Just moments ago, I spoke by phone with Ron Paul press spokesman Jesse Benton regarding a $500 contribution made to the campaign by notorious neo-Nazi Don Black (first exposed here on LST).

The conversation was friendly and professional, and I thank Mr. Benton for getting back in touch with me and being willing to go on the record.

What follows is a paraphrased summary of the questions asked and Benton’s responses (questions were not asked verbatim, but basic thrust was communicated; answers were read back to Benton to assure accuracy and allow him an opportunity to clarify or expand).

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Can Paul confirm that the donation widgets appearing on Stormfront are the result of the site owner’s actions, not the campaign’s?

Yes, absolutely. The donation widgets are freely available to the general public, and anyone can put them on their website without the knowledge of the campaign. We are not advertising on Stormfront.

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Will Paul take measures to block Stormfront as a referring URL to his own website, so that no future donations can possibly flow into his campaign from a site that serves as the on-line nexus of neo-Nazism?

Will Paul ask his own web-staff to trace past donations that were made by anyone arriving at his campaign’s webpage from Stormfront, so that these contributions can be rejected?

Will Paul explore if there are any legal actions available to try to remove his donation widget from Stormfront, and if so pursue them?

We hadn’t thought of these options, but I’ll bring up these ideas with the campaign director.

Blocking the IP address sounds like a simple and practical step that could be taken.

I doubt there is anything we can do legally.

Tracking donations that came from Stormfront’s site sounds more complicated. I’m concerned about setting a precedent for the campaign having to screen and vet everyone who makes a donation.

It is important to keep in mind is that we didn’t solicit this support, and we aren’t interested in spending all of our time and resources focused on this issue. We want to focus on Dr. Paul’s positive agenda for freedom.

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At the very least, will Paul personally state publicly, vigorously and unmistakably that he rejects the support of white supremacists, and that he will not knowingly tolerate their involvement with his campaign in any form or to any degree?

Until three days ago, neither Dr. Paul nor anyone else in the campaign had any idea who Don Black was or is. We’ve never met or communicated with him. We did not solicit his support.

It is certainly unfortunate that the campaign’s donation banner is on his site. We’re not rushing to spend a lot of time reading what’s over there, but what you’ve described is certainly repugnant, and completely anathema to everything Dr. Paul stands for.

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Bottom line- Will the Ron Paul campaign be rejecting the $500 contribution made by neo-Nazi Don Black?

At this time, I cannot say that we will be rejecting Mr. Black’s contribution, but I will bring the matter to the attention of our campaign director again, and expect some sort of decision to be made in coming days.

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There you go America-what say you?

Oh, no! The Halloween Party on Castro Street has been canceled!

This Halloween, the Glindas, gladiators and harem boys of the Castro — along with untold numbers who plan to dress up as Senator Larry E. Craig, this year’s camp celebrity — will be celebrating behind closed doors. The city’s most popular Halloween party, in America’s largest gay neighborhood, is canceled.

I guess Rudy will have to find another place to wear his latest dress. But why is the party being canceled?

The once-exuberant street party, a symbol of sexual liberation since 1979 has in recent years become a Nightmare on Castro Street, drawing as many as 200,000 people, many of them costumeless outsiders, and there has been talk of moving it outside the district because of increasing violence. Last year, nine people were wounded when a gunman opened fire at the celebration.

Because it is no better than any other drunk fest where people let their inhibitions get completely out of control.

More interesting to me, the whole concept of having special gay sections of cities, termed gayborhoods, is going out of fashion as homosexuals seek acceptance in the general community.

At the same time, cities not widely considered gay meccas have seen a sharp increase in same-sex couples. Among them: Fort Worth; El Paso; Albuquerque; Louisville, Ky.; and Virginia Beach, according to census figures and extrapolations by Dr. Gates for The New York Times. “Twenty years ago, if you were gay and lived in rural Kansas, you went to San Francisco or New York,” he said. “Now you can just go to Kansas City.”

In the Castro, the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender Historical Society held public meetings earlier this year to grapple with such questions as “Are Gay Neighborhoods Worth Saving?”

I’ll answer that last question - NO. People are tired of in your face activism on the part of homosexuals. What you do in the privacy of your home is your business, I just don’t need it in my face if I want to watch a movie or catch some live music in Houston’s Montrose area.

Amanda Rankin, a 40-year-old tourist from Hamilton, Ontario, was taking a “Cruisin’ the Castro” walking tour with three lesbian friends the other day.

