Liberty Maven

Ron Paul has demonstrated how easy it is to attack Gingrich on the myriad of inconsistencies on his record. If Ron Paul is having so much success attacking Gingrich imagine what the Obama campaign machine would do to Gingrich? Gingrich is a glue for attacks. Attacking Ron Paul just isn’t fashionable anymore. Everyone has heard it all before. Most attacks on Paul bounce off of him. His years of consistency make him a difficult attack target. Some are still trying though with varying degrees of success.

I think I have a pretty good idea what getting water-boarded feels like. I’m not sure why I do this to myself, but I sometimes find myself reading the comments on Ron Paul articles appearing on various mainstream and semi-mainstream news sites. It is akin to torture. One of the more common things I keep seeing from anti-Ron Paul people is the charge of isolationism. I thought this was an old argument that most people already understood. Calling Ron Paul an isolationist is like yelling fire in a crowded theater when there is no fire. Ron Paul supporters invariably reply to set things straight. I know because I’ve done it before, too many times to count.

Today, in the billionth thread about Ron Paul’s so-called isolationism someone posted something that truly demonstrates a lack of understanding. This person said the following:

“If Ron Paul brings home our troops from other countries who’ll be there to protect freedom?”

Uh-huh. And Ron Paul is the crazy one. “Hey you, Start being free or I’ll shoot!” Let freedom ring!

Yesterday’s poll numbers from Public Policy Polling show that Ron Paul is gaining serious steam in Iowa, only a single percentage point behind Newt Gingrich. I head over to Twitter to see the reactions and I see a post from a popular “conservative” blog entitled, “No, Ron Paul is not a threat to win the Iowa Caucuses”. The article itself is full of wishful thinking analysis and struck me as a bunch of flapdoodle. Yeah, I said it: flapdoodle!

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Yes it is true. Ron Paul could win Iowa. The latest poll shows Paul at 22% and Gingrich at 23% in Iowa. The rest of the candidates are at 16% and below. I can’t wait for the attack ads on Ron Paul to start up. Once that happens he will no longer be the elephant in the GOP room. He’ll be the front-runner. From the release:

Gingrich has dropped 5 points in the last week and he’s also seen a significant decline in his favorability numbers. Last week he was at +31 (62/31) and he’s now dropped 19 points to +12 (52/40). The attacks on him appear to be taking a heavy toll- his support with Tea Party voters has declined from 35% to 24%.

Paul meanwhile has seen a big increase in his popularity from +14 (52/38) to +30 (61/31).  There are a lot of parallels between Paul’s strength in Iowa and Barack Obama’s in 2008- he’s doing well with new voters, young voters, and non-Republican voters:

-59% of likely voters participated in the 2008 Republican caucus and they support Gingrich 26-18.  But among the 41% of likely voters who are ‘new’ for 2012 Paul leads Gingrich 25-17 with Romney at 16%.  Paul is doing a good job of bringing out folks who haven’t done this before.

-He’s also very strong with young voters.  Among likely caucus goers under 45 Paul is up 30-16 on Gingrich.  With those over 45, Gingrich leads him 26-15 with Romney at 17%.

Read the Public Policy Polling release for more information.

The GOP is commonly represented as an elephant. This is a rather appropriate symbol for a political party that attempts to ignore one of it’s own members. A member who actually represents what the rest of them have abandoned any hope of becoming long ago: an actual tried and true limited government conservative with a long track record of integrity and consistency. Of course, I’m talking about Ron Paul, the elephant in the GOP room.

That elephant might as well be a lion right now. Ron Paul is in the top tier of candidates for the GOP nomination. This is not wishful thinking or libertarian fantasy. Following his strong debate showing over the weekend he has the pundits wondering out loud, “Can Ron Paul win?”

If you fancy yourself a Republican, conservative, or independent and you want nothing more than Barack Obama to lose in 2012 then your only choice can be Ron Paul, even if you vehemently disagree with him on foreign policy or think he’s a nut job. I’ve said this before, but if any other GOP candidate gets the nomination, we’ll see a second term for Obama. And this won’t be due to Ron Paul running as a non-Republican as many in the GOP fear. It will be because the rest of the Republican candidates are weak where it matters to most Americans these days: honesty, integrity, and consistency.

