This month, we celebrated what would have been Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s 84th birthday, were he alive today. In honor of this occasion, I’d like to first highlight this short video, produced by journalist Barrie Zwicker, which provides a clear, concise overview of the realities regarding the assassination of this national civil rights and anti-war icon on April 4, 1968. (The book mentioned in the video is An Act of State: The Execution of Martin Luther King.)

As explained in the video, decades after King’s death, there now exists a large body of evidence indicating that his assassination was not the work of “lone gunman” James Earl Ray, but a conspiracy involving multiple governmental agencies, including the FBI and Memphis Police Department. From March 13, 1969, until the day of his death in 1998, Ray had always maintained that he was an innocent patsy, or scapegoat, who had been duped at the very last minute by the conniving lawyer who had offered to represent him into entering a guilty plea instead of going to trial as planned. (This guilty plea is often misleadingly referred to as a “confession.”)

It took Dr. William F. Pepper until 1988, twenty years after King’s death, to decide fully and conclusively that Ray was telling the truth.

Pepper had been a close colleague and friend of Dr. King in the final year before his assassination. The two met in early 1967, after King had seen a series of disturbing and heart-breaking photographs in Ramparts magazine which were taken by Pepper the previous year during a visit to Vietnam. They depicted some of the countless thousands of children who had been killed, maimed, or left homeless by American weapons of war, including napalm and white phosphorus. These and other photos (and anecdotes) shared with him by Pepper deeply moved and disturbed Dr. King, and ultimately had a serious influence on his decision to come out strongly against the war a short time later.

Even before joining the anti-war movement, King had already been a major target of the FBI’s COINTELPRO, which engaged in a “no holds barred” covert operation to surveil, intimidate, “completely discredit,” and “destroy” him as a leader of the civil rights movement by any means necessary, as documented in great detail years later by the Church Committee in its Final Report. However, when he came out against the Vietnam War, this caused even more concern by “the powers that be.” As revealed by the Church Committee (Volume 7, Book III, pp. 173-174):

Dr. King publicly announced his opposition to American involvement in the war in Vietnam in a speech at New York’s Riverside Church on April 4, 1967. Six days later, Charles Brennan of the [FBI's] Domestic Intelligence Division recommended the circulation of an updated draft of the King monograph to the White House. Brennan’s memorandum states that the revised monograph contained allegations about communist influence over Dr. King as well as personally derogatory allegations.

Director Hoover approved and copies of the revised monograph were sent to the White House, the Secretary of State, the Secretary of Defense, the Director of the Secret Service, and the Attorney General. A copy was subsequently sent to the Commandant of the Marine Corps, who had been interested in “King’s activities in the civil rights movement but recently had become quite concerned as to whether there are any subversive influences which have caused King to link the civil rights movement with the anti-Vietnam War movement.”

King was assassinated on April 4, 1968 — the one year anniversary of his “Beyond Vietnam” speech at the Riverside Church.

For years after King’s death, Pepper assumed, as most people did, that Ray was guilty. But, in late 1977, he was asked by prominent civil rights leader Ralph Abarnathy to accompany him to Ray’s prison to interrogate him. Pepper (a lawyer) agreed, but said he needed time to get up to speed with the case. The following summer, the two did travel to the prison, and Pepper spent five hours questioning him. “I put him really through a rather rigorous, painful time.”

“After the interview… Abernathy and I became convinced that he was not the shooter,” Pepper would later explain. “We didn’t know what other role he might have played. But it was clear he was not the assassin of Martin Luther King. This guy couldn’t have done that. But he raised so many questions that I had never heard raised before, that had never been answered, that I decided I would begin to go into Memphis and talk to some people, become familiar with the terrain and the crime scene and see if I could get some answers to those questions.”

For the next decade, James Earl Ray attempted to convince Pepper to represent him in his quest to finally get a trial, but Pepper refused. “He kept asking me to represent him. And I said no. … I had to be convinced that he not only wasn’t the shooter, but that he had no knowing role. And it took me ten years to be convinced of that.”

Finally, in 1988, after ten years of investigation and many trips to Memphis (and occasionally New Orleans), Pepper was convinced, and he agreed to be Ray’s lawyer. In 1995, he published the book Orders to Kill, which detailed the large body of evidence he had accumulated pointing to a conspiracy, and to James Earl Ray’s innocence. (This was years before he wrote An Act of State.)

While the book was deliberately ignored by most in the media, it was not ignored by Martin Luther King, Jr.’s family. They had a long-held policy of not weighing in on the issue one way or the other, but James Earl Ray’s health was deteriorating, and after reading Orders To Kill, studying the evidence, and discussing the case with Pepper, they became convinced not only that Ray was innocent and that the conspirators who really killed Martin were still at large, but also of their own need to get involved.

MLK’s son, Dexter Scott King, met with James Earl Ray at the Lois DeBerry Special Needs Facility in March of 1997. He asked Mr. Ray, for the record, “Did you kill my father?” Ray replied, “No, no I didn’t. No.”

“As awkward as it may seem, I believe you and my family believes you,” King said a moment later, “and we will do everything in our power to see you prevail.”

One pressing order of business was getting Ray a liver transplant, which, due to his terminal condition, he desperately needed in order to stay alive long enough to go to trial. Despite the fact that he now had Martin Luther King, Jr.’s own family in his corner, requests to allow Ray to travel to Pittsburgh for the transplant were repeatedly denied.

• Assassin Denied Liver Test, New York Times, May 25, 1997
• James Earl Ray Denied Medical Furlough, Chicago Tribune, June 10, 1997
• James Earl Ray Denied Medical Leave, Chicago Tribune, Sept 19, 1997

“Even though it wasn’t going to cost the state anything, they nevertheless decided they didn’t want to let James Earl Ray have that liver transplant,” Pepper has said. “That was equivalent to signing his death warrant.” Just a few months later, in March 11, 1998 Ray went into a coma, and he died on April 23, 1998.

In 1999, the King Family filed a civil action against Lloyd Jowers, a Memphis restaurant owner who had by then admitted his own complicity in the assassination, and “other unknown co-conspirators.” The list of plaintiffs included MLK’s wife-turned-widow Coretta Scott King, and his four children, Martin Luther King III, Bernice King, Dexter Scott King, Yolanda King.

To show that their goal was not obtaining money, but establishing the truth, the family asked for only one hundred dollars in damages, which were to be donated to charity. As William Pepper, serving as the family’s lawyer, explained:

“…in terms of the spirit in which the family has approached these proceedings from the beginning. Yes, we want a verdict of liability, a verdict of a finding of conspiracy, but the family is not interested to benefit financially from these proceedings. There has to be damages in civil litigation of this sort. It is a wrongful death action. So the request is that there be an award of one hundred dollars to offset funeral expenses at the time. And that one hundred dollars the family has decided to contribute, along with other contributions, to a welfare fund of the sanitation workers in this city, because that is the reason that Dr. King came here in the first place.”

The trial commenced in Memphis, Tennessee on November 15, 1999, and court was in session until December 8, 1999. After hearing testimony from over 70 witnesses, it took the jury just one hour to find that Dr. King was in fact murdered as a result of a “conspiracy” involving Lloyde Jowers and “others, including governmental agencies,” which were named in the trial to include the FBI, Memphis Police Department, and others. Even the New York Times had to report (cache):

Memphis Jury Sees Conspiracy in Martin Luther King’s Killing
By EMILY YELLIN
Published: December 09, 1999

A jury in a civil suit brought by the family of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. decided today that a retired Memphis cafe owner was part of a conspiracy in the 1968 killing of Dr. King.

The jury’s decision means it did not believe that James Earl Ray, who was convicted of the crime, fired the shot that killed Dr. King.

After four weeks of testimony and one hour of deliberation, the jury in the wrongful-death case found that Loyd Jowers as well as ”others, including governmental agencies” had been part of a conspiracy. The jury awarded the King family the damages they had sought: $100, which the family says it will donate to charity.

The family has long questioned Mr. Ray’s conviction and hoped the suit would change the legal and historical record of the assassination.

”This is a vindication for us,” said Dexter King, the youngest son of Dr. King.

He said he hoped history books would be rewritten to reflect this version of the assassination.

The day after the verdict was given, the King family gave a press conference in Atlanta (a transcript of which can be found on the official website of The King Center [cache of page, cache of pdf (left click)] or Ratical.com). At the press conference, Coretta Scott King, said:

There is abundant evidence of a major high level conspiracy in the assassination of my husband, Martin Luther King, Jr. And the civil court’s unanimous verdict has validated our belief. I wholeheartedly applaud the verdict of the jury and I feel that justice has been well served in their deliberations. This verdict is not only a great victory for my family, but also a great victory for America. It is a great victory for truth itself.

It is important to know that this was a SWIFT verdict, delivered after about an hour of jury deliberation. The jury was clearly convinced by the extensive evidence that was presented during the trial that, in addition to Mr. Jowers, the conspiracy of the Mafia, local, state and federal government agencies, were deeply involved in the assassination of my husband. The jury also affirmed overwhelming evidence that identified someone else, not James Earl Ray, as the shooter, and that Mr. Ray was set up to take the blame.

I want to make it clear that my family has no interest in retribution. Instead, our sole concern has been that the full truth of the assassination has been revealed and adjudicated in a court of law

She went on to speak about how her son Dexter had endured, “unmerited and personal attacks so we could get to the truth about the assassination.” Once she concluded her remarks, Dexter Scott King himself then spoke. He began his remarks:

I would just like to say that this is such a heavy moment for me. Yet while my heart is heavy, and this is a bittersweet occasion, bitter because we are dealing with tragedy, a tragedy that occurred some 32 years ago, but, yet today, we are still dealing with it. It is sweet because finally we know what happened. Sweet because this family has been vindicated, sweet because we can say that we are truly free at last. We can now move on with our lives. I want to give a real thanks to my mother, for her leadership and her tireless effort in carrying this burden all this time. You know we as children at that time were so young that we did not really understand what was going on. To my siblings, who have been here and been steadfast, to my aunt, we as a family have been unified around this effort. We finally got what we have been asking for, the opportunity to present evidence that we always felt would bring the truth out in a court of law. To have had twelve individual jurors to bear what we have been saying, that if the American public were allowed to really hear, they too would conclude what has now been concluded by those twelve.

He again clarified what the jury had, and had not, found:

…this verdict was not, as has been reported, a conspiracy that said others were involved other than James Earl Ray. That is not what that jury voted on. I want to be clear about that. They clearly voted on evidence that stated that James Earl Ray was not the shooter, that he was set up, that he was an unknown [unwitting] patsy. That Lloyd Jowers, along with his co-conspirators, that the jury also concluded involved state, local and federal agencies. I want to be clear about that, because you keep hearing duplicitous reports.”

He discussed the “very distinct process or protocol” that is followed by the “powers that be” when someone like Martin Luther King, Jr. arises:

First, there is an attempt to discredit one’s credibility. Second, there is harassment. And finally, if that does not work, termination or elimination. That is what happened to our loved one, because he challenged the establishment. He spoke out against the war in Vietnam. He talked about dealing with poverty, by taking poor people to Washington. There was also an interest in the political process. He became too powerful.

He also issued a warning about governments’ tendency to cover-up their own crimes, the utter folly of expecting them to properly investigate themselves, and the vital need for private citizens to take investigative matters into their own hands when suspicious crimes with serious political implications occur, lest a monstrous conspiracy becomes whitewashed:

Let us not forget, as my mother said, that it was the failure of the system to do the right thing by its citizens, who first and foremost caused and created a Martin Luther King Jr. and others to get out on the front line and be beaten, brutalized and even killed. And now, it is the failure of the system to do the right thing, which is now to find out who killed this man. Because they themselves will have to show bloody hands. So it is left up to our efforts as private citizens, as he was a private citizen who had to seek other means through private regress.[...] We don’t care what the justice department does. This is another misnomer. We did not do this to force their hand. I doubt seriously that they will indict themselves, for who polices the police? That is up to the American public. We, [the King family] have done our part. Those of you, if you find it in your hearts to get the “powers that be” to officialize what twelve independent people have already done, that is your business. We know what happened. This is the period at the end of the sentence. Please, after today, we do not want questions like; “do you believe that James Earl Ray killed your father?” I have been hearing that all of my life. No, I don’t. This is the end of it. Thank you.

Finally, he spoke again of the conclusiveness of the evidence presented in the case:

We can say that because of the evidence and information obtained in Memphis we believe that this case is over. This is a period in the chapter. We constantly hear reports, which troubles me, that this verdict creates more questions than answers. That is totally false. Anyone who sat in on almost four weeks of testimony, with over seventy witnesses, credible witnesses I might add, from several judges to other very credible witnesses, would know that the truth is here. The question now is, “What will you do with that?” We as a family have done our part. We have carried this mantle for as long as we can carry it. We know what happened. It is on public record. The transcripts will be available; we will make them available on the Web at some point. Any serious researcher who wants to know what happened can find out.

During a Q&A after the family’s remarks:

Q: There are many people out there who feel that as long as these conspirators remain nameless and faceless there is no true closure, and no justice.

DEXTER KING: No, he named the shooter. The shooter was the Memphis Police Department Officer, Lt. Earl Clark who he named as the killer. Once again, beyond that you had credible witnesses that named members of a Special Forces team who didn’t have to act because the contract killer succeeded, with plausible denial, a Mafia contracted killer.

Q: I’m sorry, my question goes to the family’s feelings. There are those who feel that as long as this greater conspiracy that has remained faceless and nameless and until there are faces and names attached to that conspiracy that justice will not be served. The family doesn’t share that view?

DEXTER KING: Well no, because we know. I guess I am not making myself clear. There is an institutional framework on how these things happen. So if you want to go back and do the research for those who want to know who gives an order. I do know certain things about the military, and the commander in chief has to make certain commitments for certain troops to be committed domestically. In this instance, there was denial that the troops were not there, Special Forces were not there. But in fact, with [Carthel Weeden] the Captain of the Firehouse, which Attorney Pepper had on the stand, said he put the Army Special Ops. photographers on the roof.

There was another witness that talked about all the Army Officers, a Memphis Police Officer [Eli Arkin], an inspector who talked about all the army brass that was there. He said that he had never seen that much Army Brass in his office ever before.

So all of this information is there. It’s just that no one has really looked. This is the most incredible coverup of the century. I can’t even believe it. It is mindboggling. But again, if anybody wants to go do the research, and we do live in an age of microwave society and everybody wants things like that (very quickly), but if anyone is serious about sitting down and going through this, they will come up with the same conclusions as we did and 12 other people did as well.

His brother, Martin Luther King III, said in part:

Certainly this has been a very, very long time coming. It essentially says that the truth can in fact come through. It essentially says that if you keep working forward, sometimes for some, even in the twilight, that one day you will reach the conclusion of truth. This could not have happened without a lot of people. I too, want to thank Dr. [William] Pepper and his team, who have been working on this for almost 20 plus years. I too, must thank my brother, who basically sat us down and had the courage to encourage us to take on this issue that we knew was going to be a process of maybe, attempting to discredit this family. Some people have said that we are crazy. Some have stated that we were trying to do other things. The only thing we have ever tried to do was to seek that which is true.

For a much more thorough overview of what really happened to Dr. Martin Luther King and who was behind his assassination, I highly recommend setting aside 70 minutes to watch the following speech by Dr. William F. Pepper. It is one of the most interesting speeches I’ve ever heard on any subject.(A transcript of a similar lecture can be read here if you’d prefer.)

Other key resources include:

• Complete Transcript of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Assassination Conspiracy Trial, November 15 to December 8, 1999, Memphis, Tennessee. Also mirrored The King Center (link at bottom of page), with a backup copy here (left click and “save as”).
• An Act of State: The Execution of Martin Luther King – William F. Pepper’s 2003 follow-up to Orders to Kill
• “The Martin Luther King Conspiracy Exposed in Memphis” by Jim Douglass – Article originally published in the May-June 2000 issue of Probe magazine. Contains a good summary of the evidence with hyperlinks to sections of the trial transcript.
• Evidence of Revision – Part 6 of this series is a two hour documentary about King’s assassination. It contains many enlightening interviews and loads amazing archival footage. Also available on YouTube.

Why have most people never heard about this? In the conclusion of the video at the beginning of this article, Zwicker gives us the answer:

The trial, in effect, [was] boycotted by the media. That’s why you didn’t know about it. That’s why I didn’t know about it until three months ago through James Douglass. King recognized that powerful economic interests stunt history and kill hope. It’s important to understand that these powerful forces now include the ‘mainstream’ media.

Here are some recent examples of how the media has attempted to tell lies by omission about this case, and often leaves key information completely “down the memory hole”:

• Just last week, CNN published a fact sheet on MLK, which includes a timeline. Even though they themselves reported on the Dexter King/James Earl Ray meeting and aired it live on TV at the time, calling it “extraordinary,” this event is completely omitted from the timeline. So is any reference to William Pepper, the 1999 trial, Lloyd Jowers being found guilty of conspiring with “governmental agencies” to murder King and frame Ray, the King family’s statements, or any of the 70+ witnesses who the jury heard at the trial. Instead they flatly state that King was “assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee, by James Earl Ray,” that James Earl Ray was “King’s assassin,” and that the Justice Department says that there is “no reliable evidence to support a conspiracy behind King’s murder.”
• Searching the New York Times website with Google reveals only one reference to the name Lloyd Jowers from 2000-2013, and that article does not even mention the trial at all, let alone his conviction, or that of other local and federal government agencies.
• CBS News has repeatedly run articles naming James Earl Ray as King’s killer and making key omissions about the trial. The omissions actually seem to be getting more and more egregious as time goes on. See for example:
  1. “The MLK Case: A Timeline” (2009) – Mentions Jowers, the trial, and the King family’s support for Ray, yet says that the Jury ruled that “King was the victim of a murder conspiracy,” omitting the fact that it specifically named “governmental agencies” as being among the guilty parties — agencies which were listed by name throughout the trial, with evidence presented substantiating their involvement.
  2. “James Earl Ray: Timeline”, (2009) – Mentions that James Earl Ray was acquitted in 1993 by a mock jury during an HBO special, but completely fails to mention that he was found innocent by a real jury in 1999.
  3. “New Photos of King’s Killer Emerge” (2011) – Dubs Ray “King’s Killer” and completely omits any mention of the trial.
  4. “Retracing the hunt for MLK’s killer” (2011) – Admits that Ray pled guilty to “avoid the death penalty” and spent his entire time in prison professing his innocence, yet completely fails to mention the trial or any of the evidence supporting his claim, and instead quotes “experts” calling him a liar.
• Last year, Fox News ran an entire article about Ray, “Ray doubted jury would believe an MLK conspiracy”. The article paints Ray as guilty, attempts to discredit his claims that he was duped into entering a guilty plea (which is mischaracterized as a “confession”), and attempts to discredit his claims of innocence. It is not until the very last sentence that they briefly allude to the fact that King’s own family is convinced of Ray’s innocence. No mention at all of Jowers, the trial, or any of the voluminous evidence and witness testimony pointing to a conspiracy involving the governmental agencies like the FBI & Memphis PD and Ray’s innocence.

This article was originally published on TheEndRun.com on January 25, 2013. If you appreciate the hard work that went into its production, please consider making a donation to The End Run today. Now on social media: Facebook, Twitter.

TheEndRun.com
January 10, 2013

Last night, Larry Pratt of Gun Owners of America appeared on Piers Morgan Tonight for a debate with the host. Morgan is a British “citizen” (“subject”?) who has recently been using his platform on CNN to promote the idea that the U.S. Constitution is “inherently flawed” and to advocate stricter, more British-style gun control policies in the U.S. This was Pratt’s second appearance on the show in the past month, having previously appeared in the wake of the Sandy Hook event.

At one point in the exchange (around 11:24 in this video), Morgan says that he “actually dug out the official figures… the homicide figures from guns in England and Wales by comparison to the United States of America going back to 2003,” and proceeds to read off numbers showing that the U.S. has a much higher gun murder rate. Morgan then claims that the lower numbers in England and Wales are “the result” of the “responsible action” taken in “respon[se]” to the 1996 school shooting in Dunblane, Scotland — namely a “handgun and assault weapon ban.”

To begin with, More Guns, Less Crime author John Lott has recently explained that this is a misleading representation of the statistics: Yes, the gun murder rate is relatively low in England and Wales, but it was already low before the ban, and the stats do not show a decrease in murders committed with guns (nor overall murders) since the ban was instituted, as Morgan implies. “There is a difference between levels and changes,” Lott notes. Meanwhile, The Telegraph reported in 2009 that gun crime had “almost doubled in the last decade.”

But let’s look at the discussion that ensued after Morgan’s remarks. (Despite the fact that Morgan had just spoken for 1 minute and 39 seconds straight, he interrupts Pratt after only 18 seconds.)

PRATT: Well first of all, according to your investigator of your constabulary, the data that you’re using for the murder rate in England is a sham. There’s a monumental misreporting of what constitutes murder. If three people are murdered, it’s likely to be counted as one event. And…

MORGAN: What an absolute, absolute LIE! That is an ABSOLUTE–

PRATT: Well, that’s what you say when you don’t know what you’re talking about…

MORGAN: No, you see, Mr. Pratt. No, Mr Pratt. Let me tell you, it doesn’t take very long….

PRATT: But I was just looking at a 2000 report. And these are your own government’s data.

MORGAN: Mr. Pratt, it doesn’t take very long to count 50 gun murders.

As it turns out, what Pratt said does not appear to have been a “lie” at all, let alone an “absolute, absolute LIE!” Quite the opposite.

The report that Pratt was referring to was discussed in a March 22, 2001 article by Dave Kopel, Dr. Paul Gallant and Dr. Joanne Eisen, entitled “Britain: From Bad to Worse” (cache).

