WHAT I THINK..........ALEX NEWMAN

GOP leadership in the House of Representatives announced that legislation to thoroughly audit the secretive Federal Reserve, a wildly popular measure pushed by Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) for decades, will come up for a floor vote in July. Honest-money advocates and pro-transparency activists celebrated the news as a historic opportunity to rein in the central bank, which has come under heavy fire — especially in recent years — for debasing the U.S. dollar, manipulating markets, and showering big banks with trillions in bailouts. The legislation, H.R. 459, already has over 225 co-sponsors in the House including an impressive roster of senior Democrats and Republicans, some of whom chair important committees. In the Senate, however, a similar bill has only about 20 co-sponsors so far, forcing Audit-the-Fed activists to wage a massive campaign aimed at exposing Senators who refuse to support transparency at the shadowy central bank. Polls in recent years revealed that four out of five Americans support auditing the Fed. “The Fed has proven it cannot be trusted and must be audited. While the banksters’ dangerous schemes have been going on for years, the bailouts exposed the trillions being stolen from the American people,” noted Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), a sponsor of the Senate legislation and the son of Congressman Ron Paul. “It is time to Audit the Fed. Time to shine a bright spotlight on the largest theft in American history.” But victory in what Sen. Paul called this “vital effort to rein in the Federal Reserve” will not be easy, he noted. The establishment is already fighting back hard against the plan in an effort to shield the controversial institution from public scrutiny. And as the battle heats up, the Fed and its supporters will not give up easily. “As we enter this critical time, we have an unprecedented chance to finish this fight and finally hold the Fed accountable for all it has done to wreck our economy and endanger our nation,” Sen. Paul concluded. “Don’t let this opportunity slip away.” Experts and economic analysts have long said that if citizens understood what was really going on behind closed doors at the privately owned central bank, a tsunami of outrage would almost certainly force politicians to shut down the Fed and restore honest money once and for all. Even a watered-down audit, passed as part of the broader Dodd-Frank financial-reform bill, exposed blatant conflicts of interest among top Fed officials as well as some $16 trillion in Fed bailouts to big banks around the world. Public outrage was unprecedented. Millions of Americans who had never even seriously contemplated the institution or its functions demanded reform. And lawmakers, political candidates, and grassroots organizations — realizing that there was no way the cat was going back in the bag — eventually jumped on the bandwagon, too. “This historic moment is only possible thanks to your relentless pressure. Now we must turn up the heat to secure victory — first in the House and then in Harry Reid’s U.S. Senate,” wrote Vice-President Matt Hawes of the freedom-promoting Campaign for Liberty, one of the organizations leading the public battle for an audit that is planning a huge operation to make sure the legislation becomes law. “Now, we just need to show Congress the American people demand action on the Audit the Fed bill.” With the looming vote, officials will soon have the chance to demonstrate whether their loyalty lies with the American people or with the mega-banks that literally own and control the Fed system. “You see, with the piling up of trillions of dollars in reckless bailouts of Wall Street and international bankers, even many politicians in Washington, D.C. want to show you they’re ‘being responsible,’ ” Hawes explained. “What better way for Congress to do this than by auditing the Federal Reserve to account for the trillions stolen from the U.S. taxpayers?” The Fed, of course, has fiendishly resisted an audit — going so far as to hire a lobbyist to defend its interests on Capitol Hill while producing pro-central bank propaganda aimed at children — all under the guise of maintaining its supposed “independence.” But activists and monetary-policy experts suspect something far more sinister is going on. “They know coming clean with Congress and the American people on what they’ve done to our money would result in an anti-Fed firestorm,” noted Hawes, echoing comments made by a vast array of experts and policy makers who support sound money. “So can you imagine the impact of a full-scale audit?” According to Hawes, the Campaign for Liberty, and numerous economists, auditing the Fed would expose the destructive economic consequences of centrally planning interest rates and manipulating the supply of currency. It would also show that the central banking system leads to the destruction of the middle class, the destruction of the currency, and eventually, chaos. “You and I have seen the damage the out-of-control Fed can cause, especially during a time of crisis. As you know, the Federal Reserve, the Treasury Department, and their cronies on Wall Street have for nearly four years been engaged in the worst plundering of a country’s wealth in the history of civilization,” Hawes explained in a letter to supporters soliciting help for the battle ahead. “Americans are crushed under a mountain of debt, yet the Fed continues to print more money — backed by nothing but the whims of Ben Bernanke and international bankers,” he added. “If you and I don’t put an end to it all, it will clearly be the ruin of our entire way of life.” The next crisis, experts believe, could be just around the corner. Other commentators backing the legislation also emphasized that the time to move on this crucial measure is now — for more than one reason. “As the global financial system teeters on the cusp of another recession, and nations throughout the Eurozone fall to economic insolvency, the time appears right for Congress to finally address the issue of the Federal Reserve, especially before their original 100-year charter expires,” wrote finance analyst Kenneth Schortgen Jr with the Examiner. Even the debate will have a big impact, too. “[House Majority Leader] Eric Cantor's decision as a prime leader in the Republican party to bring the bill before Congress in July will have staggering effects on what the Fed may have to reveal in subpoenaed testimony, and what efforts they may be handcuffed from doing going forward if the economy continues to decline,” Schortgen explained. But actually passing the full bill, its supporters say, is more crucial than ever. While Rep. Paul has been a longtime leader in the movement to expose, rein in, and eventually abolish the Fed, the public outcry about the issue has become so loud that lawmakers in both parties have taken up the call as well. During a recent hearing in Paul’s subcommittee on monetary policy, a bipartisan collection of legislators and experts discussed whether the Fed should be reformed or simply dismantled. Progress in addressing the problems, while slow, is expected to speed up.

CAPITAL CONTROLS HAVE NO PLACE IN A FREE SOCIETY

The characteristic mark of a tyrannical regime is that it eventually finds it necessary to erect walls to keep people from leaving. This is why we should be troubled by the “Ex-PATRIOT Act,” an egregiously offensive bill recently introduced in the Senate. Following a long line of recent legislation and regulations attempting to expropriate more and more wealth from hard-working Americans, this new bill spits in the face of overburdened taxpayers and tramples on the Constitution. Current law already dictates that Americans with a net worth of over $2 million who expatriate must be assumed to have sold all their assets and must pay a corresponding punitive exit tax on those assumed sales. The Ex-PATRIOT Act goes even further than current law by assessing a 30% capital gains tax on all future earnings of expatriates. Not content just with this additional tax, the bill also grants the IRS the sole authority to determine whether individuals have expatriated for tax purposes and allows the IRS to bar those individuals from ever re-entering the United States. Finally, the bill blatantly violates the ex post facto provisions of the U.S. Constitution by extending all of these provisions to anyone who has given up their U.S. citizenship within the past decade. This bill, and other similar legislation, casts a chilling effect on saving, investment, and entrepreneurial activity. The bill was introduced in response to news reports about one of the founders of Facebook who might save millions of dollars of taxes by renouncing his U.S. citizenship. But in their blind envy towards successful entrepreneurs, the bill's sponsors ignore the fact that they will ensnare many ordinary middle-class Americans who work hard, save and invest wisely, and benefit from rising home values. These Americans may easily find themselves pushing past the $2 million mark by the time they retire, especially as inflation continues to seriously accelerate. If they wish to escape the Federal Reserve's inflation by emigrating to lower-cost countries so their dollars will go farther, as many Baby Boomers are starting to do, the federal government will penalize them, and continue to penalize them for the rest of their lives as long as they hold any money in the United States. Unfortunately, the mere consideration of such legislation, even before it has passed, has made American banking customers a potential future headache for banks around the world. They don't want to deal with the IRS any more than Americans do, and if American account holders become a Trojan horse for the IRS to insinuate themselves into their affairs, there may be more cost than benefit to extending banking services to Americans. We live under a federal government that has eviscerated our Fourth Amendment rights, that can detain U.S. citizens indefinitely based solely on the President's word, that assaults toddlers and grandmothers at airports in the name of security, and regulates virtually every aspect of our economic lives. No wonder increasing numbers of Americans feel this government is engaged in outright warfare against its own citizens. Every day the noose grows tighter, yet anyone who sees the writing on the wall and seeks to leave must pay exorbitant taxes just for the privilege of leaving, and increasingly the possibility looms of never fully breaking away from the government's tentacles no matter where they go. Ultimately, the Ex-PATRIOT Act proposes to control people by controlling their capital, and it has no place in a free society.

