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It is time to defy the critics and pass the Federal Reserve Transparency Act, which would be a momentous victory for accountability and transparency and send the establishment's head spinning, Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul wrote in an opinion piece in The Daily Caller on Monday.

More popularly known as "Audit the Fed," the act would "open up the Fed's agreements with foreign governments and central banks, its discount window and open market operations, its member bank reserves, and its Federal Open Market Committee directives to thorough examination by the people's representatives for the first time since its creation in 1913," Paul wrote.

The act does this, Paul explained, by removing "the restraints on how the nonpartisan, independent Government Accountability Office can audit the Federal Reserve System, requiring the GAO to conduct an audit within one year of the bill's passage and report back to Congress within 90 days of finishing it."

Paul said that skeptics have said that since the nation's central bank is one of the most powerful institutions in Washington, passing such legislation would never be feasible, but the senator credited "grassroots Americans" for making sure that congressmen don't give up the struggle to make it into law.

The measure has already passed the House and last year missed reaching cloture by only seven votes.

Paul praised those supporting the bill as "concerned Americans who look down the road and wonder how much of our nation's prosperity and opportunity will be swallowed up by debt or lost in financial crises fueled by artificial market signals and central planners' economic tinkering."

The senator stressed that with Congress discussing soon how to institute long-overdue reforms to give Americans back more of their own money and get spending under control by changing how government operates, now is the perfect time to "call for an end to the Fed's secrecy surrounding operations that prop up the powerful and well-connected at the expense of the rest of us" and push the bill over the finish line.

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Excerpt from:
Sen. Rand Paul: Time to Defy Critics and Pass 'Audit the Fed' Act

The Trump administration is increasing the number of troops in Afghanistan and, by doing so, keeping us involved even longer in a 16-year-old war that has long since gone past its time.

The mission in Afghanistan has lost its purpose, and I think it is a terrible idea to send any more troops into that war. Its time to come home now.

But as is typical, there was significant mission creep in Afghanistan. We went from striking back against those who attacked us, to regime change, to nation-building, to policing their country for them. And we do it all now with an authorization that is flimsy at best, with the reason blurred, and the costs now known. We do it with an authorization that was debated and passed before some of our newest military personnel were out of diapers. This isnt fair to them, to the American people, or to a rational foreign policy.

The Afghanistan war going beyond its original mission has an enormous cost. First and most important is the cost to our troops. Deaths, injuries and unnecessary deployments causing harm to families are certainly the most important reason as to why you dont go to wars that arent necessary.

Then comes the taxpayer. We have spent over $1 trillion in Afghanistan, and nearly $5 trillion on Middle East wars in the past 15 years. Would we not be better off with $5 trillion less in debt or using these funds in other, more productive ways?

Nation-building should not be our job, and it has consistently been a fools errand for us, particularly in this region. There is no reason to believe we can do it in Afghanistan, and certainly no reason to believe we can do it without a permanent, costly presence in the country.

So I strongly disagree with the administrations actions here. Ive spoken to the president, and I know he wants to end this war. Weve all heard him say it. But talk wont get it done. Although Ive been informed that the president rejected larger expansions of troops than the one announced this week, thats not good enough. He should have rejected this one and stuck to his principles. He knows this war is over, and he unlike the last two presidents should have the guts to end it for real, on his watch.

Regardless of the argument over the number of troops, I also will insist my colleagues take up a larger argument over the power to declare war. I believe we have allowed the executive to exercise far too much power in recent years.

This is one of the reasons I objected just before the recess when the Senate moved to consider the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). I have an amendment that I will insist be considered that would repeal the 2001 AUMF on Afghanistan. That AUMF is outdated, overcome by events, and provides a feeble bit of cover for people who still want to be there.

If the president and my colleagues want to continue the war in Afghanistan, then at the very least Congress should vote on it. Ill insist they do this fall, and Ill be leading the charge for no.

Paul is the junior senator from Kentucky.

The views expressed by this author are their own and are not the views of The Hill.

Continued here:
OPINION | Sen. Rand Paul: 16 years on, it's past time to bring our troops home from Afghanistan - The Hill (blog)

Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) is currently in the Maltese capital of Valetta, and has met with the President of the country, according to a report by Lovin Malta.

President Marie-Louise Coleiro Preca, of the center-left Labour Party, met with the Senator briefly earlier today. The President then shared some photos of her meeting with Sen. Paul on Twitter, including a photo of him signing the visitors book in the presidential residence.

It was truly a pleasure meeting Senator @RandPaul earlier today in Valletta pic.twitter.com/XyatkeLRyl

Marie-Louise Coleiro (@presidentMT) August 21, 2017

This is not Sen. Pauls first experience dealing with the Maltese. In May, he spoke at a reception hosted by the Maltese Ambassador in Washington, D.C., where he expressed his support for greater cooperation between the two countries and announced his decision to visit later that year.

