But with all their anger, the Tea Partyers seem to be shying away from traditional conservative planks like family, faith, especially the meat of GOP politics gay marriage and abortion……The motto of the Tea Party Patriots, a large coalition of groups, is “fiscal responsibility, limited government, and free markets.” The Independence Caucus questionnaire, which many Tea Party groups use to evaluate candidates, poses 80 questions, most on the proper role of government, tax policy and the federal budgeting process, and virtually none on social issues.  (Reported in the NY Times)…..

I found a very interesting thought on Republicans United (go to blogroll it is a very good and informative site) one of their writers, Travis Johnson, when writing about Dick Armey and the Tea Party, had some excellent points that I feel would be a winner if the GOP would just put aside the BS and concentrate on good governance…….

Republicans can counter the Democrats promises of hand-outs with a hand-up.  We need to be actively encourage English-language and GED classes for legal immigrants.  We should work with poor minorities to get them trained to do the jobs we are currently importing.  We should target extremely low-interest government loans and grants to poor people to start their own businesses (then, keep the tax burden extremely low for them, to give them room to thrive).  We should sponsor community-run childcare facilities to ensure the people who would be working or going to school so that they can feed their families don’t leave their children home to fend for themselves and can have adult supervision top help them with homework and teach them how to stay out of trouble.

These ideas are winners…..this is why it is time for moderate even liberal Republicans to take back the party of Lincoln from the hijackers that are now in control.

There is NO political revolution approaching. but there is what I believe a cultural war coming…….old farts will remember the one from the Nixon years….and with all that said….with the “new” mode of thought could also attract old farts like me……

To Be Continued……….

Ron Paul On Bailouts

Ron Paul was question on CNN about the bank bailouts and he had some interesting responses:

“If a gangster steals money and he’s successful, you don’t celebrate. Yeah they might be. This is just going to make the people angrier. They ripped us off, took all of this money, and now they’re making bundles? It’s just an unfair system to penalize average people, inflate the currency and bring on another crisis and undermine the whole system.

So I would say a bank’s success here and there is not necessarily something to celebrate. It’s still pretty early. I don’t think we’re out of the woods yet to celebrate banks’ successes. What we have to realize is a lot of people stashed away a lot of money and took care of their bonuses and what not. You’re not going to erase the anger that’s come from that just because the bank made a profit. Like I say, it might make things worse.”

Paul has his rabid supporters and maybe they should go after the leadership of the GOP….at least they have some pretty solid ideas, even if I do not agree wioth them, they are ideas.   A lot more than the present leadership can say.

Ron Paul Speaks On Gaza

The following is Rep. Ron Paul’s statement on H. Res. 34, “Recognizing Israel’s right to defend itself against attacks from Gaza, reaffirming the United States’ strong support for Israel, and supporting the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.”

Madame Speaker, I strongly oppose H. Res. 34, which was rushed to the floor with almost no prior notice and without consideration by the House Foreign Affairs Committee. The resolution clearly takes one side in a conflict that has nothing to do with the United States or U.S. interests. I am concerned that the weapons currently being used by Israel against the Palestinians in Gaza are made in America and paid for by American taxpayers. What will adopting this resolution do to the perception of the United States in the Muslim and Arab world? What kind of blowback might we see from this? What moral responsibility do we have for the violence in Israel and Gaza after having provided so much military support to one side?

As an opponent of all violence, I am appalled by the practice of lobbing homemade rockets into Israel from Gaza. I am only grateful that, because of the primitive nature of these weapons, there have been so few casualties among innocent Israelis. But I am also appalled by the long-standing Israeli blockade of Gaza – a cruel act of war – and the tremendous loss of life that has resulted from the latest Israeli attack that started last month.

There are now an estimated 700 dead Palestinians, most of whom are civilians. Many innocent children are among the dead. While the shooting of rockets into Israel is inexcusable, the violent actions of some people in Gaza does not justify killing Palestinians on this scale. Such collective punishment is immoral. At the very least, the U.S. Congress should not be loudly proclaiming its support for the Israeli government’s actions in Gaza.

Madame Speaker, this resolution will do nothing to reduce the fighting and bloodshed in the Middle East. The resolution in fact will lead the U.S. to become further involved in this conflict, promising “vigorous support and unwavering commitment to the welfare, security, and survival of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state.” Is it really in the interest of the United States to guarantee the survival of any foreign country? I believe it would be better to focus on the security and survival of the United States, the Constitution of which my colleagues and I swore to defend just this week at the beginning of the 111th Congress. I urge my colleagues to reject this resolution.

Ron Paul Talks With Supporters

The unsuccessful Republican candidate for president told the estimated crowd of 12,000 boisterous supporters that while he would not take credit for the growth of their movement over the last year, “I would hope that our efforts did a lot to speed up the revolution, which was coming anyway.”

He and earlier speakers throughout the day directed much of their criticism at the other event across the way in St. Paul — the Republican National Convention — where they said Republicans, and specifically conservatives, who had lost their way continued to stifle alternative views within the party.

In fact, they have endured “treatment of exclusion, of marginalizing and just making fun of what we are doing,” said the 10-term congressman from Texas. “It didn’t surprise me much. But the more they did that the more it seemed to energize you more.”

“And guess what? Not one single taxpayer cent was spent on this rally,” Paul said with reference to the Democratic and Republican events — which primarily were financed with private donations, though they also required about $20 million each in public security support.

