Trouble for Rand in Nevada?

Nevada voters will have an early say in 2016 in the Republican race for the presidential election, right after New Hampshire primary and at the same time as the South Carolina primary where Rand Paul is not expected to do well.

The early thinking must have been from the Rand camp that Nevada results  would give Rand a powerful boost, since Rand's father always put in a very strong showing in the state.

But things may be changing and not for the better for Rand. The Nevada GOP may move from a caucus system to a primary.

WaPo's  Katie Zezima explains what this would mean for Rand:

If the bills -- one which would create party primaries instead of caucuses, or another that would mandate an open primary -- pass, it could be bad news for the Paul running for president this year.

The Kentucky Republican is tapping into his father's infrastructure in the state, hoping to harness its supporters as he draws in others who may not have been affiliated with his campaign. Paul is trying to appeal to the state's libertarian bent, telling an audience in Las Vegas this month that he is "unafraid to challenge the status quo" and railing against excessive government regulation.

Caucuses tend to bring out only the most passionate supporters, making them a natural fit for Paul. A primary system -- which increases turnout, lessens the impact of motivated outsider groups, and can make it more difficult to add additional delegates by way of a selection process that falls after Election Day -- would make it more unlikely for Paul to claim the sort of insurgent showing his father did.

  -RW

A Last Minute Entry at the Neocon Summit

The Weekly Standard  is holding a 20th Anniversary Summit at The Broadmoor Resort in Colorado Springs on May 14-16, 2015.

Not surprisingly, Bill Kristol, editor of the warmongering mag, will be a speaker, As will Charles Krauthammer and  John Bolton.

Most noteworthy, though, is that Carly Fiorina, who is about to announce that she is seeking the Republican presidential nomination, has just been announced as a guest and panelist at the event.

It appears the neocons have the Republican Party surrounded.

  -RW

Ron Paul Liberty Report: Libya Migrant Crisis - Whose Fault?

By Chris Rossini

How great to have one of my recent Target Liberty commentaries mentioned on today's Liberty Report:

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Chris Rossini is author of Set Money Free: What Every American Needs To Know About The Federal Reserve. Follow @chrisrossini on Twitter.

George Carlin on Proud Parents of Indoctrination Center Education

The Despicable Ducking and Weaving of Rand Paul in Response to the Drone Attack that Killed Americans

By Robert Wenzel

David Weigel, whose column at Bloomberg is must reading for Rand Paul followers, reports:

On Thursday, after the White House revealed that two hostages had been killed in a drone strike against al-Qaeda, Paul was far more circumspect. Paul avoided the more public entrances to the Senate floor, the places where reporters are typically able to grab senators for quotes. 

What kind of maneuver is this from a presidential candidate? If Rand didn't know exactly how he wanted to respond to the news, he should have walked through a front entrance passed by any reporters and news cameras and said in a somber tone. "I am gathering all the facts and will have a statement later." That's how you look  presidential. By sneaking backdoor Rand sent the signal that he is not ready for prime time, especially since MSM considers him to be a go to person in the Senate for views on drones.

Weigel in another column writes:

More than a day has passed since President Obama revealed the details of drone strikes that killed two Al Qaeda hostages—one of them American—and two Americans who had joined Al Qaeda. Kentucky Senator Rand Paul has remained fairly quiet, releasing a one-sentence statement decrying the deaths of the hostages, but saying nothing about the citizens who joined Al Qaeda.

This was hardly the scenario Paul imagined in his 2013 drone filibuster, when he hypothesized an attack on an "enemy combatant" within the United States, "sitting outside a cafe." Yet Paul has subsequently said that American citizens should be charged and found guilty of crimes before being killed. And some of the people who were gripped by the original 2013 argument wonder if Paul is missing a moment. 

"Rand, drones killing U.S. citizens: The precise argument of your filibuster," wrote journalist Sam Tanenhaus on Twitter today. "The hawks snickered. You were right. Where are you?".

Even more alarming is Rand's failure to even match the call by Cruz Missile for an investigation.

There is a lot to investigate.

Curiously, Warren Weinstein, the American hostage who was killed in the attack, was the  Pakistan country director for  the Arlington, Virginia-based,.J.E. Austin Associates, a U.S. firm advising Pakistani businesses and government under contract with the U.S. Agency for International Development. As Ron Paul has pointed out, USAID has often been a cover for CIA operations.

A 1992 memo written by Weinstein, while he was at USAID, points to his active participation in political changes in Africa. The memo is a request by Weinstein for $12 million for among other things to (my bold):

support activities leading to: increased civic participation and  education leading up to and following elections... throughout sub-Saharan Africa.

