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New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie is ripping libertarians — including Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) — for challenging government surveillance programs and failing to understand the dangers of terrorism. “This strain of libertarianism that’s going through parties right now and making big headlines I think is a very dangerous thought,” the New Jersey GOP governor said on Thursday at a Republican governors forum in Aspen, Colo. “You can name any number of people and (Paul is) one of them.” Christie, a potential 2016 candidate who appeared on the panel with Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence and Wisconsin Gov....

Chris Christie (RINO - NJ) seems to have no love for Rand Paul. He has had some vicious words for him lately... Rand Paul has fired back: "If Governor Christie believes the Constitutional rights and the privacy of all Americans is esoteric, he either needs a new dictionary or he needs to talk to more Americans, because a great number of them are concerned about the dramatic overreach of our government in recent years." I remember Rush Limbaugh putting it this way - concerning Chris Christie and Obama (D) - "Christie's the only Republican not just praising Obama, it's a...

US officials are claiming that an internal Pakistani assessment of civilian deaths from US drone strikes - obtained and published in full by the Bureau - is 'far from authoratative.' The secret document was obtained by the Bureau from three independent sources... CIA Drone Strikes In Pakistan 2004-2013 Total US Strikes: 370 Obama strikes: 319 Total reported killed: 2,509-3,576 Civilians reported killed: 410-928 Children reported killed: 164-195 Total reported killed: 1,109-1,489 ...

In a veiled shot at influential neoconservatives within the Republican Party, Sen. Rand Paul tells The Brody File the following: “There are people who will do or say anything who are your enemies,” Paul said. “Those who believe in perpetual war are some of the most dangerous to our country, and I think they will do everything they can to try and vilify people who are trying to find a more reasoned approach where war is the last resort not the first resort.” While he didn’t mention any names, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that Paul...

Peter King claims Hillary would "destroy" Ted Cruz or Rand Paul...

U.S. Sen. Rand Paul confirmed to reporters Monday that he and staffer Jack Hunter — the former shock jock known as the Southern Avenger — were parted ways in a “mutual decision.” Paul said he hoped that Hunter’s presence on his staff wouldn’t undermine his efforts to broaden the appeal of the Republican Party. Paul has reached out to African Americans, for instance, speaking at historically black colleges in Washington, D.C., and Louisville. “I think everybody occasionally has people that work for them who sometimes have a background that damages what you’re trying to do,” he said. “But I think...

DES MOINES, Iowa — Some Republicans are accusing the party’s neoconservative hawks of playing dirty pool in an attempt to smear Sen. Rand Paul as a bigot for having an aide who once expressed admiration for Lincoln assassin John Wilkes Booth. The aide, Jack Hunter, who quit on Monday, was eased out by Mr. Paul after a neoconservative publication revealed that, as a radio “shock jock” some years ago, Mr. Hunter advocated that the Southern states secede once again from the union. Saying he had become more libertarian and broad-minded since his days as the “Southern Avenger,” Mr. Hunter revealed...

Des Moines, Iowa — On Thursday night, the last direct flight from Washington, D.C., to Iowa’s capital was delayed. Most of the weary travelers idled by the gate. But two passengers, Senator Ted Cruz of Texas and Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky, left to get dinner. Together, they stumbled upon a sushi bar. They took seats, and for about 30 minutes, they talked over fish and rice. In separate interviews, both senators declined to discuss the content of their conversation, but they assured me it was amicable. “We don’t arm wrestle, or anything like that,” Paul says. Cruz concurs: “We’re...

It was a sight to behold inside a conference ballroom at the downtown Marriott hotel in Des Moines, Iowa, as hundreds of Iowa pastors called out to God and prayed over two U.S. senators, both of whom seem interested in running for president of the United States. Sen. Ted Cruz and Sen. Rand Paul came to Iowa Friday to speak at this Pastors and Pews event, organized by influential evangelical political operative David Lane. The Brody File got an up close look and access to the private event. We will be posting compelling video early next week. For now, we...

