Marco Rubio tapped as Romney VP Choice? Bilderberg conspiracy
May 29, 2012 by Jack Blood
Filed under Commentary
Not a bad guess…. But Its pretty much a done deal that Cousin Barry will retain his job as POTUS… But, just in case something goes wrong, the elite have their 2nd choice ready in the wings. – Info OK other than demeaning tone of “Conspiracy” Theorists riddled throughout the article. – Powerful men meeting secret to carve up the world? Naw, not a conspiracy at all right?
Same agenda different day...
Politico (BCCI)
Mitt Romney isn’t very far into the vice presidential selection process. But according to a dedicated band of “conspiracy theorists”, the pick is all but a lock: Sen. Marco Rubio. (Rick Perry blew it)
That’s the current thinking among a worldwide collection of activists who are obsessed with the secretive Bilderberg Group, an alternating roster of global power players who loom as large — if not larger — in the online fever swamps of the fringe as the Trilateral Commission or the Council on Foreign Relations.
The Bilderberg Group, which takes its name from the Dutch hotel where it first gathered in 1954, exists solely to bring together between 100 and 150 titans of politics, finance, military, industry, academia and media mostly from North America and Western Europe once a year to discuss world affairs.
Yet in the netherworld of conspiracy theory, the group is part of an insidious corporate-globalist scheme. And this year, the speculation holds, the Bilderberg Group is set to hold its annual meeting in the coming weeks at a Northern Virginia hotel where, among other things, they likely will select Rubio as Romney’s running mate.
Paranoid? Perhaps.
But like any good conspiracy theory, there’s just enough there to stoke questions. John Edwards’s speech to the Bilderberg Group’s 2004 meeting in Stresa, Italy, reportedly helped clinch his selection as that year’s Democratic vice presidential candidate. And Jim Johnson, the man who chaired that vice presidential selection process and initially was tasked with spearheading Barack Obama’s 2008 search for a running mate, is a leading Bilderberg member, while prominent Romney advisers including Robert Kagan and Vin Weber have attended past meetings, as have Bill Clinton, Donald Rumsfeld and top finance, media and tech executives.
“These are influential folks — and they’ve all got friends in American politics — so if they see somebody that impresses them or doesn’t, I expect that they would pass that view on,” said Weber, a former Minnesota congressman who has attended two Bilderberg meetings. “But I would tell all of those bloggers and protestors to save their outrage for a real conspiracy, because this is just a conference.” (A conf. that was until just recently denied altogether…)
That assessment is rejected as pure spin by the international community of Bilderberg obsessives. They’re convinced that the meeting is ground zero in an worldwide plot by big banks, mainstream media, defense contractors and governments to suppress working people around the world.
This year, anti-Bilderberg activists are planning an “OccupyBilderberg” protest outside the Westfield Marriott in Chantilly, Va., where they believe the group will hold its conference May 31-June 3.
The Rubio-Bilderberg rumors caught fire last month after veteran Washington Post columnist Al Kamen suggested that the Florida senator’s appearance before last month’s Summit of the Americas in Colombia could boost his veepstakes prospects, just as Edwards’s 2004 Bilderberg speech did.
(According to some) The upcoming meeting Bilderberg attendees will decideon “wars with Iran, ways to censor the Internet … how to sell the public on more banker bailouts” and “how to ram through carbon taxes.”
The annual meetings, which alternate between Europe and North America, are funded partly by a nonprofit group that gets donations from regular participants.
The Washington Post Co. and its chairman Don Graham, a frequent attendee, have donated $100,000 over the past few years, according to tax filings. They also show repeat donationsfrom Bilderberg regulars such as David Rockefeller (who has given a total of $150,000 since 2004), Henry Kissinger ($90,000) and mega-Romney donor Henry Kravis and his wife ($145,000).Over the years, the meetings have drawn Obama cabinet members Tim Geithner and Kathleen Sebelius, not to mention Margaret Thatcher, Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands, King Juan Carlos of Spain, Tony Blair, Condoleezza Rice, Rick Perry and top officials from BP, Barclays and the Bank of England.
More recent guest lists have been heavy on politically active techies, including Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes and Google Chief Executive Eric Schmidt — both of whom have assisted Obama — and Peter Thiel, who co-founded PayPal and was the first major investor in Facebook. He has donated $125,000 to the Bilderberg nonprofit and contributed $2.6 million to a super PAC supporting Ron Paul’s bid for the GOP presidential nomination.
