Free Republic

U.S. Senator Rand Paul is running for president … in fact, he announces his candidacy next week in Louisville, Kentucky. From there he travels to early voting Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina – including a big fundraiser in the Palmetto State the day after he announces. As we write this, money is being collected. Speeches are being vetted. He’s 100 percent in … and not only that, Paul is one of the few candidates in the race with (we believe) a path to victory. And one of the few candidates (we believe) to be worthy of real consideration. Is...

1. Rand Paul is strong among libertarian Republicans and anti-war isolationists on foreign policy. 2. Ted Cruz is strong among pro-life evangelicals and those in favor of a hawkish interventionist foreign policy. He is also favored by those who see the elimination of Obama Care as a priority. 3. Scott Walker, as a governor, is favored by those who want someone with executive experience. He stood up against public sector unions, just like Reagan stood up against the air traffic controllers. The unions forced a recall election against Governor Walker but lost. Scott Walker is also favored among supporters of...

The sweeping re-election of New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie proves moderates are an integral part of the Republican Party, Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky says. “There’s room in the Republican Party for moderates, like Chris Christie. They seem to be the only ones that are winning in the Northeast,” Paul told “The Steve Malzberg Show” on Newsmax TV. “The other thing that might happen in the Northeast if we had a little more libertarian-leaning Republicans, they would have a chance in the Northeast. But there’s room for moderates, like Chris Christie, and he’s got a place in the party.” …

Vladimir Putin has an army of professional trolls running thousand of fake Twitter and Facebook accounts to flood social media with pro-Russia propaganda. Hundreds of workers are paid £500 a month to work exhausting 12-hour shifts bombarding the internet with comments placing Putin in a more favourable light. The trolls work under strict condition which see them banned from talking and even forging friendships with one another.

<>Politico writes that Rand Paul is losing support among key followers. One of the most prominent defectors is Drew Ivers, chairman of Ron Paul’s 2012 Iowa campaign, who says he will not endorse Rand Paul for president. On Tuesday, three members of Iowa’s Ron Paul-aligned Liberty movement — state Sen. Jason Shultz and former Iowa Republican Party central committee members Chad Steenhoek and Joel Kurtinitis — announced the same, adding that they will support Texas Sen. Ted Cruz. Ivers, who had dinner with Rand Paul in August, said the Kentucky senator has abandoned many of the stances that made Ivers...

I understand that in 2009 10 Republicans voted against House Resolution 224 a resolution making today, 14 Mar, 3.14, Pi Day. Why would anyone be against this? Is there cost in passing such a resolution and if so how much? The ten who voted against: Chaffetz, Jason, R-Utah, 3rd Flake, Jeff, R-Arizona, 6th Heller, Dean, R-Nevada, 2nd Johnson, Timothy V., R-Illinois, 15th Miller, Jeff, R-Florida, 1st Neugebauer, Randy, R-Texas, 19th Paul, Ron, R-Texas, 14th Pence, Mike, R-Indiana, 6th Poe, Ted, R-Texas, 2nd Shuster, Bill, R-Pennsylvania, 9th

Carl Sagan is arguably science's biggest rockstar—the ultimate champion for logic and reason. Which makes it all the more painful to find out that his son is a vehement 9/11 truther. In a recent interview for a radio show called 9/11 Free Fall (already off to a great start), Jeremy Sagan—the younger son of Sagan senior and his first wife, fellow scientist Lynn Margulis—went off on all us closed-minded sheeple. In response to a prompt asking when he first "woke up," Sagan remarks:

A question I often am asked is: "Who would you bet on to win the presidency?" Personally, I don't bet on politics, but here's my current take on the 2016 presidential race—with, of course, the caveat that we don't know which campaigns will turn out the best in terms of organization, strategy, tactics, or execution, much less which candidates will step on land mines along the way. The Democratic nomination appears fairly straightforward. Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is now the prohibitive favorite. If her early stumbles during her book tour, or remarks like the one she made about...

The Anti-Defamation League condemned Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan as the “leading anti-Semite in America” after a speech in which he blamed “Israelis and Zionist Jews” for the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. “At a time when anti-Semitic attitudes are at historic lows, Farrakhan’s unabashed promotion of anti-Semitism is a throwback to the intolerance of another era,” ADL National Director Abraham Foxman said in a statement issued Thursday. Farrakhan, who has a long history of anti-Semitic remarks, delivered his speech Sunday in Chicago as part of his Saviors Day 2015 sermon. “It is now becoming apparent that there...

“They are really against war because they want all of that money to go to food stamps for people here.” (AUDIO-AT-LINK)Former Republican Rep. Ron Paul, the father of potential presidential candidate Rand Paul and a former presidential candidate himself, said the Congressional Black Caucus does not support war because they want that money for food stamps. “I was always annoyed with it in Congress because we had an anti-war unofficial group, a few libertarian Republicans and generally the Black Caucus and others did not—they are really against war because they want all of that money to go to food stamps...

