Political Jackass

Ron Paul has gotten a huge following on the internet. Websites, such as the ever-popular Digg, are flooded with Ron Paul articles. Why is a radical so popular around web communities? Some researches might have an answer: Spambots.

Presidential hopeful Ron Paul hasn’t been doing very well with the print media, and offline, his name recognition isn’t that high. But online, the libertarian candidate seems to have an almost cult-like following. But how much of that is real? Much of Ron Paul’s online support may be at least partially manufactured by overenthusiastic supporters, as some researchers say that spammers have recently stepped up their efforts to gain support for their favorite candidate.

The University of Alabama-Birmingham’s computer forensics research department, which collects spam messages as part of its Spam Data Mining for Law Enforcement Applications project, analyzes hundreds of thousands of e-mail messages per month. When it began getting bombarded with e-mails about Ron Paul immediately following a Republican debate on TV, the lab began to examine their origin and saw consistent patterns that it described as “disturbing.”

The e-mails originated from IPs all over the world, but researchers’ suspicions were aroused when they found that the e-mails purported to come from different countries than their IPs indicated. Messages claiming to come from the US were actually coming from Korea, for example, and messages claiming to come from Italy were actually coming from the US. The pattern showed that the messages were clearly not coming from Ron Paul’s official campaign, but rather illegitimate spam operations and botnets.

“We’ve seen many previous e-mails reported as spam from other campaigns or parties, but when we’ve investigated them, they all were sent from the legitimate parties,” department director Gary Warner said in a statement. In contrast, the Ron Paul messages clearly came from a number of other parties attempting to spoof where they came from. Paul’s campaign may run afoul of the authorities as a result of these e-mails. Warner believes that the messages may violate the CAN-SPAM Act due to their deceptive sending practices.

The Ron Paul camp, however, wants to make sure the world knows it’s not involved in the spam. “This is the first I’ve heard about this situation,” Ron Paul spokesman Jesse Benton told Wired. “If it is true, it could be done by a well-intentioned yet misguided supporter or someone with bad intentions trying to embarrass the campaign. Either way, this is independent work, and we have no connection.” via ars technica

According to CNN, The Colbert Report’s Stephen Colbert will be running for President in his home state of South Caroline as a Democrat. The reason? The GOP is too costly. The Democratic Party requires just $2,500 or 3,000 signatures whereas to get on the GOP ballot you need to raise $35,000.

Funnyman Stephen Colbert’s presidential campaign is apparently no joke.

The host of Comedy Central’s “The Colbert Report” will file papers late Wednesday or early Thursday to put his name on South Carolina’s Democratic primary ballot, a source familiar with the comedian’s strategy said.

The South Carolina native will not file papers as a Republican because the $35,000 required to get on the GOP ballot is apparently too high a threshold.

“They priced us out of range,” the source told CNN.

The South Carolina Democratic Party demands a candidate pay $2,500 or garner 3,000 signatures to get on the ballot. Surrogates of “The Colbert Report” star will file the hand-signed papers at state party headquarters before the November 1 filing deadline.

The mock conservative pundit whose show regularly features real politicians and political commentators announced that he was running as both a Democrat and Republican on October 16.

But whether Colbert’s name will show up on the ballot remains unclear.

The state party’s 26-member executive council — with representatives from each of South Carolina’s six congressional districts as well as state members of the Democratic National Committee — will meet Thursday afternoon to decide which candidates meet the criteria to appear on the ballot. Read more…

Take a look at Ron Paul’s resume. I know it’s fashionable to love Ron Paul, but many who support him have no idea who they really support. Besides this list here, Paul would like to get rid of all middle class subsidies. Guess someone should let Mr. Paul know that the middle class is what makes the American economy what it is. Without their spending power, America is as good as dead. Take away what makes them middle class and you take away the middle class.

Paul introduced The Sanctity of Life Act of 2005, a bill that would have defined human life to begin at conception, and removed challenges to prohibitions on abortion from federal court jurisdiction. Defining embryos and fetuses as persons would make abortion murder and outlaw fetal stem cell research and some contraception and fertility treatments. In 2005, Paul introduced the We the People Act, which would have removed “any claim based upon the right of privacy, including any such claim related to any issue of … reproduction” from the jurisdiction of federal courts. If made law, either of these acts would allow states to PROHIBIT ABORTION.

Ron Paul’s bill to provide that human life shall be deemed to exist from conception.
http://tinyurl.com/yuo3ta

Ron Paul’s bill to prohibit any Federal official from expending any Federal funds for any population control or population planning program or any family planning activity.
http://tinyurl.com/2h6y7w

Ron Paul’s bill to limit the jurisdiction of the Federal courts, and for other purposes.
http://tinyurl.com/2sts73

Ron Paul was the only member of congress to vote against a bill (HR 180) to prohibit spending federal tax dollars on companies doing business with genocidal warlords in Darfur.
http://tinyurl.com/2cazda

Ron Paul voted against establishing Bill HR 5252 Amendment 987(Jun 2006)[169], which would have legally protected network neutrality.
http://tinyurl.com/27xg44

