Posts: 9

1. Ron Paul Gets a Social Networking Site

   19.Dec.07, 13:56 EST
   
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   Utilizing a beta platform called MOLI, www.ronspeople.com. have started a brand new social networking site exclusively geared towards presidential candidate Ron Paul. MOLI is a site that allows users to create individual communities and have multiple profiles under the same account. This segmentation enables isolated groupings of people interested in the same subject matter.
   
   Ron Paul supporters will be able to communicate and debate within one centralized meet-up spot. This uncensored and unrestricted venue will allow more efficient communication and broader collaboration. Text, audio, video, music,  and photos are all integrated into this platform.  User driven content is often a successful method of getting people to congregate and share their ideas with one another.
   
   Digital activism is spreading like wildfire and changing the political atmosphere of apathy to a world wide movement for freedom. If the $6 million 16th of December is any indication of how palpable his support base is becoming,  this website will be flooded with visitors as soon as word spreads. Within a few hours of the site's launch, www.ronspeople.com already have over a 100 members. The political debate on the growing site should be enlightening. Supporters of each presidential candidate should create a community like this one and foster as much political debate as possible. Nothing  is worse than an uninformed vote.
   
   Judy Balint, President of MOLI.com states in a press release
   
   

   “MOLI is an excellent platform for this type of grass roots election campaign where supporters can find their digital voice in a rich multi-sensory environment. In fact, we are organizing webinars for Ron Paul supporters to educate them about all the rich, interactive capabilities MOLI is making available to them for their grass roots movement.”

   
   

   http://www.fastsilicon.com

2. Paul revolution a glimpse of the future?

   18.Dec.07, 13:55 EST
   
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   Paul revolution a glimpse of the future?

   MANCHESTER, N.H - Cheese pizza powers the Ron Paul revolution.
   
   So do Doritos, Cheerios and beer. Junk food in general dominates the menu at this rented house, full of young people who've moved in from Seattle, South Florida and points in between to push for the Texas Republican's long-shot presidential bid in the Jan. 8 New Hampshire primary.
   
   At first glance, the abundance of T-shirted youths with laptops gives this outpost the air of a fraternity or an Internet startup. Instead it represents a new type of political fundraising and may be a sneak peek at campaigns to come.
   

   
   

   Consider Trevor Lyman: Two months ago, he lived in Miami Beach and ran a small online company that helped bands promote their music. Then he stumbled onto Paul's campaign via a MySpace page — not from a newspaper article, television report or presidential debate. He liked what he saw, particularly Paul's "out of Iraq now" stance.
   
   Lyman knew he wanted to help. But instead of just giving money to the campaign, something he'd never done in his life, he created a Web site directing people to Paul's campaign coffers on Nov. 5, a date other supporters had declared a day to "money bomb," or send frequent and fast donations. They ambitiously aimed for $10 million.
   
   Nov. 5 arrived and organizers fell well short of their goal, but they still made history by raising $4.2 million for Paul, a 10-term congressman. It was the largest 24-hour total for any Republican candidate this year. The campaign broke its own record on Sunday, by raising another $6 million in online donations in one day.
   
   "It was an amazing day," Lyman said of the Nov. 5 event. And Lyman was immediately heralded as an online campaigning wizard — not a bad achievement for a 37-year-old who's never voted.
   
   "Sure, I had my part," he added, sipping Corona out of a coffee mug. "But I didn't do it. It's the energy out there."
   
   That energy also streams through Lyman's roommate, Vijay Boyapati, a 29-year-old engineer who quit his job at Google to become a full-time volunteer for Paul, who polls nationally in the single digits.
   
   "I think a lot of people think I'm a bit crazy," Boyapati said, laughing. "But it's very important to me."
   
   Boyapati rented the house that he, Lyman and up to five others will inhabit for the next month. He spends his days online, organizing a drive to get 1,000 out-of-state Paul supporters to New Hampshire for the primary (405 have signed up so far). He's also raised $55,000, from about 3,000 donors, to provide housing for those volunteers.
   
