Wire Report

(WIRE/SA) – In 2007, USA Today reported. “Like a ticking time bomb, the national debt is an explosion waiting to happen. It’s expanding by about $1.4 billion a day – or nearly $1 million a minute¹. What’s that mean to you? It means almost $30,000 in debt for each man, woman, child and infant in the United States.” Three years later Congress has raised the national debt ceiling yet again — to an unprecedented and even more astronomical $14 trillion. From healthcare to climate change, stimulus to war, virtually every conversation coming out of today’s Washington, DC-regardless of which party is in power — is about how much money our government is going to spend next.

Not surprisingly, countless Americans are now realizing that the greatest threat to their life, liberty and property is their government. Describing such people as “deranged,” New York Times columnist Frank Rich seems to think the greatest danger on the horizon is not necessarily big government-but “extremists” hell-bent on fighting it. Writes Rich:

(M)ost Tea Party groups have no affiliation with the G.O.P. despite the party’s ham-handed efforts to co-opt them. The more we learn about the Tea Partiers, the more we can see why. They loathe John McCain and the free-spending, TARP-tainted presidency of George W. Bush. They really do hate all of Washington, and if they hate Obama more than the Republican establishment, it’s only by a hair or two. The Tea Partiers want to eliminate most government agencies, starting with the Fed and the I.R.S., and end spending on entitlement programs. They are not to be confused with the Party of No holding forth in Washington – a party that, after all, is now positioning itself as a defender of Medicare spending. What we are talking about here is the Party of No Government at All.

Frank Rich
New York Times Columnist
“The Axis of the Obsessed and Deranged”²
Published: February 27, 2010

What Rich derisively calls the “Party of No Government at All,” has been a healthy and long overdue reaction to what we have now — the Party of Any-and-All Government. Flustered over the rise of anti-Washington “extremism,” establishment men like Rich continue to ignore that our current, virtually omnipotent federal government is pretty damn extreme itself-that is, if the U.S. Constitution is still any gauge on what American government should be and not simply the status quo sympathies of a NYT’s columnist.

Rich paints a picture in which the supposedly respectable conservative movement of the recent past has been hijacked by the ghost of John Birch and the specter of Ron Paul. But Rich has it exactly backward-there has been no mainstream movement advocating for limited government conservatism for decades, only the GOP using conservative rhetoric as a marketing tool to win elections. The conservative movement isn’t being hijacked-it’s being resuscitated. Rich notices the difference; he just doesn’t like it:

The distinction between the Tea Party movement and the official G.O.P. is real, and we ignore it at our peril. While Washington is fixated on the natterings of Mitch McConnell, John Boehner, Michael Steele and the presumed 2012 Republican presidential front-runner, Mitt Romney, these and the other leaders of the Party of No are anathema or irrelevant to most Tea Partiers. Indeed, McConnell, Romney and company may prove largely irrelevant to the overall political dynamic taking hold in America right now. The old G.O.P. guard has no discernible national constituency beyond the scattered, often impotent remnants of aging country club Republicanism. The passion on the right has migrated almost entirely to the Tea Party’s counterconservatism.

Frank Rich
New York Times Columnist
“The Axis of the Obsessed and Deranged”²
Published: February 27, 2010

As the old GOP guard scrambles to put rank-and-file conservatives back in line so they can vote for Republicans like Mitt Romney who might save Medicare or spend trillions on another war, tea partiers, libertarians, and constitutionalists of all stripes should take solace in the fact that despite their critics–radical loyalty to limited government principles has long been a hallmark of American conservatism. Or as the original right-wing extremist, Barry Goldwater explained in his famous 1960 book The Conscience of a Conservative:

The turn will come when we entrust the conduct of our affairs to the men who understand that their first duty as public officials is to divest themselves of the power that they have been given. It will come when Americans, in hundreds of communities throughout the nation, decide to put the man in office who is pledged to enforce the Constitution and restore the Republic. Who will proclaim in a campaign speech: ‘I have little interest in streamlining government or in making it more efficient, for I mean to reduce its size. I do not undertake to promote welfare, for I propose to extend freedom. My aim is not to pass laws, but to repeal them. It is not to inaugurate new programs, but to cancel the old ones that do violence to the Constitution, or that have failed in their purpose, or that impose on the people an unwarranted financial burden. I will not attempt to discover whether legislation is ‘needed’ before I have first determined whether it is constitutionally permissible. And if I should later be attacked for neglecting my constituents’ ‘interests,’ I shall reply that I was informed their main interest is liberty and that in that cause I am doing the very best I can.’

