how is he all that special among other candidates if he's willing to sell out on his values

by Sam Stein
06/21/2014 8:00 am EDT

WASHINGTON -- The divisive role that Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) has played within the Republican Party on matters of foreign policy was amplified on Friday amid ongoing chaos in Iraq.

At a gathering of social conservatives in Washington, D.C., Paul’s call for more measured U.S. engagement -- if not outright restraint -- was criticized by fellow attendees, including a potential rival for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination.

In an interview with The Huffington Post outside the Faith and Freedom Conference, former Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.), a 2012 presidential candidate, offered a message “to the Rand Paul types” within his party.

“You can see what happens when America creates a vacuum,” Santorum said. “Other people fill it, and it is not to our security interests.”

Paul's remark that President Barack Obama wasn't to blame for the rise of Sunni militants in Iraq drew even more admonishment from the neoconservative wing of the party, which has begun openly fretting about the possibility that the Kentucky Republican could end up becoming the GOP standard-bearer.

Michael Goldfarb, founder of the unapologetically hawkish Free Beacon, distilled Paul’s message on foreign policy into a simple: “Don’t blame Obama.” After tweeting his disdain, he elaborated in an email to The Huffington Post.

The Republican National Committee has opened a pathway to the presidential nomination for Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul with a primary schedule that favors the potential libertarian-leaning tea party candidate.

The Daily Beast says that the committee’s format calling for Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, and Nevada to hold their primaries first gives Paul a "huge advantage" over rivals like former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and Texas Gov. Rick Perry.

Paul’s father, former Rep. Ron Paul, laid the groundwork for his son while campaigning over the years as a Libertarian to become president, and "those same ties" give Paul a vital head start in three of the early primary states.

"If the senator were to win or even put together a decent showing there, Republicans say he may have momentum that is impossible to slow," said the Beast’s David Freelander. "No Republican has won Iowa and New Hampshire and failed to win the nomination.

"Of course, no one can discuss the 2016 presidential race without massive caveats about handicapping a race at least six months before a single candidate has declared. But the champagne-popping in the Paulite corridors has not gone unnoticed."

Matt Mackowiak, a Texas-based Republican consultant and a veteran of George W. Bush’s re-election campaign, concurred, saying, "If Rand were to win two of those first three or three of those first four, he would be a train gathering a lot of steam."

Tonight the House voted to approve an amendment to a defense appropriation bill shutting down the part of National Security Agency (NSA) "backdoor searches" that collects metadata on Americans without a warrant. The bill was sponsored by Reps. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) and Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.). The Electronic Frontier Foundation explains:

Today, the US House of Representatives passed an amendment to the Defense Appropriations bill designed to cut funding for NSA backdoors. The amendment passed overwhelmingly with strong bipartisan support: 293 ayes, 123 nays, and 1 present.

Currently, the NSA collects emails, browsing and chat history under Section 702 of the FISA Amendments Act, and searches this information without a warrant for the communications of Americans—a practice known as "backdoor searches." The amendment would block the NSA from using any of its funding from this Defense Appropriations Bill to conduct such warrantless searches. In addition, the amendment would prohibit the NSA from using its budget to mandate or request that private companies and organizations add backdoors to the encryption standards that are meant to keep you safe on the web.

Colorado is amazing really. It is very surprising that the Feds are allowing states rights to go so far.

By Seth McLaughlin
Friday, June 20, 2014

Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky said Friday that some Republicans are too eager to use the nation’s military might abroad without thinking through the unintended consequences of those actions.

Mr. Paul said the GOP must rethink its approach to foreign policy because of the negative blow back against Christians worldwide, pointing out that after the United States helped prop up the Shiite-led government of Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki that 225,000 Iraqi Christians fled in fear and many of settled in Syria, which is now embroiled in a bloody civil war.

“[President] Reagan spoke often of peace through strength,” Mr. Paul said at the Faith and Freedom Coalition’s “Road to Majority” conference in Washington. “I fear that some in our nation and some in our party have forgotten the first part of the sentence — that peace should be our goal, even as we build our strength.”

“Some in our party have distorted this belief of peace through strength into a misguided belief that we should should protect strength through war,” Mr. Paul said. “Even when we have tried through good intentions to make the world a better place, our actions have often backfired.”

Good news for all weed smokers. 

