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Trump and the Libertarians

6 May

This was published yesterday at Breitbart.  Since it was published, Mary Matalin joined the Libertarian Party and rumors surfaced that Trump might select Rand Paul as his Veep.

Bill Kristol appeared on WMAL’s morning conservative talk radio show, “Mornings on the Mall,” Thursday morning, breaking news that he is trying to find donors for a conservative third party run against Donald Trump if he is nominated as the Republian candidate for president.

Among the liberal Republicans there is also splintering.
Breitbart broke the story earlier this week that Donald Trump’s impending success in winning the GOP nomination was causing fractures in Republican Party delegations, as one DC GOP delegate, Rina Shah, was decertified as a delegate to the GOP nominating convention for saying publicly that she planned to vote for Hillary if Trump was nominated.
The DC Republican Party is something of an outlier.  It’s national committee man and woman, lawyer Bob Kabel and real estate developer Jill Homan, are both (openly) gay, as is its chairman, financial manager Jose Cunningham.  It’s executive director, Patrick Mara, though a happily married heterosexual and new dad, was the first DC candidate some years back to endorse gay marriage over civil unions, and the DC Republican Party supports gay marriage in its platform, and did so before the DC Democratic party did.  (Only the DC and Delaware GOP affiliates supported gay marriage in their platforms before the Supreme Court enacted it).
Perhaps coincidentally, Homan and Mara both fall into another faction of the current GOP:  Homan, a former campaigner for Maryland Governor Bob Ehrlich, the Republican precursor to Larry Hogan, says she describes herself as “trending libertarian,” and Mara has been known to use the “L” word (lower case) to describe his brand of socially liberal, fiscally conservative Republicanism.
The “libertarian wing” of the Republican Party has been having spasms this week over Trump, and google searches for “Libertarian Party” shot up after Trump’s latest win.  Membership applications and donations to the Libertarian Party have doubled since Trump won the Indiana primary, with 100 people joining daily.
Congressman Justin Amash, PACster Matt Kibbe, and former Congressman Ron Paul are libertarian Republicans on the list of those pledged to never support  Trump. Senator Rand Paul doesn’t have any plans to endorse Trump, though Senator Paul has had no difficulty in the past endorsing Mitt Romney or campaigning pointedly for Republican gubernatorial candidates like Ken Cuccinelli in Virginia in 2013, when unusually successful Libertarian Party candidates like Robert Sarvis started polling over 5%.  George Will, who has evolved into a libertarian fellow traveler, blurbing CATO Institute books and speaking to libertarianish groups (as I write this he is introducing transsexual Christian libertarian economic historian Dierdre McCloskey tonight at the American Enterprise Institute), wrote an editorial predicting Trump will cause the GOP to lose both the House and Senate.  Dave Nalle, the former national chairman of the Republican Liberty Caucus, a group of libertarians inside the GOP, has switched parties at least temporarily, and will be a delegate to the Libertarian Party nominating convention in Orlando, May 26-30, where he hopes to help nominate former Republican Governor Gary Johnson, who has been appealing to GOP voters in the #NeverTrump movement.  Asked why he was switching parties, Nalle answered: ““Nominating Johnson gives Republicans who cannot stomach Trump an acceptable option other than Hillary. I blame the party leadership for its failure to support a reasonable alternative to Trump. They would rather let the party die at the hands of bigoted yahoos who do not believe in Republican values than accept the need for serious internal reform and platform changes which would attract new voters to the party. This completes a process of debasement of the party that began when leadership tried to expand the party base by welcoming radical groups which were driven out of the Democratic Party. Trumpism is the price we pay for not realizing that there are principles which are more important than winning elections.”
This week one of the DC GOP’s other 19 delegates (not Ms. Shah), invited me, as a local DC Libertarian, to lunch, to beg me to get Gary Johnson and the Libertarian Party to run an aggressive, but ideologically moderate, campaign to appeal to Republicans who can’t vote for Trump.  This Republican delegate – DC’s delegates are all pledged to Rubio or Kasich  – had also tried to meet with Libertarian Party national director Wes Benedict, but had only managed to get a 15 minute phone pitch, where he made the same points.  When I told my lunch partner I actually thought Libertarian candidates for Congress should appeal to Trump voters (he may not have read my previous “Two Libertarian Cheers for Donald Trump”), he was horrified.  Supporting Donald Trump as a wrecking ball aimed at the political class and as someone who was energizing independents and non-voters is, according to my lunchmate, “anti-intellectual,” because Trump doesn’t always articulate the correct policy proposals.
So the libertarians, in the GOP and in the LP, are of two minds.  Some think Trump will drive many Republican voters to vote for Gary Johnson.  As Zuri Davis, an editorial assistant at the Rand Paulish webzine Rare told her friends, “My vote will be going towards the Libertarian Party in November.”  

