Arabic Phrases that could Save Your Life!

OK, not really. But laughter really IS the best medicine for PTSD. Take my word for it - it's one of the few things in Reader's Digest that's inarguably true, other than the fine print in the hemorrhoid ads.

"Don't Shoot! I'm voting for Obama!" and "Don't Shoot! I'm Voting for Ron Paul!"

"Support the Troops" yellow ribbons are about as funny as the crutches they don't buy. Send a bunch of these to Iraq and you buy some guys a moment of laughter. That's better than all the Faux Patriotism you could possibly slap on the ass of your car.

These stickers come with real adhesive. Magnets are for people who want to be able to change their minds.

My Deep Purple Dream

In each party, there is a race between candidates that represent the best and the worst of each party. On the Democratic side, people have this idea that a "dream ticket" would be both leading candidates. They don't share that dream - nor do I.

On the Republican side - well, mostly the dreams are dead, save for the guttering spark of Ron Paul's candadacy and the flaming stupidity that is the McCain campain. 100 years of war? I don't see that as a great issue to be running on, unless you are trying to corner the Stupid White Male with Very Small Penis vote. I hope that's a smaller constituancy than McCain's advisors seem to think.

I say we put the best of each in charge. I say this because it will make inside-ball ideologues explode with righteous indignation. I really like that image...

Zombie Lies, Conventional Wisdom and Whiners

From the Department of If Youda Ast Me, I Coulda Tolja.

Arianna Huffington: I Am Conventional Wisdom: An Unstoppable Zombie Wreaks Havoc On America - Politics on The Huffington Post:

"In this real-life horror, the conventional wisdom about the war in Iraq came back from the dead, reasserting the absurd notion that the more wrong you were about Iraq, the more credibility your opinion has about anything having to do with terrorism, the Middle East, Islam, or national security.

Accordingly, conventional wisdom has it that the main 'beneficiaries' of the turmoil in Pakistan are Rudy Giuliani, who has yet to utter a critical word about the Bush strategy in the Middle East, and Hillary Clinton, the Democratic candidate who took the longest to separate herself from that strategy.

You might think that the one positive thing to come out of this tragedy would be the opportunity it gives us to reassess not only our strategy in the Middle East, but the conventional wisdom that gave rise to this strategy and continues to sustain it.

But, sadly, you would be wrong. Because the conventional wisdom is composed largely of what Atrios calls 'zombie lies.' They cannot be stopped. For a moment or two, it may seem like you've killed them, but back they come over the horizon. Again and again and again."

Such as the yearly trope of the "war on Christmas" by Godless Atheists (and of course blacks with their Kwanzaa and Jews with their Hanukkah). God forbid we should note with a cheery "happy holidays" that few indeed of us are actually at work, and that whatever one's religion or the lack, one ought to be happy, considering how much good food and family there is about to happen. (Or for some of us, how few of our family show up!)

The Zombie Liars and Conventional Wisdomeers are particularly evident in response to all things Ron Paul, who I'm following primarily as an anomalous phenomenon pointing to a brave new informed consensus reality. It's amusing to see their heads explode as Paul starts to look good for making serious primary gains - or perhaps even taking Iowa.

Atrios's deft framing of the obvious oversupply of Big, Obvious Lies as "zombie lies" and watching the inept, screaming frustration of those invested in dismissing Ron Paul share one important factor.

Unlike in the days of my youth, when it was possible to control the media so closely and pervasively that it was impossible to really notice, the lies of commission and omission by various authorities and authoritarians have become unavoidably conspicuous.

It's not that the zombie lie technique is new. It's that the stench is newly conspicuous.

This new informational commons advantages truth-tellers over liars, for lies only work if you can't easily fact check. Well, anyone with computer access can fact check the hell out of anyone these days, and that's why the "conventional wisdom" - one part lie, two parts guess, three parts sheer ignorant bliss - seems suddenly so foolish. It always was, of course. But it took a lot of heavy lifting to prove it.

Not so much these days. (Atrios)

Why We Say "Fuck" A Lot

Jane has more on the latest nonsense from the Post. The problem really is that no matter how many times we try to kill right wing horseshit (or as Media Matters delicately calls it, "conservative misinformation") it keeps coming back to haunt us. It infects the media bloodstream. We politely ask for corrections. They don't happen. We start screaming for corrections. They still don't happen. Eventually some half-assed weaselly blame-the-uncivil-critics statement is released. We scream louder. And, then, the horeshit pops up again on CNN.

I think you meant to say "whoreshit," big guy...

Even when you wish to agree with the conventional wisdom, it's difficult to pretend - despite all the yammering to that effect - that the conventional wisdom is anything other than the minority wishful thinking of culturally privileged spoiled brats.

It's whining - and if there's anything us "Ahumurikins" hate even more than "socialism", it's whining.

Yesterday in Des Moines, former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee hosted an event thanking “roughly 700 bloggers who, he said, were responsible for keeping his campaign alive.”

Calling them his “secret weapon,” Huckabee urged the bloggers to “clog” up the wireless system in Des Moines so that reporters couldn’t file any more “bad” stories about him. He added that by blocking the free press from doing their jobs, bloggers were “doing the Lord’s work”:

Actually, that's even worse. That's Preemptive Whining. "The bad old media is going to say bad things about me. WHO will rid me of this troublesome media?*"

I am not suggesting, of course, that all seven hundred of the blogger supporters Huckabee credits for keeping his campaign afloat are such daft and depraved sorts. Nope. I merely point out that in expecting them to be willing to commit such an unethical, immoral and frankly Un-American act, he shows that HE believes that of them - and also that his ideas aren't up to being seriously examined by the "unwashed and unconverted."

