GOP - Rand Paul's Presidential Highlight Reel w/ his Libertarian Twist

[Chef Ramsay]

Rand Paul to Michelle Obama: Look at me — I’m at Dunkin’ Donuts

By Cheryl K. Chumley
Friday, October 17, 2014

Sen. Rand Paul took a playful jab at Michelle Obama and her healthy eating initiatives that condemn all types of junk food, tweeting to her handle to let her know the location of his first New Hampshire stop — Dunkin’ Donuts.

He wrote, to his nearly half a million followers: “Just arrived in Manchester, New Hampshire. First stop: @DunkinDonuts cc: @MichelleObama,” The Hill reported.

He didn’t specify his menu choices — but the jab was obviously at Mrs. Obama’s “Let’s Move!” anti-obesity campaign.

The first lady has fielded considerable fire from schools, parents and hungry students who say her cafeteria dictates are costing a lot of taxpayer dollars, usurping the roles of mom and dad and leaving diners — particularly athletes, who have higher calorie needs — outright starving.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/oct/17/rand-paul-to-michelle-obama-look-at-me-im-at-dunki/

[Bit_Happy]

Rand Paul to Michelle Obama: Look at me — I’m at Dunkin’ Donuts

By Cheryl K. Chumley
Friday, October 17, 2014

Sen. Rand Paul took a playful jab at Michelle Obama and her healthy eating initiatives that condemn all types of junk food, tweeting to her handle to let her know the location of his first New Hampshire stop — Dunkin’ Donuts.

He wrote, to his nearly half a million followers: “Just arrived in Manchester, New Hampshire. First stop: @DunkinDonuts cc: @MichelleObama,” The Hill reported.

He didn’t specify his menu choices — but the jab was obviously at Mrs. Obama’s “Let’s Move!” anti-obesity campaign.

The first lady has fielded considerable fire from schools, parents and hungry students who say her cafeteria dictates are costing a lot of taxpayer dollars, usurping the roles of mom and dad and leaving diners — particularly athletes, who have higher calorie needs — outright starving.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/oct/17/rand-paul-to-michelle-obama-look-at-me-im-at-dunki/

People should be free to make bad choices, and Donuts are a very bad option.

[DhaniBoy]

Who will win this poll, whether republican or democrat, who later would lead the Americans, of course, is that we expect people who are not credible and loved by his subjects, I hope this poll is not manipulated by the media, so that the American people will get a leader were actually elected by the people and loved by the people, hopefully ... 

[Argwai96]

Rand Paul to Michelle Obama: Look at me — I’m at Dunkin’ Donuts

By Cheryl K. Chumley
Friday, October 17, 2014

Sen. Rand Paul took a playful jab at Michelle Obama and her healthy eating initiatives that condemn all types of junk food, tweeting to her handle to let her know the location of his first New Hampshire stop — Dunkin’ Donuts.

He wrote, to his nearly half a million followers: “Just arrived in Manchester, New Hampshire. First stop: @DunkinDonuts cc: @MichelleObama,” The Hill reported.

He didn’t specify his menu choices — but the jab was obviously at Mrs. Obama’s “Let’s Move!” anti-obesity campaign.

The first lady has fielded considerable fire from schools, parents and hungry students who say her cafeteria dictates are costing a lot of taxpayer dollars, usurping the roles of mom and dad and leaving diners — particularly athletes, who have higher calorie needs — outright starving.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/oct/17/rand-paul-to-michelle-obama-look-at-me-im-at-dunki/

The article is correct to say that many children do have a much higher then "normal" calorie need as they participate in sports and otherwise have a high metabolism. I don't think a one size fits all approach is appropriate for the diets of children. I would say that the best solution would be to get children to go outside more and be more active. 

[Chef Ramsay]

Rand Paul Addresses American Academy of Ophthalmology Conference
Today, Oct 20th 2014

Dr. Paul has championed ophthalmology priorities such as repeal of the sustainable growth rate, preserving office-use access to compounded drugs, and derailing problematic quality measures for ambulatory surgical centers. Dr. Paul also serves on the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee.

The transcript of his remarks as prepared for delivery can be found below.

TRANSCRIPT:

Good morning. It really is a pleasure to be here with you all today. It's great to be with normal people for a change. I work in a city where logic is the exception and dysfunction the norm. DC is so dysfunctional we can't even pass things we agree on. I have a bill that I co-sponsor with Harry Reid and I can't even get a vote on that.

