http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/…

Rep. Ron Paul of Texas is proud of what he sees as his truly conservative credentials. He’s for smaller government, much smaller. He’s for foreign trade but not foreign military involvement. He wants to spend that money wasted on empire-building right back here in these United States of America. He’d also get rid of the Education Department and the Federal Reserve.

His followers, who reverently call him Dr. Paul, like the way he would strictly adhere to the Constitution as he sees it and return more freedoms to the little guy in the face of big government.

Paul fans — regularly called Paulites, Paultards or Paulunteers — also see a gentle humility in the weathered but wise hands of the 72-year-old ob-gyn, who reputedly has delivered some 4,000 infants into life in this wondrous world.

But there seems to be another side to Paul. A mean, vicious, cruel and uncaring side. A side that sees millions of humans — albeit Burmese who are not registered to vote in Texas — afflicted with an historic cyclone, countless thousands of lives lost, devastation everywhere.

And the doting grandfather could care less.

This week when a Congressional resolution came up for a vote merely offering “condolences and sympathy” to the people of Burma affected by the recent deadly cyclone, Ron Paul, the millionaire, was the only member of the entire House of Representatives to vote “No.”

The Myanmar resolution, like all those goofy pieces of symbolic legislation, would have done absolutely nothing for the stricken millions. Not even provided one paper towel. It’s a cheap publicity trick that elected legislators waste countless hours on each session.

Such worthless resolutions don”t even get much publicity anymore. And, to put it in blunt political terms, exactly how strong is the Burmese vote around here anyway?

So Paul’s symbolic stand against symbolic silliness looks good.

But then along come the sharp-eyed folks over at Radaronline.com, specifically Nick Curran, who finds out that Paul’s stand against symbolic silliness when it comes to Asians whose huts and hovels were erased by cyclone, is not quite so principled and a whole lot more enthused about dumb statements of sentiment when the silliness is closer to home.

Come to find out Paul has voted in favor of similar empty resolutions to congratulate the University of Kansas football team for a swell season and winning the 2008 FedEx Orange Bowl, to the Louisiana State football team for, golly, winning the 2007 Bowl Championship Series and to celebrate the New York Giants for their come-from-behind victory in Super Bowl XLII.

Seriously, what Texas congressman near Houston wouldn’t want to get on the official Congressional record wishing all the best to every one of the good folks up in New York City?

Wait til the Houston Texans find out about that one. Or, worse for Paul, some Dallas fans.

–Andrew Malcolm

As I posted to Andrew’s blog… Less then 30 seconds on Google News search would have rewarded you with: ‘Paul spokeswoman Rachel Mills said the congressman objected to a sentence in the resolution calling on Burma’s ruling generals to postpone a scheduled referendum in order to concentrate their resources on disaster assistance. “It interferes with the internal affairs of another country,” Mills said. “It’s just none of our business.”‘The pointlessness of the resolution itself was not the reason for the vote. It was the fact it tried to instruct the Burmese government on what it should do. As minor as it may appear it’s only a matter of degrees from other interventionist language we place in other resolutions which represent the actual interventionist actions we take. If you want to stop being to bully you ought to stop talking like one too.

As for the other votes on pointless resolutions… there is nothing you can do. Anyone in Congress can bring up any damn resolution they want or talk about whatever they want. If Paul is already in attendance he can vote NA, YAY or not vote. Nothing changes any which way and there is nothing unconstitutional about pointless resolutions. Voting no or not voting sends no message in those cases. In this case however it can. Only reason to vote against the pointless resolutions would be to save the ink given NA is shorter then the other options or to hold an absolute stance against wasting time. The congressmen get paid yearly anyway so I’d much rather them take up their time with pointless congrats resolutions than messing with things that actually effect the real world.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/

AUSTIN, Texas - A $5-per-customer fee on strip club patrons dubbed the “pole tax” has been declared unconstitutional.

A state district judge ruled that clubs can’t collect the fee. The charge went into effect in January and was expected to raise about $44 million for sexual assault prevention programs and health care for the uninsured.

Judge Scott Jenkins wrote in the March 28 decision that the fee, “while furthering laudable goals, violates the First Amendment to the United States Constitution and is therefore invalid.”

I originally intended to post this as a follow-up, but discovered the original, related stories never made it to the blog. I’ve listed them below for reference:

http://origin.foxnews.com/

…the Lone Star State will require its 150 or so strip clubs to collect a $5-per-customer levy, with most of the proceeds going to help rape victims.

http://blogs.usatoday.com/

“This is an industry that largely employs women, and this gives them an opportunity to raise funds for a crime that affects women,” said state Rep. Ellen Cohen, a Houston Democrat who sponsored the legislation. “I’ve been told the fees to get into these places can be $10, $15. I don’t think another $5 is going to prevent someone from going.”

Um, maybe that’s your problem, Ms. Cohen, you don’t think.

http://people.ronpaul2008.com/…

Fox 26 in Houston gets some footage of the opening of Barack Obama’s Houston offices. And look at what’s up there on the wall:

Yes, that’s a Cuban flag, emblazoned with an image of Che Guevara, Fidel Castro’s old comrade in Communist terror. (Two good books on the real Che, not the sanitized Hollywood myth, are Alvaro Vargas Llosa’s The Che Guevara Myth and Humberto Fontova’s Exposing the Real Che Guevara.)

Che is a popular symbol on many college campuses, as well as among lefty Democratic presidential candidates, and when many young people think of “revolution,” they think of Che. Ron Paul, however, has made huge strides in showing young people that revolution shouldn’t mean romanticizing a hirsute Communist, it should mean returning to the principles of the American revolution — life, liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness. Obama’s movement, on the other hand, stands for something very different. The stakes could not be higher in the battle between Ron Paul and Barack Obama for the hearts and minds of America’s young people, as this picture shows.

I wonder if the MSM will report this? They surely enjoyed tying Ron Paul to the white supremacists. I somehow doubt it given they haven’t talked about his church much.

http://www.chron.com/…

Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul, the congressman from the Houston area who opposes the Iraq war, has gotten more contributions than any other White House contender from donors identified as affiliated with the military.

According to a Houston Chronicle analysis of campaign records from January through September, Paul received $63,440 in donations from current military employees and several retired military personnel.

Democrat Barack Obama, another war critic, was second in military giving. The Illinois senator got $53,968 during the nine months.

This is good news. While some reporters bring up this fact occasionally I rarely see it really analyzed. I think this is a very important bit of information. I’ve not looked up the total donations so as to figure the percentage of donations Dr. Paul received but he’s got the largest and the second is Obama who half heartedly wants the troops home. Any way you slice it it appears the majority of the troops want to come home. A majority of them support the guy who wants them home ASAP. I think if you are going to listen to any one or group as to what to do… I’d think those dealing with it directly would be the best start.