Isilion

The standard will be something like this:

• He has never voted to raise taxes.
• He has never voted for an unbalanced budget.
• He has never voted for a federal restriction on gun ownership.
• He has never voted to raise congressional pay.
• He has never taken a government-paid junket.
• He has never voted to increase the power of the executive branch.

• He voted against the Patriot Act.
• He voted against regulating the Internet.
• He voted against the Iraq war.

• He does not participate in the lucrative congressional pension program.
• He returns a portion of his annual congressional office budget to the U.S. treasury every year.
• He introduces numerous pieces of substantive legislation each year, probably more than any single member of Congress.

There are people running for office now calling themselves Ron Paul Republicans. There are voters who call themselves the same thing. The mantle is there for the taking. If people from dog catcher to President can stack there record up against this standard they deserve our votes, if not, they don’t. Period.

In Maryland’s 8th Congressional District the following people are running for the Republican nomination to challenge Chris Van Hollen for a seat in the United States House of Representatives.

Steve Hudson for Congress
Phone: 301-605-5050
steve@stevehudson2008.com
www.stevehudson2008.com

Meyer Marks for Congress
http://marksforcongress.blogspot.com

Brian Mezger for Congress
Phone: 301-910-3677
brian@mezgerforcongress.org
www.mezgerforcongress.org

Jay Roberts for Congress
Phone: 301-588-7176
jbrobert@verizon.net
www.jayroberts2008.com

Bruce Stern for Congress
438 North Frederick Avenue, Suite 316
Gaithersburg, MD 20877
Phone: 240-740-7787
Fax: 240-631-6556
info@sternforcongress.com
www.sternforcongress.com

I know Jay Roberts personally. He is a strong supporter of Ron Paul and I will be backing him and voting for him. I want to see him get elected, but if he does he has his work cut out for him.

The only other of the candidates I’ve actually talked to for any length of time was Brian Mezger. I met him at the Montgomery County Fair in 2007 at the GOP booth. We completely disagree on Iraq, but his other positions fit the fiscal conservative, smaller government tradition and if he got the nomination I could vote for him easily against Van Hollen, who is not only wrong on the War, he’s wrong on fiscal and social issues as well.

The others of these I’ve heard speak. I know Steve Hudson is a Huckabee supporter for what that’s worth.

Meyer Marks and Bruce Stern? If Hudson or one of them got it, I’d vote for them.

But even if I get stuck with Van Hollen again, I have a real standard to hold him to.

Whoever wins, you’ll be hearing about it from me.

In a very fundamental way, there are really only two candidates running for president this year: Ron Paul, and all the others.

This is because there are really only two issues at stake.

The first issue is our out-of-control foreign policy. America is embroiled in shooting wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. We spend more on our military than nearly the rest of the world combined. We have troops stationed in over a hundred foreign countries. Manic interventionism has stretched our military to the breaking point, and has ruined our nation’s reputation.

The second issue is our impending economic implosion. Our government, which has shed the last vestiges of constitutional restraint, has made a myriad of promises that it cannot keep. Our outstanding obligations to fund social security, government health care programs, and everything else under the sun are rapidly bankrupting our nation. To maintain these Ponzi schemes, the Fed is debasing our currency and igniting an ugly bout of hyperinflation.

Our predicament is severe and profound. We must immediately begin to shed our overseas obligations and put our domestic house in order. Otherwise, we will find ourselves reenacting the collapse of the Soviet Union right here at home.

Ron Paul is the only candidate who is willing to address these issues. He is the only one who is willing to speak frankly with the American people about our predicament and the painful actions which must be taken to prevent a real catastrophe.

And rather than offering solutions, Obama, McCain, Clinton and Romney, (and the other political hacks running for president) are not even willing to talk honestly about the problems.

http://www.lewrockwell.com/latulippe/latulippe82.html

Props to a poster named IrishUp

For GOP voters who don’t want to see President Hillary Clinton, Ron Paul is your last and ONLY chance to elect a Republican in November.

