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not much about the NDAA in the mainstream media, although it kills the Bill of Rights.
maybe they’re waiting for their first 82-year old heckler to be arrested under it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_7mwP5Di … r_embedded
"…he will forever be known as the president who signed indefinite detention without charge or trial into law,” said Anthony D. Romero, American Civil Liberties Union executive director.
“The statute is particularly dangerous because it has no temporal or geographic limitations, and can be used by this and future presidents to militarily detain people captured far from any battlefield…..
"Any hope that the Obama administration would roll back the constitutional excesses of George Bush in the war on terror was extinguished today.”
Three days into the new year and already the 2012 end of the world wallahs are collecting their wagers left, right and centre.
All that we hold dear is being taken away, the cruelest cut of all being Dave Nevison’s removal from the RFO, replaced by puppet columnist Richard Birch.
But wait? Is that a leader I see on the horizon. I think his name’s Paul……..
if the Paul hoving into view is from Texas rather than High Holborn, you might be amused by the following from a review of 2012 by Grant Williams:
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President-elect Hillary Clinton’s narrow win over Michael Bloomberg in last month’s US election put the seal on an extraordinary year in American politics after Barack Obama’s shock decision in June not to seek re-election.Bloomberg’s late emergence put paid to the hopes of Ron Paul, whose remarkable showing in the early Primaries and caucuses had made the chances of him finally moving into the White House (and bringing some much-needed fiscal sanity with him) look anything but remote.
Paul’s surge in the opinion polls was as much a tribute to the sheer consistency of his message over several Presidential campaigns as it was to the vagaries of the other candidates in the race for the Republican nomination. Herman Cain, Newt Gingrich, Rick Perry and even Michele Bachmann came and went, but ultimately, it looked like Paul and Mitt Romney would be left battling it out for the GOP nomination – until Bloomberg finally threw his hat into the ring.
Obama’s withdrawal from the race had echoes of Lyndon B. Johnson’s famous speech in 1968 during which he had cited the division in the American House:
"There is division in the American house now. There is divisiveness among us all tonight. And holding the trust that is mine, as President of all the people, I cannot disregard the peril to the progress of the American people. Believing this as I do, I have concluded that I should not permit the Presidency to become involved in the partisan divisions that are developing in this political year. Accordingly, I shall not seek, and I will not accept, the nomination of my party for another term as your President."
In an eerily similar scene, Obama’s withdrawal address to a nation that had grown tired of the petty politicking by Speaker John Boehner’s Republicans and Harry Reid’s Democrats was as dramatic as it was unexpected – although the low-visibility of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in the months leading up to the announcement that the former golden child of American politics was withdrawing had many on the Hill speculating aloud about what was perhaps going on behind the scenes.
Obama’s star, so long in the ascendancy, had burned out amidst a drastically worsening employment landscape and the false dawn of a string of better-than-expected economic figures around the end of 2011. The unprecedented collapse in retail spending early in 2012, public weariness with the bending of statistical inputs to produce the desired results, the Congressional insider-trading scandal that just wouldn’t die and the disastrous attack on Bushehr all combined to make Obama’s position untenable in the end.
His standing down "for the good of the Democratic Party, so we can unite and finish the journey to a better America", whilst a shock, was enough to catapult Hillary (and, importantly, her husband Bill) Clinton to a nail-biting victory that ultimately snatched the White House from Bloomberg’s seemingly unshakable grasp.
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Ron Paul is an autistic nut. Aside from some fairly disgusting racist views in the not so distance past, his fundamentalist and cold attitude the real world (where things do go wrong and sometimes a helping hand is needed without resorting to the rule book) will turn off any voter with life experience or the semblance of human emotion.
He will fade away after Iowa
The GOP supporters have played around long enough and will soon realise that Romney is definitely the best chance of victory
Hilary should have been the choice in the first place. Highly capable, practical and (crucially) experienced. Obama’s difficulty (nice guy that he undoubtably is) is that he simply lacked administrative experience and is too much the cautious lawyer. Thought so at the time and has been proven right
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/mike-krie … s-ron-paul
"..we now have the entire playbook [of TPTB, The Powers That Be – the financial and political elites]:
Any popular movement is not to be listened to.
