by Don Hank

There is evidence that Russia is, for whatever motive, interested in protecting Christians. One article in Interfax bears the title “Putin vows Russia will defend persecuted Christians abroad.”

So how sincere are the Russians? There has been a plethora of commentaries on the subject here in the US, mostly attacking Russia for defending her own interests under the pretext of Christian concerns. Who knows?

But here are some things to contemplate:

1–Even in the atheistic Soviet Union, churches that had been bombed out in the war were lovingly and painstakingly restored, at enormous cost to the nation, as were other places of cultural value. The Russian government may have publicly criticized Christianity, but the Russian people would not have stood for the physical destruction of Russian Orthodox churches. Now, I did visit one such church in Leningrad (name now reverted to Petersburg), which was, sadly, converted to the so-called Museum of Religion and Atheism, a deplorable example of desecration and unveiled blasphemy. But the entire building and its furnishings, including the icons, were in mint condition. Unlike in Mao’s China, traditional things and antiques were not destroyed, quite the opposite.

2–The Russian opposition to Western intervention in Kosovo was also culturally/religiously rooted. The Slavic population there is and was mostly Russian Orthodox, with church services generally being held in Old Church Slavonic, an archaic form of Russian. Let us recall the themes of Christian repentance in the novel Crime and Punishment, and the pro-Christian message of Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina. Both books were printed and published in the Soviet Union and were available to the public at low prices throughout much of Soviet history (I know because I bought my copies directly from the Soviet Union, and for a pittance). The name Raskolnikov, the protagonist of the former novel, comes from “raskolniki,” a persecuted Christian sect of 17^th Century Russia which stoically suffered excruciating torture for their faith. The Russian soul empathizes with persecuted Christians, particularly those of its own brand, but by extension, with all confessions of Christianity.

4–In both Moscow and Petersburg, mayors have opposed “gay” parades, refusing to issue permits and even arresting those who defied the law to hold the parades. This is as much cultural, related as it is to the Slavic variety of “machismo,” as it is religious. It is difficult to separate the Paulian doctrine on homosexuality (which has never died among the people) from a purely cultural phenomenon, but in denying permits for homosexual events, the local governments were without a doubt appealing to the Russian people’s respect and love of traditional family. Contrast that to Western schools that sell filth and perversion as if they were something divine and cherished.

5–Russia opposed Western intervention in Egypt, Libya and now Syria, specifically voicing concerns over the fate of the Christian population there.

Now you can argue that Russia is only concerned with its own Realpolitik, fearful of its own restless Muslim population and how they will respond to the Syrian outcome, or with economic issues or the like. There might be some truth to that.

But one thing is certain. While Russian officials have had the courage to publicly deplore the plight of Middle East Christians, officials of our own “Christian” nation have said nothing about it during the last 2 decades of Western military intervention and the resulting persecution, banishment and murder of Christians abroad.

For whatever reason or motive, the first is now last and the last is first.

Further reading:

http://www.interfax-religion.com/?act=dujour&div=157

http://www.interfax-religion.com/?act=news&div=9070

by Don Hank

The Chinese Daoguang emperor in 1838 tried to oppose the British in their attempt to force opium on the Chinese people. One could say that, in doing so, the emperor was an anti-democratic despot, but he saw that the opium dens were destroying lives and families and turning productive Chinese into blobs of useless humanity — slaves to addiction.

One could also see the British as liberators, but they were anything but: they wanted to force the drug on the Chinese.

This story presents a dilemma for the libertarian because, while they can see the emperor as a despot who should have been overthrown, they can hardly see the British as bearers of the torch of liberty, since they were using force to drug another nation.

Incredibly, today, we have a similar situation. The libertarians have marshaled their forces and vast amounts of money to deceive unsuspecting people into accepting drugs.

The use of deceit is no less undemocratic and despotic than the use of other kinds of force. In fact libertarians decry the use of deceit by the media and major political parties, and they are right to do so. For example, there was a general perception in America after 9-11 that the Iraqis had attacked us. The press had not actually said that, but they implied it by focusing on WMDs and Saddam’s brutality. Libertarians and other thinking citizens cried foul. War based on deceit has left us with a mess in the Middle East.

Yet libertarians use the same deceitful tactics when pushing their pro-drug agenda.

As soon as Holland loosened up its drug laws, libertarians like Gov. Gary Johnson declared Holland to be a model for us all. Yet the truth was that many Dutch were dismayed at the aftermath of this great experiment. Their school kids started to drug themselves and the experiment got out of hand.

http://laiglesforum.com/the-young-pay-the-price-for-dutch-drug-experiment/23.htm

So much so that libertarian leaders backed away from the Dutch model and looked for another. They settled on Portugal, and the libertarian Cato Institute precipitously seized upon a dubious “study” by the Portuguese government that was published a few years into the experiment, claiming that all had worked out fine as planned and drug use was down. Gullible Cato jumped on this without a trace of critical analysis or further research and the world “learned” that drug legalization solves all our drug problems.

It was a lie, and if Cato had wanted to be honest with us, it would have listened to the Portuguese medical doctors who published a study of their own.

http://laiglesforum.com/decriminalization-of-drugs-in-portugal/2666.htm

When any group pretends to be for liberty, but deceives people in order to accomplish its goals, it is doing what the Left and the neocons have always done. Deceit is no substitute for the truth and none of our political parties are actually for freedom.

You, Fellow Citizen, are on your own.

Be careful out there!

Further on drugs:

http://laiglesforum.com/ye-shall-be-deceived-and-deceit-shall-make-ye-free/2969.htm

 No, actually no such study has made headlines lately. But there is a new study on pot that mediocre students will love.

According to UAB News, Associate professor Stefan Kertesz of the University of Alabama has discovered, in a longitudinal study of over 5000 marijuana smokers aged 18-30 years, that “marijuana smoke is not as damaging to lungs as cigarette smoke.” In fact, the research also supposedly showed that occasionally inhaling small amounts of the combustion products of this dried weed can even enhance lung capacity.

That will be good news for our sons and daughters struggling against the ignorance and superstition of our benighted generation in their efforts to supplement their alcohol intake this semester and do so without guilt.

But for me, after reading through the hype and comparing it with the actual abstract of the study, it looks like just another example of research methodology on campus used to achieve a desired result. I am not necessarily impugning the researcher as much as those who seized upon the report with enthusiasm and an uncanny display of uncritical thought. As I have shown here and here, the scientific method (that is, actually looking at data objectively for the sole purpose of finding out the truth, no matter what that may be) has long been out of favor with the media. But as evidenced by the “Climategate” scandal at the University of East Anglia, it is none too popular even among a surprising percentage of scientists.

