Farewell. The Flying Pig Has Left The Building.

Steve Hynd, August 16, 2012

After four years on the Typepad site, eight years total blogging, Newshoggers is closing it's doors today. We've been coasting the last year or so, with many of us moving on to bigger projects (Hey, Eric!) or simply running out of blogging enthusiasm, and it's time to give the old flying pig a rest.

We've done okay over those eight years, although never being quite PC enough to gain wider acceptance from the partisan "party right or wrong" crowds. We like to think we moved political conversations a little, on the ever-present wish to rush to war with Iran, on the need for a real Left that isn't licking corporatist Dem boots every cycle, on America's foreign misadventures in Afghanistan and Iraq. We like to think we made a small difference while writing under that flying pig banner. We did pretty good for a bunch with no ties to big-party apparatuses or think tanks.

Those eight years of blogging will still exist. Because we're ending this typepad account, we've been archiving the typepad blog here. And the original blogger archive is still here. There will still be new content from the old 'hoggers crew too. Ron writes for The Moderate Voice, I post at The Agonist and Eric Martin's lucid foreign policy thoughts can be read at Democracy Arsenal.

I'd like to thank all our regular commenters, readers and the other bloggers who regularly linked to our posts over the years to agree or disagree. You all made writing for 'hoggers an amazingly fun and stimulating experience.

Thank you very much.

Note: This is an archive copy of Newshoggers. Most of the pictures are gone but the words are all here. There may be some occasional new content, John may do some posts and Ron will cross post some of his contributions to The Moderate Voice so check back.


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Thursday, January 27, 2011

Rand Paul on Foreign Aid

Commentary By Ron Beasley


Yesterday I noted that the only thing a majority of Americans want to cut is foreign aid and made this observation:



Even foreign aid is a problem - Israel gets the lions share.  I wonder how cutting that will go over.



Well Rand Paul has told us what he thinks.


Rand Paul: End foreign aid, including Israel



U.S. Sen. Rand Paul wants to end all foreign assistance, including aid to Israel.


Paul, a Republican newly elected in Kentucky, was on CNN Wednesday outlining where he would cut the $500 billion in government spending he says is critical to sustaining the U.S. economy. His focus was on the departments of energy, education and housing.


Interviewer Wolf Blitzer then asked about foreign assistance, asking if he wanted to end "all foreign aid." Paul said yes, and Blitzer asked him about aid to Israel.


"Well, I think what you have to do is you have to look," Paul said. "When you send foreign aid, you actually [send] quite a bit to Israel's enemies. Islamic nations around Israel get quite a bit of foreign aid, too.


"You have to ask yourself, are we funding an arms race on both sides? I have a lot of sympathy and respect for Israel as a democratic nation, as a, you know, a fountain of peace and a fountain of democracy within the Middle East."


Blitzer pressed, "End all foreign aid including the foreign aid to Israel as well. Is that right?" he asked.


Paul answered, "Yes."



Foreign Aid is used more often than not as a bribe - a way to prop up one of our friendly tyrants so they would play nice with our corporations and help us with at least lip service politically.  Much of the money frequently ended up in foreign bank accounts so the tyrant could live comfortably after he was forced out of office.     Rand Paul, like his father Ron, frequently sounds like a lunatic but at times makes sense:



You have to ask yourself, are we funding an arms race on both sides?



The answer of course is yes and the winner is the US defense industry.


Update


Here's the video:











Paddy may have it right:



This is one of those things that you can think, but man are you in a world of hurt if you say it.



This is not going to make Rand Paul real popular with the Republican Party.  It's difficult enough for the Republicans to claim to be Israel's best friend when a big chunk of the base is anti-semetic.  This won't help.



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3 comments:

  1. SeanJanuary 28, 2011 at 3:26 AM

    I am a liberal democrat but agree completely with Ryan on this one.
    Why do we go out and borrow $3 Billion a year to give to Israel. They are a sovereign modern country. If they can't balance their budget why don't they go and borrow $3 Billion from Chinese???

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  2. DonJanuary 28, 2011 at 5:19 AM

    Even a stopped watch is right twice a day.
    If course I disagree with him on just about everything else, including his reasons for being right on aid to Israel. We can't fund one side in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, proclaim our undying friendship with one side in the conflict, and then claim to be an honest broker of peace between the two sides.

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  3. James M. MartinJanuary 28, 2011 at 3:26 PM

    Has anyone checked Rep. Paul's religious affiliation? He sounds like an evangelical, and a Dominionist at that. These geeks want to hurry up the multiple mutually assured annihilation of the world so that they can be raputured up to "God." If you cut off aid to Israel, Tel Aviv gets jumpy and thinks we've sold them out to Mideast Oil. They then attack Iran because Obama is the only thing between their doing it now. The conflagration sets off a chain reaction, Pakistan bombing Israel, and...well, you get the idea. The riots in Egypt are fundamentalist Islamic in motivation. The new regime, run by mullas, can close the canal. It goes on and on as one asshole after another attacks his neighbor. Chris Hitch is right: religion poisons everything.

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