Posted by AzBlueMeanie:
"Tony: It's no use, the man is a complete idiot.
Village Idiot: If only. Now my father, he was a complete idiot. I'm still a half-wit."
– TV Mini-Series "The 10th Kingdom" (2000)
This is the only memorable line I ever remember from this TV show, but I am reminded of it every time I hear that village idiot Aqua Buddha, Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) open his mouth and speak.
As for the "complete idiot," it appears now that Ron Paul has retired from Congress (thank God!) and has passed the baton to Aqua Buddha for the quadrennial waste of time running for president to fleece his cult followers out of their money, ol' Ron is reverting back to his fringe conspiracy kooks roots. Jamie Kirchick reports at the Daily Beast, The Ron Paul Institute: Be Afraid, Very Afraid:
In December 2011, when Ron Paul was leading the Republican
presidential-primary pack in the Iowa caucuses, the former Texas
congressman’s notorious newsletters resurfaced in the national debate.
The newsletters’ content—a toxic
stew of racism, homophobia, anti-Semitism, sympathy for right-wing
militia movements, and support for a litany of conspiracy theories—had
been revealed
by this writer in 2008. But Paul’s latter-day resurgence, particularly
with young voters and the Tea Party, provoked a renewed round of
interest in his shady associations and fringe beliefs. The title of a front-page article in The New York Times,
“Paul Disowns Extremists’ Views but Doesn’t Disavow the Support,”
neatly encapsulated Paul’s strategy of appealing to the far right while
stopping just short of explicitly endorsing their views.
The Times
story focused on the role of Lew Rockwell, Paul’s former congressional
chief of staff and later vice president of the company Ron Paul &
Associates, which published the newsletters. Paul always denied
authorship, insisting that unknown staffers produced the publication;
several sources subsequently fingered Rockwell, now the head of a small
think tank in Alabama called the Ludwig von Mises Institute, as the lead
writer. In an interview with the Times, Paul distanced himself
from Rockwell. “They enjoyed antagonizing people, to tell you the truth,
and trying to split people,” he said of Rockwell and Murray Rothbard,
another libertarian writer who published a separate newsletter with
Rockwell that, among other Lost Causes, supported the gubernatorial
candidacy of former Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard David Duke. “I thought,
we’re so small, why shouldn’t we be talking to everybody and bringing
people together?”
Paul’s media sympathizers stressed the image of a man who, far from
being a peddler of racist and conspiratorial drivel, was, at worst,
someone whose broad-minded libertarianism led him to be a tad too
indiscriminating in his associations. Rockwell’s batty beliefs (here he is
just a few days ago likening security checks after the Boston Marathon
bombing to Nazi Germany), they insisted, should not damage Paul’s
reputation.
As difficult as it was then to
believe that Paul had no role in the production of newsletters written
in his own name and which netted his family over $1 million per year, or
that he did not even know who was writing them, it is now impossible to
extricate Paul from the extremist views of his hangers-on. That is
because Paul, who retired from Congress in January, has decisively
thrown in his lot with a bevy of conspiracy theorists, cranks, and
apologists for some of the worst regimes on the planet.
On April 17, Paul announced the creation of a new think tank, the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity,
which, according to its website, “continues and expands Dr. Paul’s
lifetime of public advocacy for a peaceful foreign policy and the
protection of civil liberties at home.” Sitting on the advisory board is none other than Rockwell.
* * *
But Rockwell isn’t the nuttiest of the people associated with the institute—not even close.
Continue reading The Ron Paul Institute: Be Afraid, Very Afraid.
And remember . . . the apple did not fall from this poisonous tree. Aqua Buddha is just as crazy as his old man. Keep this in mind when you read headlines like this from POLITICO Tiger Beat on the Potomac. Rand Paul, Hillary Clinton atop New Hampshire 2016 poll.