Those of us who watched the ABC Iowa Debate on Saturday night know without a doubt that Ron Paul dominated the forum, and of course when Sunday morning rolled around the mainstream propaganda machine went right to work trying to minimize Dr. Paul’s success.
Ron Paul appeared on NBC’s Meet the Press with David Gregory. Gregory went straight to work in his effort to try to get Ron Paul to speak on behalf of Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich in lieu of himself, asking Dr. Paul questions, like the poll questions frequently used, in a form of multiple choice, wherein the only answers available were either Mitt Romney or Newt Gingrich.
Dr. Paul, being a skilled orator, did as he has done on so many like occasions and turned the petty propagandist’s game around on him and showed where the best choice for the people is neither Newt Gingrich nor Mitt Romney, but indeed himself as he is the only candidate offering anything other than the status quo.
Gregory then brought Democratic Senator Dick Durbin and Republican Senator Lindsey Graham up to be interviewed. The purpose of these two became obvious when Ron Paul’s name was brought into the conversation. The three tried to create the impression that Ron Paul, though doing very well in his campaign, at most can only expect to be a useful tool for Mitt Romney or Newt Gingrich in the 2012 election. The arrogance of these sleaze bags goes beyond comprehension.
At the beginning of this propaganda hit piece David Gregory presented a new poll supposedly for Florida and South Carolina which showed Newt Gingrich with 44% in Florida and 42% in South Carolina, Mitt Romney with 29% in Florida and 23% in South Carolina, Ron Paul with 8% in Florida and 9% in South Carolina. These polls are conducted using the same tactic Gregory used in his interview with Ron Paul.
It goes like this. Who would you vote for for President, Newt Gingrich or Mitt Romney? Either or. Now those who go along with these phony polls like this to the point of being forced to choose between two candidates that they do not want and will not vote for, are counted. And so you say where do the numbers for Ron Paul come from? These are the folks who were finally hung up on when they kept repeating, “I will not vote for either one of those traitors and will be voting for Ron Paul.”
Make no mistake; the elite think the elections and the process belong to them and that they will ultimately decide who among them they will put into our White House. Both the phony left Demorats and the phony right Republiscums are absolutely as one in being elitists, and they agree completely among themselves that Ron Paul must be stopped. Why? Because he is not one of them. They are actually angry with Dr. Paul because he, as a man they consider beneath them, will not accept a position of servitude to them, in spite of the rewards they offer.
You in the 99%, listen close. We have witnessed this reality all of our lives. The kid who got the lead in the play or elected class president or got to play quarterback on the football team was not the best. But as the socialist societal connections infiltrated into the schools, there were always those who were given advantage and treated as better for no other reason than who they were.
This indeed has been at the heart of the government indoctrination perpetrated through the public schools, hence we are taught to accept those who are our lessers as our leaders. Perhaps this is why these socialist schemes for domination always fail. When the lessers have finally been elevated to the positions of leaders for too many generations, their inadequacies become blatantly apparent to their betters who have been held down.
And then when the correction occurs it is inevitably a slaughter as you have a small army of mediocre elitists at best against a large army consisting of their intellectual superiors who have been artificially held down through generations of social engineering.
Ron Paul is one of us and we are going to elect him as our next president. The days of the good ole boy, secret society, social structure are coming to an end. And when we do reinstate our Republic under our Constitution, we must take measures to make absolutely sure that this dirty system, which has been implemented over and over in every developed country around the world, never comes to be again in the United States.
God bless the Republic, death to the international corporate mafia, we shall prevail.
I know, they want to call Mr. Paul crazy….. Crazy? Why would he be crazy for balanced budget? Crazy for a Foreign Policy that respects International Law and Sovereignty? Crazy for Constitutionality? Crazy for understanding civil liberties and that they do not only apply to the past, but the present and the future as well? Crazy for having a proven track record of doing what is defined as the American way? Crazy for truly upholding the oath of office? Imagine how much better our governement would be if all politicians actually respected and upheld the oath of office instead of using word games without substance to tickle the publics ear into re election.
Ron Paul 2012. See you at the polls.
Retired Army, Ft. Benning, 11-x
Remember this guy? Seems like any world leader that cooperates with the CIA ends up in prison or dead.
Noriega flown home to be punished once again
Former military strongman Manuel Antonio Noriega was flown home to Panama on Sunday to be punished once again for crimes he committed during a career that saw him transformed from a close Cold War ally of Washington to the vilified target of a U.S. invasion.
