Free Republic

The young Paulistas gathered to receive their marching orders. Get a haircut. Wear a tie. Be polite. Don't gratuitously annoy mainline Republicans. Leave the discussion of political philosophy to the candidate. Your job, they were instructed, is to win votes for Ron Paul. That was the scene as described to me in New York City this summer. Since then, it has become standard operating procedure for the activists once dismissed as the "Ron Paul kids" during their long march through the GOP. "No tats," one young Paul volunteer told the New York Times he was advised. No "fraternizing in the...

Four years ago, Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul had raised $8.3 million by the end of the third quarter of 2007. One-third of that came in small, unitemized contributions of under $200 each -- the proverbial "small donor" giving that is the mark of a grass-roots based campaign. In the 2012 cycle, he has raised $15.4 million through September 30, of which 41% has come in amounts under $200. Four years ago, according to the Campaign Finance Institute (my source for all these numbers), by September 30 Paul had a little more than 7,000 itemized individual donors -- the people...

(With all due apologies to Jeff Foxworthy) .....You've memorized Ron Paul's economic platform, but your supervisor doesn't think you're ready to man the shake machine yet. .....You fail a remedial history class at the local vo-tech when every one of your answers on the final exam is "Ron Paul". .....Your mother calls down to your basement "apartment" to tell you that dinner is ready and you scream back, "I'll eat when I'm ready, you Zionist pig! What's the matter, don't you believe in freedom ?" .....You think bong water is an acceptable alternative to aftershave. .....You like to tell people...

I am. Anybody who supports Ron Paul after seeing this isn’t just not a Republican; they’re not a patriotic American. George McGovern would find this guy’s foreign policy borderline treason.

"I'm sorry, but Ron Paul is gonna destroy this party. The media loves this guy... as 'nuts on parade'... They want the whole Republican Party  to be identified with the kookiness of Ron Paul."  -El Rushbo More Ron Paul humor/Rush and Levin clips/links at Reaganite Republican

Here is Ron Paul in the debate last night. This is Bret Baier. [SNIP] Bret Baier: "Congressman Paul, many Middle East experts now say that Iran may be less than one year away from getting a nuclear weapon. Now, judging from your past statements, even if you had solid intelligence that Iran, in fact, was going to get a nuclear weapon, President Paul would remove the US sanctions on Iran, including those added by the Obama administration. So to be clear: GOP nominee Ron Paul would be running left of President Obama on the issue of Iran?" PAUL: You know...

I don't get it. Why do so many wackos and outright lunatics support Ron Paul? Just what is it about him that attracts such crazies? Exhibit A. The following exchange occurred on Facebook tonight: Louis Farrakhan endorses Ron Paul Ronnie: Ooops... Amy: lol! Ozzie: Its funny because it says endorses Ron Paul. But yet what he does is praise Ron Paul's will and determination to fight the illegal Federal Reserve. If you dont agree with that, then your a hopeless case. Ronnie: You don't get it, Ozzie. No Republican politician who wants to stay in good standing with the conservative...

There are lots of reasons. But here’s one. Ron Paul isn’t serious about the most basic requisite of a national government, which is defense. Paul’s position just isn’t one reflective of serious leadership. The idea that the federal government doesn’t have an obligation to PREVENT a Timothy McVeigh or a Mohammed Atta or a Major Hasan from doing evil to innocent Americans is one which can’t be found in the head of anybody who understands what it means to be president.

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Democrat-controlled Senate on Thursday rejected a Republican attempt to block a regulation intended to curb power plant pollution that blows downwind into other states. By a 56-41 vote, senators defeated a resolution by Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, who said the step was needed to rein in what he called the Obama administration's overzealous job-killing approach to environmental protection. "We are simply asking that the clean air regulations already on the books stay in place and we do not make the regulations so onerous that they put utility plants out of business and we have an...

“You’ve got to give it to Ron Paul," Palin said. "Whether you agree with everything he says or not, at least he is one there in Congress trying to make our President stick to the law and understand that Congress does have a role to play in these foreign policy decisions that are made and Ron Paul, I think hit the nail on the head, when he came out and said Obama had better be careful when he interjects himself and our country in other nations’ business.”

