Because Karl Rove was involved...

It's not a conspiracy theory... New Court Filing Reveals How the 2004 Ohio Presidential Election Was Hacked

A new filing in the King Lincoln Bronzeville v. Blackwell case includes a copy of the Ohio Secretary of State election production system configuration that was in use in Ohio's 2004 presidential election when there was a sudden and unexpected shift in votes for George W. Bush. The filing also includes the revealing deposition of the late Michael Connell. Connell served as the IT guru for the Bush family and Karl Rove. Connell ran the private IT firm GovTech that created the controversial system that transferred Ohio's vote count late on election night 2004 to a partisan Republican server site in Chattanooga, Tennessee owned by SmarTech. That is when the vote shift happened, not predicted by the exit polls, that led to Bush's unexpected victory. Connell died a month and a half after giving this deposition in a suspicious small plane crash.

It's amazing how Republicans yell about non-existent voter fraud and point fingers when they are doing weird shenanigans to block Ron Paul supporters from getting delegates in some states and a voice at the convention. Projection anyone?

Quoted on Facebook

Joe McKee
"Ron Paul wants to repeal the Civil Rights Act, privatize public education, abolish Social Security, kill Medicare, re-establish DADT, eliminate public housing, abolish federal student loans, kill Planned Parenthood, end the Departments of Energy and Education and the EPA, abolish the minimum wage, end affirmative action, disagrees with equal pay for women, and wants to end FEMA. He is a... dangerous individual who believes in mixing religion and government. Ron Paul would allow fundamentalist Christians to control the government, the very people who would end the personal liberties he claims to fight for. Ron Paul would destroy every good thing liberals have stood for and fought hard to gain over the last 100 years."Otherwise, he's a lovable old coot.

Flotsam and jetsam

Dumb Alabama Immigration Law Working So Well Its Crops Are Rotting And this link explains why...

11 Facts You Need To Know About The Nation’s Biggest Banks

Facebook shows the student who will fail chemistry....

No loopholes for millionaires. Ronald Reagan wouldn't even get nominated let alone elected in this day and age....

The breathtaking quotes from Ron Paul.

Krugman about Occupy Wall Street protesters:

What can we say about the protests? First things first: The protesters’ indictment of Wall Street as a destructive force, economically and politically, is completely right.

How can they call themselves Anti-choice and Pro-family

And demand that embryos are human beings with all Constitutional rights.... And then cheer Rick Perry's execution count...

And Ron Paul's statement that the uninsured should just die:

And not see the utter hypocrisy and contradiction? Do these people actually know the kind of society they are cheering for?

House Finance Committee actually did something!

The Washington establishment suffers a serious defeat
By Glenn Greenwald

Something quite amazing happened yesterday in Congress: the House Finance Committee -- in a truly bipartisan and even trans-ideological vote -- defied the banking industry, the Federal Reserve, the Democratic leadership, and mainstream Beltway opinion in order to pass an amendment, sponsored by GOP Rep. Ron Paul and Democratic Rep. Alan Grayson, mandating a genuine and probing audit of the Fed. The Huffington Post's Ryan Grim has the best account of what took place, noting:

In an unprecedented defeat for the Federal Reserve, an amendment to audit the multi-trillion dollar institution was approved by the House Finance Committee with an overwhelming and bipartisan 43-26 vote on Thursday afternoon despite harried last-minute lobbying from top Fed officials and the surprise opposition of Chairman Barney Frank (D-Mass.), who had previously been a supporter.

Why Ron Paul sounds wonderful

"We're not moving toward a Hitler-type fascism, but we're moving toward a softer fascism," he said. "Loss of civil liberties, corporations running the show, big government in bed with big business."

Ron Paul defends seeking funds for Texas district
Bennet Roth, Dec. 24, 2007, The Houston Chronicle

Until you do the research:

Now it's time to take a close look at Ron Paul. Because the real costs of what we must give up in exchange for Paul's `radical' ideas that can and do work, are being cast aside by most, stoked by the "Revolution" Paul promises, the man who has protected the Texas oil companies for most of his career in Congress.

By his own words, you shall know the man.

It's the war, stupid.

Ron Paul exposed

David Neiwert of Orcinus lists the things Paul has supported. Take a good look. And realize Paul's stance on the Iraq war is the only good stand this man has taken.

Update: Via Cawdor in comments, a post by Glenn Greenwald about Neiwert's article:

On another note, I wrote in my prior post concerning Paul that I found the efforts (by Neiwert and others) to smear him by linking him to some of his extremist and hate-mongering supporters to be unfair (for reasons I explained here). Neiwert responded and compiled what he thinks is the best evidence to justify this linkage here.

