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Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., condemned his party's push for voter identification laws as "completely crazy" Friday, saying it's "wrong for Republicans to go too crazy on this issue because it's offending people."The comments, delivered during an interview with The New York Times, make Paul the most prominent member of the GOP to speak out against a crusade that has energized the Republican base but alienated some of the young and minority voters the party hopes to court.Notably, Paul disputed the political wisdom behind voter ID laws, but he did not question their substance or merit. He's previously said it is...

The views in the video aren’t surprising. CLICK ABOVE LINK FOR THE VIDEO They’re the views of Ron and Rand Paul and their intellectual milieu which believes that most wars are set up by banks. According to them, the US need not have gotten involved in WW2. “There are times when sanctions have made it worse. I mean, there are times .. leading up to World War II we cut off trade with Japan. That probably caused Japan to react angrily. We also had a blockade on Germany after World War I, which may have encouraged them … some...

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...

Attack dogs have finally been unleashed on Ron Paul. Those barking dogs caused Andrew Sullivan to Re-Think The Paul Endorsement Time Magazine even launched a headline Paul Walks Away No Need to Rethink Endorsement There is no need to rethink endorsements. Here is the deal: Ron Paul did not say the things attributed to him. He denies them, disavows them, and most importantly, his voting record proves it! Can anyone honestly tell me why things Ron Paul did NOT say over twenty years ago should be news today? Paul Missed Best Tactic How many times does he have to deny...

There's just about a week to go before the crucial Iowa caucus. Predictably, the lead is see-sawing back and forth between former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and Texas Republican Rep. Ron Paul who—up to this point—most everyone but his most loyal supporters have treated as something of a gadfly rather than a serious candidate. Now that he is flirting with front-runner status, Paul's record is coming under closer scrutiny. He's getting hit pretty hard for some of the positions he's taken, some of the votes he's cast in Congress and some of the opinions which...

In latest 30-second Iowa TV spot, Texan again calls Gingrich a "serial hypocrite" and paints Romney as a "flip flopper" while targeting K Street. Read the script below. ANNOUNCER: The Washington Machine is strangling our economy. Politicians who supported bailouts and mandates, serial hypocrites and flip floppers can't clean up the mess. One man stands alone. A real plan to cut a $1 trillion year one, balance the budget in three. Consistent, incorruptible, guided by faith and principle. Ron Paul, the one we've been looking for.

Paul builds campaign on doomsday scenariosBy Andy Sullivan | Reuters – Mon, Dec 26, 2011 WASHINGTON, Iowa (Reuters) - The man who might win the Republican Party's first presidential nominating contest fears that the United Nations may take control of the U.S. money supply. Campaigning for the January 3 Iowa caucuses, Ron Paul warns of eroding civil liberties, a Soviet Union-style economic collapse and violence in the streets. The Texas congressman, author of "End the Fed," also wants to eliminate the central banking system that underpins the world's largest economy. "Not only would we audit the Federal Reserve, we may...

Via Ben Domenech’s Transom comes perhaps the least surprising news of the month. That news is that almost exactly half of all Ron Paul supporters in Iowa and New Hampshire self-identity as non-Republican. Without the support of these Democrats and Independents, Paul pulls roughly the same trivial level of support he got in 2008. This has some important implications for the state of the race. First, as Neil Stevens has been patiently noting here on the front page, this makes Paul’s level of support in Iowa potentially much softer than it appears. While these voters can at least theoretically register...

Not long ago, Newt Gingrich got into some trouble for claiming that the Palestinians are an “invented people,” although there is some basis for that statement, as prior to the British Mandate there was no such official designation for “Palestine” — and the British clearly included present-day Jordan as a major part of “Palestine” in the mandate. Another Republican candidate offered a history lesson on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in 2009, a moment recalled by Jeff Dunetz in this clip from the House floor. In it, we discover that Israel “started” Hamas as a counterweight to Yasser Arafat, or something, and...

Congressman Ron Paul grabbed the lion's share of headlines among GOP presidential candidates last week, and not just because he is the latest improbable figure to challenge the inevitable nomination of Mitt Romney. The conservative Weekly Standard ran a rehash by writer James Kirchik of an article he wrote for the New Republic in 2008 that collates, to deadly effect, the astoundingly bizarre, racist, and anti-Semitic comments Paul broadcast in a series of newsletters he published for two decades. Paul implausibly claims the newsletters (written in the first person and bearing his name) were produced by others, but it really...

