Rand Paul

Upon news that Republicans altered emails from government officials to make it appear that the State Department was engaged in a cover-up of the attack in Benghazi, Sen. Rand Paul attempted to revive the non-scandal in his column for the Washington Times.

Paul writes that “[Gregory] Hicks testified that he spoke with Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on the night of the attack and that a special-forces unit was stopped from deploying.”

I think Mr. Obama has failed that test of power. From the cover-up in Benghazi to letting the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) target the Tea Party to First and Fourth Amendment violations in obtaining records from the press, Mr. Obama has shown disregard for the Bill of Rights and his responsibilities as commander in chief.

The handling of the tragedy in Benghazi continues to raise more questions than it produces answers. The White House’s original story, that no one was told to “stand down” on the night of the attack, was contradicted last week by Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens‘ deputy, Gregory Hicks. Mr. Hicks testified that he spoke with Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on the night of the attack and that a special-forces unit was stopped from deploying.

But Hicks actually testified that the order came from Special Operations Command Africa, not the State Department or anyone in the Obama administration, and that the security team in question was not organized to intervene in the attack but to secure the airport for evacuation.

PolitiFact explains:

But Hicks’ testimony and a State Department review board report show it was clear the “people that were getting killed” were already dead when the security team was ready to go.

…

“We determined that we needed to send a second team from Tripoli to secure the airport for the withdrawal of our personnel from Benghazi after the mortar attack,” he said.

…

During Hicks’ testimony last week, Rep. Robin Kelly, D-Ill., read from a Defense Department press release explaining the security team was directed to stay in Tripoli because those in Benghazi “had shifted to evacuation.”

"We continue to believe that there was nothing this group could have done had they arrived in Benghazi, and they performed superbly in Tripoli," she read. "In fact, when the first aircraft arrived back in Tripoli, these four played a key role in receiving, treating and moving the wounded."

…

But it’s clear from Hicks’ testimony that four Americans "getting killed" in Benghazi were already dead when the decision was made to keep the special forces team in Tripoli. The mortar attack was over. A Defense Department drone watched overhead in Benghazi as Libyan militia members helped Americans get to the airport.

• Glenn Beck continues his efforts to expose the "disinformation campaign" surrounding the Boston Marathon bombing cover-up.
• Who is running Mark Sanford's campaign and thought that this was a good way of handling his trespassing story?
• CNN is bringing back "Crossfire" and is apparently considering Newt Gingrich for one of the slots. Sounds like a hit.
• Trinity Broadcasting Network claims that it is responsible for 36 million conversions to Christ in the past 40 years.
• Bryan Fischer seems to have caught the attention of the Anti-Defamation League but won't be issuing any sort of apology.
• Finally, after leading a filibuster in protest over the possible use of drones on US soil, Sen. Rand Paul now says that he would have supported the use of drones in the search for the Boston Marathon bombers.

• Sofia Resnick @ The American Independent: University of Texas professor behind controversial study wades further into gay-marriage debate.
• Adam Serwer @ Mother Jones: At Howard University, Rand Paul Falsely Claims He Never Opposed the 1964 Civil Rights Act.
• Andrew Kirell @ Mediaite: Beck Disregards Small Sample Size, Takes Basketball Shots To Prove He’s ‘Three Times As Good As President’.
• Warren Throckmorton: After getting history wrong, David Barton claims he was misunderstood about the destruction of Indians.
• Andrew Kaczynski @ BuzzFeed: Republican Congressman Cites Biblical Great Flood To Say Climate Change Isn't Man-Made.

PFAW’s recent Right Wing Watch in Focus report on opposition to more effective regulation of guns noted that promoting conspiracy theories is a primary strategy used by extremists to block common sense policies.  New evidence comes in the form of a recent email from Sen. Rand Paul raising money for the National Association for Gun Rights, a group that is so far out there it thinks the National Rifle Association has gone soft.

Rand Paul’s letter uses inflammatory rhetoric to push the conspiracy theory that registration of guns and requiring background checks for gun purposes – which is supported by an overwhelming majority of Americans, including gun owners – is just a prelude to “confiscation” by the “gun-grabbers.”

And make no mistake, the gun-grabbers’ TRUE motives behind gun registration is always the same -- outright gun CONFISCATION, and to do that they must first register every gun and gun owner.

Another letter Paul signed for the group argues that President Obama is working to empower United Nations bureaucrats to confiscate Americans’ guns:

I don't know about you, but watching anti-American globalists plot against our Constitution makes me sick.

PFAW’s report on opposition to addressing gun violence notes that there are real consequences to the promotion of conspiracy theories by elected officials:

It is also true that the failure to challenge extremist and dishonest rhetoric can lead to damaging consequences for our common public life.  The promotion of false conspiracy theories, the claims by public figures that their political opponents are out to destroy freedom and America itself, and the false equation of sensible, broadly supported laws with the elimination of the rights of hunters and other gun owners, can foster a dangerous extremism, including threats of violence.

One of Rand Paul’s letters refers to Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s bill restricting ownership of assault weapons as “the effective END of the Second Amendment in America.”

