Ron Paul has long been the Rodney Dangerfield of the Republican presidential field: He just can’t seem to get any respect.

Despite polling consistently within the top three or four candidates in Iowa and New Hampshire, the libertarian-leaning congressman has not convinced most of the media and the other campaigns that he can reach beyond a dedicated group of supporters and become a serious threat to win the nomination.

But with a month to go before the Iowa caucuses, Paul is leaving an increasingly significant mark on the race.

On Wednesday, his campaign released a 2½-minute Web ad titled “Newt Gingrich: Serial Hypocrisy,” which juxtaposed media commentary and Gingrich’s own words to eviscerate the former House speaker.

In a campaign that has seen relatively few hard-hitting attack ads, Paul’s takedown of the rising GOP front-runner was a potent reminder of Gingrich’s myriad vulnerabilities and earned Paul admiration for its effectiveness.

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Read More at Real Clear Politics Scott Conroy, Real Clear Politics

I turned about and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favor to men of skill; but opportunity and happenstance befall them all. For man does not know his lot: as the fishes caught in an evil net, and as hunted birds caught in a snare; so are the sons of man caught in an evil time, when it falls suddenly upon them.
– Ecclesiastes, 9:11-12

In all that we do, we should strive to show the decency, the civility, the respect for human dignity that ought to characterize a free people. It is not our way to answer hate with hate. But we are a people conscious of our God-given right to live in peace and without fear. And it is our duty to make clear to all those who seek to deny that right that we are willing and able to answer war with war. (from the column “Remember who we are”)

Regarding those foreigners who are actually accused, or might be accused, of a crime under American law, the Constitution clearly indicates that due process must be followed – not just for citizens, but for all persons. For this reason, I believe that it would not be justified to try foreigners captured in America – even those accused of terrorist acts – outside the normal course of our legal procedures simply because they are foreigners.

What is also unclear is whether enough people in our citizenry and government understand that no degree of executive branch confidence in the guilt of a citizen can justify the suspension of that citizen’s constitutional rights.

Such suspension would indeed be a powerful government weapon against terrorists. But it would be a more dangerous threat to the liberty of American citizens. The Washington Post last week carried a story about a former Boston cab driver, once identified by authorities as a major terrorism suspect, who was kept in solitary confinement for more than eight months without seeing a judge or being assigned a lawyer.

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 Read More at WND By Alan Keyes, WorldNetDaily

One evening I was looking for some information on the National Institute for Standards website (www.nist.gov) when something on the sidebar caught my eye and it was an announcement about “National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace” at https://www.nist.gov/nstic/. Being the techie that I am I was curiously drawn to it as I remember a previous announcement Jan 7, 2011 on CNet about establishing an Internet identity system (https://news.cnet.com/8301-31921_3-20027800-281.html.)

We’ve heard all the stories before about people getting their identities stolen through hackers, phishing, and workers within financial institutions illegally selling customers’ confidential information. This is the premise for President Obama’s proposed Internet Identity Ecosystem.

How does this affect you? Imagine this. Your child gets issued a smart card from their school. This smart card has all of your personal information on it and your child’s personal information, plus their school records. You can plug the card into a reader on your computer and access your child’s records online by sending verification data from the card to a centralized network to verify it’s “you,” and then to your child’s school to access the records.

This card is issued only to you. According to the proposed Internet Identity Ecosystem (National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace, pg 5), there will be no need to remember many different login passwords on the websites you like to visit. The issuer of the card could be from either an office of the government or a private issuing company (“standardized reliable credentials and identity media…in use in both public and private sectors,” National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace, pg 13) has verified your identity so whenever you plug in the card, participating vendors will read the card and recognize that it’s “you.” No more painful memorizing a password for every site you interact with.

The card can also be tied into your banking records so it’ll work just like a credit or debit card. No more carrying around several kinds of credit or debit cards so you can use it for online shopping or public shopping. At participating businesses, your transaction remains anonymous to the business, but the transaction is recognized as having come from “you” as it goes around the network from the business to the government or private identity issuer network to your bank or credit card account.

 Read More at thedailysheeple.com By David Blair, thedailysheeple.com

Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich has recently offered seemingly contradictory views on “climate change,” claiming to oppose climate taxation while partnering with a group that promotes such legislation.

The former House speaker earlier this week called his partnering with Nancy Pelosi on an environmental mission a “mistake.” However, last year he not only defended the move but said he would have done it again.

In a Fox News interview with Bill O’Reilly earlier this week, Gingrich was asked about a 2008 commercial starring himself and Pelosi in which the duo urged “action” to address “climate change.”

“We do agree, our country must take action to address climate change,” says Gingrich in the commercial, sitting on a couch next to Pelosi.

“We need cleaner forms of energy, and we need them fast,” Pelosi chimes in.

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 Read More at WorldNetDaily By Aaron Klein, WorldNetDaily

WASHINGTON — Vice President Joe Biden said Thursday “we’re not claiming victory” in Iraq, but he believes the emerging government in Baghdad is capable of defending itself.

Interviewed on NBC’s “Today” show from Iraq, Biden was asked about the impact of the U.S. combat troop withdrawal, likely to be complete within weeks. He replied, “This is no rush.”

Biden added that in the three years of the Obama administration, “We’ve done this in a way that nobody thought could be done.”

The vice president said there is no validity now to “the idea that there is sufficient capacity to bring down this government, to fundamentally alter this democratic process that is under way.”

“We’re not claiming victory,” he said. “What we’re claiming here is we’ve done our job the administration said it would do. To end a war we did not start, to end it in a responsible way … and to leave in place the prospect of a trained military, a trained security force under democratic institutions where the disparate parties for the first time are actually working together.”

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 Read More at Newsmax Newsmax