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National Review writer Charles C.W. Cooke explained his new book, The Conservatarian Manifesto, on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” on Wednesday, claiming that Senator Rand Paul (R., KY) perhaps best represents the “conservatarian” political point of view. Cooke said conservatarians feel “libertarian when around conservatives and conservative when around libertarians . . . They don’t like libertarians on defense, they don’t like libertarians on foreign policy, and they’re not sure about libertarians on abortion — abortion is the one so-called ’social issue’ that is still an outlier.” “But on drugs, on gay marriage, and on federalism, they’re disappointed with conservatism,” he continued....

With his outspoken views against foreign aid and a muscular foreign policy, Kentucky Republican Senator Rand Paul was less-than-enthused by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech on the Iranian nuclear threat.

Paul wins. Walker 2nd.

U.S. Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky won the Conservative Political Action Conference straw poll Saturday, his third victory in as many years. This year he carried 26 percent of the vote. U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz placed third, with 11.5 percent, while former Gov. Rick Perry came in eleventh, with 1.1 percent. Both Paul and Cruz openly campaigned at the event. Cruz volunteers distributed custom-made buttons that said "Cruz Crew." Perry had a smaller get-out-the-vote operation at the conference. The contest comes after three days of speeches from presidential contenders and noteworthy conservative activists. On Thursday, Cruz touted his battles within...

“The thing is is that the media, the liberal media, the people who call us flyover country America, know nothing about us,” Paul said. “They don’t represent us. They don’t have our values. And the thing is is that somehow Washington gets distracted into thinking this is what America is really about. Raise your hand if you’ve spent more than you bring in chronically for the last 10, 20 or 30 years.”

Senator Rand Paul is calling for a declaration of war against the Islamic State, a move that promises to shake up the debate over the military campaign in Iraq and Syria as President Obama prepares to ask Congress to grant him formal authority to use force. Mr. Paul, a likely presidential candidate who has emerged as one of the Republican Party’s most cautious voices on military intervention, offered a very circumscribed definition of war in his proposal, which he outlined in an interview on Saturday. He would, for instance, limit the duration of military action to one year and significantly...

Although he wasn’t among the two-dozen Republican leaders at Saturday’s Iowa Freedom Summit, Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul isn’t brushing off Iowa and its first-in-the-nation caucus status. Paul, 52, who is one of the top visitors to Iowa among the presumptive 2016 presidential pack, will do four events over two days in February. Here is Paul’s schedule, according to his political action committee, RandPAC, and his Iowa-based strategist, Steve Grubbs: Feb. 6 Event details: Liberty Iowa ‘Audit the Fed’ Rally beginning at 5:30 p.m. at Jasper Winery in Des Moines, 2400 George Flagg Parkway. This event is open to the press...

GRAND RAPIDS, MI — The action taken by a New York City police officer against Eric Garner is "clear," writes U.S. Rep. Justin Amash on Wednesday. Clearly excessive force against #EricGarner. I pray that peace and justice will prevail. The incident was captured on video, showing Garner talking with police as they suspected him of selling tax-free cigarettes. The 43-year-old man then is overcome by officers who take him down to the sidewalk. Garner cried out, "I can't breathe," several times before becoming motionless.

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. In a...

Sen. Rand Paul said President Barack Obama made “one important point ” in his remarks on Wednesday saying that the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant was neither Islamic nor a state, but questioned the constitutionality of the president’s strategy. “Ultimately, civilized Islam will have to step up. We need to do everything we can to protect ourselves, I’m all in for saying we have to combat ISIS,” Paul said Wednesday on “Hannity.” “So I think it is important not only for the American public but for the world and for the Islamic world to point out that this...

For starters, Rand is short for Randal, not an allusion to Ayn Rand, after whom Sen. Paul was not named by his libertarian (not Objectivist) father Ron Paul. Reportedly, growing up he was called Randy … until his wife shortened the diminutive to Rand.Washington, ordinarily, is committed to maintaining the status quo or making, at best, incremental changes. As we struggle with the political consequences of the end of an era of all-out war the old political status quo is ripe for transformation.Paul shows signs of being the key transformational figure. If he himself understands the depth of this proposition he...