With this realization in mind, and also having read, translated and published (here, for example) a report by Portuguese doctors debunking that government’s study fueling a Cato report “demonstrating” that drug decriminalization “works,” and further, having had a pot-smoking friend – who did not use tobacco – die of lung cancer, I immediately smelled a rat.

Now, let me tell you a little about the profession of foreign language translation, which I have plied successfully full-time for over 40 years. In that time, I have translated medical and scientific texts for about 200 clients, including the American Cancer Society (translating reports from various countries in Europe on smoking and its effects in the induction of cancer, emphysema, “smoker’s leg” and other maladies) and a fair number of drug companies (series of reports on assorted drugs). One of my clients was also the NIH (National Institutes of Health). If you guessed that that agency’s assignments were predominantly medical in nature, you are correct. For a few years of my career, reports on medical studies were the main topic. Caution: I cannot operate on your brain or prescribe liver pills for you. But I will tell you with full confidence: I know the methodology of medical studies. And I know when a research report is pulling my leg.

I can tell you with all sincerity that the media reports on Stefan Kertesz’ studies on marijuana are misleading, and that is being overly generous. Sadly, the report on these studies in UAB News, a publication generally touting successes of persons affiliated with the University of Alabama, is also misleading to say the least. (Which is not necessarily to say that the researcher himself is at fault in this regard).

The headline proclaims: “Marijuana Smoke not as Damaging to Lungs as Cigarette Smoke.” Now, did you immediately assume that the study shows equal amounts of marijuana smoke to be less damaging than equal amounts of tobacco smoke?

I did. Well, I didn’t, but I would have if I had trusted such studies on illegal drugs since I read the Cato report and its thorough rebuttal by the Portuguese MDs who have studied the issue hands-on and met the actual patients (drug users). I have yet to see such a pro-drug study that is not a wide-eyed attempt to justify a bad habit generally endorsed by libertarians and political leftists – who righteously declare drug use of any kind to be a human right that is trampled by most governments generally recognized as legitimate (they think banning anything they like to do is unconstitutional).

So I decided to get a scientific report on the study. Not being a member of AMA, I am not privileged to download articles from JAMA.

However, I was able to obtain for free an abstract of the study from their site.

And lo and behold, what did I find that did not surprise me in the least?

It seems the author has come up with a creative new concept for measuring marijuana smoke exposure. He calls it the “joint year,” and he defines a joint year as 365 joints or filled pipe bowls. He calls this a “moderately high use level.”

Now, of course, in the course of his study, Kertesz no doubt encountered a few subjects who smoked more than these 365 joints per year. But you can see from this definition of a “joint year” that the assumption was for many subjects to have smoked about one joint a day, give or take a few.

One media report quoted the Associated Press as saying that the study:

“…has concluded that smoking cannabis once a week or even more does not harm the lungs.”

The term “even more” is not defined and is therefore meaningless, except as propaganda. But aside from that, if only smoking cannabis once a week is to be compared with what smokers ordinarily do, then the conclusion trumpeted in UAB News (“marijuana smoke is not as damaging to lungs as cigarette smoke”) does not fly. (Most cigarette smokers smoke more than one cigarette a day. You probably knew that).

Of course, there is an outside chance that Kertesz actually did compare the results of smoking 1 joint a day for year-long periods with the results of smoking 1 cigarette a day for year-long periods, but I found no evidence of that. And I can’t imagine where he would have gotten those one-a-day smokers as test subjects.

But here is the most serious flaw in the report that cannabis is less harmful than cigarette smoke: What do we fear most about smoking? Why, cancer, right? Now, the most convincing studies done by cancer researchers are longitudinal studies done on people over a period long enough to induce cancer. Most are seniors when they are stricken–not in the range of 18-30 as used in the Alabama study. In the papers I translated from the Cancer Society, the most feared carcinogen (cancer causing agent) in cigarette smoke was always said to be benzo(a)pyrene.  Mice whose shaved backs were painted with the stuff got cancer. So if marijuana smoke contains benzo(a)pyrene, then it is carcinogenic, right? Well, to find out, I did a search. One of the sites I brought up was run by people who liked to experiment with drugs. It showed a study by the Institute of Medicine and Health.

It showed results of a chemical analysis of cigarette and marijuana smokes. You’ll never guess which smoke contained the most benzo(a)pyrene.

No, not cigarette smoke, which prompted the government to sue the cigarette industry for billions. It was the smoke that Bill Clinton said he never inhaled. Here are the results:

benzo(a)pyrene

marijuana: 31 ng

tobacco: 22 ng

Gee, marijuana contains about a third more of the chief carcinogen than cigarettes and our University of Alabama news letter declares marijuana smoke to the “less damaging.”

I predict that sometime in the not-too-distant future, after all this hype about the harmlessness of marijuana has taken its toll, persuading legions of gullible young people to indulge in this “safe” habit, someone in medical science with high powers of observation and the courage to swim upstream will do a study on marijuana smokers and cancer and discover that the older heavier users are getting lung cancer right and left. 

At any rate, I will not be advising either of my kids to smoke a joint a day while in college. However, I may tell them to study as hard as they can in a down economy when an alarmingly high percentage of graduates are failing to find jobs in their professions and are saddled for years with college loan payments.

You’d think some researcher somewhere would find the time to study the correlation between not smoking anything at all and not drinking alcohol on student grade levels and chances of graduating from college, as contrasted with a control group of students who indulge in these practices.

I won’t hold my breath for such a breakthrough study. Nor will I expect much improvement in the academic performance of US students over the next few years. At least not judging by their role models on campus.

You can contact Dr. Stefan Kertesz, the author of the Alabama pot report and encourage him to do a study among elderly persons who have smoked pot most of their lives. Tell him you would expect to see a strong correlation between lung cancer and heavy pot use:

skertesz@uab.edu

And you can contact the writer of the above mentioned article on marijuana at U. of Alabama and let her know your thoughts (or send her a link to this article):

jpark@uab.edu

If you like my stuff on here, you may want to be added to my regular list receiving my unpublished commentary and reader responses thereto, which goes out once or several times a day. If so, just email me at: zoilandon@msn.com

A recent article by Bob Unruh in WND shows how states are fighting back against federal encroachment – in the case in question, by declaring themselves unwilling to comply with federal detention orders under NDAA. This quiet revolution is merely an extension of other local and state muscle flexing, such as the pushback in Arizona by the state legislature and by Sheriff Arpaio, and the tough anti-invasion law in Alabama.

But I think this could be just the beginning.

The federal government has created a network of vested interests to keep the states in line, all long after the writing of the Federalist Papers and the Constitution, designed to prevent federal abuses. The biggest club they have created is grants to states. Every state gets millions of your and my money, duly shrunken after passing through the sticky fingers of Congress. This money is nothing more than a bribe, a cheap trick to make states grovel and behave like good little slaves. It has worked well thus far. And the money club is not the only weapon in the federal arsenal in its war on the states and the citizens. Obama has shown that states who fail to fall in line behind the dictator in chief don’t get needed non-monetary aid either. Texas, always a renegade stand-alone state, recently watched as its forests were reduced to cinders for lack of much-needed federal help, which eventually arrived after it was rather late.

