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Former congressman and libertarian icon Ron Paul tweeted a startling reaction to the death of SEAL sniper Chris Kyle on Monday: Chris Kyle's death seems to confirm that "he who lives by the sword dies by the sword." Treating PTSD at a firing range doesn't make sense

Glenn Beck✔ @glennbeck Newest member of the Westboro Baptist Church: Ron Paul. I am with Marcus Latrell & grieving family members. Will respond tomorrow. SHAMEFUL. 1:30 AM - 05 Feb 13 289 Retweets 96 favorites Tell us what you really think, Glenn. Glenn Beck wasn’t the only one making that comparison after Ron Paul launched a repulsive Twitter attack on murdered American hero Chris Kyle. Derek Ryan @longhornderek Ron Paul is now no better than the Westboro Church protesters. (Let's hear it, Ronulans. Lets hear you defend your dear leader.) 6:28 PM - 04 Feb 13(continued)

That former Congressman and GOP presidential hopeful Ron Paul would smear an American hero like Chris Kyle following his death speaks a great deal to his character or lack thereof. Yesterday, Paul sent out a Tweet which read: Chris Kyle’s death seems to confirm that “he who lives by the sword dies by the sword.” Treating PTSD at a firing range doesn’t make sense. It makes you wonder if these were the sort of letters Paul sent to the families of fallen soldiers who resided in his district. Needless to say, this justly provoked outrage. Glenn Beck described Paul as...

The thrice-promised land it has been called. It is that land north of Mecca and Medina and south of Anatolia, between the Mediterranean Sea and the Persian Gulf.In 1915 — that year of Gallipoli, which forced the resignation of First Lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill — Britain, to win Arab support for its war against the Ottoman Turks, committed, in the McMahon Agreement, to the independence of these lands under Arab rule.It was for this that Lawrence of Arabia and the Arabs fought.In November 1917, however, one month before Gen. Allenby led his army into Jerusalem, Lord Balfour, in...

Why the hysteria about Russia? From the tone of what passes for policy discourse in Washington, one would think that Russian troops were massing on the country’s western border and that opposition activists were being executed by the hundreds. Some realities in Russia are indeed disturbing, but a sense of perspective is needed. If Moscow were really the capital of a brutally authoritarian anti-American state, things could be far worse — and profoundly damaging to U.S. national interests. But demonizing Russia doesn’t change conditions there and only undermines our ability to get what we want and need. Domestically, Russia is...

The U.S. is fortunate that Russia is not intent on undermining our interests, which makes it a little odd that so many American hawks insist that this is so and sometimes seem eager to make it so. Consider Syria. Syria hawks see Russian opposition to Western and Arab intervention in the country as proof of Russian antagonism to America, but Russia is at most half-heartedly defending the status quo and continuing its formal policy of objecting to outside interference in other states’ internal affairs. It has committed itself to nothing except occasionally vetoing a resolution at the U.N., and if...

In Walter Lippmann's book "Public Opinion", a very interesting comment is made: (page 294) It was economic government by anybody's economic philosophy, though it was supposed to be controlled by immutable laws of political economy that must in the end produce harmony. It produced many splendid things, but enough sordid and terrible ones to start counter-currents. One of these was the trust, which established a kind of Roman peace within industry, and a Roman predatory imperialism outside. People turned to the legislature for relief. They invoked representative government, founded on the image of the township farmer, to regulate the semi-sovereign...

Colorado is set to become the first U.S. state to regulate and tax sales of recreational marijuana, after lawmakers approved several bills that set business standards and rules. Legislators expect enforcement of the rules to be paid for by two taxes on marijuana — a 15 percent excise tax, and a 10 percent sales tax. Other measures included in the package set limits on how much marijuana visitors to Colorado can buy (a quarter of an ounce), as well as a limit on how many cannabis plants a private citizen can grow (six). Gov. John Hickenlooper has indicated he will...

Certain measures of brain anatomy were even better at judging learning potential than traditional measures of ability such as IQ and standardized test results, says study author Kaustubh Supekar of Stanford University. These signatures include the size of the hippocampus — a string bean–shaped structure involved in making memories — and how connected the area was with other parts of the brain. The findings suggest that kids struggling with their math homework aren’t necessarily slacking off, says cognitive scientist David Geary of the University of Missouri in Columbia. “They just may not have as much brain region devoted to memory...

My thought is certain recreational drugs, such as marijuana, should remain off legal limits for the under 18 year olds, but become legally available when used in the proper environment. In many ways, pot is quite similar to alcohol, in that they should be used responsibly. My thought is to make the sale of marijuana less profitable by making it legal for home use. Personally, I don't smoke anything now, and do not want the smell of tobacco or pot on my clothes should I visit a public place, such as a shopping mall or bus stop. I know this...

