Fortunately, for every person that still thinks that it makes sense for this plant to be illegal, there seems to be at least one who is aware that that very notion is absurd. And further, there are a lot of people who are very inspired to remedy the situation that are working tirelessly to at least make sure that sick people can use the plant to help them feel better. Lots of those people are coming together on February 19th for the 14th Annual Medical Marijuana Benefit Concert at Revolution in Fort Lauderdale, which will be hosted by Ploppy Palace Productions and NORML of Florida.

The event is set to be an informative, entertaining, and productive gathering of folks from various realms of the pro-pot movement. Over twenty bands from a variety of genres -- including Cyril Neville, Spam Allstars, Crazy Fingers, and Nag Champayons--poets, dancers, and visual artists will entertain, experts on relevant topics will give presentations, and heady vendors will sell their wares.

Paul, the 76-year-old libertarian-leaning Texan, drew about 500 people at the Iowa State fairgrounds in Ames late Wednesday. A group of Occupy activists tried to interrupt the rally, but that wasn't the main surprise.

State Sen. Kent Sorenson, who had campaigned a few hours earlier with Bachmann as a state chairman of her bid, announced he would support Paul instead.

Paul's anti-government appeal appears to tap into the desire of a frustrated electorate for profound change in an era of high unemployment and an economy that has only slowly recovered from the recession.

"In the last couple of weeks I fell into Ron Paul's camp," said Bob Colby, of Newton, who spent 21 years in the military and is a former employee of a now-shuttered Maytag plant in town.

Paul, who is airing TV ads hitting Romney and Gingrich, planned a town hall meeting Thursday in Perry, Iowa, plus stops in Atlantic and Council Bluffs.

While many of the Patch panelists said Ron Paul wasn't his normal outspoken self, supporters chimed in saying the Texas Congressman still stood out, despite being provided limited opportunities by Fox News moderators.

"Romney won, but Santorum did well," said Bedford's Steve Poschmann, a new addition to Patch's debate panel. "Perry didn't help himself. Bachmann did not do great. Huntsman did fine, but not great. Paul has done better in other debates."

University of New Hampshire political science professor Dante Scala agreed.

"Another good night for Santorum, becoming Perry's chief antagonist on right," said Scala. "Ron Paul seemed a little subdued tonight. Never seemed to have a signature moment."

"I disagree," said one Paul supporter. "Ron Paul won this debate. The only reason he seems 'subdued' is because the moderators gave him the 2nd least amount of time."

Ron and Vince are friends, with Vince not merely interested in Dr. Paul's philosophy but he also graciously invited Dr. and Mrs. Paul to the premier of his film 'Couples Retreat,'" said Ron Paul 2012 National Campaign Chairman Jesse Benton, referring to the October 6, 2009 film premier in California.

Mr. Vaughn, for his part, endorsed Dr. Paul's 2009 book End the Fed with the following enthusiastic quote: "Everyone must read this book--Congressmen and college students, Democrats and Republicans--all Americans."

A few weeks ago, the Post ombudsman questioned why the paper’s reporting on Paul had been so “sparse.” To this, there are two answers. Last time, in 2008, Paul was ignored because his ideas sounded crazy. This time, he’s being ignored because his ideas have become commonplace. What’s changed is not Paul but the party: Nearly a quarter-century after he quit the GOP to run for president as a Libertarian (he told me years ago that it was an “academic exercise”), he has brought the Republicans to him.

That may or may not be a good thing, but Paul has proven that issues can triumph. His campaigns have been absent of personality – his or anybody else’s. When I asked him at breakfast about photos showing Texas Gov. Rick Perry getting in his face at a debate, Paul downplayed the conflict: “It’s a friendly tap, punching the guy in the chest,” he explained.

“He was the one saying, ‘Oh yeah, I’m all for secession,’ and that kind of talk,” Paul told the Associated Press, in a reference to Perry’s statement in 2009 that Texas might consider seceding if Washington persisted in “[thumbing] their nose at the American people.”

Paul added: “The only thing I would advise is looking into [Perry], looking at his record, and not just taking him at face value. Texas has had a lot of changes in these last eight years, not exactly positive either.”

Paul has earlier stated that Perry’s entry into the race would actually help Paul’s campaign since it would highlight Paul’s independent, maverick status as a political outsider.

Rep. Ron Paul (R-Tex.), an official candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, slammed the US Department of Labor’s August unemployment report in a statement from National Campaign Chairman Jesse Benton. “The August national unemployment rate of 9.1 percent is another unfortunate chapter in the Obama administration’s almost superhuman mishandling of the economy,” Paul’s campaign said.

With the unemployment report hanging over investors’ heads, the stock market tumbled today. With just under 20 minutes to go before the closing bell, stocks are trading lower across all the major stock indexes. The DJIA is down 251 points, the S&P is down 30 points and the NASDAQ is down 58 points. The stock market was expected to trade lower as the unemployment report spoiled any chance of a positive end to the week after being released prior to the opening bell.

