Ron Paul Fact Versus NYT Fiction

by Diane V. McLoughlin, March 25, 2012

A New York Times editorial yesterday, in discussing the results of a report by a congressional watchdog outfit with the acronym 'CREW', smears Republican presidential candidate and twelve-term congressman Ron Paul with the charge of nepotism.  Six family members of Dr. Paul's have worked on two previous political campaigns, each reimbursed for their hours via the campaigns or PACs. That is privately raised money, not public taxpayer funds.  By the same measure, we would call all family-run restaurants or corner stores hotbeds of nepotism, too.  When I hear a politician accused of nepotism, the charge typically pertains to employment  within the pol's public office, or, using their political influence, secures a plum job for kin in exchange for political favors. 


Fudging the facts, the NYT also write off Ron Paul's (and Newt Gingrich's) chances of winning the Republican leadership nomination. (Gingrich and Paul Fail to Affect Louisiana Vote; Michael D. Shear, 24/03/12.)  

Mr. Shear asserts that Ron Paul 'has settled into a losing pattern, failing even to compete for a first- or second-place finish anywhere.'  This is complete fabrication.

Ron Paul came in a strong second in both New Hampshire and Virginia. In Virginia, Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich didn't even have the organization to get themselves on the ballot.

In Iowa, Romney and Santorum were almost tied for first, with Paul strong, next in line. Ron Paul also came in a strong second in Maine. 


Now let's talk delegates.  Mr. Shear writes that in Louisiana, 'Mr. Santorum won decisively.' Is that so?


Louisiana held it's primary March 24th, 2012. Louisiana has 46 delegates allocated to it when voting for the next leader of the Republican Party.  The national convention will be held in Tampa, Florida, in August. Louisiana's precinct straw poll allocates an initial 20 delegates. As Santorum got more or less 50% of this straw poll vote, he will now have 9 or so delegates out of 46. Most of the delegates remaining are decided at, next county, and then the state-wide convention. The entirety of the contribution by the New York Times to our understanding, via Mr. Shear? Zero percent.

Fact:  Across the country, the political battle for delegates rages on. Mysteriously, there is almost no discussion about it in the popular press.  Ron Paul is winning delegates, and it's an interesting story.

The reasons why Ron Paul inspires can be summed up as follows: His faith in and dedication to the Constitution; his desire for peace within secure borders instead of endless war; his understanding of economics and how to achieve national prosperity; his desire for limited government; and his commitment to safeguard civil liberty.

I wrote a comment to the NYT hit-piece but so far it hasn't appeared. For some reason.  I don't know why.  So I wrote this, instead.

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CENSORED - NYT comment to Douthat on the Mosque - wrong, wrong, wrong.

The following comment which I posted following a NYT article was bounced.

In a general way, Ross Douthat isn't wrong when he says that there are two aspects to America: The absolute ideal of liberty and justice for All is one side of America, along with the cultural imperative for new-comers to absorb certain American cultural norms - the latter having a lot to do with the first absolute, in my opinion.

We believe in individual rights. Within the law, each individual has the right to say, or do, or believe something different from their neighbor. This is something I am sure that has to be learned, but it is also, I am sure, highly desired by most immigrants - which inspired them to come to America in the first place.

So far so good. But the writer then tries to make a hard-right segue into arguing that the 'second America' that 'speaks English' and no other - the blend-and-assimilate America - is rightly offended at the proposal to establish a mosque or Muslim cultural center or whatever you want to call it, two blocks from 9-11's Ground Zero, why? Because it is a 'sign of disrespect', and because we harbor the 'darker suspicion that Islam in any form may be incompatible with the American way of life.'

He admits that this might sound a 'xenophobic note' but lightly steps over that slight quandry to his target of justifying the Second America's protest.

I'll give that there is some degree of necessity for societal cohesion in the expectation, to a degree, of assimilation. But all too often this line is crossed into hatred, racism and intolerance toward anyone different from ourselves.

The issue of the mosque is black and white. It cuts to the core of what it means to be American. There are no shades of gray. Out of this malodorous fog ignorance, intolerance, hatred and fear further spread.

This is strictly a religious freedom issue. It is a tolerance issue. It is playing out against a very black backdrop where, just as from time to time in America's past, darkened momentarily here, there - real people who, in this case, identify themselves as Muslims, are being discriminated against, shunned and worse in their communities.

Douthat insinuates that too many Muslims hold 'illiberal' views that are considered to be 'beyond the pale'. I've got news for him. Many Americans - White, non-Muslim Americans - believe that America WAS an accessory to the crime of 9-11.

Let's get this straight. Under President Clinton, we are responsible for the deaths of 500,000 Iraqi children. That's just the children. We starved them. And we poisoned them by bombing, deliberately, Iraq's water treatment plants - in a desert. Then, we refused to permit the importation of children's vaccines.

We maintained a military siege upon Iraq for TEN YEARS before we invaded militarily.

Osama bin Laden clearly cited what we did to Iraq as one of the top three reasons for the 9-11 attack.

