Tag Archives: Lost Republic Original

Censoring Ron Paul (then and now)

Ron Paul is certainly getting more mainstream media attention than he did when he ran for President, but the censors are still at work.

Justin Miller deserves credit for his Atlantic article pointing out how Gallup and Rasmussen polling agencies are ignoring Ron Paul as a potential 2012 candidate. They list Tim Pawlenty and Haley Barbour, but no Ron Paul. Justin Miller makes the rather obvious case for Ron Paul’s consideration.

Rasmussen: “In a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey, it’s close to a three-way tie when GOP voters are asked whom they would vote for � from among a list of six prominent Republicans – in the 2012 party primary in their state: 25% say Romney, while 24% say Palin and 22% opt for former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee.

After that, GOP primary voters list former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (14%), while Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour and Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty each received one percent (1%) of the vote. Six percent (6%) prefer some other candidate.”

(What a convenient list of establishment candidates.)

Gallup:

***

Kudos to Justin Miller, but I feel he should have at least acknowledged the widespread censorship and slander Ron Paul faced during his presidential campaign. I detailed much of it here: Censoring Ron Paul – Why the rEVOLution will not be televised, back when I was a fledgling blogger. I saved my own copies of only some (not all) of the offending coverage. Unfortunately, some of the most glaring examples have been removed by the news sources.

***

Lets not be surprised that Rasmussen is ignoring Ron Paul now. They even did so DURING the election:

(click for saved web page)
And this poll was AFTER Ron Paul’s 6-million-dollar money bomb.

Fox “News” ignored Ron Paul’s second place finish in Nevada:

(click for larger image)

Fox “News” also edited Ron Paul out of AP news stories.

USA Today cover story / photos / candidate-profiles covered four of the five candidates still in race at the time. The excluded candidate was . . . (drum roll) . . . Ron Paul.

MSNBC debate bias
Romney: 21 minutes, 11 seconds (12 answers and asked 1 question)
McCain: 16 minutes even (12 answers and asked 1 question)
Giuliani: 13 minutes and 50 seconds (10 answers and asked 1 question)
Huckabee: 12 minutes and 11 seconds (8 answers and asked 1 question)
Paul: 6 minutes and 31 seconds (5 answers and asked 1 question)

The CNN/YouTube debate went for 35 minutes before Ron Paul got a question. He received the least amount of time, and only four question. (Giuliani got nine.) Hear Ron Paul comment.

Washingtonpost’s post-debate commentary excluded Ron Paul.

In a staggering display of selective perception, NY Times columnist Bob Herbert laments the GOP’s militancy, completely ignoring Ron Paul’s presence. This is especially asinine, as Herbert’s own beliefs most closely resemble Paul’s. Herbert mentions all GOP presidential candidates in his column except . . . (surprise, surprise) . . . Ron Paul.

CNN’s Glenn “Bandwagon” Beck held a political poll and excluded Ron Paul

BBC news’s election guide excluded Ron Paul.

Israel’s Haaretz newspaper ranks almost all the candidates on Israel-issues (except Ron Paul and Dennis Kucinich).

(click for saved web page)

Ahead of Florida Primary, extensive Miami Herald article does mention Paul, once, right at end.

LA Times poll excludes Ron Paul.

Real Clear Politics polls exclude Ron Paul.

Article about CBS news censoring Ron Paul from graphics and commentary (removed)

CNN puts up the words “Blaming America for 9-11” under Ron Paul during this video. Unfortunately, the video has been removed.

MSNBC’s Hardball:

Given Giuliani’s abysmal performance in the election, you wonder who decided he was 1st tier, and Ron Paul was 3rd tier.

Two NY Times articles attack Ron Paul on 24 Dec 2007. The NY Times then apologizes, sort of.

See Also:

(thanks Eric C.!)

The list goes on. Check out my old post Censoring Ron Paul – Why the rEVOLution will not be televised to see more. Unfortunately, there are many dead links.

UPDATE: Also check out The Orange Line – anatomy of a smear campaign.

Doubting Paul Krugman

Paul Krugman offered his thoughts on the economic crisis last week in the University of Iowa’s McBride Hall.

