Tag: Rand Paul

Go North Young Man

Closing Thought: 17Jan19

The GOP’s hit man has been Rand Paul, a bit of a Libertarian, in our Congress…he usually runs to a camera and spouts his opposition to this policy or that and then when the time comes he supports it. To me that makes him a “media whore” (those that will do or say anything to get on camera and in the news)…..

But the best thing is he is a rabid opponent of “socialized medicine”…very local in his opposition…so when the news came out that he had to have surgery I found his choice of locations an interesting one……

The fallout from Rand Paul’s 2017 fight with a neighbor continues: The Kentucky senator is going to Canada for surgery he says is related to an injury he got when Rene Boucher attacked him while he was mowing his lawn. Paul ended up with six broken ribs and a bruised lung, and is scheduled to have outpatient hernia surgery next week at Shouldice Hernia Hospital in Thornhill, Ontario, the Courier-Journal reports. Of course, much is being made about the fact that Paul is an opponent of socialized medicine and has compared universal health care, which Canada uses, to “slavery.” But his spokesperson had a response for the criticism, noting the hospital Paul is utilizing is privately administered.

“This is more fake news on a story that has been terribly reported from day one—this is a private, world renowned hospital separate from any system and people come from around the world to pay cash for their services,” the rep says. The Hill notes that the hospital bills itself as “the only licensed hospital in the world dedicated to repairing hernias.” According to documents filed as part of Paul’s civil lawsuit against Boucher, which is seeking money for medical costs related to the attack, the procedure is estimated to cost between $5,000 and $8,000. A jury trial for the civil case is scheduled for Jan. 28. Boucher pleaded guilty to the attack in March.

But I thought that the Canadian system was inferior……That should tell you everything you need to know about the American health care……a Libertarian will not support it in deed.

Time for that Medicare For All thing!

Rand Paul: It’s All Show!

Mike Pompeo was narrowly approved by the Senate in a close vote…it was Rand Paul that put him over and after Paul had strolled out and told the media that he was not gonna be a poster child for Trump and his vote could not be counted on……and then as usual he voted affirmative and joined the Trump-ites…..

CIA Director Mike Pompeo is on track to become the next Secretary of State after the Senate Foreign Relations Committee voted to approve him, 11-9. All Republicans voted in favor, and Sen. Chris Coons (D-DE) voted “present.”

Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) was the real deciding vote, having switched sides after opposing Pompeo. Democratic Sen. Coons has also initially voted no, but changed to present as a courtesy because Sen. Johnny Isakson (R-GA) was not present, and voted by proxy. Isakson’s vote would’ve made it 11-10, but only 10-10 among present voters, which would’ve forced Iskason to drive back.

Paul’s change was a surprise to almost everyone.

(antiwar.com)

The media tells us that this move by Paul unexpected after his diatribe against the Trump nominee…..that is pure crap!

Paul has done this on numerous occasions…he comes out in opposition and then when the vote is taken he follows the lead of the rest of the GOP.

Paul is all show….he is just another GOP toady….this was not his first time to pretend to be a maverick……the problem is the media falls for his crap every time and he gets his mug on the TV screen as some sort of maverick….that he is not and will never be…a maverick.

Just keep in mind if all goes to crap and we waltz into another war then we can point the finger at the coward Rand Paul for being all smoke and NO fire…..

Is The “Libertarian Moment” Gone?

About 10 years ago with the election of Rand Paul conservatives were celebrating for they saw a Libertarian mindset taking hold in society….and so it was for a few years and then the election of 2016 and that of Donald trump has crapped on any Libertarian forward movement to a halt.

Are true conservative(Libertarian) policies dead in the water?

Senator Rand Paul is a man out of time. It was only a few years ago that the editors of Reason magazine held him up as the personification of what they imagined to be a “libertarian moment,” a term that enjoyed some momentary cachet in the pages of The New York Times, The Atlantic, Politico (where I offered a skeptical assessment), and elsewhere. But rather than embodying the future of the Republican Party, Paul embodies its past, the postwar conservative era when Ronald Reagan could proclaim that “the very heart and soul of conservatism is libertarianism,” when National Review founder William F. Buckley Jr. could publish a conspectus of his later work under the subtitle “Reflections of a Libertarian Journalist,” and young blue-blazered Republicans of the Alex P. Keaton variety wore out their copies of Milton Friedman’s Free to Choose.

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/04/defused/556934/

Will conservatism return or is it dead?

 

GOP: One More Down

After the Iowa Caucuses the messenger of the Lord, Huckabee, bowed gracefully out of the 2016 election….and then we were down to 11 candidates ……..almost enough as to not have to settle for the “Kiddie Table” debate……

Sad news…..we are down to 10 on the GOP side…….

New Hampshire Republicans will have one less presidential candidate to consider: Rand Paul is dropping out of the race, reports CNN. The move comes after a poor showing in the Iowa caucuses, leaving the libertarian-leaning senator to focus instead on keeping his seat in Kentucky, where he faces a re-election challenge, reports Politico. “It’s been an incredible honor to run a principled campaign for the White House,” Paul said in a statement cited by ABC News. “Today, I will end where I began, ready and willing to fight for the cause of liberty.” Read it in full here.

At least Paul was talking about our disastrous foreign policies……that conversation will now be silent during the campaigns…..who will be the voice of reason in the GOP now?

Who will be the next to drop from our memory?

President Rand Paul’s Middle East Policy

Remember back about 6 months ago at the beginning of this election cycle when everybody’s favorite Libertarian announced he was running for the presidency of the United States?

Since then Mr. Rand has become a persona non Grata in the GOP race for the nomination……as they say “his shine has lost its luster”……

Back when he announced Juan Cole wrote a piece about what we, as voters,  could expect of Rand Paul if he were to become our next president on foreign policy….

Source: President Rand Paul’s Middle East Policy | Informed Comment

Can Rand Paul Turn America into Less of a Global Busybody? | National Review Online

Continuing my Monday morning draft  dump….kinda like a news dump but far more interesting……

Political pundits are calling the election of 2016 as the “Foreign Policy Election”…..if true then Sen. Paul may have a upper edge on the rest of the babbling Right.

His Libertarian leanings will attractive those that look for the US to put aside its propensity for interventionism…….can Paul convince Americans that he will stop our endless wars through intervention…….

Once elected (if that is a possibility) would he hold to his promises on the campaign trail?

 

Can Rand Paul Turn America into Less of a Global Busybody? | National Review Online.

Have Libertarians Changed?

It is official……we now have at least 4 candidates for president…..2 GOP and 2 Dems……I am sure some third parties will enter starting very soon.

Something to think about……Rand Paul is basically a Libertarian even though he is a GOP mouth piece……maybe we should ask him how he stands on the list below……it maybe a list from the 80’s but how does it stand up in 2016?

Voters need to ask questions instead of just nodding when some pea brain mumbles some mindless slogan…..if you want change then demand answers….NOT SLOGANS!

Embedded image permalink

Rand: Paul Not Ayn

Breaking News!  Christie Brinkley has a black eye (still do not know why this is news and besides…..who gives a f*ck?)

The GOP announcements for candidacy are starting to roll in….First there was Ted Cruz, then Rick Perry (not official just yet) and now we have three GOP candidates for the nomination with Rand Paul’s announcement……

Rand Paul will join Ted Cruz in the quest for the Republican nomination today, and he’s armed with a slogan that Politico describes as one “designed to evoke populist, anti-establishment themes”: “Defeat the Washington machine. Unleash the American dream.” But despite the attempts to drum up excitement around his bid, Politico notes today’s announcement “will prove one of the most anticlimactic presidential announcements of modern times,” reporting that Paul’s campaign for the White House began in earnest four years ago. “Within the first year of the Senate term, he really started to focus on it,” a former aide tell Politico, which charts his path in a lengthy piece. It has him revealing his presidential plans to his “brain trust”, a 10-strong group, just days after Mitt Romney’s own imploded.

From there he set out to woo more than the base nurtured by father Ron Paul while still touting his own uniqueness. Politico zeroes in on this moment as key in his effort to do so: His 13-hour filibuster of John Brennan’s nomination as CIA director in May 2013, during which he argued against the use of drones to attack Americans. Moving forward, his advisers say Paul will focus on a flat tax, IRS reform, term limits, privacy, and justice reform, and market himself as a “libertarian-minded conservative.” After revealing his plan to take the White House at the Galt House Hotel in Louisville, Ky., today—the first of five stops on a so-called announcement tour—Paul will make appearances in New Hampshire, South Carolina, Iowa, and Nevada this week and host a Facebook town hall meeting.

There you have all the info you need for today…..there are 3 candidates from the GOP that are wanting to run for the presidency…..a loudmouth ego-centric prick, an accused felon and now an isolationist……..so far the isolationist has the best chance of actually landing the nomination……the other two will always be the “also rans”……..but first someone explain to me what the American Dream is, please?  A cute little slogan but that is about all it is…..cute.

The one thing that Paul has going for him is he will force the GOP slugs to actually have a debate on foreign policy……….

Unlike the rest of the likely GOP presidential field, Paul is a die-hard true believer in scaling down America’s involvement in conflicts around the world. That pits him against the mainstream, hawks in the Republican party whose ideas are sure to dominate the campaign. By running for president, Paul hopes to inject his ideas into the debate and shift priorities his party’s held for decades.

Paul’s presence alone is a threat to people in the party establishment. The party’s most hawkish voices, fearing exactly this, are mobilizing in force to stop Paul — lobbying internally and even potentially running candidates whose sole purpose would be challenging Paul on foreign policy.

The coming campaign, then, is a major test of where the Republican Party view of foreign policy is heading.

With the entrance of Rand Paul the campaigns are starting to tightening up…….will he or won’t he be the man of the hour in November?

It’s A Bird, It’s A Plane, It’s A ‘War Hawk’

Today I will say something that I will not ever repeat again.  For once I agree with Rand Paul!

Listen closely and you can hear many of my readers grabbing their chests and falling to the ground in disbelief.  There is not much that I would ever agree with Paul, either Daddy or son, about for any reason.

Recently during an interview rand Paul called Hillary a ‘war hawk’…….

Calling Hillary Rodham Clinton “a war hawk,” Sen. Rand Paul says that if the former secretary of state seeks the presidency, some voters will worry that she will get the U.S. involved in another Mideast war.

Paul is a leading anti-interventionist in the GOP and is considering running for president. Last year he opposed President Barack Obama’s call for military action in Syria.

“I think that’s what scares the Democrats the most, is that in a general election, were I to run, there’s gonna be a lot of independents and even some Democrats who say, ‘You know what? We are tired of war,'” Paul said. “We’re worried that Hillary Clinton will get us involved in another Middle Eastern war, because she’s so gung-ho.”

I know this post will not win me many new fans but….I agree with Paul on this one.  She was a staunch supporter of the policy that got us in Iraq in 2003 even though she tried to worm her way out of that vote….she is still a war hawk.

Paul is setting up the narrative so that he can attract those in the anti-war movement…….and the best way to do that is put the most likely Dem candidate, Hillary in the box of pro-war.  Paul is just getting the jump on his competition for the 2016 election.

“Israel Has Shown Amazing Restraint”

Sorry but I cannot let the international stuff go unreported……..I could do like so many of my right wing brethren and pick the subject of the day, according to the a/holes they look up to and pick it like an irritating scab……but my readers deserve better.

It looks like Israel has found a way to invade Gaza yet again……..

Those words were written by Sen. Rand Paul when he wrote in the national Review pushing his crappy piece of legislation to defund the Palestinians………his written word…….writing about Israel’s response to the kidnapping and deaths of the three teenagers in Israel……..

I think it is clear by now: Israel has shown remarkable restraint. It possesses a military with clear superiority over that of its Palestinian neighbors, yet it does not respond to threat after threat, provocation after provocation, with the type of force that would decisively end their conflict.

Nearly six weeks ago, I proposed a bill called the “Stand With Israel Act.” Its purpose was to cut off the flow of U.S. taxpayer dollars to the Palestinian Authority if it allied with Hamas — the same Hamas that just murdered these three teenagers.

So let’s be clear: U.S. taxpayer money may soon be going to an entity kidnapping and murdering Israeli and U.S. children.

Restraint?  What has this yo-yo been smoking?  Would you like to see the extent of their “restraint”?

Palestinians Killed & Injured

  • Since the start of the large-scale crackdown on June 13, 2014, at least nine (as of June 27) Palestinians – mostly unarmed civilians – have been killed by Israeli soldiers or died as a result of their operations in the West Bank and Gaza, and scores more have been injured.
  • Palestinian fatalities:

    Military Raids & Arrests

    • Hundreds of military raids have been launched across the occupied West Bank, although the missing Israeli teens were last seen near Hebron in the southern West Bank and are believed to still be in the area. Raids have targeted more than 1000 private homes, the offices of political parties, refugee camps, and the campuses of Birzeit University near Ramallah and the Arab American University in Jenin, resulting in the detention and arrest of students and staff.
    • More than 500 Palestinians have been detained and/or imprisoned. Those arrested include at least seven members of the Palestinian legislature and many individuals who were recently released by Israel as part of a prisoner swap. There are currently more than 5000 Palestinians being held in Israeli prisons.
    • Israeli soldiers have also targeted children for arrest, bringing the total number of Palestinian children imprisoned by Israel to more than 250 according to news reports.
    • In conducting the raids, Israeli soldiers have caused widespread damage to private property, ransacking homes and offices, and confiscating computers, files and other property. They also raided the offices of journalists in Ramallah, including Russia Today television, damaging and removing computers, equipment, and hard drives.
    • On June 22, 2014, Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem issued a press release announcing a letter sent to Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon from a coalition of human rights groups, including Amnesty International, the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel, and Physicians for Human Rights – Israel. The press release read in part:“The large number of raids and arrests over the last week raises concerns that some of these operations are not the result of pressing operational needs. Overall, the measures adopted and their extent do not seem to serve a military need that can justify the damage they have caused. This is the case in terms of the military activity that has taken place in city centers as well as the sweeping and arbitrary travel restrictions. These actions have caused, and continue to cause, disproportionate harm to the basic rights of Palestinians, including the right to safety, health, freedom of movement and the right to earn a living.”Imprisonment Without Trial & Torture & Abuse of Palestinian Prisoners
      • On June 23, Israeli media reported that the Israeli government was preparing to double the number of Palestinians being imprisoned without charge or trial, a procedure known as “administrative detention,” from approximately 200 to 400. The use of administrative detention has been harshly criticized by human rights organizations as a violation of the right to due process. On June 17, Amnesty International issued a statement reiterating that it “has repeatedly condemned the practice of administrative detention, and urged the Israeli authorities to release [administrative detainees] unless they are promptly charged with internationally recognizable criminal offences.”
      • According to Israeli media reports, on June 18 the Israeli government issued orders classifying prisoners detained in the current crackdown as “ticking bombs,” which allows the use of aggressive interrogation techniques, known as “moderate physical pressure,” that amount to torture.
      • Israeli authorities have taken measures to worsen the conditions of Palestinian prisoners being held in Israeli jails, including denying family visits, including to prisoners who have been on a hunger strike in protest at being held without trial.
      • The Israeli government is currently in the process of advancing legislation allowing for the force-feeding of hunger strikers, even though Israeli and international medical associations and human rights experts have decried the practice of force-feeding as a form of torture.
    • Increased Limitations on Movement & Collective Punishment
      • Since the start of the crackdown on June 13, Israel has further tightened its restrictions on the movement of Palestinians within the occupied West Bank, particularly the southern West Bank in and around Hebron where the missing teens were last seen, collectively punishing the entire Palestinian population of the occupied territories. These restrictions are in addition to the already severe Israeli restrictions imposed on the movements and freedoms of Palestinians living under Israel’s 47-year-old military rule.
      • According to a statement issued by Amnesty International on June 17:“Israeli authorities have imposed a number of measures that clearly constitute collective punishment on Palestinians in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. These include the imposition of a complete closure on the Hebron district of the West Bank, which prevents some 680,000 Palestinians from moving between villages and the city of Hebron, as well as within the city. Thousands of residents of the Hebron district who have permits to work inside Israel or in Israeli settlements cannot reach their places of employment. Residents of the Hebron district under the age of 50 have also been prevented from leaving the West Bank via the Allenby Crossing to Jordan.”“These latest measures of collective punishment come on top of many prolonged punitive measures against Palestinian civilians imposed by the Israeli authorities, including Israel’s seven-year blockade of the Gaza Strip, which Amnesty International and many other organizations have repeatedly condemned as a flagrant violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention.”

      How is that for RESTRAINT?

Apparently Paul has the same problem as McCain…….cannot see past the wallets of the Israeli donors…….

If we have to defund anyone then defund both sides……I am sick of Israel being held up as some sort of idyllic state where all people are treated fairly…..that is bullshit and the world needs to know that it is BULLSHIT!

I have heard people that say the Israel is doing what they can…….does that include lawmakers like this…………

A day before Palestinian teenager Muhammad Abu Khudair was kidnapped and burned alive allegedly by six Israeli Jewish youths, Israeli lawmaker Ayelet Shaked published on Facebook a call for genocide of the Palestinians.

It is a call for genocide because it declares that “the entire Palestinian people is the enemy” and justifies its destruction, “including its elderly and its women, its cities and its villages, its property and its infrastructure.”

It is a call for genocide because it calls for the slaughter of Palestinian mothers who give birth to “little snakes.”

If Shaked’s post does not meet the legal definition of a call for genocide then nothing does.

If you want to condemn then condemn all sides…..an attitude like this does NO one any good and drives the hate…….