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What About The Other Ron Paul?

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It’s revealing that Sean Hannity, Commentary magazine and Pam Geller have been among those responsible for generating the latest round of consternation over Ron Paul’s old newsletters. Polls suggest he is favored to win the Iowa caucus, and this has (rightly) rattled “National Greatness” conservatives. Whether these critics would ever think to express such vociferous disapproval of policies that in practice are genuinely “racist,” however, is dubious.

So it was equally revealing that during an interview with CNN last week, after Ron Paul again disavowed the newsletters, he added, “Why don’t you look at my comments about the War On Drugs and about how racist the enforcement of drug laws are?” If drug policy indeed amounts to “The New Jim Crow,” as legal scholars increasingly maintain, Paul’s point is not trivial. “I think the minorities come up with a short hand in our court system,” he said in an October debate.

“The more progress I make in challenging the status quo,” Paul went on in the CNN interview, “challenge the bankers and challenging the bailouts, challenging this wicked foreign policy of war forever and the military industrial complex, the stronger they will emphasize picking this and ignoring the important issues of what freedom is all about and what civil liberty is all about and why.”

Without absolving him of moral culpability for the newsletters, it’s hard to deny that Paul’s broader argument here is valid. A number of his positions are, at minimum, impressively unorthodox by the standards of mainstream party politics — and perhaps even courageous. Yet amidst hysteria over the newsletters, they go on largely undiscussed.

For instance, in December 2010, Paul was virtually alone in defending Wikileaks and denouncing its “hysterical” detractors. “Despite what is claimed,” he said from the floor of the House, “the information that has been so far released, though classified, has caused no known harm to any individual — but it has caused plenty of embarrassment to our government.” Paul also ridiculed the Justice Department’s investigation of Julian Assange, warning that it could entail grave consequences for American press freedoms. “Losing our grip on our empire is not welcomed by the neoconservatives in charge,” he concluded.

The conservative advocacy group “Accuracy in Media” recently made a point to condemn Paul’s “support of accused Army traitor Bradley Manning,” whom he has suggested ought to be considered a “hero” and a “true patriot.” In January 2011, Paul read aloud a leaked cable on Iraq into the Congressional record; the organization recently hailed him via Twitter as a “Wikileaks defender.”

In April, Ron Paul defended the logic of heroin legalization before a debate audience filled with South Carolinian GOP activists. On the “Ground Zero Mosque,” he evinced a far more “progressive” view than both Harry Reid and the Simon Wiesenthal Center. He has consistently said the wars in Iraq and Vietnam were “based on lies,” disputed vapid conceptions of American exceptionalism, and called for abolishing the FBI, CIA, and Department of Homeland Security. In 2007, Paul told Tim Russert that rampant “corporatism” in the United States amounted to “soft fascism.” He opposed the extralegal assassinations of both Osama bin Laden and Anwar al-Awlaki; for this, leading authoritarian commentator Joshua S. Treviño of the Texas Public Policy foundation has referred to Paul as “the America-loathing libertarian.”

“If it’s Barack Obama versus Ron Paul,” Treviño declared, “I’m voting for the guy who thought shooting Osama bin Laden in the face was a good idea.”

Some conservatives now allege that by virtue of his “extreme” views and devoted volunteers, a Ron Paul victory in Iowa would discredit the caucus itself. It is illuminating that these same people would presumably regard a Newt Gingrich victory, for example, as perfectly appropriate and normal — despite his proposals to execute drug dealers, increase preparedness for electromagnetic pulse attacks, and forcibly intercede to halt the construction of religious structures.

When candidates are ordinarily ensnared by a sudden controversy, the catalyst is some previously unrevealed bit of information. But Paul’s newsletters were widely reported on in 2008, and for months, political journalists never bothered to revisit the subject — even as Paul built a formidable campaign infrastructure. Instead, they opted to blow smoke about New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie’s non-candidacy and chronicle every detail of the Herman Cain sex saga. Last May, when Ben Smith of Politico and Byron York of the Washington Examiner partook in a wide-ranging discussion on the GOP field, neither man uttered the words “Ron Paul” even once (though they did speculate about various hypothetical, rumored candidacies). At the time, Paul was polling in third nationally.

