Republican Rand Paul stiff-armed President Barack Obama’s CIA nomination Wednesday, drawing support from fellow senators concerned about the administration’s refusal to rule out drone strikes on US soil.
With the blocking tactic stretching into it’s sixth hour, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid tried to bring Paul’s filibuster to a close, but the freshman from Kentucky refused, continuing his hold on any Senate action as he railed against US policy on targeted killings.
Paul said he would be happy to yield “if the president or the attorney general will clarify that they are not going to kill non-combatants in America.”
The drone issue gained fresh currency on Capitol Hill with senators from both parties pressing US Attorney General Eric Holder on whether the administration believes such drone attacks could be justified.
Paul began by saying he will “speak until I can no longer speak,” and demanding answers from President Barack Obama on the secret unmanned aerial drone program that has emerged as the most contentious element of John Brennan’s nomination to head the spy agency.
Paul has drafted a number of Republicans to assist him in this tactic, and they're happy to keep blocking Senate business until they get what they want, or Brennan resigns from the nomination, or both. But given Rand Paul's curious position on civil liberties when it comes to voting rights, civil rights, women's rights, LGBT rights, and the rights of the poor, hearing him prattle on about a theoretical death by fiat when the prison culture and the gun culture and the rape culture and the corporate greed culture in this country condemn thousands upon thousands to death daily without due process...
Well I don't particularly care for the man.
Perspective is needed, and I don't see a lot of it out there. Let's remember that in addition to his "heroic" position on drones, Rand Paul happily voted against VAWA, the Paycheck Fairness Act, Hurricane Sandy aid, the fiscal cliff deal, and against using funds to transfer detainees so we could eventually close Gitmo. He's actively spoken out against the Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act. He's against any form of gun violence prevention legislation.
But Rand Paul is an okay guy because drones?
No. He's not. He's a Republican playing the game, and it seems the regular suspects are falling for it again, those "liberals" who think Barack Obama is a bigger threat than, well, Rand Paul.
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3 comments:
THIS. All of it. THIS.
Nobody is saying Rand Paul is an ok guy! Stop attacking your own strawman.
Paul is terrible on civil rights. He's being ok on civil liberties right now, unlike almost every single would-be progressive out there. For that he deserves praise, and when the subject changes to pretty much anything else he'll deserve condemnation again.
Like would-be progressives deserve now, on the topic of civil liberties.
Your condescension is pretty awesome. PS, he's completely OK with drones if they are used on people who constitute an "imminent threat" he said this morning on CNN. Meanwhile, Eric Holder responded to Paul's request and says no, targeting US citizens on US soil with drones would be unconstitutional.
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