Weinstein also had stints as a Peace Corps director in Togo and the Ivory Coast in Africa and with the International Finance Corp. of the World Bank Group.

Giovanni Lo Porto, the Italian hostage killed, worked for German aid group Welthungerhilfe, which is funded by  the EU Commission, the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development, and the United Nations' World Food Programme.

There is much to investigate here, from the intelligence failure resulting in the killings of the two hostages to the justifications that Obama is using to kill Americans without trial, to the curious activities of agencies such as USAID in the world's hot spots.

The topic of collateral damage has been brought to the forefront because of this attack. It would seem that this would, thus, be an ideal opportunity to call for  an investigation into how many non-Americans have been killed as a result of drone strike collateral damage.

These are all issues that have seemingly been delivered to Rand Paul on a silver platter as a result of this horrific drone attack. Yet, he remains mostly silent.

One has to ask, Why? Why won't Rand even call for the investigation of such a horrific event (never mind going as far as objecting to it)?

It is difficult to find an answer other than that he does not want to weaken the image he is developing as a tough guy on foreign policy. His silence is a deafening warning of the danger he becomes to peace and freedom lovers everywhere as he becomes more neoconish.

Robert Wenzel is Editor & Publisher at EconomicPolicyJournal.com and at Target Liberty. He is also author of The Fed Flunks: My Speech at the New York Federal Reserve Bank. Follow him on twitter:@wenzeleconomics

Rubio Surging

538 writes:

Jeb Bush climbed during December, which is when he announced that he was actively exploring a run for president. Scott Walker saw a more rapid rise during January, when he gave a very well-received speech at the Iowa Freedom Summit. Ted Cruz, who isn’t likely to actually contend for the nomination, rocketed up when he announced for president in March. Even Rand Paul, who was fairly well-known before his campaign launch in April, rose in the past month.

The fact that all these candidates have surged and then dropped (or begun to drop) again and that no one is consistently polling above 15 percent shows how unsettled the GOP field is — not surprising such a long way from the actual voting.

What makes Rubio strong isn’t his polling surge, but that he is well-liked across the party apparatus. He pulls in conservatives with his voting record and moderates with his impressive 2010 Senate victory in Florida, a crucial battleground state.

This is all evident in non-horse-race polling. Rubio’s net favorability rating among Republicans is near the top of the field. The gap between Republicans who could see themselves voting for Rubio and those who couldn’t is among the field’s best, according to an average of CBS News surveys conducted this year:

Paging Sheldon Adelson, Will You Give Rand Paul Money Now?

A CONVERSATION WITH SENATOR RAND PAUL AT THE NATIONAL SOCIETY FOR HEBREW DAY SCHOOLS

On Monday, April 27, 2015, Senator Rand Paul will meet for a conversation and luncheon with Jewish community leaders at the National Society for Hebrew Day Schools headquarters in Brooklyn.    MONDAY, APRIL 27, 2015 WHAT:         A Conversation with Senator Rand Paul at the National Society for Hebrew Day                     Schools headquarters  TIME:           12:00 P.M. (ET)  LOCATION:  National Society for Hebrew Day Schools                       Torah Umesorah                      620 Foster Avenue                      Brooklyn, New York 11230

‘Clinton Cash’ Author Also Investigating Jeb Bush

Hillary Rodham Clinton’s campaign has denounced the new book “Clinton Cash” as part of a conservative Republican assault on her run for the White House.

But the book’s author, Peter ­Schweizer, says that he’s working on a similar study of GOP presidential hopeful Jeb Bush.

“What we’re doing is a drill-down investigation of Jeb’s finances similar to what we did with the Clintons in terms of looking at financial dealings, cronyism, who he’s been involved with,” Schweizer told Bloomberg News.

Schweizer says he and a team of researchers have been poring over Bush’s financial life for about four months. Among other things, they’re scrutinizing various Florida land deals, an airport deal while Bush was governor that involved state funds, and Chinese investors in Bush’s private equity fund.

Yes, Republicans and Democrats, they all need to be smeared with their dirty doings.

  -RW

Rand Paul Hides From Drone Attack

David Weigel sets the scene of Rand's duck and cover routine:

Two years ago, Kentucky Senator Rand Paul captivated the Senate and the press by waging a filibuster against the nomination of John Brennan, President Obama's new CIA director. For 13 hours, he demanded that the Obama administration offer, publicly, its legal rationale for drone strikes against American citizens, in the United States, that it deems to be enemies. The "Stand With Rand" iconography that has become part of Paul's presidential campaign dates to that literal late-night stand.