   When filled, each of these houses — soon to number 20 across the state — will have different people and missions. But all will share certain tools of success: new technology, little hierarchy, microdonations and a democratic delegation of work. You could call it wiki-paigning.
   
   The fact that it's coming from political neophytes and not seasoned Beltway bundlers makes sense, said Professor Bruce Cain, director of the University of California, Berkeley's UC Washington Center.
   
   "Innovation often comes from outsiders. It's the people who have to throw the long bomb," Cain said. "If you're a front-runner and try different things, it can backfire."
   
   The men in the house speak often of personal freedom, the Constitution and the idea of limited government — central Libertarian positions espoused by Paul, who ran for president as the Libertarian candidate in 1988. It's a position that traditionally has attracted passionate adherents, but never in great numbers.
   
   Costas Panagopoulos, director of the Center for Electoral Politics and Democracy at Fordham University, said the Paul phenomenon is the technological descendant of Howard Dean's blogger base in 2004. That "revolution" also created excitement, but Dean faded once the voting started.
   
   Paul insists his fate will be different than Dean's, and not just because online campaigning is more important today — YouTube, Facebook and MySpace are all sponsoring debates — but because he's tapped into a deep public sentiment.
   
   "The disgust with government and the spread of our message, plus the willingness of these individuals on the Internet to organize, is going to make a difference," he said in interview.
   
   The Chicago Tribune is a Tribune Co. newspaper.
   
   Information from The Associated Press was used in this report

3. A Holiday Gift: Ron Paul Beyond Words

   17.Dec.07, 21:45 EST
   
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   A Holiday Gift: Ron Paul Beyond Words 

   by James Tiscione 

   
   

    

   
   

   Ever since they were young, I have encouraged my children to be independent thinkers, reminding them that my political and religious views are just one man’s opinion. As a way to cultivate their free thinking, the only rule I insisted upon was that they must consider and evaluate all points of view. In this way, they themselves can decide what opinions to adopt, what to dismiss and ultimately how to create a world view as individual as they are.
   
   Every birthday and holiday my daughter, a successful graphic artist, poses the same question to me, asking “what present would I like?” Usually I request the same thing; either something from her portfolio or one of her elaborate custom greeting cards featuring a caricature of me. But this year, she took the initiative, drawing inspiration from the numerous conversations we have had about the Ron Paul Revolution, and created a visual statement of his message, one we both firmly believe in.
   
   I need not explain more, for the essence of what she has captured in this portrait of Ron Paul speaks volumes.
   
   I extend my humble gratitude to my daughter Leah Tiscione for sharing her incredible talent and by giving me the most precious gift of all…her love…and allowing me to share this year’s holiday gift with everyone.

4. "lib•er•tar•ian"

   30.Nov.07, 15:26 EST
   
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   How to make sense of the Ron Paul revolution? What's behind the improbably successful (so far) presidential campaign of a 72-year-old 10-term Republican congressman from Texas who pines for the gold standard while drawing praise from another relic from the hyperinflationary 1970s, punk-rocker Johnny Rotten?
   
   Click to read the article

5. CNN Video after the Republican YouTube Debate

   30.Nov.07, 15:23 EST
   
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   Post-debate interview
   CNN's John Roberts caught up with Republican candidate Ron Paul after the CNN/YouTube debate.
   Video Interview with Ron Paul

6. Ron Paul's Record Online Haul

   30.Nov.07, 15:22 EST
   
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   Click here to read the article

7. The Liberty Dollar Raided Ron Paul Coins Seized

   20.Nov.07, 16:38 EST
   
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   The Liberty Dollar Raided Ron Paul Coins Seized
   
   November 16, 2007
   
   CNN
   
   EVANSVILLE, Indiana (AP) — Federal agents raided the headquarters of a group that produces illegal currency and puts it in circulation, seizing gold, silver and two tons of copper coins featuring Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul.
   
