Free Republic

In an interview with talk show host Sean Hannity, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) sounded more equivocal about a presidential run than at any time in the last year or so: “If the ideas are resonating — if the ideas look like they have a chance – then it’s much more likely that I’ll make a go of this. If it looks like we’re at 1 percent, we’re not in the top tier, and it’s just going to be a quixotic sort of run, then I think it’s not something I want to do just for educational purposes. I would do...

De Blasio? Sharpton? Nope. The biggest blowback will be against the “reforming” Kentucky senator, because Republicans back cops, period.After New York City Police Officers Rafael Ramos and Wenjian Liu were gunned down in a retaliatory ambush on Saturday afternoon, the collateral damage was immediate. New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio relationship with the police went from horrible to horrendous. Rev. Al Sharpton’s campaign to cleanse his race-baiting past grew more difficult, and Sen. Rand Paul—who had gone out of his way to break bread with Sharpton and to criticize police militarization—may now be facing an even more difficult task...

Beginning on Thursday night, a fight erupted on line between Republican Senators Marco Rubio and Rand Paul over the new diplomatic opening to Cuba. Rubio slammed Paul for his ignorance, while Paul bizarrely accused Rubio of “isolationism” for opposing Barack Obama’s policies. Before that battle began in earnest, I spoke with incoming Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell in a wide-ranging interview about his plans for the 114th Session of Congress. We discussed Cuba, and McConnell made it clear that he was relying on Rubio’s leadership on the issue — which might make for an awkward moment or two between McConnell...

Noah already wrote a policy rebuttal to Paul’s position, which Paul elaborated on this afternoon in a new op-ed at Time. (The op-ed, unlike his tweets, doesn’t mention Rubio by name. Although it does approvingly cite … George W. Bush?) Anyone want to make the case that the politics of attacking Rubio on this issue were smart, at least? I can’t figure out why Rand would do it. When I tweeted out my surprise a few hours ago, a dozen people tweeted back, “Maybe Paul’s just saying what he really believes.” No doubt. But the thing that distinguishes Rand from...

Sen. Rand Paul broke with the field of Republicans considering a 2016 presidential run on Thursday, calling President Barack Obama's decision to normalize relations with Cuba a "good idea" since the American embargo against Cuba "just hasn't worked." Paul, a likely presidential candidate, made the remarks in an interview with News Talk 800 WVHU's Tom Roten, just a day after his potential competitors for the Republican nomination -- former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, Sen. Marco Rubio and Sen. Ted Cruz -- slammed the decision to normalize relations as a dangerous move. Rubio and Cruz are sons of Cuban immigrants. Paul...

Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) said that Jesse Benton, the former campaign manager for Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), will be part of Paul's campaign team in 2016. Benton, served as McConnell's campaign manager for much of the 2014 cycle until he resigned amid questions about the role he allegedly played in a 2012 Iowa pay-for-votes bribery scandal. Paul, in an interview with WHAS11, said that he thinks "Jesse is honest, he's good at politics and I don't think he's done anything wrong." It wasn't clear from Paul's comments if he was referring to his Senate re-election campaign or the...

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) has been a mixed bag on foreign policy, generally solid in opposing Russian aggression and on Iran’s nuclear program, but inconsistent — if not illogical — on Syria and fighting the Islamic State and terribly misguided in attempting to hamstring the National Security Agency. One issue on which Cruz has been coy is defense spending. At the Foreign Policy Initiative forum this week, he told the audience that “in all likelihood” we need to spend more on defense. He then dwelt on a puny $120 million unnecessary item for algae fuel studies and insisted that we...

Alabama Republicans will host Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul at its winter dinner on Feb. 20. If a new AL.com poll is any indication, he will get more than a warm welcome. A recent AL.com poll puts Paul ahead of nine other leading contenders for the GOP presidential nomination. Paul garnered 43 percent of the vote, followed by Ted Cruz at 31 percent and Dr. Ben Carson at 14 percent. Of course, the poll is not scientific. And it's interesting to note the poll was shared widely among Paul supporters, showing up on sites such as dailypaul.com. Paul, a favorite among...

There may be disagreements on foreign policy among conservatives, but one thing that there's near universal agreement on is that President Obama's foreign policy has been an abysmal failure. That's why it was especially noteworthy that Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., already facing an uphill battle in winning over conservative primary voters on foreign policy, has embraced the disastrous, John Kerry-led negotiations with the radical Islamic Iranian regime. Speaking at a meeting sponsored by the Wall Street Journal, "Mr. Paul said he doesn’t favor increasing sanctions on Iran as the U.S. continues diplomatic efforts aimed at ending the Iranian nuclear weapons...

Sen. Rand Paul is blaming politicians for the unrest in Ferguson, Missouri, arguing that the criminal justice system fuels racial tension by disproportionately targeting African-Americans. The so-called war on drugs has created a culture of violence and put police in a nearly impossible situation," Paul said in an op-ed published for TIME. He acknowledged that the shooting death of Michael Brown by a Ferguson police officer wasn't related to drugs, but argued that outsized penalties for nonviolent drug crimes creates a "tension in some communities that too often results in tragedy." The comments are another attempt by Paul, a Kentucky...

