George Will has a great column this week titled “The Toxic Assets We Elected.” In it he describes the anti-constitutional moves taken by the Obama Administration and Democrats in Congress.

A summary:

• The Supremacy Clause in the United States Constitution, article VI, paragraph 2 states that treaties are the “supreme law of the land” and yet Obama is violating the North American Free Trade Agreement with his unilateral decision to ban Mexican trucks from American highways as a favor to the Teamsters Union.
• Article I, section 2 states that “The House of Representatives shall be composed of Members chosen every second Year by the People of the several States“ yet Democrats in the House are readying a plan to give full voting privileges to a Democrat Representative for the District of Columbia, which by any definition is NOT a state.

Will Concludes:

This is but a partial list of recent lawlessness, situational constitutionalism and institutional derangement. Such political malfeasance is pertinent to the financial meltdown as the administration, desperately seeking confidence, tries to stabilize the economy by vastly enlarging government’s role in it.

Ron Paulians who rail against what Will calls this sort of “situational constitutionalism” have only one viable course of action: rejoin the GOP coalition. That’s right. No more wasted time pursuing some impossible ideological purity. No more idle wankering about third party movements that only serve to enable Democrats.

Time for Ron Paul supporters to come home to the GOP. Don’t worry, you’ll be welcome. Just sit at the back and be quiet for a time. We’re all working for the same cause.

Currency specialist Avinash Persaud, a member of the panel of experts, told a Reuters Funds Summit in Luxembourg that the proposal was to create something like the old Ecu, or European currency unit, that was a hard-traded, weighted basket.

Persaud, chairman of consultants Intelligence Capital and a former currency chief at JPMorgan, said the recommendation would be one of a number delivered to the United Nations on March 25 by the U.N. Commission of Experts on International Financial Reform.

“It is a good moment to move to a shared reserve currency,” he said.

Central banks hold their reserves in a variety of currencies and gold, but the dollar has dominated as the most convincing store of value — though its rate has wavered in recent years as the United States ran up huge twin budget and external deficits.

Some analysts said news of the U.N. panel’s recommendation extended dollar losses because it fed into concerns about the future of the greenback as the main global reserve currency, raising the chances of central bank sales of dollar holdings.

Financial Times Gwen Robinson also reports on this today, speculating that the Fed’s move to purchase $300 billion in long term Treasuries. and the world’s disenchantment with the US’s economic policies being implemented, was among the reasons for the overnight sell off of the dollar.

All eyes have been on the Fed in the past 24 hours – and all currency gyrations, particularly the dollar’s sharp depreciation – have been attributed to the Fed’s move to spend $300bn on buying long-term Treasuries, among other measures. As some currency analysts observed on Thursday, however, the dollar’s steep decline suggests there may have been some over-reaction to the Fed’s move.

But there are other factors at work behind the dollar’s downward trajectory – not least, growing disenchantment in some parts of the world with US economic policies (or lack thereof), and rumbles about dumping the dollar as the world’s reserve currency and adopting a shared basket of currencies.

~~~

The bottom line was summed up by Chalongphob Sussangkarn, a former Thai finance minister and now president of Thailand Development Research Institute, who said:

The US deficit is so huge. This is why all countries, particularly East Asia, are concerned because we hold a lot of these assets. What happens if the US dollar falls 40 percent? Many central bankers will be losing huge amounts of money.”

Such fears, now spreading among governments about their relatively large holdings of dollar reserves, have been fuelling moves at the United Nations and there is now growing speculation among analysts and forex markets that the UN is preparing a recommendation to member countries to move away from using the dollar as the world’s reserve currency and instead, adopt a shared basket of currencies. No matter that the UN often appears bureaucratic and ineffectual – it sometimes does make an impact – and almost certainly will if it goes ahead with such a push.

Growing speculation about such an announcement was “as large a reason for the overnight sell-off in the dollar, as was the Fed’s announcement to buy US Treasuries as part of their quantitative easing policy”, noted Richard Grace, CBA’s chief currency strategist in a Thursday note.

Grace appears to hold out hope that dollar continues it’s prestigious position, saying the UN doesn’t have the clout of the G7 or IMF; and that the US has the largest economy and most sophisticated bond market in the world.

But the move away from the dollar has been a steady one. Even in the past years, the Euro had been rising as a replacement currency… strong in liquidity in a short time, and a push by the European and Middle East nations to become the trading currency of favor. That is until it faced it’s own economic and financial crises. Another option may have been China, who was eyeing taking on that prominent currency role with the yuan. However any rapid crash of the US dollar takes the Chinese economy – as well as any others holding vast amounts in US dollars – down as well. China hopes for a gentle fall of the dollar.

Thus the UN reasoning of splitting the risk among many currencies. No matter what they choose to recommend, a demotion of the dollar as the world’s reserve currency has severe repercussions on Americans and their future lifestyles.

The dollar has been experiencing a slide since since the early 1900s, but the lion’s share of the decline has been over the past three to four decades, when it unhinged the relationship between gold and the dollar in 1970.

The below video put out in 2007 by Mcalvany ICA – a gold share investment company – has an excellent historical recap of the US dollar.

The nation’s currency who holds the position of the reserve currency benefits from both political and economic clout. But most important, the US trade deficent can only be supporte if the foreigner banks continue to hold U.S. debt in dollars as their reserve currency.

As the Obama admin drives up spending on his agenda, without shoring up the heart of the credit/financial problem, we become ever more dependent upon loans from foreign nations – most notably, China.

Yet China sent a shot over the US financial bow when, in February, Luo Ping, a director-general at the China Banking Regulatory Commission, gave a speech in New York expressing that nation’s skepticism over the future of the dollar. as it relates to the exploding debt.

Mr Luo, speaking at the Global Association of Risk Management’s 10th Annual Risk Management Convention, said: “Except for US Treasuries, what can you hold?” he asked. “Gold? You don’t hold Japanese government bonds or UK bonds. US Treasuries are the safe haven. For everyone, including China, it is the only option.”

Mr Luo, whose English tends toward the colloquial, added: “We hate you guys. Once you start issuing $1 trillion-$2 trillion [$1,000bn-$2,000bn] . . .we know the dollar is going to depreciate, so we hate you guys but there is nothing much we can do.”

However, Mr Luo said Chinese officials would encourage its banks to finance domestic mergers and acquisitions rather than provide rescue finance to distressed financial companies in other countries: “There will be no bottom-fishing of financial institutions, particularly in the US, because there is a lot of uncertainty about the quality of the books.”

China has made note of the economic repercussions that piled onto the CRA rewrite of regulations and increased enforcement on banks when the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act repealed the Glass-Stegall Act in 1999, and signed into law by President Clinton. Both original 1930’s bills were sponsored by Democrats: Senator Carter Glass of Lynchburg, Virginia and a former Secretary of the Treasury: and Congressman Henry B. Steagall of Alabama, Chairman of the House Committee on Banking and Currency.

Scott posted a Shepard Smith segment that ties the relationship between CRA and repeat of Glass-Steagall together for those that can’t seem to follow the snowball-to-avalanch chain of events that led to the current US economic woes. CRA begat the toxic assets and abnormally drove up the housing prices. Gramm-Leach-Bliley allowed the toxicity of overvalued assets to spread even more wildly.

Luo’s opines that the repeal of the act fueled the economic crisis, ignoring the massive influx of new buyers and the beginning of toxic assets under CRA. But being the socialist at heart, supports government nationalization as the ultimate prevention.

Ron Paul, whom I tend to agree with on his economic principles (if not other arenas) warned us about this back in 2007.

Remember, America can maintain a large trade deficit only if foreign banks continue to hold large numbers of dollars as their reserve currency. Our entire consumption economy is based on the willingness of foreigners to hold U.S. debt. We face a reordering of the entire world economy if the federal government cannot print, borrow, and spend money at a rate that satisfies its endless appetite for deficit spending.

At some point Americans must realize that Congress, and the Federal Reserve system that permits the creation of new money by fiat, are the real culprits in the erosion of your personal savings and buying power. Congress relentlessly spends more than the Treasury collects in taxes each year, which means the U.S. government must either borrow or print money to operate – both of which cause the value of the dollar to drop. When we borrow a billion dollars every day simply to run the government, and when the Federal Reserve increases the money supply by trillions of dollars in just 15 years, we hardly can expect our dollars to increase in value.

Just as a caveat, Ron Paul is also a proponent that the Iraq war was actually waged as a dollar defense mission… to counter Saddam’s increased trade in Euros instead of dollars.

So what happens to the US when the world no longer revolves around the dollar? Contrarian Investor’s Journal had an interesting – and somewhat prescient – observation in a post from spring 2008.

Now, what happens if one day, the US dollar no longer becomes the reserve currency? When that day arrives, future generations of Americans will live far much worse their fathers and grandfathers. Why?

The never-ending ballooning Current Account Deficit (CAD) of the US is a reflection of the nation’s spending beyond its means (see Understanding the Balance of Payments for what Current Account Deficit means). The only reason why they can get away with it for so long is because of their reserve currency. As we said before in How does the US export inflation?