WHAT I THINK........HANDAN AZHAR

Earlier this month, the U.S. House of Representatives quietly passed a bill that critics insist effectively guarantees unlimited military aid to the government of Israel. HR 4133, dubbed the “United States-Israel Enhanced Security Cooperation Act of 2012,” makes it “the policy of the United States to help Israel preserve its qualitative military edge” and “to provide Israel the military capabilities necessary to deter and defend itself by itself against any threats.” The bill passed by a vote of 411-2 with 9 members voting “present.” The two “No” votes were cast by Texas Congressman and Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul and Congressman John Dingell (D-MI), former Chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee and the longest currently serving member of Congress. Mr. Paul assailed the bill for being “one-sided” and “counter-productive” and argued that it weakened the U.S.’s claims of being an honest broker seeking peace in the Middle East. He also took issue with the bill’s statement that U.S. policy should be to defend “the security of Israel as a Jewish state.” “According to our Constitution,” argued Mr. Paul, “the policy of the United States government should be to protect the security of the United States, not to guarantee the religious, ethnic, or cultural composition of a foreign country.” Philip Giraldi, the former CIA counter-terrorism analyst, slammed the secretive bill for “provid[ing] Israel with a blank check drawn on the U.S. taxpayer” and suggested that the true intent was to support Israel’s membership in NATO. “If Israel becomes part of NATO,” he said, “the U.S. and other members will be obligated to come to the aid of a nation that is expanding its borders and is currently engaged in hostilities with three of its neighbors.” The House’s passing of HR 4133 comes on the heels of the release of the House Republicans’ proposed 2013 defense authorization bill, which contains $1 billion for Israeli anti-missile defense systems, in addition to the $3 billion Israel currently receives annually in U.S. military aid. Critics also fear that the bill, with its militant anti-Iran rhetoric, brings the United States closer to war. Ron Paul was explicit in his projection that the measure would “more likely lead to war against Syria, Iran, or both.” Rep. David Price (D-NC), despite voting in favor of the bill, shared these reservations. “This bill gives little weight or emphasis to critical diplomatic and economic measures,” he observed, “and at points comes perilously close to signaling intent or support for the military option.” The bill also seems to disparage the Arab Spring and uses it as a justification for greater U.S. intervention in the Middle East. “Over the past year,” Section 2 reads, “the Middle East has witnessed the fall of some regimes long considered to be stabilizing forces and a rise in the influence of radical Islamists.” Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN), who voted “present”, expressed incredulity, asking “Do we really mean to express concern over the loss of despots like Mubarak and Gaddafi?” Rep. Justin Amash (R-MI), the freshman congressman often lauded for his constitutional conservatism, voted for the bill and came under heavy criticism on his Facebook page. “This is constitutional in connection with Congress's power to raise and support Armies,” argued Mr. Amash, a defense that was quickly rejected by most constituents. “It's constitutional to financially support foreign armies? What Constitution are you reading?” Many commentators expressed disappointment at the misallocation of resources inherent in the resolution. “It downright appalling to cut a billion dollars from Meals on Wheels and lunches for our poor kids and give the money to Israel,” said one woman. Others expressed surprise at the fundamental violation of the non-aggression principle. “Why do you use government force to take money from my pay check to send to their military? You don't see that as unethical?” The strong bipartisan support for unconditional military aid to Israel further suggests that the narrative of two diametrically opposed political parties is largely a myth. As Glenn Greenwald, among others, have eloquently pointed out, the most odious government policies in effect today – “covert endless wars, consolidation of unchecked power, the rapid growth of the Surveillance State and the secrecy regime, massive inequalities in the legal system, continuous transfers of wealth from the disappearing middle class to large corporate conglomerates” – are almost fully bipartisan in nature. Meanwhile, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) – which was reportedly extensively involved in drafting the legislation – expressed pleasure at the bill’s passing. In a statement quoted in the Jerusalem Post, AIPAC called for increased US-Israeli cooperation in the fields of “missile defense, homeland security, energy, intelligence, and cyber security.”

WHAT I THINK........ROBERT WENZEL

The Prez appears to have been quite the Hawaii pot head. Buzzfeed has what at first seems a hilarious take on the President and his serious weed smoking days. It's a must read: A User's Guide to Smoking Pot with Barack Obama. But there is another side to the story, the Prez as serious hypocrite. Firedoglake has that side of the story: Details from a new book Barack Obama: The Story contains in-depth details about his frequent marijuana use as a young man. Although Obama admitted to using marijuana in his memoir Dreams From My Father, we now learn for example that Obama was a frequently indulging aficionado who was a big fan of hot boxing in cars. While Obama's past marijuana use is treated as merely a funny anecdote, his hypocrisy on the issue of marijuana and the destruction his continued support for prohibition causes is no laughing matter. In 2010 roughly 850,000 Americans were arrested for marijuana related offenses of which the vast majority was for possession. That means since Obama took office it is likely well over 2.5 million Americans have been arrested for marijuana. Millions arrested for committing the same basic "crime" our President often committed during his youth. While Obama was lucky enough not to get a criminal record for his mostly harmless marijuana use, hundreds of thousands of other Americans this year were not as fortunate, especially young African American and Latino males who are disproportionately arrested at much higher rates for marijuana. Many of these young people will be burdened with a records that could permanently hurt their employment prospects and they will lose the federal support they need to attend college. If Obama were a young man today and got arrested for his marijuana use under our currently policy, the negative consequences from such an arrest could easily have stopped him from ever becoming President. Clearly, the actual use of marijuana didn't hurt Obama by making him less successful, but the consequences of our prohibition easily could have. But not only does Obama support maintaining this current drug policy, which is more damaging to people than the drug itself, but his administration has taken the federal war against medical marijuana to new heights. Contrast this with Ron Paul, who I seriously doubt has ever taken one puff of weed in his life. (He told me that it was only recently that he started drinking red wine.). Yet, it is Ron Paul who wants to eliminate federal drug laws. If he were president, he would pardon those in jail for federal drug offenses and disband the DEA. That's the difference between a man of principle who favors liberty for all and a scheming elitist like President Obama. Dr. Paul. just wouldn't touch weed, but as a man in favor liberty, he wouldn't bother with anyone else who chose to use it. President Obama, on the other hand, as an elitist, views himself above the law. For him to be a Hawaii pot head was just fine, but now, in power, he uses the power of federal government to crush those who now do what he did.

WHAT I THINK........PETER GRIER

The Ron Paul campaign won't run ads in upcoming primaries, but Paul is still out to make his mark at the GOP's August convention. That means getting supporters elected as delegates and even picking up some 'stealth' delegates. Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul departs after holding a rally outside Independence Hall in Philadelphia on April 22. Congressman Paul announced on May 14 that he will no longer actively campaign in upcoming primary states. Is Ron Paul ending his official campaign for the Republican presidential nomination? That seems to be case, as he announced Monday that he won’t be spending any more money in states that have not yet voted. That would mean no Ron Paul ads in Texas, no Ron Paul travel to California, no Ron Paul pamphlets in Kentucky, and in general no Paul presence on the stump. Continuing on “with any hope of success would take many tens of millions of dollars we simply do not have,” said Congressman Paul in a statement posted Monday on his campaign website. However, does the end of the Ron Paul campaign mean the end of the Ron Paul 2012 effort? We would argue that it does not. Paul will continue to look for ways to make headlines and press forward to some sort of appearance at the GOP’s August convention in Tampa, Fla. Why do we think this? First, Paul said so. In his statement today, he noted that “we will continue to take leadership positions, win delegates, and carry a strong message to the Republican National Convention that Liberty is the way of the future." Obviously, the Paul campaign will continue with its strategy of urging supporters to swamp state conventions and get themselves elected delegates to the national confab. As we’ve written before, this is a clever, cheap way of using complicated delegate-allocation rules to Paul’s advantage. What the Texas libertarian may be doing is amassing “stealth delegates” – delegates bound by primary or caucus vote to Mitt Romney, or one of the withdrawn GOP candidates, who are personally in favor of Paul. It’s hard to count how many such delegates there are – or whether they’ll abstain in the first round, or otherwise cause some sort of disturbance, in Tampa. OK, Paul is not exactly winning the nomination this way. The 192 delegates at stake in California – a state Paul is no longer contesting – are more then he’ll pick up with his state convention-packing approach. But – and this is our second point – we think Paul will still continue with a quasi-campaign. Sure, he may take time off, but for the most part he was already appearing at college campuses and other places where he might have gone in any case to push his libertarian agenda. There was something sly in his announcement Monday – he said he didn’t have the “tens of millions” of bucks needed to keep going. He has millions in the bank, however, as near as we can determine, and that’s enough to keep him from fading away this election cycle. If he doesn’t want to, that is. Just look at his most recent money figures, as crunched by the Center for Responsive Politics. At the end of March, Paul had $1.8 million in cash on hand, with no debt. He’d raised more than $2 million in the preceding 30 days. Yes, that was a month and a half ago. It’s still plenty of cash for him to jet around and appear where and when he wants to, particularly since we suspect he’s still raising a steady stream of cash from small donations to his online “money bombs.” So what’s ending? Ron Paul TV ads. Look at Paul’s expenditures this campaign cycle, and you’ll see that he has spent $15 million on communications and media services. That figure is equal to about 40 percent of the total $37 million he’s raised. Mr. Romney is going to be the GOP nominee, so there’s really no point in Paul wasting money on expensive air time in upcoming primary states. Instead, he can now husband his resources to continue to build his base of committed supporters. He’s spent less than $2 million on air charters in the whole campaign, so continued travel to selected appearances shouldn’t be a financial strain. So the official Ron Paul presidential campaign may be over. But we don’t think that’s the same thing as an end to the Ron Paul effort to push his agenda in the months ahead.