But other Libertarians are supporting Trump.  Well known libertarian economist and author Walter Block, started a group of Libertarians for Trump., whose website aggregates pro-Trump articles by libertarianish authors like David Stockman.  The Chief Operating Officer for Libertarians for Trump is Martin Moulton, the 2014 Libertarian Party candidate for D.C. Shadow Representative to Congress, the top Libertarian vote getter in DC’s last election.   Moulton explains his support: “Now that Mr. Trump is the presumptive GOP nominee we seek to support the candidate most likely to win the 2016 presidential election and advance Libertarian policies. If a registered LP candidate does not gain the national attention and votes needed to beat Mrs. Clinton, Mr. Trumps’s consistent calls to reevaluate NATO’s relevance, question interventionist disasters and financial losses, and his promise to audit the Federal Reserve in his first 100 days, make him the most likely 2016 candidate to successful enact and realize Libertarian solutions for all Americans.” 

At this date there are no known delegates to the Libertarian nominating convention supporting Trump.  So unlike the GOP, the LP may not have to take moves to decertify any delegates.

Libertarian calendar for January 2016

25 Jan
January 25
Washington, D.C.

LGBT and Friends Libertarian Happy Hour
5 pm

Cafe de Luxe
2201 M Street NW

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January 26
Alexandria VA
Arlington VA
Louseville KY
Huntsville, TX
(check local listings)

Liberty Karyaoke

Join the Rand Paul campaign on January 26 for #StandWithRand Liberty Karaoke!

This event brings supporters from every major United States city together to flex our grassroots muscle. At the event we will ask all supporters to chip in $5 and sign up to volunteer for the campaign.

Post photos from our event on the event wall and chip in to donate here:tiny.cc/sfrdonate

To host an event in your town, find a local bar with karaoke this Tuesday and submit the information here: www.randpaul.com/karaoke


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    January 26
    New York, NY

    Liberty Happy Hour

    Fitzpatrick Manhattan Hotel
    7:00 pm
687 Lexington Ave, New York, NY (map)
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January 28
Dulles, VA

Loudon Libertarians
7:00 PM

Ocelot Brewing Company
23600 Overland Dr Ste 180
Dulles, VA


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January 29 – 31
FEE Annual Retreat

5001 Coconut Road 
Bonita Springs, Florida 34134


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Two Libertarian Cheers for Donald Trump

26 Oct
This was published last night at Breitbart.

President Obama’s management of foreign policy – droning hundreds of innocent bystanders (more than did President Bush), bombing a hospital and killing 22 doctors and patients, arming ISIS terrorists  – may be precipitating a realignment of Americans in their views on foreign policy.

This week GOP presidential candidates Donald Trump and Jeb Bush debated whether George Bush kept America safe during his administration, since 9/11 did happen on George Bush’s watch.  It’s not the kind of thing you are supposed to say, just as you aren’t supposed to cast aspersions on Senator John McCain’s war record.  Saying things like that are supposed to get you chased out of American political life.  But Trump keeps saying them, and he doesn’t become any less popular.  His poll numbers may include a swath of that 40% of the electorate that had simply stopped voting in Presidential elections and that previously wasn’t being counted.

Trump’s argument is that Bush didn’t have policies to control the entry of would be terrorists into the United States.  (He could have added that we seemed not to have had anti-aircraft weapons protecting the Pentagon, and as Lawrence White wrote in his Pulitzer prize winning book on 9/11, The Looming Towers, the earlier Clinton administration had been offered Osama bin Laden by the Sudanese government, when it had detained him, and the Clinton regime had helped make 9/11 possible by preventing the FBI and CIA from sharing information).

