2012 in review

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2012 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

About 55,000 tourists visit Liechtenstein every year. This blog was viewed about 680,000 times in 2012. If it were Liechtenstein, it would take about 12 years for that many people to see it. Your blog had more visits than a small country in Europe!

Click here to see the complete report.

Why Petraeus and not Clinton?

Okay, since nobody wants to talk about the elephant in the room, I will be the dope and get all the criticism and mention it.  (This is the best part of being over sixty years of age.)  If the national news media, with a straight face, can tell us that the CIA director, General Petraeus, had to resign because he was having an extramarital affair, why didn’t they say the same about President Bill Clinton when he was having an extramarital affair?

Was it….

A.) Because the television executives personally liked Bill Clinton and didn’t want to hurt his feelings and be embarrassed at cocktail parties?

B.) Because they liked his political policies and were afraid they would be setback?

C.) Because they knew about Bill Clinton’s proclivities and were prepared to finesse them if they surfaced but were caught off guard by General Petraeus and so had to report it straight?

D.) Because the president is the boss and what he does in his spare time is his own business?

As far as that goes, if the media is serious about this Petraeus story then why isn’t Bill Clinton being cut out of the daily intelligence briefings even now?  As a former president he still gets them.  As NBC News explained to us on Sunday, such knowledge could have made Petraeus vulnerable, subject to blackmail, and so he had to go.

Well, you say, is there evidence that Bill Clinton is still being indiscreet?  Well, let’s see.  Everybody who is now reading this blog who personally knows of someone who claims to have had a one night stand with Bill Clinton please raise you hands.  Ahaaa.  There you go.  You can put your hands down now.

I’ll put it this way, if a sheltered, modest, born again Christian, like myself knows someone, then odds are Scott Pelly, Diane Sawyer and Brian Williams do too.  (Well, maybe not Brian Williams.)  So how can the news anchors sit there with straight faces and quote poor Petraeus’s line to his best friend, “I messed up.”

Okay.  Let’s be fair.  If he “messed up” then who else messed up?  Have Pelly, Sawyer or Williams had affairs?  Have the producers, the writers, the executives at the news agencies?  Who else in the CIA?  Who on the Senate Intelligence Committee?  Shouldn’t every US Senator and Congressman and member of the White House staff now be rushed into a surprise polygraph test?  This is serious folks. They could be blackmailed.

Bt the way. On the same night that the news reported to us that the head of the CIA has been indiscreet, it also announced a new James Bond movie.  Now James Bond, now there was a spy that nobody could blackmail for being indiscreet.

Rand Paul for President: 2016

For Republicans, there is a silver lining to the re-election of Barack Obama.  The door is now open for real change in 2016.  The recently adopted Romney Rules at the RNC, which would have locked out any true democratic participation and guaranteed eight more years of GOP establishment, top-down, Brahman-style, domination, are now moot.  The gate is open.

The change that will be debated in the next presidential election will not be about tax percentages, or troop withdrawal timetables, or welfare for Big Bird, or who should be the next chairman of the Federal Reserve.  The change that will be debated will be about fundamentals, about monetary policy, about the philosophical underpinnings of our foreign policy, about the relevancy of the American constitution and where we are headed as a people.

It will not be the red team against the blue team, espousing the same things in different degrees, rather it will be about real differences.

Should the Federal Reserved continue to operate in secret, manipulating the monetary system be creating wealth for its own board members and their corporate cronies, robbing the poor and the middle class?  Or should its work be transparent and accountable?  Remember, 80% now want the FED audited, it was not even mentioned by either candidate.

For the first time since it began, the housing collapse, which so devastated the wealth of the middle class, may actually be addressed.

Corruption on Wall Street, K Street and in the corridors of Capitol Hill will become issues.

One man can guarantee this discussion.

After three elections in which winning candidates have promised to end nation building there is a potential president who might actually do it, bring home our soldiers to guard our own borders instead of the borders of Pakistan and Afghanistan.  For the first time, finally bring home our troops from  Germany and Japan where since World War II they have been stationed, pumping their money into local economies, while America descends into the economic toilet.