In this article, the authors explained that “the violent crime rate has risen dramatically and steadily since gun bans have been instituted,” and that Britain had accordingly lost its reputation as an “unusually safe and crime-free nation.”

To the great consternation of British authorities concerned about tourism revenue, a June CBS News report proclaimed Great Britain “one of the most violent urban societies in the Western world.” Declared Dan Rather: “This summer, thousands of Americans will travel to Britain expecting a civilized island free from crime and ugliness … [but now] the U.K. has a crime problem … worse than ours.”

They then begin to explain that this increase in violent crime — “a trend seen wherever strict gun control laws have been implemented” — is something that British officials have tried to keep “under wraps” by manipulating the statistics:

A headline in the London Daily Telegraph back on April 1, 1996, said it all: “Crime Figures a Sham, Say Police.” The story noted that “pressure to convince the public that police were winning the fight against crime had resulted in a long list of ruses to ‘massage’ statistics,” and “the recorded crime level bore no resemblance to the actual amount of crime being committed.”

For example, where a series of homes were burgled, they were regularly recorded as one crime. If a burglar hit 15 or 20 flats, only one crime was added to the statistics.

The authors then say (and this is the part Pratt was most specifically referencing – emphasis added):

More recently, a 2000 report from the Inspectorate of Constabulary charges Britain’s 43 police departments with systemic under-classification of crime – for example, by recording burglary as “vandalism.” The report lays much of the blame on the police’s desire to avoid the extra paperwork associated with more serious crimes.

Britain’s justice officials have also kept crime totals down by being careful about what to count.

“American homicide rates are based on initial data, but British homicide rates are based on the final disposition.” Suppose that three men kill a woman during an argument outside a bar. They are arrested for murder, but because of problems with identification (the main witness is dead), charges are eventually dropped. In American crime statistics, the event counts as a three-person homicide, but in British statistics it counts as nothing at all. “With such differences in reporting criteria, comparisons of U.S. homicide rates with British homicide rates is a sham,” the report concludes.

Is there any corroboration for this charge? Yes. In an article published years ago, which is still online at their website, Larry Pratt’s organization, Gun Owners of America, not only references the above-quoted article, but also numerous articles published by the Telegraph between 1996 and 2000 with headlines such as:

• “Police figures under-record offences by 20 percent”
• “Police are accused of fiddling crime data”

Quoting from these articles, They noted the following:

• Sgt. Mike Bennett says officers have become increasingly frustrated with the practice of manipulating statistics. “The crime figures are meaningless,” he said. “Police everywhere know exactly what is going on.”
• “Officers said the recorded level of crime bore no resemblance to the actual amount of crime being committed.”

See also: “Police fail to report 1.4m crimes”, Jason Bennetto, The Independent, 1 Aug 2000

But that’s only through 2000. Has this problem gone away in recent years? No. An article published by The Telegraph in 2008 explained how “the true level of gun crime” is (still) “far higher than the Government admits in official statistics”:

Figures to be published by the Home Office this week will massively understate the scale of the problem.

Data provided to The Sunday Telegraph by nearly every police force in England and Wales, under freedom of information laws, show that the number of firearms incidents dealt with by officers annually is 60 per cent higher than figures stated by the Home Office.

Last year 5,600 firearms offences were excluded from the official figures. It means that, whereas the Home Office said there were only 9,800 offences in 2007/8, the real total was around 15,400. The latest quarterly figures, due to be released on Thursday, will again exclude a significant number of incidents.

The explanation for the gulf is that the Government figures only include cases where guns are fired, used to “pistol whip” victims, or brandished as a threat.

Thousands of offences including gun-smuggling and illegal possession of a firearm – which normally carries a minimum five-year jail sentence – are omitted from the Home Office’s headline count, raising questions about the reliability of Government crime data.

Dominic Grieve, the shadow home secretary, said: “These alarming new figures not only highlight the appalling state of gun crime in this country, but also remind us just how poor the Government’s statistics actually are.

“Crime statistics must also be compiled and published independent of the Home Office, and crime mapping rolled out so that people can have confidence in what they are being told about the state of crime in this country.”

Chris Huhne, the Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman, said the figures revealed the extent to which gun crime is a “scar on society”.

“It is shocking that the Home Office is in denial about the extent of gun crime by refusing to include offences where a gun is present but not brandished,” he said.

“This is another strong reason why the Home Office should not be in charge of collecting its own statistics, which should be put directly under the responsibility of the Office for National Statistics.

“Gun crime must be treated with the same seriousness and concern as knife crime. Both are a scar on our society.”

In all, there were at least 5,612 offences excluded from the Home Office’s official gun crime total last year, according to figures supplied by police forces.

The true total number of excluded offences will have been even higher, because two of the 43 forces in England and Wales, Thames Valley and Leicestershire, failed to hand over their data when asked to do so under the Freedom of Information Act, and a large urban force, Greater Manchester, provided incomplete statistics. Scotland records gun crime differently.

When the Home Office publishes its latest quarterly crime figures on Thursday, they will include a section on gun crime injuries and deaths, but the figures will again exclude a significant number of incidents.

The Sunday Telegraph’s figures suggest that the Metropolitan Police’s official tally of 3,300 gun crimes in 2006/7, the most recent available, would have risen to around 5,000 if excluded categories had been counted. In 2007, Met officers dealt with 1,678 firearms incidents which were not included in the official tally. The Met’s figures show that offences of firearms possession in the capital rose from 850 five years ago to 1,400 last year.

After the Met, the second-highest number of offences excluded from the official statistics was recorded by West Midlands Police with 404, taking the force’s true annual total of gun crimes to around 1,400.

Similarly, The Independent has reported on a 2007 study which found that around TWO MILLION (2,000,000) violent crimes are excluded from the yearly British Crime Survey totals due to a “misleading” and “bizarre distortion in the Government’s flagship crime figures.”

According to a study reported on by BBC News, The British Crime Survey also “ignores” or otherwise fails to include:

• “The 60% of offences that go unreported”
• Crimes “committed against corporate victims”
• Crimes committed against “those under 16 and adults not living in so-called ‘normal’ households or private homes”, meaning that “residents of student halls or old people’s homes are among those not included.”

That review was commissioned by former home secretary Charles Clarke amid concerns that “public trust in the crime figures had declined so much that it was not possible to have a proper debate about policies.”

Serious question: Does anyone actually believe that Piers Morgan is oblivious to the fact that the statistics he has been citing relentlessly in recent weeks are a notoriously unreliable “sham”?

(Hint: When propagandizing against gun rights, he also tends to avoid talking about highly relevant issues like Operation Fast and Furious, Obama’s mass murdering of children overseas with drones, or the many stories of law-abiding gun owners successfully protecting themselves and their families, or even crowds of strangers, from criminals.)

Further reading: UK is violent crime capital of Europe, The Telegraph, 2 Jul 2009

This article was originally published by TheEndRun.com. The author can be reached by e-mail at the theendrunblog AT gmail DOT com. Information about how to help support The End Run can be found here.

UPDATE: On the official blog for Piers Morgan’s show, CNN discusses the Morgan/Pratt debate, and unsurprisingly fails to provide any of the information contained in this article. Instead, they focus on a claim that Pratt made about 970 gun murders in 2011. I welcome any corrections, but as far as I can tell this does seem to be an incorrect claim by Pratt, at least according to the “official” statistics that Morgan is citing. I suspect that Pratt was actually thinking of OVERALL homicides in the UK, as opposed to just those committed with guns in England and Wales.

In fairness to Pratt, in the comment that Morgan originally made which he (Pratt) first responded to with the 970 figure, Morgan did NOT say “gun murders”. He simply said “murders”.

MORGAN: Yeah, don’t be patronizing. 50 murders in 2005. 41, 2009. 39 in 2011. You…

PRATT: No, you had 970. I don’t know what you’re talking about.

MORGAN: This is complete non-sense Mr. Pratt!

PRATT: You’re from another planet, Mr. Morgan…

So, one can see how Pratt could reasonably have been confused. Morgan says “murders” without qualification, and Pratt responds with a figure which seems fairly plausible (i.e., in the ballpark) for overall murders in the UK based on precedent. (The UK had 927 murders in 2007, for example, according to The Telegraph.)

After that Morgan clarifies that he means “gun murders,” and then more specifically “gun murders in England and Wales” (as opposed to the entire UK), and at that point Pratt should have caught on, nailed down exactly what stat Morgan was talking about, and responded accordingly. However, again, British gun crime data is “a sham” anyway. In their blog entry, CNN conveniently fails to provide any links to back up Pratt’s claim to this effect, and instead provides a spreadsheet which they encourage you to use to “crunch the numbers for yourself” — a deceptive thing to do given their failure to explain that Pratt was right (not lying) about the gun crime data being massaged to “massively understate the scale of the problem,” to quote the Telegraph.

Also, again, the overall number of gun murders in Britain being low does not prove that the gun ban worked, considering that the figure was already comparably low BEFORE the ban as well, i.e., the ban did not cause a decrease in gun murders, even according to the official numbers.

Furthermore, as John Lott opined (and I would think most would agree), “I think that total homicides are the most important concern, rather than how a homicide was committed.” Those numbers, according to a chart provided by Lott, show an increasing trend, if anything. Read Lott’s article for much more analysis.

TheEndRun.com
Aug 17, 2012

Jenny Gallagher, a nurse who treated victims of the highly suspicious “Batman” shooting in Aurora, Colorado last month, is dead at age 46. The reported cause of death: drowning.

“She worked the morning after the Batman massacre in a very busy unit of the hospital — so she saw everything really, some really bad injuries,” her husband Greg reportedly told Ireland’s Herald earlier today.

The mass-shooting, which left 12 dead and 58 more injured at a midnight premiere of The Dark Knight Rises at Century theater, is widely suspected to have been a black operation (akin to Columbine or the Sikh Temple shooting) based on the available evidence, numerous inconsistencies and implausibilities in the “official story”, the timing, and the way the event has been framed (some would say exploited) by certain powerful interests in the media and political arena.  See for example…

Obama Seeks US Congressional Ratification of UN Global Gun Control Treaty, Susanne Posel  (July 16)
Colorado Batman shooting shows obvious signs of being staged, Natural News (July 20)
James Holmes Batman shooting to justify UN small arms treaty gun grab?, Mike Adams (July 21)
Eyewitness: Second Shooter in Batman Massacre, YouTube, (July 21)
Witness: Someone let gunman inside Colorado movie theater, CNN/PrisonPlanet.com (July 22)
Colorado University Had Identical Drill On Same Day As ‘Batman’ Massacre, Paul Joseph Watson (July 23)
Shooter James Holmes and DARPA Weird Science, Kurt Nimmo/Wayne Madsen (July 24)
Fox News Channel Questions Narrative Of ‘Batman’ Massacre, Infowars/WXIX-Fox19 (July 25)
Gun Owners of America President Larry Pratt: Batman Shooting Could be Staged (July 27)
James Holmes Is Behaving Like Sirhan Sirhan, Paul Joseph Watson, (July 27)
Why Are Republicans Calling To Disarm The American People?, Paul Joseph Watson, (July 30)
The Batman op expands: you shot those people, Jon Rappoport (Aug 3)

U.C.H. HEROINE MEETS OBAMA

Jennifer Ann Gallagher (“Jenny”) lived in Denver and worked at the University of Colorado Hospital (UCH), where the largest share of the victims of the shooting were taken in the aftermath of the July 20th theater massacre. On July 22nd, Barack Obama personally visited the hospital to meet with the victims and staff. In a speech, Obama praised the UCH staff for their “extraordinary efforts”. As he spoke, he was flanked by Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper, Aurora Police Chief Dan Oats, and several Congressmen.

A photo taken during Obama’s visit shows Gallagher just feet from Obama.  This was just over two weeks before her death.

WHEN AND WHERE: THE SCANT EARLY REPORTS OF GALLAGHER’S DEATH

Gallagher was actually found dead ten days ago, on August 7th.  Despite recent conflicting and incorrect reports about the location (multiple reports say it was in Colorado, while another says Ohio), The End Run has determined that her body was actually recovered in Okoboji Lake, which is in Dickson County, Iowa, about 700 miles from her home town of Denver by car.

Within 24 hours or less of the discovery of her body, a short blurb about the death, which did not identify her by name, was published by the Associated Press and picked up by several local media outlets. It read:

Drowning reported at West Okoboji Lake

OKOBOJI, Iowa (AP) — Authorities say someone has drowned at West Okoboji Lake in northwest Iowa.

The Dickinson County Sheriff’s Office said officers responded to a report of a drowning a little after noon on Tuesday.

The office hasn’t released the victim’s name or any other details about the drowning.

On the morning of August 8th, the day after her body was reportedly discovered, the Dickson County Sheriff’s office issued a press release (cache) identifying Gallagher as the victim (although they misspelled her name) and providing a few additional details:

Victim identified in West Okoboji drowning

Published on Wednesday, 08 August 2012 06:30

On Tuesday, August 7, the Dickinson County Sheriff’s Office responded to a drowning on West Lake Okoboji. An investigation found that Jennifer Galagher, age 46, from Denver, Colorado, had been swimming the previous night in West Lake. On Tuesday morning, Galagher was reported missing by family.

A short time later, a family member located Galagher underneath a nearby dock. Medical personnel responded and she was pronounced dead at the scene.

Assisting the DCSO were:

• Milford Fire/Rescue
• Arnolds Park/Okoboji Dive Team
• Lakes Regional Healthcare Ambulance

The incident remains under investigation by the Dickinson County Sheriff’s Office.

The AP then published another blurb based on this press release, which was reworked and/or republished by numerous local media outlets, primarily in Iowa, where she was found dead, and in Denver, Colorado, where she lived.  However, none of the short stories published in the local press at the time appear to have mentioned her connection to the then-highly-topical “Batman shooting”, or virtually any biographical information about her.  The death of this national heroine does not appear to have been picked up at all by the major U.S. national media. [Note: If this is incorrect, please send in links to the relevant stories by e-mail.]

DELAYED REVELATION

Yesterday, nine days after her body was found, an article was published by Ireland’s Herald which finally revealed some information about Gallagher and broke the story of her status as a UCH nurse and witness to the bloody aftermath of the carnage in Aurora.

This revelation has since been picked up and reported on by several other Irish sites, such as Ireland’s Independent.ie and the Irish-American IrishCentral.com, as well as the UK-based Belfast Telegraph.  However, as of this writing there still do not appear to be any reports by the major U.S. national media.

Gallagher grew up in Ireland, but has reportedly lived in Denver since moving there for college in the 1990′s.

CAUSE OF DEATH: THE ALLEGED DROWNING

To review: According to the initial press release by the Dickson County Sheriff’s office, Gallagher went swimming in West Lake Okoboji on the evening on Monday, August 6th, and didn’t come back. The next morning she was reported missing by her family members.  “A short time later, a family member located Galagher [sic] underneath a nearby dock. Medical personnel responded and she was pronounced dead at the scene.”

Ireland’s Herald, who, again, revealed the Gallagher/Batman shooting connection yesterday, apparently conducted an exclusive interview with Gallagher’s husband Greg Pinson today, and they have now published a second article based upon it. Mr. Pinson is a surgeon with Surgical Specialists of Colorado. According to his curriculum vitae posted to the firm’s website, he received his undergraduate degree from Yale in 1994, his Doctorate from GWU in 1998, and did his residency at the University of Colorado School of Medicine through 2003. He is quoted by the Herald as having been married to Jenny for seven years. They have a five year old son, Jack.

Regarding the question of how Jenny died, the new Herald article says (cache):

Greg explained that the family had travelled [sic] to nearby Ohio [sic] for a holiday when Jenny tragically drowned.

He and Jack had gone to sleep when Jenny and her friend decided to take a boat out on to a lake.

“She wasn’t a very strong swimmer and I suppose she just wasn’t able to stay afloat.

“The hardest thing is I may never know what really happened to Jenny.”

Before analyzing this, let’s get a critical caveat out of the way: It is very difficult to discern the truth when dealing with second-hand media snippets like these, which are liable to contain misquotes, out of context quotes, misleading statements, and other misinformation.  For example, the first Herald article incorrectly said that Gallagher drowned in “a lake close to her home”.  The second article says that it was a lake in “nearby Ohio”. Besides the fact that Ohio is 1000+ miles from Denver, and thus not “nearby” at all, Gallagher was actually found in a lake in Iowa, which is also nowhere near Denver.

With that said, taken at face value, these two short accounts of Jenny Gallagher’s death (Sheriff’s Office and The Herald) seem to raise a number of questions:

1. Was she really not “a very strong swimmer”? Is her husband even correctly quoted on this matter by the Herald (who seem to have misquoted him elsewhere)? Jenny was 46 years old and a formidable athlete. She had been playing Gaelic football for over a decade, having competed in the North American finals in 2000.  Recently, she and her teammates on the Denver Gaels ladies football team competed in a tournament at the Colorado Irish Festival, which they won, beating teams from San Fransisco and Dallas. A tribute published in the club’s newsletter says that “memories of trips with the Gaels” such as “surfing in Costa Rica” would not “have been so fond had Jenny not been there.”

2. Why, while vacationing out of state, would Jenny decide to take a boat out onto a lake, at night, after her husband and son had already gone to bed, especially if she “wasn’t a very strong swimmer”?

3. If she did decide to do that, wouldn’t she at least wear a life vest?

4. Who is this friend that was allegedly with her? Why is this friend not identified by name? Why has this friend not been mentioned in previous reports?

5. If she did drown at night while boating with a “friend”, why were police and rescue crews not notified until the following day? The original Sheriff’s office press release said that she was “reported missing by family” the following “morning”. The initial AP report put the time even later –  “a little after noon” — and The Spencer Daily Reporter wrote on Aug 9th that, “Emergency crews recieved a 911 distress call at 12:45 p.m.” If a “friend” was out on the lake boating with Jenny and she disappeared in the water, wouldn’t this friend immediately rush to notify her husband and/or any other family member that may have been present, and wouldn’t they immediately alert rescue crews (assuming the friend hadn’t already)? Why did this apparently not happen?

6. If Jenny was out boating with a friend, disappeared in the water, and was later found drowned, why would her husband say, “The hardest thing is I may never know what really happened to Jenny”?

7. Who was the family member that located Jenny’s body under the dock? He or she apparently did so shortly after notifying authorities that she was “missing”, possibly even within minutes. The unnamed family member was apparently able to find her before professionally trained rescue crews. In fact, according to the Spencer Daily Reporter, this family member may have even “located” her before the crews could even begin searching: “Arnolds Park/Okoboji Fire Chief Christ Yungbluth said his department’s dive team did not have to conduct a search. … Resuce teams were on hand for nearly an hour but once they arrived at the scene, Galagher was pronounced dead.” West Okoboji Lake is approximately 3,847 acres in surface area. The Daily Reporter said that she was specifically found “in the area near Wheeler’s Beach just off of 1st Street in the city of West Okoboji.”

THE SHERIFF’S OFFICE IS MUM; APPARENTLY GALLAGHER’S DEATH IS STILL UNDER INVESTIGATION

In an attempt to obtain answers to these questions and clarification about the facts surrounding Jenny Gallagher’s death, The End Run contacted the Dickson County Sheriff’s Office by phone this evening (Friday).

The woman who answered the phone was familiar with the case, but refused to answer any questions about Jennifer Gallagher’s death. This included a direct question as to whether or not Gallagher was boating with another individual that night as reported by the Herald.  The woman referenced the August 8th press release posted to the Sheriff’s website, firmly stating that she could not provide any information besides what was contained in that report.

When asked if she could at least confirm whether or not the incident was (still) under investigation, she again referred me to the press release from nine days ago, which says, “The incident remains under investigation by the Dickinson County Sheriff’s Office”.

CONCLUSION

Given the suspicious nature of the “Batman” shooting, Jenny’s (heroic) involvement in the rescue operation at the hospital, and the timing of her unnatural death, it is only logical for researchers who understand government black operations (and corresponding cover-ups) to treat it as a potential homicide, and seek further information that confirms or refutes this hypothesis. This does not mean that it was a homicide. Accidents happen. This may have been a heartbreaking example of one. However, the publicly-available information about this death is relatively thin at this point, and it contains significant apparent contradictions and problems. Further investigation is needed by the independent media.

According to accounts written by those who knew her, Jenny Gallagher was an amazing woman; a loving mother and wife, an excellent nurse, and a person whose personality and kindness brought joy into the lives of those around her. Regardless of the cause, her untimely death is a tragedy, and my condolences go out to the many friends and family who knew and loved her. Hopefully others who investigate her death feel the same, and hopefully her family can understand our desire to seek further information about what happened to her.

The source of this report is TheEndRun.com.  The author can be reached by e-mail at the theendrunblog@gmail.com. Information about how to help support The End Run can be found here.

TheEndRun.com
March 15, 2012

The Huffington Post, quoting “state insiders”, is now reporting that “Rick Santorum and Ron Paul are best positioned to win the most delegates in Iowa as the Republican primary process moves forward, making Mitt Romney the odd man out”.

Specifically:

* Steve Scheffler, one of the state’s three Republican National Committee members, says that the Iowa delegate count being reported by the AP and others — which shows Romney with way more delegates than Paul — is not valid or correct “at all”.

* Craig Robinson, who formerly served as the Political Director of the Republican Party of Iowa, laments that Ron Paul may win THE MOST  delegates in Iowa, i.e. 1st place. (Robinson was responsible for organizing the 2007 Iowa Straw Poll and the 2008 First-in-the-Nation Iowa Caucuses.)

* While numerous GOP members and media outlets imply that Paul supporters are hostile infiltrators, the article explains that “It’s not as if the Paul movement in Iowa is simply a bunch of outsiders crashing the gates of the state GOP”, noting as an example that “the state party chairman — as of early February — is another former co-chair of Paul’s presidential campaign in Iowa, A.J. Spiker.”

