Super PAC supporting Ron Paul is operated by a 9/11 'truther'

[IDemo]

By Bill Dedman
Investigative Reporter, msnbc.com

As Libertarian Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul looks for a state he can win, some of his supporters have turned to a new theme: voting fraud.

A Super PAC supporting Paul has pledged to monitor the vote in all the remaining states, using an army of exit pollsters to fight what it calls results that are "outrageous, unacceptable and patently un-American." The group, called Revolution PAC, has spent half a million dollars supporting Paul with videos, webcasts, online ads, direct mail, billboards and radio ads in primary and caucus states.

We first noticed Revolution PAC last week, when it told the Federal Election Commission that it couldn't meet the deadline to identify its donors, because of an error by its bank. Now Revolution PAC has filed its report.

As with many other so-called "independent" Super PACs, which can receive unlimited donations outside the normal rules of campaign finance, the pro-Paul group is operated by people with close ties to the candidate. The group's advisory board members include Penny Langford Freeman, Paul's political director from 1998 to 2007, and Joe Becker, chief legal counsel for Ron Paul 2008.

The leader of the group, its founder, chairman and treasurer, is Gary Franchi, a promoter of conspiracy theories and sophisticated social-media entrepreneur in the resurgent movement known as the Patriots.

http://openchannel.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/02/09/10358155-super-pac-supporting-ron-paul-is-operated-by-a-911-truther

[proud2BlibKansan]

1. Yes our local libertarians are 911 truthers

and Ron Paul supporters.

[onehandle]

2. What!? A Libertarian nut is supporting Ron Paul?

Shocked. Shocked, I tell you.

[snooper2]

3. Makes sense, followers of Ron and truthers both are easy to get money off of...

Alex Jones doesn't go after the gullible market just for fun, there's money to be had

[get the red out]

4. Rand Paul

When his son, Rand, was running for senate here in KY it was pointed out on a local liberal blog that he had appeared on big-time 911 Truther, Alex Jones, radio show MANY times. I am not shocked at all, the conspiracy guys have always been big Ron Paul supporters.

[FiveGoodMen]

5. Yes, let's all remind ourselves that what the Bush admin said happened on 9-11

is exactly what happened.

They wouldn't lie, would they?

[eyewall]

7. Maybe the lies of 9-11 are so obvious that anyone can see them.

[truedelphi]

50. Polls taken concerning NYC residents and events of

Nine Eleven consistently show that 67% of the Big Apple's residents do not believe the Offical Nonsense spewed by Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld.

That doesn't mean the NYC residents embrace the more woo woo theories of "Nobody died.." or that planes didn't hit.

But the videos watched by most of Americans clearly showed the Two Towers were PULVERIZED into dust that consumed a half mile of city streets with dust storms. The rubble at Ground Zero never added up to the height and mas tonnage if detonations were not used.

I heard Materials Scientist Paul Ryan speak personally, and I will never forget his devotion to the task that Underwriters' Lab asked him to submit to - that is, for him to report on whether the steel used in the Towers could withstand the two planes hitting that day. His report showed that nothing was amiss with the tensile strength of the steel used in building the Towers. So they should not have collapsed. If anyone hear knows otherwise, why haven't you offered your explaantion to the people offering $ 100K for such an explanation?

[yellowcanine]

54. Maybe because the towers actually did collapse and millions of people saw them collapse?

Just guessing here.

Note: Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. You want to prove that it was all some grand conspiracy and the towers were rigged with explosives - produce some extraordinary evidence. The burden of proof is on the truthers.

[olddad56]

55. I think the government's claims are pretty extraordinary

but they didn't require any extraordinary evidence, all they needed was a propaganda machine and people who have been conditioned to believe what they are told. Just the videos of the buildings free falling should be all the evidence a person needs to decide for themselves how those buildings collapsed. Especially WTC#7.

[yellowcanine]

57. You think but that really isn't good enough is it? Just because you think it is an extraordinary

does not make it so. What is your expertise to make a judgment as to what is extraordinary in terms of buildings falling down? The planes hit the buildings. The buildings caught fire and collapsed some time afterward. That is what millions of people saw happen and they believe that sequence of events because they saw it, not because of what they were told by the government. Now if you are going to make a claim that there was some other reason why the buildings fell down you had better have some really good evidence, because you are the one making an extraordinary claim. You can start with demolition and structural engineering studies showing that what millions of people saw is not what actually happened. Real data, please, not what "you think."

