For current political commentary, see the daily political notes.
I support Dennis Kucinich for president. I am confident that he would run the country for the benefit of its citizens, not for the benefit of global business. He is the only candidate whose values and goals I fully support. He also champions impeachment of Bush.
Why would I, as a Liberal, have anything favorable to say about a Republican such as Ron Paul?
I have fundamental disagreements with Ron Paul. I support a welfare state and the New Deal. He wants to weaken social security and medicare, in effect throwing the poor back on their own resources. He wants to abolish income tax, which would mean reliance on taxes that fall most heavily on the poor and let the rich off lightly. This would increase concentration of wealth, which is already dangerously excessive, and the poor would pay for it.
In ordinary times I would simply oppose a candidate with such views, but these are not ordinary times. The Bush regime has contempt for human rights, and most of the 2008 candidates are little better than Bush. Most voted for the disgraceful U. S.A.P. A.T. R.I.O.T. Act, which authorized the Bush regime to collect businesses' (and even libraries') records about individuals without a court order. Most of them voted to launch a war of aggression in Iraq, accepting Bush's patent lies with the innocence of a sheltered child. Obama, who was not in the Senate when those were voted on, nonetheless does not convincingly oppose them.
Aside from Dennis Kucinich and Ron Paul, those candidates that criticize the occupation of Iraq do not show a firm will to end it. They dwell on "mismanagement", as if the worst you could say about Bush's crime was that "he didn't plan it well enough."
The only Democratic or Republican candidate, aside from Kucinich, that clearly stands for human rights, democracy, and an end to torture, secret prisons and the occupation of Iraq is Ron Paul. I urge Republicans to support him for that party's nomination.
Ron Paul denies accusations of racism, saying that he never said or believed racist statements in his newsletter.
If indeed he fired the employee who wrote those things, that would be sufficient reason not to blame them on him.
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