So far Trump’s challenge has mainly been used by CNN’s Jake Tapper as the second part of his audition for a better paying gig at ABC, NBC, or CBS (the first part having been his GOP debate moderation).  Tapper is appealing to the Democratic Party broadcast organs by doing the regular progressive riff of invoking the oldest moral fallacy, “Eve did it too!”  How can we blame Hillary for letting an Ambassador and three other Americans be murdered in Libya if we do not criticize Bush for letting 3,000 people die in 9/11?

I don’t think many, outside of the hard core Democratic base of low information voters, will be fooled by Tapper’s sophistry, and Rush Limbaugh thoroughly discredited his attempt at an analogy this week, as a craven ploy to provide cover for Mrs. Clinton before she appears at the Benghazi hearing.

The longer lasting and more interesting aspect is Trump’s recurring support of parts of a non-interventionist foreign policy, including his attempt to cite evidence that he too opposed the Iraq war long before anyone else did and his call for getting out of the middle east and letting Russia be trapped in the quagmire.  Trump has actually adopted large helpings of Senator Rand Paul’s (and Congressman Ron Paul’s) foreign policy.  It’s just that he did it without an ideology and without seeming petulant or anti-American.  And perhaps because of this is leading in the GOP primary field with a plurality of the voters supporting him.

Let’s stop and reflect on an this.  Around the world we have people most American’s would like to help, in principle:  Kurds, Syrian and Iraqi Christians, Ukranians.  We’d like to help them though we are already trillions in debt and we don’t really want to be embroiled in foreign wars.  The only argument that would really move us to intervene is that if we don’t the forces attacking these people – ISIS or other terrorists, Putin and his surrogates – will find their way to the American homeland.

But what’s actually been happening?  We built a multi-trillion dollar military empire and it did in fact fail to prevent 9/11.  And now it is in the hands of an anti-American President who is using the resources of that empire to hurt American interests.  And all our allies have become reliant on American protection, which isn’t actually there for them, much as if they were on the dole waiting for Obama’s stimulus to finally produce for them a shovel ready job.  That protection has been outsourced to Russia.  Where the working conditions will not be nearly so pleasant.

Among the orthodox libertarian non-interventionists this week, there were several conferences on foreign policy.  Tuesday the Cato Institute hosted a panel, open to the public, for the book Perilous Partners, on how making allies with local tyrants may have hurt American foreign policy, followed by the second annual Cato conference on Surveillance  (at the inaugural surveillance conference last year Edward Snowden skyped in).  But there was also a panel NOT open to the public or the press, that almost no one knows about, on the threat posed by Chinese expansion, hosted by the Charles Koch Institute.  One of the participants reported to me that the information presented, by PhDs who are former marines now teaching at the various military colleges, was chilling.  China is building aircraft carriers and other craft, and building fake islands in international waters so it can claim those waters as part of its own territory.  It’s interesting that the Kochs (who do do business in Asia) sponsored this.  Earlier this fall they had a panel for Congressional staffers which mainly just covered survey data on how millennials were much less willing to support an interventionist foreign policy.

It may be time for a “deconfliction” among foreign policy factions within – and outside of – the GOP.  One would have to start by convincing some libertarians that supporting a smaller military and less military spending doesn’t commit one to Essenic vows of celibacy and austerity – if in the world as it is now the federal government has monopolized all the weapons and other resources one might donate to Kurds or Yazidis or Ukranians or Poles to defend themselves, then one might want to donate them, just as one might use the public library or the public school rather than stay home and be illiterate,  even while simultaneously working for expanded school choice.  And then you’d have to convince the foreign policy hawks that if they really care about America, and don’t want another Obama or Biden as Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces and American foreign policy, they have to agree to a smaller, less expensive military and a less interventionist foreign policy, in order to get those with libertarian or non-interventionist leanings – including the Trump supporters – on board.

Libertarian calendar for September 2015

26 Sep

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September 25-29
Banned Books

Events on censorship, mainly at DC libraries

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September 27
South Riding, VA
Libertarian Party of Loudoun County, VA

12:00 PM
South Riding Center
42420 Unicorn Drive
South Riding, VA 20152

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September 29
Washington, D.C.

Gary Johnson filing
U.S. District Court
400 Constitution Avenue NW


The Commission on Presidential Debates lawsuit is scheduled to be filed on September 29th at 10:30 AM press interviews will be conducted by OAI attorney Bruce Fein on the steps of United States District Court for the District of Columbia, 400 Constitution Avenue NW, DC. Everyone is invited!

