Ron Paul, Conspiracy Nut Case

[Crossroads Inc.]

Link to SALON

Two days after the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity republished a column suggesting that last week’s terror attack on the satirical French newspaper Charlie Hebdo was a “false flag operation,” the former congressman himself weighed in on the conspiracy theory Friday, saying his group ran the column simply to pose some questions about the official version of events.

In the column, paleoconservative crank and Reagan administration Treasury Department official Paul Craig Roberts cast doubt on the notion that the Paris attack truly stemmed from Muslim anger over Charlie Hebdo’s cartoons lampooning Islam and the Prophet Muhammad. Roberts, a notorious 9/11 truther, speculated that the U.S. government executed the attack to punish France for its independent foreign policy, citing its vote at the United Nations to recognize Palestine as a state and French President Francois Hollande’s recent call to ease sanctions on Russia.

“Clearly, France was showing too much foreign policy independence. The attack on Charlie Hebdo serves to cow France and place France back under Washington’s thumb,” Roberts wrote.

Appearing on Newsmax TV today, Paul defended Roberts’ column, arguing that neither he nor Roberts actually believe the attack was a false flag. They just Have Some Questions.

“I think he suggested it, he wanted a discussion and he has some really good things in there,” Paul said. “It’s a shame that the media doesn’t pick up and say ‘what about this chief investigator of this event committed suicide right in the middle of it?’ I have no idea what’s going on there but that to me is big stuff.”

The three-time presidential candidate — whose son Rand is expected to mount a 2016 White House run — contended that by his conspiracy theory, Roberts showed a healthy skepticism of government.

“It’s sort of like — the people of this country especially have lost a lot of confidence in governments per se, including our own,” Paul said. “I mean, we’ve been trying to get to all the answers of Benghazi, and of course ‘Fast and Furious’ was a scandal, nobody believes those answers. Eighty percent of the American people don’t even believe the Kennedy Commission on who killed Kennedy. So people are very skeptical, and I think this is the whole point.”

Though Paul maintained that the column wasn’t a declaration that the U.S. government carried out the attacks — it was merely an effort “to try to get the truth out,” he said — he also implied that he finds Roberts’ theory plausible.

“Of course we have Rahm Emanuel who says don’t ever let an emergency goes to waste, and I think that is part of what is going on there, this is a design to restructure and reorient people on foreign policy,” Paul said.

Watch Paul’s interview below, via Right Wing Watch:

So yeah.. Ron Paul being a Nut case may not be exactly "News" but I think things like this are note worthy for reminding us of just HOW MUCH of a nut case he is...

[mr friendly guy]

I am not an expert on these things, but if you're going to "punish" a nation for geopolitical disputes, shouldn't you make it obvious (or at least plausible) that its because of these disputes. How is France supposed to, you know realise the error of its ways.

[Grumman]

So yeah.. Ron Paul being a Nut case may not be exactly "News" but I think things like this are note worthy for reminding us of just HOW MUCH of a nut case he is...

He's still better than Bush or Obama. Suspecting the CIA of a crime they didn't commit for a change is still a hell of a lot better than standing in solidarity with rapists and torturers.

[Eternal_Freedom]

There is something vaguely worrying about how people automatically dismiss Ron Pal (and other's) views because they are "conspiracy nuts." Not that I'm agreeing with or defending their (admittedly crazy) views, but what if they do happen to stumble across something genuine and/or ask a genuinely significant question about something?

EDIT: Sometimes it's almost like the "Hitler liked x" fallacy. Someone has something genuinely important to say, and it's dismissed because "he agreed with/supported xyz crazy conspiracy theory in the past."

[Zaune]

There is something vaguely worrying about how people automatically dismiss Ron Pal (and other's) views because they are "conspiracy nuts." Not that I'm agreeing with or defending their (admittedly crazy) views, but what if they do happen to stumble across something genuine and/or ask a genuinely significant question about something?

Then someone else without a long and well-documented history of talking out of their arse will also stumble upon it.

[Gaidin]

Or at the least with a long and well-documented history of talking out of their arse can present data instead of "suggest".

[Flagg]

So yeah.. Ron Paul being a Nut case may not be exactly "News" but I think things like this are note worthy for reminding us of just HOW MUCH of a nut case he is...

He's still better than Bush or Obama. Suspecting the CIA of a crime they didn't commit for a change is still a hell of a lot better than standing in solidarity with rapists and torturers.

God damn but you are a fucking shit eating piece of... Mung. Stupid, damnable mung. I had to make up a word for how disgustingly ignorantly dumb your ass is. A whole new word. I hope it spreads. I know I'm gonna hashtag it. Ron Paul (and his son) are vicious racist shitbags. And worse than that, Libertarians. Or so they say. The faint smell of fascism wafts away when they leave the room.

[UnderAGreySky]

Can you find a different word, Flagg? I quite like Mung beans because they make a bloody good daal.

