Glenn Greenwald is one of the most honest reporters out there. He reminds me of Henry Hazlitt who worked for the NY Times and had always considered himself a progressive. When FDR’s fascist New Deal came about, he assumed all his colleagues would oppose it. He was wrong.

During the Bush years, Guantanamo was the core symbol of right-wing radicalism and what was back then referred to as the “assault on American values and the shredding of our Constitution”: so much so then when Barack Obama ran for President, he featured these issues not as a secondary but as a central plank in his campaign. But now that there is a Democrat in office presiding over Guantanamo and these other polices — rather than a big, bad, scary Republican — all of that has changed, as a new Washington Post/ABC News poll today demonstrates:

The sharpest edges of President Obama’s counterterrorism policy, including the use of drone aircraft to kill suspected terrorists abroad and keeping open the military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, have broad public support, including from the left wing of the Democratic Party.

A new Washington Post-ABC News poll shows that Obama, who campaigned on a pledge to close the brig at Guantanamo Bay and to change national security policies he criticized as inconsistent with U.S. law and values, has little to fear politically for failing to live up to all of those promises.

The survey shows that 70 percent of respondents approve of Obama’s decision to keep open the prison at Guantanamo Bay. . . . The poll shows that 53 percent of self-identified liberal Democrats — and 67 percent of moderate or conservative Democrats — support keeping Guantanamo Bay open, even though it emerged as a symbol of the post-Sept. 11 national security policies of George W. Bush, which many liberals bitterly opposed.

Repulsive liberal hypocrisy extends far beyond the issue of Guantanamo. A core plank in the Democratic critique of the Bush/Cheney civil liberties assault was the notion that the President could do whatever he wants, in secret and with no checks, to anyone he accuses without trial of being a Terrorist – even including eavesdropping on their communications or detaining them without due process. But President Obama has not only done the same thing, but has gone much farther than mere eavesdropping or detention: he has asserted the power even to kill citizens without due process. As Bush’s own CIA and NSA chief Michael Hayden said this week about the Awlaki assassination: “We needed a court order to eavesdrop on him but we didn’t need a court order to kill him. Isn’t that something?” That is indeed “something,” as is the fact that Bush’s mere due-process-free eavesdropping on and detention of American citizens caused such liberal outrage, while Obama’s due-process-free execution of them has not.

Beyond that, Obama has used drones to kill Muslim children and innocent adults by the hundreds. He has refused to disclose his legal arguments for why he can do this or to justify the attacks in any way. He has even had rescuers and funeral mourners deliberately targeted. As Hayden said: ”Right now, there isn’t a government on the planet that agrees with our legal rationale for these operations, except for Afghanistan and maybe Israel.” But that is all perfectly fine with most American liberals now that their Party’s Leader is doing it:

Fully 77 percent of liberal Democrats endorse the use of drones, meaning that Obama is unlikely to suffer any political consequences as a result of his policy in this election year. Support for drone strikes against suspected terrorists stays high, dropping only somewhat when respondents are asked specifically about targeting American citizens living overseas, as was the case with Anwar al-Awlaki, the Yemeni American killed in September in a drone strike in northern Yemen.

The Post‘s Greg Sargent obtained the breakdown on these questions and wrote today:

The number of those who approve of the drone strikes drops nearly 20 percent when respondents are told that the targets are American citizens. But that 65 percent is still a very big number, given that these policies really should be controversial.

And get this: Depressingly, Democrats approve of the drone strikes on American citizens by 58-33, and even liberals approve of them, 55-35. Those numbers were provided to me by the Post polling team.

It’s hard to imagine that Dems and liberals would approve of such policies in quite these numbers if they had been authored by George W. Bush.

Indeed: is there even a single liberal pundit, blogger or commentator who would have defended George Bush and Dick Cheney if they (rather than Obama) had been secretly targeting American citizens for execution without due process, or slaughtering children, rescuers and funeral attendees with drones, or continuing indefinite detention even a full decade after 9/11? Please. How any of these people can even look in the mirror, behold the oozing, limitless intellectual dishonesty, and not want to smash what they see is truly mystifying to me.

Bloomberg reports that former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum , has come a long way from from being one of the poorer members of the U.S. Senate to earning $1.3 million between January 2010 and August 2011. How did he do it? Mostly by providing access, after he lost his Senate seat.

