There is a defense of Paul that is getting little scrutiny from the right. It is pushed by the lads at Reason, amplified by the MSM (which adores him), and finally accepted by the right as plausible, simply because these other people keep repeating it.

But is it plausible?

Ron Paul claims he didn't write the newsletters. I do not believe that.

He also claims he didn't even read the newsletters until years after they were brought to his attention by a hostile liberal media. I also do not believe this.

Both of these claims have to be true for him to skate on this question.

Even if it were true (which I doubt) that he did not write the newsletters, then only complete ignorance of the contents of the newsletters would spare him from the charge of "racism" and "conspiracy nut" (and also "homophobe," and "general crank").

The owner of the Stormfront neo-Nazi site, for example, doesn't write all the articles there. But of course he knows the general editorial stance of his own damned website.

Is it plausible that these newsletters went out for a pair of decades and Ron Paul never once inquired into the basic political line they were advancing?

No, it's not.

First of all, let's talk about a situation in which this sort of "I had no idea about the details of my product" defense would be somewhat plausible. When a celebrity simply endorses a product he or she did not create -- like when the Kardashian sisters claimed they had little idea about the details of the credit card they were hawking -- it is somewhat plausible they wouldn't know too much.

That doesn't let them off the hook morally -- they still should have done due diligence -- but one could believe that the dummy, money-grubbing Kardashian dope-sisters were probably not super-briefed on the details of revolving debt.

Ron Paul's defenders wish us to categorize the newsletters as if he was merely Khloe Kardashian lending his name to a product, taking a cut, but otherwise having nothing at all to do with it.

But unlike the Kardashian sisters -- who have no background in finance or banking, except on the presenting-your-credit-card-at-Versaci end of it -- Ron Paul has always been an ideologue. I don't mean that in the negative sense; I mean it neutrally. Just an accurate description -- he has always been intensely interested in theories about government and currency.

So Ron Paul, unlike the Kardahsian sisters, did actually have an interest and background in the product he was peddling.

These newsletters were not long -- 8 pages per issue, and they were generously double-spaced with lots of headers and sub-heds. These were not dense academic journals, for crying out loud. This was 8 measly pages of newsletter screed. Sort of a blog on paper.

He didn't even read them?

Ron Paul was intensely interested in the subject matter the newsletters were discussing. Why wouldn't he read them? Even if he did not have a direct financial stake in them, these letters were specifically designed to appeal to a mind like Ron Paul's. (Hint: They're called the "Ron Paul Political Report" or variations thereof.)

Ron Paul is intensely interested in government meddling with the money supply, government conspiracies against citizens, and global conspiracies to subvert America's sovereignty (Trilateral Commission, Rothchilds, Bildersbergers, whatever euphemism for "Jew Banker" we're using this week).

I would suggest that even if Ron Paul didn't write the newsletters, he'd be a fan. They're right up his alley. Pitched right to his interest. And they have his bloody name at the top and his signature at the bottom.

He's not going to give them a cursory look-see?

I'm a RPG dork. I don't even play these games. But I have this dorky interest in RPG rules. God I hate admitting that. But anyway, I have an interest.

Suppose I started the Ace of Spades Role-Playing Game Review. Suppose I got a couple of other dorks, like Moe Lane or AllenG., to do most of the work in producing this dorktacular webzine.

Why would I not read this? Even if I didn't write it, why wouldn't I at least read what Moe Lane and AllenG had put together? I'm interested in the topic -- so much so that I started a magazine -- and I've got my web-handle on it.

And I'm not going to at least read it? Why not? I read other dork stuff about role-playing games. Why in holy hell would I not even read my own dorkzine?

The whole reason I (hypothetically) created this dorkzine is because I'm dorkilly interested in the dorky subject. Why wouldn't I read a magazine that appeals to my dork interests, especially given that it's free, by virtue of the fact I actually own it and have thirty copies of each issue in a box?

But we're supposed to believe that Ron Paul, with his interest in Conspiracies Against The Currency, doesn't read one of the pre-eminent newsletters largely about Conspiracies Against The Currency?

Again, even if it were the Joe Schlobotnik Investment Bulletin, rather than the Ron Paul Investment Bulletin, why wouldn't he be reading it?

Think about it. Think about whatever you're interested in -- fishing. Hunting. Science. Model Trains. Spanish cooking. The Bass guitar. Busty Lesbian Pron. Now think about creating your own magazine on that subject.

Why would the one magazine on that topic you choose to never read be the one that you own, and profit from, and which has your name at the top? Nah, I'll read all this other Busty Lesbian Pron material, but not the one I actually put out this month. Other Busty Lesbian Pron mags, sure. But my own? Bah. I'm sure it sucks. (And I don't care to determine conclusively if it sucks or not by opening the cover).