* “The common theme among Iowa Republicans who spoke with HuffPost is that Paul’s supporters have been the only ones who are noticeably aggressive and active so far in angling for delegate spots at the two remaining conventions in the state, all with an eye toward landing as many of the 28 delegate spots for Tampa as possible.”

Source:
“Rick Santorum, Ron Paul On Track To Get Most Of Iowa’s Delegates“, Huffington Post, Mar 15, 2012

Related:
“Man arrested protesting Ron Paul was uploader of video threatening to “shut down” Iowa caucuses“,  The End Run, Dec 31, 2011
“Something Rotten In Iowa? The “Hacktivist Threat” Timeline“, The End Run, Jan 1, 2012

To webmasters and bloggers: please do not re-publish this particular piece in its entirety on your sites. Instead, please excerpt a small section (preferably the intro) and link here (The End Run), so that the author may retain control and continue to perfect the text after initial publication. Thank you for your interest and support, and may the truth prevail.

TheEndRun.com
January 27, 2012

On January 4th, a video entitled “Jon Huntsman’s Values” was anonymously uploaded to YouTube.  The following day, this video went “viral” on the internet.  By the morning after that, it was being discussed in countless newspapers and television news studios nationwide.   The anonymous creator(s) of this absurd video — which has been nicknamed the “China Jon” video based on one of the titles displayed about halfway through its 72-second runtime — presented it as though it was intended to be an “attack” against Huntsman and a promotion for Ron Paul.  In reality, the intended purposes were exactly the opposite (as this website has now demonstrated, and as will be further demonstrated momentarily.)

On January 6th, the day this “story” broke in the Establishment media, The End Run published an article entitled, “Huntsman Complicit in “False Flag”-Style Dirty Trick Against Paul“.  This article provided preliminary documentation of the suspicious way in which the Huntsman campaign and others had gone to work egregiously and cynically exploiting the “China Jon” video almost immediately after it appeared on YouTube, as well as early evidence that the video originated from within the Huntsman campaign itself. The article quickly went “viral”, and drew citations from the San Fransisco Chronicle, Reason, The New American, The Atlantic Wire, and others.

Since then, The End Run has investigated this matter in much greater detail, uncovering a mountain of additional evidence confirming the original article’s premise. A thorough follow-up article was in the works, but was temporarily shelved, with a plan to complete and release it ASAP, after more pressing and less time-consuming matters were dealt with.  However, around January 18th, it was reported that the Paul campaign has filed a lawsuit against the video’s anonymous creator(s).  At that point, The End Run dropped everything and worked around the clock to refine and expand the original draft into two extremely detailed and well-sourced reports on this matter in the shortest time frame possible, in the hopes that this critical information reaches the Paul campaign and helps with their lawsuit, and also helps in the “court of public opinion”.  This is one of those two reports.  The other is entitled “Twitter Trail Confirms ‘China Jon’ Video as ‘False Flag’, Points to Huntsman Campaign“, and you are urged to read it before or after this one.

As documented and demonstrated beyond any doubt in these two reports, the “Jon Huntsman’s Values” video (aka the “China Jon” video) was a “false flag”-style dirty trick designed to sabotage the Ron Paul campaign and defame the candidate and his supporters — a goal which was accomplished with considerable success. Furthermore, all roads lead to the Huntsman camp, and especially Huntsman’s “viral video”-producing, social-media-utilizing, Establishment-media-darling daughters, or the “Jon2012Girls”, as they are known on YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter.

Before proceeding, let’s get something perfectly clear: These pieces have not been commissioned, endorsed, vetted, or even seen by the Paul campaign prior to publication, and in no way speak for them. Likewise, the author does not speak for a single other Ron Paul supporter, let alone “Ron Paul supporters” everywhere (as if this should even need to be explained).

If you appreciate the hard work that went into producing reports of this scope on such a short time table, please consider making a donation to The End Run today.

FIRST: WHAT IS A “FALSE FLAG”-STYLE DIRTY TRICK

Generally speaking, a “false flag” attack is one that is carried out by one entity, but purposely designed to look as though it was carried out by another. It’s your old-fashioned frame-up, basically. The term is derived (to quote Wikipedia) “from the military concept of flying false colors; that is flying the flag of a country other than one’s own”, and it has been used in a wide variety of contexts in modern history, from military affairs to economic sabotage to terrorism. In the political realm, it is a vicious, underhanded, and fraudulent way to play on people’s emotions and manipulate public sentiment for and/or against certain candidates or causes.

Perhaps the easiest way to understand the concept as it applies to politics is with a brief example. So, let’s begin with an anecdote published by Atlantic Magazine in November of 2004, taken from an article about Karl Rove, a political strategist and former Senior Advisor to George W. Bush, who is notorious for his political dirty tricks.

A typical instance [of Rove using unscrupulous political tactics] occurred in the hard-fought 1996 race for a seat on the Alabama Supreme Court between Rove’s client, Harold See, then a University of Alabama law professor, and the Democratic incumbent, Kenneth Ingram. According to someone who worked for him, Rove, dissatisfied with the campaign’s progress, had flyers printed up—absent any trace of who was behind them—viciously attacking [his own client] See and his family. “We were trying to craft a message to reach some of the blue-collar, lower-middle-class people,” the staffer says. “You’d roll it up, put a rubber band around it, and paperboy it at houses late at night. I was told, ‘Do not hand it to anybody, do not tell anybody who you’re with, and if you can, borrow a car that doesn’t have your tags.’ So I borrowed a buddy’s car [and drove] down the middle of the street … I had Hefty bags stuffed full of these rolled-up pamphlets, and I’d cruise the designated neighborhoods, throwing these things out with both hands and literally driving with my knees.” The ploy left Rove’s opponent at a loss. Ingram’s staff realized that it would be fruitless to try to persuade the public that the See campaign was attacking its own candidate in order “to create a backlash against the Democrat,” as Joe Perkins, who worked for Ingram, put it to me. Presumably the public would believe that Democrats were spreading terrible rumors about See and his family. “They just beat you down to your knees,” Ingram said of being on the receiving end of Rove’s attacks. See won the race.

Another quick example: Last week, several Machiavellian political activists were caught planning to dress up in hooded Ku Klux Klan robes and “follow [Ron] Paul around South Carolina” with pro-Paul signs, making “sure to get photographed by the media”. The idea was to create the impression that the presidential candidate is supported by the widely reviled organization in order to turn off South Carolina voters in the run up to the state’s GOP primary. A similar ploy was carried out against Ron Paul’s son Rand when he was running for Senate.

STORY TIME

Jon Huntsman — a former CFR member, fellow Mormon and distant cousin of Mitt Romney, and the son of a billionaire chemical magnate — entered the GOP race on June 21, 2011, immediately announcing his plan to skip Iowa and instead focus on New Hampshire, South Carolina, and Florida.

As he stood in front of the Statue of Liberty on Day One, Huntsman called the current political debate “corrosive”, and vowed that he would run a campaign characterized by its “civility“. “We will conduct this campaign on the high road,” he said. “I don’t think you need to run down someone’s reputation in order to run for the office of President.”

Three months later, Huntsman had gained virtually no traction in South Carolina or Florida, two of his three target states. He was consistently polling around one or two percent — last place, or statistically tied for it. So, in September, Huntsman decided to switch to what he later called a “Vegas” strategy. To quote the Associated Press, he “moved his national headquarters from Florida to New Hampshire”, having made the decision that “going all in” there was his best hope. However, he “struggled to win big-name endorsements in the state“, and throughout October he still remained stuck in the 5 to 8 percent range in the polls, no better than he was doing in September.

“JON2012GIRLS”

That month (October), his three 20-something daughters began drawing the attention of the national media (international actually) with increasingly racy tweets sent out from their @Jon2012Girls Twitter account, such as a “tweet heard ’round the world” (so to speak) making fun of Mitt Romney’s supposed lack of knowledge about China.

The “High Road” Huntsman Campaign was reportedly “unnerved” and “jittery” about this change in content and tone, which the The New Yorker characterized as a mix of “acid put-downs” and “goofy humor”. Months earlier, Jon Huntsman himself had apparently asked Liddy, the “wild child” and “troublemaker”, to delete her personal Twitter account because she did not, in Liddy’s words, “have campaign-appropriate stuff up”. “With that account deactivated,” reported The New Yorker, “she and her sisters launched a more politically correct venture” (the Jon2012Girls account). And indeed, before October, their Tweets had been relatively tame, and had not drawn nearly as much attention.

Whether the racier Twitter tone was really initially the result of a “rogue” effort by the girls as claimed by the Huntsman campaign, or a deliberate publicity stunt that the campaign had actually approved behind the scenes, Huntsman’s “hot” and “telegenic” daughters did what was (as far as I can tell) their first major interview of the campaign on October 16. The interview was conducted by Shannon Bream of Fox News, who was curious to know more about their “saucy tweets“, in addition to life on the campaign trail. This was just days after the “famous” tweet attacking Romney was published.

About two weeks after that, they launched what the The Washington Post would characterize as a “strange viral video strategy” to supplement their now “vigorous Twitter campaign” (to quote Greta Van Sustren). They donned fake mustaches and spoofed a Herman Cain campaign ad, uploaded it to their newly-created “Jon2012Girls” Youtube account (on October 28), drew lots of attention from the “blogosphere” and press, and promptly hit the media circuit to promote the video and serve as what you might call “ambassadors” to their dad’s struggling campaign. Over the next couple weeks, they repeatedly appeared on national TV for interviews with Bob Scheifer of CBS’s “Face The Nation”, Greta Van Sustren of Fox’s ” On The Record”, CBS’s “The Early Show“, Piers Morgan of CNN, and others.

In mid-November, CNN’s Morgan told Jon Huntsman that they were “a rather unusual trio of campaign operatives”, and wondered aloud whether they were a “a force for good or catastrophe” in his campaign. “We’ll have to let the historians deal with that one,” Huntsman replied (we’re on it, Jon). “I don’t even want to hazard a guess. Here’s a reality in my life, Piers. I give a major foreign policy speech on America’s role in the world in the 21st century. I get five hits on YouTube. The girls put up this corn ball video spoofing another candidate’s video. They get half a million views within 24 hours. And I say the world isn’t fair. But I’m beginning to understand how political communication works these days.”

Morgan pressed the issue, citing the Jon2012Girls’ “naughty” behavior on Twitter (his word), and asking Huntsman whether their sometimes childish and capricious behavior would ultimately sink his campaign. “Do you worry that your daughters are going to land you — you’re going to wake up one morning and all hell has broken loose on Twitter?” he asked. Huntsman replied (not so jokingly, in my estimation): “Piers, I don’t have a choice. I know it’s going to happen at some point. All I’ve told them is give me a chance. Let me get out there. Let me get known before you completely destroy the campaign.”

Huntsman’s daughters released another “viral video” a couple weeks later. “In their latest video, three daughters of former Utah governor Jon Huntsman rap insults about the rest of the GOP presidential field to the tune of Justin Timberlake’s ‘Sexyback’,” wrote the Washington Post on December 1. ” It’s funny,” they said, “although not as good as their mustache-heavy parody of the smoking Herman Cain ad last month.” They noted that Huntsman’s daughters’ videos “have gotten lots of attention”, but also observed that “silly attacks on rivals might not be the best strategy for the candidate who’s pitching himself as the sane adult in the room”. RT anchor Lauren Lyster went further, calling the video “cringe”-worthy and “horrible”, and saying that Jon Huntsman was just “trying to pimp out his daughters”.

Another observation from the Washington Post article was that “viral videos may catch fire online, but they rarely seem to translate into votes.” This echoed what Piers Morgan had hinted at to Huntsman two weeks earlier, namely that “when it comes to New Hampshire, when it comes to this big vote, you’re not just going to win just because you have three appealing daughters.”

And indeed he wasn’t. The next New Hampshire poll to come out after the release of the “SexyBack” parody (CNN/Time) showed Huntsman still way down in 4th place at 8%, far behind 3rd place Ron Paul (17%), 2nd place Gingrich (26%), and 1st place Romney (35%). These poll numbers were particularly problematic because, again, Huntsman still had “all his eggs in the New Hampshire basket”, as Dan Weil of Newsmax put it on December 9th. This characterization was echoed by The Washington Post’s Charles Krauthammer on December 13th, and Huntsman himself later that month, who said that “putting our eggs in the first primary basket is a good strategy.”

“HIGH ROAD” HUNTSMAN ATTACKS RON PAUL

By the second half of December, with the New Hampshire primary only a few short weeks away, Huntsman was still only polling in the nine to thirteen percent range. So, despite his promise to “conduct his campaign on the high road,” and his corresponding assertion that “I don’t think you need to run down someone’s reputation in order to run for the office of President,” the Huntsman campaign published back-to-back video spots attacking Ron Paul’s character — and even sanity — in a dishonest, “low road” kind of way. (Just two weeks earlier, Ron Paul had complimented Huntsman on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, saying that he was a “good diplomat” and erroneously referring to him as a reasonable, “nice” and “thoughtful” person.)

The first attack video, titled “Unelectable“, was posted to the Huntsman campaign’s official YouTube account on December 28th. It perpetuated the years-old, bogus “racist newsletter” smear against Paul and implied that he is not worthy of the “trust” of “New Hampshire voters”. To make their “case”, Huntsman’s camp used (for example) a totally out of context clip of Ron Paul talking to reporter Gloria Borger, meant to make Paul look evasive on the “newsletters” issue. The clip had been utilized in the same capacity by CNN a week earlier in a deceptively edited hit piece, prompting similar misrepresentations by others in the media. However, CNN subsequently released the raw, unedited version of the interview from which the clip was taken, causing even major corporate news outlets to admit that while “earlier reports made it seem like Ron Paul stormed out of the interview”, the raw footage shows “something entirely different”, namely that the interview actually “lasted nearly ten minutes, which is not unusually brief on the campaign trail”, and “was simply done” (i.e. over) when Paul began removing his microphone. The raw footage — and these corresponding admissions/clarifications — were published no less than four days before the Huntsman campaign’s attack ad came out; yet, they not only went ahead with the smear, but chopped the clip into an even smaller, more out of context piece than the original dishonest CNN hit piece.

The Huntsman campaign’s next attack video, “The Ron Paul Chronicles”, was published to their official YouTube channel on December 31, just three days after the first one. This video, characterized as “tacky” and “glib” by political analyst Paul Joseph Watson, was essentially a compilation of Ron Paul making demonstrably true (or easily defensible) statements on various issues. Instead of attempting to rebut Paul’s assertions, the Huntsman campaign simply added “Twilight Zone” music in the background. So much for “the high road”.

Three days later, the Iowa caucuses took place. According to the official results, Huntsman got less than one percent of the vote (0.6%, to be precise), while Ron Paul got 21.4 percent. From the @RonPaul Twitter account, a campaign staffer sent a tweet to the Huntsman camp poking fun at the candidate’s poor finish: “@JonHuntsman We found your one Iowa voter, he’s in Linn precinct 5 you might want to call him and say thanks”.

JANUARY 4: HUNTSMAN OWES PAUL “A TWEET IN RETURN”, DAUGHTERS HAVE SOMETHING “UP THEIR SLEEVES”

Huntsman was asked about the tweet by CNN’s Piers Morgan the following day, January 4. He said that he “actually found it to be pretty humorous”, and that “you’ve got to have a little bit of levity and humor in this business or you’d go crazy”. Huntsman then asked Morgan to “tell Dr. Paul that I owe him a tweet in return, and he should be — he should be expecting one sometime soon.” Morgan suggested that he “get the dirty work done by someone else,” adding, “maybe your daughters can unleash themselves on Twitter on him”. With a grin, Huntsman replied: “They’ve got plenty — they’ve got plenty up their sleeves, Piers. And you might be surprised on what they release in the next few days”. Morgan said he had been “hearing noises of more stuff coming” and couldn’t wait. (Also reported on by Politico.)

“NHLIBERTY4PAUL” AND “CHINA JON” ARE QUIETLY BORN

That very day (Jan 4), a YouTube account was anonymously created called “NHLiberty4Paul”. The anonymous creator of the “NHLiberty4Paul” account promptly uploaded a video entitled “Jon Huntsman’s Values”. The crude, amateurish video featured photos and video of Huntsman (the former U.S. Ambassador to China) speaking Chinese and spending time with his adopted Chinese and Indian daughters, as Chinese instrumental music plays in the background. Interspersed between these images were asinine captions calling him “China Jon” and ludicrously suggesting that these qualities made him a “Manchurian Candidate” who lacked “American Values”. Toward the end, a Photoshopped image is shown depicting him as Mao Zedong.

An “NHLiberty4Paul” Twitter account was created the same day, and at 10:35pm that evening, a single tweet with a link to the video was posted. The tags included #jon2012girls and #fitn (a tag associated with the Huntsman campaign and jon2012girls in particular.  For more details, see “Twitter Trail Confirms ‘China Jon’ Video as ‘False Flag’, Points To Huntsman Campaign“)

THE “ONLY ONE”?

Another video was posted to YouTube that day, but this one was posted to the Huntsman campaign’s official YouTube account (Jon2012HQ). Entitled “Only One“, the video proclaimed Huntsman to be “THE ONLY CANDIDATE WHO WILL END THE WAR AND REBUILD AMERICA,” with “END THE WAR” highlighted in red (screenshot); the inference being that Ron Paul — widely known as the “bring our troops home now” anti-war candidate — will not do these things, despite his long and well-known track record as one of the most outspoken anti-war, pro-peace voices in Congress who votes in a manner consistent with his rhetoric. Huntsman, on the other hand, “refused to call the Iraq war a mistake and said repeatedly he was open to another preventive war against Iran,” in the words of The Guardian. (See also: “Huntsman Says He’d Launch A Ground Invasion To Prevent Iran From Getting Nukes“)

JANUARY 5: DESPERATE TIMES AND MORE FORESHADOWING

The following morning (Jan 5), Huntsman’s daughters were interviewed by Jim Axelrod and Nancy Cordes of CBS. Before discussing that, let’s first pause and look at the context:

This was now only five days before the primary, and Huntsman was still on track to do relatively poorly in New Hampshire — certainly not well enough for it to be a “market-moving event”, which is what Huntsman told a crowd that day that he needed in New Hampshire, or else he was “done”.

That morning, Wall Street Journal reporter Elizabeth Williamson — who was on the ground in New Hampshire, and had personally attended a Huntsman campaign event “on a factory floor” just “a day or two” earlier — gave a rather comprehensive and blunt appraisal Huntsman’s prospects. She painted a bleak picture. She also gave some insight into why Huntsman was going after Ron Paul in particular

The video itself is embedded above so you can see it for yourself, but it seems her five main take-away points were:
1) Despite months of campaigning in the state, Huntsman had not gained terribly widespread name recognition.
2) If anything, Huntsman actually seemed to be losing support in the polls, not gaining.
3) Huntsman was competing not so much with Mitt Romney, but rather for the vote of the “true Independents” and the “live free or die crowd”. (Huntsman himself essentially agreed with this point in an inteview with Gwen Ifill of PBS later that evening.)
4) That demographic seemed to be going largely for Ron Paul, and many within it seemed “turned off” by Huntsman’s “down-home pandering.”
5) Ultimately, the notion that Huntsman could have a significant last minute “surge” like Santorum in Iowa did not “look likely for a variety of reasons”.

Obviously Williamson is not the ultimate word on the matter, but her analysis does provide one of the most detailed snapshots available on that day from a veteran reporter speaking from first-hand experience on the ground in New Hampshire. Here is the polling data (in reverse chronological order):

Despite these numbers and the other points made by Williamson, and right after admitting that they had already been in New Hampshire for “months”, “Jon2012Girl” Abby prophetically predicted on CBS that same morning: “I think you’re gonna see a lot change over the next few days.” Her sisters nodded in agreement. As the interview concluded, CBS’s Jim Axelrod noted for the audience that the girls are “on the internet for everyone to see,” at which point Abby quickly interjected: “There may be some other things up our sleeve, we’ll see.” This echoed what Jon Huntsman himself said the previous evening, except, remember, Jon specifically said it in the context of a discussion of his desire to send Ron Paul a “tweet in return”, and right after Morgan suggested that his daughters do “the dirty work” in that regard. Furthermore, again, Huntsman had also said in the same short conversation that his daughters would “release” something “in the next few days”, and Morgan “might be surprised” to see what it is. (Note: One could argue that Abby’s “you’re gonna see a lot change” line was just typical optimistic campaign rhetoric. Readers can take in all of the context laid out in this article and make up their own minds as to whether or not it was significant.)

FALSE FLAG TIME: THE SHORT LIST IS CONTACTED AND THE FIRE IS IGNITED

Meanwhile, the lone tweet sent out by “NHLiberty4Paul” the previous evening (Jan 4) had apparently gone unnoticed. While it had been given a number of hashtags, which could have conceivably led to its discovery, it was not specifically tweeted “@” anyone in particular, except for @JonHuntsman himself. Only one account had retweeted it, and that was @GOPPrimary. However, that account’s description reads: “Retweeting from all candidates seeking the GOP nomination. As well as the #GOP2012 and #2012GOP hashtags.” The “NHLiberty4Paul” tweet had been given the #GOP2012 hashtag, so that explains why it was retweeted (possibly automatically, without any human ever even reading the tweet).