When I think of how screwed up DC is, I think of what Groucho Marx said about politics: "The art of politics is looking for problems everywhere, finding them, misdiagnosing them, and applying the wrong remedies."

Being here in Chicago with fellow physicians is a big improvement over DC any day of the week.

I would like to thank the American Academy of Ophthalmology for inviting me here today. It is an honor to address you.

People often ask if being a physician affects my view of our nation's problems. Absolutely. I think physicians tend to be problem solvers. Physicians typically analyze a problem and apply the remedy based on the facts, not preconceptions.

Today I want to examine our healthcare system and look at ideas for making healthcare less expensive and more accessible.

Many years ago when my father first entered politics, he wrote an essay on Kwashiorkor. As you may remember Kwashiorkor is a stage in chronic starvation when protein deficiency becomes so severe that there is not enough intravascular colloid to maintain osmotic balance and fluid leaks into the abdomen creating ascites, the swollen bellies of starvation.

As a medical student, my father dreamed of a cure for Kwashiorkor, but the more he read, the more he discovered that the answer was economic, not medical.

I traveled to Guatemala this summer with the John Moran Eye Center and had a wonderful experience. Likely, nothing in my career has been more satisfying than seeing the smiles spread as the patches were removed the day after surgery. I'll never forget the Guatemalan man, who'd been blind before his cataract surgery, who fell to his knees to thank God. He told of how his life had been ruined by his blindness: His wife left him, he lost 40 pounds, he lost his job. In his jubilation the day after cataract surgery, he hoped to get his life back.

The team was lead by Alan Crandall from the John Moran Eye Center at the University of Utah. While we were in Guatemala, Alan gave me a copy of ‘Second Suns’ --- the story of two remarkable ophthalmologists and their ambitious goal of eliminating preventable blindness worldwide.

I read with fascination of the exploits of two great surgeons, Sanduk Ruit and Geoffrey Tabin, and their quest to basically create a process whereby cataracts could be removed and vision restored throughout the developing world.

Dr. Ruit introduced the small incision sutureless extracap cataract surgery performed with an IOL in under five minutes. A phenomenal medical accomplishment…but a large part of their success was also an economic breakthrough --- discovering how to manufacture intraocular lenses cheaply and locally in Nepal.

I was fascinated to read of Dr. Ruit and the accomplished phaco surgeon, Dr. David Chang, going head to head and Ruit's technique not only competing successfully for speed, but also for outcome.

Ruit had discovered how to perform cataract surgery as quickly as we do in America, but at one-tenth of the cost. His surgery gave just as good a result but didn't require phacoemulsification.

The medical advance of bringing sight to tens of thousands of the blind people in the developing world was as much an economic miracle as it was a medical breakthrough.

In our country we have had a debate over what system best delivers the highest quality of healthcare to the most amount of people, at the least cost, and the least time spent waiting for it.

Though the debate over Obamacare may appear, at times, to be a debate over healthcare, it is really a debate over what type of economic system distributes goods the most efficiently.

Which really, when you think about it, is extraordinary that the debate is necessary at all. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, most economists have acknowledged that only when the marketplace determines the price of goods and services can the goods and services be distributed efficiently.

What does that mean?

It means that the Soviet Union failed because when prices are set by a central planner, mistakes inevitably occur.

The Soviet Union failed because they couldn't determine the price of bread. If they set the price too low, bread would fly from the shelves and there would be shortages and scarcity.

If they set the prices too high, the bread would rot on the shelves and bread would again be in shortage.

Only democratic capitalism, where millions of consumers vote daily, can determine the price of any good. The correct price of good is the price at which the most stuff is distributed to the most people.

There is no moral price. There is no correct price that any one individual can discover.

The Nobel Prize winning economist, Frederick Hayek, called this the fatal conceit, that any one individual would be so presumptuous as to believe they had sufficient knowledge to discover a "correct" price.

Every time a Washington bureaucrat sets a price, the consumer suffers.

You might respond that food or healthcare is too precious to let consumers decide its price.

If you believe that, realize you cannot escape economic truths. If you insist that healthcare is somehow different from all other goods and services, you will still suffer the consequences of economic fallacy.

If you set the price of cataract surgery too low, let's say free, the demand will be infinite and there will be shortages of cataract surgeries and cataract surgeons….and the only way to sort this out is by having the patients wait in line until supply can catch up with demand.