Rand Paul And Cory Booker Team Up To Protect State Medical Marijuana Programs

http://dailycaller.com/2014/06/19/rand-paul-and-cory-booker-team-up-to-protect-state-medical-marijuana-programs/

Obama has made mistakes but so did Bush by invading. There's no good case for U.S. military intervention now.

By Rand Paul
June 19, 2014 7:12 p.m. ET

Though many claim the mantle of Ronald Reagan on foreign policy, too few look at how he really conducted it. The Iraq war is one of the best examples of where we went wrong because we ignored that.

In 1984, Reagan's Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger developed the following criteria for war, primarily to avoid another Vietnam. His speech, "The Uses of Military Power," boils down to this: The United States should not commit forces to combat unless the vital national interests of the U.S. or its allies are involved and only "with the clear intention of winning." U.S. combat troops should be committed only with "clearly defined political and military objectives" and with the capacity to accomplish those objectives and with a "reasonable assurance" of the support of U.S. public opinion and Congress and only "as a last resort."

Much of the rationale for going to war in 2003 did not measure up to the Weinberger Doctrine, and I opposed the Iraq war. I thought we needed to be more prudent about the weightiest decision a country can make. Like Reagan, I thought we should never be eager to go to war. And now, 11 years later, we are still dealing with the consequences.

...

Many of those clamoring for military action now are the same people who made every false assumption imaginable about the cost, challenge and purpose of the Iraq war. They have been so wrong for so long. Why should we listen to them again?

As the Islamic warriors of ISIS rolled down the road from Mosul... “We are now facing an existential threat to the security of the United States of America,” said McCain. But nothing that happens in Mesopotamia is going to threaten the existence of the United States. As for the terrorist threat from ISIS, for us it is neither greater nor less than it was a week ago.

The existential threat here is to Iraq. Its survival as one nation is now in question, with the possibility it could be torn apart in a civil and sectarian war. But this is preeminently Iraq’s problem, not ours. And if Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, his 900,000-man army, and Shia militia cannot defend Baghdad from a few thousand Islamist warriors, America is under no obligation to do it for them. Maliki told us to go home three years ago. We did. And before we plunge back into that misbegotten war, let us consider what the real threats are—to America.
...
...ISIS has as allies in the north and west of Iraq Sunnis who detest Maliki and wish to be rid of him. But these Sunni are not demanding a Taliban regime to abolish smoking and drinking. Nor are they fighting to cut off the heads of their Shia countrymen. If ISIS goes beyond the liberation of the Sunni triangle to trying to take over all of Iraq, they will lose many Sunni allies and find themselves facing Iraq’s Shia majority, backed up by Iranian forces, virtually alone.

But while the Iraqi army and Shia militia may well hold Baghdad, it is hard to see how Maliki can soon reconquer the Sunni provinces. For the Sunnis want no part of him or his regime. Nor does Maliki seem capable of taking back Kirkuk, which the Kurds seized in the chaos as a step toward independence. What should America do? Take a hard look at our entire Middle East policy.

So why was Morris on the trip? Kentucky is not exactly a rich state, but Morris had carved out a reputation as a man with a talent for shaking loose campaign cash. Back in 2004, he was, at 23, by all accounts the country's youngest bundler for George W. Bush, raising at least $50,000 and becoming a "Bush Maverick." His list of contacts had only grown in the years since. "People in politics know who raises money," Morris says. "That's not a secret." In short, Morris was just the kind of moneyman Paul needed if he was going to pursue his presidential ambitions.

Morris's coming-out party of sorts as a player in Paul's world took place this past January when he organized a fundraiser at the Atlanta home of Lane Moore, the executive chairman of Rubicon Global. Paul lingered for a long time as the crowd munched on a spread of tenderloin, shrimp, and salmon. Proceeds went to Paul's Senate reelection campaign—though, like all the money he's raising these days, it could eventually be transferred to a future presidential bid.

The event was timed to coincide with a Rubicon investors' conference, so Blunt, the former Missouri governor, was among the attendees. "Any potential presidential candidate would be fortunate to have somebody like Nate out there beating the bushes for him," Blunt told me. Jack Oliver, who says his "goal is to get Jeb Bush to run," was nonetheless on the host committee. In a matter of hours, Paul collected an estimated $150,000. "That," the senator told me, "was a big success."

maybe what eric cantor was aiming for was to open the GOP gates up to other ethnicities, but the far right neocons were against that.

Oh, Chef Chef Chef...  You find the best ones.  How do you do it?