Phrontistery: (n) an establishment for study and learning; a thinking place. Providing a place to understand, promote and think about conservatism since 2009.
Many people are excited about Rand Paul's announcement that he's endorsing Mitt Romney in this election. Lets look at Rand Paul talking about Mitt Romney on Fox Business Channel:
Not everyone is excited about this endorsement. A lot of people who support Ron Paul and his son Rand Paul are notthrilled about it. Personally, I'm not thrilled with this announcement either. I am strongly opposed to Ron Paul because of his questionable and controversial background, his racist news letters which he initially denied writing but ultimately admitted to writing it, his endorsements from known racists Don Black and Lew Rockwell, and his foreign policy positions such as refusing to kill Osama Bin Laden or confronting Iran. Ron Paul is someone that conservatives and independents cannot support.
Given how Ron Paul feels about Israel, its not surprising that Rand Paul advocates cutting foreign aid to Israel as a way of reducing our national debt. The problem with this argument is that from
an economic stand point, our problem isn’t how much we spend on
foreign aid or on military campaigns. That is not why we
are massively in debt. Cutting off foreign aid or bringing all the
troops home from wherever they are stationed around the world won't make
a dent in reducing the national debt.
The truth is that we can sustain as many military campaigns as America needs if we weren’t for entitlement spending. Entitlement spending is the single largest driver of our current debt right now. In fact, our government is more efficient in the money it spends on defense related matters than it does with entitlement spending. It is true that our government spends more money than it takes in,
but the way Ron Paul wants to reduce the deficit by reducing the amount
we spend on national security is neither logical, practical or prudent.
Its not just Rand Paul's views on Israel that bothers me. If you look at Rand Paul's views on foreign policy, he's just like his father. He's an isolationist. He opposed Senator Rubio's attempt to have the country of Georgia be admitted into NATO. He wants us to get out of Afghanistan, opposed implementing sanctions on Iran
However, the old saying that politics makes strange bedfellows is true. There were rumors that Mitt Romney and Ron Paul formed an alliance with each other during the 2012 primary elections. There may be such an alliance with Rand Paul as well given his endorsement of Mitt Romney. Lets not forget that Rand Paul never attacked Romney during the 2012 primary but attacked other candidates like Rick Santorum.
Whether the alliance existed then or that Ron and Rand Paul can see the writing on the wall that Mitt Romney will be the GOP nominee, its an alliance its an alliance that should not be forged by Mitt Romney and his campaign because Ron Paul has admitted that he isn't in the race to become President but that he's in the race for the sole purpose
of amassing enough delegates so that he can use his delegates as a way
of getting the Republican party to adopt his libertarian views on
foreign policy, economics and other issues.Furthermore, he admitted
on Fox News that he doesn't want the power of being the President but
simply wants to influence the Republican Party on matters he considers
important.
Mitt Romney should not negotiate with Ron Paul or his son Rand Paul under any circumstances since it would be detrimental to the Republican party and for conservatism. Libertarians already have a political party in which it supports libertarian policies and Romney should not allow Ron and Rand Paul to hijack the Republican party just so it can adopt their domestic and foreign policy views.
Furthermore, given that Ron Paul has semi-suspended his campaign and is retiring from politics after the 2012 election is over, he has long term political aspirations for his son and is setting the stage for Rand Paul's eventual run for President. As a result, any negotiation that takes place with Mitt Romney and either or both Ron and Rand Paul in this 2012 election is only helping the Pauls remake the Republican party into the Libertarian party. Besides, if Rand Paul is thinking about running in the Republican party in 2016, he's gonna have to do it on his own without trying to remake the Republican party into a different political party.
Like many Ron Paul supporters, I'm not happy with Rand Paul's endorsement of Mitt Romney. But Mitt Romney and Ron Paul supporters can agree on one thing: Barack Obama must be defeated in 2012.
Recently, the Online American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language has added a new word to its dictionary: audism. Many deaf people are excited about it since Deaf people have been fighting hard to get the word included in the dictionary.
However, the Online American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language's definitions is not the full, complete and accurate definition of the word audism. They define it as "discrimination or prejudice against people based on the fact that their ability to hear is impaired or absent."
Let me explain why that definition doesn't fully capture the meaning of that word.