Ron Paul doesn’t want to be President to “give” me freedom. He doesn’t own my freedom and he didn’t give it to me. The only reason Ron Paul wants to be President is to stop punishing people for using their freedom that is rightfully theirs. He wants no power. This is clear to anyone who listens to him speak.

There are two kinds of human beings. Those who want power, and those who want freedom. You can tell which one’s which very easily. Those who want freedom are straight-edged. They are consistent, principled, and you can feel their human soul when they speak to you. There’s a continuum out there of human souls somewhere in spiritual cyberspace, and when you come into contact with one of these souls, you know immediately, because souls are by definition free. You sense sincerity, realness, consistency, a free human being. If you’re a man who seeks freedom and you come into contact with a real human soul, you become instantly addicted and you swallow up anything you can get your hands on. You want to unite immediately, no matter what you disagree on. There are people in the freedom movement that don’t exactly like Israel, especially me being a “settler” and I don’t care. If they want freedom, I sense it and my human drive for individualism suddenly turns into an intense desire to unite into a collective – but a collective of free individuals. It’s a beautiful dialectic, and it doesn’t matter what we agree or disagree on, as long as we agree on freedom.

You get hooked on Ron Paul and you desperately seek more and more, any video you can find from the past, any speeches you missed, anything he said that you haven’t heard yet, even though you’ve heard it a thousand times already in different words. You can’t help yourself. The voracious hunger to be able to use your God-given freedom takes you over entirely. It’s like you suddenly realize you’re human and the Divine Image with which God created you comes alive and catches fire.

But something else happens to you. Once you get hooked on Ron Paul, you can no longer bear to listen to a man who wants power, and you become instantly disgusted when they start saying words. Before, they were just boring. Now they’re revolting. Listening to Romney or Gingrich or Bush or Obama makes you sick and you don’t know how Ron Paul gets through those debates without getting nauseous. You see a political veneer in these politicians that’s so transparent it’s like a ghost flapping its ethereal tongue at you. You can’t bear it. (Read more)

Ron Paul’s CNN Walkout interview conducted by reporter-wife of huge war profiteer

Well, well, it turns out hit job specialist Gloria Borger is married to Lance Morgan. Morgan is according to the web site of his employer, Powell Tate,”chief communications strategist at Powell Tate in Washington, D.C. He specializes in developing and executing communications strategies for public policy debates, crisis communications and media training.”

So who might be the clients of Powell Tate, where Borger’s husband is “chief communications strategist and crisis communications” adviser for?

Just about every part of the military industrial-complex that Ron Paul wants to shrink or shutdown.http://www.economicpolicyjournal.com/2011/12/hot-ron-paul-walks-out-during-cnn.html

See also,

Uncut video shows Paul did NOT ‘storm out’ of CNN interview

The uncut version of a CNN interview between Ron Paul and Gloria Borger surfaced online Sunday, leading many Paul supporters to claim that the footage shows the presidential hopeful didn’t “storm out” of the interview, as some media outlets reported based off the edited version that aired on CNN.

In the interview, Borger pushed the Texas Republican about newsletters from the ’80s and ’90s that bear his name and contained racist and homophobic content. In the originally aired video, Paul seemed to walk out on Borger after a terse rebuttal.

But the uncut version shows that Paul and Borger were standing up for the entire interview, and that Paul actually responded to questions about the newsletter for almost three minutes before walking off, and that the interview was likely over.

Paul was clearly irritated by the line of questioning, which he says he covered at length with CNN in another interview the day before, but early reports seemed to indicate that Paul fled the interview to avoid the issue.

The full interview lasted more than eight minutes, and covered issues not aired by CNN, such as negative campaign advertisements and the payroll tax cut.

A post on a website for Paul supporters described the interview controversy as a “creative editing hit job.”

Frum goes after Paul. Typical slander from a typical war mongering, chicken hawk, neo-con.