One man can stop the wars without end.

One man will champion civil liberties, reverse the fast paced trend toward ever more powerful, centralized government, that dictates what our children think, what we wear and eat and how we flush our toilets.   One man will raise the issue of how government is relentlessly trying to snuff out our conversation online.

One man , an accomplished doctor from a family of doctors, born and raised and tutored in liberty, has both the character and the political skill and fundraising base to get elected.  And that one man is Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky.

Oh yes, I know, Liberty fans, he endorsed Mitt Romney for president.  Too early for some of us.  But then that is exactly why he is now positioned to actually win the 2016 GOP nomination and the presidency.   Because a Rand Paul campaign would be inclusive and supportive and generous in spirit.  And to win it he will need all the support he can get.

This is the lesson of this past election.  If Romney and those recalcitrant GOP bosses didn’t need us in 2008, we will need them in 2016.  And we will have to forgive them and honor them and cherish them.

A Rand Paul campaign won’t shut out the evangelical Christians and tell Sarah Palin she isn’t wanted or needed at the national convention.  It won’t hire thugs to infiltrate our opponents campaigns and wear their clothes and pass out phony ballots even after we have won.  A Rand Paul campaign will be generous in victory.

In a Rand Paul campaign, Peter Thiel will sit down with David Lane.  It will be about liberty, everybody’s liberty and the protection of each other’s God given, Constitutional guaranteed rights.  And this campaign will win.

In some respects, we are the weak link.  We in the Liberty Movement will have to decide whether we are willing to become more than theorists but also successful, winning, political activists.  Some of the debates will get scary as our candidate may decide that we need to cut our military bases from 900 to 75, instead of zero.  He will be backing us away from the abyss, on his own timetable and it may be too rapid for the general public and not enough for some of us.

But in the end, we can’t govern American if we can’t govern ourselves.

The point is this, our dream is still alive.  And in a way, it is still in our hands.  And now there is a very real chance of victory.  Now the real work begins.  If this country is to have another rebirth it is up to us.  Ron Paul will either be forgotten, a name swept away in history like Autumn leaves blowing across a lawn, or his statues will stand in public parks, as the father of a reborn nation and the father of our most popular president.

So, get a good job.  Make some money.  Lots of money.  And get ready for the next installment of the Liberty story.  In a few years, or a few months, the real work begins again.  Run Rand Run.

A Mitt Romney Win?

“The time will come when the constitution and government will hang by a brittle thread and will be ready to fall into other hands but this people,  the latter-day saints will step forth and save it.”

-  Joseph Smith, May, 1843.

If history is any indicator Mitt Romney will win tomorrow’s election.  Yes, the polls show it close and the electoral map actually tilts in President Obama’s favor but never before in history  has a president been returned to power with such a dismal economic performance.

1.) Unemployment has remained high.

2.) The housing crisis remains untouched, crushing the middle class.  Even the smallest tweaks expected by the real estate community within 90 days of the inauguration of Obama have been consistently ignored for the full four years.

3.) Real inflation is appalling and has robbed the poor and the retired on fixed incomes.  I say “real inflation,” as opposed to the new government-media revised fake figures, redesigned to help rescue the failing presidency of George W. Bush, figures that now exclude food and oil prices, the two most basic factors in our economic lives.

4.) Wall Street remains corrupt.  No one has been made accountable for the fraud.   Even when facts and details and names are laid out by the media, the Justice Department ignores it. There has been much rhetoric but not the slightest effort to prosecute a single big name.

Barack Obama named Timothy Geitner as the secretary of treasury.  If McCain had won he might have done the same thing.  The fact that Geitner and other appointees had cheated on their income taxes was hardly a subject of conversation.  “Only the little people pay taxes.”

5.) Corruption within government is rampant.  For example, Pentagon contracts have been awarded to put American boots on the ground in Australia.  Get this.  The Obama administration borrowed money from China to allegedly protect Australia from China, protection that the Aussies themselves eschew.   CBS exposed how members of congress buy stocks on the NYSE and then go into rooms to decide the policies that impact those investments.