For reasons I'll detail at another time, I found virtually all of that to be unpersuasive, relying almost entirely on lame guilt-by-association arguments that could sink most if not all candidates (the only arguably disturbing evidence in this regard is this 1996 Houston Chronicle article, which Neiwert didn't mention, and the pro-Paul response is here). Everyone can review the evidence -- all of which is quite old and very little of which relies on any of Paul's own statements -- and make up their own minds.

If you are finding Ron Paul's anti-war stance attractive

Take a look at what he really believes:

Paul is very well organized online -- much of his support is derived from this -- and it's entirely likely the flood of "liberals" and "progressives" who are busy arguing that someone like Paul is worth forming an alliance with are, in fact, simply part of Paul's corps and they're doing their part to muddy the waters and ultimately attract new supporters in a "Third Way" kind of strategy.

And to some extent it seems evident that they're succeeding. Mostly, they seem to be taking advantage of a combination of amnesia among those experienced enough to know better, and simple ignorance on the part of progressives who've never heard of, or paid any attention to, Ron Paul previously. They hear Paul's carefully crafted antiwar rhetoric and his critique of the Bush administration -- all of which elide or obscure his underlying beliefs -- and think it sounds pretty good, especially for a Republican.

As Sara has already explained, there's a real problem with that -- namely, for all of Paul's seeming "progressive" positions, he carries with him a whole raft of positions well to the right of even mainstream conservatives.

At this point and forever onward, we must never assume we know all about a presidential candidate until we have inverted his/her life upside down and shaken out all past actions and speeches. A politician, by the very nature of the beast, has gotten into bed with all sorts of strange partners. Let us know them all.

"Our Islamist enemies do not give a damn about the way we vote, think, or live. "

So says Michael F. Scheuer.

The following is a letter from Michael F. Scheuer, former Chief of the CIA’s Osama bin Laden Unit, to the editor of Antiwar.com, regarding Congressman Ron Paul’s exchange with Rudy Giuliani about why the al Qaeda network has targeted the United States.

Sir,

In the dozen-plus years I have been active in matters relating to Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda, I have watched them go from a small Islamist organization to a worldwide insurgent movement, while bin Laden has established himself as the primary source of inspiration and leadership for tens of millions of Muslim Islamists. This process has been made possible by two things: (a) the skill, courage, patience, and ruthlessness of bin Laden and his ilk, and (b) the refusal of the U.S. government to understand the motivation of bin Laden and his allies.

Last week, Representative Paul did all Americans an immense service by simply pointing out the obvious: Our Islamist enemies do not give a damn about the way we vote, think, or live. Though any country they ruled would surely not look like ours, they are motivated by the belief that U.S. foreign policy is an attack on Islam, its lands, and its believers. This, of course, is not to say that America is to blame for the war it is now engaged in, but it is to say that it is foolish – and perhaps fatal – for Americans to believe that are we are being attacked for such ephemera as primary elections, R-rated movies, and gender equality. If our Islamist enemies were motivated by such things their numbers would be minuscule and they would be a sporadic lethal nuisance, not, as they are, the most serious national security threat we face today.

Of the eighteen presidential candidates now in the field from both parties, only Mr. Paul has had the courage to square with the average American voter. We are indeed hated and being warred against because we are “over there,” and not for what we are and how we live. Our failure to recognize the truth spoken by Mr. Paul – and spelled out for us in hundreds of pages of statements by Osama bin Laden since 1996 – is leading America toward military and economic disaster.

At day’s end, Mr. Paul has at least temporarily shaken the pillars of the bipartisan consensus on U.S. foreign policy. Neither party, and none of the candidates, want to discuss the Islamists’ motivation because they would have to deal with energy policy, support for Israel, and the 50-year record of U.S. support and protection for Arab tyrannies. These holy cows of U.S. politics have long been off limits to debate, but Mr. Paul has now accurately identified them as the source of motivation for our Islamist enemies, and implicitly has said that the obsessive interventionism of both parties has inspired al-Qaeda and its allies to kill 7,000-plus U.S. civilians and military personnel since 11 September 2001. The war we are engaged in with the Islamists is a long way from over, but it need end in America’s defeat only if Mr. Paul’s frank statements are ignored.

And no matter how you view Mr. Paul’s words, you can safely take one thing to the bank. The person most shaken by Mr. Paul’s frankness was Osama bin Laden, who knows that the current status quo in U.S. foreign policy toward the Islamic world is al-Qaeda’s one indispensable ally, and the only glue that provides cohesion between and among the diverse and often fractious Islamist groups that follow its banner.

Respectfully,
Michael F. Scheuer
Falls Church, VA