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September 29
Arlington, VA

Protest Hillary!
6:30 pm

Hillary does a $200 per person happy hour

Arlington Rooftop Bar and Grill
2424 Wilson Boulevard

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September 30
Washington, D.C.

Evening Reception with Michigan Congressman Justin Amash

7:00 to 9:00 p.m.
Cocktails & Hors d’oeuvres Provided
Location
DLA Piper- 500 Eighth Street NW, Washington DC 
Host Committee
Ed Crane 
Christine Daya
Dr. Issam & Roula Daya
Jeff Frazee
Paul & Laura Jost
Matt & Terry Kibbe
Michael Ostrolenk
(to become a host, please contribute $500 or more and contact christinedaya@gmail.com)
_________________
Howie Rich
Clark Ruper 
George & Rhonda Salem 
Michael & Lauren Semeniuk 
Young Americans for 
 Liberty PAC
Contribution Levels*
Platinum Host:
$5,000 per person or couple
Gold Host:
$2,500 per person or couple
Silver Host:
$1,000 per person or couple
Bronze Host:
$500 per person or couple
General Attendee: $100 per person
Student: $50 per person


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September 1-30
Florida

Libertarian challenge

How many of these tasks can you accomplish in 2015? 

LOCAL CAMPAIGNS 

(NOV 2015 CAMPAIGN) Knock on 100 doors for Joe Haynes who is running for Seminole City Council or donate $25 to his campaignhttp://democracy.com/joeforseminole/ 

(NOV 2015 CAMPAIGN) Knock on 100 Doors for Breanna Kirkland or donate $25 to her campaign http://www.breannakirkland.com/


STATE HOUSE CAMPAIGNS

Gather 50 Petitions for David Leavitt who is running for State House or donate $25 to his campaign http://www.dave4house.com/ 

Gather 50 Petitions for Steve Edmonds who is running for State House or donate $25 to his campaign http://floridahouse28.com/

Gather 50 Petitions for Ken Willey who is running for State House or donate $25 to his campaign http://kenwilley.net/

Gather 50 Petitions for Robert Saviola who is running for State House or donate $25 to his campaign http://www.votesaviola.com/

BALLOT INITIATIVES

Gather 100 Petitions for the Legalization of Marijuana or Donate $25 to this ballot initiative http://floridafreedomgroup.com/

Gather 100 Petitions for the Legalization and regulation of Marijuana or donate $25 to this ballot initiative www.RegulateFlorida.com

Gather 100 Petitions for Floridians for Solar Choice or donate $25 to this ballot initiative http://www.flsolarchoice.org/

LEGISLATIVE EFFORT

Schedule a meeting with your State House Representative and State Senator and ask them to support Legislation to ban the use of Red Light Cameras or donate $25 to the Liberty First Network. http://www.floridaactionalerts.com/enough_is_enough_let_s_repeal_the_cameras_this_session

LIBERTARIAN PARTY BUILDING

Pass out 200 flyers or donate $25 to your local Libertarian county affiliatehttp://www.lpf.org/

Register 10 Libertarians or donate $25 to the Libertarian party of Florida.http://www.lpf.org/

Donate $25 and become a member of the National Libertarian Partyhttp://www.lp.org/

Make 100 Libertarians Survey Calls or donate $25 for the Florida Libertarian PAC http://www.FloridaLibertarianPAC.com/

JURY OUTREACH

Pass out 100 FIJA flyers in front of your local courthouse or donate $25 to FIJA http://www.fija.org/ http://fija.org/docs/BR_YYYY_true_or_false.pdf

NATIONAL ELECTIONS

Pass out 200 Flyers on Fair Debates or Donate $25 to the Our America Initiative to help with the Court case https://www.fairdebates.com/

ALTERNATIVE MEDIA

Donate $25 to the Florida Alternative Media Outlet of your choice

CHARITY

Donate 5 Hours at your local soup kitchen or donate $25

More libertarians (and conservatarians) on Trump’s rebellion

10 Aug

Joe Segura I’m a Libertarian and will support the Libertarian candidate. BUT I like El Trumpodor for taking on the establishment, including its lapdog media. Yes he’s crazy, but as my wife said: “Why not Trump, we’ve already had worse.” It is also the reason I would take “crazy uncle Bernie” over the money-grubber from hell.

