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August 13, 2013 Rand Paul: Hillary Clinton 'Needs to Be Deposed Again' to Explain Benghazi Susan Jones (CNSNews.com) - Sen. Rand Paul, who famously tangled with then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton at a January Senate hearing on the terror attack in Benghazi, says it's time to bring her back before Congress to answer more questions about the terror attack. "See, the thing is, I think she needs to be deposed again," Paul told Fox News on Tuesday. His comments came one day after former U.S. Attorney Joe DiGenova told a Washington radio station that the real scandal in Benghazi is...

U.S. officials and experts do acknowledge [1] an Egyptian connection to the Benghazi attacks. They’ll point to what they call a ragtag group of jihadists, led by Muhammad Jamal Abdo Al-Kashif (aka Abu Ahmad), known as the “Jamal network.” However, the U.S. administration downplays this Egyptian connection, whereas several Arabic-language sources reveal a much larger connection. It is significant to point out that the first attack against the U.S. embassies on September 11, 2012, happened in Cairo. Egypt was the spark and Egyptians were the agents of both attacks. Al-Kashif had been locked up in one of Egypt’s most secure...

The ‘Syria problem' is playing out in other post-Arab Spring countries, from Libya to Tunisia and Egypt, where the space vacated by despotic regimes has been taken over by Islamic militants. Terror organisations have a ready platform In May, US President Barack Obama said that he was hoping to “refine and repeal” the mandate that he got from the Congress to fight the war on terror against Al Qaeda and its affiliates, as the core group was on the “path to defeat” and “this war, like all wars, must end”. Less than three months later, he has evacuated the US...

Sen. Rand Paul outlined his fears about President Obama’s health care law on “The Daily Show” late Monday, arguing “dinosaur syndrome” has prevented well-intentioned authors of the law from crafting effective reforms. “I’m afraid it’s going to be unaffordable and that’s the real problem,” the Kentucky Republican told John Oliver, interim host of “The Daily Show” in Jon Stewart’s absence. “I’m afraid that everyone will pay a lot more for insurance. And I think precisely the people it was intended to help it may well hurt, because they may not be able to afford it.” Mr. Paul, a potential presidential...

Lately there’s been a growing chorus of calls for the Tea Party and the Republican Party to unite and find a way of compromising over their differences in order to achieve their common goal of defeating Democrats. This scares the heck out of me because many in the Tea Party may think it’s a good idea. The Tea Party is NOT (yet?) formally a political party, but a group of people who share certain ideas about political philosophy. True, for various reasons they tend to support Republicans more often than Democrats, but the basis for their support of any candidate...

When asked about the rift between Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) and Governor Chris Christie (R-NJ) on FOX News this morning, Sarah Palin said she is on "Team Rand." Palin said, "he gets the whole notion of 'Don’t Tread on Me' government, whereas Chris Christie is for big government."

Former GOP vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin said on Saturday New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie just isn't "rogue" enough for her taste. Palin sided with Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul in his continuing feud with the popular New Jersey governor. “I’m on team Rand," Palin told Fox News. "Rand Paul understands. He gets the whole notion of 'don’t tread on me government.' Whereas Chris Christie is for big government and trying to go-along-to-get-along in so many respects." -snip- ... she dismissed Obama's comments about greater transparency regarding the National Security Agency and its surveillance operations at his news conference on Friday....

Another brochure. This time we're delving into what it means to be a Republican, especially the RNC's vision of what it means to be a republican.

The junior senator has the support of Republican colleagues Rand Paul and Sen. Ted Cruz on a measure to overhaul how the military handles sexual assault allegations. Her work has garnered praise from GOP members as a Democrat they’d like to work with and is helping her own set of issues in Washington.,/i> WASHINGTON — It was a head-turning sight on Capitol Hill. There was Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, a New York Democrat, standing with firebrand Republican Sens. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Rand Paul (R-Ky.) to showcase their support of her measure to overhaul how the military handles sexual assault allegations....

This matters because for refineries to stuff ballooning amounts of ethanol into a static gas pool, they must blend it at levels of more than 10%. Since the nation's auto makers have declared they will void the warranties of cars using gas with more than 10% ethanol, refineries face lawsuits. Most have instead turned to buying federal renewable "credits" to make up for the ethanol they don't blend. As demand for these credits skyrockets, so has the price—jumping from a few pennies a gallon last year to close to $1 a gallon today. Oil refiner Valero has said the credits...