If it comes from the heartland ["right-wing", Tea Party, Ron Paul] it is to be categorized as being dominated by “racists, anti-Semites and survivalists.”
If it emerges from the urban areas on the coasts ["left-wing", Occupy Wall Street] it is to be deemed as being dominated by “ lazy, unemployed, morons who are probably high on drugs and want free stuff.”
Most important to TPTB is that these two groups remain separated and the goal is to create as much animosity between them as possible so they never realize they agree on the key issues – that both are against bank bailouts and have anti-Federal Reserve elements.
Divide and conquer is being used on American citizens in America. This tells me one thing. The criminals in charge on Wall Street and Washington D.C. are afraid. Very afraid. "
"the Federal Reserve is the mechanism of American empire and this institution’s policies are the primary reason the middle class in America is on the verge of being completely destroyed. It is the mechanism for transferring wealth and power to a smaller and smaller faction of the population through persistent inflation.
As Keynes wrote: “Lenin was certainly right. There is no subtler, no surer means of overturning the existing basis of society than to debauch the currency. The process engages all the hidden forces of economic law on the side of destruction, and does it in a manner which not one man in a million is able to diagnose.”
The Fed creates dollars out of thin air and then forces countries to accept this counterfeit, backed by nothing, and consistently devalued money for their resources.
While many people now understand this concept, what most U.S. citizens still do not seem to understand or want to accept is that it is not in the national interests of other countries to accept this certain to be vaporized currency for their hard produced goods.
Fortunately for us, there is a solution to that. Support (or install via coup) if necessary despotic puppet regimes around the world to accept this monetary system.
Our Federal Reserve system and indeed our way of life is supported through the barrel of a gun pointed at every other “sovereign” nation on the planet.
If you step out of line you will be deemed a terrorist state and we will single you out and fight for sanctions on you and then if none of that makes you fall in line we will start bombing you. We will say that you commit atrocities against your people and you probably do (although we were also probably your ally recently despite the atrocities).
Make no mistake about it. Every country we every go after militarily relates to defending the Federal Reserve system."
"The elite in this country that control all forms of mainstream communication in the United States as well as both fake political parties are having a panic attack in response to Ron Paul’s surging popularity.
There is a simple reason for this. On the important issues, the issues that affect your freedom and economic future he does not tow the party line of TPTB…..he has been criticizing for decades how the monetary system works and how it is destroying this nation."
"I support Ron’s attempt to get the Republican nomination even though I recognize that hell will freeze over before the Republican establishment allows him be chosen.
Nevertheless, it is a smart move as he is exposing the lack of ideas amongst the Republican field and exposing them as the empty suits that they are. Other than him, they will all be puppets of TPTB just like Obama. I think that simply his running is changing the debate and converting more people to his perspective.
So the big question is what should he do after the Republicans choose their new Wall Street puppet Romney.
In my opinion, he must run as a third party candidate. No matter what he will not be returning to Congress so this is really his last shot and I actually think he can win as a third party candidate.
Just imagine a debate between Romney, Obama and Paul. How will they respond to Paul’s strong defense of civil liberties. Or his attacks on the Federal Reserve system. Or his anti-preemptive war stance? They can’t and it will expose Romney and Obama to be the same guy on the important issues at play today. They will be shown once and for all as the empty suits that they are.
Even if he doesn’t win, turning this whole thing around will not happen overnight. It is a process and him running as a third party candidate will further expose the two party system as the sham that it is and further accelerate the demise of both parties.
In fact, I already think that by 2016 the Democratic party will be essentially a shadow of its former self and the Republicans may be as well if they continue on the path they are on much longer.
To paraphrase Shakespeare. The tides in the affairs of men are changing. Neither political party can comprehend it.
Both bought-and-paid-for parties hate Ron Paul because he is the only genuine threat to the establishment. "
Ron Paul is completely cuckoo. It’s a different sort of lunacy than the other candidates, but it’s equally dangerous.
All the Republican candidates have said horribly racist and homophobic things, so RP isn’t alone there.
policies of the "completely cuckoo":
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_ … f_Ron_Paul
Obama, Bush, and their ilk (the collectivist mainstream of politics) are all for ever-increasing government control over people and their money.
