The Hit parade

Here comes another in a long stream of "Ron Paul Experts" trying to radicalize his limited government views in order to scare off potential supporters. The opening arrogance is so thick you may not make it past the first paragraph, but for those willing to try, the comments rebutting this expert distortionist make me proud to be a Ron Paul supporter.

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Just walk into any supermarket

I'm pretty pissed that my coffee is now up to $7 for a 3lb can containing 2 lbs. 7 oz. of product. And that my generic store brand cat food is up from $1.79 a bag to $3.29, without the slightest "new and improved" excuse weaving around the package's bland artwork. And that a 5 lb bag of std all purpose flour has doubled in price from a year ago while a 5lb bag of sugar has been shrunk to 4lbs in the last year or two. No wonder people are mad and getting madder every time the government comes out with a cheery new booming economy "low inflation" announcement.

Over at lewrockwell's site, Andrew Fischer has a good post that peers into the government's finagling regarding their bogus inflation numbers.

Does anyone have grocery store receipts from a year or two ago that you can scan in and share so we can compare them with current prices and product quantities? Post a link in the comments.

Ron Paul's $500 problem

Some elements of the blogosphere, primarily on the left, are trying to pressure the Ron Paul campaign into returning a $500 donation that was made by an allegedly renowned racist by the name of Don Black. I say allegedly renowned, because I personally have never heard of him until these folks started making an issue of it.

Admirably, the Paul campaign has decided not to return the donation thusly:

Dr. Paul stands for freedom, peace, prosperity and the protection of inalienable individual rights for every American. All of our campaigns energy is dedicated to spreading the message of liberty and limited government, and we do not spend time screening donors or blocking websites. We don’t know who Don Black is, and pay him no attention. If a small number individuals who hold racist beliefs want to waste their money by giving to Dr. Paul, a man who stands firmly against their small minded ideologies, then the campaign will simply use those funds to protect freedom, peace and civil liberties across our Nation.

My reply to most recent post on the mojo blog:

Well somebody needs to tell Mr. Black that a whole bunch of African Americans are supporting Ron Paul, and if he's as racist as he's made out to be, he wouldn't go anywhere near him after learning that news. God forbid this country become a melting pot of vastly different viewpoints coexisting peacefully, shopping at the same stores, breathing the same air, eating the same food, and supporting the same presidential candidate. That would be the end of the republic as we know it. I for one support the campaign's decision to deliberately not exclude anybody in this country.

I've seen some commendable replies to the absurd demand that the campaign return the funds of a citizen of this country that were donated legally based on perceived flaws in that person's character. A few were posted at lewrockwell.com here and here.

The other comments at the mojo blog are pretty good too, especially this one:

Perhaps you should do some research into MoJo subscribers, revoke subscriptions of those that hold views that you find offensive and refund their money.. or give it to charity. But don't let them fund your company. I suggest all business people do the same. If we all did the same we could bleed all racism and hate from our society. (continued)

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Blackwater Google Purge

While composing the previous post, I performed a search at google for "blackwater drug war" because I was going to include mention of Blackwater's newest billion-dollar contract with the Pentagon focused on the War on Drugs.

The search results turned up in the very first spot a grouping of several hundred news articles on this precise topic, as shown in the first screen grab below. The reason I didn't include it in my previous post, is because when I clicked the 324 related articles link, the resulting page said no articles were found matching that description.



Hmm, rather odd results. So I scanned down the original results page to see a similar article posted at Alternet here. Since this is generally a source of investigative news that I trust, I went with it. When I clicked on the link this is what happens.



Whoa, I thought, what kind of purge is this?

So I closed my post and set about recreating the experience to collect a series of screen grabs. However, it appears that now when you click the 324 related articles link, you get a list of about 16 articles, the majority of which are dealing with the recent killing of the Baghdad taxi driver by a dyn corp mercenary. See screen grab below.



I was unable to pull up the first click result that said there were no results in order to take a screen grab, so this will have to do. 324 news articles come back for "blackwater drug war," yielding 16 articles about DynCorp's murder of another Iraqi.

Somebody's exerting influence somewhere to keep these Blackwater articles on a seriously low profile.

Collective Code of Conduct

The burning question I've had for some time is, what oath do these armed commercial peacekeeping agents take before securing contracts with our government? Our professional military is comprised of men and women who have sworn to protect and defend the US Constitution against all enemies, both foreign and domestic. With that oath I feel safe and secure that these highly trained sophisticated armies will not turn their weapons on the citizens of this country lightly. Can the same be said for those contracted from commercial interests who have sworn no such oath as a condition of their service? Hired guns historically work for the entity offering the most money, regardless of the cause.

This question came up on another blog, to which Blackwater's "Core Values" were presented as the foundation of their service.

Blackwater ‘Core Values’:

Core Values

Excellence: We strive to do not only our best, but to do the best that can be done in all situations and under all circumstances to protect the defenseless and provide a safe environment for all.

Efficiency: We will create the most value using the least amount of resources to achieve the greatest success.