Barry Goldwater
“The Conscience of a Conservative”³

Copyright © 2010 The Southern Avenger

SOURCE(s): ¹USA Today “U.S. Debt $30,000 per American” published 12/03/2007 • ²The New York Times “The Axis of the Obsessed and Deranged” by Frank Rich, published 02/27/2010 • ³ “The Conscience of a Conservative” by Barry Goldwater • ⁴ Southern Avenger YouTube Channel

Allison Bricker

WASHINGTON D.C. – Speaking to a standing room only crowd in the ballroom of the Marriott Wardman Park Hotel, Representative Ron Paul of Texas addressed attendees of CPAC 2010 with an energy and passion usually reserved for the stump. After being largely dismissed by the old-media and political status-quo during the 2008 Presidential campaign, the reception for Doctor “No” at this year’s annual conservative gathering mirrored the response he routinely received at campaign stops and still garners at his speeches before the energetic college crowd. Driving home his message of smaller Constitutional government his speech was interrupted several times by standing ovations and loud chants of “End the FED”, the latter a reference to his bill to finally allow for a full and complete audit of the FEDERAL RESERVE, H.R. 1207.

The cheers continued to echo throughout the ballroom as he spoke to the necessity of realigning American Foreign Policy to that of the Founding Generation and classical not neo conservative philosophy.

Source(s): CPAC • MinnesotaChris YouTube Channel • C-SPAN

Wire Report

Andy Worthington – Journalist/Author
	Andy Worthington is the author of The Guantánamo Files: The Stories of the 774 Detainees in America’s Illegal Prison (published by Pluto Press) and serves as policy advisor to the Future of Freedom Foundation. Visit his website at: www.andyworthington.co.uk.

(WIRE FFF) – Last Tuesday, a little-known court — the Court of Military Commissions Review — convened to hear appeals in the cases of the only two men sentenced in the military commission trial system established by Congress in 2006, after the first version, conceived by Vice President Dick Cheney and his close advisors in November 2001, was ruled illegal by the U.S. Supreme Court.¹

The two men in question — Salim Hamdan and Ali Hamza al-Bahlul — were tried and convicted in 2008, but whereas Hamdan, a driver for Osama bin Laden, had the major charge against him (conspiracy) dismissed by a military jury in August 2008, and was sentenced to serve just six months for providing material support to terrorism², al-Bahlul, who made a video promoting al-Qaeda and is regularly described as al-Qaeda’s “media secretary,” was convicted of conspiracy, solicitation of murder, and providing material support to terrorism, and received a life sentence in November 2008.

Under consideration are two specific questions: firstly, whether providing material support to terrorism is a valid basis for conviction in a war crimes court; and, secondly, whether al-Bahlul’s trial was unfair because he was denied the right to represent himself.

On the first point, lawyers have always maintained that providing material support to terrorism is not a valid war crime. In an email exchange last week, Lt. Col. David Frakt, who represented al-Bahlul before his trial, explained, “It has always been my position that material support to terrorism was a fabricated war crime that was not traditionally triable in a military commission as of the time of Mr. al-Bahlul and Mr. Hamdan’s affiliation with al-Qaeda, but rather was illegally retroactively applied to them several years after the fact.”

As Lt. Col. Frakt also mentioned, the problems with the material-support charges had been advanced by Hamdan’s attorneys in a pre-trial motion to dismiss the charge back in February 2008, when they also attempted to dismiss the conspiracy charge for the same reason. On July 16, the judge in Hamdan’s case, Army Capt. Keith Allred, rejected the motion to dismiss on ex post facto grounds, finding that “conspiracy and material support for terrorism have traditionally been considered violations of the law of war,” as Human Rights First explained in a summary of Hamdan’s case.³

Assist. Attrny. Gen. David S. Kris Statement to Comm. of Armed Srvcs U.S. Senate July 7, 2009 (PDF 61KB)

However, as Lt. Col. Frakt described it, Allred indicated that it was “a very close issue. Although he acknowledged that the crime of material support to terrorism had never been the subject of charges in a military commission before, he reasoned that similar conduct, essentially being part of an armed insurgent group committing war crimes against civilians, had been treated as a war crime in the past, such as during the U.S. Civil War. He argued that Congress was merely providing a new name to conduct that had always been treated as a law of war offense triable by military commission.”

