Rand Paul Lambasts White House, Congress for Arming Syrian Rebels
Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., slammed the Obama administration and Congress Thursday for waging a "dishonest" war in Syria based on the 2001 AUMF. "Listen carefully: Your representatives are sending...
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Rand Paul Lambasts White House, Congress for Arming Syrian Rebels - Video
By Ashley Killough, CNN
updated 10:54 PM EDT, Fri September 19, 2014
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
Alexandria, Virginia (CNN) -- Sen. Rand Paul said this week that he would vote in favor of going to war with ISIS, but his father, former Rep. Ron Paul, made it clear Friday night that he sharply opposes further U.S. involvement in the Mideast region.
Speaking at a libertarian-leaning conference, Ron Paul slammed the "bipartisan support" among congressional lawmakers for "rubber-stamping what President Obama wants" in the fight against the militant group.
More broadly, he suggested that Senate Republicans aren't that different from their Democratic counterparts.
Some people think "if the Republicans take over the Senate this year, that will hamstring the president and everything's going to be OK," he said at the Liberty Political Action Conference in Alexandra, Virginia. "That's a joke."
"It wouldn't be OK because they all believe in the same thing, they believe in the federal reserve and they believe in the war. They believe in the spending and the intervention overseas," he said.
Obama's proposed plan includes expanded air strikes against ISIS and arming and training Syrian rebels who are also fighting off the threat.
Congress has not voted specifically to authorize air strikes against ISIS, but Rand Paul has said he would vote in favor of doing so.
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Ron Paul blasts lawmakers who support war with ISIS
Fewer than 50 days before an election that may give Republicans control of the Senate as well as the House, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) on Saturday skipped past those contests entirely to focus on one in which he may play a more central role the 2016 presidential race.
Paul, the featured speaker at the California Republican convention, made no mention of the partys national advantages this year. He blasted President Obama and potential Democratic nominee Hillary Rodham Clinton as insufficient present or future commanders-in-chief. He insisted that the GOP must dramatically expand its reach in order to win presidential contests a strategy that coincides with his pre-presidential efforts.
He accused Obama of confounding the Constitution when he expanded Obamacare, moved against overseas targets without specific congressional authorization, and announced plans since delayed to use executive action to change the nations immigration laws.
It is a terrible tragedy, it is a danger to us as a country, and we need to do everything we can to stop him from abusing our laws, Paul said. He said later, "We have a president who basically has created a lawless atmosphere in Washington.
Speaking about Clinton, he used her famous 2008 primary ad, which argued that she more than Obama would be the president capable of answering a phone call about a middle-of-the-night crisis:
I think she had a 3 a.m. moment. She didnt answer the phone, and I think it absolutely should preclude her from being [president], he said after detailing what he termed her failings leading up to the 2012 attack on the U.S. mission in Benghazi, Libya. (His final word was obscured by applause from the strongly anti-Clinton crowd.)
Those were the easy targets, however. Pauls more passionate appeal was one that he has forwarded across the country in such unlikely venues as UC Berkeley. Pauls argument that the party needs to expand from its older and white base, groups amply represented among the delegates was framed as one that could reverse the party's long record of thumpings in California and its national presidential losses.
When our party looks like America with earrings and without earrings, with ponytails and without ponytails, with tattoos and without tattoos when we look like the rest of America white, black, brown were going to win again, he told an audience gathered near LAX. Weve got to go out and weve got to broaden our party, and when we do, well be a national party again. We will win again.
Paul suggested a freshening of the GOP message he did not, he said, mean to suggest that the party dilute its principles and be more like Democrats in order to attract young voters and the Latino and African American voters who have spurned the party in California and elsewhere.
He specifically cited issues he has pressed for months, including the NSAs mining of data from cell phones, what he termed excessive sentences for drug use and expanding the ability of voters to cast ballots.
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Rand Paul blisters Obama and Clinton, calls for GOP diversity
Sen. Rand Paul said Friday that the United States intervention in the Middle East has made the Islamic State militant group stronger, and that he voted this week against arming Syrian rebels because he fears the weapons would end up in the hands of the terrorists.