So, beginning at 11:14am that morning (Jan 5), several more tweets were sent out by “NHLiberty4Paul” with a link to the video. However, this time the tweets were sent to specific individuals (or “@” specific individuals, in Twitter-speak). Analysis of who was on this “shortlist” to receive the “China Jon” video is extremely revealing. In short, it was primarily outspoken and influential bloggers, journalists, and pundits with a history of one or more of the following:

1) Praising Jon Huntsman
2) Promoting previous Jon Huntsman attack videos (especially against Paul)
3) Promoting Jon2012Girls
4) Expressing a strong dislike or hatred for Ron Paul
5) Promoting previous attacks and smears on Ron Paul (especially the “racist newsletters” one that the Huntsman had “piled on” with the previous week)

This time around, “NHLiberty4Paul’s” tweets were more than sufficient as “kindling”, and the fire of the false flag was quickly ignited. (For an in-depth analysis, see “BREAKING: Twitter Trail Confirms ‘China Jon’ Video as “False Flag”, Points to Huntsman Campaign“)

TWITTER EXPLODES WITH DISGUST & ANIMOSITY TOWARD RON PAUL AND HIS SUPPORTERS; SOME OBSERVERS QUICKLY SMELL A RAT

Let’s first look at what happened on Twitter. Specifically, let’s look at the first 40 tweets that went out containing a link to the video’s main URL*, after it was sent out in the initial tweets from “NHLiberty4Paul”.

To determine this, TheEndRun.com searched Twitter for the URL, selected “ALL”, and followed the results — which were in reverse chronological order — all the way down to the very first tweet by “NHLiberty4Paul”. The search can be replicated with Topsy.com (click here, and keep scrolling down to the bottom and hitting “more” until you get to the end of the line).

In cases where a person “retweeted” (RT) a previous tweet from someone else and added their own commentary, the retweet part has been removed, and just the user’s own personal comments remain. Again, here are the first 40 tweets* linking to the video after “NHLiberty4Paul”, in chronological order. None have been omitted.

1. “Wow: Just found this YouTube ad from crazy Ron Paul supporters casting Huntsman as an *actual” Manchurian candidate.” [Note: This BuzzFeed.com reporter did not "find" the video... it was SENT to him by "NHLiberty4Paul", literally 10 minutes earlier.]

2. “Ha, this is totally ridiculous. Jon Huntsman: The Manchurian Candidate”

3. “This is so crazy racist”

4. “Ron Paul sure has some classy supporters”

5. “Ron Paul and his supporters are not racist… I repeat not racist”

6. “Wow, Ron Paul’s followers keep demonstrating why he published the newsletters”

7. “Ron Paul Swanson is kind of amazing”

8. “Jesus H. Christ”

9. “…this racist ron paul supporter’s video is really racist”

10. “Apalling!”

11. “Just uploaded! Another very, very strange Ron Paul video”

12. “Ron Paul Supporters question Huntsman’s Patriotism using his child.”

13. “@repronpaul supporters think that knowing China disqualifies someone from being President… say what?”

14. “Holy crap. Worst political ad thus far. Ron Paul just can’t keep support in line…”

15. “This is hilarious. Good going Ron Paul fans!” [Note: this user, joshuajezioro, has called Huntsman "the only GOP nom that doesn't terrify me. And he's funny!"]

16. “Wow, Ron Paul fans in New Hampshire… you’ve gone lower than I ever thought possible”

17. [RT, no additional commentary]

18. “Warning! JON HUNTSMAN IS THE MANCHRIAN CANDIDATE!” [Note: obvious sarcasm, especially if you look at his Twitter page. A few weeks earlier, on Dec 12, this guy tweeted that he "Got to meet the @jon2012girls" earlier that day. Hunstman's daughter's tweeted back: "@Nathaniel_g great to meet you!"]

19. “oh my”

20. “offensive!!”

21. “What a joke”

22. “Thoroughly Disturbing”

23. [RT, no additional commentary]

24. “More SICKNESS from Ron Paul. This ad questions Huntsman’s LOYALTY cuz he has a Chinese daughter”

25. “Did Ron Paul’s supporters/campaign really go there? Or is this bogus? … Huntsman as Mao. Nice touch.”

26. “”#Huntsman speaks Chinese, he’s obviously a communist … #FAIL“

27. “Obvious #RonPaul smear is obvious”

28. “The funniest ad I have seen this election cycle: Jon Huntsman as Manchrian Candidate?” [Note: Not a Ron Paul supporter.]

29. “Huntsman ‘manchurian candidate’ ad, allegedly from Paul camp in NH … easy smear”

30. “Thanks to the @RonPaul people for my fav campaign vid this year … #FITN”

31. “NHLibertyforPaul really?”

32. “Ron Paul ad attacks Huntsman for speaking Chinese, adoption Calls for American values – racism I guess?”

33. “Most ridiculous political ad I’ve seen thus far”

34. “Those newsletters aren’t exactly a thing of the past, are they Ron Paul?”

35. “have we actually become this disgusting? #fuckignorance”

36. “Ron Paul questions huntsman’s ‘American values’ b/c he adopted a kid from china, hits new low in GOP race”

37. [RT, no additional commentary]

38. “This Jon Huntsman smear played to classical Chinese music is truly hilarious” [Note: This Twitter user is a writer for the Globe and Mail]

39. “@Judgenap Now they are claiming we made this video. Yet the uploader has no information and no subscribers #smear” [Note: Ron Paul supporter]

40. “@jamemiami @Jon2012Girls This video has nothing to do with Ron Paul or his supporters”

(*Note: “Main URL” means the unembellished URL sent out by NHLiberty4Paul, namely www.youtube.com/watch?v=bNxWtQU5I4o. It’s possible that some people sent out variations like www.youtube.com/watch?v=bNxWtQU5I4o&feature=related, which also directs to the same video, but would not show up in the results. Additionally, the list above obviously does not count people who tweeted out links to early hit piece articles that contained the video — only links directly to the video itself. With that said, no matter what link was used, the overall sentiment was the same.)

AS INTENDED, PAUL’S OPPONENTS WITHIN THE “BLOGOSPHERE” EAGERLY TAKE THE BALL AND SMEAR WITH IT

The early “action” wasn’t just on Twitter, however. Remember, “NHLiberty4Paul” had specifically tweeted the video to a number of bloggers, journalists, and pundits who loathe Ron Paul and his supporters and jump at any opportunity to attack them. They did not disappoint. In no time, smear articles began popping up on numerous popular sites, touting the video as proof that Ron Paul and/or his supporters are racist, crazy, disgusting, and pretty much any other negative adjective you think of.

Let’s look at the publicly-viewable YouTube stats for the “China Jon” video. As previously reported by TheEndRun.com, these stats originally showed Jon Huntsman’s official campaign website (Jon2012.com) to be the first website to link to the video. Eventually, as more sites promoted the video, the stats updated themselves. In (what I think was) the second version, YouTube provided us with a chance to see a list of websites that embedded the video right out of the gate.

Some have pointed out that these stats aren’t always the perfect source for this kind of data — which may have some truth to it, so take them with a grain of salt — but nevertheless, this does give us a good idea of who some of the first sites to embed the video were, possibly even THE first. Let’s briefly analyze the list.

BUZZFEED.COM – A site that has routinely promoted the activities of “Jon2012Girls” going back months. They also promoted the Huntsman campaign’s “Twilight Zone” attack on Ron Paul the previous week. Two of the site’s political reporters, Zeke Miller and McCay Coppins, were on the “shortlist” of recipients of the “China Jon” video from “NHLiberty4Paul”. The former was the guy who posted the “Twilight Zone” ad to BuzzFeed last time around. The latter became the first person on all of Twitter to send out the “China Jon” video upon receiving it, misleadingly claiming that he had just “found” it. They dutifully embedded the “China Jon” video on BuzzFeed with the headline: “Paul Supporters Launch Insane Attack On ‘Manchurian Candidate’ Jon Huntsman”.

BREITBART.TV – This site’s Editor-in-Chief, Larry O’Connor, has said that Ron Paul looks old and “like a marionette“, that he is a “RINO” and “NOT a Republican”, and that his “followers” are “potheads“. While watching the GOP debate on January 16, he tweeted, “FINALLY! A REAL Republican crowd lets RINO Ron Paul hear some boos! #SCdebate”. Watch this video to see the obvious disdain that O’Connor has for some of Ron Paul’s supporters and positions (especially foreign policy). With zero proof or skepticism regarding the “China Jon” video’s origin, Breitbart.TV attributed it to an “independent group supporting Ron Paul’s candidacy” and said that it “illustrate[s] some of the more fervent energy on behalf of the candidate.” After they were called out on their lack of due diligence, they at least updated the post to admit they weren’t sure who made it, but the dissemination and early accusation was done, and the video was off to the races among the Paul-haters.

WONKETTE.com – A “left-leaning”, notoriously anti-Ron Paul site which frequently refers to his supporters as “Paultards”. (They may have even coined the term.) Contributor Liz Colville eagerly posted the “China Jon” video at 2:15pm on Jan 5, accusing “Paultards” of “stooping to core-of-the-earth lows” with zero proof or skepticism regarding its origin. The headline: “Paultards Hate Huntsman for Knowing Chinese, Adopting Foreigners“.

REDSTATE.COM is another one of the most bitterly anti-Ron Paul sites out there. In their never-ending quest to smear and discredit Ron Paul, they opportunistically and absurdly cited the video as evidence that Ron Paul supporters are “mostly liberal Democrats who are mad that Obama has governed too far to the right” with zero proof or skepticism regarding its origin. Meanwhile, the site’s managing editor, Erick Erickson, has repeatedly praised Huntsman, and some of his statements in this regard were touted by the Huntsman campaign in an official campaign ad as proof of his conservative credentials. (Erickson, and his role in the “China Jon” fraud, is discussed in much greater detail here.)

THEATLANTICWIRE.COM – A website that cranked out attack article after attack article during the “racist newsletter” smear against Paul (see here here and here for example). On January 5th, they conflated the “China Jon” video with ones that were actually produced by the Paul campaign by including it an article entitled Ron Paul’s Negative Ad Blitz. They eventually added a note that the video could have been made by Ron Paul “saboteur”, linking to TheEndRun.com’s preliminary analysis, but this was not until a day after the Atlantic Wire article was originally published, so the damage had been done.

GAWKER.COM – Gawker Media owned Wonkette.com until mid-2008.

THESE were the sites running the “China Jon” campaign in the morning and afternoon on January 5th. The creator(s) of this moronic video did not send it to Ron Paul supporters. They sent it to people with established track records as players (in some cases major players) in previous anti-Paul smear campaigns.

(See “Twitter Trail Confirms ‘China Jon’ Video as False Flag” for  more info about Coppins, Miller, Erickson, BuzzFeed, etc., as it pertains to the “China Jon” video.)

HUNTSMAN’S DAUGHTERS SEND RON PAUL “A TWEET”

As explained above, the infamously anti-Ron Paul WONKETTE.COM was one of the first websites to write a hit piece against Ron Paul’s supporters based around the “China Jon” video, if not THE first. The title was “Paultards Hate Huntsman for Knowing Chinese, Adopting Foreigners”, and an embedded version of the video appeared prominently at the beginning of the article. The author, Liz Colville, accused “The New Hampshire contingent of Paultards” of “stooping to core-of-the-earth lows”. According to the article’s timestamp, it was posted at 2:15PM.

From their @Jon2012Girls account, Huntsman’s daughters promptly sent a link to this article (“Paultards Hate Huntsman for Knowing Chinese, Adopting Foreigners”) to their 20,000+ Twitter followers, prefaced with a message directed at the Paul campaign: “@RonPaul this crosses the line and should be condemned. Hurtful, spiteful, and un-American.”

According to Twitter’s timestamp, this was sent at 4:11PM (and in the next tweet they said they were on their way to a 6pm media appearance). Below is a screenshot of the relevant tweets. (As of this writing, the tweet to Paul is still viewable on their Twitter page here. If they subsequently delete it, you’ll know why.)

They were apparently so quick to the draw that a maximum of 39 people on all of Twitter (and possibly considerably less) had tweeted the already-going-viral video. If you look at the list of the first 40 Tweets provided above, you’ll see that the last one says, “@jamemiami @Jon2012Girls This video has nothing to do with Ron Paul or his supporters”. This person likely saw Huntsman’s daughter’s tweet and was responding to it.

Less than 24 hours earlier:

JON HUNTSMAN: Just tell Dr. Paul that I owe him a tweet in return, and he should be– he should be expecting one some time soon.

PIERS MORGAN (CNN): I think you should do what Mitt Romney does and get the dirty work done by somebody else. In your case maybe your daughters could unleash themselves on Twitter on him. I think that might be a better way of doing it. Keep your hands out of it.

JON HUNTSMAN: They’ve got plenty– they’ve got plenty up their sleeves Piers, and you might be surprised at what they release in the next few days.

PIERS MORGAN (CNN): No, I’m hearing– I’m hearing noises of more stuff coming. I can’t wait.

THE HUNTSMAN CAMPAIGN CALLS ON PAUL TO DENOUNCE THE VIDEO

By early evening (only a couple hours later), the Huntsman campaign was already in the media officially calling on the Ron Paul campaign to condemn the anonymously-created YouTube video. An article posted to the website of the Salt Lake Tribune began:

Huntsman to Paul: Disavow ‘manchurian candidate’ ad with Chinese daughter

Published on Jan 5, 2012 06:44PM

Jon Huntsman’s campaign is asking Rep. Ron Paul to disavow a YouTube spot posted by a supporter that questions whether the former Utah governor is loyal to the United States or China and features shots of his adopted Chinese daughter, Gracie Mei, and an image of Huntsman superimposed wearing a Communist uniform.

“The ad is offensive and the Paul campaign and their supporters should condemn it,” Huntsman spokesman Tim Miller said Thursday night after the clip began circulating.

(Continue reading)

THOMAS “TOMMY” BURR: THE MESSENGER

The author of the article was a reporter named Thomas Burr. Note that the paper that he writes for, The Salt Lake Tribune, is based in Utah, where Huntsman used to be governor. It tuns out that Burr was “covering state government” for the The Tribune “when Huntsman was sworn in as governor in 2005.” Later that year, Burr became a Washington correspondent for the paper, and in that capacity “he followed Huntsman through the process of becoming ambassador to China, and he covered his preparations for the presidential run.”

The source for this information is a recent article by The Salt Lake Tribune‘s deputy editor, Tim Fitzpatrick. In that piece, he further explains that Burr “put 1,400 miles on his rental car while covering the New Hampshire race this year, an incredible figure when you consider the state is only about 50 miles wide.” However, remember: until the final week before the New Hampshire primary, the other candidates were primarily focused on Iowa, which Huntsman skipped. Accordingly, Burr spent much of his time in New Hampshire with the Huntsman campaign, and his Twitter page, @thomaswburr, has hundreds of tweets about his experiences on the trail with them. He has also retweeted, and exchanged tweets with, Huntsman’s daughters, many times, and wrote at least one entire article about them.

One can also view Burr’s Twitpic.com page (also archived here) to see pictures that he took throughout his journey with Huntman, going back all the way to a week before he announced his candidacy. On the day of the New Hampshire primary, Burr tweeted, “Six months ago, I was one of two reporters on Huntsman’s plane. Had more space back then.”

In the aforementioned article by Salt Lake Tribune deputy editor Tim Fitzpatrick , titled, “Tribune’s Burr brings home the Utah-centric presidential race,” Fitzpatrick explains:

During a couple of former Gov. Jon Huntsman’s recent presidential campaign stops, there has come what might be called the Tommy Burr moment.

Huntsman will be selling his red-state cred by touting his successes in conservative Utah, and he’ll gesture to Salt Lake Tribune reporter Tommy Burr and say Burr can confirm what he’s saying.

Some fellow reporters may even bite and seek out Burr, who has his own stock answers: Yes, Huntsman was elected with 78 percent of the vote. No, he didn’t exactly push a “flat” tax. It’s a single-rate tax, but it still preserved itemized deductions on mortgages and charitable donations.

Burr knows his editors didn’t send him out there to enlighten other reporters, but the story is still testament to his real value to Tribune readers: In the curious case that has found Utah connected to not one but two presidential candidates, Burr is unique among campaign reporters in that he has covered both men for years.

HUNTSMAN CALLS “THE RON PAUL VIDEO” “STUPID”

First thing the next morning (Jan 6), during a televised speaking event in Concord, New Hampshire which began at 9am, Jon Huntsman himself began talking about the “China Jon” video, after an unidentified audience member conveniently brought it up to him during the Q&A session. As the TV cameras rolled, Huntsman referred to the anonymously-created YouTube video as “the Ron Paul video”, conveniently conflating it with the Paul campaign once again — and called it “stupid”.

This was a very important moment in this whole story, and it’s the perfect time to pause and ask a vital question.

IS THE “CHINA JON” VIDEO “STUPID”?

The “China Jon” video is not only “stupid”, it is one of the most ludicrous, ineffective, counter-productive “attack” ads imaginable.  This is not only blatantly obvious when you watch the thing; anyone can see that it is an empirically proven fact simply by looking at how people reacted to the video on Twitter, Facebook, blogs, TV screens, and the pages of newspapers world wide. Virtually (if not absolutely) NO ONE was persuaded that Huntsman having the ability to speak Chinese and two adopted daughters from foreign countries therefore makes him even remotely a “Manchurian candidate” who lacks “faith” and “American values”. It is a transparently and completely absurd proposition, presented in a farcical and barely coherent faux-”attack” video on YouTube. (Example caption: “China Jon’s Daughters – Even Adopted?”)

Here is a 16 second summary by Mark Eiglarsh on Fox News:

On the other hand, the video highlighted three things that Jon Huntsman desperately wanted voters to know, and had been trying to convey to them for months, with very limited success.

1) He was the U.S. Ambassador to China

There are five tabs at the of Huntsman’s website (Jon2012.com): HOME, JON, HTV, ISSUES, and DONATE. If one clicks either “JON” or “ISSUES“, a sizeable banner pops up on the right-hand side of the screen prominently asserting that Huntsman is “Qualified to Lead”. The very first thing that is touted as proof of this is his term as Ambassador to China. As T.J. Walker of The Daily National commented in November, Huntsman “just can’t seem to get through a sentence without talking about his experience as a Chinese ambassador.”

2) He is fluently multilingual

There is no doubt that this is something Huntsman is (rightfully) proud of, sees as a selling point, and thus wants voters to know about. Inside of the aforementioned “Qualified to Lead” banner on his website, one can click a link to an interactive “timeline”, which is broken down by decade. The headline for the entire first half of the 1980′s is, “Becomes fluent in Mandarin Chinese and Taiwanese Hokkie”.

Similiarly, in the “About Jon” section of his website (under the “JON” tab), the third paragraph begins: “Jon also has extensive foreign policy experience — a passion that was sparked at a young age. When he was 19, Jon embarked on a two-year mission trip to Taiwan, where he learned to speak Mandarin Chinese and Taiwanese Hokkein.”

Furthermore, on January 7th, just three days after “China Jon” was uploaded and one day after it really hit the media, Huntsman went out of his way in a nationally-televised debate to showcase his ability to speak Mandarin Chinese.

3) He has two adopted daughters from China and India who had “no future” and “nothing to look forward to” until he adopted them (all his words in quotes).

This is a sensitive subject, but given all of the evidence pointing to the “China Jon” having come from the Huntsman campaign itself (and the implications that go with that), it is one that absolutely must be touched upon, and in some detail.

From the very beginning of his campaign, Huntsman was specifically touting his adopted daughters on the campaign trail. For example, in June, the Wall Street Journal wrote:

Former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. formally launched his presidential bid Tuesday at Liberty State Park in New Jersey with his picture-perfect family, his wife, Mary Kaye, and seven children, including five-year-old Asha, who was adopted from India, and Gracie Mei, 12, adopted from China. Mr. Huntsman has taken his wife and at least some of their children on virtually every campaign stop so far.

In a typical appearance earlier this month in Nashua, N.H., he introduced each of the three daughters present, and then called over Gracie Mei [his adopted daughter from China] .

“You want to cut through the politics and get to the bottom line of life, the greatest thing we have ever done is bring to kids into our lives who had no future,” he told a gathering of 40 or so people at a house party in Nashua. “And I don’t say that gratuitously, I say that with joy and enormous satisfaction….They make our life full of joy on a regular basis.”

Actually, he had been bringing her up at events weeks before he even announced:

Washington, June 4 (ANI): Former Utah governor Jon Huntsman Jr. could become the second Mormon to join the race for the White House in 2012. The first is former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney of GOP.

Addressing a crowd of Christian conservatives in downtown Washington, Huntsman seemed to emphasize that his values are no different from those of a Christian crowd, the Washington Post reports.

He recounted how he had adopted a Chinese orphan abandoned in a vegetable market. He said that when his 10-year-old daughter is asked who found her there, “she simply replies, ‘Jesus’.”

Many people were undoubtedly moved and touched by these stories (he went on to tell the world about his daugter’s “vegetable market” past on his official campaign website as well), but some saw things in a different light. For example, Michael Shaw of BagNews commented at the time:

“The girls “who had no future?” I can certainly understand the comment and qualification about gratuitousness. But then, please tell me Huntsman, the presidential product, wasn’t simultaneously using these two children as a brand endorsement for open-mindedness, globalism and his international portfolio, at the same time inoculating himself against old fashioned Merikan racism by framing Asha in the foreground, adopted from India, and Gracie Mei with Lady Liberty, and count ‘em, one, two, three, four American flags (including the one visible on Asha’s dress).”

Which beget this comment:

“He’s treading close to some shaky ground here. Among International Adoption parents, there tend to be two attitudes: those who tend to be self-congratulatory about “saving” their children from “a life of squalor and misery,” and those who find the whole “saving” meme gauche if not insulting. Maybe he did save his children from a “no future” but I certainly don’t admire him from asserting so. And we are supposed to applaud him for that attitude? He’s in danger of infuriating thousands of adoptive parents. Children are not accessories or props. Nor are they stand-ins for international savvy. Adopting a child from another culture, race, or country does not automatically make one more attuned, understanding, or respectful of cultural differences, just as having a couple of minority friends does not give one a pass to make rude or racist remarks. So far: not impressed.”