My commentary:

When Paul Krugman furrowed his brow and stroked his chin and told the audience that the Obama administration’s plan to create 3.5 million jobs is . . . here he slowed his speech, demonstrating his thoughtfulness . . . “about the right size,” he neglected to elaborate on how government creates jobs.

If government has the power to create 3.5 million jobs, what is the moral justification for stopping at 3.5 million? Why not 4 million, or 10 million? Why not 150 million, so America’s entire labor force can feed from the government trough?

The fact is that government cannot create jobs. Government can only redirect them. Taxes must destroy private sector jobs which produce goods and services people want, so that government may pay for public sector jobs, which exist for political reasons.

The stimulus will make us poorer, and when it does so, Mr. Krugman will furrow his brow and stroke his chin and tell us very thoughtfully that it probably wasn’t big enough.

He cautioned against the “temptation to dwell on the causes of the bubble,” which seems completely nonsensical to me. More tempting is subscribing to his indictment of unregulated capitalism and greedy businessmen.

In implicating capitalism, he did not mention the government bailout in 1998 of a hedge fund called Long Term Capital Management. When government subsidizes irresponsibility, the case against unregulated capitalism falls to pieces. Had government not set the precedent of rescuing their friends on Wall Street in 1998, we wouldn’t have had these problems in 2008.

Those of us who succumb to the temptation of actually caring how we got here might also note the government subsidizing of bad home loans, and the artificially low interest rate created by the Federal Reserve which cause unsustainable booms.

The boom was not “irrational exuberance,” as Mr. Krugman so dismissively puts it. It resulted from rational business decisions made in an economy our government warped to favor expansion and irresponsibility, and the problem is not a lack of regulation, but too much of it.

***

The hall was packed, and I didn’t get a chance to ask a question. I would have said the following: “Thank you for coming here and speaking to us. Our empire, which has a military presence in 130 of the world’s 190 countries is very expensive. Our government, which employs a sixth of America’s labor force is very expensive. The stimulus is very expensive, and the bailouts are extremely expensive. Conspicuously absent from the discussion is the notion of living within our means. Do we need to live withing our means? Or have our great economists with their deft manipulations of interest rates rendered the notion quaint and obsolete?

***

See Also: A Child in a Man’s Body: An Austrian Looks at the Economics of Paul Krugman

Political Posturing Over AIG

“I recently received an e-mail from Sen. Tom Harkin expressing outrage over the AIG bonuses and vowing to ‘pass legislation that completely taxes those bonuses away’ and ‘send a message to AIG and other companies who received bailout money.’

While I think the anger is well-founded, I fear it misses the point.

Government should never have entered the business of giving our money to failing companies. The line between government and private enterprise is now perverted. Because of the bailouts, politicians are now posturing by interfering in businesses they know little about, and businessmen (bankers in this case) now have more reason than ever to lobby and influence politics.

The whole process is outrageous. Bad companies should simply go bankrupt. There are plenty of banks here in the Midwest that have been responsible. If we lived in a free society, they would find themselves in a position to buy assets from the hugely irresponsible and incompetent New York banks. Instead, money is taken from the competent and given to the incompetent.

At the same time, politicians are pretending to have stuck it to the man. Scolding AIG over several hundred million in bonuses after handing them several hundred billion is ridiculous.

If Congress wants to scrutinize something, they should scrutinize the Federal Reserve. Instead of worrying about AIG’s millions, they should provide transparency to the Fed’s trillions.” (from press-citizen.com)

Healthcare and our Ever-Expanding Government

Our government, which already directly employs a seventh a America’s labor force (22 million people), is doing what government does best. It is growing – in size, cost and invasiveness.

Its growth into the healthcare industry is particularly interesting to me because of the enthusiasm with which so many of my liberal friends welcome it.

There exist little-known, little-discussed health rules buried in the recently-passed 1,100-page “stimulus” bill – the one which was forced to a vote in the House twelve hours after it’s midnight release, which not a single Congressman read, and which had been made available to lobbyists, but not Congressional staffers.

There are so many things economically and morally reprehensible about the Obama administration’s attempts at creating wealth from a printing press, one struggles to keep up even with something as important as healthcare.

