huh... he didn't explain, and he should have. He may have been preaching to the choir, those already convinced of his positions and opinions, but the rest of the voters need more clarification to swing to the Republican's presidential effort.
Later he's asked what would he do about the federal reserve. He said he would legalize the money... hmmm, why not be absolutely clear. Say you'd abolish the Federal Reserve and void the 16th amendment. He did later say he would eliminate the income tax. What would he replace it with?
He wasn't very clear again. He said something about we used to have tariffs... but he didn't clarify further or adequately.
now ron Paul says anybody who doesn't want to pay social security taxes, etc. ought to just get out...
What? Missed why Paul would think the government should be even collecting social security taxes? Again unclear.
Paul says we're basically attacking third world nations... they don't have any weapons... we're a bully... we're attacking nations before they get any weapons... preemptive war... endless and open... continuing on... he says it's war propaganda, we always have to have another war... that's where our problems come from.. we always have to be occupying a foreign Muslim country...
I had at one time been leaning heavily toward supporting Paul. Now I'm not so convinced.
At this appearance, speaking to those he knows are overall in agreement with him, he confirmed my growing belief that on the Iraq war he's saying what he knows a larger percentage of Americans are with increasing fervor being propagandized to believe...
Guess one has to continue reading his weekly columns to see who else he panders to
http://www.house.gov/paul/
Ron Paul doesn't place the blame squarely where it lies. With a Congress that abrogated its sworn duty to uphold the Consitution of the United States.
Don't get me wrong. To his credit, Ron Paul did not vote to give President Bush authority to use force in Iraq back in 2002. He also is the Congressman who session after session presents a bill to get the United States out of the United Nations.
I support those efforts.
Paul also correctly states that Congress declares war according to our United States Constitution. And with the war on Iraq that didn't happen.
But Paul ignores that it didn't happen because our members of Congress abrogated their DUTY. That's right, their duty. Minus Ron Paul's vote and a handful of others, Congress authorized President George W. Bush to use necessary force in Iraq.
Now these same law-breakers who thwarted the U.S. Constitution are crying they were lied to and that's why many don't support the war now...
No, that isn't acceptable. At least Paul has ethical ground on which to stand as he didn't vote for the use of force authorization.
First, the Bush Administration was no different than the Clinton Administration concerning the real and imminent potentiality of Saddam Hussein possessing weapons of mass destruction and Hussein's threats to use those weapons. Even the United Nations was unsure of the status of Hussein's stockpiles of such including mustard gas the UN said he used on his own people in the 1980s.
And yes, it's been documented that the United States when supporting Hussein at one point was responsible for providing some of those weapons of mass destruction. That's despicable.
But Congress, even newcomers to service there, has the power to stop it all.
Congress had in its domain of power, one of the few limited powers it possesses, to outright declare war on Iraq, or not. Congress had the power to call in experts as well as the state department to obtain independent information to make their decision to "declare war." They didn't.
Members of Congress had one directive from the Constitution of the United States -
Congress declares war.
Congress members did not do their duty as sworn to uphold the Constitution. Those members who authorized the use of force by the president, sidestepping their constitutional duty to declare war, are the ones who should be held accountable and should have been recalled or impeached by the people of the United States.
President Bush went to Congress under the so-called War Powers Act. Congress doesn't have to abide by unconsitutional acts. But members did.
After Congress allowed President Bush to use force they either then fully support the effort or do their next constitutional duty. Withhold money to fight the illegitimate war.
But they won't do that now, either.
They are the hypocrites. Either withhold the money or shut up.
Congress could also challenge en masse the War Powers Act and abolish it.
They won't.
While Ron Paul is a champion on many fronts, on this one, he simply fails.
He also didn't adequately explain what is "imminent" threat or danger or attack or sudden attack.
Do nuclear warheads have to be dropping on United States soil before Congress declares war?
When does a President have the authority to fight back without the consent of Congress - when there is an imminent threat of an attack to the United States.
And that's why President Bush did not have to go to Congress under the War Powers Act or any other act, to take action against Iraq, if the president believed from all available intelligence that Saddam Hussein posed an imminent threat.
That he did seek Congressional authorization tells us a lot.
That members of Congress acquiesced and voted for the president to use necessary force tells us a lot.
When Ross Perot ran for President back in the early 90s, I was fortunate enough to be in a postition to ask Perot just such a question at a press conference in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. When would you go to war against another country?
When there's an imminent threat... when we're under attack, responded Perot.
The difference between then and now truly is the perceived "imminent" threat of attack since September 11, 2001.
And that is the primary reason we do need to have all of the information we can obtain about what happened the morning of September 11, 2001.
Why didn't President George W. Bush get up from his seat in the classroom when he was told by Andrew Card that a second plane had hit the World Trade Center, America is under attack?