Add into that he made about one million dollars per year on these various newsletters. One. Million. Dollars. Back in 1993, when one million dollars was still worth about twenty silver dimes, too.

In 1993, he made $940,000 in income off the newsletters.

Now he claims that he was "busy with medicine" and so couldn't be bothered to check in on his own one-million-dollars-per-year operation.

Many doctors own property or other ventures. Maybe a doctor wouldn't be concerned about small ventures in which he has $5000 invested in.

But when he's making one million dollars per year in his property investment portfolio, I'm thinking that he bothers to check in with partners from time to time.

As ArthurK. said on Twitter, Ron Paul would like you to believe that what he thought was happening was that some other people were writing a newsletter for him, without his involvement, and then periodically giving him million dollar checks.

And that's all he knew. He just didn't bother to ask about the details.

Million dollars per year? Personally, I think I could manage to rouse myself into some level of interest at that level of compensation.

Did he at least check the Headlines in bold print on his newsletters? What did he think a newsletter titled "The Coming Race War" was about? A new competitor to the hegemony of NASCAR?

So yes, he knew and approved of and directed -- he's the owner, mind you, with his name at the top, and not just some figurehead -- the content of the newsletters.

To maintain otherwise is simply to lie, and in a very dumb, crude manner.

Further, he probably wrote them, too. Look, this guy, as I said, is intensely ideological. For years he was out of Congress. He had served three terms, retired back to private life, and then ran again later.

So during this period, the newsletter was the only vehicle of political expression and influence from a guy who really cared about political expression and influence.

Why wouldn't he write them? I didn't start blogging because I wanted to get rich. I started blogging because I was, get this, interested in politics and had a bee in my bonnet to express myself.

Why would Ron Paul, who during his years of private sector temporary retirement, not write his own newsletters? He's a man who has something to say about government, and money (and Negros, and Homos); why would he pass up the opportunity to do say something about topics of interest to him?

He's a reasonably intelligent guy. He writes his own speeches. He writes lots of columns. This is certainly not outside his skill-set.

Although I do believe it's possible that Lew Rockwell contributed stuff when Paul was lazy or busy, it's simply absurd to claim that even in this situation Ron Paul "didn't know" what was going on.

Ghostwriters do not just make up stuff on their own. Every politician's book is ghostwritten, but the ghostwriter doesn't just pursue his own agenda and push political messages of his own fancy. The ghostwriter sits down with the putative author and asks, "So what are we writing about? What's on your mind? What excites you? What do you want this book to be?"

Ghostwriters may assemble the sentences themselves, but they do not decide, on behalf of the author whose name is on the cover, what the book will be about. They do the "writer" type stuff -- grammar, structure, pacing, fact-checking -- but not the thinker type stuff.

So while it's possible that some material in the newsletters was mostly written by Lew Rockwell, in terms of actually doing the trivial work of stringing some words together with some other words, I don't believe Ron Paul is anything less than the actual author of each piece.

Sarah Palin had a ghostwriter (they all do, this is no knock, so don't get defensive). But Sarah Palin's books are not about faith, family, freedom, defiance, and media bias by happenstance. It's not as if she hired a ghostwriter at random and that ghostwriter just happened to write something that by coincidence fit into the Sarah Palin worldview. Her ghostwriter did not just make up a visit to an Alaskan state fair -- no, that detail was actually written by Sarah Palin, whether on paper or just "talked out" in a book meeting.

Her ghostwriter wrote a Sarah-Palin-like book because Sarah Palin was the producer of the venture and instructed the ghostwriter to write a Sarah-Palin-like book.

But in Ron Paul's case, we're to believe that ghostwriters and collaborators just go off on their own personal bugaboos, pursuing their own hateful agendas, before singing your name at the bottom of an article.

And then they keep doing it, and doing it, and doing it some more; and then they do it some more; and some more, and more. And you never notice, because you don't even bother to read the headlines of your own first-person magazine.

One article I read this past week had a Ron Paul associate saying something like, "if you think the newsletters were bad, wait 'till you see the solicitation letters."

And indeed they are fire-breathing crazy, seeing conspiracies under every bed. Panic, fear, apocalypse, conspiracy: the whole toxic stew of unhinged fringe thought is on display.

They are also signed Ron Paul.

And we are also expected to believe that Ron Paul doesn't bother to check the advertising/solicitation material for his million dollar a year venture.

The man who thinks we ought to be suspicious of everyone in government and investment and the media wants us to be rather un-suspicious of one single man in the government, and investment, and yes, the fringe media.

We ought to believe the fed is going to burst into our rooms brandishing AK-47s (AK-47s! A Russian make!) to take away our precious Classic Dollars and exchange them for "ominous" "New Money," but we're supposed to take his word for it that he didn't write this toxic crap.

