Interesting picture going around from The Other 98%: 

For all of you falling for his "freedom" soundbites, please consider this collection from a previous post, which tells not just of the freedoms he wants to take away from you, but of his hypocrisy in general:

Ron Paul wants to remove the Incorporation Doctrine. That's the law that makes the Bill of Rights applicable to each state, meaning you'd be at risk of losing the basic liberties you now take for granted in any circumstance that doesn't reach federal jurisdiction. (And remember - he's openly against federal jurisdiction, too, as his "states' rights" argument repeatedly demonstrates.)

He swears he's no racist, but takes donations from openly racist organizations and accepts endorsements from openly racist kooks. 

He swears he'll steer the country to isolationism and withdraw our troops, but has had military contractors and even CIA agents working his campaign, and has taken big donations from military privatization proponents of the caliber of Blackwater/Xe. (Small army, big mercenary!)

He claims we don't need the Affordable Health Care Act, and that everyone can find the medical care they need without any such implementation ... but also says "you don't have a right to health care." 

He says he's no typical politician and doesn't pull any negativity against opponents in his campaign, but last October spent $2 million in attack ads. 

No American has a right to education, Paul says. 

We all know about the newsletters that carried his name, and we've all heard Ron Paul change his mind over the years about who wrote them and how much he knew about them (yes, I wrote them - no, I didn't, but I knew about their content, and you folks are just twisting it out of context - no I didn't write them, and never knew about them). Now his own staff are saying he wrote most of them, and was well aware of all content in those newsletters that issued blatantly racist statements. 

Many of his bills are worded in a very misleading style; Paul claims they're for one subject, but when you read them in full you learn his goal was very different.  He's written bills that would take surplus Social Security funds (over a billion dollars in reserves) and hand them over to Wall Street.  His HR 190, Paul said, was to keep illegal aliens from collecting Social Security. But they can't receive it to begin with; read the bill in full, and it removed laws against companies hiring illegal aliens.  Another bill of Paul's he claimed was in favor of stem cell research; that bill, however, was just for show - it didn't change any of the current terms for that research, and even reads that it restricts any further development in the field.  

That "end the fed" slogan he milks is misleading, too. He complains that our economy is ruled by this group, which is a governmental board that includes private industry. While so many applaud the concept of having greedy Wall Street executives removed from control of our economy, they fail to recognize that Paul's only goal is to remove the government from oversight. He wants those private companies - which we all know is chiefly responsible for our current economic woes - to hold the keys all by themselves. 

And as for that "states' rights" mantra, go look up the bills he wrote trying to get the federal government to remove the Occupational Safety and Health Act, restrict the Clean Air Act and Water Pollution Control Act, completely remove the Soil and Water Preservation Act, repeal Davis-Bacon, repeal Roe v. Wade (tried that one four times) ... and making them illegal on the federal level could mean no state can introduce the same on its own state level (states can't overrule the federal government, after all). 

Just read the individual subjects on his site's issues page; he's against women's rights, against individual labor rights, favors offshore drilling, wants to get rid of the Environmental Protection Agency and thinks millionaires should pay no taxes on their unearned income from stock sales.  

And you can read a little more of that here:
End the Fudd!

You wascally wepublicans, vote for Won (I mean, Ron) Paul!

After all, he'd be the most easily defeated from your entire slate. 

For everyone who claims his personal opinions on vital subjects are irrelevant because he wants states to decide, please don't overlook -  Ron Paul wants to remove the Incorporation Doctrine. That's the law that makes the Bill of Rights applicable to each state, meaning you'd be at risk of losing the basic liberties you now take for granted in any circumstance that doesn't reach federal jurisdiction. (And remember - he's openly against federal jurisdiction, too, as his "states' rights" argument repeatedly demonstrates.)

He swears he's no racist, but takes donations from openly racist organizations and accepts endorsements from openly racist kooks. 

He swears he'll steer the country to isolationism and withdraw our troops, but has had military contractors and even CIA agents working his campaign, and has taken big donations from military privatization proponents of the caliber of Blackwater/Xe. (Small army, big mercenary!)

He claims we don't need the Affordable Health Care Act, and that everyone can find the medical care they need without any such implementation ... but also says "you don't have a right to health care." 

He says he's no typical politician and doesn't pull any negativity against opponents in his campaign, but last October spent $2 million in attack ads. 

No American has a right to education, Paul says. 

We all know about the newsletters that carried his name, and we've all heard Ron Paul change his mind over the years about who wrote them and how much he knew about them (yes, I wrote them - no, I didn't, but I knew about their content, and you folks are just twisting it out of context - no I didn't write them, and never knew about them). Now his own staff are saying he wrote most of them, and was well aware of all content in those newsletters that issued blatantly racist statements. 

Many of his bills are worded in a very misleading style; Paul claims they're for one subject, but when you read them in full you learn his goal was very different.  He's written bills that would take surplus Social Security funds (over a billion dollars in reserves) and hand them over to Wall Street.  His HR 190, Paul said, was to keep illegal aliens from collecting Social Security. But they can't receive it to begin with; read the bill in full, and it removed laws against companies hiring illegal aliens.  Another bill of Paul's he claimed was in favor of stem cell research; that bill, however, was just for show - it didn't change any of the current terms for that research, and even reads that it restricts any further development in the field.  