Arizona saw a lawsuit filed against it by the lawyer in chief, who even went crying to the UN to help subdue the big bad Brewer. And some of the lower southern states found that, after they had sullied Big Daddy Washington, the illegal alien criminals and hit-and-run perps it turned in to ICE were no longer being dealt with. Some came back and killed and raped. That was the states’ payback for not liking the jackboot.

But what if:

What if the states turned the tables on the feds?

I mean, where did this federal money and power come from in the first place?

Why the people of the various and sundry states who pay taxes.

Now, what if the good people of the abused states got together and made a law that prohibited state citizens from paying the entire amount of the federal taxes in those instances when the feds were playing these dirty games? What if they were enjoined to withhold a certain percentage or a set amount corresponding to an estimate of the losses incurred?

What if the states calculated the amount of money it would take to incarcerate lawbreakers who were allowed by the feds to sneak into their state and cause trouble? And what if the states explicitly deducted this amount from the amount their state citizens were bound to pay to the feds?

What if they made it illegal for citizens of that state to pay the federal tax amount that, according to the calculations of the state comptroller generals, was owed them by the feds for dereliction of duty?

Suppose they calculated that X number of illegal aliens had entered their state as a direct result of the federal government’s failure to station an adequate number of border guards and provide them with the necessary equipment and training, and further, as a partial result of their hamstringing them with unreasonable rules of engagement and jailing those who failed to comply with said unreasonable rules.

Suppose they calculated the amount of damage to the state of improperly providing federal aid to people who repeatedly built their homes in areas repeatedly stricken by natural disasters — and then billed the feds for this?

Suppose they calculated the probable number of Mexicans fleeing their homes and entering their state due to AG Holder’s dirty game of Fast and Furious and the amount of money and human life this probably cost in that state?

Suppose they collected this money by the same method, forbidding their citizens to pay this amount to the fed and funneling it to state coffers instead.

And suppose some of the non-border states used a percentage of this money saved to help border states beef up their border security and pay for the detention and return of illegal alien criminals.

And suppose they blew off any unconstitutional and arbitrary federal laws in their state affairs that “prohibited” them from returning illegal aliens on their own? Without the intermediary of ICE, for example. A series of contiguous states could set up a kind of reverse “Underground Railroad” to return criminal aliens to Mexico.

Now, certainly some will say this is carrying things a bit too far.

Oh really?

Did you know what Article IV, Section 4 of the Constitution says? Read it for yourself:

 … and [The United States] shall protect each of them [the States] against Invasion; and on Application of the Legislature, or of the Executive (when the Legislature cannot be convened) against domestic Violence

The extent of the invasion of Mexican cartels is a well kept secret.

But there are numerous credible reports by people living in the border area showing that some areas are no longer safe for Americans to enter or live.

The Sonoran Desert National Monument in Arizona has areas that are closed off because the cartel has completely taken them over.

These situations fit anyone’s definition of an invasion. And the damage done by Latin gangs and drug dealers everywhere is certainly domestic violence, all traceable to a porous southern border, thanks to a negligent central government itching for a come-uppance.

The US Constitution is a contract between the States and Washington. In all of contract law, there is give and take. (Contracts with only “take” are deemed unlawful, as in the case of prenups). Each of the parties to the contract is both beneficiary and provider of rights. Whenever one party reneges on part of the contract, the counterparty who is hurt by this has a right to deny a corresponding part of its contribution to the bargain.

The states have not reneged in any way. They are a compliant partner. The US government, on the other hand, has completely reneged on parts of its contract — particularly its duty to protect the States against invasion but also with regard to undeclared — and hence unlawful — wars against countries that are not an enemy in any traditionally accepted respect, or the NDAA, which permits the federal government to detain Americans without charges or evidence. It must expect consequences, and if it won’t hold up its part of the agreement, then at least part of the agreement intended to benefit it is null and void by law.

There are 2 main things keeping the States as a counterparty from declaring part of the bargain null and void despite flagrant federal breach of contract:

1—Lack of knowledge of the law and how it applies to the parties.

2—Lack of will.

It is only a matter of time before all the states affected by the Federal government’s failure to perform its duty will understand that they are on the right side of the law and the fed is clearly in non-performance of its contract.

And in our economic crisis, as states find themselves increasingly strapped for cash, laying off employees, halting public works and closing down offices, they will eventually reach a point of desperation when a strategy such as I have outlined above will appear, if not attractive, then at least inevitable.

Most people believe that this commandment represents sound morality, even if they are not Christians.  Nonetheless, it seems that this moral precept is forgotten once we start talking politics.  And no wonder:  Americans have been making up ‘right and wrong’ for themselves for quite a while.   Obviously it was only a matter of time before it seeped into our national mindset.

A good example of this in action is the current attempt by the Democrats to extend the payroll tax cut, ‘paying for it’ by having the ‘rich’ pay their ‘fair share.’

That we are talking about theft becomes clearer when one considers exactly what the ‘payroll tax’ is.  We are talking about the portion of one’s income that goes directly into Social Security.  Your contributions, in turn, ensure that when you retire, you will be able to draw a steady check.

Now, the liberals tend to target the rich to fund a variety of their favorite programs, and many of those times there ostensibly is some ‘public’ benefit of them.  For example, we might put public infrastructure, such as roads and bridges, in this category.  Usually, though, the program favors smaller, special interest, populations.  The appearance of a socialistic transfer of wealth from the rich to the poor becomes more profound the more targeted the program.

But the funding of the payroll tax cut by the rich really takes the cake.  It is one of those few instances of a government service where the individual directly benefiting from the service is also the one funding it.  Heck, it might be the only example of such a thing.

To have the rich pay for the payroll tax cut is to ask them to directly fund the retirements of the rest of the population, in a direct and transparent manner.  The ‘99%’ are demanding that the ‘1%’ pay for a service that only the ‘99%’ will benefit from, without themselves contributing a dime.  There is no ‘public’ benefit; the ‘special interest’ group just turns out to be exceptionally large.

This is stealing.

Stealing is wrong.

Therefore, this is wrong.

The real kick in the pants here is that while the ‘poor’ and ‘middle class’ are getting behind the highway robbery of their ‘richer’ countrymen, they are actually robbing their future selves.  Since the amount of your contribution is correlated with how much you receive in your retirement account, by continuing to not pay the payroll tax, you are decreasing the amount you will ultimately receive.

Our Democrat Robin Hoods want us to steal from the rich to give to the poor, and in doing so are actually stealing from both!  It’s almost funny.