Sarah Palin joined Eric Bolling on Fox News this morning to take a mini-victory lap over some Democrats suddenly embracing the idea she put forth years ago over health care “death panels.” Palin felt somewhat vindicated, but didn’t want to “condone them… for trying to jump off the Obama train wreck.” She told Bolling that rationing was in the health care law from the beginning, and the Democrats who didn’t notice it until now did not want to look like “buffoons.” Palin also took the media to task for wasting an opportunity at President Obama‘s big press conference to grill...

The way D.C. political operatives are reacting to the news that Liz Cheney is challenging Sen. Mike Enzi in the Wyoming GOP primary, you’d think the Republican Party had another Sharron Angle on their hands — someone so much more conservative and rhetorically unrestrained than the incumbent or establishment candidate that she wins the primary only to lose a winnable general election race by a wide margin.Well, Cheney is famously unrestrained. But that’s about where the similarities end. Wyoming is so deep red that the winner of the GOP primary will sail through the general, no matter who it is....

See I don’t need a lot of Republicans to help me. And that’s why I so admire John McCain. John McCain and I came to the House together 31 years ago. We came to the Senate together at the same time. He and I have fought over the years but we’re also very very good, good friends. And he broke away from the pack. He said, in effect, we have to get some things done. So he doesn’t control the Republican caucus but he controls probably 10 people there. That’s all I needed. And we were able to get a...

**SNIP** Jurors heard closing arguments, then deliberated four hours before returning their verdict. Their decision: Officers did not violate Elizabeth Nichols’ free speech rights. Nor did they use excessive force when they shoved her in the throat with a baton, pepper sprayed her open mouth and dragged her by her hair.

The nation is engaged in a conversation on immigration and, therefore, our congregations should be too. After all, this is not just an abstract philosophical topic — this cuts straight to the core of who we are as Americans and, ultimately, who we are as people of faith. Those of us who claim one of the Abrahamic traditions know that we have been called to care for the immigrant among us. It is a biblical mandate. And any of us living on this side of the border knows (or at least should know) we are all immigrants. Our human journey...

Should we roll out the red carpet and allow millions upon millions of thieves, rapists, gang members and drug dealers to come waltzing into this country any time they would like?

Allen and Debra VanHoozer are mourning the loss of their child, 24-year-old Heather, after an illegal immigrant who was not deported by U.S. authorities after a series of run-ins with law enforcement. The Mexican national was allowed to stay in the U.S. after numerous drug arrests, resulting in him allegedly killing the young woman by operating a motor vehicle while intoxicated. U.S. authorities claim they do not routinely deport illegal aliens for marijuana offenses; apparently they do not routinely deport people for being in the U.S. illegally, either. The VanHoozer family is now set to face the accused killer of...

U.S.-born Junnyor Diaz studies at a Phoenix high school. His Mexico-born older brother, Edder, has applied for a program to avoid deportation, while their undocumented mother, Angelica, cleans houses to keep the family fed and, above all, together. For Junnyor and 16 million others like him in mixed-status families, reform could bring stability to a fraught situation in which a U.S.-born child is a citizen with a shot at a university education and a stable working life, while a sibling or parent born abroad can face instability and deportation. "There isn't a day that goes by that I don't worry...

As rumors brew further regarding Sen. Ted Cruz's (R-Texas) 2016 presidential ambitions, the bold champion of constitutional conservatism is off to Iowa today (Saturday) to meet with/speak to a conservative group in the influential primary state. The event will be in conjunction with the Family Leadership Summit, and held at Iowa State University (Ames) this afternoon.  Cruz made an appearance in New Hampshire -the first voting primary state, vital for any 2016 hopeful- just last month, where he headlined a NH state Republican Party fundraiser, and has already popped up in early-voting South Carolina, where the good Senator spoke at the...

Many things are not remarkable about the growing list of names bandied about in the 2016 presidential speculation sweepstakes - you've got your governors, your senators, your ambitious House members, your former elected officials and cabinet members, your vice president. Most have been in politics for a long time, and a lot of them have the gray hair to prove it. One thing that is remarkable about the field, though, is the number of women identified as plausible candidates. It's not just Hillary Clinton, who obviously looms over the race in a way no other candidate, woman or man, does....