The rest of Paul’s speech included a laundry list of issues revolving around scaling back the federal bureaucracy, preserving civil liberties and ending the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. He lashed out at what he called a preventative war policy that has made the country less safe and has inflamed America’s enemies abroad. He got the biggest applause when suggesting the Federal Reserve system was unconstitutional, as are the federal income tax and the war on drugs.

He closed out his remarks by calling for more urgency, more action, a “peaceful civil disobedience” against big government and what he called unconstitutional behavior in Washington.

Fannie-Freddie Fraud

A statement By Ron Paul:

Statement before the US House of Representatives on HR 3221 July 24, 2008

Madam Speaker,

For several years, followers of the Austrian school of economics have warned that unless Congress moved to end the implicit government guarantee of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and took other steps to disengage the US Government from the housing market, America would face a crisis in housing. This crisis would force Congress to chose between authorizing a taxpayer bailout of Fannie and Freddie, and other measures increasing government’s involvement in housing, or restoring a free-market in housing by ending government support for Fannie and Freddie and repealing all laws that interfere in housing. The bursting of the housing bubble, and the recent near-collapse in investor support for Fannie and Freddie has proven my fellow Austrians correct. Unfortunately, but not surprisingly, instead of ending the prior interventions in the housing market that are responsible for the current crisis, Congress is increasing the level of government intervention in the housing market. This is the equivalent of giving a drug addict another fix, which will only make the necessary withdrawal more painful.

The provision giving the Treasury Secretary a blank check to purchase Fannie and Freddie stock not only makes the implicit government guarantee of Fannie and Freddie explicit, it represents another unconstitutional delegation of Congress’ Constitutional authority to control the allocation of taxpayer dollars. While the Treasury Secretary has to file a report with Congress, the lack of any effective standards for the expenditure of funds makes it impossible for Congress to perform effective oversight on Treasury’s expenditures.

HR 3221 also takes another troubling step toward the creation of surveillance state by creating a Nationwide Mortgage Licensing System and Registry. This federal database will contain personal information about anyone wishing to work as a “loan originator.” “Loan originator” is defined broadly as anyone who “takes a residential loan application; and offers or negotiates terms of a residential mortgage loan for compensation or gain.” According to some analysts, this definition is so broad as to cover part-time clerks and real estate agents who receive even minimal compensation from “originators.” Additionally, this database forced on industry will be funded by fees paid to the federal banking agencies, yet another costly burden to the American taxpayers.

Among the information that will be collected from loan originators for inclusion in the federal database are fingerprints. Madam Speaker, giving the federal government the power to force Americans who wish to work in real estate to submit their fingerprints to a federal database opens the door to numerous abuses of privacy and civil liberties and establishes a dangerous precedent. Fingerprint databases and background checks have been no deterrent to espionage and fraud among governmental agencies, and will likewise fail to prevent fraud in the real estate market. I am amazed to see some members who are usually outspoken advocates of civil liberties and defenders of the Fourth Amendment support this new threat to privacy.

Finally, HR 3221 increases the federal debt limit by $800 billion. We are told that CBO has scored this bill at a cost of $25 billion, but this debt limit increase belies that. The Federal Reserve has already propped up the housing and financial markets to the tune of over $300 billion, and this raise of the debt limit indicates that the cost of this newest bailout will likely be even more costly. I am dismayed that my colleagues have not learned the lessons of the Patriot Act and Sarbanes-Oxley. Massive bills passed in knee-jerk reaction to crisis events will always be poorly written, burdensome and expensive to taxpayers, and destructive of liberty.

Paul To End Campaign

If you are one of the millions or so that support Ron Paul, then this has got to be bad news?  This from ABC News:

Rep. Ron Paul’s presidential campaign, a pugnacious, ideological crusade against big government and interventionist leanings in the Republican party, will officially end Thursday at a rally outside the Texas GOP’s convention, ABC News has learned.

Paul told supporters back in March, in a video posted on his Web site, that he was “winding down” his campaign and planning a new phase to what he and fans call their “revolution.”

The new phase of the revolution officially begins with a speech tonight in Houston and a Web video to be posted on his site, officially ending Paul’s presidential campaign and freeing up the more than $4.7 million in campaign cash for investment in a new advocacy group, The Campaign for Liberty.

The new entity will be used to push a slate of libertarian-minded Republican candidates for public office in local districts nationwide, according to a description provided to ABC News by the Paul campaign. Paul also recently published a new book on his political philosophy, The Revolution: A Manifesto.

But I ask just how successful can he be at pushing his message on the American people?

Paul Is Not Through Yet

Representative Ron Paul, the Republican presidential candidate, will be the main attraction at the Twin Cities confab. No, not the Republican National Convention fewer than eight miles away at the XCel Center, but at his own party, to be held on the second day of the event that will seal Senator John McCain as the G.O.P. nominee.

“This isn’t a protest,” said Jesse Benton, the libertarian-leaning Republican’s spokesman. “This is a celebration of limited government and Republican principles.”

Mr. Paul, of Texas, racked up record-breaking amounts of money and passionate Internet support during his bid for the Republican nomination. He refused to officially quit the race even after Mr. McCain amassed enough delegates to claim the nomination, and he continued to garner around a quarter of the votes in late primaries. About 50 people will attend the convention as delegates pledged to Mr. Paul.

Will Paul retain his supporters through the general?  Will he be a McCain spoiler, the way Nader was accused in 2000?