Since he isn't sure about "owning" the MSM, he's trying to create a pocket MSM, or possibly a perfectly loyal and uncritical counterpart to Ron Paul's volunteer hordes.

My unconventional wisdom says that you don't want to draw to an inside straight when there's a high pair showing. That's the hand that Huck seems to be playing - and moreover, in pulling a stunt that seems to be ripped from the Libretto of The Music Man, we start to grasp on a national basis how he earned his nickname: "The Huckster."

Illustration: End Conservative Whining by webcarve Get this custom shirt at Zazzle

Voter to donor metric says Paul can win Iowa

Supporters of Paul point out that a potentially unbiased metric of a candidate’s support is the number of donors to the campaign in relation to the number of votes a candidate will get. On a post on the LewRockwell.com Blog the issue of the voter donor ratio in Iowa is examined pointing to the possibility of a Ron Paul upset victory.

read more | digg story
(Please digg this story at the above link.)

Here's what they say at Lou's place:

There has been some speculation out there that counting the number of donors to a campaign can determine and multiplying it by a given voter-to-donor ratio, the number of votes can be determined. According to Jim Babka, Paul would need a voter:donor ratio of 22:1 to 28:1 in order to capture 1/3rd of the caucus vote and win (22:1 at 80,000 GOP caucus-goers, and 28:1 with 100,000 GOP caucus-goers). Although voter:donor ratios are hard to come by, I looked at the number of donors prior to the 2004 Democratic Iowa caucus and the number of votes that candidate received (via OpenSecrets.org).

In the '04 Iowa Democratic Caucus, the candidate with the worst (lowest) voter:donor ratio was Dennis Kucinich, with 49 Iowa donors prior to the vote -- which yielded him 1588 votes and a voter:donor ratio of 32:1. If Ron Paul even achieved this low ratio (with his ~1,200 Iowa donors), he would win hands down.

No wonder Faux News is excluding him from the debates. And frankly, I think the smartest thing that could be done at this point would be for the DEMOCRATS to invite him to theirs.

Not sure it would be smart of Paul to accept - but damn, what a publicity coup THAT would be. As I pointed out in an earlier post today, this is not a voting bloc that is going to go home after the primaries. Either the Dems as a whole fight for it's attention - by paying homage to what it's demanding of Paul and expecting him to do - or they may as well kiss a brand new, largely unexplored voting bloc goodbye.

That - or if Paul doesn't get the Republican nomination, it either mounts the largest write-in campaign in US history, or falls in step with whoever is smart enough to say "Ron Paul is right - or at least, largely correct." Right now, that's Kucinich.

This presages another, even more important thing. Political apathy, which both political parties have relied upon for the best part of fifty years, is a thing of the past for a large chunk of the public, left, right, center and variable.

As a Centrist Libertarian, I'm not at all happy with a number of Ron Paul's ideas, because I believe that what little government that exists, should exist for the people as a whole, maximizing liberty across the board. That requires some things - such as universal, single-payer, transportable health care and a robust and unified unemployment/welfare system that is transportable from state to state, so that labor can actually keep up with shifts in demographics.

I also tend to think that a work force that is backed that way will tend to be more productive and far less stressed than our current one, while US companies will be far more competitive than they are now. In other words, it will reduce the necessity to offshore jobs.

But of course Paul and I differ on those points - as well as the far more important matter of the separation of Church and State.

So, while I can no longer personally support Ron Paul - it's absolutely impossible to ignore the most interesting political phenomenon in my memory - what amounts to a peaceful, political revolution, lead by a man as bemused by it as his opponents are. Ron Paul has gone viral - and whatever happens to Ron, it's a hardy virus that isn't likely to respond well to repressive remedies.

Ron Paul - the strength of ten, for his support is pure.

Donklephant » Blog Archive » Ron Paul: Will Online Turn Into Offline?: "

“I think that’s what’s the most fascinating … how Ron Paul will do,” says Julie Germany, deputy director of George Washington University’s Institute for Politics, Democracy and the Internet. “His supporters have overwhelmingly been on the internet,” where blog rankings, YouTube videos and enthusiastic forum participation make his support appear “two or three times what it really is.”

Again, I think this could either be a turning point for Paul or a sign that he may need to think about running on a 3rd party ticket. Somehow I think it’s going to be the latter, given how much Romney is spending…"

The comments show something I've been noticing for some time now; even the reasonable political junkies simply do not understand that whatever you think of Ron Paul, his support comes from what may as well be an unseen paralell universe. While his polling may be low, there are two factors that make those numbers questionable at best - first, many RP supporters don't have landlines. Second, a huge percentage are not and never were "Likely voters."

For myself, I tend to analyze things like this from a different perspective; I figure for everyone motivated enough to go out and stand in the cold waving a sign, there are probably ten that will be motivated enough to vote for Ron Paul in a nice warm voting booth- if only as a seeming "none of the above" vote.

Hell, it's about the only choice for Republicans that want to be able to sleep at night - and he's attractive to Conservative Democrats as well. The accusations of racism haven't hurt him at ALL in that quarter. Sadly, it's quite possibly a very significant quarter.

Read the comments at the link above; this is a voting bloc that is not going away. It won't fade out, and it will continue to strongly impact the political process, whatever the "politics as usual" folks think about it. If Ron Paul drops out, the movement will pick someone else - and it could easily be Dennis Kucinich, seeing as Paul has all but personally endorsed him. This is a movement that concentrates on principles, not "opportunity politics."

And overwhelmingly, it demands wholesale, PRINCIPLED reform of the political and governmental process.

