Free Republic

For those of us who have long wondered why the Justice Department never investigated Wall Street, the Associated Press subpoena scandal illustrates a key point: The Justice Department sets priorities based on what it hears from the White House. ---snip--- With President Obama's gratitude, Justice Department leaders will likely one day rejoin the prestigious white collar bar and make millions of dollars a year to defend the very bankers they were supposed to hold accountable

Republican Sens. Marco Rubio and Scott Brown joined John McCain in denouncing the congresswoman's Muslim witch hunt Florida Republican Sen. Marco Rubio, a rising star in the party and a potential vice-presidential pick for Mitt Romney, said this morning that he disagreed with Republican Rep. Michele Bachmann’s baseless call to investigate Muslim Brotherhood infiltration in the U.S. government. Appearing on NPR’s Diane Rehm show, Rubio was asked by a caller if he would join Republican Sen. John McCain’s strong condemnation of the anti-Muslim witch hunt on the Senate floor yesterday. While Rubio said he doesn’t personally know Huma Abedin, a...

United States plans to link the countries of Central Asia by new rail lines with Afghanistan. At the same time, Washington opposes neither the construction of a railway corridor from Central Asia through Iran, nor Chinese extensions of its national rail system into the area. Nevertheless, according to analysts at the Moscow Strategic Culture Foundation, these overlapping transportation development projects threaten to spark a new “railroad war” in the Central Asian region—one that in the absence of counter-efforts by the Russian Federation is likely to result in a sharp reduction of Moscow’s influence over the countries there.

Sen. Rand Paul formally rolled out his 2014 budget blueprint on Friday, offering a combination of tax and spending proposals that he said would balance the federal budget in five years without raising taxes. The freshman Kentucky Republican’s plan reshapes entitlement programs, abolishes four federal agencies and overhauls the federal tax code by establishing a 17-percent flat tax and eliminating taxes on capital gains, dividends and savings.

National Review's Robert Costa reports from Washington DC that the GOPe are 'wary' of Sen. Rand Paul but are 'surprisingly open' to him

<p>WASHINGTON – Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., the winner of the Conservative Political Action Conference straw poll for 2016 only days ago, has told the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce that there should be a path to citizenship for illegal aliens in the United States.</p>

Erica Werner of the Associated Press gives us a textbook example of why talking about immigration in the United States is so hard. She reads into statements things that are not there.The headline of her article is “Rand Paul endorses immigrant path to citizenship.” Giving her the benefit of the doubt that someone else wrote the headline, her first paragraph reads thusly: Republican Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky is telling a Hispanic business group that illegal immigrants should be allowed to become U.S. taxpayers and ultimately get a shot at citizenship. I have read the entirety of Rand Paul’s speech....

I have read the entirety of Rand Paul’s speech. I have spoken directly to the Senator. No where in his speech does he use the word “citizenship.” In fact, the word citizen is only used once, in reference to Rand Paul himself saying, “As a teenager, I was not always the model citizen that I am today.”

The Associated Press is standing by its report that Sen. Rand Paul intended to back a path to citizenship in his speech Tuesday to the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, despite the fact that he did not do so, and despite claims from advisers that the AP's story is wrong. ... The AP obtained an advance copy of Sen. Paul’s remarks on Monday and reported that he would be "endorsing a pathway to citizenship for the nation's 11 million illegal immigrants." That report led to headlines across news outlets ranging from Fox News to The Washington Post to the Huffington Post...

WASHINGTON – Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., the winner of the Conservative Political Action Conference straw poll for 2016 only days ago, is denying an Associated Press report that he supports a path to citizenship for illegal aliens. The AP’s Erica Werner reported Paul told a Hispanic business group that illegal aliens should be allowed to become U.S. taxpayers and ultimately get a shot at citizenship. However, Paul told the Washington Post, which carried the original story, the reporting was inaccurate. “I didn’t use the word citizenship at all this morning,” he said. “Basically what I want to do is to...

Rand Paul, the junior senator from Kentucky, filibustered the Senate vote on confirming John Brennan to be CIA director, because he was against the drone war in general and the targeted assassination of American citizens in the US in particular. He failed. Brennan became CIA director. But his filibuster was called "historic" by Antiwar.com's Justin Raimondo, who quotes a talk show host at length: "There is a fear among (John) McCain, Lindsey Graham, and others who favor an interventionist foreign policy. Think of the neocons. Think of going into Iraq and not just securing Iraq, but building a democracy. Nation...