Texas Republican Rep. Ron Paul’s foreign policy outlook isn’t so dissimilar to that of President Obama’s long-time pastor and mentor the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, says Washington Post editorial writer Charles Lane. On “Fox News Sunday,” Lane made the ideological connection between Paul and Wright, who claimed after the 9/11 attacks that “America’s chickens” had come home to roost. “Well, I think one of the amazing things that this all shows that this is the Republican Party might be about to crown the winner of the Iowa caucuses, somebody with the foreign policy views of Jeremiah Wright,” Lane said. “Remember that?...

If I had my druthers, the never-ending conflict between Israel and Palestine would be but a small news brief in American newspapers. But since we police the world, we must always monitor our global police scanner, where not only Israel's conflicts, but those of North and South Korea, the nation of Georgia, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Turkey, and pretty much everywhere else is the United States' business because we insist on making it so. What many Americans bizarrely consider national "defense" is actually an aggressive and enduring offense, and yet we are always surprised when other nations get offended. Last week,...

WASHINGTON (AP) - In the strongest message yet from the U.S. government, the House voted 405-1 Friday to condemn Tehran's crackdown on demonstrators and the government's interference with Internet and cell phone communications. The resolution was initiated by Republicans as a veiled criticism of President Barack Obama, who has been reluctant to criticize Tehran's handling of disputed elections that left hard-liner President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in power. Rep. Mike Pence, who co-sponsored the resolution, said he disagrees with the administration that it must not meddle in Iran's affairs. "When Ronald Reagan went before the Brandenburg Gate, he did not say Mr....

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Murray Sabrin is a professor of finance at Ramapo College in Mahwah and a Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate in New Jersey.TWO HUNDRED years after the Declaration of Independence was signed, a Republican physician from Texas was chosen by the voters in his district to head to Congress in a special election. Of course, 1976 was a presidential year, and incumbent President Gerald Ford was actively working to shore up support from the Republican Party to earn the party's nomination for a new term. So Ford called this freshman congressman into the Oval Office, congratulated him on his victory...

Film at link(I'd like to see Air Force Amy on the stump for Paul.....)

While Texan Ron Paul’s stock is soaring nationally, there is trouble on the home front. In September, Paul finished third in a straw poll of 1,300 Texas Republican activists who had been delegates to recent Republican conventions. The congressman corralled just 17 percent of the votes cast, trailing California’s Duncan Hunter with 41 percent. This outcome says Texas Republicans aren’t terribly concerned about viability. Otherwise, one of the national front-runners like Rudy Giuliani or Mitt Romney would have beaten these long-shots. But if they were willing to “waste” their votes on Hunter, why didn’t most back a fellow Texan? The...

RON PAUL has just reached the peak of geek chic. Having delivered a passionate paean to libertarianism at Oyster River High School, Paul has been presented with a pair of sporty two-tone sunglasses. "Put them on!" the students yell. The 72-year-old Republican presidential candidate obligingly dons the youthful shades - then stands there beaming as the assembly hall erupts in delight. Moments later, the kids flock around him, seeking autographs. Later that afternoon, Paul earns another enthusiastic reception from a capacity crowd at the University of New Hampshire. So what explains Paul's appeal?

WASHINGTON (AP) - Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul, aided by an extraordinary outpouring of Internet support Monday, hauled in more than $3.5 million in 20 hours. Paul, the Texas congressman with a Libertarian tilt and an out-of-Iraq pitch, entered heady fundraising territory with a surge of Web-based giving tied to the commemoration of Guy Fawkes Day. Fawkes was a British mercenary who failed in his attempt to kill King James I on Nov. 5, 1605. He also was the model for the protagonist in the movie "V for Vendetta." Paul backers motivated donors on the Internet with mashed-up clips of...

I’ve sympathized for Mr. Paul on several occassions and defended his personal mental state from that of his followers. I’ve stated before that he can’t help how nutty his fans are, and that just because so many of them think the U.S. secretly blew up the twin towers doesn’t mean that he does. I’ve also stated he should visibly distance himself from these wacky beliefs. Of course he hasn’t done that, leaning more in the direction of sympathetic to their cause. Now, [1] Beth has discovered a payment from Team Paul to Alex Jones, the 9/11 Truther leader, [2] for...