Adjusting supply to meet demand is not just a theoretical concept. It is the new normal in societies that reduce the apparent price of medical services to zero. In Canada, over a million people, at any point in time, wait in line for elective surgery.

When LASIK first arrived on the scene, I remember hearing of a prominent Canadian eye surgeon who would run through his government allotted number of surgeries by September and then come to the U.S. for the rest of the year and perform refractive surgeries.

But proponents of government intervention will argue, "Vision is too important a goal to be treated as a mere commodity. We could never leave something so precious as vision up to the vagaries of the cold, immutable marketplace.”

Yet, look at what happens in the LASIK marketplace and the contact lens marketplace. Prices fall and both LASIK surgery and contact lens are available in abundance.

But emotions run high when we talk of healthcare or basic needs such as food. Some argue that healthcare and food and water are too vital to be left up to capitalism. Only the government can distribute them fairly.

If you believe that, realize that the laws of economics, like the laws of thermodynamics, are inescapable… there will be consequences.

Rationing, either by mandate or by waiting in line, is an inevitable side effect of government distribution of goods.

But how would we take care of the poor? Isn't the civilized way to have government be in charge of healthcare and foodcare and the necessities of life?

I think there is another option: free up prices. Allow a marketplace of freely fluctuating prices for everyone. The consequences would startle you. The beauty of capitalism is that it distributes the greatest amount of goods at the cheapest price.

The economist, Joseph Schumpeter, once remarked, "The capitalist achievement does not typically consist in providing more silk stockings for queens, but in bringing them within the reach of factory girls in return for steadily decreasing amounts of effort…”

The wonder of Capitalism is not in producing a silk stocking that the Queen can purchase, but in producing silk stockings that even a shop girl can buy.

But wouldn't capitalism leave some people behind? Wouldn't some people be left without healthcare? Yes, but instead of destroying a system that works efficiently for the vast majority, why not address the needs of those left behind?

Instead of taking capitalism and pricing out of healthcare, why not let capitalism distribute most of healthcare and then devise ways of taking care of the indigent.

When poverty is the exception not the rule, the government and charities could get involved to fix the exception, but not screw up the system for the vast majority. Competition, when allowed to thrive, drives prices down.

How would we do this practically? Get government out of the business of setting prices. End the SGR, the government system that sets fees. It was wrongheaded policy from the beginning. It's been temporarily suspended over dozen times. Let's not temporarily fix SGR, let's abolish it once and for all!

Once prices are free to be set by millions of consumers, bidding instantaneously, will we free up choice.

For Medicare, we could still allow taxes to pay for the healthcare of senior citizens, but allow seniors the same choices that federal employees get. Federal employees get over 250 different insurance plans to choose from.

If you did that, there would be no need for government to fix either physician fees or patient prices.

Let consumers decide what kind of insurance they want and where they want to purchase it. It is a crime against nature to give unmarried young adults, insurance that covers pregnancy for the wife they don't have, in vitro fertilization for the kids they are not ready for, and pediatric dental coverage for the kids they don't have.

True freedom of choice would let patients buy any type of insurance they want, including inexpensive insurance. Shouldn't every American get to decide whether they'd rather buy expensive insurance or save that money for something they prefer?

To allow the marketplace to work in healthcare, we should allow the purchase of insurance with lifelong tax-free savings accounts. Health Savings Accounts started at birth would accumulate such remarkable amounts that health insurance costs would plummet to approach the costs that we associate with term life insurance.

For the exceptions to the rule, for those who live in poverty or are afflicted with expensive chronic medical conditions, government and charity can find a cure.

As physicians, we think of healthcare as medical problem. Only when we begin to understand that the most vexing medical problems are really economic problems will we be closer to a cure.

I think it would be an improvement if politicians acted more like doctors----

and if doctors became more involved in politics. We've been put through the meat grinder in the last few years, and no one in government seems to ask physicians how to improve healthcare.

America leads the world in so many medical innovations. I hope we don't lose that edge I hope the medical devices tax doesn't drive American medical companies overseas.

Our system wasn't perfect before Obamacare but I fear it's much worse now. There was nothing inherently wrong with medicine in our country.

The old system before Obamacare was not perfect, but I fear the new system with more government intervention will be worse. We are already reading of newly empowered patients who have subsidized health insurance and a $6,000 deductible.

