Unsurprisingly, they didn’t answer the question as Paul’s time ran out. Check it out below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kOcHyrPa5g0

It was a rather classy move by Clinton I must say. We even got to hear here infamous cackle when the chair of the committee said following her remarks, “Now your going to encourage them!”

Check out the lovefest below which also includes Ron Paul’s full question.

Quote of the Day: “I’m from the government, and I’m here to help.”

There’s a civil war going on in Mexico. It’s the drug cartels, funded by obscene black market profits, versus the government, funded by obscene taxes.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton visited Mexico this week. She’s from the U.S. Federal Government and she was there to help. She promised . . .

* More taxpayer money to fight Mexico’s war on drugs
* Gun control laws here in the U.S.A. . . .

. . .to stop the flow of guns to the Mexican drug cartels.

Ms. Clinton seems to think that gun prohibition is the way to enforce drug prohibition. She’s right about one thing. Drug prohibition and gun prohibition are the same issue.

Now, you might think drugs are bad. You might believe them to be so harmful you’d never use them. But you probably expect the politicians to keep their hands off your firearms.

On the other hand, you may think guns are evil. You might believe they’re so dangerous, you’d never own one. But you think you have every right to choose what substances you take into to your own body.

Both positions are correct. Guns and drugs are both dangerous to people who don’t use them prudently. But prohibition laws mean that no one is allowed to use them prudently. And the one form of prohibition ends up being used as a justification for the other, as Ms. Clinton made clear in Mexico this week.

We think it’s time to put the special pleading aside. Drug prohibition and gun control aren’t two separate issues, they are the same issue, and should be governed by the same principle. The only thing that should be prohibited is government prohibition in all its forms.

We don’t need to renew the Assault Weapons Ban, or give money to Mexico to fight the war on drugs.

What we need is less government coercion, not more.

Downsize DC! That’s the winning formula here.

Our government should end drug prohibition. That will defund the Mexican cartels (and the terrorists too), then they won’t be able to buy the guns. It would also reduce violent crime here at home and remove much of the supposed justification for gun prohibition.

If you see the wisdom in this please our free Educate the Powerful System to ask Congress to end prohibition.

Then, please help spread the word. Digg this message on our blog.

Thank you for being part of the growing Downsize DC Army, which has grown in two months time from 24,095 to 24,649.

Jim Babka
President
DownsizeDC.org, Inc.

PS: We’re currently working to fix some technical difficulties on our website. In the meantime, if you trouble, try this . . .

* Log-in using the log-in button near the upper right hand corner of our home page
* Then go to our Help End the Mexican Civil War campaign to send your message to Congress

D o w n s i z e r – D i s p a t c h
is the official email list of DownsizeDC.org, Inc. & Downsize DC Foundation

Quotes of the Day:

“You can’t walk around unless you’ve got flak jackets, helmets on all the time, no matter where you are. It’s always struck me it’s almost like a Fellini movie, kind of unreal. The American people are told things are stable and secure, and violence is down. No American would walk outside there without a convoy!” — Chuck Hagel, upon returning from Baghdad

“At long last, the fragile state of Somalia seems to be slowly resurfacing from a searing bout of violence and humanitarian crisis. Interestingly, the light at the end of this decades-long tunnel is not burning at the behest of the United States or the United Nations; rather, it burns because Somali leaders, both within the government and without, have banded together. Frustrated by failed foreign interventions, they are now seeking sustainable Somali-based solutions. The key to success, going forward, is to keep it Somali-led. Further intervention from neighboring Ethiopia or the United States will be ruinous.” — Michael Shank, Communications Director, Institute for Conflict Analysis and Resolution at George Mason University, Senior Analyst at Foreign Policy In Focus

Subject: Real “Change” in Iraq

Many people think the U.S. occupation of Iraq has become a non-issue, for two reasons . . .

1. Violence is down
2. The U.S. government signed an agreement with the Iraqi government to continue the occupation

We feel differently. We think the occupation is still an issue, because . . .