I think for the last year or two, when weve been giving weapons to the Syrian rebels, weve actually allowed ISIS to grow stronger, Paul, using an acronym for the group, said in an interview after speaking on a school-choice panel in San Pedro.
The Kentucky Republican, who said that he will decide by spring whether to run for president in 2016, has come under repeated criticism for his foreign policy views from more hawkish members of his own party. While he opposes much U.S. involvement overseas, Paul has tried to distance himself from the isolationist views espoused by his father, the former Rep. Ron Paul, who also ran for president.
But in voting against arming the Syrian rebels, Paul was in the minority. The legislation was approved on a bipartisan vote byboth the Senate and theHouse this week, and was signed into law by President Obama on Friday.
In the interview, Paul attributed the rise of radical Islamists to the fall of secular dictators in the Middle East. He said he was weary of inserting the United States in that regions civil wars, but added that the nation must act against the Islamic State because of the threat that group poses to the West. He has not specified how he would do that.
I dont want our troops back in Iraq. Im willing to provide air support, intelligence, coordination and money and armaments and thats quite a bit, but the Iraqis need to step up and fight, he said. Our intervention has made ISIS stronger but now its such a problem that I do think we have to do something about it.
He spoke to The Times after participating in a panel about school choice at the Alliance Alice M. Baxter College-Ready High School in San Pedro. Paul favors local control and decision-making and is critical of educational testing and standards that come from the federal government.
Speaking with students, a parent, a teacher and a principal, Paul said improving education through innovative practices such as those seen in charter schools was a bipartisan issue.
There are a lot of good schools in our country, but then there are some not so good schools, he said. Education is the great equalizer.
Paul is in California on a two-day swing that includes a keynote speech on Saturday to a sold-out luncheon at the California Republican Party convention. The state party is at a historic low in terms of the percentage of registered voters, but Paul said he plans to tell Republican activists that they can improve the GOPs performance in California by expanding the party, notably among working-class and Latino voters.
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Rand Paul says U.S. intervention made Islamic State stronger
LOS ANGELES (AP) Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul urged California Republicans on Saturday to attract new voters by trying approaches that are typically associated with Democrats: pushing for expanded voting rights, reforming criminal drug sentences and talking to minorities.
Lets be the party that actually wants to extend the right to vote, Paul said in a lunchtime speech. Some people say, well these people are going to be Democrats, more of them are going to be Democrats. Lets be the party for voting rights, lets be the party for restoring more voting rights, then more people will come to our party.
Paul addressed about 400 delegates at the state party convention, being held at a hotel near the airport in Los Angeles. He said when the Republican Party looks like the rest of America it will win again nationally.
Paul has been pushing a libertarian approach to expand the GOPs base this year ahead of a possible 2016 presidential bid.
Most of his address Saturday covered familiar turf for Paul, such as connecting with millennial voters on civil liberties issues.
He did not touch on his vote this week against President Barack Obamas legislation authorizing the military to arm and train moderate Syrian rebels fighting Islamic State militants in the Middle East.
Hes already visited Democratic-leaning California several times this year, including headlining a technology conference aimed at linking tech savvy Silicon Valley, and its money, with libertarian ideals and closing the technology gap with Democrats, who were more technologically advanced in the 2012 presidential election than Republicans.
And he was criticized for meeting with students at the University of California, Berkeley, in April. Paul responded with an opinion piece telling Republicans that if they dont talk to new people theyll never find new voters.
Evolve, adapt or die. That is the fate of our current Republican Party. We must evolve as a party and find a way to attract millennials to the conservative movement or we will never succeed in realizing our ideals of individual freedom and freedom from government interference, he wrote.
Nowhere has the effort to attract a new generation of Republicans been more fraught than in left-leaning California, where the GOPs registration has slid to 28.5 percent just a few percentage points above the 21 percent of registered voters who are unaffiliated with any party.
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Rand Paul Urges California GOP To Try New Tactics