But the people in the World Trade Center were civilians. Yes. That's true. It was wrong. But, what do you think: Were Iraq's children members of Saddam's army?

Three-thousand people here, we invade both Iraq and Afghanistan; we go to war. 500,000 children we kill somewhere else and it is forbidden to discuss it.

We are awash, in America, of so much spilled blood that it will be a wonder if we can ever wash this stain out of the national character.

On Israel, many Americans don't just believe - they know - that Hamas is the legitimate political party duly-elected by the Palestinian people, and that they should never have been designated a terrorist group. Such designations are too often used as a political ploy to avoid hammering out peace deals - and so it is in the case of the oppressed, dispossessed Palestinian people - long the victims of a racist Israel bent on its continuing program of ethnic cleansing.

Americans pay for Israel's armaments which enables Israel; to the tune of three billion in American tax dollars-worth of military hardware - each and every year.

Douthat's last point is as loathsome as it is incorrect. 9-11 was NOT committed in the name of Islam.

I applaud Mayor Bloomberg and the local community for giving their full backing to the planned mosque - for all the right reasons.

If we want a society built on the highest of constitutional and brotherly ideals, the shortest way to get there is to treat people the way we would wish to be treated. Here. And across the seas over there. It's as easy, and as profound, and as challenging as that.

editor, mcloughlinpost.com

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New York Times' Ross Douthat Op Ed column, 'Islam and the two Americas'; August 15, 2010

CENSORED - NYT COMMENTS ON GAZA, FREEDOM FLOTILLA and ISRAEL

Subtitle: Starving Writer Can't Give Facts on Gaza Away For Free - Comments Censored at New York Times

There were 768 comments accepted by the New York Times comment editors - but not this one - to the article, 'NYT: 'Pressure Mounts on Israel as Activists Vow to Test Blockade Again'; Isabel Kershner, Neil McFarquhar; June 1, 2010.

Censored NYT comment by writer Diane V. McLoughlin:

June 1st, 2010:  Netanyahu uses rocket-fire from Gaza as justification for continuing
the siege of Gaza's 1.5 million men, women and children (a crime against humanity known as collective punishment). He also uses Gaza rocketfire to justify the attack on the Freedom Flotilla which was attempting to bring humanitarian supplies such as wheelchairs, school supplies and building cement to the people of Gaza. I will address his lie following, below.

It is interesting to note the internationally-renowned roster of dignitaries that were counted among the flotilla travellers: It includes a former U.S. Ambassador (Edward Peck); former U.S. Congresswoman (Cynthia McKinney); 85 year-old Holocaust survivor Hedy Epstein; an Irish Nobel Peace Prize winner; and multiple artists, politicians, peace activists and humanitarians from around the world.

Perhaps it would be best if the New York Times reporters assigned, sought broader scope for information and analysis than Israel's office of Public Relations.

Mid-2008 there was a mutually agreed-upon ceasefire between Israel and Gaza's duly elected Hamas political leadership. This ceasefire, it was clearly understood, was to have lead to more confidence-building measures including the lifting of the blockade and the normalizing of political relations between the two sides.

Hamas abided by the ceasefire. Rocketfire fell from hundreds a month, to 11 rockets in-total for the months of July, August, September and October combined. Hamas is not the only political faction in Gaza. They did their very best to contain the desperate and suffering people from fighting back against the starvation imposed by Israel.

The entire time, Israel, behind their backs, girded for total destruction of Gaza, with plenty of arms, bombs and chemical weapons donated from the U.S. government, instead.

Israel broke the ceasefire mid-November.

Over 1,400 people were killed - most of them civilians - during Israel's assault, which they code-named Operation Cast Lead. Over 20% of Gaza's farmland, crucially important for Gazans to feed themselves - destroyed; chicken farms - and the chickens - destroyed; water wells - destroyed; a third of schools - destroyed; the U.N.'s main food and medicine warehouse - destroyed - and on, and on, and on.

The above are not acts of self-defense. They are acts of pure racial hatred and genocide.

Israel does not want normalized peaceful relations with the Palestinians. Really. It doesn't matter what the Palestinians do, the results always remain the same.

The two-state 'solution' itself is a trick. Israel has absolutely no intention of permitting the Palestinians to have any actual freedom to rule themselves.

Israel does not want peace. Israel wants to ethnically cleanse the Palestinians out. They have done an admirable job of it.

Do all Israelis support this? Of course not. But obviously, there are not enough who want peace to overrule those who want something else far more.

Isreal's right-wing extremists are not our friends. We have absolutely nothing in common with them. They are violent racists.

(See: PDF document by Israel's intelligence community, pg. six, graph on rocket fire month to month 2008:

http://www.terrorism-info.org.il/malam_multimedia/English/eng_n/pdf/ipc_e007.pdf

*Any problems with above link, the same link, mid-page, can be accessed here:

http://www.mcloughlinpost.com/LinksAndResourcesOnGazaIsraelAndPalestine.html)

- writer, mcloughlinpost.com

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