“In America there still seems to be a lot of sexual repression left over from Puritanism and the pilgrims,” Ms. Rankin said. “Then there’s San Francisco.”

Yeah, sure, I’m repressing your sexuality if I don’t support the Folsom Street Fair. Got it.

Some people are blaming the demise of gayborhoods on the Internet.

Doug Sebesta, the group’s executive director and a medical sociologist at the San Francisco Department of Public Health, said, “I’ve had therapists who have told me they are asking their clients to go back to bars as a way of social interaction.”

The Internet is not a replacement for a neighborhood where people are involved in issues beyond themselves, said John Newsome, an African-American who co-founded the group And Castro For All after the Badlands incident. “There are a lot of really lonely gay people sitting in front of a computer,” he said.

Heh.

Last week, we reported on the Chronicle’s intent to lay off five percent of its workforce. Now, Houstoned tells us just who is getting the axe:

Among the familiar names taking the buyouts are Louis B. Parks of the features section and Salatheia Bryant and Melanie Markley of the news side.

Among those leaving in a less voluntary manner are Steve McVicker, the former Houston Press reporter who’s been bird-dogging the HPD crime-lab scandal, and Thomas Korosec, the former Dallas Observer reporter who has been the Chron’s Dallas bureau.

Banjo Jones has more names:

Andrew Guy (features), Judy Minshew (editorial), Valarie White (business secretary), Bruce Westbrook (features) and Patty Reinert in Washington, we’re told.

REDACTED PER CORRECTION FROM BANJO JONES; PLEASE SEE UPDATE BELOW

Layoffs have been a regular event at Houston’s Bleeding Information Source, with a 10 percent cut in 2004 and a 7 percent cut in 2005,

But hey, look at the bright side. Chronicle editor Jeff Cohen has his handicap down to a 9. Nice shooting, Jeff!

[Hat-tip: blogHOUSTON]

UPDATED-  Banjo Jones has issued a correction to his earlier post, which we reproduce below in full:

Bruce Westbrook has contacted us to say we were wrong in reporting he’s gonna sue the Houston Chronicle for alleged age discrimination. We regret the error and at his request have edited any mention of him off the incorrect post that went out earlier today and which, unfortunately, was picked up by a Web site frequented by many, many journalists around the country, as well as a few other Web outlets.

We’re sorry.

All we can say is the person who relayed the erroneous information to us gave us some bum info.

Our apologies to Mr. Westbrook. Good luck to you, sir.

From us here at LST as well.

In what is becoming an all to familiar alliance, President Bush and Congressional Democrats are trying to shove the Law of the Sea Treaty (LOST) down our throats again. This beast has a history going back to the 1970s and seems to rear its ugly head every decade or so:

The Law of the Sea Treaty originated in the 1970s as part of the United Nations’ redistributionist agenda known as the “New International Economic Order.” The convention covers such issues as fishing and navigation, but the controversy arose mainly over seabed mining. In essence, the Law of the Sea Treaty was designed to transfer wealth and technology from the industrialized states to the Third World.

Two decades ago, President Ronald Reagan ignored criticism of American unilateralism and refused to sign the treaty. U.S. leadership caused the Europeans and even the Soviet Union to stay out. Many Third World states eventually acknowledged the treaty’s many flaws.

But treaties attract diplomats as lights attract moths. The first Bush and Clinton administrations worked to “fix” the treaty, leading to a revised agreement in 1994. Washington signed, leading to a cascade of ratifications from other countries. GOP gains in Congress, however, dissuaded the Clinton administration from pushing for ratification. Now George W. Bush has stepped in where Bill Clinton feared to tread.

So what’s so bad about this treaty? Well, many things, but here’s a major one:

At its center is the International Seabed Authority. The Authority (as it calls itself) supervises a mining subsidiary called the Enterprise, ruled by an Assembly, Council, and various commissions and committees. Mining approval would be highly politicized and could discriminate against American operators. Companies that are allowed to mine would owe substantial fees to the Authority and be required to do surveys for the Enterprise, their government-subsidized competitor.

Anyone with half a brain should be able to look at the nest of vipers known as the United Nations and know that giving any “international authority” the right to control our commerce is insane. And we even have veto power of the UN! It gets worse. Not only can we be prevented from mining but, since we have the technology, the “Authority” can force us to provide the technology to nations that don’t have those capabilities:

However, “sponsoring states” — that is, governments of nations where mining companies are located-would have to facilitate such transfers if the Enterprise and Third World competitors are “unable to obtain” necessary equipment commercially. Depending on the whims of the Authority, ensuring the “cooperation” of private miners could look very much like mandatory transfers.

