Topic: GOP - Rand Paul's Presidential Highlight Reel w/ his Libertarian Twist - page 85. (Read 205829 times)

Zogby national poll: Rand Paul 20%, Christie 13%, Bush 13%, Walker 8%, Rubio 7%

More...http://www.forbes.com/sites/johnzogby/2014/07/09/rand-paul-leads-the-gop-pack-for-2016-and-not-by-a-little/
Note that Cruz and Huck aren't in this one which they were when I pointed it out in the last one.

I'm not a supporter of Rand Paul.  I readily admit that he is way better on many issues than most, but that is not saying much.  At this point I simply don't trust that he has the leadership skills to manage something as complicated and tricky as the executive of the United States.  Certain of his positions I simply dislike and always will, but that is natural since I am not a Libertarian and disagree with some of their principles and prescriptions for society.

I am not naive enough to believe that one needs to avoid 'playing politics'.  Alas, in this phase of American politics it is just the opposite.  That is, one does not stand much of a chance if one is not willing to play such games.  Paul aligning himself with religious extremists and paying lip-service to Israel and our 'special relationship' is about as unsightly as anything in politics, but I don't rule out that it is necessary to have a chance of success in either of the two mainstream parties.  I, for one, don't feel confident that I know where his heart really is, but I don't dismiss his activities out-of-hand since I am also a bit of a realist.  I had some hope that Obama was simply playing that game back in 2008, and those hopes were dashed.  I never could get a read on whether Obama was a spineless worm, naive idealist, canny politician, or some combination thereof...but I never tried real hard.  I'm currently of the same mindset about Rand Paul.  He's playing with fire by dancing around on the tables in Israel, and I have limited confidence that he has the native ability to control the fire once it gets going enough to do him any good.

FWIW, I (as an admitted Liberal/Progressive type) do favor Paul over Clinton due to the many policy positions which do align with my own, and due to the hope that Paul is just disingenuously pandering as a political ploy on these areas which I am against.  Clinton is, in my opinion, a straight-up neocon and someone who will abuse state powers irresponsibly and thus highly dangerous to our nation for that reason.  I suspect I will hold that opinion until the end.  But I also doubt that I'll vote for either Clinton or Paul since I don't care for the general philosophical policy principles of either one.

What's going on here is that his dad, Ron, was castigated as an anti-Semetic because of the way he phrased his non-interventionism. Rand is covering his ass and also showing how fake these so-called pro-Israel supporters are by offering this clearly pro-Israel act via a fiscal conservative approach and the establishment on both sides are bombing it down. In fact, Cruz was on Mark Levin's show talking about this but didn't mention it was Rand that was pushing it. Now, Rand has pro-Israel cred now whether he means it or not.

i'm not sure we live in the same world.. take a look here http://www.nationalreview.com/article/347151/rand-paul-and-israel.


rand is pretty warm with israel, and he's also talked about his dedication to religion - christians love their israelis. rand strikes me as someone who says something different, but does the same shit. i think you guys might be evangelized libertarians. it seems like you guys are ignoring the bad shit he does, and justifying it by saying "he's doing evil in order to do good."

No, we support leaving everyone overseas alone (to run their own country) and defending our country against actual attacks.
Rand is pointing out (among other things) that giving money/arms to both sides can end up harming both sides.

so wait, you guys support israel and are against the palestinians? that sounds a lot like the status quo. siding with the israelis, historically speaking, has been beneficial to presidential candidates.. especially when it is against palestine.

He is a smart guy for sure. By giving everyone exactly what they pretend to want he can expose the underlying agenda and solve the real problem.

Rand is a huge asset in the Senate. Is it true he will lose his seat if he enters the Pres race, since in Kentucky he cannot run in both races?

Fairly easy.  The 'money going to Hamas' is actually largely flowing to corrupt and compliant 'leaders' in Palestine who stab their own people in the back.  That's why the population voted them out and voted Hamas in.  Hamas as a political movement has support from a lot of quarters.  This includes people who build what are essentially large bottle rockets to launch toward Israel, but a much larger contingent are those who simply try to provide social services for the beleaguered residents of the Gaza which is systematically ghetto-ized.

