Rand Paul enters the special Olympics!

[kentonio]

Rand Paul Announces He's Running For President In 2016

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) announced Tuesday that he's running for president in 2016.

"I am running for president to return our country to the principles of liberty and limited government," Paul said in a message on his website.

Paul's announcement was accompanied by a video message featuring his wife:

Paul is expected to speak further about his campaign at a rally in Louisville, Kentucky, Tuesday morning.

Paul was first elected to the Senate in 2010, when he rode a wave of tea party popularity to defeat Democrat John Conway, Kentucky's attorney general, and take the seat of retiring GOP Sen. Jim Bunning.

Before being elected to the Senate, Paul had practiced ophthalmology for nearly 20 years. He has continued his practice part time while in office and has said he may return to it full time at some point.

"I think that we need to have people who are willing to reclaim their place in regular life after politics and not just say, 'You go into politics and that's what you're going to do forever,'" Paul told CNN in May. "So I envision myself coming back to Kentucky and practicing medicine at some point."

Paul is the son of former Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas), who ran in the 2012 GOP presidential primaries. Ron Paul stopped actively campaigning for president in May of that year, and Rand Paul endorsed former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, the eventual Republican nominee, shortly afterward.

The younger Paul has been working to lay the groundwork for his 2016 campaign, making stops in key primary states like Iowa, South Carolina and New Hampshire ahead of this year's midterm elections. After Republicans won control of the Senate in November, Paul taunted former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton -- widely seen as a potential Democratic nominee for president -- by posting black-and-white photos of Clinton with candidates she endorsed and the hashtag "#HILLARYSLOSERS."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/0...n_6174170.html

[Dinner]

The clown car is filling up! :yes:

[rah]

Yeah it's getting tough to tell which clown car will be more humorous, that one or the one carrying Clinton and Biden.
God, we really need another party.

[kentonio]

Funny you should say that..

Jill Stein, Former Green Party Nominee, Says Americans Are Ready For A Third-Party President

Americans may not have been ready in 2012 for an independent in the White House, but according to Jill Stein, who's exploring a 2016 run as a Green Party candidate, today's political state of affairs has changed that.

In a conversation with HuffPost Live's Alyona Minkovski on Monday, Stein, who ran on the Green Party ticket in the 2012 election, asserted that "people have really moved" from a two-party system and are now ready to explore alternatives.

"If you look at 2014, the headliner in 2014 was not a win for Republicans -- it was a loss for Democrats," she said. "It was people staying home who have basically checked out of both parties."

The "traditional base of the Democratic Party," composed of "labor, students, women and immigrants," was noticeably unengaged with the 2014 elections, Stein said, leading her to believe that "Democrats have really lost momentum."

"They've really lost their engine and, you know, it really makes it clear that if we're gonna give people a reason to come to the polls, we have to get out there and let them know that they actually have a choice," Stein added.

With Americans fired up about several significant political issues, 2016 is poised to be a "historic moment," one packed with potential for change in both administration and policy, she said.

"We've really hit the wall on the economy, on jobs, on the climate, on student debt, on the crisis in the African-American community, the crisis of police violence," Stein affirmed. "People aren't going to sit there and invest their hopes in exactly the parties that have gotten us in this mess, so it's a very exciting time."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/0...n_7011176.html

[rah]

If the system wasn't so rigged against any third party getting any substantial power, I might hold out some hope.

I'm not holding my breath for the current two clown parties to change the rules to allow it to happen.

And I'm not holding my breath for the majority of Americans to stand up and say enough of this crap.

[Hauldren Collider]

If the GOP and Democrats are a clown car, the Green Party is a clown 747 with a great big honking red nose below the cockpit.

The reason people don't vote for the Green Party isn't because third parties aren't viable. While that is the reason people don't vote for some third parties, the reason the Green Party doesn't succeed is because they are a bunch of lunatics.

[Dinner]

I will probably use them as a protest vote as I don't like that it will be another Bush vs Clinton race.

[Jon Miller]

I would take Rand Paul over Clinton (right now).

JM
(if he sticks to non-interventionism and increasing our rights lost to NSA/etc)

[Dinner]

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/factchecking-rand-paul/ar-AAaxKYQ

The guy is a habitual liar. He lies so much he makes other politicians look down right honest. Worse he loves to lie about stuff when there are videos of him which prove him to be a liar.

[Imran Siddiqui]

I would take Rand Paul over Clinton (right now).

JM
(if he sticks to non-interventionism and increasing our rights lost to NSA/etc)

For lefties like us, would that be worth the massive cuts in welfare he wants to impose?

http://www.vox.com/2015/4/7/8360691/rand-paul-budget-president

[Hauldren Collider]

I can't see Bush winning the primaries.

[DinoDoc]

Yeah it's getting tough to tell which clown car will be more humorous, that one or the one carrying Clinton and Biden.
God, we really need another party.

Biden probably isn't running. It seems the Democrats have cleared the way for Clinton to be coronated.

[Jon Miller]

For lefties like us, would that be worth the massive cuts in welfare he wants to impose?
http://www.vox.com/2015/4/7/8360691/...dget-president

Clinton is far more likely to get us into another war.

If he would actually dismantle the security state (less likely now that I read about him more (But would be the main concern of any true Libertarian), and Clinton and the Republicans are the ones who implemented it) I could survive less welfare.

JM

[Imran Siddiqui]

Clinton is far more likely to get us into another war.

If he would actually dismantle the security state (less likely now that I read about him more (But would be the main concern of any true Libertarian), and Clinton and the Republicans are the ones who implemented it) I could survive less welfare.

JM

What kind of lefty are you. Those cuts would be absolutely devastating to the poor and needy. I'd rather have another war than drastic cuts to Section 8 housing, K-12 education, EITC, and the Child Tax Credit. Drastically cutting the EPA, National Science Foundation, and HHS would set back left leaning causes as well.

[Hauldren Collider]

Education is a state thing Imran...

The things that people like Paul are likely to cut aren't the ones you listed by the way. They'd set up Medicare and Medicaid to be a voucher system like Medicare Part D. That would basically solve dozens of problems in the healthcare industry and the federal deficit in one fell swoop.