Audism, like all prejudicial labels (racist, sexists), does not specify who the direction of gave the offense and who received the offense. Thus, audism can go both ways. Gallaudet has a better and more accurate definition of Audism. They affirm the fact audism is an act of discrimination that can go both ways by stating that "persons who practice audism are called audists. Audists may be hearing or deaf."
Linguistically speaking, the Online American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language's definition for audism is questionable when this term is compared with other prejudicial terms such as racism or sexism. Here, audism as generally used by the deaf population and provided on the net, does not work with well other similar labels because audism is defined as only goes in one direction (people who are against Deaf culture) whereas the definition for racism, fore example, can be applied to any person of color who is prejudicial towards other people of another color.
As Gallaudet explains in its website, audism comes from two latin words: (1) Latin audire, to hear, and (2) -ism, a system of practice, behavior, belief, or attitude. Thus, based on the way the word is put together, "audism" should to mean simply "discrimination based on one's deafness or hearing status," in the same the way racism means "discrimination based on race" or sexism means "discrimination based on sex." Thus, audism ought to include Deaf people who discriminate against hearing people.
Thus, Online American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language's
definition of audism is incorrect since it describes discrimination and
oppression as only going in one direction (hearing against deaf) and
not going the other way (deaf against hearing).
When Deaf people use the word audism, it doesn't accurately describe what the deaf people actually mean to say. When Deaf people use this term, they use it describe oppression or prejudice those who have a hearing loss. To resolve the incorrect usage of audism, it has been suggested that "Deafism" be used as the word to correctly demonstrate oppression or prejudice. This suggestion seems to be an acceptable solution to this linguistic problem.
Now that Mitt Romney has recently released the first campaign ad for the general 2012 election, lets look back at the best campaign ads of the primary 2012 election.
Mitt Romney made waves with Republicans with these two ads and really helped define his campaign both in the primary and general election:
Although Tim Pawlenty's campaign was short lived, he made a really great ad both in terms of style and substance by making a point about Obama's empty podium:
Herman Cain had a very interesting ads that was unusual which attempted to help him stand out of the crowd of Republican contenders vying for the Republican nomination:
Another unusual ad from Herman Cain was odd and amusing to everyone which spawned a lot of YouTube spoof videos. A lot of people speculated that Cain was going for the X-File voters.
Ron Paul also had a great ad attacking Newt Gingrich and for unexplained reason, Newt Gingrich got angry at Mitt Romney's attack ad. I think Ron Paul did a better job taking down Newt than Mitt did.
Mitt Romney produced some other great ads during the 2012 primary race. Here are my top three favorites below:
For conservatives, its no surprise that the media supports Barack Obama and will do what they can to help him secure second term. This is something that the media will never admit to unless you happen to be Mark Halperin who confesses that the media will on Team Obama's side during the Presidential Debates:
The media has been sympathetic to Obama ever since he ran for President back into 2007. However, things haven't gone well for Obama since he's been office and people aren't enthusiastic about reelecting him. As a result, ever since Mitt Romney became the presumptive GOP nominee, the media haven't been subtle in their attacks on him. That is to
be expected. However, they're doing a very bad job of it.
Lets examine all the ways the media attacks on Mitt have backfired on Obama.
The Media and Romney's Faith
For example, the media went after Mitt Romney's faith and that backfired on them when Lawrence O'Donnell intentionally misrepresented how the LDS Church began:
Lawrence O'Donnell admits his bias towards the LDS religion and that he can speak harshly against that religion because they won't retaliate against him for doing so:
HH: Would you say the same things about Mohammed as you just said about Joseph Smith?
LO’D: Oh, well, I’m afraid of what the…that’s where I’m really
afraid. I would like to criticize Islam much more than I do publicly,
but I’m afraid for my life if I do.
HH: Well, that’s candid.
LO’D: Mormons are the nicest people in the world. They’re not going to ever…
HH: So you can be bigoted towards Mormons, because they’ll just send you a strudel.
LO’D: They’ll never take a shot at me. Those other people, I’m not going to say a word about them.
HH: They’ll send you a strudel. The Mormons will bake you a cake and be nice to you.
LO’D: I agree.
HH: Lawrence O’Donnell, I appreciate your candor.
