Economy, Federal Reserve, Politics Liberty, Rand Paul

Republicrats Rand Paul

Economy, Federal Reserve, Gold, Politics, World Liberty, Rand Paul

How Rand Paul became the Tea Party’s Obama

His father’s libertarian army and Rush Limbaugh’s “Dittoheads” aren’t natural allies. But Rand Paul has united them

On the afternoon of Dec. 16, 2009, the 236th anniversary of the Boston Tea Party, Rand Paul left the office of his small ophthalmology practice in Bowling Green and drove 30 miles to Russellville, Ky. In an election year without the Tea Party movement, Rand Paul’s campaign to become Kentucky’s next U.S. senator would be just as quixotic as the bid his father, Ron Paul, made for the Republican presidential nomination in 2008. The younger Paul has never before run for political office, and he shares many of his father’s unorthodox views, including a desire to abolish both the Federal Reserve and the Department of Education. Yet, today he would address Kentucky’s Logan County Republicans as the race’s front-runner.

At the Republican Party headquarters in Russellville, Paul took the podium. Dimpled and handsome, 47 years old, with boyishly tousled salt-and-pepper hair, he surveyed the audience, a crowd of mostly retirement-age GOP stalwarts. Then, in a casual and articulate drawl, Paul committed an act of heresy that would have once doomed any Kentucky Republican: He attacked the state’s senior senator, the minority leader, Mitch McConnell. The oratory opened with a display of subtle rhetorical agility worthy of Mark Antony.

“I got into this initially because there were rumors they were trying to push Jim Bunning out of office,” Paul began. “I said to a reporter, ‘I think that’s wrong.’”

The two-term Sen. Jim Bunning was the slain Caesar of the stump speech. Playing the role of Brutus, of course, was McConnell, whose hand rests on the GOP’s national fundraising taps, and who, with a twist of the wrist, had effectively forced Bunning into retirement. Without directly accusing the honorable Republican leader, Paul decried Bunning’s martyrdom.

“I think he’s done a good job for us,” he said. “He has been conservative, and when the bank bailout came up, Jim Bunning had the courage to vote against it.” Paul didn’t need to tell this group that Bunning had done so in defiance of McConnell — and he was too gentlemanly to belabor the point. The implication was clear: The party boss had taken Bunning down for his principles.

To take Bunning’s place, McConnell had groomed Trey Grayson, a five-generation Kentuckian and fellow graduate of the University of Kentucky Law School — the “leadership academy” of Kentucky politics, as some call it — who is Kentucky’s current secretary of state. Most impressive on Grayson’s political résumé is that he won reelection in 2007, even as the state overwhelmingly elected a Democratic governor. In a state where 60 percent of voters are registered Democrats, Grayson (who is himself a lapsed Democrat) had valuable crossover appeal. When McConnell began assessing Bunning’s electoral prospects in early 2009, Grayson must have seemed especially appealing in contrast. The insubordinate and gaffe-prone Bunning had recently responded to Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s diagnosis of pancreatic cancer by coldly forecasting that she would be dead within a year.

Grayson started the race with party backing, a reputation for competence, an ideal political résumé, and a 6-foot-5 frame that gave him an air of authority that his unspectacular public speaking sometimes lacked. When the first polling was done in September ‘09, Grayson had a 34-25 percent lead. Within four months, though, the numbers had reversed, and Paul told the Logan County Republicans why.

“If there’s ever a year for an outsider who has never held office before, this is the year,” Paul said. He recounted tales of Tea Party events. Seven hundred people in his hometown of Bowling Green had rallied on April 15; there were 4,000 in Louisville a few months later. By contrast, Paul said, “The biggest GOP event I’ve been to in the last seven months — 200 people in Louisville. You can see how the Tea Party movement is big and it captures the discontent that’s out there, and sometimes discontent with both sides.”

The political divide between Paul and Grayson broadly represents a larger fault line within the GOP: It’s Republicans who blame the Democrats versus Republicans who blame the government. A day earlier, on Dec. 15, 2009, a coalition of Tea Party groups had held an emergency “Code Red” rally in a park just north of the Capitol. Addressing the crowd was Sen. Jim DeMint of South Carolina, who appears to be making a bid to replace McConnell as the leader of the Senate Republicans.

The crowd was about 1,000 strong and half were wearing bright red jackets and hats, to signify the imminent threat posed by the healthcare bill, which at the time seemed close to passing. Several were waving the yellow Gadsden flags of the American Revolution, which feature the words “Don’t Tread on Me” and the image of a coiled rattlesnake ready to strike. Most of the protesters were middle-aged and white, more men than women — a representative sampling of the Tea Party movement, which (polling has since shown) is slightly older, wealthier, better-educated and angrier than the average American.

