Free Republic

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.

The House passed two bills attempting to rehabilitate the housing and mortgage market this week. There doesn't seem to be any shortage of criticism and blame for the bad decisions, and rightly so. Lenders and banks do share much of the blame for the overheated market. Lending standards were relaxed, or even abandoned altogether, creating an exaggerated pool of homebuyers that led to ballooning home prices that many, especially real estate investors, expected to continue forever. Now that the bubble has burst, the losses are staggering. However, many in Washington fail to realize it was government intervention that brought on...

Last week, with little attention or fanfare, the U.S. House of Representatives voted 414 to 1 to outlaw genetic discrimination. The only dissenter was the irascible libertarian Ron Paul. The Senate passed the same bill unanimously, and President Bush is ready to sign it. The bill tells employers and insurance companies that they may not use the results of genetic tests in choosing their employees and customers. One purpose of the bill is to encourage genetic testing. But the more important reason for it is to uphold a sense of fairness. Just as the law forbids discrimination against a person...

The 50 U.S. states are holding more than $32 billion worth of unclaimed property that they're supposed to safeguard for their citizens. But a "Good Morning America" investigation found some states aggressively seize property that isn't really unclaimed and then use the money -- your money -- to balance their budgets. Unclaimed property consists of things like forgotten apartment security deposits, uncashed dividend checks and safe-deposit boxes abandoned when an elderly relative dies. Banks and other businesses are required to turn that property over to the state for safekeeping. The problem is that the states return less than a quarter...

Ron Paul’s The Revolution: A Manifesto is an important book. That’s not so much because of the ideas he presents, which are for the most part familiar fare, already addressed at greater length in recent popular treatments of libertarianism by Charles Murray, David Boaz, and James Bovard, among many others. It’s important because Ron Paul’s candidacy has interested a lot of people in libertarian ideas who probably haven’t read those other books, and because their exposure has come not in the context of academic dissatisfaction with the status quo, but in the context of political action. The book benefits from...

quietly, largely under the radar of most people, the forces of Rep. Ron Paul have been organizing across the country to stage an embarrassing public revolt against Sen. John McCain when Republicans gather for their national convention in St. Paul at the beginning of September. Paul's presidential candidacy has been correctly dismissed all along in terms of winning the nomination. He was even excluded as irrelevant by Fox News from a nationally-televised GOP debate in New Hampshire. But what's been largely overlooked is Paul's candidacy as a reflection of a powerful lingering dissatisfaction with the Arizona senator among the party's...

Does it make Cindy Sheehan a racist if she makes fun of Senator Barack Obama's name? By the way, nice language in a church. Funny how the Left ran away from her after building her up and encouraging her. Now that she's running against Speaker Pelosi, where are the cameras now?

Commentary by Daniel T. Zanoza, Executive Director, RFFM.org Houston, we have a problem! Or perhaps I should say, Republicans have a problem. Even though GOP crybabies--including Rush Limbaugh, Laura Ingraham and Sean Hannity--now seem to be rallying around the candidacy of Sen. John McCain, the message has yet to filter down to the Party's base. Though McCain is the GOP's presumptive presidential nominee, in Pennsylvania Rep. Ron Paul finished second with over 15% of the Republican votes cast. Gov. Mike Huckabee snatched up nearly 12% of those who voted on the GOP's side of the ballot. Both men tallied a...

House passes bill that will let the RIAA take away your home for downloading music Posted by Cory Doctorow, May 9, 2008 3:15 AM | permalink Glenn sez, I was just alerted that the House of Reps has passed HR 4279, with the lovely name, PRO-IP (Prioritizing Resources and Organization for Intellectual Property Act of 2008). Like the doublespeak PATRIOT Act and Peacekeeper missiles, PRO-IP puts local law enforcement in a position to demand the forfeiture in criminal proceedings of stuff used to violate copyright. Which means that instead of the RIAA simply trying to collect fines, they can also...

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.