From my perspective, Ron is far from my ideal candidate, and I'm on record stating why, but the Ron Paul Revolution itself is largely independent of candidate, campaign, and established parties, which is it's power and it's saving grace.

Given that the overall results of the election will likely put a solid majority of Democrats in both houses of Congress, possibly even a Progressive plurality, Ron Paul is likely to be even more attractive to Independents as being a solid Constitutional Conservative and a natural check on the "tax and spend" governance that many fear, reasonably or not.

Ron Paul - Right though he is, still more correct than not.

Of course, Ron Paul wants to cut off ALL foreign aid - and he makes a compelling case as to why supporting dictators and "the lesser of two evils" is an inherently bad idea that ultimately sabotages our national interest.

The problem is, we have been blessed with leadership over the last several decades that have been increasingly enamored of poking foreigners with sharp sticks in order to gain domestic support.

The founders - having had all of European history involving The Sport of Kings and various pseudo-religious wars, intended a policy of non-intervention in the affairs of others, backed up with a rattlesnake's response to being trod upon. Paul points out to NEIL CAVUTO that we can hardly afford the logical consequences of continuing this policy. Niel apparently knew better than to argue against the obvious.

read more | digg story

The Official Graphictruth Unendorsement of Ron Paul

The War on Religion by Rep. Ron Paul: "The Founding Fathers envisioned a robustly Christian yet religiously tolerant America, with churches serving as vital institutions that would eclipse the state in importance. Throughout our nation’s history, churches have done what no government can ever do, namely teach morality and civility. Moral and civil individuals are largely governed by their own sense of right and wrong, and hence have little need for external government. This is the real reason the collectivist Left hates religion: Churches as institutions compete with the state for the people’s allegiance, and many devout people put their faith in God before their faith in the state. Knowing this, the secularists wage an ongoing war against religion, chipping away bit by bit at our nation’s Christian heritage. Christmas itself may soon be a casualty of that war."

I think Ron Paul needs the blessing of being on the short end of those taught "morality and civility" by Christian churches. I grew up in a town where there were as many churches as taverns - and there were a LOT of taverns. If the one thing didn't justify a particular flavor of abusive crap, well, the other was there to fill in for it.

As much as I personally benefited from the civility that is undoubtedly well-taught by the Episcopal Church, "morality" and "conformity" were pretty much interchangeable concepts. While some in that church were unquestionably both moral and ethical persons, I would say that at least half were there because it was "the right church" to belong to, if you were "the right sort of person."

It was no different with the Catholics, the Baptists, the Lutherans and the various Evangelical and Pentecostal churches.

Later on, as I came to deal with multiples and abuse survivors and as everyone started comparing notes; there was hardly a one of us where religion had not played a huge role in our abuse - especially the "keeping silence" part. The worse the abuse, the more rigid the facade, the taller the "pillar of the community."

There is a certain sort of person that builds such a facade for the sole purpose of keeping their particular brand of evil out of the public eye, while maintaining a secure hold on their access to victims.

And then, of course, the scandals started to happen as one by one, abused persons gained courage from one another (via the Internet, I suspect) and started disclosing. The Catholic Church has been hit hardest, but none have been immune. And there is one common thread - the idea of unaccountable, unquestionable "moral" authority.

I'm sorry, but if you simply wish to shove government out of the way of theocratic dominion, you and I must have words, Sir, for I've seen to what degree these people can be trusted, these people who wish to rule without the inconvenience of laws and customs that would permit escape from their clutches.

We have only just managed to break their stranglehold of conformity and moralism, just managed to pry their fingers from our throats, and we have just now started to speak seriously of the damage that has been done and how to proceed from here. We continue to fight those who would brand our rebellion and our individuality as evil, we resist those who would cheerfully rally the mobs - and those who would gladly sacrifice their own children upon the altar of Church and Conformity.

I've come by my anti authoritarian views honestly and by a very hard row. I trust none who hold themselves unaccountable, and who rely on religious doctrine and custom to justify their desire to dominate, control and exploit others, while I hold those who bow to and blindly trust Authority as being superior to their own conscience and more reliable than their own eyes.

I have nothing against faith - my faith has kept me alive when by all rights I should not have survived. What I take issue with is social engineering and ritually enforced cultural conformity - and that is all that Christmas has been for the last hundred years or so in these United States; a pastiche of semi-religious, semi-pagan cultural myths which amount to a shared cultural tradition. It is not a matter of faith, or a matter of true religion - it's merely a way of governing the lives of others without being accountable to an electorate or subject to the strictures of Constitution or law. And if it's somewhat benign on the surface, and behind closed doors in many cases, possibly even most - for the sake of those whom the facade is a prison, it must become both optional and transparent.

You, Ron Paul, should damn well know better, working as you do in such a den of vipers, knowing full well the distinction between the substance and the facade it conceals. There's a reason why there IS a constitution - and it's to trump those who would rule by Church, by Fiat and by Tradition.

Up to now, you have said all the right things to impress me. But it seems that as I cast about, you say quite different things to different audiences - and the whole speaks to me of a man who confuses conformity to social norms with morality, and would might well pander to shibboleths, rather than dealing with the scientifically described reality that presidents must - lest they be compared to George Bush.

And it seems to me that when doing the right thing and deference to authority come into conflict, you disappoint me. The fact that you contradicted your own position on the need to impeach Cheney means I must question your motives and alliances. The Largest Minority asks "Why did Ron Paul vote against Impeachment?"

I would like to urge all first-time pro-Paul visitors to my leftist pinko blog to please save all reactionary hate mail until after you’ve actually read what I have to say. Paul’s vote to table the impeachment resolution, then to refer it to committee is especially troubling coming from a supposed consitutionalist. He voted with the Democratic leadership on both accounts.

