Sen. Rand Paul, a fierce critic of the National Security Agency's domestic surveillance programs, will oppose the NSA reform bill in the Senate in large part because it includes an extension of the Patriot Act, a senior Paul aide said Friday.
Known as the USA Freedom Act and proposed by Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vermont, the bill bans bulk collection of Americans' phone records by placing narrower limitations on government searches.

The legislation also extends the Patriot Act's sunset from June 2015 to December 2017.
The Senate will vote probably next Tuesday whether to take up and begin debate on the bill. It's unclear if they'll have the votes to move forward, but with Paul's opposition, it will make it that much tougher to clear that procedural hurdle.
Paul "strongly favors reforming the NSA" and while he may have been expected to support the current bill, a senior aide said the Kentucky Republican won't back the legislation.

"Due to significant problems with the bill, at this point he will oppose the Leahy bill," the aide told CNN. The aide pointed out the extension of the Patriot Act as a key issue, but declined to name other "significant problems."
Obama, Congress working on changes to NSA

The aide said that if the Patriot Act provision were dropped from the bill and if some of the reforms were strengthened, Paul would be more likely to support it.

The bill's Republican sponsors include Republican Sen. Mike Lee of Utah, Ted Cruz of Texas, and Dean Heller of Nevada. Democratic sponsors include Sen. Ed Markey of Massachusetts, Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut and Dick Durbin of Illinois, among others.

NSA reform efforts began in earnest after former contractor Edward Snowden revealed the scope of the agency's domestic spying program last year.

Paul earlier this year filed a lawsuit against the government over its phone metadata collection effort, but the lawsuit was eventually put on hold.

"President Rand Paul will keep you safer than the president who brought America into Iraq and Afghanistan, the same man who in 2000 argued against nation building and foreign military entanglements. He'll keep you safer than the president who just doubled America's military presence in Iraq, yet in 2011 promised, "The long war in Iraq will come to an end by the end of this year." Rand Paul will also keep you safer than Hillary Clinton, a centrist with a neoconservative advisor named Robert Kagan who is quoted in The New York Times as saying, "I feel comfortable with her on foreign policy." Rand Paul will also defend you against terrorism and other national security threats better than Ted Cruz, Mike Huckabee, Ben Carson and any of the other sycophants in American politics. Why? The answer lies in who doesn't want Senator Paul to be the next president of the United States.

Let's assume you've never heard of Rand Paul. The mere fact that John Yoo, author of Bush's Torture Memos, thinks Paul should not be president is reason enough to consider voting for the Kentucky Senator. Yoo, a man The Guardian has stated "continues to defend the indefensible" by claiming waterboarding and other enhanced interrogation methods are not torture, explains his viewpoint in a recent National Review piece titled, Why Rand Paul Is Wrong about the ISIS War Being Illegal -- and Shouldn't Be President:

We should never put someone in the Oval Office who thinks that the United States can only use force when it is actually attacked, as he argues. That is the mindset that led the United States to ignore events in Europe as they spiraled out of control 100 years ago and to withdraw from the continent in the interwar years, leaving it to fascists who ultimately drew the U.S. back into another destructive war...

...Congress enacted in 2001 an authorization to use force against any group connected to those who carried out the 9/11 attacks. If the Islamic State is linked to the al-Qaeda terrorist network, as it appears to be (though this depends on the facts), they fall within the AUMF.

In classic Bush era fashion, Yoo makes the link between 9/11 and Islamic State, an egregious leap of logic that would also warrant a military strike against Saudi Arabia. Yoo also ignores Paul's repeated statements like "Taking military action against ISIS is justified" only with Congressional approval."

President Rand Paul will keep you safer than the others because while the danger of terrorism will always exist in some manner, our values as a nation might not withstand the test of time with politicians paranoid over the next big threat. I've never voted for a Republican in my life, but I'm tired of terrorism causing us never-ending wars and political paranoia at home. If it's a choice between Hillary Clinton and Rand Paul (Elizabeth Warren would be a different story) in 2016, I'm jettisoning many of my liberal values to vote for the Kentucky Senator. I'm tired of fighting against a word that sends our soldiers into perpetual counterinsurgency wars and only Rand Paul seems to be addressing this sad political reality. At least I'll know that the next big threat America faces will be addressed by a president who consults Congress, engages in a national debate about military action, and puts long-term security above short-term political expediency.

In preparation for his all-but-announced 2016 presidential bid, Sen. Rand Paul, R-Kentucky, gathered staffers and political advisers from across the country for a meeting in Washington, D.C. on Wednesday.

The meeting, just eight days after midterm elections that saw Republicans seize the Senate majority and strengthen their grip on the House, was described as an opportunity for Paul and his advisers to pivot from the midterms to the next presidential cycle.