With Obama this has reached the stage of revoking the Bill of Rights and giving himself and his successors power indefinitely to incarcerate US citizens and others for reasons he does not have to articulate, much less see tested before a judge.
At this stage, this power is likely less to do with 19 guys and a camel than with domestic disorder once the bailout chickens really come home to roost.
Paul, on the other hand, as a libertarian says government and its powers are already way too intrusive, and its expenditures too great, and both can and should be cut back.
To the dictatorial mind of the social engineers /central-planners, such Paul-style notions of reduced central-control and increased freedom for the people will always be a threat.
The way a political establishment tends to react to an existential threat was stated by Gandhi:
"First they ignore you. Then they ridicule you. Then they fight you. Then you win."
The treatment of Paul is currently moving from the first to the second of those stages.
To the dictatorial mind of the social engineers /central-planners, such Paul-style notions of reduced central-control and increased freedom for the people will always be a threat
Oh do us a favour…
As for a debate between Romney Obama and Paui, how owuld the public react to Paul’s assertion that he would have refused state aid and rescue during Katrina?
Romney and Obama would find it hard to suppress their giggles as Paul’s vote goes through the floor
and thats even before we get on to his nazi friends and KKK links
he Fed creates dollars out of thin air and then forces countries to accept this counterfeit, backed by nothing, and consistently devalued money for their resources.
While many people now understand this concept, what most U.S. citizens still do not seem to understand or want to accept is that it is not in the national interests of other countries to accept this certain to be vaporized currency for their hard produced goods.
This is codswallop
You have no idea how bonds work at all. Since when have bonds been "forced" on other states ? They buy the bonds (and overseas states are not the only purchasers by a long way) on the basis of the lending being financed by future growth, which even in these dark times, will be back on track at some stage (even now the US is growing economically)
No one has to but anything. No one is "forced"
If they were supposedly worthless and of no value, then quite simply the bond traders or puchasers wouldnt touch them. Any doubt at all and they look elsehwhere. Eithe that or they demand higher premiums (as is the case with italy) and at the present time US yields are low
clivexx,
USD is
a) the world’s major reserve currency – about 60 per cent of the world’s Allocated Resources (with the next 30 per cent taken by the Euro); and
b) the international pricing currency for commodities – oil, gold, copper, wheat, etc
That is how the Fed can print money and "force countries to accept it…for their resources".
US Treasuries are the parking place for all that USD.
If you are a country or a fund looking for somewhere to park billions, there is nothing to compare with USTs for scale and liquidity.
Investing big money is a very different matter to investing small money – you don’t put a billion on deposit with a high street bank.
If you think all that is "codswallop" and know of alternatives for the world’s nations and other big investors, I’m sure they would be delighted to hear from you.
hat is how the Fed can print money and "force countries to accept it…for their resources".
Buying commodities is somewhat different from issuing bonds. there is no connection at all. One is a transaction the other a loan> Surely thats obvious?
If a exporter believed that the $ was about to "vapourise" they could simply demand to be paid in euros. Fat chance….
its quite simple. As said before, if "printing money’ by issuing bonds was deemed to be excessive then the yields would be high. Simple fact is that the US has very low yields at the present time since no one anywhere who takes these big decisions believes they are dealing with a country that is on the precipice.
And when growth recovers (as it is showing signs of doing so) then there is even less of an issue
Do you think we should revert our currency back to the gold standard?
Do you disagree with the 1964 Civil Rights act?
Do you think that the Department of Education should be done away with?
Do you wish that factories and businesses should be allowed to pollute as much as they want, thanks to deregulation and getting rid of the Environmental Protection Agency
Do you believe that the invisible hand of the free market will eliminate poverty, give healthcare to all, and decrease corporate profits, with no government interference whatsoever?
If so, Ron "Endorsed by Stormfront" Paul is your man.
Also, wit, you have not had the fortune of meeting real, live Ron Paul supporters, or should I say cult members. I think that his caucus and primary results are automatically taken down 5 points thanks to hordes of Paulites scaring away undecided voters.