Oh, and one more thing: We're also supposed to believe he doesn't know who did. And that also, in the last 20-30 years, he hasn't bothered to find out the name of this serial miscreant who so besmirched his reputation.

Posted by: Ace at 11:56 AM | Comments (315)
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Selfish?

Barbara Walters, ABC News: "Mrs. Obama, you've recently said something that I thought was very interesting for other women to hear. You said 'you put your own self highest on your priority list.' That sounds selfish?"

Michelle Obama: "No, no, it's practical. It's something that I found I needed to do for quite some time, even before the presidency. And I found it other women, in similar situated balancing career family, trying to do it all and a lot of times we just slip pretty low on our own priority list because we're so busy caring for everyone else. And one of the things that I want to model for my girls is investing in themselves as much as they invest in others."

Perhaps Michelle Obama isn't average. But the average person is selfishly oriented by nature, and so should not reinforce that by subscribing to a doctrine -- a considered, intellectualized manifesto -- of putting oneself first.

That tends to happen naturally. That's why most creeds stress the opposite -- Do for others; put your family first. Because the conscious effort to be selfless is a necessary check for the natural, unconscious, unthinking impulse to put the self first.

But there's a whole strain of feminist thought that declares that women do too much already for their children and husbands, and must consciously force themselves to prioritize their own needs. Not being a woman or a mother, I don't know if there's truth, and that consciously pushing to be more self-oriented is necessary or useful.

All I know is that given that Marie seems to think nothing of His 'n Her private jet flights to Hawaii, just to avoid having to spend another dreaded day of drudgery in the national mansion, her "Me First" philosophy is bearing some fruit, at least. So good for her.

Stop the Tape, Stop the Tape: Isn't her husband campaigning on the idea that the super-rich -- such as Barack and Marie Obama -- have to be less self-oriented and do more, more, more for others?

My goodness, that's not yet another "Do as I say not as I do" thing, is it?

And I guess this is... funny or something?

Posted by: Ace at 10:05 AM | Comments (300)
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Terrific ad skews Barack Obama, our fourth greatest president.

Obama debuts a new line at the end that'll make your teeth shake. more...

Posted by: Ace at 09:11 AM | Comments (118)
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Been reading his newsletters. Wow!

You know, it's quite common to think of racism as one of the worst failings of character, but it turns out, adhering to every conspiracy theory that comes down the pike is actually worse.

A racist may still have a nodding familiarity with objective reality and still trust most of the objects in it.

But a conspiracy nutter suspects the water he drinks and the contents of his billfold of being part of some Grand Unifying Theory of Population Control. And as all the other little side-theories accumulate and fit in together, suspicion turns to certainty and no ambassador from Realityland -regardless of race- can ever reach such a person.

One emailed by Gabriel this morning: Ron Paul Newsletter solicitation.

DID YOU KNOW that yetis are REAL human-alien hybrids created in a laboratory by the US government?

DID YOU KNOW that the CIA has hidden secret monitoring equipment in everyday objects in every one of our homes? Your wife's bra may contain a transmitter wire RIGHT NOW!

DID YOU KNOW that the chemicals added to your drinking water are intended to enslave and control you? And also ATTRACT YETIS?

We haven't had a jokes thread in a while.

Time to shine, darling Morons! Ron Paul Movie Titles.

Drew M. and Andy kick it off:

Full Metal Currency

Kill Bilderberger: Vol. 1 & 2

Posted by: LauraW at 07:52 AM | Comments (378)
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Shorter Democrats: You're welcome!

Both houses passed the deal which includes the Keystone XL provision that will require Obama to make a decision on the project in 60 days.

The Senate and the House were in pro forma sessions today and passed the bill by unanimous consent. So two essentially chambers passed a bill. Ah, democracy.

Watching Harry Reid today talk about how this is a lesson for "new comers" in both houses (aka tea party types) I started to get the idea he, Obama and the media think the message of the 2010 mid-terms was, "keep doing what you've been doing for the last two years". Strangely, that's not how I remember it.

The GOP really managed to screw the pooch with this. They either should have caved earlier or passed their version first and left it up to the Senate to be the bad guy. Some how, the GOP leadership in both houses managed to take the 3rd option and let the Democrats claim a victory here.

I'm sure they'll do better when we start this all over again in a few weeks. Or...not.

Posted by: DrewM at 06:57 AM | Comments (190)
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Good guest post by Willis Eschenbach over at Watts Up With That

... “Sustainable Development” is just an airy-fairy moonbeam fantasy, a New Age oxymoron. In the real world, it can’t happen. I find the term “sustainable development” useful for one thing only.


When people use it, I know they have not thought too hard about the issues.