This hilarious, but sad, situation could be avoided by making the contributions by the rich go directly to the ‘accounts’ of individual Americans.  Then, the retirement distributions of future retirees would continue to grow, since ‘their’ contributions would be continuing in the meantime.

That, of course, would be an even more blatant example of outright theft than the current scheme. To my knowledge, though, it has not been suggested.

But it should raise this question:  if the rich are not being asked to subsidize individual contributions, what is it exactly that they are being asked to pay for?  In a sane universe, reducing contributions would reduce distributions, and that would be the end of it.   That would go over like a lead balloon, however, so clearly the idea is to reduce the amount of contributions Americans make while maintaining the same distributions.

But shouldn’t the current level of distributions already be readily payable from the Social Security ‘trust fund’?  And if that is the case, there isn’t a need to pay for the payroll tax cut at all, right?  Right?  That money is there, right?

This whole notion of having to pay for the ‘payroll tax cut’ represents a tacit acknowledgement that Social Security is nothing more than the largest Ponzi scheme… ever.

Many people feel that they are entitled to their Social Security payments because ‘they’ve paid in all these years!’  In reality, their ‘contributions’ were fundamentally never any different than any other tax.  You ‘paid’ into your Social Security ‘account’ like you ‘paid’ into public roads, the Department of Education, and the National Endowment of the Arts.

When the money is gone, ‘services’ must be cut, and it was gone fifteen trillion dollars ago.  ‘Social Security’ turns out to be no exception.  The money we are assured is ‘there’ is not there, or else there would be no need to ‘pay for’ this ‘cut.’  Are we perhaps closer to complete insolvency in the Social Security program than anyone has let on?

The Democrats are turning once again to the ‘rich’ to try to postpone the inevitable collapse of this program, but in doing so, have been forced to come perhaps the nearest ever to advocating for direct, unambiguous theft.

Stealing is wrong, but the truth is that the theft has been going on for decades.  The Federal government has been stealing all along, extracting most of the cash, ironically, from the very people the money was supposed to help.  To get away with it, they had to tell people what they wanted to hear.  That is, they’ve been lying… something else that the general populace tends to view as wrong, for governments and for people.

Lying is necessary, because despite the moral carte blanche that pervades our society, we still aren’t comfortable calling something we’re doing what it really is; in this case, stealing.

Margaret Thatcher said, “The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people’s money.”

The fact that the ‘payroll tax cuts’ needs to be paid for is proof positive that they’ve run out of the money given to them by the ‘poor’ and ‘middle class.’  It is now necessary to take it from the ‘rich.’  After that, who is left?  It would appear that we’ve picked the bone clean, and that can only mean boiled-bone soup for everyone!

By stealing from the rich, we’re stealing from our future selves by decreasing our distribution amount, but the mere fact that we are in this situation at all reveals that we’ve been stealing from our past selves, too.  And we’re running out of folks to steal from…

That’s the sort of thing that happens when you dispense with right and wrong.  Stealing was wrong, yesterday, today, and tomorrow.  Do not be deceived, God cannot be mocked.  A man reaps what he sows, and so does a society.

Always.

Anthony Horvath is the executive director of Athanatos Christian Ministries.  He blogs on apologetics, politics, and pro-life issues at http://www.sntjohnny.com.

by Don Hank

Does Ron Paul understand cultural Marxism?

Ron Paul’s scoffing attitude toward those of us who care about culture makes me wonder whether his administration would cater to the cultural Marxists.

America has been victimized by cultural Marxism for decades. First it was the feminazis, who ushered in the “woman’s right” to kill her unborn and discredited fatherhood, influencing the courts to separate men from their children, effectively separating families under welfare rules, and generally declaring men evil abusers.

Now it is the homosexual activists (not gays as a group) who are organizing to discredit  candidates who oppose gay marriage. Ron is unfairly benefitting from this radical movement to gain ground with the gay agenda. It is cowardly and does him no credit.

And it is illegal aliens who are now demanding special rights, even as border guards sit in jail for essentially doing their jobs. The administration has contrived to make it look like it is protecting our borders, but that is a lie. They are in fact arresting and deporting fewer of them.

Paul’s position on illegal immigration? A true Von Mises libertarian, Ron Paul has never been strong on the border and illegal immigration. In fact, NumbersUSA has given him an F on immigration. A very big red flag.

Is there anyone left?

Who has the best grade NumbersUSA grade on immigration?

Why that would be Michele Bachmann. And just what if people could be focused on illegal immigration again, and made to understand that it is costing jobs? Wouldn’t that help her poll numbers? Of course, the GOP would have to stop catering to lawbreakers.

Further, regarding cultural Marxism (of which illegal immigration is a facet), Michele Bachmann is one of the few people in politics who understand what 100% of politicians should understand about cultural Marxism. For example, she recently set a feminazi straight on the Kinsey myths, ie, who Kinsey was, and what his agenda was. She probably could also have shown why he should have gone to jail instead of being hailed as a great researcher.

Anyone who still believes the Kinsey myths needs to check out the work of Dr. Judith Reisman at:

http://drjudithreisman.org/

I doubt any of the other candidates have a clue about this, and other, cultural Marxism issues.

But can Bachmann win against Obama?

The GOP wants you to think she can’t and that only a leftwinger who is ideologically indistinguishable from Obama can beat Obama. So why not just clone Obama, give him another name (would that be a third?), and run him?

But they are forgetting a few things.

Here is what one poster commented on a blog regarding a recent PA poll:

And now for a little course in Political Science 101: This poll is not of ‘likely’ voters. It included a sample of 500 Pennsylvanians. It was done by PPP which is a democratic polling group. It is notoriously flawed because in past polls PPP has been poorly predictive when identifying Republicans and Republican leaning Independents for the sample. It is also flawed because of its proximity to the general election in November of 2012. Polls taken long before elections are inherently non-predictive of the actual election results.

Added to this is that fact that the poll didn’t even include Bachmann, although she was not trailing Santorum by much, and he was included. It also doesn’t show the fallout of another 6 months of further job losses and other Obama incompetency that  may well make him unable to beat a warm body. Finally, let’s admit that Ron Paul has been successful largely because of his fund raising, and much of his money has come from libertarians, recreational drug enthusiasts and anti-war groups. What would happen if the GOP got behind Michele Bachmann and backed her financially instead of giving her the cold shoulder? Can we admit her poll numbers would rise significantly?

One of the main reasons Bachmann is showing so poorly is that the GOP and RINOs in the MSM are either unfairly attacking her or ignoring her sterling conservative and fiscal merits. There are no real conservatives left in the GOP leadership, which is bringing the party dangerously close to irrelevance.

If they were suddenly to turn around and show how Reagan-like Bachmann is, for example, that would change everything. After all, who would not want to return to the boom times under Reagan? It would be Reagan-Carter all over again.