It’s sad and squalid that Ron Paul finished ahead of Jon Huntsman. Gov. Huntsman has the elements of a president; Ron Paul is not even a fanatic. He’s a bunco artist. May I repeat something I’ve said about him before? (The piece can be read here on CNN.com)

Ron Paul is something more (or less) than a racist crank. As Michael Brendan Dougherty aptly observed in the Atlantic last week:

(Read more)

Al “Skinny” Shartpton banging the race drum

See also:

Compilation of Black Ron Paul supporters

Al Gore encourages voters to dismiss Ron Paul as a ‘silly’ candidate

Analyzing the returns, Gore said, “He does not have a ceiling in fantasy land, but in the real world when people take a look at his actual positions, when Republicans take a look on at his actual positions, come on.”

Americans’ frustration with the economic and political situation in the country was, Gore said, the only reason Paul would even been considered by voters.

“That all is part of a general attitude that you know, let’s just play 52-card pick up,” he mused, “let’s just up end things and do something radically different. And I think he does culturally, psychologically tap into that.”

“At some point when people look seriously at what his positions are, I mean getting rid of the Federal Reserve,” Gore jeered. “Look, the wars are enormously unpopular, but bringing all the American troops home from no matter what the dangerous situations are? It’s so silly.”

Gore additionally claimed that Paul wasn’t being pummeled sufficiently for so-called “racist” passages in newsletters from the 1980s, which Paul claims he did not write.
(Read more & see video)

Marginalizing Ron Paul

It is official now. The Ron Paul campaign, despite surging in the Iowa polls, is not worthy of serious consideration, according to a New York Times editorial; “Ron Paul long ago disqualified himself for the presidency by peddling claptrap proposals like abolishing the Federal Reserve, returning to the gold standard, cutting a third of the federal budget and all foreign aid and opposing the Civil Rights Act of 1964.”

. . . .

It is hypocritical that Paul is now depicted as the archenemy of non-white minorities when it was his nemesis, the Federal Reserve, that enabled the banking swindle that wiped out 53 percent of the median wealth of African-Americans and 66 percent for Latinos, according to the Pew Research Center.

The Fed sits at the center of the rot and bears the major responsibility for tolerating the runaway mortgage-backed securities scam that is at the core of our economic crisis. After the meltdown it was the Fed that led ultra-secret machinations to bail out the banks while ignoring the plight of their exploited customers. (Read more)

MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell Calls Ron Paul A Fraud!

Ron Paul Booed by Insane Debate Audience for Endorsing the Golden Rule

CNN’s Dana Bash is Worried About Ron Paul

Jon Stewart Exposes Ron Paul Media Bias After New Hampshire Primary

National security advisers to the Republican presidential candidates have ties to defense, homeland security and energy companies that have received at least $40 billion in federal contracts since 2008.

Five of former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney’s 41 national security and foreign policy advisers have links to companies that last year alone received at least $7.9 billion in federal contracts, according to data compiled by Bloomberg Government analyst Christopher Flavelle. Of that, $7.3 billion came from the Department of Defense.

Romney and former U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich of Georgia, who are leading in the polls, have advisers who sit on the board of directors of BAE Systems Inc., which has received at least $37 billion in U.S. government contracts since 2008, the most of any of the companies with ties to Republican national security advisers. (Read more)

Lew just posted Newt’s interview with Beck wherein Newt describes himself as a “Theodore Roosevelt Republican.” OK, let’s go straight to the legend himself, TR:

[I]n the days of Abraham Lincoln [the Republican party] was founded as the radical progressive party of the Nation. . . .

The course I followed, of regarding the executive as subject only to the people, and, under the Constitution, bound to serve the people affirmatively in cases where the Constitution does not explicitly forbid him to render service, was substantially the course followed by both Andrew Jackson and Abraham Lincoln. . . .

I bound myself more than ever to treat the Constitution, after the manner of Abraham Lincoln, as a document which put human rights above property rights when the two conflicted.. . . . I believed in invoking the National power with absolute freedom for every National need.
[Theodore Roosevelt: an Autobiography (New York: Macmillan Company, 1913) pp. 381–382, 394–395, 420 (emphasis added)]

Yeah, I’d say TR fan Gingrich is a progressive liberal. (Read more)

WTF!?

The caucuses for two precincts, IC 23 and IC 24 were held together in the same high school auditorium.