Bloomberg news recently reported:

“The bill’s health rules will affect ‘every individual in the United States’ (445, 454, 479). Your medical treatments will be tracked electronically by a federal system. Having electronic medical records at your fingertips, easily transferred to a hospital, is beneficial. It will help avoid duplicate tests and errors.

But the bill goes further. One new bureaucracy, the National Coordinator of Health Information Technology, will monitor treatments to make sure your doctor is doing what the federal government deems appropriate and cost effective. The goal is to reduce costs and ‘guide’ your doctor’s decisions (442, 446). . . . According to [former Senator] Daschle, doctors have to give up autonomy and ‘learn to operate less like solo practitioners.’ . . .

Hospitals and doctors that are not ‘meaningful users’ of the new system will face penalties. ‘Meaningful user’ isn’t defined in the bill. That will be left to the HHS secretary, who will be empowered to impose ‘more stringent measures of meaningful use over time’ (511, 518, 540-541).”

Central planning doesn’t work. One consequence will be that when centrally-planned healthcare becomes corrupt and ineffective (and it will), we won’t be allowed to quit. Our money will continue to be taken away to support something we don’t want – much like with foreign wars, domestic spying, and all the other ways America’s 22 million federal employees find meaning in their lives.

The best thing government can do is let us keep our money. In a free society, states, neighborhoods, communities, churches, families can socialize or they can not. The effectiveness of different bureaucracies will determine their fate. In Obama’s socialist society, we must all give our wealth to the centrally-planned bureaucracy regardless of whether it serves our needs.

A second consequence will be the rhetorical argument for continued government expansion into our private lives. Once government is paying for our healthcare, regardless of the fact their using our money to do it, they’ll eventually claim dominion over our diets and health-related habits.

Last year, Japan’s government began mandatory tape tests for their subjects . . . er . . . citizens, in the name of controlling healthcare costs. Financial penalties are imposed on local governments and employers who fail to meet the government’s vision of a healthy society.

In the United States, the arguments will be similar. Everything will be blamed – smokers, obesity, greedy businessmen, solar radiation – before the pundits ever cast a scrutinizing eye on government inefficiency.

Here’s another prediction: more government will be proposed as a solution.

(An abbreviated version of this blog entry appears in The Press Citizen)

Censoring Ron Paul – Why the rEVOLution will not be televised

Gandhi: “First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they attack you, then you win.”

Ron Paul was the leader in 4th quarter fund raising. He finished second in Nevada. He regularly gets more votes than Guiliani. He’s outlasted Brownback, Tancredo, Hunter and Thompson. There is NO WAY they’re accidentally ignoring him. This is blatant, widespread censorship. The media is lying to you, America.

2008:

–MSNBC debate bias
Romney: 21 minutes, 11 seconds (12 answers and asked 1 question)
McCain: 16 minutes even (12 answers and asked 1 question)
Giuliani: 13 minutes and 50 seconds (10 answers and asked 1 question)
Huckabee: 12 minutes and 11 seconds (8 answers and asked 1 question)
Paul: 6 minutes and 31 seconds (5 answers and asked 1 question)

-As FL primary approaches, Miami Herald non-mentions Ron Paul, in article covering the Republican race.
–Fox “News” television graphic. They lie.
-BCC too? Notice anything missing from this race summary? The defenders of our corrupt monetary policy are widespread and numerous.
–THIS JFK / MLK / Ron Paul video was censored by YouTube. It’s author lost his account.
-I should have screen-captured. An ABC “News” story on the republican race had photos of all the candidates down to Duncan Hunter, with no Ron Paul.
–CNN gives Dr. Paul, and only Dr. Paul, a non-smiling photograph.
–Multiple 11th-hour rule changes by Nevada GOP concern Paul campaign.
–Digg Censoring Ron Paul.
-On the eve of the New Hampshire primary, Fox “News” is editing Ron Paul from AP stories. (More)
–New Republic’s Jamie Kirchick scrapes the barrel of yellow journalism ludicrously claiming that Ron Paul personally called Martin Luther King a “gay pedophile,” and stuffed 20 years’ worth of “Ron Paul” newsletters full of “racist, anti-semitic, homophobic invective.” Read Ron Paul’s response.
–Ballot box at Scottsdale AZ Straw Poll almost stolen by McCain supporters.
-From a Reader: Union Leader pretends Ron Paul does not exist on the morning of the New Hampshire primaries: Primary calendar