Noriega left Orly airport, south of Paris, on a flight of Spain’s Iberia airlines, delivered directly to the aircraft by a four-car convoy and motorcycles that escorted him from the French capital’s La Sante prison.
The flight left just after 8 a.m. for Madrid. Spanish airport authority AENA later confirmed the plane had taken off for Panama just before 2 p.m. (1300 GMT), after announcing two short delays.
The French Justice Ministry, in a one-line statement, said France turned Noriega over to Panamanian officials on Sunday in accordance with extradition proceedings. It was the only official remark.
Noriega’s return comes after more than 20 years in U.S. and French prisons for drug trafficking and money laundering. Panama convicted him during his captivity overseas for the slayings of two political opponents in the 1980s.
He was sentenced to 20 years in each case, and Panamanian officials say he will be sent straight to a jail cell when he lands. The ex-general, whose pockmarked face earned him the nickname “Pineapple Face,” could eventually leave prison under a law allowing prisoners over 70 to serve out their time under house arrest.
A doctor was reported to be among the team of Panamanian officials escorting the 77-year-old ex-dictator back to Panama.
“He was very impatient, very happy. He’s going home,” one of his French lawyers, Antonin Levy, said by telephone Saturday night, a day after his last visit with Noriega.
But many Panamanians still want to see the man who stole elections and dispatched squads of thugs to beat opponents bloody in the streets to pay his debt at home.
“Noriega was responsible for the invasion and those who died in the operation. He dishonored his uniform, there was barely a shot and he went off to hide. He must pay,” said Hatuey Castro, 82, a member of the anti-Noriega opposition who was detained and beaten by the strongman’s thugs in 1989.
Though other U.S. conflicts have long since pushed him from the spotlight, the 1989 invasion that ousted Noriega was one of the most bitterly debated events of the Cold War’s waning years.
Noriega began working with U.S. intelligence when he was a student at a military academy in Peru, said Everett Ellis Briggs, the United States ambassador to Panama from 1982 to 1986.
As he rose in the Panamanian military during the 1970s and 1980s, Noriega cooperated closely with the CIA, helping the U.S. combat leftist movements in Latin America by providing information and logistical help. He also acted as a back channel for U.S. communications with unfriendly governments such as Cuba’s.
But Noriega was playing a double game. He also began working with Colombia’s Medellin drug cartel, and made millions moving cocaine to the United States.
“He was for rent to a lot of people,” Briggs said. The U.S. avoided taking action because of concerns about the security of the Panama Canal and overall stability in Central America, he added.
“There was just a feeling that now is not the time to take the lid off this particular mess,” Briggs said.
As the Cold War waned, and the U.S. war on drugs gained prominence, Noriega’s drug ties became a source of increasing tension. After a U.S. grand jury indicted him on drug charges in 1988, tensions escalated between his forces and U.S. troops stationed around the Panama Canal. A U.S. Marine was killed in one clash. President George H.W. Bush also accused Noriega’s men of abusing a U.S. Navy serviceman and his wife.
On Dec. 20, 1989, more than 26,000 U.S. troops began moving into Panama City, clashing with Noriega loyalists in fighting that left sections of the city devastated.
Twenty-three U.S. troops, 314 Panamanian soldiers, and some 200 civilians died in the operation.
Noriega hid in bombed and burned-out neighborhoods before he sought refuge in the Vatican Embassy, which was besieged by U.S. troops playing loud rock music.
He gave up on Jan. 3, 1990, and was flown to Miami for trial on drug-related charges.
Bush was praised for a precise and limited strike, and pundits said the president, with soaring approval ratings, had shed the wimpy image that had plagued him during the 1988 presidential campaign.
Noriega’s return to the U.S. as a prisoner of war was “a triumph for diplomacy and a triumph for justice,” said the late Democratic Senator Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts, normally a harsh critic of Bush.
Critics, however, saw a dangerous precedent in Bush’s willingness to send troops into harm’s way to topple a foreign leader, particularly one who had been supported for years by the U.S. The United Nations General Assembly called the invasion “a flagrant violation of international law and of the independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity of states.”
Noriega was convicted two years after the invasion, and served 17 years at a minimum-security prison outside Miami, where he received special treatment as a prisoner of war and lived in his own bungalow with a TV and exercise equipment.
When his sentence ended, he was extradited to France, which convicted him for laundering millions of dollars in drug profits through three major French banks, and investing drug cash in three luxury Paris apartments.