~~~

Once the US dollar loses this special status, the nation loses its power to expropriate resources from foreign countries. Since the US has been doing this for decades, their economy’s capacity to cater to the nation’s needs has largely being eroded. In the jargon of the Austrian School of economic thought, the US had been eroding its economy’s capital structure and engaging in capital consumption. An analogy for this situation would be this: Let’s say a king had been spoon-fed with a silver spoon since a child. He was reliant on this servants to take care of his everyday needs as well as to cater to his every whims and fancy. One day, a revolution broke out and the king was overthrown. All of a sudden the king was reduced to a commoner. It is unlikely that he can fend for himself because he does not have any essential life skills every commoner has to learn from young.

Not sobering enough? If you really want to depress yourself, read FinancialSense’s David Andrews particularly morbid op-ed from May 2006, “ROAD KILL ON MAIN STREET”.

It was just a few weeks ago that Obama made an attempt at “Thelma and Louise” cliff humor INRE his healthcare reform proposals:

Inflation, or hyperinflation is the future of the US. When that happens, Obama may lament how economic reality thwarted his dream of “remaking America”…. perhaps never recognizing that it was his own overreach that pounded the last nail into the US economic coffin.

In the wake of his Thelma and Louise humor, it’s a bitter irony that he may well go down in the history books as the lemming who led the rest of the nation’s lemmings off the cliff by trying to do it all… too much, too soon.

This is no joke, folks (well…so-to-speak):

The goal of Paulville.org it to establish gated communities containing 100% Ron Paul supporters and or people that live by the ideals of freedom and liberty.

They just recently purchased 50 acres of land in west Texas for the first of what they hope are many such “gated communities”. Doesn’t that just totally reek of awesomeness? Maybe if they get enough “gated communities” going, they can buy up their own country and call it “Paulistine”. Whatever happened to those millions of voters, anyway?

Can I call the Paul Bearers a cult, yet for this Jonestown-style venture? Or are the Paulbot cyber-Paulice patrol still prowling Technorati for conservative blogs that dare speak ill and disrespectfully of their Chosen One? I guess this post will be a test to see if the Ronulans still pour out of the woodworks to blather about what the Founding Fathers wanted, blowback, 9/11 was an inside job, how the Ron Paul Revolution will win the Presidency, etc.

One community supporter wants to honor their Constitutional Messiah by erecting a statue:

What would everyone think if we made sure that in the public square there was a majestic statue of Mr. Ron Paul holding a copy of the constitution?

Not all Ron Paul supporters are cult-like Paul Reverists:

I realize you all are talking this movement forward with the best of intentions, but by attaching it to Ron Paul you are hurting his cause. Already he and his supporters are labeled “kooks,” and now there’s a (nicely done) Web site…nay, entire GATED NEIGHBORHOODS, that support the notion.
Isn’t Paul already accused of being an isolationist? Well, we know he’s not, but it seems some of his supporters are.

Cutting yourself off from the nation isn’t the solution.

Ah….gotta love dissent within the ranks of the Paul Bearers. Ron Paul himself isn’t about to isolate himself from sane civilization:

“I don’t think that’s the solution,” said the still-running Republican presidential candidate. “You want to spread out and be as pervasive as possible.”

No please….don’t spread out….what happened to isolationism non-interventionism?

But dropping out and creating an isolated community isn’t the answer, says Paul, a congressman from Texas. “You don’t want the ideas to be centered in one place,” he says. “But it shows how desperate people are for freedom.”

Hmm…America’s a community….should her ideals be “centered in one place”? Are there many people outside of our “non-gated community (country)” “desperate” for freedom? Yet we should “mind our own business”, right?

As they have on the website,

“I am just absolutely convinced that the best formula for giving us peace and preserving the American way of life is freedom, limited government, and minding our own business.”

- Ron Paul

I can live with that: them minding their own business.

In other PaulWatch news, the Washington Post, yesterday, reported where some of those donations to the ArPee campaign went:

Ron Paul’s Campaign Is a Family Business, FEC Reports Show

By Matthew Mosk
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, May 27, 2008; A03

Rep. Ron Paul (R-Tex.) has built a national following largely by preaching an isolationist foreign policy. Stick with your own kind, says the maverick presidential candidate.

And that’s more or less what he has been doing over the past few months, putting relatives in a slew of key positions and paying them a total of $169,063, according to the latest campaign finance reports.

Paul’s granddaughter Valori Pyeatt helps organize fundraising receptions and has been paid $17,157. Another granddaughter, Laura Paul ($2,724), handles orders for Ron Paul merchandise. Grandson Matthew Pyeatt ($3,251) manages Paul’s MySpace profile. Daughter Peggy Paul ($2,224) helps with campaign logistics. The candidate’s sons Randall and Robert and his daughter Joy Paul LeBlanc have all been paid for campaign travel and for appearing as surrogates at political events.

Who keeps track of all these finances? Paul’s brother and daughter, naturally, who have been paid a combined $62,740 to handle the campaign’s accounting.

Campaign aides said they discussed the possibility that involving so many family members could create the impression that nepotism was driving hiring decisions, but ultimately they saw no problem with the practice.

“You always think about those kinds of things,” said Jesse Benton, Paul’s spokesman and, it just so happens, the fiance of one of the candidate’s granddaughters (he has been paid $54,573). “But his family is very important to him. There is something important about having a family element involved in a campaign. Having people around you that you can unconditionally trust.”

Paul has received relatively few votes in his insurgent bid for the Republican nomination, but he has attracted an extraordinarily dedicated following that has flooded his campaign coffers with more than $30 million in donations. Even after releasing a video on his Web site in March indicating that he no longer expected to win the Republican nomination, Paul has continued to collect and spend those riches.

Congressman Paul’s new book, “The Revolution: A Manifesto,” currently ranks number 7 on the NYTimes bestseller list. (I’m sure Scott McClellan’s book will push past that- when’s the 60 Minute tell-all interview, Scott?)

Maybe when their Dali Bama loses the 2008 Election, Senator Obama’s diehard supporters can buy up acres of earth, and live in their own little Obamanation, where they can chant, “Obama…Obama“to their hearts’ content. They can live next door to Paulistine, too. Just try not to disturb the Paultards. They’re trying to isolate be non-intervened.