Ironically, Paul, whose libertarian sensibilities have made him a darling of the Bilderberg conspiracists, has expressed discomfort with the influence of the Bilderberg Group as well as organizations that host similar confabs — the Trilateral Commission and the Council on Foreign Relations.
“And my biggest concern is what they preach: Keynesian economics and interventionism and world planning,” he told POLITICO in 2009.
Such concerns are not uncommon on the far edges of the anti-government spectrum of thinking, where the far left and the far right find common cause over their distrust of Wall Street and Washington. The rise over the past few years of the tea party and Occupy protests has spread similarly strong anti-establishment messages. And that’s expanded the audience for conspiracy theories about U.S. government involvement in the Sept. 11, terrorist attacks and plots hatched at Bilderberg, Trilateral and the Council on Foreign Relations.
Even so, Bilderberg remains a preeminent focus of such conspiracy theorizing, perhaps because it’s more secretive than other confabs.
Participants are barred from revealing the identities of other attendees or what they talked about and the group doesn’t issue public minutes, policy statements or resolutions. In recent years, the group has opened up a bit, creating a website on which it lists some attendees and panels on its website at the end of its meetings.
It lists a panel at the 2007 meeting in Istanbul called “Democracy and Populism,” in which Weber participated. He began by telling attendees, “It’s difficult to identify or define exactly what populism is. But I can tell you this isn’t it.” The joke fell flat, recalled one attendee, though former deputy defense secretary Paul Wolfowitz got a kick out of it, laughing out loud.
Kagan, the Romney foreign policy adviser, said the conspiracy theories give Bilderberg too much credit.
“Mostly, with all due respect to all of them, it’s a lot of vaguely uninteresting people giving vaguely uninteresting lectures and then having nice meals in nice places,” said Kagan, who has only attended one such meeting. “People getting together to talk about world politics is not any more exciting than anybody thinks it is.”
Neither he, nor Weber are attending this year, and Rubio is not expected to go, according to a source close to him.
The Washington Post’s Kamen, meanwhile, laughed when told how his column had spawned a theory that the Bilderberg meeting was going to tap Rubio as Romney’s running mate.
“They’re misreading the item,” he told POLITICO. “It’s bizarre.”
Of course, Bilderberg theorists would point out, Kamen’s ultimate boss, Graham, is a Bilderberger himself.
Ron Paul: Secret Service is welfare
March 21, 2012 by Jack Blood
Filed under Americas
And in light of Obama’s new laws against protesting while the SS is present, its not only “welfare” – it’s anti 1st amendment to have your SS guards present. – Regardless, Dr Paul does need security!
Ron Paul said Tuesday he doesn’t want any Secret Service protection because it’s “a form a welfare.”
“It’s a form of welfare,” the presidential candidate told comedian Jay Leno Tuesday. “You know, you’re having the taxpayers pay to take care of somebody and I’m an ordinary citizen and I would think I should pay for my own protection and it costs, I think, more than $50,000 a day to protect those individuals. It’s a lot of money.”
But while he might be opposed to having some extra protection, that doesn’t mean Paul doesn’t have a Secret Service code name picked out for himself.
“Bulldog,” the Texas congressman promptly answered when Leno asked what top-secret moniker he would want.
“I go after the Fed and all that big spending,” a smiling Paul explained, doing his best to look tough by waving a clenched fist.
Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum have chosen the code names “Javelin” and “Petrus” for themselves, respectively, according to a report this week.
Latest on POLITICO
(Pulling out the Rug) Pro-Ron Paul super PAC rethinks spending funds on GOP Campaign
March 8, 2012 by Jack Blood
Filed under Americas
This is the PAC Bilderberger – and Pay Pal mafia head Peter Thiel donates to…
A Super PAC backing Paul is considering support for other candidates. | AP Photo
The main super PAC supporting Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul is reassessing its heavy financial support of the Texas congressman following his disappointing Super Tuesday performance, an official confirmed to POLITICO.
“Yes, we are reassessing our efforts, but we have always felt that we are a part of a larger movement rather than just a single election,” Endorse Liberty super PAC leader Abe Niederhauser said. “We will continue to support Dr. Paul, but ultimately, we support an idea. We will support candidates who uphold the principles of liberty. We may also get involved in some of the Senate and House races.”