We are in for a rude awakening when we discover that free or subsidized health insurance provides an incentive to seek care but with a $6,000 deductible, many of these new patients will still be non-payers.

As we discover the number of non-payers, we will also discover that premiums must rise to cover that cost. Unfortunately, the premiums will be paid by fewer and fewer non-subsidized purchasers of insurance.

We can search around for blame, and there is plenty. But the fact is, everyone in this room can help.

The voices in this room belong to experts in ophthalmology and leaders in communities across the United States. You should stand up and be heard.

Don't let the powers that be ruin medicine. Become part of the solution. Help fix the process. Support candidates who understand the problem and offer proper solutions.

Support policies that enable doctors and treat patients like consumers, while minimizing government.

If you don’t like what you see, be part of the next round of diagnosis and treatment.

I plan to be, and I would love to see you all with me. Maybe it’s time for a doctor to fix the problem.

I hope you'll join me and be part of the solution.

###

Great read. There's nobody thinking about running for Prez that can offer that thoughtful of a solution to the present health care market. This man is top shelf all the way around.

[Chef Ramsay]

Rand Paul Summons Political Operatives for 2016 Strategy Session
The closely guarded gathering ahead of Paul's likely presidential run will happen only eight days after the midterms.

Sen. Rand Paul is summoning his top strategists and political advisers to Washington one week after the November election for a strategy session over his widely expected 2016 presidential bid.

The gathering of Paul's top lieutenants in the nation's capital has been quietly organized by Doug Stafford, his chief political strategist, who began reaching out to key figures in Paul's political world earlier this month, multiple sources told National Journal.

Stafford has told invitees to reserve Nov. 12 on their calendar both during the day and into the night. Paul himself is expected to attend some of the meetings.

"This is the come to Jesus before the planned launch," said one Paul insider, who has been invited to the gathering.

The meeting of the Kentucky Republican's kitchen cabinet has been kept under wraps, with most of the invitees not even told who else will be there. Stafford has yet to circulate a formal official agenda, though few on "Team Rand," as Stafford sometimes calls the group, need to be told the talk will focus on a presidential run.

...

More...http://www.nationaljournal.com/politics/rand-paul-summons-political-operatives-for-2016-strategy-session-20141022

[Chef Ramsay]

Rand Paul to lay out foreign policy vision

Rand Paul, whose foreign policy views have become a frequent target of his GOP critics, will use a high-profile speech in New York on Thursday to urge the United States to exercise restraint when engaging in wars overseas.

At a dinner hosted by the Center for the National Interest, the libertarian-minded Kentucky senator, a potential White House contender in 2016, will argue for “limits” on U.S. engagement in military conflicts. It’s a view that runs counter to the hawks among his fellow Republicans who have called for a more aggressive American presence in hot spots in the Middle East.

“America shouldn’t fight wars where the best outcome is stalemate,” Paul plans to say, according to excerpts provided by his office. “America shouldn’t fight wars when there is no plan for victory. America shouldn’t fight wars that aren’t authorized by the American people, by Congress. America should and will fight wars when the consequences — intended and unintended — are worth the sacrifice.”

Paul plans to add: “After the tragedies of Iraq and Libya, Americans are right to expect more from their country when we go to war.”

Paul aides say the speech will be the first time the freshman senator fully spells out his “conservative realist” foreign policy, outlining how he views international trade, diplomacy and the national debt as it relates to national security.

More...http://www.politico.com/story/2014/10/rand-paul-foreign-policy-112126.html
http://www.cnn.com/2014/10/23/politics/rand-paul-foreign-policy/index.html
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/390977/rand-pauls-non-isolationism-eliana-johnson

[Chef Ramsay]

Rand Paul just gave one of the most important foreign policy speeches in decades

Sen. Rand Paul just gave one of the most important speeches on foreign policy since George W. Bush declared war on Iraq. But instead of declaring war on another country, Paul declared war on his own party. Or, at least, its entire approach to foreign policy.

In his address last night at the Center for the National Interest — a think tank founded by Richard Nixon — Paul gave, for the first time, a comprehensive picture of how he thinks about foreign policy. His moderate non-interventionism is a far cry from his father's absolutist desire for America to exit the world stage. But Paul's stance is light years away from the hyper-hawk neoconservatism that's dominated Republican foreign policy thinking for decades.