Significantly, Lt. Col. Frakt added, “What Captain Allred ignored is that what Mr. Hamdan was charged with was essentially serving as a personal driver and servant to Osama bin Laden and there was no indication of involvement in any war crimes, against civilians or otherwise.”

Even more significantly, when the Obama administration and Congress revived the Commissions last summer, David Kris, a senior Justice Department official in the National Security Division, testified that the Justice Department had concluded that material support to terrorism was not a traditional war crime and should be removed from the new version of the Military Commissions Act. As Kris explained:

“While this is a very important offense in our counter-terrorism prosecutions in Federal Court … there are serious questions as to whether material support for terrorism or terrorist groups is a traditional violation of the rules of war … our experts believe that there is a significant risk that appellate courts will ultimately conclude that material support for terrorism is not a traditional law of war offense, thereby reversing hard-won convictions and leading to questions about the system’s legitimacy.”

David S. Kris
U.S. Assistant Attorney General
Department of Justice
National Security Division

As Lt. Col. Frakt explained to me, despite Kris’ concerns, “Congress rejected this sound advice and included material support to terrorism in the revised 2009 MCA, possibly in part because I advised CongressNov when I testified that if they removed this crime from statute there would be very few detainees left to prosecute.”

Noticeably, Kris was more enthusiastic about retaining the conspiracy charge, but as I explained in an article in November, “this, too, is fraught with problems. In Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, the case in which the Supreme Court shut down the Commissions’ first incarnation, Justice John Paul Stevens, in an opinion in which he was joined by three other justices, made a point of mentioning that ‘conspiracy’ has not traditionally been considered a war crime.”

In Hamdan’s case, a successful appeal on the material support charge would have little practical effect, as he is already a free man⁴ (although Charles Schmitz, who served as his interpreter during proceedings at Guantánamo, told the Wall Street Journal that it was “important to him to clear the conviction,” because “In Yemen, they look at him as a criminal. He’s been tainted.”).⁵

To be honest, a successful appeal on the material support charge would mean little to al-Bahlul either, although, it would, of course, fulfill the Justice Department’s own fears about including it in the new legislation, especially as the Obama administration has already announced its intention of using it against several prisoners currently held at Guantánamo.

It remains to be seen, of course, whether material support and/or conspiracy survive an appeal, but in court last week, lawyers for al-Bahlul pushed both points. As the Wall Street Journal described it, Michel Paradis, representing al-Bahlul, argued that the charges on which al-Bahlul was convicted “weren’t traditionally considered war crimes under international law, and thus Congress in 2006 couldn’t retroactively make them so. International law strongly discourages viewing conspiracy as a war crime. Providing material support for terrorism, while a domestic U.S. crime since the 1990s, has never been considered a war crime.”

Ingeniously, the lawyers also argued that al-Bahlul’s production of propaganda material for al-Qaeda should have been protected by the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, guaranteeing freedom of speech. One of his attorneys, Mike Berrigan, told reporters, “Mr. al-Bahlul’s conduct in making this documentary — his prosecution for that conduct — was a violation of the U.S. First Amendment. Not that Mr. al-Bahlul had particular First Amendment rights, but the constitutional restrictions on the U.S. government prosecuting someone for speech made the prosecution itself illegal. Mr. al-Bahlul’s conduct in making that documentary does not come close to the standard of inciting violence that can be criminalized.”⁶

The prosecution disagreed, of course, and Navy Capt. Edward White, who argued for the government at the appeal, stated, “Our position was that, as an enemy combatant waging war against the United States from abroad, he does not have First Amendment rights. He crossed the line into criminally, soliciting other people — inducing, enticing, encouraging, persuading them — to commit war crimes.”

Beyond all these claims, however, the most disturbing aspect of al-Bahlul’s conviction is the nature of his trial, and what Lt. Col. Frakt described to me as his “best hope” is that the Court of Military Commission Review will recognize that the one-sided trial, in which he refused to mount a defense, was fundamentally unfair — or, as Lt. Col. Frakt put it, the judge’s “denial of his right to self-representation essentially denied him of a fair trial because the judge knew that he would not allow me to represent him.”

This was indeed what happened. Al-Bahlul sought strenuously to represent himself, but although his request was granted by Army Col. Peter Brownback, his first judge in the revived Commissions, Brownback was then involuntarily retired from the Army, and the new judge, Air Force Col. Ronald Gregory, revoked al- Bahlul’s pro se status (his right to represent himself).

