Thursday, January 19, 2012

Paul's Campaign Sues Maker Of Huntsman "Manchurian Candidate" Video

A YouTube video uploaded to the Internet in the crucial period leading up to the New Hampshire primary where Ron Paul's support was surging is now the subject of a lawsuit filed by the presidential campaign of Ron Paul. The anonymous poster using the identity "NHLiberty4Paul" uploaded a video attacking Jon Huntsman as a "Manchurian candidate" purporting to be produced on behalf of Paul's campaign. The media immediately pounced all over Paul, blaming him for the actions of one of his supposed supporters. Paul's campaign says no one associated with its campaign produced the video and believes it was a dirty trick played by one of Paul's political opponents. Bloomberg reports on the lawsuit filed in a federal district court in northern California.

A video uploaded from a Twitter account to YouTube on Jan. 4 called “Jon Huntsman’s Values” questions the ex-governor’s religious faith, refers to him as “China Jon” and ends with a fictitious depiction of Huntsman in a Mao Zedong uniform and the text “American Values and Liberty -- Vote for Ron Paul,”according to a complaint filed yesterday in federal court in San Francisco.
The makers use the pseudonym NHLiberty4Paul, “which further implies that plaintiff created endorsed or is affiliated in some way with the video and its contents,” the Paul campaign’s lawyers said in the complaint.
Press coverage of the video has been “scathingly negative” toward Paul because of the assumption that he was behind it, the lawyers said . . .
“This is a classic case of dirty politics resulting from the unlawful use in commerce of an underhanded and deceptive advertisement designed to tarnish plaintiff’s reputation,”according to the complaint. The identities of the videos creators are unknown, according to the lawsuit.
The complaint for false designation, false advertising and defamation seeks unspecified punitive damages and a court order barring use of Paul’s name and trademarks and requiring the video to be taken down and destroyed.
It should prove interesting to learn who was behind this video. Paul's campaign is doing the right thing in pursuing legal action against the anonymous poster. Persons responsible for these drive-by shootings that are all too common on the Internet need to be held accountable for their actions.

Tonight's CNN debate for the four remaining Republican presidential candidates in the South Carolina primary was true to form. The moderator, John King, pretended Ron Paul was just standing on the stage to listen to the other candidates whom he obviously deemed more worthy of standing on the stage. This has happened in every debate without exception. Ron Paul has received more votes than any of the other candidates besides Romney, and he's raised more money than any of the other candidates except Romney. Yet each debate appearance plays out the exact same way. The other candidates are called on first, second and third and given all the time they want to rebut each other's comments. Paul is only occasionally allowed to throw in a brief comment as mere filler while the other candidates catch their breath and review their notes. It's total BS. Paul is the only candidate offering thought-provoking solutions to the problems that ail this country, but he obviously doesn't support the agenda of the New World Order so it is necessary to censor him as much as possible. The follow up after the debate included interviews with Romney, Gingrich and Santorum but not Paul. Hell, you wouldn't even know that Paul had participated in the debate listening to the egg heads CNN included in its post-debate discussion.

4 comments:

Vox Populi said...

Just like Romney's not a Christian, Paul isn't a Republican. He believes in freedom and liberty and wants America to essentially withdraw from world affairs. He's called Israel our greatest national security risk and thinks it's not our concern if Iran gets the bomb. He even ran as the Libertarian nominee against Reagan's Vice President.

Mainstream Republicans hate Paul. He's attractive to 20% of the party and despised by 80%.

Gary R. Welsh said...

Actually, Paul's position align with Robert Taft, who was considered Mr. Republican when he was in the Senate. This neo-con view of starting wars all over the world is a recent phenomenon, one that Reagan would have rejected if he were president today. Remember, Reagan considered his decision to put troops in Lebanon one of the worse mistakes of his presidency.

Unknown said...

c'mon gary. Reagan would have rejected? Grenada was our first military action since vietnam. Then he bombed Libya after putting our fleet right off the shore, then the fiasco in Lebanon where 270 or so marines were killed--that's why he considered it a mistake. On top of that, he helped in the funding and training of rebels in numerous countries --including a place we are in now called Afganistan. Reagan's white house was filled with the interventionists who later took command of GWB's white house. Rumsfeld, Cheney, Abrams.
Reagan was firmly in Isreal's corner, was on the opposite side of Paul on the issue of drugs, and virtually every other issue.

Vox Populi said...

"Unknown" is pretty right about Reagan. His administration is where the neoconservatives flourished. There were countless foreign interventions and he presided over the largest increase in defense spending ever seen. Paul voted against most of those increases and left the party and Congress to run for president as a Libertarian.

Yes, I agree that many of Paul's positions are very classical Republican, but the modern party is very different from the party of 60-100 years ago.