Clivexx,
You need to read this to understand the real nature of what you are thinking of as "growth":
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/top-three … -world-gdp
Miss Woodford,
Paul’s positions on the points you raise are:
– "I wouldn’t exactly go back on the gold standard but I would legalize the constitution where gold and silver should and could be legal tender, which would restrain the Federal Government from spending and then turning that over to the Federal Reserve and letting the Federal Reserve print the money."
-"the Civil Rights Act of 1964 not only violated the Constitution and reduced individual liberty; it also failed to achieve its stated goals of promoting racial harmony and a color-blind society. Federal bureaucrats and judges cannot read minds to see if actions are motivated by racism. Therefore, the only way the federal government could ensure an employer was not violating the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was to ensure that the racial composition of a business’s workforce matched the racial composition of a bureaucrat or judge’s defined body of potential employees.
"Thus, bureaucrats began forcing employers to hire by racial quota. Racial quotas have not contributed to racial harmony or advanced the goal of a color-blind society. Instead, these quotas encouraged racial balkanization, and fostered racial strife
– "Racism is simply an ugly form of collectivism, the mindset that views humans strictly as members of groups rather than individuals. Racists believe that all individuals who share superficial physical characteristics are alike: as collectivists, racists think only in terms of groups. By encouraging Americans to adopt a group mentality, the advocates of so-called "diversity" actually perpetuate racism. Their obsession with racial group identity is inherently racist."
– Paul has asserted that he does not think there should be any federal control over education, which should be handled at a local and state level. [ There is no EU Education Department ruling over EU member states]
– Paul sees polluters as aggressors who should not be granted immunity or otherwise insulated from accountability by the likes of the EPA: " The environment is better protected under private property rights … We as property owners can’t violate our neighbors’ property. We can’t pollute their air or their water. We can’t dump our garbage on their property … Too often, conservatives and liberals fall short on defending environmental concerns, and they resort to saying, "Well, let’s turn it over to the EPA. The EPA will take care of us … We can divvy up the permits that allow you to pollute." I don’t particularly like that method.
– Paul [himself a medical doctor] rejects universal health carebelieving that the more government interferes in medicine, the higher prices rise and the less efficient care becomes. He supports the U.S. converting to a free market health care system, saying that the present system is akin to a "corporatist-fascist" system which keeps prices high. He opposes socialized health care promoted by Democrats as being harmful because they lead to bigger and less efficient government and higher taxes.
– Paul was asked a hypothetical question at a Tea Party debate by CNN host Wolf Blitzer about how society should respond if a healthy 30-year-old man who decided against buying health insurance suddenly requires intensive care for six months. Paul said it shouldn’t be the government’s
responsibility. "That’s what freedom is all about, taking your own risks," Paul said. Paul mentioned he does not believe society should let the aforementioned hypothetical man die but emphasized that in such a case churches and communities – rather than governments – should take care of those in need.
Fundamentally, Obama, Romney, and whoever else the two party mainstream establishment nominates are all for ongoing big government and ongoing impoverishment of the 99 percent to pay for it.
Paul offers an alternative – more freedom and independence for ordinary folk via smaller government, smaller banks, smaller taxes, smaller American overseas empire.
That kind of thing does not appeal either to your left-wing one-world-government types, or to the right-wing new-world-order types.
You may have heard the phrase United States of Europe as a desideratum of European central planners.
Think of Washington DC as Brussels but much larger and more powerful, and of each US state as an EU state but much less independent.
Ron Paul is to Washington DC what Nigel Farage is to Brussels.
Except Paul has a far more uphill battle.
Paul was asked a hypothetical question at a Tea Party debate by CNN host Wolf Blitzer about how society should respond if a healthy 30-year-old man who decided against buying health insurance suddenly requires intensive care for six months. Paul said it shouldn’t be the government’s
responsibility. "That’s what freedom is all about, taking your own risks," Paul said. Paul mentioned he does not believe society should let the aforementioned hypothetical man die but emphasized that in such a case churches and communities – rather than governments – should take care of those in need.
What a crap answer from the lunatic candidate. i presume he was pressed a bit further on this ?
The "churches and communities" answer simply doesnt wash. What if they cant? what if they wont? they have no obligation to do so and never will have
And in Pauls sinister world, what if a church will not treat a non christian? what if a community will not treat someone of a different race?
simple fact is that Paul belives that such a person in such circumstances should be left to die by the state
Hes a liar
He DOES believe that society should allow the man to die.