6.) The War in Afghanistan is still on.  It is the longest war in American history.  Obama promised to end it if elected.  Now he promises to end it if re-elected.

7.) On Obama’s watch civil liberties are in the toilet.  Under the administration of George W. Bush civil libertarians were outraged because a president could tap your phone with only a judge’s signature.  Now a president can kill you without one.

8.) Under Obama we have seen the collapse of the Fourth Estate, once a powerful force of its own in the checks and balances within society.  The national media is now run by corporations and corporate advertisers, all dependent directly or indirectly on zero percent interest loans from the Federal Reserve, which is mounting a ferocious fight to keep its deliberations and monetary awards secret.

In 2008, afraid of being called racist for challenging Obama as a candidate, media giants have remained silent throughout the last four years.  Journalism is timid and virtually dead in America.  Only a handful of investigative journalists remain, their work mainly focused overseas.  Sources are now compromised by news agencies, under threat of government action.  Major stories, even crimes, are ignored based on global corporate interests.  The discerning public has moved online.

The list can go on and on.  Suffice it to say, that Joseph Smith’s prophecy of 1843 is upon us.

At times Mitt Romney has run an unnecessarily  mean-spirited and insular campaign, one that is the antithesis of the generosity and optimism of the past great winning, coalition building, campaigns of FDR and Ronald Reagan.  But the economy still makes this his election to lose.  Only America’s guilt over racism and it infatuation with Barack Obama’s personality can save the incumbent.

The grand spectacle of inaugurating a Mormon president in 2013 after inaugurating an African America in 2009 would make this another seminal moment in our history.  The long suffering and persecution of a gracious, hardworking and honorable people would finally come to an end.  The Mormon Tabernacle Choir would sing at the inauguration and there would be chills up our spines and tears in our eyes.  The Mormon journey would finally be over.  All of American would now be their home.  It would be another true healing.

But whether Mitt Romney can fulfill the prophet’s words and save us is another question altogether.   Can Romney, the wounded animal, still carrying his grudges, deserved as they may be, now heal the land?  Can the man who will change his opinion on any issue to add a few numbers to his popularity have the strength of character to lead us?

And finally, what exactly did Joseph Smith’s prophecy mean?  He didn’t say that the constitution would be restored just that it would be “saved” and in another paragraph, that it would be “born away” by its savior.  If the historic trend continues and Mitt Romney wins,  as I suspect, where will Mitt Romney decide to take it?

Amazing, Romney still battles Ron Paul in New Jersey

The battle for the soul of the Republican Party is still ongoing.  If you doubt that, take a look at the Romney henchman in New Jersey, who is even now, doing everything within his power to resist the involvement of grass roots Ron Paul people.  What you saw in Tampa, where Ron Paul delegates, mostly young and war veterans and Hispanics were unseated, continues in other ways, unabated in state after state, county after county.

Governor Mitt Romney is conducting a war on two fronts.  On the one hand he is trying to wrest control of the White House from the Democrats in a close election.  But simultaneously, as distracting and draining as it may be, he continues the brutal scrub of any challenge to the American oligarchical system by destroying the last vestiges of democracy within his own Republican Party.

Here’s a typical story, this one coming from New Jersey.

In June a number of Ron Paul activists ran for the Jersey City’s Republican Committee.  They won.  And like innocent Ron Paul winners everywhere they thought that they would be able to assume their new positions.

But the Committee Chairman, threatened by his new members, called his meeting without telling them.  It’s an old story, very familiar to Ron Paul activists.  Russell Maffei, Chairman of the Committee, and a strong Mitt Romney supporter, apparently worried that he would lose his position.

Last month, according to a story in the Hudson Reporter, Maffei was asked if “the underlying dispute really has to do with insurgent Ron Paul supporters coming onto the Committee, Maffei said, ‘Yeah, maybe. Why haven’t any of these people contacted me about working for Romney?’”

A lawsuit may force Maffei and the Committee to allow its duly elected members to participate but the story is yet another example that the brutal battle in the trenches is still ongoing.