If you're a 2016 GOP presidential hopeful, watch out for Rep. Peter King's right hook ... King believes the Republicans don't stand a chance if they put up the wrong candidate against Hillary Clinton. "I think she's very strong on foreign policy, and I think that if we nominate someone from our isolationist wing of the party, she'll destroy them," King said, putting Sens. Rand Paul and Ted Cruz squarely in the isolationist category ...

"She'd be right there with Mike Lee, Ted Cruz, and I" Listen here

en. Rand Paul (R-KY) appeared on CNN’s The Situation Room on Tuesday evening where he was asked to respond to former Vice President Dick Cheney who told Fox News Channel’s Chris Wallace that the junior Kentucky senator was wrong when he criticized the NSA’s surveillance programs. Paul tore into the Bush administration’s role in the establishment of the post-9/11 security regime, noting that he thinks it is possible to catch terrorists using methods consistent with the Constitution. Cheney told the Fox News Sunday host that Paul was incorrect in his criticisms of the NSA’s communications monitoring programs. The former vice...

Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) said he will use every resource he has at his disposal to stop President Barack Obama from bailing out newly-bankrupt Detroit because he believes the city can and must save itself and learn from its fiscal mistakes. "I basically say he [Obama] is bailing them out over my dead body because we don’t have any money in Washington.” “There’s some good things that come out of bankruptcy,” Paul said in a phone interview from Iowa. “One is you get to start over. Bankruptcy lets you be forgiven of your debt. And you do so by getting...

Former vice president Dick Cheney said Sunday that Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) was wrong to suggest that the government’s recently revealed sweeping surveillance techniques are an invasion of Americans’ privacy. “Two-thirds of the Congress wasn’t here on 9/11, or for that period immediately after when we got into this program,” Cheney said on “Fox News Sunday.” He later added: “When you consider the possibility of somebody smuggling something like a nuclear device into the United States, it becomes very, very important to gather intelligence on your enemies and stop that attack before it ever gets launched.” Cheney defended a National...

Near the end of March 2010, as Republicans outside Kentucky realized that Rand Paul might actually become a senator, Paul’s opponent received an unexpected and important-looking endorsement. “I’m a lifelong conservative, and I can tell the real thing when I see it,” announced Dick Cheney. “I have looked at the records of both candidates in the race, and it is clear to me that Trey Grayson is right on the issues that matter—both on fiscal responsibility and on national security.” Paul’s campaign was half-unsurprised, half-amused. They’d seen this coming a week before, when former Cheney policy adviser Cesar Conda emailed...

Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) told Breitbart News he is hosting an event on Friday in Iowa, bringing black and Hispanic Evangelical leaders and Republican Party leaders like Republican National Committee (RNC) chairman Reince Priebus to foster a conversation about how the GOP can win the votes of those communities. “The chairman is here, and the vice chairman is here,” Paul said in a phone interview. “I’ve organized a meeting because I want them to hear directly from African American ministers and Hispanic ministers on what they think is the best way for the Republican Party to extend their vote in...

Rand Paul is formally endorsing Sen. Mike Enzi as he faces Liz Cheney in a Wyoming GOP primary next year, Paul told POLITICO in an interview Wednesday. “I’ve told him I’ll do anything I can to help him,” the Kentucky GOP senator said. “In fact, somebody asked me today if they could use my name, and I said I’d be happy to sign on and do a fundraiser for him.” Paul said he isn’t sure why Cheney decided to challenge Enzi, but said she might end up picking up some grudges for doing so. “I don’t think it probably will...

The early stages of the 2016 presidential campaign are already underway. Hillary Clinton has held a steady, arguably insurmountable lead for the Democratic nomination, while the Republican nomination is much more fluid. Senator Rand Paul is the frontrunner, thanks to a drop in support for Senator Marco Rubio in Iowa over immigration reform. At this point, Clinton can essentially walk in and take the Democratic nomination. In Iowa, wins an incredible 71% of the vote. Of course, pundits will argue that Clinton seemed inevitable in 2008, but that was only because it was assumed that then-Senator Obama would not run....

Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D., N.Y.) has made a hallmark issue out of the problem of sexual assault and related misconduct in the U.S. military, and her bill to change the way that crimes are prosecuted throughout the armed forces has drawn support from key Republicans, first Senator Chuck Grassley and now Senators Rand Paul and Ted Cruz. Senator Gillibrand and her associates are doing a service by drawing attention to these detestable crimes, but the solution they have put forth is the wrong one. The legislation in question involves a good deal more than sexual assault. Senator Gillibrand’s bill(PDF), the...

Rand Paul: I’ve got Mike Enzi’s back vs. Liz Cheney Paul said he considers his colleague 'a good conservative.' | AP Photo By ALEXANDER BURNS | 7/11/13 11:44 AM EDT If Wyoming Sen. Mike Enzi ends up facing a primary challenge from Liz Cheney, he might be able to count on some help from one of his highest-profile conservative colleagues. Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul told POLITICO Thursday that he considers Enzi “a good conservative,” and said he wasn’t familiar with Cheney’s interest in running against the incumbent Republican. “I don’t know much about her or her politics, really,” Paul...

Rand Paul is the most interesting contender for the Republican nomination. And when I say interesting, I mean that in the broadest sense. A case in point: Last week, the Kentucky senator hit some turbulence when the Washington Free Beacon reported that Jack Hunter, Paul’s aide and the co-author of his book, The Tea Party Goes to Washington, was once the Southern Avenger. Who’s that? Starting in the 1990s, as a radio shock-jock, Hunter would wear a wrestling mask made from a Confederate flag, while making jokes about the assassination of Abraham Lincoln and having the South re-secede. “Although Lincoln’s...

Sens. Rand Paul and Ted Cruz have joined an upstart effort to remove the chain of command from military sexual assault cases, POLITICO has learned. The tea party favorites give the bill’s lead sponsor, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, critical conservative cover as she battles the Pentagon and hawks in both parties on her proposal to create a new prosecution system for major military crimes. Paul is scheduled to attend a press conference Tuesday in the Capitol with Gillibrand and other bill backers, including Sens. Chuck Grassley and Barbara Boxer, to discuss his new position, which inches the New York Democrat closer...

As the Senate agreed today to stop the "nuclear option," Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) told Eric Bolling on Your World that he plans on filibustering the FBI director nomination. Democrats, led by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, had warned Republicans that if they don't allow President Obama's executive branch nominees, then they'd strip Congress' power to filibuster. Sen. Paul said he would put a hold on the nomination of James Comey as FBI director to get more information on how the federal government is using drones. "I'm trying to get a real truth. Is the FBI using the Bill of...

Republicans were treated to a strange surprise last week when Jonathan Martin reported on Liz Cheney's plan to primary three-term Republican Sen. Mike Enzi, of Wyoming, in 2014. Martin captured some hostility toward Cheney ("She just moved back here, she didn’t even grow up here"), but provided little insight as to why the intellectual heir to Dick Cheney's War on Terror was preparing to challenge a popular--if inactive--GOP incumbent.While Cheney refused to comment for the article, Enzi suspects that "she may take aim at his legislation, passed this year in the Senate, to let states collect sales tax on Internet...

FRANKFORT — Kentucky Democratic Party Chairman Dan Logsdon called on U.S. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell Wednesday to condemn U.S. Sen. Rand Paul's hiring of a staffer with a history of making controversial comments about race. Washington Free Beacon, a conservative online publication, reported Tuesday that Paul staffer Jack Hunter is a former talk-radio host who called himself the "Southern Avenger" and is a former member of the League of the South, a group that advocates Southern secession. "Senator McConnell likes Republicans to call him leader, and he has made himself heard on every issue he deems of consequence, real...

My uncle and aunt moved to Israel in the 1970s, leaving my twenty-something cousin behind in the dating scene of New York City. She didn’t find it safe to greet suitors alone in her apartment, so she had her dates pick her up at our home. One time she was waiting to be collected for an evening out with a young man from a very prestigious family, and my father was gushing in advance that this was a great honor. When she returned and we asked how it went, her response was pithy. “It was a privilege… but not a...

Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) told Breitbart News in an exclusive interview on Thursday that he is contemplating a run for president in 2016 and that he will likely make an announcement on a decision shortly after the 2014 midterm congressional elections.“We’ve been thinking about it,” Paul said in a phone interview. “And we will continue to think about it probably until after the 2014 elections. I haven’t made a decision, it’s a big decision you know with regard to family and the extensive travel that’s involved with it. And then also just seeing where the country is going in the...

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), who has hinted he could mount a 2016 presidential bid, is already taking shots at his potential competition in the Republican primary. The freshman senator was asked Monday night during an appearance on Fox News about Texas Gov. Rick Perry's (R) announcement he would not seek reelection — a move that has prompted speculation that Perry could again run for the White House. “If Gov. Perry decides to run for president, I think there would be three good reasons why he could be president: Texas is a big successful state, he’s a long term governor and...

The primary race is more than a year away, but Tennessee Republican Sen. Lamar Alexander isn’t taking any chances — he’s launching a six-figure television ad campaign featuring Kentucky Republican Sen. Rand Paul. The ad will run on television and radio statewide July 8-21 at a total cost in excess of $200,000, CQ Roll Call reported Friday. “Nobody wants to say no to Lamar Alexander,” Paul said in the spot, which touts Alexander’s role in passing the Freedom to Fish Act.

To cover his political flank, Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell has forged an alliance with tea party darling Rand Paul, picked up support from other national tea party leaders and brought in a campaign manager from the upper echelons of the tea party movement. The GOP's fiscally conservative wing has proven particularly powerful in Kentucky, and elsewhere it has felled incumbents including McConnell's longtime Republican colleague U.S. Sen. Dick Lugar of Indiana. But McConnell's efforts to make inroads with the tea party movement have clearly paid off, virtually ensuring that no would-be challenger can get the kind of infusion of...

One of the acts that would eventually spark the War for American Independence was when the British government authorized Writs of Assistance to British officers in the colonies. This gave government the power to search any residence or business without any warning, supervision or rules. Soldiers were allowed to walk from door-to-door, house-to-house, searching and confiscating property to their hearts’ content. As is always the case with government power, this policy was widely abused. When the Founding Fathers drafted and ratified the U.S. Constitution, they included the Fourth Amendment — the prohibition of search and seizure — to guarantee that...

Immigration Reform Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush …, a longtime advocate of comprehensive immigration reform, said in a statement that the Senate vote was a “strong step for meaningful immigration reform and encouraging legal immigration for those that want to contribute to a better America.” …New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie has called for tighter border controls and a pathway to citizenship for legal immigrants. …Texas Gov. Rick Perry … has steadfastly opposed a border fence, saying it would take 10 to 15 years to build, cost $30 billion and wouldn’t work. …Gay Marriage In a speech in June, (Jeb) Bush...

In the wake of revelations about the broad surveillance being conducted by the National Security Agency, there has been a growing movement online known as Restore the Fourth that is organizing rallies in several dozen cities around the United States in support of the Fourth Amendment’s guarantee of privacy. Much of what the Restore the Fourth movement is doing is being driven off of reddit, a community site with dedicated sub-reddits on various topics. They’ve amassed a community of over 18,500 readers from all areas of the country who are discussing ways to raise awareness to privacy. And they’ve gotten...

QUESTION OF THE WEEK Sarah Palin rejoined Fox News as a contributor earlier this month, indicating that the polarizing former Alaska governor and Vice Presidential candidate remains a powerful voice in the conservative landscape. Is she beneficial to conservatives and the Republican Party, or does she do more harm than good? Sarah Palin is undeniably useful and important as a face of the conservative movement. She is ineffective and even detrimental as the face of the conservative movement. Unfortunately, that's exactly what she became when John McCain selected her as his running mate in 2008: the face of the GOP...

If a Republican senator cast a vote out of craven political cowardice, do you really think he'd admit that to Joe Biden? That's what the Veep wants us to believe. In a Dem fundraising email from Bident that just turned up in my inbox, Biden wrote [emphasis added]: "When I asked several Republican senators after they voted against background checks, not one offered an explanation on the merits of why they couldn't vote for them. But almost to a person, they said, "I don't want to take on Ted Cruz. I don't want to take on Rand Paul. They'll be...

