I notice the press clips relating to Presidential Candidate Ron Paul disparaging him for favouring appearances with fringe media types such as Alex Jones. A typical example is:

He feels more comfortable speaking with eclectic pundits such as Alex Jones rather than with members of the more conventional media.

Understand Ron Paul is a superstar on what I’ll call for my purposes here the “Alex Jones Circuit”. In the realm of mainstream political punditry, he is a mere blip, his q-rating perhaps above average amongst a Congressional roster of 435 largely meaningless House members and 100 oh-so-important Senators, and most importantly, rrelevant to the Washington concensus — as personified by the Sunday Morning Blathering Shows which reserve spots for John McCain, Joe Biden, Chuck Hagel, and Joseph Liberman, with an all star panel of tedious hack newspaper political columnists.

It’s a hierarchy that demands to be either turned upside down or shaken up. The House of Representatives is perfect for founding a parallel power order. In the corner of the political spectrum that Alex Jones operates from, slide alongside Michael Ruppert’s organs, the list of heavy-weights are a veritable bi-partisan caucs and assortment of politiicans tilting at windmills against the Elite Empire — probably easily chunked down to Ron Paul and Cynthia McKinney. (Plotting her political comeback with their aid, no doubt). And there are only a handful of other elected officials worth mentioning — curiously enough, it adds up to the number that the Sunday Morning shows bother with.

Right wing Christiondom can align themselves their own heroes of home-school advocating under-god fetishist abortion fighters. If this only serves to move them to the one of a number of fringes of largely irrelevant agenda-cliques, at least it tends to be more interesting than the beltway mainstream.

A campaign issue was made in 2006 by Ron Paul’s Democratic opponent over comments Ron Paul made on Alex Jones’s show which seemed to suggest Paul was pushing for the Impeachment of President Bush. Alex Jones blared it out on his cluster of websites, somewhere aside his hawking of his apocalyptic videos eschewing the police state. Paul threw the onus on Congress, largely saying Congress oughta be impeached for not reigning the President in, and it delved mostly into philosophical points. It doesn’t fit into the Jones claim that he predicted the 9/11 inside-job, precursing the series of predictions made that don’t ever seem to come to pass.

Still, he flatters Ron Paul and provides Ron Paul with a platform for his somewhat outside the mainstream opinions, outside the political scope of “Who’s Up and Who’s Down”, somewhere in the realm of appealing to those who believe we need to destroy the Federal Reserve.

Thus.

I was surprised, a bit, that Ron Paul voted for the non-binding resolution. It seems to strike against Ron Paul’s stance against meaningless Congressional measures — the most cited being opposition to granting Charles Schulz the “Congressional Medal of Honor”.

David Broder, in his latest inside the beltway stratified piece — the theme of which posits Bush’s upcoming Political Comeback — guides us to the dangers of the “non binding resolution”. “Non binding” is by definition meaningless. An act of Congress which, if ignored by the Executive Branch would not result in a Constitutional Crisis, has no meaning. Barney Frank (and I think it was Barney Frank. It might have been Charles Rangle. I wish these things would appear on youtube.) provided the useful rationalization in his floor speech to why this isn’t just wallowing in the impotence that the legislative branch has carved itself — that is, the jarring Susan Collins — Republican Senator of Maine — and her less than Jeffersonian ideals (“Congress shall have the power to declare war”) of “Congress has the duty to speak out”. We have arrived at a certain frame-work with which our political actors are working, and that is that is where we must proceed from.

I understand the rhetorical tools this hands the Bush Administration and his attendent party. I notice that commentators from The Weekly Standard, National Review, and Fox News are throwing out favourable references to Dennis Kucinich, similar to praise Republican pundits have given Ralph Nader for the past decade. They slide themselves behind Bush who is “changing the course” in his troop “surge”, against the Democrats becoming the party of the “status quo” for settling on continuing to fund what we have.

I suspect that the best course of action is, within a three day span, the impeachment of Dick Cheney, the Congressional nomination of Jim Baker — the man whose name is behind that famous “Baker Report” which was supposed to be the tenuous steps forward in Iraq and had the David Broder-esque commenting of “Why Bush Will Listen” as the News magazines’ cover articles last December — as vice-president, and then to impeach President Bush. All this will do is place the nation in a position to see the practicable application of what the conventional wisdom on proceeding with Iraq had turned out to be — which puts us ahead of having to be straddled behind Bush’s commitment to his Guts.

After hearing drabs of right wing radio, this commitment is to win the Vietnam War — by not making the mistake we did then of ending it. As Mark Levin has it, if disaster befalls Iraq now, and if the US is hit by another terrorist attack, from this point on, this date, this vote, on this non-binding resolution, and this Democratic Congress minus 2 Democrats plus 11 Republicans, is what is the cause, the source, the agent of resposibility and blame.