Sometimes Romney’s involvement is direct, with people on his own payroll.  (See: Romney and Charlie the Cheater.)  But even if one gives the GOP candidate the benefit of the doubt, and concludes that this is only the spontaneous work of politically inept and threatened, power hungry people at the local level, even them, Romney has never repudiated the tactics.

When the pro Romney governor of Maine, a loyal GOP leader, pleaded with the RNC to seat the duly elected delegation from Maine, in spite of their Ron Paul allegiance, he was ignored and the Romney convention tossed them out, replacing them with unelected toadies as puppet delegates instead.  The governor was genuinely impressed by the involvement of so many young people and thought that his Party would welcome them.  And this New Jersey story sounds like a replay.  It was a Republican establishment  leader, Sean Connelly, the former Chairman of the Hudson County Republican Committee who imagined he was doing a good thing by encouraging the young Ronulans to get involved.  Doesn’t the GOP want to grow?  Don’t they want to win?

It must all look like Alice in Wonderland to the uninitiated.  Why would the GOP hurt itself by keeping out the young, the Hispanic, the Independents, even the Democrats?   But as the Liberty people know, the challenge within the GOP represents a people’s revolution against the establishment, an oligarchy that runs the country and depends on easy money created electronically by the Federal Reserve and loaned out to them through their banks and their corporations at zero percent interest while the rest of us pay through the nose.

The contest did not end in Tampa.  The war for the soul of America goes on.  And the more that the Romney GOP establishment defrauds us, behind the curtain, pulling the levers of power, then the more likely we will be to pull the lever for Gary Johnson, behind the curtain of our voting booth this November.

How Mitt Romney cheated his way to the GOP nomination

New evidence is coming out about just how tough and dirty the Mitt Romney campaign fought to block the Ron Paul takeover of the Republican Party at the State Conventions last summer.

It may offer a little sneak preview of what a Romney presidency will be like.  And make no mistake, barring war with Syria or some other dramatic October surprise, Romney will now win this election in a landslide.  At least, that is my humble opinion, as one who loves and reads history.  The economy will decide that.

It  turns out that Mitt Romney and other Republican operatives were apparently very much aware of what was going on at the precinct, county, district and state conventions.  This was not greedy state and country chairmen wanting to hang onto power so they could go to the RNC as delegates and get drunk.  The hardball tactics were apparently approved and refined from state to state from Iowa, where the state chairman got money for the GOP and promises and conveniently kept a Santorum popularity vote win and a Ron Paul delegate win, out of the news for months, all the way to Tampa, where pudgy, Romney Brownshirt  goons raced along the streets in golf cart-like vehicles, looking for demonstrators to divert into chain fence cages beyond view of the media.  Welcome to Romney’s America.

Remember Arizona?  Where there were accusations of voter fraud and physical violence against Ron Paul delegates?  Where delegates were sweated out, kept in 100 degree temperatures without air conditioning and without breaks for water or toilet, in hopes of getting them to give up?

Remember Nathan Sproul?

Remember my blog last summer, claiming fraud and miscounts and ballots taken away for the night to be recounted with numbers changed the next day?  Well,  Mr. Sproul called Ron Paul headquarters and threatened a lawsuit so I had to take down one of those blogs.  Now, what I wrote last summer, as a voice in the wilderness , is being published openly by the New York Times.  The mainstream media didn’t mind seeing Ron Paul get mauled but their precious Obama is another matter.  Now there are public reports of voter fraud at the hands of Mr. Sproul and a new revelation that he has recently been on the Republican Party payroll to the tune of millions of dollars and assigned to do his deeds in five states.

There is more.  It turns out that Nathan Sproul is now linked to Karl Rove who may have hired him as well.  Rove has a curiously malevolent streak of his own.   In Tampa, at the Romney coronation, Rove suggested – in jest we all presume – the murder of fellow Republican Senate Candidate Todd Akin, who had won the Missouri primary fair and square but now refused to resign and let Rove’s favorite candidate, who had lost, take his place.

Akin misspoke on abortion.  Rove, who misspoke on murder, is to be excused.