Rand Paul shook off an awkward comment comparing same-sex marriage to beastiality and made a trip Friday to the early primary state South Carolina in the early stages of a potential presidential campaign. The Kentucky senator, reacting to a comment from Glenn Beck wondering if the Supreme Court's decision to strike down the bulk of the Defense of Marriage Act could lead to legalized polygamy, Paul extended Beck's logic. "This is a conundrum, and it gets back to what you were saying… whether or not churches should decide this,” Paul said. “And it is difficult, because if we have no...

Here's The latest in the continuing saga of Rand on the Skywire, trying to inch along the tightrope between libertarians and conservatives towards the GOP nomination on the other side.Love him or hate him, the 2016 debates will be roughly 8,000 percent more interesting with him onstage than they would be otherwise. Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., told ABC News he believes the Supreme Court ruling on the Defense of Marriage Act was appropriate, and that the issue should be left to the states. He praised Justice Anthony Kennedy for avoiding “a cultural war.”“As a country we can agree to disagree,”...

...[F]or those eagerly looking forward to 2016, the presidential ballot tests are even more interesting. In an environment where President Obama is quite unpopular (57% disapproval), it’s also clear that Hillary Clinton isn’t going to have a cake walk on her hands — not even if the Democratic nomination is hers for the taking. Not only is New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, R, even with her at 42 percent, but Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., runs within the margin of error at 47 to 44 percent. If Vice President Joe Biden becomes the nominee, either of those Republicans would begin with...

“This Gang of Eight bill delegates a lot of authority to the administration," he explained. "So, with my amendment, ‘Trust But Verify,’ we tried to get that authority back and keep it in Congress, where Congress would vote on whether the border is secure. “Ultimately, whether or not these people become citizens, under the Gang of Eight bill, is up to the president,” Paul continued. “I don’t care if it’s a Republican president or a Democratic president. That’s too much power for one person to have." "So, I would have kept that power with Congress and said Congress has to...

In 2011, Frances Kissling, the founding President of the National Abortion Federation, penned a Washington Post editorial supporting the very abortion regulations that many pro-life groups are celebrating today. Kissling defended such regulations saying: If the choice movement does not change, control of policy on abortion will remain in the hands of those who want it criminalized. If we don’t suggest sensible balanced legislation and regulation of abortion, we will be left with far more draconian policies – and, eventually, no choices at all. Did you hear that? Unless abortion-advocates advocate for “common-sense” regulations of their murderous industry, abortion will...

National Review:Rand Paul: I’m a ‘No’ On Gang of Eight Bill Youtube:Rand Paul: I'm a 'No' on Gang of Eight Bill Rand Paul announced on Sunday that he will vote against the Gang of Eight’s immigration bill because it does not sufficiently secure the Southern border. “I’m like most conservatives in the country in that I think reform should be dependent on border security first,” Paul said, noting that he introduced a bill that was voted down that would have given Congress that power to vote on whether the border is in fact secure. “To me what really tells me...

The Talk Shows June 23th, 2013 Guests to be interviewed today on major television talk shows: FOX NEWS SUNDAY (Fox Network): Sens. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and Mike Lee, R-Utah; Gabriel Gomez, Republican nominee for Senate in Massachusetts.MEET THE PRESS (NBC): Sens. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., and Dick Durbin, D-Ill.; Reps. Loretta Sanchez, D-Calif., and Mike Rogers, R-Mich.FACE THE NATION (CBS): Sens. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., Bob Corker, R-Tenn., and Jeff Sessions, R-Ala.THIS WEEK (ABC): Gen. Keith Alexander, director of the National Security Agency; Reps. Joaquin Castro, D-Texas; Mike Kelly, R-Pa.; and Tulsi Gabbard, D-Hawaii.STATE OF THE UNION (CNN): Sens. Rand Paul, R-Ky.,...

