Maybe his staffers just submit the vouchers to the feds to pay on his government credit card. Later, the staffers go thru the invoices and take the checks from the outside payment payers and forward them to the federal government as repayment for flights that were political in nature.

Maybe, but if so why wasn't that proof immediately forwarded to The Hill?

It's not like the opportunity didn't exist to straighten this out immediately when the story broke.

Like I said, I didn't run this back a couple of weeks ago, as I wasn't happy with the charge and lack of specifics. Now it's a bit different, and The Hill not only is refusing to back down, they're upping the ante.

They're pretty damn sure they're right.

Yep - I would doubt that RP is stealing the money. But he should have announced an investigation into the situation immediately. And hiring an independent auditor to come in and go thru the records would have been a good start. Wouldn't surprise me a bit if a staffer was pocketing the money. I say that because I've been thru this in my own company in the past. If you give someone the opportunity to steal there's a good chance they will. Especially if they don't see how it hurts someone else.

Quote:

It's not like the opportunity didn't exist to straighten this out immediately when the story broke.

That's my problem with it. I didn't see this a couple weeks ago and wish I had.

[Edit: But I still think TMD's got it just above this post. I don't think it was intentional. I just don't like the (lack of) reaction.]

Compare this to the other candidates "issues" and it's a flea on an elephants ass. No one is perfect in any way, but when it comes to a lesser evil, there is no comparison in the GOP.

It's funny how they dig up this and we don't hear crap about the other candidates and the real issues. The media is selective in who they assinate, so the issue is mute until they do equal reporting on the other candidates.

Honestly wouldn't bother me if I were a Ron Paul supporter (which I am not).

I've always assumed that any political donation is basically a gift to that person which they can (and will) use any way they want, whether it is on the actual campaign, or hookers and blow.

So this story just doesn't matter to me.

I won't accept the premise that "My thief is not quite as bad as the other thieves."

The only thing that I would accept from Paul at this point would be a statement to the effect that "We'll look into it and report what we find. If there's anything real here, we'll refund the excesses collected, terminate those responsible, and fully support the prosecution of anyone involved in knowingly allowing this to occur".

Anything less taints him as unprincipled, in spite of other good things he may have done and/or advocated.

If, Paul can document his way out of this?? he'll get lots of mileage out of yet another attempted smear. Maybe he's waiting for this story to become even more mainstream before addressing officially.

There's no percentage in sitting on this if you're clean.

We'll know within a few days.

How does a dumb staffer doing dumb things affect Ron Paul?

Does anyone think it has been less than 30 years since he filled out his own expense accounts and has not had a secretary or such do it for him?

Which brings to mind the possiblility that some low level pencil pusher intentionally screwed this up to do election year damage.

I know I'm pulling back from street level to satellite view on this, not at all a "tactical" evaluation of the situation, but maybe it bears some consideration.

It's possible for a politician to be venial and have honorable goals at the same time - I'd vote for Spitzer - but for Ron Paul to run on integrity and then take a hit like this is bad. To some extent I may not care about this issue even, but most people don't see it as a pick your poison proposition, which is unfortunate. I'd prefer a privately immoral man who has a sense of proportion and can see the big picture in his role as a leader than a guy with a possibly clean image that's bought and paid for or just too myopic to take effective action.

Want a fine upstanding moral politcian? There were probably eras when that was completey possible. Right now reminds me of the Hellenistic age - when the Greek experiment with liberty ended. Good men who in previous years would have involved their energies in public life and politics retreated to private life - creating a good company of friends, finding private interests that enriched one's private life and so on. You got a lot of poetry extolling the virtues of a buccollic life AWAY from the cities and therefore politics, philosophies that accomodated the new situation like stoicism & epicurianism, refinements of the classical art styles (as opposed to innovation). There was a last desperate flareup of action as the Romans moved in and the Greeks realized what they were losing - the Ptolmies, Antigonids, Seleducids at least always paid lip service to the idea of Greek liberty. Aegis and his reforms and so on. The Aetolians left hanging out there on their own by the Selucids. Tragic, meaningful, pointless, and quintessentially Greek.

We're entering an age where there's no place in public life for a good man. They'll still exist, but they'll tend their own garden. The politicians of today are fish in water - their nature and their envronment must agree to some extent. In an age like that, a man with any good in him trying to DO any good becomes a gift without measure because even the sociopaths need good men - to create the society that creates the wealth.

How does having a dumb staffer doing dumb things affect Ron Paul?

Well unless he's going to run the executive branch by himself the quality of people he surrounds himself with is certainly something that matters to me.

Probably a case of either 1) staffer is pocketing the money (probably someone he trusted) or 2) bad accounting

My guess is #1 (had this happen to the company I work for..auditors caught it or it may have gone unnoticed for a lot longer than a year and 150k)

How exactly did they get a hold of private Amex records, again? Smells a lot like a smear campaign.