America Under Attack: Job Ahead of Bush
Aired September 14, 2001 - 03:10
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0109/14/se.30.html
Why didn't Bush do his duty when told America is under attack and immediately get up politely from his seat, go into the adjacent room already set up with secure phone lines (according to Bill Sammon in Fighting Back) and call out the full military forces of the United States of America? Did Bush know planes had been hijacked before he entered the second grade classroom to listen to children read? How would Bush know that military planes of a foreign country were not "attacking" the United States? How would Bush know these were only suicide missions and not an in concert broad attack with a combination of hijacked planes and nuclear warheads coming in from wherever?
(See my This is Not a Conspiracy Theory for treatment of these issues)
Ron Paul should be screaming about President Bush being told America IS UNDER ATTACK the morning of September 11, 2001, and doing nothing for several minutes. (Again see This is not a Conspiracy Theory for documentation that Bush remained seated in the classroom for six minutes).
But even Ron Paul isn't asking President Bush anything about that morning. Why not?
He can be vocal about an illegitimate war all he wants. But if he doesn't go the distance and show that the basis of that war and all subsequent U.S. policy rests on what happened on September 11, 2001 which as of this date remains unexplained fully he is no more presidential material than any other of the candidates.
All of the other issues Paul is correct about do not matter if he isn't willing to directly ask the President of the United States to account for his inaction when there was an imminent threat on United States soil.
posted by Net the Truth Online with revisions
More
THIS IS NOT A CONSPIRACY THEORY: 6-MINUTE SLIVER SHOWS HISTORICAL TRUTH
http://dirtline.tripod.com/talkacrosstown/id3.html
october 10, 2002 AUTHORIZATION OF THE USE OF UNITED STATES ARMED FORCES AGAINST IRAQ
http://authforce.liberatedtext.org/021010/cr10oc02-69_01.html
Quotes from Ron Paul speech
http://www.digg.com/2008_us_elections/Quotes_From_Ron_Paul_s_Speech_Last_Night
Ron Paul forum
http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthread.php?t=24058
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Danny Carlton Says:
October 9th, 2007 at 4:47 pm
Did Clinton get a declaration of war when he bombed Kosovo civilians?
Also, Ron Paul claimed we have never been under an imminent
attack in 220 years. Where was he on December 7th, 1941?
Where was he September 11th, 2001?
Kurt Obermeyer Says:
October 9th, 2007 at 9:39 pm
Rep. Paul may have misspoke when he said we were never under the threat of an imminent attack, however, he is absolutely correct in saying that we need to have a Congressional declaration of war to go to war. This is the real issue. This country has been in a nearly continuous state of war since the end of WWII. Korea, Vietnam, Grenada, Panama, Gulf War I, Bosnia, Kosovo, contiued bombing of Iraq after Gulf War I, Afghanistan, and now Iraq again, the list is exhausting. Not a single one of these conflicts has had a Constitutionally directed declaration of war. By the way, the War Powers Act is unconstitutional. The Constitution says the Congress has to declare war. Article 1, section 8, if anybody cares anymore.
http://stoptheaclu.com/archives/2007/10/09/video-rudy-vs-ron-paul-on-911/
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THE PRESIDENT'S CONSTITUTIONAL AUTHORITY TO CONDUCT MILITARY OPERATIONS AGAINST TERRORISTS AND NATIONS SUPPORTING THEM
The President has broad constitutional power to take military action in response to the terrorist attacks on the United States on September 11, 2001. Congress has acknowledged this inherent executive power in both the War Powers Resolution and the Joint Resolution passed by Congress on September 14, 2001.
The President has constitutional power not only to retaliate against any person, organization, or State suspected of involvement in terrorist attacks on the United States, but also against foreign States suspected of harboring or supporting such organizations.
The President may deploy military force preemptively against terrorist organizations or the States that harbor or support them, whether or not they can be linked to the specific terrorist incidents of September 11.
September 25, 2001
MEMORANDUM OPINION FOR THE DEPUTY COUNSEL TO THE PRESIDENT
http://www.usdoj.gov/olc/warpowers925.htm
CATO Institute position on executive power
http://64.233.169.104/search?q=cache:Z8xxeesRfggJ:www.cato.org/pubs/handbook/hb108/hb108-11.pdf+power+president+imminent+sudden+attack&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=4&gl=us
The Debate over war powers
http://digitalcommons.pace.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1319&context=lawfaculty
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Thursday, May 10, 2007
Ron Paul's Weekly column Dec.11, 2006
Who Makes Foreign Policy?
December 11, 2006
...The media, Congress, and the American public all seem to have accepted something that is patently untrue: namely, that foreign policy is the domain of the president and not Congress. This is absolutely not the case and directly contrary to what our founding fathers wanted.
The role of the president as Commander in Chief is to direct our armed forces in carrying out policies established by the American people through their representatives in Congress. He is not authorized to make those policies. He is an administrator, not a policy maker. Foreign policy, like all federal policy, must be made by Congress. To allow otherwise is to act in contravention of the Constitution.
Library of Congress scholar Louis Fisher, writing in The Oxford Companion to American Military History, summarizes presidential war power:
The president's authority was carefully constrained. The power to repel sudden attacks represented an emergency measure that allowed the president, when Congress was not in session, to take actions necessary to repel sudden attacks either against the mainland of the United States or against American troops abroad. It did not authorize the president to take the country into full-scale war or mount an offensive attack against another nation.