Execution: The foundation of our success. We plan to execute, and execute our plan. Using innovation, flexibility, speed and agility, we will perform with moral courage and conviction and we will do so against all odds.

Teamwork: That which holds everything together. We pool our collective talents to find the optimal solution for our customers and for ourselves. One person can make a difference, but a lot of people make a lot of difference. We will harness the collective energy of Blackwater and direct it toward realizing our vision.

ETHICS
Blackwater supports accountability and transparency in the professional military, security, peacekeeping, and stability operations industry. We conduct ourselves and our business with honor and integrity. As members of and partners with the International Peace Operators Association, we accept and daily abide by our collective Code of Conduct.

Ignoring for the moment that these values were scripted with as much original sophistry as a Jerry Seinfeld cliche ("one person can make a difference, but a lot of people can make a lot of difference"), does this mean Blackwater and other defense contractor personnel are sworn to uphold vaguely-defined standards developed by an international association of unelected, profit-motivated, aggressive shoot-first ("We plan to execute") peacekeepers, rather than rules of law and the US Constitution?

What exactly is a "collective Code of Conduct" by which these men agree to abide, and under whose authority and jurisdictions are these Codes not only established, but more importantly, enforced?

With no sworn loyalty to our Constitution, or to any rule of enforceable law, or even to our way of life, do we really want our tax dollars funding these extrajudicial forces?

This to me is another very troubling indication of how far our "representative government" is slipping from our grasp.

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Power of the people

Over the past few weeks thousands of Russian bloggers have united to combat a pharmaceutical scam that tried to persuade Russian pensioners to spend around half of their annual pension on a course of Gravikol 21 - ‘anti-arthritis’ drugs that were actually little more than vitamin pills.

In the course of their campaign, Russia’s bloggers have not only publicised the scam nationwide, they’ve forced the notoriously unresponsive Russian government to act.
(more at link)

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Comparison of Campaign Contributions among top tier candidates

Redpillguy has charts comparing the source of bundled corporate contributions among the media-annointed front runners and Ron Paul. Take a look.

"Imagine Ron Paul" 30-second ad

From the grassroots.



Link.

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What exactly is Christmas?

The latest AFA alert arrived in my inbox this evening lamenting the fact that Lowe's is calling their Christmas trees "Family Trees" in their Holiday 2007 catalog.

You may recognize the AFA (American Family Association) as the loudest group out there protesting America's alleged assault on Christmas. And they leave no stone unturned in their relentless pursuit of evidence to support their cries, as you can tell from this latest emergency alert.

In an effort to avoid the use of the term "Christmas tree," Lowe's has renamed their Christmas trees and are now calling them "Family trees."

In their Holiday 2007 catalog, containing 56 pages of Christmas gifts, Lowe's advertises hundreds of gift items, including scores of "Family trees." In fact, the word "Christmas" only appears two times in the entire holiday catalog. The ads mentioning "Christmas cover only 12 square inches of the 5236 square inches available.

Lowe's even has one of their Family trees turned upside down on a stand. We are not sure what the significance of that is.

Lowe's evidently did not want to offend any non-Christians, therefore they replaced "Christmas tree" with "Family tree." Of course, if Christians are offended that is evidently ok.

In what may be an attempt to sound fair, the alert goes on to list all the times the word Christmas turns up on products using the Lowe's online catalog search (174 products). However, AFA attributes the inclusion of the word Christmas in the product descriptions not to Lowe's marketing staff, but to the manufacturers who provide ready-made descriptions for them.

This overt mindreading on the part of AFA makes me question how many Christians are genuinely offended by the marketing decisions of Lowe's and others like them, and how many are convinced at AFA's command to be offended after reading this alert.

Several years ago I read up a little about the history of Christmas in this country, and seem to recall at one time shortly after the colonies were established, it was the Christians who wanted Christmas banned, to protect the integrity and sanctity of the historical event which was to be celebrated only in spirit. Someone correct me if I'm wrong.

I tend to believe that modern day American Christmas in all its fully commercialized marketing exploitations is a gross perversion of the anniversary of the birth of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. I'm left wondering why the AFA would not be celebrating any and all evidence of the separation of Christmas from the covetous orgy of consumerism it's become. Is it their intention to consciously maintain a society whose entire economy is based on the act of coveting?

December 16, 2007

(Get Teaparty07 banner links here.)

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New Year's Day Moneybomb for Ron Paul

On New Year's Day, the Ron Paul grassroots will set the bar for 1st Quarter 2008 fundraising for all the candidates left standing after our Boston Tea Party Money Bomb - December 16, 2007.



Spread the word.

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Make It Happen

December 16, 2007


Spread it.

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Upcoming Ron Paul moneybombs

Most of you have heard about the surprising success of the recent Nov. 5 Ron Paul moneybomb, which was a fundraising event originating from and coordinated entirely by the grassroots with no direct relationship with the official campaign. Conceived in late October and rushed through all the grassroots networking sites in just 10 short days, this Remember, Remember, the 5th of November pop-culture stunt resulted in a record-smashing single-day fundraising total of $4.3 million.