...

Perhaps even more confusing is this interview from the far-right website InfoWars from March:

Paul said that Bush should be impeached not under the umbrella of partisan vengeance but for ceaselessly breaking the laws of the land.

“I would have trouble arguing that he’s been a Constitutional President and once you violate the Constitution and be proven to do that I think these people should be removed from office.”

Opining that the U.S. had entered a period of “soft fascism,” Paul noted that the legacy of the Bush administration has been the total abandonment of Constitutional principles.

.. Ron Paul’s commitment to the constitution was tested yesterday, and it unfortunately fell short of our expectations. It’s contradictory to say there isn’t sufficient evidence to warrant an impeachment against the very same people you say are violating the constitution. Impeachment isn’t just an option, it’s an obligation. There’s no glory in defending the indefensible, and Paul’s vote was just that. I urge his supporters to contact Paul about his vote. Tell him to vote in favor of impeachment the next time Kucinich brings it back to the floor. And liberals, don’t forget to do the same with your representatives.

I'm not going to bother doing that. I'll be voting for Kucinich. Whoever gets the official nod.

Tucker Carlson slowly comes toward the Light.

Tucker Carlson writes in The New Republic:

The first thing I learned from driving around Nevada with Ron Paul for a couple of days: People really hate the Federal Reserve. This became clear midway through a speech Paul was giving to a group of Republicans at a community center in Pahrump, a dusty town about 60 miles west of Las Vegas. Pahrump is known for its legal brothels (Heidi Fleiss lives there), but most of the people in the audience looked more like ranchers than swingers. They stood five deep at the back of the room and listened politely as the candidate spoke.

Until Paul got to the part about the Fed. "We need a much better monetary system," he said, a system based on "sound money, money that's backed by something." Paul, who is small and delicate and has a high voice, spoke in a near monotone, making no effort to excite the audience. They cheered anyway. Then he said this: "The Constitution gives no authority for a central bank." The crowd went wild, or as wild as a group of sober Republicans can on a Monday night. They hooted and yelled and stomped their feet. Paul stopped speaking for a moment, his words drowned out. Then he continued on about monetary policy.

Wow, I thought. The constitutionality of a central bank is not an issue you see on many lists of voter concerns. (How many pollsters would think to ask about it? How many voters would understand the question?) Yet a room full of non-economists had just responded feverishly when Paul brought it up. Hoping for some context, I went outside and found a Paul staffer. He didn't sound surprised when I told him about the speech. "It's our biggest applause line," he said.

Our biggest applause line? There are two ways to interpret a fact like that: Either the Ron Paul movement is more sophisticated than most journalists understand, or a lot of Paul supporters are eccentric bordering on bonkers.

One gets the impression that at first Tucker didn't take Paul all that seriously, drawing the obvious conclusions from his obvious lack of charisma and his clear, but deliberately non-inspirational speaking style; "Obviously," the man is "not presidential timber."

Unfortunately, it's turned out that the MSM idea of "Presidential timber" is Cottonwood. Looks real stately, but there's damn little substance to it.

By the conclusion of the article, it appears that Tucker has grasped the essence of the Ron Paul phenomenon. He's the only candidate who will give you an honest answer to an honest question. You may not agree with him, but at least you know where he stands, and you know he's willing to risk the consequences of telling you something you don't want to hear.

On the other hand, "Cottonwood" Thompson's supporters are circulating this twaddle:

You might be a Fredhead if...

...you blame America last.

...you kinda like it when terrorists are made uncomfortable.

...you think that today's serious foreign policy issues will take more than hillbilly charm and naiveté to handle.

...you suspect the Iran might actually be up to something.

...you prefer movies where American troops are the good guys.

...you think a Senate majority leader who constantly tells us how things are doomed while a war is still ongoing needs a good bitch-slapping.

...you think it's great if a murderer finds God, but that doesn't mean he should be let out of prison.

...you think America's sovereignty is kinda important.

...you think anyone who talks about how the rich aren't "paying their fair share" is a whiny little Communist.

..."great hair" is low on your list of presidential requirements.

...you think someone didn't draw those border lines on a map just for fun.

...call you crazy, but you'd prefer a presidential candidate who actually shares your conservative views.

...you think it's time someone did something about the hippies.

...you'd like Osama bin Laden's next video to be him pleading, "Someone please help me!" before he's pummeled on screen by the U.S. president.

Well, THAT was substance free. But as the saying goes, "nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American People."

It's a emotional appeals to the "If you don't understand it, hit it with a crowbar" crowd. None of it tells us for sure what Thompson is for. Hell, if you think about it (the last thing candidates like Thompson or Clinton want), you realize it doesn't stay a hell of a lot about what he's actually against. But he's DOWN witcha in that redneck 'hood. And that, apparently, is what counts to the followers of "Cottonwood" Thompson.

Ron Paul supporters, on the other hand, while they may well have red necks come by honestly from riding a tractor, are not afraid of studying up a bit to try and understand what the hell their candidate is on about. They don't mind saying - "Austrian economics? What the HELL is Austrian economics? Why don't I just google that..."

And suddenly, there's the whole course load for Econ 301, introduction to free market economies. PLUS some.

These here "internet tubes" have achieved a libertarian dream: they have deregulated access to information. There is no restriction based on race, class, creed or economic standing. There is no "hidden knowledge" - once you have achieved the Gnosis of Google. I'm limited in my learning only by my education and intelligence - and if I can't change the latter, I can definitely add to the former. It's something I do every single day.