See: Karl Rove tied to shady GOP operative Nathan Sproul

Meanwhile, a major television network is now finally tracking the story of the Louisiana  State GOP.  Remember how Romney-Santorum people hired off duty policemen, telling them to arrest troublemakers when they pointed them out?  And then after they were voted out and new Ron Paul people were voted in to run the convention they had the hired off duty policeman arrest the new duly elected chairmen who was manhandled?  One was knocked to the ground another had his fingers broken while in police custody?  Well, that is going to court.  Yes, the Ron Paul victims will win, but the Romney people could care less, they got what they wanted and no apology has been offered.  Welcome to Romney’s America.

Remember our Ron Paul hero in Missouri, Brent Stafford, who was elected county chairman in St. Charles?  Who was arrested and hauled off to jail by off duty police hired by Romney people?  He was finally acquitted and the Romney person who ordered the arrest actually applauded the court’s decision.  Stafford, may file a lawsuit as well, but the Romney people won’t care.  They got what they wanted.

Perhaps the most damaging news of all for the Romney campaign is the emerging story of Charlie “The Cheater” Nejedly.  Charlie was caught in Maine, wearing a Ron Paul sticker, passing out fake Ron Paul slates at the Maine State Convention which the Romney people had clearly lost.  He was outed on the floor in Maine and soon afterward overheard talking to Romney’s likely nominee for Attorney General, campaign legal counsel, Ben Ginsburg.  According to the source, Ginsburg told Nejedly, “We need to get you to Boston.”

It now appears that Charlie “the Cheater” worked the Massachusetts convention too and that he was a paid staffer on the Romney payroll.  What’s worse, he is a Notre Dame graduate, which leads to all kinds of conflicts for this author.  I grew up in South Bend and I love Notre Dame.  And this week they play Brigham Young University.  And Manti Teo’s parents are in the audience.  Oh my?  What can I do?

I will still root for Notre Dame, of course, but Mitt Romney “the cheater” may have to wait for me to cool down a bit.  What was he thinking?  I know what he was thinking?  He was thinking that we would all come around and vote for him instead of Obama because of the economy.  So he could cheat and fake to his heart’s content.  But the more clearly in focus it becomes the less impressed I am of Romney’s America.  Where are we headed?

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The Politics of Blame? “George did it.”

Should a presidents’ predecessor be a factor in judging his performance?

We have all heard President Obama’s refrain, “it took us a long time to get into this mess and it’s going to take us a long time to get out of it.”  This is his explanation for why, now in his fourth and final year of his first term as president the Great Recession persists.  But is it a legitimate excuse?  And if we applied this principle to other presidencies how would the landscape of American history change?

Of course, there is some justification to President Obama’s explanation.  He did indeed inherit a wrecked economy.  The problem is that if we embrace this standard for Obama we must use it for all and then the process breaks down.

For example, one could say that Bill Clinton deserves no credit for his prosperous years of balancing the budget.  Rather, Clinton should say, “Aw shucks folks, thanks, but actually, it took us a long time to get here.  Ronald Reagan did it.”

One could make the case that only because Reagan ended the Cold War did we earn the great peace dividend and balance the budget.  Because of Reagan we could discontinue the  wasteful expense of researching and developing and deploying weapons that were never used and ultimately destroyed.  At one time, before Reagan, 49% of the national budget was spent on the military.

But can the Carter years be blamed on Gerald Ford?

Should Richard Nixon be excused for only doing what Lyndon Johnson did and worse?

Should the Great Depression be blamed on Calvin Coolidge instead of Herbert Hoover?

The greatest president in American history?  Hmmm, that would not be Abraham Lincoln but James Buchanan.

Presidential historians who dump on John Tyler would have to credit him, not James K. Polk, for bringing Texas into the union.  Much of the ground work was done in the Tyler administration before Polk was even elected.

The problem with this “George did it” interpretation of history is that in the end, no one is responsible for anything.  Obama can blame it on George, after all he inherited the problem, but if a president is not responsible for what happens on his own watch, and those events are only a chain reaction of what his predecessor did, then why shouldn’t George Bush blame his mess on Clinton?  After all, as Obama says, “it took us a long time to get here.”  Who is to say “how long?”

