The Ron Paul Thread

[dingo]

For every Haliburton in the current administration

eh...Haliburon did just fine under the Clinton admin.... Cheney thrives in all kinds of weather !

[Velokid1]

I agree with that. I guess I don't spend much time right now thinking about that yet... I'd rather we elect someone who has trouble getting the right things done than to elect someone who won't even try, or whose interests are in direct conflict with those of working class Americans.

The most moving thing for me personally is that my interest in politics has always stemmed from anger and frustration and, for the first time ever, I am passionate to my core about a man that I think can get the country back on course. At least he can start that work. And more importantly, by supporting him we all introduce into the dialogue things that are actually important to us.

And another very telling thing for me... all it takes to win people over is to get Ron Paul in front of people for 5 minutes (which is precisely why the major media companies find the prospect of giving him attention to frightening).

At the end of last week I put that Ron Paul "A New Hope" YouTube video in front of about 2 dozen friends and that's all it took for four of them to become passionate about Ron Paul and to have HOPE again.

All four of them have donated to his campaign as of this morning. Never mind that I'm one of the least persuasive people on the planet!

And it's not just a bunch of softy crybabies whining about the media not giving Ron Paul any time but not doing anything about it... he has already raised almost $3 million for October and next month is projected to be even bigger. All grassroots, all from The People's mouths and wallets. This is a guy the People actually want.

I'd love to see a chart listing Giuliani, Clinton and Paul and their campaign contributions. A chart that breaks down... "X% has come from corporations... Y% has come from individuals." My guess is Clinton's is something like 70% corporate and 30% individual and that Ron Paul's is more like 10% corporate and 90% individual. As it should be.

Last week on the McLaughlin Group or whatever that show is, they made the prediction that, coming out of the NH primaries, Ron Paul will the THE story for the Republican party.

[Velokid1]

On the Fed bailout:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SrJ4MI63yrk

[Velokid1]

On Bill Maher:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B9KWISuvZWs

[Amskeptic]

The man was impeached, not for a blow job, but for lying to a grand jury
I tend to hold my elected officials to a higher ideal. Naive of me, true,
Perhaps it hit me a little close to home, because my step-father,
should I look up to the leader of my country, and say "That's ok Bill, you can cheat all you want, as long as the economy is good. Say kids, there's a fella to look up to!" Should I teach my daughter that this is the type of individual to respect?

Let's all get a little tougher and more grown-up. Bill Clinton lied to the grand jury not because he was a shifty unprincipled nit-wit, but because he was absolutely outraged that this attack squad was invading his personal life. He was trapped, yes, in a corner, yes, wanted it to go away, yes, and couldn't believe that American Jurisprudence wanted to know if she spat or swallowed. John Kennedy was another womanizer who was a good president, So was Franklin Roosevelt. And Thomas Jefferson. Nobody dragged them down because, at the time, personal life was off limits. As it should be. George Bush Sr is another one who had an affair. Tell your daughter? So did Bob Livingston. So did Henry Hyde. So did Mark Foley. Would I tell my daugher about their sex lives? HELL NO. It is not her business any more than it is our business. The crime was those skanky hypocritical Republicans MAKING it our business, because they had nothing else to drag him down with, and drag him down was the Agenda. They were afraid of Bill Clinton because he was doing a damn good job as our nation's president.

You must inquire as to the source of news, if you are to be an alert aware citizen who is focused on solutions to the real issues. These red herrings and straw men are beneath us.

I, like you, have painful personal experiences that I see played out on the national stage. I do not let them color my perspective on what this nation needs. Every damn one of us, every Republican neo-con-evangelical moralizer judgmental hung-up prude too, has issues. We ought to deal with them personally. The best indication of your humility and effort in the name of God is to not judge your fellow human beings with screaming speeches on the floor in Congress. If Bill and Hillary have patched it up, good for them. I don't judge them even though I have never cheated on a soul in my life and won't and can't, I can't lie with my clothes off, I just can't.
Colin

[hambone]

I'm not inta politics as much as you guys...after a while it's like water-cooler talk about the Raiders vs Dallas, doesn't seem like much gets accomplished. To each his own tho, I didn't care for HS Debate either.