I can hardly even think about what a DISASTER for our country it would be should President Obama, Senator Feinstein and their anti-gun pals succeed in ramming this monstrosity down our throats.

An earlier alert from the National Association for Gun Rights was labeled: “Obama declares war.”

Why is Rand Paul raising money for these guys?

Speaking to End Times radio broadcaster Jan Markell, WorldNetDaily editor and birther leader Joseph Farah described his recent tour of Israel with Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), which was organized by the American Family Association and included a number of Religious Right activists.

Farah described a cozy relationship with Paul, whose staff he says reached out to him to come on the trip. But Farah did not have kind words for the senator’s father, former congressman and presidential candidate Ron Paul, whom he claimed is not a real Christian.

“Ron Paul is hardly a friend to Israel and I don’t think that he is a Christian,” Farah said. “I don’t think he has a Christian worldview.”

Farah said that unlike his father, Rand Paul “understands the threat that the Muslim world holds not only against Israel but against us.” He added that he and the senator prayed together at the Western Wall and that the senator had a “spiritual journey” while in Israel.

I had the privilege of traveling to Israel with Rand Paul and spending a lot of time with him there. I was asked to go on the tour; his staff asked me to come on the tour because I think they wanted to hear the Israel point of view from an Arab-American journalist as opposed to just Benjamin Netanyahu and other Israeli leaders and so forth and so I was able to do that. I also was very impressed with the fact that Rand Paul is not his father; I want to say that unequivocally.

I had many, many problems with Ron Paul. I do believe that Ron Paul is hardly a friend to Israel and I don’t think that he is a Christian; I don’t think he has a Christian worldview. Now, I admire Ron Paul’s economic policies, there were many things that he did throughout his career that I think were terrific. Rand Paul to me, I’m not endorsing him, I’m just telling you what I know and what I got to know from personal experience with him, is a believer. He went to Israel and he had a spiritual journey there that was very, very meaningful to him. I got to pray with him at the Western Wall. We went to visit all of the holy sites in Israel. It was with his wife and younger children, it was a moving experience for them, an unforgettable, life-changing kind of experience.

I got to grill him pretty intensively. I can sincerely say that I believe he thinks Israel is at least one of our best friends in the world if not our best friend. That’s a big, big difference from his father. He understands the threat that the Muslim world holds not only against Israel but against us. That’s a big difference from what his father said and understood.

And in case we had forgotten what a fervent conspiracy theorist Farah is, earlier in the show he told Markell that the country may soon become a dictatorship.

Markell: Do you think America is headed for a dictatorship? If so, what do you tell Christians who are watching their country morph into something unrecognizable?

Farah: I do believe we’re headed in that direction. Do I believe it’s irreversible? Absolutely not. I cling to 2 Chronicles 7:14; I cling to the idea that there can be a real revival in this country; I cling to the idea that Christians are going to awaken to what’s going on around them; and I cling to the idea that the Holy Spirit can move at any time and help us save ourselves from that terrible outcome. However, there’s no question that we’re moving closer and closer to tyranny, police state kinds of conditions. We’re seeing evidence all the time, the gun confiscation mania is just one of many examples.

Sen. Rand Paul’s chief of staff Doug Stafford appears to be scrambling to explain the Senator’s recent comments during a CNN interview where he said there would be “thousands of exceptions” to his “Life at Conception Act,” a federal personhood bill that would ban all abortion by granting legal status to embryos. He added that “each individual case would have to be addressed” and that there will “be a lot of complicated things the law may not ultimately be able to address in the early stages of pregnancy that would have to be part of what occurs between the physician and the woman and the family.”

Understandably, many people interpreted his comments to mean that the government shouldn’t be intruding on the medical decisions that are unique to each woman, or the opposite of what his sweeping anti-choice law would do.

But in an interview with LifeSiteNews, Stafford stressed that Paul’s mention of “thousands of exceptions” only “meant that a singular exception to save the life of the mother would likely cover thousands of individual cases.”

So the “thousands of exceptions” was only really one exception.

And when Paul said that women, their doctord and their families would be free from government interference during the early stage of the pregnancy, Stafford said that Paul was only referring to emergency contraception that prevents fertilization.

Emergency contraception, of course, only works up to 120 hours after sexual intercourse.

Stafford noted that such methods won’t be covered by the law because “it is not practically possible to legislate things like the morning after pill or other emergency contraception,” while stressing that Paul still seeks to ban RU-486.

Some pro-life activists were left scratching their heads after a recent interview Senator Rand Paul did on Wolf Blitzer’s CNN show “The Situation Room,” in which the senator seemed to say he supported “thousands of exceptions” to his general belief that abortion should be illegal. But Paul spokesman Doug Stafford told LifeSiteNews.com in an interview on Wednesday that the senator’s remarks were misunderstood, reiterating that Paul is staunchly pro-life.

…

After the interview, the Atlantic Wire ran a story with the headline “Rand Paul Isn’t 100% Pro-life Anymore,” arguing that the language Paul used in his answer sounded remarkably similar to pro-choice rhetoric claiming abortion should always be a private matter between a woman and her doctor.

