Topic: GOP - Rand Paul's Presidential Highlight Reel w/ his Libertarian Twist - page 62. (Read 205816 times)

Forget legalizing pot: Two of the most powerful Republicans in the Senate believe there’s a much stronger chance to legalize growing hemp in the U.S., opening up an entirely new market for crops, health food, oil, shirts, towels and even dog toys.

Kentucky’s Mitch McConnell, Rand Paul and Rep. Thomas Massie are pushing legislation in both chambers of Congress that would remove the less-potent member of the cannabis family from the federal list of controlled substances, allowing its return to America’s farmland after more than 40 years.

It’s a states’ rights and economic growth issue, the Republican lawmakers argue. Legalizing hemp would create jobs.

“People used to downplay the number of jobs industrial hemp might create and say, ‘Well it’s a few thousand jobs and a couple million in commerce,’” Massie said. But all told, legalizing the crop has the potential to create 10 times as many jobs “as the Keystone XL pipeline will create 10 years from now.”

Hemp legalization legislation has been considered in Congress since 2005, when then-Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) pushed the issue. But the current bills have champions in positions of power, including the Senate majority leader and a potential White House contender.

...

The Federal Reserve is lashing out at Sen. Rand Paul’s plan to give Congress more oversight over the central bank, a proposal that could gain traction in the new Republican-led Congress.

The Kentucky Republican reintroduced his “Audit the Fed” legislation last month with 30 co-sponsors, including other potential 2016 GOP hopefuls, Sens. Ted Cruz (Texas) and Marco Rubio (Fla.).

The proposal — once championed by his father, former Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) —would subject the central bank to an audit by the Government Accountability Office (GAO).
Regional bank presidents from around the country are decrying the plan, which they argue could damage the economy.

“Who in their right mind would ask the Congress of the United States — who can’t cobble together a fiscal policy — to assume control of monetary policy?” Richard Fisher, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, said during an interview with The Hill.

Fed Chairwoman Janet Yellen has already vowed to fight the legislation, and President Obama would likely veto it.

Still, Fed watchers note that Paul has become emboldened by the new Republican majority in Congress. And he possesses an ever louder national microphone, as he moves closer to a 2016 presidential run.

Together, those factors could elevate the issue in the coming months, a prospect that has spurred strong words from bank officials.

Philadelphia Fed President Charles Plosser told The Hill that financial auditing “already exists” for the Fed, and warned that Paul’s plan would empower Congress “to audit and question monetary policy decisions in real time.”

“This runs the risk of monetary policy decisions being based on short-term political considerations instead of the longer-term health of the economy,” Plosser said.

Paul pushed back against the criticism, saying Fed officials “will say and do anything to keep their business hidden from the American people.”

For Paul, the legislation allows him to burnish his Republican-libertarian credentials.

And he appears to want to make it part of his early presidential campaigning. On Friday, Paul will hold an Audit the Fed rally in Des Moines, Iowa, as part of a weekend trip to the early presidential caucus state.

The issue could give Paul an opening to tap into the public’s mistrust of the government, more than six years after the federal bailouts that followed the 2008 economic crisis.

“This secretive government-run bureaucracy promotes policies that have impacted the lives of all Americans,” Paul said. “Citizens have the right to know why the Fed’s policies have resulted in a stagnant economy and record numbers of people dropping out of the workforce.”

Rand Paul has the most aggressive Twitter feed of the 2016 field, an account that emits a steady stream of snark, rapid response and gimmicks. A recent sampling: He’s suggested Jeb Bush and Hillary Clinton are conspiring, charged that Marco Rubio wants to “build a moat” around Cuba, and joked that Bush and Mitt Romney have exchanged friendship and charm bracelets.
Paul doesn’t write the tweets himself: Roughly a half-dozen staffers have access to the account, and they post without getting sign-off from the the senator, according to Doug Stafford, Paul’s senior political adviser. But he is deeply involved with his Twitter feed, driven by the sense that he wants to be a different kind of Republican candidate who reaches out to new constituencies — and he sees social media as key part of that engagement.

It’s all part of a broader strategy to run a tech-savvy, “crowd-sourced” presidential campaign, where online communication is the first messaging priority and edginess is essential to cut through the clutter.

