ICYMI, here is Rand Paul’s official announcement that he is running for president – (which I think everyone already knew.)
The speech itself is getting mixed reviews with some folks saying that he “gave a great speech” – and others sayingthat he got merely a single “when he could have had extra bases or a home run.”
I think it was necessary for Paul to separate himself from the radical isolationism of his father – which he did in this portion of the speech:
In my Vision for America, Freedom and prosperity at home can only be achieved if we defend against enemies who are dead-set on attacking America.
The enemy is Radical Islam and not only will I name the enemy, I will do what ever it takes to defend America from these haters of mankind!
We need a National Defense robust enough to defend against all attack, modern enough to deter all enemies, and nimble enough to defend our vital interests.
But we also need a foreign policy that protects American interests and encourages stability — not chaos!
I envision an America with a National Defense unparalleled, undefeatable, and unencumbered by overseas nation building!
I envision a National Defense that promotes, as Reagan put it, ‘Peace through Strength.’
I believe in applying Ronald Reagan’s approach to foreign policy to the Iran issue. Successful negotiations with untrustworthy adversaries are only achieved from a position of strength.
We brought Iran to the table from strength, through sanctions I voted for.
Now we must stay strong. That’s why I co-sponsored legislation that insures that any deal between the US and Iran must be approved by Congress.
Not only is that good policy, it is the law.
I will oppose any deal that does not end Iran’s nuclear ambitions and have strong verification measures. I will insist that any final version be brought before Congress.
The difference between President Obama and myself-he seems to think you can negotiate from a position of weakness.
The feud pertains to McCain’s visit to Syria and support for the “moderate” Syrian rebels. Was he or was he not photographed with jihadists? Rand Paul believes he was. So do conservative reporters Matthew Boyle and Charles C. Johnson and the Lebanese Daily Star. Certain MSM “fact-checkers like the Washington Post’s Glenn Kessler say it’s bunk. As does John McCain obviously.
McCain Dismisses Rand Paul on Hannity: ‘Has He Ever Been to Syria?
Sen. Rand Paul Appears on Fox’s Hannity – September 17, 2014:
Bill O’Reilly John McCain on Rand Paul Feud & Arming Syrian Rebels:
Bill O’Reilly talked with John McCain on feud with Rand Paul. john mccain bill o’reilly also discussed isis, arming syrian rebels and the situation in ukraine.
The criticism of McCain centers around how the Arizona senator met with Syrian rebel leaders in May 2013 when he visited the country. McCain posed for photographs with those people, and since then rumors have sprouted up across the Internet that he met with ISIS or some other terrorist kidnappers or nefarious forces.
“The people in the pictures with Senator McCain in Syria included General Salim Idris, then-Chief of Staff of the Supreme Military Command of the Free Syrian Army (FSA), Mouaz Moustafa, the Executive Director of the DC-based Syrian Emergency Task Force (which supports the moderate opposition and helped arrange some of the trip), and fighters and commanders from the Northern Storm Brigade, a FSA-aligned group,” McCain’s spokesman Brian Rogers told Breitbart News.
Rogers said that the senator and his team aren’t naming the “fighters and commanders from the Northern Storm Brigade, a FSA-aligned group,” because “ISIS actually threatened to kill them all, and we don’t want to put their lives at risk.” Rogers provided Breitbart News with a link to the ISIS threat to those fighters.
O’Bagy wasn’t troubled by McCain’s desire to spend the night with a group formerly run by kidnappers. In the Beirut Daily Star, a former hostage held by the anti-regime Northern Storm Brigade identified one of the men in a photo with McCain as Mohammad Nour, the chief spokesman and photographer for the Northern Storm kidnappers. The former hostage told the paper he had seen Nour several times and been photographed by him during his captivity.
He’s launched airstrikes and is threatening ground troops but IT’S NOT WAR. He took a victory lap for Osama bin Laden but opposed the means that got his location. He’s broken every Progressive policy and gospel on the books, and he’s doing the same things for the same reasons his predecessor did, only he’s doing them late, doing them badly and blaming everyone else. In his latest Firewall Bill Whittle shows why Barack Obama is nothing more than Bush Lite.