In the Weekly Standard, Jamie Kirchick has contended that Paul’s “lucrative and decades-long promotion of bigotry and conspiracy theories” should disqualify him from serious consideration. To support this thesis, he quotes Matt Brooks, executive director of the Republican Jewish Coalition; Paul was excluded from a recent RJC presidential forum, Brooks explained, on account of “his misguided and extreme views.”

It’s certainly true that Paul departs from the bipartisan consensus in favor of aggressive support for Israeli government policies. He would end all foreign assistance, Israel not excepted. “To me,” Paul has said, “foreign aid is taking money from poor people in this country and giving it to rich people in poor countries.” At a September debate, he suggested that America continues to be reviled around the world in part because U.S. administrations “do not give Palestinians fair treatment,” and he spoke about the folly of sending arms and finances for decades to Mubarak’s despotic regime in Egypt.

Ron Paul’s candor on the creeping American police state is unrivaled: he has identified the militarization of domestic police as a “dangerous trend,” and was one of the few members of Congress to decry the National Defense Re-Authorization Act with appropriate vigor. “This is a giant step,” Paul said. “This should be the biggest news going right now — literally legalizing martial law.”

Where other candidates heap scorn on Occupy Wall Street demonstrators at every opportunity — “Take a bath, then get a job,” Newt Gingrich scolded — Paul has consistently lauded them. “In many ways, it’s a very healthy movement,” he observed this month. “I’m not one to say, ‘Why don’t you get a bath and go get a job and quit crybabying.’ I don’t like that at all.”

“Some are liberals and some are conservatives and some are libertarians and some are strict constitutionalists,” Paul said of OWS in October. “I think that civil disobedience, if everybody knows exactly what they are doing, is a legitimate effort. It’s been done in this country for many grievances. Some people end up going to jail for this.”

But of course, it’s much easier for CNN reporters to quote from old newsletters than seriously explore the ways Paul has distinguished himself in today’s political environment.

 

Michael Tracey is a writer based in New York. You can read his work on his Website, email him, and follow him on Twitter. 

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OPINION

‘Have to Get Back to Law and Order’: Trump Declares at NYPD Officer’s Wake

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Donald Trump attended the wake of the slain New York City police officer who was shot and killed while conducting a traffic stop this week. The four-times indicted ex-president demanded America “get back to law and order,” barely days after a New York judge imposed a gag order in the case where the presumptive Republican presidential nominee faces 34 felony counts for “falsifying New York business records in order to conceal damaging information and unlawful activity from American voters before and after the 2016 election,” according to the New York District Attorney.

That damaging information included hush money payments to several women including an adult film actress.

“We have to stop it,” Trump said Thursday, speaking before the cameras about crime as he stood under an umbrella in front of police officers. “We have to stop, we have to get back to law and order. We have to do a lot of things differently because this is not working. This is happening too often.”

“Police are the greatest people we have. There’s nothing and there’s nobody like them. And this should never happen,” Trump said as he lamented how repeat offenders “don’t learn because they don’t respect.”

READ MORE: Trump Campaign Says It Will Deploy ‘Soldiers’ to Polling Places

“We’ve got to toughen it up. We’ve got to strengthen it up. It should never be allowed things like they shouldn’t take place and to take place so often,” said Trump, who is out on bail and currently faces 88 felony charges after three were dropped.

The Trump campaign announced that the ex-president had been invited to attend the wake.

“President Trump is moved by the invitation to join NYPD Officer Jonathan Diller’s family and colleagues as they deal with his senseless and tragic death,” Trump campaign spokesperson Karoline Leavitt said, according to The Daily Beast.

The Associated Press added that “Trump has deplored crime in heavily Democratic cities, called for shoplifters to be shot immediately and wants to immunize police officers from lawsuits for potential misconduct. But he’s also demonized local prosecutors, the FBI and the Department of Justice over the criminal prosecutions he faces and the investigation while he was president into his first campaign’s interactions with Russia.”

“He has also embraced those imprisoned for their roles on the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, when a mob of his angry supporters overran police lines and Capitol and local police officers were attacked and beaten.”