A lesson that the GOP learned the hard way – again – is that when you try to hype a candidate like Newt or Mitt, who in important ways are indistinguishable from a Democrat, and who have ethical and moral issues as well, the public will eventually focus on these blemishes. Not because conservatives point them out, but because the Democrat-leaning MSM won’t let us forget.

Bachmann, to her credit, has no major skeletons, and all the criticism she has reaped so far looks like what it is: extreme nitpicking. For example, apparently one of her advisors fed her a false statement about an IEAE report showing that “Iran will have a nuclear weapon in 6 months.” I have read the latest IAEA report and although it does not say that, it actually shows that Iran has been weaponizing nuclear materials for a long time, and one can infer that it most likely will have a warhead in the near future. Ron Paul crucified her for the inaccuracy but ignored the relevant facts of that report.

At this point, the GOP has a worrisome dilemma: either choose Ron Paul, whose star is rising even as Newt’s wanes, or choose squeaky clean candidate Michele Bachmann and give her that much needed, and much deserved, extreme PR makeover.

Now would be a good time to act, before Ron Paul takes the nomination.

Michele Bachmann is probably their – and our — only chance.

Evidence that the difference between libertarianism and liberalism is paper thin:

Romney is for illegal aliens:

http://www.newsmax.com/InsideCover/gingrich-romney-amnesty-immigration/2011/11/24/id/419071

Newt is for illegal aliens:

http://cis.org/krikorian/more-gibberish-from-newt

Ron Paul is for illegal aliens

http://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/immigration/7393-anti-illegal-immigration-group-awards-an-qfq-to-ron-paul

Michele Bachmann gets NumbersUSA highest grade

http://www.numbersusa.com/content/action/2012-presidential-hopefuls-immigration-stances.html

Further reading:

http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=379089

by Don Hank

A libertarian who says he is more constitutional than the rest

Before you read this, check out this video.

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

Ok, here’s what I saw when I viewed it.

I was impressed by Ron’s observation that defending individual property would have been a more effective approach to combating pollution than making federal environmental safety laws. This may be a simplistic notion, but Ron does at least think outside the box. (They say Newt is “smart” too, but that was last week).

He also said he would save $1 trillion a year. That was a major promise, and if you’re focused on the economy, it carries a lot of weight. A promise that just might win an election on its own.

On the Constitution, he knows the original document well and basically understands states’ rights.

On the other hand, what he said on seat belt laws, narcotics laws and gay marriage made me cringe.

Here is what I heard:

Seat belt laws are bad because they rob the individual of freedom.

Partly true. But if there were no seatbelt laws, the insurance companies would have to insure the idiots who don’t use them at the same cost as the smart people who do. No one would say to their insurance agent, when asked: Nah, I don’t believe in seat belts.

Insurance rates would have to go up because there would be many more people injured and killed in accidents. That would affect us all. This is libertarianism gone amok. On the other hand, would these deleterious effects be anywhere near as significant as the effects of not stopping the runaway spending by government? And Ron promises to do that.

Narcotics. Ron thinks we should all have the right to use drugs that may cause us to harm ourselves. Unfortunately, when people fall into drug use, they do things that hurt not only themselves but others and they cost agencies like the police and social assistance and charitable agencies a whole lot of money – for example, when users, especially addicts, steal to get drug money, or perpetrate violence due to a state of stupefaction and a subduing of conscience. I had shown that the libertarian take on drug use legalization is nothing but pure propaganda:

http://laiglesforum.com/cato-portugal-drug-study-based-on-false-government-data/2602.htm

Ron is wrong on this issue. But again, could drug use cost more than the current runaway spending by government? Maybe not.

Gay marriage? He didn’t use the word, but we all know what part of the interview that was and we heard him say he was bored with the subject.

What he failed to say, and may fail to understand, is that the state and national governments are moving toward the acceptance of a new and radical definition of marriage at the insistence of a radical group that has shown itself to be not only undemocratic but also violent at times. It is part of cultural Marxism, the original purpose of which was to prepare the ground for economic Marxism. Thus, ironically, while paying lip service to the free market, libertarians like Ron may well indirectly contribute to the malaise of the socialism they eschew.

Further, with regard to same-sex marriage, Ron ignores the fact that government has no right to or interest in changing standard time-honored definitions of words, not for any reason. Language has always been the domain of the people, and the changes in language, as well as its preservation, is supposed to be up to the people, not to a few whiners.

Ron Paul also seems to ignore the dangers of creeping Islam. Now, assuming Paul is not part of the elites that want to import hordes of Muslims to our shores, that may be a moot point. But can’t he identify what common sense tells us?

His idea that Middle Eastern dictators like Ahmadinejad deserve our “friendship” (not mentioned in the interview) could also be a problem. Militarily, Reagan cost America fewer lives than the presidents who came after him, and not because he made nice to the enemy but because he scared the bejeebers out of them.

Ron’s position on abortion has also been shown wanting by one of our contributors earlier today, who says that under the 14^th Amendment, the executive has the duty to protect the Constitutional right to life of every citizen — born or unborn. If this position is derived from the Constitution, then it is not a matter of states’ rights, as Ron so blithely insists.

This is a real watershed issue because it separates godliness from wickedness. You don’t even have to know the Bible to understand that.

Those are some of the blemishes.

On the other hand, if Ron is willing and able to make good his campaign promises, he may turn out to be the best enemy the Fed and their cronies could ever have, and hence, no doubt the best friend we the people could have in combating a runaway Congress bent on spending us into oblivion. He could perhaps turn out to be another Andy Jackson and send the bankers packing. But yet, critics point out that, in his tenure in Congress, Ron has not made significant inroads in this direction. So is he just a talker, like Obama? Or will he, at age 76, have enough energy, mental clarity or will left to roll up both sleeves and fight as promised?

No doubt the US would still be standing after a Ron Paul presidency.

No doubt most people would still be using seat belts.

No doubt most marriages would be traditional ones.

Ron’s ideals are not all my ideals. But then a $15 or 16 trillion debt is even further from my ideal because it is a direct threat to our existence. And it is the reality we live with.

Evidence that the difference between libertarianism and liberalism is paper thin:

RINO Romney is for illegal aliens:

http://www.newsmax.com/InsideCover/gingrich-romney-amnesty-immigration/2011/11/24/id/419071

RINO Newt is for illegal aliens:

http://cis.org/krikorian/more-gibberish-from-newt

LIBERTARIAN Ron Paul is for illegal aliens

http://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/immigration/7393-anti-illegal-immigration-group-awards-an-qfq-to-ron-paul

Michele Bachmann gets NumbersUSA highest grade

http://www.numbersusa.com/content/action/2012-presidential-hopefuls-immigration-stances.html

Further reading:

http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=379089

by Sapient

Is Ron Paul, “Mr. Constitution,” uniquely channeling the spirit of the Founders of our nation and their thinking as clearly embodied in our founding documents, the Federalist Papers, etc — so much so that his seeming eccentricities are due to OUR having forgotten our own true national principles, perhaps because we naively cling to a party loyalty, are deceived by the media, etc?