The dramatic shift in the Republican Party on immigration continued Tuesday, as Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), a conservative tea party icon and possible 2016 presidential contender, endorsed an overhaul of the nation’s immigration laws that would allow the nation’s estimated 11 million illegal immigrants to obtain legalized status. “Immigration will not occur until conservative Republicans, like myself, become part of the solution. That’s why I’m here today: to begin that conversation and become part of the solution,” he said in a breakfast speech Tuesday morning before the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce in Washington.

The AP claimed this morning that Paul was set to endorse a path to citizenship in his speech today. Not so, countered conservatives on Twitter: Read his prepared remarks and you’ll see that citizenship is never mentioned. Which is true, and also irrelevant. The whole point of Paul’s speech is GOP rapprochement with Latino voters; he spends nearly two-thirds of it extolling Latinos’ work ethic, reminiscing about his friendships with Latinos growing up in Texas, name-checking Jaime Escalante and Pablo Neruda, and of course citing the ancient canard that Latinos are really just Republicans who don’t know it yet. (He...

More worrisome signs are emerging of deteriorating economic conditions in Iran. Here are some of the latest news quotes: 1. Crude output is slowing. NYT: - Daily oil production in Iran, the most important component of its economy, fell in September to the weakest level in nearly a quarter-century, according to monthly data released on Friday by the International Energy Agency. The agency forecast declines in Iran’s ability to produce oil for years to come if Western sanctions were not lifted 2. Trade in general has come under severe pressure. This is likely having a terrible impact on the population,...

The Convention is where delegates are meant to cast votes for the nominee, yet the Tampa Bay Times Forum was already plastered with embedded Romney banners, and additional 'Mitt' signs for people to hold were also smuggled in to make it appear that many are behind him. All Ron Paul material was promptly confiscated. Six states filed to put Ron Paul into nomination while the rules still said it only took five states. Realizing this, the RNC met early Tuesday morning to change the rules in order to make the minimum needed as eight states, which Ron also would have...

<p>Triumphant in the first Gulf war, George H.W. Bush, in October 1991, went before the UN to declare that the US’s goal was now to build a “New World Order”.</p>

<p>In a move that serves as a capstone to Rep. Ron Paul’s colorful career, the House on Wednesday approved a bill that would let Congress’s chief investigators conduct a full audit of the Federal Reserve’s shrouded decision-making process.</p> <p>The overwhelming 327-98 vote sends the bill to the Senate where Majority Leader Harry Reid, Nevada Democrat, has previously expressed support for an audit — though it’s unclear he’ll carve out time for the legislation this year.</p>

Ron Paul cooperates with no one, checks his voice for no one and doesn't much like the GOP establishment types. This would include the GOP's likely nominee, Mitt Romney, template maker in Massachusetts for all things nefarious accomplished by Barack Hussein Obama but brought to a national audience. Paul has declined to endorse Romney, but given the army of organized pitchforks he has attracted over the course of a run or two at the party nomination, the man has won a seat at the convention table. USATODAY.com reports that room will be made for Ron Paul in the convention, and...

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Iran has stored up imports and hard currency for a "battle" against "dastardly" EU sanctions, officials said Sunday, the day that the measures aimed at pressuring the Islamic Republic over its controversial nuclear program take effect. Vice President Mohammad Reza Rahimi said the country has stockpiled the population's daily needs to reduce the impact of the embargo hitting the oil and banking sectors. "Today, we are facing the heaviest of sanctions and we ask people to help officials in this battle," Rahimi was quoted by state television's website as saying at a religious conference. He said...

An announcement from Rep. Ron Paul indicates that the Republican presidential candidate will no longer actively campaign for the GOP nomination, but will continue to work to secure delegates at upcoming Republican state conventions. "Moving forward, however, we will no longer spend resources campaigning in primaries in states that have not yet voted," said Paul, in a statement released Monday afternoon. "Doing so with any hope of success would take many tens of millions of dollars we simply do not have."

Sarah Palin admonished Republicans not to ridicule Congressman Ron Paul. Sarah Palin is wrong. Ron Paul is a disloyal phony who has earned whatever contempt real Republicans have for him and his dangerously naive ideas about foreign policy. Ron Paul has shunned the party in the past, as he was the Libertarian Party candidate in 1988 and in 2008 he rejected the McCain/Palin ticket, instead embracing Cynthia McKinney and other third-party candidates for president 2008. Like a kid who is losing a game, Ron Paul took his ball and went home in 2008. But Missus Palin, sadly, seemed to be...