[olddad56]

58. I'm not making that claim, the government is. there are also millions of people who saw what they..

saw and immediately knew the buildings fell in a manner consistant with any film they had ever seen of a controlled demolition. It is the governments 'conspiracy theory' that you are chosing to believe. Where are your facts? Why has there never been another steel frame building collapse after catching on fire. No plane hit tower #7, yet hours later, it just collapsed in it's own foot print. Amazing. Expalin to me how that could have happened. A fire in the boiler? Really. You believe anything you want to, and I'll do the same.

And, may I ask, What is your expertise to make a judgment as to what is extraordinary in terms of buildings falling down?

[yellowcanine]

59. I am not depending on my own expertise. There is NO consensus by qualified structural engineers

that the buildings fell because of a controlled demolition. That is why your claim is an extraordinary claim. "There are also millions of people who saw what they saw and immediately knew the buildings fell in a manner consistent with any film they had ever seen of a controlled demolition." Really? Who are these people? Where are their impressions documented? And why would we care if their "data" was a "film they had seen of a controlled demolition."? Please, that is laughable.

[olddad56]

60. believe whatever you want, your naivety would be laughable if it weren't so sad

[yellowcanine]

62. Ah yes. Out of arguments and resort to naivete. Your predictability would be laughable if it

weren't so sad.

[DeSwiss]

30. Exactly.

[chrisa]

51. Yes they would, but there's a difference from that, and

making the bizarre claims that some of these Libertarians make, like for instance, the government fired a bouncing missile that hit the Pentagon, and that airplanes were edited into 9/11 footage (when it was actually a missile or controlled demolition).

I think half of these pseudo-intellectual sites purposefully spew misinformation for profit.

[DUIC]

6. Mixed blessing

I recall hearing Ron Paul' name spread across Stormfront and truther forums for years. Now that he is a "serious" presidential contender, the rest of the US is finally hearing what a nutcase he is.

[stockholmer]

9. yes, it is far better to blindly accept the official story of 9-11, if you do not, you are a nutcase

[peace13]

12. Thank you so much for this.

I didn't know that the folks who raided Bin Laden's apartment died. Hmmmm.

[stockholmer]

14. SEAL Team 6 members among 38 killed in Afghanistan

http://articles.latimes.com/2011/aug/06/world/la-fg-afghanistan-chopper-20110807

Reporting from Kabul, Afghanistan, and Washington — Their name conjures up the most celebrated moment of America's post-Sept. 11 military campaigns. Now the Navy SEALs belong to a grimmer chapter in history: the most deadly incident for U.S. forces in the 10-year Afghanistan war.

Three months after they killed Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in neighboring Pakistan and cemented their place in military legend, the SEALs suffered a devastating loss when nearly two dozen of the elite troops were among 30 Americans who died when their helicopter was shot down in Afghanistan early Saturday.


http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/44043847/ns/world_news-south_and_central_asia/t/us-troops-mostly-elite-navy-seals-killed-afghanistan/

KABUL, Afghanistan — A military helicopter was shot down in eastern Afghanistan, killing 31 U.S. special operation troops, most of them from the elite Navy SEALs unit that killed al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden, along with seven Afghan commandos. It was the deadliest single incident for American forces in the decade-long war.

[peace13]

17. I would like to say woo-hoo to the new DU.

This thing would have been sent to the 911 hole from the get go in the old days. A+

911... 911.... 911.... 911... 911.... 911... 911....911.... 911



That feels GooooooD!


Edited to say that I am sorry to stockholmer. I put this in the wrong place. Thanks for the info on the Seals. That is very sad. What a disaster!

[EX500rider]

37. Because they didn't?

Each SEAL Team has about 300 members total, the Bin Laden team wasn't on the helo.

[chrisa]

52. They didn't - it was just men from the same unit.

They weren't the people that were actually the ones that killed Bin Laden.