As a result of outrage over his slanderous interpretation of the LDS history, he has issued a half hearted apology in which doesn't apologize for the substance of his remarks but only that he's sorry for his poor word choices:
We are some how believe that Lawrence O'Donnell's slanderous and untruthful comments about the LDS Church was only to illustrate his point that religious intolerance is wrong and that refusing to vote for a political candidate because of their religion is wrong His false statements about the how The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints began undermines his own point since he was being intolerant towards one religion while preaching about the need for religious tolerance of all faiths.
Another example is with Martin Bashir who tells Mitt he's going to hell because the LDS scripture says that's what happens to people who lie since he believes Romney is lying about Obama's failed promise to keep unemployment under 8%. For someone who accusing another of lying, Martin Bashir lies about the source of the first scriptural passage since its from the LDS church’s Doctrine and Covenants, which is NOT in the Book of Mormon, yet the graphic on
the screen noted that it was from the Book of Mormon. Mr. Bashir also implies that people who don't drink alcohol, which Mitt Romney doesn't in keeping with the LDS dietary law known as the Word of Wisdom, will not make good presidents.
Americans were warned that Obama might go after Romney's faith by getting others do it for him and Steven Colbert mocked Obama for even thinking about it. Yet, the media are acting as surrogates for Obama in going after Mitt's faith and its not helping Obama.
The Media's Coverage of Mitt's Polygamous Ancestors Backfires On Obama
The media took another approach in attacking Romney's religion by trying to make a big deal about the fact that Mitt Romney's distant Mormon ancestors were polygamists. However, the media immediately abandoned this story as soon people started to point out that Barack Obama's own father was an abusive polygamist.
Polygamy isn't a popular in America and the media was trying to associate Romney with that practice. However, if the media pushed that line of attack on Romney, people are going to end up being more curious about Obama's father than they are about Mitt's great great grandfather. But the attack alone ended up backfiring because it neutralized the attempt to tie Romney to polygamy by showing that Barack's own father was a polygamist and ultimately tied Obama to polygamy.
Dog In A Crate Or Dog On A Plate?
Another issue that the media tried to attack Mitt Romney is the old story of him putting the family dog in a dog crate and putting on top of the car during the family road trip. Once again that story died a quick death when conservative bloggers and commentators pointed out that Obama actually ate a dog. Moreover, they also found a story of where Mitt Romney actually saved a dog and some people from drowning.
The attack on Romney ended up hurting Obama because people realized how stupid the whole affair was and revealed how desperate the Obama campaign was in trying distract people from the real issues.
Will The Real Bully Please Stand Up?
More recently, the media tried to paint Mitt Romney as a bully for playing a prank on a younger classmate in high school. Mitt Romney killed the story by simply apologizing for the event and moving on to discuss more important issues that face the country. There was nothing left to discuss after that apology.
However, the media tried to pursue this story anyways but it began to immediately fall apart as soon as it was discovered that the Washington Post was intentionally falsifying the facts of the story and that the man who was the source of this story admitted that he wasn't there when the prank occurred. Furthermore, the victim's sister was unaware that the prank had even happened and that the victim's family was upset with the media is exploiting this prank as a way to attack Romney. Moreover, there were facts present in that Washington Post story that was contradicted by facts presented in another magazine.
Its clear from the sloppy coverage that the media isn't being subtle in their attacks on Mitt Romney. That is to
be expected. However, they're doing a very bad job of it since the story immediately fell apart by checking the facts. But then Dan
Rather didn't do a good job with President Bush either once people started checking the facts behind the Texas Air National Guard documents.
However, not only did the media damage their own credibility when it comes to reporting the truth about Mitt Romney, they were unprepared for the rebuttal from the conservative bloggers and commentators who showed that Obama bragged about doing drugs and shoving a girl. Their attempt to make Mitt Romney look like a jerk and a bully only ended up making Obama look like the real jerk and bully.
This story pushed people away from supporting Obama and drove people to Mitt because everyone has done mean and stupid pranks in their life and they could identify and relate more with Mitt. The media also helped change the public's perception of Mitt Romney in a way that Mitt could not have done on his own. He's no longer a stiff and uptight person but is someone who knows when to work and when to play.
The Media and The War On Women
Despite the fact that Obama has been called the first female President, he hasn't been very friendly to women in the White House or anywhere else. Prior the media going after Ann Romney for being a rich house wife who hasn't worked a day in her life, Obama was up ahead in support from women. That backfired and now Romney is ahead in support from women. If the media hadn't gone after Mitt's wife, Obama would probably have held on to his lead in support from women.
