RedStateEclectic

More Updates on the “Rand Paul Revolution”

This in a feature article from the American Conservative:

Here’s one difference between Rand Paul and papa Ron Paul, says mama Carol Paul: her son is funny on stage.

“Ron doesn’t do that—he doesn’t tell jokes,” Mrs. Paul says of her husband of 53 years. She recalls a lively speech Rand made for his dad in New Hampshire on the 2008 presidential campaign trail. “He was so personable—it tickled me to death.”

Bingo.  Some of the “perceptual” type differences I was thinking of here.

Speak, Blink, Breathe

Ha!

If Corporations are People, Then They Can Run for Congress

It is meant to be funny, but unfortunately I am not laughing.

Supreme Court Ruling Spurs Corporation Run for Congress
First Test of “Corporate Personhood” In Politics

Following the recent Supreme Court ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission to allow unlimited corporate funding of federal campaigns, Murray Hill Inc. today announced it was filing to run for U.S. Congress and released its first campaign video on www.youtube.com/user/murrayhillcongress

“Until now,” Murray Hill Inc. said in a statement, “corporate interests had to rely on campaign contributions and influence peddling to achieve their goals in Washington. But thanks to an enlightened Supreme Court, now we can eliminate the middle-man and run for office ourselves.”

Adam Kokesh Money Bomb is Tomorrow

Just a reminder to people that Adam Kokesh's moneybomb has started to coincide with his 28th birthday and National Freedom Day.

Adam Kokesh is this kick-ass anti-war Iraq veteran who has been endorsed by Ron Paul himself.

Good luck, Mr. Kokesh!

If you are feeling generous, go contribute. I know, I did.

Back to you, Anderson.

Warning: some strong language.

News From Rand Paul's Race In Kentucky

David Adams, Rand Paul's campaign manager, is either a political genius or a major goof.  So far everything seems to indicate that he is indeed well qualified to run a campaign, but I just can't forget how many times we Goldwater Republicans have spontaneously self-destructed for absolutely no good reason in many a past endeavor....sigh.

But - here's the deal: There have been rumors that another major endorsement is in the making, and it seems that Adams is on the verge of making it.

The biggest name being dropped is ......Sarah Palin. Now, when I read this article, which seems to be where the rumor started, I thought Adams was just trying to feign coy in order to avoid flat out saying "There's no way Palin would ever endorse us." But other minds read between different lines and soon the story took on a life of its own.   Blog after blog after blog dangled the tantalizing tidbit.  Even Reason's Hit & Run picked it up, but they seem to share my opinion: I am not holding my breath, and I'll believe it when I see it.

In all fairness, if it does happen, it wouldn't exactly be an overnight decision from the Palin camp.  Rand Paul has been talking to the Palin people since at least November, if the Wall Street Journal is to be trusted.

Jim DeMint is another name I'd love to see on Rand Paul's big board, but I really think that DeMint isn't ready to undercut McConnell (who endorsed Grayson) just yet.  Big emphasis on the yet - but that's a topic for another entry. His organization, the Senate Conservatives Fund, is certainly another possibility.

For now, all we can do is wait.

Oh drat! Now I am holding my breath!

PS: Want to see something I find funny? Check out the comments on this post by Robert Stacy McCain.  Do they remind you of anything? Apparently Bill Johnson (another candidate in the Kentucky race) has attracted a real hard core, devoted internet following. 

Getting Carried Away - New Yorkers Are Nice

What can I say?

Puzzling decision equates people with corporations

Not sure if anyone saw Clarence Page's editorial this weekend.  This latest Supreme Court case about elections and corporations serves as an example of how corporations and people are equal.  

Mr. Page even talks about the 14th amendment and other amendments that were meant for freedom of slaves that were later interpreted to include corporations in the "all others" clause.  He gives the reader a good beginning to how this all works.  

What he needs to do now is go that one extra step and point out that if the laws of the land have made corporations equal to persons then likewise the same could be said that persons are equal to corporations.  (We can see the common sense in all this that the latter is not true, but to a court the equation can always be flipped and the same outcome result.)  And as such persons can be regulated like corporations which include paying taxes, told what they can and cannot buy/sell, and a host of other activities regulated and controlled that is normally meant for corporations.  Thus, the court sees a person and a corporation as the same thing.  The recent ruling in regard to elections just confirms that.