Will a GOP uprising take place at the Republican National Convention? As the mainstream media obsesses over the Democratic Party’s brewing civil war, supporters of Republican presidential candidate US Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, are already staging their own quiet uprising at GOP conventions across the nation. If, by a strange twist of fate, the Republicans’ presumptive nominee, US Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., fails to win the first ballot at the national convention, “all hell will break loose,” one Santa Fe County delegate tells SFR. In New Mexico, Paul would need to collect 15 percent of the popular vote to win...

MONTGOMERY The state Senate may have been locked down for most of the year, but it did find time to endorse a widely discredited urban legend spread by the John Birch Society. The upper chamber passed a joint resolution April 10 sponsored by state Sen. Rusty Glover, R-Semmes, claiming that Canada, Mexico and the United States are moving toward a "North American Union" and working on construction of a "NAFTA Superhighway" to link the countries and report edly destroy their sovereignty. "It's about retaining independence," said John McManus, the president of the John Birch Society, in a phone interview Mon...

In the past few months, American workers, consumers, and businesses have experienced a sudden and dramatic rise in gasoline prices. In some parts of the country, gasoline costs as much as $4 per gallon. Some politicians claim that the way to reduce gas prices is by expanding the government’s power to regulate prices and control the supply of gasoline. For example, the House of Representatives has even passed legislation subjecting gas stations owners to criminal penalties if they charge more than a federal bureaucrat deems appropriate. Proponents of these measures must have forgotten the 1970s, when government controls on the...

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.

Ron Paul still remains in the GOP Primary race. But if he pulls out who will he support? Not McCain. He inferred that he might endorse a Democrat. Barack Obama to be precise. Ron Paul and his Revolution continues. (Video Included)

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,...

Even though Rep. Ron Paul has never officially ended his long shot presidential bid, he’s ready to weigh in on the three remaining major candidates for the White House. In an interview on The Situation Room, Paul told Wolf Blitzer that endorsing Sen. John McCain, the Republican Party’s presumptive nominee, “would really confuse” his supporters “because they know we have a precise program and we have to defend that program.” Having a Republican win the upcoming presidential election is “secondary” for Paul who is more interested in defending the Constitution, having the country go in what he considers the right...

As far as John McCain is concerned, the Republican presidential nomination is a done deal and the party is united behind him. But thousands of Republicans -- particularly supporters of Texas Rep. Ron Paul -- aren't buying that. In the Pennsylvania primary, more than 215,000 Republicans cast ballots for Paul or former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, who together captured 27% of the vote. And that was tame compared with the uproar last weekend at Nevada's Republican Party Convention. About 600 well-organized Paul supporters overwhelmed McCain's forces and engineered a rule change that permitted national convention delegates to be nominated from...

cult: n. Obsessive, especially faddish, devotion to or veneration for a person, principle, or thing. Four men who are “called to lead a special mission”. Four groups of people who insist that their leader has found the true way; either to happiness, truth, safety, or all three. Four leaders, one method: all preach destruction that will surely be the outcome if others do not heed him and his One True Way. Four leaders, four different fates: one leader is dead, one is behind bars, one man is on the run for his life and one still walks free. 25 Signs...

The Constitution Party candidate for president says the biggest danger America faces is from Washington, D.C., not Tehran or Baghdad, and that he would jump at the opportunity to cut it down to size. "I really believe that our nation is fast becoming a nation that does not respect the freedoms and liberties that this country was founded upon," Chuck Baldwin told WND in an exclusive one-on-one interview today. "George Bush's Patriot Act ... in essence eviscerated the Fourth Amendment and did serious damage to other amendments in the Bill of Rights. I do believe that this burgeoning North American...

The Nevada Republican party suspended its convention on Saturday night with no delegates elected to attend the party's national convention in September. The state party chairman, Sue Lowden says that the party will reconvene to nominate the state's 31 delegates in Las Vegas at a later date. An argument over the delegate nominating process sent the party into disarray. The nominating committee put forth a list of candidates and called for a vote. Ron Paul supporters on the floor were unhappy with the list of candidates. Through a rule change, delegates were able to start nominating candidates from the floor...