Instead, Paul favors Sen. Barack Obama because of positions on foreign policy. “But that’s doesn’t mean that’s an endorsement,” Paul quickly added.

Of course he won’t endorse him, he still wants to be the crazy old uncle at the convention.

But tell me this, how does a small government Libertarian support a pure Marxist?

Allah’s not surprised:

If I’d asked you before this which of the three his own speak-no-evil foreign policy was most in line with — Maverick, the Iron Maiden, or the guy whose idea of “aggressive” action towards Iran involves sitdowns at the White House — what would you have guessed? Mind you, this is a guy who, for reasons known only to himself, believes that Iran is “incapable” of attacking its neighbors, nuke program, missile program, and terrorist proxies be damned.

And Paul believes leaving the world alone will make the world leave us alone.

Pure naive ignorance.

Message from Ron

Whoa! What a year this has been. And what achievements we have had. If I may quote Trotsky of all people, this Revolution is permanent. It will not end at the Republican convention. It will not end in November. It will not end until we have won the great battle on which we have embarked. Not because of me, but because of you. Millions of Americans — and friends in many other countries — have dedicated themselves to the principles of liberty: to free enterprise, limited government, sound money, no income tax, and peace. We will not falter so long as there is one restriction on our persons, our property, our civil liberties. How much I owe you. I can never possibly repay your generous donations, hard work, whole-hearted dedication and love of freedom. How blessed I am to be associated with you. Carol, of course, sends her love as well.

Let me tell you my thoughts. With Romney gone, the chances of a brokered convention are nearly zero. But that does not affect my determination to fight on, in every caucus and primary remaining, and at the convention for our ideas, with just as many delegates as I can get. But with so many primaries and caucuses now over, we do not now need so big a national campaign staff, and so I am making it leaner and tighter. Of course, I am committed to fighting for our ideas within the Republican party, so there will be no third party run. I do not denigrate third parties — just the opposite, and I have long worked to remove the ballot-access restrictions on them. But I am a Republican, and I will remain a Republican.

I also have another priority. I have constituents in my home district that I must serve. I cannot and will not let them down. And I have another battle I must face here as well. If I were to lose the primary for my congressional seat, all our opponents would react with glee, and pretend it was a rejection of our ideas. I cannot and will not let that happen.

In the presidential race and the congressional race, I need your support, as always. And I have plans to continue fighting for our ideas in politics and education that I will share with you when I can, for I will need you at my side. In the meantime, onward and upward! The neocons, the warmongers, the socialists, the advocates of inflation will be hearing much from you and me.

Sincerely,

Ron

I kind of miss the days when conservative blogs would be flooded by Paulbots spamming up the comments section lecturing about the Constitution, minutia distinctions on isolationism and noninterventionism, undeclared wars, neocons, blowback, “if China invaded how would we like it”, and on and on with the same exact talking points.

I will congratulate them on making a spirited effort, and making this election year interesting. I applaud Ron Paul in choosing to remain in the Republican Party and continue fighting for his ideas; trying to bring about change from within one of the two major parties is the right approach. And I will begrudgingly acknowledge that Ron Paul is not all wrong; that some of his ideas have merit, and should be welcomed into the Republican Party dialogue.

So….just one question to the Paul Reverists: Who will you be voting for and supporting, in ‘08?

Hat tip: Gateway Pundit

Rep. Ron Paul (R-Tex.) listens to a question during the MTV/MySpace “Closing Arguments” presidential forum at the MTV Times Square Studios in New York City on Saturday.
Scott Gries – Getty Images

Game over.

message to the Huckabites:

Your preacher-in-chief needs to do the math…like Romney, it’s a matter of arithmetic:

Can Mitt still win?

Frankly, no – the arithmetic makes it all but impossible

The Republicans have already chosen most of their delegates, and Romney has won only 256 of the 1,417 chosen so far—some 18%.

To get the delegates he needs to lock up the nomination, Romney would not only have to improve his performance, he’d have to become virtually perfect – winning 934 of the 963 delegates who haven’t yet been chosen. Unless all other candidates dropped out of the race, there’s no way anyone will scoop up more than 97% of the delegates remaining. Even if Mitt gives the greatest speech of his life at tomorrow’s conference of CPAC (the Conservative Political Action Committee) he can’t win enough delegates to become this year’s nominee.

Huckabee can only win if hell freezes over. But that’s not going to happen; instead, it’s his campaign that’s frozen over.

A car’s bumper sticker supporting Mike Huckabee is covered in ice in downtown Des Moines, December 11, 2007.
REUTERS/Jason Reed

Also blogging:
Hot Air

UPDATE by Curt

For those who are excusing Ron Paul for HIS newsletter by stating the guy didn’t write it please take a gander at this PDF, page 2, at the bottom in which the writer wishes everyone Happy Holidays.

“My wife Carol, and our children and grand-children, join me in wishing you and your family a wonderful Christmas and Happy New Year.”

Guess what the name of Ron Paul’s wife is?

Carol

Big H/T to LagunaDave at Hot Air for this one.

Clinton and Obama supporters wave campaign signs outside of Saint Anselm College, awaiting the start of the Jan. 5 presidential debates. Carlos Barria – Reuters

Obama sign to the left of them….Hillary signs to the right. When it comes to foreign policy matters, the Ron Paul Reverists are standing right where they belong- amidst a sea of Democrats.

Although they may share allied positioning over Iraq, it would appear ArPee broke lances with Joy and Whoopi over the issue of abortion. Suddenly, his obstetrics/gynecology credentials no longer qualify him for being “two treats in one”.

I did like his statement at the CNN/YouTube GOP presidential debate:

 I’m an O.B. doctor, and I practiced medicine for 30 years, and I of course never saw one time when a medically necessary abortion had to be done.

This isn’t the first time that Ron Paul has been brought up on The View. I only made it through 5 minutes of this earlier mention of Ron Paul, which includes a very intelligent and informative discussion on terrorism.

Also blogging:

Hot Air

NewsBusters

JivinJehoshaphat

From the CNN/YouTube GOP Debate Wednesday night:

From the CNN/YouTube GOP Debate Wednesday night:

YouTube question: Good evening, candidates. This is (inaudible) from Arlington, Texas, and this question is for Ron Paul.

I’ve met a lot of your supporters online, but I’ve noticed that a good number of them seem to buy into this conspiracy theory regarding the Council of Foreign Relations, and some plan to make a North American union by merging the United States with Canada and Mexico.

These supporters of yours seem to think that you also believe in this theory. So my question to you is: Do you really believe in all this, or are people just putting words in your mouth?

Cooper: Congressman Paul, 90 seconds.

Paul: Well, it all depends on what you mean by “all of this.” the CFR exists, the Trilateral Commission exists. And it’s a, quote, “conspiracy of ideas.” This is an ideological battle. Some people believe in globalism. Others of us believe in national sovereignty.

And there is a move on toward a North American union, just like early on there was a move on for a European Union, and it eventually ended up. So we had NAFTA and moving toward a NAFTA highway. These are real things. It’s not somebody made these up. It’s not a conspiracy. They don’t talk about it, and they might not admit about it, but there’s been money spent on it. There was legislation passed in the Texas legislature unanimously to put a halt on it. They’re planning on millions of acres taken by eminent domain for an international highway from Mexico to Canada, which is going to make the immigration problem that much worse.

So it’s not so much a secretive conspiracy, it’s a contest between ideologies, whether we believe in our institutions here, our national sovereignty, our Constitution, or are we going to further move into the direction of international government, more U.N.