Ron Paul's greatest liability is Ron Paul, but his second greatest liability are his hippie-Nazi cultists. Not all of his supporters are hippie Nazis, but the aggressive ones are. Since "Audit the Fed" wants to boost Ron Paul, I'm promoting his comments to the front page. Quick, everyone! Get on this train before it fills up. I call this prose poem "Jewess." It's about Elena Kagan. Oh for Christ's sake. She's a jewess. AND a bulldyke. She has no integrity whatsoever. Chief Justice John Roberts: Epic. Fail. I call this sonnet "Hebe Community." I am merely observing the untidy little...

Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul picked up an endorsement from popular South Carolina State Senator Tom Davis (R-Beaufort) Sunday. Mr. Davis is a popular Tea Party Republican in South Carolina, and he has been critical of front running Republican candidate Mitt Romney also, so his vote could sway some last minute undecided voters towards Mr. Paul in the upcoming South Carolina Republican primary election. According to the Public Polling Policy poll of South Carolina voters released Friday shows 30 percent of the voters identify themselves as members of the Tea Party. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich did the best among...

Ron Paul picked up a major endorsement from an evangelical leader when Dr. James Linzey, president and founder of the Military Bible Association, endorsed the candidate. Lizney, who served as a military chaplain for over 24 years and retired with an honorable discharge, has hosted Operation Freedom, a television program in Europe. Before founding the Military bible Association, he travelled the world as an evangelist. In a statement to Congressman Paul declaring his endorsement, Lizney said, “Having thoroughly examined your political philosophy and finding that your platform is 100% in line with the Constitution of the United States of America,...

Oath Keepers is anti-American.

Comrades, another election is upon us in this cesspit of bourgeois excess known as these United States... although nothing 'unites' our class so much as our continual and universal exploitation at the hands of the ruling class. The recent spate of GOP debates, as well as tonight's Iowa caucus, shows us that we cannot remain neutral in this encounter. On the one hand, we have Barack Obama, the neo-liberal candidate whose alleged 'socialism' is merely an epithet employed by the enemies of economic freedom on the Right. Would that this were true! But no, Obama has proved himself time and...

A profanity-laden, anti-Semitic voice message is helping the Houston Holocaust Museum raise money to save an important World War II artifact. That message on Braeden Howard's voice mail was left after his consulting company publicized the work they are doing with the museum. To restore a 37-foot fishing vessel, similar to those used to smuggle Jews out of Denmark during World War II.

Police and organizers shut down proceedings at one of Missouri's largest caucuses today, as Ron Paul supporters feuded with local GOP leaders. "It's like the Hatfields and the McCoys around here," St. Charles County's former GOP chairman told ABC News, after police arrived on-scene with a helicopter and removed Paul backers. In St. Charles, an exurb of St. Louis and one of the state's largest GOP counties, Paul supporters sought to elect their own chairman and adopt their own rules when proceedings opened - both of which are part of standard caucus rules and procedure. But as they argued with...

Supposedly Team Paul is engaged in "initial discussions" with Santorum and Gingrich too, but c'mon. Newt's chances at the nomination are only slightly higher than Paul's are and Santorum's hawkish social conservatism makes him a total nonstarter for libertarians. Just today, Reason editor Matt Welch published a column shivering at the thought that Team Sweater Vest might be back for another try in 2016. Romney’s the only game in town for the rEVOLution, just as he’s been since the debates started. (According to Time, one of Romney’s allies joked that Paul is their “deputy campaign manager.�)This is the right time...

Washington (CNN) -- Briefly back in Congress doing his day job, Ron Paul met with high school students outside his office. True to form, he signed copies of the Constitution and wryly told them with a chuckle, "No one around here reads it very much. I'd like to get everybody to read it." [...] What Paul did not do was attend a closed-door gathering of House Republicans. In fact, the GOP presidential contender is known to never attend these meetings. But Paul's Republican colleagues who did go had no shortage of opinions about his strong showing in the presidential race...

The RevPac event I attended on Monday night was an quite an experience. First of all, the choice of setting seemed designed to highlight some of the recurring themes in Ron Paul’s presidential campaign. While most of his primary opponents have held Manhattan fundraisers targeting donors in this city’s ever-dwindling, yet still potent, financial services sector, the rigidly anti-corporatist, free market dogma of the Paul campaign-highlighted by the appearance of bearish Euro Pacific CEO Peter Schiff-lent a new dimension to what would otherwise have been a routine campaign fundraiser. The optics of the event were pleasing, which I suppose was...

