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house.govRon Paul has disclosed his earmark requests for 2009. The deadline has passed for House members to submit their requests for earmark projects for fiscal year 2009. We'll post the requests by the Houston delegation as we receive them. Here they are for Rep. Ron Paul, R-Lake Jackson: Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice and Science: • $250,000 for Galveston Economic Development Partnership, for Galveston Center for Business and Technology Development to help spin off private investment at National Lab of the University of Texas Medical Branch • $500,000 for City of Bay City for NuBlac Rehab Center (youth rehabilitation) Subcommittee...

Sen. John McCain, taking a victory lap as the presumptive Republican nominee, happily poked fun at his only remaining opponent. Asked during an appearance on "The Daily Show" last week which of the two Democratic nominees he preferred to run against in the general election, McCain quipped, "Ron Paul." But Paul might get the last laugh during McCain's coronation at the party's convention in early September. McCain's nomination may be certain, but he finds himself pressured by different wings of the conservative movement -- from the libertarians and the anti-war activists, to social conservatives and evangelical voters.

According to an email from some Missouri supporters of Ron Paul, sent late Sunday night, the state Republican Party has scheduled a special “credentials meeting” for 10 a.m. Monday at the Blue Armory in Jefferson City. At the meeting, according to the email, about 300 of the 1,900 elected delegates to the state GOP convention May 30-June 1 must disprove allegations that — presumably — accuse the targeted delegates of not being bona fide Republicans and/or not committed to supporting John McCain for president.

Former Arkansas Gov. and GOP presidential contender Mike Huckabee has released the Huckabee encouraged the six delegates he won to vote for Republican presumptive presidential nominee John McCain, said Gary Jones, the chairman of the Oklahoma Republican Party. Jones said Monday he has contacted Huckabee's delegates and "all but one” of them said they would vote for McCain. The other delegate is going to vote for U.S. Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, who is continuing his presidential bid despite dropping out of recent primaries. If that holds true, 40 of Oklahoma's 41 GOP votes to be cast during the Republican National...

HOUSTON -- Congressman Ron Paul is considering using $4 million left over from his failed presidential campaign to start a for-profit publishing company that would reflect his Libertarian-leaning views.The move could test the limits of federal campaign finance rules. Federal guidelines say the money can’t be used for personal things like vacations and mortgage payments, but it’s not clear if he could use the money for a company that would produce educational material. Paul also has a potential gold mine in his mailing list, if he rents those names to interest groups or other campaigns.

Jeff Greenspan, Ron Paul's paid out-of-state political operative who helped engineer last weekend's fiasco at the Nevada Republican Party convention in Reno, is tying himself in knots trying to spin his way out of responsibility for the embarrassment he caused. The story line that the Paul people desperately want to believe - as it fuels the already abundant level of paranoia that flows uncontrolled through their ranks - is that the Nevada GOP had been conspiring behind closed doors to block any Paul supporters from going to the Republican National Convention in Minnesota later this summer. In their conspiracy-addled minds,...

As the Democratic presidential candidates held pre-primary rallies yesterday in Indiana and North Carolina, and presumptive Republican nominee John McCain spoke to the Charlotte Chamber of Commerce, another major-party presidential candidate continued his own quest for nomination, headlining a "Freedom Rally" on a Fort Wayne, Ind., university campus. Rep. Ron Paul (R-Tex.) told supporters in early March, through a Web video, that he knew he was no longer in the running for the presidency, and aides said his campaign would be "winding down." But it turns out Paul never stopped running for president.