[DUIC]

18. Thanks for the crazy woo woo conspiracy

Yep, pretty much says it all. Make a bunch of wild accussations, ignore inconvenient truths, and continue to edit your video when the most blatant and eggregious misstatements are caught and put up for public ridicule

[peace13]

22. Tell that to the 911 families.

At best we should treat 911 like a religion. Either you believe it or you don't. Feel free to think as you may and believe your own debunk video. Too funny that you all get so hot if someone else has a different idea. If you must be right be right but leave the rest of us alone!

FYI my 'woo-hoo' was for the fact that the whole post wasn't sent to the dungeon. I don't have a dog in this fight. Pity me that I think we should be able to talk about it.

Edited to add...welcome to DU enjoy your stay.

[DUIC]

49. Best to tell the familes what we can prove, not what we choose to believe

911 is not a religion, it is a historical event.

I do get easily offended by conspiracy theorists. I do not like 911 truthers, creationists, or climate change deniers spreading innuendo and false "science". Ironically, since you mentioned religion, only one of those woo woo conspiracies is directly religious in nature.

[eyewall]

8. My first thought when I saw the thread title was

So what?

There are Dems who support him too, though I find that inexcusable.
Ron Paul has vehemently distanced himself from any 9-11 cause, including to his credit, the patriot act and the war on terror. His stormfront and Bircher connections are disturbing enough and portray him as an extremist with a scary dark side. His political policy ideas are the stuff of Aynn Rand fairytales. There is plenty to dislike and expose about him. Not all 9-11 truthers are nutjobs. It's too broad a brush and it's totally unrelated to the neo-nazi theme of Paul's life.

[mother earth]

10. It's not only libertarians that don't believe we have all the truth....wow, can't believe anyone

here could ever imagine that BushCo gave us a real commission and the truth was actually a part of it.

LMFAO, and I don't say that often.

Let's remember that "conspiracy theory" is always used when TPTB don't want transparency. The 911 Commission was a farce from the get go, so was the historic Warren Commission. I don't need tinfoil to realize that, just common sense. We are a fucked up country and it's not the gov't that has too much power, it's those making money off of gov't endeavours, do you need a list?

Check yourself...so many lies, too little time.

(Edited to add, I'm absolutely not a RP supporter, and also to add, I'm a total believer in election fraud too.)

[peace13]

11. Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me.

I don't believe a thing that came out of the * administration. It was either the most amazing string of coinsidences or.........something else. The facts don't ad up in my opinion. With Shooter in control it is any mans guess what went on. We can bet that it wasn't good though.

[The Doctor.]

19. Here we go with the crazy talk...

Don't you think that if 'LIHOP' or 'MIHOP' were true, the Bush Administration would have gotten something out of it? Don't you think that the owner of the WTC complex would have been 'in on it' and managed to make a fortune from it? Wouldn't at least some people have sold short on AA shares before the attack and then had their friends on the SEC white wash it? Wouldn't there at least be some trace of these supposed "explosives" found in the debris? What, is it like there was some secret group or 'think tank' that would have wanted some kind of disaster as an excuse to, I don't know... something crazy like get control of the oil in the ME?

Talk about nuts! If these 'conspiracy theories' had any merit to them, then at least two or three of the above would have happened.

[peace13]

21. Hey doc think what ya may...at least I don't go around calling people nuts.

Suit yourself. That is why we each have a brain.

[think]

23. If sarcasm were a disease The Doctor would be contagious /nt

[peace13]

25. Thanks for that!

My bad.

[The Doctor.]

27. ...

[peace13]

26. Sorry about that.

My bad.

[eyewall]

32. Heh, yes Doctor, one would think so.

Nicely done, truly disarming sarcasm.

[DisgustipatedinCA]

35. wake up. The bush admin got everything they wanted from 9/11, and more

I'm not sure what you're talking about with your question, but cheney and bush got everything they wanted from the deal.

[The Doctor.]

42. Ah-Hem....

Sure, there was that ONE thing, but what about the others?

I mean, c'mon! If it was a 'LIHOP/MIHOP', then surely the ever-so-resourceful administration might have arranged some sort of... I don't know... maybe training exercise that would have confused our pilots and command centers or something. Shoot, at the very least we might expect that sometime before the attack the administration would have re-tooled the intercept protocols so that only high-level officials could order a shoot-down. Hell, on top of that, I'd expect that all of those specific 'high level officials' would have been somehow 'completely out of contact' for some reason that would never ultimately be explained.