“Over a year ago,” DeMint said, “Americans voted for a president who promised to cut taxes, cut spending, cut debt.” His amplified voice drowned in a chanted chorus of “liar, liar.” A woman with short gray hair and rosy cheeks that matched her red sweat shirt held a sign that read “Obama bin Lyin.”

DeMint finished his attack on Obama, then pivoted to Republicans.

“Democrats and Republicans, if they’re not standing up for our Constitution, for a balanced budget and the principles of liberty … then you send us people that believe as you do that this country is about freedom and now is our time to fight for it,” he said, and waved to the applauding crowd.

In the GOP’s soul-searching after its 2008 losses, DeMint has been a conservative hard-liner. The rise of the Tea Party has dovetailed with DeMint’s ambitions to trim the moderate fat, push the party to the right, and ultimately lead it. To that end, DeMint has grown his leadership PAC, the Senate Conservatives Fund, into a powerful alternative to the National Republican Senatorial Committee, which is the fundraising arm of the Senate Republican caucus that McConnell leads. Over $340,000 worth of support from DeMint’s PAC fueled one of the Tea Party’s biggest electoral victories to date, when the right-wing Marco Rubio pulled so far ahead in the Florida polls that the incumbent Republican governor, Charlie Crist, left the party to run as an independent rather than lose in the primary.

DeMint’s endorsement of Paul came only recently, on May 5, the same day McConnell gave his official backing to Grayson.

According to Paul’s campaign manager, David Adams, Paul and McConnell met seven months ago at the Louisville airport, but haven’t met since. Adams confirmed that Paul has not pledged his support for McConnell as leader of the Senate Republicans.

“We haven’t even really seriously talked about the fall election,” Adams said, “and that’s way before something that might happen in the beginning of 2011.”

It seems likely that Paul is waiting to see where the fault line breaks after this election. With his own fundraising machine, he hasn’t needed McConnell’s support. And if Tea Party candidates are widely successful, then DeMint could become the GOP’s new kingmaker. Rand Paul would certainly be a favorite son. In fact, he is already the telegenic, silver-tongued, politically savvy son of the man who won the Conservative Political Action Conference straw poll, which gauged Republican sentiments in anticipation of 2012.

It all started with a bomb

Rand Paul’s success can be understood in the genealogy of the Tea Party movement. Its viral and decentralized traits, the intellectual foundations of its libertarianism, and its fundraising tactics all come from Ron Paul’s presidential campaign.

The first Tea Party event of the Obama era was arguably a Ron Paul “money bomb” fundraiser; and the story of that event is the primal example of how the medium of the Internet and the power of American mythology have combined to unify a movement of militant individualists.

The forefathers of the money bomb are two Paul-ites in their mid-30s, Trevor Lyman and Vijay Boyapati. They met online in the fall of 2007 through their shared enthusiasm for Ron Paul, quit their jobs, and moved to New Hampshire to start Operation Live Free or Die, a PAC with the goal of recruiting 1,000 fellow supporters to knock on every door in the state before the presidential primary. Boyapati, an early Google employee who cashed out at the height of the market, bankrolled much of the operation and coordinated the door-knocking. Lyman built the bombs.

His inspiration was the movie “V for Vendetta,” which had gained a cult following among libertarians. The film depicts a dystopian vision of a modern British government co-opted by corporations and transformed into a totalitarian state, which is violently attacked by a masked insurgent who styles himself after Guy Fawkes, the terrorist who was caught on Nov. 5, 1605, attempting to bomb Parliament while its members and the king were inside.

Lyman designed a time bomb of his own: a website that would, over several weeks, collect pledges to donate to Ron Paul. On scores of Ron Paul websites, MySpace and Facebook groups, and libertarian message boards, users began posting live tickers tied to Lyman’s database, which continuously updated the pledge total. On the 402nd anniversary of the Gunpowder Plot, the money bomb would trigger a multimillion-dollar blast of coordinated individual donations. It was a novel method of small-donor bundling. A campaign contribution feels important and exciting in proportion to its size; with the money bomb, small contributors became co-conspirators in a larger scheme, and every additional donor they recruited gave them a larger stake in the fundraising total. The first money bomb on Nov. 5th raised $4.2 million.

The Ron Paul online message boards are usually chaotic and contentious — libertarians are by disposition even less likely to sublimate their egos than your average Internet commentator — but within a few days a consensus formed that another money bomb should be set for Dec. 16. “The free market of ideas,” as some Paul-ites call their online community, was functioning efficiently.