You know, this country goes to war under U.N. resolutions. I don’t like big government in Washington, so I don’t like this trend toward international government. We have a WTO that wants to control our drug industry, our nutritional products. So, I’m against all that.

But it’s not so much as a sinister conspiracy. It’s just knowledge is out there. If we look for it, you’ll realize that our national sovereignty is under threat.

Cooper: Congressman Paul, thank you.

(Applause)

Ok, I know some of my readers are also apprehensive about such things as a “North American Union”. I would be too…..if it posed an actual threat in the real world. I’m sorry, but lefties aren’t the only ones that fall victim to conspiratorial fear-monger. I think the North American Union is nothing more than a conspiracy for conservatives. There isn’t a single politician I can think of who is pushing for an NAU. If you know of one, let me know.

Given how ArPee believes there is cause for concern, is it any wonder that he’s attracted 9/11 Truthers and so many other conspiracy nutjobs to rally to his call?

John Hawkins offers some of the best antidote to the conspiracy. I suggest you read my links in this previous post (includes articles by Michael Medved). You might sleep better at night.

Responding to Emily’s YouTube question on “three federal programs you would reduce in size in order to decrease…” the size of government, Ron Paul answers:

I would like to change Washington, and we could by cutting three programs, such as the Department of Education — Ronald Reagan used to talk about that — Department of Energy, Department of Homeland Security is the biggest bureaucracy we ever had.

(Applause)

“Ronald Reagan used to talk about that”…..*rolls eyes*

Why is it, that Ron Paul opportunistically likes to drape himself in the mantle of the Founding Fathers and Ronald Reagan, with whom he would be at odds with on the matter of foreign policy?

He also has cited how Nixon was voted into office by Americans because Nixon pledged to bring troops home on grounds of “peace with honor”. But Ron Paul shares more with McGovern- the true anti-war candidate- than with Nixon on the Vietnam War; Nixon did not want to abandon our South Vietnamese allies and lose the country to communist rule.

I actually would like to see a push toward the reduction of the size of government, which may even involve the complete elimination of federal programs like the Department of Education and the Department of Agriculture.

Many conservatives have campaigned on promises of smaller government; but to the degree to which we’d like for this to happen, is it a plausible possibility, or a quixotic pie-crust promise? Easily made, easily broken?

And besides, what we can do is we can have a stronger national defense by changing our foreign policy. Our foreign policy is costing us a trillion dollars, and we can spend most of that or a lot of that money home if we would bring our troops home.

(Applause)

As in all things, there is criticism to be made in regards to our foreign policy; but the kind of criticism Ron Paul levels at current U.S. foreign policy, shares much in common with the blame-America criticism of Howard Zinn and Noam Chomsky. If Ron Paul thinks American interventionism is not doing more good than harm on behalf of the world (and in particular, on behalf of America) then I suggest he drop Imperial Hubris for a moment, and read the following books:

Imperial Grunts and Hog Pilots and Blue Water Grunts, by Robert Kaplan.

Robert Kaplan has been embedding himself with small deployments, throughout the world. And he will stick with a unit for weeks- not just a day- to get to know the soldiers and to earn their trust. What our soldiers are doing in foreign lands benefits America and benefits humanity, around the world.

In an interview with Hugh Hewitt, Robert Kaplan says,

people have this image of the U.S. military going all over the world as a busybody, propping up dictatorships. It’s so false. In fact, the only regimes we prop up through training missions are of certified democracies, certified by Congress, which we have not imposed on them, that they’ve evolved organically on their own as democracies.

The Savage Wars of Peace, by Max Boot:

Far from being isolationist before World War II and the formation of NATO, America from the very beginning of the Republic intervened in a nearly continual series of civil wars, coups, and hostage rescues. Starting with attacks on the Barbary Coast pirates between 1801 and 1805, the nation has always interfered in other nations’ business far from home.

Two generations of college students have been taught that all such “adventurism” is nothing but imperialism and running-dog capitalism–and Boot does not deny that states naturally send in their forces out of national interest rather than mere idealism. But he shows that the majority of the time the Marines intervened to stop the slaughter of civilians, to retaliate against the killing of Americans and destruction of their property, and to prevent chaos from spreading beyond a country’s borders. While such incursions often served the local property-owning elites and corrupt grandees, such interventionists as Thomas Jefferson, Chester A. Arthur, and Teddy Roosevelt assumed that order and stable governments were usually preferable to mass uprisings, constant revolution, and mob rule.

Dangerous Nation, by Robert Kagan:

Americans, in fact, have always defined their interests broadly to include the defense and promotion of the “universal” principles of liberalism and democracy enunciated in the Declaration of Independence. “The cause of America is the cause of all mankind,” Benjamin Franklin declared at the time of the American revolution, and as William Appleman Williams once commented, Americans believe their nation “has meaning . . . only as it realizes natural right and reason throughout the universe”.

This is the real “traditional approach”: the conviction that American power and influence can and should serve the interests of humanity. It is what makes the US, in Bill Clinton’s words, the “indispensable nation”, or as Dean Acheson colourfully put it six decades ago, “the locomotive at the head of mankind”. Americans do pursue their selfish interests and ambitions, sometimes brutally, as other nations have throughout history. Nor are they innocent of hypocrisy, masking selfishness behind claims of virtue. But Americans have always had this unique spur to global involvement, an ideological righteousness that inclines them to meddle in the affairs of others, to seek change, to insist on imposing their avowed “universal principles” usually through peaceful pressures but sometimes through war.

This enduring tradition has led Americans into some disasters where they have done more harm than good, and into triumphs where they have done more good than harm. These days, this conviction is strangely called “neo-conservatism”, but there is nothing “neo” and certainly nothing conservative about it. US foreign policy has almost always been a liberal foreign policy. As Mr Will put it, the “messianic impulse” has been “a constant of America’s national character, and a component of American patriotism” from the beginning.

The other constant, however, has been a self-image at odds with this reality. This distorted self-image has its own noble origins, reflecting a perhaps laudable liberal discomfort with power and a sense of guilt at being perceived as a bully, even in a good cause. When things go badly, as in Iraq, the cry goes up in the land for a change. There is a yearning, even among the self-proclaimed realists, for a return to an imagined past innocence, to the mythical “traditional approach”, to a virtuous time that never existed, not even at the glorious birth of the republic.

This is escapism, not realism. True realism would recognise America for what it is, an ambitious, ideological, revolutionary nation with a belief in its own world-transforming powers and a historical record of enough success to sustain that belief.

Coming off of an interview with Robert Kagan, Michael Medved writes,

Ignoring the long record of American involvement in such conflicts in every corner of the globe, those who question our current world-wide role express reverence for a simple-minded (and non existent) tradition of isolationism. They cite George Washington’s words in his celebrated Farewell Address of 1793: “The Great rule of conduct for us, in regard to foreign Nations, is in extending our commercial relations to have with them as little political connection as possible….’Tis our true policy to steer clear of permanent Alliances, with any portion of the foreign world.” Jefferson also warned against “entangling alliances,” at the same time he negotiated a vast expansion of U.S. territory with France, and pursued the daring and difficult Barbary Wars.

Even Pat Buchanan, the three time Presidential candidate most often identified as a contemporary advocate of “isolationism,” rejects the idea that the nation ever cowered behind its Atlantic and Pacific “water walls.” In his provocative and beautifully written book “A Republic, Not an Empire,” (1999), Buchanan argues: “The idea that America was ever an isolationist nation is a myth, a useful myth to be sure, but nonetheless a malevolent myth that approaches the status of a big lie…. What is derided today as isolationism was the foreign policy under which the Republic grew from thirteen states on the Atlantic into a continent-wide nation that dominated the hemisphere and whose power reached to Peking….To call the foreign policy that produced this result “isolationist” is absurd. Americans were willing to go to war with the greatest powers in Europe, but only for American interests. They had no wish to take sides in European wars in which America had no stake.”

