What does Rand Paul believe? His recent foreign policy address, a thinly veiled audition for his 2016 presidential candidacy, made one thing plain: Paul wants to scale back American involvement in foreign wars. To understand why, you have to understand where his ideas come from. Paul is the heir to a tradition, dating at least back to the 1890s, of conservative non-interventionism: the idea that it is not America's place to be involved in the affairs of the world. The history of this movement is complicated. So I spoke to Daniel McCarthy, editor of prominent non-interventionist magazine The American Conservative, about the non-interventionist movement's history — and its influence on Paul.

Paul doesn't call himself a non-interventionist. In his recent foreign policy address, he used the phrase "conservative realism" to describe his approach to the world. But according to McCarthy, the branding is Rand's attempt to make non-interventionism palatable to the modern Republican electorate, which has a pretty hawkish worldview. "Even though he likes the non-interventionist roadmap, he's willing to deviate from it if he thinks it's realistic in policy terms, let alone political ones," McCarthy says.

In practice, that means you'll see Paul defending some pretty aggressive policies (e.g., his declaration that "I support a strategy of air strikes against ISIS") even while staying on the non-interventionist side of the Washington consensus (e.g., opposing arming the Syrian rebels and ground troops). It wasn't always that way. In the past, Paul wouldn't have needed to qualify his non-interventionist position so much. The American conservative mainstream was once far more skeptical of the use of American force abroad than it was today.

This rising Republican star Rand Paul combines a dull, reassuring manner with a Ukip-like insurgent appeal. It could take him to his party’s presidential candidacy

Tim Stanley
1 November 2014

When America’s National Institutes of Heath said that it hadn’t cured Ebola yet because of budget cuts, Senator Rand Paul had an acidic answer. No, he told an audience of Republicans, the problem was not underfunding. It was bad priorities. ‘Have you seen what the NIH spends money on?’ he asked. ‘$939,000 spent to discover whether or not male fruit flies would like to consort with younger female fruit flies. $117,000 spent to determine if most monkeys are right-handed and like to throw poop with their right hands.’ And best of all, $2.4 million for an ‘origami condom’, which suggests something shaped like a swan. In fact, it’s modelled on the accordion.

This anecdote is a great introduction to Rand Paul — a libertarian with a sense of humour and a range of views that you’d imagine make him a pariah in the conservative movement. He is antiwar, wants a softer approach to tackling narcotics and has been a vocal critic of the national security establishment. Yet polling shows that he could be the Republican presidential nominee in 2016 because, like him, a lot of Americans are furious at the tragic farce that is their government. To understand the rise of libertarianism, you have to understand where Paul came from and where America is headed.

Key to Rand Paul’s success is that he looks normal. Say ‘libertarian Republican’ to many people and they picture a guy in a tinfoil hat who keeps one too many guns in his Wyoming tree house. Such a constituency indeed exists, and it worked hard for Rand’s father, Ron, when he ran for the Republican nomination in 2008 and 2012. Ron Paul wanted to end the War on Terror completely and reduce government to a size that could be safely drowned in a bathtub. He blamed 9/11 on the government’s nannyish refusal to allow guns on aeroplanes. Rand inherited his father’s ideology and interest in medicine (Ron’s an obstetrician-gynaecologist, Rand an ophthalmologist). But where Ron’s crowd was loud and abrasive, Rand has done his best to cultivate a far more mainstream image.

We’re surprised at how many people ask why we, as Republicans, are working to change our criminal justice and prison systems. Why wouldn’t we?

We must change our current system – a system that drains tax dollars, destabilizes families and, worse, isn’t making us any safer. That’s why we have joined other Republicans, law enforcement officials, crime victims and many others in support of Proposition 47, a California ballot initiative that will prioritize incarceration resources for serious and violent crime, while investing savings in proven crime-prevention approaches.

This common-sense measure epitomizes an important trend in our country. There is a growing consensus among Americans from all political persuasions and walks of life that we must replace ineffective, unfair and expensive incarceration practices with new, smarter approaches to keeping communities safe.

The United States has 500 percent more people today in its prisons and jails than 30 years ago. Our general population certainly has not grown at this rate (it rose only 36.3 percent from 1980 to 2010); the real driver has been “tough on crime” laws that sent more people to prison for longer terms.

