Clueless Santorum Tries to Copy Ron Paul

Rick Santorum is out with a new economic plan that includes a call for:

[An]  audit of the Federal Reserve and return to it’s original purpose – a single charter to only manage inflation.

Sound familiar? He is trying to grab from Ron Paul's playbook by calling for an audit of the Fed, but has no clue that the original purpose of the Fed was just as bad as what the modern day Fed has morphed into. It makes no sense to return to the original purpose of the Fed The Fed was founded to create inflation. As Murray Rothbard wrote in The Mystery of Banking:

The new Federal Reserve System was deliberately designed as  an engine of inflation, the inflation to be controlled and kept uniform by the central bank.

This management of inflation causes the boom-bust cycles that we see in the economy. Rothbard again:

[New York Fed Governor Benjamin] Strong pursued an inflationary policy throughout his reign, first during World War 1, and then in spurts of expansion of the bank reserves in the early 1920s, 1924 and 1927...With the Federal Reserve System established and in place after 1913, the remainder of the road to the present may be quickly sketched.....Fed inflation led to the boom of the 1920s and the bust of 1929...

This is what Santorum wants to return to?

Ron Paul is calling for an audit, because the Fed has been up to even more mischief since its founding, but this in no way means that he wants to bring the Fed back to simply its original purpose of inflating the money supply and causing the boom-bust cycle.

Santorum's call for a return to just the original purpose of the Fed shows just how clueless he is about the subject.

He is basically saying, "Let's return the Fed to the days when it created the boom-bust cycle that ended up creating the Great Depression."

Scary.

New Ron Paul Ad on Rick Santorum Betrayals

Santorum as Typical DC Opportunist

Bloomberg reports that former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum , has come a long way from from being one of the poorer members of the U.S. Senate to earning $1.3 million between January 2010 and August 2011. How did he do it? Mostly by providing access, after he lost his Senate seat.

Here's Bloomberg:

Santorum’s financial rise was powered by consulting contracts with fuel producer Consol Energy Inc, faith advocacy group Clapham Group and American Continental Group, a Washington consultancy, as well as media engagements. 

“If he’s claiming he’s not an insider, this is the thing that insiders do -- after public office they cash in,” said Kent Cooper, a campaign finance expert and former Federal Elections Commission assistant staff director. 

Outside of his employment contracts, Santorum’s greatest financial gain came from $395,414 in director fees and stock options he listed in a recent financial disclosure.

The fees and options came from King of Prussia-based Universal Health Services Inc., a publicly traded health-care management company that was sued in 2010 by the federal government for alleged Medicaid fraud. 

When Santorum left office after the 2006 defeat, he was earning a $165,200 congressional salary with $32,245 in outside income from book royalties.

His assets, primarily investment funds, were valued at between $20,000 and $125,000. “For the Senate, once you get below a couple million, you’re one of the less wealthy,” said Cooper.

After leaving office, Santorum signed on with a number of outside companies and organizations, bringing in $1.3 million from January 2010 through Aug. 2 of last year, according to disclosure forms. His home in the Washington Virginia suburbs has four bedrooms, five bathrooms and sits on five acres of land.

Santorum listed his assets, including IRA accounts, education savings plans and stock as being worth between $339,000 and $1.3 million. His five rental properties in State College, Pennsylvania, are worth another $500,000 to $1.25 million, according to the disclosure report that allows wide ranges for revealing income and asset values.

He earned $217,385 in income as a senior fellow for the conservative Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington and $346,152 for columns in the Philadelphia Inquirer and appearances on News Corp.’s Fox and Salem Radio in California. Smaller amounts came from the company consulting agreements, with Consol Energy paying the most at $142,500, during the period from 2010 to Aug. 2, 2011.

He was also hired in 2007 to work in the Washington office of Pittsburgh law firm Eckert Seamans Cherin & Mellott  and left in May 2008, according to firm spokeswoman Karen Come. She didn’t disclose a reason for his departure. 

The $395,414 Santorum brought in from his relationship with Universal Health is his biggest post-Congress monetary gain, other than his employment contracts, according to the Center for Responsive Politics in Washington.

The Justice Department accused the company in a 2010 lawsuit of submitting fraudulent reimbursement claims under the Medicaid health-care program for the poor. The government said the company falsely claimed to have provided inpatient psychiatric services to children at a detention facility in Marion, Virginia. Pantaleoni said the case has been settled. 

Santorum (surprise) resigned from the board June 15, 2011, as he prepared for a presidential run.

Santorum continued to maintain his home in Penn Hills, Pennsylvania. According to Sloan, Santorum received a preferential $500,000 mortgage on the home from Philadelphia Trust Company, where he didn’t hold any bank accounts. Officers at the company had contributed to Santorum’s re-election campaign.

The Senate Committee on Ethics never responded to Sloan’s complaint and Santorum left office shortly thereafter after losing his seat

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Ahem, It Turns Out There Was a Computer "Glitch" in Iowa

Here's an interesting report from National Journal and the real-time coverage from CNN at that point. It doesn't in itself prove chicanery, perhaps the opposite. But, here is what is known for the record, though perhaps a little more about this computer "glitch" and how extensive it was needs to be researched and how many other precinct numbers were just "called in" because of the "glitch".