As I explained at the time, after Maj. Frakt (as he was at the time) announced that al-Bahlul was boycotting the trial, because he wished to represent himself, and did not wish to be represented by a military lawyer, Frakt then asked to be relieved, noting that he was obliged to respect his client’s wishes. When Col. Gregory refused, he declared that he too was unable to participate. “I will be joining Mr. al-Bahlul’s boycott of the proceedings,” he said, “standing mute at the table.” He then refused to answer any further questions from Col. Gregory, even though the judge attempted to argue that he was “obliged to participate,” before conceding that it was not in his power to force him to do so. As Lt. Col. Frakt described it to me last week, Col. Gregory’s actions “ensured there would be no defense at all in the final military commission trial of the Bush era.”

Lt. Col. Frakt also explained that, although appeals are automatic in the Commissions unless waived in writing, the only reason that al-Bahlul failed to waive his right to appeal in writing was because he “refused to accept any papers from his lawyers or the court.” As Frakt described it, “Mr. al-Bahlul made it plain to me that he did not wish to appeal any conviction and he categorically refused to meet with his appointed appellate counsel to discuss any possible grounds for appeal.”

Lt. Col. Frakt was full of praise for the lawyers attempting to defend al-Bahlul, even though they “were hampered by the fact that I did not preserve any issues for appeal (other than the self-representation issue) because I did not speak during the entire trial.” He noted that they “managed to find a way to raise a number of interesting and important issues that strike at the core of the legitimacy of the military commissions,” but in the end, what is most noticeable about al-Bahlul’s case is how he remains in a position of extraordinary isolation at Guantánamo.

Not only is he imprisoned, alone, to serve out his life sentence, but as Lt. Col. Frakt explained, “it remains a mystery what will happen to Mr. al-Bahlul. Although he is serving a life sentence, under current U.S. law, he can’t be transferred out of Guantánamo to a prison on the mainland because detainees can only be transferred to the U.S. to face trial.”

Unless he is to stay in Guantánamo, as the prison slowly empties around him, until, perhaps, he is the only prisoner left, it seems, as Lt. Col. Frakt also explained, that “special legislation will be required” to enable him to leave Guantánamo, even if it is just to resume his life sentence elsewhere.

Lost in the system, essentially, Ali Hamza al-Bahlul is another example of the way in which justice at Guantánamo never progressed much beyond an ad hoc system full of holes, and, whatever the outcome of these appeals, it should give the Obama administration some salutary reminders as to why the commissions remain an unsuitable system for any kind of credible trial.

© 2001-2010 The Future of Freedom Foundation. All rights reserved.

Source(s): ¹HAMDAN v. RUMSFELD, SECRETARY OF DEFENSE, ET AL. CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT No. 05–184. Argued March 28, 2006—Decided June 29, 2006 • ²The UK Guardian “Profile: Salim Ahmed Hamdan” by Mark Tran published Tuesday, June 5th, 2007 • ³Human Rights First, “In the Courts: The Case of Salim Ahmed Hamdan” • ⁴The Star “Bin Laden’s Driver Talk” by Michelle Shephard, published Monday, August 17, 2009 • ⁵The Wall Street Journal “White House Defends Use of War Crime Tribunals” by Jess Bravin • ⁶Voice of America “US Military Panel Hears 1st Guantanamo Appeal” by Michael Bowman, published January 26, 2010

Allison Bricker

Synopsis:

Global warming alarmists want Americans to believe that humans are killing the planet. But Not Evil Just Wrong, a new documentary by Phelim McAleer and Ann McElhinney, proves that the only threats to America (and the rest of the world) are the fl awed science and sky-is-falling rhetoric of Al Gore and his allies in environmental extremism.   The film warns Americans that their jobs, middle-class lifestyles and dreams for their children will be destroyed if the government rushes to judgment and imposes job-killing regulations on an economy already mired in recession.

Not Evil Just Wrong exposes the deceptions about global warming that scientists, politicians, educators and the media have been force-feeding the public for years, including fear-mongering about floods and dying polar bears. The documentary shows how environmentalists are pushing the same kind of anti-human propaganda that triggered a ban DDT and condemned millions of children to death by malaria, a story recounted in the documentary. Not Evil Just Wrong asks: Is carbon dioxide the new DDT and are we taking the same risks with our future?

Source(s):

Allison Bricker

Users at the DailyPaul.com spark investigation into California based APPF/Michael Hilton by Montana’s Attorney General.