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WASHINGTON—The White House is considering two central requirements in deciding which of the nation’s 11 million illegal immigrants would gain protections through an expected executive action: a minimum length of time in the U.S., and a person’s family ties to others in the country, said people familiar with the administration’s thinking.

Those requirements, depending on how broadly they are drawn, could offer protection to between one million and four million people in the country illegally.

The deliberations follow President Barack Obama ’s promise to act to change the immigration system, after legislation overhauling immigration law died in Congress.

All legislative powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives.

The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States; but all duties, imposts and excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;

To borrow money on the credit of the United States;

To regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states, and with the Indian tribes;

To establish a uniform rule of naturalization, and uniform laws on the subject of bankruptcies throughout the United States;

To coin money, regulate the value thereof, and of foreign coin, and fix the standard of weights and measures;

To provide for the punishment of counterfeiting the securities and current coin of the United States;

To establish post offices and post roads;

To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries;

To constitute tribunals inferior to the Supreme Court;

To define and punish piracies and felonies committed on the high seas, and offenses against the law of nations;

To declare war, grant letters of marque and reprisal, and make rules concerning captures on land and water;

To raise and support armies, but no appropriation of money to that use shall be for a longer term than two years;

To provide and maintain a navy;

To make rules for the government and regulation of the land and naval forces;

To provide for calling forth the militia to execute the laws of the union, suppress insurrections and repel invasions;

To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the militia, and for governing such part of them as may be employed in the service of the United States, reserving to the states respectively, the appointment of the officers, and the authority of training the militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;

To exercise exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever, over such District (not exceeding ten miles square) as may, by cession of particular states, and the acceptance of Congress, become the seat of the government of the United States, and to exercise like authority over all places purchased by the consent of the legislature of the state in which the same shall be, for the erection of forts, magazines, arsenals, dockyards, and other needful buildings;--And

To make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers, and all other powers vested by this Constitution in the government of the United States, or in any department or officer thereof.

Sen. Paul (R-KY) has been to 30 states in the last 12 months leading up to the midterm elections to help U.S. Senate, U.S. House, gubernatorial, and state and local Republican candidates nationwide. He has keynoted state GOP conventions in Texas, California, Idaho, and Maine and rallied students at colleges and universities, ranging from the conservative University of South Carolina to liberal Berkeley to the bellwether Universities of Iowa and New Hampshire—and many in between.

He’s been leading inner city GOP efforts in Detroit, Chicago, and even the race-riot-rocked Ferguson, Missouri. Paul was the only national elected Republican who spoke at the National Urban League conference. Reince Priebus, the chairman of the RNC, also spoke there.
For someone who has not run for president—at least not yet—Paul’s probably been the GOP’s most visible and most sought after surrogate this year.

“We’ve been getting a lot of requests, and people reach out because they think we can get voters beyond the Republican Party, we can reach independents, and in the last final days of elections, elections go one way or another based on undecideds,” Paul said. “That’s where the real power is in politics—in those who can sway the uncommitted. I think a lot of the invitations we’ve gotten, frankly, are because they think we can have influence on the independent voters.”

I'm not very familiar with Circle.  How does it compare with Coinbase? What are the major differences? 

If you have ever been to or traveled through Arnolds Park, Iowa, chances are you have seen or at least heard of Mrs. Lady’s Mexican Food. Known for it’s large portions and low prices, this family-owned, cash-only restaurant has become a staple for those living in Dickinson County.

Carole Hinders has made an honest living owning and operating Mrs. Lady’s for the last 38 years. But in August of 2013, everything she saved—roughly $33,000—was seized by the Internal Revenue Service. Hinders has not been charged for tax evasion, or money laundering—in fact, one year later, she still has not been charged for any crime at all. The IRS claims her bank account was seized solely because she was depositing less than $10,000 at a time. Last time I checked, making small cash deposits into a personal checking account is not a crime.

According to the New York Times, the IRS seized Hinders’ honest living by enforcing an "increasingly controversial" law known as civil asset forfeiture. This law allows property to be seized if it is suspected of being connected to criminal activity. The problem is, law enforcement is not required to explain what the criminal activity is, much less prove that the person is guilty of such activity.
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When I took office, I swore to uphold the Constitution and protect our Bill of Rights. This is why I have introduced the Fifth Amendment Integrity Restoration (FAIR) Act, which would protect the rights of citizens and restore the Fifth Amendment’s role in seizing property without due process of law.