Ron Paul failed to vote against the FISA amendment that legalized warrantless wiretapping of US citizens.
http://tinyurl.com/2p3t65

Ron Paul believes that all federal taxation should be eliminated.
http://tinyurl.com/yuvdk2

Ron Paul wants to eliminate the federal reserve and replace the U.S. dollar with a currency based on the gold standard.
http://tinyurl.com/2dhx28

Ron Paul wants to amend the constitution to eliminate birthright citizenship.
http://tinyurl.com/2gh52n

Ron Paul wants to end US membership in the UN
http://tinyurl.com/yoajxb

Ron Paul wants to build a 700 mile wall between the U.S and Mexico.
http://tinyurl.com/2yunzn

Ron Paul opposes universal health care.
Ron Paul is a fundamentalist born-again Christian who believes there is a war on Christmas being waged by the secular left.
Ron Paul supporters seem to be composed largely of people who oppose the war in Iraq, but for some reason believe they have no choice but to support a Republican over any Democrat (in addition to the smaller number of hard-core true believers). These casual supporters need to be aware that the vast majority of his views are bizarre and extreme.

Ron Paul is the candidate backed by the White Supremacists…
http://tinyurl.com/36k9rw

… to the point they even arranged to have supporters bussed to the straw polls in Iowa…
http://tinyurl.com/32kwtb

…and extensively cover anything Ron Paul, see e.g….
http://tinyurl.com/2mfyvq

Ron Paul has reciprocated the love from the White Supremacy groups by giving interviews to David Duke.
http://tinyurl.com/2jqhan

The 9/11 Truth movement also endorse Ron Paul, see e.g….
http://tinyurl.com/399wqb

Ron Paul authored a newsletter in which he made the following racist statements (among many others):
RP Quote: “If you have ever been robbed by a black teen-aged male, you know how unbelievably fleet-footed they can be.”
RP Quote: “Opinion polls consistently show that only about 5 percent of blacks have sensible political opinions”
RP Quote: “Given the inefficiencies of what D.C. laughingly calls the “criminal justice system,” I think we can safely assume that 95 percent of the black males in that city are semi-criminal or entirely criminal”
RP Quote: “we are constantly told that it is evil to be afraid of black men, it is hardly irrational. Black men commit murders, rapes, robberies, muggings and burglaries all out of proportion to their numbers.”
RP Quote: “We don’t think a child of 13 should be held responsible as a man of 23. That’s true for most people, but black males age 13 who have been raised on the streets and who have joined criminal gangs are as big, strong, tough, scary and culpable as any adult and should be treated as such.”
RP Quote: “What else do we need to know about the political establishment than that it refuses to discuss the crimes that terrify Americans on grounds that doing so is racist? Why isn’t that true of complex embezzling, which is 100 percent white and Asian?”

He wants to ban abortion, legalise the teaching of creationism and remove the separation between church and state. His politics stink of Christian fundamentalism and to believe otherwise is a fantasy.

A vote for Ron Paul endorses irrationality, dishonesty, bigotry, racism, fundamentalism, obscurationism and an incredibly retrograde and backwards world view. If you vote for Ron Paul, you are voting for these things. You don’t get to pick and choose and claim that your vote endorses a “balanced budget” and not “a 19th century style deportation project estimated to cause over a hundred thousand deaths”.

The top two Democratic presidential contenders rebuked Republican rival Rudy Giuliani Wednesday for suggesting the United States could face another major terrorist attack if a Democrat is elected in 2008.

Illinois Sen. Barack Obama said the man who served as New York mayor’s during the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks should not be making the serious threat that faces the country into “the punchline of another political attack.”

“Rudy Giuliani today has taken the politics of fear to a new low and I believe Americans are ready to reject those kind of politics,” Obama said in a statement. “America’s mayor should know that when it comes to 9-11 and fighting terrorists, America is united. We know we can win this war based on shared purpose, not the same divisive politics that question your patriotism if you dare to question failed policies that have made us less secure.”

Read more…

I’m not sure what to think of this. I think John Edwards would make a fine choice for President, but many will see him as young and inexperienced. I would rather see him run and win over Hilary. My ideal candidate would still probably be Obama, but I think he suffers from the same pitfalls that Edwards suffers from, young and inexperienced. No doubt race would play heavily in the elections if Obama ran as well.

Former Democratic vice presidential nominee John Edwards intends to seek his party’s nomination for the 2008 presidential race, two Democratic officials said Saturday.

Edwards, who represented North Carolina in the U.S. Senate for six years, plans to make the campaign announcement late this month from the New Orleans neighborhood hit hardest by last year’s Hurricane Katrina.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they did not want to pre-empt Edwards’ announcement.

As Edwards enters the crowded field, the Lower Ninth Ward neighborhood in New Orleans provides a stark backdrop to highlight his signature issue — economic inequality.

Edwards also plans to travel from New Orleans through the four early presidential nominating states — Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire and South Carolina.

Among Democrats, Sens. Hillary Clinton of New York and Barack Obama of Illinois are drawing the most attention almost two years before the actual vote. read more…