Category Archives: Ron Paul

Ron Paul - The American Experiment In Liberty Has Failed
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Ron Paul - The American Experiment In Liberty Has Failed - Video

Ron Paul - Secession Movements are Great for Liberty
Ron Paul - Secession Movements are Great for Liberty.

By: Economic Collapse

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Ron Paul - Secession Movements are Great for Liberty - Video

Requiring voter identification is not a tool of voter suppression, but Republicans need to understand why people have that perception and work to change it, a possible candidate for the GOP presidential nomination said Wednesday.

U.S. Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky, campaigned with U.S. Rep. Walter B. Jones Jr. in Greenville on Wednesday as part of a two-day swing through the Carolinas. Earlier in the day, Paul appeared with U.S. Senate candidate Thom Tillis in Raleigh.

He spoke with the Daily Reflector before a campaign event Wednesday night.

Congressman Jones has been a friend of ours for a long time, a friend of the family and one of my dads best friends, Paul said, referring to former congressman Ron Paul, a Republican presidential candidate in 2012. Hes one of the saner voices in Washington and a great independent voice, Paul said. Were excited that he will, we hope, continue to be your congressman.

Paul said he is making appearances across the country to talk about expanding the Republican Partys reach.

I think the perception of voter ID laws is some people think that people who want that want less people to vote, he said. I dont think that perception is accurate, but Im sensitive to the perception.

Pauls comments came on the same day the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals reinstated same-day registration during the early voting period and out-of-precinct voting ahead of the General Election in November.

Paul said he does not oppose voter identification and shows his drivers license when he votes.

I want to change the perception of the Republican Party, he said. I want people to know I want a Republican Party that welcomes new people to the party African-Americans, Hispanics, you name it. I want new people in the party and my policy is more people voting, not less.

Jones said he disagreed with the change implemented by North Carolinas General Assembly which reduced the length of early voting. Like Paul, Jones said he has no problem with the concept of presenting a photo identification to vote.

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Paul: Jones an independent voice

FILE: Jan. 3, 2012: Former GOP presidential candidate Texas Rep. Ron Paul and son Kentucky GOP Sen. Rand Paul at a rally in Ankeny, Iowa.(REUTERS)

Ron Paul has done it again. The firebrand former Texas congressman and GOP presidential candidate is making waves by touting Scotland's recent bid to secede from the United Kingdom -- and the impact it might have inspiring similar movements in the United States.

His views may be no surprise to the libertarian politician's followers. But they pose another potential headache for his son Rand Paul, the Kentucky GOP senator who appears to be assembling the beginnings of a 2016 White House campaign.

The elder Paul -- who mounted presidential campaigns in 1988, 2008 and 2012 -- posted an essay Sunday on his Ron Paul Institute website in which he argued in favor of Scotland voters ultimately failed effort to secede. He touted "growing" support for secession bids inside America, and said those who "embrace secession are acting in a grand American tradition."

In an interview with Fox News Radio's Alan Colmes, Ron Paul defended his comments, saying secession is "generating interest as a reflection of the failure of the state" and the Obama administration. But as for his son, Paul made clear "he has his life and his politics."

He said the media sometimes stress the differences between the two of them, and "it's not really enjoyable for me."

But Tyler Harber, Republican strategist and partner in the Harden-Global communications firm, said the father's comments and views could cause issues for the son.

Unfortunately for Rand Paul, most voters are going to have a difficult time differentiating between his policy statements and those of his father, he said.

Harber noted that former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush might have similar baggage should he decide to launch a 2016 GOP presidential bid, potentially being tied to his father George H.W. Bush and brother George W. Bush.

Rand Paul is already facing a separate political challenge when it comes to the Islamic State threat, considering his non-interventionist views yet polls showing American support for military action.

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Family ties: Ron Paul's secession comments could pose headache for Rand

Ron Paul - Secession Movements are Great for Liberty - 9/29/14
Ron Paul - Secession Movements are Great for Liberty - 9/29/14 Please click here to subscribe to my channel for latest news / Economy / money / Economic collapse / crisis / Gold / Silver /...