Thanks to Republican Senators Rand Paul (of Kentucky) and Mike Lee (of Utah), we might finally get on Syria what we were denied on Libya: a real debate among the American people’s representatives over congressional authorization of President Obama’s unilateral war-making in the Middle East. The Washington Examiner reports that Senators Paul and Lee have joined with two counterparts, Democrats Chris Murphy (of Connecticut) and Tom Udall (of New Mexico), in offering legislation that would block direct or indirect aid for military or paramilitary operations in Syria. The bill, which is posted on Paul’s website, is called the “Protecting Americans...

You won’t find him on any Federal Election Commission disclosure forms, but Director of National Intelligence James Clapper is the biggest in-kind donor to the incipient Rand Paul–for president campaign. Whatever its merits, the National Security Agency metadata program couldn’t be better fashioned to play into fears of the government. Is it vast? Yes. Secret? Check. Raise profound questions about privacy? Uh-huh. This is the kind of issue Rand Paul was born and (literally) raised to raise holy hell over. The NSA leak came on the heels of revelations that the Internal Revenue Service was singling out tea-party groups for...

What can bring a New England liberal and a southern Tea Partier together, other than the theme song from “The Odd Couple”? Staying out of Syria’s messy civil war. From Sen. Rand Paul’s press office: Today, U.S. Senators Tom Udall (D-N.M.), Mike Lee (R-UT), Chris Murphy (D-CT), and Rand Paul (R-KY) introduced bipartisan legislation to prohibit the President from using any funds on activities that would escalate U.S. involvement in the Syrian civil war. The bill would ban the Department of Defense, the CIA and all other intelligence agencies from funding any military, paramilitary or covert operations in Syria. The...

Back in January and February, Marco Rubio stood at the top of the heap among prospective 2016 Republican presidential contenders. Sen. Marco Rubio Today? Not so much. In the recently released Ipsos – Reuters poll, for example, Rubio has lost one third of the support he had earlier this spring and is now not even in the top three in the latest poll Ipsos conducted for Reuters. Marco now registers below Chris Christie, Paul Ryan, Rand Paul and Jeb Bush. Another poll in Iowa, a key early voting state in the Republican presidential sweepstakes (conducted by Illinois-based pollster McKeon &...

My item on Rand Paul the other day, predictably, went over quite badly in the libertarian community. The Insomniac Libertarian, in an item wonderfully headlined “Obama Quisling Jonathan Chait Smears Rand Paul,” complains that my Paul piece “never discloses that [my] wife is an Obama campaign operative.” A brief annotated response: 1. I question the relevance of the charge, since Rand Paul is not running against Obama. 2. In point of fact, my wife is not an Obama campaign operative and has never worked for Obama’s campaign, or his administration, or volunteered for his campaign, or any campaign, and does...

And dumb enough to support this immigration bill given the Senate's 54-43 rejection of the Cornyn plan for a border security 'trigger'? The CBO dynamically "scored" (with numbers supplied to it by Dems) the immigration bill (S. 744) and found that it - low & behold - will DECREASE federal deficits over the next 20 years. Hmmm. How are those CBO-scored ObamaCare numbers working out for ya? They were only $2 TRILLION DOLLARS off when predicting the cost of ObamaCare. But no way they could botch this....right? I wonder what the odds are of these 4 getting primaried, given that...

Sen. Rand Paul plans to support a filibuster of the Senate immigration bill unless it grants Congress more border security oversight, the Kentucky Republican said on Thursday. Paul does not plan to stand on the Senate floor for 13 hours straight like he did in March to protest President Barack Obama's drone policy, but he will withhold support for a motion to end debate on the bill, a procedural tactic that effectively could block the bill from seeing a final vote. "Unless they change the bill, I will vote on the side of not ending the debate, which is essentially...

Preventing voter fraud is the aim of an amendment to the immigration bill offered Monday by Senator Rand Paul (R-Ky.). Rand Paul Immigration Amendment Aims to Prevent Voter Fraud The New American 18 June 2013 On Monday, June 17, Senator Rand Paul (R-Ky., shown) once again stepped into the breach and tried to compensate for the failure of his colleagues to affect common sense, constitutional immigration reform. Paul's latest effort came in the form of the "Secure the Vote" amendment to the immigration bill currently pending before the Senate. The amendment offered by Paul protects the sanctity of the...