WHAT I THINK........THOMAS EDDLEM

Texas Congressman Ron Paul emerged from the Minnesota state Republican Party convention in St. Cloud with a clean sweep, winning nearly all the national convention delegates available for his presidential campaign in addition to a party endorsement of the Paul-aligned U.S. Senate candidate Kurt Bills. According to the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Paul's campaign organized at the precinct, congressional, and state levels to win the 13 delegates chosen May 19 at the state convention. One Paul-aligned prospective delegate graciously stepped aside — resulting in Paul garnering 12 of the 13 available slots — so local Congresswoman and former presidential candidate Michele Bachmann could attend the Tampa national convention as a delegate. Overall, including delegates won prior to the state convention, the Paul campaign has claimed 32 of the 40 national delegates selected in Minnesota, a state where Paul had handily lost the caucus to Rick Santorum. But winning over GOP presidential delegates is only part of Paul's agenda. He intends to influence local political races, in addition to independents and Democrats. “There is a revolution in ideas going on,” Representative Paul told the audience to raucous applause in a May 18 evening speech, “and isn't a narrow revolution. It isn't just a conservative group in the Republican Party. It's much, much bigger than this. I am convinced that we have good support in the Republican Party for liberty ideas. But I am convinced ... for every vote we get in the Republican primaries that there are at least two votes who are independent or even Democrats who will look at these serious principles of limited government, personal liberty, less war and doing something with the Federal Reserve system.” While Paul's presidential nomination by the GOP is not likely to happen, his movement has seen stunning successes in congressional primaries and nomination of state party leadership. “I was glad to see my son win,” Paul told the audience. “And I'd be glad to see Kurt Bills win.” Bills had received the endorsement of Congressman Ron Paul as well as the endorsement of Paul's son, Kentucky Senator Rand Paul. Minnesota State House Speaker Kurt Zellers had also thrown his political weight behind Bills. Rep. Bills' endorsement by the Minnesota GOP convention had been expected, but not not his overwhelming victory against better-funded opponents. According to the Minnesota's Bemidji Pioneer for May 19: “It wasn’t close among the 2,000 state convention delegates: Bills won with 64 percent of state party convention vote, well ahead of 21 percent for Dan Severson and 15 percent for Pete Hegseth.” Even establishment GOP officials applauded the Bills endorsement. “Congratulations to Kurt Bills on receiving the Republican endorsement to run for U.S. Senate,” Minnesota GOP Chairman Pat Shortridge and Deputy Chairwoman Kelly Fenton wrote in a press release after the endorsement. “Minnesota conservatives are united behind Kurt and are willing to work hard on his behalf to ensure we send someone to Washington who is willing to make the tough decisions necessary to getting our country back on track.” Bills, a high school economics teacher and first-term state representative, will still have to survive a three-way August 14, 2012 primary against establishment candidates former State Representative Dan “Doc” Severson and Iraq War veteran Pete Hegseth (a Council on Foreign Relations member and contributor to the neoconservative magazine National Review). “What America needs is a good dose of ECON 101, and I’m going to bring that to Washington,” Bills stated after the party endorsement. Bills labeled incumbent Democratic Party Senator Amy Klobuchar, who had a $5-million campaign war chest at the end of March and no serious primary opposition, an Obama “clone.” In related news, the Ron Paul presidential campaign continued its grassroots efforts to maximize its delegate influence at the Tampa GOP national convention by organizing to pick up delegates in Michigan this weekend. “The rules were rigged against us in Michigan,” Ron Paul campaign spokesman Doug Wead wrote on his blog, “but still we won national delegates.” Ron Paul had finished a distant third in the February 28 primary in Michigan, after presumed nominee and former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney and former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum. Wead claimed the Paul campaign had secured six or more delegates, even though Paul's primary vote percentages guaranteed him no delegates at all.

ON INDEFINITE DETENTION: THE TYRANNY CONTINUES

The bad news from last week's passage of the 2013 National Defense Authorization Act is that Americans can still be arrested on US soil and detained indefinitely without trial. Some of my colleagues would like us to believe that they fixed last year's infamous Sections 1021 and 1022 of the NDAA, which codified into law the unconstitutional notion that some Americans are not subject to the protections of the Constitution. However, nothing in this year's bill or amendments to the bill restored those constitutional rights. Supporters of the one amendment that passed on this matter were hoping no one would notice that it did absolutely nothing. The amendment essentially stated that those entitled to habeas corpus protections are hereby granted habeas corpus protections. Thanks for nothing! As Steve Vladeck, of American University's law school, wrote of this amendment: "[T]he Gohmert Amendment does nothing whatsoever to address the central objections.... [I]t merely provides by statute a remedy that is already available to individuals detained within the United States; and says nothing about the circumstances in which individuals might actually be subject to military detention when arrested within the territory of United States.... Anyone within the United States who was subject to military detention before the FY2013 NDAA would be subject to it afterwards, as well..." Actually, the amendment in question makes matters worse, as it states that anyone detained on US soil has the right to file a writ of habeas corpus "within 30 days" of arrest. In fact, persons detained on US soil already have the right to file a habeas petition immediately upon arrest! I co-sponsored an amendment offered by Reps. Adam Smith and Justin Amash that would have repealed the unconstitutional provisions of last year's NDAA by eliminating Section 1022 on mandatory military detention and modifying Section 1021 to make it absolutely clear that no one can be apprehended on US soil and held indefinitely without trial or be held subject to a military tribunal. Our language was clear: "No person detained, captured, or arrested in the United States, or a territory or possession of the United States, may be transferred to the custody of the Armed Forces for detention under the Authorization for Use of Military Force, this Act, or the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2013." The term "person" is key in our amendment, as our Founders did not make a distinction between citizens and non-citizens when determining who was entitled to Constitutional protections. As the father of the Constitution James Madison wrote, "[I]t does not follow, because aliens are not parties to the Constitution, as citizens are parties to it, that whilst they actually conform to it, they have no right to its protection." We should not forget that our Article III court system is a strength not a weakness. The right to face our accuser, the protections against hearsay evidence, the right to a jury trial – these are designed to protect the innocent and to determine and then punish guilt. And they have been quite successful thus far. Currently there are more than 300 individuals who have been tried and convicted of terrorism-related charges serving lengthy terms in US federal prisons. Each of the six individuals tried in US civilian courts for the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center are serving hundreds of years in prison, for example. Last week was discouraging and disappointing to those of us who value our Constitution. That the US government asserts the legal authority to pick up Americans within the United States and hold them indefinitely and secretly without a trial should be incredibly disturbing to all of us. Americans should check how their representative voted. Politicians should not be allowed to get away with undermining our liberties in this manner.