The FAIR Act would change federal law and protect the rights of property owners by requiring that the government prove its case with clear and convincing evidence before forfeiting seized property—so that honest, hard-working Americans like Carole Hinders are not left broke or trapped with debt.

Under the FAIR Act, state law enforcement agencies will have to abide by state law when forfeiting seized property. Finally, the legislation would remove the profit incentive for forfeiture by redirecting forfeitures assets from the Attorney General's Asset Forfeiture Fund to the Treasury's General Fund.

The federal government has made it far too easy for government agencies to take and profit from the property of those who have not been convicted of a crime. The FAIR Act will ensure that government agencies no longer profit from taking the property of U.S. citizens without due process, while maintaining the ability of courts to order the surrender of proceeds of crime.

I will continue to do all I can to protect the rights of Americans and ensure that their Fifth Amendment rights are no longer infringed upon.
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It is necessary to present an alternative to the bipartisan foreign-policy consensus that has caused the United States to bounce from one ill-conceived military intervention to the next, with results that range from inconclusive to disastrous. Since the most extreme version of that consensus dominates Republican thinking, it would be optimal for the alternative to take root in the GOP.

To be a real alternative, it cannot simply be another set of views some Republicans could conceivably hold. It must be politically viable, palatable to sufficient numbers of the GOP nominating electorate to successfully put forward more than the occasional House backbencher.

Furthermore, this foreign policy must command enough assent from governing elites that qualified professionals would exist to implement it in the event sympathetic politicians were elected. And it must be a foreign policy that could actually work, not one that waves away genuine national-security threats or pretends that United States could become Switzerland.

That means politically this foreign policy must be able to galvanize the biggest constituency for peace within the Republican Party—the libertarians, constitutional conservatives, and other noninterventionists who backed Senator Paul’s father in the last two presidential campaigns. At the same time, it must be accessible to a larger swathe of the Republican rank-and-file.
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So what does Paul’s alternative foreign policy actually look like? He is skeptical of wars for regime change that seek to overthrow regional bad actors like the governments of Iraq or Libya, and also of arming rebels in an effort to influence the outcomes of civil wars in which there is no obvious pro-American side.

Paul is willing to use military force to contain and deny a territorial base to the kinds of Islamic radicals who attacked the United States on 9/11. But he also recognizes that some interventions can end up empowering those radicals: directly by inadvertently helping weapons fall into the hands of the very people we are trying to defeat or creating power vacuums they can fill, or indirectly by inflaming anti-Western passions that help terrorists recruit.
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Yet with Hillary Clinton looming as the likely Democratic nominee and most other Republican presidential hopefuls still singing from the same Bush-era song sheet, a lot is riding on whether Paul can resurrect conservative realism.
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By Steven Nelson Oct. 27, 2014 | 3:10 p.m. EDT + More

Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., may follow in his father’s footsteps not only by seeking the Republican presidential nomination, but also by receiving the Libertarian Party’s ballot line.

Members of the Libertarian Party are bracing for an internal struggle over whether to back the libertarian-leaning senator if he appears poised to win the Republican nomination in 2016.

Paul is unlikely to directly seek the third party’s support, but could win it anyhow through the work of eager activists like those who worked the campaigns of his father, former Texas Rep. Ron Paul, a GOP presidential contender in 2008 and 2012 and the Libertarian nominee in 1988.

A co-nomination from one of the nation’s most significant minor parties could help Paul - if he’s the Republican nominee - avoid losing hundreds of thousands of votes to an ideological ally. In some states, his name would appear twice on ballots.

The guys a slimeball who back stabbed his own dad last time around. You do remember that right? He failed to support his old man against the others and instead went with a mainstream candidate.

Not that any of it matters. As someone pointed out earlier the whole thing is a farce to give people the illusion of freedom and choice.The only person who could have made a difference (and actually did somewhat) was Ron Paul; that is someone whos really top shelf all the way around.

Getting back on track:

Yeah this has been mentioned already. My bet is on a mega long period of time of price around 300, then a big big rally towards 2000.