"As I understand it, this meeting is to both literally and symbolically change focus after the November election," one person who was invited told National Journal, "and begin to take deliberate action toward a potential 2016 run."

"This is the come-to-Jesus before the planned launch," added another adviser.

Doug Wead, a presidential historian and adviser to Paul who attended Wednesday's meeting, told CBS News the gathering was "mind-blowing" in its organization.

"Have been a part of nine presidential campaigns in one way or another, this is the best organized, most intelligent I have seen yet," he said. "This crew has a sense of making history, of impacting the system, of ending corruption. They are young, attractive, smart, tech savvy, black, white, male, female. This event is supposed to be working on organizing the upcoming work, but this event itself is a model of efficiency."

The gathering of talent was perhaps the most obvious sign yet that Paul is on the cusp of announcing a presidential bid, but the Kentucky senator hasn't exactly made a secret of his ambition.

He kept a busy schedule during the 2014 midterms, helping Republicans up and down ballot in an attempt to build relationships--and earn favors--before the 2016 race begins in earnest. He's hired key staffers in early caucus and primary states like Iowa and New Hampshire. And he's made an effort to build credibility among the Republican establishment, which has occasionally looked askance at his quick rise in the party.

That skepticism can be blamed, at least in part, on Paul's father, former Texas congressman and three-time presidential candidate Ron Paul, a hero among conservative libertarians due to his opposition to foreign military intervention and his push to audit the Federal Reserve. The elder Paul, according to the Wall Street Journal, was not expected to attend Wednesday's strategy session.

Ron Paul's presidential campaigns were powered by a devoted core of disciples who were never quite able to turn their candidate into a genuine contender. Rand Paul has been steadily working at avoiding his father's more marginal appeal by hewing closer to the party's center on foreign policy and economic issues.

There are signs that his courtship of the old guard is paying off. Sen. Mitch McConnell, Paul's colleague from Kentucky and the leader of the Senate GOP, is about as establishment as a Republican can get. McConnell has said Paul can count on his support if he runs in 2016.

What coin and what loses?

It means that he is just trying to get public on his side, as he has always done in the past by saying one thing and doing the exact opposite. Americans lost many privileges in this decade and never objected, I hope they will stand up at least for the Internet.

Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul has made key decisions about how to launch his presidential campaign for the 2016 Republican nomination, including a plan to headquarter his effort in Louisville and opting to run for re-election to the Senate at the same time he moves forward with the national race.

Coming off a midterm campaign blitz in 35 states, Paul has summoned a few dozen advisers – a mix of veterans of his father Ron Paul’s insurgent campaigns and more mainstream GOP leaders — for a closed-door summit at a Washington hotel on Wednesday to discuss his future plans.
...

Paul, who will face a much more crowded field on the Republican side but starts out as a slight front-runner in public polls, has begun an aggressive early campaign against Clinton. ... “And also, she didn’t think through the unintended consequences of getting involved in the Libyan war. So I think you’d have an interesting dynamic, were there's a [Republican] nominee that was for less intervention overseas and in the Middle East and that’s fiscally conservative. You’ve never seen that kind of combination before, and I think there’s a lot of independent voters, actually, that might be attracted to that kind of message.”
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[H]is advisers have already laid out a timetable: They expect the campaign will be a “go” by mid-April, with an announcement as quickly after that as his staff can put together a fly-around to the early states.

Before zeroing in on Louisville as Paul’s likely campaign headquarters, advisers reached out to veterans of 2012 Republican nominee Mitt Romney’s campaign to consult on the advisability and specific requirements of running a national campaign from outside Washington, deciding the symbolic importance of basing the campaign in his home state outweighed any concerns about easy access for Washington-based staffers and political operatives from across the country.
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Kentucky has a law preventing a candidate from running for more than one office at a time, but Paul advisers believe they have found multiple ways around the restriction without changing the law or challenging it in court, including exploring changing the state’s GOP primary to a caucus.
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[H]e’s already built what top GOP operatives consider by far the most extensive operation of any of the party’s presidential hopefuls...

Paul was endorsed for president last week by incoming Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell...

Headed into the presidential campaign, leading Paul advisers include Jesse Benton, a longtime Paul family operative, who lives in Louisville; Doug Stafford, who is considered Paul’s chief strategist and leading planner of his presidential campaign; Nate Morris, an entrepreneur who recently was named to Fortune’s “40 Under 40” list and has been a Paul door-opener in Silicon Valley and beyond; and Doug Wead, who has been helping with outreach to evangelicals. His media consultant is Rex Elsass, CEO of the Ohio-based The Strategy Group for Media.

In the states with early presidential primaries and caucuses, the team includes: John Yob, a Michigan consultant and former John McCain operative who is RAND PAC’s national political director; in New Hampshire, Mike Biundo, who managed Rick Santorum’s 2012 presidential campaign; and in Iowa, Steve Grubbs and A.J. Spiker, both former chairs of the state Republican Party.