   Agents also took records, computers and froze the bank accounts at the "Liberty Dollar" headquarters during the Thursday raid, Bernard von NotHaus, founder of the National Organization for the Repeal of the Federal Reserve Act & Internal Revenue Code, said in a posting on the group's Web site.
   
   The organization, which is critical of the Federal Reserve, has repeatedly clashed with the federal government, which contends that the gold, silver and copper coins it produces are illegal. NORFED claims its Liberty Dollars are inflation free and can restore stability to financial markets by allowing commerce based on a currency that does not fluctuate in value like the U.S. dollar.
   
   "They're running scared right now and they had to do something," von NotHaus told The Associated Press Friday. "I'm volunteering to meet the agents and get arrested so we can thrash this out in court."
   
   Wendy Osborne, a spokeswoman for the FBI's Indianapolis office, declined to comment and referred all questions to the U.S. attorney's office for the Western District of North Carolina. Suellen Pierce, a spokeswoman for that office, also declined to comment.
   
   The raid comes eight months after von NotHaus filed a lawsuit in federal court in Evansville seeking a permanent injunction to stop the federal government from labeling the Liberty Dollar an illegal currency.
   
   The U.S. Mint issued a warning this year that the Liberty Dollar violated the Constitution and warned consumers against using them unsuspectingly.
   
   Paul's campaign said it had not authorized production of the Ron Paul dollars.
   
   "We were aware they existed, but we didn't have any affiliation with them," said Jesse Benton, a spokesman for Ron Paul's campaign. "He didn't ask our permission to make them."

8. In Ron Paul Coins, Federal Agents Don't Trust

   20.Nov.07, 16:38 EST
   
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   In Ron Paul Coins,
   Federal Agents Don't Trust
   
   November 16, 2007
   
   By Alec MacGillis
   Washington Post
   
   As if Ron Paul's supporters needed any more motivation to storm the battlements and wreak havoc on the Republican presidential primary, now comes this: the feds are trying to take away their money.
   
   Federal agents on Wednesday raided the Evansville, Indiana headquarters of the National Organization for the Repeal of the Federal Reserve and Internal Revenue Codes (NORFED), an organization of "sound money" advocates that for the past decade has been selling what it calls Liberty Dollars, a private currency it says is backed by silver and gold stored in Idaho, with a total of more than $20 million in circulation, according to the group.
   
   NORFED officials said yesterday that the raid occurred just as they were preparing to mail out the first batch of about 60,000 "Ron Paul Dollars," copper coins sold for $1 and decorated with the craggy visage of Paul, the libertarian Texas congressman, Iraq war opponent and sound-money advocate who has sparked a surprisingly vigorous insurgent campaign for the GOP nomination. The group says that it in recent months it already shipped out about 10,000 in silver Ron Paul dollars that sold for $20.
   
   Bernard von NotHaus, NORFED's founder and executive director, said in an interview from his home in Miami Friday night that his employees in Evansville had received the copper dollars late last week and managed to mail out only about 3,500 of them so far. After a six-hour raid, he said, the agents left with the rest of the coins, which weighed about two tons total, as well as smaller amounts of silver Ron Paul dollars, gold Ron Paul dollars that sell for $1,000 and platinum Ron Paul dollars that sell for $2,000. There was a separate raid, NotHaus said, of Sunshine Mint in Coer D'Alene, Idaho, a company that prints the organization's coins, where von NotHaus said agents seized the huge pallets of silver and gold worth more than $1 million that the organization says back the paper certificates issued to its customers.
   
   "They took everything, all of the computers, everything but the desks and chairs," said von NotHaus, who says he served 25 years as the mintmaster for the Royal Hawaiian Mint. "The federal government really is afraid."
   
   The Indianapolis branch of the FBI declined to comment on the raid and referred calls to the U.S. Attorney's office for Western North Carolina in Charlotte. That office's spokeswoman, Suellen Pierce, also declined to comment. But bloggers at the libertarian Reason Foundation posted on-line a 35-page copy affidavit for a search warrant filed last week with the Western District in Asheville laying out the government's case against NORFED. Pierce said that the search warrant in the case had been accidentally made public by a court clerk and has since been sealed, under court rules.
   