Shit! Those would all be major red flags! If even one of those were the case, I suspect that someone would be looking for answers.

Sheesh...

[cyberpj]

44. I'd rather people who had done real research on this and actually know something

be allowed to argue their points than have knee-jerk reactions from people who can't conceive of the idea that our government would do anything underhanded against it's own people in order to create advantage for it's own interests and profit.

My first instinct was to believe it all - because at first it all seemed believable.

But some real research into the entire situation has convinced me there is room for doubt.

Anyone who can use The Supreme Court to steal an election can accept 'collateral damage' in order to get the US public to enact a years old agenda to attack Iraq and gain power in the Middle East.

For people who are supposed to have such open minds, many here are blind to the level of secrets and US government complicity in many, if not most, of the war and covert operations going on in this world.

If anyone has actually spent time reading up on all opinions on this and still chooses to believe it then fine - but for those that simply assume it could never happen and so instantly laugh at anyone who believes it could - well - you're just as closed minded and zombie brained as some of the best of the Tea Partiers.

p.s. to The Doctor.
If you're THE Doctor - see my avatar and sig line

[The Doctor.]

46. Oh my!

Perhaps you understand, but maybe you do not. What I'm saying here is this:

If there really was a 'LIHOP/MIHOP' event on 9/11, then we could expect the entire FBI or Secret Service or some 'agency' to go around and confiscate every single surveillance and security recording in the vicinity of the Pentagon so that identifying the plane that struck the Pentagon would be impossible. Heck, I think if I were those in 'cahoots', I would have instructed the department to release... oh... I don't know... maybe 3 or 5 frames from an obscure parking lot camera that would prove nothing. Hell, I would even expect that the pilot (being in on the whole 'conspiracy' ) would be someone with enough skill to perform a complex maneuver and hit the only wall of the Pentagon that had just finished being reinforced against such an attack, leaving the rest of the building completely intact.


If any of those things happened, then I might start raising questions.

[olddad56]

61. are you nuts

you don't think that Larry Silverstein the lease holder on the WTCs was in on it and made a fortune? He leased the buildings for 3.2 Billion 6 weeks before 9/11and got paid off by the insurance company Swiss Re to the tune of 7.1 billion, as the attacks were declared two separete attacks. You don't think that the Port Authority of New York made out be getting rid of their asbestos time bomb? You don't think that the Bush admin made out be having Dubya's approval rating skyrocket to 90% after the attack and paving the way for his wars and the Patriot Act? There was thermite dust found in the debris. What was left of teh debris, after it was immediately carted off and dumped in the ocean.
You don't think the pentagon had a plan for such a 'flag attck since around 1962. (google operation northwoods)

Do some research. Just google Larry Silverstein insurance wtc

[The Doctor.]

63. Oh RIGHT!

So what if someone benefitted. *Pfft!* Big deal!

Seriously, if this were a 'LIHOP/MIHOP' scenario, don't you think there would at least be some traces of demolition materials in the debris? I mean, wouldn't there be some direct witnesses to explosions or countdowns or some evidence of controlled demolition? Shoot, really think about it... how the hell would they even set up the explosives?!? They'd have to have some collaborator, someone very close put in charge of security for the whole complex in order to let whole groups of 'workers' in to wire them up.

Seriously, if any of the above were in evidence, then maybe there'd be cause for concern.

Sheesh, some people can't see what's happening right in front of them.

[olddad56]

64. there are are, knucklehead

there are witnesses that heard the explosions, there are videos of WTC7 coming down where the explosions can be seen, they have discovered thermite particles in the dust. What about the six week time period between when Silverstein took control of the buildings and the day the buildings were pulled? What about the 'renovation construction' that was taking place during that 6 weeks. Who was the chief of security at the twin towers when they came down? Wasn't it John O'Neil?

Maybe you just can't warp your mind around the possibility that it was an inside job. It is called cognative dissonance. Maybe you have watched just a little too much Faux News.

[The Doctor.]

