Rand Paul Stands Up, Throws Down And Looks Increasingly Presidential

 

While I don't agree completely with Senator Rand Paul on every single thing I continue to be impressed by him. He has an editorial out in Time today on foreign policy that simply exudes common sense and definitely enhances him as a possible future president - while appropriately shaming the dysfunctional charlatan who holds the job presently. Here's what he had to say, and I've emphasized a few points:

Some pundits are surprised that I support destroying the Islamic State in Iraq and Greater Syria (ISIS) militarily. They shouldn’t be. I’ve said since I began public life that I am not an isolationist, nor am I an interventionist. I look at the world, and consider war, realistically and constitutionally.

I still see war as the last resort. But I agree with Reagan’s idea that no country should mistake U.S. reluctance for war for a lack of resolve.

As Commander-in-Chief, I would not allow our enemies to kill our citizens or our ambassadors. “Peace through Strength” only works if you have and show strength.

Our recent foreign policy has allowed radical jihadists to proliferate. Today, there are more terrorists groups than there were before 9/11, most notably ISIS. After all the sacrifice in Afghanistan and Iraq, why do we find ourselves in a more dangerous world?

And why, after six years, does President Obama lack a strategy to deal with threats like ISIS?

This administration’s dereliction of duty has both sins of action and inaction, which is what happens when you are flailing around wildly, without careful strategic thinking.

And while my predisposition is to less intervention, I do support intervention when our vital interests are threatened.

If I had been in President Obama’s shoes, I would have acted more decisively and strongly against ISIS. I would have called Congress back into session—even during recess.

This is what President Obama should have done. He should have been prepared with a strategic vision, a plan for victory and extricating ourselves. He should have asked for authorization for military action and would have, no doubt, received it.

Once we have decided that we have an enemy that requires destruction, we must have a comprehensive strategy—a realistic policy applying military power and skillful diplomacy to protect our national interests.

The immediate challenge is to define the national interest to determine the form of intervention we might pursue. I was repeatedly asked if I supported airstrikes. I do—if it makes sense as part of a larger strategy.

There’s no point in taking military action just for the sake of it, something Washington leaders can’t seem to understand. America has an interest in protecting more than 5,000 personnel serving at the largest American embassy in the world in northern Iraq. I am also persuaded by the plight of massacred Christians and Muslim minorities.

The long-term challenge is debilitating and ultimately eradicating a strong and growing ISIS, whose growth poses a significant terrorist threat to U.S. allies and enemies in the region, Europe, and our homeland.

The military means to achieve these goals include airstrikes against ISIS targets in Iraq and Syria. Such airstrikes are the best way to suppress ISIS’s operational strength and allow allies such as the Kurds to regain a military advantage.

We should arm and aid capable and allied Kurdish fighters whose territory includes areas now under siege by the ISIS.

Since Syrian jihadists are also a threat to Israel, we should help reinforce Israel’s Iron Dome protection against missiles.

We must also secure our own borders and immigration policy from ISIS infiltration. Our border is porous, and the administration, rather than acting to protect it, instead ponders unconstitutional executive action, legalizing millions of illegal immigrants.

Our immigration system, especially the administration of student visas, requires a full-scale examination. Recently, it was estimated that as many as 6,000 possibly dangerous foreign students are unaccounted for. This is inexcusable over a decade after we were attacked on 9/11 by hijackers including one Saudi student who overstayed his student visa.

We should revoke passports from any Americans or dual citizens who are fighting with ISIS.

Important to the long-term stability in the region is the re-engagement diplomatically with allies in the region and in Europe to recognize the shared nature of the threat of Radical Islam and the growing influence of jihadists. That is what will make this a comprehensive strategy.

ISIS is a global threat; we should treat it accordingly and build a coalition of nations who are also threatened by the rise of the Islamic State. Important partners such as Turkey, a NATO ally, Israel, and Jordan face an immediate threat, and unchecked growth endangers Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Gulf countries such as Qatar, and even Europe. Several potential partners—notably, the Turks, Qataris, and Saudis—have been reckless in their financial support of ISIS, which must cease immediately.

This is one set of principles. Any strategy, though, should be presented to the American people through Congress. If war is necessary, we should act as a nation. We should do so properly and constitutionally and with a real strategy and a plan for both victory and exit.