But Paul’s chief of staff, Doug Stafford, said the Atlantic got it wrong.

Paul “was speaking medically,” Stafford said.

By “thousands of exceptions,” Stafford told LifeSiteNews.com, Paul meant that a singular exception to save the life of the mother would likely cover thousands of individual cases – for example, ectopic pregnancies or others that directly threaten the mother’s life.

The senator is not in favor of the more nebulous “health of the mother” exception that pro-life advocates argue can be applied to any woman facing an unwanted pregnancy.

But what about Paul’s statement that the Life at Conception Act may not be able to address early abortions? That, too, was a misunderstanding, according to Stafford. He said the senator was talking about things like emergency contraception pills, which may cause very early abortions, but since they contain the exact same drugs used in standard birth control pills, the senator believes they will be nearly impossible to ban.

Senator Paul “has always said it is not practically possible to legislate things like the morning after pill or other emergency contraception,” Stafford said. “It simply isn't possible to do so. The law will likely never be able to reach that.”

“You can legislate abortifacients like RU-486, and he would,” he said. “But you can’t legislatively ban artificial estrogen and progesterone.”

It is no secret that Glenn Beck fancies himself as some sort of historical soothsayer capable of seeing parallels between the past and what is happening today in order to make predictions about the future.  

On last night's program, Beck proclaimed that Sen. Rand Paul's filibuster last week the modern day equivalent of Sen. Charles Sumner's 1856 "Crime against Kansas" speech, which resulted in him nearly being beaten to death on the Senate floor. Likening the criticism Paul received from Senators like Lindsey Graham and John McCain to the savage beating Sumner received, Beck went on to declare that just as the Republican Party went from nonexistence in 1854 to capturing control of Congress and the White House by 1860, Paul's filibuster would one day be seen by future historians as a watershed moment and predicting that they "will look back in a hundred years and say 'this speech ignited a global freedom movement'" that eventually won the White House.

"You were here to hear the heartbeat when the Tea Party started," Beck declared. "And last week, you witnessed the birth":

• Steve Benen @ Maddow Blog: Sen. Rand ‘I don’t have any proof’ Paul. 

• Kate Sheppard @ Mother Jones: Anti-Abortion Group to Lawmakers: Please, Let’s Talk About Rape! 

• Eric Dolan @ Raw Story: Father of Newtown victim heckled by gun advocates at legislative hearing.

• Ilya Gerner @ Indecision Forever: Tennessee May Starve Children Until Their Grades Improve.

• Ed Kilgore @ Washington Monthly: The Purge. 

• Katie McDonough @ Salon: Gay marriage opponents use “Knocked Up” defense in Supreme Court case. 

• Zack Ford @ Think Progress: Inside Ex-Gay Therapy: Homosexual Behavior Is A Fantasy Addiction To A Wounded Gender Identity. 

• Jeremy Hooper @ Good As You: Birds of a feather Barber & Fischer show Boy Scouts what extremism looks like.

• Dan Quinn @ Texas Freedom Network: Texas Public School Bible Courses: Christian Nationalism and Phony Quotations.

While speaking to Iowa-based conservative radio host Steve Deace, Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) said that President Obama’s inauguration speech reminded him of Hugo Chavez. The potential presidential candidate claimed that unlike Obama, he would have included “reverence for the Constitution [and] reverence for our Creator” in his inaugural address, noting that while Obama “didn’t actually literally refer to Chavez” he “referred to a lot of liberal policies.”

Deace: If that was you up on that podium taking the oath of office, what would your inaugural address sound like and how would it contrast or differ from what the President had to say yesterday?

Paul: Well instead of Hugo Chavez you might hear references to Madison and Jefferson. I know he didn’t actually literally refer to Chavez but he referred to a lot of liberal policies. If it were me on that stage what you would hear is reference and reverence for the Constitution, reverence for our Creator and that all of our liberty comes and is endowed by our Creator and reverence for the rule of law. I think what you’d find is that I would talk about how this country can grow again and how we can prosper if we get back to and believe in the fundamentals upon which our country was founded.

Maybe Paul missed Obama’s speech or is simply dishonest, as the very beginning of Obama’s speech includes references to the Constitution, the Creator and the rule of law:

Each time we gather to inaugurate a president, we bear witness to the enduring strength of our Constitution. We affirm the promise of our democracy. We recall that what binds this nation together is not the colors of our skin or the tenets of our faith or the origins of our names. What makes us exceptional – what makes us American – is our allegiance to an idea, articulated in a declaration made more than two centuries ago:

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.”

Today we continue a never-ending journey, to bridge the meaning of those words with the realities of our time. For history tells us that while these truths may be self-evident, they have never been self-executing; that while freedom is a gift from God, it must be secured by His people here on Earth. The patriots of 1776 did not fight to replace the tyranny of a king with the privileges of a few or the rule of a mob. They gave to us a Republic, a government of, and by, and for the people, entrusting each generation to keep safe our founding creed.