So, it's not all that surprising that a crowd of Ron Paul supporters can follow a lecture on Austrian Economics and a terse explianation of the problems with an unregulated and unsupervised central bank.

Aside from the political implications of a broadly educated and informed electorate, there are some incredible social ones, which I've addressed before and which seem to me to presage a time when hierarchal organization will seem terribly quaint, rather like Victorian Engineering, or feudalism.

In my humble opinion, the groundswell of Libertarianism comes from the realization that, whatever you think about the virtues and vices of government per se, the Internet is the basis for replacing a hierarchical, authoritarian government with a networked, non-hierarchical facility for co-ordinating those interested in being co-ordinated.

It's doing that already, brilliantly. I give you the Ron Paul Revolution as a conspicuous example of the phenomenon, and what can be achieved when it's used creatively by intelligent people.

Ron Paul supporters are those who expect people wanting to be placed in a position of authority to have something in their briefcase besides a sack lunch, and he speaks eloquently about re-establishing trust in two critical areas of proper governance - our money supply and the interlocked domains of foreign and trade policy.

It's indisputable when it comes to his favorite topics - money, taxation and the Constitution, Ron Paul is authoritative. He's even made a fed spokesperson cry.

Whether you agree with him or not, there is no question that you'd have to work real hard to credibly dispute economics or monetary policy with him. And he's got a long history of standing up for his beliefs in the face of obvious pressure and all kinds of profit.

That's appealing to the conscientiously liberal as well as studied, plain folks who try to vote their values.

It's The Ethics, Stupid!

This election is going to turn on ethics and values, and who the voters feel genuinely intends to do the right thing by us as a people and as a nation. Here are two indicators, and what I think they imply.

Paul credits anti-war stance for size of his war-chest

DES MOINES — GOP presidential hopeful Ron Paul credited his stance against the war in Iraq for his hefty fund raising haul over the weekend when he raised more than $6 million in a single day.

“I believe the war has been the igniting factor to the campaign from day one,” Paul said.

Paul is drawing support from a demographic no other candidate has seriously tapped, to my knowledge - people who either have never voted, or were not intending to vote.

Paul supporter Jessica Borgnis of Des Moines came to see him Monday. Borgnis voted for George Bush in 2000, but said she became disillusioned after the country went to war.

“I switched my vote to a third-party candidate in 2004, and wasn’t going to vote this election year, and when I heard about Ron Paul, I just regained confidence in the system,” she said.

read more | digg story

But Paul's support does not come from nowhere and nothing. Frankly, "It's Karma, Baby." This story from Burnt Orange Report seems to underline the principle that "Cheaters never Prosper."

What Dan Barrett's Victory Means for Texas by: Matt Glazer

Dan Barrett's victory tonight has implications beyond better representation for Fort Worth residents. To relay its importance, we have to look at what brought us to this point.

In 2001, Republican's drew a map they thought would elect 102 R's and 48 D's. They were wrong as only 88 Republicans and 62 Democrats were elected in 2002. Still, it was a striking blow to Democrats as we had lost our majority, the Speakership, and control of the operation of the Texas House. That was a low point for Democrats in Texas as well as nationally. The result was the rise of the neo-conservative, uber Republican Tom Craddick who slashed the budget and cut social programs like CHIP and education funding. To this day that funding has never been restored even with surpluses in the state budget.

In 2006, Democrats won 6 seats plus Donna Howard's special election. In 2007 we welcomed Kirk England to the Democratic Party and now we have Dan Barrett as member of our caucus as well. We've not even yet had a single vote cast the 2008 primaries, and there are now 71 Democrats in Texas House- a stunning and speedy reversal based on the same map that was drawn to have only 42 Democratic seats.

A number of factors are no doubt at work, but I don't think we can dismiss principled outrage at the behavior of Tom Delay and Texas Republicans in so conspicuously and arrogantly gerrymandering the state. And then, well, there's everything a certain former Texas Governor has been up to since then. At some point, party allegiance becomes an embarrassment rather than a point of pride. I'm guessing that either Republicans have been staying home in droves, or they have been crossing party lines.

Here's something to note in reference to Ron Paul's campaign, and Kucinich's run for the Democratic nomination.)

In addition, Barrett was dramatically out spent. According to the 8 day out reports, Mark Shelton spent over $100,000 and raised (and presumably spent) another $10,000 from TexPAC before the election. Barrett on the other hand spent a little over $45,000 according to his 8 day report. Again, according to his telegram reports, raised an additional $4,000 in the final week of the election from Texas Parent PAC and two individuals.

Breaking it down, that means Barrett spent $9.13 per vote compared to about $23.40 per vote for Shelton.

Money doesn't seem to be talking as loud as it used to. I don't know how well Barrett used the Internet to gather attention, so it's hard to compare that aspect of his campaign to Ron Paul's, but it could well have been a significant passive factor.

Unlike the elections of my youth, where it was next to impossible to gather enough information for an average voter to make a decent choice, today a voter is just a Google away from everything a challenger wants them to know, and everything an incumbent hopes they have forgotten.

Somebody should do some polling on that.

But for the majority party to lose to an under-funded challenger in a district gerrymandered in that party's favor - that should be as close to an impossible as politics allows.

But then, losing at least half of the military vote that Republicans have come to rely on has got to sting. There's this Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll which is dissected here .

Nearly six out of every 10 military families disapprove of Bush's job performance and the way he has run the war, rating him only slightly better than the general population does.

And among those families with soldiers, sailors and Marines who have served in Iraq or Afghanistan, 60% say that the war in Iraq was not worth the cost, the same result as all adults surveyed.