Results from IC 23 – Paul 22, Romney 60, Gingrich 7, Santorum 14, Bachman 5, Perry 2, Huntsman 1

Results from IC 24 – Paul 47, Romney 39, Gingrich 8, Santorum 13, Bachman 3, Perry 1, Huntsman 1

There were a bunch of very wholesome looking, clean shaven men in slacks and shirts sitting near the front row. Just men. All in their mid thirties to mid forties it seemed. They all knew one another and every one would shake hands when another one arrived. A few wore Romney stickers.

The process was pathetic and open for abuse. We each received a very plain slip of paper before we entered the auditorium. After about an hour of speeches by representatives for each candidate, we were asked to write the name of our chosen one on a piece of paper. And pass it to the side. Which side? Either one. Very elderly ladies, God bless them, did their best to collect the papers amid the chaos. Many people left at this point. Some people walked up to the ladies to hand them their papers after the initial collection.

The ladies counted the papers on some bleachers which had been set up on stage. A representative of each of the candidates looked on. Most of the people left. I waited until results were announced.

A Pac supporting Ron Paul released this stunning video in response to the hysterical charges of racism based on a 20 year old news letter:

See also, Ron Paul’s reaction to the video:

This is nothing new, of course.
- (2008) Censoring Ron Paul – Why the rEVOLution will not be televised
- (2009) Censoring Ron Paul (then and now)

Notice anyone missing? This is an unconfirmed picture that a Ron Paul supporter took of his television showing Fox News election coverage in New Hampshire.

FANTASTIC COMPARISON of media comments about Iowa Caucus in 2008 vs 2012

Iowa Governor: Ignore Ron Paul Caucus Win

CNBC coverage:
- They name the candidates at the start of the coverage, ignoring Ron Paul.
- “The guy to stop is Mitt Romney.”
- When the show the polls with Paul leading: “The leader is now Ron Paul, now he’s not much of a threat to Mitt Romney because he doesn’t have a chance to win the nomination.”
- Long discussion of Romney vs. Gingrich and Perry.
- “If Ron Paul wins, who stands, I mean, who loses, who does he take votes away from the most do you think?”
- Long explanation of why Romney is most likely to win in Iowa.
- “If Ron Paul wins Iowa, what does it mean for New Hampshire and South Carolina down the line?” “I think it all depends on who’s second and third.” Discussion of Gingrich vs. Romney. “Ron Paul is no threat to win the nomination. . . . He’s not going to break out of the libertarian box.”
- “Romney or Gingrich, who has the better chance beyond Iowa?”
- “Is he [Ron Paul] going to be Ross Perot of this race? Is he going to be the spoiler for the Republican Party?”
- “Ron Paul is going to be a long term irritant. He’s not going to be a significant threat.”

Fox News:
- “Ron Paul is an unthinkable Republican nominee. He’s the ideal Democratic version of the nominee.”
- If Ron Paul goes through the election winning 15-20% of the vote, “he would stand at the end of it the leader of a sizable faction of the Republican party that supports views that are antithetical the views of the mainstream of the Republican party.”
- Discusses 20 year old newsletters.
- “He’s not only unacceptable in the Republican party . . . He’s unacceptable in America because of what he’s written.”
- Discussion of how Iowa’s importance will suffer if Ron Paul wins.

Gingrich: I wouldn’t vote for Ron Paul
He called the candidate’s views “totally outside the mainstream of virtually every decent American” and that the congressman couldn’t win because “people won’t take him as a serious person.” He added that he personally wouldn’t vote for Paul, saying, “I think the choice of Ron Paul or Barack Obama would be a very bad choice for America.

Headline: ‘Ron Paul wishes Israel didn’t exist’
Republican presidential hopeful Ron Paul negates Israel’s right to exist, Eric Dondero, who served as a senior aide to the 76-year-old Texas congressman for over 12 years, said on Monday.

left-winger Cenk Uygar’s on the warmongering establishment Republicans in their war against peacemonger Ron Paul:

Includes clips of Gingrich.

Why’s The Media Shafting Ron Paul, And Ignoring NDAA & SOPA Dangers?

Dick Morris, reacting to the fact that military personnel overwhelmingly support Ron Paul: “No true patriot could be for Ron Paul.” (more)

Morris: Ron Paul is ‘the most liberal, radical, left-wing person to run for president’

Reddit’s /r/conservative moderator has had enough of Ron Paul:

“So I come back from my weekend and I see this thread and I’m just plain disgusted by all of this circlejerk, fanatical, conspiratard, inter-party warfare bullshit.

