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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

Noem Defends Shooting Her 14-Month Old Puppy to Death, Brags She Has Media ‘Gasping’

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April 26, 2024

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Republican Governor Kristi Noem of South Dakota, a top potential Trump vice presidential running mate pick, revealed in a forthcoming book she “hated” her 14-month old puppy and shot it to death. Massive online outrage ensued, including accusations of “animal cruelty” and “cold-blooded murder,” but the pro-life former member of Congress is defending her actions and bragging she had the media “gasping.”

“Cricket was a wirehair pointer, about 14 months old,” Noem writes in her soon-to-be released book, according to The Guardian which reports “the dog, a female, had an ‘aggressive personality’ and needed to be trained to be used for hunting pheasant.”

“By taking Cricket on a pheasant hunt with older dogs, Noem says, she hoped to calm the young dog down and begin to teach her how to behave. Unfortunately, Cricket ruined the hunt, going ‘out of her mind with excitement, chasing all those birds and having the time of her life’.”

“Then, on the way home after the hunt, as Noem stopped to talk to a local family, Cricket escaped Noem’s truck and attacked the family’s chickens, ‘grabb[ing] one chicken at a time, crunching it to death with one bite, then dropping it to attack another’.”

READ MORE: President Hands Howard Stern Live Interview After NY Times Melts Down Over Biden Brush-Off

“Cricket the untrainable dog, Noem writes, behaved like ‘a trained assassin’.”

Except Cricket wasn’t trained. Online several people with experience training dogs have said Noem did everything wrong.

“I hated that dog,” Noem wrote, calling the young girl pup “untrainable,” “dangerous to anyone she came in contact with,” and “less than worthless … as a hunting dog.”

“At that moment,” Noem wrote, “I realized I had to put her down.”

“It was not a pleasant job,” she added, “but it had to be done. And after it was over, I realized another unpleasant job needed to be done.”

The Guardian reports Noem went on that day to slaughter a goat that “smelled ‘disgusting, musky, rancid’ and ‘loved to chase’ Noem’s children, knocking them down and ruining their clothes.”

She dragged both animals separately into a gravel pit and shot them one at a time. The puppy died after one shell, but the goat took two.

On social media Noem expressed no regret, no sadness, no empathy for the animals others say did not need to die, and certainly did not need to die so cruelly.

READ MORE: ‘Assassination of Political Rivals as an Official Act’: AOC Warns Take Trump ‘Seriously’

But she did use the opportunity to promote her book.

Attorney and legal analyst Jeffrey Evan Gold says Governor Noem’s actions might have violated state law.

“You slaughtered a 14-month-old puppy because it wasn’t good at the ‘job’ you chose for it?” he asked. “SD § 40-1-2.3. ‘No person owning or responsible for the care of an animal may neglect, abandon, or mistreat the animal.'”

The Democratic National Committee released a statement saying, “Kristi Noem’s extreme record goes beyond bizarre rants about killing her pets – she also previously said a 10-year-old rape victim should be forced to carry out her pregnancy, does not support exceptions for rape or incest, and has threatened to throw pharmacists in jail for providing medication abortions.”

Former Trump White House Director of Strategic Communications Alyssa Farah Griffin, now a co-host on “The View” wrote, “There are countless organizations that re-home dogs from owners who are incapable of properly training and caring for them.”

The Lincoln Project’s Rick Wilson blasted the South Dakota governor.

“Kristi Noem is trash,” he began. “Decades with hunting- and bird-dogs, and the number I’ve killed because they were chicken-sharp or had too much prey drive is ZERO. Puppies need slow exposure to birds, and bird-scent.”

“She killed a puppy because she was lazy at training bird dogs, not because it was a bad dog,” he added. “Not every dog is for the field, but 99.9% of them are trainable or re-homeable. We have one now who was never going in the field, but I didn’t kill her. She’s sleeping on the couch. You down old dogs, hurt dogs, and sick dogs humanely, not by shooting them and tossing them in a gravel pit. Unsporting and deliberately cruel…but she wrote this to prove the cruelty is the point.”

Melissa Jo Peltier, a writer and producer of the “Dog Whisperer with Cesar Millan” series, also heaped strong criticism on Noem.

“After 10+ years working with Cesar Millan & other highly specialized trainers, I believe NO dog should be put down just because they can’t or won’t do what we decide WE want them to,” Peltier said in a lengthy statement. “Dogs MUST be who they are. Sadly, that’s often who WE teach them to be. And our species is a hot mess. I would have happily taken Kristi Noem’s puppy & rehomed it. What she did is animal cruelty & cold blooded murder in my book.”

READ MORE: ‘Blood on Your Hands’: Tennessee Republicans OK Arming Teachers After Deadly School Shooting

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OPINION

President Hands Howard Stern Live Interview After NY Times Melts Down Over Biden Brush-Off

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April 26, 2024

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President Joe Biden gave an nearly-unannounced, last-minute, live exclusive interview Friday morning to Howard Stern, the SiriusXM radio host who for decades, from the mid-1990s to about 2015, was a top Trump friend, fan, and aficionado. But the impetus behind the President’s move appears to be a rare and unsigned statement from the The New York Times Company, defending the “paper of record” after months of anger from the public over what some say is its biased negative coverage of the Biden presidency and, especially, a Thursday report by Politico claiming Times Publisher A.G. Sulzberger is furious the President has refused to give the “Grey Lady” an in-person  interview.