DECEMBER 07:

-To finish off the new year, Fox “News” has excluded Ron Paul from a New Hampshire forum. (More)
-UN-Believable! Late December, and Rasmussen STILL won’t include the six-million-dollar man in their polls, despite fundraising that’s long-since surpassed Thompson’s, Romney’s, Giuliani’s. For the few of you who still trust the mainstream, please stop.
–Bloomberg “news” column discusses all presidential candidates except . . . (surprise, surprise) . . . Ron Paul.
-I’ve heard many reports of telephone polls excluding Ron Paul. Here’s a recording. When the guy chooses “none of the above,” the automated system acts as if he chose “remove me from this list.”
-Widely quoted LA Times poll excludes Ron Paul. Its organizer has long history of excluding candidates.
–CBS “News” censors Ron Paul from graphics and commentary.
–Lew Rockwell: the Atlantic continues attacking Ron Paul, this time pointing out that “libertarian ideology and white supremacist ideology just so happen to overlap,” since both Ron Paul and white supremacists don’t think the federal government should interfere with the right to associate with whomever you choose on your own private property. This ridiculous guilt-by-association remains a common approach by Paul’s detractors.
–This is typical Big media news coverage. There’s a facade of neutrality, but of all the ways to write this headline, ABC “news” chooses the most hostile spin possible. Read ABC’s sub-headings: Opposing, Denying, Cutting, Rejecting. ABC also refused to air the Ron Paul interview. It’s available online.
–This Fox “News” broadcast is similar. ALL the candidates have Merry-Christmas ads. Only Ron Paul is put on the spot to defend it. The interviewer goes on to promote the Ron-Paul-is-racist meme. As usual, Dr. Paul answers very thoughtfully.
–Paul: Fox News is scared of me.
–littlegreenfootballs.com pushes Ron-Paul-is-a-Nazi rhetoric. I suspect this persistent meme results from Ron Paul’s philosophical objection to our annual $5 billion gift to Israel. (Hear Ron Paul talk about how this welfarism HURTS Israel.) I’ll bet ten bucks they don’t post this photo of Hillary Clinton with convicted drug dealer and cocaine smuggler Jorge Cabrera. Don’t even get me started on the Clintons’ criminal history.
–AP News: Ron Paul is a spoiler, i.e. not a real candidate. The article is factually incorrect when it says polls show no indication he can win any primaries.
–NY Sun continues smearing Paul. I should give up on this rag.
-Wonkette tries to coin the slur “Paultards,” as Neo-Libs join Neo-Cons. (Psst, they’re the same people.)
-NBC’s Tim Russert conducts openly hostile interview with Ron Paul. He discusses statements Ron Paul made in the 80’s to split hairs about issues insignificant to Dr. Paul’s current platform. As usual, Paul answers all questions thoughtfully. “News” man Russert ends interview with ominous: “Be safe on the campaign trail.”
-Best-selling author says assassination of Ron Paul has been discussed by power-brokering elites. (Follow-up: Neo-Con personalities among them.) Remember, they killed Bobby Kennedy after he won the California primary.
–Great YouTube compilation of Ron Paul slander in mainstream press.
-The organizers of a political dinner in San Francisco cancelled their straw poll after it became apparent Ron Paul would win.
–Upcoming CBS series looks like it will exclude Ron Paul.
–Newsweek ridicules Ron Paul and his supporters. (read the comments)
–TWO attacks against Ron Paul in the Dec. 24th NY Times. I think this means he’s doing well. UPDATE: NY Times retracts Ron Paul smear.
-In a staggering display of selective perception, NY Times columnist Bob Herbert laments the GOP’s militancy, completely ignoring Ron Paul’s presence. This is especially asinine, as Herbert’s own beliefs most closely resemble Paul’s. Herbert mentions all GOP presidential candidates in his column except . . . (surprise, surprise) . . . Ron Paul.
–Uber-Neo-Con chicken-hawk Bill Kristol calls Ron Paul a crackpot, completely distorts his views.
-Sorry, NPR lovers. A reader sent me this email about Diane Rehm’s committed non-mention of Dr. Paul.
-Cable provider ComCast interrupts CNN interview with Ron Paul.