To develop a realistic strategy, we need to understand why the threat of ISIS exists. Jihadist Islam is festering in the region. But in order for it to grow, prosper, and conquer, it needs chaos.

Three years after President Obama waged war in Libya without Congressional approval, Libya is a sanctuary and safe haven for training and arms for terrorists from Northern Africa to Syria. Our deserted Embassy in Tripoli is controlled by militants. Jihadists today swim in our embassy pool.

Syria, likewise, has become a jihadist wonderland. In Syria, Obama’s plan just one year ago—and apparently Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s desire—was to aid rebels against Assad, despite the fact that many of these groups are al-Qaeda- and ISIS-affiliated. Until we acknowledge that arming the Islamic rebels in Syria allowed ISIS a safe haven, no amount of military might will extricate us from a flawed foreign policy.

Unfortunately, Obama’s decisions—from disengaging diplomatically in Iraq and the region and fomenting chaos in Libya and Syria—leave few good options. A more realistic and effective foreign policy would protect the vital interests of the nation without the unrealistic notion of nation-building.

Not only is this a spot on indictment of the Obama Administration but commonsense solutions to where we find ourselves at today because of President Obama's failed policies.  There's hardly a sentence here I can disagree with.  Senator Rand Paul continues to shine.

Obama's New Anti-Israel Ally - AIPAC

 

In the wake of the Palestinian Authority's integration with terrorist groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad, Senator Rand Paul put together a common sense bill in the U.S. Senate. It called for the conditioning of American aid to the Palestinians on its recognition of Israel. Thia is particularly apropos since U.S. law forbids aid to recognized terrorist groups (something the Obama Administration has ignored anyway) and the lip service from our own State Department is that the U>S. would supposedly not provide aid to any part of the new Palestinian government that failed to commit to opposition to terrorism, recognition of Israel and abiding by past agreements:

The legislation, titled the “Stand with Israel Act of 2014,” failed to gather unanimous consent in the Senate on Thursday and Paul’s request to pass it was blocked. After the bill failed to pass, the senator said he was “deeply disappointed and disturbed by the Senate’s inability to stand with me in defense of Israel today.”

The American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the largest pro-Israel group in the U.S., declined to support the bill. In an interview with Steve Malzberg on Newsmax on Thursday, Paul said he was “getting pushback from the establishment up here” on the legislation.

When asked by Malzberg who he meant, Paul said: “Ironically, the group AIPAC is pushing back this bill and this is to me very troubling.”

“I think the American people, if they knew that, would be very, very upset and think, you know what, those people are no longer lobbying in favor of America and Israel if they’re not willing to put restrictions on aid to Palestine,” Paul continued.

Yes...AIPAC.

Here's what happened. AIPAC caved to a combination of pressure from the Obama Administration and pressure from their pro-Obama Democrat donors.

I know Senator Paul to be a friend of Israel, based on sources who kept me posted about his comments and actions during his trip to Israel last year. For AIPAC to come out against this legislation and risk alienating someone who supports Israel and might even conceivably end up as our next president is not only abysmally stupid, but it's treachery against the very cause the organization is supposed to be supporting. AIPAC's phony rationale? The supposed 'security cooperation' between Israel and the Palestinian Authority. I defy them to show me one person who's ever been arrested by those 'cooperative security forces' for murdering a Jew. And I guess AIPAC has forgotten all about how those trained Palestinian 'security forces' happily turned their guns on Jewish civilians during Arafat's terrorist war on Israel.

Does AIPAC really think that this sort of behavior is somehow pro-Israel? In any sense? Do these people think that if Israel is attacked and assailed, they're somehow going to be immune because they dance to the Obama regime's tune?

AIPAC is a toothless tiger, and they won't be getting another dime from me. And believe me, that's a word I plan to spread around.

Cheney Only Decided Invading Iraq Was A Good Idea Because He Made Millions Working For Halliburton? Sheer BS

Soros front The Raw Story has posted a clandestine video of Senator Rand Paul from 2009 talking to student Republicans at Western Kentucky University courtesy of far left bottom feeder David Corn of The Nation and other fine quasi-Marxist sites:



Most of the video is about problems with the Patriot Act (and by definition, fuzzy, undeclared wars) that I largely agree with. After that is where it gets interesting.