Texas Rep. Ron Paul is emphasizing his anti-abortion views as he looks to build on his tea party and libertarian base ahead of a key test vote in Iowa.

The Republican presidential candidate on Saturday said that government cannot play God and make decisions on abortions. He says -- quote "all life is precious" and must be defended.

Paul also highlighted his opposition to wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as the PATRIOT Act. He says the United States cannot defend liberty abroad while denying U.S. citizens their own rights.

The candidate also called U.S. foreign policy misguided. And he repeated his call to audit the Federal Reserve.

He spoke as thousands of Iowans cast ballots for a nonbinding test vote of GOP presidential candidates.

So far everybody I’ve talked to has been annoyed by it, mostly the conservatives. I don’t think it’s going to work. I do think, however, that somehow or other they will raise the debt limit by making some promises that people will fall into the trap of believing,” Mr. Paul said

Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul has two messages for Iowans today: call your congressman and tell him not to agree to any deal to raise the debt ceiling, and go to the straw poll on Aug. 13 to support him.

“We had the richest society but it’s all built on debt now,” Paul told a crowd of about 70 people crammed into a meeting room at Smokey Row Coffee House in Des Moines.

Paul, a congressman from Texas, is counting on the groundswell of citizen-level support he’s managed to tap into over the years to help propel him and his agenda this year.

Paul's plan: Get the Fed and the Treasury to rip up that debt. It's fake debt anyway. And the Fed is legally allowed to return the debt to the Treasury to be destroyed. A trillion and a half dollars is currently about what spending is expected to exceed tax revenue in 2011. And the deficit is expected to dramatically shrink in 2013 and beyond. So cut the debt by $1.7 trillion and you could run the government as is for at least the next year, and perhaps into 2013. By pushing the debate past the presidential election cycle you might be able to get some of the politics out of coming to a smart solution. What's more, under the current scenario, the Federal Reserve would eventually have to sell that debt back into the market. That could cause interest rates to rise. Rip up the debt and you don't have to worry about what the added selling pressure of the Fed would do to the market.

Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul is holding two campaign events in Iowa today and later this month his son, Kentucky Senator Rand Paul, will make a two-day swing through the state as the campaign tries to build momentum for the Iowa GOP’s Straw Poll in Ames on August 13th.

“We both believe strongly that the constitution is the law of the land and should be followed,” Senator Paul said this past April during an interview with Radio Iowa.

Ron Paul is considered by some to be a sort of godfather of the Tea Party movement and the younger Paul wrote a book about the Tea Party.

Ignore the cable pundits. Trump's campaign was a joke. Gingrich's campaign was a farce. Palin will not run. I have said these things from the beginning. The real battle is not between Palin and Bachmann, but between Dr. Paul and Bachmann. Remember where you heard it. This will be a big story soon.

Ron Paul can stake a fair claim to being the father of the Tea Party movement. He has made his arguments intelligently and well for many years. Depending on the final field, he could emerge the kingmaker at the convention if his votes are near the ceiling of his potential, rather than the floor.

GOP presidential hopeful Rep. Ron Paul (Texas) sees more and more American voters aligning with his views, which many brushed aside during his previous campaign in 2008.

“People are now seeing the economic burden of our foreign policy — you know, the hundreds and hundreds of billions of dollars of foreign aid that is taken out of our country,” the Texas congressman said today during a visit to his Iowa campaign office in Ankeny.  “… People are starting to realize that war is a drain.”

Paul’s strict non-interventionist stance sets him apart from other Republicans vying for the presidential nomination. He’s a member of the U.S. House of Representatives foreign affairs committee, and has been a longtime opponent of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Overseas conflicts are costly, and meddling in the affairs of other nations has done more harm than good over the past half-decade, he said.

Texas Rep. Ron Paul, a potential Republican presidential nominee, said Thursday that the United States should sell its stash of gold held in Fort Knox.

In an interview with The New York Sun, Mr. Paul called selling America’s gold reserves “a good and moral decision. An individual would have to do the same.”

Why does Fox News seem so unnerved by Congressman Paul's inclusion in what is supposed to be a process in which voters choose the representative that best embodies their beliefs? In 2008, they inexplicably excluded Paul from one debate and pretty much belittled him in another. Why are they so eager to give a platform to people like Bachmann and Palin, when Paul is clearly the Tea Party candidate with the best chance of of winning the presidential election? Fox is not alone. No one has had the courage to present Ron Paul as anything other than a fringe candidate, despite the data proving otherwise.

Congressman Paul, who surprised supporters by raising a remarkable amount of donations and impressively passionate support, mostly through an online network of committed volunteers, has seen his limited-government/non-interventionism foreign policy message proliferate and take on a life of its own through the 2010 mid-terms that brought the GOP back into power in the House and narrowed the Democratic lead in the Senate.