When the Huntsmans adopted their youngest daughter from India in 2006, he was already a politician; specifically, the Governor of Utah. As it turns out, the adoption was not something that was done privately. Quite the opposite. Photos and intimate details of the entire process, from the “red tape” they encountered, to the eventual signing of the papers, to their first moments with the baby, were all over the local news, for months, with the Huntsmans’ cooperation. (See for example here, here, here, here, here, and here.)

Returning to another example from the 2012 GOP race: Just two weeks before the “China Jon” video appeared, Huntsman was interviewed by RedState.com’s Leon Wolf, and repeatedly injected his adopted daughters into the discussion. Shortly after citing them in an answer about his pro-life bone fides, he brought them up again while answering another question, making what NPR later labeled a “grandiose claim”, and TPM called “a dramatic play”:

Q. What, if anything, and let me break this up into two questions. What, if anything should be done by the United States to encourage China to change its “one child” policy?

A. Well, uh, I probably did more than anybody. Uh, because my daughter Gracie was known by 1.3 billion people in China. Everybody heard her story. They knew that we had adopted her and given her life. Uh, they knew that she got to seek a great educational opportunity – a young, pretty, brilliant girl who was, I mean, it was all the time in China. I dare to say that our one act of adopting a girl, as United States Ambassador to China, in many minds – and this would be impossible to quantify – but I tell you, may have had more of an impact in that country, one thing, than all the speeches combined of U.S. government officials over the years.

Around that time, the “Resist Racism” blog, reflecting on this interview and other past comments by Huntsman, commented:

“Dear Jon Huntsman: You and your wife have seven kids. Full stop. Not “seven kids, including two adopted girls from China and India.” Unless, of course, you wish me to understand that you are such a wonderful human being for adopting.”

Which beget comments like:

“Huntsman keeps trotting his two youngest daughters out to show how wonderful he is. Plus he spreads their stories all over, because he’s such a great guy, yanno.”

And:

“What is with people blabbing about their ADOPTED children? Do they think they are the only family in the world to adopt? Do they think adoption makes them “special”? A lot of people have adopted and we’re not running around telling the public about our children’s histories, parading them out at public events, or claiming some kind of religious “credit.” ALL children need and deserve privacy.”

And:

“I think it is very sad to use one’s children to further one’s campaign. The fact that he continues to do it over and over again shows that he is clueless and pathetic. Does he not realize that one day that they will be older and see how he has talked about their personal lives in public. That he has shared personal information inappropriately, and made judgements about their future when he really doesn’t know. How does he know that his daughters might not have been one of those kids supported by the orphanage and govt to go to college? Several examples of this.”

THE ESTABLISHMENT MEDIA TAKES THE REINS

This section could be massive in and of itself, but it probably doesn’t need to be. In short, by Saturday morning, the national and international corporate media had gotten word of the “story” (“story”, of course, actually meaning “anonymously-uploaded YouTube video”), and over the next 48 hours or so, the media covered it with bizarre frequency and fervor. It was everywhere. Clips from the “China Jon” video were aired on CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, and others. In the print media, everyone from Fox News to Reuters to The Washington Post to The Toronto Star covered the “story” as headline news.

Ron Paul and his supporters were absolutely slimed. Despite the obvious absurdity of the video’s premise, and fact that this video was anonymously uploaded to a YouTube account that was created the exact same day, most in the media applied approximately zero skepticism regarding who was behind it. The anonymous creator had said that they were “4Paul” in their username, after all. With iron-clad proof like that, how could anyone possibly doubt their pro-Paul bona fides? (MSNBC host Alex Witt actually made this argument on national television.)

Even Ron Paul himself was blamed by some for the “ad”. For example, Keith Olbermann named Paul — YES, Paul himself — one of his “Worst Person[s] in the World” over it, and used it as an opportunity to take cheap shots at his supporters and son, Senator Rand Paul. Senator John McCain’s wife tweeted: “I deeply resent the video made using the adopted daughters of @johnhuntsman. @ronpaul shame on you.” Fox News, ABC, and others quickly made this tweet headline news, and “Jon2012girls” retweeted it to their 20K+ followers.

A number of other deceptive and often overlapping patterns emerged, which are very much worth noting before we move on:

1. The fact that the video was simply an anonymously-created video uploaded to a brand new account on YouTube was obscured, glossed over, or not reported at all.
2. The video was frequently attributed to actual Paul supporters with no proof or skepticism.
3. The video was often referred to as a “POLITICAL AD” or “WEB AD” (conjuring images of an actual organization with a website, funding, supporters, etc)
4. “NHLiberty4Paul”, the name of the YouTube account, was baselessly portrayed as the name of an organization or “group”. In actuality, the “China Jon” video and “NHLiberty4Paul” account itself give no indication of being the efforts of more than one person, and there was no trace of any organization by this name existing anyway. The “NHLiberty4Paul” name was even modified by some in the media to make it seem more like a “legit” organization.

Examples:

CNN’s John King completely failed to mention that it was a YouTube video, let alone one uploaded by a brand new, totally anonymous user. CNN instead labeled it a “POLITICAL AD” that was “PRO-PAUL”. King baselessly and repeatedly referred to the supposed Paul “supporter” who uploaded it as a male, deceptively creating the impression that the uploader’s identity was known.

The Huffington Post falsely attributed the video to “a group claiming to be ‘New Hampshire Liberty 4 Paul’.

Megyn Kelly of Fox News played clips from the video, which they labeled both a “WEB AD” and a “POLITICAL AD”. Kelly falsely reported that “the posting claims that it is prouced by a group of Ron Paul supporters that go by the name of NHLiberty4Paul”.

MSNBC’s Rachael Maddow played clips from the video and said that it “appears to have been produced by Ron Paul supporters in New Hampshire”, and then went on to falsely attribute it to “a group called NH, New Hampshire, Liberty for Paul.” She failed to mention that it was a YouTube video at all, instead calling it an “ad”.

The New York Post called it an “online ad”, and reported that Huntsman “said yesterday that Ron Paul’s supporters were out of line in using the girls to argue that [he] is un-American.”

The San Fransisco Chronicle called it a “Paul ad” in their headline. In the body of the article, they call it an “online ad”. The word YouTube is nowhere to be found.

MSNBC’s Alex Witt played clips from the video on January 7th with a title labeling it a “political ad”. In her preface, she referred to it as an “online ad” that is “being run by a group supporting” Ron Paul.  “They are called The NHLiberty4Paul,” she said. After airing the clips, she repeatedly continued to refer to it as an “ad”. Not once did she mention that it was a YouTube video, let alone one anonymously uploaded to a brand new account.

So, that is just a brief overview of the vast smear against Paul that this video created. On the flip side of this, as The End Run noted when the “news” of “China Jon” was first “breaking”:

“…this story has generated more positive press for Huntsman than money could buy. Endearing images of him with his adopted daughters are all over the media, along with quotes of him explaining how he heroically saved them from a bleak fate. This is a priceless Jon Huntsman campaign ad, running in every newspaper and on every TV screen nationwide, for free. “Cui Bono?”

THE HUNTSMAN CAMPAIGN FUELED THE HEADLINES.

If this whole ordeal wasn’t about political point scoring and sabotage, The Huntsman campaign could have and would have acknowledged the obvious: that this video was in no way even remotely representative of the belief’s of the average Ron Paul supporter (or possibly ANY Ron Paul supporter), let alone the candidate himself. Instead, they did the opposite. They immediately worked to convey strong personal outrage, distress, and pain; to deliberately blame and demonize Ron Paul and his supporters; to fuel and stoke the flames of public disgust toward these targets; and to use it as an opportunity to tout Huntsman’s Ambassadorship, mutilingual skills, and adopted daughters.

We’ve already gone over the fact that Huntsman’s daughters pretty much immediately sent a Tweet directed at Ron Paul personally (and to their 20,000+ followers) telling him that “China Jon” was “spiteful, hurtful, and un-American”, and sharing a link that accuses “Paultards” of “Hat[ing] Huntsman for Knowing Chinese, Adopting Foreigners”. We’ve also already discussed how the Huntsman campaign then quickly used their “embedded” hometown journalist to publicly call the ad “offensive” and specifically demand that “the Paul campaign and their supporters” “condemn it”.

The headlines were really centered around two other outbursts, however. One was an appearance by “Jon2012Girl” Abby on Fox News with Megyn Kelly. Abby called the video evidence of a “vile” political discourse in this country, and looking like she was on the verge of tears, she expressed fear and distress over the thought that her younger sister would “ever get a hold of” it. She was sure to once again work to conflate the video with — and use it to demonize — Ron Paul supporters in general, and the official campaign. “[My adopted sisters] are the ones I think about in a video like this,” she said. “So, unfortunately the Ron Paul supporters don’t realize that these actions really affect the Ron Paul campaign”. She spent the rest of the time telling the family’s well-practiced adoption story (“vegetable market”, etc) and promoting Huntsman as a good family man.

That appearance certainly garnered a lot of press coverage; however, it was later in the afternoon, and only served to add fuel to an already-burning fire. What really fueled the initial and biggest wave of headlines was Jon Huntsman’s commentary on the video earlier that morning in Concord New Hampshire. You know, the one where he referred to “China Jon” as “the Ron Paul video” and called it “stupid.”

That wasn’t all he said, by the way. In an angry, indignant, stern tone (characterized as “outrage” by Reuters), Huntsman took the opportunity to tell the story about his adopted daughters (“vegetable market”, “no future”, “nothing to look forward to”, etc.). This story was then transmitted worldwide and learned for the first time by countless voters.

Here are some of the headlines from January 6. As you can see, they were largely fueled by and based upon the fact that Huntsman spoke about the video, and what he said.

Huntsman outraged at ad targeting adopted daughters Reuters
Jon Huntsman denounces ad showcasing his adopted daughters Guardian
Huntsman Slams Web Ad Featuring Adopted Daughters Fox News
Huntsman objects to ad featuring his adopted kids MSNBC
Jon Huntsman rips Ron Paul for attack on his daughters The State Column
Paul Supporters Call Huntsman ‘Manchurian Candidate’ In Ad Featuring Daughters CBS
Huntsman Objects to Paul Ad Featuring Adopted Kids Newsmax

With that in mind, let’s look a little closer at that Concord event, and the circumstances that led to Huntsman’s statements.

JON’S “LUCKY” PICK

To review, the “China Jon” video hit the “blogosphere” around the middle of the day on January 5th, right after “NHLiberty4Paul” tweeted it to key individuals. Huntsman’s event in Concord began at 9am the following morning.

After the speech, there was a Q&A session. As it drew to a close, Huntsman concluded an answer, and said, “We’ll take one more and then we’ll let you go”. In the C-SPAN video, at least ten hands can be seen quickly shooting up (and only about half the audience is in the shot). Without missing a beat, Huntsman immediately says, “yes ma’am”, and calls on an unidentified, dark-haired female. She quickly stands up and asks, “Do you think that corporations are people?”

Huntsman replies, “You know, I think that’s so self-evident, I don’t even think that needs to be answered. Come on. Of course corporations are not people. Come on.” As the crowd began clapping and cheering, he continued, “Who would say such an outlandish thing? I can’t imagine anyone running for president would say anything like that.”

The context — surely unbeknownst to most people watching at home, and even many of the reporters present — was this: The previous evening, he had been asked a similar question in Newport by a man named Glenn Kaplan, and his answer was, according to Kaplan, “a total cop-out”. Andy Kroll of Mother Jones later reported that the question seemed to make Huntsman “uneasy”, and summarized his response as, “more or less: Mumble mumble…fix our broken tax policy…mumble mumble…revolving door…level the playing field…mumble mumble…thank you.”

“He didn’t come with a cruise ship’s distance of answering Kaplan’s question,” Kroll wrote. He went on to explain in detail how the “fight against corporate personhood and Citizens United is shaping up to be the biggest fight in campaign finance”, concluding, that ” Jon Huntsman, it seems, can’t figure out whose side he’s on—Bank of America’s or yours.”

So, the question from this unidentified dark-haired woman was a total softball, and smacks of having been a planted set up question, designed to give the candidate a prompt “do over” before news of his botched answer from the previous day got legs. If it wasn’t, Huntsman sure had made a lucky pick. (By his own admission, Huntsman had only been asked about this issue once in all of 2011, so it was not a remotely common question.)

But his “luck” had just begun. Even though he had already said this would be the last question, and despite the fact that many other people had just expressed an eagerness to ask questions, he allowed the woman to follow up with yet another, which was:

“Governor Huntsman, some supporters of Ron Paul have put a video out showing you speaking Chinese and portraying you as Chairman Mao. I wonder if you have seen this video? And what does it say about this country that learning to speak a foreign language fluently becomes a tool, an instrument, to be used against you? And secondly, is it still possible to be a centrist politician in the U.S.? Why is it– do you have the impression that all of the other candidates are just clawing their way further right, and that you are the centrist? And why is the centrist unloved? Why is the Centrist the underdog?”

The rest, as they say, is history. If he had not chosen this woman, he would (almost certainly) not have been asked about the “China Jon” video (let alone in such an amazingly softball way). He therefore would have never gotten to “slam” the video in front of all of those TV cameras and reporters, nor “indignantly” provide soundbites about his ability to speak Chinese, his experience overseas, and especially how he saved two little girls from lives with “no hope” and “nothing to look forward to”. The avalanche of negative press for Paul and positive press for Huntsman that ensued around this issue could not have taken place the way it did. Without this moment, the media coverage on this issue could never have been so sudden, well-coordinated, pervasive, and forceful.

“When I saw Jon Huntsman speak on Friday when I was up in New Hampshire, he ended his discussion with a long personal discussion of how much that ad bothered him and how much he loved his daughters and how he and his wife came to adopted him,” MSNBC host Rachael Maddow would later say. “It was very, very affecting. It was the most emotional and connecting thing that he did in that whole campaign appearence.”

Who was this woman that Huntsman called on? She does not appear to be identified by name or affiliation in any reports about this event. Regardless, what a “lucky” choice Huntsman made, huh? (The “underdog” line she concluded her question with was also a new Huntsman talking point. Headline from a day earlier: “Huntsman: ‘New Hampshire loves its underdogs‘”. See also “Huntsman pushes underdog image” from a few days later.)

By the way, Huntsman began his answer by saying he had only seen “parts of” the video.  Really?  His daughters and his official campaign via spokesman Tim Miller had already publicly label the video “offensive” and explicitly called on Ron Paul and his supporters to “condemn” it, but Jon Huntsman hadn’t even watched it in full?  It’s 72 seconds long! Furthermore, it was not yet being broadcast in abridged form on TV; that would happen as a RESULT of this moment.  So, he can hardly use that as an explanation. The blogs that had reported on the video the previous day all simply embedded or linked to the full video.

FAST-FORWARD: HUNTSMAN “SURGES”

The rest of the story can also probably be fast-forwarded. Over the next few days, Ron Paul continued to be slimed, while Huntsman was showered with positive press that injected some of his top “selling points” into the minds of voters all over New Hampshire without him having to do it himself, which would have been highly off-putting, and unseemly in the case of the adoption thing. Within a matter of days he was reaching levels in the polls that he had never been at before, and he finished with over 14% — nearly double where he was at a week earlier. While it’s impossible to gauge the exact degree, the “China Jon” fraud was undoubtedly a significant factor.

“ABSOLUTELY DISGUSTING”

With regard to the lawsuit that has now been filed by the Paul campaign over this video, some people seem to be trying to argue that the person(s) behind the “China Jon” video were not trying to portray the video as being connected to the Paul campaign.  Not so. Besides everything that’s already been mentioned, here is what the Huffington Post wrote on January 6th, just as the story was beginning to explode in the press, and within hours of Huntsman’s “magic moment” in Concord:

When The Huffington Post contacted the poster of the video through YouTube to ask why they created the video and whether they had any formal association with the Paul campaign, NHLiberty4Paul replied: “Sorry, campaign has asked me not to speak to reporters.”

Got that?  This was a malicious attempt to frame the Paul campaign, and constitutes fraudulent and almost certainly criminal electioneering of the worst kind.

“Whoever did it is absolutely disgusting,” Jon Huntsman’s wife Mary Kaye told The Daily Beast on January 7th (right before “using the ‘attack’ as an opportunity to tell their family’s story, including the adoption of those daughters,” to quote Rachael Maddow).  Indeed, Mary Kaye; the perpetrators of this act are absolutely disgusting.  They must be fully exposed and brought to justice. Otherwise, these disgusting, sociopathic deceivers could end up holding political office or high positions in the media.  This would be an absolute disgrace, and must not happen.

The source of this report is TheEndRun.com.  For further information, please read “Twitter Trail Confirms ‘China Jon’ Video as ‘False Flag’, Points to Huntsman Campaign“, which was published simultaneously with the article that you have just read.  If you appreciate the hard work that went into producing reports of this scope on such a short time table, please consider making a donation to The End Run today.

To webmasters and bloggers: please do not re-publish this particular piece in its entirety on your sites. Instead, please excerpt a small section (preferably the intro) and link here (The End Run), so that the author may retain control and continue to perfect the text after initial publication. Thank you for your interest and support, and may the truth prevail.

TheEndRun.com
January 27, 2012

On January 4, a video entitled “Jon Huntsman’s Values” was anonymously uploaded to YouTube.  The following day, this video went “viral” on the internet.  By the morning after that, it was being discussed in countless newspapers and television news studios nationwide.   The anonymous creator(s) of this absurd video — which has been nicknamed the “China Jon” video based on one of the titles displayed about halfway through its 72-second runtime — presented it as though it was intended to be an “attack” against Huntsman and a promotion for Ron Paul.  In reality, the intended purposes were exactly the opposite (as will be demonstrated momentarily).

On January 6, the day this “story” broke in the Establishment media, The End Run published an article entitled, “Huntsman Complicit in “False Flag”-Style Dirty Trick Against Paul“.  This article provided preliminary documentation of the suspicious way in which the Huntsman campaign and others had gone to work egregiously and cynically exploiting the “China Jon” video almost immediately after it appeared on YouTube, as well as early evidence that the video originated from within the Huntsman campaign itself. The article quickly went “viral”, and drew citations from the San Fransisco Chronicle, Reason, The New American, The Atlantic Wire, and others.

Since then, The End Run has investigated this matter in much greater detail, uncovering a mountain of additional evidence confirming the original article’s premise. A thorough follow-up article was in the works, but was temporarily shelved, with a plan to complete and release it ASAP, after more pressing and less time-consuming matters were dealt with.  However, around January 18th, it was reported that the Paul campaign has filed a lawsuit against the video’s anonymous creator(s).  At that point, The End Run dropped everything and worked around the clock to refine and expand the original draft into two extremely detailed and well-sourced reports on this matter in the shortest time frame possible, in the hopes that this critical information reaches the Paul campaign and helps with their lawsuit, and also helps in the “court of public opinion”.  This is one of those two reports.  The other is entitled “The ‘China Jon’ Fraud Deconstructed“, and you are urged to read it before or after this one.

As documented and demonstrated beyond any doubt in these two reports, the “Jon Huntsman’s Values” video (aka the “China Jon’” video) was a “false flag”-style dirty trick designed to sabotage the Ron Paul campaign and defame the candidate and his supporters — a goal which was accomplished with considerable success. Furthermore, all roads lead to the Huntsman camp, and especially Huntsman’s “viral video”-producing, social-media-utilizing, Establishment-media-darling daughters, or the “Jon2012Girls”, as they are known on YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter.

Before proceeding, let’s get one thing perfectly clear: These pieces have not been commissioned, endorsed, vetted, or even seen by the Paul campaign prior to publication, and in no way speak for them. Likewise, the author does not speak for a single other Ron Paul supporter, let alone “Ron Paul supporters” everywhere (as if this should even need to be explained).

If you appreciate the hard work that went into producing reports of this scope on such a short time table, please consider making a donation to The End Run today.

THE TWITTER TRAIL THAT TELLS THE TALE

As previously reported by this website, the deceptively named “NHLiberty4Paul” YouTube account to which the “China Jon” video was uploaded had been anonymously-created that very same day — a vital fact that is known by many who have followed this story in the “alternative” media, but which was conveniently omitted from most “mainstream” news reports.

What is not nearly as well-known by “alternative” and “mainstream” news consumers alike is that the same day, January 4th, a Twitter account was created with an identical username. What has also been almost universally overlooked is that it was from this Twitter account that the “China Jon” video was sent by its creator(s) to a hand-picked “shortlist” of individuals, many of whom in turn became the first bloggers and social media users to introduce it to the world.

While “The ‘China Jon’ Fraud Deconstructed” takes a much broader look at this issue, this particular article will specifically focus on these critical first tweets that started the entire firestorm, because they are extremely revealing as to the true nature of the “China Jon” video and the individuals behind it.  So, without further delay, let’s take a look at the tweets.

TWEET #1 (January 4, 10:35pm)

Here is the first Tweet “NHLiberty4Paul” sent out:

According to search results, this was the very first tweet on all of Twitter to link to the video.

The #jon2012girls tag is a pretty obvious one that jumps out, but how about #fitn? It stands for First In The Nation, referring to the New Hampshire primaries. It has been used by a variety of individuals, but appears to have been disproportionately used by Huntsman supporters. It was constantly used by Huntsman’s daughters when posting on their @Jon2012Girls twitter account. In fact, they used it roughly 46 times between December 28 and January 4 alone (not counting retweets). It was also constantly used by @Jon2012HQ, the “official Twitter campaign headquarters” for Huntsman, which used it roughly 12 times between December 28 and January 4. As for the @JonHuntsman account, he used it routinely from late September forward. He only sent out four total tweets from December 28 and January 4, and two of them had the tag attached. (By comparison, @RonPaul never used it at all during that period, nor in the months prior, going back as far as Twitter will allow — April 2011.)

As a matter of fact, if you Google “fitn” as of this writing, the first hit is a Huffington Post article entitled “First in the Nation, #FITN“, written by? … Huntsman’s daughters. In October.