So we have posited in Congressional floor speeches that this Resolution will Force In Muhammed we trust to be stamped on our currency. And so Alaska Representative Don Young mis-quotes Abraham Lincoln, which I note give the Lincoln – haters grist for the mill. (Remind me to get back to that quote… I have a few things to say about it.)

Nothing that forces Congress-critters to air out these opinions can be entirely meaningless.

Working with a debased sense of congressional authority burrows us deeper into the games of politics. Bush might have avoided this by combing through the Baker Report, and I suppose to a true Believer in the Righteousness of Spreading Freedom and Stopping Islamo-Fascists from that this is arguring bi-partisanship as giving into the other party.

Never mind. Ron Paul votes for a non-binding resolution, which shows that the non-binding resolution isn’t meaningless.

I imagine Ronl Paul to be the Republican 2008 equivalent of the Democratic 2004 Dennis Kucinich. Reportedly, one might walk past Dennis Kucinich’s Portland campaign headquarets and hear an all night burner, Bob Marley and a drum circle, whiffs of marijuana blowing out, nobody really accomplishing anything per se but in the midst of a political cause nonetheless. Picture Ron Paul’s campaign with some Ayn Rand recording
in place of Bob Marley, discussions merging from the tyranny of the United Nations to the War of Southern Aggression and how Lincoln paved the way to continued government consolidation.

The rankers of such thing tend to have Paul as right about 50-50 on the liberal – conservative rankings. This is the necessary limitations of a ranking that would, for instance, toss Paul liberal points for voting against a budget cut on Head-Start, when Paul’s reason for voting ‘no’ is that the program shouldn’t exist in the first place — not prescribed in the Constitution. He’s also as pure an anti-war candidate as you will find anywhere, tossing the additional loop in there that he never has said a good word about the current Republican President.

Can Paul be denied from the debates? He’s not likely to endorse or support the eventual nominee — McCain, Romney, Brownback (wait — do I actually think Brownback might be the nominee? In lieu of anyone else acceptable to your Social Conservative, yes.) I think he’s the obvious choice for the Libertarian Party to pluck right out of the burners of the Republican primary season and show themselves a better profile than possible with anyone else. Mockingly, I say the Libertarian Party could have Paul as their Fusion candidate. Back to the Kucinich comparison, in 2004 John Hagelin, the 2000 and 1996 and probably 1992 Presidential candidate for the now defunct Natural Law Party had Kucinich as the end point for a Democratic — Natural Law fusion ticket. Not going to happen, of course, as Kucinich was never going to be nominated president. (The Natural Law Party loved fusions, such as their 2000 delapidation of the Reform Party.)
Maybe the Republican Party could shove him out of the debates unless he agrees to support the eventual Republican nominee, and not run on any third party ticket. There were 2 elected Democrats shoved out in such a manner in 1992 — a minor city mayor, who did end up in a debate but was then unceremoniously framed out of the AP photo — and Eugene
McCarthy — and Mike McGavick is 2008’s version of McCarthy 1992. (Incidentally, McCarthy in 1992 ran against George Bush the elder’s speech patterns. Go check back and you’ll see!) I’d think, however, the Republican Party would much prefer to frame out Tom Toncredo — and their framing outs bullets are perhaps limited.

Here’s a question. Is it better for Ron Paul to have a speaking slot at the Republican convention or run a campaign as a Libertarian Party candidate? A platform is what Ron Paul’s campaign is about. Ron Paul denies that, but I don’t believe him. I have think about that question for a minute before answering it, because I don’t immediately know the
answer.

Leafing through the Esquire list of endorsements for all the Senate, House, and Governor’s races in this nation. I go to the folks I’m largely familiar with. I wonder about this:

District 4
Doc Hastings (R)
Richard Wright (D)
A strong conservative from Washington’s most conservative district, Doc Hastings has been a loyal party man. But even Democrats have praised his fairness as chairman of the House Ethics Committee. Esquire endorses: Hastings

Argurably he’s been praised, or at least not scorned, for his current role with Foley, because some hearings appear to be happening. And sometime before he was chairman of the House Ethics Committee, he was on some Ethics sub-committee where he was praised, or at least not scorned, for his dealings with non-controversial tasks involving James Traficant and Gary Condit.

There was a CNN special, called “The Broken Branch” about our woeful Congress, within this past week that cast a sympathetic light on Joel Hefley, the man that Doc Hastings replaced after Hefley admonished Tom DeLay. Doc Hastings was mentioned with this phrase “Dennis Hastert accolade” — though it would have been better to say “Tom Delay accolade”.