WHAT I THINK......BRIAN DOHERTY

Just like he told you, Ron Paul is continuing to rack up delegates and outright state wins in his continuing race for the Republican Party presidential nomination. In the Minnesota state Republican Party convention on Saturday, he came out controlling 32 of 40 delegates from the state. The Park Rapids Enterprise reports on how Paul, who showed up to talk to his people at the convention the day before the final delegate vote, was received: To chants of “President Paul,” 2,000 Minnesota convention delegates welcomed the Texas congressman and presidential candidate. “There are a lot of friends of liberty in this town,” Paul said.... U.S. Senate candidate Kurt Bills endorsed Paul and Paul endorsed Bills. The Senate candidate said he will continue to back Paul until he is out of the race. Several convention observers said that while Paul was well received, they did not hear probable Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney mentioned during the day-long convention. Paul, who finished second to Rick Santorum in this year’s precinct caucuses, told the Republicans that it is not just their party that latches onto his ideas. “It is much, much bigger than this,” he added, saying that independents “and even Democrats” support his ideas. Things have changed for Paul since 2008 as his liberty movement grows: Paul’s Friday appearance was in stark contrast to four years ago, when he was banned from speaking to the Minnesota convention in Rochester. Instead, he talked in a light rain outside the convention center. Many of the 2,000 convention delegates attended a state event for the first time. A Paul campaign press release sums up all the good news for the campaign over the weekend, in a long game that extends beyond Tampa in August: In Minnesota, Paul organizers won a decisive 12 of 13 delegates to the RNC at the Rivers Edge Convention Center in St. Cloud, wrapping up the North Star State’s two-tier nominating contest. Earlier this spring, Paul supporters won 20 of 24 delegates at district conventions. In all, the Paul camp has swept the state of Minnesota winning 32 of the state’s 40 national delegates. In addition to Paul’s consequential victory in Minnesota, Paul organizers won delegates in Mitt Romney’s home state of Michigan. There, Paul supporters estimate that they have won eight voting slots plus one non-voting delegate and 11 alternates. Of the 14 Congressional District voting contests held this weekend, Paul organizers won RNC delegates in the 1st, 2nd, 4th, 6th, and 9th Districts, denying Detroit-born Romney a clean sweep of his home state. The Michigan victory occurred despite a heavy Romney campaign presence promoting a win for the establishment pick and presumptive nominee. At the Vermont Republican State Convention this weekend, Ron Paul supporters won two of 14 national delegates, with two more considered potential allies, and they won 10 of 14 alternates. In all, Vermont has 17 delegates including super delegates. Finally in Virginia, 11 district conventions have been taking place in recent weeks and have ended this weekend. In those contests Ron Paul supporters won 17 of 33 national delegates selected, with the remainder of the state’s 49 delegates including super delegates to be selected at the June 16th state convention. Also in Virginia, Paul supporters elected a Republican Congressional District Chair in the Third District, over a dozen liberty-oriented Republican State Central Committee Members five of whom are Ron Paul supporters, dozens of Republican county and city committee chairs, and hundreds of county and city committee members. From the Alaska Dispatch via Christian Science Monitor, a fair summation of where the campaign stands now: [I]n Minnesota Saturday[,]“The Paul crowd pulled off a bloodless coup,” the St. Paul Pioneer Press reported. “Unlike other states where brawls broke out between Paul fans and Romney supporters, the Minnesota convention was a relatively civil affair. There were no fistfights or shouting matches on the convention floor.” In a nutshell, that sums up what Rep. Paul needs to do as the Republican Party works its way toward the nominating convention in August: Keep supporters of his “revolution” revved up, laying the groundwork for what he hopes will be a prominent role in Tampa, Fla., while not coming across as a political curmudgeon trying to undermine the candidacy of presumed front-runner Mitt Romney (with whom, it’s been reported, he has a good personal relationship)..... "The ball is in the court of the Republican Party and the court of Mitt Romney," Jesse Benton, national chairman of Paul's campaign, told reporters this past week. "We're bringing forward an attitude of respect, and we're also bringing forward some very specific things that we believe in. If our people are treated with respect, if our ideas, their ideas are embraced and treated seriously and treated with respect, I think the Republican Party will have a very good chance to pick up a substantial number of our votes." "On the flip side," Benton warned, "if they're treated like they were in 2008, a lot of people are going to stay home and a lot of people are going to sit on their hands.".... “Ron Paul started what his supporters call a revolution,” Maggie Haberman and Emily Shultheis observe on Politico.com. “Now, that revolution is threatening to march on without him.” Which seems to be exactly what Paul wants.

WHAT I THINK........DALE SINNER

A few days ago, US Senator Ron Paul announced he would stop campaigning in Republican primaries in states that had not yet voted. The campaign simply doesn't have the millions of dollars it takes to compete any further. The announcement comes as a giant "I told you so" for swaths of American media pundits, Democratic and Republican party stalwarts and others who wrote Paul off long ago - like he was just some kind of footnote. I doubt he'll be considered a footnote in the future. I'm not sure I ever really thought he could win -- I'm far too cynical for that. But the notion still made me feel a twinge of optimism for the country that it could grow up, take the pain for its colossal bad choices and set itself on course towards a future that doesn't include destroying itself. Now I know I shouldn't have given even that slight optimism the tiniest consideration. Paul's announcement made me feel a nagging dread, like something horrible has just taken place but we don't really know it yet. For most people, Paul's quiet announcement probably came like the gentle puff of air you feel when a door is closed. You may not have even noticed it. I have the awful feeling that Ron Paul may have been America's Ernst Röhm. For those of you unfamiliar with German history, Ernst Röhm was the last man with enough political power to thwart Adolf Hitler. That's why Hitler had him arrested on June 30, 1934 and shot dead in his jail cell a few days later. Röhm's death enabled Hitler to pursue the colossal public/private partnership with big business we now call fascism. German corporate giants then had a hugely profitable ten-year run manufacturing the wares of war - at the ultimate price of their own nation's sovereignty, inestimable suffering and the deaths of millions. The state-sponsored socialism Röhm had intended to benefit German workers Hitler instead diverted to Germany's wealthiest businessmen in a political compromise that cemented Hitler's grip over the nation and birthed a short-lived bacchanal of profit and perversion in the service of death. Nearly 80 years later, we may have just seen Ron Paul occupying a role similar to Röhm's. Senator Paul may have been the last political leader with any chance of slowing America's seemingly inexorable march into corporate statism. Don't get me wrong. I don't mean to suggest Paul is a national savior. Even if he won the nomination, the presidency and had a congress that cooperated with him, America's problems would still be huge. His plans for shrinking the government (isn't that what Republicans used to stand for?), ending the Federal Reserve and re-directing America's military would cause a lot of economic disruption, upheaval and pain. Ron Paul does not have all the answers. No one does. I also do not mean to suggest any link whatsoever between the politics of Röhm - a 1930s German Nazi - and Paul, a dedicated, American Republican, Libertarian and Constitutionalist. What I do suggest is that Paul is perhaps the only voice left on the national stage who speaks to Americans like an adult - and he has done so his entire career. Ron Paul knows that if President Obama is returned to office or if Mitt Romney wins the White House, America's trajectory toward a 21st Century version of elite corporate fascism will continue apace - laying waste to any hope for the vast majority of Americans to ever improve their economic lot in life. Here's what I mean. Both Obama and Romney are committed to the same policy of war-without-end, deficit spending, financial sector bail-out largesse and security state oppression that made the Bush presidency the historically unprecedented disaster for America that it was - and the Obama presidency an equally, perhaps even more disastrous, sequel. Both administrations have doomed most Americans living now, their children, and perhaps even their children's children to serfdom, ever-rising levels of taxation and debt without end. And that could be the best fate we could hope for with Obama in a second term, or Romney occupying the White House. The worst fate is war. Not the war of expedience that had the world's one remaining military colossus raining fire on an already beaten, pathetic tin pot dictatorship or the invasion and occupation of an impoverished, stricken land still trapped in the 12th Century, but War with a capital W. Perhaps even World War III. President Obama, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and other representatives of the elite insist "everything is on the table" vis-à-vis preventing Iran from developing a nuclear weapon, while at the same time conceding that there is no evidence it is actually doing so. Romney, who even supported the Vietnam war draft as a 19-year-old in 1966 (though exempt due to his status as a "Mormon missionary"), has promised that if elected he would do anything to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon. The rest of the world isn't having it. Russia and China have both warned that an attack on Iran would result in "devastating" consequences. At the BRICS forum in New Delhi this past March, member nations (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) issued a joint statement condemning American military threats against Iran. Those nations and others have ignored US-imposed economic sanctions and bought Iranian oil using creative barter and alternative currency deals - including paying for oil in rice, rupees and gold instead of dollars. War - to people like Obama, Romney and the people they serve - doesn't mean death or misery or lost limbs and minds. It doesn't mean a soldier's life, a mother or a father's life, or a child's life blasted to liquid or left wasting away toward death. It means something altogether different. It means the creation of artificial demand for certain favored sectors and a jump-start to a languishing economy. It means teaching the world that it will continue to pay for oil in US dollars or else. It means distracting a restless populace from the meaninglessness of their decaying lives into a rally around a flag and the cause of patriotism to justify even more sacrifice. It means a rising stock market and arms company stock price windfalls - like the millions of taxpayer funded war largesse the Bush family clan reaped out of their Carlyle Group holdings along with their Saudi counterparts the bin Ladens. And with concentrated effort and a bit of luck, war means the wholesale capture of human and mineral resources at a non-negotiated, discounted price - arguably its ultimate aim. Alternatively, it can even mean demand destruction - providing the means to regroup and reallocate resources according to the dictates of the executive in a planned economy or a command economy. For many in the privileged class, war presents a cornucopia of enticements that woo and intoxicate them into a delirium of self-righteous rigidity, of arrogance and exceptionalism, of paranoid rationalization, of lust for power and control, of hunger for violence and, ultimately, into a delirium of insanity. Not that they recognize the steps they take into their internal, self-reinforcing worlds of delusion. Bush didn't. Both Obama and Romney appear to believe the money supply can be expanded indefinitely, even infinitely until "growth" - whatever that means in the world of inflation and international conflict they create - enables the pay down of government debt. And this at the same time that Obama expands entitlement spending while ever so gently trimming the rate of growth in military spending... or that Romney extends the Bush tax cuts for the richest Americans, while simultaneously tying military spending to a fixed percentage of GDP - guaranteeing ever rising, crushing tax burdens for the rest of Americans. Both are insane fantasies --- the dreams of fascists. They may not look it, but many Americans believe President Barack Obama and Republican candidate for president Mitt Romney are brothers --- comrades in arms, if you like. Some even refer to the two men as one --- "Obamney," or sometimes, "Robama." The abject lack of choice is the last straw for an increasing numbers of Americans who are voting with their feet and simply leaving the country. Some leave for better opportunities abroad. Some are even renouncing their citizenship because the United States is one of the few countries in the world that taxes its citizens living abroad for even moderate incomes earned abroad and is making banking, tax filing and other tax compliance rules so complicated, so burdensome that many non-US banks now simply refuse to let Americans open accounts with them. It just isn't worth the hassle. Some simply hate the direction America has taken in recent years and refuse on moral grounds to take any further part in it. Ron Paul's announcement makes me feel like I should play my old Al Stewart record one last time and say goodbye. I'll close the door gently.

