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Sen. Rand Paul is holding up a vote on the Senate budget deal, demanding more debate on the bill which will add $1.5 trillion to the debt over the next 10 years. Lawmakers are facing a midnight deadline to pass the legislation. (Feb. 7) AP

Republican Senator from Kentucky Rand Paul (center) poses for a picture with Republican Representative from Kentucky Thomas Massie (right) and Republican Representative from Michigan Justin Amash (left) as budget negotiations continue in the U.S. Capitol(Photo: Jim Lo Scalzo, EPA-EFE)

WASHINGTON Sen. Rand Paul, a conservative Kentucky Republican and one-time presidential contender, temporarily blockeda Senate vote ona sweeping bipartisan budget deal on Thursday a move that could force Congress to miss a midnight funding deadline and triggera partial government shutdown.

The bipartisan budget deal would lift strict budget caps and pave the way for lawmakers to spend an extra $300 billion over the next two years on defense and domestic programs. It seemed poised to easily clear the Senate until Thursday afternoon.

Thats when Paul objected and said he would only allow the budget bill to advance if GOP leaders gave him a vote on an amendment to restore the budget caps, set in 2011 to rein in deficit spending.If Paul got an amendment, then every senator would want one. And ifany amendment passed, it would blow up the budget agreement.

All Senator Rand Paul is asking for is a 15-minute vote on his amendment to restore the budget caps, Pauls spokesman, Sergio Gor, said in an email Thursday. He is ready to proceed at any time.

By Thursday evening, the White House was preparing for alapse in appropriations. The federal Office of Management and Budget told federal agencies to plan for a "limited shutdown" of perhaps a few hours.

How could one senator potentially cause a government shutdown? Two reasons: the Senates arcane rules essentially invite such mischief-making;and congressional leaders waited until the very last minute to unveil their deal, leaving them vulnerable to legislative glitches.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., filed a motion to end debate on the budget deal late Wednesday night. Under Senate rules, lawmakers must wait an intervening day before they can vote to cut off debate, unless they get an agreement from all 100 senators to speed up the clock.

McConnell and Schumer figured theyd get that agreement. But they were wrong.

Pauls objection, if he sticks with it, wouldforceMcConnell to wait until 1 a.m. to vote to take up the budget bill and then another 30 hours fordebate before final passage. Federal funding for most government programs runs out at midnight.

"I can keep them here until threein the morning," Paul said on Fox News.

Paul said he wasn't pushing for a government shutdown. But he also wasn't interested in keeping the government open for a "reckless" spending deal that busts the budget caps.

"Nobody wants to have it pointed out what an eyesore this deal is and how obnoxious it is to conservatives," Paul told Fox.

Looking exasperated and irritated, McConnell begged his home-state colleague to stop his dilatory tactics and offered to let him make his point with a procedural vote.

"Funding for the government expires in just a few hours," McConnell noted. "I would argue that it's time to vote."

ButPaul rejected McConnell's offer and held the floor for what could be an hours-long speech. He noted that the bill is nearly 700 pages long, nobody in the Senate has read it, and it will add more than a trillion dollars to the deficit.

"I want peopleto feel uncomfortable" voting in favor of big deficits, Paul said.

If and when the budget bill does pass the Senate, it will go to the House where it faces an uncertain fate.

Liberal Democrats object to the deal because it does not include protections for undocumented immigrants who came to the U.S. as children and whose Obama-era deportation protections will expire next month. House conservative have the same objections as Paul, arguing that it will pave the way for big spending and ballooning deficits.

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Government shutdown: How Rand Paul could trigger it himself

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) on Feb. 8 opposed a bipartisan budget deal and delayed a vote on the measure in the Senate, calling the GOP "complicit in the deficits." (U.S. Senate)

The latest politico pointing out just how much the Republican Party has changed under President Trump comes from the inside.

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) delayed a Senate vote past midnight Thursday to mark his opposition to an estimated $320 billion addition to the federal budget deficit something he called Republicans out for supporting: If you were against President Obama's deficits, and now you're for the Republican deficits, isn't that the very definition of hypocrisy?

Paul, known for his libertarian leanings, said the budget deal breaks past Republican pledges to rein in federal spending.