<p>HOUSTON U.S. Rep. 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.</p> <p>The move could test the limits of federal campaign finance rules.</p>

The race for the Virginia 8th District congressional seat has seen two candidates vying for the Republican nomination and the opportunity to unseat nine-term Democratic Congressman Jim Moran. This week, I interview one of the candidates, Amit Singh. My interview with his opponent, Mark Ellmore, will be published next Monday. The primary is on June 10. Paul Ibrahim (P.I.): Mr. Singh, thank you for doing this interview. Can you, in one sentence, explain why you are running for Congress? Amit Singh (A.S.): I am running for Congress because our politicians are leading America in the wrong direction and those who...

HOUSTON — U.S. Rep. 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.

RENO, Nevada (AP) — Outmaneuvered by raucous Ron Paul supporters, Nevada Republican Party leaders abruptly shut down their state convention and now must resume the event to complete a list of 31 delegates to the GOP national convention. Outnumbered supporters of expected Republican presidential nominee John McCain faced off Saturday against well-organized Paul supporters. A large share of the more than 1,300 state convention delegates enabled Paul supporters to get a rule change positioning them for more national convention delegate slots than expected. "I've seen factions walk out. I've never seen a party walk out," said Jeff Greenspan, regional coordinator...

The link to audio of the speech is reproduced in post #2. It's 22 minutes long.

For the first time in two months, national poll averages at Real Clear Politics show both Obama and Clinton have very small leads over McCain. In last night's Pennsylvania primary, Ron Paul received 16% of the Republican vote, Huckabee 11%, and McCain 73%. Huckabee dropped out of the race more than a month ago. Ron Paul ackowledged in early March that he has no chance of overtaking McCain. Three days ago McCain drew a crowd of 100 people in Selma, AL, according to the AP.

John McCain - 582,549 - 73%......Ron Paul - 127,710 - 16%......Mike Huckabee - 90,933 - 11%

Dr. Paul has praised non-violent civil disobedience as an honorable and effective means of dealing with runaway federal power, including taxation. You should, nevertheless, know what you're doing and count the cost before you begin. Taxpayer or Non-Taxpayer? Has such a question ever even occurred to you? Have you even heard of a "nontaxpayer" before? Wouldn't it be unpatriotic not to "pay your taxes" like everyone else? Taxpayer? Nontaxpayer? Which are you? Is there an unequivocal reason that you "voluntarily comply" with the world's most obscure, deceptive, and fraudulently administered tax law, Title 26 of the US Code? Are YOU...

This is my state and my day to vote. Its a closed primary system and I was one of 17 people who had voted at 7:10 this morning, but I was only the 3rd Republican. 14 people had voted Democrat in an area that's mostly Republican. I got a chance to vote for some good candidates for delegate, state committee, etc. On the presidential side, I am not a Paulista but its interesting to note that Ron Paul ads are running on the radio here today. His people have good ballot positions in the delegate races. People run for GOP...

Taxes were on the forefront of many Americans’ minds this week as they scrambled to meet the April 15th deadline to file their returns. Tax policy in this country hurts taxpayers twice – once when they pay taxes, and then when the government spends the money. Americans are sick and tired of the financial burden and the endless forms to fill out. To add insult to injury, after collecting this money the government does some very detrimental things to the economy. The burden of complying with the income tax is tremendous. Since its inception in 1913, the tax code has...

The political fundraising of Rep. Ron Paul, which dominated the Republican presidential field as recently as December, is fading fast, apparently as his loyal followers' enthusiasm reflects the looming numerical reality of his longshot campaign. Paul filed his required financial reports with the Federal Election Commission over the weekend and said he raised a mere $123,523 in the entire month of March. The same month he disbursed nearly five times that much, including $3.90 to a Burger King in Tuscaloosa, Ala. and $72.08 to Chuck's Donuts in Renton, Wash. when the 72-year-old ob-gyn must have really had a sweet tooth....