Assuming the video wasn't selectively edited (always a possibility with these creatures), Rand Paul had a few things to say about Iraq, starting at about 6:40:

There’s a great YouTube of Dick Cheney in 1995 defending [President] Bush Number One [and the decision not to invade Baghdad in the first Gulf war], and he goes on for about five minutes. He’s being interviewed, I think, by the American Enterprise Institute, and and he says it would be a disaster, it would be vastly expensive, it’d be civil war, we would have no exit strategy. He goes on and on for five minutes. Dick Cheney saying it would be a bad idea. And that’s why the first Bush didn’t go into Baghdad. Dick Cheney then goes to work for Halliburton. Makes hundreds of millions of dollars, their CEO. Next thing you know, he’s back in government and it’s a good idea to go into Iraq.

Paul then goes on to describe events following the 9/11 terrorist attack when, then CIA director, George Tenet is told by George W. Bush adviser Richard Perle that the attack had given them reason to invade Iraq, despite the fact that the intelligence had yet to show a connection:

The day after 9/11, [CIA chief] George Tenet is going in the [White] House and [Pentagon adviser] Richard Perle is coming out of the White House. And George Tenet should know more about intelligence than anybody in the world, and the first thing Richard Perle says to him on the way out is, ‘We’ve got it, now we can go into Iraq.’ And George Tenet, who supposedly knows as much intelligence as anybody in the White House says, ‘Well, don’t we need to know that they have some connection to 9/11?’ And, he [Perle] says, ‘It doesn’t matter.’ It became an excuse. 9/11 became an excuse for a war they already wanted in Iraq.

Interesting that Senator Rand Paul would so perfectly parrot the Leftist line here, but if he in fact said it (and remember, this is five years ago and subsequent statements on national defense have shown that his views have broadened since then)it was sheer horse manure then and now.

If he said this, Rand Paul got it wrong on two important points. He's totally correct that Dick Cheney opposed our toppling Saddam during the first Gulf War. Where's he's mistaken is that Cheney somehow changed his views "because of Halliburton". It was Cheney and Rumsfeld who were against invading and occupying Iraq. At most, they wanted a quick, punitive strike. It was Clinton  holdover George tenet,head of the CIA and Colin Powell who pushed the idea of making Iraq 'the model for a Muslim democracy' to Bush '43.

And by the way, the CIA Inspector General's report on CIA head George Tenet's tenure as head of the CIA faults Tenet directly for the failure of intelligence leading up to 9/11 and the period afterwards.

At any rate, after Dubbyah bought the idea of Iraq the model, he put Rumsfeld in charge of implementing it, even though our military wasn't prepared. That's the meaning of Rumsfeld's famous remark, that you go to war with the army you have, not the army you'd like to have. And then Bush made Rumsfeld the scapegoat for his stupidity, having already fired Powell and Tenet.

One source on Rumsfeld's views some of you might find interesting is Brigadier General Mark Scheid, chief of the Logistics War Plans Division after 9/11, and one of the people with primary responsibility for war planning, who was quoted in an interview with journalist Orin Kerr, hardly a right winger, as having been told by Rumsfeld to plan for a war with Iraq, but not to bother planning for a long stay:

"The secretary of defense continued to push on us ... that everything we write in our plan has to be the idea that we are going to go in, we're going to take out the regime, and then we're going to leave," Scheid said. "We won't stay."

Jed Babbin, deputy undersecretary of defense in the George H.W. Bush administration and a noted writer on national security subjects has also weighed in on this topic.

Oh, and Halliburton? Most of those so-called no bid contracts were for things nobody else was even willing to bid on because of their lack of expertise, facilities, equipment or the insurance costs for the risks to their employees in a war zone. Among them was putting out the horrendous fires after Saddam Hussein set the Iraqi oil fields on fire as a parting shot. Every one else said it was impossible to save the oilfields and avoid an ecological disaster, but Halliburton pulled it off. No one else could have.

As for the insurance costs, it was four Halliburton employees who were kidnapped, lynched, had their bodies mutilated and were then hung off the bridge in Falujah by Moqtada al-Sadr's thugs.. not many companies were willing to risk that sort of thing to rebuild Iraq, not that we should have done that in the first place.

Of course, the one huge thing the 'Bush lied, people died' crowd were flat out wrong about was that supposed 'fifteen words' about Saddam Hussein having purchased yellow cake uranium for use in manufacturing nuclear weapons. That uranium was found...and the new Iraqi government sold it to Canada.

I am frankly sick and tired of the maligning and slander of Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney that goes on from both sides of the aisle...especially since it conveniently exonerates the real culprits behind the intel failure of 9/11 and our unfortunate adventure in Iraq.

Rand Paul: Senate Is Arming Al-Qaeda And Voting To Enter The War in Syria

 

The U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee has voted to send a bill to the floor for a vote that authorizes “critical support to the Syrian opposition through provision of military assistance, training, and additional humanitarian support.”

The bill's official title is the Syria Transition Support Act, and its  two co-authors were Senator Robert Menendez (D-NJ) and Senator Bob Corker (R-TN). Aside from providing weaponry and armaments, the bill includes:


• “Creation of a $250 million transition fund each year through FY2015 drawn from funds otherwise appropriated for regional transition support”;

• “Sanctions on arms and oil sales to Assad: Targeting any person that the President of the United States determines has knowingly participated in or facilitated a transaction related to the sale or transfer of military equipment, arms, petroleum, or petroleum products to the Assad regime.”; and

• “Amendment to the Syria Accountability Act: To allow for sanctions removal once a transitional government is in place and certain terrorism and WMD criteria have been met.”

That last one is important, and we'll return to it later.

The bill easily got through committee  15-3, and the only Senator to offer meaningful opposition was Senator Rand Paul ( R-KY).

“This is an important moment. You will be funding, today, the allies of al Qaeda,” Paul said.

 He's 100% correct.

The biggest and most prominent armed factions in the Syrian resistance are outright al-Qaeda affiliates like   Jabhat al-Nusra and the Syrian Free Army, which is a mixture of Muslim Brotherhood and al-Qaeda dominated factions. Even the new 'official' Syrian resistance groups President Obama formed as a figleaf,  the Syrian Opposition Coalition,(SOC)and the associated Joint Military Council are dominated by the Muslim Brotherhood.The leader of the SOC is one Ahmed Mouaz al-Khatib, former imam of the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus,  a religious cleric closely allied to the Damascus branch of the Muslim Brotherhood and fairly hardline and radical himself.

Senator Paul tried to tack two amendments on to the bill, one that would have forbidden the transfer of weapons to the radical Islamists of the rebel forces and another that would have prevented the use of U.S. military armed forces in Syria.

Both were voted down.

There were the usual pro-forma remarks from Paul's colleagues about 'oversight' and transparency' but in the end, there's nothing to stop the Syrian rebels from simply telling us what we want to hear to get weapons and our money, and then turning those guns on whomever they wish...including us. The Qu'ran tells Muslims explicitly that any promise made to kuffars (non-Muslims), any treaty or agreement is null and void whenever it's convenient.

Anyone taken a look at what's happening in Afghanistan lately?

Just for the record, (not that it matters), the original Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF) enacted after 9/11 specifically called for finding and destroying al-Qaeda..and here we are a few years later voting to supply arms to them!

What this is setting the stage for is a formalization of President's Obama's desire to put Islamists in charge of yet another Muslim country.

What happened in Benghazi was a failed Fast and Furious style covert attempt to purchase and send weapons from Khaddaffi's arsenals to the Syrian rebels. That failed, so now we're going to be doing it openly.

I would not be at all surprised to see U.S. boots on the ground in Syria in the next few months if Assad continues to hold out. That could have been what's behind the deployment of those 1,800 Marines off the USS Kearsarge who landed at the Israeli port of Eilat nine days ago and are now stationed on Jordan's Syrian border.

Americans traditionally rally behind a sitting president when there's a foreign intervention or crisis, and I wouldn't be at all surprised if a U.S. intervention in Syria wasn't timed to head off the fallout from the massive scandals the Obama regime finds itself entangled in of late.

This is a major strategic error on steroids.

Rand Paul's Personal Account Of His Filibuster

 

Yes, this was definitely the beginning of something new. Rand Paul's 13 hour filibuster got the Obama Administration to commit to a 180 turn on their drone policy.

Pre-filibuster, Attorney General Eric Holder was playing coy and saying he thought President Obama probably did have legal authority to order a drone strike against an American citizen within our borders without due process. The next day, Holder and President Obama were forced to reverse themselves and issue a firm "no' on the matter.

The criticism of Senator Paul and those who helped him during the filibuster by the likes of GOP Senators John McCain and Lindsay Graham isn't unexpected in the least. Among other things, they were probably angry because he took the spotlight off them.

Their dinner with President Obama, in a public restaurant with a twenty car motorcade and ample media attention was supposed to be a major photo-op and news story. Here were a bunch of Republicans eating with the president, getting things done, by gosh! All's well!

And then this freshman Senator from Kentucky had to embarrass them, play hero and capture the attention of America and the media. How dare he do that!

Senator Rand Paul wrote an Op-Ed in today's Washington Post giving his account of what happened. It's definitely an illuminating read. Here's a slice:

If I had planned to speak for 13 hours when I took the Senate floor Wednesday, I would’ve worn more comfortable shoes. I started my filibuster with the words, “I rise today to begin to filibuster John Brennan’s nomination for the CIA. I will speak until I can no longer speak” — and I meant it.

I wanted to sound an alarm bell from coast to coast. I wanted everybody to know that our Constitution is precious and that no American should be killed by a drone without first being charged with a crime. As Americans, we have fought long and hard for the Bill of Rights. The idea that no person shall be held without due process, and that no person shall be held for a capital offense without being indicted, is a founding American principle and a basic right.

My official starting time was 11:47 a.m. on Wednesday, March 6, 2013.

I had a large binder of materials to help me get through my points, but although I sometimes read an op-ed or prepared remarks in between my thoughts, most of my filibuster was off the top of my head and straight from my heart. From 1 to 2 p.m., I barely looked at my notes. I wanted to make sure that I touched every point and fully explained why I was demanding more information from the White House.

Just before 3 p.m., Sens. Mike Lee (R-Utah) and Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) came to the Senate floor to help out. Under Senate rules, I could not yield the floor or my filibuster would end, and Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) could have shut me down. The only way for me to continue and allow Sens. Lee and Cruz to speak was to yield the floor for questions.

Their presence gave me strength and inspiration. Sen. Jerry Moran (R-Kan.) also arrived to help. Sen. Ron Wyden (Ore.), the only Democrat who came to my defense, explained how we have worked together to demand more information from the White House about the rules for drone strikes. At about 4:30 p.m., Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) joined. I was flagging for a while, but these senators kept me going.

Sen. Reid came to the Senate floor to ask me when I would be done so he could schedule a vote. But I wasn’t ready to yield. I felt I had a lot more explaining to do.

At about 6:30 p.m., something extraordinary happened. Sen. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.), who has been recovering from a stroke, came to the floor to give me something. I was not allowed to drink anything but water or eat anything but the candy left in our Senate desks. But he brought me an apple and a thermos full of tea — the same sustenance Jimmy Stewart brought to the Senate floor in the movie “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.” That was a moment I will never forget. [...]

On Thursday, the Senate confirmed John Brennanas director of the CIA. But this debate isn’t over.

The Senate has the power to restrain the executive branch — and my filibuster was the beginning of the fight to restore a healthy balance of powers. The president still needs to definitively say that the United States will not kill American noncombatants. The Constitution’s Fifth Amendment applies to all Americans; there are no exceptions.

The outpouring of support for my filibuster has been overwhelming and heartening. My office has fielded thousands of calls. Millions have followed this debate on TV, Twitter and Facebook. On Thursday, the White House produced another letter explaining its position on drone strikes. But the administration took too long, and parsed too many words and phrases, to instill confidence in its willingness or ability to protect our liberty.

I hope my efforts help spur a national debate about the limits of executive power and the scope of every American’s natural right to be free. “Due process” is not just a phrase that can be ignored at the whim of the president; it is a right that belongs to every citizen in this great nation.

I believe the support I received this past week shows that Americans are looking for someone to really stand up and fight for them. And I’m prepared to do just that.

As I said, this is the beginning of something new. And it will be interesting to see where that goes.

"If there is no man, be that man." - Rabbi Hillel

What A Shock - McCain, Graham Slam Rand Paul For Filibuster After Dinner With Obama

This is simply disgraceful.

Not only did GOP Senators John McCain and Lindsay Graham enjoy dinner with President Obama instead of helping their colleague Senator Rand Paul with his heroic filibuster, they have the nerve to criticize him for doing it.

Almost exactly 24 hours after Mr. Paul began his information-seeking filibuster against John O. Brennan, Sens. John McCain and Lindsey Graham took to the Senate floor to denounce his demands and say he was doing a “disservice” to the debate on drones.

“The country needs more senators who care about liberty, but if Mr. Paul wants to be taken seriously he needs to do more than pull political stunts that fire up impressionable libertarian kids in their college dorms. He needs to know what he’s talking about,” said Mr. McCain, Republicans’ presidential nominee in 2008 — who topped Mr. Paul’s father, former Rep. Ron Paul, in that year’s primary.

And where Democrats praised Mr. Paul for using Senate rules properly to launch a filibuster, Mr. McCain said it was an abuse of rules that could hurt the GOP in the long run.

“What we saw yesterday is going to give ammunition to those who say the rules of the Senate are being abused,” the Arizona Republican said.

Mr. Paul said he was filibustering to get the administration to affirm it won’t kill non-combatant Americans in the U.S. — and his effort was joined by more than a dozen other senators who said they, too, supported his effort to get answers.

Mr. Graham said asking whether the president has the power to kill Americans here at home is a ludicrous question.

“I do not believe that question deserves an answer,” Mr. Graham said.

It doesn't deserve an answer? From an Administration noted for unprecedented secrecy and serial dishonesty?

This is a sitting United States Senator speaking? And Senator McCain is talking about Senator Rand Paul being taken seriously?

Well, the two aging RINOS may have made light of Senator Paul's efforts, but the White House did not.

Attorney General Eric Holder finally responded via a letter. No the president does not have the authority to order a weaponized drone strike to kill an American not engaged in combat on American soil.

That,as you remember, is exactly the opposite of what Holder and the White House were saying before Rand Paul launched his filibuster. Here's the letter:

 

Paul's response? “I’m quite happy with the answer,” he said during a CNN interview. “I’m disappointed it took a month and a half and a root canal to get it, but we did get the answer.”

Tell me again which senators need to be taken seriously.

Spitefully, Senator Graham took things even further, telling reporters that Senator Paul's filibuster had changed his vote on John Brennan:

Mr. Graham said he had been inclined to oppose the nomination because he’d found Brennan to be qualified for the job but also “arrogant, kind of a bit shifty.” He said he wasn’t going to filibuster him but would have voted against him on final passage, but now he’ll vote for him.

“I am going to vote for Brennan now because it’s become a referendum on the drone program,” he said.

I've got news for you..in the end, he, McCain and their fellow RINOS were always going to cave and vote to confirm John Brennan as CIA head, just as they caved on cloture to make President Obama's nominee Chuck Hagel a shoo-in for Secretary of Defense.

They have no honor, and no principles except the same old Washington game.

I hope voters in South Carolina and Arizona are paying attention. It's hard to win when you have to continually worry about friendly fire.

Rand Paul Wins As Democrats Retreat!!

Senator Rand Paul, with help from Senators Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, Mike Lee and Democrat Ron Wyden kept the filibuster against prospective CIA head John Brennan going for 13 hours:

After years in the shadows, the administration’s secret drone program burst into very public view Wednesday with lawmakers grilling the attorney general over legal justification for targeted killings and Sen. Rand Paul launching an old-style one-man filibuster to demand answers from President Obama.

The Kentucky Republican held the floor for almost 13 hours, effectively blocking a vote on the nomination of John O. Brennan, whom Mr. Obama has tapped to be CIA director. He said he would relent only if the administration publicly vowed not to target Americans on U.S. soil.

The Obama Administration didn't concede, but the Democrats were forced to delay the vote until tomorrow, and maybe even the weekend, depending on whether there's another filibuster.

Many of you may not realize how important this is. Since January of 2009, when President Obama and a veto proof Democrat majority in both Houses took over, they've trampled the Constitution and U.S. laws with impunity. They've changed long established congressional rules and procedures at their whim, and by and large they've gotten away with it.

Finally, someone told them no. Finally, at long last, someone said no, we're not going to allow you to shred the Constitution. Finally, someone stood up to them and exposed their lawless behavior for anyone who had eyes to see. And it wasn't the GOP establishment, but some Tea Party GOP senators the GOP establishment went out of its way to defeat, together with one Democrat who apparently still understands what the Constitution says and values it over the leftist agenda.

No matter how this ends up, it's a watershed, a turning point.It's a signpost to where the real future of liberty and our Republic lies.

Not with the Leftist ideologue in the White House, his serial prevaricator of an attorney general and their enablers and not with the Republican establishment. it lies with men and women who still value what it means to live in a free country and are willing in the old language that came down to us from our Founders to pledge their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor to save and preserve it.

That's where the future of our Republic lies. And that's where hope lies for and our posterity.

Rand Paul To Filibuster on Drones: "I will not let Obama shred the Constitution"

After receiving Attorney General Eric Holder's letter refusing to rule out the use of drones on American citizens within U.S. borders without due process, Senator Rand Paul has decided to mount a one man, old school filibuster.

“I will speak until I can no longer speak,” Paul said. “I will speak as long as it takes, until the alarm is sounded from coast to coast that our Constitution is important, that your rights to trial by jury are precious, that no American should be killed by a drone on American soil without first being charged with a crime, without first being found to be guilty by a court.”

Paul called Holder’s refusal to rule out drone strikes within the United States “more than frightening.”

On Wednesday, Paul elaborated on his concerns: “When I asked the president, can you kill an American on American soil, it should have been an easy answer. It’s an easy question. It should have been a resounding an unequivocal, ‘No.’ The president’s response? He hasn’t killed anyone yet. We’re supposed to be comforted by that. The president says, ‘I haven’t killed anyone yet.’ He goes on to say, ‘And I have no intention of killing Americans. But I might.’ Is that enough? Are we satisfied by that?”

Paul said on the Senate floor, “No American should ever be killed in their house without warrant and some kind of aggressive behavior by them. To be bombed in your sleep? There’s nothing American about that . . . [Obama] says trust him because he hasn’t done it yet. He says he doesn’t intend to do so, but he might. Mr. President, that’s not good enough . . . so I’ve come here to speak for as long as I can to draw attention to something that I find to really be very disturbing.”

“I will not sit quietly and let him shred the Constitution,” Paul added.”No person will be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process,” he said, quoting the Fifth Amendment.

Full on old school filibusters are extremely rare in Washington, but legal. Any Senator can hold the floor for as long as he or she likes, according to the rules, but filibusters are usually done by legislative mechanisms rather than by physically holding the floor.

The record? The Palmetto State's own Strom Thurmond holds it, filibustering as a Dixiecrat for for 24 hours and 18 minutes against the Civil Rights Act of 1957, according to U.S. Senate records. Of course, he had help from his fellow Democrats, who managed to keep things going for 57 days, filibustering between March 26 and June 19, the day the Civil Rights Act of 1957 passed.

A close second place is held by one of my favorite Senators of all time, New York's Alfonse D'Amato. He spoke for 23 hours and 30 minutes to stall debate on an important military bill in 1986 that contained an amendment that would have cut off funding for a jet training plane built by a company headquartered in his home state.

The amendment was removed.

It will be interesting to see how Rand Paul does. If it were me, I'd be reading whole sections of William L.Shirer's "Rise and Fall of The Third Reich" aloud, particularly the parts of about hiow Hitler was democratically elected, and the parts about the 'emergency' of the Reichstag Fire that enabled him to shred the German Constitution and take full power.

You go, Senator. Let 'em have it. And let's see if any other Republicans have the gonads to help you out on this one.

Sen. Rand Paul Says He Will Stall John Brennan's Confirmation

 

Republican Senator Rand Paul is going to try to block John Brennan's confirmation as CIA director, either through a filibuster or via his friends on the Senate Intelligence Committee:

"I will do everything I can to stop him, and I told him I will filibuster it," Paul said. "Unfortunately I am not enough. You know, it takes 41. And we could not hold 41 together on the Hagel nomination. So my guess is I will not get 41."

Paul explained his strategy for blocking Brennan via the committee vote.

"My best chance, though, is that I have allies in the Committee," Paul said. "The Intelligence Committee is pretty powerful on these things. And the CIA realizes that, and the president has to deal with the intelligence committee. If the Intelligence Committee will continue to object and ask my question, Brennan will not come forward. They have the power to hold his nomination — and right now, see he was supposed to be approved by the committee last Thursday and they moved it to this Tuesday. So that means that I have a very good chance the White House will be forced to respond."

The senator's question? He wants a response from the Obama Administration on whether drone strikes would ever be used within the United States.

"When John Brennan has been asked, he says that there are no geographical limitations to the use of drones strikes," Paul said. "And so the follow-up question is, obviously, does that mean even the U.S. border is not a geographical limitation?"

"We have laws in the United States that say the CIA is not to operate in the United States and we restrict our own military from operating in the United States … And so I am very, very concerned about this," Paul said.

Five or six years ago, I would have considered this question tinfoil hat material. Today, I feel it's entirely legitimate.

I admit to being disappointed that this is what John Brennan's conformation hangs on, as I'm far more interested in his assistance and sympathies towards Iran, Islamists and the Muslim Brotherhood as well as a number of controversial statements he's made. But like Chuck Hagel,Brennan will almost certainly be confirmed.

Putting Hagel and Brennan in these positions carries the same context that giving Alger Hiss, Harry Dexter White or Owen Lattimore similar national security cabinet positions would have back in the 1950's. Remember you heard it here first.

Senator Rand Paul Talks Sense On Foreign Policy

 


Senator Rand Paul ( R-KY) gave an important speech at the Heritage Foundation today. It's one of the more intelligent  expostions on Foreign Policy I've seen come out of Congress in quite some time. The more I see of Senator Paul, the more I'm impressed with his common sense and his understanding of the Founder's principles. And he clearly understands the threat of radical Islam.  Here's a slice:

Foreign policy is uniquely an arena where we should base decisions on the landscape of the world as it is . . . not as we wish it to be. I see the world as it is. I am a realist, not a neoconservative, nor an isolationist.

When candidate John McCain argued in 2007 that we should remain in Iraq for 100 years, I blanched and wondered what the unintended consequences of prolonged occupation would be.  But McCain’s call for a hundred year occupation does capture some truth: that the West is in for a long, irregular confrontation not with terrorism, which is simply a tactic, but with Radical Islam.

As many are quick to note, the war is not with Islam but with a radical element of Islam - the problem is that this element is no small minority but a vibrant, often mainstream, vocal and numerous minority. Whole countries, such as Saudi Arabia, adhere to at least certain radical concepts such as the death penalty for blasphemy, conversion, or apostasy. A survey in Britain after the subway bombings showed 20% of the Muslim population in Britain approved of the violence.

Some libertarians argue that western occupation fans the flames of radical Islam – I agree. But I don’t agree that absent western occupation that radical Islam “goes quietly into that good night.” I don’t agree with FDR’s VP Henry Wallace that the Soviets (or Radical Islam in today’s case) can be discouraged by “the glad hand and the winning smile.”

Americans need to understand that Islam has a long and perseverant memory. As Bernard Lewis writes, “despite an immense investment in the teaching and writing of history, the general level of historical knowledge in American society is abysmally low. The Muslim peoples, like everyone else in the world, are shaped by their history, but unlike some others, they are keenly aware of it.”
Radical Islam is no fleeting fad but a relentless force. Though at times stateless, radical Islam is also supported by radicalized nations such as Iran. Though often militarily weak, radical Islam makes up for its lack of conventional armies with unlimited zeal.

For Americans to grasp the mindset of radical Islam we need to understand that they are still hopping mad about the massacre at Karbala several hundred years ago. Meanwhile, many Americans seem to be more concerned with who is winning Dancing with the Stars.

Read the rest here