Irregular Times Diaries: Unfit Discussion

It seems that J. Clifford here at Irregular Times isn’t the only one who finds Ron Paul’s political philosophy bizarre and illogical. I found an interesting old article from the St. Louis Riverfront Times about Ron Paul’s attendance at a conference of politicians demanding that the United States withdraw from the United Nations.

The date of the article: July 11, 2001. Two months to the day before the attacks of September 11, 2001, Ron Paul was advocating that the United States pull out of efforts to cooperate with the other nations of the world. That doesn’t show the best of judgment, does it?

The writer of the article, Ray Hartmann, attended that conference as a journalist, and observed Ron Paul, among other politicians. Here’s what Hartmann observed about Ron Paul’s behavior at the time:

Travelling through an airport today, I notice that the Homeland Security alert status is still at code orange. Code orange is supposed to mean that there is a high risk of terrorist attack.

If there’s a high risk of terrorist attack in American airports, how come there hasn’t been even an attempt at one for such a long time?

I think that this definition of high risk has a pretty low threshold of paranoia.

The top story of yesterday, and if merits are rewarded, today, is the release of the CIA’s Family Jewels. The Family Jewels are a set of documents that the CIA gathered about its own illegal activities that took place over the course of decades. These secrets have been kept for generations, but as of yesterday, they’re available for you to look at. This is history as it was withheld from us.

Look while you can. The White House of George W. Bush has a way of reclassifying information to make it secret even after it’s been released to the public.

So, go grab those documents for yourself. The link to read them, for the time being, is right here.

To search the documents, go right up to the top of the page. To browse through them, follow the “Family Jewels” link.

Two weeks ago, Peregrin Wood noted that Republican presidential candidate Fred Thompson is a professional lobbyist who has promoted political agendas because he has been paid to do so. That seems to put Fred Thompson in a nasty ethical position in which it won’t be clear, if he’s elected President, who he is really working for – the people, or the clients who are paying for his campaign? For a lobbyist like Fred Thompson, there may not be that much difference.

However, Fred Thompson’s position as the top lobbyist candidate for 2008 is being challenged by John McCain. The Chicago Tribune reports that John McCain has more lobbyists on his campaign staff than any other presidential candidate. John McCain is has so many corporate lobbyists working on his presidential campaign that one could easily question whether the McCain 2008 campaign is really a presidential campaign or just a public relations campaign used by lobbyists to promote the political agendas favored by their clients.

So, which one would you identify as the top lobbyist candidate of 2008 – Fred Thompson or John McCain?

HRC = Hillary Rodham Clinton
HRC = Human Rights Campaign

It’s beyond me why so many Democrats are falling for the idea that Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul is some kind of progressive knight in shining white armor. The truth is that Ron Paul is far from progressive.

Just take a look at how Ron Paul’s campaign for President is dealing with the environment… or rather, how the Ron Paul 2008 campaign is not dealing with the environment.

Ron Paul doesn’t even seem to understand that the environment is an important issue at all. The Pentagon has identified global warming as a threat to America’s national security at least as grave as terrorism, but Ron Paul hasn’t gotten the news.

On the issues page the Ron Paul campaign has put up on its web site, the following issues are discussed:

Holy warped space-time continuum! The newest threat to the United States is one that was never expected: Americans are shrinking!

A study by the University of Michigan finds that the height of the average American male has decreased from its historical high. ABC News struggles to come up with explanations, guessing that Americans’ diet may not be providing them with enough nutrition to grow as tall as they used to.

I say that’s grasping at straws.

Why won’t the media talk about the clear reason for the new American shortage?

There is good reason to believe that it isn’t just American people who are shorter. In fact, the United States of America itself may be less tall than it was at the time of the Revolution of 1776.

All evidence points to the use of a gravity bomb by Al Qaeda – a bomb that is silent and invisible, but which warps the space-time continuum in such a way that America’s stature in the world is progressively condensed.