That "end the fed" slogan he milks is misleading, too. He complains that our economy is ruled by this group, which is a governmental board that includes private industry. While so many applaud the concept of having greedy Wall Street executives removed from control of our economy, they fail to recognize that Paul's only goal is to remove the government from oversight. He wants those private companies - which we all know is chiefly responsible for our current economic woes - to hold the keys all by themselves. 

And as for that "states' rights" mantra, go look up the bills he wrote trying to get the federal government to remove the Occupational Safety and Health Act, restrict the Clean Air Act and Water Pollution Control Act, completely remove the Soil and Water Preservation Act, repeal Davis-Bacon, repeal Roe v. Wade (tried that one four times) ... and making them illegal on the federal level means no state can introduce the same on its own state level (states can't overrule the federal government, after all). 

Just read the individual subjects on his site's issues page; he's against women's rights, against individual labor rights, favors offshore drilling, wants to get rid of the Environmental Protection Agency and thinks millionaires should pay no taxes on their unearned income from stock sales. 

I know of three distinctly separable groups of Paul supporters. One group I understand and feel in-kind with. They are mid-30's and younger, either with college education or still in college, who feel neglected and overlooked by the government. Many are first-time taxpayers, too, and don't appreciate this new burden. They see the government as over-sized and restrictive as a result. Both this group and their parents didn't become taxpayers until the Reagan era, though, when income taxes were dramatically lowered on wealth and increased on everybody else. They need to look at the history of this subject before pointing their fingers in the current direction they wiggle.

Then there's the openly racist group of a-Paul-stles, like the Council of Conservative Citizens, which is nothing more than the KKK, except its members don't wear sheets and can speak more than monosyllabic words.  They support Paul for his racist views and his full tolerance of their racist actions. 

Then there's the group of Paulites who only support him for what they perceive to be his "legal dope" stance. He doesn't really hold this position, by the way, and only uses it as example of one argument he uses to get support from younger folks who don't ordinarily vote. Every time he's asked for a formal statement on the subject, he just repeats his "state's rights" topic. This group still repeats their "Toke Up for Ron Paul!" slogan all over the internet, though. 

I could care less about those latter two groups. They're irrelevant voters, and nothing anyone says or does will change their minds or methods. 

That first group, though, should really look into Ron Paul a little more closely. 

End the Fudd, folks. Don't vote for that quack, unless you want our society to move back 800 years into serfdom. 

Many Ron Paul followers cite an assumed “legal drugs” position as the basis of their support for the Republican presidential candidate.

This evening, the latest endorsement for Paul seems to add weight to their argument.

Thomas Ravenel, the former South Carolina state treasurer who shortly after being elected was convicted of drug charges, endorsed the Texas congressman earlier today.

In an email and facebook posting submitted on Dec. 30, Ravenel alluded to his drug conviction in his formal endorsement statement. “As a victim of a government’s costly ‘War on Drugs’ — I have first-hand knowledge of the failure of an inherently repressive system that’s based on the notion of protecting people from themselves.”

Elected to the state treasurer’s position in 2006, Ravenel was first indicted for cocaine possession with intent to distribute in June 2007, six months after assuming the office. After admitting regular use of many illegal narcotics, including marijuana, ecstasy and LSD, he was sentenced to 10 months in federal prison.

Throughout his campaign, Paul has issued many statements – both directly and indirectly – that he finds drug enforcement to be fruitless, if not unconstitutional. In a previous campaign statement, he said “all drugs should be decriminalized. Drugs should be distributed by any adult to other adults.”

Paul is predicted to finish second behind Mitt Romney in the upcoming Jan. 3 Iowa caucus, the first in the primary series for the Republican presidential nomination.

At the time of his initial indictment, Ravenel was state chairman for former New York governor Rudy Giuliani’s presidential campaign in South Carolina. He’d previously run for U.S. Senate in 2004, finishing third in the GOP primary race, and was fined $19,000 by the Federal Election Commission for failure to properly file election forms.

Earlier this month, Ravenel made national news for filing suit against his former fiancé.

The South Carolina Republican presidential primary is scheduled for Jan. 21. 

Less than one week before the Iowa primary, the state director of Rep. Michelle Bachman’s campaign jumped ship and endorsed another candidate.

State Sen. Kent Sorenson (R-Indianola) announced this evening he was changing his support to Rep. Ron Paul while attending a “Salute to Veterans” rally organized for the Texas congressman.

“Today, I am switching my support from Michele Bachmann to Ron Paul for the 2012 Iowa Caucuses and the presidency of the United States,” Sorenson said, calling the decision “one of the most difficult I have made in my life.”

“Ron Paul is the only candidate to predict the current mess we find ourselves in economically, and he’s the only candidate to offer a true plan to cut spending and balance our budget.”