Obama isn’t exactly stellar on those attributes either; however, he’s already in the White House. He’s the incumbent with charisma and those are kryptonite to the likes of Newt Romney. If you want to make him uncomfortable force him to attack from the Right. Imagine Obama debating Ron Paul on foreign policy. Who will his anti-war supporters support? The ones that don’t end up thoroughly confused will logically vote for Paul and his strong and consistent anti-war position. Paul will already have the support of the Republican base, some of which, may hold their noses and vote for him. He’s already proven in the polls how popular he is with independents. Those same independents went largely in favor of Obama in 2008.

This all adds up to a victory for Paul over Obama, if only he could secure the nomination. In fact, getting the GOP nomination is a tougher road for Paul than winning in the general. Another reason why the general election would be easier is that his experience in the GOP primary will prepare him for nearly everything he’s likely to face during the general.

A recent interview had Paul answering the “will you run 3rd party” question yet again. Then the ever-present followup question asking him if he’d support the GOP nominee assuming it wasn’t himself. Just once I’d like to see one of his opponents get asked those questions. It would probably go something like this:

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The highly acclaimed Fox film adaptation of Ayn Rand’s New York Time’s bestselling novel, Atlas Shrugged, will be made available on DVD and Blu-Ray on November 8. The messages are vitally important in regard to the 2012 election as individualism, encroachment on the free-market, socialism and anarchy are explored in this timely and influential film.

The movie is set in 2016 as the United States is on the brink of economic disrepair, eerily paralleling the current U.S. economic crisis. Young executive, Dagny Taggart, runs one of the largest remaining railroads. To save the railroad from financial ruin, Dagny seeks out entrepreneurial industrialist Henry Rearden, whose super-strength metal holds the promise of the future.  As government interference cripples economic growth, the country’s most competent and productive workers systematically disappear, expanding the realm of government influence and control. Dagny fights back against the growing influence of socialism.

Below you will find a short Q&A with Harmon Kaslow, producer of the film: Read More »

Quote of the Day: “And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.” – The Book of Revelation 13:17

The House is considering H.R.2885, the “Legal Workforce Act.” This bill MANDATES that ALL employers use the “E-Verify” employment verification system. We strongly oppose this bill. It is REAL ID on steroids.

Many reading this have spent years fighting successfully against REAL ID. It seems a shame to lose the battle now simply because the politicians have finally found something — immigration — that scares enough people to make us submit.

We understand that some people who say they want to shrink the federal state just as much as we do, still support E-Verify. They claim this new dictate is needed to combat illegal immigration. We seem to be “heretics” in this case because we believe… Read More »

From Chris Powell of the Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee comes the news:

Last week U.S. Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, chairman of the House Subcommittee on Domestic Monetary Policy and Technology, held a hearing on his proposed Free Competition in Currency Act of 2011 (H.R. 1098), which would repeal legal tender laws, restrictions on private mints, and taxes on gold and silver, since such taxes interfere with the metals’ circulation as money. Testifying were the executive director of the Foundation for the Advancement of Monetary Education, Lawrence M. Parks, and George Mason University Economics Professor Lawrence H. White. Video of the hearing is not quite an hour long and you can watch it here:

The full text of the legislation is simple and concise and can be found here:

http://www.govtrack.us/congress/billtext.xpd?bill=h112-1098

The legislation would seem to legalize the Liberty Dollar coins whose issuer recently was convicted on vague charges in federal court in North Carolina. Professor White quotes New York Sun editor and Wall Street Journal contributor Seth Lipsky to the effect that it doesn’t make much sense to suppress private money that is sound to protect money that is unsound.

Unfortunately the Free Competition in Currency Act has no co-sponsors and its introduction and this week’s hearing seem to be mainly an educational exercise. But that’s where everything starts.

CHRIS POWELL, Secretary/Treasurer
Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee Inc.

It occurs to me (and many others) that if the GOP wants nothing more than to just beat Obama then Ron Paul is the most viable candidate in the Republican field. I’ll make a prediction. If any other candidate is the GOP nominee then Obama will be settling in to the Oval Office for “4 more years” in 2013. That is of course if the world doesn’t end in December of 2012… oops… did some “crazy Ron Paul supporter” juice just leak out of me by mistake? Maybe.

There are Republicans that will only vote Republican and stand behind the nominee no matter who it is.