If Endorse Liberty scales back funding, the move could be yet another blow to Paul, who has yet to win a single presidential primary or caucus contest.Paul logged underwhelming performances in the Super Tuesday caucus states of North Dakota and Alaska, which he considered his best shots at victory.
And despite enjoying passionate support throughout the country, especially among libertarian-leaning Republicans, Paul has been unable to convert it into critical mass at the ballot booth or caucus hall.
Endorse Liberty, for its part, has aggressively attempted to broaden Paul’s appeal, making more than $2.94 million worth of independent expenditures in January — most going toward online advertisements — to benefit him. The super PAC also took in nearly $2.4 million in contributions in January.
Billionaire PayPal founder Peter Thiel has provided the bulk of the super PAC’s funding, contributing about $2.6 million overall and $1.7 million in January alone, according to the latest federal disclosure documents.
But Endorse Liberty, unlike some presidential candidate-specific super PACs such as the pro-Mitt Romney Restore Our Future outfit, has been running thin on available cash: Through January, it reported less than $61,000 on hand.
Related:
Ron Paul aides ponder ‘frustrating’ race
The campaign identified 24,000 supporters in Nevada but a comparatively paltry 6,175 actually turned out to caucus for Paul. He finished third behind Newt Gingrich, who ran an embarrassingly inept campaign.
“It’s very frustrating,” said Jesse Benton, Paul’s national campaign chairman. “It certainly wasn’t for lack of trying.”
In theory, Paul’s turnout operation is more professionalized than Gingrich’s or Santorum’s. Experienced field staffers have been hired and headquarters set up in every caucus state. In Nevada, all 24,000 targeted supporters got “multiple touches” from the campaign — including mailers, emails and personal phone calls from volunteers.
The biggest problem for Paul is that most of his supporters are young people. In the Michigan primary, for instance, exit polling showed that Paul pulled 37 percent of 18- to 29-year-old voters but this demographic made up only 10 percent of the electorate.
John McCain: U.S. should bomb Syria NOW
March 6, 2012 by Jack Blood
Filed under World
The U.S. ‘should lead an international effort to protect key population centers in Syria,’ McCain says. | John Shinkle
Arizona Republican John McCain on Monday became the first senator to call for U.S.-led air strikes to stop the slaughter of unarmed civilians being carried out by the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
“Providing military assistance to the Free Syrian Army and other opposition groups is necessary, but at this late hour, that alone will not be sufficient to stop the slaughter and save innocent lives. The only realistic way to do so is with foreign airpower,” McCain, a Vietnam War veteran and the top Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, said in a speech on the Senate floor.
“Therefore, at the request of [opposition forces], the United States should lead an international effort to protect key population centers in Syria, especially in the north, through airstrikes on Assad’s forces.”Senate Homeland Security Committee Chairman Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), two of McCain’s closest allies on foreign policy, issued a statement Monday night saying they backed McCain’s position toward Syria.
An estimated 7,500 Syrians have been killed by Assad’s military during the past year, including hundreds in the city of Homs which has been targeted by tank and artillery attacks.
McCain, the GOP presidential nominee in 2008, said the goal of the U.S. air strikes should be to “establish and defend safe havens” in Syria where opposition forces can organize and plot political and military attacks against Assad. The international community could also deliver humanitarian and military assistance to these safe zones, including food, water, weapons and training.
“Increasingly, the question for U.S. policy is not whether foreign forces will intervene militarily in Syria. We can be confident that Syria’s neighbors will do so eventually, if they have not already. Some kind of intervention will happen, with us or without us,” McCain said. “So the real question for U.S. policy is whether we will participate in this next phase of the conflict in Syria, and thereby increase our ability to shape an outcome that is beneficial to the Syrian people, and to us.
“I believe we must.”
So far, the Obama administration has opposed military intervention in Syria, believing that tougher economic sanctions and greater diplomatic pressure will drive Assad from power.
But McCain said the U.S. has little to show after a year of diplomatic efforts, which have failed to halt what the senator called Assad’s “killing spree.” McCain drew comparisons between Syria and Libya, where NATO forces conducted air strikes against the armed forces of dictator Muammar Qadhafi.
“The kinds of mass atrocities that NATO intervened in Libya to prevent in Benghazi are now a reality in Homs,” McCain said. “Indeed, Syria today is the scene of some of the worst state-sponsored violence since Milosevic’s war crimes in the Balkans, or Russia’s annihilation of the Chechen city of Grozny.”