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"After earning a Doctor of Medicine degree from Duke University’s School of Medicine in 1961, Paul relocated with his wife to Michigan, where he completed his medical internship at the Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit.He then served as a flight surgeon in the United States Air Force from 1963 to 1965 and then in the United States Air National Guard from 1965 to 1968.
In 1968, Paul and his wife relocated to Texas, where he continued his medical work. Trained in obstetrics and gynecology, Paul then began his own private practice.
As a physician, Paul routinely lowered fees or worked for free and refused to accept Medicaid or Medicare payments.
As a member of Congress, he continues to refuse to sign up for the government pension that he would be entitled to in order to avoid receiving government money, saying it would be "hypocritical and immoral."
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A person’s opinion is only as good as their information.
I suggest that Ron Paul knows a bit more than clivexx about medical funding in the US….
… and about what can and can’t be done when large sums of money are not extorted from citizens by some central-planner who thinks he is best placed to decide their lives and spend their money.
In which connection, I see your mate Barry the Kenyan – having given himself the right unilaterally to imprison citizens without giving any reason – is now planning on extorting even more of their property.
Since you seem to have a very UK-based view of the world:
– do you think nobody ever dies on NHS waiting lists ? Dead is dead, whether its down to waiting in a queue for "free" attention or not having enough money to pay for more-instantly-available attention.
– have you ever asked yourself why a country like Hong Kong can provide for its residents medical, educational, housing, and public order services in return for a 20 per cent top income tax rate (no VAT, no NI, no CGT, no tax on inflation
and incidentally no government debt)…..
…..for the like of which the UK charges a 50 per cent top rate, plus another 12 per cent NI, plus 20 per cent VAT on what’s left…. and even then borrows a ton more money to spend?
– do you think nobody ever dies on NHS waiting lists ?
Thats ridiculous. That is nothing like the same as (and you havent countered this) the unavailibity of any treatment for an uninsured citizen requiring emergency intensive care. something that Paul advocates
No one in the Uk will be dumped by the side of the road if they have a heart attack. Paul advocates this as "choice"
Just becuase hes a doctor doesnt mean that he is an expert on the economics of a health service. Just the same as any particular doctor isnt
– have you ever asked yourself why a country like Hong Kong can provide for its residents medical, educational, housing, and public order services in return for a 20 per cent top income tax rate (no VAT, no NI, no CGT, no tax on inflation
and incidentally no government debt)…..
No
its a different economy. so what? and its a public funded system isnt it? exactly what Paul is against
clivexx,
yes, you’re right, its terrible, anywhere you go in the US, you’ll see people lying around in the streets dying from heart attacks.
there is no such thing as the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act [ passed 1986 under Reagan, it requires virtually all hospitals to accept all patients, regardless of the ability to pay, for emergency room care.]
you are similarly misinformed about HK, where private expenditure on health services is roughly the same again as government expenditure on health services.
outpatient care, mainly primary health care, is mainly through privately-paid GPs (budget around HKD 300 {GBP 24 quid), get seen immediately).
specialist and inpatient care, mostly secondary and tertiary care, is mainly financed and delivered through the public sector, with patients in public hospitals paying a fixed per diem of HKD 100 (GBP 8 quid).
there is also a lot of the charitable input that you deride, notably through various HKJC charitable trusts and various religious organisations.
ron paul is a working doctor from a non-privileged background, turned congressman.
you – i am guessing – have neither of those backgrounds, yet consider your views on healthcare funding in the US better informed than his.
like i said, your opinion is only as good as your information.
nigel lawson once said the NHS is the nearest most Brits have to a religion.
i suspect that remark was aimed at the multitude brainwashed into "NHS is the best in the world", when the reality is that you are overpaying hugely for what you get from it.
maybe you should start asking yourself why the UK government needs to take 70 per cent from its citizens (and borrow a heap on top of that) when the HK government provides much the same on 20 per cent (and no government borrowing).
getting regular folk thinking about smaller government, and keeping more of their own money and spending decisions in their own hands, is what Ron Paul is about.
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