And then there are rumblings within the ranks of evangelical and conservative Christians. who seem to have finally noticed the wide gap between stated principles and evident actions. This may lead to some internal upheaval as well as a real problem for most Republican candidates except Ron Paul, who's gotten the most military donations of any candidate and is respected for his forthright Christianity, even if he's unwilling to legislate his morality.

All told, it's looking more and more like Paul's campaign has the potential, in terms of both actual and potential supporters, to go all the way to the finish line. Not a "spoiler" - as some would like to portray him - but as the logical, viable and popular choice for the Republican nomination, and win or lose, a far more significant stature within the party.

I'm sure that idea is making certain established Republican figures crap ice cubes. Moreover, imagine the funk sweat on K-Street. Lobbyists don't even bother knocking on his door any more. But here's the logical outcome of this; the big money has to go to the more "credible" candidates - that is to say, the ones willing to be bribed to bend the rules.

Clearly the "smart money" of that sort is backing a Guliani/Clinton match; a win/win proposition for K-Street and big business. But as we have seen, money doesn't seem to count for as much as it did, and it may even be that huge campaign chests and slick, triangulated, focus-grouped campaigns might be a net negative.

I personally think it is a negative, or at best a neutral, because neither campaign is going to be saying what voters want to hear. And meanwhile, they may well be doing direct political calculus of their own: Elect a solid Democratic majority to ensure Health Care (You don't need Hillary for that) - and Ron Paul to get us out of Iraq. Because for that, you need someone with the authority to say "wind it up and ship them home."

I'm not one to make bets or give odds, but I'm thinking a bet on a Democratic near-sweep of open seats in the House and Senate is far better than even odds, while the idea of Ron Paul becoming President is, while still a long shot, not at all inconceivable.

It's not so much Paul's race to win as it is for all the others to lose - but they all seem well-positioned for that outcome.

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Ron Paul: A matter of concience.

clipped from seattletimes.nwsource.com At midnight EST, donations were over $6 million, according to the campaign Web site. Those donations were processed credit-card receipts, said Paul campaign spokesman Jesse Benton. Benton said the median donation was about $50 in the fundraiser, which was the idea of Paul supporters who are not officially connected to the campaign. Like many Paul backers, Lyman is a political novice. He has never even bothered to vote. But he had to act, he said, when the new Democratic majority in Congress didn't pull the troops out of Iraq. He was drawn to Paul and his promise to end the war immediately. "I know my tax dollars are being used to kill people," Lyman said. "It makes me feel horrible."

Trevor Lyman, the unpaid and unofficial Ron Paul volunteer who is directly responsible for two record-breaking "money bombs" has captured the attention of Mainstream Media.

Why is he doing it? What does he expect to gain? What agenda does he advocate? What strings, in other words, come with this money?

Conscience. Strings of principle, of ethics and of conscience - strings that Ron Paul is more than happy to be bound by.

"I know my tax dollars are being used to kill people," Lyman said. "It makes me feel horrible."

It's hard to argue with motivations like that - and it's hard to argue that such motivations are "naive" or "unrealistic" in light of more than ten millions raised on the strengths of Ron Paul's principles alone, without direct or implied bribes.

Ron Paul doesn't advocate single payer health care and he's opposed to social security in principle (I differ with him there, by the by). But there are few personally selfish reasons to vote for him. They don't call him "Dr. No" for nothin'.

Long before Ron Paul, JFK tried to give us "hard money."

clipped from www.john-f-kennedy.net On June 4, 1963, a little known attempt was made to strip the Federal Reserve Bank of its power to loan money to the government at interest. On that day President John F. Kennedy signed Executive Order No. 11110 that returned to the U.S. government the power to issue currency, without going through the Federal Reserve. Mr. Kennedy's order gave the Treasury the power "to issue silver certificates against any silver bullion, silver, or standard silver dollars in the Treasury." This meant that for every ounce of silver in the U.S. Treasury's vault, the government could introduce new money into circulation. In all, Kennedy brought nearly $4.3 billion in U.S. notes into circulation. The ramifications of this bill are enormous. With the stroke of a pen, Mr. Kennedy was on his way to putting the Federal Reserve Bank of New York out of business. This is because the silver certificates are backed by silver and the Federal Reserve notes are not backed by anything.

And had he lived, we would not have a 30+ trillion dollar national debt now. I leave "Who shot JFK" for speculation. Why, though, seems pretty damn obvious.

The link will explain how the Federal Reserve creates money out of thin air and then loans it to the Government at interest.

That's one hell of a sweet scam. One you would kill to protect in a hot second if you had a piece of the action.

You see, that thirty + trillion dollars of debt is in part a direct theft by hidden taxation. In other words, if you do a dollar's worth of work and are paid a dollar, but that dollar is invisibly devalued by a dime over the next year, you have been taxed. When you have a currency that is not backed by anything, it's very easy to conceal that tax by manipulating the money supply and interest rates, to complexify the matter beyond the ken of all but those with supercomputer access.

But the fact remains; your savings are not worth as much as they should be, nor can you buy a dollar's worth of goods for your dollar of sweat.

And that is theft. A very complex and sophisticated form of theft, one very dear to the heart of some persuasive thieves, but theft it is.

Remember, all that money (representing economic effort) went to benefit people who had no just reason to profit.

This is always the way when a currency is debased, and it always is debased following the creation of some wonderfully persuasive form of justification for the necessity to replace gold with lead in the coinage.

But it is theft, or at best, taxation by other means, and it its a tax that does not in any way benefit those who are taxed; it goes directly into the hands of bankers in exchange for a fraudulent "service" we do not need.

IMPEACHMENT: Let's Ron Paul the hell out of it.

