Rand Paul

Well, no indictment, but there were developments! Vocabulary word of the week: “exculpatory.” “Something that shows that someone is not guilty of wrongdoing.” Now, use it in a sentence: “Soros-funded Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg neglected to reveal hundreds of pages of exculpatory evidence to the Grand Jury pondering whether to indict Donald Trump.” What does it mean? It means that the orange suit that Bragg was hoping to order up for Trump may have to be retailored in a larger size, one big enough to fit him. Some context: when a prosecutor conceals exculpatory evidence from a Grand Jury or defense attorneys he is guilty of prosecutorial abuse.

When Cockburn turns on the television these days, something is missing. Then he realizes — that (very) little something is Dr. Anthony Fauci, whose 400-plus media events during the Covid pandemic made him a fixture of the tube. Then one day, after we made him the highest paid employee in the federal government, Fauci upped and left, abandoning us to figure out on our own if we should stay home when we’re sick. or if coughing on our ancient relatives is a good idea or not. But if you thought you’d seen the last of Fauci, never fear — the man has reemerged like an Omicron variant, this time as a motivational speaker.

Yesterday's 95-1 vote in the Senate to support the admission of Finland and Sweden to NATO is another in a series of signs the Republican Party is figuring out what it means to have an "America First" foreign policy. The additions of the two nations serve to strengthen the NATO alliance in ways long supported by national security-minded conservatives. But they are also a vindication of the more recent arguments, advanced by Donald Trump, that members of NATO must necessarily meet their obligations in terms of military budgets. Finland and Sweden are not freeloaders — they have advanced militaries and spend a great deal on them, and have a long history of taking the threat of Russian aggression seriously.

Covid is beginning to spike in parts of Europe again — and sewage data indicates rising cases in the US are imminent. Online and on television, talking heads and tweeters are asking, “Where’s Dr. Fauci?” They’re posing this question to rile up the masses and show that Anthony Fauci’s omnipresence on cable news over the last few months was largely political, and happened in concert with the Biden administration, with whom he appears to be in lockstep agreement on everything from masks to mandates. It’s a salient point not without merit, but I would take it a step further and ask: who cares where Anthony Fauci is?

Last week saw another batch of emails drop from Anthony Fauci, and another media blackout as to their contents. The strategy by the press in cases like this has been pretty straightforward: ignore the story, wait for right-leaning media or Republicans to pick it up, then frame any attacks on the subject as tainted by partisanship. Last week, when confronted once again by Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky, Fauci responded with more hyperbole and ad hominem. The media, meanwhile, framed the exchanges as “Rand Paul Attacks!” and “Anthony Fauci defends!” They refused to look at the information in the emails that Paul was asking about, refused to ask questions about them, refused to even report on them. They are interested in the bloodsport, not the truth.

Listening to the testy exchange between Sen. Rand Paul and St — er, Dr Anthony Fauci the other day, I couldn’t help but think both of these famous lines from Sir Walter Scott’s ‘Marmion’: ‘Oh, what a tangled web we weave, When first we practice to deceive!’ ...and also this excellent ‘completion’ by J.R. Pope (‘A Word of Encouragement’): ‘But when we’ve practiced for a while, How vastly we improve our style!’ Sen. Paul began by reminding the ubiquitous doctor of Section 1001 of the US Criminal Code, which makes it a felony, carrying a prison term of up to five years, for lying to Congress.

Over the past week, Washington, DC has turned into a truly dystopian nightmare. Diners at several area restaurants, including the famous Martin’s Tavern in Georgetown, were accosted by a Black Lives Matter mob that bullied them into raising their fists in solidarity with the movement. Restaurant patrons who refused to comply faced further verbal abuse and harassment. The trend continued outside the White House on Thursday night. Attendees of President Trump’s acceptance speech during the Republican National Convention were thrown to the wolves as they left the event, and were chased and screamed at as they made their way back to their hotels. Kentucky senator Rand Paul and his wife Kelley received some of the most aggressive harassment.

When Republican senators Mike Lee and Rand Paul walked out of a military briefing Wednesday over the recent US attack that took out top Iranian general Qasem Soleimani, they were not happy about how that exchange went.Sen. Paul said the briefing was 'less than satisfying', blasting the meeting as 'insulting to logic and the Constitution'.A fiery Sen. Lee elaborated further. 'I had hoped and expected to receive more information outlining the legal, factual, and moral justification for the attack,' Lee said. 'The briefing lasted only 75 minutes, whereupon our briefers left. This, however, is not the biggest problem I have with the briefing, which I would add was probably the worst briefing I've seen, at least on a military issue, in the nine years I've served in the United States Senate.

Donald Trump has called the Iraq war the ‘worst single mistake’ in US history. Most Americans, including our military, agree with the president. That grand mistake should be an example to all of the tragic unintended consequences inherent in regime change. It should be an enduring reminder of the misery that can be unleashed when our leaders don’t think soberly about what happens after they start a war. The Iraq war was started by Dick Cheney along with President George W. Bush in 2003. In the 16 years he’s had to reflect, the former vice president has been clear for many years that he would not hesitate to do it all over again. His daughter, Rep.

When Politico reported Wednesday that President Donald Trump was considering having Sen. Rand Paul, meet diplomatically with Iranian officials, conservative talk show host Mark Levin wasn’t having it. Levin asked sarcastically on Twitter, 'Would Rand Paul be representing us or Iran?' Then Levin tore into Paul further, as reported by the neoconservative Washington Free Beacon. The talk host’s criticisms of the senator are so ideologically twisted, only decipherable through a dated Bush-Cheney-era foreign policy lens, that it’s hard to know where to begin. So let’s break his hysteria down sentence by sentence. 'I don't trust Rand Paul when it comes to foreign policy,' Levin said, 'because he's an ideologue.

I have friends, both liberal and conservative, who loathe Donald Trump. Aware of my general support (and past work) for Sen. Rand Paul and his libertarian politics, a few have let me know over the last few years they are disgusted with the senator’s ongoing personal friendship with the president. Actually, I’m being nice. Their rhetoric is much harsher than what I’m describing. I tell them they are entitled to their opinion, but always point out that Paul allies with the president where they agree on the senator’s libertarian issues, and part ways respectfully where they disagree. It’s never personal between the two. I also note that no other Republican senator votes against Trump’s agenda more than Rand Paul.

The normally sober Associated Press is reporting the Senate’s vote to overturn Trump’s declaration of emergency in the southern border as ‘a stunning rebuke’ and ‘a remarkable break between Trump and Senate Republicans.’ But it isn’t. The 12 Senate Republicans who joined forces with every Democrat in the vote to annul Trump’s declaration did so for predictable ideological reasons. Libertarian-leaning Republicans such as Rand Paul, Mike Lee, and Pat Toomey voted to overturn the emergency on ‘constitutionalist’ grounds, seeing the National Emergencies Act of 1976 as constitutionally dubious or worse and rejecting the mechanism by which it allows the president to appropriate funds.