WASHINGTON, D.C., June 8, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The right to life was the foundation of American liberty, but a widespread moral change must occur before abortion is made illegal again, Republican lawmaker and presidential candidate Ron Paul told religious conservative activists on Friday. “If we do not have high respect for life, how can we be dealing with our personal freedom, personal privacy, our rights to homeschool our kids, the right to pick our religion and make personal choices on what we do?” Paul asked the audience at the Faith and Freedom Coalition conference in downtown Washington, D.C.“Life is precious,...

At the Faith and Freedom Coalition conference, presidential candidate Ron Paul used the Bible to show evangelicals why big government is bad and how their fight to protect faith and family are all rooted in liberty. Paul roused the conservative Christian crowd on Friday as he recounted the story of the Israelites and their pleas for an earthly king. He used that story, found in 1 Samuel chapter eight, to explain to the faith conference why big government is morally wrong for America. He told the crowd that the Israelites had a perfectly good family system prior to their first...

The Texas congressman announced on "Good Morning America" that he is launching an official campaign for the Republican presidential nomination. As the founding father of a libertarian movement that paved the way for the tea party, Mr. Paul thinks his odds have improved since his last campaign in 2008. He said people are finally “agreeing with much of what I’ve been saying for 30 years. The time is right.” What do you think? Could Ron Paul be the nominee?

Rand Paul scored big with his two-day online fundraising event this week. Paul’s “money bomb” has raised over $250,000 for his U.S. Senate campaign in just two days. Dr. Paul has made a great success of tapping into a large base of donors over the past year, and this is just another example of the campaign’s fund raising proficiency and wide base of support.

The terrible violence in Arizona last weekend prompted much national discussion on many issues. All Americans are united in their sympathies for the victims and their families. All wonder what could motivate such a horrible act. However, some have attempted to use this tragedy to discredit philosophical adversaries or score political points. This sort of opportunism is simply despicable. We are fortunate to live in a society where violence is universally denounced. Not one public official or commentator has attempted to justify this reprehensible act, yet the newspapers, internet, and airwaves are full of people trying to claim it was...

The Republican Party has a history of using desperate times to call for drastic measures and when bailing out AIG, bolstering Medicare or bombing Iraq, that party has always been willing to go big and bold on some of the largest government expansions in this nation’s history. But what about cutting government? You know, that stuff GOP politicians always talk about during election time? One might think that in a political environment in which so many are desperate to reverse what they see as unsustainable government growth, Republican rhetoric might at least attempt to reflect that desperation. But when GOP...

The administration's terrible healthcare reform bill is now law, but the debate over how-- and whether-- the federal government should be involved in providing healthcare services is not over. It is not too late for America to correct its course and stop the march toward a government run, "single payer" healthcare system. Polls show that a large majority of Americans don't want Obamacare. Congress should seize the opportunity to repeal the very worst aspect of this new legislation, namely the mandate that forces every American either to purchase health insurance or face an IRS penalty. This mandate represents nothing more...

The day after Republican Rand Paul's landslide primary victory in Kentucky, the mainstream Left tried to paint him as a segregationist, while the mainstream Right either ignored or attacked him. And for good reason. Like his father Ron, Rand represents revolution, and the establishment is petrified. Let's begin with the Left. Afraid that they can't beat a conservative Republican of Paul's pedigree in the Tea Party-influenced, anti-Obama political climate of 2010, liberals are trying to run against him in 1964. Cherry-picking irrelevant references Paul has made about private property rights and how they could possibly relate to the Civil Rights...

Most everyone agrees that health care in the United States has major problems, the biggest problems relating to skyrocketing costs. No one doubts the system is in need of reform. However, too many in Washington see tighter government controls as the solution. In fact, the problems are rooted in past government controls that created more problems than they solved. Ironically, laws and policies in the 1970’s promoting Health Maintenance Organizations (HMOs) resulted from desperate attempts to control spiraling costs. However, instead of promoting an efficient health care system, HMOs took far too much control away from patients and physicians and...