Is it true that that there is NO good reason for a Constitutional Conservative to question Ron Paul, let alone reject him?   

This, Ron Paul and his followers would have us believe.  Always sounded a bit elitist even cultish to me, but no matter for now.

May I suggest that you should heed your gut instinct and explore Ron Paul a bit — to come to peace with that sense you have that Ron Paul just might be out of bounds in some way, maybe WAY out of bounds.  Explore the possibility that Ron Paul is even something totally foreign to his persona, that he is actually espousing principles foreign to and even antithetical to those of our Founders, and is cloaking those foreign principles in the authority of the Constitution and Founders — carefully tossing in a majority agreeable issue or two or naming the Constitution to promote acceptance.

Could such a thing be possible?  Could Ron Paul be so out of line with our nation that the idea sin qua non of a government by the people, i.e. “We the people…” upon which our nation rests is antithetical to his vision?  Would that concern you?  Is he perpetuating fraud and deception to gain acceptance?

FWIW: 

An atheist once argued that “Christian / Jew–you say you believe the Bible?  Well, the Bibles explicitly says in Psalm 14:1 ‘there is no God.’  Do you believe the Bible or not?”

One slight problem–the atheist omitted the portion that “The FOOL HAS SAID IN HIS HEART ‘there is no God,’”  and from beginning to end the Bible assumes and confirms the existence of God.  The words the atheist quoted were there, but hardly the truth of it.  We want the consistent truth of it — right?

Context and the consistent whole make all the difference.  Same with Ron Paul and the Constitution and Founders.  A word or two here or there is NOT proof of anything.  A “wolf in sheep’s clothing” is the word for a person who claims to be one thing with a very contrary end in mind.  

As noted previously, Ron Paul embraces the philosophy of voluntaryism, a form of anarchism.  I report that without apology.

That has several flavors of voluntaryism of course, but they are cut from the same bolt of cloth. Make no mistake — Ron Paul admits his embrace of this philosophy in no uncertain terms.  His writings and speeches are consistent with that philosophy,.

Follow the links I am providing and you will get to hear it from his own lips, and read his own words, and written by his own supporters.  

Now, it is our responsibility to understand the significance of that philosophy as someone running for POTUS embraces it and is asking us to entrust him with the power of office, OVER US.  If we have never caught that Paul embraces voluntaryism before, we should do so now.  Decision time approaches.  If we were ignorant of either our Constitution and Founding principles, or ignorant of Voluntaryism, and how they compare,  we should become educated.  Again, this view is asking for power over us:

“If a nation, in a state of civilization, expects to be ignorant and free, it expects what never was and never will be. “  –Thomas Jefferson

So, take a look at what we are dealing with in this Voluntaryism.

First, a video. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=92ybf2L4Guw

Listen to Ron Paul’s words, and take a moment to peruse the comments section for some real flavor of the people who support it.  It seems they thought no one else would read what they are saying.  Compare what Paul said to the “philosophy” link above.  Is this what you believe?  Is this what you believe the Founders believed?  It IS what Ron Paul believes.

Now, from the Mises Institute:  http://mises.org/Community/forums/t/25612.aspx ,  founded and once chaired by Lew Rockwell, former chief of staff to  Ron Paul, and other close associations with him.  So far, I found nothing to prohibit this reproduction.

The purpose of this video at that link is stated:   to illustrate Ron Paul’s voluntaryism, in no uncertain terms, with the caption:

In this video, using Ron Paul’s own words from his books and interviews, it is shown that Ron Paul’s goal is voluntaryism. He adopts limited-government positions and appeals to the U.S. Constitution as part of a long-term strategy for achieving a completely free society, absent any State.

Notice that Ron Paul has a long term strategy:  to adopt limited government positions and appeals to the Constitution, before the American people, for purpose of implementing  Voluntaryism. Does this concern you?  Remember, this written by people who support him, not his enemies.

Now, watch the video, and then read the comments there on this same page.and note things like whether the readers think promoting this video outside this circle is a good idea and why they have that opinion.

Why, one even compared it to a “coming out of the closet” for Ron Paul. 

• Right, this [video] might be well for us here [readers of Mises], but I don’t think we should be outwardly promoting that as his [Ron Paul's] position.  His “anarchism” might not appeal to the voters we need to elect him.

 Read it again, and again until it sinks in what was said there.

That is clear intent to deceive, to twist, to cloak, what Ron Paul is — and they are FINE WITH IT.  It’s their strategy.

Note how elitist it is:  

We [the elite] need the support of the unsuspecting / deceived [voter--non elite] so that we [the elite] can gain power in our Republic-so we {the elite] can do what is actually best for us, and that the voters” [non elite] would never put us [the elite] in office if they knew the truth about us or our intentions–it’s just too far above them…so, we lie.

Pretty bold huh? 

Friends.same old problem, and same basic decision.  I give you Thomas Jefferson:

“The issue today is the same as it has been throughout all history, whether man shall be allowed to govern himself or be ruled by a small elite.”  –Thomas Jefferson

See Jefferson’s choices…self governing, or elite governing.  Where is Ron Paul and his followers in that choice?

Historically, for the elite, honesty is optional–but justified.  Truth is optional but justified by the glorious ends in view.  They see themselves as great souls, self anointed, on a mission the rest of us just cannot understand and appreciate…but we will, they say.  Their intentions are good.

The Founders spoke of such:

Daniel Webster  – “Good intentions will always be pleaded for every assumption of power . it is hardly too strong to say that the Constitution was made to guard the people against the dangers of good intentions. There are men in all ages who mean to govern well, but they mean to govern. They promise to be good masters, but they mean to be masters.”

Now, we can see what Jefferson meant:  

“Where the principle of difference [between political parties] is as substantial and as strongly pronounced as between the republicans and the monocrats of our country, I hold it as honorable to take a firm and decided part and as immoral to pursue a middle line, as between the parties of honest men and rogues, into which every country is divided.” –Thomas Jefferson to William Branch Giles, 1795. ME 9:317

Same issue.  Same basic choices:  honest, rogue, or the immoral who can’t tell the difference, believing someone a win-win compromise can be reached between the honest and the rogue.  Wanna hazard a guess at just which of those an elitist falls into–those who recognize no law above themselves?  I don’t have to say it, do I?

Where does Ron Paul and his followers fall in that grouping?