Here performing eye surgeries on blind Guatemalans for several days in the rural town of Salama, Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) strongly criticized President Obama's immigration policy in a closed-door Wednesday meeting with Guatemalan President Otto Perez Molina. “I told him, frankly, that I didn’t think the problem was in Guatemala City but that the problem was in the White House in our country, and that the mess we’ve got at the border is frankly because of the White House’s policies,” Paul said in an interview. The meeting, he explained, was primarily about the humanitarian mission for which Paul—an ophthalmologist before...

The shooting of 18-year-old Michael Brown is an awful tragedy that continues to send shockwaves through the community of Ferguson, Missouri and across the nation. If I had been told to get out of the street as a teenager, there would have been a distinct possibility that I might have smarted off. But, I wouldn’t have expected to be shot. The outrage in Ferguson is understandable—though there is never an excuse for rioting or looting. There is a legitimate role for the police to keep the peace, but there should be a difference between a police response and a military...

Senator Rand Paul was spotted hobnobbing at a party in the Hamptons last weekend after he claimed he could not attend a high-profile conservative event he was listed as a sponsor of because he had a 'family commitment.' Paul told the Family Leader he had to skip the group's annual summit on Saturday because he had to attend an event in New York with his family. The presumed 2016 presidential candidate's absence at the influential Iowa gathering was called into question, however, after the New York Post reported that Paul and his wife, Kelley, attended the East Hampton Library fundraiser...

A libertarian, tea-party congressman just rolled to reelection in a congressional district that is home to some of the wealthiest people in the business wing of the Republican party. Representative Justin Amash (R., Mich.) was outspent by his opponent, Brian Ellis, who had the support of the Chamber of Commerce and other House Republicans, but it was never even a tight race. “It’s been a pretty significant lead for the congressman throughout,” a Republican consultant and pollster in Michigan unaffiliated with either campaign told National Review Online Monday. As of this writing, Amash enjoys a comfortable double-digit lead, garnering 57...

This Rand Paul versus Rick Perry GOP thunderstorm popped up pretty fast, didn’t it? It was a dark cloud on the horizon on Friday, when Governor Perry of Texas published an op-ed in The Washington Post that attacked Senator Paul as a foreign policy isolationist. Paul is reluctant to devote more US troops and weapons to Iraq, and Perry used that position to portray the Kentucky lawmaker as the reverse of Ronald Reagan, as someone who wants to hunker down at home rather than lead the world. “Paul is drawing his own red line along the water’s edge, creating a...

Kentucky Senator Rand Paul made yet another appearance Monday with Tennessee’s Lamar Alexander, who is facing a Tea Party primary challenger. While considered one of the most moderate Republicans in the Senate, Alexander has been working in recent months to look more conservative. Before anyone could ask, Alexander denied that he was trying to get political help from the Tea Party darling. “We’re not here to endorse each other,” he said, without prompting. “Rand hasn’t asked me to endorse me for the President of the United States, and I haven’t asked him to endorse me for the senate. We’re here...

That is again leading to speculation that Sen. Paul will endorse Sen. Alexander’s re-election bid, something he came short of doing in a previous joint media appearance to demonstrate their solidarity with fishermen facing Corp of Engineer restrictions that would keep them from fishing near dams. Given the pair's voting records, which show wide policy fissures, if Sen. Paul does endorse Alexander, it will invite reasonable suspicion that he cares more about Lamar’s ability to help him in his expected 2016 presidential run than he does about the biggest issues facing the country. I have culled, from the Heritage Action...

Tea party Republican Rand Paul’s non-interventionist approach to foreign policy appears to be gaining traction with battle-fatigued Republicans but whether the majority of the party will support that position for the long haul remains a question mark, according to Washington Post political writer Aaron Blake. Blake cites a December Pew Research poll that found 53 percent of Republicans — slightly more than Democrats — believe the United States should "mind its own business internationally," up from the 22 percent who felt that way after 9/11. Members of the GOP also strongly favored going to war in both Iraq and Afghanistan,...

On Friday, Senators Rand Paul (R-KY) and Corey Booker (D-NJ) offered a medical marijuana amendment on the floor of the Senate. The bill is a massive win for states’ rights, as it outlaws the Department of Justice and the Drug Enforcement Agency from undermining state marijuana laws and prohibits the DEA from interfering with the production of hemp in states where it is legal. There is simply no reason the federal government should be trampling over state laws to perform armed SWAT-team raids on state-legal medical marijuana dispensaries. Destroying property and hauling entrepreneurs off to jail is not the proper...