Whole barbecued pigs, cheerleaders and elegies to skinny-dipping farmers’ daughters. That was the organized noise Sunday night at the opening bash of the Republican National Convention at Tropicana Field, the home of Major League Baseball’s Tampa Bay Rays in St. Petersburg. For those seeking Jewish content, a noted rabbi was set to kick off the formal proceedings on Tuesday, and scattered through the rain-drenched towns of Tampa Bay were a number of events addressing the pro-Israel community’s …More

An Israeli citizen and four Americans were recently arrested in Egypt on suspicion of espionage. [Israel Hayom] Elsewhere, a Washington Times writer takes on the question of whether or not Ron Paul’s rhetoric amounts to anti-Semitism. [Washington Times] Meanwhile, observers in Israel were apparently willing to pay any price to eat matzah just as their ancestors did. [Haaretz] And an op-ed piece explains exactly why Gunter Grass’ recent poem, accusing Israel of trying to wipe out Iranians, is so …More

Fred Karger--the gay, Jewish, pro-choice Republican mounting a super-longshot bid for the GOP presidential nomination--has finally had his surge, courtesy of Puerto Rico primary voters. Granted, it’s not as dramatic of a surge as other GOP hopefuls have enjoyed. The Yahoo! News campaign blog The Ticket reports: "Ron Paul not only placed last in Sunday's Puerto Rico primary, he lost to Fred Karger, the former actor and political consultant who has never before held elected office." "Karger, who brands …More

The Gregory Brothers are at it again, songifying the news, but this time they have the help of a man who has run on the ceiling of a hotel before (INCEPTION!): Joseph Gordon-Levitt. “I’ll be accompanying you on my Strat,” Gordon-Levitt says at the beginning of “Get Money, Turn Gay,” which covers everything from presidential “candidate” Vermin Surpeme attempting to make fellow lesser-known presidential hopeful Randall Terry as straight as a circle to a Fox News talking …More

A presidential primary isn’t really official until Jon Stewart gets his hands on it. Yes, this means waiting an extra day to truly know who won in New Hampshire, but we like to think of those 24 hours as a humor-multiplier. The anticipation is killing us! Watch below to see how Mitt Romney made history (It has to do with no one liking him), how Ron Paul just cannot buy a break, and how Jon Huntsman’s third-place celebration is the saddest thing ever, complete with Stewart showing off his Chinese …More

The thinking, I guess, is that ECI co-founder Gary Bauer, who speaks in the ad, has cred among evangelical conservatives in the state. This is the first time, ECI director Noah Pollak tells me via Twitter, that ECI has targeted a Republican. The group, which targeted only Democrats in the 2010 campaign, has taken flack from critics who say it's a GOP front. And before my Democratic friends sneer "but it's Ron Paul," remember that you've been calling on conservatives to repudiate Paul in the face of his stronger …More

There were three winners in the Iowa Republic caucus: Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum and, not far behind them, Ron Paul. There were also (at least) three takeaways for Jewish observers: Foreign policy matters, evangelicals matter -- and Ron Paul matters. The importance of foreign policy in the 2012 presidential race, even in a farm state once known better for the pledges for ethanol subsidies it extracts from candidates, was evident in the speeches following voting. Romney, the former Massachusetts governor and …More

Ron Paul’s unlikely rise in the Republican presidential race has Jewish conservatives on edge. The Texas congressman had been regarded as a fringe figure whose views, especially on foreign policy -- including his opposition to the U.S.-Israel alliance -- put him far outside the Republican mainstream. But new polls show Paul in a dead heat in Iowa with Mitt Romney, the former Massachusetts governor, and Newt Gingrich, the former speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives. In a crowded Republican field, …More

The Ron Paul campaign has dismissed recent claims that their candidate is racist and anti-Israel, based in decades old newsletters and a personal account by a former senior aide. Reuters recently uncovered newsletters published in 1993 under Ron Paul’s name that warned of a “coming race war" and a "federal-homosexual cover-up" for the impact of AIDS. Paul spokesman Jesse Benton responded Friday in an email to Reuters, saying, "Dr. Paul did not write that solicitation. It does not reflect his thoughts …More

A 1993 subscription letter appearing above Ron Paul's signature said the "Israeli lobby plays Congress like a cheap harmonica," warned of a "race war" and said there was a gay-led cover up of AIDS. The letter appealed for subscriptions to Paul's newsletter at the time, which included similar incendiary language. Paul (R-Texas), a member of the U.S. House of Representatives now leading in some polls of likely Iowa caucus-goers, has repeatedly disavowed the language in his old newsletters, which took aim at …More

Newt Gingrich blasted fellow GOP presidential candidate Ron Paul Thursday for abandoning Israel to face the threat of a nuclear Iran alone. According to Gingrich, Paul “dismisses the danger of an Iranian nuclear weapon and seems to be indifferent to the idea that Israel could be wiped out.” Ron Paul was the only candidate not invited to speak at a recent Republican Jewish Coalition forum, because of his “misguided and extreme views.” At the national security debate in November, Paul …More

Yesterday, six of the seven top Republican presidential candidates had their opportunities to hold forth on their feelings about Israel and other topics at the Republican Jewish Coalition’s presidential candidates forum. The one conspicuously missing candidate (not counting longshot gay Jewish GOP hopeful Fred Karger) was libertarian/isolationist congressman Ron Paul, who wasn’t invited. The RJC’s executive director Matt Brooks saidthe exclusion was due to Paul’s "misguided and …More