Meanwhile, in Dartmouth, Mass., a 49-year-old floor installer named Bob Dwyer had been exploring some Internet message boards and clicked a link to a video of Ron Paul. Like many who are drawn to Paul, Dwyer felt he was finally hearing a convincing explanation of the country’s problems. Unlike the traditional left-right debates, Paul’s was a story of freedom versus oppression that paralleled the original American Revolution.

“Traditionally, I used to think the Democrats are for the poor, Republicans are for the rich, and I was always a poor person, so why would I vote for a Republican?” Dwyer said. “But Ron Paul, he was teaching me, maturing me, educating me.”

A registered Democrat for most of his life, Dwyer had never been politically active, beyond simply voting. Yet he found himself discussing Ron Paul with fellow dads on the sidelines of his daughters’ soccer games with such enthusiasm that people began asking if he was volunteering for the campaign. He used Ron Paul’s website to find and join a Boston-area Meetup group. After the first money-bomb success, the group began discussing what they should do for Dec. 16.

The inspiration struck Dwyer in his sleep. On Tuesday morning, Nov. 13, he awoke with the idea to hold an event, in conjunction with the upcoming money bomb, at Boston’s Faneuil Hall –  where many of the Founding Fathers met to plot their responses to the oppressions of the British Parliament, including the original Tea Party.

“I hate to say it, man, but if it’s not spooky to you, I feel like it was divine providence,” Dwyer said, looking back on that morning. “It was like the Founding Fathers came to me in my sleep and stuck the torch of liberty in my hand.”

Read the rest at Salon.com

Politics Liberty, Rand Paul, Ron Paul

A battle for the soul of the Republican Party is shaping up in Kentucky. As soon as Sen. Jim Bunning announced his retirement, the GOP establishment — led by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell — rallied behind the candidacy of Trey Grayson, Kentucky’s tall, affable secretary of state.

But Grayson and McConnell have been blindsided by Rand Paul, son of Texas Rep. Ron Paul, who is riding an anti-establishment wave in the Bluegrass State — spurred on by the Tea Party.

It’s Not Anger — It’s Concern

Rand Paul sits in the waiting room of his Bowling Green, Ky., medical practice. It’s been a busy day, and Paul, an ophthalmologist, is still wearing his blue scrubs after performing surgery earlier.

“I find that it’s a day of vacation when I only have to do my real job as a physician and don’t have to campaign,” he says. “I’m like, ‘Oh good, I don’t have to go anywhere.’ ”

Paul has been crisscrossing Kentucky, speaking to Tea Party rallies and Lincoln Day dinners. It’s the Tea Partiers, Paul says, who have given his campaign its energy.

“I give a lot of credit to the Tea Party momentum. And I’ve been part of the tax reform movement in Kentucky for 15 years,” he says. “And I always say, ‘I was part of the Tea Party before the Tea Party existed.’ ”

Paul’s ideas come largely from the Ronald Reagan/Contract with America handbook. He wants to eliminate the federal departments of Education, Energy and Commerce. He says he’ll filibuster to get a constitutional balanced-budget amendment debated, and he wants term limits. But those proposals were never implemented even when Republicans controlled Washington. Paul’s appeal seems based on something else — though not anger, he says.

“I would say it’s concern,” he says. “In all of my speeches, that’s what I say motivates me. And it’s what I see and feel palpably at these Tea Parties … concern and worry over the loss of direction of our country, the loss of constitutional freedoms, the fact our deficit could grow so large that it could make things unstable.”

Potential instability is something Paul talks about often. In one of his favorite riffs, he harkens back to pre-World War II Germany.

“In 1923, Germany destroyed its currency. The pictures in our history books — most people have seen them: money in wheelbarrows, people burning money for fuel. And out of that came chaos and came Hitler,” he says.

Quickly, Paul adds he’s not comparing anyone to Hitler, nor is he predicting some sort of imminent dictatorship.

A Question Of What’s Mainstream

“His ideas are strange,” says Grayson, who in any other year would likely be sailing to his party’s nomination. “I disagree with his ideas. I think they are strange.”

Along with McConnell’s backing, Grayson also has the endorsement of former Vice President Dick Cheney. Grayson has been trying to paint Paul as outside the mainstream while positioning himself as the candidate best suited to bring change to Washington.

“I’m confident that we’re going to convince enough voters that if you’re mad, the best way to handle this — if you’re upset, if you’re concerned, if you’re worried — is to send somebody who can make Washington work a little bit better, and I’ve got a track record to prove it,” he says.