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Ron Paul - Secession Movements are Great for Liberty - 9/29/14 - Video

Republican presidential candidate, Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas speaks at a campaign stop, Friday, Jan. 27, 2012, at Colby College in Waterville, Maine. AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty

Former Rep. Ron Paul, the Texas Republican who became a libertarian icon after two presidential runs, wrote on his website this week that Scotland's failed bid for independence should encourage secessionist movements in the United States and around the globe.

"Americans who embrace secession are acting in a grand American tradition," Paul wrote. "The Declaration of Independence was written to justify secession from Britain. Supporters of liberty should cheer the growth in support for secession, as it is the ultimate rejection of centralized government and the ideologies of Keynesianism, welfarism, and militarism."

The former congressman said that support for secession is growing in America, citing as evidence the campaign to split California into six states. While the initiative didn't gain enough support to make it on the November ballot, more than one million Californians signed a petition to get it on the ballot.

"The possibility that people will break away from an oppressive government is one of the most effective checks on the growth of government," Paul wrote. "It is no coincidence that the transformation of America from a limited republic to a monolithic welfare-warfare state coincided with the discrediting of secession as an appropriate response to excessive government."

Paul similarly touted the virtues of secessionist movements in 2012, when he was still in Congress.

Ron Paul's son, Sen. Rand Paul, R-Kentucky, had to distance himself last year from a member of his staff who supported pro-Southern secessionist and racist views. The senator accepted the staffer's resignation and argued that libertarianism is "a philosophy that encourages a more tolerant worldview."

Rand Paul appears poised to follow in his father's footsteps and launch his own presidential bid, but he's made clear he wants to be judged for his own views -- not those of his father, his staff or anyone else. Earlier this year, the senator said he has "pretty much quit answering" questions about his father's views. "I've been in the Senate three years, and I have created a record of myself," he said.

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Ron Paul: Scotland's secessionist movement should inspire U.S.

As he moves toward a 2016 bid for the Republican presidential nomination, Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul is working overtime to win over GOP factions skeptical of the conservative libertarian brand embodied by Paul and his father, former Texas congressman and presidential candidate Ron Paul.

Though Rand Paul got his start in electoral politics working on his fathers campaigns, the success of his likely presidential campaign depends on distancing himself from Ron Pauls more strident rhetoric regarding U.S. economic policy and foreign intervention, and from the elder Pauls extensive history of bigoted and racist commentary.

In a lengthy profile of the Kentuckian for the forthcoming issue of the New Yorker, Ryan Lizza offers a glimpse at the nascent Paul campaigns early efforts to create space between father and son ahead of the 2016. An aide to the senator expressed exasperation that the old man is still out there speaking his mind after Ron Paul released a statement supporting Russian President Vladimir Putin shortly after the Russian-backed rebels showed down a Malaysian airliner over Ukraine. Rand Paul, commenting on his familys ties to far-right and white supremacist figures, told Lizza that he was never associated with any of these people. Ever. Only through being related to my dad, who had association with them. (Not quite.)

Pauls claim might not withstand scrutiny, but this much is clear: his efforts to keep his father from becoming a problem are unlikely to succeed if Ron Paul continues to voice inflammatory views. And Ron Pauls latest essay makes clear he has no intention of fading quietly into the night.

Hailing the September 18 independence referendum in Scotland in which voters rejected a split from the United Kingdom Paul said the referendum should cheer supporters of the numerous secession movements springing up around the globe despite its failure. Paul left little doubt that he counts himself among their ranks.

Americans who embrace secession are acting in a grand American tradition, Paul writes. The Declaration of Independence was written to justify secession from Britain. Supporters of liberty should cheer the growth in support for secession, as it is the ultimate rejection of centralized government and the ideologies of Keynesianism, welfarism, and militarism.