They finish the article with: “To keep up-to-date on the conversation in New Hampshire, follow our dad’s campaign here.”

Where is “here”?

http://www.facebook.com/NHforHuntsman2012.

Look familiar?

The other tags were likely attached for two reasons:
1) To make it seem more plausible that “NHLiberty4Paul” was a Ron Paul supporter
2) To hopefully get some Ron Paul supporters who follow those hashtags to notice the video and share it, thereby giving people the ability to say “See! Paul people were the first ones sharing it!” Fortunately, that did not happen.

TWEET #2 (January 5, 11:14am)

As explained in “The ‘China Jon’ Fraud Deconstructed“, the first tweet went virtually if not completely unnoticed. So, in the late morning the following day, “NHLiberty4Paul” began sending out more tweets, only this time they were tweeted “@” a “shortlist” of recipients. Here is the first of this series of tweets.

Who are these people? Let’s take a look.

@brodiganis

Dan Brodigan. Never heard of him. Have you? Didn’t think so. “NHLiberty4Paul” has though, and thought he should have the idiotic “China Jon” video immediately after it was uploaded. Wonder why? Could it be because he is a self-described “Blogging Assassin” who constantly trashes Ron Paul, praises Jon Huntsman, promotes all of his attacks on Paul, and has been promoting Jon2012Girls since BEFORE the “China Jon” video was uploaded? Example Tweets from week leading up to January 5:

“BREAKING: Jon Hunstman calls our the racist and homophobic (and unelectable) Ron Paul…” (Dec 29)

“VIDEO Huntsman: “Ron Paul Sucks” (Dec 29)

“BREAKING: Ron Paul is a fucking lunatic” (Jan 2)

“If you haven’t seen Jon Huntsman new video attack Ron Paul, is fucking genius” (Jan 2)

“VIDEO Huntsman: “Ron Paul Sucks Part Deux (Twilight Zone Edition)” (Jan 2)

“This is fucking brilliant… ow.ly/8fYEl @jon2012hq @Jon2012girls @michaeljknowles #ronpaul” (Jan 2)

“Only 5,800 followers away! C’mon people, we can DO THIS!!! RT @Jon2012girls: 25,000 followers = New Jon2012girls video. #tellyourfriends” (Jan 2)

“Thank God for you! MT @Jon2012girls Did Romney just say “I hope to win the whole enchilada” on Fox? It always tastes better on the way down.” (Jan 3)

“Gee, you @RonPaul supporters sure are an insane bunch…”

Are you starting to get it?

@DanGainor

This is, as you could probably guess, “Dan Gainor”. Ever heard of him? Me neither. “NHLiberty4Paul” has though, and thought he should be one of the first people to have the “China Jon” video. Let’s see some of Dan Gainor’s Tweets in the days leading up to January 5th:

“Ron Paul IS worse than Obama.” (Dec 27)

“Ron Paul would make sure our enemy in Iran gets a nuke. I won’t EVER vote for that.” (Dec 28)

“Politicians have lied all through history. Sort of like Ron Paul and the newsletters.” (Dec 29)

“I’m awake, but electing Ron Paul would be a new national nightmare” (Dec 29)

“I get paid to tell the truth, like the racism in the Ron Paul newsletters.” (Dec 29)

Yeah, African-Americans would flee Obama who they supported 95% to aid crazy Ron Paul with the racist newsletters. lol” (Dec 30)

“It’s not hard, it’s impossible. It’s a delusional Paulbot fantasy.” (Dec 30)

Turns out Gainor is a “FoxNews.com freelance columnist” who is one of the most rabidly, openly, and borderline-obsessively anti-Paul people in the media.  You know, for someone who is supposedly off their rocker enough to make one of the most ludicrous, ineffective negative “political ads” in history (conveniently featuring footage of Jon Huntsman impressively speaking Chinese, looking cosmopolitan, and posing with his adopted children), “NHLiberty4Paul” sure does know some obscure bloggers, journalists, and social media users who just so happen to be amongst the absolute best people to send the video to in order to make sure it is quickly and aggressively used to attack Ron Paul and paint his supporters as xenophobic nutcases.

@michellemalkin

There is no need to even bother going into detail on this one. She is a well-known Fox News contributor and talking head who sometimes guest hosts for O’Reilly, and she has a long history of attacking Paul, such as when she infamously said on national TV that “Ron Paul really has no business being onstage as a legitimate representative of Republicans.”

@secupp

This is a woman named S.E. Cupp. She is a GBTV Host. GBTV is an acronym for Glenn Beck TV. Before hosting for GBTV, she worked for Beck’s production company Mercury Radio Arts, and GlennBeck.com.

Glenn Beck has long history of attacking Ron Paul and his supporters (egregious example). Beck likes to praise Paul on economic issues sometimes for credibility, but anyone who has paid attention knows that he actually hates him, attacks him on foreign policy constantly, and always turns on him/sabotages him at key moments. For example, he has really been ramping up the attacks on Ron Paul lately, saying for example that “many times he sounds like Al Qaeda’s PR department” and attempting to link him to “Soros-funded progressives and Communists”.

Did I mention that Beck is a close personal friend of Jon Huntsman’s billionaire father? Here’s a picture of them together “at the Huntsman family’s residential development and golf community in Driggs, Idaho.”

As for Glenn Beck TV host S.E. Cupp, she has said, for example:

“Ron Paul: “Maybe whining my responses will make them seem more credible and less crazy. Oh, and Holocaust deniers welcome.” (Nov 22)

Ron Paul: It makes more sense to work with people. Yes, I think Ahmedinejad wants to work with us. If “work with us” means kill us. (Dec 15)

“Ron Paul is on stage talking about some magic ring. I mean, talking about his third place finish in Iowa.” (Jan 3)

And the final two people that supposed “Ron Paul supporter” NHLiberty4paul first tweeted the Huntsman video to, kicking the whole campaign off? @JFKTruther and @InfoTerrorism, names which conveniently conjure up images of the two of the main things that anti-Paul smear merchants love to try to paint Ron Paul supporters as — “conspiracy theorists” and (domestic) terrorists. If the media had payed attention to this Twitter trail, you can bet that they would have focused on these two recipients.

TWEET #3 (January 5, 11:16am)

The following tweet was sent out two minutes after the previous.

Once again, let’s analyze the list.

@BrandonKiser

Brandon Kiser is a student who founded a website called The Right Sphere.  His writings have often been published on The Daily Caller’s website.  He, of course, hates Paul, loves Huntsman, and promoted Huntsman’s previous “newsletter” attack ad on Paul the week before. Here are some of his tweets in the run up to Jan 5:

@keder Because Ron Paul is their Ayatollah. (Dec 27)

Makes one of us. RT @Chris_Moody: Santorum says he’d vote for Ron Paul if he’s the nominee yhoo.it/rCG3sT (Dec 28)

Long-shot Huntsman may be GOP’s best shot billingsgazette.com/news/opinion/g… (28 Dec)

::begs for this to get media play:: RT @toddstarnes: Huntsman: “They pick corn in Iowa. They pick presidents in NH.” yhoo.it/v5PpKF (Dec 29)

I am the 1 percent (as in Huntsman supporters). (Dec 29)

New Huntsman ad DESTROYS Ron Paul on the racist newsletters. youtu.be/1vMHuWQ_kfg h/t @allahpundit (Dec 29)

Officially donated to Jon Huntsman. Twelve days to New Hampshire! (Dec 29)

I still think this has been @JonHuntsman best ad so far. Positive, and his pitch in 90 seconds bit.ly/sqDKKQ (Dec 30)

My work here is done. RT @NathanWurtzel Everyone just projected Paul finishing 3rd. Whew. (Jan 3)

Gingrich slapping Paul in his speech. Awesome. #iacaucus (Jan 3)

Hey @RonPaul, when was the last time you were a successful two-term governor and ambassador like @JonHuntsman? (Jan 3)

I don’t want to see Paul win Iowa, but if it helps Huntsman in New Hampshire, I wouldn’t mind. #iacaucus #fitn (Jan 3)

Paul really is disgusting. RT @ByronYork: Ron Paul on CNN: Gingrich ‘chickened out’ when facing draft in 1960s. (Jan 4)

@MelissaTweets Huntsman > Romney > Perry > Gingrich > Santorum > Paul. (Jan 4)

Kiser was the perfect “useful idiot” (look the term up if you don’t know what it means). Upon receiving a tweet about the “China Jon” video from “NHLiberty4Paul”, the gullible Kiser went berserk, angrily tweeting the video over and over again to his 4000+ followers while applying absolutely no skepticism regarding its origin. Furthermore, he was apparently unable to understand that an anonymous person on the internet creating a YouTube username with “4Paul” in it does not mean that the candidate then endorses whatever they upload (see his message sent directly to @RonPaul). Here are some of his Tweets from Jan 5:

“Ron Paul sure has some classy supporters bit.ly/xzT9Hx” (Jan 5)

“Vile Ron Paul Supporter Ad Attacks Huntsman for Speaking Chinese and Adopting | The Right Sphere bit.ly/x4HL6b” (Jan 5)

“Vile Ron Paul Supporter Ad Attacks Huntsman for Speaking Chinese and Adopting bit.ly/x4HL6b” (Jan 5)

“Hey, @RonPaul: I was learning Spanish in high school and if I could I’d be ambassador to Spain. Do I have Spanish values?” (Jan 5)

“How on God’s green earth can any Ron Paul supporter – or the candidate – stand by this ad? bit.ly/x4HL6b” (Jan 5)

“Yes, TRS commenter. I am “pathetic” because I think a vile video by a Paul supporter is vile and want him to refute it.” (Jan 5)

Two of the links above were to an article that he hastily wrote on The Right Sphere. In his blind, naive rage, he gave it the headline “Vile Ron Paul Supporter Ad Attacks Huntsman for Speaking Chinese and Adopting,” characterized it as an “ad”, blamed “Ron Paul supporters” for it, and said he was “infuriated, appalled and disgusted” by it.

Ironically, Kiser even noticed that the video actually highlighted things that most people watching it would consider to be among Huntsman’s STRENGTHS, not weaknesses. Yet, like the dupe that “NHLiberty4Paul” accurately pegged him as, he was completely unable to put 2 and 2 together.

The vile video seems to suggest that Jon Huntsman is less of an American and shares less American values because he speaks Chinese and served his country as an ambassador to China. Oh, and because he adopted a daughter from there too. WTF? All three of the things these Paul supporters are disgustingly trying to hammer Huntsman for are either benefits to Huntsman’s candidacy or so personal that it should be off the table anyway

Even AFTER he got word that many people were flagging the video as an obvious “false flag”-style dirty trick, he STILL was not even able to entertain the idea.

Oh, now folks are saying the vile Paul supporter video was created by Jon Huntsman as a conspiracy. Idiots. (Jan 5)

Yeah, Brandon — we’re the idiots.

@ZekeJMiller

Zeke J. Miller is a political reporter for BuzzFeed.com, a website focused on viral media. On their about page, they say: ““We feature the kind of things you’d want to pass along to your friends: an outrageous video that’s about to go viral, an obscure subculture breaking into the mainstream, a juicy bit of gossip that everyone at the office will be talking about tomorrow…” Sure enough, a quick Google search within that site shows that they have repeatedly covered and promoted the activities of Huntsman’s daughters, going back months.

A week before the “China Jon” video was uploaded, Huntsman’s campaign had released a “tacky, glib ‘Twilight Zone’ attack ad” about Ron Paul. Can you guess who posted it to BuzzFeed.com? Zeke Miller. He gave it the headline “Someone Finally Bothered To Attack Ron Paul”, and commented: “Jon Huntsman! A brutal review of some of Paul’s crazier moments”

BuzzFeed.com became one of the very first sites on the entire web to embed the “China Job” video shortly after it was uploaded, giving it the headline “Paul Supporters Launch Insane Attack On ‘Manchurian Candidate’ Jon Huntsman”. (They were actually the first site it embed it, if YouTube stats are to be believed.)

Furthermore, it appears that Miller himself may be on Huntsman’s Daughters’ mailing list, if not receiving personal e-mails from them. On January 5, the same day BuzzFeed posted the “China Jon” video, Miller tweeted: “In other fundraising news, @Jon2012girls email asking for help supporting “the Huntsman surge”.

On January 8th, the Editor-in-Chief of Buzzfeed (Ben Smith) tweeted that Paul’s camp “thinks (not unreasonably) that offensive video was a set-up.”  Meanwhile, that same day, Miller was publishing articles on BuzzFeed like:

Is Ron Paul Secretly Working For Mitt Romney?
“He’s certainly not helping his own campaign in these debates”

Paul Campaign Goes Negative On Huntsman/Santorum
“Scared? Or just trying to steal some votes?”

@EWErickson

Erick Erickson was once characteized by Jon Stewart as “a guy whose entire resume is incendiary partisan rhetoric”. He likes Huntsman, passionately hates Paul, and is the managing editor of one of the most bitterly anti-Ron Paul sites out there, RedState.com. Here are some sample Tweets from the run up to Jan 5, when “NHLiberty4Paul” made him one of the first 14 people to receive a tweet linking to “China Jon”.

“RT @JonahNRO: I’ve never liked Huntsman more.” (10 Dec)

“Bawhahaha. Huntsman launches scardedMittless2012.com That is awesome.” (Dec 14)

“Hi, I’m Ron Paul and I’m paranoid. youtu.be/X554O6TwiYM” (26 Dec)

RT @ruthsias: Ron Paul does interview with Iranian state TV, bashes Israel, defends Hamas – YouTube bit.ly/ukGxSs (Dec 29)

“If Jon Huntsman keeps this up, I might really start liking him. mediaite.com/tv/jon-huntsma…” (Dec 29)

“@keder: Is it just me or does Ron Paul sound remarkably like Mahmoud Ahmadinejad?” (Dec 30)

“@keder You’re in the Ron Paul database at Stormfront already probably. They still call my old home number.” (Dec 30)

Observation: Santorum has the least amount of rabid supporters on twitter & Paul has the most who are also the most detached from reality. (Dec 31)

RT @Yousefzadeh “For No Political Office Whatsoever: Ron Paul” bit.ly/teBJ1e (Dec 31)

“This is Jon Huntsman’s best case scenario isn’t it? GOP rejects Romney headed to NH.” (Jan 3)

“The Huntsman Buzz In Iowa redstate.com/erick/2012/01/… via @ewerickson” (Jan 3)

Everybody get on Wikipedia to search for trilaterialists and Bilderbergers. Ron Paul is about to speak. (Jan 3)

Erickson was not initially a fan of Huntsman, but he began warming up to him in early November, and Huntsman’s daughters were well aware of his conversion-in-progress since Day 1. On November 8, Erickson wrote an article in which he said that Huntsman has “the best economic plan of all the candidates”, and concluded by saying: “I’m starting to think I need to walk it back on my rejection of Jon Huntsman. Because I’m starting to think even he would be more faithful in his conservative convictions than Mitt Romney.”

That same day (Nov 8), Huntsman daughters tweeted a link to the article, saying:

Check out article from @ewerickson, our dad @JonHuntsman a more faithful conservative than Mitt. #authenticity redstate.com/erick/2011/11/…

Erickson went on to praise Huntsman further over the following month — something that the the Huntsman campaign was so proud of that they went on to heavily tout his words in an official campaign ad.

Upon learning of the “China Jon” video, which was helpfully tweeted to Erickson (the site’s managing editor), RedState.com quickly posted it, and, with zero proof or skepticism regarding its origin, opportunistically and absurdly cited the video as evidence that Ron Paul supporters are “mostly liberal Democrats who are mad that Obama has governed too far to the right”.

Even days later, after overwhelming evidence that the video was a “false flag” against Paul — a conclusion that was even agreed upon by a third party firm reportedly hired by the Paul campaign to investigate its origin — Erickson doubled-down, writing a ridiculous and supremely dishonest article entitled “The Mental Derangement of Ron Paul’s Campaign”, in which he said the following [comments by The End Run in bold/brackets]:

Supporters of Ron Paul produced a hit job on Jon Huntsman attacking Huntsman over his adopted daughter [Erickson states this as a fact without providing any evidence to support the notion that "Supporters of Ron Paul" made the video, and ignores all evidence to the contrary]. His daughter, ftom [sic] China, was left for dead in a market and the Huntsmans intervened, got her back to good health, and adopted her [Yes, a good deed that he had long  been trying to tell voters about in speeches, interviews, and on his website, and which millions of them found out about for the first time when it was touted in newspapers and on TV screens nationwide for days as a result of the "China Jon" video]. Someone put up a video attacking Huntsman adoption as proof that Huntsman is a foreign agent [Wrong, Erik. That was not the true intention of the video. Would ANYONE ever buy that patently absurd line of argument (that adopting two foreign children makes one a foreign agent)? DID anyone?] The video began circulating among Ron Paul supporters [TOTALLY unsubstantiated and false - he just made this up. The record clearly shows that it was being "circulated among" anti-Ron Paul twitter users and bloggers before any Ron Paul supporters or grassroots sites were even aware of it] and when Huntsman called them out, the Ron Paul campaign swung into high gear and produced a report [No, they did not produce a report. They commissioned a third party web consulting firm to investigate the issue, and they (the firm) eventually produced a report outlining their findings] that I can only venture to suspect was written by someone hopped up on gardasil, having acquired the mental retardation Michele Bachmann warned us about [According to their portfolio, the firm that wrote the report also contracts for PayPal and Ebay, not exactly companies known for hiring mental "retards" "hopped up on gardasil"]. The Ron Paul campaign — NOT SUPPORTERS, BUT CAMPAIGN — analysis [Again, it's not their analysis] concludes that Jon Huntsman attacked his own daughter in an attempt to smear Ron Paul [Right, and overwhelming evidence proves it. But why deal with the evidence when you've got smearing to do?] Yes, friends, it has come to that level of dain bramage [Well, with that insult, all of the evidence just vanishes. Great work Erick]. … The Paul campaign could have had the common decency to just say it was a supporter and condemn the attack on Jon Huntsman and his daughter [It wasn't a supporter, it was an opponent posing as a supporter, and they did condemn it immediately upon learning of its existence anyway, days before Erickson wrote this trash]. But the Paul campaign seems only willing to condemn black people, Jews, and gays [Please]. Everyone else is fair game, including the children of other Presidential candidates [Again, they repeatedly condemned the video immediately upon learning about it, days before Erickson wrote this]. What’s even more disturbing though is the Politico and other news outlets treating the Ron Paul defense as legitimate and questioning the Huntsman campaign [It's called not being blinded by maniacal bias against Paul.] That’s not something the media even did to John McCain in 2000 with the awful attacks on him in South Carolina. Pitiful all around. [It's clear who is pitiful, and it ain't people who treated this video with skepticism in the face of overwhelming evidence that it was a "false flag"-style dirty trick that was created by people wanting to hurt, not help, Ron Paul. That's why it was sent to people like Erick Erickson.]

Boy, “NHLiberty4Paul” sure picked the “wrong” person to send the video to.

By the way, Erickson was hired to work as a “political contributor” for “John King USA” on CNN in 2010. As previously reported by The End Run, King played part of the “China Jon” video in the middle of an interview with Ron Paul on January 6, with captions calling it a “POLITICAL AD” and a “PRO-PAUL VIDEO” that “ATTACKS HUNTSMAN”. This was right after he got done trying in vain to link Paul to racism and anti-Semitism.

Paul, of course, denounced the video, and pointed out the absurdity of asking him to answer for it. He apparently hadn’t even seen it yet. (Link to video of interview here.) Days earlier, King’s wife, CNN correspondent Dana Bash, let it slip that she is personally “worried” about the prospect of Ron Paul’s campaign continuing.

@LOLGOP

Less than two months earlier, Politico had profiled “Peter Nicely”, the man behind @LOLGOP, as “social media’s latest political satire sensation.” They continued:

In the last three months, his frequent tweets on GOP perfidy have taken his Twitter following from 7,000 to 20,000-not bad for a man without a public face. Nicely, unquestionably left-of-center, told a2politico.com this summer he feels “a need to balance the smug cynicism from the right.” “I think by acting like a left-wing Rush Limbaugh, I’m begging the right to grow the f*** up and listen to some adults,” he said in the interview.

Sounds like just the kind of guy who would be persuaded that former U.S. Ambassador to China Jon Huntsman is a “Manchurian Candidate” because he has two adopted daughters and speaks Chinese, huh? I can see why NHLiberty4Paul wanted him to have that video right away. However — shockingly! — he wasn’t persuaded. He probably got some good “LOLz” out of it, though, as he shared the link with his 30,000+ followers (via retweets) . Darn. That really “backfired” on “NHLiberty4Paul”.

@NHPatch

This is the Twitter account of Marc Fortier, the “NH Regional Editor for Patch.com” and “past president of the New Hampshire Press Association”. In November, Fortier reported that: “Jon Huntsman has made New Hampshire his main priority this election season, making more than 100 stops in the state since entering the presidential race back in June. Patch has covered many of his stops, as you can see from the many videos attached to this story.” (He attaches 20 videos.) One day before Fortier received his “China Jon” tweet, Patch.com reported that: “Jon Huntsman’s daughters have also been hitting the pavement in New Hampshire for some time to drum up support for their father.”

“NHLiberty4Paul” must have figured he was just the kind of guy who would be persuaded by the “China Jon” video, stunned to learn that Huntsman is a “Manchurian Candidate”, and quick to alert the people of New Hampshire. Huntsman, of course, would tank in the polls, and Ron Paul would get a huge boost.

However, “unfortunately”, the opposite happened. The following day the Naushua Patch went with:

VIDEO: Huntsman Upset By Use of Adopted Daughters in Paul Supporter’s Attack Video“Jon Huntsman takes issue with the use of his daughters in a Ron Paul attack video.” (Jan 6)

Shoot. Strike 12.