The trip is notable as Sen. Paul is known for taking relatively few foreign trips compared to other U.S. Senators. He rejects using taxpayer funding for his trips as a matter of principle, so all his trips so far have been privately funded.The last time he reportedly had political meetings during an overseas trip was when he met with then-President of Guatemala Otto Perez Molina during a philanthropic visit in August 2014,

Although Malta is a small island nation with a population of just 400,000, it is a member of the European Union, and has played an important role in the EUs ongoing migrant crisis. It is located in the Mediterranean Sea, between Italy and war-torn Libya, and thus the Maltese Navy has often intercepted or rescued Arab and African boat migrants who were attempting to reach the European mainland.

Malta is currently formally neutral, but was a close ally of the United States during the Cold War, hosting a U.S. military base in the 1950s. The country made news last year when a group of Gaddafi loyalists hijacked a Libyan airliner and landed it in Maltas international airport, and Malta continues to pay an important role in assisting the United States with intelligence on the Libyan conflict.

See the article here:
Rand Paul Conducts Diplomacy In Malta - The Liberty Conservative

The mission in Afghanistan has lost its purpose, and I think it is a terrible idea to send any more troops into that war,Paul said in a statement.

The press release also pointed out that Rand has previously proposed an amendment to the NDAA to repeal the 2001 and 2002 Authorizations for Use of Military Force (AUMF) forcing Congress to vote on any further military action in Afghanistan.

His amendment expresses the sense of Congress that the President cannot conduct ongoing U.S. military operations in Afghanistan without an AUMF from Congress authorizing such conduct, the release reads. He strongly believes that if the President and Congress want to continue the war in Afghanistan, then at the very least Congress should vote on it.

Trump iswidely expectedto add between 3,000 and 4,000 U.S. troops to the roughly 8,400 currently in situ. Any additional troops would expand a current train-and-advise mission to Afghan troops fighting the Taliban and expand a counterterrorism mission to defeat Al Qaeda, the Islamic States affiliate in Afghanistan, as well as other terrorist organizations.

In 2014, Barack Obamaannouncedplans to withdraw all U.S. troops by the time he left office in January 2017. However, he later reversed his decision after the Taliban made a comeback, leaving 8,400 troops in the country.

You can follow Ben Kewon Facebook, on Twitter at@ben_kew,oremail him at bkew@breitbart.com

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Rand Paul Opposes Troop Surge: 'Mission in Afghanistan Has Lost Its Purpose' - Breitbart News

Rand Paul: Obama may have spied on me, other lawmakers using NSA intercepts

WATCH | Sen. Rand Paul talks about allegations that President Obama spied on him

Sen. Rand Paul, the former Republican presidential candidate and vocal champion of civil liberties, has received allegations that the Obama administration sought intercepted intelligence from the National Security Agency on him and other members of Congress and has asked President Donald Trump to conduct a formal investigation, Circa has learned.

Paul quietly asked for the probe nearly a month ago in a letter to Trump that was obtained by Circa.

"An anonymous source recently alleged to me that my name, as well as the names of other Members of Congress, were unmasked, queried or both, in intelligence reports of intercepts during the prior administration," Paul wrote Trump in a letter dated April 10.

"In light of the revelations that the names of persons associated with the Trump campaign were unmasked, I

believe the allegations that myself and other elected members of the legislative branch may have also been unmasked or caught in intelligence gathering warrants investigation."

The emergence of the letter, which also was copied to White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus and senior Trump adviser Steve Bannon, comes after Circa recently reported that members of Congress and their staffs have been unmasked in NSA intelligence reports as frequently as once a month since President Obama loosened privacy protections back in 2011.

Read Sen. Paul's letter to Donald Trump

Sen. Rand Paul tweets about the unmasking allegations.

Paul's letter offered no further detail on the source of the allegations of any specific incident or intercepts.

A source in the intelligence community told Circa on Friday that they were unaware of any unmaskings of NSA intercepts that occurred in 2016 when Paul was running for president that would have required a notification to Congress. The source did not know about prior years.

Usually if the intelligence community reveals the identity of a lawmaker in an NSA intercept, Congress gets what is known as a Gates notification.

Paul has been a critic of the government use of NSA intercepts to spy on Americans and championed other civil liberty causes, most famously conducting a 13-hour filllibuster in 2013 on the Senate floor to raise concerns that U.S. millitary could use drones to strike U.S. citizens on U.S. soil.

Rand Paul: Obama may have spied on me, other lawmakers using NSA intercepts

WATCH| News organization requests Trump declassify data on NSA unmasking of Americans.

Rand Paul: Obama may have spied on me, other lawmakers using NSA intercepts

WATCH | Republicans lawmakers say they are angry, but not surprised by a new report which shows U.S. intelligence included unredacted names of U.S. citizens in thousands of intelligence documents last year.

See the article here:
Rand Paul: Obama may have spied on me, other lawmakers using ...