Sen. Rand Paul R-KY., is seen leaving the Republican weekly policy luncheon at the Capital in Washington, Tuesday, Feb. 3, 2015. Paul, claimed Monday that vaccines can cause 'profound mental disorders.' Paul, in an often contentious interview with CNBC, argued that parents should have a choice whether to vaccinate their children. 'I've heard of many tragic cases of walking talking normal children who wound up with profound mental disorders after vaccines,' Paul said.

Paul frequently fires off emails to his staff with concepts for tweets and social media pushes, and sometimes offers specifics.
“He and this organization will continue to be engaging, continue to be creative, continue to use digital almost as a first place of communication, because that’s the world we live in,” said Vincent Harris, the chief digital strategist of RANDPAC, Paul’s political arm. The senator “himself believes that content online needs to be unique, needs to be delivered not in long, paragraph form, but in pithy, visual memes and images and games. And if you look at the type of content the senator’s organization has been pushing out over the last two months, you see that’s reflected.”

Justin Miller, a senior editor at the Daily Beast, apologized on Tuesday for tweeting "fuck you" to Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY).

"Today I am getting my booster vaccine," Paul tweeted Tuesday afternoon. "Wonder how the liberal media will misreport this."

"Fuck you," Miller shot back.

A spokesperson for Paul told Politico that the remark was "completely unacceptable for a journalist to be tweeting these type of comments."

Miller later apologized in an email to the site.

“I replied from my personal account to what I felt was spin after Senator Paul said factually incorrect things about vaccines," he said. "It would’ve been better to respond with facts than an obscenity, and I deleted the tweet so it wouldn’t reflect on the Beast. I’m sorry for the insult.”

Miller may have deleted the tweet, but he has a history of using that particular construction liberally on Twitter. In October, he retweeted a story about protestors in Ferguson, Mo. burning a flag, adding "fuck them."

http://www.quinnipiac.edu/news-and-events/quinnipiac-university-poll/2016-presidential-swing-state-polls/release-detail?ReleaseID=2131
Latest Polls - Florida, Pennsylvania, Ohio
The standings are pretty wide open in these states

Washington (CNN)Add Fox News host Bill O'Reilly to the list of those critical of Sen. Rand Paul.

O'Reilly joined the chorus of voices slamming the Republican from Kentucky on Tuesday for his comments that vaccines should not be mandatory and took the chance to take another swipe at the libertarian-leaning senator's foreign policy, calling him "perhaps the most controversial candidate in the race."

"That's not unusual for me disagreeing with Mr. Paul," O'Reilly said.

The conservative host also called Paul's stance on terrorism and Iran "naïve," reprising previous comments that Paul's foreign policy views would hurt him in an eventual GOP primary.

Paul opposes the GOP-led effort to impose additional sanctions on Iran in an attempt to pressure the Iranians to give up their nuclear program.

"Sen. Paul loses traction because he has no plan to defeat the jihad and he comes across, maybe he's not that way, it comes across as kind of let them do what they want to do as long as they're not in the U.S.A.," O'Reilly said Tuesday.

With Romney
REGISTERED REPUBLICANS
...................FL.....OH.....PA
Bush............30%...9%....10%
Carson..........7.......7.......8
Christie ........2........4.....10
Cruz.............3........5......4
Huckabee.....10.......5......9
Jindal............3.......1......2
Kasich...........-......11......2
Paul.............3......8.......3
Perry............1.......-.......1
Romney.........9......15.....12
Rubio...........13......3.......3
Santorum......3.......-.......6
Walker..........8......10......5

Without Romney
REGISTERED REPUBLICANS
..................FL......OH.....PA
Bush...........32%....10%...12%
Carson.........8........8.......8
Christie........3........6......11
Cruz............4........6.......6
Huckabee....11.......7.......10
Jindal..........3........1........2
Kasich.........-........14......3
Paul...........3........10.....3
Perry..........1..........1......1
Rubio..........15........4......4
Santorum.....3........1.......8
Walker.........9........11......6

12. Is your opinion of Rand Paul favorable, unfavorable or haven't you heard enough about him?
REGISTERED REPUBLICANS
....................FL......OH.....PA
Favorable.......53%....51%....45%
Unfavorable.....14......13......16
Don't know......32.......35.....38

Attention everyone.

Rand Paul believes in parental choice.