And blaming it on George does not explain why Obama’s own policies did not accomplish what he publicly said they would do such as the stimulus money creating jobs.  In fact,  most economists believe the economy under George W. Bush was wrecked by a housing crisis, created by an unchecked banking industry and excessive spending, including a $1 trillion – off the books – war in Iraq.

Obama’s solution was to ignore the housing crisis and increase spending many fold, with giveaways to favored political constituencies.  According to a 2009, USA Today report, counties that supported Obama for president “reaped twice as much money per person from the administration’s $787 billion economic stimulus package as those that voted for his Republican rival.”  Most studies say it did not create a single net job.

While presidential historians consider context, they must ultimately judge a president on how he plays the cards that are dealt him.  They will admit that Richard Nixon was no more abusive than Johnson or Kennedy and that he showed sparks of genius but they will never likely rate him as a great president because he lost the presidency.  Kennedy and Johnson, for all of their faults, did not. Nixon could not blame his fall on Johnson.  Circumstances change and a president must adapt to meet the new rules of the game.

Clinton knows this full well.  It is why his ambition is unsated and why he persists so diligently in public life.  Nothing can change the fact that he was impeached.  He is now trying to bracket that event with favorable context and ultimately have history declare it only and solely a political act.  The best way to do this is to accomplish as much as possible as an ex-president and have his wife win the presidency too.  Any future ten year old, forced to memorize the presidents would reach those names “Bush, Clinton, Bush, Obama, Clinton” and would intuitively know that the impeachment had to be political persecution or the public would never have voted them back.

If one were to judge this election based solely on numbers and data and the economy and presidential history, Mitt Romney should win in a landslide.  If he loses, it will reflect more on him as a failed candidate,  than on Obama as a president.

By almost any standard Barack Obama, our beloved first African American president, is a likable leader, but he has presided over the longest war in American history, he has not stopped the spending that got us into trouble, and after four years he has still failed to even touch the housing crisis.  Presidents are not only compared to other presidents, they are compared to their own promises, their own words.

The Sienna Institute proudly claims that Barack Obama is the 15th greatest president in American history.  Not a chance.  His election is indeed historic, monumental, but his presidency, like most recent presidencies, has been a dismal performance.

Almost Presidents: Sons of presidents who almost won the White House themselves

Eight men who might have been president.

Everybody knows that there were two sons of presidents who became president themselves.  John Quincy Adams, son of our second president, John Adams, was elected the sixth president of the United States.  And George W. Bush, who was the son of  George Herbert Walker Bush, was elected the 43rd president.  But there were many others who thought about it and eight who either declared or were promoted for the position or were highly expected to run.

1.) Charles Francis Adams

Charles Francis Adams was the son and grandson of presidents and might have become one himself.  He was fluent in several languages, graduated from Harvard at age seventeen and was elected to the House of Representatives.    As Ambassador to the Court of St. James during the American Civil War he is credited with many for keeping England from supporting the Confederacy.

2.) John Van Buren

Many said he was a better lawyer, businessman and politician than his father.  But when “Prince John” as he was called, was elected to the House of Representatives he kept fighting his fathers old battles.

3.) Robert Todd Lincoln

After the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, his eldest son, Robert Todd Lincoln rose to prominence in America.  After graduating from law school, every major corporation looked to his services and many offered him positions on their board of directors.   Within decades he became one of the richest men in America and was a cabinet officer and an ambassador.  Heads of State who visited America, often stopped to call on Mr. Lincoln as well.  But many were concerned that his political rise was unhealthy.   At one point, no less than Joseph Pulitzer, himself, railed against the possible presidency of Mr. Lincoln “simply because he is the son of a president.”

4.) Jesse Grant

Jesse Grant, son of President Ulysses S. Grant, joined his mom and dad on their famous round the world trip during their retirement years.  Jesse fell in love with the lavish lifestyle foreign potentates showered on the son of a former head of state and succumbed to their flattery.  Failing to understand how American elections worked, and living in cultures where power rested in a few families, many foreign leaders anticipated that Jesse Grant, himself, would one day be an American president.  It all apparently went to Jesse’s head.  He eventually returned to America and announced he was running for president but the press and the public largely ignored him and his campaign fizzled.

