Many people just assumed that Rand Paul would be an afterthought going into the Kentucky GOP Primary against establishment favorite Trey Grayson. Many people were wrong.
Following the gigantic shift in poll numbers, showing that Paul now has a slim lead over Grayson in the contest, Dr. Paul is getting serious. He’s going to break some bread with the establishment. He’s going to meet with Senator Mitch McConnell.
(WHAS11) – The surprise candidate in Kentucky’s Republican U.S. Senate primary tells WHAS11 News he is reaching out to senior Senator, Mitch McConnell.
Rand Paul is a Bowling Green eye surgeon. His campaign’s poll numbers and fundraising success have stunned party leaders and it is early in the game.
So who is he and does he have a chance?
Most Kentucky political observers expected the democrats to duke it out in the senate primary while Republican Trey Grayson sat back and prepared for the fall campaign.
But Rand Paul and the sudden uprising of fiscal conservatism in the tea party movement appears to have changed all that.
Some people who have supported Rand Paul’s father, Ron Paul, had concerns that Rand would abandon his principles once (or if) he get to DC. Truth be told, it must be extremely difficult to resist doing so. But the younger Paul has the blood of his father coursing through his veins. He’s given no indication thus far that any liberty-loving principles will be abandoned. I expect that to continue right on through his coming 12 years in the Senate.
At this point no one except Paul and McConnell know what will be discussed at their meeting. Is Paul trying to win over the establishment to his anti-establishment ways? Was the meeting set up by McConnell to twist Paul’s arm toward the “center”, politically?
In any case, the meeting is an encouraging sign for Paul. If Paul didn’t raise over a million and follow it up with a jump in the polls this meeting would probably not be taking place. The bottom line is that Rand Paul has an “it” factor that many do not have. He’s likable. He’s pragmatic. He articulates his positions in a manner that would make his father jealous. He has the potential to take the cause of liberty to new levels of popularity.
With Ron Paul I was hoping against hope he would be our next President. With Rand Paul I am not merely hoping, I’m expecting him to win.
Judge Andrew Napolitano was the guest host on the Glenn Beck show again today, and he really knocked it out of the park with his introductory monologue.
Directly following his monologue he talks with authors, Tom Woods and Kevin Gutzman regarding the Constitution, enumerated powers, and nullification. This show is a must-see for all of us.
Watch the entire show below, but if you don’t have time then take 10 and watch the first segment. It makes me happy that Beck has obviously given the Judge near free reign about what guests appear on the show and the topics that are discussed.
“Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.” – H. L. Mencken
I’m tired of the health care debate. It’s not much of a debate anymore when the Republican lawmakers are arguing for socialism-lite and the Democrats are arguing for maximum strength socialism. It’s like asking the patient, “Do you want a government doctor or do you want a government physician?”
I’m tired of everyone calling it health “insurance”. It should be called health welfare. Medicare and medicaid are welfare programs. The proposed health care reform is nothing more than medicare on steroids. It’s certainly not insurance. Does auto insurance cover oil changes and tune-ups?
I’m tired of the argument that we should force insurers to cover preexisting conditions. We don’t force home owner’s insurance companies to cover a house already engulfed in flames. Forcing this upon insurers marks the beginning of the slow regulatory death of private insurance. This reeks of progressive incrementalism–a phasing out of private insurance to create a monopoly for government insurance. In other words, the public option becomes the only option. Obama highlighted his plan for this back in 2003 (see the video).
I’m tired of many arguing that health care is a “right”. Calling health care a right is a patently absurd and immoral logical fallacy. One cannot have a right to property or labor owned by someone else. Rights can only be based upon an individual’s own action. Leonard Peikoff put it best during the Hillary-care debate back in 1993.
Observe that all legitimate rights have one thing in common: they are rights to action, not to rewards from other people. The American rights impose no obligations on other people, merely the negative obligation to leave you alone. The system guarantees you the chance to work for what you want — not to be given it without effort by somebody else.
I’m tired of hearing Obama and his minions claim that the health care reform proposals will lower health care premiums and costs. My fatigue forces me to be blunt. If you buy in to this argument, find a mirror, look into it, and you will see an “It takes a village” idiot. After you wipe the drool from your chin and lumber away from the mirror, ponder the following 5 items:
We already have partial socialized medicine in the form of Medicare (elderly) and Medicaid (poor).
As of 2008 the number of people on these government-provided plans totaled 87.4 million.
Medicare will run out of money in 2017 according to last year’s government statistics. The previous year the government said it would be insolvent in 2019. I wonder what next year’s numbers will reveal, considering the rising unemployment and the struggling economy (less payroll taxes).
As of 2008 there were 46.3 million people without health insurance. About 36 million of these people are promised coverage with the House health welfare bill passed on Saturday evening.
How can anyone claim with a straight face that increasing demand for a product by nearly 50% in a newly taxed and regulated market will lower prices? (Better go find that mirror again)
I’m tired of writing about national health care. Part of me thinks that those of us fighting against it should just cave in and give the thieving looters what they want. They would certainly get it “good and hard”.
I then look into the faces of my children and see their complete innocence on display. They deserve better. In fact, we all do.
We may be beaten down and tired, but we must never stop fighting.
Yesterday I gave a fast-paced lecture on constitutional money and the Federal Reserve to the Lehigh Valley Tea Party. The playlist can be found below, and the PDF of the presentation here. I am also available to present this material at a much slower rate, with plenty of time for Q&A to groups. Monetary economics is very crucial to understand as it underlies EVERYTHING that is going on with the economy.