But it’s not simply the decision to wage war that is left to Congress. Consider also the words of James Madison:
Those who are to conduct a war cannot in the nature of things, be proper or safe judges, whether a war ought to be commenced, continued, or concluded. They are barred from the latter functions by a great principle in free government, analogous to that which separates the sword from the purse, or the power of executing from the power of enacting laws (italics added).
So Congress is charged not only with deciding when to go to war, but also how to conduct-- and bring to a conclusion-- properly declared wars. Of course the administration has some role to play in making treaties, and the State Department should pursue beneficial diplomacy. But the notion that presidents should establish our broader foreign policy is dangerous and wrong. No single individual should be entrusted with the awesome responsibility of deciding when to send our troops abroad, how to employ them once abroad, and when to bring them home. This is why the founders wanted Congress, the body most directly accountable to the public, to make critical decisions about war and peace.
It is shameful that Congress ceded so much of its proper authority over foreign policy to successive presidents during the 20th century, especially when it failed to declare war in Korea, Vietnam, Kosovo, and Iraq. It’s puzzling that Congress is so willing to give away one of its most important powers, when most members from both parties work incessantly to expand the role of Congress in domestic matters. By transferring its role in foreign policy to the President, Congress not only violates the Constitution, but also disenfranchises the American electorate.
Go directly to Ron Paul's site at http://www.house.gov/paul
http://fredanderson.blogspot.com/2007/05/ron-pauls-weekly-column-dec11-2006.html
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Source: Los Angeles Times, January 29, 2003
THE STATE OF THE UNION ADDRESS
Bush Calls Iraq Imminent Threat
"Trusting in Hussein's Restraint 'Is Not an Option,' President Says
By Maura Reynolds, Times Staff Writer
WASHINGTON -- A somber and steely President Bush, speaking to a skeptical world Tuesday in his State of the Union address, provided a forceful and detailed denunciation of Iraq, promising new evidence that Saddam Hussein's regime poses an imminent danger to the world and demanding the United Nations convene in just one week to consider the threat.
But the president made clear his decision whether to attack Iraq would not hinge on U.N. approval.
"All free nations have a stake in preventing sudden and catastrophic attack. We are asking them to join us, and many are doing so," the president said. "Yet the course of this nation does not depend on the decision of others."
Calls have mounted in recent weeks for the president to make a better case for going to war. In response, Bush argued that use of force is not only justified but necessary, and that the threat is not only real but imminent.
"If this threat is permitted to fully and suddenly emerge, all actions, all words, and all recriminations would come too late," Bush said. "Trusting in the sanity and restraint of Saddam Hussein is not a strategy, and it is not an option."
http://www.ph.ucla.edu/EPI/bioter/iraqimminent.html
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In Response to Richard E. Berg-Andersson's Commentary
Dealing with War Powers
Thursday, September 19, 2002 by Kenneth Stremsky
Mr. Berg-Andersson responds:
The main point of my Commentary of 13 September was that there is a "gray area" in between a sudden attack which the President appears to have the power to repel without necessarily or immediately consulting Congress (I would put the attacks of 11 September 2001 in this category) and that which requires a Declaration of War from Congress per Article I, section 8 of the US Constitution (I would put any military action re: the current threat level from the regime of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein in this category). Assuming that a condition of Peace is "condition GREEN", the former condition (surprise attack on the United States) would be "condition RED" and the latter condition (dealing with an indirect, less than imminent, danger from abroad) would be "condition YELLOW"; liberally borrowing the color code of alert levels used by the U.S. Office of Homeland Security, I referred to the "gray area" (into which the Bush Administration- or so it appears- currently wishes a present Iraqi "threat" to be placed) as "condition ORANGE"-- in such a case, at bare minimum, a Congressional Resolution would be in order (and, so it appears as of this typing, it seems we are rather likely to get just that-- though only that!). To reiterate my own position: in the case of war with Iraq as contemplated at present, a Congressional Resolution is simply not good enough- since it is "YELLOW" and not "ORANGE" as I defined these in my Commentary; a Declaration of War would be much more advisable- as well as necessary under the terms of the Constitution of the United States itself...
http://www.thegreenpapers.com/Vox/?20020919-0
Ron Paul and “Islamofascism”
http://thecrossedpond.com/?cat=1
Search results
http://blog-admin.lewrockwell.com/mt-search.cgi?IncludeBlogs=5&search=%22ron%20paul%22
Republican Debate Transcript, South Carolina
Published May 15, 2007
http://www.cfr.org/publication/13338/
May Debate posting
http://www.scruffydan.com/blog/?p=760
Ron Paul (did he say we invited the attack on 9/11 because we are over there...?)
http://soundpolitics.com/archives/008623.html
search results Ron Paul executive orders
http://www.google.com/search?q=ron+paul+executive+orders&hl=en&sourceid=gd&rls=GGLD,GGLD:2006-40,GGLD:en