There are Democrats that believe in unicorns, double rainbows, and “Yes we can!” that will vote for Obama no matter how much his actions suggest “Oh no we didn’t!”.

Then there are the the rest of us who will vote for the guy (Sorry Michele and Sarah but you gals don’t have a chance… how’s that feel coming from a Ron Paul supporter?) that actually agrees with us on approximately 80 to 100% of what we believe in.

If Ron Paul were the GOP nominee Obama would be forced to attack from the right on foreign policy, alienating those liberal voters who are ignorantly sympathetic to the drone-bombing fetishist, Nobel Peace Prize winner. Obama would be compelled to “let-me-be-clear” his way out of not being very clear on why there are still troops in Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan, and maybe Syria and “Pock-ih-stohn”.

Now where would those voters turn after being stabbed in the back by their warmonger-in-chief? That’s right, the only other candidate in the race with years of truth and integrity spilling out of him: Ron Paul.

Nearly every question Paul received during the debate last week on MSNBC was obviously aimed at scaring people who have become dependent on the federal government. Even the CNN “Tea Party” debate earlier this week had some of this as well. Don’t fall for their magic markers. Paint your own picture of who Ron Paul is and what he believes (this video is a great start).

Newsflash: Hey MSNBC viewers, everything you despise about FOX News is exactly what MSNBC does except the paint dries blue, not red.

You have to take the crazy out of yourself before you will notice that Ron Paul is just not crazy. He is the candidate with the most common sense. I’m sure that one of Paul’s trusted advisers said to him prior to the debate, “Ron, if you look at the rest of the candidates on that stage, and you can’t find the sane one, then YOU are the sane one.”

It is said that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again while expecting different results. We keep electing the same clowns over and over again and expect different results. But here is Ron Paul, once again, offering America new solutions to ancient problems.

He’s the only one that can truly beat Obama. Do you want four more years of recession, desperation, broken promises, and apologies? Vote Perry, Romney, Bachmann, Santorum, Gingrich, Huntsman, or Obama.

But if you want four years of prosperity, integrity, honesty, liberty, and peace. Vote Paul. He’s just the kind of crazy America needs.

Stung by bad publicity, the TSA is making “reforms.” One of them is to give frequent fliers a “choice”: give up even MORE of your privacy for greater convenience!

Isn’t this just more evidence that the TSA should be ABOLISHED, instead of reformed?

I wrote a letter telling Congress to do just that, and I invite you to do the same.

You may borrow from or copy this letter… Read More »

As an avid political junkie, and a statistician, I’m particularly fascinated by polling. The trends of the most recent polls, and the speculation on cause and effect (Did Bachmann’s debate performance really lift her to front-runner status overnight?) are intriguing, if not in any way gratifying.

My background lends itself to picking out oddities, or outliers, as well. When a poll released by CNN and Opinion Research Center (ORC) in late May showed political afterthought Rudy Giuliani leading the race for the GOP’s presidential nomination in 2012, I thought it was a bit bizarre. Here we had a candidate who failed to register a single victory in the party’s 2008 primaries, despite spending more than Mike Huckabee and Ron Paul – two candidates who soundly defeated him at the polls – combined. A candidate who had registered at 9% in two independent polls released in the previous month – a 9% number that was well outside ORC’s 4.5% margin of error. Were they saying that Giuliani had received at least a 3% bump from April to May? Based on nothing except, perhaps, the death of Osama bin Laden?

Fast forward to today, when a new poll of the 2012 GOP race was released, showing Rick Perry with a commanding lead at 27% as compared with Mitt Romney’s 14%. Perhaps most shocking in this most recent poll was a precipitous drop in declared support for Texas Congressman Ron Paul, who received just 6% as compared with 12% in a poll by the same company and news agency not even three weeks prior – a drop that falls outside the margin of error of 4.5% for the Republican sample. Did Ron Paul – who received a mixed bag of media attention, from his near-victory at the Ames Straw Poll to his jabs at FEMA on the eve of a hurricane to the stories of his being a non-story – really experience a statistically significant drop in support over these past three weeks? I had to check the cross-tabs.

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Ron Paul has done it yet again. Another one of his patented money bombs today has already pulled in over $1 million for his 2012 presidential campaign.

Check out the latest running total at RonPaul2012.com and why not donate a few FRN’s yourself?

Five out of five liberty-lovers agree… there is no better candidate in 2012.