I am a little tired of the Rom Paul bashing that goes on with this site. Why is there never mention of the other candidates and their evil deeds, which are a thousand times greater than anything Ron Paul has ever done. Talk about one sided reporting. With that, I am removing this site from my bookmarks and shall not return, so ban me if you wish, don't give a damn.

Sorry Gen,

But Ron Paul is not a saint. He might be the closest thing that we've currently got on the ballot, but a saint he is not. Of all the crooked bought and paid for by corporate interests politicians out there, the best thing that they could cook up on Paul is double billing on airfare? Really? With Total Informational Awareness this is the scariest skeleton in the closet? Ooook...

Darles_chickens, the problem is that if all the allegations are true as implied, and if Ron Paul did pocket ~70,000 dollars from either supporters or the taxpayers, that is either theft or misuse of donated funds (assuming that in and of itself isn't theft), and Ron Paul supporters to include myself are not keen on supporting thieves in any capacity.

Obviously, though, the story as presented is not the whole story. I've been burned too many times by past attempts to derail support for Ron Paul to do anything but give the man the benefit of the doubt for the time being.

This is mostly based on the word of one person, David James, correct? David james, president of the liberty committee, who's web site has Ron Paul on the home page. Paul's picture, voice, and text as if Paul was associated with the group. I came across this on sourcewatch from 2007:

Rep. Ron Paul has since posted the following on his LibertyPAC website: [3]

"Congressman Ron Paul is no longer affiliated with or associated in any way with The Liberty Committee of Falls Church, Virginia. If you receive a solicitation from The Liberty Committee and/or its chairman, Mr. David James, bearing Congressman Paul's name, please be advised that the solicitation was in no way approved or endorsed by Congressman Paul."

Hummmmmm, don't think I'll pass judgement just yet.

Cwillic--I have to agree a bit. It's Gen's home to do as he wishes but I don't think any RP supporters really believes that he is a saint. We do believe he is infinitely better than the other crop of people that realistically could win in November. RP is about the only person that actually wants to decrease the size and scope of the .gov in the next election and most small government minded folks crucify him.

One of the first questions I always ask when I see a story is 1) what is the writer's motive and 2) how did this information come about. Considering even the MSM hasn't picked up on this yet and they HATE RP...I'm pretty skeptical that this story will yield any wrong-doing on RP's part. Even if I'm wrong, it's almost impossible for RP to even make it Nov.

Double billing comes naturally to physicians! However I would forgive this one because he's got the JUDGE on his team.

I like Paul b/c he's the only one who talks consistently about what matters to me - Constitutional rights, basic economics and common sense.

That doesn't change b/c of this.

I'm curious though, as to over what TIME FRAME these incidents happened. If it's over, like, 20 years, that would be like 2 or 3 travel dupes a year over how many trips? If his admin backup is anything like mine, I could easily see that occurring, given that he probably doesn't audit himself on a day to day basis.

Just saying ...


N/that said, I personally am OCD enough to have caught something like that, but that's just me

Nanna: Under normal circumstances I would catch it too... But think about it a different way. If somebody paid for the gas in your car every time you filled up, and it could be from 2-3 different places, would you catch a double billing a few times a year? (He probably flies as often as you fill up, or even more.)

The key here being that somebody else is always paying for it anyway.

I think I'd be a lot more likely to miss it under circumstances like that....

And, honestly, my opinion is already shifting a good bit. Why hasn't the MSM picked up on this yet? They certainly never hesitated over the racist bull****. Time after time after time to the point they*****ed RP off enough to get him to make a smartass comment and then USED THAT.

Definitely in the category of things-that-make-you-go-hmmmmmm.

Asimov--its actually a lot more complicated than that. From accounting point of view--what if I paid for your gas, food, mortgage, interest, utilities, etc? It's actually fairly easy to miss this kind of stuff if you don't have very strong accounting and technical controls

Ron Paul really rubs some people the wrong way. It's weird to me, but it is what it is. They will pick out anything and use it against him as a weapon, they just want to see him discredited.

Magus: Understood. I was trying to put his plane flights on a level with something we all do quite frequently.

And brings me back to something again....

Why hasn't RP said anything meaningful about this? That makes absolutely no sense either. Unless he knows it's bull**** and, remembering the racist crap, is just waiting to destroy the first real reporter to ask him about it.

I just can't see him as a lying thief. Can any of you?

At the end of the day, all the candidates are career politicians, and as such, they are all heavily soiled goods.

There's no getting away from that, no matter what their names are.

Getting 'uppity' because you are oversensitive to any criticism of your particular favourite heavily soiled goods, is ridiculous.

Vote the damned lot out.

Nothing is going to get fixed until you do.

eta: PS. I do know what it is like, because a friend and neighbour, of over 20 years, that 'used to be' the right side of the fence, has become a career politician, has jumped over the fence, and become an unprincipled, dishonorable, lying scumbag, who will now tell you anything he thinks you want to hear.

When that doesn't work, rather than face the truth, he will just ignore you.

Don't expect better of any of them.

Letting them kid you along is bad enough, but kidding yourself is worse.