Trolls on your marks.  Get Set.  Counting down: 3, 2, 1.  Go.

John Ashcroft thinks it's okay to torture members of the United States Armed Forces.  However, Mr. Ashcroft sometimes has problems with facts and reality.  It seems unlikely that he would approve of the use of waterboarding on his own person.  Perhaps waterboarding would help change his mind.

A special shout out to Michael Savage.  The "brats" aren't faking autism.  In Michael's case I'd say he's not faking stupidity either.

Just for the record, in case anyone gets confused, I'm voting for the candidate who works out (That's bad, Nutz?).  He's a strong man, both physically and of character.  You may have heard of him.  His name is Barack.

Number of times I wanted Ron Paul to run the show: -1000
Number of insane things Congress has done:  I lost count.
Keep your head down, this bazooka has a hair trigger.
Onward.

(This is actually a repost from some months ago, but I put so much time into hunting down the appropriate photos, I decided to repost it; besides, I'm depressed about not being able to make it to NN this year, so I wanted to post something light to cheer myself--and perhaps others--up a bit)

Several months back, Canadian Noise posted an Oscar-themed diary which speculated on the casting for a filmed version of the 2008 Presidential race.

Unfortunately, the diary didn’t get much notice, but I thought it was such a fun idea that I ran with it, and came up with the following. The only rule I made for myself is to take it seriously—no cartoon characters, no dead actors; all of the choices have to be current, professional film or TV actors. Feel free to toss your own ideas into the ring; I know that I’m way off on at least some of my choices, but what the hell...

RE: Today's Impeachment Vote.

TO: Dearest President George W. Bush, Leader of the Free World

Body: @#$% YOU!!!

Regards, Congressman Ron Paul (from your "home state" of Texas)

Post Script, Teeheehee!

Kent Snyder, Ron Paul's campaign chair, died of pheumonia a couple of weeks ago after two months in the hospital. He was openly gay.

Here's what Paul had to say about Snyder:

Kent poured every ounce of his being into our fight for Freedom. He will always hold a place in my heart and in the hearts of my family... Without Kent Snyder, the fight for liberty would not be where it is today. We all owe him a great debt.

Snyder wasn't provided health care with his job in the campaign, even though Ron Paul raised over $35M and the Clinton, Edwards, Obama, and McCain campaigns all provided health care to their staffers. Surely there would have been enough money in there to provide basic coverage to at least his senior staff?

What is this world coming to? I always thought that if only two things in this world were certain, they were these:

1. It's the members of the Democrat party that flip-flop

2. Ron Paul will always vote against spending money that was stolen by force by the Government from innocent freedom-loving Americans.

Yet today, my beliefs have been cruelly torn asunder. Ron Paul joined the Democrat party in stealing our money, and the Republicans flip-flopped on taking more of our money for the Socialist Medicare program.

I am very, very upset.

This place down here in the tubes has entered into the fringes of John McCain's sluggish thoughts, back behind the economy, birth control, condoms, offshore oil exploitation, and all of the other troublesome, hazy thoughts in his brain.  John McCain:  "Don't make me think.  I get confused when I think."  He promises he will learn how to get online soon. right after he finds the computer.  It's the rectangular box with the monitor attached to it, guy...

Josh Brolin and Jeffrey Wright got arrested in Shreveport, Louisiana.  In an interpretive reenactment of Bush's early days, they apparently got into a bar fight.  "How you Hollywood fellers like that Caddo Parish jail?  Don't drink the water, even if you is thirsty."  By the way, if you come to Louisiana, be careful which bar you go to.  

More entertainment after the flip.

I want to encourage those of you who care to discourage acceleration of  war with Iran to contact your Congresscritters to encourage them to reconsider their vote on H. Res. 362.  H. Res. 362 is an aggressive pre-emptive act which can be perceived as an act of war.

Have a listen to Congressman Ron Paul, making the case that the vote for H. Res. 362 should be reconsidered and recast, below the fold.  He makes the case that the recent Iranian missile tests came after Israel's 'war games' and should therefore should be seen within the context that escalations are ramping up-saber rattling on both sides -- making the outcome of war more likely, and negotiations less likely.  

John Zogby may not be the most reliable of pollsters, and his "interactive" poll of this week is probably skewed toward internet junkies who are more likely to include Libertarians and disappointed Ron Paul supporters.

Zogby's poll has Bob Barr in high single digits in a number of states, not just the "quirky" places like Oregon, Minnesota, and his home state of Georgia.  And some of the other more conservative polls have Barr pulling in what would otherwise presumably be GOP voters in states like Colorado and Arizona.

