Meet The Rand Paul Super Pac Founder Who Wants To Purge ‘Statists, Do-Gooders, Planners And Neoconservatives’

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Photo Credit: Gage Skidmore The 2016 election cycle may be years away, and the Republican party may still be reeling from the aftershocks of 2012, but some of Rand Paul’s supporters aren’t waiting any longer to press their case for his presidential candidacy.

Even though Paul hasn’t officially declared his intention to run for president, and won’t for at least a year, a fledgling pro-Rand Paul super PAC is aggressively pushing for the Kentucky senator to lead a revolution within the GOP, calling for the expulsion of what they call “statists, do-gooders, planners, and neoconservatives.”

This new super PAC, called Human Action PAC, describes its mission in the starkest possible terms:

It is an open secret that those in the establishment have no loyalty to the scolds, the bigots, the defenders of the gerontocracy and the people for whom “big government for me, but not for thee” is a rallying cry. In fact, their leaders seem to acknowledge, deep down, that those people are killing the Republican party.
To those leaders looking for a way to excise that cancer, we offer a candidate who can purge those people’s ideas while still holding onto the mantle of principle.

Senator Paul’s office has not commented on these claims.

Human Action PAC, which launched its Web site officially this Monday but has been live for several months, has raised a little over $1,000 and lists more than $8,000 in debt, according to OpenSecrets.org, and their first FEC filing. The organization first began spending money on December 31, 2012, when they spent just over $3,000 to support Rand Paul for President, according to the same FEC filing.

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Tea Party Favorite Confirms Interest in McConnell’s Seat

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photo credit: Donkey HoteyMatt Bevin, a potential Tea Party challenger to Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), confirmed on Tuesday that he has met with groups in Kentucky about launching a Senate bid, but has not made a final decision.

“As a point of clarification, Matt has made no final decision with respect to this race. He has, however, met in recent weeks with various individuals and groups who have expressed their frustration with their current representation in Washington DC and have encouraged him to consider entering the race,” reads an email sent “on behalf of Matt Bevin” by Amy Lowe.

Lowe is listed as operations manager at Waycross Partners, the investment firm at which Bevin is an adviser.

“These meetings, together with the recent reaction to the possibility of a primary race, have served to reaffirm the general sense of political disenchantment among many voters in Kentucky that has been widely reflected in recent articles and polls,” she wrote.

The Hill reported Monday that Bevin had been in touch with local Tea Party leaders about potentially launching a bid.

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Acting EPA Head, Regional Official Ensnared In Windsorgate Email Scandal

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Photo Credit: Washington Examiner Newly disclosed documents show the acting head of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency used a private email account to conduct official business, the same practice that contributed to the downfall of his predecessor.

Bob Perciasepe, acting administrator of the EPA, sent at least one business email using a personal account in July 2010, according to a trove of more than 1,200 pages of documents released Friday by the agency under court order.

While the email merely forwarded an article about the agency, it shows that Perciasepe was using a private account for official business, an apparent violation of the federal transparency laws and regulations that require official email accounts to be used on government matters.

Failing to do so could result in the illegal emails not being produced in response to Freedom of Information Act requests.

The latest email release from EPA also shows that Perciasepe was communicating with “Richard Windsor,” the phony name used by former EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson to shield official emails from public release under the FOIA.

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Feds Admit: Gun Laws Won’t Slow Crime

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Photo Credit: WNDA study by the Department of Justice’s research wing, the National Institute of Justice, has the feds admitting that so-called “assault weapons” are not a major contributor to gun crime.

The study also concluded those weapons are not a major factor in deaths caused by firearms, nor would an “assault weapons” ban be effective.

“The existing stock of assault weapons is large, undercutting the effectiveness of bans with exemptions,” it said. “Therefore a complete elimination of assault weapons would not have a large impact on gun homicides.”

The report finds no significant link between “assault weapons” and murders.

“Since assault weapons are not a major contributor to U.S. gun homicides and the existing stock of guns is large, an assault weapon ban is unlikely to have an impact on gun violence,” the report said.

The document, titled “Summary of Select Firearm Violence Prevention Strategies,” also sees no epidemic of mass shootings.

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$5 Gas Returns To California (+video)

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Photo Credit: Muffet Gas prices in Southern Californiarose again on Monday, leaving some drivers paying over $5.00 per gallon.

CBS2′s Amber Lee reports the average price of a gallon of gas in the Los Angeles-Long Beach area climbed for the 25th consecutive day to $4.29 – over 50 cents higher than last month, according to the Automobile Club of Southern California.

One gas station in downtown Los Angeles was offering regular unleaded at $5.19 on Monday, prompting at least one potential customer to exit his vehicle, snap of a photo of the station’s prices – and then drive off in search of cheaper gas.

Nationwide, the average price of gas jumped to $3.73 per gallon, while customers paid only $3.30 just one month ago.

Orange County drivers are paying an average of $4.28 at the pump, while the price of gas in the Inland Empire has climbed to $4.24 per gallon. Drivers here in the Southland say they’re already feeling pinched.