"The Hepatitis B vaccine is now given to newborns. We sometimes give 5 or 6 vaccines at one time. I chose to have mine delayed. I don't want the government telling me I have to give me child Hepatitis B vaccine which is transmitted by sexually transmitted disease and/or blood transfusion. . . . I had mine staggered over several months. I've heard of many cases of walking, talking normal children who wound up with profound mental disorders

after vaccines. ...I think they're a good thing, but I think the parents should have some input. The state doesn't own your children. The parents own the children and it is an issue of freedom."

Doesn't change any of the underlying factors. In 2020, 2024 (or whenever), Rand will still need big money to even get the nomination. There is indication that Rand wants contributions from the Koch brothers, which is understandable if you expect to win anything. So even if you like him, he will likely be beholden to billionaire interests. http://www.politico.com/story/2015/02/rand-was-a-dud-at-the-koch-brothers-conference-114853.html

The biggest problem with politics right now is money and special interests. Nothing is going to get fixed unless that does. And you know what? The Republican supreme court justices, and the GOP in general, are responsible for all that money being funneled in.

As it is right now, I prefer 1) Elizabeth Warren 2) Bernie Sanders 3) Rand Paul

http://www.nationaljournal.com/magazine/rand-paul-s-new-confidant-20140618

Morris had carved out a reputation as a man with a talent for shaking loose campaign cash. Back in 2004, he was, at 23, by all accounts the country's youngest bundler for George W. Bush, raising at least $50,000 and becoming a "Bush Maverick." His list of contacts had only grown in the years since. "People in politics know who raises money," Morris says. "That's not a secret." In short, Morris was just the kind of moneyman Paul needed if he was going to pursue his presidential ambitions.

He's a mainstream Republican with no major ties to Paul's father but plenty of links to the GOP establishment. His moneyed connections span from coast to coast, and his mainstream pedigree even includes his wife, the granddaughter of a legendary Republican fundraiser.

When Paul first ran for the Senate four years ago, against a candidate favored by the GOP donor class, he "was ridiculed and lambasted and ignored as vigorously as he possibly could have been" by the establishment, says David Adams, who was Paul's 2010 primary campaign manager. Today, Paul's relationship with the GOP's power brokers has changed dramatically—and Morris is both a symptom and a cause of that transformation. Understanding who Nate Morris is—what he believes and how he operates—tells you a lot about the new Rand Paul.

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) cast himself as a regular Joe during an interview with The Hill conducted at 23,000 feet — in two coach seats on an American Airlines flight from Washington, D.C., to Dallas.

Flying coach is nothing new for Paul, the Tea Party favorite said. He’s logged tens of thousands of miles in coach in recent months as he’s flown around the country touting himself as a possible White House contender in 2016.

Trying to prepare for a presidential campaign from a cramped aisle seat has certain logistical hurdles. Senior aides had to climb over Paul as they took turns in the neighboring seat to brief him.

A flight attendant scolded one of his staffers for standing in the aisle while monitoring the senator’s interview.

Fellow travelers sitting in the same row or behind him viewed the commotion with a mix of bemused curiosity and irritation.

Paul and other Republicans eyeing the White House are working hard to make clear that they are not Mitt Romney, the wealthy businessman who was easily depicted as out of touch in his 2012 campaign.

“I walk to Wal-Mart and shop when I’m at Kentucky and home in Bowling Green. We go to Target, Wal-Mart, T.J. Maxx like other people. We look for bargains. We drive our own cars. We really don’t put on any special airs,” Paul said.

“When you’re part of your community,” he said, “you kind of know what your community is upset about.”...

2016 isn't the only primary.  There will be another one 4, and then 8, years later.  Rand is still a relatively young man!

The game is rigged, but the GOP operates on an 'it's my turn' hierarchy and is *really* sick of losing the White House to the Dims.

President Hillary (BARF!) is their worst nightmare, and they might be ready to abandon the War On Drugs and other 'social conservatism' BS in a come-to-Jesus moment of existential terror.

I really doubt Rand will make it out of the primaries. He's not going to end up fundraising enough money to even stand a chance. The game is rigged.

Here's the physicians' breakfast roundtable (that he seems to be holding in most locations that he visits)

UPDATE: A few hours after this story went up, Kentucky Senator Rand Paul appeared on CNBC and was asked to clarify if he thought most vaccines should be voluntary.

"I guess being for freedom would be really unusual?" Paul said, sarcastically. "I guess I don't understand the point, as to why that would be controversial."