Earlier on Thursday NBC News reported on Trump’s mischaracterizations of crime.

“Surging crime levels, out-of-control Democratic cities and ‘migrant crime,'” the network noted. “Former President Donald Trump regularly cites all three at his campaign rallies, in news releases and on Truth Social, often saying President Joe Biden and Democrats are to blame.”

READ MORE: ‘Hunger Games at NBC News’: New McDaniel Revelations Have ‘Enraged’ Staffers, Report Says

“But the crime picture Trump paints contrasts sharply with years of police and government data at both the local and national levels,” NBC added. “FBI statistics released this year suggested a steep drop in crime across the country last year. It’s a similar story across major cities, with violent crime down year over year in Chicago, New York and Washington, D.C.”

Watch Trump’s remarks below or at this link.

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OPINION

‘Hunger Games at NBC News’: New McDaniel Revelations Have ‘Enraged’ Staffers, Report Says

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The backlash from NBC News’ hiring of Ronna McDaniel is not over. New reporting from Puck, CNN, and The Washington Post reveals the considerable efforts from top NBC and MSNBC brass to recruit, hire, and support the former RNC chair who promoted false election claims, was allegedly involved in helping Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election results, and refused to say Joe Biden had been elected fairly.

Staffers at NBC News and MSNBC were outraged at McDaniel’s hiring, but new details about behind-the-scenes efforts reportedly have increased that outrage.

Some critics are either calling for resignations of NBC News and MSNBC  leadership, or questioning how long they can ride out the mess.

“What is Brian Roberts going to do?” CNN‘s Oliver Darcy asks. “The Comcast boss is watching an unceasing five-alarm fire rage at 30 Rock, scarring the reputation of NBC News and threatening to consume multiple parts of the Cesar Conde-run NBC Universal News Group.”

“Conde has lost control of his organization, prompting industry insiders to wonder how he continues to remain in his role as chairman of the NBC News Group. In the words of one veteran media executive I spoke to Wednesday, ‘It’s inconceivable that he should,'” Darcy writes, saying Conde’s actions and those of his top executives have “hosed gasoline” on the scandal.

READ MORE: Lawmaker Slammed for Claiming College Basketball Players Were Actually ‘Illegal Invaders’

That scandal involves these revelations from Puck’s Dylan Byers, who reports, “bringing McDaniel to 30 Rock had been part of a nearly two-month-long effort that was spearheaded by Budoff Brown and her boss, NBC News President Rebecca Blumenstein, with buy-in from Conde and his deputies at both NBC News and MSNBC.”

“Rashida Jones,” he adds, “the president of MSNBC, was very interested in having McDaniel appear as a contributor on her network, as well.”

But this bombshell has drawn a good deal of attention. Noting how Chuck Todd led off the very public pushback against the hiring of McDaniel, Byers reports, “On Sunday, Budoff Brown reached out to McDaniel’s aide and former chief of staff at the R.N.C., Richard Walters, to see if there were any friends or colleagues who could speak up on her behalf.”

“The two sides also discussed having these folks call attention to what they saw as a double standard—after all, this was the same network that was turning Psaki, a former Biden White House Press Secretary, into a Maddow-adjacent prime time star. Walters later assured Budoff Brown that they’d been able to advance conservative pushback on social media against Todd, specifically, and that this might give NBC News some cover, for which Budoff Brown thanked him.”

CNN, pointing to those details, adds, “staffers inside NBC News are enraged at the fact an executive would have engaged in such behavior.”

Former Chicago Tribune editor Mark Jacobs, who now writes about politics and the media, called for the firing of Jones, Blumenstein, and Budoff Brown.

Other critics are expressing concerns on multiple fronts.

READ MORE: Ronna McDaniel Is Just a ‘Normal’ Person Who ‘Never Denied the Election’ Says Hugh Hewitt

“It’s like the hunger games at @NBCNews. Every day new, horrible stories of journalism & corporate malpractice. Every single one of these managers must go,” observed Jennifer Schulze, a media critic who was a Chicago Sun-Times executive producer, WGN news director, and adjunct college professor of journalism.