If Al Qaeda is not stopped soon, adult Americans could be only an average of four feet tall! Think of the consequences! The carnival industry will be devastated, with all of its potential customers too short to get on the rides!

Why do they hate our cotton candy?

There’s just one qualification, unless you count being a Washington D.C. corporate lobbyist or Hollywood actor a qualification, that Fred Thompson has for becoming President of the United States. There’s the one and a half terms in office he spent as a senator.

What kind of senator was Fred Thompson? I decided to find out by taking a look at the height of his Senate career, five years after entering the Senate, and four years before he decided to quit serving the public and go back to being a corporate lobbyist and an actor on television. This is the time when Senator Fred Thompson ought to look the best. It’s the time when we ought to see Fred Thompson at work on the political issues that are at the core of his career.

So, I went back and took a look at the issues that Fred Thompson actually had listed on his web site back in his web site. These are the issues that Senator Thompson thought were the most important at the time:

Kosovo
Independent Counsel Reauthorization
Tennessee Valley Authority
Campaign Finance Investigation
Social Security
Federalism Enforcement Act
Tennessee Preservation
Regulatory Reform
Term Limits
Biennial Budget
Fort Campbell
Vacancies Reform Act
Campaign Finance Reform
Year 2000 Computer Problem
Govt. Waste, Fraud & Abuse
Oak Ridge
Tennessee Tourism & Travel
Satellite & Missile Technology
Computer Security
Great Smoky Mountains

The biggest impression is that most of these aren’t really the issues that were at the heart of what America had to deal with back in the 1990s, and they’re certainly not at the core of what America is dealing with today. These are mostly second tier issues without much of a vision to unite them.

The war in Kosovo was an important issue at the time. No arguments against that. But it was a war, for goodness sakes. What kind of senator wouldn’t have an issue statement on that?

Campaign finance reform, I will grant, is also an important issue, as is government fraud, waste and abuse. These are perennial problems, however, that require maintenance. They don’t reflect any great underlying vision or leadership.

But the rest of the issues? Middling, unremarkable, mush. A huge number of the issues that Fred Thompson identified are really just pork barrel for his political supporters in Tennessee. For goodness sakes, it seems that Senator Thompson even fell for the whole Y2K hoax.

Attention to these sorts of issues is necessary for the functioning of the government, but Fred Thompson’s focus on them does not reflect a mind that is capable of leadership at the Presidential level.

From his work in the Senate, as reflected in the issues that he actually worked on, Fred Thompson seems like the sort of person who functions best not working in top leadership, but at two or three levels down, in mid-management. Fred Thompson is the kind of guy you want attending committee meetings, hashing out the nitty gritty details, plodding along at the daily grind.

Fred Thompson is just not presidential material. Maybe, if a Republican were to win the White House, he could be Secretary of Transportation, or something like that. Maybe.

Fred Thompson’s record in the Senate was just plain unremarkable. That suggests the following motto for the Fred Thompson for President campaign: Fred Thompson – Ho Hum 2008.

I caught this on Yahoo news a couple minutes ago and once again I find myself angry and indignant with our appointed leader. I would say that it’s hard to believe, but then again unless it’s something to help save lives or improve quality of life he’ll rubber stamp it. Get troops out of Iraq? Research to save lives? Can’t have that now, can we?

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070620/ap_on_go_pr_wh/bush_stem_cells

Bush to Veto Stem Cell Bill

By DEB RIECHMANN, Associated Press Writer 13 minutes ago

Pushing back against the Democratic-led Congress, President Bush intends to veto a bill Wednesday that would have eased restraints on federally funded embryonic stem cell research — work that supporters say holds promise for fighting disease.

At the same time, Bush will issue an executive order directing the Health and Human Services Department to promote research into cells that, like human embryonic stem cells, also hold the potential of regenerating into different types of cells that could help treat illness.