The spotlight remains on the Greek sovereign debt crisis as the riots continue. The terms of the Greek bailout from the IMF and Eurozone countries remain contentious with citizens on all sides. Europeans hate having their governments throw public money away as much as Americans do. The Greeks are not happy about having their taxes raised while their pensions and salaries are cut. Meanwhile, it is rumored by the Financial Times, AFP and others that Greece may spend more than it saves from austerity measures on arms deals with Germany, France and the US as a potential condition of receiving...

Last week I introduced a very important piece of legislation that I hope will gain as much or more support as my Audit the Fed bill. HR 4995, the End the Mandate Act will repeal provisions of the newly passed health insurance reform bill that give the government the power to force Americans to purchase government-approved health insurance. The whole bill is rotten, but this provision especially is a blatant violation of the Constitution. Defenders claim the Congress's constitutional authority to regulate "interstate commerce" gives it the power to do this. However, as Judge Andrew Napolitano and other distinguished legal...

Few were surprised this week when Jim DeMint endorsed Rand Paul in his bid for US Senate in Kentucky. That the man many consider the most conservative member of the Senate endorsed the son of the man many consider the most conservative member of Congress is indicative of DeMint’s genuine commitment to what most consider traditional Republican principles. Likewise, that GOP Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell so vehemently opposes Paul and has so enthusiastically endorsed his opponent is indicative of his commitment to the Republican status quo-at the expense of genuine conservatism. Rand Paul has gone from relative obscurity to...

Still, if the GOP is interested in actually doing something more glorious than its multi-year FUBAR when George W. Bush and the Republicans were fully in charge of the federal government, they'd do well to listen very closely to Dr. No. However rotten Obama and the Dems poll, the GOP should never think anyone believes them when they say they are the party of small government and, for god's sake, we're well past the sad-sack culture-war days of various Republican geniuses like Newt Gingrich (4 percent!) talk up flag-burning amendments (the First Amendment is not a suicide pact with square...

Much has been made recently about the supposed economic recovery. A few blips in a few statistics and many believe our troubles are all over. Of course, they have to redefine recovery as “jobless” to account for the lack of improvement on Main Street. But the banks have money, Wall Street is chugging along, and the administration would like to get on with other agendae. They have even set up a commission to investigate the crisis as if it were all in the past. The truth is that Americans are still losing jobs, the Fed is still inflating, and more...

As we start the new year 2010, the establishment politicians, economists and Wall Street are trying to convince themselves that we have turned the corner and economic growth has once again begun. The predictions that conditions are getting back to normal come from those who never saw the crisis coming and don't have the vaguest notion what caused it. Some of them concede that it could be a jobless recovery. That will establish a new definition for a recovery. Official unemployment is at 10% but even the government knows that if everyone is counted, including those individuals that are too...

FRANKFORT, Ky. (AP) -- Former Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul's son has officially entered the GOP Senate primary in Kentucky. Rand Paul's campaign manager turned in the candidacy papers and a $500 check to the secretary of state's office on Wednesday afternoon.

I was a Ron Paul supporter in the 2008 campaign for the presidency, and I made no apologies about it. Ron Paul was the candidate at the time that supported a smaller government, individual liberties and the Constitution closer than any other candidate. By far, he was the small government candidate. Others, especially conservatives, would often say that they support many of Paul’s positions, but… Either his voice was too “high and whiny”, or they viewed his position on America’s foreign policy to be “wacko” and “crazy”. The going phrase at the time, and still today, is that Ron Paul...

Last week on Christmas Eve, after many backroom deals were made, the Senate passed the healthcare reform bill with a strictly partisan vote. I was pleased that my colleagues in the GOP are on the right side of this bill. Although this vote was a major step in healthcare reform becoming reality, they still have to reconcile the Senate bill with the House-passed version in conference committee. This could prove even more difficult and costly than the Senate vote. There was a little bit of controversy surrounding one particular Senator who was initially against the bill, but then, coincidentally, a...

A pro-life conservative women's political action committee that promotes what it calls "biblical values" has endorsed Bowling Green eye doctor Rand Paul for U.S. Senate. A pro-life conservative women's political action committee that promotes what it calls "biblical values" has endorsed Bowling Green eye doctor Rand Paul for U.S. Senate. In a statement released Wednesday, Concerned Women for America called Paul a "strong man of faith and of conviction." Paul is seeking the GOP nomination for the seat held by fellow Republican Jim Bunning, who is retiring. Beverly LaHaye, founder and chairman of the Concerned Women PAC, cited Paul's financial...