Finally, there is an underlying arrogance about the concept that I find disturbing. Forty percent of the worldÂ’s people live on less than $2 per day. In China itÂ’s sixty percent. In India, three-quarters of the population lives on under $2 per day.


Denying those men, women, and especially children the ability to improve their lives based on some professed concern about unborn generations doesn’t sit well with me at all. The obvious response from their side is “Easy for you to say, you made it already.” Which is true. The West got wealthy by means which “sustainable development” wants to deny to the world’s poor.

Damned straight. Read the whole thing, as they say.

This echoes a point we've made here at the HQ on many occasions when greenies get all warm and fuzzy cuddling their Chevy Volts and Nissan Leafs (or is it Leaves? ... no matter).

Just where do they think that electricity comes from? Oh, right ... the magic holes in the wall.

I hate to break it to them, but in the U.S. about 90% of the juice that powered their toys in 2010 came mainly from natural gas, coal, and nuclear power plants with the remainder from renewables.

Of course, a third of that renewable total was from hydroelectric power. Try to get a dam built and see how far the greens let you go with it. It's the ugly stepsister of renewable energy that they just keep around to pad the stats.

Wind and solar? Tiny - around 1.5% of total. But even then, where do they think the wind turbines and solar panels came from? More magic, I guess.

The simple fact of the matter is, like Willis said, when you hear someone blathering on about things like "sustainable development" and "clean energy", he might as well have a big red sign on his forehead that says "DUNCE". more...

Posted by: andy at 04:06 AM | Comments (195)
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I got a lot of problems with you people! And now you're gonna hear about it!

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 02:53 AM | Comments (97)
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Modern Christmas Songs

For some reason stations insist on playing the same old collection of Christmas songs over and over again until every bit of enjoyment has been leached from them and they become just so much annoying background noise. Which is a shame because there are lots of Xmas songs with some recent ones classics in their own right.

So here are a couple that I think are worthy of being declared modern carols. Feel free to suggest your own in the comments. And yes I totally stole this from myself from last year. As momma always said if ya gonna plagiarize, be sure and steal from the best the non-litigious.

[videos below the fold] more...

Posted by: Maetenloch at 05:27 PM | Comments (787)
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This has been bugging me for days. See if you can spot hackery.

MARVELING over a presidential candidateÂ’s arrogance is like noting that a hockey player wears skates. It states not just the obvious but the necessary. You canÂ’t zip across the ice in Crocs, and you canÂ’t thrash your way to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue if your confidence doesnÂ’t bleed into something gaudier. Arrogance is the grist, and arrogance is the given.

That’s where candidates — and the presidents that some of them become — differ, in ways that shape the sorts of messes they’re likely to make. And that’s where Newt Gingrich provokes real concern. You have to take another politician’s ego, double it, and add cheese and a side of fries to get to Gingrich. An especially heaping, unhealthy diet of self-regard slogs through his veins.

His 1990s nemesis Bill Clinton had (and surely still has) no small amount of his own vanity, and it lay largely in his conviction that his charm and cunning enabled him to wriggle out of jams and get away with indulgences that would doom a lesser mortal. He fancied himself an escape artist extraordinaire.

...

George W. Bush was in love with his own gut instinct, which he valued far above actual erudition....

Barack Obama’s arrogance resides in his eloquence — as a writer, thinker, symbol and story. He’s in thrall to the lyric poem of himself, and that accounts for his aloofness and disinclination to engage as deeply as some of his predecessors did in the muck of legislative politics.

Barack Obama's arrogance resides in his eloquence?

This seems to have been written by committee, and written into a consensus sentence that pleased everyone because, being senseless, it didn't mean anything.

They have to acknowledge the elephant in the room. They can't avoid noting that Obama might just maybe deserve mention in a piece about presidential arrogance.

But apparently they flinch from uttering such a heresy, and have come up with "his arrogance lies in his eloquence" as a way to say it without saying it. Or as away to turn the insult of calling someone arrogant into, yes, an outright compliment.

Also, his chief flaw seems that he refuses to lower himself into the "muck" of dirty politics, which is the Industry Standard liberal fashion of backhandedly complimenting the president.

Posted by: Ace at 04:20 PM | Comments (138)
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Ridley Scott seems to deliver on, seriously not snarkily, the most important thing to me in a science-fiction movie: production design. As much I find Blade Runner boring and ponderous, no one can knock its look.

What's that I see here? Is he really using real sets and practical effects and what looks like miniatures and matte paintings? I'm not sure, but stuff looks more real here, in the old-school, expensive, and better-looking way, than in the typical "Pretend this is not totally a soft-focus cartoon" CGI way. more...

Posted by: Ace at 02:26 PM | Comments (357)
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