5.) Theodore Roosevelt , Jr.

Theodore Roosevelt, Jr. was on the fast track to the presidency.  His father had been appointed Assistant Secretary of the Navy on his way to the White House, and so had his cousin Franklin D. Roosevelt.  So when TR, Jr. received the same appointment many expected the pattern to be repeated.  But fate did not comply.  Ted served as governor of Puerto Rico and the Philippines.  He was a hero in World War II but recent disclosures show a jealous FDR restricted his press coverage.  TR, Jr. was the only General to land with his own troops on the first wave, on the first day of the Normandy D Day invasion during World War Two.  He died shortly afterward and was awarded the Medal of Honor in absentia.

6.) Robert Taft

Senator Robert Taft, son of President William Howard Taft, is considered by many to have been one of the top five greatest lawmakers in American history.  He ran for president three times and very nearly won the Republican nomination in 1952.

7.) John Eisenhower

John Sheldon Doud Eisenhower, son of President Dwight Eisenhower,  is one of America’s greatest military historians.  He served as U. S. ambassador to Belgium in the Nixon administration. In the 1960′s, the Democratic National Committee commissioned a private poll which showed John Eisenhower as their most formidable Republican opponent for president, beating out both Barry Goldwater and Nelson Rockefeller but Eisenhower was not tempted.  He is in retirement and is the oldest living child of a president.

8.) John F. Kennedy, Jr.

Many observers believed that JFK, Jr., son of John F. Kennedy, had the best chance to retrace his father’s steps and win back the White House for a Kennedy family member.  Kennedy never traded on those expectations and wisely kept his own counsel about any political ambitions.  His sister made a brief appearance in public life, jockeying for appointment to the Senate.  It did not go well.  JFK, Jr. died in a plane crash in 1999.  He was 38 years old.

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Caroline Kennedy’s public moment

Post Paul: What now?

Post Ron Paul: Where do we go now?

Don’t assume that Ron Paul is going to ride off into the sunset, with his cowgirl, Carol, at his side.  He made it clear during his light hearted exchange with Jay Leno that he isn’t finished with us.  And I, for one, am not finished with him either.

If Romney wins, Senator Rand Paul’s trajectory would be on hold and in 2016, Ron Paul, the father, would be the best primary challenger to a Republican establishment president, owned by the FED and the few.

Who else would have the guts to do it?  And the media, who under normal circumstance would pan him, might let him have more than 89 seconds, just to have some fun – and some ratings – in an otherwise boring re-nomination process.  Another run would help educate even more and fatten the Liberty Movement for Senator Rand Paul and the future in 2020.

Besides, this would be the best way to stand up to the corruption and dishonesty of the Republican establishment who runs the party like National Socialists.  To let the abuse of Tampa go unanswered would be a mistake.  “Remember the Maine.”

Is Ron Paul too old?  Not for me.  Konrad Andenauer , Germanys greatest leader of the last two centuries was in power at age 87.  Michelangelo began painting the Sistine Chapel at age 71, he was still at it when he died at age 89.  The Biblical account of Moses has him beginning his long journey, leading the Israelis from slavery, at age 80.  Let Ron Paul lead us out of slavery at age 80.

Here’s a toast to Ron Paul, 2016.

But what do we do now?  And more urgent, how should we vote in the 2012 presidential election?

The good news is that as befits the Liberty Movement, I don’t have to make that decision.  Each one of us will do that as we want.  But here are some of the arguments I am hearing.

1. Vote to re-elect Barack Obama?

The reasoning goes that an Obama win would help bring the Republican establishment to its knees and make them more willing to make room for a Liberty Movement candidate next time.   Isn’t this the best response to their brutal exclusion of the duly elected Ron Paul delegates to the RNC in Tampa?  Haven’t they asked for it?  Hasn’t Bill Kristol and John Sununu made it clear that they do not think they need us and in any case, they do not want us, under any circumstances?