White House spokesman Tony Fratto said Tuesday that Bush would outline an initiative that could make federal funding available for research on additional “pluripotent” stem cells — ones that can give rise to any kind of cell in the body except those required to develop a fetus.

The president has accused majority Democrats of recycling an old measure that he already vetoed and argued that the bill would mean American taxpayers would — for the first time — be compelled to support the deliberate destruction of human embryos.

“The president supports and encourages stem cell research — including using embryonic lines — as long as it does not involve creating, harming or destroying embryos,” Fratto said. “That is an ethical line that should not be crossed.”

Democrats made the legislation a top priority when they took control of the House and Senate in January, but they don’t have enough votes to override Bush’s decision.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid appealed to Bush on Tuesday not to veto the bill. He said the measure acknowledges the ethical issues at stake and offers even stronger research guidelines than exist under the president’s current policy.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi used Bush’s veto threat as a reason to send out an e-mail letter soliciting contributions to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee to help elect more Democrats.

“By vetoing a bill that expands stem cell research, the president will say `no’ to the more than 70 percent of Americans who support it, `no’ to our Democratic Congress’ fight for progress, and `no’ to saving lives and to potential cures for diseases such as diabetes and Parkinson’s,” Pelosi wrote. “He will say `no’ to hope.”

In light of the veto, Sen. Norm Coleman, R-Minn., who planned to be at the White House event, sought support for a stem cell bill he is sponsoring. It has passed the Senate but has not yet been taken up by the House.

“My stem cell bill, which passed the Senate with broad bipartisan support, offers a clear alternative for our colleagues in the House to significantly expand federally funded stem cell research, while ensuring no taxpayer dollars are used for the destruction of human embryos,” Coleman said.

Coleman urged Democrats who favored the bill Bush was to veto to get behind his legislation.

“Those who support the stem cell research bill … are at a definitive crossroads,” he said. “Do they seek to advance lifesaving research for millions of Americans suffering from serious disease or do they, in fact, prefer to keep stem cell research at a political stalemate? ”

This will be the third veto of Bush’s presidency. His first occurred last year when he rejected legislation to allow funding of additional lines of embryonic stem cells — a measure that passed over the objections of Republicans then in control. Earlier this year, he vetoed legislation that would have set timetables for U.S. troop withdrawals from Iraq.

Opponents of the latest stem cell measure insisted that the use of embryonic stem cells was the wrong approach on moral grounds — and possibly not even the most promising one scientifically. They cite breakthroughs involving medical research conducted with adult stem cells, umbilical cord blood and amniotic fluid, none of which involve the destruction of a human embryo.

The science aside, the issue has weighty political implications.

Public opinion polls show strong support for the research, and it could return as an issue in the 2008 elections.

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton appeared in Hanover, N.H., this week with a child who has diabetes and a paralyzed 23-year-old to urge Bush not to veto the bill. Last month, the issue was a topic at a debate with Republican presidential hopefuls in California.

The bill Bush is vetoing passed Congress on June 7, drawing the support of 210 House Democrats and 37 Republicans. That was 35 votes fewer than needed to override a veto. The Senate cleared the bill earlier by a margin that was one vote shy of the two-thirds needed to overcome Bush’s objections.

According to the National Institutes of Health Web site, scientists were first able to conduct research with embryonic stem cells in 1998. There were no federal funds for the work until Bush announced on Aug. 9, 2001, that his administration would make the funds available for lines of cells that already were in existence.

Earlier today, Green Party presidential candidate Alan Augustson challenged Republican candidate Ron Paul‘s call for the dismantling of the International Criminal Court. Auguston called Paul’s opposition to the prosecution of war criminals “really disturbing”.

Auguston then reiterated his own support for the International Criminal Court, saying, “One item, central to my plans for building peace, is for the US to become a signatory to the Rome Accord, submitting thereby to the jurisdiction of the ICC in The Hague.”