Here’s why:

60% of voters want out of Iraq
 (pollster.com)
Voters think Democrats are better at the economy than GOP by a margin of 18 points (Tim Russert, MSNBC)

Now ask yourself, do you think those numbers will improve in November? Or get worse? The other GOP candidates signed on to the losing position on those two key issues during the Florida debate January 24, 2008. Romney, Giuliani, Huckabee and McCain all stated emphatically, that they support the war in Iraq 100%, will not offer a timetable for withdrawal, and still think it was a good idea from the get go. In the general election the Democrat candidate will remind voters of that over and over and over again.

If the GOP nominates Ron Paul, it will be the Democrat, most likely Hillary, who will be on the defensive about her support for the war and her flip-flop position now.

All I heard from Romney, Giuliani, Huckabee and McCain in the debate about the economy was tax cuts for corporations. They may have offered other ideas, but that’s what will stick to them like glue in November. As Republicans we can agree that all taxes should be cut or ended to boost an economy. However, cutting corporate tax rates is NOT a message that will resonate with voters, most of whom do not own corporations. If that’s all you have, the Democrat candidate will hammer this home during the general election: tax cuts for the rich, tax cuts for the rich, tax cuts for the rich.

If the GOP nominates Ron Paul, an economist who has a real plan for stabilizing the dollar, reducing the debt, cutting federal spending, and saving social security, it will put the Democrats on the defensive, because all they want to do is spend, spend, spend. And Ron Paul, Dr. No, can back up his position with his voting record in Congress.

Here’s the equation:
Tax cuts for the rich + 100 years’ war in Iraq = defeat in November.

So if you’re a Republican and like higher taxes, more government programs, nationalized healthcare and a shrinking dollar, vote for one of the other candidates. Because that’s what you’ll get in 2009 after Hillary is sworn in.

But if you are a Republican who you wants to eliminate the IRS, reduce the size and intrusiveness of government and return to a dollar that actually buys something, vote for Ron Paul now and in November and that’s what you’ll get in 2009, because Ron Paul is a man of his word.

I know it. You know it. And you better believe the Democrats know it. The other Republican candidates lost the 2008 Presidential election on January 24, 2008 during the Florida debate. The ONLY Republican who can win in November is Ron Paul.

Don Luskin Named Economic Advisor to the Ron Paul 2008 Presidential Campaign

“Ron Paul’s economic plan is the real thing… not just a band-aid”

ARLINGTON, VIRGINIA – Newly appointed Ron Paul economic advisor, Donald L. Luskin, issued the following statement about Dr. Paul’s proposed comprehensive economic revitalization plan:

“Ron Paul’s economic plan is the real thing – a plan. It’s not just a band-aid designed to ‘stimulate’ the economy in an election year. It’s a fundamental agenda for real and lasting change, making the US economy more vibrant and competitive, and removing barriers to advancement for all Americans.”
Donald L. Luskin is Chief Investment Officer for Trend Macrolytics LLC and contributing editor to the National Review Online and SmartMoney.com. He is also a frequent guest on CNBC, and the author of two books: Index Options and Futures: The Complete Guide and Portfolio Insurance: A Guide to Dynamic Hedging.

Mr. Luskin is available for interviews regarding Congressman Paul’s economic policies.

Congressman Paul’s comprehensive economic revitalization plan can be found online at: www.RonPaul2008.com/Prosperity

It’s really amazing when you see the lights go on and somebody “gets” it. Maybe Glenn Beck really isn’t a tool, at least not intentionally…

GLENN BECK: When you were on my program on television, you said something that I didn’t correct because I didn’t — I mean, it sounded so outlandish but I let it go because I didn’t have the facts and you sounded so convinced of it that I thought, hmmm, I’ve got to check into that and I’ll correct it the next time he’s on or I’ll correct it the next day. What you said was, if we got rid of the income tax, the Government would still take about the same amount of money in as they had ten years ago.

PAUL PAUL: Approximately.