[mattg]

I'm not inta politics as much as you guys...after a while it's like water-cooler talk about the Raiders vs Dallas, doesn't seem like much gets accomplished. To each his own tho, I didn't care for HS Debate either.

I'm with you Hambone.

[Velokid1]

I'm not. For whatever reason, I feel motivated to engage with those who are steering MY ship.

[Quadratrückseite]

Let's all get a little tougher and more grown-up. Bill Clinton lied to the grand jury not because he was a shifty unprincipled nit-wit, but because he was absolutely outraged that this attack squad was invading his personal life. He was trapped, yes, in a corner, yes, wanted it to go away, yes, and couldn't believe that American Jurisprudence wanted to know if she spat or swallowed.

I agree, his sex life shouldn't be a matter of public record. But the man was using taxpayer's resources, the Arkansas State Troopers, as go betweens between prospective women he wanted to sleep with. Little bit of an abuse of power, don't you think? Should we all have just given him a big ol' Dr. Phil hug and tell him, "It's ok, you just need some counseling." I'm happy that he and Hillary have "on the surface" worked things out. We don't know if they have, and I really don't care.

As for Hillary, she's a survivor, but she's no saint, either. (note, this is from the Washington Post - not Fox News)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/po ... 061499.htm

Incongruously, Hillary Clinton's humiliation gave her status – in the relationship and in the world.

In the past, she had seemed to believe that the only public face that would work for her would be a tough and confrontational one. Charm wouldn't work. In 1993, Dick Morris, President Clinton's longtime adviser, had urged her to soften her image. "One of the most appealing things about public figures is when they lead with their vulnerabilities," Morris said. "They talk about their defects and people cut them a lot of slack." He cited Eleanor Roosevelt's shyness, or even Ronald Reagan's jokes about his poor memory. Defects and weaknesses can be assets, he argued.

"I can't think of any," Hillary had said. "I'm not good at that. What do you want me to do?"

She was unsure of her role. As the family's lawyer and investor she had screwed up Whitewater and then in 1994 she had lost what was supposed to be the crown jewel of her husband's presidency: health care reform.

"I'm just confused," she told Morris at the time. "I don't know what works or what doesn't work. I don't know why this is happening. I'm just so confused."

But Mrs. Clinton's scandal-managing role continued. By the summer of 1995, Whitewater was causing her real anguish. In Newsweek that August, Joe Klein wrote that the scandal had exposed the character of the Clintons. "They are the Tom and Daisy Buchanan of the Baby Boom Political Elite." The Buchanans were the 1920s-style careless people of F. Scott Fitzgerald's "The Great Gatsby."

"They smashed up lives and didn't notice," Klein wrote.
He laid out in harsh terms how Hillary's chief of staff, Maggie Williams, had broken down in tears while testifying the previous week at the hearings chaired by Sen. Alfonse D'Amato. Williams was saddled with large legal bills, virtually abandoned by her patrons in the White House. "How could the first lady allow her chief of staff to spend $140,000 on legal fees?" Klein asked. "Why hasn't she come forward and said, 'Stop torturing my staff. This isn't about them. I'll testify. I'll make all documents available. I'll sit here and answer your stupid, salacious questions until Inauguration Day, if need be'?"

Hillary was sobbing when she called Jane Sherburne, the White House attorney in charge of scandal management.

Had Jane read the Klein column?

Yes.

"It's killing me to let this happen," Hillary said. She wanted to testify, to make it better, to take care of it. "Every bone in my body tells me that's what I should do."

She could not stand by and let Maggie be hurt so, have others dragged in.

"How is Maggie?"