On Thursday, after the White House revealed that two hostages had been killed in a drone strike against al-Qaeda, Paul was far more circumspect. Paul avoided the more public entrances to the Senate floor, the places where reporters are typically able to grab senators for quotes. Initially, his Senate office said via e-mail that he would not have an immediate response to the killings. At 1:54 p.m., his campaign sent over a statement.

"It is a tragedy that these Americans lost their lives," said Paul. "My prayers and thoughts are with their families." Minutes later, Paul's Senate office sent over a slightly different statement, clarifying that he was talking about the American hostage, Warren Weinstein. He did not address the killings of Ahmed Farouq and Adam Gadahn, two American citizens who had joined al-Qaeda and were killed in drone strikes. (Farouq was killed in the same attack that took the lives of the hostages.

Contrast this even with warmonger, Cruz Missile, who views the killings of the Islamic Americans Ahmed Farouq and Adam Gadahn in the attack as legal acts of war. Weigel again:

Texas Senator Ted Cruz, who had joined Paul in that March 2013 filibuster, released a longer statement that called specifically [sic] an "investigation" into the killings--something President Obama also called for today.

  -RW

Judge Napolitano: Clinton Cash Allegations Amount To Bribery

Ron Paul on the Targeted Assassination Drone Attack that Killed an American Aid Worker

Son of Rand

Rand Paul's son, William Hilton Paul, was involved in another alcohol related incident.

When I first saw a report on this yesterday, I wasn't going to comment. I figured I would give the kid a break. If I was the son of a politician, I'd probably drink too.

That said, mainstream media jumped on the story as though Rand's son was running for office. 

I saw reports on the story across the board from NBC to HuffPo, and CNN even sent a Breaking News Alert to my cell phone on the incident, so I am not breaking new news here. The news is out.

It appears that William, 22, has a problem. This is his third alcohol related scrape with the law. 

He was once cited for possession of alcohol while underage at a Kentucky racetrack. In a 2013 drunken outburst, he was arrested for allegedly assaulting a 22-year-old female flight attendant on a jet bound for Charlotte Douglas International Airport in North Carolina.

In the current incident. according to witness reports, he  was “revving his engine” while sitting alone in his vehicle shortly before he crashed it into a parked car in front of him.

Cops found him in the driver’s seat “belligerent” and with “a strong odor of alcohol."

William, who attends the University of Kentucky, failed a field sobriety test. He then refused to undergo a blood-alcohol test, the ­paper said.

In addition to the DUI, William was charged with failure to maintain required auto insurance, police said.

He was treated for facial injuries at University of Kentucky Chandler Hospital and was kept at the hospital and not taken to jail because of his injuries, the Herald-Leader ­reported.

A spokesman for Rand’s presidential campaign sounded like a Kennedy spokesperson and told NyPo the senator “does not comment on any private matters in regards to his family.”

I hope things work themselves out for William. It appears he has demons that he has to deal with. The rest of us have to deal with his father and the perception that he delivers to the general public that he is somehow a libertarian.

I need a drink.

 -RW

Pin The Tail On The Aggressor

By Chris Rossini

Here's an interesting graph:


On 9/11, were most of the hijackers Saudis or Iranians?

On 9/11, citizens of only 1 muslim country spontaneously held a candlelight vigil after the attacks. Which country? Here's a hint: not Saudi Arabia.

Which of the two countries are cozy with Al Qaeda? Well, since Sunni Al Qaeda despises Iranian Shiites, we know it can't be Iran.

Which country unintentionally helped in the creation of ISIS? Hint: Not Iran.

Which of the two countries has attacked Yemen, even though it was not attacked by Yemen? Which country has received carte blanche to act out aggressively?

Ok...Now for the important questions.

Of the two countries, which leaders refuse to genuflect to the hegemony of the U.S. government?

Consequently, which does the U.S. government want everyone in the world to be afraid of?

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Chris Rossini is author of Set Money Free: What Every American Needs To Know About The Federal Reserve. Follow @chrisrossini on Twitter.

DISGUSTING Rand Votes to HIDE Congress's Obamacare Exemption

Phil Kerpen, President of American Commitment, emails:

Moments ago, Senator David Vitter pleaded with the Senate Small Business Committee, which he chairs, to subpoena the secret documents in which the House and Senate each claimed to be a “small business” with less than 50 employees -- to avoid going into the regular Obamacare exchanges.