HARDIN, MONTANA – On the heels of new-media journalists James O’Keefe and Hannah Giles secretly filming employees at several ACORN offices advising the two on tax evasion and how to set up a prostitution ring, users at the DailyPaul.com successfully waged a campaign to expose a ruse by the mercenaries, American Private Police Force, to literally take over the town of Hardin, Montana.

Details posted at the Daily Paul outlined an agreement between the quasi-private, Two Rivers Authority (TRA) of Hardin, Montana and California based, American Private Police Force (APPF), a paramilitary force run by convicted felon, Michael Hilton. The 10-year agreement, with an additional 10-year option, sought to install APPF as the operating contractor of the unused $20 million Hardin Detention facility.

Old-media outlets finally began to look critically into the story  after APFF rolled into Hardin driving three  Mercedes sports utility vehicles emblazoned with “Hardin Police Department” decals. Suspicious not only in part as to the mercenary drivers of the vehicles, but also due to the fact that the city of just over 3,000 has no lawfully established police department of its own and instead cedes jurisdiction under contract to the Big Horn County Sheriff’s Department.

The danger of granting a private mercenary force police powers is of course self-evident, and as such, officials from Two Rivers Authority first attempted to brush off such claims as wild unsubstantiated rumor. In fact, Albert Peterson, Vice President of TRA, claimed he was completely unaware of any agreement whatsoever to bestow police duties upon APPF, stating:

“I have no idea. I really don’t because that’s not been a part of any of the discussions we’ve had with any of them.”

Albert Peterson
Vice-President
Two-Rivers Authority
September 24th, 2009

Unfortunately, for Mr. Peterson, typical of the type who weasel their way into pseudo-authority, the AGREEMENT between TRA and APPF, outlining the police department option found its way onto the internet. The AGREEMENT exposes Two Rivers Authority as nothing more than a gang of worthless bureaucrats far too willing to subject fellow residents of Hardin to the whims of a paramilitary mercenary force; birds of a feather.

Even more disturbing, delving further into the AGREEMENT between TRA and APPF, one subsequently discovers the creation of the position of a Hardin City “Police Chief” who at their own discretion, could utilize the main jail facility to detain individuals in their custody. This second revelation fully exposes at least in my mind, the true intentions of the demented felon, Michael Hilton

We are all sickeningly familiar with the atrocities committed by mercenary thugs, carelessly glossed over as “contractors” by the nightly news such as Blackwater/Xe. Imagine the potential for tyranny with a paramilitary group not sworn in any way to uphold either the Montana or federal Constitution setting up shop in a practically new $20 million detention center compound whilst also supplanting themselves as the czars of local law enforcement.

As additional details concerning Michael Hilton’s multiple counts of theft, fraud, and general swindling finally poured out into the open, bondholders became increasingly resistant to finalize any deal at all with APPF, who just weeks prior and in the actual AGREEMENT was then known as American Police Force (APF). One would be remiss in failing to point out that simple internet searches performed by regular everyday individuals managed to expose Mr. Hilton’s criminal past, a bit of due diligence apparently outside the intellectual capacity of officers at TRA.

The tireless onslaught of phone calls by new-media journalists and concerned individuals literally flooded the offices of public officials in both Hardin and Helena, the state capitol. The public outcry led to Steve Bullock, Montana’s Attorney General to issue a CIVIL INVESTIGATION DEMAND LETTER to both TRA and APPF seeking verification of the numerous representations stated publicly and on the APPF website throughout negotiations over the detention facility. A formal response to the letter is due from both parties no later than today. As of this morning however, only TRA had filed their answers with the Attorney General’s office.

Continuing pressure exerted by the new-media culminated this past Friday when APPF announced it was fully withdrawing from the Hardin Detention Center deal. According to the group’s spokeswoman, Becky Shay, the last she saw her boss, Michael Hilton and his entourage of paramilitary thugs, they were headed out of Hardin towards California in two of the now infamous black Mercedes SUV’s.

The sheer arrogant audacity continuing to be displayed by officials from TRA is entirely shameful. Removal of all of these pull-peddling scoundrels from their positions at TRA would be a much kinder form of public shaming than the punishments reserved for scoundrels such as this during the War for Independence, although the latter would perhaps be more appropriate. The only direct consequence suffered thus far by those at TRA has been the suspension of Gregory Smith, TRA’s Executive Director. The good people of Hardin, have been snookered one-time too many,in my opinion. Prudence indeed may guide them to find an appropriate use for the public snow job known as the Hardin Detention Center, perhaps as a facility to “detain” the pull peddlers at TRA who were willing to subject the people of Hardin to the likes of a group of paramilitary mercenaries.