This weekend, the California Republican Party had its 2011 Fall Convention at the JW Marriott Hotel in downtown Los Angeles. One presidential candidate, Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann, spoke at a dinner on Friday night, and Saturday morning's breakfast featured two more contenders: Michigan Rep. Thaddeus McCotter and Texas Rep. Ron Paul. Paul's fans were out in force both outside the hotel -- awaiting his arrival -- and inside the ticketed Lincoln Clubs Breakfast. He spoke last and was late, allowing McCotter to add a question-and-answer period to his prepared remarks (more on that later, check back). McCotter is also on...

Could Rand Paul and Ron Paul be Zionists?http://viewfrommasada.com/2011/02/17/ron-paul-rand-paul-zionists-of-the-year/Posted on February 17, 2011 by Matityahu Ben-YosefWhile the Middle East has always been a volatile region, the last month has seen events unfold in the region whose global impact we still may not appreciate. From the fall of governments in Lebanon, Tunisia, and Egypt, and with other Middle East regimes to soon share their fate, the balance of power in the Middle East is changing before our eyes.However, the most significant revolution taking place in the Middle East right now may not have anything to do with what’s unfolded in those countries...

The man who likely has done more than anyone to put the libertarian philosophy of freedom and small government on the political agenda probably will make another run for the presidency: U.S. Rep. Ron Paul. Paul is always upbeat, but lately he's had more reason to be, as he sees libertarian ideas bubbling up from the grass roots. "People outside of Washington are waking up," he told me, "and they're getting the attention of a few in Washington." Paul has been in Congress more than 20 years, and much of that time he's played a lonely role, often being the...

Senator Rand Paul, R-Ky., unveiled today his five-year path to a balanced budget, leaving several federal agencies behind. Among the items on the cutting room floor are the Departments of Education, Energy, Commerce and Housing and Urban Development. “There’s a lot of things in here that everybody could agree to, Republicans and Democrats, but nobody’s leading on the president’s side and on our side we felt we needed to put this forward to get the debate started, at the very least,” the freshman Senator explained at a Capitol Hill press conference this afternoon. The proposal also calls for the repeal...

Dick Morris Calls Ron Paul "Horrific", Hangs Up On Peter Schiff (Audio at YouTube)

Dick Cheney just popped up here at CPAC to introduce his old pal and Bush administration colleague Donald Rumsfeld. Fans of Ron Paul turned what should have been a friendly moment before an audience of fellow conservatives into a screaming match and protest action that resembled what a Cheney-Rumsfeld hug at the Netroots Nation convention might look like. Rumsfeld is being given CPAC's "Defender Of The Constitution" award, a concept that apparently rankled Paul supporters in the crowd. Many of them got up and walked out en masse at the mention of Rumsfeld, though some stayed behind in the conference...

On tonight's Geraldo Rivera show, he had on a couple of people purporting that 9/11 was an inside job because 'Fire Can't Melt Steel'. At least one was from 9/11 families (I do not know if it was one of the handful of anti-war 9/11 famil;ies or not). Has Roger Ailes gone crazy!

US Pacific Command’s Adm William Fallon says the group wasn’t conducting anti-sub operations, but the fact remains that the submarine did slip past the group’s security screen undetected and popped up within firing range of the Kitty Hawk.

Exploding the “That Wasn’t A Missile” Myth By Gargantua What appeared to be a missile rose from below the horizon, streaking into the sky off of California leaving a condensation trail identical to the kind that have been filmed being left by a ground-or-sea-to-air launch of a Minuteman missile or ICBM. First, the Government was inexplicably mum on the topic. Next came a series of sometimes contradictory explanations. Now, days after the event, the finally agreed-upon explanation hits every news station all at once. “It’s the con-trail of a jet returning from across the Pacific.” There are two glaring problems...

"I think they're way too independent. They just shouldn't have this power," Paul, a longtime Fed critic, said in an interview with Reuters. "Up until recently it has been modest but now it's totally out of control."