Rand Paul is a man of conviction. His reputation for acting on principle is the foundation on which he has begun to build the infrastructure of a presidential campaign. It is very difficult, however, for a man of conviction to adjust his image without compromising his reputation for integrity.

In the realm of foreign policy, Senator Paul faces the challenge of dispelling perceptions that he shares the isolationist tendencies of his father, former congressman Ron Paul of Texas. He wants to convince conservative voters that he has been mislabeled and misunderstood. His approach to foreign affairs has not changed, yet Senator Paul now presents his views as applications of Ronald Reagan’s firm but cautious approach to national security.

The Achilles’ heel of this rebranding effort has been Paul’s own candor. When speaking off the cuff, he has made observations that seem to reflect the worldview of President Reagan’s left-wing and isolationist critics. In that vein, Paul suggested that the United States provoked Japan before Pearl Harbor and that Dick Cheney supported the invasion of Iraq in order to make a profit for his former employer Halliburton.

Now there is the strange case of Paul’s reading list for students, which can be found on his official Senate website. The foreign policy section of the list consists entirely of works that blame the United States for the rise of Islamic extremism while offering solutions that verge on isolationism. Most of the books also express a sharp hostility toward Israel and toward those who believe that U.S. foreign policy should serve the cause of human freedom. Reagan, to put it mildly, was a friend of Israel and advocate of freedom.

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The Road to Serfdom, Friedrich A. Hayek

The Conscience of a Conservative, Barry Goldwater

Human Action, Ludwig von Mises

Conceived in Liberty, Murray N. Rothbard

Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand

The Revolution: A Manifesto, Ron Paul

End the Fed, Ron Paul

A Foreign Policy of Freedom, Ron Paul

Meltdown: A Free-Market Look at Why the Stock Market Collapsed, the Economy Tanked, and Government Bailouts Will Make Things Worse, Thomas E. Woods Jr.

HHS SEC: BEDS FOR ILLEGALS CAN COST FEDS UP TO $1K
At a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing Wednesday, President Barack Obama's Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Sylvia Burwell said that beds for illegal immigrant children can cost the federal government up to $1,000 per bed.

While asking the senators to approve the Obama administration's request for $3.7 billion to deal with the border crisis, Burwell said that beds can cost $250 to $1,000, and the supplemental funding was needed so the federal government can enter into more cost-effective contracts.

There have been at least 57,000 illegal immigrant children who have unlawfully entered the country since October of last year, and Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson said he expects nearly 30,000 more to enter before October of this year. Federal officials have estimated that at least 150,000 more illegal immigrant children will attempt to enter the country in the next fiscal year.

Obama seeks brisk passage of border children funding bill

President Obama’s new border spending request will pay for schooling, health care and lawyers for the unaccompanied illegal immigrant children surging across the border, officials told Congress on Thursday as they pleaded for quick action on the $3.7 billion package.

Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson said Congress must approve the money this month, saying that if nothing is done before lawmakers leave for a monthlong August vacation, one of his agencies will have to cut its other immigration enforcement in order to hold and transport the children.

A militia has set up a command center south of San Antonio to prepare for what they say is a mission to protect the United States from the influx of illegal immigrants.

The militia, operating via the website PatriotsInformationHotline.com, founded by Barbie Rogers, said members at the command center in Von Ormy will deploy to Laredo first and spread to other parts of the border, a local ABC affiliate reported.

Chris Davis, the 37-year-old commander of the group, would not disclose how many members make up the militia, but said the troops would deploy “in a few weeks.”

“We have patriots all across this country who are willing to sacrifice their time, their monies, even quit their jobs to come down and fight for freedom, liberty and national sovereignty,” Mr. Davis told the station.

Customs and Border Protection said in a statement that it “does not endorse or support any private group or organization from taking matters into their own hands as it could have disastrous, personal and public safety consequence,” the station reported.

“CBP appreciates the efforts of concerned citizens as they act as our eyes and ears. Securing our nation’s borders can be dangerous. Interdicting narcotics and deterring and apprehending individuals illegally entering the U.S. requires highly trained law enforcement personnel,” the statement said.

According to the Patriots Information Hotline, there are 4 credible militia operations on the ground currently in Texas.

That is a good point, but it is true that Holder's justice dept finally lightened up even if it took a while.  That is a little something.

What is very interesting to me is that Holder's 'operation choke point' targets a lot of things, but almost seems to coddle the medical (chuckle) marijuana industry.  I've not formulated any good hypothesis for their fairly 180 degree turn on this issue.  Whatever the reason is, I'd not be at all surprised if it has some nefarious character to it.