Jesse Benton, chairman of Paul’s national campaign, welcomed the endorsement in a formal statement. “Congressman Paul is delighted to accept the endorsement of Sen. Kent Sorenson, whose blessing and assistance carry a great deal weight in Iowa. The fact that he doesn’t take this decision lightly tells a great deal about the Senator and Ron Paul. This endorsement is a rare find and we hope it pushes us nearer to our goal of a strong top-three finish at the January caucus.”

In the most recent poll of Iowan Republicans, Paul lead all candidates with 24 percent. Mitt Romney was a close second, taking 20 percent; Bachmann was a distant fourth with 11 percent.

The Iowa caucus is scheduled next week for Jan. 3.

Sorenson had been employed by Bachmann for about seven months. Rumors first begin circulating that Bachmann would hire Sorenson in late March after he spoke warmly of the Minnesota congresswoman in a CNN interview.

“I hope she decides to run,” he said on March 10. “She is somebody that (sic) has the credentials to fire up the grassroots. She would be someone who could unite different factions of the party. She is a strong fiscal and social conservative.”

Sorenson was hired as her Iowa state campaign director shortly after in late June, and helped Bachmann win the Ames Straw Poll in August. Paul placed a close second.

Sorenson attended a Bachmann campaign event earlier today without any indication of his last-minute switch. When asked to speak on Bachmann’s behalf, Sorenson told other campaign staff he couldn’t because he just had dental work done.

Late this afternoon before Sorenson’s surprise announcement, Bachmann focused her attention on Paul while campaigning across the state, saying he “would be a dangerous president.”

Sorenson won a very close race to represent Iowa’s State House Dist. 74 in 2008, and was elected to State Senate Dist. 37 in 2010. 

Paper money is unconstitutional? And so is Medicare and Medicaid? Oh, come on, now....

Posted on youtube by thinkprogressvideo

Every time I find myself wading through Reddit and Digg and many other web forums and political blogs, I always wind up knee-deep in swill from Ron Paul fans. 

"Just who are these people?" I've wondered. "How can anyone capable of multi-syllabic expression actually support that racist, conniving leech?"

And it's left me with a blank image. I've never ever met a Paulite in person, so I've not been able to apply a physical image to these folks. I've made my own demographic assumptions and borrowed some from actual reports (mid-30s and younger, many still in school or in first full-time employment, first-time taxpayers or fearing their entry to that status), but I wanted to have a visual picture. 

Their arguments for the Republi-tarian all seem to lean towards Paul's assumed "pro-dope" political stance, but that hasn't helped me create an actual image of them, either. When I've tried to from that angle, all I could produce is a faceless, soon-to-be college dropout trying to keep the smoke from his bong from rolling under the dorm room door so his RA won't bust him.

But today, ladies and gentleman, I found this video. And it gives the clearest picture of how an actual a-Paul-stle would not only look in public, but how he or she would actually behave, too. 

(Originally from National Geographic's "Frontier Force," appearing on youtube)

The image and behavior of this belligerent drunk gives me a rather accurate image of a Paulite, I'm sure. 

Ron Paul picked up these supporters through a states' rights argument, which he's milked out in allusion to legalization of marijuana.  He's only using that angle to hide his neoconfederate goals, but that's where these "Weedheads for Paul" originate from. 

And apparently they're celebrating their supposedly pro-dope hero too much ("...toke up ... I mean, vote for Ron Paul!"), because they're overlooking everything else there is to know about the guy. 

To the rest of the world, Paul's a racist. Long been known to be, as well. His constituent newsletters have been chock full of racist terms, he continues to argue against the Civil Rights Act, and he openly takes campaign donations from white supremacist groups. He was even endorsed by former KKK leader David Duke. 

He's told ridiculous stories, like the one about the Affordable Healthcare Act. The act will have the IRS put 16,000 armed agents on the street to enforce the new law, he told the public. 

The doctor's openly stated that "you don't have a right to medical care," as well. He even voted against the Amber Alert bill, for pete's sake. 

He also practices a political ploy that clearly defeats the image those Paulites seem to hide behind. He says one thing, does the opposite, and then dons some stylish cloak as he backpedals away in attempt to hide his blatant hypocrisy. 

For example, Paul argues against earmarks, but loads bills up with tons of them -- then votes against those same bills after he's sure they'll pass without his vote.  Same thing on the subject of term limits; we should have them, Paul's cried -- right after he was re-elected for additional terms. 

From the debate podiums, Paul preaches about some isolationist peacefulness -- but takes sizable donations from the president of Xe (formerly known as Blackwater), the private mercenary corporation, and even had CIA subcontractors through Blackwater working his last campaign. 

And even though he welcomed about $600 million to his district from FEMA after recent hurricanes, he still commands the news cameras lately by claiming the government should do nothing to support victims of natural disasters. 

Seeing that video, and now being able to accurately picture those Paulites, I must say I'm relieved. That visual depiction confirms my well-founded conclusion that they're an invalid, weakly-based microgroup. And any online presence they currently sustain will soon wane away. 

After all, even if Paul is able to last through the early GOP primaries next year, his dopehead devotees can't vote from jail, which is where many are sure to wind up.