SYRACUSE, NY-David Gay says he's the unconventional congressional candidate who stands for conventional Republican ideals. The 27-year-old, who was the Syracuse coordinator for Rep. Ron Paul's presidential campaign, has never run for public office. He and his wife, Yusimy Gay-Martinez, who fled Cuba in 1999, live in a poor neighborhood on Syracuse's North Side with their 17-month-old son. Since graduating nine years ago from Nottingham High School, Gay has scraped by doing a variety of jobs, including work on the Syracuse Chiefs grounds crew, as a baseball scout in Latin America, as a Spanish translator and as a data entry...

For years, Texas has been planning a privately financed super turnpike from Mexico to the Oklahoma border. But like rush-hour traffic, the plan for a Trans-Texas Corridor is only inching along. "It ran into a firestorm of controversy in Texas,� said Neal McCaleb, a former Oklahoma transportation secretary. Critics have a wide range of concerns about the corridor, which has a key stretch that would parallel Interstate 35. (Another stretch would extend from the Texarkana/Shreveport area to Mexico.) Particularly upset are landowners who may be in the corridor's path. The Texas Transportation Department calls many concerns myths. The department says,...

In recent weeks the thundering Ron Paul freight train has kind of derailed. Even though Paul announced that he was ending his campaign on March 8, his supporters are apparently convinced that he's still a viable candidate, despite his repeated public statements that they should move on and try to do some good working within the GOP. Nonetheless, many of them are pushing for a final surge and a surprise (and entirely delusional) victory at the GOP convention this summer. Admittedly, Paul is still making a lot of speeches and pushing his agenda, so maybe that's contributing to their confusion,...

With momentum building for some form of taxpayer-funded housing rescue, what better time to check in with one of the most ardent bailout opponents, Republican Rep. Ron Paul of Texas? Excerpts from an interview: What is the likelihood that Congress will pass some form o f large-scale government intervention aimed at stemming the tide of foreclosures? Oh, I think they will. [Rep.] Barney Frank [a Massachusetts Democrat who is chairman of the House Financial Services Committee] would support that. It's interesting. Barney Frank is a good friend of mine. He and I support things that allow and permit personal risk,...

At last, some cheering news for downhearted fans of Ron Paul, the libertarian Republican now certain to fail, by some distance, to secure his party's presidential nomination. This month has seen the first meeting of the shareholders in a fledgling community development planned in rural Texas, to be comprised exclusively of Paul's supporters. It is to be called Paulville. The gated settlement will house freedom-loving folk, living unbound by the shackles of planning regulations. Its founders hope that when complete, it will inspire further Paulvilles around America and, in their own words, "literally change the world, one community at a...

There has been a lot of talk in the news recently about the Federal Reserve and the actions it has taken over the past few months. Many media pundits have been bending over backwards to praise the Fed for supposedly restoring stability to the market. This interpretation of the Fed's actions couldn't be further from the truth. The current market crisis began because of Federal Reserve monetary policy during the early 2000s in which the Fed lowered the interest rate to a below-market rate. The artificially low rates led to overinvestment in housing and other malinvestments. When the first indications...

The Spokane County Republican Party formally rejected the Iraq policy of their current president and their party’s likely nominee, saying American troops shouldn’t be on overseas missions for more than six months without a formal declaration of war. At a county convention that some party leaders said may have set an attendance record for Republicans in Spokane, supporters of presidential candidate Ron Paul Saturday handily defeated an attempt to scale back the platform’s stringent limitation on using American troops on foreign soil. They beat back an attempt by delegate Ritajane Boyce of Spokane to swap the platform’s position on the...

Last month, the House amended the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) to expand the government’s ability to monitor our private communications. This measure, if it becomes law, will result in more warrantless government surveillance of innocent American citizens. Though some opponents claimed that the only controversial part of this legislation was its grant of immunity to telecommunications companies, there is much more to be wary of in the bill. In the House version, Title II, Section 801, extends immunity from prosecution of civil legal action to people and companies including any provider of an electronic communication service, any provider...