The Media & Obama's "Evolution" On Gay Marriage
Perhaps the biggest gift the media gave to Mitt Romney is the way they covered Barack's recent announcement that he supports gay marriage. Its clear that the media scrambled to present the event as a historic even despite the fact that Biden botched Obama's plan to announce his support for gay marriage by making him do it earlier than planned. The public isn't buying the media's coverage and its hurting Obama in so many different ways. Many African Americans won't support Obama and are upset with him. The media has also help fire up the conservative base for Mitt Romney. Even worse, voters are less likely to vote for Obama because of the way he embraced gay marriage.
Conclusion
The media has no legal duty to tell the truth. The media are not neutral observers either. As a result, it is very difficult to punish the media. The media doesn't care about their credibility because their is no incentive, deterrent or punishment that would force them report the facts in an honest and truthful way. Even with conservative commentators, bloggers and media watch dogs that attempt to hold the media accountable for their actions, the media continues to openly and brazenly attack conservative candidates even when confronted with iron clad proof that they story they are reporting isn't true.
That's why Mark Halperin's confession is making waves among conservatives because you have a member of the media admitting that they will be biased long before the scheduled event. Conservatives can try to show past and current examples media biases and the media will deny it. But to admit ahead of time that the media will be "sympathetic" to Obama during the debates when they're supposed to be neutral moderators doesn't help Obama either because the public can't even trust the media to manage the event properly.
No matter what the media has done or will do, they haven't been helping Obama even though they are eager to help him win. What they actually doing is helping Mitt Romney win and that isn't good for Obama. When Mitt Romney wins in 2012, the media will be unhappy about it but they will have no one to blame but themselves.
Today, Ron Paul has done something that I can actually support and get behind. He's suspended his campaign. I literally jumped up and down for joy at this news. However, I am not completely thrilled with this news because even though Ron Paul isn't running any more, he's encouraged his supporters to still go to the local conventions and become delegates.
Obviously, the Paul campaign will continue with its strategy of
urging supporters to swamp state conventions and get themselves elected
delegates to the national confab. As we’ve written before, this is a clever, cheap way of using complicated delegate-allocation rules to Paul’s advantage.
What
the Texas libertarian may be doing is amassing “stealth delegates” –
delegates bound by primary or caucus vote to Mitt Romney, or one of the
withdrawn GOP candidates, who are personally in favor of Paul. It’s hard
to count how many such delegates there are – or whether they’ll abstain
in the first round, or otherwise cause some sort of disturbance, in
Tampa.
Ron Paul was never in the 2012 race to become President. There were two reasons why Ron Paul jumped into the 2012 race.
The first reason is that Ron Paul wants influence the Republican party platform. Earlier this year, he admitted that he isn't in the race to become President but that he's in the race for the sole purpose
of amassing enough delegates so that he can use his delegates as a way
of getting the Republican party to adopt his libertarian views on
foreign policy, economics and other issues.Furthermore, he admitted
on Fox News that he doesn't want the power of being the President but simply wants to influence the Republican Party on matters he considers
important.
However, if that is his goal, Ron Paul has only has 104
delegates as of today. In contrast, Mitt Romney will soon win the GOP nomination since he has
973 of the 1,144 delegates and only needs to secure more 171 delegates to formally become the GOP's
nominee. Mitt Romney will get those delegates at the next primaries next Tuesday in Nebraska and Oregon. If not, he'll get them the following Tuesday in Arkansas and Kentucky. By May 29th, he should have the nomination wrapped up in Ron Paul's home state of Texas. After that, we will have the the final primaries will set in California, New
Jersey, Montana, New Mexico, South Dakota and Utah.
Even with all the dishonest and deceptive tactics used by his supporters to become delegates, it won't disrupt or hurt Mitt Romney at the national convention in Florida:
Massachusetts aside, the Paul campaign has mainly flexed its muscles in
states where Romney didn’t do well — and where Rick Santorum succeeded,
such as Minnesota, Iowa, Louisiana, and probably Missouri when they hold
their fourth or fifth event that will actually select delegates. The
net effect of the Paul conversion will be to weaken Santorum’s
influence, not Romney’s. Romney will win enough bound delegates from
primary states to secure the nomination on the first ballot.