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‘Orwellian’: Proposed Gun Law in Washington State Calls on Police to Inspect the Homes of ‘Assault Weapon’ Owners

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With each proposed anti-gun bill put forth by Democrats across the U.S., the demands appear to be getting more and more restrictive on gun owners. While the Obama administration pushes for a ban on so-called “assault weapons” and universal background checks, Democrats in both California and Missouri have proposed legislation that would result in possible confiscation of semi-automatic rifles.

Now, Democratic lawmakers in Olympia, Wash. last week introduced legislation that would allow county sheriffs to inspect the homes of semi-automatic rifle owners once a year. Seattle Times columnist Danny Westneat describes the move as “Orwellian.”

The proposed bill, Senate Bill 5737, would ban the sale of semi-automatic weapons that use detachable magazines and magazines that contain more than 10 rounds. It would also subject law-abiding gun owners to random searches by a county sheriff.

“In order to continue to possess an assault weapon that was legally possessed on the effective date of this section, the person possessing shall … safely and securely store the assault weapon. The sheriff of the county may, no more than once per year, conduct an inspection to ensure compliance with this subsection,” the bill states.

“They always say, we’ll never go house to house to take your guns away. But then you see this, and you have to wonder,” Seattle trial lawyer Lance Palmer told the Seattle Times.

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Democrats Push U.S. Satisfaction Up To 27%

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Photo Credit: GallupSlightly more than a quarter of Americans, 27%, are satisfied with the way things are going in the United States today, while 72% are dissatisfied. Satisfaction this month is similar to the 25% Gallup found in January but up from 23% in December.

The latest results are from Gallup’s annual World Affairs survey conducted Feb. 7-10 and the first measure since President Barack Obama took his second-term oath of office. The average level of satisfaction thus far in 2013 matches the 26% found for all of 2012, although it varied last year between 18% in January and 33% immediately before the November election.

The current level of satisfaction is significantly better than the 18% reading found at the start of Obama’s first term in February 2009. Since then, satisfaction has never exceeded 37%, and in mid-2011, it briefly dipped to 11%. This contrasts with a long-term range of 71% for the high found in February 1999 and 7% for the low recorded in October 2008.

U.S. satisfaction has not been above 30% on a sustained basis since the first half of 2007. For satisfaction to break that pattern will partly depend on national economic conditions — and therefore Americans’ confidence in the economy — significantly improving. The economy remains Americans’ most pressing concern when it comes to national matters. Increasing satisfaction could also depend on narrowing the large partisan gap in ratings that has characterized public satisfaction levels for much of the past decade.

Currently, 47% of Democrats are satisfied with the direction of the country, up from 39% in January and the second highest recorded since early 2010. The high came during a brief period before the November 2012 election when Democrats’ satisfaction surged.

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College: Fire Professor Who Forced Students To Vote For Obama

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Photo Credit: Daily CallerA tenured professor who forced her students to sign pledges that they would vote for President Barack Obama last November should be fired, the college’s president recommended.

Sharon Sweet, an associate professor of mathematics at Brevard Community College in Florida, is guilty of electioneering, harassment, and incompetence, according to a three-month investigation into her classroom behavior leading up to the November election.

The Board of Trustees will hold a hearing on the matter, and then vote on whether to adopt President James Richey’s recommendation that Sweet be fired.

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Iowa Gov. Branstad To Rove: ‘Stay Out’

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Photo Credit: Breitbart Republican Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad told Karl Rove to keep his new super PAC, which some conservatives believe was created to wage war on them, out of Iowa’s Republican primaries.

“I basically told Karl Rove that what he was doing is counter-productive and he needs to stay out of it,” Branstad told the Associated Press last Friday. “If some outside group that has no connection to Iowa attacks somebody from Iowa, that is not smart.”

After Iowa Sen. Tom Harkin, a Democrat, announced he would be retiring from the Senate in January, Rep. Steve King (R-IA) indicated he may be interested in pursuing the Senate seat, which has been held by a Democrat for 30 years, in 2014.

Rove’s group promptly decided to smear King a week later, indicating he would be a Republican against whom the group would try to obliterate with negative ads in a potential Iowa GOP Senate primary.

After Rove leaked the details of his super PAC to the New York Times, American Crossroads President Steven Law blistered King in the same publication, telling the Times the group was “concerned about Steve King’s Todd Akin problem” and that “all of the things he’s said are going to be hung around his neck.” These comments enraged King because they falsely implied King endorsed Akin’s views and comments about “legitimate rape,” which cost Akin Missouri’s Senate race in 2012.

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Republican U.S. Senator Decides To Quit

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Photo Credit: WNDSen. Mike Johanns, R-Neb., who grew up on a farm and had been accumulating influence as part of the Senate banking and agriculture committees, has stunned supporters by announcing that he will retire in January 2015.

He was elected to the U.S. Senate in 2008 after terms as Nebraska’s governor and the nation’s agriculture secretary. He had also served on the appropriations and veterans affairs committees.

On his website he explains how he was successful in fighting back against one of the provisions of Obamacare, the president’s keynote legislation that essentially sets up a national decision-making process for health care issues.

“After hearing from businesses in Nebraska about a provision in President Obama’s health law that would have created a paperwork nightmare for job creators, Johanns began an effort that gained bipartisan momentum and the 1099 reporting mandate was repealed.”

Politico speculates that he was “considered in a strong position for re-election next year.”

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