Related Material(s)
	MONTANA Legislative Services Division “HARDIN DETENTION CENTER CONTROVERSY” (PDF 322Kb) STATE of MONTANA “CIVIL DEMAND LETTER” to APPF (PDF 344Kb) Agreement between Two Rivers Authority and American Private Police Force (PDF 427Kb)

Allison Bricker

Hearing Begins at 8:00 a.m. Central Time

RAYBURN HOUSE OFFICE BUILDING, DISTRICT of COLUMBIA – The House Financial Services Committee, Chairman Barney Frank presiding is hearing testimony regarding Representative Ron Paul of Texas’ bill, House Resolution 1207, “The FEDERAL RESERVE Transparency Act of 2009″

H.R. 1207 seeks to remove a key prohibition preventing the Government Accountability Office (GAO) from conducting a full comprehensive audit regarding the FEDERAL RESERVE’s international transactions with other central banks and foreign governments.

The FEDERAL RESERVE is a private central bank created in 1913 to oversee and manage the nation’s monetary policy. The American Republic has witnessed two previous central banking institutions in its history, both of which were abolished after wrecking havoc on the economy due to the inherent flaws of central economic planning.

H.R. 1207 currently enjoys a majority in the House of Representatives via co-sponsorship by 293 other House members. The companion bill in the Senate is S. 604

Allison Bricker

Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) is currently looking into whether or not “anti-government” sentiment played a role in death.

MANCHESTER, KENTUCKY – The body of 51-year-old census worker, Bill Sparkman was discovered hanged in a secluded area of Daniel Boone National Forest on September 12th with the word ‘fed written on his chest. The part-time teacher has worked with the Census Bureau since 2003 and was recently conducting interviews throughout Clay and surrounding Counties. The Census Bureau has since suspended door-to-door interviews pending the ongoing investigation’s outcome.

Details surrounding the case are still sparse as the FBI is yet to determine whether the death was a suicide or an act of murder. Nor have law-enforcement revealed what instrument or instruments were used to write the word ‘fed’ on the chest of Mr. Sparkman.

Official spokesman from the Kentucky F.B.I. office, David Beyer said:

“Our job is to determine if there was foul play involved — and that’s part of the investigation — and if there was foul play involved, whether that is related to his employment as a census worker,”

David Beyer
Chief Division Counsel/Media Coordinator
Federal Bureau of Investigation, Kentucky Office

In addition, and according to Lucindia Scurry-Johnson, the Assistant Director of the Census Bureau’s office in Charlotte, North Carolina the federal investigators have only indicated they are looking at ‘apparent homicide’ but have shared little else.

Source(s): Louisville Division, Federal Bureau of Investigation

Allison Bricker

Social news site reddit.com interviews 14th Congressional District representative, Ron Paul. Questions were asked and voted upon by the reddit community, with the top ten questions asked during the course of the interview.

1. Kitanata: Dr. Paul, you have stated that you do not support Net Neutrality. Could you define Net Neutrality as you see it, then elaborate on what aspects of Net Neutrality you do not support and why? Thank you.




2. Fauster: Do you think that scientists are politically motivated with regard to issues of global warming and evolution? As a medical professional, you probably understand the value of deferring to specialists outside areas of your expertise. Nonetheless, you openly disagree with overwhelming scientific consensus in these two areas. While hardly anyone thinks Greenland will melt in twenty years, the overwhelming majority of scientists believe the effects of climate change will be lasting and severe in the next 50-100 years. With regard to evolution, almost all biologists, geologists, and physicists would say it’s better characterized as a law than a theory. Do you think the Bible provides a superior account of the origins of life on Earth, and thus claim a different source of expertise? Or rather, do you believe that scientific claims are grossly wrong, biased, or politically motivated?




3. SquirrelOnFire: Congressman Paul, The current health care legislation seems to be moving closer to the insurance industry’s ideal (minimal change + mandatory insurance) each day. What can be done to tip the balance of power in the congress away from lobbyists and towards the voters? Thank you for agreeing to speak with us.




4. Blackf1sh: Congressman Paul, Government investments in science and technology have historically yielded great returns. For example, it has been estimated[1] that, “technologies derived from quantum mechanics may account for 30% of the gross national product of the United States.” Money from the US government has led to the development of the internet[2] and a long list of NASA spin-off technologies have contributed to our daily lives[3].