Sherburne said they both knew Maggie was both vulnerable and tough. She was willing to throw herself in front of any train and get beat up.

Hillary's voice caught and she gasped in short breaths.

Testifying, Sherburne said, would be a mixed blessing. It would be such a sensation. The pure spectacle of the first lady appearing before Congress would overshadow anything she said. Were there words she could say that would resolve the issues and answer all the questions? They would always find more questions.

"I got to do this," Hillary said, gaining strength, taking deeper, measured breaths. "I'm going to do it."

The Clintons' personal lawyer, David Kendall, was against it, they both knew – vehemently opposed in the midst of independent counsel Ken Starr's grand jury investigation of Whitewater. Public testimony by the first lady before D'Amato's committee might play into the Republicans' hands. There would be rounds of questions with all the Republican senators homing in. Potentially very ugly.

"Am I really that powerless?" Mrs. Clinton asked. The portrait of her as heartless and selfish was tearing her apart. It was awful to stand silently by as those she cared about were being hurt, she said.

Sherburne said her testimony would have multiple legal ramifications. What about Starr, his investigation and grand juries? Politically, how would D'Amato and the other Republicans handle her? Her husband's reelection bid was a little more than a year off. The basic strategy on Whitewater was to calm the waters, avoid confrontation, minimize news coverage.

Sobbing again, Hillary said her parents had always told her not to be guided by the opinions of others. "You have to live with yourself." Well, now the law and politics had cornered her. It wasn't a matter of appearances – appearing cold and indifferent to her friends and staff. If she stood by silently she would be that person they accused her of being.

"That is not who I am!" Hillary said, crying, pleading. "I take care of people."

Sherburne realized that Hillary had become the person she, at all costs, did not want to be. It was not simply a loss of identity. It was worse. She seemed to have fully realized the price that had been paid, and the identity that had been lost. She had become the person she hated.

'How Can I Go On? How Can I?'



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
In January 1996, Hillary looked forward to assuming the role she most liked, planning an 11-city tour for her book "It Takes a Village and Other Lessons Children Teach Us." But the discovery of a memo written by David Watkins saying Hillary was responsible for the 1993 travel office firings and the reappearance of Mrs. Clinton's long-lost Rose Law Firm billing records shifted the focus to her role in the scandals.
On Jan. 8, a Newsweek cover story on Hillary was headlined "Saint Or Sinner?" over a frumpy picture of the first lady. The same day, columnist William Safire of the New York Times wrote that Hillary was a "congenital liar."
Hillary wanted to discuss her issues – children's issues – but she agreed to answer questions about the scandals. On Jan. 15, she appeared on "The Diane Rehm Show," a serious, popular Washington talk-radio program.

She said she and her husband had always acted in "good faith." Even during the 1992 campaign, her staff had made the Whitewater documents available, she said.

"We actually did that with the New York Times," she claimed. "We took every document we had – which, again, I have to say, were not many – we laid them all out."

The New York Times's Washington bureau chief called George Stephanopoulos, Clinton's senior adviser, to note that Mrs. Clinton was wrong. The clearest example was the computer run of the Rose Law Firm billing records – the same records that had been found recently in the White House residence. The Clinton campaign had these records in 1992. They hadn't been turned over. Mrs. Clinton's current claim of total Whitewater disclosure in 1992 was incorrect. There was going to be a front-page, above-the-fold, first-lady's-a-liar story.

Stephanopoulos wanted Sherburne to smooth over this problem.

Sherburne called Susan Thomases, Hillary's close friend, who had helped with the initial 1992 Times Whitewater story. She reported what Hillary had said.

"Oh, my God, we didn't," Thomases explained, recounting how they had severely limited the documents they made available in 1992.
Sherburne reviewed the information. They needed to say that the first lady had made a mistake and was now correcting her comment based on new information, but that she had not intended to mislead anyone.