Army Pfc. Bradley Manning, who is accused of providing an enormous stash of classified government documents to WikiLeaks for publication, deserves a Nobel Peace Prize more than President Barack Obama, according to former Texas Rep. Ron Paul. “While President Obama was starting and expanding unconstitutional wars overseas, Bradley Manning, whose actions have caused exactly zero deaths, was shining light on the truth behind these wars,” the former Republican presidential contender told U.S. News. “It’s clear which individual has done more to promote peace.” Manning was nominated for the award in 2011, 2012 and again earlier this year. Obama won the...

A retired auxiliary bishop in Detroit has told supporters of same-sex marriage that they should continue receiving Communion, directly contradicting a statement by Archbishop Allen Vigneron. “Don’t stop going to Communion. You’re okay,” Bishop Thomas Gumbleton advised proponents of gay marriage. He was speaking just days after Archbishop Vigneron had said that Catholics who disagree with the Church on the definition of marriage should refrain from Communion. The archbishop had said that receiving Communion while being in fundamental disagreement with the Church “would result in publicly renouncing one's integrity and logically bring shame for a double-dealing that is not unlike...

Sen. Rand Paul, the tea party favorite and possible 2016 presidential candidate, is raising money for a conservative gun rights group that’s targeting fellow Republicans, including House Majority Leader Eric Cantor. And when one congressman complained, the message from Paul’s camp was: too bad. The Kentucky Republican has lent his name to fundraising pitches for the National Association for Gun Rights, a group that says the National Rifle Association is too willing to compromise on gun rights. The group has blitzed the districts of Virginia Republicans Cantor and Rep. Scott Rigell with $50,000 worth of TV and radio ads accusing...

Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, the Tea Party favorite and emerging 2016 GOP presidential star, on Wednesday showed he is looking to broaden his and the Republican Party's base far beyond white males to include African-American youths. In a speech to Howard University Wednesday morning, Paul reached out to blacks, arguing that the Democrats and President Obama has failed African Americans, but admitting that the GOP has a long way to go before blacks see Republicans as their guide to success. "Some have said that I'm either brave or crazy to be here today. I've never been one to watch the...

The New York Times reports that the entry of Rand Paul, Mike Lee, and similar figures into the Republican foreign-policy debate has provoked worry in the party: Now, a new generation of Republicans like Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky is turning inward, questioning the approach that reached its fullest expression after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and signaling a willingness to pare back the military budgets that made it all possible. That holds the potential to threaten two wings of a Republican national security establishment that have been warring for decades: the internationalists who held sway under the...

Libertarianism goes mainstream By: James Hohmann April 7, 2013 06:50 AM EDT Stereotyped for decades as pro-pot, pro-porn and pro-pacifism, libertarians are becoming mainstream. Fair or not, Ron Paul epitomized to a swath of voters the caricature of a goofy grandpa who invests in gold, stockpiles guns, sees black helicopters whirling overhead and quotes Friedrich Hayek. His ride into the sunset — combined with an evolving electorates’s move away from hot-button social issues — gives a new libertarian guard the opportunity to rebrand their governing philosophy as more reasonable, serious and compatible with the Republican Party. Led by Sen. Rand...

Riding shotgun in a red minivan, his foot propped on the dash, the Republican Party's man of the moment zips down the back roads of southern Kentucky. Rand Paul is on his way to a meeting with Christian leaders in Somerset, a conservative stronghold where locals couldn't buy alcohol until last year. It's his third event in as many hours, and he looks tired; his voice nearly gave out the day before. But social conservatives have rarely enlisted in the libertarian army, and Paul is trying to build a new coalition that can revitalize a deflated GOP. "A new Republican...

www.gunowners.org/op0808.htmMcCain? No Way! by Sen. HL "Bill" Richardson (ret.) Chairman of the Board, GOA Americans are being told by the mainstream media that conservatives have no other choice than to back the hypocrite from Arizona. All that is required is to pretend he is "really" a conservative. "So, crawl under the big Republican tent and vote for McCain," we are told. "Besides, what other choice do you have?" We have plenty of choices, none of which calls for casting our vote for the lesser of two presidential evils. First, the Republican race isn't over. Huckabee is still around and as...

The CIA is notorious for its disastrous, damaging failures. In the 1950s, the CIA’s meddling in Iran politics led to the Iranian Revolution in 1979, creating a nation that is our implacable enemy. In the 1960s, the CIA carried out the embarrassing Bay of Pigs invasion in Cuba. In the 1980s, the CIA it was responsible for the Iran-Contra scandal that nearly wrecked Reagan’s presidency. In the 1980s, the CIA entirely missed the fact that the Soviet Union was collapsing. And in 2001 it was as surprised as anyone by the 9/11 attack. One would think that, with this track...

On Thursday night, conservative radio host Mark Levin attacked Fox News host Bill O’Reilly and the “has-beens” at CNN for their “hit” on Rep. Michele Bachmann after she was caught racing away from a CNN reporter confronting her over factually inaccurate claims about the president’s “lavish” White House living. On Tuesday, CNN reporter Dana Bash attempted to confront Bachmann over her claims that the president has an extraordinarily luxurious lifestyle, but was famously met with deflection and a race away from the camera. On The O’Reilly Factor last night, the eponymous Fox host criticized Bachmann for her “trivial attacks on...