Paul is signaling that, when he runs for president in 2016, he isn't going to move toward the Republican foreign policy consensus; he's going to run at it, with a battering ram. If he wins, he could remake the Republican Party as we know it. But if he loses, this speech may well be the reason.
[...]
In the abstract, this doesn't tell you a whole lot about what Paul believes. But when he gives specific examples of where he agrees and disagrees with Obama's policy, the core idea becomes clearer: Paul wants to scale down American commitments to foreign wars.

Paul endorses the original decision to invade Afghanistan, but criticizes Obama's decision to escalate it. He savaged the Libya intervention, calling Libya today "a jihadist wonderland." He supports bombing ISIS, but blasted Obama's decision to arm the Syrian rebels: "the weapons are either indiscriminately given to 'less than moderate rebels' or simply taken from moderates by ISIS."

But Paul also, much more quietly, agrees with major parts of the Obama agenda. In a move that's bound to infuriate Republican hardliners, he's calling for negotiations with Iran over its nuclear program. He tacitly endorsed Obama's sanction-and-negotiate approach to the Ukraine crisis. And he called for a peaceful, cooperative relationship with China.

In Paul's ideal world, America only very rarely engages in war. Most of its relations with foreign powers are conducted via diplomacy and trade with other states. This is hardly a detailed theory of how to conduct American foreign policy, but it is absolutely a conservative vision for ramping down America's role in the world.

The Obama-bashing reveals Paul's real target: the GOP

Paul's agenda has a lot more in common with Barack Obama's view of the world than it does with, say, John McCain's. But his speech very cleverly played up the criticisms of Obama, and minimized the points of agreement. That's because the basic goal of the speech was to teach conservatives that they can oppose foreign wars and Democrats at the same time.

The real target of Paul's speech were the neoconservatives: the wing of the GOP that believes that American foreign policy should be about the aggressive use of American force and influence, be it against terrorist groups or Russia. Paul's unsubtle argument is that this view, dominant in the GOP, is a departure from what a conservative foreign policy ought to be.

His tactic for selling this argument is innovative. He's reframed arguments with neoconservatives as arguments with Obama, banking on the idea that he can get everyday Republicans to abandon hawkishness altogether if they see Obama as a hawk. "After the tragedies of Iraq and Libya, Americans are right to expect more from their country when we go to war," Paul said, clearly linking his critique of Obama to an attack on the Bush legacy.

Until this speech, Paul's 2016 foreign policy positions hadn't been clear. Now it is. Rand "clearly wants a more restrained US foreign policy," says Dan McCarthy, the editor of The American Conservative magazine. According to McCarthy, who's talked about these issues with Paul's staff, Paul has been engaged in a "trial and error" experiment. The idea is to figure out how to make a less aggressive foreign policy politically viable in the Republican Party.

After this speech, the testing phase appears to be over. According to his advisors, this speech represents the final, overarching framework for Paul's worldview. Rand has developed a strategy for wrenching conservatives away from the Bush legacy, and it's now a question of implementing it.

The stakes in the Paul-GOP fight are tectonic

Paul is setting the terms of the 2016 election. So far, every plausible Republican nominee who's spoken about foreign policy has taken a more hawkish tack. Paul has picked a fight on foreign policy, and now he's going to get one.

The Republican primary, then, will be at least partly a referendum on the future of Republican foreign policy. If Paul wins the primary — let alone the presidency — then the GOP and its elected officials will have to line up behind him. That will mean defending his foreign policy against Democrats, who will likely blast Paul from an interventionist point of view.

"Paul's been clear about his goal," DNC Press Secretary Michael Czin told reporters before the speech. "He wants to see America retreat from our responsibilities around the world." A Paul primary win would force Republicans around the country to line up behind Paul's non-interventionism against these attacks. It might also lead the Democratic Party to become more hawkish as it unites against Paul's philosophies — and that's particularly true if Hillary Clinton, who is already on the more hawkish side of the Democratic spectrum, is the nominee.

"Rand is the first guy," McCarthy says, "to have a chance to come in and do something different than what our foreign policy has been doing in 70 or more years." He's not wrong.

http://www.vox.com/2014/10/24/7053561/rand-paul-foreign-policy-speech
& text at http://reason.com/archives/2014/10/24/rand-paul-the-case-for-foreign-policy-re
Somehow they got the month wrong but it was from last night at The National Interest org.