BLAINE, Minn. – Ron Paul supporters shook things up in at least three of Minnesota's congressional district conventions yesterday when they captured nearly all of the national delegates and alternates for the Republican National Convention this fall. There was controversy at Minnesota's 6th Congressional District Convention. The district covers part of the Twin Cities metro area and extends to the west and into nearby St. Cloud, Minn. Paul supporters were accused of dirty tricks. "They hijacked the convention," said Jeff Johnson who serves as Minnesota's Senate District 15 co-chairman. Two out of three national delegates elected were Ron Paul supporters...

For Peyton Gilbert, the battle over the Trans-Texas Corridor is reminiscent of the moment in 1836 when Lt. Col. William Travis drew a line in the sand at the Alamo and invited those willing to fight thousands of Mexican soldiers to step across. "That line in the sand is the Trans-Texas Corridor, and it's a threat to our sovereignty again, just like at the Alamo," said Gilbert, 14, who is from Whitehouse, near Tyler. Gilbert was among a large crowd of people who marched down Congress Avenue to the Capitol on Saturday afternoon to demonstrate against the proposed highway-rail-utility corridor...

Paul backers won control of GOP confabs in Austin, Victoria. Want a fresh political surprise? How about supporters of U.S. Rep. Ron Paul for president staking a lasting claim in the Republican Party of Texas? As Democrats tussled over their presidential candidates at recent regional conventions, Paul backers unexpectedly took control of a GOP convention in Austin and the Victoria County convention. The results at Travis County's state Senate District 25 convention left old-guard Republicans wondering who lost the party's car keys — and worse. Gail Suttle, active in GOP circles since the 1980s, watched the takeover in horror. Suttle...

Back in December, we ran the story Ron Paul to make third party run on Constitution Party ticket.The information we had was from a reliable source. His contact accurately reported what he had been asked by the Constitution Party. However, he left out a vital detail: Had Ron Paul already agreed to run on the Constitution Party ticket, or was he merely being courted? Did our source's contact get approached by the Constitution Party as a part of the Constitution Party laying the groundwork, in case Paul agreed, or did Paul and the Party have some sort of agreement that...

INDIANA, Pa. -- Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton fought back against calls to drop out of the presidential race by comparing herself to Rocky Balboa. Ask Rep. Ron Paul, who keeps running for the Republican nod, what fictional figure he is like and he can't come up with an answer. It's probably Sisyphus, given his hopeless but continuing quest to push for the nomination. Among his wildly passionate fans, he's nothing short of mythical. "This is a true American patriot, my man," said Richard McCloud, an unemployed laborer who drove two hours from Uniontown to Indiana University of Pennsylvania to see...

Mr. Chairman, I have never been opposed to regulation, although my idea of regulation differs from that of many people in Washington. The free market and its forces of supply and demand are the most effective regulator of the private sector, and have never been known to fail absent government intervention. But piling more public sector regulation on the private sector will have a detrimental effect on the health of our financial system and sow the seeds for the next financial meltdown. What we in Washington should be discussing is increased regulation and scrutiny of public sector regulatory and oversight...

FORT WORTH -- Ron Paul supporters fought with local Republican leaders Saturday over control of local conventions and may have won the right to push their agenda at the state GOP convention. Supporters of Paul, a congressman from Surfside who got 4.5 percent of the votes in the presidential primary, tried to overwhelm the senate district-level conventions by sheer numbers. The party regulars, aware that Paul's supporters won a similar campaign in Missouri, brought in extra troops of their own. The two largest conventions in Tarrant County were still nominating their delegates at 9 p.m., and it may be days...

These past few weeks have provided an unfortunate opportunity to discuss inflation. The dollar index has reached new all-time lows. The total money supply, M3, as calculated by private sources, is growing at a disturbing 17% rate. The Fed is pumping dollars into the economy at an alarming rate. Just recently the Fed announced new loan auctions totaling $100 billion. That is new money created from thin air. If these money auctions, combined with the bailout of Bear Stearns, continue to be the trend, we are in for some economic stormy weather. The explanation lies in understanding the basics of...