* American soldiers continue to die
* The factions in Iraq haven’t reached a settlement, and have no incentive to do so as long as we remain there
* Somalia and Lebanon show that stable societies are grown from within, not engineered from without
* The “agreement” to continue the occupation was signed by a U.S. government that has now been repudiated
* The public legitimacy of the Iraqi government is also highly questionable
* The dollars being spent in Iraq belong in the pockets of struggling U.S. taxpayers

This is why we think the occupation is still an issue. We still want the occupation to end. We want change.

Barack Obama won election by promising change. He distinguished himself from Hillary Clinton and John McCain by having always opposed the Iraq invasion, and by promising to leave Iraq sooner rather than later. Iraq was a key issue to millions of Obama voters. Will they get the change they sought? Consider these points . . .

* Pro-war Congressman Rahm Emmanuel will be Obama’s Chief of Staff
* Pro-war Senator Clinton may become his Secretary of State
* Robert Gates, who favors an indefinite occupation, may remain as Secretary of Defense

With top advisers like these, who needs neo-con bogeymen? Perhaps in DC-speak, “change” means “let’s fool the yokels who think elections matter, and give them more of the same.”

Are we being too harsh on Obama too soon? We think not. We think our skepticism is justified. Remember . . .

We now know that George W. Bush was already scheming to invade Iraq when he promised us a “humble foreign policy,” and “no nation-building.” He also stocked his cabinet with aggressive interventionists, just like Obama has started to do.

This is how politicians behave. They promise one thing and do another. Obama is a politician, therefore . . .

We assume the worst.

And remember, Senator Obama voted to “legalize” warrantless spying. This, all by itself, is enough to justify extreme skepticism about our incoming president, no matter how much we may like him as a person.

If we want real change we’re going to have to demand it, constantly. Eternal vigilance!

The main argument for the occupation has been, “We broke it, so we must fix it.” But what if the Iraqi people don’t want us to “fix” them? What if they don’t want us there?

We think Congress should pass a resolution asking the Iraqi government to hold a public referendum on the U.S. occupation. This resolution would . . .

* Show respect to the Iraqi people
* Potentially legitimize the occupation, or end it
* Tell the President-elect that the American people still want what he promised — to leave Iraq

If you don’t buy the argument that Iraq has become a non-issue, and you do buy our argument that the Iraqi people must . . .

A. Settle their own differences
B. Be allowed to say yes or no to the U.S. occupation

And if you want to . . .

* Save American lives
* Save your tax dollars

Then . . .

Please tell Congress to pass a resolution requesting an Iraqi referendum on the occupation. You can do so using our quick-and-easy Educate the Powerful System.

Thank you for being part of our growing Downsize DC army.

Jim Babka
President
DownsizeDC.org, Inc.

D o w n s i z e r – D i s p a t c h
is the official email list of DownsizeDC.org, Inc. & Downsize DC Foundation

“…this new mission marks the first time an active unit has been given a dedicated assignment to NorthCom, a joint command established in 2002 to provide command and control for federal homeland defense efforts and coordinate defense support of civil authorities.”

“The 1st BCT’s soldiers also will learn how to use ‘the first ever nonlethal package that the Army has fielded,’ 1st BCT commander Col. Roger Cloutier said, referring to crowd and traffic control equipment and nonlethal weapons designed to subdue unruly or dangerous individuals without killing them.”

So, then, what is an unruly crowd?  Is it anything at all akin to the peaceful, park-loving protesters and bystanders who were spontaneously surrounded by SWAT Police in full riot gear and arrested on Labor Day in St. Paul, Minnesota?

Folks, this concerns me.  In fact, quite frankly, this makes me want to go run and find a cave.

Let’s look at the big picture:

1) We won’t defend our borders, and, quite frankly, neither of the two mainstream Presidential candidates are interested in any action on that front. Instead, we’ve got volunteer Minutemen who have to do the government’s duty, from spotting illegal immigrants and alerting authorities on the border of McCain’s home state of Arizona, to building a fence in Texas.