Hannah Bennett  Trump’s candidacy is testing the mettle of conservatives. What exactly does Trump plan to accomplish? Who knows? He hasn’t presented a coherent policy strategy yet. Do we trust a democracy guided by principle to fix what’s ailing us or the force of a single man’s personality?

Are we secretly monarchists?


Roger Stone  This is the oldest fight in American politics. It’s the advance men and the merchandisers versus those men and women of ideas. I think politics is about sweeping big ideas, and a few memorable phrases to get people to remember them. It’s not about minutiae…and I just think it is tragic that the Trump campaign appears to have gone into this cul-de-sac where we’re bickering with Megyn Kelly—who is not running for president.



Bruce P. Majors  Discuss: 1) All the establishment peeps coming out after Donald Trump (John Sununu etc) before the first primaries are exactly like all the people trotted out to smear Ron Paul in 2011 when it looked like he might win an early primary. 2) That Donald Trump is not a good representative of the angry people of Trump’s rebellion is not relevant, since what the establishment is attacking is the angry people and their becoming a movement.


Corie W. Stephens  Feminist thoughts post-debate:
There’s a contingent of conservative women who reject the victim mentality of the left. We hate that we’re expected to accept government dependency as penance for the very real sexism that does exist in our day to day lives. How is reliance on a government made up of men empowering? We recognize that it’s not. Many of us think that to overcome the very real chains of sexism, it’s incumbent upon us to be independent thinkers and achievers. It’s what leads us to reject the Democratic Party sycophants who suggest that as a gender, we’re too weak to make it on our own, thus need to be subsidized by government men. No, we don’t, actually. We’re fine without you throwing scraps at us, thank you very much. We’re the ones who scraped by to raise the men currently claiming to lead this generation. Feel free to thank us for that.
So what about the concept of actually making it on our own as women? What about the fact that we’re expected to ignore the soft bigotry we face everyday, in the form of men treating us like less-than in political settings? Republican ladies, don’t pretend you don’t experience this on a day-to-day basis. The standing there amongst your male colleagues, when another man joins the group and he acknowledges you last if at all, barely making eye contact, assuming you’re someone’s spouse rather than a successful political operative? You know this reality, because you experience it everyday. But you don’t bitch about it publicly, because you’re there to make it despite the obstacles. You’re there to face that passive sexism head on and prove you’re better than it.
This is what I wish men would understand about the camaraderie that women create with each other; especially among us conservatives. It transcends policy. Do I agree with everything women like Megyn Kelly or Carly Fiorina say about every issue? No, not at all. But as a woman who, whether you want to acknowledge it or not, is treated with kid gloves in the conservative political world, strong women who don’t take shit resonate with me. Megyn Kelly and Carly Fiorina are goddamn badasses. These are fearless women who take men on, acknowledge the existence of sexism as a pervasive obstacle we need to overcome as a gender, but say fuck it, I’m going in anyway. That’s inspiring. That’s empowering. That’s feminism.
I strongly believe that libertarian-conservative women are on the front lines of feminism, defending our fellow females as powerful political contributors. It’s why I loved Megyn Kelly calling Donald Trump out for his misogynist commentary tonight; because IT MATTERS. She stood as a lone voice for women, telling millions of clueless Fox viewers that, yes, women actually do care whether or not you insult our entire gender. We’re strong swing voters; you won’t win without us.
A message of self-reliance and independence resonates with women. We are, after all, the world’s child bearers. And not only do we give birth to you, we host popular cable news shows; we run giant corporations; we run for PRESIDENT. So if you’re wondering why Carly Fiorina is going to see a giant boost in her poll ratings after today, look beyond policy. Look at the fact that millions of women are inspired by the lady in hot pink who stood alone in the face of men who on paper, should be more successful than she is. Yet Carly kicked every single one of their asses. That’s feminism. And Hillary Clinton is rightfully scared shitless by it.
Pay attention. Because it’s about to get real.

Rand Paul We don’t need a bully, and we don’t need another President who thinks he is King. We certainly don’t need someone who has driven his companies into bankruptcy four times yet smugly tells us he uses our nation’s Chapter 11 laws to his own personal advantage. All well and good for him – but what of the creditors and vendors he defaulted on?