THE FED: MEND IT OR END IT?

Last week I held a hearing to examine the various proposals that have been put forth both to mend and to end the Fed. The purpose was to spur a vigorous and long-lasting discussion about the Fed's problems, hopefully leading to concrete actions to rein in the Fed. First, it is important to understand the Federal Reserve System. Some people claim it is a secret cabal of elite bankers, while others claim it is part of the federal government. In reality it is a bit of both. The Federal Reserve System is the collusion of big government and big business to profit at the expense of taxpayers. The Fed's bailout of large banks during the financial crisis propped up poorly-run corporations that should have gone under, giving them a market-distorting advantage that no business in the United States should receive. The recent news about JP Morgan is a case in point. JP Morgan, a recipient of $25 billion in bailout money, recently announced it lost another $2 billion. If a corporation shows itself to be a bottomless money pit of "errors, sloppiness and bad judgment," the Fed shouldn't have expected $25 billion in free money to change that or teach anyone a lesson in fiscal discipline. But it determined that this form of deliberate capital destruction was preferable to one business suffering bankruptcy. Clearly, some changes need to be made. Several reforms for the Fed were discussed at the hearing. One was a call for the full employment mandate to be repealed, in order to allow the Fed to focus solely on stable prices. Another reform calls for changes to the composition of the Federal Open Market Committee. Still another proposal was for outright nationalization of the Fed or of its functions. But if what the Fed does now is bad and inflationary, allowing the Treasury to print and issue money at-will would be even worse, and could possibly lead to a Weimar-like hyperinflation. The problems and advantages of the gold standard were discussed at the hearing. The era of the classical gold standard was undoubtedly one of the greatest eras in human history. For a period of several decades in the late 19th century, the West made enormous advances. However, the gold standard was still run by government. The temptation to suspend gold redemption reared its head again with the outbreak of World War I. Once the tie to gold was severed and fiscal restraint thrown to the wind, undoing the damage would have required great fiscal austerity. Instead, the Western world proceeded to set up a gold-exchange standard which lasted not even a decade before easy money led to the Great Depression. While returning to the gold standard would certainly be far better than maintaining the current fiat paper system, as long as the government retains the power to go off gold we may end up repeating the same mistakes. The only viable solution is to get government out of the money business permanently. The way to bring this about is through currency competition: allow parallel currencies to circulate without receiving any special recognition or favor from the government. Fiat paper monetary standards throughout history have always collapsed due to their inflationary nature, and our current fiat paper standard will be no different. It is imperative that the American people be educated on the dangers of the Fed and the importance of restoring sound money. The laying of the groundwork must begin today, so that the American people will be prepared for the day when the mirage the Fed has created evaporates completely. The full hearing footage is available on my website and I would encourage every American to take a look.

NO WAR

I rise in opposition to HR 4133, the United States-Israel Enhanced Security Cooperation Act, which unfortunately is another piece of one-sided and counter-productive foreign policy legislation. This bill's real intent seems to be more saber-rattling against Iran and Syria, and it undermines US diplomatic efforts by making clear that the US is not an honest broker seeking peace for the Middle East. The bill calls for the United States to significantly increase our provision of sophisticated weaponry to Israel, and states that it is to be US policy to "help Israel preserve its qualitative military edge" in the region. While I absolutely believe that Israel – and any other nation – should be free to determine for itself what is necessary for its national security, I do not believe that those decisions should be underwritten by US taxpayers and backed up by the US military. This bill states that it is the policy of the United States to "reaffirm the enduring commitment of the United States to the security of the State of Israel as a Jewish state." However, according to our Constitution the policy of the United States government should be to protect the security of the United States, not to guarantee the religious, ethnic, or cultural composition of a foreign country. In fact, our own Constitution prohibits the establishment of any particular religion in the US. More than 20 years after the reason for NATO's existence – the Warsaw Pact – has disappeared, this legislation seeks to find a new mission for that anachronistic alliance: the defense of Israel. Calling for "an expanded role for Israel within the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), including an enhanced presence at NATO headquarters and exercises," it reads like a dream for interventionists and the military industrial complex. As I have said many times, NATO should be disbanded not expanded. This bill will not help the United States, it will not help Israel, and it will not help the Middle East. It will implicitly authorize much more US interventionism in the region at a time when we cannot afford the foreign commitments we already have. It more likely will lead to war against Syria, Iran, or both. I urge my colleagues to vote against this bill.