NOVEMBER 07:

-The CNN/YouTube debate went for 35 minutes before Ron Paul got a question. He received the least amount of time, and only four question. (Giuliani got nine.) Hear Ron Paul comment.
–Washington Post’s post-debate commentary excludes Ron Paul. For those of you who still trust Big Media, please stop.
–The Rothenberg Political Report categorically dismisses Ron Paul.
–Mainstream press struggles with Ron Paul’s surging popularity.
–Salon discusses non-mention of Ron Paul Phenomenon by NY Times, Washing Post, CNN, CBS News, MSNBC and Fox.
-Few big media sources can still get away with ignoring Ron Paul. Many (ABC’s This Week) minimize his recent success, discussing him as a spoiler.
-Major polls STILL excluding Ron Paul. See for yourself: RealClearPolitics.com.
–A Zogby poll branched one poller into boring questions about rice, then personal questions about sex, after he answered positively about Ron Paul.
–CNBC anchor tries to play damage control after Chicago traders cheer Ron Paul, gets pointedly contradicted.
–Digg bans Ron Paul Nation.
–Springfield, IL targets Ron Paul signs.
-Echoes of Wired‘s ridiculous Ron Paul bot-net allegation still circulating. UPDATE: Here is photographic evidence of the bot-net and the spammers.
-Fantastic, link-rich antiwar.com article: Why are they afraid of Ron Paul?
-Ultra neo-con HotAir.com adopts Ron-Paul-is-a-Nazi meme, which was repeated at Jewcy, but contradicted by Zionists for Ron Paul.
-Daily Kos: Ron Paul hates you.
-Neo-Lib Wonkette consistently smearing Ron Paul, founding editor recruited to Time Magazine.
–Sean Hanity faces optimistic Ron Paul prediction.
–The Atlantic bloggers factually wrong on Ron Paul.
–Stupid questions on CBS’s Face The Nation: You do not see the threats to this country . . . do you think we even ought to have a military? So should we build a wall around this country and put all our military here? Do you really sincerely believe that you have a chance?
-After Ron Paul’s Nov 5th, $4.3-million-dollar money bomb, media spins it as commemoration of Guy Fawkes bombing attempt. See NY Times, Wired, Cnet.
-Damage control after Nov 5th Money bomb: The Atlantic, CBS, the neo-con Weekly Standard frantically repeat Ron-Paul-is-insane meme.
-Same thing repeated in my alma mater’s daily. (I rebuttal.)
–Florida county tries to bad Ron Paul truck-sign, fails after public makes themselves heard.
–Jackie Mason completely distorts Ron Paul’s beliefs.
–CNN’s Glenn Beck calls Paul supporters terrorists, interviews hate-monger David Horowitz, who lies (Ron Paul didn’t choose Nov 5th), and says Paul supports “in bed with the Islamo-fascists.”
–Glenn Beck’s CNN poll excludes Ron Paul.

OCTOBER 07:

-I’ve always took it for granted that Fox “News” stacks their audiences to achieve a desired effect. Here a Bush crony poses as an objective, neutral observer of the Florida debate, after which, Hannity and Colmes try to spin away Ron Paul’s success.
–FOX’s Hannity denies the obvious: the people who watched chose Ron Paul.
–Bullshit Wired article says Paul supporters are internet viruses. (The man raised about 10 million with an average contribution of $40!)
–Salon echoes the ridiculous accusation. Once something is reported, the propaganda machine can report the reporting. (See disinformation technique #22)
-Is author of Wired article connected to Giuliani?. (needs verification)
-Very, very strange Defense Department interruption of Ron Paul C-SPAN interview.
-Paul not invited to MSNBC presidential candidate forum.
-CNBC correspondent forced to apologize after claiming Paul’s supporters hacked their poll.
–RedState.com bans all mention of congressman Paul.
–Clinton staffers seize Ron Paul signs at PUBLIC rally.
-Ron Paul (still) excluded in many major polls.
-Israel’s Haaretz excludes Ron Paul in their ranking of US Presidential candidates.
–NY Post blacks out Dr. Paul.
–St. Petersburg Times runs major hit piece.
-Check out ABC’s creative editing.
–Fox “News” producers caught conspiring to exclude Paul supporters.
-A bogus Ron Paul-Blackwater connection published in the Washington Post. Why would America’s most militant company support our most anti-war candidate?
-Florida man forced to remove Ron Paul signs from his private property, after years of posting political signs.
-Shouldn’t this video should have been in YouTube’s most watched list? Is YouTube censoring? (Oct 12)
–This great breakdown shows how Ron Paul received the least amount of time in the October 9th debate. A mere 5 minutes.
–CNBC Pulls online poll after Ron Paul wins by a landslide.
–Republican Jewish Coalition excludes Ron Paul from their forum. Jews for Ron Paul protest. A Ron Paul Meetup forms in Tel Aviv.
-Strange. Bogus story about a bogus event. Seems to try and link Paul-supporters with America haters.
–MSNBC’s Hardball discusses cutting “freeloaders” like Paul from the field, for the benefit of the voters. “There may be an effort by the networks to narrow this field.” Chris Matthews says Giuliani’s 9/11 debate remark was a “homerun.” This was recorded after Sen. Brownback dropped out (Oct 19th) – AFTER Ron Paul’s $5 million third quarter.

SEPTEMBER 07:

–NY Republican club says no to Dr. Paul.
–Ron Paul WINS straw poll in New Hampshire, and therefore, gopstrawpoll.com removes him from their online poll.
–Hannity lies to discredit Ron Paul after the congressman WINS the fox news poll following the September 5th debate.
-Holy crap. During the debate, Fox “news” moderator Chris Wallace said: So, Congressman Paul, I’d like you to take 30 seconds to answer this, you’re basically saying that we should take our marching orders from al Qaeda? more here

AUGUST 07:

-ABC Talk show host Mark Levin declares war on Ron Paul. He asks listeners to harass Paul’s campaign headquarters. Ron Paul supporters teach Levin something about blowback!
-Ahead of the influential straw poll, the Iowa GOP seems neither reassuring of a fair election, nor willing to let the vote be easily verified. They ask Ron Paul’s campaign for almost $200k just to verify the vote.
-After the August 5th debate, ABC news tinkered with their online poll.

JULY 07:

–The Ron Paul censors continue to be hard at work.
–Hahaha Sean Hannity vs. Ron Paul supporters
–Here the AP reports on the fund-raising efforts of Giuliani, Romney, and McCain, and ignores Ron Paul, even though Dr. Paul has more cash on hand than McCain.
–Ron Paul supporters silenced at a Florida Marlin’s game after their poster was caught by television cameras.

JUNE 07:

-Ron Paul succeeds in Iowa despite exclusion.
-Ron Paul, banned from an Iowa debate, will hold a separate rally.
-Another desperate effort to slander him, by CNN “Which GOP candidate flies first class?”

SPRING 07:

–CNN attempts to slander Ron Paul. My favorite part is when they flash “blaming America for 9/11” beneath his face while he’s speaking.
–Rupert-Murdoch-owned MySpace seems to be censoring certain types of pro-Ron Paul postings. I don’t use MySpace. If anyone does, please confirm or deny this and let me know.
–One of many Fox smear jobs against Ron Paul.
–A local radio show bans mention of Ron Paul.
–Michigan GOP tries and fails to bar Ron Paul from the debates.
–ABC “accidentally” omits Ron Paul from their poll — until the public makes themselves heard.
–New York Sun calls Ron Paul anti-semitic.
–WorldNetDaily website ignores Ron Paul. A general discussion of the media’s non-response to Ron Paul’s surging popularity.
-Reason editor David Weigel predicted in February: If Paul’s campaign gathers momentum, he will be swiftly and horrifyingly destroyed by brickbats hurled from every bunker in the 2008 field.