To hammer home how wrong Ron Paul is on foreign policy and a romanticized non-existent isolationist/non-interventionist past, Mike Boyer at Foreign Policy Passport Blog writes,

1. Foreign Policy and the Constitution. Paul is what you might call a Constitutional originalist. He divines his governing philosophy from the Constitution and America’s Founders. But his understanding of their vision is profoundly flawed. Paul appears to believe the founders vested absolute authority for foreign-policy making in Congress, not the executive. “Policy is policy,” Paul wrote in 2006, “and it must be made by the legislature and not the executive.” But there’s almost no evidence the founders saw it in such simplistic, absolute terms. Law professor Michael Ramsey, a former clerk for Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, recently noted (pdf) this in very eloquent terms in the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy. Reasonable people can agree that Congress has failed its oversight responsibilities with regard to Iraq and the Bush Doctrine. But Paul’s thinking here is simply not supported by the weight of historical evidence.

2. “Noninterventionism.” This is the word Paul uses to describe his foreign policy, and he insists the term also encapsulates the vision of the Founders. While Paul claims “noninterventionism” is not isolationism, it sure sounds like it is. For instance, he even seeks to dismantle the Bretton Woods system of international cooperation born from the ashes of the Second World War (more on that below). Isolationism by any name, friends, is still isolationism. Sure, such sentiments were rampant in 18th and 19th century America and before WWII. The same sentiments are resurfacing today as a backlash against Iraq. Intelligent people can disagree about the Bush Doctrine’s place in history. But let’s not make up facts. The post-9/11 period has been filled with literature by such historians as John Lewis Gaddis and Walter Russell Mead debunking the notion that the founders were only concerned with domestic security and never saw an ideological component to America’s place in the world.

Hat tip: American Power.

Here is McCain attacking Paul on the isolationist point (yeah, yeah, yeah…he’s a “noninterventionist”, because he wants to still “do trade” with other nations- do read the link, and then tell me if you really see a distinction between the terms):

McCain: I just want to also say that Congressman Paul, I’ve heard him now in many debates talk about bringing our troops home, and about the war in Iraq and how it’s failed.

(Applause)

And I want to tell you that that kind of isolationism, sir, is what caused World War II. We allowed…

(Applause)

We allowed …

(Audience booing)

Cooper: Allow him his answer. Allow him his answer, please.

McCain: We allowed — we allowed Hitler to come to power with that kind of attitude of isolationism and appeasement.

(Audience booing)

And I want to tell you something, sir. I just finished having Thanksgiving with the troops, and their message to you is — the message of these brave men and women who are serving over there is, “Let us win. Let us…

(Applause)

Cooper: We will — please. We will get to Iraq…

(Applause)

All right. Let me just remind everyone that these people did take a lot of time to ask these questions, and so we do want direct questions to — the answers. We will get to Iraq later, but I do have to allow Congressman Paul 30 seconds to respond.

Paul: Absolutely. The real question you have to ask is why do I get the most money from active duty officers and military personnel?

(Applause)

Is he talking about “donors identified as affiliated with the military,”?

Like everything else Ron-con-related, I believe he is spinning the results of this.

As the reporter in the Houston Chronicle says,

“many contributors do not disclose their occupations, making it difficult to determine the total extent of military contributions to any one candidate.”

More importantly, the amount of contributions are incredibly small, hardly proving much of anything. Beth adds in the Outside the Beltway comment section:

Also not understood by the obsessed Paulbots and other assorted antiwar nutters: the fact that “military employees” includes civil service employees of the various services. That means a GS-7 who works at Whatever Air Force Base in BFE, Idaho has their employer listed as “Air Force.” For all we know, not one of those people is someone in uniform. I’m sure there are some, but it certainly is not all, nor is it indicative of some big antiwar sentiment in the military. For Paultards and Sullivan to extrapolate that idea from this is laughably absurd.

Furthermore, if one compares the 3rd Quarter statistics of Paul and McCain regarding the contribution amounts of those who do not list their employer, 100 dollars worth was given to Ron Paul’s coffers, compared to that of McCain’s: 2,244,223.39. Out of all of that money, how much of that could have been donated by active and retired veterans? Or “Affiliates” of the military? We don’t know. But it seems clear, by the paltry $100 given by the person(s) not listing employment, that the Ron Paul supporters are overwhelmingly listing their employment when making contributions.

Michael Goldfarb at The Weekly Standard writes,

among all the candidates, the total number of contributors surveyed here numbered less than 1,000–out of an Armed Forces of 2.2 million. And, remember, most of these contributors aren’t even active duty.

So yes, Andrew [Sullivan], those tasked with fighting this war do get it, which is why they aren’t donating to Paul. The only real report we have on political contributions from active duty military in this election cycle has Paul taking in just over $19,000, and that’s only counting donations larger than $200. So, maximum, we’re talking about 90 active duty soldiers who we know have actually contributed to Ron Paul’s campaign. The rest is pure speculation, and the Chron’s tally of $63,440, with its average of $500 per donation, is unlikely to be populated by many of the guys who are “actually fighting this war.”

Ron Paul continues…

What John is saying is just totally distorted.

(Protester shouts off-mike)

Paul: He doesn’t even understand the difference between non- intervention and isolationism. I’m not an isolationism, (shakes head) em, isolationist. I want to trade with people, talk with people, travel. But I don’t want to send troops overseas using force to tell them how to live. We would object to it here and they’re going to object to us over there.

(Applause)

In case you did not click onto the Jump Blog link, like I encouraged you to do, I am reprinting the relevant sarcasm:

So, we shouldn’t entangle ourselves in foreign affairs…except of course to trade with them. And travel to them. And have diplomatic relations with them. Which of course would lead to things like trade treaties. Which lead to real treaties. Which lead to military obligations and charges of American Imperialism and makes a target of our trade partners. Which would put us right back where we are. If, that is, the terrorists didn’t just decide to start knocking us off back here in the good ol’ U.S. of A. Which of course they would. Good idea Ron. It’d be much better to fight ‘em right here.

Isolationism= Non-interventionism.

Governor Norquist: President Bush made a commitment when he ran for president in 2000 an 2004 that he would oppose and veto any tax increase that Congress sent him. My question to each of the candidates is: Would you promise to the people watching this right now, that you will oppose and veto any efforts to raise taxes as long as you’re president?

Paul: I have never voted for a tax increase; never will. But the tax issue is only one-half of it.

You can easily pledge not to raise taxes, but you have to cut spending.

(Applause)

There’s really nothing special about Ron Paul’s response here. It’s the right answer; basically, the same one all the Republican candidates gave (more or less).

Next YouTube question, and perfect one prescribed to the doctor:

Journey: Hi. My name is Journey. I’m from Texas. And this question is for all (inaudible) pro-life candidates.

In the event that abortion becomes illegal and a woman obtains an abortion anyway, what should she be charged with, and what should her punishment be? What about the doctor who performs the abortion?

Cooper: Congressman Paul, 90 seconds.

Paul: You know, it’s not a federal function to determine the penalties for a crime of abortion if it’s illegal in a state. It’s up to the state, it’s up to the juries. And it should be up to discretion because it’s not an easy issue to deal with. But the first thing we have to do is get the federal government out of it. We don’t need a federal abortion police. That’s the last thing that we need.

(Applause)

But for the …

Cooper: Should a woman be charged with a crime?