Grumman, your comparison is idiotic and you should be ashamed of it.

Eternal Freedom, just like we pay attention to people who make a lot of sense and are insightful in almost everything they say (for me, Neil DeGrasse Tyson), we stop paying attention to and dismiss people who talk shit almost all the time. It's natural and, in my opinion, only fair.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Oh I know it's natural, and it's probably fair. I'd just hate for something bad to happen and Ron Paul or someone similar be able to legitimately claim "I warned you."

[Gaidin]

Well it's like I said, someone like him can present data instead of merely suggest.

[Iroscato]

Oh I know it's natural, and it's probably fair. I'd just hate for something bad to happen and Ron Paul or someone similar be able to legitimately claim "I warned you."

Meh. A broken clock is still right twice a day. Concurrently, a swivel eyed lunatic may occasionally hit the nail on the head. Doesn't stop them being a swivel eyed lunatic.

[aerius]

He's still better than Bush or Obama. Suspecting the CIA of a crime they didn't commit for a change is still a hell of a lot better than standing in solidarity with rapists and torturers.

God damn but you are a fucking shit eating piece of... Mung. Stupid, damnable mung. I had to make up a word for how disgustingly ignorantly dumb your ass is. A whole new word. I hope it spreads. I know I'm gonna hashtag it.

You're little late on that one bud. http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.p ... fid=128702

---

I am not an expert on these things, but if you're going to "punish" a nation for geopolitical disputes, shouldn't you make it obvious (or at least plausible) that its because of these disputes. How is France supposed to, you know realise the error of its ways.

They were told, of course, told. But we can't tell you that because it's in the double secret secret memos. Which will of course be leaked when it's convenient to do so. Don't you know how things work these days?

[Grumman]

The faint smell of fascism wafts away when they leave the room.

You don't know the meaning of the word.

I mean that literally - "fascism" does not mean "anything Flagg doesn't like". It is quite possibly the least accurate word one could use to describe Ron Paul.

[Simon_Jester]

So yeah.. Ron Paul being a Nut case may not be exactly "News" but I think things like this are note worthy for reminding us of just HOW MUCH of a nut case he is...

He's still better than Bush or Obama. Suspecting the CIA of a crime they didn't commit for a change is still a hell of a lot better than standing in solidarity with rapists and torturers.

But how am I supposed to respect a man whose grasp of reality is so poor that he thinks such allegations are plausible?

Oh I know it's natural, and it's probably fair. I'd just hate for something bad to happen and Ron Paul or someone similar be able to legitimately claim "I warned you."

This is very unlikely in my opinion. A conspiracy theorist's brain is cluttered up by the huge number of "false positives" from disasters that never actually happened, plots that don't exist, and so on. And their perception of reality is distorted by the belief in various conspiracies and failure to understand the true motivations of various groups.

So basically, the odds of them getting a true positive are greatly reduced, because they don't understand what's really happening and waste so much of their thinking capacity on things that won't happen.

[Flagg]

The faint smell of fascism wafts away when they leave the room.

You don't know the meaning of the word.

I most assuredly do, young man.

I mean that literally - "fascism" does not mean "anything Flagg doesn't like". It is quite possibly the least accurate word one could use to describe Ron Paul.

Then you know nothing about the little racist shitlord.

[KlavoHunter]

God damn but you are a fucking shit eating piece of... Mung. Stupid, damnable mung. I had to make up a word for how disgustingly ignorantly dumb your ass is. A whole new word. I hope it spreads. I know I'm gonna hashtag it. Ron Paul (and his son) are vicious racist shitbags. And worse than that, Libertarians. Or so they say. The faint smell of fascism wafts away when they leave the room.

http://southpark.cc.com/clips/151743/mung

[Crossroads Inc.]

Not to add more fuel to the fire..
But Rand Paul Is being an Equally big Douche

Travel obligations kept me from addressing until now the attack on Social Security disability recipients made last week by Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), but it was too outstandingly ignorant and cynical to go unanswered.

Long story short: If Paul's words truly represent the Republican Party's approach to Social Security, then not just the disabled but everyone else with an interest in the program -- taxpayers, retirees and their survivors and dependents -- should start panicking now. We reported on the first shot fired at Social Security by the new GOP Congress here. Paul has now raised the stakes.

Here are his words, delivered to an appreciative audience on Wednesday in the key presidential primary state of New Hampshire:

"The thing is that all of these programs, there’s always somebody who’s deserving, everybody in this room knows somebody who’s gaming the system. I tell people that if you look like me and you hop out of your truck, you shouldn’t be getting a disability check. Over half the people on disability are either anxious or their back hurts. Join the club. Who doesn’t get up a little anxious for work every day and their back hurts? Everyone over 40 has a back pain."

Paul thus associates himself with a slander of disability recipients favored by Republican conservatives abetted by ill-informed journalists, who include the staffs of NPR and "60 Minutes." (We reported earlier on the latter's abandonment of journalistic standards in its disability coverage.