Let’s continue as these Ron Paul / voluntaryists discuss whether Ron Paul should admit who and what he is…a voluntaryist and anarcho-capitalist-anarchist rather than the Constitutionalist he claims to be:

• Graham asks:  What do other people think of this [video]?  Is there a chance that widespread promotion of this video could undermine what Ron Paul is trying to do?

• To Graham: I think it’s highly likely that it would damage his campaign temporarily.  But in all reality, he’s got to “come out of the closet” sometime, or else all he’s done is spawned a bunch of “We the People!” types, which is still antithetical to Paul’s ideal society.  I have said in the past before that if he did come out as an an-cap [anarcho capitalist] that it would isolate a good portion of his fan base.  But at the same time, if hangs onto it all the way to the grave, we’d probably wind up with fewer an-caps in total. In addition to these clips, he was also at a debate in 2007 at FreedomFest with Doug Casey and said in the following speech after Casey said he was an anarchist that he would love to give Casey the VP nomination if nominated.

Read it carefully:  Among other things, there is a danger for Ron Paul staying in the voluntaryist closet too long.  It might spawn the wrong kind of following–”We the people types.”

Before we go past that, note the first and most sacred words in our Constitution. “We the people….”

These people are on a MUCH different page already.”We the people” types are FAR from what they desire to have around.

“We established however some, although not all its [self-government] important principles . The Constitutions of most of our States assert, that all power is inherent in the people; that they may exercise it by themselves, in all cases to which they think themselves competent, (as in electing their functionaries executive and legislative, and deciding by a jury of themselves, in all judiciary cases in which any fact is involved,) or they may act by representatives, freely and equally chosen; that it is their right and duty to be at all times armed.” –Thomas Jefferson, letter to John Cartwright, 1824

Government is instituted for the common good; for the protection, safety, prosperity, and happiness of the people; and not for profit, honor, or private interest of any one man, family, or class of men; therefore, the people alone have an incontestable, unalienable, and indefeasible right to institute government; and to reform, alter, or totally change the same, when their protection, safety, prosperity, and happiness require it. –John Adams, Thoughts on Government, 1776

These Ron Paul / Voluntaryist folks disagree at a basic level.  “We the people types, which is still ANTITHETICAL TO PAUL’S IDEAL SOCIETY” — read it again.  You are a “We the people” type?  YOU do not belong for YOU are against what they seek!

Still think Ron Paul is a “We the people…” Constitutionalist as he claims?  Still think he is channeling the spirit of the Founders?   The Founders held that “We the people” were key while Ron Paul and his ilk say “we the people are antithetical.”  It’s “we the people” or an elitist.  Those are the choices.

They say they believe in the individual, and the amassed wisdom.  Do they really?  If they did, they would be honest, and allow real choice.  Deception that is characteristic of the elitist.  Watch now as they ask and answer a great question:  What should Paul do if confronted in front of the American people. How should he answer if asked if he is an anarchist? That is, should he be honest about who and what he is and where he would take us if entrusted with power:

• Question:  If Ron Paul is asked if he is an anarchist — yes or no — during a televised debate, how do you think he will answer?  How do you hope he will answer?  I agree that it would damage his campaign short-term if he said yes, but I think it could well also do long-term damage to the voluntaryist movement.  He is currently acting as a filter: he turns liberals / conservatives into constitutionalists, and some of them (the ones that follow his leads to LRC [Lew Rockwell dot com] and LvMI) [Ludwig von Mises Institute] become voluntaryists by resolving their cognitive dissonance.  If he “came out” he would be less effective at converting socialists to constitutionalists, and by extension, less effective at leading people to voluntaryism.

• Answer:  It is a different question, but it’s kind of the same thing.  If us anarchists spread the video around, it would functionally be the same thing as “outing” Ron Paul.  So they are similar in that fashion.  If he’s asked in a televised debate whether or not he is an anarchist, my guess is that he’d answer no and say he thinks the society with the least amount of coercion would be the best society, but that he believes a Constitutional government would the best means to achieve those ends.

Obviously I would hope he’d answer in the positive, but that would turn him into a laughingstock. If the people asking questions at these debates like Brit Hume, Chris Wallace, Chris Matthews, or Anderson Cooper did 5 seconds of research, they would discover that Ron Paul a) has all of these clips floating around on the Internet, b) is affiliated with the majority anarcho-capitalist Mises Institute, and c) alludes to a load of anarchist literature in Liberty Defined (such as the LvMI publication “Let’s Abolish Government,” a collection of essays by Spooner).

I agree that Ron Paul’s role is as an educator.  He gets people interested in libertarianism and then turns people onto the Mises Institute.  If you took a poll here on this message board, I’d bet that 50+% of the people first heard of this place through Ron Paul’s 2008 campaign.  Changing somebody into a voluntaryist is a gradual thing and it’s something that’s probably easier to glide into rather than jump into.  So I think you’re right.  But there comes a point where you reach critical mass and Ron Paul has appealed to all of the people who are serious thinkers and at that point he can drop the anarchist bomb on his fans.

Seen enough?  Are you frightened as to what might happen if this man gets into office?

Can you imagine entrusting  the highest authority in our nation of United States, and our Federal State to someone who believes that the whole idea of a state is immoral and should not exist — and is more than willing to lie and deceive to gain power with the intent to dissolve the very state he was elected to preserve, protect, and defend?

He lied about who he was in order to get elected?  What is his oath worth?

I ask you to read carefully about this “eccentric uncle” in the GOP before you even consider supporting him.  Hopefully having some key words will help:  Voluntaryism, anarcho capitalism, Lew Rockwell.com. Ludwig Von Mises Institute, anarchy, statelessness, stateless communism, etc.

While it may be hard to decide who to support, it should not hard to decide who to oppose, and do so.  FWIW:  Many of these groups embrace the philosophy, not of the American Revolution, but the FRENCH REVOLUTION — that spawned the Reign of Terror.  So, make sure and take a look.

I know you will conclude that Ron Paul is hardly in tune  with the Founders after all.  In fact HE is what they warned us about:

Alexander Hamilton, Federalist Papers 15– “Why has Government been instituted at all?  Because the passions of men will not conform to the dictates of reason and justice without constraint.” 

Of those men who have overturned the liberties of republics, the greatest number have begun their career by paying an obsequious court to the people, commencing demagogues and ending tyrants.  –Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers Federalist No. 1, October 27, 1787

Democracy will soon degenerate into an anarchy, such an anarchy that every man will do what is right in his own eyes and no man’s life or property or reputation or liberty will be secure, and every one of these will soon mould itself into a system of subordination of all the moral virtues and intellectual abilities, all the powers of wealth, beauty, wit and science, to the wanton pleasures, the capricious will, and the execrable cruelty of one or a very few.  –John Adams, An Essay on Man’s Lust for Power, August 29, 1763

Note this:

Ron Paul and his people believe so strongly in the sanctify of non-compelled choice, that they are more than willing to perpetuate fraud and deception on you and me and the rest of the American electorate, in order to get their way and to impose THEIR WILL on us — for our own good of course.  So are a lot of tyrants.