WHAT I THINK........ADAM SPARKS

It's hard for outsiders to understand the world of Ron Paul. Friedrich Hayek, Ludwig von Mises, and Murray Rothbard – Austrian School economists whose ideas form the basis of Paul's ideology – are not exactly household names, and the vast majority of us make it out of high school (and college for that matter) without hearing one word about the Federal Reserve. It's not surprising, then, that it takes a certain skill to whip a Ron Paul rally into a frenzy. So if you're looking to please a crowd of a couple thousand people holding Ron Paul signs in front of the Texas Capital and don't know exactly what to say, here's a start: Don't just stand there bashing Barack Obama. Paul supporters have bigger fish to fry. Last Sunday, Ron Paul was back in Austin headlining a Tea Party rally on the steps of the Capitol. Paul's supporters launched the Tea Party movement back in the 2008 election cycle, but, by the 2010 midterm elections, the Party (or at least a large segment of it) had been co-opted by the traditional right. Amy Kremer, spokesperson for the Tea Party Express – which was organizing Sunday's rally – and one of the emcees for the event, rattled off the traditional Tea Party rhetoric (Obama is evil, Obama sucks, Obamacare is an unconscionable travesty). The crowd was almost comically un-enthused by her tired Republican talking points; by the end of her speech, Kremer couldn't go a minute without the crowd erupting into chants of "Ron Paul, Ron Paul, Ron Paul!" As a general rule in life, you should do everything in your power not to rub Ron Paul supporters the wrong way. This can occur A) at rallies where Dr. Paul is to speak, and B) on the Internet, which, if comment boards are to be trusted, is populated entirely by Paul diehards. Amy Kremer made the first mistake, fighting against the tide when all everyone really wanted to do was chant "End the Fed!" I made the second mistake, last week when I wrote an article about Paul's visit to UT. If you only have time to read one more article on Ron Paul today, skip that one and head right to the comments. They are much more enjoyable (and much more informative) than anything I had to say. Basically, some readers felt that I was dismissive of Dr. Paul and that my article was "condescending," "uninformed" and "bloviated" (suggestion: calling someone's writing "bloviated" is pretty much automatically, well, bloviating). There was talk of unsubscribing from CultureMap. There was talk of sticking firecrackers up my "Soviet, Mainstream Media ass." But here's the kicker with all of this (and why I was caught so off guard): I like Ron Paul. I publicly supported the good doctor while in college, and I still like him. (Don't believe me? Take a look at this, or this). My 2008 student rhetoric notwithstanding, I've continued to follow Paul's candidacy as he injected worthwhile arguments into a Republican primary that would have otherwise been focused solely on Newt Gingrich's marital trysts, Rick Santorum's religious fervor and Mitt Romney's tax return. Ron Paul is misunderstood, and it's time to address these misunderstandings. To his detractors, Ron Paul is a kook from a century back who hoards gold, courts racists and wants to isolate America from the rest of the world. With this in mind, they ignore him and his ideas like they do their crazy uncle at Christmas. To his supporters, Ron Paul is Thomas Jefferson incarnate, the unappreciated truth-teller crusading against tyranny, oppression and collapse. This idealized assessment gives an "us vs. them" mentality that so often steals the spotlight away from the very ideas they are trying to promote. Both sides need to reconsider the liberty-loving Congressman from Texas. Here's where to start: To Ron Paul's Detractors First and foremost, Ron Paul is not a politician. He does not entertain lobbyists, never (ever) flip flops and doesn't tell crowds what they want to hear. His honesty and conviction are, in my opinion, the most refreshing breath of fresh air in American politics since George Washington came clean about the cherry tree. There is no media-speak with Ron Paul; every sentence from his mouth is a well thought out piece of his philosophy rather than a focus group-tested phrase developed by a New York PR firm. Moreover, the guy is an honest-to-goodness sweetheart. He is gentle, sincere and honest. He is your grandpa (or at least what your grandpa would be if he laid off the booze). Ron Paul does not want to run your life. He does not want to tell you who you can marry, what you can smoke or how to educate your children. He is a vision of the Republican Party without the likes of Sarah Palin and Rick Santorum. Ron Paul believes in freedom – economic freedom and individual freedom. Ultimately, the arguments against both economic and individual freedom are that we are not ready for them. With every new social policy comes the bold statement that we as Americans cannot handle individual freedom. If left to ourselves, we will gamble off our money, save nothing for retirement, become addicted to drugs, live without health insurance and abuse our children. We as Americans enjoy the greatest freedom that has ever been given to a people in the history of civilization. It is our duty as Americans to live up to the ideals of freedom, and it is the responsibility of our leaders to inspire us to achieve those ideals. Paul presents us with the standard that he believes we must never lose sight of: The moment we begin to believe that the populace cannot take care of itself is the moment when it truly won't be able to. The same is true for our money. All the Republican presidential candidates already agree that the federal government is out of control monetarily. But Ron Paul is the only person on either side of the aisle willing to talk about significant cuts to the federal government. Yes, he wants to cut the Republican favorites (Departments of Education, Commerce, Energy, Interior, and Housing and Urban Services), but he also is the lone voice in Congress for drastically scaling back the U.S. Military. We have troops in 130 countries across the globe. There are only 196 countries in the world. We spend around $700 billion every year on military spending. The rest of the world spends $958 billion, combined. While this slight disadvantage might be a bit concerning if we were ever planning to declare war on the entire world at once, it’s time to reconsider our foreign policy objectives. The philosophy of Ron Paul is expansive and, at times, arcane, but he should not be ignored. The man has ideas, ideas that harken back to the founding of our country. Paul's true love is monetary policy (see his recent debate with Paul Krugman for a good primer), but he has enough to offer without having to delve into Austrian economics and the gold standard (although, to be perfectly honest, all of Paul's ideas are rooted in his view of the free market). Listen to what Ron Paul has to say. Even if you think his ideas are pie in the sky, don't we need a dose of idealism in a world of stark pragmatism? His ideas are inherently American, honestly defended, and passionately dedicated to the ideas of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. To Ron Paul's Supporters My dear liberty-lovers, I ask that you do not fill the comments section with accusations of what a moronic douche I am. I am not the Mainstream Media, nor am I uneducated about what Ron Paul stands for. Methinks you abuse the comment section too freely. Manners do not need to go out the window just because we are on the internet. With that said, there must be an understanding of both Ron Paul the man and Ron Paul the philosophy. I understand that a major part of the appeal of Dr. Paul is that he backs up his philosophy with his actions and that he does not try and flip flop his way to political stardom. But at the same time, Ron Paul is not the person who will lead the liberty movement to the forefront of American politics. Paul can be the rock upon which libertarian change is brought to America. But he will not bring it himself. Contrary to what many of you honestly and sincerely believe, Ron Paul will not be our next president (While not unimportant, if the delegate selection process really had a chance of altering the outcome of the election, don't you think any of the other candidates would be giving it a shot?). In all honesty, this is not the point. Ron Paul is not (ultimately) running to become president. Ron Paul believes wholeheartedly in the idea of true and all-encompassing liberty, and he has used the largest stage available to him, the Republican primary, to make his voice heard. This is OK. Ron Paul does not need to be president to be a phenomenal success. Paul will be a success if you vote (and not just in presidential races). Paul will be a success if you run for school board, or city council, or state congress. Paul is not about calling those with whom you disagree names, he is not about shoving it in the face of pompous demagogues on Fox News. Ron Paul is about the American ideal – what America can achieve if we stay true to the idea of freedom. Back to the Steps of the Capitol With Amy Kremer finally off the stage, Ron Paul's son, the junior senator from Kentucky, Rand Paul, took the stage. Of all that Ron Paul has done, Rand's election to the senate is far and away the most legitimate pragmatically. Rand's more polished speaking style loses him a bit of the sincerity that so attracts people to his father, but, for all intents and purposes, the future of the Ron Paul Revolution is on his shoulders. Next up was Ted Cruz, the main challenger to the presumptive Republican front-runner, lieutenant governor David Dewhurst, for the senate seat being vacated by Kay Bailey Hutchison. An endorsement by the Paul's carries a significant advantage, and don't think Cruz doesn't know it. When Ron Paul took the stage, the crowd let loose. Their love for the seventy-six year old obstetrician is unlike anything else in American politics. His speech was sharper than it was last week at UT, but it was still classic Paul: folksy, sincere, and single-minded. Liberty, liberty and liberty. Catching site of the "RAW MILK" sign once again, Paul couldn't help but comment on the simple yet fundamental message that the freedom to drink raw milk carries. To quote Paul: "A true revolution has to be ideological. Revolutions can be violent, they can overthrow a government with nothing really improved. An ideologically positive revolution is what is necessary, and that's what we have going in this country. "We may lose a battle here or there. But ultimately we are going to win the war because we are winning the hearts and minds of the American people. The real reason for this is that I can't imagine people not wanting to maximize our chances of having peace and prosperity. That should be our goal. It can be achieved in a free society; it is never achieved in a totalitarian society. "So often the opposition will accuse us, as Paul Krugman said the other day, 'You want to go back 100 years!' No, authoritarians want to go back 1,000 years or 2,000 years. The dictators and the pharaohs and the kings have been around for a long, long time. Freedom is a new idea; it was really developed in this country. We have lost our way, but we can find our way again, and that is what is happening now!"

WHAT I THINK.........THOMAS EDDLEM

Ron Paul forces staged organizational coups this weekend in Nevada and Maine, where they won a majority of the delegates who will represent their states at the Republican National Convention in Tampa. In addition, Paul won most of the delegates thus far selected by the Iowa GOP. The coups follow up Paul campaign victories a week earlier in Louisiana and Massachusetts, where Paul supporters dominated district caucuses. In Massachusetts, where Mitt Romney won the primary by a huge margin earlier in the year, all Ron Paul supporters chosen as delegates to the national convention are pledged to vote for Romney on the first ballot. In Nevada, most of the Paul delegates are bound to support Romney on the first ballot. However, in other states, such as Maine and Iowa, the delegates are not bound by the earlier state contests. The Portland Press-Herald reported May 5 that Paul supporters in Maine succeeding in electing their own state convention chairman over the GOP establishment's choice by a mere four votes, demonstrating their clout and setting the tone for the rest of the convention. “Paul supporter Brent Tweed edged Charles Cragin 1,118 to 1,114 in a very close vote,” the Portland Press-Herald reported. The two-day convention then went on to elect as delegates 21 Paul supporters who will comprise 87.5 percent of the state's 24-member delegation to Tampa. This lop-sided Paul victory occurred despite a narrow official Romney win of about 100 votes in caucuses earlier in the year (though there were numerous voting irregularities that could have changed the vote total). Paul supporters have essentially taken over the Maine GOP, though some Paul supporters found the term a bit dramatic. “Takeover is strong word; we’re all registered Republicans here,” Paul supporter Matthew McDonald told the Bangor Daily News. “But Chairman Webster called Ron Paul supporters wingnuts, he saw us as a fringe minority; now we hold the power of the convention.” In Nevada, the same happened May 5-6. The Ron Paul campaign won 22 of the 28 Nevada delegates and gained control of much of the state and municipal party leadership. And Paul supporters accomplished this despite threats from the Republican National Committee not to nominate too many Ron Paul supporters and some fraud by Romney supporters. Some Romney supporters at the Reno convention distributed a fake slate of Ron Paul supporters seeking delegate spots to blunt the Paul assault. “The list included some Paul supporters but hidden among the Paul supporters were obvious Romney supporters,” according to Ray Hagar of the Reno Gazette-Journal. Because Romney won the caucus earlier in the year, the RNC faxed a letter last week demanding that “an authorized representative of the presidential campaign that the delegate or prospective delegate professes to support should be allowed to confirm whether or not the delegate is an actual supporter” of the campaign he's nominally representing. In other words, the RNC demanded that “Romney” delegates be selected by the Romney campaign, rather than merely Ron Paul delegates who have pledged to support Romney on the first ballot. But the state convention did not bow to the RNC, and Nevada Ron Paul Chairman Carl Bunce sloughed off the letter as “a creative writing assignment given to them by the Romney campaign to threaten the Paul supporters and Ron Paul campaign. It’s ridiculous. It is nothing more than a veiled threat.” The Reno Gazette-Journal revealed, “No matter who is elected as national delegates, 20 of them will be bound by RNC rules to vote for Romney on the first ballot at the national convention, and eight will vote for Paul.” But that doesn't mean delegates would be bound to their alleged candidate after the first ballot. Ironically, the Ron Paul campaign is benefiting from changes many state GOP organizations made in their convention rules in 2009-11. Many of these rule changes were enacted to benefit former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney (see here and here), who was the presumed nominee with what most believed to be the best party organization in every state from his 2008 run. But Ron Paul had retained his organization from the 2008 race, and is out-organizing Romney supporters. In Iowa, where the state GOP has not yet held its state convention but did select some delegates this weekend, the Des Moines Register reported that most of them are Ron Paul supporters: “Of the 13 delegates and 13 alternates elected today [Saturday, May 5] for the national convention, just one has publicly endorsed Mitt Romney for president — Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad. And just three others publicly supported Rick Santorum, who won the Iowa caucuses but is no longer in the race.... Ten of the 13 [delegates] have expressed public support for Paul, such as by donating money or volunteering for his campaign.” The Des Moines Register concluded that “Paul, who won third place in the Iowa caucuses, could end up with the best Iowa representation at the national convention when it comes time to vote for the GOP presidential nominee.”