   In the affidavit, an FBI special agent states that he is investigating NORFED for federal violations including "uttering coins of gold, silver, or other metal," "making or possessing likeness of coins," mail fraud, wire fraud, money laundering and conspiracy. "The goal of NORFED is to undermine the United States government's financial systems by the issuance of a non-governmental competing currency for the purpose of repealing the Federal Reserve and Internal Revenue Code," he states.
   
   The agent states that the investigation started two years ago. And the U.S. Mint a year ago issued a warning against using the Liberty Dollar, prompting a lawsuit by NORFED. But that has not kept Liberty Dollar fans from speculating on-line that the raid was prompted by Paul's strong campaign -- which recently raised more than $4 million in a single day -- or by the precipitous recent decline in the value of the dollar.
   
   A Paul campaign spokeswoman, Kerri Price, said yesterday that while Paul also supports abolishing the Federal Reserve, the campaign "does not have any affiliation with Liberty Dollars at all." von NotHaus confirmed this, saying that he knows Paul because they "move in the same circles" but that he had expressly not talked with Paul about his plans for the special coins so as not to violate federal election rules.
   
   But the coins have been another rallying point for Paul's supporters, who have asked Paul to pose for photographs with the coins on the campaign trail. Jim Forsythe, a Paul organizer in New Hampshire who ordered 150 of the copper Ron Paul dollars, said yesterday that the seizure of the coins would likely fuel more support for Paul, who scores close to double-digits in some New Hampshire polls. "People are pretty upset about this," he said. "The dollar is going down the tubes and this is something that can protect the value of their money and the Federal Reserve is threatened by that. It'll definitely fire people up."
   
   Von NotHaus, meanwhile, is urging Liberty Dollar supporters to express their outrage by donating to Paul, saying on the group's Web site that "in light of this assault on our financial freedom, it is clear that we need Ron Paul to lead this country more than ever." He said that all of his bank accounts have been frozen and that he expects that a federal indictment will soon be in the offing, saying that "once the federal government starts an investigation like this and takes it to a grand jury, they can indict a ham sandwich." Should he be charged, he said, "I'll turn it into my golden opportunity to validate the Liberty Dollar as a legal lawful currency and save the country from a monetary collapse."
   
   What he's most concerned about for now, though, is the thought of all his customers waiting for their Ron Paul dollars. "People aren't going to get their orders, and they aren't going to get them for a while," he said.
   
   That is good news, of course, for those already holding the coins. On eBay, the silver Ron Paul dollars that were purchased for $20 were selling for more than $170 last night.
   
   

9. Ron Paul Finds Fans In Cradle of Liberty

   20.Nov.07, 16:36 EST
   
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   Ron Paul Finds Fans In Cradle of Liberty
   
   November 12, 2007
   
   By Nikki Schwab
   US News & World Report
   
   Ron Paul is on a roll. After a record-breaking online fundraising week, the libertarian Republican candidate for the presidency entertained a crowd of 5,000 in the Old City section of Philadelphia on Saturday.
   
   "It certainly looks bigger than a few spammers," the once long-shot candidate told supporters. His campaign has been wildly popular online, but with the good turnout in Philly, it looks as though it's gaining traction outside cyberspace as well.
   
   Surrounded by the Liberty Bell, Independence Hall, and the National Constitution Center, Paul said he could "feel the energy of the Founders" as he gave a speech touching on topics as diverse as how he would use the executive order to the legalization of marijuana. Paul, known as "Dr. No" in Washington for his unwillingness to vote for anything not expressly delegated to Congress in the Constitution, often cites the Founding Fathers.
   
   Some of his supporters mimicked his rhetoric by carrying "Don't Tread on Me" and "Live Free or Die" flags and wearing tricorn hats. U.S. News's Liz Halloran sat down with the candidate last week to discuss his atypical campaign, foreign policy, and whether Paul, who ran for president on the Libertarian ticket in 1988, feels like a true Republican.