2) We now have greater civil unrest in Mexico, as the Mexican Mafia has now turned to terrorist-like acts of violence against citizens, as opposed to singling out politicians and others involved in the drug trade. In fact, as civil unrest and violence in Mexico increase at our own borders, and even crosses over them into our own nation, the government decides that the most sensible and effective course of action is to label these individuals as “narcoterrorists”. Instead of focusing on the most TRULY sensible and logical next step, working to secure our borders, Washington now uses recent events as a justification for increasing “its investment in the fight against the drug trade by spending $2 billion in counternarcotics aid money to Mexico and Central America through the Merida Initiative.” Well, why not?  The War on Drugs and the War on Terror haven’t been successful so far, so why not throw a couple more billion at the problem, doing the exact opposite of what common sense dictates?

3) Speaking of the War On Terror, has anyone noticed that Osama Bin Laden was never charged with a crime for his involvement in 9/11?  Has anyone noticed that no criteria have ever been suggested towards an identification of success, or victory, in the War on Terror?  Heck, even Asia, which is “home to more Muslims than the Middle East”, believes that “the current US administration has been overly focused on the Middle East”.

So, we’re not accomplishing anything by “addressing threats abroad”, or by fighting a “War on Drugs”, or even with the official Border Patrol.  Yet, we will train our militaries for domestic crowd control?  Congress and the military will put together equipment to stand up a hasty road block; spike strips for slowing, stopping or controlling traffic…, but they won’t defend our borders, or even bother to read Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution, which specifically states that everything they are doing is THE EXACT OPPOSITE of what they are empowered and obligated to do?:

…To define and punish Piracies and Felonies committed on the high Seas, and Offenses against the Law of Nations;

To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water;

To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years;

To provide and maintain a Navy;

To make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces;

To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions;

To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress…

Congress is, at this very moment, collapsing our economy.  Whether you believe that the Wall Street disasters are incidents of negligence or of deliberate fraud and corruption, the end result is the same:  our government has failed us, and it won’t take much more for a total economic collapse.  It would seem to me that, in the event of a total economic collapse, there might be a little bit of “civil unrest”.  Apparently, the U.S. Government also feels that our country is headed down this path, as they are doing more to prepare for “dealing with crowds” than they are about returning to the Fundamentals of the Founding Fathers in an effort to nurture and naturally heal this country back to a position of financial strength.

“When the American people, facing a foreclosure crisis and struggling economy, turned to this administration for help, the answer was no,” Clinton said in a statement. ”Now, the administration is turning to the American people for help, to rescue the credit markets and take on hundreds of billions in debt and financial obligations as a consequence of that same foreclosure crisis. The truth is, Main Street came to Washington and got little. Now Washington is coming to Main Street and asking for a lot.”

“I will be examining the administration’s proposal very closely to ensure that we do not approve a policy that may stabilize the markets in the short term without addressing the root problems facing middle class families or the kinds of reckless gambling that was permitted for far too long by the administration. The Bush Administration may have changed its tune once the crisis facing Main Street hit Wall Street. But we need to be sure that the American taxpayers – asked to shoulder yet more risk and responsibility – have a voice.”

As Mike Miller pointed out in his article (rant) earlier this week, it was Hillary’s husband Bill who deserves at least some of the blame for our current economic woes. Clinton politics and politics in general has become based on strategic convenience rather than truth. No wonder the U.S. electorate can’t decide between Obama and McCain as evidenced by the yo-yo polling results. Once one of them gets a lead in the polls people realize, “Oh crap, we can’t have him as President” so the other then takes the lead only to lose it again due to the same dissatisfaction. I’ll keep on dreaming that someday people will realize they have other viable options.

What is most interesting is that we are now hearing a somewhat libertarian or typical conservative low tax argument from Mrs. Clinton. I guess the strategy is any attack is a good attack even if it doesn’t suit the attacker all that well.