Leaving aside Paul's contempt for people suffering from these conditions ("Join the club"), his numbers are flagrantly wrong. The actual figures can be found in this table from the Social Security Administration. Start with "anxiety": The Social Security Administration classifies anxiety as a subset of mental disorders and places it in the catch-all category of "other," which constitute a total of 3.9% of all disability claims -- and that's all otherwise unclassified mental disorders, not just anxiety.

Where Rand Paul goes wrong: Back pain and anxiety account for nowhere near half of all disability claims... (CBPP)
Social Security doesn't regard anxiety as lightly as Paul. According to its definitions, which can be found here, the category includes post-traumatic stress syndrome and phobias or compulsions that result in "marked difficulties" with working or living in society, or "complete inability to function independently outside the area of one's home." Paul wants his audience to think of "anxiety" as the mild sense of dread you might experience when contemplating a bad day at work, or perhaps an unpleasant visit with your family. He's lying about it.

As for back pain, no one gets disability for the kind of mild stiffness that Bayer aspirin claims to relieve in its TV ads. That's the condition Paul tries to evoke by saying "everyone over 40 has a back pain." But he shows no empathy whatsoever for the real sufferers of this condition -- those who get it not from laboring in a physician's office or in Congress, as Paul has, but from years of hard physical toil or workplace injury.

Social Security classifies back pain as a "disease of the musculoskeletal system." Some 30.5% of disabled workers fell into this category in 2013, according to the latest available figures. But that category covers a lot more than "back pain." It also comprises amputations, joint failures, leg and arm fractures, spine disorders and burns.

These are the official figures; no one has documented any others. Paul didn't cite a single source for his assertion that "over half the people on disability are either anxious or their back hurts," so it's reasonable to conclude that he has no sources. But that's all right, because his goal isn't to offer a considered analysis of the pressures facing Social Security in general or its disability component in particular, but to rationalize an attack on the whole program by ridiculing disability recipients as a step toward legislating their benefits out of the system. Fabricated statistics are more than useful for that purpose.

SSDI states
...but his home state of Kentucky has one of the highest disability rates in the country, for different reasons. (Social Security Administration)
The disability program is facing a fiscal crisis that could force a cutback in disability payments of about 20% starting next year; Paul and other Republicans have signaled that they won't accept the customary remedy for similar situations, which involves reallocating some payroll tax revenue from the old-age fund to cover disability's near-term shortfall. Instead, they're demanding a full-scale fiscal rebalancing of Social Security, which in practice means benefit cuts for everyone -- disabled, retirees and their families.

A large proportion of Paul's own constituents would be harmed by his approach. In 2013, his home state of Kentucky had the fourth-highest disability rate in the country -- more than 225,000 residents, or 8.2% of the population -- fostered in part by low educational attainment and lack of gainful employment opportunities. (What has Paul done to alleviate those conditions?)

The most cynical aspect of this attack is that it comes from some lawmakers who were helped by Social Security in their own lives. The roster includes Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), who received Social Security benefits during his college years, after his father's untimely death, and now thinks that the nation can't afford to keep paying them as currently scheduled.

Another is Rep. Tom Reed (R-N.Y.), the sponsor of the House rules change, whose father died when he was 2 and then was raised by a single mother on Social Security and veterans benefits. Now he talks about Social Security going "bankrupt," which is flatly incorrect, and promotes a measure aimed at cutting benefits for all. This is known as climbing the ladder and pulling it up behind you. If Reed, Ryan and Paul get their way, the only option left to the rest of us will be to hold tight.

So more of the same in terms of being a Hypocritical douche

[Flagg]

Rand Paul is also a prolific plagiarist which somehow went down the memory hole.

[Adam Reynolds]

Paul Ryan's hypocrisy is what disgusts me the most. It's OK that I took it but no one else possibly can.

[Raw Shark]

Rand Paul is also a prolific plagiarist which somehow went down the memory hole.

This coming from the guy who just got called out for appropriating, "mung?"

[KlavoHunter]

Sure, they're lying hypocritical loonies with the same sense of empathy as a shark, but gosh darnit they seem like okay guys to have a beer with and that's what counts!

[Flagg]

Rand Paul is also a prolific plagiarist which somehow went down the memory hole.

This coming from the guy who just got called out for appropriating, "mung?"

Not really. I've been using "mung" since I was 12, long before SP. It was just a meaningless nothing word but at the same time had to be something truly filthy and offensive.

[Zaune]

Sure, they're lying hypocritical loonies with the same sense of empathy as a shark, but gosh darnit they seem like okay guys to have a beer with and that's what counts!

The sad thing is they probably aren't even all that pleasant to have a beer with, either; I'll lay any money you care to name they'd turn out to be one of those "I'm not racist but" saloon-bar bores.