Google “Pulls” Ron Paul Tax Article?

Was it a chilling act of de-facto censorship, or just a “computer glitch?” Within two hours of its appearance yesterday, search engine giant Google removed an article about Ron Paul, the IRS, and the Federal Reserve from its database.

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by creator
(Libertarian)
Friday, April 18, 2008

♣ Media Paranoia Department

Call me paranoid, but please don’t stop reading just yet; I have seen this kind of thing happen more than once, and whatever the cause, it raises some serious questions.

I published a news article yesterday - Thursday - about a San Diego Meetup event which I attended on Tuesday. The article is “Ron Paul Meetup Enlightens San Diego Tax Lemmings,” and the Nolan Chart website database placed this time-stamp on the article:

Last saved: 2008-04-17 13:26:25

As I often do, I polled the Google News search engine to see if the article would appear (they do not always appear.) Sure enough, within a matter of minutes, Google spiders had crawled Nolan Chart, picked up the article, and made it available to anyone searching for “ron paul.” Fine and good so far.

I then searched “Sorted by relevance” and was pleased to see my article on the “ron paul” front page, second from the top.

However, I went back about two hours after the article’s original posting on Nolan Chart and found that Google had “mysteriously” pulled its reference to the article.

Within that two hour span, the article had been visited by over 200 readers, and favored with ten “Thumbs Up”s - a readership response that is hard to match on those rare occasions when Google does not index an article. However, when an article is not listed by the engine whose very name has become synonymous with “search,” unless it is spread virally, readership remains quite low. I did in fact see readership drop dramatically when the listing vanished.

Polling Google occasionally after the disappearance, I saw the article reappear momentarily, only to vanish once more. Perhaps that fleeting view was a copy of the evidently offending entry that had not quite been purged from Google’s distributed database farm?

From personal experience, it is evident to me that it is Google that drives the bulk of web traffic to the Nolan Chart site and its articles. This is, in my humble opinion, a two-edged sword. It’s great when an article is indexed by Google, and not so hot when it is not.

How could this have happened? Technically, removing a listing cannot quite be called “censorship” because Google is a private corporation and can index material or not as it pleases. But it begs the question: Was this a “computer glitch” or has Google possibly already been co-opted by the Internal Revenue Service and the “powers that be” who wish to maintain the hegemony IRS has over the populace?

Which would be easier: using legislative and judicial powers to restrict free speech, or “working with” the existing commercial information channels to be “selective” about what is disseminated?

You do the math.

In the past, I have seen Google “just not pick up” on some articles. The most recent example of this is “Ron Paul, Friend of April Fools and Taxpayers,” an article containing extensive information for readers who want to learn about the Tax Honesty movement. You may want to read and bookmark that one, as Google, for whatever reason, doesn’t want to help you with that.

In some cases, my suspicions were allayed when I discovered that there may have been some “automatic/technical” reason for the omission, as explained by Google themselves here. In other cases I have wondered. Yesterday’s circumstance however seemed to me at the time to be by far the most blatant evidence to date that “something might be up.”

As I am putting the final touches on this article, Google’s “technical glitch” has in fact been corrected. Last I looked, it is now possible to find “Ron Paul Meetup Enlightens San Diego Tax Lemmings” in Google’s indexed database. It somehow “reappeared” after about a two hour absence yesterday.

Even so, please consider the implications of any one entity having near complete control over your ability to locate information. Also bear in mind that “Ron Paul, Friend of April Fools and Taxpayers” still remains unlisted (at the time of this writing) if you search for “ron paul” and “april fools.”

Will Google index this article about its own shortcomings? Will it list it briefly and then “pull it” once a human member of the “thought police” actually perceives what it is about? Just how sophisticated is Google’s system and setup for regulating incoming material? Is it pure coincidence that I have seen this kind of problem, most frequently, with articles about the IRS? I welcome comments on the matter, especially from anyone with authentic “inside knowledge” of Google’s policies and technology, published or otherwise.

Most “Ron Paul rEVOLutionaries” have (justifiably) come to despise the “Mainstream Media,” but we should also be aware of the danger of getting our internet search information from a single source, as I have written about before in Google Meltdown? Where’s Ron? and other articles.

Whether this was a “technical glitch” or some darker behind-the-scenes manipulation, in my humble opinion it is PAST TIME for us to develop distributed and uncensored search engines.

© 2008 Dann McCreary (aka creator)
- Permission to copy with attribution granted

HOW TO GET RON PAUL NOMINATED - ANYWAY

This is not the time to back off and just haggle about resolutions and platforms at state and national conventions. It’s time to FIGHT!