WHAT I THINK.........MICHAEL SCHEUER

Ron Paul’s treatment by mainstream media, other Republican hopefuls, and the punditry makes me think the W.B. Yeats lines “Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world” also describe the year 2012 in the United States. Indeed, Paul’s experience in the nomination campaign suggests U.S. politics lacks reasoned substance, common sense, and an understanding of what America’s Founding Fathers intended. Open up any newspaper to see the mess America has sunk itself into around the world: for example, facing off with China over a lone, non-American dissident whose safety has no relation to U.S. security. Yet today, Paul’s call for staying out of other people’s wars unless genuine U.S. national interests are at stake is deemed radical, immoral, even anti-American. Amazing. If elected president, Paul’s most valuable contribution to a prosperous and secure American future might well lie in his application of a noninterventionist foreign policy, following the wishes of George Washington and the other founders. Before explaining why Paul’s foreign policy would benefit the United States, it is worth rebutting those ill-educated jackasses in politics, the media, and the academy who denigrate the founders as “dead white males.” To them, the modern world is so different from Washington’s time that nothing the founders said or wrote pertains to contemporary foreign-policymaking. Such self-serving and ahistoric attitudes allow their advocates to pursue policies negating the Constitution, piling up debt, and fueling relentless intervention abroad. Several years ago, Georgetown University’s distinguished professor emeritus Daniel Robinson cogently explained that the founding generation did not prescribe specific policies for unforeseeable future problems, but, rather, conducted a prolonged and profound seminar on “the nature of human nature.” They examined history and their own experiences and devised a set of principles true not only in their own era and in ancient Sparta, but also for the unknowable American future: Human nature never changes; man is not perfectible; individuals and governments must live within their means; man is hard-wired for conflict; and small government, frequent elections, and secure private property best protect liberty. Most crucial today is the principle that foreign interventions when no genuine U.S. interest is at risk will yield lost wars, deep debt, and decreased domestic liberty. These common-sense principles were the key to national security in the early republic and would regain that status in a Paul presidency. A President Paul would infuse these principles into U.S. foreign policy and produce a noninterventionist doctrine: far fewer unnecessary and costly wars, far fewer dead soldiers, and far greater U.S. national security. This is a workable, adult approach to the world – especially the Muslim world – unlike the adolescent approach America’s bipartisan governing elite has hewed to for decades. What the founders and Paul advocate, and what the U.S. political elite have forgotten, might be termed the “Schoolyard Rule.” Most of us, in the halcyon days of youth, learned at recess that every action elicits a reaction: Push someone in the schoolyard, and you will be pushed back. We also learned that a single, cavalier push meaning little to you might quickly turn into a bigger fracas, complete with cuts, bruises, or worse, until Sister Mary Lawrence and her metal-edged yardstick arrived to stop the fight and restore order. We also learned the Schoolyard Rule’s corollary: If you are pushed during recess, you better push back – even if the instigator is bigger – and hope that the good sister arrives to save your bacon. If you do not push back, the pain you receive becomes a daily occurrence. Militant Islamists assiduously apply this corollary to defend a Muslim world they perceive as too-long passive in the face of murderous superpower pushing. The Islamists are pushing back and depending on Allah – in the role of Sister Mary Lawrence – to give eventual victory to the Muslim David. This action-reaction lesson is a key part of a youngster’s practical education, and in the course of his or her pre-college schooling the Schoolyard Rule is reinforced by courses in subjects like history, physics, religion, and chemistry. At high school graduation, most American teenagers have a handle on the idea that if you push, you will be pushed back, and are confident that this is an iron law. When was the last time you met a schoolyard Gandhi? But then comes college. The unfortunates who trundle off to Yale, Harvard, Columbia, and elsewhere in the Ivy League are cleansed of the Schoolyard Rule’s common sense, emerging four years later with few contact points with reality. They have learned to shape policies for the world they want, not the one on offer. They believe it their duty to use whatever tool available, be it laws, bayonets, or cruise missiles, to turn the world’s people into semi-socialist, spendthrift, ahistoric, anti-religious democrats – in short, mirror images of themselves. These Ivy League graduates who have forgotten the Schoolyard Rule now dominate U.S. foreign policy. Eager to push hard any person or state they disagree with or dislike, they blithely assume the pushed will know such punishment is indispensable in becoming as smart, cool, and sophisticated as people like Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and John McCain. Nearly alone among Republicans and Democrats, Paul knows that ignoring the Schoolyard Rule, its corollary, and the founders’ warning against nonessential intervention in foreigners’ affairs would be ruinous for America. As president, Paul would push only if a genuine U.S. national security interest were at stake. Wars would be fought only over life-and-death matters – like access to energy and freedom of the seas – and not over ephemera like Israel’s interests and women’s rights and human rights overseas. Paul would listen to the enemy. Not to empathize or sympathize, but to understand his motivation and form policy to defeat him, ensuring the motivation of today’s enemies is not passed to the next generation. The failure of both Bushes, Clinton, and Obama to understand that it is U.S. government actions in the Islamic world that fire Islamist motivation, not hatred of freedom or how Americans live at home, proves that only Paul’s approach can restore U.S. security. The Islamists have educated Americans just as clearly and openly as Ho Chi Minh and General Giap did; the United States’ failure of perception has already ensured that much of the next generation of young Muslims will become Islamists. A Ron Paul presidency would reverse a half-century of Republican and Democratic leaders maintaining national security policies that lethally push Muslims, premised on the delusion they will not push back. President Paul would replace the interventionism of these men and women – who are merely miseducated, not evil – with the founders’ guidance, the Schoolyard Rule, and a belief that the federal government is an engine of national destruction and bankruptcy. For President Paul, the protection of the United States’ genuine interests by avoiding unnecessary wars and frivolous interventions is first, last, and always the main foreign-policy priority of the U.S. government.

ENDURING COMMITMENTS ABROAD

Last week President Obama made a surprise pre-dawn trip to Afghanistan to mark the one year anniversary of the killing of Osama bin Laden and to sign a document further extending the US presence in that country. The president said, "we're building an enduring partnership...As you stand up, you will not stand alone." What that means in practice is that the US will continue its efforts to prop up the government in Afghanistan for another ten years beyond the promised withdrawal date of 2014. To those of us who believe the US should leave Afghanistan immediately, the president retorted, "We must give Afghanistan the opportunity to stabilize." But how long will that take, when we have already fought the longest war in our nation's history at incredible human and economic cost to the nation and no end is in sight? There is little evidence of any sustained increase in stability in Afghanistan and, in fact, April saw the loss of 34 more American troops and an escalation of violence and upheaval. Within 90 minutes of the president's departure, seven more people were killed in Kabul by a suicide bomber. It is clear that our presence in that country is not creating any real stability. With Osama bin Laden dead and the al Qaeda presence in Afghanistan virtually non-existent, we are reduced to nation-building in a nation where there is no real nation to build. We should ask ourselves why Obama's trip was a "surprise" visit rather than a normal state visit. The reason is that after ten years it is still far too dangerous to travel in or out of that country. Does that not speak much more loudly than the president's optimistic words about the amazing progress we have made in Afghanistan? What does our enduring commitment mean? Ask the South Koreans, where the United States has maintained an "enduring commitment" of US troops more than fifty years after hostilities ended. By some estimates the United States taxpayer is saddled with a 40 billion dollar annual price tag for our "enduring commitment" to maintaining a US military presence in Korea. Polls suggest that particularly younger Koreans are tired of the US military presence in their country and would prefer us to leave. The same is true for the residents of Okinawa, who have argued strongly and with some recent success for American troops to leave their island. The Soviets believed the road to their goal for a universal form of government ran through Afghanistan. They were also wrong and paid an enormous price. However, after nine years and 15,000 Soviet lives lost, the communist regime in Moscow realized its mistake and withdrew from that country. The Soviet withdrawal was complete in early 1989. The Soviet Union by that time had further plunged into economic crisis, fueled in great part by its commitment to maintain a global empire of client states. Later that year, the Soviet world began crashing down, with first the collapse of Eastern European regimes and then the Soviet Union itself. That collapse produced an economic calamity for the successor states from which most have not yet fully recovered. It is not too late for the United States to learn what the Soviets discovered too late, back in 1989. Mr. President: the time to leave Afghanistan is today, not in 2024.