A short statement was finally drafted with the key word "mistakenly" in it. Sherburne had to phone Hillary, who was on the road promoting her book, to clear the statement-retraction with her.

Just before Sherburne placed the call, she learned that Starr had issued a grand jury subpoena for the first lady to testify about the disappearance and sudden reappearance of the billing records.

When she reached Hillary, the first lady was profoundly upset about all these matters stacking up. Watkins's memo, billing records, the grand jury subpoena and now the coming first-lady-is-a-liar story. Fine, she said, issue the statement but call Rehm to let her know the statement was coming.

Hillary poured out her emotions. Sherburne had never heard her so distressed. She was at wit's end, under siege, in despair. She dwelled on the ugly, ugly sequence of events. "Saint or Sinner?" "Congenital Liar."

"I can't take this anymore," Hillary said. It was the voice of someone at the end of her rope. "How can I go on?" she asked. "How can I?"

'I Have to Take This Punishment'



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Within the White House, a classic internal debate began over the subpoena. Should they announce it or try to appear in secret? Sherburne and Mark Fabiani, the White House scandal spokesman, were worried that information about the subpoena would leak to the news media. They wanted to announce it from the White House and shape the story.
Kendall presented Hillary with a number of options for going to the courthouse. She could take a limousine into the courthouse basement or even sneak in covertly.

"Nope," she said. As past master of putting the best face on disaster, she decided it was best not to attempt to sneak into the courthouse like some Mafia suspect or engage in some other subterfuge.

On Jan. 26, 1996, she walked into the courthouse, head held high. She went to the witness room with her attorneys and lingered by the doorway. First the 23 grand jurors walked by into the grand jury room. They were mostly black and about half women.

Then suddenly a group of men led by Starr paraded by into the secret room. Hillary and Sherburne both mentally counted out, one, two. Nine altogether. All white males in suits. Sherburne looked at Hillary, then Hillary looked at Sherburne. Both registered the same reaction – but of course.

"God," Mrs. Clinton said, noting she and Sherburne had the same reaction, "I'm looking in the mirror."

Outside, after dark, after four hours of testimony, Hillary walked up to an array of microphones.

"Would you rather have been somewhere else today?" she was asked.

"Oh," Hillary said, "about a million other places."

As she came under increasing attack in the following months, Hillary pressed Sherburne and Fabiani.

"Why is Starr getting a free ride?" she asked. "I don't understand this. Everything we do gets put under a microscope and look at this guy! No one says anything negative about him. How can he get away with this?"

Hillary wanted the White House to call attention to the independent counsel's potential conflicts of interest and Starr's part-time status, the types of criticisms that she kept hearing on the news and reading in the newspapers.

Fabiani did not believe they dared declare open war on the independent counsel. The White House's relationship with the independent counsel's staff would deteriorate rapidly. Fabiani also felt a public attack is what many would expect, and to a certain extent that would mitigate any potential damage to Starr.

Sherburne decided not to tell Hillary that Fabiani had collected publicly available negative background information on the independent counsel and quietly given it to reporters. She hoped to protect the first lady and the president. But Hillary continued to vent in private about the administration's failure to attack Starr.

"We're out there," Sherburne told her, hoping she would get the message.

It was not until Jan. 27, 1998, that Hillary Clinton publicly gave voice to her anger at Starr. Appearing on the "Today" show, days after allegations that her husband had had an affair with Lewinsky, she said Starr was part of "a vast right-wing conspiracy" out to get her husband.

Matt Lauer, the show's co-anchor, asked her if she thought her husband "would admit that he again has caused pain in this marriage?"

"No, absolutely not," she replied sharply. "And he shouldn't."

It took the president seven months to admit before a grand jury and then the nation that he did have an "inappropriate intimate relationship" with Lewinsky.
After the vacation on the Vineyard, which she considered the dark days, she attempted to sort out her dilemma with some women friends. She insisted that she did not view Lewinsky as a real threat. It was only sex, not partnership. She had the partnership – the real friendship and love with him.