Around the same time the Nov. 5th plan was being conjured up, an equally passionate segment of the grassroots established Nov. 11 - Veterans Day - as their date of detonation for this fundraising moneybomb, in honor of the blood spilled for our sakes and our freedoms' sake. It's not too late to join in on the November 11th moneybomb, sign up here with your pledge to donate $100 or more to Ron Paul's campaign, and on the 11th, donate, donate, donate.

And now the grassroots movement has established another target date for what I predict will be the mother of all moneybombs: Dec. 16, 2007. On this day with our donations to Ron Paul's campaign, we will be celebrating the spirit and resolve of the young patriots who dumped thousands of pounds of His Majesty's tea into the Boston Harbor in protest over the unjust taxes levied on the colonies by the British Crown.

December 16th marks the 234th anniversary of the Boston Tea Party. In 2007, this date will be remembered for the extraordinary grassroots efforts to push the single-day fundraising record so far out of reach from any other candidates that our voices for liberty and prosperity are no longer ignored by the establishment. Sign up at teaparty07.com, and spread this link far and wide.

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Ron Paul support is everywhere!

Spotted during the MSNBC Democratic Debate:

End of America lecture by Naomi Wolf (video)

Video Link

Read the book, The End of America: Letter of Warning To A Young Patriot by Naomi Wolf

Next step: Take it to the Streets - coordinated action to restore the Constitution.

And vote for Ron Paul in your state's primary, the only candidate who respects the founding ideals of America and lives true to his oath to protect and defend the Constitution.

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Have a Liberty Minute.

Might I recommend these short bursts of refreshing clarity: micro-podcasts produced daily by Will Grigg, called simply Liberty Minutes.

Definitely time for a Reboot.

So says the Father of Podcasting, Adam Curry, after falling under the spell of liberty cast by Presidential Candidate Ron Paul.

Listen here, sprinkled throughout the podcast.
warning: podcast contains profanity.



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eh, About those media "polls"

There's been a lot of discussion on why Ron Paul, with all of his obvious Internet popularity, is only polling in the single digits nationwide. Various theories have been presented, such as "pollsters don't call cell phones, and Ron Paul's followers don't use landlines," and "much of Ron Paul's support comes from first-time voters."

The mainstream uses the single-digit poll results to support their claim that "Ron Paul doesn't stand a chance," and use them as ammunition for excluding him from debates or coverage. But just how "scientific" are those polling methods?

...

..[these] polls use only "Republicans who voted in the last Presidential Primary." (link)

Well, how about that. How many republicans do you know who went and voted in the 2004 GOP presidential primaries, since the only candidate running for the GOP nomination was incumbent President Bush? Hmmmm? According to USAToday, Republican turnout in the 2004 primary was a whopping 6.6%! These scientific, professional media polls are based on a sampling of people taken from only 6.6% of the registered republicans from 2004!

As the original author says,

Think about that. The mainstream press is using this handful of people who voted for George W. Bush--when he was running unopposed!--as their "statistically significant" sample of concerned American voters. The political analysts are basing their election predictions, and their professional careers, on a random and biased telephone survey of a few hundred people who bothered to show up when their "fearless leader" wasn't being challenged by anyone.

Ron Paul Donations in Georgia, Q3 2007

Here is a graphic illustrating the areas of the state from which Georgia's Ron Paul campaign contributions originated for Third Quarter, 2007. To compare this with Georgia's Q2 donations, see my previous post.

Below is a breakdown of totals by county (based on zip codes per FEC filings). New zip codes since Q2 are located in the counties shown in orange font, bringing in $36,432.54 from these new areas, nearly as much as all of Georgia in the 2nd quarter ($36,843).

Barrow 1,250
Bartow 7,800
Bibb 4,727
Carroll 500
Chattahoochee 250
Cherokee 3,100
Clarke 1,400
Cobb 6,411.76
Colquitt 800
Coweta 1,300
Dekalb 7,320
Dougherty 1,000
Douglas 2,500
Fayette 1,000
Floyd 100
Forsyth 2,300
Fulton 11,780
Glynn 1,000
Gwinnet 3,626
Hall 200
Henry 2,540
Houston 490
Jackson 1,600
Lamar 100
Laurens 500
Lowndes 250
Monroe 100
Morgan 1,301.26
Muscogee 100
Peach 2,200
Pickens 200
Richmond 2,050
Spalding 500
Tift 300
Troup 1,147.52
White 500
Whitfield 500

Total from Georgia for Ron Paul, Q3 2007: $72,743.54. Good Job, Georgia!

An important note to make about all of these grassroots donations: donations under $200 are not included in the FEC reports, and thus the numbers represented above do not capture the entire picture. Many of us only gave $25-100 in the third quarter, and our donations are not included in the totals above. Once our donations reach $200 each for this campaign cycle, the numbers will show up in the total reports.

Suddenly the media plays nice..

Ron Paul pushed on CNN by Charles Goyette


CAFFERTY FILE: SHOULD PEOPLE LISTEN TO RON PAUL?