“The man who reads nothing at all is better educated than the man who reads nothing but newspapers.” ~ Thomas Jefferson

Iran is NOT coming to get me

This brief (300-word) letter to the editor appeared in the Daily Iowa, October 16th 2007.

     In last week’s Republican presidential debate, all the candidates except for Ron Paul went on ad nauseam about the Islamo-fascist regime bent on destroying all of Western civilization.
     This would be quite an accomplishment for a nation whose national GDP is comparable to the state of Alabama’s.
     The sentiments are echoed by many prominent figures in the press who have propagated an inexcusable misquotation with frightening efficiency. Ahmadinejad never threatened to “wipe Israel off the map.”
     The war cheerleading smacks of the same duplicity that led to the invasion of Iraq. Even the supposedly liberal New York Times subsequently apologized for deliberately suppressing stories that questioned the invasion of Iraq.
     The Iranian threat is not nearly as dire as depicted. We have faced a nuclear Soviet Union and a nuclear North Korea. I agree with former CENTCOM commander General Abizaid: we can live with a nuclear Iran. Their regime is not suicidal.
     Military action against Iran, no matter how precise and limited, would certainly escalate, erase our modest gains in Iraq and Afghanistan, instantly jeopardize our soldiers overseas, destabilize Pakistan (who already has nukes), and cause terrorism against us to skyrocket.
     I doubt the sincerity of those making a hysterical case for war. James Madison warned us “the means of defense against foreign danger historically have become the instruments of tyranny at home.”
     If we are supposed to be so scared of terrorists that we start a third war in six years, that we accept concessions already made to our constitutional liberties, it seems like a no-brainer to do something about our completely porous borders.
     The fear-mongering is completely hypocritical so long as our borders are ignored. It’s analogous to a child on a playground, sticking out his chin. “Hit me, so I can have my war.”
     Enough is enough.

See it in the Daily Iowan. (I didn’t choose their title.)
250-word version published in Fayetteville Observer, Nov 5th, 2007.

The American Budget

My curiosity about the federal government, taxes, foreign policy, military spending, etc. led me to www.thebudgetgraph.com/. I bought the poster, and have since spent hours studying the administration’s discretionary budget proposal. It inspired the following guest opinion, published in the Daily Iowan on Feb 19th, 2007.

Demand better results from defense spending

We Americans, I think, do not generally consider ourselves militant. Our forces are all-volunteer. There is no sustained presence of uniformed soldiers in the streets, as exists in other nations. The ideals of peace, justice, and liberty feature prominently in both our history and folklore. We did not even keep a substantial standing army during peacetime for the first century and a half of our existence – the practice began in 1945.

For many, myself included, recent history runs contrary to what we thought we knew about ourselves. Read More

Time to leave the illusions behind

This guest opinion was published in the Daily Iowan, Jan. 17th, 2007, and the Press Citizen, Jan. 23rd, 2007.

Time to leave the illusions behind

President Bush mentioned the Iraq Study Group report twice in his 20-minute speech touting the proposed increased troop level in Iraq. He stated that his plan to embed more American advisers in Iraqi Army units is consistent with the report.

Although that specific morsel of his new plan is indeed consistent with the report, his saying so creates the illusion of a broader consistency that simply is not there. Read more: (Daily Iowan | Press Citizen)

Letter to the Editor — History Lessons

A letter to the editor about the looming controversy with Iran, printed in The Daily Iowan in April 2006. The editor was responsible for inserting all those awful commas.

History Lessons

A recent DI article (“Iraq in class,” March 22) discussed how various UI instructors are employing the war in Iraq as a teaching tool. This has a variety of benefits, including immediate relevance, but there is an even more relevant issue: the looming possibility of war with Iran.

While important decisions remain about our involvement in Iraq, the war itself is a done deal. The issue of Iran is more relevant, because the decision to wage war has not yet been made – at least that’s what I keep telling myself. It is a live issue, and, yet, few people and few, if any, instructors are engaging it.

Am I the only one wondering why the possibility of an even broader war in the Middle East hasn’t received more attention? Read More