NRO: Krauthammer’s Take: Obama’s Decision to Personally Approve Air Strikes Is ‘Scary Stuff’:
Megyn Kelly to Bill Ayers: Yes, My Eyes Are ‘Cold’ When I’m Staring at a ‘Serial Bomber’
PJ Media, Trifecta: Great Unraveling: Can the Threads of the American Tapestry Be Rewoven?
How will Terri Lynn Land put Michigan first?
By demanding trade deals that give Michigan industry a fair playing field to create jobs.
By securing our borders, to protect Michigan jobs.
And by keeping Michigan families’ tax dollars in Michigan to improve roads and infrastructure…
…instead of having them wasted in Washington.
Turn the page on the Washington politics and hypocrisy… with Terri Lynn Land’s plan to put Michigan first.
MO Torch: Ed Martin Says Turk Can Beat Cleaver Because 2014 is “Like 2010, But Better”
Ed Martin lays out why he supports Jacob Turk in Missouri’s 5th Congressional District.
Senator Rand Paul says 80% of the 7.1 million new ObamaCare enrollees are being subsidized by those who are working. (See Obamacare enrollment in three charts for confirmation of this. Also, numbers from a RAND Corporation studysuggest that barely 858,000 previously uninsured Americans – nowhere near 7.1 million – have actually paid for new policies.)
The Kentucky Senator said in his home state, “everyone is getting healthcare but it’s all free or subsidized.”
Appearing on the Record with Greta Van Susteren, Friday night, Paul said, “the bill is going to come due at some time, and one of the ways the bill becomes due is through rising premiums – I think people are going to pay more for their insurance.” Van Susteren noted that Blue Cross/Blue Shield is already warning that sticker shocks are coming.
Paul said that this is of course why Obama has moved back the next enrollment period to after the election.
Greta noted that at least in Kentucky, the sticker shock shouldn’t matter since most people are getting it free or subsidized.
Paul told her, “it’s even worse than that. 80% are getting Medicaid – completely free – the other 20% are getting subsidized. Almost no one in my state signed up to pay for insurance. Almost everyone signed up for free or subsidized insurance.”
He continued, “he governor of Kentucky is a big ally of Obama. He goes around saying it’s a $15,000 billion dollar stimulus for Kentucky….the money’s got to come from somewhere!”
Greta asked, “where is it coming from?”
“It’s coming from the taxpayer,” Paul answered. He later explained that it will probably not be through raised taxes but “we will either borrow or print the money.” He explained, “the repercussions are the same. Let’s say your goal is to to help poor people – you give them free health care. Sounds noble. But then, by printing up money to pay for it, you raise their prices at the pump, you raise the prices for their food, so as the currency loses its value they think, ‘oh I got something for free’, but then it turns out all their other stuff costs more, and in the end they say, ‘gosh, I’m still poor’ because big government doesn’t really help poor people.”
With a major Obamacare sign-up deadline past, Republicans are turning their attention to the “replace” half of their repeal and replace strategy, hoping to make up ground lost over the past four years as they seek to show voters that they have an alternative to the president’s health care overhaul.
Retired surgeon Ben Carson sat down with the House Republican health care caucus Thursday to hash out ideas. The doctor urged lawmakers to set some deadlines of their own for writing a plan.
“It doesn’t do any good to have a lot of good ideas but not to get behind one and really push it,” said Mr. Carson, who has been mentioned as a potential Republican presidential contender.
The first enrollment period for Obamacare has ended, and President Obama has claimed success with the sign-ups of 7.1 million Americans in the federal and state health insurance exchanges set up under the law.
Democrats say the final tally means millions now have coverage thanks to provisions that prohibit caps on spending and prevent companies from denying insurance for pre-existing health conditions. They argue that a repeal by Republicans would leave all of those Americans worse off.
Republicans were already under pressure to elucidate how their vision contrasts with that of the Democrats they hope to unseat in November’s midterm elections, and to offer a realistic alternative to Obamacare.
House Speaker John A. Boehner, Ohio Republican, said this week that the party is seeking consensus around an alternative plan.
Senator Rand Paul’s PAC announced today that he is suing the Obama administration over the NSA’s illegal surveillance of American citizens.