The same Obamacare exchanges they had the nerve to force millions of others Americans into.  Now 13,700 House and Senate members and their staff have signed up as a “small business” under this false declaration.

Senator David Vitter’s effort to expose these fraudulent documents failed because his committee voted against the subpoena 5 to 14.

Kudos to the five Republicans who voted YES on the subpoena:

• Chairman David Vitter (La.)
• Marco Rubio (Fla.)
• Tim Scott (S.C.)
• Cory Gardner (Colo.)
• Joni Ernst (Iowa)

Shame on the five Republicans who voted NO:

• Mike Enzi (Wyo.)
• Jim Risch (Idaho)
• Rand Paul (Ky.)
• Deb Fischer (Neb.)
• Kelly Ayotte (N.H.)

And shame on all nine Democrats who voted NO:

• Ranking Member Jeanne Shaheen (N.H.)
• Maria Cantwell (Wash.)
• Ben Cardin (Md.)
• Heidi Heitkamp (N.D.)
• Ed Markey (Mass.)
• Cory Booker (N.J.)
• Chris Coons (Del.)
• Mazie Hirono (Hawaii)
• Gary Peters (Mich.)

It’s sickening that Congress got away with this in the first place, but to double down and conceal these documents from the public is simply unacceptable.

This falls on Wenzel Rule #1: The government should always be harassed, when the opportunity presents itself without potential personal harm.

 -RW

(ht Felix Bronstein)

Hey Rand, The T-Shirt is On It's Way

SEE: I Dare Rand Paul to Wear This in Public

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Does Anyone Have Ben Affleck's Phone Number?

By Victor J. Ward

Several months ago, I wrote a post entitled: "The Curious Case Of Reparations." (See http://www.economicpolicyjournal.com/2014/09/the-curious-case-of-reparations.html.)

I argued that a Libertarian system of justice would allow a Black person to seek reparations if certain conditions were met.

One of the conditions was that a Black person -- Black Person X -- needed to prove that a particular and living White person -- White Person X -- had slave owners in their family tree  -- Slave Owner X -- that benefited from owning slaves -- Slave X. Black X must be able to trace his family to Slave X.

Then and only then could Black X request reparations.

But, really, would that ever happen? Would any Black person go to the trouble of discovering which White person descended from which slave owners?

But now, thanks to PBS (Thank you, PBS!), we definitively know of a White person descended from slave owners:

The wickedly talented, Ben Affleck!

(See http://www.tmz.com/2015/04/22/ben-affleck-ancestors-slave-owners-wikileaks-finding-your-roots/.)

The fact is that I probably have slaves and slave-owners in my ancestry. But, I don't know that for a fact.

Not so with Affleck. He knows that he has slave-owner blood coursing through his veins.

Is racism genetic? If so, Affleck is probably a racist.

In order for Affleck to repent, I would like him to change the names of some of his movies:

From Batman, to "Blackman."

From Gone Girl, to "You Go, Girl."

From Town to "Ghetto."

I know that Ben feels ashamed. The only way for him to rid this ugly stain from the good name of Affleck is for him to scrub with the reparations sponge. It is going to be difficult for Ben to find the Black people who descended from the slaves his family owned.

I want to make it easy on Ben. I am going to call him and let him know that he can give me the required 40 acres and a mule.

Does anyone have Ben's phone number or email address? Thanks.

Victor J. Ward  first came across libertarianism by reading Murray Rothbard's Ronald Reagan: An Autopsy and Walter Block's Defending the Undefendable. He holds a law degree from the University of California, Hastings College of the Law and an MBA from Santa Clara University.

“The Accountant of Auschwitz”

A former SS sergeant described in chilling detail Wednesday how cattle cars full of Jews were brought to the Auschwitz death camp, the people stripped of their belongings and then most led directly into gas chambers.

Oskar Groening is being tried on 300,000 counts of accessory to murder, related to a period between May and July 1944 when around 425,000 Jews from Hungary were brought to the Auschwitz-Birkenau complex in Nazi-occupied Poland and most immediately gassed to death.

During that period, so many trains were arriving that often two would have to wait with closed doors as the first was “processed,” Groening testified at the Lueneburg state court.

Though he was more regularly assigned to the camp’s Auschwitz I section, he said he guarded the Birkenau ramp three times, including one busy 24-hour shift. The main gas chambers were located at Birkenau.

“The capacity of the gas chambers and the capacity of the crematoria were quite limited. Someone said that 5,000 people were processed in 24 hours but I didn’t verify this. I didn’t know,” he said. “For the sake of order, we waited until train 1 was entirely processed and finished.”

Read the rest here.