As Iowa caucus watchers entered the wee hours, waiting to see whether Rick Santorum or Mitt Romney would win, the woman with the answers was fast asleep. Edith Pfeffer, the Republican chairwoman in Clinton County, held the crucial votes from the 2nd Ward's second precinct that would ultimately determine the winner.

But at 1:30 a.m., Pfeffer had retired to sleep in a room without a phone. She couldn’t hear the calls from the Romney campaign, CNN, or her friend Carolyn Tallett, who soon came to ring her doorbell and pound on her windows. 

Pfeffer said she reported the numbers at 11:20 p.m. to a Romney worker in Clinton County, who told her that there had been a computer glitch in getting the numbers to Des Moines. But the state party headquarters needed a second confirmation--after Pfeffer had gone to bed.

“You cringe a little bit,” Pfeffer told NPR in speaking of how she awoke. “And the next thing I knew, someone was pounding on the windows and I thought, ‘What is going on?’ And I got up to see Carolyn running in my front yard.” 

Pfeffer and Tallett then called state party headquarters to confirm the precinct’s votes and spoke by phone to CNN's John King as he tallied the votes live. King told the two women that their numbers did not match what the state was reporting, an indication that they held the missing piece that ultimately determined Romney the winner.
Watch Pfeffer's and Tallett's call with CNN:

It may have just been a glitch, since Ron Paul observers were supposedly posted at all precincts, but that's 1774 precincts. Still interesting.

As Expected, David Gregory of 'Meet the Press' Calls It a Two Person Race

Between Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum. This despite the fact that the Santorum "surge" occurred before anyone has had a chance to take a look at him. Friends who know Santorum tell me that once the stories come out on this guy, he will flame out. He will get the evangelical vote, but that will be all.

Here's Gregory. He is forced to mention Ron Paul in the start of the clip, but then throws him down the memory hole and calls it a Romney-Santorum race.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Must Read: Why Rick Santorum's Nephew Says Vote for Ron Paul and Not His Uncle

The trouble with my uncle, Rick Santorum

By John Garver

If you want another big-government politician who supports the status quo to run our country, you should vote for my uncle, Rick Santorum. America is based on a strong belief in individual liberty. My uncle’s interventionist policies, both domestic and foreign, stem from his irrational fear of freedom not working.

It is not the government’s job to dictate to individuals how they must live. The Constitution was designed to protect individual liberty. My Uncle Rick cannot fathom a society in which people cooperate and work with each other freely. When Republicans were spending so much money under President Bush, my uncle was right there along with them as a senator. The reason we have so much debt is not only because of Democrats, but also because of big-spending Republicans like my Uncle Rick.

It is because of this inability of status quo politicians to recognize the importance of our individual liberties that I have been drawn to Ron Paul. Unlike my uncle, he does not believe that the American people are incapable of forming decisions. He believes that an individual is more powerful than any group (a notion our founding fathers also believed in).

Another important reason I support Ron Paul is his position on foreign policy. He is the only candidate willing to bring our troops home, not only from the Middle East, but from around the world.

Ron Paul seems to be the only candidate trying to win the election for a reason other than simply winning the election.

Read the rest here.

HOT: "Error" on Poll Results Put Santorum Ahead of Ron Paul

Run Ron Paul reports:

With just days remaining until the all-important Republican Iowa caucuses, a left-leaning political newspaper based near the nation’s capital made a critical error in reporting the results of the final Des Moines Register opinion poll before voters gather Tuesday.

On Saturday evening Politico incorrectly reported that the poll showed former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum “climbing to second [place] at 21 percent and Ron Paul in third, with 18 percent.” In fact, Paul took second place with 22 percent of the vote. Santorum was third with 15 percent.

The faulty report was issued via email as a “Politico Breaking News” alert. Politico sent a second email shortly afterward with the correct poll results, stipulating that “[t]his breaking news alert corrects a previous breaking news alert...Phone messages left for four top Politico editors were not returned. A fifth, reached by phone, would not speak on the record but promised a return call from someone who would. No such call was received.

The Rick Santorum Surge

Friends tell me the Rick Santorum surge was orchestrated by the political elite to get his name out before the Iowa caucuses, but not enough time for scrutiny of Santorum before the Iowa caucuses. I'm told politically active evangelical leaders were used as a tool to get the word out on Santorum.

So what's the real story on Santorum?

"Total nut job," is what one person familiar with Santorum tells me. Details will come out in up coming days and weeks.

Bottom line: Santorum will flame out long before Super Tuesday.

Krugman ID's Santorum as a Tool of the Koch Brothers

Does Paul Krugman have a future as an analyst of the power elite? He nails Rick Santorum, but I'll be impressed when he applies his power elite analysis on both the left and the right. He writes:

...reliable conservatives are assured of a safe landing even if they are defeated.

Consider the case of Rick Santorum, rather humiliatingly beaten in 2006. What came next?

The Ethics and Public Policy Center is delighted to announce that the Honorable Rick Santorum is joining EPPC as a Senior Fellow. Mr. Santorum will establish and direct a program, titled America’s Enemies, that will focus on identifying, studying, and heightening awareness of the threats posed to America and the West from a growing array of anti-Western forces that are increasingly casting a shadow over our future and violating religious liberty around the world.

And who funds the Ethics and Public Policy Center? Just who you’d expect: a couple of Richard Mellon Scaife foundations, the Koch brothers, etc..

Follow the money.

I am also forced to give Krugman points for calling it, in the title to his post, "Wingnut Welfare"