She also highlights a Washington Post report that ropes NBC Nightly News anchor Lester Holt into the mess.

“Every @NBCNews exec who thought hiring a reputed liar & phony elector co-[conspirator] needs to resign or be fired,” Schulze says.

“The @NBCNews managers who recruited & signed an election denier should be out the door, too,” she adds. “Not only was it downright offensive to hire Ronna, it was journalism AND corporate malpractice.”

Pointing to his newsletter, former Obama senior advisor Dan Pfeiffer writes, “NBC’s ill-fated decision to hire Ronna McDaniel is a story of a media outlet unwilling to accept the ways Trump changed politics, but it’s also one of the best arguments for Dems need to build our media ecosystem ASAP.”

READ MORE: Comer Refuses to Investigate Trump Family Member Over ‘Influence Peddling’ Allegation

He calls McDaniel’s hiring “evidence” the media has “yet to accept the reality that this is not a normal election between a Republican and a Democrat.” And adds, “An [industry] that prizes objectivity above all else, is incapable of accurately covering an election where one candidate is a normal politician and the other is an insurrectionist. Many in the media would rather stumble into autocracy than take a side.”

Veteran journalist and Sirius XM host Michelangelo Signorile observes, “We couldn’t have asked for a better situation to shine a bright light on the corruption of the corporate media—and its impulse to legitimize MAGA extremism and lawbreakers for profit—than NBC’s hiring former RNC chair, election denier, and Trump enabler Ronna McDaniel.”

And he warns, “The forces that made the coup-plotting former RNC chair a paid contributor are still shaping news and information about this pivotal election.”

 

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News

Lawmaker Slammed for Claiming College Basketball Players Were Actually ‘Illegal Invaders’

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Michigan MAGA Republican state Rep. Matt Maddock is under fire after claiming three buses were “loaded up with illegal invaders.” The buses, according to multiple reports, were actually loaded with the Gonzaga University basketball team arriving for March Madness.

“Happening right now. Three busses just loaded up with illegal invaders at Detroit Metro. Anyone have any idea where they’re headed with their police escort?” Rep. Maddock wrote on social media Wednesday evening, tagging far-right former U.S. Congressman Pete Hoekstra, who served as U.S. Ambassador to the Netherlands under Donald Trump and is now the state’s Republican Party chair.

Informed of his error on social media, Rep. Maddock doubled down, and attacked.

READ MORE: Ronna McDaniel Is Just a ‘Normal’ Person Who ‘Never Denied the Election’ Says Hugh Hewitt

“Probably teams for the NCAA Mens Sweet 16 playing at LCA on Friday and Sunday,” a user on X wrote.

“Sure kommie. Good talking point,” Maddock quickly shot back.

ABC affiliate WXYZ executive producer Maxwell White, responding to the Maddock’s original post wrote: “Just to be clear, this was the Gonzaga basketball team. Photos show Gonzaga getting on an Allegiant plane to Detroit for the Sweet 16, and Flight Radar shows a plane from GEG to DTW landed at 7:25 p.m., around the time this photo was posted.”

“This is a wild tweet,” White added, before adding more evidence.

Hoekstra, who was accused of using racism and xenophobia to win his campaign for a U.S. Senate seat (he lost), did not respond directly to Maddock but did repost the apparently false claim.

Michigan State Senate Democratic Majority Whip Mallory McMorrow denounced Maddock’s claim as “dangerous.”

Maddock’s remark also made the national stage when U.S. Rep. Eric Swalwell responded.

READ MORE: Trump Campaign Says It Will Deploy ‘Soldiers’ to Polling Places

“Hey Einstein,” the California Democrat wrote, “your state is hosting the Sweet 16. Could it be a team bus? If it is, will you resign for your spectacular stupidity?”

In 2021 The Washington Post reported, “Michigan state Rep. Matt Maddock and his wife, Michigan Republican Party co-chair Meshawn Maddock, have repeatedly been called out by fact-checking journalists for promoting baseless claims of widespread voter fraud and falsely suggesting that covid-19 is comparable to the flu.”

See the social media posts above 0r at this link.

 

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