Paul: Pardon me?

Cooper: Should a woman be charged with a crime?

Paul: I don’t personally think so. I’m an O.B. doctor, and I practiced medicine for 30 years, and I of course never saw one time when a medically necessary abortion had to be done.

But so I think it certainly is a crime. But I also understand the difficulties. I think when you’re talking about third trimester deliberate abortion and partial birth abortions, I mean, there has to be a criminal penalty for the person that’s committing that crime. But I really think it’s the person who commits the crime. And I think that is the abortionist.

Cooper: So you’re saying a doctor should be punished.

What sort of punishment should they get?

Paul: Well, I think it’s up to the states. I’m not in the state — I’m not running for governor. And I think it’s different, and I don’t think it should be all 50 states the same way. So, I don’t think that should be up to the president to decide that.

Ron Paul gets a plus on this one.

Next.

Buzz Brockway: Hello. My name is Buzz Brockway from Lawrenceville, Georgia. All the talk about the war in Iraq centers around how quickly we can get out. I think that’s the wrong question. We need to make a permanent or long-term military commitment to the region.

By staying in Iraq, we provide long-term stability to the region, we provide support for our allies, and we act as a deterrent to the trouble-makers in the region. Which presidential candidate will make a permanent of long-term military commitment to the people of Iraq?

Thank you.

Cooper: Congressman Paul, 30 seconds.

Paul: The best commitment we can make to the Iraqi people is to give them their country back. That’s the most important thing that we can do.

(Applause)

Well, that’s odd…..I could have sworn we have been doing just that, by first ridding them of a murderous dictator; then helping a budding democracy flourish while helping the Iraqi people drive out the occupiers who have been fomenting chaos and discord.

The Iraqi people have their country; we are there helping. It is in our interests to do so, and in their interest.

Already, part of their country has been taken back.

No thanks to the white flag Americans who would have had us abandon them to al-Qaeda violence and al-Qaeda victory.

In the south, they claim the surge has worked, but the surge really hasn’t worked. There’s less violence, but al-Sadr has essentially won in the south.

The British are leaving.

Michael Yon responding to purported violence in wake of the British pullout:

Basra is not in chaos. In fact, crime and violence are way down and there has not been a British combat death in over a month. The report below is false.

Ron Paul continues…

The brigade of Al Sadr now is in charge, so they are getting their country back. They’re in charge up north — the Shia — the people in the north are in charge, as well, and there’s no violence up there or nearly as much.

So, let the people have their country back again. Just think of the cleaning up of the mess after we left Vietnam. Vietnam now is a friend of ours — we trade with them, the president comes here.

What we achieved in peace was unachievable in 20 years of the French and the Americans being in Vietnam.

Peace didn’t occur because we pulled out of Vietnam. The South was overrun because the North broke their agreement with us, and Congress failed to back our pledge to protect our South Vietnamese allies, should this happen. Not only did more death and suffering result from our abandonment of responsibilities, but we also lost the honor that Duncan Hunter referred to in a previous GOP debate. That too, seemed to escape Ron Paul’s fathoming.

What would the ripple effects of an American retreat, advocated by the Paul Pots, be to Iraq? For America? In Vietnam, our enemies stopped at their shores; with the conflict in Iraq, our enemies, who Lawrence Wright said have been bogged down in Iraq, will not stop until they reach our shores.

So it’s time for us to take care of America first.

(Applause)

Does handing al-Qaeda a victory in Iraq, or even the perception of victory “take care of America first”? When Osama bin Laden was able to claim victory at the Lion’s Den against Soviet forces, it was a minor inconsequential loss for the Soviets, but a major propaganda win for “jihad” recruitment.

Al-Qaeda enjoyed new life and recruitment prior to the troop surge and Sunni tribe Salvation Fronts, not because of what the U.S. has achieved in Iraq, but because of perceptions and media propaganda about our involvement in Iraq.

Cooper: Senator McCain?

McCain: Well, let me remind you, Congressman, we never lost a battle in Vietnam. It was American public opinion that forced us to lose that conflict.

(Applause)

I think it’s important for all Americans to understand the fundamental difference. After we left Vietnam, they didn’t want to follow us home. They wanted to build their own workers’ paradise. If you read Zarqawi, if you read bin Laden, if you read Zawahiri, read what they say. They want to follow us home. They want Iraq to be a base for Al Qaeda to launch attacks against the United States. Their ultimate destination is not Iraq.

Their ultimate destination is New York City, Washington, D.C., Chicago and Phoenix, Arizona. This is a transcendent challenge of our time.

(Audience booing)

McCain: I believe that we can meet it and we will defeat it.

(Applause)

Cooper: Congressman Paul, I know — we’ll get everyone in on this. Congressman Paul, just wanted to allow you to respond.

Paul: Shortly after the Vietnam War ended, Colonel Tu and Colonel Summers met, and they were talking about this. And our — and the American colonel said, “You know, we never lost one battle.” And Colonel Tu, the Vietnamese says, “Yes, but that’s irrelevant.”

And it is irrelevant.

The moral lesson of that story is lost on Ron Paul. The point is, militarily, we did not suffer defeat. We suffered defeat at the hands of Walter Cronkite and the media reportage, in public opinion and waning support and understanding of the war; and we suffered defeat by the lack of will to win in Congress. In not fighting it to win, we could only insure a defeat. And this is why Colonel Tu understood that it didn’t matter that the North Vietnamese sustained massive casualties and losses. Body count didn’t matter to them. But it mattered to us. Military wins and losses were irrelevant, because the real battle was taking place in public opinion polls and back in Washington.

But we have to realize why they want to come here. Wolfowitz even admitted that one of the major reasons that the Al Qaida was organized and energized was because of our military base in Saudi Arabia.

He says, “Oh, now, we can take the base away.” He understood why they came here. They come here because we’re occupying their country, just as we would object if they occupied our country.

(Audience booing)

We took our military base away, because after OEF, there was no longer any reason to enforce the southern no-fly zone, over Iraq.

Cooper: Well, it’s Congressman Tancredo. And we’re running short on time. So, please, let’s try to get to these.

You have 30 seconds.

Tancredo: I wish that we lived in the world that Ron is describing — I wish that we lived in a world where we did not have to worry. By simply removing our forces, we would be safe.

Unfortunately, Ron, honest to God, I don’t believe that that is the case. We are living in a world where we are threatened. It is radical Islam.

(Applause)

It is — the ideology, the political and religious ideology of radical Islam is a threat to America, and it would be a threat to America if we never had a single person serving anywhere outside this country.

I disagree with Tancredo when he speaks of bombing Mecca and Medina. But on the point of ideology being the root cause, Tancredo has it absolutely right. Islamists who militantly follow the fundamental tenets of the Koran and Hadith reject modernity and see the very existence of non-Islamic societies as an offense to Allah.

Ron Paul likes to tell us “listen to what they say”. Yet, he seems to completely ignore the rhetoric of radical Islam which includes the Shia Islamic militants of Iran who await the coming of the 12th Imam, and the Sunni al-Qaeda master plan which desires to pitch the Islamic world into a “clash of civilizations”; both theologies wish to create an Islamic super-caliphate, and cleanse the world of all things un-Islamic.

Citing “occupation of the Saudi peninsula” as the casus bellum, misses the crux of the problem: radical Islam, which does not need an excuse to commit barbarism and murder, independent of American foreign policy.

Perhaps a good stocking stuffer for Ron Paul would be Lawrence Wright’s, The Looming Tower.

Cooper: We’re running short on time. I want to get Ron Paul’s video in. Let’s watch.