Paul doesnt endorse secession as an outcome so much as a useful form of blackmail.

The possibility that people will break away from an oppressive government is one of the most effective checks on the growth of government, he posits, proceeding to state that the threat of secession will make it easier to achieve the [d]evolution of power to smaller levels of government.

In a subsequent interview with National Journal, Paul pronounced himself real pleased with secessionist movements in the U.S. His only lament is that there arent more.

[O]n second thought, you think, Why not? Why not more? Paul wondered to National Journals Rebecca Nelson.

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Rand Paul wont like this: Ron Paul weighs in on secessionist movements in the U.S.

Ron Paul: What US does now in Middle East will increase violence
On this episode of Breaking the Set, Abby Martin speaks with former Congressman and three-time presidential candidate Ron Paul, discussing his views on the ramifications of expanding the war...

By: RT

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Ron Paul: What US does now in Middle East will increase violence - Video

For the time being, he's somehow both.

Gary Cameron/Reuters

Since Senator Rand Paul's formidable talent and obvious interest in the presidency became clear, the question has been how he'd square the circle of his unusual political beliefs. For every area where his heterodoxy might be more in line with the average Americanthe general population may in fact be more dovish than official Washington!he had other positions that might not sit so comfortably: People really do like federal legislation that bars private businesses from discriminating on the basis of race.

Would Paul find a way to sand the edges off his views? Would the Kentucky Republican stick to them? Would he have a road-to-Damascus moment that would herald a sudden mainstream shift in some of his attitudes?In the last two months, we've gotten a glimpse of his first stab: Paul is changing his views while insisting he hasn't. Chris Moody and John McCormack, among others, have detailed a few notable cases. And now The New Yorker's Ryan Lizza examines Paul's history closely in a lengthy profile. There's no huge revelation in the (very long) piece, but it does a good job of showing the struggle the senator will face. The example of the moment is on intervening to attack ISIS, but there are others, notably the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and foreign aid. Making things more difficult, there are the rather more extreme positions taken by his father, former Representative Ron Paul. Rand Paul owes his boost into politics and much of his political organization to his father, but he differs from him on some key questions.

The most compelling quote in Lizza's piece comes not from a politician or strategist or commentator but from an old college friend of Paul'scloser to a normal human being, in other words. Back in 2010, GQ reported an entertaining moment at Baylor when Paul and a co-conspirator snatched a friend and made her pray to "Aqua Buddha." Lizza tracked down the source, Kristy Ditzler, and got her to go on the record. It turns out she was appalled by the way her anecdote was turned into an attack on Paul, but she was still uneasy about how Paul seemed to be whitewashing his college days:

"The only reason I felt like speaking up was that I was a little bit irked by him making himself out to be all about God and country and all about conservative values, because he was clearly not promoting that when I knew him, Ditzler said. I mean, we all change, we all have a past. If hes changed, why cant he just say that hes changed?

Flip-flopping is always a problem for a candidate, but everyone has changed their view on something at some point. It's especially tricky for Paul because his brand is speaking truth to power, bravely speaking out against the consensus, and truly believing in what he says. If he's willing to change positions now, is he all that different from the average politician? And if so, why bother with an occasionally prickly first-term senator? Been there, done that.

One way around this question is the view that Jesse Benton, a friend and aide to Ron Paul, espouses to Lizza: Rand hasn't changed, it's just that he's now in a different position and is working through what it means to apply his principles. If Ron were President, he would have had to govern like Rand," Benton said. "Ron is much more of a purist about non-intervention, and thats fine, but in many ways Rons foreign policy can exist only in an academic sense. Its just not possible for the United States to be non-interventionist. Its not much of a difference on principle, but a much bigger difference in practice.

That might be true, but it doesn't account for the material change in the younger Paul's position on, say, ISIS. And it doesn't help him build distance from his father's foreign-policy views, which make the Republican establishment and many voters particularly uneasy.

