Via Time,
Rand Paul returns to the national stage next week to reprise his most famous performance, filibustering a presidential nominee in a fight over the extrajudicial killing of American terrorists.
Paul announced Thursday evening that he would filibuster the nomination of Harvard professor David Barron, to serve on one of the nation’s most powerful courts, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, because Barron authored the legal justification for drone strikes against Americans as a Justice Department official in President Obama’s first term.
In a statement, the freshman Tea Party darling from Kentucky, said:
I’ve read David Barron’s memos concerning the legal justification for killing an American citizen overseas without a trial or legal representation, and I am not satisfied. While the President forbids me from discussing what is in the memos, I can tell you what is not in the memos.
There is no valid legal precedent to justify the killing of an American citizen not engaged in combat. In fact, one can surmise as much because the legal question at hand has never been adjudicated. Therefore, I shall not only oppose the nomination of David Barron, but will filibuster.
See? Right there. Second paragraph, first sentence. “There is no valid legal precedent to justify the killing of an American citizen not engaged in combat.”
I’m sure the Obama administration, which is currently mulling over whether or not to release the classified legal memos pertaining to the use of drones against American-born terrorists, would argue that an “American citizen” undeniably engaged in terrorism overseas constitutes a terrorist if there ever was.
The many faces of Dr. Paul are pretty much just two or three facial expressions: The Dumbfounded, The Smirky, and The Appalachian Man Who Doesn’t Take Kindly To Strangers– which may, or may not, have been the result of being kicked in the head by a mule at an early age. Ah, but he’s got the smile of a Wednesday Addams.
Rand Paul’s plan to filibuster is just another PR stunt to convince so-called liberals that he’s cool, man. He’s on your side, except for the whole, drown-the-U.S.-government-in-a-bathtub platform. For him, it isn’t about policy, it’s about “people’s perception,” or “better messaging.” Which is why when he talks about supporting “education,” he’s actually promoting segregated schools, or “School Choice,” and prayer circles in math class. And when he talks about restoring voting rights for minorities, he’s promoting Voter ID, or restoring the vote for ex-felons who, as everyone knows, can’t wait to get out of prison to cast their vote. It’s all part of his plan to build a national coalition of criminals. I’m all for restoring voting rights for ex-felons, but this is really scraping the bottom of the barrel for votes. And here I thought the Republican party wasn’t actively engaging in voter suppression? Huh.
Regardless, it’s all weak tea, and Rand Paul being quoted nibbling around the edges of policy is all the more laughable and transparent because his plans for the government as a whole could best be described as a massacre of the safety net and checks and balances.
His filibuster stunt can’t block the nomination of David Barron to U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, since Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid plucked the peacock’s feathers last year when he changed the Senate rules to “allow the majority to override a filibuster when debating the president’s nominations to a lower court.”
So, Sen. Rand Paul needs some Democrats to join him in his quest to take Breitbart.com all the way to the promised land, or die!!!
Choose wisely, because if you dare to disagree, you’re likely to labeled “a f***ing hawk and like a neocon.”