[Chef Ramsay]

This was Rand's itinerary from his campaigning in IA on Wednesday as he casts his shadow on key potential allies for the IA caucuses down the road, donors included.

4) Photos of Rand campaigning w/ GOP Senate Nominee Joni Ernst (IA) at U of Iowa: https://www.flickr.com/photos/gageskidmore/sets/72157646622925573/

3) Photos or Rand at a BBQ Style Fundraiser for IA state rep Bobby Kauffman:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/gageskidmore/sets/72157648932444472/
Note how unusual it is to have such a large audience at a state rep fundraiser

2) Photos of Rand Paul at MobileDemand tablet company in Hiawatha, Iowa / small business round table
https://www.flickr.com/photos/gageskidmore/sets/72157648530406530/

1) Photos of Rand Paul U of Iowa w/ Congressional Candidate Rod Blum
https://www.flickr.com/photos/gageskidmore/sets/72157648526465580/

[Tazza]

Great read. There's nobody thinking about running for Prez that can offer that thoughtful of a solution to the present health care market. This man is top shelf all the way around.

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.

[Chef Ramsay]

Great read. There's nobody thinking about running for Prez that can offer that thoughtful of a solution to the present health care market. This man is top shelf all the way around.

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.

His dad didn't want to be president and merely ran again because libertarians wanted him to. He paved the way to inject libertarian republicans into local party positions and help Rand get a leg up which Rand has been massively improving on in his own way. I know the way that doctrinaire ancaps think of Rand considering he threads the needle on certain issues when his dad would never mince words. Ron has stated that he and Rand are about 99% in agreement on the issues, that's your cue. As I've documented here, Rand has been trying to expand his base to include minorities and much of the establishment block. That is how he hustles libertarianism into the mainstream by coalition building - something his dad tried but couldn't achieve because he was old school in how he proselytized the liberty message. Rand is sharpening and repackaging the libertarian message to the point where the media can't demagogue him as much and send payback to all those that stepped on his dad's toes all those years. He's fulfilling the Paul libertarian legacy.

[Chef Ramsay]

Libertarians May Co-Nominate Rand Paul in 2016
Members of the large third party brace for a fight.

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.

 
More...http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2014/10/27/rand-paul-could-win-libertarian-nomination-too

[TheButterZone]

Hmm, it appears that the Libertarian Party doesn't consider you a member unless you pay (not just registering to vote libertarian). https://www.lp.org/membership

But it would be awesome if they did this, why they didn't do it for Ron Paul, though, shame.

[Chef Ramsay]

Here’s How Rand Paul’s Conservative Realism Could Change the GOP

...
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.
...
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.
...
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.
...

More...http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/heres-how-rand-pauls-conservative-realism-could-change-the-gop/

[tvbcof]

...
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.
...

Simpleton, liar, weasel, or some combination thereof.  I'd agree with him if he dropped the term 'Islamic' from the sentence and would be perfectly cool with denying the individuals and groups responsible for the events of '9/11' the basic necessities required to sustain life.  Intact vertebra in their necks, for instance.  Paul and any other savvy politicians should/would avoid mention of '9/11' completely unless they are planning to continue last two president's playbooks.

[Chef Ramsay]

The FAIR Act - Stop Illegal Government Property Seizure
By Rand Paul

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.
...
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.
...

More...http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2014/10/28/rand-paul-op-ed

[Chef Ramsay]

EXCLUSIVE - RAND PAUL LEADS THE WAY TOWARD 2014 GOP VICTORY
Sen. Rand Paul is in demand.

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.”

For those interested, I'd advise reading the rest as it's a very good read on a heavyweight republican site...http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2014/10/30/Exclusive-Rand-Paul-Leads-GOP-To-Victory-In-2014-Everything-Obama-Touches-Has-Turned-To-Stone

[Chef Ramsay]

Rand Paul: Republicans should back California Proposition 47

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.

...

More...http://www.ocregister.com/articles/crime-640063-california-prison.html

[Chef Ramsay]

Rand Paul is like Nigel Farage – except he might win

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.

More...http://www.spectator.co.uk/features/9354842/rand-paul-is-like-nigel-farage-except-he-might-win/

[Chef Ramsay]

From World War I to Rand Paul
The rise and fall and rise of America’s anti-war right

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.

The whole article is interesting if one is interested in the historical transformation...http://www.vox.com/2014/10/28/7022003/rand-paul-non-interventionism-daniel-mccarthy