@dsraussthehill

This Twitter account no longer exists. I’m sure this person was a total Ron Paul fanatic though. And a hater of people who adopt small children, possibly saving their lives in the process. After all, don’t we all just hate that? Huntsman and his family must have been really upset about having that endearing story told on every TV station and in every newspaper for days in the run up to the New Hampshire primary, for free. (Huntsman had been going out of his way to tell people his adopted daughters’ backstories in interviews, speeches, and on his website since the beginning of his campaign.  See here, in the “Is The ‘China Jon’ Video ‘Stupid’?” section.)

UPDATE: An astute reader has e-mailed to point out that this was a typo by “NHLiberty4Paul”.  It was supposed to go to Daniel Strauss of The Hill.  They missed the “t” in @dstraussthehill. Surprise, surprise, here are a couple of his past articles…

Huntsman daughters spoof Cain ad, blow bubbles instead of smoke
By Daniel Strauss , 10/28/11

Huntsman camp hits Ron Paul for controversial newsletters
By Daniel Strauss – 12/29/11

Who would have thought?

That concludes Tweet #3. Let’s look at Tweet #4, which was sent out one minute later.

TWEET #4 (January 17, 11:17am)

@mckaycoppins

Another political reporter for BuzzFeed.com, a site which had repeated promoted Huntsman’s daughters. (See @ZekeJMiller above for more info.) Coppins had personally tweeted about the “jon2012girls” on numerous occasions in the past, including at least one direct back-and-forth exchange with them. In fact, some of his previous articles include “Huntsman Girls Go Viral” and “Those Surprising Huntsman Girls”, the latter of which was a flattering profile he wrote after conducting an in person, sit-down interview with all three of them in the offices of The Daily Beast. At 11:27am, he became the first twitter user after “NHLiberty4Paul” to tweet out the “China Jon” video, misleadingly claiming that he had “just found” it, when in actuality it was sent to him by “NHLiberty4Paul” ten minutes earlier (11:17am).

@chris_moody

Chris Moody is a writer for Yahoo! News . Here are a couple of his past articles:

Jon Huntsman’s daughters spoof Herman Cain’s ‘smoking’ ad
by Chris Moody, The Ticket, October 28, 2011

Jon Huntsman’s daughters are at it again
by Chris Moody, The Ticket, December 1, 2011

I hope you’ve gotten it by now.

The source of this report is TheEndRun.com.  For further information, please read “The ‘China Jon’ Fraud Deconstructed“, which was published simultaneously with the article that you have just read.  If you appreciate the hard work that went into producing reports of this scope on such a short time table, please consider making a donation to The End Run today. Reminder to webmasters and bloggers: please do not re-publish these particular pieces in its entirety on your sites. Instead, please excerpt a small section (preferably the intros) and link here, so that the author may retain control and continue to perfect the text after initial publication.

TheEndRun.com
January 13, 2012

Coming on the heels of last week’s dirty deception by the Huntsman campaign, several rabidly anti-Ron Paul political activists have been caught planning another vicious “false flag”-style dirty trick against the presidential candidate and his supporters, this time in South Carolina, where the next GOP primary will take place.

The plot, which was being hatched over Facebook, involved dressing up in hooded Ku Klux Klan (KKK) robes, posing as Ron Paul supporters (complete with Ron Paul signs), and “follow[ing] Paul around South Carolina”, making “sure to get photographed by the media.”

The thread proposing the idea was started earlier this week by Jere Brower of neighboring Georgia on the wall of the “Stop Ron Paul 2012″ Facebook group.   On Wednesday, January 11th, Brower wrote:

“If you live in South Carolina and want to have some real fun with these Paulbots here is what we do- go online and buy or make your very own KKK robe, complete with hood (hood is important).  Then get some Ron Paul signs off the internet or make your own.  Follow Paul around South Carolina and be sure to get photographed by the media.  Again, hoods are important.  All can be Klansmen for Paul. Black, white, Jewish, Asian- those Paulbots will shit a brick!”

He quickly got a second from one Chris Collins of Gainesville, GA (only about an hour’s drive from the South Carolina border), who said: “That is seriously a great idea! Anyone wanna volunteer???”

Minutes later, Brower replied: “Chris, if we can get ten of us to do it, I am down, but where does one get KKK robes????”

When another member opined that the plan was not worth carrying out, Collins objected: “Well, actually, I disagree.  Why not show the world the truth about the type on ilk that supports Ron Paul?  Let me think on this, Jere.”

The next post came from a Rex Foster, who recommended that the Paul haters infiltrate the Paul campaign by volunteering to make phone calls for the candidate.  They could tell South Carolina voters that they were calling on “behalf of Ron Paul’s campaign”, and then spout non-sense about “lizard people” in an attempt to turn the voters off to Paul.

The thread was flagged by lacrossewatchdog.org earlier today, who credited Patrick McEwen of the Capital Free Press for the tip.  News of the plot spread to a number of Ron Paul grassroots websites, whose members quickly sounded the alarm and took the story somewhat viral on social media sites like Facebook and Twitter.  The negative attention prompted the “Stop Ron Paul 2012″ group to remove the thread late Friday evening, but not before many activists captured screen shots.

Around the time that the thread was removed, and after getting bombarded with negative Tweets and Facebook messages, Brower posted a message to Facebook saying, “Someone has hacked my shit.”   When questioned by another user about whether the supposed “hacking” pertained to his financial information, Brower replied: “Nah, messed with my facebook, fucked with my email, messed around with work files.”

This claim, which is apparently meant to explain away the offending thread, does not pass the smell test.  The thread was posted three days ago, with several follow-up posts by Brower.  Furthermore, The End Run has examined his publicly-available Twitter and Facebook posts and found many examples of him calling “Paulbots” “clinically insane”, falsely accusing Ron Paul of wanting to “legalize child prostitution” and being “against children going to school”, attempting to conflate him and his supporters with the KKK and racism, using vulgar language to disparage them, and so forth. These posts go back months. When Kelly Clarkson tweeted that she supports Ron Paul, he repeatedly trolled her Facebook page, accusing her of wanting to burn crosses. Here is a screen shot of some samples.  (Warning: Vulgar language.)

According to his publicly-viewable LinkedIn page (archived here), Brower works for Google as a “Field Operations Specialist”.   He lists his “Specialties” as “Crisis management, social media, media relations, brand specialist, event planning, event management”.  At this point I have seen no evidence that he was acting on behalf of Google or any other entity other than himself, but this connection may at least be worth looking into, especially in light of the ties between Google and the recent uprising in Egypt.

Brower served in the U.S. Army during the mid and late 90′s (possibly as late as 2002, according to one source), and has several older pictures of himself in uniform on his Facebook page.  He is listed on VetFriends.com as having reached the rank of Specialist (SPC).

On Facebook, he lists The Prince by Machiavelli as one of his favorite books.

Throughout 2011, Brower repeatedly voiced his strong support for former candidate Herman Cain on  Facebook and Twitter, and pictures of him with Cain have emerged.  However, it is important to note that I have seen no evidence thus far that he is directly tied to the campaign.  Unless strong and credible evidence emerges tying him to the Cain campaign, it would be unfair to hold Cain responsible for his behavior.  Likewise, it would be totally unfair to try to paint all Herman Cain supporters with a broad brush due to Brower’s shameful behavior.  Every candidate has loathsome individuals supporting them, and it is clear that most Cain supporters — and indeed most people in general — would not contemplate stooping to these kinds of tactics.  (Brower has also Tweeted support for a Donald Trump candidacy, by the way.)

As for Chris Collins, who called Brower’s plan “seriously a great idea” and asked for volunteers: his listed activities include “Jackson County GOP”, “Tea Party Movement”, “Freemasonry”, and “Jefferson Georgia Tea Party Patriots”.  (Again, this does not mean that any of these groups as a whole, or any other members of them, necessarily endorse or even know about what he was plotting with Brower.)

Collin’s page also lists HermanCain.com as a past “employer”.  However, I have found no corroboration for this, so he may just have put that there to show his support.  It’s important to note that anyone can list themselves as being employed by anyone else on Facebook.  Once again, until further evidence comes forward, it is not safe to assume that he actually worked for Cain, and certainly not that Cain is somehow behind this anti-Paul plan.  Recently Collins has been posting lots of anti-Ron Paul and pro-Rick Santorum articles.

Lacrossewatchdog.org has noted that South Carolina has a history of political dirty tricks, such as Karl Rove’s disgraceful “push polling” during the 2000 GOP Primary.

The proposed plot against Ron Paul is similar to one that was carried out against his son Rand Paul during his Senate campaign, when a supporter of Democrat Jack Conway dressed up as a “Rand fan” to try to make Rand Paul supporters look crazy and racist in front of the media, but was later caught participating in a march for Conway. He was subsequently identified as Tyler Collins, a liberal activist who campaigned for Barack Obama.

Similar tactics have also been planned and executed against the “Tea Party movement” by (for example) “anarchist” provocateurs wanting to “act on behalf of the Tea Party” in disgraceful ways in order to “damage the public’s opinion of them”, and fake “Nazi Youth” who crashed a tax day protest by the Santa Fe Tea Party.  Here is a good example of activists with cameras and anti-racism signs non-violently confronting a supposed “KKK” member who infiltrated a “Tea Party” rally in St. Louis, which may be instructive if any such people show up in South Carolina this week.

In South Carolina, Ron Paul has recently surged to 20% in the polls, following his impressive second place showing in New Hampshire, where he garnered 24% of the vote.

(Note: All of the information in this article was already a matter of public record, and much of it was publicly posted to the internet by Brower and Collins.)

TheEndRun.com
January 11, 2012

Given Jon Huntsman’s recent attacks on Ron Paul (including last week’s shameful “false-flag”-style dirty trick), and the media’s sudden decision to shower him with positive press in a transparent effort to manufacture a “Huntsman surge” self-fulfilling prophecy, a lot people have been wondering: Is he, or has he ever been, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR)?

The answer is yes. While his name has not appeared on their roster in recent years, he was a member in the 1990s.

Just to put any doubts to rest, here is a document straight off of the official CFR website (cfr.org) confirming this.  TheEndRun.com has also archived a copy on WebCite here for posterity.

The document lists the various members of the CFR’s “Committees of the Board, 1998–99.” Jon M. Huntsman, Jr., is shown to be a member of the Term Membership committee, which appears to be a subcommittee of the Membership committee.

Just to be clear: Huntsman does not appear to have been a “term member” himself at the time, but rather a “full” member who was apparently helping to oversee and guide the Term Member Program.  In the document, a cross-like symbol denotes a “Designated Term Member”. While individuals like Mark P. Lagon, Dwight F. Holloway, and Puneet Talwart have this symbol next to their name, Huntsman does not.

The Term Member Program was and still is basically the CFR’s recruitment arm and farm team. Men and women in their early 30s are given five year “terms” as CFR members, during which they come under the tutelage of more senior members, who work on training them to be the next generation of globalist, collectivist ideologues and elitist gatekeepers of the status quo for vested interests. The 1999 report explains on p. 81:

The term members of the Council, a group of up-and-coming leaders and thinkers in foreign policy, enjoy a wide variety of programs such as seminars, roundtables, receptions, trips, special private dinners with senior Council members, and an annual conference. … Each year a new class of term members, all U.S. citizens age 34 and under, is elected to a five-year term. Today, the Council has over 400 term members, who are increasingly elected to full membership when their terms expire, thus creating a sustainable source of qualified applicants for reinvigorating the ranks of the full membership.  As the roster of meetings suggests, these young members are dedicated to the Council’s work and are engaged in diverse aspects of U.S. foreign policy.

While Huntsman, the son of a billionaire, has taken to trying to paint himself as an alternative to “the Establishment candidate,” Mitt Romney (Huntsman himself calls Romney that), his history of membership in the CFR makes it easy to understand why the media is propping him up and enthusiastically cooperating with him in shameful attacks against Ron Paul: Huntsman, too, is an Establishment candidate. Given the fact that Huntsman is unelectable, having failed to get on the ballot in three states already, it’s clear that his role is to attempt to tear down the Ron Paul campaign to make way for other Establishment darlings, especially the ruling class’s GOP “heir apparent,” Mitt Romney.

Here is a short video which provides a brief overview of the history of the CFR’s dominance the “mainstream” media, going back many decades.

For a much more in-depth understanding of how the CFR has stealthy dominated the electoral process, and American society as a whole, for nearly a century — and by extension, the significance of Huntsman’s history as a member — I highly suggest reading The Future Is Calling by G. Edward Griffin.  Part Two of the series focuses most directly on the CFR, but it is highly beneficial to read the entire series, starting with Part One. Alternatively, much of the same ground is covered by Griffin in his lecture entitled “The Quigley Formula.”  An mp3 of the lecture can be downloaded by right clicking here and choosing “save as,” and a video version is embedded below.

Huntsman is in stunning lock step with Obama on countless major issues, and so is Mitt Romney (well, at least half the time, since he is a political chameleon with no principles who comes down on opposing sides of many major issues, depending on the which way the wind is blowing.) Neither offer any “change” whatsoever, just as the Obama administration, which is loaded with CFR members, offered no real “change” from the CFR-stacked Bush administration.

Further study:

• CFR Corporate Roster – JPMorgan Chase & Co (founding member), Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. (founding member), Bank of America Merrill Lynch (founding member), Credit Suisse, Lockheed Martin Corporation, American Express, Morgan Stanley, The Boeing Company, Booz Allen Hamilton, Deutsche Bank AG, Northrop Grumman, etc, etc.
• Ron Paul answers question if he is a member of the CFR – He’s not.
• Ron Paul explains his ideological differences with the CFR – “This is an ideological battle”
• Dick Cheney talks about being a CFR member – “I never mentioned that when I was campaigning for re-election back home in Wyoming”
• Hillary Clinton speaks at the new CFR outpost – “It’s good to have an outpost of the Council right here down the street from the State Department. … This will mean that I won’t have as far to go to be told what we should be doing and how we should think about the future.”
]]> http://www.theendrun.com/jon-huntsman-member-council-on-foreign-relations-cfr/feed 0 http://www.theendrun.com/huntsman-complicit-in-false-flag-style-dirty-trick-against-paul http://www.theendrun.com/huntsman-complicit-in-false-flag-style-dirty-trick-against-paul#comments Sat, 07 Jan 2012 00:35:03 +0000 admin http://www.theendrun.com/?p=1488

YouTube stats show that Huntsman’s official website was the first website to post the ridiculous, anonymously created “China Jon” video immediately after it was uploaded, yet Huntsman and the corporate media blame Ron Paul supporters for its creation and call on Paul himself to disown it. Meanwhile, Huntman uses it as a means to play the victim and paint himself as a cosmopolitan hero, with full media cooperation.


TheEndRun.com
January 6, 2012

If you thought it would be impossible for Jon Huntsman and the Establishment media to stoop any lower than they already have in their attempts to marginalize and discredit Ron Paul, you thought wrong.

Just last week, Huntsman’s campaign released a “tacky, glib ‘Twilight Zone’ attack ad in a desperate bid to steal Ron Paul voters,” in the words of Infowars.com’s Paul Joseph Watson.

Now, just days later, a ridiculous, pathetic joke of a video has been posted to YouTube entitled “John Huntsman’s Values.” The one minute video, which was posted two days ago (Jan 4), features clips of Huntsman speaking Mandarin, images of him with his adopted Chinese and Indian daughters, and Photoshopped images mixing Huntsman’s likeness with that of Mao Zedong. (Huntsman was formerly a U.S. Ambassador to China.) The clips and images are interspersed with asinine captions questioning Huntsman’s faith and “American Values,” referencing his adopted daughters, and calling him “The Manchurian Candidate.”

An idiotic video if ever there was one, and a video that would normally get virtually no attention except by people wanting to marvel at the stupidy.

Now for the rub:  The concluding caption is “American Values And Liberty… Vote Ron Paul.”  Starting to smell the stink yet?

The video was uploaded by a user called “NHLiberty4Paul” on Wednesday, January 4. A quick look at the user’s channel page (archived here as a backup) shows that the account was created the exact same day that the video was uploaded.  This brand new, anonymous user has, of course, zero other uploads.



Furthermore, according to the publicly-viewable stats provided by YouTube, the very first place this video was posted was Jon Huntsman’s campaign website, Jon2012.com.  This was done on January 4, the very day the video was uploaded to YouTube, and before the video had received any traffic from other sites.



Huntsman’s people then immediately came out condemning the video and calling on Ron Paul to disavow it, as though he had anything to do with it or even knew about it.  An article published on the website of the Salt Lake Tribute on January 5, the day after it was posted, reads:

Huntsman to Paul: Disavow ‘manchurian candidate’ ad with Chinese daughter

Jon Huntsman’s campaign is asking Rep. Ron Paul to disavow a YouTube spot posted by a supporter that questions whether the former Utah governor is loyal to the United States or China and features shots of his adopted Chinese daughter, Gracie Mei, and an image of Huntsman superimposed wearing a Communist uniform.

“The ad is offensive and the Paul campaign and their supporters should condemn it,” Huntsman spokesman Tim Miller said Thursday night after the clip began circulating.

(Continued here.)

The same day, the video was posted to the front page of RedState.com, where smear artist Leon H. Wolf used it as an excuse to attack Ron Paul and his supporters.   With absolutely no proof and zero skepticism regarding who created the video, Wolf tells his readers that this video was created by “Ron Paul supporters” and provides “yet more evidence that they are mostly liberal Democrats who are mad that Obama has governed too far to the right.”

“Clearly Paul’s supporters are smarting a bit from finishing well behind a guy with no money and no campaign organization in Iowa, which was their one and only chance to win a state, and are letting their true colors show,” Wolf added.

The video was also posted to Breitbart.tv on January 5th, where, again, with zero proof or skepticism, it was attributed it to an “independent group supporting Ron Paul’s candidacy,” and was said to “illustrate some of the more fervent energy on behalf of the candidate.”  They later added:

UPDATE: We’ve received suggestions from some readers that this video was created to “troll” Ron Paul supporters and make them look bad. It appears that the YouTube account was created just one day ago. There is no way to know for sure whether this was created sincerely on behalf of Dr. Paul or as a dirty trick against his followers. As always, we will let our readers decide.

Huntsman himself foreshadowed an upcoming attack on Ron Paul in a recent interview on CNN.  Referring to a recent tweet by a Ron Paul staffer poking fun at his poor showing in Iowa, Huntsman and Piers Morgan laughed through the following exchange:

HUNTSMAN: Just tell Dr. Paul that I owe him a tweet in return, and he should be– he should be expecting one some time soon.

MORGAN: I think you should do what Mitt Romney does and get the dirty work done by somebody else.  In your case maybe your daughters could unleash themselves on Twitter on him.  I think that might be a better way of doing it.  Keep your hands out of it.

HUNTSMAN: They’ve got plenty– they’ve got plenty up their sleeves Piers, and you might be surprised at what they release in the next few days.

MORGAN: No, I’m hearing– I’m hearing noises of more stuff coming.  I can’t wait.

Watch the video here:

Despite all of this evidence that this is a “false flag”-style dirty trick set up by OPPONENTS of Paul with the complicity of — or even at the direction of — the Huntsman campaign, the corporate media is now running with this story and attributing the video to Paul supporters, and in some cases even the actual Ron Paul campaign itself, while allowing Huntsman to play the victim.  Examples:

Huntsman objects to ad by Paul backers featuring adopted daughters Washington Post/AP, Jan 6

Huntsman outraged at ad targeting adopted daughters Reuters, Jan 6
“Republican presidential hopeful Jon Huntsman and members of his family expressed outrage on Friday at an advertisement targeted at his adopted daughters by a group supporting rival Ron Paul.”

Pro-Ron Paul ad mocks Jon Huntsman’s adopted Chinese daughter San Fransisco Chronicle, Jan 6

Jon Hunstman denounces ad showcasing his adopted daughters  Guardian, Jan 6
“Ad posted to YouTube by pro-Ron Paul group labels Huntsman as un-American for adopting girls from China and India”

Huntsman Slams Web Video Featuring Adopted Daughters Fox News, Jan 6
“Republican presidential candidate Jon Huntsman slammed a group purportedly backing Ron Paul after it released a Web video that included footage of Huntsman’s adopted daughters and questioned whether he represented “American values.”

Jon Huntsman objects to video supporting Ron Paul that calls him ‘Manchurian candidate’ Boston Globe, Jan 6

Ron Paul’s Negative Ad Blitz The Atlantic Wire, Jan 6

Cindy McCain, whose husband, Senator John McCain, just endorsed Mitt Romney yesterday, soon jumped in on the action, acting as though this video was posted by Ron Paul’s campaign, tweeting:  “I deeply resent the video made using the adopted daughters of @johnhuntsman. @ronpaul shame on you.”  Fox News and ABC made this tweet headline news.

The Paul campaign has, of course, already explained that they had nothing to do with this video, nor do they support it at all.

Paul’s New Hampshire spokeswoman, Kate Schackai: “The video was utterly distasteful and no one who actually supports Dr. Paul’s principles would have made it”

Paul’s campaign chairman, Jesse Benton:  “The video is disgusting… [whoever] put that up should remove it immediately.”

Nevertheless, CNN’s John King — right after attempting to link Paul to racists and anti-Semites and failing miserably — felt the need to show this video to millions on national TV, with captions calling it a “political ad.”  Paul, of course, denounced the video, and pointed out the absurdity of asking him to answer for it.  He apparently hadn’t even seen it yet. (The relevant section starts around the 6:40 mark, but I recommend watching the full video.)

(John King’s wife, CNN “journalist” Dana Bash, recently let it slip that she is personally “worried” about Ron Paul’s campaign.)

Meanwhile, this story has generated more positive press for Huntsman than money could buy.  Endearing images of him with his adopted daughters are all over the media, along with quotes of him explaining how he heroically saved them from a bleak fate.

