Rick Reuben wrote:Rupert Murdoch better find a scandal on Obama for Hillary real fast.

Rick Reuben wrote:Ron Paul refused to suck up at the Univision GOP debate:

rollingstone.com 12-10-07 wrote:Ron Paul Has Huge Cajones

I’ve been watching the Republican Univision debate broadcast from Miami — centro del universo anti-Castro — and he just went there:

“We talked to Stalin, Kruschev, and Mao. We’ve talked to the whole world. Actually I believe we’re at a time where we ought to talk to Cuba, open travel with Cuba, trade with Cuba. We create the Castro’s and the [Hugo] Chavez’s of this world by interfering and creating chaos in their countries, and they respond by throwing out their leaders.”

Needless to say he was almost booed out of the building.

Rick Reuben wrote:

raimondo wrote:In an interview with Pat Buchanan published in The American Conservative, when asked about the growth of the US population to 400 million in the near future, Nader said
"We don't have the absorptive capacity for that many people. Over 32 million came in, in the '90s, which is the highest in American history. We have to control our immigration. We have to limit the number of people who come into this country illegally. First of all, we have to say what is the impact on African-Americans and Hispanic Americans in this country in terms of wages of our present stance on immigration? It is a wage-depressing policy."

nader wrote:We put a challenge out before WTO was voted in 1995 because we went all over Capitol Hill and had never found any Member of Congress or a staffer who had ever read the WTO proposal. So I said, "I'll give $10,000 to the favorite charity of any Member of Congress who will sign an affidavit that he or she had read the WTO agreement and will answer 10 questions about its content in public."

The deadline passed. Nobody. So I extended it a week. A quarter to 5:00 on Friday, the phone rings in our office. It is Hank Brown, and he said, "I don't want the $10,000 to charity, but I will take you up on it. How much time do I have?" I said, "Take a month." So he reserves the Senate Foreign Relations Committee for the interrogation.

It gets better. The press is all there, and in the witness chair is Hank Brown. Richard M. Goodwin, with me, have 12 questions, and he answers every one correctly. They weren't all simple either. It was really impressive. And I said, "Thank you very much Senator. That was really commendable," and we start to get up and he says, "Wait. I have something to say." He says, "You know, I am a free trader, and I voted for NAFTA, but after reading the WTO agreement, I was so appalled by the anti democratic provisions that I am going to vote against it and urge everyone else to."

The next day, almost no press. It shows you the bias against anybody who challenges those multi national systems of autocratic governance that we call "trade agreements." And he didn't convince one extra Senator.

Once when I testified before the House Ways and Means Committee on the WTO, I had to say some nice things at the beginning, "Mr. Chairman, distinguished Members of the House Ways and Means Committee, it is indeed a pleasure to testify before a committee of Congress that has read this proposed trade agreement," and the chair looks up and says, "What makes you think we did?"

Let's put it this way: it is impossible to exaggerate the dereliction of diligence in the Congress.

Johnny C wrote:
Paul's appeal to the left is almost exclusively his position on Iraq, and that blog is really missing the mark by suggesting otherwise. Why else would Paul's supporters and Paul himself play it up so much? The rest of his campaign is boilerplate Republican, combined with a little "gee-whiz, I'm just a regular Joe" attitude.

Rick Reuben wrote:Short excerpt from a good blog over at Smoke and Mirrors:

There is an enormous discontent percolating beneath the surface of the culture. It's volatile and vast. The robotheads dutifully repeat what they are told but meanwhile there's the kind of rebellion you get from people appearing to go along with the program who are no longer going to go along with the program.

This is going to come head to head with the resident Jacobins presently showing the world their shiny red asses from beneath the bloody shadow of Madame Le Guillotine. They've been having their way for a while and it's all been good and profitable.

Whatever may come of Ron Paul he has certainly united the most disparate collection of Americans that I have ever seen. He may be no more than a reminder of what has been lost but it will be felt all the more keenly for his having brought it to our attention.

Time to bring out The Monkey Wrench Gang if all else fails. Revolt is going on at all levels; witness the recent collaboration between the military and the NIE.You never know when too much finally gets to be too much. You only notice when the dam breaks; good reason not to live below the dam or in the skyboxes at the top of it.

The Ron Paul Money Bomb for today is off to a flying start. A new story in the LA times on one of Paul's major fundraisers, Trevor Lyman

Ron Paul keeps white supremacist donation

By BRIAN SKOLOFF, Associated Press WriterWed Dec 19, 4:27 PM ET

Republican presidential hopeful Ron Paul has received a $500 campaign donation from a white supremacist, and the Texas congressman doesn't plan to return it, an aide said Wednesday.

Don Black, of West Palm Beach, recently made the donation, according to campaign filings. He runs a Web site called Stormfront with the motto, "White Pride World Wide." The site welcomes postings to the "Stormfront White Nationalist Community."

"Dr. Paul stands for freedom, peace, prosperity and inalienable rights. If someone with small ideologies happens to contribute money to Ron, thinking he can influence Ron in any way, he's wasted his money," Paul spokesman Jesse Benton said. "Ron is going to take the money and try to spread the message of freedom."

"And that's $500 less that this guy has to do whatever it is that he does," Benton added.

Black said he supports Paul's stance on ending the war in Iraq, securing U.S. borders and his opposition to amnesty for illegal immigrants.

"We know that he's not a white nationalist. He says he isn't and we believe him, but on the issues, there's only one choice," Black said Wednesday.

"We like his stand on tight borders and opposition to a police state," Black told The Palm Beach Post earlier.

On his Web site, Black says he has been involved in "the White patriot movement for 30 years."