Ron Paul isn't the only "internet phenomenon" being studiously ignored by politicians and press alike. The impeachment movement has been gathering steam, even though the MSM refuses to mention the idea.

Meanwhile, for those who considered impeachment the natural course of an ethical and Democratic speaker of the house, there is a brand spanking new petition. Please let Nancy know just how pissed you are with her, constitutionally and electorally.

A Petition To Replace Nancy Pelosi as Speaker of the House of Representatives for the Purposes of Pursuing Impeachment

In the event of a rogue presidency, the founders of our great nation provided for protections for us, the citizens, under the constitution in the form of a process called impeachment.

Though rarely spoken, the word itself holds great power in that it binds the president and his entire administration to the laws of the nation and makes them all accountable to the people.

As a constant threat, impeachment forces the president and his administration to work within the confines of our system of checks and balances.

Without impeachment, there is no limit to what a rogue president can do.

Though the process has rarely been used, it has never been needed or justified as much as it is right now!

Yet, Nancy Pelosi began her term as Speaker of the House of Representatives by announcing “Impeachment was off the table”, thus giving the corrupt president a free hand in his last two years in office!

It goes on, but really, what more need be said? Wake up and smell the coffee, Nancy.

There's more serious initiatives on this topic of impeachment hitting the web. Via OpEd News, proof that the concept has penetrated the armored beltway and actually scored hits on Congresspersons besides Kucinich.

Faced with an obstructionist leadership in the House, and a mainstream media that have forsaken their role as a Fourth Estate monitor of government abuse, three Democratic members of the House Judiciary Committee are calling on the public to demand that the Congress initiate impeachment hearings immediately against Vice President Dick Cheney.

Speaking at a telephone press conference Friday organized by Democrats.com, Rep. Robert Wexler (D-FL) said that following a bi-partisan vote Nov. 7 by the full House to send Rep. Dennis Kucinich’s Cheney impeachment bill (H Res 799, formerly H Res 333) to the Judiciary Committee, it was time for those hearings to “immediately” get underway.

Scoffing at the argument that has been made by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and others in the Democratic leadership that impeachment might hurt Democratic chances in the November ’08 elections, or that it could deter Democrats from their Congressional agenda, Wexler says, “I believe that there is a constitutional obligation for the Congress to hold this administration accountable, and it should not depend on what people think the impact might be on an election. The only question should be: Did Vice President Cheney abuse his powers?”

He adds, “If the American people believe that the democrats are holding a legitimate inquiry into serious issues of constitutional importance, they will not hold it against them. And besides, initial polling would indicate that this is not some off-the-reservation idea.”

In order to speed the plow,

Wexler has set up a website, called WexlerWantsHearings. He is urging Americans from across the country to go to the sign and sign on to his call for an immediate start to hearings. “I want to be able to go to my colleagues in the house and say I have 55,000 people calling for hearings,” he says.

So that's two petitions to sign. Right this second. And if I might coin a meme, let's Ron Paul the hell out of this, all over the net. Both as an ironic nod to those who think there are three of us in mommy's basement, and second, as a symbol of personal and constitutional integrity. And, having become such a symbol, somewhat to his own suprise, I think, I do hope he understands the importance of living up to it. Hence my deliberate conflation of the matter. Seems to me that if you are for Ron Paul, you most likely should be for impeaching the Miserable Failure and his brain.

Ron Paul: Real Answers to Hard Questions

I particularly note Paul's comment about allowing people to make poor religious and philosophical choices and we don't regulate those.

Yet.

The Slime Behind the Smile : Mike Huckabee - serial rapist pardoner.

As disturbing as it was to find out from the Huffington Post that Mike Huckabee allegedly pardoned Wayne Dumond due to some anti-Clinton hysteria alleging a "frameup," in what appears to have been a particularly irrational Clinton bashing exercise gone horribly, horribly wrong, it turns out that it really wasn't that hard to convince Huckabee to let a serial rapist and probable recidivist go free.

It turns out that - over howls of protests from parole boards, victims families and prosecutors of both parties - you deserved clemency if just clutched a bible and professed to be "born again" with the degree of sincerity it seems born-again Republicans expect from one another. That, or if you raked leaves at the Mansion really well. "Or at least, that was one wry observation from a prosecutor who clearly wasn't willing to go so far as to say that clemencies are for sale.

And indeed, it may well be that he's dumb enough to piss in his AG's cornflakes for free.

There is a long, long list of offenders Huckabee has granted clemency to, many who have re offended. Several of these persons had been sent to prison for life without the possibility of parole by a jury of their peers.

Now, I'm all too well aware of the sorts of things that may occur that lead to someone being unjustly convicted - I'm rather a fan of DNA and The Innocence Project. But in such cases, there should be a very high standard - which The Innocence Project meets, by re-examining DNA evidence.

But this is not about a governor carefully reviewing a case and finding grounds for reasonable doubt - in Huckabee's case, the process appears to be whimsical, insensitive and entirely inexplicable to the legal community.

When you talk to prosecutors around the state, many of them will tell you they're unhappy that Gov. Huckabee pardons criminals without letting law-enforcement officials or victims' families know why he's doing it, as he's required by law.
___ "He doesn't take giving clemency very seriously," complains Saline County Prosecuting Attorney Robert Herzfeld, who will push for new legislation next year to make the clemency process less secretive.

One particularly sore point is his arrogance; signally and contrary to the Arkansas state constitution, he refuses to explain his reasons for granting clemency.