Even though Ron Paul has told CNN’s Newsroomthat he doesn't support or like the idea of disrupting the GOP convention, he wants to do what ever he can to insert his political agenda and beliefs into the GOP platform. However, by the time the GOP convention
rolls around, he won't have enough
delegates to accomplish his short term goal of influencing the GOP platform. Ron Paul will be in a inferior bargaining position in
attempting to negotiate with the Republican party into adopting his
views on
the national platform.
Moreover, Mitt Romney and the national Republican party will not tolerate any kind of disruption at the convention which is designed to railroad the GOP to adopt Ron Paul's political beliefs. Nor will they or even sit at the negotiating table with man who is not a conservative and who conservatives won't support.
Ron Paul knows he won't become President or be picked by Mitt to be his VP. I hope they won't even let Ron Paul speak at the convention.
Ron Paul is delusional if he thinks he can influence the GOP. He can try but it won't work.
The second reason why Ron Paul jumped into the 2012 race is because even though Ron Paul announced earlier this year that when the 2012 race is over, he will be retiring from politics, his son's political career is just starting. Which means Ron Paul has long term political aspirations for his son and is setting the stage for Rand Paul's eventual run for President:
The elder Paul’s continued presence in the 2012 presidential race is
in large part an effort to secure funds and infrastructure for his son’s
own possible White House bid in 2016.
“If [Ron] hadn’t stayed in through the last few weeks, he would not
have made those trips to the donors on the West Coast, in California,”
said the adviser. “That’s 30 percent of his campaign’s income that will
help build his movement for years to come. Yes, Ron is 76 years old, but
he has a son.”
However, all of Ron Paul's short and long term plans might crumble if there is a brokered convention or if there is disruption of any kind. If that happens, Ron Paul might make it possible for Obama to win a second term and everyone will blame the Pauls for that.
Despite the good news that Ron Paul has suspended his campaign, conservatives still need to be on the alert at their upcoming state conventions in which Ron Paul supporters will still try to be delegates. If you are a Romney supporter in a state that has an upcoming convention PLEASE try to be there. We must NOT let our guard down. We want to end the deceptive shenanigans of the Raul Paul supporters in order to make sure nothing happens before the GOP convention in Tampa.
Current Massachusetts Goveneor Patrick Deval has claimed that Mitt Romney has flipped flopped on gay marriage while Barack Obama didn't flip flop but "evolved" on the issue of gay marriage:
Massachusetts Democratic Gov. Deval Patrick slammed Mitt Romney as a
flip-flopper on Sunday while defending President Obama as leading
through “convictions,” a reversal of the attacks launched by many
Republicans against Obama.
“I think what we know is that Mitt Romney has occupied many positions
on many issues, and he has, you know, back in 1994, when he was running
for the United States Senate he said publicly that he would be better
than Ted Kennedy on gay and lesbian issues. He takes a different
position in front of a different audience today,” he said on ABC’s This Week.
Alternately, Patrick said that Obama “is running on and leading through a set of convictions.”
Patrick was referencing Obama’s admission that he supports gay
marriage, a position that many critics have called a flip-flop on the
issue, with Democrats defending it as an “evolution.” But Patrick’s
statements make it clear that neither candidate is free from the
accusation of flip-floppery.
Deval Patrick knows about flip flopping since he took Mitt Romney's $ 2 billion surplus that he left at the end of his term as governor and flipped it to a whopping $101, 908, 205, 432 debt (as I write this post) for the state of Massachusetts. Governor Patrick Deval has taken Mitt Romney's surplus and squandered
it and is on track to be about 1.5 or 2 billion dollars in debt. What's even more amazing is that Governor Deval has been receiving $7 billion
in federal stimulus funds for the las two years and Massachusetts which hasn't helped reduced the deficit.
In fact, his spending is so outrageous since he blew money on himself and his staff
which made the citizens of the state very unhappy. Thanks to Deval
Patrick's leadership, Massachusetts is in debt. And what's his solution
to fix the problem? More spending.
Govenor Duval has flipped the state back to the same
level of debt before Mitt Romney became Governor of Massachusetts and he hasn't improved the state financially but regressed back
to the same old problems.