Gannet paper, link only: http://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/politics/2015/02/19/kent-sorenson-sentencing-iowa-caucus-2012-paul/23684721/

Former Republican presidential candidate and congressman Ron Paul says secession is happening and it’s “good news.” Paul later predicted the states would stop listening to federal laws. “I would like to start off by talking about the subject and the subject is secession and, uh, nullification, the breaking up of government, and the good news is it’s gonna happen. It’s happening,” Paul, the father of potential Republican presidential candidate Rand Paul, told a gathering at the libertarian Mises Institute in late January. The event Paul was speaking at was titled “Breaking Away: The Case for Secession.” Paul said secession would...

Fun stuff via BuzzFeed, portending an exciting “whose close relative is more of a devastating electoral liability?” primary for the GOP if the two men left standing are Jeb Bush and Rand Paul. I don’t understand this even within the parameters of the Ron Paul worldview. I thought hardcore isolationists — sorry, “non-interventionists” — believe that the war machine will always find a new pretext to keep rolling even if the current one goes bust. Obama, for instance, did eventually get Bin Laden, along with many other Al Qaeda capos … and yet at this very moment there’s an AUMF...

Kentucky Senator Rand Paul has a Ron Paul problem. Or maybe it's a Ron Paul opportunity. Both sides of that particular coin were on display Friday, when Ron - Rand's father - spoke to the International Students for Liberty Conference in Washington, DC. It was the elder Paul's kind of audience - young and enthusiastic about the libertarian emphasis on robust individual freedoms and miniscule government. Crowds like this had fervently supported the former congressman's quixotic bids for the Republican presidential nomination in 2008 and 2012, where he proved to be a pesky participant in the debates and a headache...

Senator Rand Paul is calling for a declaration of war against the Islamic State, a move that promises to shake up the debate over the military campaign in Iraq and Syria as President Obama prepares to ask Congress to grant him formal authority to use force. Mr. Paul, a likely presidential candidate who has emerged as one of the Republican Party’s most cautious voices on military intervention, offered a very circumscribed definition of war in his proposal, which he outlined in an interview on Saturday. He would, for instance, limit the duration of military action to one year and significantly...

The authorization for the use of military force against ISIS that the Obama administration sent Congress this week is not worthy of the name. Its language is far more about what the president won’t do against the terrorist army that controls much of Syria and Iraq—limits on ground troops and a sunset provision for the authorization after three years—than what he will do. Congress should reject it. If the threat of ISIS is as dire as the president says it is in the preamble of his resolution, if ISIS really does pose “a grave threat to the people and territorial...

HOUSTON — Rand Paul wants to lead the United States. On Saturday in Texas, his father was speaking at a conference about how to leave it. “A lot of times people think secession, they paint it as an absolute negative,” said former U.S. Rep. Ron Paul. After all, Paul said, the American Revolution was a kind of secession. “You mean we should have been obedient to the king forever? So it’s all in the way you look at it.” This weekend was a crucial one for Rand Paul, the Republican senator from Kentucky and un­declared candidate for the presidency. He...

Rand Paul has a lot going for him. He inspires the conservative and libertarian wings of the Republican Party. In many ways he’s a breath of fresh air because he’s different than the rest of the GOP. He’s trying to work with constituencies that the GOP normally ignores. He’s making policy arguments that are different than other Republicans and different from other conservatives or libertarians. Rand Paul is personable, which goes a long way on the presidential campaign trail. Rand Paul can unite the right in the GOP. He has the brashness of Ted Cruz and the values of a...

Tea Party champion and conservative firebrand Ted Cruz may be ready to embrace his libertarian side – and he may need to, if he hopes to find a path from Iowa to the White House. As it turns out, the death of the Liberty Movement in Iowa may have been greatly exaggerated. While an establishment resurgence in 2014 spearheaded by Governor Terry Branstad succeeded in purging the Ron Paul element from the leadership of the Republican Party of Iowa, members of the state’s robust and often-boisterous Liberty Movement are turning their attention to greater things – namely, the 2016 presidential...

If Rand Paul wants to have any chance of running for the Republican nomination for president in 2016, not to mention the presidency itself, there is one thing he needs to do immediately. Tell Dad to shut up. In response to the Charlie Hebdo massacre in Paris, Ron Paul took a break from his usual blame-America-first rhetoric to blame France first. On an internet television show, Paul the Elder declared, “France has been a target for many, many years, because they’ve been involved in foreign affairs in Libya, and they really prodded us along in—recently in Libya, but they’ve been...