As he clarified, he mostly stuck to what he'd said on talk radio today. Only toward the end of his answer did he explain the dangers, as he saw them, in vaccinating children.

“I didn't like 'em getting 10 vaccines at once.”

"I've heard of many tragic cases of walking, talking, normal children who wound up with profound mental disorders after vaccines," said Paul. "I'm not arguing vaccines are a bad idea. I think they're a good thing. But I think the parents should have some input."

Sen. Rand Paul's somewhat quixotic 1990s-era effort to start an organization to certify opthalmologists in competition with increasingly onerous and expensive old-guard practices gets an interesting write-up in the Washington Post. Unlike early coverage that treated the then new senatorial candidate's National Board of Opthalmology as odd or dodgy, David A. Farenthold's Post piece is ultimately fair, quoting other eye surgeons who praise both Paul's medical skills and his effort to establish an alternative to the existing board certification process. That's the way that it should be, considering that his complaints about the established process are shared by plenty of physicians, and his try at creating an alternative choice, though it ultimately failed, is a cherished dream of many doctors.

The American Board of Opthalmology is the "official" certifying organization for eye surgeons. It operates under the umbrella of the American Board of Medical Specialties (ABMS) along with 23 other member boards. Certification is nominally voluntary, but the ABMS has convinced many hospitals and health organizations to require it for employment, and the various boards constantly threaten that insurers will demand it, too.

If you covet Platonic Guardians in lieu of self-government, you’ll love the antagonists of Sen. Rand Paul’s Federal Reserve Transparency Act of 2015.

They include Janet Yellen, chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve, and Catherine Rampell, a liberal dogmatist at The Washington Post.

Mr. Paul’s legislation should be uncontroversial and universally supported. Transparency is the rule and secrecy is the rare exception in every flourishing democracy. Secret government violates core democratic principles of accountability and government by the informed consent of the governed. As Justice Louis D. Brandeis sermonized, sunshine is said to be the best of disinfectants.

Mr. Paul elaborated: “A complete and thorough audit of the Fed will finally allow the American people to know exactly how their money is spent in Washington. [The Fed] currently operates under a cloak of secrecy and it has gone on for too long.”

3. RAND HITS THE ROAD

Rand Paul was the most active GOP contender early on, and Politico's Mike Allen reports the freshman Kentucky senator has a busy travel schedule ahead as he tries to build his support -- and not always in predictable ways.

"We're told that Rand Paul is going to travel every weekend, going forward-- he's not going to do many cattle calls," said Allen. "Everybody else was in Iowa last weekend, he's in Iowa next weekend, because he can draw a crowd on his own."

"And something that he's doing, as he travels the country, is meeting with physicians -- thinking about a way to bring in some people who are not necessarily politically active who can give, who can talk about among the community, so he's talking to the fellow doctors as he goes around."

But Paul is also including some GOP stops that are a bit more predictable: "He's back to red meat next weekend in Iowa," said Allen. "He's doing a liberty event and his big rally is audit the Fed. That's about the reddest meat that you can get."

“If we decide to do this, we will want to broaden the coalition to include a winning majority that means something, that appeals to people that have libertarian leanings, but also some people who are traditional conservatives, Christian conservatives and mainstream conservatives of all walks of life," Rand Paul said in an interview with The Texas Tribune, addressing the biggest difference of his approach to the campaigns his father ran.

Paul, who grew up in Lake Jackson, visited North Texas to give keynote speeches at a pair of North Texas GOP dinners. The trip reflected how Texas is central to his strategy.

But Texas' political operative talent and likely early March 2016 primary delegates are all but certain to be awarded to campaigns on a proportional basis – and Paul is making his play.

“Texas will be early. Texas is big and having roots here and all that sort of points [us] towards it,” he said. “I think that Texas is important for many reasons.”

At both GOP events he attended this weekend, he sported his black “Texas boots.” He said he purchased them 15 years ago for the Texas State Society’s Black Tie and Boots Ball during President George W. Bush’s 2000 inauguration.

His speeches were heavy on privacy, government waste and spending. And he hammered away at the likely Democratic presidential nominee, Hillary Rodham Clinton, for not taking stronger action as secretary of state to prevent the 2012 Benghazi attack.

Multiple times he referred to the United States’ intervention in Libya as “Hillary’s War.”