Grayson supporter Jonathan Spaulding says he’s worried that a victory by Paul in the GOP primary next month could mean Republicans lose the seat to a Democrat in November.

“I think some of the Ron Paul and son Rand Paul ideas are just not going to happen, and when people come in and believe that we’re going to abolish all these things and all those things are going to happen and vote for that — they’re going to be certainly disappointed,” Spaulding says.

Gaining Momentum

But right now, Rand Paul’s Tea Party supporters believe they’re on a roll. Paul appeared at a Tea Party event in Louisville last week, where the speakers included the Rev. Jerry Stephenson, an African-American minister.

“Do I look like a black militant racist?” Stephenson asked.

The crowd shouted, “No.”

“Then let me tell you something: You don’t look like white amen racist hillbillies,” Stephenson said. “You look like Americans, and we’re all standing for the same thing.”

Paul also addressed the rally, whose several hundred attendees were mostly white and middle age. Vicki Kesner, a school bus driver, was holding a Rand Paul yard sign. She says she likes that Paul is not a career politician.

“Trey Grayson is a party man,” Kesner says. “He was hand selected by the party, and I’ve had it up to here with the party problems. They’re not listening to us as a people. They’re not hearing to what we’re saying, and I like the way that Rand Paul does listen to us and does seem to respond to it.”

Right now, Paul’s chances of getting to the Senate look pretty good. He’s been endorsed by Tea Party favorite Sarah Palin and by Bunning. And while polls show either Paul or Grayson would be favored over the two Democrats running, Paul is clearly in the driver’s seat, holding a double-digit lead for the May 18 Republican primary.

NPR

Politics Rand Paul

The corrupt and failed era of the Dick Cheney Republican Party is getting involved in the Race in Kentucky in attempt to stalwart the rise of Rand Paul. It’s a losing battle, with their establishment favorite behind in all the the polls to the Bowling Green Doctor. Today Rudy Gulianni made a rare endorsement against Rand. They are pulling out all the stops, this hasn’t stopped Rand Paul to raise 50K since Midnight.

All lovers of liberty stand and help push an embarrassing blow and defeat to the old corrupted Republican establishment of Dick Cheney by donating to the Rand Paul campaign in Kentucky for United States Senate. The Doctor is anti-tax, anti-Obama, and anti-big corrupt Government. He’s a tea party favorite with a small grassroots campaign; his opponent is funded by bigwig DC lobbyists and insiders who are trying everything in desperation to smear Rand Paul.

Donate to Rand Paul today!

Economy, Federal Reserve, Politics, World Rand Paul

We started this movement.

Since then our slogan, the “Tea Party” has now been co-opted for gain by those such as Glenn Beck, Rick Perry, Sarah Palin and many other individuals.

We are the original grassroot supports of the Ron Paul 2008 Presidential campaign, of which Debra Medina was apart. Debra is a true American liberty fighter and anyone who associates themselves with the tea party and does not support Debra Medina should drop the slogan.

Chuck Baldwin wrote an excellent piece today reminding everyone that the current tea party movement had nothing to do with these individuals such as Rick Perry, Sarah Palin, and many others who now banter under the term the “Tea Party.”

A WARNING TO THE TEA PARTY NATION

By Chuck Baldwin
February 12, 2010
NewsWithViews.com

The Tea Parties of 2010 remind me very much of the Conservative Revolution of 1994. And if the Tea Party Nation is not very careful, they will succumb to the same fate. The signs of a silent takeover of the movement are already appearing.

First of all, the Tea Parties were actually born during the Presidential campaign of Congressman Ron Paul of Texas in 2007 and 2008. For all intents and purposes, the Tea Parties and the Ron Paul Revolution were one and the same. These were (mostly) young people, who were sick and tired of the same old establishment Republican Party. They were tired of establishment Republicans selling out the principles of limited government; they were tired of the US Constitution being ignored and trampled by both Republicans and Democrats; they were tired of an incessant interventionist US foreign policy that keeps sending US forces overseas to advance a burgeoning New World Order (NWO); they were tired of perpetual war; they were tired of the bank bailouts; they were tired of the Federal Reserve; etc.

I know this because I met–and spoke before–the Tea Party Nation in State after State as I campaigned for Dr. Paul during the Republican primaries back in 2008. And I met them again all over America, as I was running as an Independent candidate for President–with Ron Paul’s endorsement, no less. I was with them in scores of meetings (big and small) from Washington, D.C., to Spokane, Washington, and all points in between.