65. Oh come on...

If this were an 'inside job', then Bush wouldn't have jumped right into action on that morning! Top officials would have 'gone missing' so as to let it happen. Think of all the countermeasures that were set up by the administration: They listened to Richard Clarke who told them to set up an Al-Qaeda task-force, they put an executive order in place to capture or kill any Al-Qaeda found anywhere. There was a bounty on bin Laden's head the day after Bush took office, and upon receiving an Aug. 6, 2001 Presidential Briefing titled "Bin Laden determined to Strike US" they leaped into action and scramble their intelligence community to be on high alert!

THINK about it... if it were a 'conspiracy' or 'inside job', NONE of that would have happened.

[The Doctor.]

66. Oh, and they did NOT discover 'thermite' in the dust.

'Thermite' is absolutely useless for demolishing buildings.

Now, if they found something like nano-thermite, THEN you might have a case.

[olddad56]

67. you are correct, they found thermate. but whatever, it's your world, we are just living in it.

[The Doctor.]

68. LMAO...

No, actually it was 'nano-thermite', a very important distinction.

You can find a breakdown here:

http://gorish.blogspot.com/2011/08/why-harrit-nano-thermite-paper-has-not.html


If you look up through my replies carefully (especially #65), you might be a little abashed to find there were a few more 'perspicacious' responses than yours.

[tech_smythe]

13. This hardly surprises me

at least his proponent isnt a birther. (which is how i somehow misread it initially)
this seems pretty consistent with paul's mixed bag of beliefs.

aside from being a misogynist racist, much of what paul believes seems to be pretty genuine and heart felt.

the only thing that surprises me, is that as a powerful senator with a fuckton of tenure in the senate, hasn't tried to start a commission to re-examine all the new evidence of 9-11.

that said... i'm thoroughly enjoying the gop's melt down, and hope paul goes 3rd party

[RZM]

15. About half the responses on this thread so far seem sympathetic to the Truther cause

I doubt any are from Paul supporters either.

There's a lot of Trutherism on the left too. Skinner's done a pretty good job of keeping it off the main site, but every once in a while a thread like this shows that it's just beneath the surface.

[FiveGoodMen]

29. Since everyone who doesn't support Bush's explanation is a 'Truther'

you must be saying that we should all believe Bush.

[RZM]

31. I said 'sympathetic'

That's not the same thing. But while we're on the subject, what is a Truther, exactly? Seems to me 9/11 Truth is a loose collection of beliefs that all center around not buying the official story. There are a lot of different explanations under the truthy umbrella, but they all seem to have that one thing in common. So maybe sympathetic wasn't strong enough of a term.

[FiveGoodMen]

36. My point is that 'Truther' has become an extremely derisive, derogatory term

(often spelled 'twoofer' lest there be any doubt)

...and it gets applied to anyone who doesn't buy the Bush Admin's story completely.

Therefore, in practice, ANY use of the term 'truther' -- in ANY context -- implies that only people who believe Dubya's commission are sane.

[RZM]

39. I don't think Truthers are insane

I just think they are wrong. To be fair, some are kind of nutty, but most aren't. I just don't buy their arguments.

With that, we should probably end this discussion lest we get the thread locked.

[yurbud]

56. The next time someone goofs on a truther, ask them if they believed everything Bush said about Iraq

being a threat to the US.

Questioning whether the ''threat'' was intentionally exaggerated or even if the evidence was true constituted a threat to us, was called a loony conspiracy theory until the press decided that ''everyone knew all along'' that it was a lie and so there was no need to discuss it.

I suspect this will eventually happen with 9/11 Truth the way it did with the Gulf of Tonkin incident just recently: tape of LBJ saying the causus belli for US escalation of the Vietnam War probably didn't even happen came out, a prominent member of Congress said they all knew it at the time, and then...

...and then nothing.

You would think the MSM would jump all over a story that a previous president (and a DEMOCRAT at that) had lied us into a war, but that would ruin the WAG THE DOG trick for at least a generation, the way our defeat in Vietnam dampened the general publics war lust for a good 5-10 years at least.