I guess I wouldn’t expect Esquire to get this right when shuffling through 500 some races from an office in New York — or wherever. Nor would I particularly expect them to endorse anyone but a strong Republican in a strong Republican district. But the reason is phony.

Another interesting endorsement for Washington State:

District 7
Steve Beren (R)
Jim McDermott (D)
McDermott is one of the most liberal, least tactful members of Congress; this is the man who called Saddam Hussein more credible than George Bush. Just because John Boehner says this kind of garbage about Democrats doesn’t make it right for a Democrat to say it about the president. In protest, we endorse the Republican.

Esquire endorses: Beren

Maybe I should go back to see precisely what he said, but you don’t have to toss in Saddam Hussein name as any comparison to argure that George Bush lacks credibility. But this is a piece of the moderating influence in a generally Democratic leaning batch of endorsements — firebrands of any type not welcome.

A bit curious to check Ron Paul from Texas:

District 14
Ron Paul (R)
Shane Sklar (D)
Rep. Paul, a true libertarian, is one of the great eccentrics in Congress. He used to be considered the most right-wing member from Texas. Now most of the delegation is far to his right. They’ve changed. He hasn’t.

Esquire endorses: Paul

Helen Chenoweth-Hage, 68, the arch-conservative Idaho Republican whose deep suspicion of the government and federal law enforcement carried her to three terms in Congress, died Oct. 2 in a car crash near Tonopah, Nev. […]

Ms. Chenoweth-Hage, a passenger in a 1999 Ford Expedition driven by her daughter-in-law, was en route to Tonopah about noon Monday and was holding her 5-month-old grandson on her lap. The driver, Yelena Hage, lost control of the vehicle, causing it to roll over, the Nevada Highway Patrol reported. Ms. Chenoweth-Hage, who was not wearing a seat belt, was thrown from the vehicle and died at the scene. The baby and his mother were not seriously hurt.

It is not a coincidence that she was not wearing a seat belt. Seat belt laws are Government Imposed Restrictions on Personal Liberties, you see. She died for her beliefs. Which are, to continue on with the Washington Post’s obituary:

Ms. Chenoweth-Hage, who served from 1995 to 2001 as an unabashed opponent of laws that limited personal freedom, attracted much support from the militia fringe movement that found a home in the interior West during the 1990s.

Ms. Chenoweth-Hage, who insisted on the title “Congressman,” believed that most abortions should be illegal and that the government should not pay for abortions for poor women, even in cases of rape or incest. The Scriptures, she asserted, had anointed women as the world’s moral guardians.

Blah de Blah de Blah.

She defended the militia movement. She taunted environmentalists by saying she would cut down the last tree in Idaho if it meant jobs and dramatized her opposition to the Endangered Species Act by holding “endangered-salmon bakes.” She believed the government was secretly overflying Idaho in black helicopter gunships.

Quite a character, I suppose. Eccentric House members. Easily romanticized, but after a while, I grow weary of eccentricities. Granted, she would be a decent opponent from the Libertarian side of the leger — standing aside Ron Paul — against Bush’s novel and supposed “Unitary executive branch”, badly needed from the opposition party. But otherwise, I just glare back to say: nutcase. I will point out that there is a competitve race this 2006 midterm election cycle for her old seat — the first Congressional District of Idaho… an opening for a Democrat by the name of Larry Grant.

I remember riding through Idaho with my sister, four kids, and brother-in-law. There was a local talk radio program on the radio. The discussion was insane, something to the effect of: guy shot off a gun and accidentally killed someone, “I think the man should no longer be allowed to own a gun.” Phone callers, Discuss.

“Only in Idaho”, was my brother-in-law’s comment. To get away from this talk, the station was changed to some evangelical Christian station. And then static. Idaho. Idaho. Idaho.

I’ve got nothing today. I could expand on — say — my thoughts on Ron Paul — found on the sidebar in this form:

“In fact, the other member of Congress who votes most closely to Congressman Ron Paul is none other than Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney.” To be sure, Ron Paul is an interesting casoid, and to be sure a Democratic Congress would be preferable to a Republican Congress, and to be sure a Congress full of Ron Pauls would be a nightmare, and to be sure, a congress without a few Ron Pauls would be a lesser place.

But that’s all I got. Ron Paul, like so many idiosyncratic items of politics: when is right, he is very, very right; when he is wrong, he is very very wrong.

I find this interesting, and I could theoretically create a Political Memoir for myself. I stumble through some of that now and again.

Actually I note that I was transcribing some stuff from a notebook about my final month of high school, a curious hodge-podge of politics and current events bearing down on me of a sort and adolescent angst suddenly magnified. I typed up about 20 pages of it (or so Word tells me), and stopped with what I estimate would be the other 30 pages due to the fact that I don’t think anyone particularly cares, and my time online is short.