Voters are hungry for a plain-spoken critique of Washington. But I’m unsure how credible that voice is when it comes from the consummate insider, a man who buys and sells politicians like he does Lamborghinis.
Trump has paid over 1.5 million dollars to politicians from both sides of the aisle, from Harry Reid to Rahm Emanuel to Jeb Bush. The majority of his donations were to Democrats until a few years ago when he began thinking more seriously of making a play for the Republican nomination.

Bruce P. Majors  Oh my lord. I can be whiny and I can be an attention whore. I can cuss out dumb people and people who slight me. But I at least don’t do it WHEN I am running for office etc. Donald Trump is America’s biggest baby. He called 4 (non FOX) shows to whine today. As if his “treatment” during the debate was a presidential issue like the economy or immigration policy — or even REAL media bias, real government manipulation of the media, or real media oligopoly.



Thursday’s recommended reading – the candidates

6 Aug

More libertarian humor for July

23 Jul
Steve Miller-Miller
Show me on the doll where the minarchists hurt you.


Bruce Majors
GOP guys are appealing to voters like me by seeing who can make the butchest viral video. I really didn’t expect Lindsey Graham to turn me on. Waiting to see Carly’s tho.



Some say Trump is Hillary’s Manchurian candidate sent to wreck the GOP.

But notice since he entered no one remarks on Rand Paul’s hair.









America shouldn’t take advice on the sharing economy from someone who has been driven around in a limo for 30 years.

Bruce Majors
When preparing dinner for your “liberal” Democrat friends, remember to ask whether they prefer the liver, the leg, or the kidney. ‪

Libertarian women’s history month: Carol Wells Paul

25 Mar

Carolyn Wells Paul (February 29, 1936 – ), a leap year baby, born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, is the wife of former Congressman and former Presidential candidate Ron Paul, and the mother of Senator and likely Presidential candidate Rand Paul.  Normally I wouldn’t include someone in the history of libertarian women on the adage that “behind every good man there is a good woman,” but that’s not who Carol Paul is – because she is behind at least two good men.





The Pauls met in high school. In 1952, they had their first date when Carol asked Ron Paul out on a date

: “I came into the picture about 1952 when Ron was my escort to my 16th birthday party. Don’t tell anyone –- but I asked him… actually my birthday is February 29th and it was a Sadie Hawkins-type party where the girls asked the boys… and I asked him.”

Carol Paul. “The Ron Paul I Know.”LewRockwell.com. 12/14/2007.



Ron proposed marriage to Carol in the summer of 1956 while they were having a picnic in a park.   During Ron’s senior year, he and Carol were married on February 1, 1957 in Pittsburgh at Dormont Presbyterian Church. They had about 300 guests at their evening wedding.

The wedding reception was held at The Dormont New Century Club. They had a four-tiered traditional style wedding cake. 



Their first dance as a married couple was to Doris Day’s “When 

I Fall in Love.” Ron was 21 years old and Carol was 20 years old.


Carol and Ron Wedding Photos

Carol: “We married in an all white wedding with the bridesmaids carrying armloads of red roses. The flower girl wore a white dress and sprinkled rose petals down the aisle. A fraternity brother of Ron’s sang “The Wedding Prayer” and the “Lord’s Prayer.”
Carol Paul. “The Ron Paul I Know.”LewRockwell.com. 12/14/2007.

“Carol wore a white Chantilly lace gown with a bouffant tulle skirt and a silk illusion veil attached to a half hat. Ron wore a black tux and a white tie … Carol held a cascade of white flowers; and Ron donned a white carnation boutonniere.”
Source: BridesDecide.com










The Pauls spent their honeymoon in Durham, North Carolina; they 

have five children, eighteen grandchildren, and four great-grandchildren.


  • Ronald Paul Jr: Married to Peggy. They have three daughters.
  • Lori Paul Pyeatt: Married to Tom Pyeatt.
  • Randall “Rand” Paul: Rand is an ophthalmologist and U.S. Senator in Bowling Green, Kentucky. He is married to Kelley. They have three sons.
  • Robert Paul: Robert is family practice physician. He is married to Monica. They have two children.
  • Joy Paul-LeBlanc: Joy is an obstetrician and gynecologist. She is married to Andy. They have five children.
  • More about Ron and Carol’s family



 


The Pauls live in Lake Jackson, Texas, but also owned a home in northern Virginia while Dr. Paul was in Congress. In April 2011, Catalina Camia of USA Today reported that Carol and Ron put their home on the market since they built another home. “Ron Paul sells his Texas house through Facebook.”   