(12:32:26 AM) LibertarianMikeM: I get so (bleep)ing pissed off when liberals (and apparently also neocons like Bill O’Reilly) say that “it was wrong for those banks to lend to people who can’t pay it back” when in fact it was Clinton Administration (thanks to the Community Redevelopment Act in the late 60′s) who FORCED the banks to give out loans to “underprivileged” buyers. So the banks did what they were told even though it was a bad idea, and then when things went wrong, they blame the banks.  WTF?
(12:32:45 AM) LibertarianMikeM: Here in Baltimore, the exact thing is happening.  Wells Fargo was coerced (by threat of being called racists) to make loans available to many people who didn’t have the means to pay back to the loans.  Then the housing bubble burst, and people started defaulting on their loans causing this huge mess, and now the city is suing Wells Fargo for being “greedy” and handing out these loans.
(12:32:58 AM) LibertarianMikeM: What a (bleeped) up situation!

While I’m sure there were some cases of overly-zealous loan officers taking advantage of the “good times” at the height of the bubble, it cannot be denied that many banks were coerced into handing out questionable loans against their will.  They were forced by legislators to go against their own policies in the name of “social progress”.  Then when all the foreclosures came, nobody seemed to remember it was the government’s intervention that cause the problem in the first place.  It’s oh so convenient to blame the “greedy” bankers.

Investor’s Business Daily discussed the same thing:

But it was the Clinton administration, obsessed with multiculturalism, that dictated where mortgage lenders could lend, and originally helped create the market for the high-risk subprime loans now infecting like a retrovirus the balance sheets of many of Wall Street’s most revered institutions.

Tough new regulations forced lenders into high-risk areas where they had no choice but to lower lending standards to make the loans that sound business practices had previously guarded against making. It was either that or face stiff government penalties.

The untold story in this whole national crisis is that President Clinton put on steroids the Community Redevelopment Act, a well-intended Carter-era law designed to encourage minority homeownership. And in so doing, he helped create the market for the risky subprime loans that he and Democrats now decry as not only greedy but “predatory.”

Yes, the market was fueled by greed and overleveraging in the secondary market for subprimes, vis-a-vis mortgaged-backed securities traded on Wall Street. But the seed was planted in the ’90s by Clinton and his social engineers. They were the political catalyst behind this slow-motion financial train wreck.

Nevertheless, the media constantly repeats the lies and the drooling masses suck it all up.  Then all these unconstitutional bailouts, and we’re way over our heads in debt.  There’s no doubt in my mind that the only possible end result of all of this is economic collapse.

Although it’s only been a few short days since the announcement that Sarah Palin will be John McCain’s running-mate, those few days have been interesting ones, indeed. Regardless of your choice of party or candidate, Mrs. Palin’s candidacy has evoked strong responses across the board. And I am sure there is much more to come.

In an effort to respond to recent criticisms of Palin, and also draw sympathy from Democratic Hillary supporters, McCain promptly marched out his original choice for a Republican “answer to Hillary” herself, Carly Fiorina.

“I am appalled by the Obama campaign’s attempts to belittle Governor Sarah Palin’s experience”, Carly Fiorina said in a statement on Tuesday.

“The facts are that Sarah Palin has made more executive decisions as a mayor and governor than Barack Obama has made in his life.”

Well, Carly, speaking of “executive decisions”, we need not mention that a string of successive and significantly devious executive decisions of your own directly lead to the downfall of several great companies, and the financial ruin of many American families.

Quite frankly, Carly, I, myself, am appalled that a “newly-decided” Republican, such as yourself, is allowed to speak at the RNC, while a true conservative and long-standing Republican, Ron Paul, has been repeatedly denied the opportunity to speak, and essentially banned from the Convention altogether (please see previous posts regarding both the Ron Paul Rally, as well as the mixed messages surrounding Ron Paul’s potential admission into the RNC via “escort only”.)

