Ron Paul's campaign disrupted by Occupy Wall Street

You'd think that a politician who has been sounding the alarm about the relationship between Washington and Wall Street for a few decades would get a pass on this, but....

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Police arrested more than a dozen Occupy protesters Thursday in Iowa who are targeting Democrats and Republicans just days before the state's closely watched lead-off presidential caucuses.

Five protesters were arrested outside the Iowa campaign headquarters of presidential contender Ron Paul in Ankeny before the group moved on to the Iowa Democratic Party headquarters in Des Moines, where 12 more were taken into custody. All were ticketed for trespassing and released.
The protests are part of an Occupy the Caucuses effort launched this week in Des Moines that has attracted activists from around the country. Many of them have promised to interrupt campaign activities, and organizers promised more confrontations on Friday with campaign offices of Republican presidential hopefuls.

Here, according to Patrick at Popehat, are the reasons the Occupy Kiddies could've been upset with Ron Paul's platform:

1. Abolish the Federal Reserve Bank – oops, already on the platform
2. End federal payouts to banks - oops, already on the platform
3. End federal payouts to large corporations that aren’t banks - oops, already on the platform
4. End foreign aid to Israel (and for that matter every other country) - oops, already on the platform
5. End the war in Afghanistan - oops, already on the platform
6. Withdraw American troops from Kuwait, South Korea, and Germany - oops, already on the platform
7. Abolish the Transportation Security Administration, along with a number of other federal departments and agencies - oops, already on the platform
8. End the War on Terror - oops, already on the platform
9. End the War on Drugs - oops, already on the platform
10. Establish a National Drum Circle on top of Mount Rushmore – not on the Ron Paul platform

Popehat.  You really should read these guys every day. 

Later on in the AP article, someone claims that Paul got occupied because of his opposition to the EPA. 
Well, there is no bigger friend to Big Business than the EPA. 
Here's one of the Popehat commenters on Paul's rationale for shutting down that gaggle of unelected Warmist kickback artists:

....the problem with the EPA is that its unclear as to how much of their protections are actually effective. You see quite frequently how well connected companies get extensions and exceptions to rules where smaller companies are held to very strict or even non-existent standards. I used to work for a soil and water testing facility, and it seemed a very random process that the agency had for going after businesses, a gas station with a minor leak could be fined heavily within a month, but an industrial facility would be far out of safety ranges for the better part of two years and not get much more than a strongly worded letter. The agency standards seemed very divorced from any reasonable threat assessment.


The concept of a federal agency, which has power at its sole discretion to shut down, fine, or harass any business without judicial oversight is pretty glaring constitutional issue. In many cases the day in court doesn’t come until after the damage has been done and the victim has lost their business and in some cases much more.

None of this is saying that environmental protections are unnecessary, just that the EPA as vehicle for fairly enforcing the laws (which themselves are pretty obtusely written, but that’s a separate issue) has been very bad at it. The fact that many of it’s powers are unconstitutional is Ron Paul’s primary concern with the agency.

Yeah.  What he said.