(Begin videotape)

Paul: The people are sick and tired of what they’re getting, and they want some real changes.

I don’t want to run your life. We need less taxation, less regulations, a better economic system.

We were not meant to be an empire; we were meant to be a republic, protecting liberty here at home.

It’s up to you to spread this message around this country. This is an American cause, it’s a cause of freedom. There’s something going on in this country, and it’s big. It’s really big.

(End videotape)

Cooper: That’s part of the Paul campaign.

In a recent LATimes column, At Peace with Pax Americana, regarding American “empire”, Jonah Goldberg cites from a book I’ve long had my eyes on: Colossus, by Niall Ferguson.

Critics of American foreign policy point to the fact that the U.S. does many things that empires once did — police the seas, deploy militaries abroad, provide a lingua franca and a global currency — and then rest their case. But noting that X does many of the same things as Y does not mean that X and Y are the same thing. The police provide protection, and so does the Mafia. Orphanages raise children, but they aren’t parents. If your wife cleans your home, tell her she’s the maid because maids also clean homes. See how well that logic works. When they speak of the American empire, critics fall back on cartoonish notions, invoking Hollywoodized versions of ancient Rome or mothballed Marxist caricatures of the British Raj. But unlike the Romans or even the British, our garrisons can be ejected without firing a shot. We left the Philippines when asked. We may split from South Korea in the next few years under similar circumstances. Poland wants our military bases; Germany is grumpy about losing them. When Turkey, a U.S. ally and member of NATO, refused to let American troops invade Iraq from its territory, the U.S. government said “fine.” We didn’t invade Iraq for oil (all we needed to do to buy it was lift the embargo), and we’ve made it clear that we’ll leave Iraq if the Iraqis ask. The second verse of the anti-imperial lament, sung in unison by liberals and libertarians, goes like this: Expansion of the military-industrial complex leads to contraction of freedom at home. But historically, this is a hard sell. Women got the vote largely thanks to World War I. President Truman, that consummate Cold Warrior, integrated the Army, and the civil rights movement escalated its successes even as we escalated the Cold War and our presence in Vietnam. President Reagan built up the military even as he liberalized the economy. Sure Naomi Wolfe, Frank Rich and other leftists believe that the imperialistic war on terror has turned America into a police state. But if they were right, they wouldn’t be allowed to say that.

Yet somehow we are told by the Paul Reverists that our civil liberties are being eroded by The Patriot Act and NSA wiretaps that are in place to protect American citizens against the next terror attack.

Two compelling new books help explain why our “empire” is different from the Soviet or Roman varieties. Walter Russell Mead’s encyclopedic “God and Gold” argues that Anglo-American culture is uniquely well suited toward globalism, military success, capitalism and liberty. Amy Chua’s brilliant “Day of Empire” confirms why: Successful “hyperpowers” tend to be more tolerant and inclusive than their competitors. Despite its flaws, Britain was the first truly liberal empire. America has picked up where the British left off. Whatever sway the U.S. holds over far-flung reaches of the globe is derived from the fact that we have been, and hopefully shall continue to be, the leader of the free world, offering help and guidance, peace and prosperity, where and when we can, as best we can, and asking little in return. If that makes us an empire, so be it. But I think “leader of the free world” is the only label we’ll ever need or — one hopes — ever want.

Cooper: Let’s go to the next question — it’s for Ron Paul.

Mark Strauss: Mark Strauss, Davenport, Iowa.

This question is for Ron Paul.

Mr. Paul, I think we both know that the Republican party is never going to give you the nomination. But I’m hoping that you’re crazy like a fox like that and you’re using this exposure to propel yourself into an independent run.

My question is for Ron Paul: Mr. Paul, are you going to let America down by not running as an independent?

Thank you.

Paul: Now that’s what I call a tough question, because I have no intention of doing this.

I am a Republican. I have won 10 times as a Republican and we’re doing quite well. We had 5,000 people show up at a rally in front of the Independence Hall with blacks and Hispanics and a cross-section of this country.

You know that we raised $4.3 million in one day?

(Applause)

Without spending one cent. We didn’t even pay an individual to go out and they weren’t professional fund-raisers. It came in here — it was automatic.

We’re struggling to figure out how to spend the money. This country is in a revolution. They’re sick and tired of what they’re getting. And I happen to be lucky enough to be part of it.

Cooper: I’ll take that as a no.

(Applause)

lol…

In the past few months, Ron Paul has dramatically raised the profile of libertarianism inside the Republican Party.

He sure has that right.  He has raised the profile and showed us how out of touch with reality they really are. 

The newest backers of Ron Paul to go along with his Twoofer fans, his white supremist fans, and all the other nutjobs is brothel owners: (h/t Hot Air)

Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul, an underdog Texas congressman
with a libertarian streak, has picked up an endorsement from a Nevada brothel
owner.

Dennis Hof, owner of the Moonlite BunnyRanch near Carson City, said he was so
impressed after hearing Paul at a campaign stop in Reno last week that he
decided to raise money for him.

“I’ll get all the (working girls) together, and we can raise him some money,”
Hof told the Reno Gazette-Journal. “I’ll put up a collection box outside the
door. They can drop in $1, $5 contributions.”

Hof and two of his prostitutes, Brooke Taylor and a woman who goes by Air
Force Amy, attended a Paul news conference.

Bryan points who we should thank for turning this brothel owner onto Ron, MSNBC’s own Tucker Carlson:

Hof was accompanied to the Paul news conference by television news personality Tucker Carlson, who is traveling with Paul for a magazine article he is writing.

“Dennis Hof is a good friend of mine, so when we got to Nevada, I decided to call him up and see if he wanted to come check this guy out,” said Carlson, who hosts the show “Tucker” on MSNBC.

How sweet of him huh?

Actually, I think Ron Paul’s run for President has done more damage to libertarianism than anything else
in recent history by connecting it to the appeasement of
fanatical Islam rather then what their movement was supposed to be about, limited Government.  The ridicule he has exposed himself to has given the MSM more then enough reason to dismiss those that support smaller government, less taxation and the rest as just a bunch of loons.

But I will thank him for the run.  It’s been entertaining and I’ve learned that I would never, ever, become a libertarian.

UPDATE

Jackie Mason’s response to the PaulBots:

Today that warrant was unsealed, you can read the whole thing here.

Just making my way through it but what it comes down to is that the company was committing money laundering, mail fraud, and wire fraud.

The warrant first goes into the company itself:

It goes into the the similarity of the coins to United States coins which is a violation of US Code:

Whoever, within the United States, makes or brings therein from any foreign country, or possesses with intent to sell, give away, or in any other manner uses the same, except under authority of the Secretary of the Treasury or other proper officer of the United States, any token, disk, or device in the likeness or similitude as to design, color, or the inscription thereon of any of the coins of the United States or of any foreign country issued as money, either under the authority of the United States or under the authority of any foreign government shall be fined under this title.

The warrant also goes into their fraudulent statement that the money is 100% backed by silver:

And then into just one of their scams:

Wowza!

Lots more where that came from and I’m only a quarter of the way through the warrant.

These nimrods are screwed.

UPDATE

Check out how they teach people to sell the currency as legitimate: (a RCO is a Regional Currency Officer, a sort of Region Manager who is above the Liberty Dollar Associate member and finally there is the Member Merchant who agrees to accept ALD’s and gets a discount on buying their own)

And:

Scam scam scam….