Another tack is simply to pretend that the younger Paul doesn't believe the stuff he's saying now. Paul fans told The Daily Beast's Olivia Nuzzi earlier this month that the senator was just playing a political game and suggested he didn't really mean itwhich doesn't do much for the true-believer reputation.

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Is Rand Paul a True Believer or a Flip-Flopper?

Ryan Lizza -- a Fix friend and not only because we always get mistaken for one another -- has a massive profile of Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul in this week's New Yorker. It's a long and good read detailing Paul's ambitions to be president and the things -- namely his father, Ron -- that might keep him from that goal. I plucked out five people talking about Rand in the piece that I found particularly telling -- and explained why.

1. Ron was always content to tell the truth as best he understood it, and he saw that as the point of his politics. Rand is the guy who is committed to winning. -- Paul family strategist Jesse Benton

This gets to the core of the difference between Rand and Ron Paul. It's not -- as Lizza correctly notes in his piece -- fundamentally about their policy views on which there is considerable overlap. "They dont really have differences," Carol Paul, wife of Ron and mother of Rand, told Ryan. "They might have fractional differences about how to do things, but the press always want to make it into some kind of story that isnt there. The real difference between the two men is stylistic and focus-oriented. Many Republican strategists admit that if Ron Paul had simply refused to go down the rabbit hole of his foreign policy views (over and over again) during nationally televised debates, he might well have won a primary or caucus in 2012. Rand Paul, by contrast, understands the need to pivot off of topics where his views are not entirely aligned with the people he is trying to woo.

2. Hes not naturally gregarious. Hes not a natural politician. -- Longtime Louisville Courier Journal reporter and columnist Al Cross

Cross is right. Paul doesn't fit the charismatic pol stereotype like New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and Florida Sen. Marco Rubio do. If he's like anyone in the potential field, it's Ohio Gov. John Kasich, a wonky guy with a sort of off-beat appeal. To Paul's credit, he understands that he is not the back-slapping, hail-fellow-well-met candidate in the race and uses his occasionally awkward personality as a public-facing sign of just how different he is from the longtime politicians he hopes to beat. (A more concerning character trait that Lizza picks up on is that Paul is "prickly.")

3. Kelley [Paul] is going to say whats on her mind. She eggs him on when he gets attacked. -- A former Paul aide

Rand Paul's wife, Kelley, is someone the national media -- and the average voter in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina -- knows very little about. That, of course, will change as part of the process of running for president in this media age is that your significant other also must step into the spotlight. The comment about Kelley from the former Paul aide is part of a broader section in the Lizza piece about Rand's political antennae not always being perfectly tuned. But, it's worth noting that Kelley Paul, according to the Lizza piece, advised her husband against appearing on Rachel Maddow's showin May 2010-- good advice given what a mess he made of that interview.

4. [Mitch McConnell] realized that he was not his fathers son in all respects, and that he was interested in winning and achieving things rather than just making philosophical points. McConnell quickly realized that this is somebody with whom political business can be done. -- John David Dyke, Kentucky GOP commentator

The relationship between Rand Paul and Mitch McConnell -- brokered following the former's thrashing of the latter's hand-picked candidate in a 2010 Republican Senate primary -- may be the single most telling thing about the rise -- and change -- of Kentucky's junior senator. Dyke's praise of Paul as "somebody with whom political business can be done" is something that would have never been said of Ron Paul or even Rand Paul as recently as 2010 when he ran, at least in part, to teach the establishment a lesson for their long opposition to his father. But Rand doesn't want to be a hopeless cause. He wants to be a winning candidate. The relationship with McConnell speaks to that fact.

5. Ive seen him grow and Ive seen him mature and Ive seen him become more centrist. I know that if he were President or a nominee I could influence him, particularly some of his views and positions on national security. He trusts me particularly on the military side of things, so I could easily work with him. It wouldnt be a problem. -- Arizona Sen. John McCain

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The Fix: The 5 most important quotes from the New Yorkers Rand Paul profile