“The Constitution is not a disposable piece of parchment to be ignored and abused at the president’s whim,” he said in a video statement, earlier today. “Washington leaders are expected to obey, and protect what they took an oath to uphold. And if this means taking them to court over it – so be it. If the seizure and surveillance of Americans’ phone records across the board is now considered a legitimate security precaution, there’s literally no protection of any kind guaranteed to any American citizen. We cannot allow this administration to continue to treat the Constitution as a dead letter. I will continue to fight this overzealous government surveillance program, and I invite you to join me. Today’s the day we begin to fight back.”
Paul will file his lawsuit on Wednesday morning at the U.S. District Court in D.C., joined by former Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli and FreedomWorks president Matt Kibbe.
The class-action lawsuit will be filed against Obama, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, Director of the National Security Agency Keith Alexander and FBI Director James Comey.
The complaint? “I am filing a lawsuit against President Barack Obama because he has publicly refused to stop a clear and continuing violation of the 4th Amendment,” Paul said in a statement. “The Bill of Rights protects all citizens from general warrants. I expect this case to go all the way to the Supreme Court and I predict the American people will win.”
News organizations often disagree about what Americans need to know. MSNBC, for example, apparently believes that traffic in Fort Lee, N.J., is the crisis of our time. Fox News, on the other hand, chooses to cover the September 2012 attacks on the U.S. diplomatic compound in Benghazi more heavily than other networks. The American people, for their part, disagree about what they want to watch.But everyone should agree on this: The government has no place pressuring media organizations into covering certain stories.
Unfortunately, the Federal Communications Commission, where I am a commissioner, does not agree. Last May the FCC proposed an initiative to thrust the federal government into newsrooms across the country. With its “Multi-Market Study of Critical Information Needs,” or CIN, the agency plans to send researchers to grill reporters, editors and station owners about how they decide which stories to run. A field test in Columbia, S.C., is scheduled to begin this spring.
The purpose of the CIN, according to the FCC, is to ferret out information from television and radio broadcasters about “the process by which stories are selected” and how often stations cover “critical information needs,” along with “perceived station bias” and “perceived responsiveness to underserved populations.”
How does the FCC plan to dig up all that information? First, the agency selected eight categories of “critical information” such as the “environment” and “economic opportunities,” that it believes local newscasters should cover. It plans to ask station managers, news directors, journalists, television anchors and on-air reporters to tell the government about their “news philosophy” and how the station ensures that the community gets critical information.
I was wondering when they get to work on a new version of “the Fairness Doctrine”.
Ace:
I understand that leftists, of course, have the right to agitate politically for their preferred policies. I do not deny that.
But we are witnessing here the government — the government! — actively seeking to create a hostile and frightening legal environment for anyone who disagrees with the leftist cause.
They are basically putting people on notice that there is a “right” way to report the news, and a “wrong” way, and the right way will let you keep your broadcasting license, and the wrong way might just lose it for you.
Today, Breitbart Newsis providing exclusive coverage from the “Exempt America” rally on Capitol Hill for defunding Obamacare from from 10 AM EDT to 5 PM EDT,
Breitbart News Executive Chairman Stephen K. Bannon will co-host the broadcast with Breitbart News Managing Editor Alex Marlow and Breitbart’s Sonnie Johnson. Sens. Ted Cruz (R-TX), Mike Lee (R-UT), and Rand Paul (R-KY) will headline the event.
Here is Ted Cruz’s speech from earlier today: “ObamaCare is the #1 job killer in America”, he said. “This thing ain’t working.”
Mike Lee said outside the Washington DC beltway, Obamacare is not controversial – “it’s universally despised.”
Rand Paul asked the crowd if they wanted half of ObamaCare. The shouted “NO!!!”
“How about a quarter of it?”
“NO!!!”
“Then how about we defund the whole damn thing?!” he suggested.
On September 8, day 2 of the Freedomworks Blogger and Activist ObamaCare Summit in Washington DC, Matt Kibbe suggested that powerful special interests were at play on the pro-ObamaCare side, and perhaps some of the Republicans fighting the Defund effort are in bed with them, but Kibbe noted that the paradigm has changed – “we can beat these guys.”
But there’s an even more important cost: your health.
Obamacare will affect the quality of care in this country. It will limit the choices we have in doctors, hospitals, and treatments. People are already learning that their trusted doctors aren’t going to be available to them in the new insurance plans Obamacare is forcing them into.
Nice Deb 