The problem is that Obama’s reelection would likely bring the country to its knees as well.  Even if a manipulated currency created a temporary bubble the long term damage could be catastrophic.  America could go so deep into the sleep of socialism that it might never awaken.  Voting for Obama to create an opening for a Liberty candidate in 2016 might make logical sense to some but it would take the courage of that Utah mountain climber who cut off his hand to get himself free.  Some of us just don’t have the stomach to do it.

2. Vote for Mitt Romney?

If he wins it will delay Rand Paul’s possible rise and may actually end much of what we have accomplished.  Many of our issues, audit the fed, for example, may be co-opted by Romney, who understands the polling data but is owned by the bankers.  Of course, he won’t have a “real” audit but it will appear to address the issue and take the steam out of our cause.  Likewise, the wars may eventually wind down out of financial necessity, as Dr. Paul has said will happen.  For me, voting for Romney is like kissing your sister.  There is just no future in it.

3. Write in Ron Paul’s name?

This was what I was going to do but who would ever know the final number?  It would give me some personal satisfaction, and amuse a few poll watchers, but otherwise mean nothing.  No one would get the message.  There is even a chance that my ballot could be disqualified and all the other viable Liberty candidates I voted for would lose my support as well.

4. Vote for Virgil Goode?

He is the former congressman from Virginia who is running as a candidate of the so called Constitutional Party.  Some say he will get 5% of the vote in his home state.  The Republican Elitist Fascist operation, that worked against us in Tampa, is now hot on his trail, trying to get him off the ballot.  But even if he survives and even if he realizes his most ambitious plans, he will only be on the ballot in 25 states.  What’s the use?

5. Vote for Gary Johnson?

Why not?  No one will know.  A good showing will put the GOP on notice that they had better be respectful to the Liberty Movement and make room for it.  They made it clear they didn’t want us.  Shouldn’t there be consequences?

If the showing is small, well, they were lucky it was Gary Johnson, not Ron Paul.  No harm done.

If Obama wins? Rand Paul can make a run in 2016.  If Romney wins? Ron Paul can challenge him and if the GOP cheats again, and makes it clear they will not allow a free process, he could take on the mantle of the Libertarian Party one more time.  And this time, boosted by bigger numbers and a wider knowledge of the issues, have an impact.

Consider this, if Ron Paul were the Libertarian candidate right now, some polls have him winning 17% of the vote, which would land him in the national debates and change the course of the country.

Bottom line?  I haven’t decided yet but I would like to hear your opinions, without profanity please.  Or join the discussion at: http://www.facebook.com/DougWeadOfficial

Doug Wead and Dr. Ron Paul, backstage at the RNC, Tampa.

“Security” at the RNC

Doug Wead’s photo visit to the Republican National Convention

My first RNC was at the Cow Palace in San Francisco in 1964.  I was eighteen years old.  Barry Goldwater was the nominee.  I talked my way into the lobby of the Mark Hopkins Hotel and drank Gold water out of a punch bowl.  It was exciting.  I shared the experience with Barry Goldwater, Jr. and his son backstage at the Ron Paul Rally in Tampa.

But nothing will ever compare to this 2012 convention.  Let’s call it the “Brownshirt Convention.”  The nominee, Mitt Romney, was apparently concerned lest there be a public demonstration.  The downtown was like a concentration camp with barriers and fences keeping people in and others out.  Armed guards outnumbered the people on the deserted streets.

 

The Brownshirts raced around Tampa in little golf cart vehicles while RNC delegates walked in the heat. No taxis were allowed inside the inner perimeter. Troops of Brownshirted Guards patrolled the deserted streets of Tampa

Herman Cain stuck on one side of the fence.

My taxi had to keep circling, trying to find a place where I could be dropped off. Then I would have to walk for ten blocks in Tampa – August heat to get to my hotel

In addition to the Brownshirts there were regular police which on most corners outnumbered civilians five to one.

 

Ron Paul signs were confiscated as soon as they were spotted. Not one was allowed on the floor of the RNC or on the streets of Tampa inside the perimeter. “If you do this again,” a policeman told a delegate who had opened a fan shaped sign, “You will be escorted from the floor and detained.”

The first day, fence barricades went up, one layer and then another, each with checkpoints. By the end their were dogs at each of the checkpoints.