PAUL VS. PAUL

WHAT I THINK........THOMAS EDDLEM

Texas Congressman and Obstetrician Ron Paul “dominated” the Louisiana presidential caucuses April 28, according to the New Orleans Times-Picayune. Paul supporters also out-organized the presumed GOP presidential nominee in caucuses in former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney's home state of Massachusetts, and Paul supporters took over the Alaska Republican Party the same day. The Times-Picayune reported that “under party rules, Paul is guaranteed at least 17 of the 46 delegates to the convention at which Romney will almost certainly be nominated for president.” The final tally will likely be even stronger, as Paul — who lost popular votes in caucuses states such as Iowa and Minnesota, but emerged with a clear majority of delegates — will likely out-organize remaining rival Romney. Louisiana is also a primary state. Based on their performance in the primary, 10 of the delegates are guaranteed to primary winner and former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum, while five delegates are guaranteed to Mitt Romney (who placed second in the primary). Romney's home state of Massachusetts is also a primary state won by the former Governor, so nearly all of the delegates will be pledged to vote for Romney on the first ballot. But that hasn't stopped Romney's home-state delegates from really becoming Paul delegates who could abandon Romney on a second ballot at the national convention. According to Seamus Light of PolicyMic.com, in Massachusetts the “Romney” delegates are really Ron Paul delegates. “While all delegates are required to vote for Romney during the first round of the Tampa convention (but not during a second vote), district voters are allowed to choose whoever they want to fill those roles. Thus, there were two camps: the official Romney-approved slate, and the Ron Paul-allied Ronald Reagan Unity Liberty Slate.” Ron Paul's Ronald Reagan Unity Liberty Slate swept the caucuses. The Ron Paul movement — labeling it a campaign at this point is far too limiting — also claimed a third victory in selecting new leadership for the Alaska Republican Party April 27. The Alaska GOP convention chose Goldwater Republican Russ Millete as its new chairman in what the Alaska Dispatch described as an “alliance between the tea party and Paulites.” The Alaska Dispatch noted that erstwhile U.S. Senate candidate and Tea Party favorite Joe Miller and his wife spent the day coordinating with the Ron Paul campaign during the successful GOP insurgency. The Houston Chronicle reported April 28 that Ron Paul continues to draw ever-larger crowds in his presidential campaign and has engaged in a renewed effort to win his home state primary. “Thursday’s rally in the shadow of the LBJ Library at the University of Texas rivaled any crowds Mitt Romney or President Obama could draw at a campaign appearance.” That was an understatement, as Paul's crowds number in the thousands wherever he has appeared for the last month. Romney has a 30 point lead in polls for the May 29 primary over Paul in a three-way race that also includes 35 percent for Newt Gingrich (who is expected to drop out of the race Tuesday). The Ron Paul movement remains well-funded, raising $2.6 million in March with $1.78 million in the bank and no campaign debt. The Christian Science Monitor noted that while Mitt Romney has raised far more money in New York (largely from elite New York banks and financial firms) and California, Ron Paul's small donation-based campaign has raised more money from states across the nation, even among large contributors. Counting only large contributors, the Christian Science Monitor reported April 27 that “Paul outraised Romney in 10 states, including some that will be key battlegrounds in the fall, according to figures compiled by Eric Ostermeier, a political scientist at the University of Minnesota’s Hubert H. Humphrey Center for the Study of Politics and Governance. 'Ron Paul leads Mitt Romney in large donor itemized fundraising in 10 states, representing all four geographical regions from the northeast (Maine), the South (Arkansas), the Midwest (Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, North Dakota, Wisconsin) and the West (Alaska, Hawaii, New Mexico),' writes Mr. Ostermeier on his Smart Politics blog.” As Ron Paul's hope for winning the GOP nomination has gradually faded, his movement's influence in the Republican Party on the state and national level has multiplied geometrically. His much smaller and unsuccessful 2008 presidential campaign spawned a small network of state and local GOP candidates, some of whom were elected and had a role in inspiring the Tea Party movement. Paul is no longer alone in Congress since the 2010 cycle netted the election of acolytes in Congress that included his own son Rand Paul as Kentucky Senator and ideologically similar freshmen in the House such as Michigan's freshman Congressman Justin Amash. The 2012 election season promises a much bigger slate of Ron Paul-inspired liberty candidates, many of whom won't have to struggle against their state GOP establishment leadership, as those in the 2010 cycle had to fight.

WHAT I THINK........LUCAS SEPULVEDA

Anybody who thinks Republican nominee Ron Paul has lost his core support obviously wasn’t driving down Cullen St. around 6:30 p.m. Friday. “I’m sure glad the revolution is alive and well in Houston,” Ron Paul said to thousands of supporters as cheers echoed off the walls of Hofheinz Pavilion. Hours before Paul’s speech, a line of supporters sporting their favorite Ron Paul T-shirts and buttons snaked around the block, eagerly waiting to hear the man of the hour make his case for liberty. People of all sorts and ages were in attendance, and the mood was lively to say the least. As you may have expected, throughout his speech Paul carried the same tune he’s been singing since the start, and it seems like nothing is ever going to change that. His consistency is truly impressive, and as far as I’m concerned, Paul demands and deserves respect, no matter what ideology you have. It’s a shame that he doesn’t get the proper amount of attention, because while some of his ideas may be out there, a lot of what he says makes sense. Thanks to a neglectful media, one of Paul’s biggest setbacks has been his inability to connect with undecided crowds that are already skeptical of him. The delivery of his speeches unfortunately doesn’t seem to match the power of his ideas, and for that reason, crowds that aren’t immediately moved by a rehearsed speech sprinkled with key persuasive words refuse to give Paul a shot. However, Friday, Paul was in his element and moved the crowd with point after point pertaining to a number of his famous issues ranging from “Ending the Fed” to The War on Drugs without changing his stances. He also had a few things to say about The Patriot Act. “The names of a bill are exactly the opposite of what the bill does,” Paul advised to the crowd, “if (The Patriot Act) had been called the ‘Repeal the Fourth Amendment’ Act, maybe it wouldn’t have gotten so many votes.” Although his chances of becoming president were never promising, he continues to stay in the race, which some people find foolish. Paul has said he continues to run because there is continued support, and that was undoubtedly proven on-campus last week. After hearing Paul speak, it seems that he is just as concerned with spreading his message than he is with winning office, and from that perspective, his campaign has been successful. He continues to bring attention to issues the other candidates avoid and has garnered a strong, committed following on the Internet and among young people. If lack of recognition has frustrates Paul, he does not show it. There is something about Paul that emits authenticity and genuineness, and it is evident there is nothing fabricated in what he says. Whether you agree with his policies or not, Paul is a man who stays uncommonly consistent and trustworthy, and at this point in our nation’s politics, those traits are rare and merit more respect than he’s been given.

COSTS OF WAR

This month Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric K. Shinseki announced the addition of some 1,900 mental health nurses, psychiatrists, psychologists, and social workers to its existing workforce of 20,590 mental health staff in attempt to get a handle on the epidemic of suicides among combat veterans. Unfortunately, when presidents misuse our military on an unprecedented scale – and Congress lets them get away with it – the resulting stress causes military suicides to increase dramatically, both among active duty and retired service members. In fact, military deaths from suicide far outnumber combat deaths. According to an article in the Air Force Times this month, suicides among airmen are up 40 percent over last year. Considering the multiple deployments service members are forced to endure as the war in Afghanistan stretches into its second decade, these figures are sadly unsurprising. Ironically, the same VA Secretary Eric Shinseki was forced to retire from the Army by President Bush for daring to suggest that an invasion and occupation of Iraq would not be the cakewalk that neoconservatives promised. Then Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, who is not a military veteran, claimed that General Shinseki was "wildly off the mark" for suggesting that several hundred thousand soldiers would be required to secure post-invasion Iraq. Now we see who was right on the costs of war. In addition to the hidden human costs of our seemingly endless wars are the economic costs. In 2008, Nobel Prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz wrote "The Three Trillion Dollar War: The True Cost of the Iraq Conflict." Stiglitz illustrates that taking into account the total costs of the war, including replacing military equipment and caring for thousands of wounded veterans for the rest of their lives, the Iraq war will cost us orders of magnitude greater than the 50 billion dollars promised by the White House before the invasion. Add all the costs of Afghanistan into the mix, wrote Stiglitz, and the bill tops $7 trillion. Is it any wonder why our infrastructure at home crumbles, healthcare is more expensive and harder to come by, and unemployment together with inflation continue their steady rise? Imagine the productive power of that seven trillion dollars in our private sector. What could it have done were it in private hands; what may have been discovered, what diseases might have been cured, what might have been built, how many productive jobs created? With the bills coming due for our decade of reckless military action, the cuts rarely come from the well-connected military industrial complex with their lobbyists and powerful political allies. In President Obama's 2013 budget, troop strength is to be cut significantly while enormously expensive and largely superfluous weapons systems emerge essentially unscathed. As defense analyst Winslow Wheeler wrote this month, costs of the "next generation" fighter, the F-35, will increase by another $289 million. This despite the fact that the fighter is badly designed and already outdated, a "virtual flying piano" writes Wheeler. The military contractors building monstrosities like the F-35 are politically connected and thus protected. Unfortunately, returning military veterans are less so. In the same 2013 budget, the White House proposes to increase medical and pharmaceutical costs paid by veterans while reducing their cost of living increases. And how many years of increasingly alarming mental illness and suicide statistics has it taken for the modest increase in resources to be made available? Those who predicted the real costs of our decade of global military conquest were ridiculed, scoffed at, and fired. History has now shown us that much of what they warned was correct. America is clearly less secure after a decade of unnecessary wars. It is more vulnerable and closer to economic collapse. Its military is nearly broken from years of abuse. Will we come back to our senses?