After GOP leaders refused to allow Paul to offer an amendment, he chose to use a Senate rule that allows individual senators to slow down proceedings that require the consent of all.

I cant in all good honesty, in all good faith, just look the other way because my party is now complicit in the deficits, he said on the Senate floor.

[The Daily 202: Rand Paul's short-lived shutdown is ending, but his warning about GOP deficit hypocrisy reverberates]

Paul ran against Trump in the 2016 presidential primary, drawing attention to the presidents multiple bankruptcies as proof of his lack of a commitmentto fiscal conservatism. When Trump pulled out of a January 2016 Fox News debate becausethe network declined his request to remove Megyn Kelly as moderator,Paul claimed that Trump might be backing away because the former Democrat isnt a conservative.

He told CNNs Alisyn Camerota: Maybe [he's] afraid of the fact that he's never voted in a Republican presidential primary. For 70 years, he's been a progressive Democrat. I was wondering if maybe he's going to show up for the Democrat primary debate next time.

I think he does want to avoid difficult questions. And I think he's used to getting his way, Paul added.

Paul has since been seen buddying up with Trump on the golf course. But his strongest words late into the night Thursday were for his fellow party members who attacked President Barack Obama for increased government spending but are now are rallying behind a similar idea just because it's championed by Republican lawmakers.

Paul said: I ran for office because I was very critical of President Obama's trillion-dollar deficits. Now we have Republicans hand in hand with Democrats offering us trillion-dollar deficits. I can't in all honesty look the other way.

Congress ended a five-hour government shutdown early Friday morning after the House supported a massive bipartisan budget deal that adds hundreds of billions of dollars in federal spending. The funds will go to the military, domestic programs and disaster relief.

Trump signed the bill into law Friday morning.

Under Trump, fiscally conservative lawmakers supported increased government spending.

Under Trump, the Republican National Committee backed a candidate in Alabama accused of sexual misconduct with teenage girls while in his 30s.

Under Trump, Christian conservatives have defended a thrice-married man against allegations that his lawyer paid a six-figure settlement to a porn actress who reportedly had an affair with the president not long after his wife gave birth to their son.

Under Trump, multiple veterans have backed a candidate with multiple draft deferments who as president has invoked the military while attacking other Americans who took a knee during the national anthem to protest racism and police violence.

Under Trump, Republicans who criticized the influence of high-spending donors in politics have gone silent as the billionaire president's private club hosts political fundraisers with tickets starting at $100,000.

Former White House aide Omarosa Manigault Newman told the New York Times that people like her who boarded the Trump train called themselves Trumpublicans due to his unorthodox and unconventional approach to politics that seemed to have no place in the Democratic Party or the GOP.

But more than a year after Trumps inauguration, it is clear that his politics have found a home in the GOP. The majority of Republicans continue to give him high approval ratings despite scandals dominating headlines nearly every week. They point to the decisions that reflect a relatively traditional Republican presidency as reasons for their high support.

But a sizable group of Never Trump Republicans remains vocal and critical of his presidency. And it is not clear where these conservatives can go, given that Trumpism is becoming more of the dominant worldview of the GOP.

Paul is likely to continue to draw attention to what he sees as hypocrisies in the Republican Party, but the likelihood of conservative lawmakers pivoting away to the traditional vision of conservatism is low. The truth is conservative voters had a chance to choose between Paul and Trumps visions for America during the GOP primaries. The GOP chose Trump.

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A military parade in the nations capital?The last military parade in Washington was in 1991, after our victory in the first Iraq War.

Though the martial image of high-stepping soldiers is not one I tend to associate with our nations Founders distrust of a standing Army, Im not against a victory celebration. So I propose we declare victory in Afghanistan, bring home our 14,000 troops and hold a victory parade.

We defeated the enemy in Afghanistan. We killed or captured the terrorists who planned, plotted, or aided in the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. We killed the ringleader, Usama bin Laden. We disrupted the terrorists camps where they plotted and trained. We dislodged the Taliban government that aided and abetted bin Laden.

We just dont know how to appreciate a good thing. A big part of our foreign policy failures is not knowing when and how to declare victory. So, why not a parade? Bring the troops home and declare the victory that should have been declared years ago.