Fatah is mostly a bunch of fat-cats accepting Western money to do the West's bidding.  Paul wants to cut this off either because he is ignorant of how things work or because he understands the score and want's to change it (while couching it in traditional political rhetoric which deliberately misunderstands and even inverts the issue.)  One way or the other, it is entirely unsurprising that AIPAC, Corker, and every other Zionist or Zionist supporter is against this.

Rand Paul: "Amazing resistance from both republicans and democrats" to his Stand With Israel Act

Listen @ 1:10 mark

http://www.mikeonline.com/taxpayer-money-may-going-terrorists-senator-rand-paul-tell-mike/

Any thoughts?

Yesterday, Rand wanted to pass his Senate bill to Stand W/ Israel (which guts money going to Hamas via Palestine) via unanimous consent but was blocked by fellow colleague and establishment re(pube)ican Sen. Bob Corker. All this while missiles were flying into Israel from Hamas rockets to which the iron dome that the US gave Israel shot them all down.

Answer: AIPAC opposes the Stand With Israel Act. AIPAC represents the Israeli government. They want US foreign aid to flow to Palestine, so it can flow to Hamas, so Hamas can use the money to attack Israel, so the Israeli military-industrial complex will have an "enemy" to fight.

How Rand Paul won the GOP’s war on foreign policy
More...http://benswann.com/lotfi-how-rand-paul-won-the-gops-war-on-foreign-policy/

Quinnipiac national poll: Rand Paul 11%, Christie 10%, Huckabee 10%, Bush 10%
http://www.quinnipiac.edu/news-and-events/quinnipiac-university-poll/national/release-detail?ReleaseID=2058
More names listed than the original OP and Cruz and Huck draw from Rand's totals if not Walker too. Huck likely won't run since he likes his money coming from his Fox show.

I'm sure he's got people on his team that have ties to the hierarchy of South Carolina Republicans. He's done a few fundraisers for the state party in the past and I'm sure he'll head down there again in due time. Will post relevant info as it is revealed.

Glad to hear about the positive energy in Michigan. Any news from South Carolina, which is a huge, very early state?

Rand's foreign policy outreach

More...http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/rand-with-israel/

I'd argue Amash has had a pretty solid effect, too. He's held himself pretty well while in office, committed to doing things differently and relatively transparently. MLive has a regular Opinion columnist... I don't recall his name quite right... Thomas Braun or something (Scott Braun, maybe?)... He's been harping on about Amash's greatness for a good while outside promoting other libertarian issues. We've had the warrantless cell phone search/seizure cases in MI, the police spoofing cell phone towers ("Hailstorm"), so I think that's in our minds with regards to police/spying abuse under the current administrations. We've had Detroit show a repeated failures and corruption as it relates to gov't management - totally ignoring Obama's catalyzing effects -- I think Michigan has a fair chance of going Red if a libertarian-minded fellow runs.

I've never looked into the demographics of who's leaving MI (Detroit, in particular), so that might make things easier or more difficult in making a Red Michigan in 2016. On the flip side of Amash, though, is Rick Snyder, with pretty abysmal approval ratings and who ran under "Michigan needs a nerd" -- Idunno if people (particularly people who base their votes by what they see on TV and in folks' yards) would associate Snyder with Paul given Paul's just a bit less nerdy than Ron (and has about as nerdy of supporters).

Michigan will definitely be in play this time around unlike last time when Daddy came through for a few token rallies. Plenty of money will be spent here in this market and I know we have damn near a majority of Congressional districts where the delegates and local and state cmte members are big Rand fans. He'll be an even bigger force to be reckoned w/ as he keeps campaigning on issues that matter to minorities including those economic freedom zones that are a hit w/ business folk. Good times ahead plus more of us will have more money next time around.

Still on the fence on whether I want to get hopes up and campaign again.... getting excited, though. Maybe I'll order a couple new ink cartridges just in case.

Rand Paul — the doctor, not the senator — prepares for a unique summer trip

More...http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/rand-paul--the-doctor-not-the-senator--prepares-for-a-unique-summer-trip/2014/06/30/7a805e8c-fd55-11e3-8176-f2c941cf35f1_story.html