Man I truly hope her quote gets the proper attention it deserves.  This issue on the border is insane and should not be happening.  The federal government is openly failing to follow the law and defy the will of their citizens. 

By stressing the opposite option — reductions in legal immigration — during his campaign against Cantor, victorious economics professor Dave Brat has suddenly given hope to the many members of Congress whose immigration policy vision for wage-earning Americans has been blocked by their parties’ leaders. Echoing themes articulated tirelessly by Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., Brat argues for dramatic cuts in future visas for immigrant and other foreign labor, The purpose is to allow the labor supply to tighten, raise wages and make it more likely that employers will recruit from the neglected American populations in today’s economy.

This is a prescription that has worked well in the past. Perhaps the most stunning example was 100 years ago, when the outbreak of World War I abruptly stopped a three-decades-old massive importation of immigrant labor into the United States.

Northern manufacturers responded by aggressively recruiting, training and employing the still-living freed slaves and their descendants. Since the 1880s, manufacturers had virtually ignored this source of workers, preferring to send ships to Europe to bring in immigrants to expand their factories. But 1914 began a domestic people movement from plantations to cities that has been celebrated in literature and art as “The Great Migration.” It was the start of a decades-long mass movement of black Americans into the non-agrarian economy of the nation and the building of a large black middle class. But it happened only after easy access to foreign labor was removed.

Brat’s campaign focused on the current three-decades-long surge in immigration. He views the country’s over-supply of working-age adults — constantly engorged by more than a million new immigrants each year — as offering employers little market-based reason to figure out how to hire from groups of Americans with low labor participation rates.

MCALLEN, Texas—Illegal aliens are being allowed to fly on commercial airliners without valid identification, according to the National Border Patrol Council (NBPC). “The aliens who are getting released on their own recognizance are being allowed to board and travel commercial airliners by simply showing their Notice to Appear forms,” NBPC’s Local 2455 Spokesman, Hector Garza, told Breitbart Texas.

“This is not the CBP [Customs and Border Protection] or another federal agency renting or leasing an aircraft, these are the same planes that the American public uses for domestic travel,” said Garza. “This just adds insult to injury. Not only are we releasing unknown illegal aliens onto American streets, but we are allowing them to travel commercially using paperwork that could easily be reproduced or manipulated on any home computer. The Notice to Appear form has no photo, anyone can make one and manipulate one. They do not have any security features, no watermark, nothing. They are simply printed on standard copy paper based on the information the illegal alien says is the truth.”

Are the walls getting eaten or pulled?

William Binney is one of the highest-level whistleblowers to ever emerge from the NSA. He was a leading code-breaker against the Soviet Union during the Cold War but resigned soon after September 11, disgusted by Washington’s move towards mass surveillance.

On 5 July he spoke at a conference in London organized by the Centre for Investigative Journalism and revealed the extent of the surveillance programs unleashed by the Bush and Obama administrations.

“At least 80% of fibre-optic cables globally go via the US”, Binney said. “This is no accident and allows the US to view all communication coming in. At least 80% of all audio calls, not just metadata, are recorded and stored in the US. The NSA lies about what it stores.”

Rosa Leal de Pérez, the first lady of Guatemala, believes the influx of illegal immigrant children into the United States has nothing to do with violence.

Ms. Pérez said the reason thousands of unattended children are fleeing north is to be reunited with their families in the United States. She said U.S. immigration policies are breaking families apart and creating a humanitarian crisis.

by Rand Paul
July 11, 2014

A friend of mine's brother was convicted of a felony for growing marijuana plants in his college dorm. Thirty years later he still can't vote and his felony record prevents him from getting a good job.

Because of his story and others like it, I introduced bipartisan legislation to restore federal voting rights for non-violent offenders upon release from prison.

This week, I introduced another piece of legislation with Senator Cory Booker to make some reforms to the criminal justice system that will help non-violent individuals reintegrate into society and secure employment.

Both of these bills will reform existing federal law to allow low-level offenders a second chance. These ideas will both allow the restoration of the right to vote and the opportunity to remove a permanent blot preventing employment for those released after non-violent punishment.

First, we should restore voting rights to non-violent ex-offenders upon release, so they can vote in federal elections. This is an issue that I feel strongly about.

This past February, I testified before the Kentucky Senate to urge a Kentucky constitutional amendment to restore voting rights to many ex-offenders upon release.

The war on drugs has disproportionately affected men and women of color; minorities are nearly four times more likely to be arrested for certain nonviolent drug offenses, like drug possession, even though surveys show that white Americans use drugs at the similar rate. This is a travesty.

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