But are Libertarian-leaning voters really turning away from McCain?  Why?
Because McCain is not close enough to Bush?  Give me a break!

As something of a Libertarian myself, I think Obama has some appeal to those who now may say they support Barr.  On several important issues, Barr is closer to Obama than to McCain.  This is especially true in matters of civil liberties and Presidential powers.

Despite warnings from Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA), Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX), and Rep. Robert Wexler (D-FL), the Republican congressional leadership of 2005 and 2006 ignored the burgeoning national problems that we now live with every day (gas prices food prices, the housing meltdown, recession, etc.) in favor of wasting time and money on misguided attempts at legislating morality.  These GOP leaders, who at one time claimed a belief in limited government principles, were exposed as frauds when they showed no reluctance in using big government to legislate social issues.  In these cases, the sky was the limit!  This was especially true with Internet poker.

The Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006 (UIGEA) is typical of Republican leadership efforts to legislate morality.  To pander to anti-poker extremists like Focus on the Family, the GOP leadership embraced the power of the federal government to tell Americans what to do in their own homes with their own money.  The GOP leadership also embraced UIGEA’s deputizing of banks to enforce the law, as if America’s banks were an unpaid arm of the Department of Justice.

Thanks to Glenn Greenwald for alerting this non-Paulite to an embarrassingly well written, and profoundly sane statement put out by the Texas Republican on the FISA abortion bill.

The operative quote that Barack might want to read himself is, "Mr. Speaker, we should understand that decimating the protections that our Constitution provides us against the government is far more dangerous to the future of this country than whatever external threats may exist. We can protect this country without violating the Constitution and I urge my colleagues to reconsider their support for this measure."

I would urge Barack to "reconsider" his support for this measure.  To have Ron Paul out ahead of the Democratic Presidential nominee on such a bedrock issue of Constitutional democracy is just... wrong. (Paul even provides another coherent legal argument against the bill, if you can stand it, below.)

I got this message in my email this morning.  I wanted to share:

I like this man's core beliefs.

The Political Newsline took a look to see who still has debt from the presidential primary and who is free and clear.

Democrats

   * Clinton        $22,523,860
   * Kucinich       $1,177,644
   * Biden          $1,170,869
   * Dodd           $386,991
   * Edwards        $354,719
   * Richardson     $285,418
   * Gravel         $136,565

Republicans

   * Romney         $44,600,000
   * Giuliani       $3,124,113
   * Hunter         $222,447
   * Huckabee       $121,109
   * Thompson       $83,648
   * Paul           $0  
   * Tancredo       $0

Ron Paul says what Obama would not.

Like:

"The main reason I oppose this latest version is that it still clearly violates the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution by allowing the federal government to engage in the bulk collection of American citizens’ communications without a search warrant. That US citizens can have their private communication intercepted by the government without a search warrant is anti-American, deeply disturbing, and completely unacceptable."

From a Presidential candidate's website:

The biggest threat to your privacy is the government. We must drastically limit the ability of government to collect and store data regarding citizens’ personal matters.

On this morning's Morning Joe, Ron Paul gave a terrific defense of the current Supreme Court decision:

Well, I think if you call that court decision naive, you'd have to call the Founding Fathers naive.

It's about 1:20 into the tape.

Why? Because Bob Barr, or even dead-enders for Ron Paul, can swing Nevada for Obama, big time.

Let me tell you a story.

In January, I traveled to Nevada for three days to Get Out The Caucus for the Obama Campaign. At that time, I was fully engaged in intra-party warfare, so the Republican contest was little more than an amusing sideshow (and what a sideshow it was, am I right?).

While it was supremely gratifying that in the early contests Ron Paul bested Rudy Giuliani, I never thought that his "revolution" would ever pull more than 5%.

Then, as I was coming over the SIerra Nevadas into Reno, I saw a giant mountainside billboard reading "Ron Paul", and I realized that Nevada Republicans are, well, a little different.

How different? Follow me over the jump and I'll show you what I mean.

What can Hillary Clinton learn from losing?

Ron Paul sort of ends his bid.
Narrative ensues. 'Rift' spoken, all over the place.

Does it have traction? Barr is from GA. How much effect will it have not only on GA, but other States in the Southeast? Obviously, Florida especially is a key part of this question.

http://www.boston.com/...

"Paul, Barr throw each other bouquets"

http://thirdpartywatch.com/...

Ron Paul supporters plan Bob Barr money bomb

http://www.thebulletin.us/...

Paul Gives Barr A Pseudo-Endorsement

http://rawstory.com/...

Ron Paul rejects McCain ‘values,’ praises Libertarian Barr