But now many of the Tea Parties are distancing themselves from Dr. Paul and embracing establishment players such as Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck. Even Newt Gingrich is being courted. Watch out, Tea Party Nation: you’re in danger of losing your soul! Newt Gingrich is not one of you. He is not your friend. He is an imposter. He will destroy you just like he almost single-handedly destroyed the Conservative Revolution of 1994.

Plus, be careful about Sarah Palin and other establishment Republicans. Palin is currently playing both sides. She is promoting Big Government neocons such as John McCain on the one hand, and sincere conservative-libertarians such as Rand Paul on the other hand. But if one wants a real barometer of Palin’s true colors, look no further than her endorsement of Rick Perry in Texas.

Perry is the quintessential establishment Republican. Perry has been in office for some 9 years, and what has he done to thwart the NWO in Texas? Nothing! Perry is even a Bilderberg Group attendee. What has he done for State sovereignty in Texas? Nothing! In fact, he supports the North American Union and the NAFTA superhighway. What has he done to resist Obama’s universal health care proposals? Nothing! What has he done to protect the citizens of Texas against an emerging Police State? Nothing! What has he done to fight illegal immigration? Nothing!

As a result of both Rick Perry’s establishment business-as-usual politics in Texas and the proliferating grassroots Tea Party movement, counterattacking establishment politics, a Tea Partier herself has entered the race for Texas governor. Her name is Debra Medina. As the Tea Party Nation in Texas already knows, Medina is one of you.

Medina is committed to preserving Texas’ independence and sovereignty. She is opposed to the Patriot Act. She will secure the Texas border. She will give Texas Vermont-style open carry freedoms for gun owners. She wants to get rid of unconstitutional property taxes in Texas. She will stop the NAFTA superhighway. Medina is the real deal.

So, what did Sarah Palin do? She went to Texas and endorsed Rick Perry! I’m sorry, ladies and gentlemen, playing political games in order to rake in hundreds of thousands of dollars on the speaking and book-signing circuits is not what the Tea Parties are all about.

Tea Parties are supposed to be about putting principle over politics, supporting and defending the US Constitution, supporting limited government and personal liberty, getting rid of the Federal Reserve, abolishing the IRS, ending preemptive and pervasive wars, and putting truth and integrity back into government.

Entirety at http://www.newswithviews.com/baldwin/baldwin569.htm

World Adam Kokesh, Debra Medina, Peter Schiff, Rand Paul, Ron Paul

Three cheers to a Constitutional Government!!! Long live the Republic envisioned by James Madison, Samuel Adams, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Paine and all Founders of the United States.

They would have violently opposed the bankrupting of the country due to our corrupt elected officials, the loss of our Civil liberties, the massive expansion of the President and the Executive Branch, the Federal Reserve, the Income Tax, and the centralization of our Republic, which now barely exists. Our Bill of Rights has been eaten by our Government and no longer exists. This movement is a long time coming.

We all should gather our Strength, those of us with an alike conscinous to help these candidates for office. All of these love the founders more than lobbyists and personal recognition. Some of these I’ve talked about for a long time on this blog.

Debra Medina Running for Governor of Texas
Peter Schiff Senate from Connecticut to replace Chris Dodd’s seat
Rand Paul Senate from Kentucky
Adam Kokesh House from New Mexico
R.J. Harris House from Oklahoma

Economy, Federal Reserve, Politics, World Adam Kokesh, Debra Medina, Liberty, Peter Schiff, Rand Paul, Teaparty, United States

Bowling Green, Kentucky – National political icon and conservative leader Sarah Palin has endorsed Dr. Rand Paul in his bid for United States Senate from Kentucky. The Paul campaign has received a generous donation from Governor Palin’s PAC.

Sarah Palin has clearly seen that Rand Paul supports smaller, constitutional government and is taking the fight to the career politicians and will shake up the tax and spend crowd in Washington D.C.

politicallore.com

Politics Rand Paul

Grass roots supporters of Rand Paul’s burgeoning U.S. Senate campaign are leading the way again with a steady stream of financial contributions to the campaign’s web site.

Before lunch in the Central time zone, proponents of freedom, prosperity, and Constitutional principles have flooded the campaign with well over $110,000 for the day. That amounts to more than $425,000 for the quarter and an overall total of more than $1.5 million to take on the establishment and return power to the people.

Rand’s strong advocacy of balanced budgets, lower taxes, and real job creation has combined with the relentless efforts of his fellow Americans to build a movement.

And it is really moving…

Over $180,000 has came in so far today! Donation Tracker

RandPaul2010

Politics, Rumor Rand Paul