Her friends thought that Hillary used to be a wallflower. She had blossomed in the White House years. Several close friends believed that Hillary filled so many roles in her husband's life – the mother he didn't have any longer, the sister who had never existed, the chief adviser he didn't have anymore and perhaps had never had. She was the smartest person in the room.

Hillary retreated to her religious and spiritual convictions.

"I've got to take this," she told one friend. "I have to take this punishment. I don't know why God has chosen this for me. But He has, and it will be revealed to me. God is doing this, and He knows the reason. There is some reason."

By fall 1998, as the House moved toward impeaching her husband, Hillary was still uncertain about her own course. A close friend told her about a high-profile, public couple. They had been married 40 years, the friend told Hillary. The man had lots of affairs and the woman finally caught him.

"She was devastated," the friend said, "but she thought hard about it. They had a great friendship, and she decided he is worth fighting for, and it would be unwise to turn him out or to give him to someone else. Her decision was that it was better to fight for him and to fight for the relationship."

"Man," Hillary said, "that's exactly what I'm thinking now."

A therapist can stop the bleeding, Hillary's friend said. That was the key to making progress and saving the marriage.

Hillary said she and Bill knew that counseling was the right thing to do. "We are doing the right thing."

I guess, as hambone and others have pointed out, this is kind of useless to argue about. You'll not convince me that the Clintons are decent people. Perhaps capable leaders on some level, remembered for a great economy, which has also been debated (the effect of a President on the economy)
http://www.forbes.com/2004/07/20/cx_da_ ... dents.html

To be sure, there is a sharp debate as to the ability of any president--or government--to control the economy. But that doesn't prevent the heads of Wall Street firms such as Merrill Lynch (nyse: MER - news - people ), Morgan Stanley (nyse: MWD - news - people ) and Citigroup (nyse: C - news - people ) from rooting for one candidate over another based on expectations of economic performance. Fairly or not, each president was judged by how much prosperity is delivered on his watch. Some presidents, it seems, have watched a lot more effectively than others. (We did not rank the current president, whose term is not yet over.)

Clinton campaigned on the economy and had remarkable success. GDP growth during his eight years averaged 3.5% per year, second only to the combined Kennedy/Johnson years and ahead of Jimmy Carter and Reagan. The economy also added jobs at a faster rate under Clinton than under any postwar president except Carter. For Carter, however, job growth merely matched an increase in the size of the labor force, while Clinton had much better luck curbing the unemployment rate as well. The result: The public's confidence in the economy hit an all-time high in the summer of 2000, near the end of Clinton's second term, according to Gallup. In the summer of 1992, before he was elected, it was at an all-time low.

The key to Clinton's success, says Alice Rivlin, a Brookings Institution scholar who served as his director of management and budget, was adhering to the "pay/go" agreement first forged by President George H. W. Bush and a Democratic Congress, whereby tax cuts or entitlement increases had to be funded on a current basis. She says Clinton raised taxes at just the right time--when incomes were starting to rise after years of stagnation--leading to a surge of receipts. The result was the smallest government in terms of its percentage of GDP since Johnson, and the first substantial budget surpluses since Harry S. Truman.

This is what I'm talking about when I say rose colored glasses when people today remember the Clinton years without blemish. Step back to 2001, if you believe in polls taken of the American public:

Poll: Majority of Americans glad Clinton is leaving office
Despite controversies, Clinton's approval rating highest of any outgoing president
By CNN Polling Director Keating Holland

January 10, 2001
Web posted at: 5:17 p.m. EST (2217 GMT)

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Just over half of all Americans say that they are glad Bill Clinton is leaving the White House and only 45 percent say they will miss him when he is gone, according to the latest CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll.

But 55 percent say that Clinton should remain active in public life and his current approval rating is higher than any outgoing president since polling began more than seven decades ago.