   In contrast, the risk-averse private sector has little incentive and a poor track record for funding these types of long-term projects. Although the exploratory research in academic settings is often inefficient at achieving specific goals, it has the unique potential to yield unexpectedly amazing results on decade-long timescales.

   How can one justify reducing the budget for science and technology in spite of the quality of life and national security afforded by the developments from government-funded research?




5. Rightc0ast: Dr. Paul, Regarding the theory of evolution, I realize you have said you don’t feel the issue is important, but it’s been a topic discussed at great length at reddit, and other web sites. We’d really appreciate an answer to this.

   Allow me to clarify. Many people mistakenly confuse actual evolution with abiogenesis, or life coming from inanimate matter. Evolution is not a theory of creation. It is a theory encompassing genetic drift and selection, and describing changes in the genetic material of a population of organisms from one generation to the next. Do you accept evolution in this regard as the foundation upon which nearly all biological knowledge is based, or do you truly believe change within species from generation to generation does not occur?




6. DoesMyKeyboardWork: Dr. Paul, What would a “return to sound currency” look like? Realistically, how would it play out? Would people exchange their dollars for a new gold/silver backed currency?

   As much as I agree with you (donated for the original money bomb, sticker on my car, wrote you in for the election), the defeatist in me thinks this is impossible and the entire system is eternally ruined. Thank you (and sorry for the pessimism)




7. TheHiveQueen: Dr. Paul, How do you reconcile the fact that you believe that the Federal Government has no place in Gay Marriage debate with your support of DOMA?




8. Playeren: Sir, should the government be able to keep secrets from the public at all? And Is ultimate freedom more important than ultimate security?




9. Chungkaishek: Dr. Paul, Given your well-established belief in the merits of the free market system, I’d like to know how you feel about the Americans with Disabilities Act. The ADA establishes restrictions and requirements on businesses, something I imagine goes against free market principles, yet it also ensures, for example, that a blind customer with a service animal such as a seeing eye dog will be treated like any other customer and not turned away for bringing a dog into a store.

   Should a free market decide which customers get service, or is this the responsibility of the federal government?




10. Jboeke: Dr. Paul, I’m trying to be a good libertarian, but I’m conflicted. I live in Phoenix, AZ and we just started up our light rail system earlier this year. I love it! I use it to commute to work and take it to the bar on weekends so I don’t drive drunk.

    But, light rail was a big public works project which took millions in taxpayer money from the three different cities and the Federal government. Unfortunately, I can’t imagine a scenario where something like light rail would have ever been built by the free market. How can I enjoy this project and still be a good libertarian?

The Smoking Argus

(OFFICIAL STATEMENT) – WASHINGTON D.C. – Things seem to be unraveling quickly for the new administration. The latest unemployment numbers are worse than the last reports. For all the billions of dollars spent and committed to fixing our economic problems, the situation is only getting worse. This was to be expected by those who understand the root causes of the problems. Throwing money around and creating more government programs is both simplistic and damaging to the economy. Of course, the administration claims that we would have been much worse off without these efforts. You can’t improve this situation by adding to our mountain of public debt for the benefit of big banks and other special interests. The American people know this. When will Washington learn?

In addition, the president’s plans for healthcare reform – or health insurance reform – are becoming more and more unpopular as details are examined. But because of all the alarmist rhetoric, politicians in Washington feel obligated to pass something, even if it doesn’t help. Rarely are liberty and prosperity at greater risk than when politicians feel they must “do something”. It is frightening to watch Washington toy with our healthcare purely for political reasons.

However, the saddest shortcoming of this administration is its utter failure to pursue a more peaceful foreign policy. Just last week up to 90 people, apparently mostly civilians, were killed in Afghanistan in an airstrike, and the violence is only getting worse. The administration is mulling over how many more troops they will send as part of their “Afghan Surge” with advisors getting it exactly backwards. They qualify sending fewer troops as “high-risk” and sending more troops as “low-risk”. This is not the perception at all if you were to ask the families of those being sent over. The best answer would be to stop risking any of our troops for the sake of what is, for all intents and purposes, a violent occupation, helping no one.