[sabrina 1]

40. Why do people get so upset when someone says they don't believe the 'official'

story of 9/11? Polls show a majority of Americans, and an even bigger majority of people around the world, don't believe we know the facts about 9/11. What IS the big deal? I mean we are talking about the Bush administration. Since when did the left decide that the Bush gang were 'truthers'? I have a problem remembering anything that came from their lips that actually was the truth.

Something strange about the effort to try to stop people from voicing their doubts about 9/11. Same thing with election fraud.

[RZM]

41. You're reacting to an argument that I'm not making

I'm not upset and nobody's trying to stop you from voicing anything.

The point I was making was that this OP was intended to poke a bit of fun at the Ron Paul campaign for employing a Truther and the irony is that many people commenting on it probably agree with him.

[sabrina 1]

47. Okay, sorry, I misunderstood. I was just wondering anyhow, why

there is this reaction to a discussion about one of the single most important events in our recent history. People are curious. I was in NY when 9/11 happened. We fully expected a thorough investigation where there would be answers to the many questions people had. 'Why do they hate us' eg, many people had no idea. When Bush asked that there be NO investigation, people were shocked and outraged. Including the FD who were prevented from doing their job.

Early on, as a result of these actions by the Bush administration, many of the victims families and most NYers began to suspect some nefarious reason for such an outrageous decision. And I still do, otherwise who on earth would NOT want a thorough investigation?

We were supposed to accept that out of the blue, the administration knew everything, how it all happened etc. without an investigation? At the time that seemed incredible, and still does.

[chrisa]

53. I think because what follows that statement is sometimes a completely outlandish or half-baked

theory / nonsense. The strawman argument "Okay, go ahead, believe Bush 100%" strawman argument is used when no one chooses to believe their pseudo-scientific, fictitious bunk (examples: the twin towers fell at free-fall speeds, which could only be achieved through controlled demolition, buildings cannot fall just from fire, thermite dust was found in the wreckage, cellphones wouldn't work in the airplanes at the altitude United 93 was at, etc.)

I'm sure the report was not 100% correct either, with maybe even some lies made by people to deflect blame. However, it's hard to dispute that planes did hit the towers, Pentagon, and that field in Pennsylvania (yet some still do).

[MisterP]

16. that's a little like saying "Paul backed by shoe-wearer"--most Americans are quite cynical

of course, the cynicism can often come unmoored and then you get Alex Jones (all conspiracies are true)

[The Doctor.]

20. Alex Jones is a pestilence.

Sometimes I think he's an asset with the responsibility of conflating every single far-out conspiracy with potentially legitimate skepticism. He just throws in a dash of pure lunacy (Aliens blew up the WTC), and *presto*, he's made every theory too crazy to touch.

[Blue_Tires]

24. That's nothing new...They were one of his biggest support blocs in '08, too

Not that the media have short memories or anything...

[jakeXT]

28. It was an inside job, but he's no McKinney or Wellstone

he knows it would be his political death.

I say he's a pussy.

[Hugabear]

33. Meh, most Ron Paul supporters are huge conspiracy freaks

Everything is a conspiracy to them.

[pauldp]

34. Look the bottom line is we were lied to in the 911 Commission Report.

Phil Zelikow, a White House insider and the exec director of the commission controlled what info got to the public. He left out reams of evidence like the Able Danger info and what happened at the Minneapolis FBI office, things pointing to criminal negligence if not worse.

We should all be demanding the truth about 911. So yeah , I want to know the truth because I am being lied to about an event that is used as an excuse to take away our civil liberties, start wars and eviscerate the bill of rights. Does that make me a "truther"? Frankly I don't give a f*ck, hell call me whatever the hell you like. We should all be demanding a real investigation into 911. Calling me a "twoofer" won't deter me from wanting to know the truth.

but maybe people think it's ok for a Bush administration insider to tell us what happened?

[24601]

38. Well duh, what do you expect from stoners? n/t

[cyberpj]

45. Wow. Really? Is that your best intelligent response to this issue. Well ok then.

You must be right.

[24601]

48. Who else has the platform to legalize pot? Not Obama, Romney,

Gilligan, the Skipper & Mary Ann.

Take away the pot vote and a big chunk of Paul supporters disappear.

My apologies if you were supporting him because of that, nothing personal intended.