The only reason victory is elusive in Afghanistan is that presidents continue to have an impossible definition of victory. If victory is creating a nation where no real nation has ever existed, then no victory will ever occur.

If victory requires the disparate tribes and regional factions of Afghanistan to have more allegiance to a regime in Kabul than to their local tribal leaders, then victory will never come.

We spend about $50 billion a year in Afghanistan. When quizzed in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee recently, undersecretaries of Defense and State could not answer the most rudimentary of questions concerning the war.

How many Taliban fighters do we face?Blank faces for an answer. What percentage of the Taliban are unrepentant terrorists unwilling to negotiate?Blank faces again.

The Taliban now control a significant amount of Afghanistans real estate. Are the Taliban open to negotiating, considering that they appear to be winning? Blank faces again, but with perhaps a touch of remorse, knowing that there really is no possible military solution in Afghanistan.

The neocons are unaccustomed to nuance in victory. They seem to have learned some lesson about unconditional and total surrender when America dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki to end World War II with the surrender of Japan, and they seem unwilling or unable to accept any other form of victory.

So, by all means, a parade yes! As long as it is a victory parade heralding an end to Americas longest war.

Republican Rand Paul represents Kentucky in the United States Senate.

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Sen. Rand Paul, a Republican from Kentucky who recently was attacked by a neighbor while working on his lawn, said he believes the anger and polarization around the country fueled the assault.

Somebody who is going to attack you has to have something else wrong other than your yard, he said.

With the whole idea of the country being angry, over your yard or even the guy that shot us in the ball field There's just some people so angry, said the senator, who was on a baseball field over the summer when a gunman shot Rep. Steve Scalise, R-LA, and three others.

The neighbor, 58-year-old Rene A. Boucher of Bowling Green, Kentucky, admitted to the assault, but denied accusations that it may have been politically motivated, according to court documents. Boucher was charged with assaulting a member of Congress resulting in personal injury, a felony under federal law, the documents say.

I didn't know how badly I was hurt in the beginning, Paul said of the injury. To describe how much it hurt, I couldn't sit up. I had to have help to sit up for the first four or five weeks, he said. Who knew you had to have armed protection to mow your yard?"

He was wearing hearing protection when he was attacked from behind, he said. The attack ultimately left him with five broken ribs, three of which will heal in a crooked fashion.

Paul also discussed news of day with the co-hosts, including the release of a Republican memo accusing the Department of Justice of political bias. Paul appeared just minutes before the memo was posted online by the House Intelligence Committee but voiced his support for its release.

If you look at my position, I had the same position under President Obama that I have under President Trump and that is the power to listen to people's conversation, your private conversations are private and nobody else's business and the government should not reveal that, Paul said, prior to the memo's release.

The memo was first drafted by the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif, amd is critical of Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein for his role in renewing a surveillance warrant on former Trump campaign aide Carter Page after Trump took office.

The president approved its release on Friday, despite a statement Wednesday in which the FBI expressed "grave concerns about material omissions of fact that fundamentally impact the memo's accuracy."

Paul falls on the side of privacy advocates, he said, and is worried about information getting into the wrong hands.

The worrisome thing is the government has all of your information. Do you want them releasing it willy-nilly against their enemies? he said. And think who the enemies are. They're people who are minorities of opinion, minorities of color. People who have a lifestyle that other people think is unacceptable. Do you want the government or the majority to be able to selectively target their enemies?

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Mark Seliger for TIME

When the Tea Party movement wanted to send a message to the Senate in 2010, it elected a clear-sighted eye doctor from the Bluegrass State. In a D.C. too often defined by the venal equivocations of a permanent political class more interested in consolidating its own power than in upholding the Constitution or defending the common good, Senator Rand Paul is a voice of reason awakening the public to what must be done to restore our prosperity and preserve the blessings of liberty for future generations. His brand of libertarian-leaning conservatism attracts young voters, and recently he inspired the nation with his Capraesque filibuster demanding basic answers about our use of drones. I sent him some caribou jerky from Alaska to help keep up his strength on the Senate floor. Theres more where that came from for this bold Senator with 20/20 vision willing to take a stand for liberty.

Palin is a former governor of Alaska

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