Herzfeld successfully sued to keep a murderer named Don Jeffers behind bars (at least for a while longer) after Huckabee granted him clemency without explanation as required by law: "On granting an application (for executive clemency), the Governor shall include in his written order the reasons thereforeŠ."
___Attorney General Mike Beebe, in nullifying the pardon, agreed that the governor had erred when he didn't give reasons why he had pardoned Jeffers and didn't even contact the prosecutor or the victim's family about how he felt about the pardon.
___"It was a tremendous victory," says the 30-year-old prosecutor. "This was not only the first time a prosecutor had filed a lawsuit against a governor but had actually won." Jeffers had strangled a Bryant man during a home burglary in 1980 and is serving a life sentence without parole for murder and 25 years for armed robbery after he plea bargained to avoid the death penalty.

Reportedly, the fact that a felon has lied on a clemency application doesn't concern Huckabee;

He [Herzfeld] is fighting clemency for an-other Saline County killer named Denver Dual Witham, who is also serving a life sentence without parole.
___In 1974, Witham and a cousin beat their victim to death out in the woods with a lead pipe – and beat him repeatedly so that the victim's face was smashed almost beyond recognition. "His entire face was gone," the prosecutor says.
___He accuses Witham of lying on his clemency petition to make it seem that he had killed his victim in "a barroom brawl" – as if that had made the crime less awful.
___"He's a liar," Herzfeld says of Witham, who could face perjury charges because of his whitewashed clemency application.
___Herzfeld says Witham, who plays in the prison band, hid five previous felonies from his clemency application and had threatened the previous sheriff.
___"This is the person the governor wants to let out of prison," the prosecutor says. "No word yet on whether the governor will change his mind or go ahead and grant clemency to this convicted murderer who lied on his clemency application and made threats towards former public officials," Herzfeld told us.
___"The governor has to wait 30 days from the date he announced his intent to grant clemency on May 21. My guess is that the governor will release his decision on Witham late this Friday afternoon before the long holiday weekend."

I've no idea what's happening in regards to this case, but I can't imagine what could possibly cause a reasonable Governor of either party to overlook such abuse of process that it could even become an issue. It would not be "could face" but "would face" perjury charges, and I'd take a personal interest in insuring that the inmate's circumstances changed for the worse. I would pretty much assume that response of any governor of any party.

This is apparently a long-running scandal in the Governor home state, but it's apparently news to the GOP leadership, who still apparently distrust that "internet thingie" enough to do a quick Google to find any emergent scandals. Heck, never mind that; his actual positions on the issues contain something to offend just about everyone.

Of course, over at the Daily Kos, devout Democrats hold prayer vigils in hopes of his nomination, observing that a candidate that splits the Republicans between the Religious Right and everyone else AND who has Willie Horton as an invisible running mate is pretty much a free pass for any Democratic candidate with a pulse.

The problem for the GOP is they can't really take down Huckster because most of the things that are so crazy about him actually help him with the evangelical base. Even the rape-murderer he pushed let go can be spun that he thought the guy changed from being 'born again'. Huck's views on AIDS victims being quarantined, and being homosexual means you are a public health risk are of course apalling to us and the majority of Americans, but to the evangelical base, this won't hurt him at all. So now the GOP is left with their establishment candidates, flawed as they are, (Giuliani, Romney, McCain, and Thompson) battling and splitting up the non-evangelical base as Huck takes the lionshare of the evangelical base. It's a recipe for disaster for the GOP. Now with the frontrunner's bullseye on him, story after story will come out in the media of his crazy and kooky views, but those stories won't turn off the evangelical GOP base, just everybody else.

I concur. And my hunch - and that's all that it is, a hunch - is that it may well end up with Ron Paul getting the nomination. Not because of his high positives (I'd call them moderate positives) but because of the overwhelming negatives carried by everyone else. Even those turned off by his anti-war stance may well vote for him rather than giving Hillary (or whoever) a walkover.

Many say (with probable accuracy) that "he can't win the nomination," but I'm starting to think that it's a case where everyone else is going to lose worse.

I swear to Ghu, I do feel for the average, traditional moderate American Conservative, they really must be wondering where their leaders found this pack of jokers. Not one really viable candidate - and I reluctantly include Ron in that; there's no way in any normal election that he'd be getting the attention he's getting.

I'm surprised there isn't a movement underway to impeach the Republican National Committee.

Ron Paul: The For Profit Candidate

From the department of "DOH, why didn't I think of that" comes an idea so brilliant, so simple and so appropriate it has stunned professional election fundraisers.

It turns out that if you sell people a share in a partisan message in order to make a profit, it sails right by campaign finance laws. In this case, you can help pay for a blimp that pimps Ron Paul, flying over Washington DC and Wall Street, with a final mission to dump tea in Boston Harbor.

From Politico.com:

They shunned traditional mechanisms such as creating an independent non-profit group under section 527 of the IRS code — like Swift Boat Veterans for Truth and the other groups that spent millions on ads in 2004 — or a political action committee — like EMILY’s List. Instead, they went an almost unheard of route, establishing a for-profit company: Liberty Political Advertising.

The name is a nod to Paul’s ideology and the website boasts the “legal arrangement offers the best of both worlds: no limits and virtually no regulations.” In other words, very libertarian.

I can understand how this could have been overlooked. Most politicians prefer not to think of themselves as marketable commodities, even though this is something rather like a professional sex worker objecting to being called a whore.

Anyway, like every other development around the incredible "Little Campaign that Could," it comes not from Ron Paul, but from people who like the idea of Ron Paul, and believe (as do I) that any idea worth having is worth putting out on the street to see how much she can bring in.

Ok, I just offended my own sensibilities with that analogy. But, however it is put, it is what I believe, so let it stand in all it's hilariously inappropriate glory.

UPDATE:

Come to think of it, I did think of making a buck off Ron. I just didn't think BIG enough.

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