We live in a time when government is a form of theater; that is, it manages us by appearing to manage us. The current administration, perhaps because it came in with so much support, has broken new ground in what I’m calling Fantasy Government. It rails against health insurance companies, after giving them everything they want; it makes a show about debating our presence in Afghanistan, when all that is debated is the number of troops; it bemoans excessive bonuses on Wall Street, after making those bonuses possible. And now, it demands that public schools “reform” themselves, in terms so vague that any school can appear to comply while doing nothing.
The latest administration push is to promote merit pay for public school teachers rather than the guaranteed pay scales achieved by teachers unions. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan is using the $4.35 billion “Race to the Top” funds as incentive for “progress towards” merit pay.
It is at this point that the reader will be wondering whether I’m a pro-union stooge defending the status quo or a “change agent” who sees how merit pay works in the private sector to enhance performance, and wants to extend that benefit to teaching.
Sorry to disappoint: I’m not really in either camp. I write here to suggest only that the Obama administration, and the states reacting to its efforts, are not promoting a policy on teacher merit pay, but merely broaching the subject, or, if you will, making noise. In pursuance of the Race to the Top funds, the California state legislature and Governor Schwarzenneger have eliminated a law that forbade use of student test scores in evaluating teachers. That’s the easy part.
Jake Towne, running as an independent private citizen for United States Congress in Pennsylvania’s 15th District encompassing the Lehigh Valley and parts of Berks and Montgomery counties challenged Republican incumbent Charlie Dent, and Democrat challenger John Callahan to a public debate on the issues facing the district and the nation.
In his letter, Towne noted a great need for a healthy public debate on topics ranging from our health care, the wars abroad, the economy, and the stability of the dollar. He related that many people in the district are hurting financially, and they want answers from their candidates for government now.
Towne is a Lehigh Valley native raised in Nazareth and holds a chemical engineering degree from Lehigh University. He returned home earlier this year from a nearly 4-year stint in Shanghai, China working in the semiconductor industry to run for Congress. His experiences living abroad have given him a deep appreciation for America’s freedoms and quality of life.
Towne strongly believes that the actions of career politicians in Washington, DC, are leading our country down a path of both moral and economic ruin. He has created a novel-yet-simple plan of transparent and accountable government called the “Our Open Office” concept which can be read in detail at the campaign website, www.TowneForCongress.com.
Last week Towne raised over $2700 from 74 donors in a single day in an online “money bomb” created by grassroots supporters not affiliated with the campaign. This week he will be interviewed by Judge Napolitano at the FOX News studios in New York. Two weeks ago, Towne was part of a panel of FOX’s Freedom Watch show taped on the campus of Drexel University. Towne extends an invitation to any local group to invite him to meet their members, listen to their concerns, and explain his campaign. Talks given to past groups can be viewed at [link edited for length].
On Wednesday, October 28th, I traveled down to the Drexel University campus to appear on FOX New’s Freedom Watch with Judge Napolitano, Drexel’s Student Liberty Front, Pennsylvania State Representative Sam Rohrer, and Jacob Hornberger of the Future of Freedom Foundation. I was a panel member for the first two sessions covering the concept of “just war” and also the current “financial fiasco” which can be seen below, or watched on this playlist link.
On the first session, my plank on the Iraq War can be read here, and the “War is a Racket” essay by USMC General Smedley Butler can be read here. In the second session, my plank on the Federal Reserve is here, and I highly recommend “Fractional Reserve Banking in Pictures” to understand the current fraudulent monetary system.
Earlier today Judge Andrew Napolitano was the guest host on the Glenn Beck show. Four liberty-loving guests appeared on the show with the Judge. Peter Schiff, John Stossel, Ron Paul, and Rand Paul all appeared. When the Judge hosts Beck’s show it almost turns into an episode of Freedom Watch.
If you don’t know what Freedom Watch is then please check out http://freedomwatchonfox.com/. It’s an online only show hosted by the Judge catering to freedom-loving people everywhere.
Check out the excellent discussions from the show today below.
We need your help to join an amicus brief to the Supreme Court arguing that the right to keep and bear arms is not only a right to self-defense against criminals, but also against tyrannical government.
Statism is the belief that politicians and bureaucrats should have broad powers to use force against citizens. In its most virulent forms Statism killed more people in the 20th Century alone than all of the individual non-governmental murderers in the history of the world, COMBINED!
Not even the Black Death of the Middle Ages, or the Flu epidemic of 1918, can approach these numbers, even if you combine the totals from those two epidemics and reduce the estimate for the total number of murders committed by governments.
But the terrible statistics for Statist murder still only tell part of the story. We must add to them the statistics for the mass theft, imprisonment, and torture committed by governments against innocent people. These measurements of State criminality are even more vast, so much so that they are literally incalculable.
The State, and the belief-system that fosters its criminality — Statism — are the great scourges of human existence, against which no other source of death and destruction can remotely compare.
Of course, in reaction to all of these blood-curdling facts the fool argues that such things could never happen in this country. The same foolish belief was held by people in Russia, Germany, China, Cambodia, and a hundred other places, before such things DID happen in those countries. But such naivety is also exposed by one other crucial fact . . .
Murderous and violent crimes by the State have already been committed by our government, on a massive scale. A partial list would include . . . Read More »
Ron Paul appeared on MSNBC this morning to discuss the latest developments on his Federal Reserve Audit bill, which now has 310 cosponsors in the House and 30 in the Senate.
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