The best part is have to pay for our own rape!

The Authority, though so far of modest size, would suffer from the same perverse incentives that afflict the U.N., since the United States would be responsible for 25 percent of the budget but easily outmaneuvered.

In a FrontPage Magazine article today Frank Gaffney, Jr. wonders where the US media is on this, despite the Republican leadership in Congress in lockstep against it:

According to Senator Jon Kyl, the entire Senate Republican leadership is now opposed to a controversial treaty supported by the president and an implausible alliance of special interests – from the U.S. Navy to Greenpeace. At a joint press conference last Wednesday, he was one of several Senators to declare that, as a result, supporters would be unable to muster the necessary 67 votes for ratification of the Law of the Sea Treaty (LOST). Yet, it seems not one of the “establishment” media organs felt moved to report these momentous political developments.

More extraordinary still is the apparent news-blackout concerning the fact that virtually every Republican presidential candidate (with the surprising, and hopefully ephemeral, exception of Rudy Giuliani) has announced either outright opposition to the Treaty or deep misgivings about its inevitable effect: conferring more power on international organizations at the expense of U.S. sovereignty. Apart from a front-page article in the Washington Times last Friday and postings by an array of on-line news outlets, bloggers and a couple of newsletters, the so-called “mainstream media” have denied the American people virtually any information about LOST’s growing difficulties.

Yet another reason (in a long line of reasons) why Rudy Tutti won’t get my vote. Another interesting thing is that the Democrat-controlled Senate is holding classified hearings with only “official” (read favorable) witnessess:

Then there is the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. It did manage to hold a hearing on LOST, but it was a classified session and only featured official witnesses. Unsurprisingly, all of them supported ratification. What is surprising, though, is Chairman Jay Rockefeller’s uncharacteristic acceptance at face value of representations by executive branch officials like Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell. Based on such testimony, Sen. Rockefeller recently signed a letter with GOP Vice Chairman Kit Bond declaring that U.S. adherence to the Treaty would have no negative implications for U.S. intelligence. While there are strong arguments to the contrary, like Mr. Biden, Sen. Rockefeller has no time for a second opinion that might produce inconvenient truths.

As things stand now, the Foreign Relations Committee’s inaccurate and unbalanced record will be the only public one Senators have to go on. Formal requests made by Sen. Jim Inhofe, a senior member of the Senate’s Armed Services and Environment and Public Works committees, asking them to examine the Treaty’s myriad repercussions for matters within their jurisdiction are going unanswered.

So, in what seems to have become all too common, start contacting your Congressmen and kill this monstrosity. Here’s a handy dandy link to help out.

More facts are emerging surrounding the issue of Mexican owned and licensed trucks crossing the border.

But more than 1,000 south-of-the-border companies are already allowed to drive cargo beyond the border zone under a long-standing exemption to the U.S. moratorium on Mexican long-haul trucking.

And these Mexican drivers and trucks have had better driver and vehicle safety records than their U.S. counterparts in recent years, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation — although opponents say many violations never get recorded because of sloppy government record-keeping.

Isn’t it interesting how every time something comes to light that puts Mexican trucks on equal footing with American units, the facts are dismissed because of “sloppy government record-keeping”?

Opening the highways has long been a goal of both the United States and Mexico. Promoters say it will create new business opportunities on both sides of the border and make international trade more efficient. Trucks were supposed to begin rolling both ways in 2000 under the North American Free Trade Agreement, but interest groups in the U.S. blocked it. Meanwhile, Canadian truckers face no such restrictions.

Why is one country’s trucks free to roam our interstates but another country’s trucks aren’t? Safety? Not according to the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration.

Of the exempted companies, 859 were active from 2003 to 2006, and their drivers and trucks were subject to U.S. inspections for violations that would put them out of service until corrected. The “out-of-service” rates for long-haul Mexican trucks was 21.3 percent, compared with 23.5 percent for U.S. trucks, and the rate for Mexican drivers was 1.2 percent compared with 7 percent for U.S. drivers, said FMCSA communications chief Melissa Mazzella DeLaney.

But like I said, facts are easily dismissed by opponents.

“We simply think they’re making stuff up as they go along,” said Todd Spencer, executive vice president of the U.S.-based Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association.

Of course they’re making this up! Everyone knows that the FMCSA is nothing more than a puppet for the Bush administrations goal to form a North American Union! Oh, and fire doesn’t melt steel. Really.

 Come in and set a spell, stranger!

We’ll have you smiling in no time. 

(but put the smoke out before you enter) 

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