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by Alex Wallenwein
(Conservative)
Friday, April 18, 2008

A Strategy

Some Meetups are already giving up hope (Not 360, Baby!!) , but there is a way for us to get Ron Paul the nomination, and it is absolutely doable.

In a nutshell: If enough delegations sit out the first and second vote, McCain won’t get his required majority, and the national convention will become a brokered one- which means anything goes.

There are two main hurdles to accomplishing this:

1. To be even presented for nomination, Ron must be able to “demonstrate the support” of a majority of the delegates from at least five states.

2. Getting enough state delegations to sit out the first two votes won’t be easy but it is totally within the realm of the possible!.

What depresses so many delegates is that in order to even be selected as delegates to go to the National Convention, they are required by state party rules to sign a pledge that they will “support” John McCain. That is not the end of the story, however.

The only consequence of that is that a delegate’s vote for anyone other than McCain will simply not be counted.

That’s all!

There are no legal ramifications for breaking that pledge. There are only possible ethical concerns. These ethical concerns, however, are completely swept aside by the possibility of simply NOT VOTING the first time around.

The RNC’s party rules expressly contemplate and acknowledge that State Delegations may choose to sit out a vote. Rule 37c states:

(c) In balloting, if any delegation shall pass when its name is called, then at the conclusion of the roll call all delegations which passed shall be called in the order herein before established. No delegation shall be allowed to change its vote until all delegations which passed shall have been given a second opportunity to vote.

That means (a) it’s ok to abstain from voting, and (b) the only consequence is that the passing delegation(s) must be given another chance to vote before any other delegations are released from their pledges.

The Big Challenge:

The big hurdle to climb is the requirement of paragraph (b) of Rule 40, which states that in order to even be presented for nomination, a candidate must be able to demonstrate the support of a majority of the delegates of at least five states. Here is the rule:

(b) Each candidate for nomination for President of the United States and Vice President of the United States shall demonstrate the support of a majority of the delegates from each of five (5) or more states, severally, prior to the presentation of the name of that candidate for nomination.

The rule does not define what precise “demonstration of support” is required. In other words, it is not necessary that Ron Paul must have won a majority of the “beauty contest” (popular primary) vote in five states in order to be entitled to all their delegates.

What is a demonstration of support?

A candidate can ask that the delegations of five states where he believes he has enough support be polled by roll call so as to enable him to demonstrate that he has the support of a majority of delegates then and there at the National Convention.

That means we have to get to work on the delegates of each state after the state conventions are over.

Many Republicans hate McCain, or at least dislike him.

There is a huge arsenal of issues on which McCain has exposed himself as a sell-out to conservative Republicans: national sovereignty, free speech (McCain/Feingold), amnesty, guns, abortion you name it, he has voted against conservative values on these.

There is also evidence he “sang” in Vietnam, costing untold numbers of his fellow POWs their life.

It should not be too difficult to convince conservative delegates not to vote for him with that evidence especially in light of the fact that the party rules explicitly contemplate the “passing” of votes by state delegations!

The Strategy:

The strategy therefore must be to get as many Ron Paul delegates selected to represent their state at the National Convention.

That means our delegates need to stay low key.

Resolutions are a dead giveaway, especially when they are fought over things like opposition to the war, or abolishing the Federal Reserve and the IRS, all signature issues of Ron Paul.

So, the best plan is to shut up, move along, do what you ave to do to get selected, sign the pledge to “support” McCain (it doesn’t say you promise not to abstain!) and just get in short of outright lying, of course.

If there are any ethical concerns about this supposed “stealth tactic”, think about what ethical concerns you may have if you allow McCain to become president by your inaction.

Old guard Republicans may complain about supposed “stealth” or deception-but what is it their preferred candidates do when they swear in their oath of office to “support and defend” the Constitution and then do the opposite?

What is more unethical?

What is more damaging to the country?

What is more destructive of the very foundation of our government and our way of life?

My question is: As long as there is even a sliver of a chance to get Ron Paul the GOP nomination why give up??

Why resign yourself to debating endlessly about the fine points of endless party resolutions and platforms knowing they are routinely ignored, anyway?

These party honchos and their favorite sell-out candidates constantly ignore and violate even our Constitution! What makes you think they won’t utterly ignore whatever provisions we manage to get into the national party platform?

Is that worth the price of being spotted and “marked for death” by the party honchos at the state conventions? I don’t think so.

Not when you consider what’s really at stake.

So, please, please, please don’t give up! Ron Paul still has plenty of fight left in him at his advanced age. Why shouldn’t we?

Let’s fight for what’s important (Ron Paul winning) - not for what routinely gets ignored!

Alex Wallenwein