Proof of Paul's hypocrisy

So, tonight I did some research. The fact that Ron Paul voted against giving Rosa Parks a Congressional Gold Medal has been tossed around a lot as a possible indication of a racist attitude and hypocrisy. I decided to find out for myself. First, Paul's comments on the matter:

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Mr. Speaker, I rise today in opposition to H.R. 573. At the same time, I rise in great respect for the courage and high ideals of Rosa Parks who stood steadfastly for the rights of individuals against unjust laws and oppressive governmental policies. However, I oppose the Congressional Gold Medal for Rosa Parks Act because authorizing $30,000 of taxpayer money is neither constitutional nor, in the spirit of Rosa Parks who is widely recognized and admired for standing up against an overbearing government infringing on individual rights.

Because of my continuing and uncompromising opposition to appropriations not authorized within the enumerated powers of the Constitution, I must remain consistent in my defense of a limited government whose powers are explicitly delimited under the enumerated powers of the Constitution--a Constitution, which only months ago, each Member of Congress, swore to uphold.

Perhaps we should begin a debate among us on more appropriate processes by which we spend other people's money. Honorary medals and commemorative coins, under the current process, come from allocated other people's money. We should look for another way.

It is, of course, easier to be generous with other people's money.

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So, the medal is too expensive. I personally find it to be a ridiculous position to take, but whatever. As long as he votes against every medal...right?

Well that's what I set out to determine. Was he so set in his beliefs, that he voted against every medal Congress proposed?

The common example used is that Paul voted for Frank Sinatra's medal. However, I could find no proof of this. The medal passed with a 2/3 majority, and the individual votes weren't recorded. So he could've voted either way, there's no way to know.

I decided to randomly pick a medal given after the Rosa Parks medal and see how Paul voted on it. I ended up with the medal given to the Tuskegee Airman, passed Feb 28, 2006. Results? Ayes: 400. Nays: 0.

Well, there were 32 no-votes, so maybe Paul was just absent for the vote, but he would've voted against it, right?!

Wrong: Aye TX-14 Paul, Ronald [R]

So, at the very least, this suggests Ron Paul didn't vote against the Rosa Parks medal for purely racist reasons. But, what it does prove is that Paul did have a reason to vote against the Parks medal, and it doesn't look like consistency in fiscal responsibility was the reason.

-Hortnon

InfoWars caught changing article

A couple weeks back, there was an article posted to Digg (here). The text is here:

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Presidential candidate Ron Paul says the U.S. is in "great danger" of a staged terror attack or a Gulf of Tonkin style provocation while also warning that a major collapse of the American economy is on the horizon and could be precipitated by the bombing of Iran and the closure of the Persian Gulf.

Speaking to The Alex Jones Show, the Texas Congressman was asked his opinion on Cindy Sheehan's recent comments that the U.S. is in danger of a staged terror attack or a Gulf of Tonkin style provocation that will validate the Neo-Con agenda and lead to the implementation of the infrastructure of martial law that Bush recently signed into law via executive order, as well as public pronouncements from prominent officials that the West needs terrorism to save a doomed foreign policy. "I think we're in great danger of it," responded the Congressman, "We're in danger in many ways, the attack on our civil liberties here at home, the foreign policy that's in shambles and our obligations overseas and commitment which endangers our troops and our national defense."

"Every day we're in worse shape and right now there's an orchestrated effort to blame the Iranians for everything that's gone wrong in Iraq and we're quite concerned that the attack will be on Iran and that will jeopardize so many more of our troops, so I would say that we're in much greater danger than we even were four or five years ago," asserted Paul. The presidential candidate expressed his despair that the situation in Iraq will not change until there is a total collapse of the American economy. "There's no way we can afford what we're doing, whether it's domestic spending or the international spending and very few people talk about the real cost of this economically speaking....this is unsustainable and it will be a threat to our dollar," said Paul, adding that the onset of the meltdown could be sparked by the bombing of Iran and the closure of the Persian Gulf.

The Congressman added that the collapse was in its early stages with the major indication being a reduction in the living standard of middle class Americans but that "one single major world event" could change things overnight and precipitate a major downturn. Paul added that there had "not been a national discussion on monetary policy in many many years" and the increasingly bleak outlook for the U.S. economy was also bringing more attention to the solutions the Congressman has proposed for reducing the burden of the mammoth national deficit.

Paul said that national and world events, especially the degrading situation in Iraq, were attracting support for his presidential campaign due to his resolute position on embracing a non-interventionist foreign policy. The Congressman concluded by surmising that record lows in approval ratings for Bush, Cheney and Congress showed that, "The American people are alive and well and disgusted yet they haven't had good alternatives....it's justifiable, they are looking for true answers and options and quite frankly I think that's probably one of the reasons why our campaign is growing by leaps and bounds right now."

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You might ask: Why do I put the text here instead of linking to it? Well, I'm getting there.

Something you have to understand: I have a problem with 'truthers' - those that believe that the US Government, or some vaguely-defined New World Order, was behind the murder of several thousand US citizens on 9/11. I ALSO hate the Paulbots - The ones that are fanatical supporters that treat him like a god, not his more reasonable supporters. Not surprisingly, these paths cross in a lot of users.

I take every chance I get to disprove them and bury their stories. Regardless of what you think of that, it's what I do.

So, that brings us back to the Digg article above. It is pointed out in the comments section by Xuvious (an avid Paul supporter, here) that everything may not be as it seems.

I wanted a definitive answer on Ron Paul's position. As much as I don't like him, I don't want his stances misrepresented. So, I sent an email to his campaign:

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Hi,

I was wondering how accurate this article
http://www.infowars.com/articles/terror/ron_paul_us_in_great_danger_of_staged_terror.htm
is. This is a very important issue to me, and getting it straight from the source hopefully will clear things up.

Thanks!

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I attempted to ask the question as sincerely as possible, to increase my odds of getting answered. Well, 2.5 weeks went by, and no response. That's ok, because Ron Paul has clarified his stance on 'trutherism' several times since then. I had forgotten about it completely.

Well, something interesting happened today! I got a response:

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Dear <redacted>,

Based upon your email and the link it included it is hard to tell
which specific issue troubles you.

Please write back and inform us so that we can address your concern.

Regards,
Brooks
Volunteer

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Wait...what? So, thinking I made a mistake, I clicked the link. I couldn't believe my eyes.

The article changed. Completely. And they didn't even take the time to redirect the link. So there you are, staring at a story about Paul's visit to Google with a URL that reads "ron_paul_us_in_great_danger_of_staged_terror"

Did Paul's campaign contact InfoWars and demand it change? Who knows? I certainly hope that's what happened.

But, whatever the case, InfoWars has been caught red-handed. The site has clearly changed from a very politically charged post implying Ron Paul supports the 'truth movement' to a (arguably) neutral article about his visit to Google.

-Hortnon



Update:
This is the response I received from the Ron Paul campaign:

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Dear <redacted>:
Thanks for your note. Dr. Paul does not believe the US Government was behind several recent terrorist attacks including 9/11.

Sincerely,
Matt Turvey, volunteer

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Original infowars article mirrors here
PrisonPlanet article here
Google cache of new page here
Yahoo cache of new page here
Live cache of new page here