Friday, August 31, 2012

TSA detains, interrogates Ron Paul’s family and aides

After the Republican National Convention, Rep. Ron Paul’s family and aides were allegedly detained and interrogated in Clearwater, Florida yesterday.

Paul’s family and aides attempted to depart for Texas when eight Transportation Security Administration (TSA) agents refused to allow their passage. According to Lew Rockwell, Paul’s former chief of staff, agents first questioned the pilot’s credentials, then insisted the passengers and plane be searched for explosives. TSA agents did not cite any specific threat, but insinuated the Paul family was a threat to Mitt Romney, claiming the nominee “might be nearby.”

The pilot reminded agents the plane itself, filled with fuel, was a bomb. Agents persisted with demands that the passengers be thoroughly examined, but Carol, Paul’s 76-year-old wife, has a pacemaker. She refused to submit to a search while an aide began recording the event. Eventually, the agents relented.

Private aircraft are not subjected to the same rigorous security screenings of commercial aircraft, leading some to believe Paul’s family was targeted by the agency. Rep. Paul, who is retiring from Congress this year, is a notoriously vocal critic of the TSA on the campaign trail and on the House floor. He has repeatedly lobbied and advocated reducing the size and power of the agency, much to Washington’s chagrin.

The Paul family and the TSA have battled in the past as well. In January, Senator Rand Paul (R-Ky.) was detained at Nashville International, missing a speaking event over the ordeal. Paul claims his knee triggered an alarm he believes was a random alert. After showing agents his knee and requesting a repeat scan, he was refused.

“Is it too much to ask to have a little dignity when you travel? And shouldn’t an adult be able to get back in line and go through the scanner?” he told CNN. “I don’t think that’s too much to ask.”

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Ron Paul washes his hands of Keynesian, fiscally irresponsible Republican party

On Aug. 31, Congressman and Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul officially washed his hands of the GOP, just as the 2012 Republican convention comes to a close. Citing the party being no different than the Democrats in fiscal spending and irresponsibility, the Texas Congressman denounced fully that the GOP in its current form was no longer his.

The irony of today’s announcement by Congressman Paul is that it was the Republican party who first rejected him, long before Paul’s decision to wash his hands of the GOP. During the primary campaign season, multiple Republican committees in states across the country used rule changes and local law enforcement to ensure the Texas Congressman did not succeed in winning primaries. Couple this with the fraudulent attempt to keep Ron Paul from being nominated at the Convention by stealing his delegates in Maine, and in other states, and it is no surprise that the soon to retire Congressman has had enough of the corrupt political party he supported for more than 30 years.

Congressman Paul’s assessment of the Republican party being no different than the Democrats when it comes to government spending and Keynesian economic doctrine is easily exemplified in Mitt Romney’s vice-presidential candidate, Paul Ryan. As Chairman of the House budget committee, Ryan backed the raising of the debt ceiling in August of last year, and voted for TARP and the Obama stimulus packages which has increased the national debt by more than $2 trillion. His recent speech on cutting spending is actually just a proposal to cut future increases in spending, and not remove much from the over $1.4 trillion annual deficit.

Full article: http://www.examiner. … ble-republican-party

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Thursday, August 30, 2012

Republican leaders trample their grass roots in Tampa

At the Republican National Convention, party officials flouted the rules and railroaded longtime conservative activists, Tea Party newcomers and Ron Paul delegates.

You might think a party whose power in Washington is due to bottom-up, decentralized grassroots passion would not resort to top-down, centralized control.

Establishment arrogance first flared up in two of the convention’s standing committees.

In the Rules Committee, D.C. delegate Ben Ginsburg, an attorney working with the Romney campaign, passed two rule changes that conservatives immediately blasted as “power grabs.” First, Ginsburg stripped power from delegates by giving the Republican National Committee — that is, the 50 state committeemen and 50 committeewomen — the power to amend party rules between conventions. (This was a change to Rule 12, which governs amendments to the platform.)

Second, he stripped power from state parties by giving candidates the ability to replace any of their own delegates. Conservative delegates and activists reacted so negatively to this one that party leaders backtracked. They crafted a compromise on Monday night that leaves state parties with the power to elect delegates, but imposes new rules on delegate selection.

Meanwhile, the Credentials Committee voted to unseat half of Ron Paul’s delegates from Maine. Party officials contended — on flimsy evidence — that Paul backers had broken the rules in the state party’s convention, where they won 21 of Maine’s 24 delegate seats.

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Obamacare shock: College insurance prices soar

The future frightening payoffs of college loans are taking a backseat to the immediate and soaring costs of health insurance students are getting slapped with as they return to school this fall, all thanks to Obamacare.

Because of a rule in the Affordable Care Act that lifts caps on policy payoffs, the cheap insurance policies typically healthy students previously got are skyrocketing, some over 1,000 percent. The reason: Without payoff caps, insurance firms are boosting prices to cover their potential losses.

One example: a late July email to incoming students from Guilford College of Greensboro, N.C. revealed a jump from $668 to $1,179, a 75 percent jump. The reason stated: “Our student health insurance policy premium has been substantially increased due to changes required by federal regulations issued on March 16, 2012 under the Affordable Care Act.”

The issue is brewing here in Tampa where students are pressuring political leaders to address it. “We’re trying to make the conservative national leaders in Tampa focus on this issue,” said Ron Meyer, spokesman for Young America’s Foundation. “It’s time for conservative leaders to start talking about Obamacare’s hurt on college campuses.”

Full article: http://washingtonexa … soar/article/2506342

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Wednesday, August 29, 2012

Rep. Amash Calls for Audit of RNC Over Treatment of Paul Delegates

During an August 26 rally for Ron Paul in Tampa, Florida, with nearly 10,000 supporters in attendance, libertarian-leaning Representative Justin Amash (R-Mich.) called for an audit of the Republican National Committee after it seated delegates from states with a great deal of support for Ron Paul at the edges of the convention floor.

The Houston Chronicle reports, “Delegates from U.S. Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, American Samoa, and the Northern Marianas Islands get better seats than Ron Paul’s supporters.”

According to a convention seating chart obtained by Politico, “the delegations from Nevada, Louisiana, Maine, Minnesota and Oklahoma all located on the outer fringe of the convention floor. Each are states with significant Paul followings.”

Paul’s campaign manager, Jesse Benton, who has been accused by Ron Paul’s supporters of being a neoconservative saboteur, did not consider the RNC’s seating choice for Paul delegates an issue. “I am glad so many of our delegates get to sit close together,” he said.

The GOP and Romney’s campaign have seen to it that Paul’s supporters are denied a place on the convention floor, even though Paul has five states — Louisiana, Oregon, Massachusetts, Oklahoma, and Maine — enough to grant him official recognition on the floor. Convention rules permit a candidate who controls five state delegations to make a motion on the floor; however, Romney’s lawyers successfully stripped away Paul’s delegates, thereby limiting the power of Paul’s supporters to seek to amend the party platform or nominate Paul.

Ron Paul’s supporters have complained about the treatment by the Romney-controlled convention officials.

“I think it may be time we audit the RNC,” Amash said at the Paul rally, according to the Houston Chronicle.

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