Being defrauded is hardly voluntary choice.  It negates free choice, and is its very antithesis, just as is coercion, etc. 

They violate their own standards to gain power.

Heads up.

Further reading:

http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=379089

by Don Hank

I showed yesterday that Newt Gingrich lied when he denied that

1-      he had peddled lobbying services,

2-      he had supported cap and trade

3-     he  had supported an individual health care mandate.

A thrice denial of New Testament proportions.

I provided links to articles that showed this was all true. It is a matter of public record.

But you know what I found out today?

Today, people who lie about the public record are praised as being expert debaters. Lying is in vogue.

Telling the truth, as Michele Bachmann did, is considered bad sportsmanship and she is being spanked for it. I should have known.

We the People know the GOP has anointed Newt, so we need to shut up and fetch their water. It’s that simple. Newsmax, a faux conservative rag, ran two very telling articles today, one praising Newt as a “true conservative” and another on how Bachmann’s book sales have plummeted, while Newt is selling books like hotcakes. To prove it, Newsmax is helping their darling sell his books, offering us a discount.

I am no prophet and I don’t pretend to know the future. Michael Savage predicts that the “fat little white man” can’t win against Obama.

I won’t go so far as to say that. He could, given a miracle.

But I will say we are reliving 2008, with another McCain clone, and we all saw how that worked out last time.

Here is the danger behind this kind of strategy, where you run a candidate who talks like a conservative but is not all that far to the right of the far-left candidate you are trying to beat, in hopes that people who sort of like Obama’s policies but not the man himself will mistake Newt for a white, fat Obama and reverse their racism again.

Two out of the 3 links I chose for yesterday’s article were taken from the far-leftwing mainstream media and one from Fox News, which is now center-left but still mistaken for “alternative” news by the gullible masses. I chose those links to show that these were not just from some little blogger like me blowing off steam.

Now most of the mainstream is pro-Democrat, even if they aren’t necessarily pro-Obama (how could they be any more?).

So while the three major blemishes I pointed out in yesterday’s article may be glossed over by the GOP and the RINO press, they will be taken under the MSM’s microscope as soon as Newt gets the nod and you will see his pimples, blackheads and fat rolls up-close and personal around the clock ad nauseam until election day.

Now we see through the glass darkly, but then face to face.

Once those blemishes are magnified 1000X as only the MSM can magnify them, even conservatives who backed Newt will be appalled at their naked little emperor.

Many will still vote for him, of course. Conservatives are herd animals.

But it is that amorphous middle that must be courted and brought into our circle to make this work.

And the image they see of Newt, who has never been the darling they cherished in the first place, will not endear him to them, quite the opposite.

They will see the cap and trade endorsement, the individual healthcare mandate, the shameful lobbying for the drug companies, the loot from the discredited Fanny and Freddy, the parade of trophy wives and much more, probably even worse.

As a result, many will vote third party, possibly Ron Paul or the like, and Obama will have a shoe in. (That is, unless Ron Paul has some tricks up his sleeve. He is, after all, closing the gap).

I will make only one prediction. If Newt gets the GOP nod, we are in for some real trouble up ahead. That is absolutely certain.

So why do the top brass at the RNC keep making the mistake of running smelly RINOs every single time? Not being very smart, they think they can convince you that all these blemishes I spoke about, as well as the unspoken ones, are only liberal lies. After all, they did show up in the liberal press.

But here is what they ignore. When the liberal press printed Gingrich’s pronouncements in support of, say, cap and trade, or an individual health care mandate, Gingrich did not go on record denying that he had said those things. He wasn’t running for president as a “conservative.” He was pleasing what he perceived to be the middle. So for Gingrich to deny these statements now makes no sense. He is very obviously lying. Unlike his crony Bill Clinton, he didn’t do something behind closed doors with no witnesses present. Bill was a better liar than Newt. He only miscalculated.

Newt just doesn’t know how to lie. And you won’t have to figure all this out for yourself. The press will eventually tell you. And everyone else, including the vast amorphous middle.

That’s Newt’s problem. And now it’s ours.

by Don Hank

Last night there was a Republican debate among the candidates in Iowa. Michele Bachmann told three easily proven truths about Newt Gingrich, all a matter of public record (as evidenced below, see links to articles by PBS, Mother Jones and Fox News):

These 3 truths were as follows:

1–Newt Gingrich supported cap and trade.

2–Newt Gingrich supported an individual health care mandate

3–Newt Gingrich worked as a lobbyist and tried to influence congress on behalf of his clients.

Incredibly, despite the ready provability of these documented facts, Newt – who has, incredibly, been labeled the most effective debater by some conservative analysts — countered simply by telling a big lie:

“Well, Michele, you know, a lot of what you say just isn’t true, period. … You know, I think it’s important for you, and the – this is a fair game, and everybody gets to – to- to pick fights. It’s important that you be accurate when you say these things. Those are not true.”

Pitiful, just pathetic, when you consider how easily proven all three of Bachmann’s accusations are, as shown below (these are only a tiny sampling of the mainstream sites mentioning these damning facts). The first two are direct Gingrich quotes from before he thought about running as a “conservative.”

1–Newt Gingrich Supported cap and trade:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/hotpolitics/interviews/gingrich.html

Gingrich:

“I think if you have mandatory carbon caps combined with a trading system, much like we did with sulfur, and if you have a tax-incentive program for investing in the solutions, that there’s a package there that’s very, very good. And frankly, it’s something I would strongly support.”

2–Newt Gingrich supported individual health care mandate:

http://motherjones.com/mojo/2011/12/newts-big-whopper-individual-mandate

“In order to make coverage more accessible, Congress must do more, including passing legislation to: [deletia] and require anyone who earns more than $50,000 a year to purchase health insurance or post a bond.”

3–Newt worked as a lobbyist and tried to influence congress for his clients:

http://nation.foxnews.com/newt-gingrich/2011/11/21/newts-lobbyist-problem

“ A former employee of the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, (the main industry lobby) told me Gingrich was being paid by someone in the industry at the time. A spokeswoman for Gingrich’s health care consulting firm, Center for Health Transformation, told me that drug companies have been CHT clients. PhRMA confirmed in a statement that they had paid Gingrich. Bloomberg News cited sources from leading drug companies Astra-Zeneca and Pfizer saying that those companies had also hired Gingrich.”

Obviously, there can be no question that Michele Bachmann nailed Newt on all three counts. So the main question for Americans is this:

Does honesty matter?

And another important question is:

Why didn’t any of the other candidates mention these 3 devastating facts?