Noriega suffers from high blood pressure and partial paralysis as the result of a stroke several years ago, according to his lawyers in France.
He returns to a nation that has seen a sustained economic boom, fueled largely by the return of the Panama Canal and surrounding land and military bases to Panamanian control in 2000. Dozens of new skyscrapers have risen around the war-scarred capital, and tourism is flourishing.
The ex-dictator’s return “should finally close a chapter of history that we do not ever want to happen again,” said former Panamanian Foreign Minister Samuel Lewis, whose family was forced out of the country in retaliation for opposing Noriega.
“Hopefully, we can put this sad chapter of history in the past and focus on the future,” Lewis said.
Panama remains a base for international drug trafficking and money laundering, however, and it also suffers from street crime and income inequality. In many parts of society, there is nostalgia for the Noriega years.
Julio Rangel, a 63-year-old painter who sells his works in a park in the capital, said Noriega “doesn’t represent any sort of danger to the people here” and never deserved to become the target of a U.S. invasion.
“What the North Americans wanted to do was destroy our defense forces,” he said.
Omar Rodriguez, who was selling soft drinks nearby, said that in Noriega’s time, “there was more work, and there wasn’t criminality like today.”
“I can’t speak ill of him,” Rodriguez said.
Noriega faces immediate punishment for the murders of military commander Moises Giroldi, slain after leading a failed rebellion on Oct. 3, 1989, and Hugo Spadafora, a political opponent found decapitated on the border with Costa Rica in 1985.
He also could be tried in the deaths of other opponents during the same period.
“He’s coming to serve his sentences, and that’s important for the families of the victims,” said former Panamanian Attorney General Rogelio Cruz. “His presence here is important because he’ll satisfy the demands of justice for his criminal convictions and the trials that he still has to face.”
___
Juan Zamorano reported from Panama City. Oleg Cetinic in Paris, Harold Heckle in Madrid and Michael Weissenstein in Mexico City contributed to this report.
© Copyright 2011 CSC Holdings, Inc.
http://www.optimum.net/AP/ArticlePrinterFriendly?fmId=54721572-SW0
Seems there is plenty of money to bail out foreign central banks, but not a penny to help American citizens to heat their homes this Winter.
http://www.optimum.net/AP/ArticlePrinterFriendly?fmId=54721778-o64
Northeast states cut heating aid to poor
Mary Power is 92 and worried about surviving another frigid New England winter because deep cuts in federal home heating assistance benefits mean she probably can’t afford enough heating oil to stay warm.
She lives in a drafty trailer in Boston’s West Roxbury neighborhood and gets by on $11,148 a year in pension and Social Security benefits. Her heating aid help this year will drop from $1,035 to $685. With rising heating oil prices, it probably will cost her more than $3,000 for enough oil to keep warm unless she turns her thermostat down to 60 degrees, as she plans.
“I will just have to crawl into bed with the covers over me and stay there,” said Power, a widow who worked as a cashier and waitress until she was 80. “I will do what I have to do.”
Thousands of poor people across the Northeast are bracing for a difficult winter with substantially less home heating aid coming from the federal government.
“They’re playing Russian roulette with people’s lives,” said John Drew, who heads Action for Boston Community Development, Inc., which provides aid to low-income residents in Massachusetts.
The issue could flare just as New Hampshire votes in the Republican presidential primary.
Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, said she hopes the candidates will take up the region’s heating aid crunch because it underscores how badly the country needs a comprehensive energy policy.
Several Northeast states already have reduced heating aid benefits to families as Congress considers cutting more than $1 billion from last year’s $4.7 billion Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program that served nearly 9 million households.
Families in New England, where the winters are long and cold and people rely heavily on costly oil heat, are expected to be especially hard hit. Many poor and elderly people on fixed incomes struggle with rising heating bills that can run into thousands of dollars. That can force them to cut back on other necessities like food or medicine.
“The winter of 2011-12 could be memorable for the misery and suffering of thousands of frigid households,” New Hampshire’s Concord Monitor newspaper said in an editorial. “Heating oil prices are expected to hit record highs, and federal fuel assistance may reach a record low for recent years.”
Higher home heating oil prices and more families seeking aid due to the sour economy are straining resources. There’s a 10 percent surge in new applicants in Boston, Drew said.
“Our whole program could hit a rock soon,” said Mark Wolfe of the National Energy Assistance Directors’ Association.
Families can expect to pay, on average, about $3,300 to heat a home with oil this winter in New England, Wolfe said. That’s about $500 more than last winter. About half of the region’s homes use oil heat.