But all of these problems and their wrong-headed solutions come from one greater problem – which is not understanding the reasons that we are here. The economy is in bad shape because of too much government intervention producing a myriad of unintended consequences and perverse incentives. Healthcare is broken because the doctor-patient relationship has been broken down by hyper regulation and too much government interference. Afghanistan is a mess because they ignored the mission approved by Congress – to seek out those who attacked us on 9/11. They have instead gotten sidetracked with nebulous interventionist tasks such as promoting democracy and nation building. Eight years later, there is no real progress. The Soviets bankrupted themselves fighting in the mountains and caves of Afghanistan and we’re about to do the same. If we would just look to history it would be self-evident that there is nothing left to win in Afghanistan, and everything to lose.

Most of all, we need to understand that we don’t understand Afghan culture and politics, and for that reason alone, intervening in their affairs is unlikely to produce positive results. The best thing we could possibly do now is to bring our troops home, from Afghanistan, from Iraq, from Japan, from Germany, from all occupied countries, and concentrate on mending badly damaged relationships around the world. Free and honest trade has always been the best way to do that, without fail. Not understanding the benefits of peace, freedom, and nonintervention will always bring about catastrophe.

—END OFFICIAL STATEMENT—

Related Material(s)
	Rep. Ron Paul, Texas Straight Talk, “Government Solutions Lack Understanding” Transcript (13.6kb PDF)

Source(s): U.S. House of Representatives, Texas 14th Congressional District, Representative Ron Paul web page • The Smoking Argus YouTube Channel “Rep. Ron Paul Texas Straight Talk: Government Solutions Lack Understanding”

Wire Report

(NoThirdSolution: David Zemens) – For many people (and yes I’m jumping to conclusions and making sweeping generalizations here) “No one should die because they can’t afford health care” is the weasel way of saying “I want someone else to pay for it” without sounding like a panhandler. So, take what follows with a grain of salt, OK?

On that note, someone’s Facebook status said:

“No one should die because they cannot afford health care, and no one should go broke because they get sick. If you agree, please post this as your status for the rest of the day.”

No one should die just because they were born in sub-Saharan Africa, either. But they do. Doesn’t make it fair, but it happens. For every “poor” or underprivileged Westerner complaining about their lack of “health care” (NB: even the poorest Americans have access to better health care than, I would venture to guess, 85% of the earth’s population has ever had), there are a million people living on $1 and a cup of rice each day — so cry me a river.

Every one of us will die at the crossroads of some particular circumstances, time, and place:

• Some of us die in our sleep. Some of us are merely in “the wrong place at the wrong time”.
• Some of us will die because the technology to cure what ails us has not yet been invented.
• Some of us will die because we made poor choices that presently impact our ability to care for ourselves, and
• some of us will die unfortunately through no direct fault of our own, because we can’t afford to pay for the technology that does exist.

To lament the fact that some people die under seemingly inopportune circumstances is folly; it ignores the lion’s share of the equation. Financial circumstances are a scapegoat, because at nearly any time and place where the individual isn’t DOA, a change in financial circumstances might forestall death for a few hours, days, weeks, or months.

You’ll get no arguments from me, if you say that “health care is too expensive”: blame the AMA cartel, the FDA, blame “Big Insurance”, etc. But national health care is health care fascism; the insurers want guaranteed profits, guaranteed customers for life, and Uncle Sam to pay the bills. They want to sell you your own welfare.

You’ll get no arguments from me, if you say that “the system” needs to be reformed: specifically it needs to not be a system at all. People aren’t permitted under the law to care for themselves or to arrange for the care of others. Or because the consumer is not the customer, and the customer enjoys certain tax privileges that the consumer does not, etc. Or because people have been conditioned to believe that “insurance” should pay for an annual check-up and dental exams and all sorts of other routine maintenance instead of just providing for accidents and serious illnesses.

The problem is that health care, medicine, long-term care, etc., is damned expensive. Government is the problem in health care, which keeps it unaffordable.

Asking or forcing others to pay the costs, which you can’t afford, will do nothing to actually solve that problem; it just shifts the burden, messing up someone else’s life circumstances, exacerbating the problem for the future.

About the Author: David Zemens

David Zemens is the Editor & Publisher of No Third Solution, and holds a Bachelor’s degree in Business and a Master’s degree in Economics. A self-taught libertarian, David has recently begun delving in to “agorism” a political philosophy developed by Samuel Edward Konkin III, which aims for a society built on voluntary associations and exchange, thereby resulting in a true free market. He considers one-day subverting state propaganda completely by opting to teach at the local community college. David currently works as a market-research analyst and he and his wire were happily married in September of 2008.