GLENN BECK: We looked into it and it’s accurate. Can you explain that and how do we get that message out to people?

http://www.glennbeck.com/content/articles/article/196/4897/

He’s catchin’ on, I’m tellin’ ya…

http://youdecide08.foxnews.com/2008/01/22/thompson-to-drop-presidential-bid/

Less than a month after a huge upset victory, and promises that fundraising would be ramped up, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee is asking his senior staff to keep working for him without pay, while lower level campaign staff are seeing their salaries cut dramatically or eliminated altogether.

“The goal is to get a leaner, meaner campaign structure moving into Super Tuesday,” says a senior campaign adviser.

But many of those being asked to take the cut are refusing, and walking away, leaving the campaign with holes to fill.

“The money simply hasn’t come in at the rate that we expected,” says the aide. “Florida is a $7 million commitment that we can’t meet, and if we did, that leaves us exposed for Super Tuesday, where we have a lot of states and a lot media buys. We had to make tough decisions.”

http://www.spectator.org/dsp_article.asp?art_id=12611

Currencies come and go, but gold has been a store of value for more than 5,000 years. Gold is rare, but, thanks to Gutenberg, paper money is not. Presented with an opportunity to churn out extra cash at little expense, it takes a special kind of government to resist. Few seem able to do so.

According to former Fed chairman Alan Greenspan: “There is no inherent anchor in a fiat-money regime [a currency not underpinned by gold]. What constitutes its ‘normal’ inflation rate is a function solely of a country’s culture and history.” For many, that flexibility has proven ruinous.

Inflation wrecks currencies in the same way that termites destroy wooden houses. The world’s two most successful currencies, the US dollar and the British pound, both of which are still used by other nations to hoard wealth, have each lost more than 95 per cent of their value in the past 100 years.

Since 1971, when Richard Nixon broke the dollar’s formal link to gold, America has pumped out trillions of new dollars. Money from thin air. China alone is sitting on more than $1,000 billion of reserves, as American consumers pile up debts to buy “essentials” from factories in Shenzhen and Guangdong. No wonder the buck has lost its fizz.

By contrast, there is a finite supply of gold. This keeps it honest. As financial commentator Peter Burshre pointed out: “Regardless of the dollar price involved, one ounce of gold would purchase a good-quality man’s suit at the conclusion of the Revolutionary War [American War of Independence], the Civil War, the presidency of Franklin Roosevelt and today.”

read more | digg story

Paul has his second from Nevada — or, as Romney would put it, “the silver” — and a better finish in South Carolina than Giuliani. He’s also got more money in the bank than most of the other candidates, a muscular fund-raising operation, enthusiastic young volunteers and a message that distinguishes him from the field. He’s in the race for a good long time, and now he’s actually winning delegates.

And what of Rudy Giuliani?

“America’s mayor” either wins Florida — where he has camped out as the other candidates have slogged through Iowa, New Hampshire, Wyoming, Michigan, Nevada and now south Carolina — or there really is no way to make a case for carrying his bizarre campaign forward.

And the issues are not going Giuliani’s way. The country’s talking about a recession, not 9/11 or national security. And McCain, Romney and Huckabee all heading to Florida with better-thought and more effective economic messages. So, too, is Ron Paul — the man who beat Giuliani in Nevada and South Carolina and Michigan and Iowa.

With those four delegates from Nevada, Ron Paul’s claiming 6 delegates.

So far, Rudy Giuliani is claiming 2. That’s one more than Duncan Hunter.

http://www.thenation.com/blogs/campaignmatters?pid=272954

Sgt. Carter, you are a patriot.

I knew you could.

Because the Beltway characters believe they are at the center of the universe, they imagine that: 1) The Paul Revolution revolves around them and their “ideas,” and 2) In the unlikely event the Revolution was started without them, it has to be insignificant.

As usual, they are wrong.

Ron Paul is not running as a Libertarian, but as a Republican with a strong libertarian sensibility. Ron’s Revolution is revved, for the most, by independents, defecting Democrats, and disgruntled Republicans for whom his message is fresh and intuitive.