His top outside foreign-policy advisers are Lorne Craner, a former assistant secretary of state for President George W. Bush; and Elise Jordan, a former speechwriter for Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

Sergio Gor, who heads Paul’s communications team, is a social-media guru...

Scott Reed, who ran Bob Dole’s presidential campaign in 1996 and now is the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s senior political strategist, said: “In any two-week period of this last six months, Rand Paul did more smart things to grow the party than everyone else combined. Going to Berkeley and barrios and ghettos – he’s not afraid to go where no one else wants to go.”

The president is subverting the Constitution—and America’s latest undeclared war in the Middle East is just the latest example.
For a generation, Democrats stood up against Republican presidents who they deemed to be too eager to go to war—or too ready to put troops in harm’s way without the full consent of the American people through their elected representatives in Congress.

Where have those Democratic protectors of the constitutional authority of Congress gone? Was it always just a partisan attack on Republican presidents?

If not, when will Democrats—who so vociferously opposed a Republican president’s extraconstitutional war-making powers—stand up and oppose President Obama’s unconstitutional usurpation of war-making powers?

Yale Professor Bruce Ackerman puts it succinctly: “The war against the Islamic State is now illegal. The War Powers Resolution of 1973 gave President Obama 60 days to gain consent from Congress and required him to end ‘hostilities’ within 30 days if he failed to do so. This 90-day clock expired this week.” And yet, there’s been no consent, and no end to the fighting.

I believe the president must come to Congress to begin a war. I also believe the War Powers Act is misunderstood; President Obama acted without true constitutional authority even before the 90 days expired, since we were not under attack at that time.

But in either case, this war is now illegal. It must be declared and made valid, or it must be ended.

Halving helps because it causes a decrease in supply, which promotes increases in price, which leads to media attention and even more speculative buying and price increases. A new wave of users is tempted to buy because of "fear of missing out."

McConnell also is intrigued by Paul's plans for 2016, when Kentucky's junior senator faces re-election to his Senate seat while potentially running for president.

It's a safe bet that Paul won't be the only member of McConnell's GOP caucus who considers trying for a move to the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue.

Does that require a tricky balance?

"(It's) not tricky at all," McConnell said. "Obviously, I'm a big supporter of Rand Paul. We've developed a very tight relationship, and I'm for him."

For president?

"Whatever he decides to do," McConnell said. "I don't think he's made a final decision on that. But he'll be able to count on me."

McConnell acknowledged that Paul's position "is complicated," since Paul's re-election bid could suffer from the attacks that come with a presidential run, but he said he would reserve any advice he has for Paul for their private conversations.

Once the ETF starts trading it will likely be a huge positive for the price as it will allow for many more people to invest in bitcoin in a safer way then owning them outright (as you need to be somewhat tech savvy to be able to protect your bitcoin from theft)

Sen. Rand Paul, R-Kentucky, stopped by Detroit to boost the state's Republican candidates and tout his "freedom economic zones" proposal as a solution to the city's economic ills. Paul's proposal is consistent with Republican philosophy. It would reduce or eliminate federal taxes on residents and businesses located in Detroit and other distressed cities. It is a proposal that I made a decade ago and could hasten Detroit's return to being a dynamic urban community by decades.


The private sector builds and rebuilds cities, not the government. Look no further than the dramatic improvements resulting from private investments being made by Dan Gilbert in the city's downtown or the Ilitch organization and a host of small entrepreneurs in Midtown. The same is true in Detroit's neighborhoods where the private sector is made up of property owners and small businesses.


Paul's proposal addresses the city's major challenges of lifting the local economy through private investment without requiring any resources or tax dollars from the city. It is essentially a major federal grants program with no administrative costs that would dramatically increase Detroit's local tax revenues

...Consider a federal income tax credit of up to $500,000 for residents and $5 million for businesses. Residents would be drawn to the city for federal tax relief, increasing population and income levels and helping to stabilize struggling areas of the city. Businesses would be incentivized to expand or relocate to Detroit from all corners of the country, increasing the city's employment base and helping to alleviate an unemployment rate that is one of the highest in the nation.

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) has branded losing Democratic Senate candidates "Hillary's losers."

In a post on his Facebook page, Paul posts pictures of Clinton together with Rep. Bruce Braley (Iowa), Michelle Nunn, Alison Lundergan Grimes, and Sens. Kay Hagan (N.C.), Mark Udall (Colo.) and Mark Pryor (Ark.).

Over each photo is the tag #Hillaryslosers.

Clinton had campaigned across the country for Democratic Senate candidates, and Paul is arguing their losses are a referendum on Clinton, a possible 2016 presidential rival.

"Today, voters sent a message to President Obama and Hillary Clinton, rejecting their policies and many of their candidates," the post says.