Congress, which is locked in a bitter battle over reducing spending, still must decide how much money to give the program for the budget year that began Oct. 1.
In fall 2008, amid concerns about rising fuel prices, the government nearly doubled fuel assistance, releasing $5.1 billion to states for the following winter.
But last February, President Barack Obama proposed cutting the program nearly in half, calling for about $2.5 billion. The House is considering $3.4 billion for fuel assistance, while the Senate reviews a $3.6 billion proposal.
Snowe, along with Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., and Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., are pushing for $4.7 billion, last year’s funding level, but they face long odds.
The government has given an initial round of funding, $1.7 billion, to the states.
In Maine, one of the coldest states, the average benefit has been reduced by about $500. The state’s average benefit last winter was about $800 among 63,842 households served. The average income of recipients was $16,757. About 80 percent of Maine households use oil heat.
“It’s a very serious situation,” Dale McCormick, director of MaineHousing, a state agency that administers heating aid, said. “We can’t send out money we don’t have.”
That view is shared by home heat aid advocates across New England and into New York and Pennsylvania. Most of those states have cut benefits. New Hampshire has tightened eligibility requirements.
Vermont’s average benefit was cut from $866 to $474. New York’s maximum benefit this year is $500, down from $700 last winter. Pennsylvania’s minimum benefit is dropping from $300 last year to $100, Wolfe said.
“We have a lot of terrified people who can’t see how they are going to survive,” said Drew.
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Online:
LIHEAP: http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/ocs/liheap
© Copyright 2011 CSC Holdings, Inc.
Does anyone ever recall the ground shaking from thunder? I sure don’t!
Dozens in N.J. report feeling earthquake, but U.S. Geological Survey detects none
Published: Saturday, December 10, 2011, 5:40 PM Updated: Saturday, December 10, 2011, 10:02 PM
Floors shook, bottles rattled, bells jingled, and scores of New Jersey residents up and down the state cried “earthquake!” yesterday morning. Was this the state’s second rattler in four months?
Despite more than 60 residents who claimed to have felt shaking yesterday morning, a spokesman for the U.S. Geological Survey said none of the seismometers stationed around the state picked up even a hint of trembling.
“It’s not an earthquake,” said geophysicist John Bellini, speaking from the U.S. Geological Survey’s Colorado office. “My guess would be it’s more likely thunder or sonic boom.”
New Jersey has been rocked this year by half a dozen extreme weather and geological events, including a 5.8 magnitude earthquake centered in Virginia that shook buildings across the Garden State in August.
This time, the first-hand reports began streaming in around 10 a.m. yesterday from Egg Harbor, Cranbury, East Brunswick, North Brunswick, Trenton, Somerset, Edison, Plainfield, Piscataway, Iselin, South Plainfield and others, Bellini said.
At 11 a.m., Anthony Camaioni tweeted from his family’s dry cleaning shop in North Brunswick, “Yea I think it definitely happened again. #earthquake in #NJ The bells jingled in the store.” Others posted on Twitter around the same time that they felt their homes sway and heard glass bottles clinking for between 10 and 30 seconds.
Bellini pointed to a band of thunderstorms off the state’s coastline or covert activities at Fort Dix or McGuire Air Force Base in southern Jersey as possible explanations for what residents might have felt.
A spokesman for the National Weather Service said its unlikely that even severe thunderstorms could make the ground feel as through it’s shaking.
Fighter jets used in drills near Virginia and North Carolina have caused sonic booms — the noise and vibration associated with traveling faster than the speed of sound — which can be mistaken for earthquakes, Bellini said.
A spokesman for Fort Dix did not return calls for comment.
Salvatore Saieva of Woodcliff Lake in Bergen County initially took to Twitter to report the earthquake to friends, but later said the military could be responsible for what he felt.
“My experience could be explained by a sonic boom,” Saieva wrote on Twitter. “Bottles rattled, but I didn’t feel anything shaking beneath me.”
Staff writer Nic Corbett contributed to this story.
http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2011/12/dozens_in_nj_report_feeling_ea.html
What is wrong with me?? I should know better than to read about the debate on MSN (Ron Paul not mentioned once, Just Romney and Newt Grinch) then look at all the comments from ill informed Americans.. I have a hard time believing that these aholes are really Americans!!! After reading about 25 comments I was ready to blow chunks!!!!!!!!!!! Sickening people. Thanks for this website, I would have went insane with out it.. I truly mean it, Thanks!!