What are the odds that Rep. Paul’s followers have come to the philosophy of freedom through Reason magazine? Is it remotely possible that the passionate soldiers of the Paul Army enlisted after chancing upon a dispassionate, desiccated, dry-as-dust disquisition on a free market in kidneys (I’m all for it)? I think not.

Perhaps Paulites were inspired by Stephen Moore, a former Catoite, now with the neoconservative “War Street Journal.” From his comfy perch on “Kudlow & Company,” Moore ventured just the other day that the recession is the result of the less-than dynamic demos’ fear of rapid technological transformation. This is the Virginia Postrel “philosophy,” if it can be called that.

Also antipathetic to Dr. Paul, Ms. Postrel is yet another establishment-endorsed libertarian of whom Paul backers are blissfully unaware. A filament of the Postrel faith evinced by her first book, “The Future and its Enemies,” is that all change is good, always. All that glitters is gold was the essence of Ms. Postrel’s second manifesto, “The Substance of Style.” Profound perhaps to some, but not to Paulites.

Picture a Venn diagram. The overlap between the Paul and the Postrel solitudes is invisible to the naked eye.

http://www.ilanamercer.com/HighPriestsOfPomposityPanPaul.htm

And I love this one.

The respectable libertarians are apparently concerned that Ron Paul has been a terrible distraction in the fight for liberty. Well. As one personal observation: The universe of our 20-year-old college student son, and of his group of friends, has suddenly expanded from an orbit of girls and sports to include discussions of foreign policy, the Fed and the role of the federal government in their lives. While they all have Ron Paul bumper stickers on their cars, I can guarantee you that none of them has ever heard of Reason or Cato.

http://www.lewrockwell.com/blog/lewrw/archives/018721.html

Having never signed the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty nor allowed international inspectors to examine its clandestine programs, WMD state progresses in long range delivery capabilities.

read more | digg story

The U.S. state is breaking eggs hither and yon, but where’s the bloody omelette? Americans now face terrorist threats in many parts of the world when they go abroad, the “blowback” from various U.S. interventions; national-security outlays, all military-related things being included, of a trillion dollars a year loaded onto American taxpayers; unprecedented revulsion against Americans and their government around the world; oil selling at close to $100 a barrel; and political leaders who look forward with equanimity to keeping U.S. forces in Iraq for another hundred years. Thanks a lot, fellas. We couldn’t have done it without you.

http://www.lewrockwell.com/higgs/higgs72.html

This is the explanation I’ve seen yet. Thanks to Walter Block

What, pray tell, is the difference? This is a distinction beyond the ability to comprehend of virtually all non-libertarian journalists, so we do well to carefully spell it out. An isolationist is one who wishes to hide behind his national boundaries, and close out the entire world behind them. North Korea is a reasonable case in point. Wishing that “the rest of the world can go to hell” is indeed a good characterization of this viewpoint. In very sharp contrast, a non-interventionist desires to eschew one and only one means of international interaction: gunboat “diplomacy,” imperialism, forcing our will upon foreign nations at the point of a gun when they pose no threat to us whatsoever. It is entirely compatible with this stance to wish the rest of the world well, and to act so as to attain it. How would a non-interventionist accomplish this task, if he is precluded from utilizing military force? Why through trade, investment, cultural and intellectual exchanges, competing in sports programs with other countries, etc. By serving as a disinterested judge, to resolve foreign disputes, if we are called upon to do so. Congressman Paul is the only true internationalist now running for the Republican nomination for President since he enthusiastically embraces all of these modes of interaction.
http://www.lewrockwell.com/block/block96.html

Even though I took some introductory courses in economics in college, it was always boring to me, also, other than the very basic stuff like supply & demand and the law of diminishing returns, I didn’t really understand it. I was originally drawn to Ron Paul’s campaign because of his opposition to the war and his unwavering defense of civil liberties. His economic stuff was just more blah, blah, blah, until he started getting through to me with the idea that economics and monetary policy are fundamental to understanding both domestic and foreign policy and the political structures and processes at play in this country and around the world. Talking about those things without talking about economics is like trying to talk about music while ignoring the concept of rhythm; like trying to understand Magick without knowledge of Qabalah.