Carol has worked as a secretary, dance instructor, and other jobs.  Since 1995, Carol Paul has published the Ron Paul Family Cookbook, a collection of recipes she and her friends contributed, and which was sold in part to support Ron Paul’s political campaigns.  The 28-page 2012 cookbook is only the latest collection of recipes from the Pauls.Wearing an “End the Fed” apron, Mrs. Paul explained to WSJ that the cookbook series began in 1995 to combat criticisms toward Rep. Paul based on his opinions toward the War on Drugs.  “People started saying that Ron wanted to give drugs to kids, and Ron said, ‘Let’s show them our kids have all done well, they’re not into drugs.’ ” Paul’s campaign website said the collectible cookbook will “warm your kitchen and your heart,” as it features not only recipes, but a brief history and photos of the entire Paul family.



The Pauls are known to talk on the phone two to three times a day. Mrs. Paul makes her husband chocolate chip cookies to take on the road. “I worry for him,” she says. “He gets very tired.”  If being a campaign spouse, Carol Paul has said one of the more negative aspects is “living out of a suitcase without enough hours to sleep.”

Source: “Carol Paul — Running Together.” Time.com. 9/2007.

Does Joan Walsh have the hots for Nick Gillespie?

6 Mar
Libertarianism is for petulant children: Ayn Rand, Rand Paul and the movement’s sad “rebellion”

S(t)alon, the leftover website edited by Joan Walsh, a frequent MSNBC contributor, pretty much has a daily piece chock full of howlers attacking libertarians.

For months my hypothesis has been this was just whoring, socialist street walkers after capitalist cash, as the articles usually target particular libertarian divas with a big fan base: Ayn Rand, Ron Paul, Rand Paul.  Essentially this clickbait is a form of pay per view porn, where proglodytes can join  David Sirocco or some other nerdy pajama boy, minimally cooler than they are, in a gang rape of that uppity bitch’s (Ayn Rand’s) bones.

But the tone of recent articles, like the one above calling libertarians juvenile, suggest a new diagnosis.  It’s projection.  These nerdy leftovers are infatuated with libertarians, like a smelly, borderline autistic kid making prank calls or stalking a beautiful and popular student who doesn’t even know they exist.

In her recent appearances it looks like Joan Walsh has had her famously rodent-like dentition ground down, a new hair cut, and maybe a little freshening around the eyes.  If she can’t land Nick for some extramarital hanky panky, perhaps she’s aiming to get a show as MSNBC cleans the Ronan and the Sharpton out of its stables.  The old mare may ride yet!

Libertarians and Israel

6 Mar

Philosophically, libertarianism is something of a Jewish creation.  Though classical liberalism may have been created by Bastiat, Montesquieu, John Locke, Adam Smith, Madame Germaine de Stael, John Stuart Mill, de Tocqueville, Herbert Spencer – but also Baruch Spinoza and Moses Mendelsohn – the founding fathers and mothers of libertarianism are Jewish, at least incidentally: Milton Friedman, Ludwig Von Mises, Ayn Rand, Robert Nozick, Murray Rothbard.  Except for James Buchanan and Fredrick Hayek, the first tier of libertarian writers are all Jewish.  The second and third tiers are mainly Gentiles – Walter Williams, Mario Rizzo, Lawrence White, Peter Leeson, Sudha Shenoy, Henry Hazlitt, Jerome Tuccille, Martin Anderson, Tyler Cowan, Rose Wilder Lane, H.L. Mencken, Isabel Patterson, David Boaz, Dierdre McCloskey,  Thomas Sowell, Tom Palmer, Radley Balko, Voltarine de Cleyre, though even there a Jewish or a half-Jewish writer (David Friedman, Bryan Caplan, Jane Jacobs, Brian Doherty, Walter Block) pops up.

So it’s interesting that some libertarians and some of their critics keep trying to tie libertarianism to opposition to Israel, and in the case of their critics, anti-Semitism.  Of course, as former Rand Paul ghostwriter Jack Hunter reminds us, Congressman Ron Paul was one of the lone voices to defend Israel’s right to defend itself against an Iranian nuclear threat back in 1981.