UPDATE II

Even more:

And the conclusion:

1. Ron Paul is inconsistent. Though he calls himself a man of principle and is apparently admired as such by his ardent fans, his principles seem somewhat elastic. He rails against the Bush administration for its supposed assault on civil liberties, yet when he was asked at one of the debates whether Scooter Libby deserved a pardon, he said no. “He doesn’t deserve one because he was instrumental in leading the Congress and the people to support a war that we didn’t need to be in.” Notice that he didn’t say it was because Libby was guilty of committing a crime. No, because Libby argued for a policy with which Paul disagreed, he deserved to serve time in prison. Ron Paul, the libertarian, who presumably values liberty above all, is willing to deprive someone else of his because of a policy disagreement?

2. Ron Paul is historically challenged. He argues that by embracing isolationism, he fits within a Republican tradition stretching back to Eisenhower “who stopped the Korean War” and including Nixon “who stopped the war in Vietnam.” Let’s recap. Eisenhower threatened to use nuclear weapons against China. It was the Eisenhower administration that had a hand in toppling Iran’s Mohammad Mossedegh (an intervention that Paul has elsewhere cited as causing the U.S. grief 25 years later when the Islamists took power). Eisenhower also intervened in Guatemala, Cuba (planning for the Bay of Pigs began during his tenure) and Lebanon.

Nixon, an isolationist? Most observers, whatever they may make of detente with the USSR and the opening to China, agree that Nixon was an emphatic internationalist. For the record, he intervened in many countries including Chili, Peru and Cambodia. And he saved Israel by resupplying her during the Yom Kippur war. Neither his successes nor failures grew out of a Paulesque policy of “minding our own business.”

3. Ron Paul is unserious. Suggesting that you will eliminate the IRS, the CIA, the FBI and other government agencies within weeks of taking office is ridiculous. These are bumper stickers, not serious reform proposals.

Mona also goes into one very serious aspect of his candidacy.  His crazy supporters.  From neo-nazi’s, to twoofers, to the Alex Jones cultists who believe that the Bilderbergers are taking over the world.  Many of his supporters say you can’t fault the candidate himself for crazy fans but as Mona states, he plays a game with it.  He doesn’t endorse their beliefs but he doesn’t disavow himself from them either with his tales of the big bad government coming to get you, and his appearances on the Alex Jones show doesn’t help.

Instead his campaign attracts these kind of messages:

On Oct. 4 Will Williams, a former leader of the National Alliance, a
neo-Nazi group, posted on the neo-Nazi Vanguard News Network that white
supremacy supporters should support Paul for president.

“Till then
I recommend folks get involved in the Ron Paul ‘revolution’ and work
with political activists in your communities who are attracted to his
anti-globalist message,” Williams wrote. “Be disciplined. Blend in; find common ground with them and artfully radicalize those who are receptive and avoid those who are not. … Most
of you would be surprised at how many good people can be exposed to a,
let’s say, ‘pro-majority’ message among the remarkable groundswell of
fed-up, mostly white Ron Paul supporters — many, early on, from the 9/11 truth movement. They
are finding their backbones as they are exposed to more and more hidden
truths, especially about the hidden hand of Jewry behind every foul
venture.”

Which tells us that many are using the Ron Paul campaign as a recruitment drive to find those who could find common ground with them.  They care little about RP, but his followers could be fresh meat for their movement.

Kinda makes the the argument made by the Paul campaign against sending money back to neo-nazi’s kinda moot wouldn’t you say?  “If they want to waste their money on us we will take it and use it to promote freedom and individual rights, not their agenda,” doesn’t help any when they are using your campaign to get new recruits.

No, I think her best summation of him is that he is unserious.  His candidacy is unserious, his followers are unserious, and his politics are unserious.

In an all-out battle, Liberty Dollar in
Evansville, Indiana, has issued the 2008 Peace Dollar to “Stop the
War.” As if President Bush’s unpopular war does not have enough
problems, the Peace Dollar appears to offer an attractive way for the
antiwar forces to gain strategic ground at a profit.

Liberty Dollar recently issued a “Presidential” Ron Paul Dollar in
support of the Republican peace candidate. Now it asks peace-seeking
Americans to start using the Peace Dollar and stop using the US War
Dollar, as it finances the Iraq War.

The 2008 Peace Dollar is not government money and cannot be used to
fund the war in Iraq. It is good for peace and bad for war. The
government uses their printing presses to make money out of thin air to
finance their war by diluting every American’s purchasing power…
hence higher gas and food prices.

Bernard von NotHaus, the fiery monetary architect of the Liberty
Dollar, says that by accepting and spending Peace Dollars, peaceful
people can force the government to “Stop the War” because the
government will have less money to pay for it. He encourages
peace-loving people to use a Peace Dollar the next time they spend
money and “Give peace a chance.”

The $10 Peace Dollar is a legal functioning currency dedicated to
stop the war. As a private voluntary barter currency it can be used
anywhere it is accepted. It is “real money” minted in pure silver and
copper that exchanges dollar-for-dollar with the US war dollar. It is
dedicated to establishing peace and bringing our boys home. The 2008
Peace Dollar has a face value of ten “Liberty Dollars” and contains
one-half ounce of pure .999 fine silver. The $1 Copper Peace Dollar
contains one ounce of pure copper.

And they found out the hard way:

I sincerely regret to inform you that about 8:00 this morning a
dozen FBI and Secret Service agents raided the Liberty Dollar office in
Evansville.

For approximately six hours they took all the gold,
all the silver, all the platinum and almost two tons of Ron Paul
Dollars that where just delivered last Friday. They also took all the
files, all the computers and froze our bank accounts.

We have
no money. We have no products. We have no records to even know what was
ordered or what you are owed. We have nothing but the will to push
forward and overcome this massive assault on our liberty and our right
to have real money as defined by the US Constitution. We should not to
be defrauded by the fake government money.

But to make matters
worse, all the gold and silver that backs up the paper certificates and
digital currency held in the vault at Sunshine Mint has also been
confiscated. Even the dies for mint the Gold and Silver Libertys have
been taken.

This is fraud, plain and simple.  People cannot just come up with their own form of currency, start to use it, and then expect no consequences.  One of the main reasons the National Bank and Federal Reserve was set up was due to how fraudulent these currencies people came up with were.  Unless the currency is backed by something of real monetary value then it’s worthless, and unconstitutional (oh my, a Paulbot going against the Constitution!  No way!):

Under the Constitution ( Article I, section 8, clause 5 ), Congress has the exclusive power to coin money of the United States and to regulate its value. By statute ( 31 U.S.C. § 5112(a) ),
Congress specifies the coins that the Secretary of the Treasury is
authorized to mint and issue and requires the Secretary to carry out
these duties at the United States Mint (31 U.S.C. § 5131).
Accordingly, the United States Mint is the only entity in the United
States with the lawful authority to mint and issue legal tender United
States coins. Under 18 U.S.C. § 486,
it is a Federal crime to utter or pass, or attempt to utter or pass,
any coins of gold or silver intended for use as current money except as
authorized by law.

Additionally, reading through their website you come across this “deal”:

Want to earn money, do good and have more fun? Then become a Liberty Associate for $250. You will immediately receive $100 Liberty Dollars and all your future currency exchanges will be at the special discounted Associate Rate that is posted at the top of the Liberty Dollar home page. Plus you can earn a $100 Referral for every Associate you sponsor. Sponsor only two people and you are now up $50 and you are on your way to making a significant difference to our country and its money. All three bonuses are also included with the Best Offer. Click here to become a Liberty Associate.

So, for 250 bucks you get 50 dollars worth of gold that I say is really worth 100 bucks.  Ummmm….can you say pyramid scheme?

I’m actually going to be sad when Ron Paul gets his ass handed to him in the primaries, the nuttiness of his supporters have made for some great blogging.

UPDATE

Wordsmith made his own money also: