liberalsarecool:

“Take away all [Sen. Rand] Paul’s hyped-up hysteria — watch out, Jane Fonda! — and he didn’t truly disagree with the administration’s position that in an extraordinary circumstance, such as an ongoing terrorist attack, the US government can deploy lethal force against evildoers who happen to be American citizens.

So why did Paul go ballistic?

Here’s a clue: The day after he ended one of the longest filibusters in US history, he tried to cash in on his stunt by zapping out a fundamentally inaccurate fundraising email for his 2016 reelection campaign…. This senator as a crass operator untethered from the truth who’s eager to exploit his own grandstanding.” - David Corn of Mother Jones

Rand Paul did not force a change in Obama administration policy or even a clarification of policy. What AG Eric Holder said in the second letter was a reiteration of what he said in the first letter that Paul essentially endorsed while filibustering.

He learned all the best con-game tricks from his old man.

existentialistmumbojumbo:

Rand and Ron Paul have penned an Internet Freedom manifesto that is pretty terrible. It pans the idea of net neutrality, arguing that the phone companies who receive gigantic government handouts in the form of cheap (or free) rights of ways and hold natural monopolies over our connectivity should be able to use that government largesse to run a protection racket in which any website that doesn’t pay for “premium carriage” will be slowed down when you or I try to visit them. They also denounce the public domain as a collectivist plot, and argue that government monopolies over knowledge should be extended, and that tax-dollars should be used to enforce them. TechDirt’s Mike Masnick has some choice words for the Pauls:

stfuconservatives:

Spoiler alert: his proposal also includes moving the food stamp program from a federal program to a state-by-state one.

“The cuts would result in an average benefit cut of $90 per month for nearly a half a million households, according to Congressional Budget Office.”

I am eagerly awaiting his proposal to cut hundreds of billions of dollars in corporate subsidies, since at least one company out there has abused them. Because if we find one exception, it means we need to overhaul the entire program, right?

justinspoliticalcorner:

An email campaign launched this week (pictured, below) featuring the endorsement of Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) depicts a rifle pointing at President Barack Obama’s head, and a message about an imaginary “million rifle ban” the president is allegedly seeking to implement.

“Death threats against this president are up 400 percent as compared to President Bush,” Ladd Everitt, director of communications for The Coalition to Stop Gun Violence, told Raw Story on Thursday. “We are living today in a supercharged, partisan political climate where threats of violence and violent rhetoric are everywhere, and you would think that anyone — anyone, no matter what their political views or disagreements with this president — would have the common sense and decency to not create a banner image for a conspiracy theory-fueled email that shows a gun pointing directly at [the president’s] head, while simultaneously preaching to folks about some ridiculous Obama gun ban that exists only in a fantasy world.”

President Obama has not advocated for any form of national gun ban, and has actually signed several measures that enhance the rights of gun owners.

h/t: Stephen C. Webster at The Raw Story

cognitivedissonance:

Emailed to me by Sarah L. 

It’s sad because it’s true.

truth-has-a-liberal-bias:

From Care2.com:

Republican Sen. Rand Paul is single-handedly blocking legislation that would strengthen safety rules of oil and gas pipelines, despite the fact that the bill has industry support simply because he hates government.

In fact, Sen. Paul’s hatred of government runs so deep that his opposition to the bill didn’t change even after a gasline rupture shook three counties in his home state, Kentucky.

It was after a deadly gas pipeline explosion in a San Francisco suburb last year, and on the heels of other recent explosions and oil pipeline spills, that Congress and the oil and gas industry agreed an overhaul of federal safety regulations was in order.

The bill Sen. Paul opposes would authorize more federal safety inspectors, and pipeline companies would have to confirm that their records on how much pressure their pipelines can tolerate was accurate. The bill would also allow federal regulators to order that automatic shutoff valves be installed on new pipelines to halt leaks sooner. The provisions would expand pipeline inspections to rural areas and would all be paid for by industry fees.

Ideology may serve Sen. Paul well on the campaign trail, but it is doing zero good for his constituents or the rest of America. So far all the Tea Party has proven is its ability to get nothing done but obstruct bills that have the rare bipartisan support.

timetruthhumor:

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thepoliticalfreakshow:

Census data revealed today that a record 46.2 million Americans were living in poverty in 2010. But in an aptly-timed hearing entitled “Is Poverty A Death Sentence,” Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) flat out rejected the idea that poverty in the U.S is worrisome. As the Ranking Member of the Senate Health subcommittee, Paul offered a dissertation-length statement on how the correlation between poverty and death is only found in the Third World and to claim such a connection within the U.S. is nothing more than “socialism” and “tyranny.”

Stating that “poor children today are healthier than middle-class adults a generation ago,” he even blamed the poor for their own health problems, suggesting “behavioral factors” like a higher incidence of smoking, obesity, or weak family support structures as the only correlation between poverty and health.

Citing the deficit as a primary priority, Paul questioned whether federal low-income programs are “creating unnecessary and unhealthy dependence on government.” He unequivocally declared that “poverty is not a state of permanence” and that “the rich are getting richer, but the poor are getting richer even faster.”

PAUL: We also need to understand that poverty is not a state of permanence. When you look at people in the bottom 5th of the economic ladder — those at the bottom — only 5 percent are there after 16 years. People move up, the American dream does exist…The rich are getting richer, but the poor are getting richer even faster.

Watch it:

Summing up his thesis, Paul said, “Rather than bemoan or belabor something [poverty] that is really truly something that is overwhelmingly being treated in our country, we should maybe give more credit to the American system, the American dream, and give credit to what capitalism has done to eradicate poverty in this country.”

First of all, then notion that the poor are getting richer faster than the rich requires an impressive level of ignorance. Currently, income inequality in the United States is greater than that of Pakistan and Ethiopia and higher than at any other time since the Great Depression. Indeed, thanks to exceedingly low tax rates, the rich are getting richer, with the richest one percent earning nearly 25 percent of the total income in the country.

Meanwhile, nearly one in three middle-class Americans is slipping down the income ladder as an adult. And with stagnant wages and the purchasing power of the minimum wage at a 51-year low, it’s hard to see how suddenly “the poor are getting richer faster.”

What’s more, Paul’s overwhelming deluge of pseudo-evidence to downplay the connection between poverty and poor health cannot shake incontrovertible facts. As the American Journal of Public Health found, deaths resulting from poverty, income inequality, and low social support each totaled more than homicide deaths in 2000.

Paul’s claim that Americans now have a greater life expectancy still doesn’t change the fact that low-income individuals can expect to live a shorter life due to poverty. Indeed, a report released at the hearing noted that “this is the first time in our history that children born in certain parts of the United States can expect to live shorter lives than their parents’ generation.”

Yes Ladies & Gentlemen, Rand Paul is an even BIGGER jackass than his father Ron Paul.