Sen. Rand Paul Appears on Fox #39;s On the Record with Greta Van Susteren - May 13, 2014
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Sen. Rand Paul Appears on Fox's On the Record with Greta Van Susteren - May 13, 2014 - Video
Rand Paul Crawls Back to Republican Base on Voter ID
Surprise, surprise. Rand Paul reverses his position on voting rights to appeal to the GOP base... This clip from the Majority Report, live M-F at 12 noon EST and via daily podcast at http://Majori...
By: Sam Seder
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Rand Paul Crawls Back to Republican Base on Voter ID - Video
Washington (CNN) - Rand Paul has set the stage for an encore.
Fourteen months after the Republican firebrand from Kentucky railed against President Barack Obama administration's unwillingness to rule out using drones on American soil - and the lack of judicial justification for such hypothetical attacks - Paul vowed on Thursday to deliver a repeat performance.
This time its over the Presidents nominee for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit.
"I shall not only oppose the nomination of David Barron," Paul said in a statement, "but will filibuster."
Barron, a Harvard law professor and a former acting assistant attorney general for the Obama administration, authored at least two controversial classified opinions justifying the potential use of a drone strike against American citizens - an effective death sentence - without a trial.
After pressure from several voices in the Senate, including Paul's, the White House agreed to show some of Barron's work to senators.
While acknowledging he could not reveal the contents of the memo, Paul said the documents contained "no valid legal precedent to justify the killing of an American citizen not engaged in combat."
Or, more simply, Paul said, "I am not satisfied."
While the Fifth Amendment forbids the premeditated killing of an American outside of any battlefield, the administration and the Bush administration before it have attempted to extend the definition of what constitutes an immediate and unacceptable threat to United States citizens.
In a New York Times op-ed published Sunday, Paul argued for the White House to release redacted copies of the opinions to the public and harshly criticized the Oval Office for attempting to elevate one of their authors, Barron, "one level below the Supreme Court."
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Paul to filibuster Obama judicial nominee, author of drone memos
Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., speaks at the Freedom Summit in Manchester, N.H. (Photo by Darren...
Sen. Rand Paul threatened Monday to place a hold on three nominees to the Federal Reserve Board of Governors unless his bill to subject the Fed to an audit gets a vote in the Senate.
It's a replay of a maneuver the libertarian Republican and Fed critic attempted last year when current Fed Chairwoman Janet Yellen's nomination was under consideration.
In a letter to Majority Leader Harry Reid, Paul wrote that "there is no more appropriate time to provide Congress with additional oversight and scrutiny of the actions and decisions of the central banks" than during the Senate's consideration of the nominees, whom the Senate Banking Committee approved in late April. The candidates are Stanley Fischer, the former top Israeli central banker nominated to be the Fed's vice chairman, former Obama Treasury official Lael Brainard, and Jerome Powell, a current member of the board seeking a second term.
The Government Accountability Office already audits many of the Fed's functions. But Paul's bill, the Federal Reserve Transparency Act, would provide for an annual audit of all of the Fed's activities, including its emergency loans to banks through its discount window and its monetary policy deliberations.
Although Paul's previous attempt to use a hold on Yellen's candidacy to gain a vote on the bill was unsuccessful, it did garner publicity and support for the measure, which polls favorably and was a long-time goal of his father, the libertarian Texas congressman and author of the book End the Fed, Ron Paul.
Rand Paul's latest effort comes as the Federal Reserve Board is severely understaffed. Setting aside Powell, whose term has expired, there are just three members of the seven-member board left, and one, Jeremy Stein, is set to return to his academic post at Harvard at the end of the month.
Following Reid's decision in November to eliminate the filibuster for executive nominees, however, Paul's ability prevent a vote on the Fed candidates is limited.
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Rand Paul threatens to hold Federal Reserve nominees unless his Fed audit gets a vote
Isolationist Message and Unpopular Father Limit Appeal
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Published May 13, 2014.
(JTA) Can Rand Paul woo his partys Jews?
The Kentucky senator and likely candidate for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination is stepping up his Jewish outreach. In recent weeks, Paul chatted with rabbis on a conference call and proposed legislation to cut funding to the Palestinian Authority unless it recognizes Israel as a Jewish state.
Making inroads with Jewish Republicans is an uphill battle for Paul, an ardent anti-interventionist and opponent of foreign aid. A few years ago, Jewish Republicans were sounding alarms over Pauls foreign policy views, which they saw as inimical to the U.S.-Israel alliance.
Now, however, some are sounding a more conciliatory note.
The Republican Jewish Coalitions executive director, Matthew Brooks, told JTA that Paul has evolved.
He started off wanting to cut all foreign aid. Now he sees it as a long-term strategy. He wants to start scaling back to countries burning flags in their streets, said Brooks, referencing Pauls calls to cut aid to countries that are hostile to the United States.
Its a major shift from 2010 when Paul was running for Senate. At the time Brooks had called Paul a neo-isolationist who was outside the comfort level of a lot of people in the Jewish community.
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Rand Paul Hones Pro-Israel Pitch, But Finds Jewish Leaders Wary