You guys have zero respect for the rest of your “people.” This whole ‘if you aren’t voting RP, you’re a neo-con’ talking point is pitifully weak and over used. It wouldn’t be problem if it were here and there, but it’s damn near every thread that has some Paul cocksuckery going on. Anyone how objects gets slammed with little to no room for discussion.

So for at least until I’m bored with it, I’m going to be removing any new Paul-specific threads. You don’t like it, go to one of the many sub-reddits that are dedicated to his worship. Conservatism doesn’t revolve around Paul’s ideology, and for the people who thinks it does, I truly pity you. You should know, it’s a lot broader than that excessively narrow and hostile perspective.

Feel free to make up whatever conspiracy theories about me being paid for by the establishment, or call me a neo-con. It’s not going to hurt my feelings, nor is it going to change anything.”

Daily News: Ron Paul in racist newsletter flap
A blast from the past is blowing a big hole in Ron Paul’s campaign.

A recently surfaced video from 1995 shows the GOP presidential hopeful discussing controversial newsletters that he claimed this week he didn’t even read until about 2001.

The Texas congressman has come under fire in recent days for the newsletters, called Ron Paul’s Political Report, Ron Paul’s Freedom Report and the Ron Paul Survival Report, which went out under his name in the late 1980s and early 1990s during his time in and out of office. (Read more)

Mitt Romney surges in N.H., but No. 2 Ron Paul gets no media loveNew polling data shows Mitt Romney cruising in New Hampshire, with nearly quadruple the support of Jon Huntsman, the GOP candidate in third place. Wait, why’d you skip to the third place guy? Who’s in second? Texas Congressman Ron Paul, of course.

Even though Huntsman and Paul both gained the same amount (six percentage points) since the last Suffolk University poll in June, and Paul has 14 percent support to Huntsman’s 10 percent, Decoder isn’t seeing any media love being thrown Paul’s way this morning.

This, despite the fact that the canned, ready-to-be-quoted bit from the Suffolk press release gives equal billing to Paul’s improvement alongside Huntsman’s.

Uncut Ron Paul Interview – CNN Lies and Cuts over 30 seconds of the interview to make it seem that Ron Paul was storming off, when actually the interview was OVER.

About Ron Paul, Huckabee states today to Fox News’s Chris Wallace: “He has a core of fanatical believers, and they don’t represent mainstream Americans. It is not okay for Iran to have a nuclear weapon.”

Huckabee knows well that Dr. Paul has never said that he thinks it is perfectly OK for Iran to have a nuclear weapon. As a matter of fact, being a true man of peace, he has many times stated that he does not want anyone to have nuclear weapons.

Al Sharpton Goes After Ron Paul WERE TALKING ABOUT RACISM & SLAVERY!!

This MSNBC coverage also discusses his supposed walk off from a CNN interview, even though it had been found that the walk off never happened. It was made to appear that way by fraudulent editing by CNN.

- “Iowa has voted for exotic candidates before.”
- “Huckabee, same thing.”
- “They’re [the media] watching a Mitt Romney New Gingerich runoff.”
- “If Ron Paul wins Iowa, we just take it out.”

The Atlantic: Ex-Aide: Ron Paul’s Foreign Policy is ‘Sheer Lunacy’

Can the MSM pull the plug on Ron Paul?

- Donald Trump tweet: A vote for Ron Paul is a totally wasted vote. If he wins Iowa — bad for Iowa’s credibility.
- Huckabee refers to “fanatical believers.”

Bachmann calls Paul foreign policies “dangerous,” rebukes his newsletter

TPM’s Josh Marshall: On Ron Paul “He’s The Candidate Who Thinks Gays Should Be Executed”

I just found a great website, RonPaulFlix.com paying special attention to bias Ron Paul coverage.

Addition: Occasionally I tune into NPR to hear the latest propaganda. I just listen to NPR’s All Things Considered describe Mitt Romney as the front runner in the race. (4:30pm Dec 20, 2011.) Ron Paul is leading in the polls! They then cut to Perry talking about how Obama should have bombed Iran, and the rise of Santorum. No mention of Paul whatsoever.

Addition: New York Times Column – Feel Free to Ignore Iowa