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) continued his efforts to expand the GOP’s reach ahead of 2016 on Friday, appearing for an interview on HBO’s “Real Time with Bill Maher.”Maher, an outspoken anti-theist and liberal, said that he admires Paul for being “the one Republican who is willing to go to places Republicans don’t usually speak.” Throughout the interview, Paul and Maher were largely in agreement on issues such as the War on Drugs, reinstating voting rights for nonviolent felons, how the U.S. should go about defeating the Islamic State and even, to some extent, climate change. (VIDEO-AT-LINK)“I am available to the...

The editor of Breitbart Unmasked, a site that I enjoy immensely and find informative, recently told me that supporting Rand Paul disqualifies a person from being labeled a progressive. My rebuttal was that he might be right. However, I also mentioned that Democratic Senator Tim Kaine of Virginia agreed with my latest Congress Blog piece. In the article, I explain why Rand Paul is correct in questioning the legality of President Obama's troop deployments. Sadly, people at UC Berkeley are more interested in protesting Bill Maher than condemning a conflict George McGovern stated weakens our country in the same manner...

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...

Ballot propositions and congressional races are sucking up all the political oxygen in the run-up to Tuesday’s elections. They should. Informing ourselves and getting out the vote is critical for the healthy functioning of our democracy. But for an electorate hoping for post-midterm relief from campaign ads and candidate messaging, that reprieve will be short-lived. Soon after the November ballots are tallied, the 2016 presidential campaign will kick in. Hold on for the ride. This early presidential cycle will contrast potential candidates’ differences on government’s role, health care and taxes, but nothing will say “I’m running” more than a foray...

More than a dozen Republican governors and senators are rushing to line up supporters, pore over policies and map out strategies for the 2016 presidential campaign, concluding that last week’s midterm rout of Democrats shows that the GOP has a strong chance of taking back the White House. Whereas Democrats are rapidly coalescing around Hillary Rodham Clinton as their standard-bearer, there is no heir apparent on the Republican side. The field is as splintered as the Grand Old Party itself, with stark differences along the lines of ideology, style and background. “Tuesday night certainly gives the Republicans a sense of...

LOUISVILLE — There were only two things Mitch McConnell didn't want to talk about Thursday — whether he will run for re-election in 2020 and his eventual legacy. In his first one-on-one interview since his landslide re-election to a sixth term and his expected ascendance to U.S. Senate majority leader, McConnell talked at length with the Herald-Leader about how he wants to use his new role to help Kentucky, a possible run for president by U.S. Sen. Rand Paul and the conventional wisdom that McConnell is unpopular. McConnell, relaxed and in a great mood in his Louisville home, wouldn't say...

It's been a pretty good election night for Republicans so far. That means that, naturally, former GOP member of Congress and general gadfly Ron Paul decided to rain on the parade: Ron Paul ✔ @RonPaul Republican control of the Senate = expanded neocon wars in Syria and Iraq. Boots on the ground are coming! 7:34 PM - 4 Nov 2014 1,168 Retweets 524 favorites On a night when most of his former party is celebrating its moves toward taking the Senate, Paul is bemoaning the idea of a Republican takeover on grounds that it'll lead to more wars in the...

Rand Paul, the heretofore libertarian senator from Kentucky, gave a foreign policy speech to Republican grandees in New York last week with a clear message: I'm not an isolationist like my dad.. The senator's peppery father, the thoroughly libertarian former Rep. Ron Paul of Texas, hardly ever saw a U.S. military intervention he liked. He said George W. Bush's war in Iraq was nuts, suggested that the United States could live with a nuclear Iran and thought stationing U.S. troops overseas was just an expensive way to invite trouble. On Thursday evening in a Manhattan ballroom, Sen. Paul, a probable...

The owners of the website Ebola.Com have scored a big payday with the outbreak of the epidemic, selling the domain for more than USD 200,000 in cash and stock. The deal highlights the rewards and risk of industry trading and speculating in domain names that see high interest following news events. According to a securities filing, the buyer was a Russian-registered firm called Weed Growth Fund, previously known as Ovation Research. The October 20 filing said the price was USD 50,000 cash and 19,192 shares of Cannabis Sativa worth close to USD 170,000, which promotes medical uses for marijuana. The...

Bilderbergers, the Iraq invasion, Alex Jones—the GOP senator has routinely flirted with America's paranoid fringe.This past summer, Rand Paul, the libertarian senator from Kentucky and a potential 2016 presidential wannabe, was the GOP's It Girl. The New York Times Magazine splashed his mug on the cover and asked, "Has the 'Libertarian Moment' Finally Arrived?" It noted that Paul possessed a "supple mind" and was a "preternaturally confident speaker." Washington Post political prognosticator Chris Cillizza pronounced Paul the "most interesting voice in the GOP right now," and Politico gave him the No. 1 spot on its list of the 50 "most...