My friend James Kirchik, a former New Republic writer, did this, in part spurred on by his discovery of the much debated “Ron Paul newsletters,” paying attention to how, when Ron Paul was a lone voice in the wilderness with few friends or followers, he was a bit promiscuous in terms of whom he would associate with.  As I’ve pointed out before I don’t think this bad judgement makes him anti-Semitic anymore than his going to a hotel room with Sacha Baron Cohen’s flamingly gay, fake Austrian TV interviewer, Bruno, makes him gay – or anti-gay.  He just has insufficient sense when it comes to hanging out with the wrong people.  It may be what motivates the anti-libertarian animus of former TNR writer Jonathan Chait, though a general obtuseness is more likely.  (Anti-Israel animus bleeding over into anti-Semitism is hardly confined to one part of the political universe; I remember being at a Human Rights Campaign fund event where a very politically active lesbian businesswoman campaigning for John Edwards told me she wished someone would just nuke Israel, since it was a tripwire for war and just complicated all of her Democratic Party political dealings.)

It’s surfaced again over at The Washington Free Beacon, which thinks Senator Rand Paul didn’t smile enough at BiBi Netanyahu’s speech, though Paul seems to have met Prime Minister Netanyahu before and shared a cordial handshake.  Over at reason, Chicago journalist Stephen Chapman says the perfect is the enemy of the good, and that Netanyahu can’t insist on a perfect disarming of the Tehran theocracy because then you will get nothing, so we must accept Obama’s mysterious black box deal.  But there are many untried Iranian policies.  What if the NSA had spent some of its resources not spying on Americans or Germans (none of which seems to prevent any murderous attacks in Europe like that at the Charlie Hebdo offices), but instead punching a hole in the cyber Iron Curtain that prevents Iranian dissidents from communicating, learning about the outside world, or having a Persian Spring?  Also, as one conservative blogger has pointed out, the criticism of Netanyahu never includes that he said anything false.

My friend, Jon Basil Utley, the publisher of The American Conservative, a paleoconservative magazine, well written and edited, with libertarian leanings, has just published a critique of the Netanyahu speech, which he has been promoting around town at conservative meetings for the past couple of days.  I’ll let you read it on your own (link at Mr. Utley’s name), but I remain unpersuaded for two major reasons and one minor one.  First, Israel is clearly more pro-liberty than any of its neighbors, and becoming more so.  Second, some of the opposition to the Netanyahu speech depends on believing that the Obama administration can be trusted in his secret dealings with Iran, a crazy and unfounded belief given everything else President Obama has done. Third, I think Governor Gary Johnson may be correct in that as we try to cut the American military empire, close bases, and shrink the defense budget, that may be easier done if we have some allies with whom we have a division of labor and exchange among defense forces in intelligence and defense provision, and Israel is such an ally.

Utley wants to paint Israel supporters as older Jews, crazed fundamentalists praying for the End Times, and greedy defense contractors.  I’m an atheist (or an apatheist) and a libertarian, even a radical libertarian. My only military employment has been working part time at a DoD library when in grad school and selling a few properties as a realtor to an Army captain. I think the anti-Israel animus is both morally wrong and even more rhetorically, strategically, and tactically wrong.

Libertarians believe in freedom of movement. Jews have just as much (indeed, at least as much) right to move to Israel – both European Jews and the overlooked Sephardic Jews (over 40% of the Israeli populace) who fled Jordan, Syria etc. where they were oppressed – as Mexicans or Irish do to move to the U.S. I’m sure in moving to Israel some Jewish Israelis violated property and other rights of some non-Jews in the area (as almost every population on earth has done, including in recent times). But that is both correctable judicially and also not as major a fact as that even if all the Jews who moved to Israel had the most pristine Lew Rockwellian politics, even if Theodore Herzl had been a Rothbardian, and early Zionists had founded Israel as an Essenic anarchocapitalist Eden, Islamic theocrats would still be trying to kill them just as they are now.  (They weren’t all friendly to their own Sephardic Jews before Zionism existed, nor were they all peaceable with Zionist immigrants before Israel was a state again.)

Israel is the only place that affords relative freedom to gays, women, Christians and other religions, and even Moslem Arabs in the Middle East. I don’t favor tax funding of foreign states, but it is the last place I would cut off. And as with the Kurds and Ukranians, I would also legalize private armament sales and donations to them.

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