Forty-seven percent think that Clinton will be remembered as an outstanding or above average president; one in five say he will be remembered as below average or poor.

Two-thirds say that Clinton will be remembered for his involvement in personal scandal rather than his accomplishments, and only 39 percent consider him honest and trustworthy.

The poll consists of interviews with 1,018 adult Americans and was conducted January 5-7, 2001. It has a margin of error of plus or minus five percentage points.

CNN/USA TODAY/GALLUP POLL
January 5-7
Which comes closer to your view of Bill Clinton as he prepares to leave the White House -- I'm glad he is leaving, or I'll miss him when he is gone?

Glad he is leaving 51%
Will miss him 45
In your view, does Bill Clinton have something worthwhile to contribute and should remain active in public life?

Yes 55%
No 43

How do you think President Clinton will go down in history -- as an outstanding president, above average, average, below average, or poor?

Outstanding 15%
Above average 32
Average 30
Below average 11
Poor 11


In your view, will Clinton mostly be remembered as president for his accomplishments, or his involvement in personal scandal?

Scandal 68%
Accomplishments 28

Do you generally think Bill Clinton is honest and trustworthy?

Yes 39%
No 58
Job approval ratings for outgoing presidents

Clinton 65%
Reagan 63
Eisenhower 59
Bush 56
Ford 53
Johnson 49
Carter 34

Do you consider yourself a Clinton supporter?

Yes 47%
No 52

My whole point in bringing up Hillary and Bill, and to try to steer this back to Ron Paul, is I think we can do better. We know we get with her, whether you believe she was in on the various scandals or not. I personally don't trust her. That's my opinion, and I've seen nothing to change it. I'd like to see a real change for once.

[Velokid1]

I'd like to see a real change for once.

We all do. I hope that a significant portion of us are willing to go out on a limb and actually VOTE for it.

There is just one candidate who represents substantial change rather than an endless shift between one subsect of fascists and the next.

[spiffy]

I'm not inta politics as much as you guys...after a while it's like water-cooler talk about the Raiders vs Dallas, doesn't seem like much gets accomplished. To each his own tho, I didn't care for HS Debate either.

X2 Just not my cup o' tea, I respect others that can discuss it openly though.

[Velokid1]

Just so you guys know, I don't frown upon those who aren't motivated by politics. It's a quagmire, to say the least. I don't think it reflects poorly upon anyone that they aren't moved by it all. Different strokes, different folks.

Many people think I'm weird for not having the slightest interest in ball sports, for instance. Just doesn't turn me on.

Just wanted Hammy and you guys to know I'm not pretending to be all high and mighty just cuz this one politician has stirred me to be involved for once.

[hambone]

Are you kidding? You never come across that way. Just have a different focus.

[turk]

I'm interested. I wanna know more about this guy. I mean, throwing away your vote sux. Or would Ron Paul (two first names?) be the republican candidate? I just don't see it, but I know little about the candidates. I saw him interviewed by Charlie Rose and he seemed fresh.

[Velokid1]

Howdy turk, yea he's a Republican candidate. He's in third place in terms of campaign contributions (ahead of McCain) and yet the mainstream media are curiously mum about him.

Last week the McLaughlin group predicted he would be "the" story for the Republicans coming out of the NH primary.

He's raised more than $2.5 million this month (again)... and that's all money coming from your neighbors and mine, as opposed to coming from corporate interests. Which is nice because corporate interests always stem from some nefarious place, whatever that may be. They don't toss millions at candidates without expecting preferential treatment on Capitol Hill.

At some point, the media will be forced to give him air time. At that point, we'll have some REAL issues on the table for discussion in America finally and not the same rehashed, fabricated "issues" the establishment would like us to be distracted by.

Ron Paul is the guest TONIGHT on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno, if anyone's interested. I find it really hard to stomach Jay Leno, but will tune in out of curiosity.