Furthermore, one of Huntsman’s (biological) daughters –  the ones who just days ago he hinted had “plenty up their sleeve” and that “you might be surprised at what they release in the next few days” –  has already gone on national TV denouncing the anonymously-created YouTube video (sorry, “POLITICAL AD”, according to Fox News) as “vile” and promoting Huntsman as a family man (video).

This is a priceless Jon Huntsman campaign ad, running in every newspaper and on every TV screen nationwide, for free.  “Cui Bono?”

---

UPDATE #1: Some anonymous person (“AN APPARENT SANTORUM SUPPORTER”!) has now created the YouTube account NH4Santorum and uploaded the same video there, calling on viewers to vote for Santorum.  NH4freedomRomney has also appeared (OBVIOUSLY CREATED BY A ROMNEY SUPPORTER!).  It too features the “China Jon” ad, and calls on viewers to vote for Mitt Romney.  Will the media now ask these candidates to disown the video, or will they suddenly be perfectly capable of seeing how ridiculous that is?  The answer is obvious.

UPDATE #2: A couple months ago, Huntsman’s daughters made a viral video spoofing Herman Cain’s “smoking” ad:

Here is a Washington Post headline from a month later (Dec 1):  “John Huntsman’s strange viral video strategy.“  The article begins, “In their latest video, three daughters of former Utah governor Jon Huntsman rap insults about the rest of the GOP presidential field to the tune of Justin Timberlake’s “SexyBack.”

UPDATE #3: A reader has e-mailed me to point out that the offending “Jon Huntsman’s Values” video was tagged “jon2012girls” by whoever operates the “NHLiberty4Paul” account.



jon2012girls is the online moniker of Huntsman’s daughters, which they use on YouTube and Twitter.  Their Cain “spoof” video carries the same tag.  (Like the info in Update #2, these are just facts – take from them what you will.)

UPDATE #4: Some people are going wild over a thread on a web forum which purports to be an exchange between Huntsman “campaign insiders”, one of whom supposedly got a call from “the big man” himself to thank him/her personally for creating the “China Jon” video.  The thread is an obvious fake/parody.  If it’s not obvious enough just by reading the thing, please note that, earlier today, there were only TWO TOTAL THREADS in the entire “Jon Huntsman Forum” (on this random website which says at the top “Be Anonymous – Registration is not required to post”), including the thread in question.  The other thread was entitled “Great plan to get rid of ron paul supporters …FOREVER!”.  It reads: “Even when ron paul loses big time, his supporters will still be a thorn in the side of the status quo. We need to get rid of these people forever. I propose that after Huntsman is elected, he nukes iran, which will quickly result in WW3. At this time we can force a military draft, ship all them ron paul hippies to the middle east and use them as cannon fodder. JUST LOOK AT THESE NUTS IN THE PICTURE!!! THEY ARE A DANGER TO AMERICAS FREEDOMS” .  Do people really think this is how Huntsman supporters talk?  It’s obvious satire.  These anonymous internet users are not real Huntsman  “campaign insiders”, just like the creator of the “China Jon” video is not a real “Ron Paul supporter”.

UPDATE #5: On Friday, Huntsman’s daughters retweeted Cindy McCain saying “@ronpaul shame on you” to their 20,000+ followers via their “Jon2012girls” Twitter account.  Do you think they’re incapable of understanding that Ron Paul is not responsible for anonymously-created internet videos?



UPDATE #6: Actually, On JANUARY 5TH, Huntsman’s daughters were already using Twitter to disseminate a Wonkette.com article entitled “Paultards Hate Huntsman for Knowing Chinese, Adopting Foreigners” to their 20,000+ followers.  This was one of the very first attack articles written based on the video, if not THE first.  Before linking to the hit-piece, Huntsman’s daughters wrote the following message, addressed to Ron Paul and his campaign personally: “@RonPaul this crosses the line and should be condemned.  Hurtful, spiteful, and un-American.”    This was the day after the video was uploaded and before the media, or even most (if not virtually all) Ron Paul supporters were aware of its existence.  In the next tweet they say they are on their way to a 6pm media appearance, so this tweet to Paul was no later than late afternoon/early evening.  Here is a screenshot of the relevant tweets.

UPDATE #7: The YouTube stats for the “China Jon” video have updated themselves, and it turns out that the very first site to actually embed the video was BuzzFeed.com, whose editors gave it the title “Paul Supporters Launch Insane Attack On ‘Manchurian Candidate’ Jon Huntsman“.

Buzzfeed.com is a website focused on viral media.  Sure enough, a quick Google search within that site shows that they have routinely covered the activities of Huntsman’s daughters.  As a matter of fact, just two days ago BuzzFeed politics published an article entitled “The Huntsman Daughters: A Guide“, and at this very moment as I write this (12:42am EST on Jan 9), the front page of BuzzFeed.com features the article “The Huntsman Daughters Live-Tweet The New Hampshire Debate“.

It also appears that BuzzFeed.com political reporter Zeke Miller may be on their mailing list.  On January 5, the same day BuzzFeed posted the “China Jon” video, Miller tweeted: “In other fundraising news, @Jon2012girls email asking for help supporting “the Huntsman surge”.

Earlier today, the Editor-in-Chief of Buzzfeed tweeted that Paul’s camp “thinks (not unreasonably) that offensive video was a set-up.”

UPDATE #8: It is now three weeks later, and two extremely detailed follow-up articles have just been published: The China Fraud Deconstructed and Twitter Trail Confirms “China Jon” Video as “False Flag”, Points to Huntsman Campaign.

]]> http://www.theendrun.com/huntsman-complicit-in-false-flag-style-dirty-trick-against-paul/feed 0 http://www.theendrun.com/something-rotten-in-iowa-the-hacktivist-threat-timeline http://www.theendrun.com/something-rotten-in-iowa-the-hacktivist-threat-timeline#comments Mon, 02 Jan 2012 02:44:28 +0000 admin http://www.theendrun.com/?p=1335

TheEndRun.com
January 1, 2012

As reported by The End Run yesterday, it turns out that Clarke Davidson, one of the protesters arrested for blocking the door to Ron Paul’s campaign office in Ankeny, Iowa, is the same guy responsible for uploading a video to YouTube calling on activists to “peacefully shut down” the Iowa caucuses this Tuesday, January 3.

The video, supposedly created by “Anonymous” and anonymously delivered to Davidson, is now being used in conjunction with these on-going “Occupy” protests (which have also targeted candidates like Mitt Romney and Barack Obama) as a pretext to move the vote counting for the Jan 3 primary to a secret location.

Given these facts, it behooves us to look more closely at Davidson, the origins of the “Anonymous” video that he uploaded, how it has being utilized by the media and GOP establishment, and how it may be used moving forward.   We are going to do just that, right now.  Let’s look at this chronologically:

OCT 24: Clarke Davidson, an activist with Occupy Des Moines (aka Occupy DSM), gives a writer from the Des Moines Register a video-recorded tour of the group’s elaborate campsite.  Davidson is an A/V expert and former TV producer.  He displays intimate knowledge of the campsite and its goings-on, and shows off some of its technology, including:

1.  A “Disinformation Station”, to “re-educate the public about a lot of misconceptions they may have about what’s really going on”
2.   An “Audio Recording Studio” with “a bunch of condenser mics and computers” and a plasma TV
3.   A “Broadcast Studio” with two Macs, one of which is set up as a “broadcaster” and is connected to the internet via Verizon 4G LTE, which costs them about $210/month ($7/day)
4.   An unfinished “Communications Center”

Oct 29: CNN reports that Occupy DSM is planning to have “activists from across the nation, and possibly beyond, descend on Iowa” and occupy “every presidential (candidate’s) office, shutting them down until they start talking real turkey about what’s going on in this country”.    The protests are to begin on Dec 27 and run up to the day of the Iowa caucuses, Jan 3.  The activists say they do not plan to disrupt the actual caucuses on the 3rd.

NOV 3: Davidson uploads a video to YouTube, which purports to be a transmission from the “hacktivist” group Anonymous.  Like Occupy DSM, it calls on activists to occupy the offices of presidential candidates on Dec 27.  However, it also calls on them to peacefully “shut down” the Iowa caucuses on Jan 3.

NOV 4: Jessica Mazour of Occupy DSM uploads a video of herself announcing Occupy DSM’s plan to activists in NYC and inviting them to “join us in Iowa”.  She does not advocate a plan to disrupt the caucuses on Jan 3.

NOV 6: The Des Moines Register reports on the “Anonymous” video, which begets a story from the Huffington Post as well.  Davidson is not yet identified as the video’s uploader.  Occupy DSM activists say that Anonymous is separate from their group and that the two do not speak for each other.  They once again emphasized that they do not plan to commit violence or interfere with voting.   At least one Occupy DSM activist denounces the video as inconsistent with the kind of transparent, upfront, truthful, nonviolent action that he advocates.

NOV 7: A reporter with the Des Moines Register identifies Davidson as the uploader of the video and interviews him.  Davidson reportedly says that he didn’t create the video, and that, while he was sleeping, it was set outside of his tent at the Occupy campsite (with a note attached) by several men in mustache and goatee masks, who “bumped the canvas” of his tent to get his attention.  (It’s not clear how he knew who delivered it or what they looked like.  Did he immediately go outside and see these alleged masked men walking away?)  Davidson claims: “I don’t really have any ties or connections with the group Anonymous” and “I don’t know that much about it.”

Despite the fact that “caucus organizers” express skepticism about the video’s authenticity, and say that the “decentralized structure of the caucus vote-reporting process would make it difficult for Internet hackers to disrupt tabulations” anyway, this video’s existence means that “federal authorities” will now be working with state and local “officials” to “ensure the presidential caucuses proceed” (because “federal authorities” LOVE a free and democratic society, let me tell you!).  Specifically:

• The FBI is “closely monitoring the situation”
• The “Iowa Intelligence Fusion Center” is also “monitoring” it, and they “continue to share information with local authorities as necessary”
• The Iowa Republican Party is “crafting a new, more error-proof system for the roughly 800 Republican caucus sites to report their results to party headquarters”
•  ”Caucus organizers” are “assessing security procedures”

Even the Governor of Iowa makes a statement on the video.

As a side note, I would be remiss not to note this here:

Iowa officials said they, too, are on heightened alert, but said that so far they don’t believe the video or other actions by possible Anonymous members have involved illegal activities.

The video “in and of itself is not illegal,” said Jim Saunders, director of the Iowa Intelligence Fusion Center, citing free-speech rights. (source)

Since when do Fusion Centers and the FBI care about freedom of speech?  Let me see if I can get this straight…

• If you run the website antiwar.com, or you are a concerned citizen investigating the OKC bombing, you are a domestic terrorist and extremist.
• If you have a Gadsen flag, oppose the Federal Reserve system, voice anger or distrust regarding the federal government, own the documentaries Zeitgeist or Freedom to Fascism, or support Ron Paul, Bob Barr, or Chuck Baldwin for president, you are a dangerous militia member, potential domestic terrorist, and a threat to national security
• If you support  animal rights or the U.S. Constitution, you are a potential domestic terrorist who should be reported to the FBI.
• If you threaten to “shut down” the Iowa caucuses, the FBI and Iowa Intelligence Fusion Center can easily see that you are just exercising your first amendment rights.

NOV 8: Metromix.com publishes an exclusive interview with Davidson, “A drink with: An Occupier”.  They interviewed him because he is part of Occupy DSM.  The “Anonymous” video is not mentioned.

THE NEXT 5-6 WEEKS OR SO: Approximately jack shit happens. Despite this threat supposedly being important enough that the Governor is commenting on it and the FBI and Iowa Intelligence Fusion Center need to step in to “monitor” things and help “ensure the presidential caucuses proceed”, the major national corporate media — AP, CNN, MSNBC, CBS, FOX NEWS, Reuters, etc — do not, as far as I can see, ever report on this story at all, let alone make it headline news.  I also see no follow up stories in the local media either. The story is basically dead shortly after it is first reported (or is it “on ice” until when and if it becomes useful?)

For perspective: Michele Bachmann can’t even eat a corn dog in Iowa without it being reported on by (for example) Reuters, The Joy Behar Show (HLN/Turner), Anderson Cooper (CNN).

DEC 13: Public Policy Polling (PPP) releases their latest Iowa survey with the headline “Paul closes in on Gingrich”.  They say that Ron Paul “has seen a big increase in his popularity” in the state, and “what was a 9 point lead for Newt Gingrich [is] now all the way down to a single point”.  They also say: “There are a lot of parallels between Paul’s strength in Iowa and Barack Obama’s in 2008 – he’s doing well with new voters, young voters, and non-Republican voters.”

DEC 15: Paul appears on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno (video), and raises approximately $3 million in 24 hours during “moneybomb” (and another million over the next two days)

DEC 18: PPP releases a new Iowa poll with the headline “Paul takes lead as Gingrich collapses in Iowa”.  Another poll from Insider Advantage also finds Paul to be the frontrunner.

DEC 19: The news that Gingrich is collapsing in Iowa and Ron Paul is the new front-runner hits the media (example 1, example 2).  Gingrich-linked propagandists promptly launch recycled, bogus “racist” smear against Paul, which the media will go on to hammer relentlessly as headline news for the next week and a half.

That very same day, the AP suddenly publishes an article headlined, “Iowa GOP worried by hacker threat to caucus”.   Variations of the article are immediately published by major corporate news outlets across the country and it becomes a MAJOR story of the day.  For example:

Iowa GOP worried by hacker threat to caucus MSNBC, Dec 19
Iowa GOP worried by hacker threat to caucus Yahoo, Dec 19
Iowa GOP worried by hacker threat to caucus USA Today, Dec 19
Iowa GOP concerned about hacker threat to caucus New York Daily News, Dec 19
Iowa Caucus Polling System Threatened By Hackers Fox News, Dec 19
Iowa GOP worried by hacker threat to caucus vote The Boston Globe, Dec 19

There was no new “threat” that prompted these articles.  They refer to the EXACT SAME VIDEO that was uploaded by Davidson over 6 WEEKS earlier — the one that (as far as I can tell) none of these news outlets reported at the time, or at any point in the weeks that followed.

The AP article begins:

IOWA CITY, Iowa (AP) — Taking seriously an apparent threat from a notorious collective of computer hackers, the Iowa Republican Party is boosting the security of the electronic systems it will use in two weeks to count the first votes of the 2012 presidential campaign.

Investigators don’t know if the threat is authentic, but it has nonetheless led the state party to confront a worst-case scenario. Their fear: an Iowa caucus marred by hackers who corrupt the database used to gather votes and crash the website used to inform the public about results that can shape the campaign for the White House.

It isn’t until halfway through the somewhat lengthy article that the story briefly hints that this is a six week old “threat”, or explain where it comes from.  In the 8th paragraph of the article, the AP writer finally says:

A former activist for Occupy Des Moines, Clarke Davidson, has said he posted the two-minute video on YouTube after masked men left it outside his tent near the state Capitol on Nov. 3.  Other members of the protest group have discounted Davidson’s story and say they oppose any efforts to shut down the vote count.

The language of this paragraph conveniently leaves it ambiguous as to when Davidson actually uploaded the video.  The writer seems to be saying that the video was found by Davidson on Nov 3, but does not make it clear that it was uploaded by him that same day.

The article COMPLETELY fails to explain that local, state, and federal GOP “officials” were aware of this video almost immediately after it was uploaded, and that it was even covered in the local news and Huffington Post at the time.

Here is CNN reporting on it on Dec 20:

As you can see they basically report it as breaking news and totally fail to mention that this video has been online for over six weeks.

It’s also interesting that they report that “other members of the protest group have discounted Davidson’s story” without elaborating.  His story does seem a bit dubious, does it not?  I’m not saying that it’s definitely made up (I have no way to know for sure either way at this point), but wouldn’t you think that if multiple members of his own activist group “discounted” his story, and if the media and authorities really thought this was such a big, serious threat, they would be all over Davidson trying to figure out whether or not he was telling the truth about it being dropped off by “masked men”, and if not, where this video really came from?  Wouldn’t they want to explore the possibility that he and/or someone close to him were the actual creators? (Remember that he’s a video producer?  Remember the “recording studio” and other technology at the Occupy DSM campsite?)

By the way, this same day, Dec 19 — the day that the media announces that Ron Paul is the front runner, the day that the “racist” smear begins, and the day that the “hacker” story is suddenly revived and essentially presented as breaking news — Clarke Davidson and several other protesters try to “occupy” the Iowa Democratic Party HQ and get arrested.  The Establishment media makes this headline news.

Which leads into another point.  Remember: Shortly after the video was uploaded Davidson said,“I don’t really have any ties or connections with the group Anonymous” and “I don’t know that much about it.”

If you watch the actual video on Davidson’s account, three captions have been added post-upload, presumably by him, unless someone else has access to his account:

1. “UPDATE: Anon shutdown Obama’s campaign headquarters in Des Moines, Iowa. Eight Arrested…. 12/19/11.”  Notice that Davidson and the Occupy protesters he was arrested with are referred to as “Anon” (a nickname of Anonymous)

2. “FUCK YOU Punk Cyberkids calling FALSE FLAG Anonymous is a idea and ideas are bullet proof.  OccupyDSM is way more legit then you will ever be.”   The video is supposed to have been created by Anonymous, which is supposed to be separate from Occupy DSM, yet here the two are again conflated.  Also, viewing this as a potential “false flag” of sorts is hardly irrational.

3. “Anonymous does not tamper with election computer systems and results.”  Again, why is he speaking for Anonymous and how does he know what they’re planning if he didn’t create the video, has no connection to Anonymous, and doesn’t even know who anonymously delivered the video to him?  (Anonymous is not a unified entity either, so it’s pretty much impossible to speak for Anonymous even if you are a “member”.)

To be clear, I’m not saying that I think Occupy DSM as a whole is “Anonymous”, or that most of its members know who created this video, approve of it, or have any intention of hacking or otherwise shutting down the Iowa caucuses.  Multiple members have repeatedly said the opposite since the video was first posted.

However, to me, these captions suggest an intent by Davidson and/or whoever else may have added them to conflate “Anonymous” and this supposed “hacker threat” with Occupy DSM.  Or perhaps it just reveals knowledge that “Anonymous” is a faction within Occupy DSM.

DEC 29: Davidson and four other Occupy protesters are arrested protesting outside of Ron Paul’s campaign office in Iowa.  Davidson is holding an “End The Fed” sign, and as he is arrested he claims to be a “Ron Paul precinct captain”.  The same day, the Iowa GOP announces that they are moving the vote counting to a secret location citing Occupy’s activity and supposed concerns about disruptions on caucus day.  (Also reported by The Hill, CNN, The Des Moines Register, and so on)

DEC 31: Twenty Occupy protesters are arrested at the offices of Gingrich, Bachmann, and Santorum (the number arrested was originally reported as 18).   Here is a list of names.  One of them is Clarke Davidson.  The NY Times reports:

Clarke Davidson, 28, taunted the police at the first three stops, dancing and waving a sign that said “End the Fed” at them and then scampering away if they approached. While he stood motionless in front of Mr. Gingrich’s office, two officers grabbed him by the arms and took him away. One of the officers, who had been the victim of one of Mr. Davidson’s taunts earlier, smugly asked “Hey, how are you?” before zip-tying his hands.

At least two of the protesters at these events were wearing the Guy Fawkes masks associated with Anonymous (1 2).



FINAL THOUGHTS:

I find it awfully convenient that Davidson is now showing up with an “End The Fed” banner at these protests and claiming to be a “Ron Paul precinct captain” while getting arrested.  As I noted in a previous article, when he was first interviewed by the Des Moines Register about the video on Nov 7, he claimed to have been a Paul voter in 2008, but he said that he is now thinking that it might not be “ethical” for him to vote for Paul this time around.

Davidson, who grew up in Dallas Center, said he doesn’t find the video troubling or threatening. He caucused for U.S. Rep. Ron Paul of Texas in 2008 but said he is having second thoughts about supporting Paul in the 2012 caucuses.

“I just don’t know if it’s really ethical to participate in those things, like the video says,” Davidson said, noting a section of the video that says voting for either party is unethical.

But the next month he’s claiming to be a “Ron Paul precinct captain”? (while getting arrested for protesting outside of Paul’s Iowa HQ and blocking its door?)

My concern here is that, even though the media has acted conspicuously disinterested in Clarke as the uploader of the “Anonymous” video thus far, if Ron Paul does win, they will suddenly say that the vote was “hacked” or otherwise tampered with, and point to Clarke as evidence that it was done by Paul supporters to steal the election for him.  They will suddenly become very curious about where the video came from, very skeptical of Davidson’s story, and very capable of noticing the dubious details laid out in this article.

The flip side to this is that if someone is planning on trying to “hack” or otherwise rig the vote against Paul, this video Davidson uploaded provides cover for them.  If they succeed, nothing is said – of course the vote wasn’t hacked, and if you think it was you are a lunatic conspiracy theorist who just can’t accept that Paul lost.   If their tampering is detected, it’s “aha, must have been that damn Anonymous.”

I don’t know what Davidson’s story is and whether or not he is totally oblivious to all of this and (in his mind) acting in good faith.  However, it seems to me that — at the very least — he is the perfect “useful idiot” for those who want to stop Ron Paul from winning this election at all costs.  (Note: “Useful idiot” does not mean that he is a stupid person.  It basically means an unwitting pawn.  Click here for more info on the term.)

If ever there was an election that the Establishment would want to steal, it would be this one.  And we know they have stolen elections in the past (less important ones too, in my estimation.)

For what it’s worth, the Iowa GOP paints an optimistic picture of Iowa’s process, calling it “probably the most open and democrat(ic) process you will find anywhere in the country”.  However, we still need to take the potential for voter fraud and/or other dirty tricks, such as a potential “hacked vote false flag” against Ron Paul supporters, DEAD serious on Jan 3.  I hope the Paul campaign is listening.

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