The trick is to claim you are not a person in the eyes of the court and instead are an individual outside of the federal sovereignty.  Even in the editorial below it mentions that corporations claim 'personhood'.  What you need to do is claim 'non-personhood'. Most people don't understand that many of our laws are voluntary.  You are not a taxpayer until you volunteer to pay taxes.  You are not a 'person' until you volunteer to be a person.  Once you claim to be a person and a taxpayer, you are now bound by these rules.  Much like a corporation is bound to rules.  The problem is that once you volunteer it is very hard to un-volunteer.

The title of this piece could have easily said, "Puzzling decision equates people with corporations". 

Puzzling decision equates corporations with people Riddle me this: When is a corporation like a freed slave? Answer: When it is trying to win human rights in a case before the U.S. Supreme Court. It may sound odd, but that’s the historical background that led to the Supreme Court’s recent decision to open the floodgates on political  spending by corporations, unions and other narrow interests. Sharing the conservative court’s problematic view that political money equals political speech, defenders of the 5-4 decision say it’s about time the Supreme Court granted corporations the same freespeech  rights as individuals. They say this as if corporations did not have ample opportunities to express themselves already, whether in words or dollars through numerous political action committees and other media. The court’s decision still allows laws that require financial disclosure and other regulations as long as they don’t treat corporations or unions differently from individuals. President Barack Obama said his administration would “work immediately with Congress” to develop “a forceful response” to the high court’s ruling. Several Democratic members of Congress announced new proposals to restrain the ability of corporations and other groups to sway elections with deeppocket spending. But even if those attempts at reform are passed, legal experts say, they still won’t get far unless they deal with a fundamental legal question: Who says corporations are entitled to the same rights as individuals? That’s where the slaves come in. The Constitution did not mention corporations, just as it did not mention slaves, except to mention euphemistically that all “others” would be counted as “three-fifths of a person” for purposes of reapportionment. The framers understood the art of compromise. The framers left it to states to create corporations through charters and rules that varied by state. Yet corporations won constitutional rights through other means, including amendments passed after the Civil War to give legal equality to another aggrieved group: former slaves. The 1886 case of Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad Company is often cited as the beginning of “corporate personhood” under the law. Yet this personhood comes ambiguously, not in the body of the decision bu t in something that Chief Justice Morrison R. Waite was quoted in the decision’s legal summary as having said before oral arguments began. “The court does not wish to hear argument on the question” of whether the equal-protection provision in the 14th Amendment “applies to these corporations,” he said. “We are all of the opinion that it does.” As a result, the court appears to have ruled on the equalprotection issue without ever weighing it through any argument, deliberation or formal opinions. Thin as this legal reed may be, generations of lawyers have clung to it in arguing for an expanding galaxy of corporate  rights. That’s how an amendment intended to thwart slaveholders is used to benefit stockholders. But is that what most Americans have in mind when they think of equal rights in this country? Most folks probably don’t, until they find themselves going up against a corporation in a dispute over a factory farm or toxic landfill. That’s what Thomas Linzey, founder of the Pennsylvaniabased Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund, has found as he has helped local governments across the country take on the principle of corporate personhood. Not only do corporations claim “personhood,” he said, but after winning a case on grounds of the interstate commerce clause, they sometimes have sued for damages, claiming their 14th Amendment rights to equal protection were violated. With experiences like that, Linzey doesn’t hold out much hope for the currently proposed campaign finance reforms unless they go at the central question of corporate personhood — and that ma y require “some sort of grass-roots uprising,” he said, to amend the constitution, since both political parties are finding more and more ways to feed on corporate contributions. Which raises another interesting political thought: If the populist tea party movement is truly worthy of its touted “populist” crusade against Wall Street and other powerful interests, they could find common ground with President Obama’s call to curb runaway political spending — unless they think corporations are people, too. Clarence Page  Chicago Tribune

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Economist Rap Battle

Heh.

Rand Rocks the House

So says the Bluegrass Bulletin, which was at the big rally—in the snow—held in Louisville with the two doctors Paul.

A little bit surprisingly to me, (with all the rumors about Grayson having the "party vote" locked up) I spotted and talked with many long time, reliable republican stalwarts, big donors and those I knew to have been elected party officials who were in attendance.  They were more enthusiastic than I have seen them in years.  Quite frankly what I observed  I can only describe as a rejuvenation of that spirit many Kentucky republicans seemed to have lost over the last three years.