“The Times’ desire for a sit-down interview with Biden by the newspaper’s White House team is no secret around the West Wing or within the D.C. bureau,” Politico reported. “Getting the president on the record with the paper of record is a top priority for publisher A.G. Sulzberger. So much so that last May, when Vice President Kamala Harris arrived at the newspaper’s midtown headquarters for an off-the-record meeting with around 40 Times journalists, Sulzberger devoted several minutes to asking her why Biden was still refusing to grant the paper — or any major newspaper — an interview.”

“In Sulzberger’s view,” Politico explained, “only an interview with a paper like the Times can verify that the 81-year-old Biden is still fit to hold the presidency.”

But it was this statement that made Politico’s scoop go viral.

READ MORE: Justices’ Views on Trump Immunity Stun Experts: ‘Watching the Constitution Be Rewritten’

“’All these Biden people think that the problem is Peter Baker or whatever reporter they’re mad at that day,’ one Times journalist said. ‘It’s A.G. He’s the one who is pissed [that] Biden hasn’t done any interviews and quietly encourages all the tough reporting on his age.'”

Popular Information founder Judd Legum in March documented The New York Times’ (and other top papers’) obsession with Biden’s age after the Hur Report.

Thursday evening the Times put out a “scorching” statement, as Politico later reported, not on the newspaper’s website but on the company’s corporate website, not addressing the Politico piece directly but calling it “troubling” that President Biden “has so actively and effectively avoided questions from independent journalists during his term.”

Media watchers and critics pushed back on the Times’ statement.

READ MORE: ‘To Do God Knows What’: Local Elections Official Reads Lara Trump the Riot Act

“NYT issues an unprecedented statement slamming Biden for ‘actively and effectively avoid[ing] questions from independent journalists during his term’ and claiming it’s their ‘independence’ that Biden dislikes, when it’s actually that they’re dying to trip him up,” wrote media critic Dan Froomkin, editor of Press Watch.

Froomkin also pointed to a 2017 report from Poynter, a top journalism site published by The Poynter Institute, that pointed out the poor job the Times did of interviewing then-President Trump.

Others, including former Biden Deputy Secretary of State Brian McKeon, debunked the Times’ claim President Biden hasn’t given interviews to independent journalists by pointing to Biden’s interviews with CBS News’ “60 Minutes” and a 20-minute sit-down interview with veteran journalist John Harwood for ProPublica.

Former Chicago Sun-Times editor Mark Jacob, now a media critic who publishes Stop the Presses, offered a more colorful take of Biden’s decision to go on Howard Stern.

The Times itself just last month reported on a “wide-ranging interview” President Biden gave to The New Yorker.

Watch the video and read the social media posts above or at this link.

READ MORE: ‘Doesn’t Care if Pregnant Women Live or Die’: Alito Slammed Over Emergency Abortion Remarks

 

 

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CNN Smacks Down Trump Rant Courthouse So ‘Heavily Guarded’ MAGA Cannot Attend His Trial

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April 26, 2024

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Donald Trump’s Friday morning claim Manhattan’s Criminal Courts Building is “heavily guarded” so his supporters cannot attend his trial was torched by a top CNN anchor. The ex-president, facing 34 felony charges in New York, had been urging his followers to show up and protest on the courthouse steps, but few have.

“I’m at the heavily guarded Courthouse. Security is that of Fort Knox, all so that MAGA will not be able to attend this trial, presided over by a highly conflicted pawn of the Democrat Party. It is a sight to behold! Getting ready to do my Courthouse presser. Two minutes!” Trump wrote Friday morning on his Truth Social account.

CNN’s Kaitlan Collins supplied a different view.

“Again, the courthouse is open the public. The park outside, where a handful of his supporters have gathered on trials days, is easily accessible,” she wrote minutes after his post.

READ MORE: ‘Assassination of Political Rivals as an Official Act’: AOC Warns Take Trump ‘Seriously’

Trump has tried to rile up his followers to come out and make a strong showing.

On Monday Trump urged his supporters to “rally behind MAGA” and “go out and peacefully protest” at courthouses across the country, while complaining that “people who truly LOVE our Country, and want to MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN, are not allowed to ‘Peacefully Protest,’ and are rudely and systematically shut down and ushered off to far away ‘holding areas,’ essentially denying them their Constitutional Rights.”

On Wednesday Trump claimed, “The Courthouse area in Lower Manhattan is in a COMPLETE LOCKDOWN mode, not for reasons of safety, but because they don’t want any of the thousands of MAGA supporters to be present. If they did the same thing at Columbia, and other locations, there would be no problem with the protesters!”

After detailing several of his false claims about security measures prohibiting his followers from being able to show their support and protest, CNN published a fact-check on Wednesday:

“Trump’s claims are all false. The police have not turned away ‘thousands of people’ from the courthouse during his trial; only a handful of Trump supporters have shown up to demonstrate near the building,” CNN reported.

“And while there are various security measures in place in the area, including some street closures enforced by police officers and barricades, it’s not true that ‘for blocks you can’t get near this courthouse.’ In reality, the designated protest zone for the trial is at a park directly across the street from the courthouse – and, in addition, people are permitted to drive right up to the front of the courthouse and walk into the building, which remains open to the public. If people show up early enough in the morning, they can even get into the trial courtroom itself or the overflow room that shows near-live video of the proceedings.”

READ MORE: Justices’ Views on Trump Immunity Stun Experts: ‘Watching the Constitution Be Rewritten’

 

 

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