I’ve actually been aware of him for several years, and it has been an amazing education for me. Regardless of the outcome of this election–and between you, me and the Internet, I am less confident about that than I was six months ago–there are now thousands, if not millions, of people like me who are waking up to the principle of spontaneous order and the emergent properties of a free society. He has let the genie out of the bottle and it is not going back in.

Please, do not allow George Bush
(or Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama or John McCain or Rudy Giuliani)
to kill this green and pleasant land

Or these lovely children

Or these beautiful women

Or these devout Jews

Or these faithful Christians

Or these bowlers

Or these skiers

Or any of these peaceful people

Don’t believe the lies.
http://www.photoactivistsforpeace.org/videos.html

Look at the truth.
http://www.photoactivistsforpeace.org/gallery/main.php

Remember how they reacted to September 11th

Don’t Iraqify Iran

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God.

One of my guilty pleasures is my Live Journal. In a recent discussion of political things a fellow eljayer mused on her changing ideals and posited that “we need nationalized health care.”

I asked her to reconcile that with this (9 minutes, and worth it):

Her response was:

Every civilized nation on the planet has nationalized health care except us. How do they do it? (That’s rhetorical, though I suppose you can answer it if you like.)

And no, I have not sat through that entire youtube thing.

p.s. Bush ran this country into the fiscal ground.

I did my best, and I can only hope either she or her other readers will grasp the gravity of the situation.

Every civilized nation on the planet does not spend between six hundred billion to one trillion dollars a year, depending on who’s doing the counting, maintaining over 700 military bases in more than 130 countries with a nine trillion dollar debt and over fifty trillion dollars in unfunded future obligations.

You really should watch the youtube thingy. Whatever you might think of Glenn Beck, the other guy is the Comptroller General of the United States. He is doing a very courageous thing in trying to get people to pay attention. He also addresses the nationalized health care issue head on.

p.s. Woodrow Wilson started this train wreak in 1913, but it really kicked into gear when Richard Nixon abandoned the gold standard in 1971. In his own pitiful way George Bush is trying every trick he can think of to stave off the inevitable.

Source: U.S. Dept, of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics, CPI	Source: U.S. Treasury, Bureau of the Public Debt
Note: These charts only go up to 2001. I couldn’t find any pretty graphics of the current numbers.

It is, I suppose, understandable that the one presidential candidate who talks about this situation is dismissed as kook. For the rest, the splendor of the imperial purple and the adulation of the mob is simply too irresistible.

As I was posting this here she replied:

Enh. We’ll all be dead soon.

But more seriously..every dog has its day. Maybe the US day is coming to a close…at least for our ‘glory days’.

I can’t spend my time worrying about things I have zero control of.

p.s. I’m not an economist. I have no way to really evaluate this. I’ve seen other arguments suggesting that wheeee…you can deficit spend all day long. It made no sense to me. But a very smart person I know finds it sound so there must be something compelling about it.

To which I could only reply with this:

Based on 2007 3rd quarter fundraising, looking at the top 20 contributors, listed alphabetically, we appear to have the best candidates money can buy.

Sources:

Democrats
Clinton, Hillary
Obama, Barack
Edwards, John

Republicans
Romney, Mitt
Giuliani, Rudy
McCain, John

I wonder what happened in May of 2007 to cause the uptick in Republicans? And why even more in November and December?

Source: Rasmussen Reports*

Do you suppose it might have had something to do with this?
May 15, 2007

Then this?
November 6th

And this?
December 17th

*In their commentary on December’s increase Rasmussen attributes it to Americans suddenly loving the War in Iraq now that “surge” is working. Funny, I have a hard time believing that, especially since Rasmussen says George Bush’s popularity is still tanking. They love the decision, but not the Decider? Yeah, right.