I am more than slightly concerned that a corrupt former executive is becoming a face for the Republican Party, while a phenomenally successful Presidential Candidate, one who preaches fiscal conservatism and responsibility; one who glistens with integrity and honor, is not only shut out by the media, but also by his own party.

As far as “Sarah Plain ‘N Tall” herself goes, don’t sweat it.  If it doesn’t even occur to The McCain Team to perform due diligence step number one, look for potential skeletons and scandals, then there isn’t really much hope that McCain could possibly be a good leader.

For more see this AP article.

“It will be necessary for us to be a nation of men, and not laws.” – Dick Cheney

“We can’t be so fixated on our desire to preserve the rights of ordinary Americans…” – Bill Clinton

Subject: The Worst of All Worlds

Why did nearly half the Democrats in the House vote for the “FISA Amendments Act” that’s now pending in the Senate, when most of them had opposed warrantless spying and telecom immunity before? The answer is that they were bribed, using your tax dollars.

The Washington Post claims a deal was cut: the Democratic Leadership would support the FISA bill if the President would agree to add $95 billion in DOMESTIC spending to the latest Iraq appropriation.

In other words, House Democrats voted to continue the war and sold the Fourth Amendment for $95 billion.

Republicans say they want less spending. Democrats say they want less war. What’s their compromise? More spending and more war.

Indeed, House Democrats supported the Iraq bill at a higher rate than Republicans did.

So much for the “anti-war message” sent by the American people in the 2006 elections!

This sort of “compromise” brings us the worst of all worlds. It’s the kind of world expressed in the views of Dick Cheney and Bill Clinton above. Politicians of both parties get annoyed when gadflies start talking about the Constitution and America’s proud traditions of individual rights, liberty, and the rule of law. To them, “laws” and “rights” are just bargaining chips to use in passing their spending bills.

The current course they’re plotting will lead to economic collapse, fiscal bankruptcy, an Orwellian Big Brother police state, and a faltering, over-extended military empire. Who knows what kind of chaos or despotism will follow.

But the people don’t have to wait for things to fall apart. Instead, we can put massive, persistent, resistance-numbing pressure on Congress. Apply the pressure, and members of Congress will bend, and then they will flip-flop. They will have to, if they want to keep their jobs.

So let’s tell Congress that the American people do not tolerate their cavalier attitude toward Constitutional rights and the rule of law.

Tell them to pass the “One Subject at a Time Act,” which would have forced them to separate the Iraq bill from domestic bills. Tell them you’re aware the Democrats in the House sold out in return for increased domestic spending. Tell them you don’t like having your tax dollars used as bribes.

Tell them to pass the “Read the Bills Act,” which would have forced them to actually read the 116 pages of H.R. 6304, the “FISA Amendments Act.”

And keep telling the Senate to oppose the “FISA Amendments Act.”

In your comments on all of these messages tell them you’re proud we’re a nation of laws, not men. Tell them OSTA and RTBA will help restore liberty by making it more difficult to sweep aside Constitutional rights in legislative horse trading.

Also, please consider joining the “Read the Bills Act Coalition.” When you add “Read the Bills Act Coalition” button, banner, or tower ad on your website, we’ll link to it from our blog and announce it in a Downsizer-Dispatch like this one, reaching almost 23,500 subscribers. To learn more, click here.

This week we welcome two new members to the Coalition:

Reinke Faces Life
The Virginian Rebel

Finally, in the last two weeks of June the House passed 44 bills totaling 969 pages, while the Senate passed 34 bills and 269 pages of legislation. A list of bills is available below the signature in the blog version of this Dispatch.

Thank you for being part of the growing Downsize DC Army.

James Wilson
Assistant to the President
DownsizeDC.org

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It looks like Idaho will become Ron Paul’s best primary showing yet. McCain is going to be haunted by Ron Paul right up to the convention. I wouldn’t want it any other way. Except perhaps, for Ron Paul to be on the winning end of the nomination.

See the Idaho results via CNN here.