Vice President Joe Biden is calling Democrats to action to stop grassroots conservatives from electing more Republicans in the mold of Sens. Rand Paul (R-KY) and Ted Cruz (R-TX). In a fundraising letter for the Democratic National Committee, first reported by Ed Krayewski at Reason, Biden wrote told prospective donors that a “group of freshmen senators are running the show in the Republican Party” and played up the possibility of a government shutdown over ObamaCare.

Excerpt (source - email) OBITUARY? In 1887 Alexander Tyler, a Scottish history professor at the University of Edinburgh, had this to say about the fall of the Athenian Republic some 2,000 years prior: A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government. A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy...

Sen. Ted Cruz hasn’t said whether he has presidential ambitions, but Sunday he won one of the first straw polls for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination. The Texas Republican captured 45 percent of the 504 votes cast by attendees at the Western Conservative Summit, a day after drawing several standing ovations during his luncheon speech at the fourth annual conference. “We shall see what sort of crystal ball summiteers have in awarding that decisive nod to Sen. Ted Cruz, who was so magnificent from this platform,” said John Andrews, founder of the Centennial Institute at Colorado Christian University, which hosted...

Since Canadian born Ted Cruz has emerged on the scene in Washington as a future presidential candidate for 2016, attention has turned to whether he is Constitutionally eligible for Article 2 Section 1, the presidential qualification clause. This is what we know. Ted Cruz was born in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. Many say that disqualifies him to be eligible for the presidency. Enter former Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm. She was born in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. I came across an interview she did with Fox News's Chris Wallace in February of 2010. During the interview Wallace brought up the fact that...

The Brain Dead American Media missed this veiled threat in Obama's opening statement: "We shouldn’t forget the difference between the ability of our government to collect information online under strict guidelines and for narrow purposes, and the willingness of some other governments to throw their own citizens in prison for what they say online" Tell that to the arab who made a movie and posted it to the Net and who was blamed for creating the Benghazi Attacks ? Tell that to all those who have been surveilled by federal agencies using the NSA databases ? Obama often uses words...

Forty to 50 House Republicans will support immigration reform, Rep. Luis Gutiérrez (D-Ill.) predicted Thursday. Gutiérrez said many of the Republicans supportive of immigration reform don’t want to be identified, but he insisted they would support comprehensive immigration reform. “If they ask me today, go find those 40 to 50 Republicans, I’ll tell them I found them. I know where they’re at,” Gutiérrez said in an interview with Ed O’Keefe at The Washington Post.

Did someone help Ed Snowden punch a hole in the NSA?by Jon RappoportJune 11, 2013Ed Snowden, NSA leaker. Honest man. Doing what was right. Bravo. That still doesn’t preclude the possibility that, unknown to him, he was managed by people to put him the right place to expose NSA secrets.Snowden’s exposure of NSA was a righteous act, because that agency is a RICO criminal. But that doesn’t mean we have the whole story.How many people work in classified jobs for the NSA? And here is one man, Snowden, who is working for Booz Allen, an outside contractor, but is assigned...

Some of the GOP's most senior senators made it on the National Journal's list of "Top 10 lawmakers who could lose a primary next year." Minority leader Mitch McConnell, South Carolina's Lindsey Graham and Wyoming Sen. Mike Enzi have been officially marked as "in danger" by the website, along with Idaho Republican Rep Mike Simpson and Democrat Brian Schatz from Hawaii. McConnell, the 71-year-old Senate stalwart who entered the chamber in 1985, faces tea partier Matt Bevin in the primary, with Alison Lundergan Grimes running as a Democrat. His campaign manager Jesse Benton has boasted "there is absolutely no risk...

Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush (R) on Wednesday criticized actor Matt Damon, a vocal public-school advocate, for sending his children to private school. Read more: http://thehill.com/blogs/twitter-room/other-news/316005-jeb-bush-rips-matt-damon-for-sending-his-kids-to-private-school#ixzz2bNpdcw7I Follow us: @thehill on Twitter | TheHill on Facebook

Greenville County (S.C.) Republicans have introduced a resolution condemning liberal U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham for acting in a manner ”fundamentally inconsistent with the principles of the South Carolina Republican Party.” The resolution – introduced to a cheering crowd earlier this week at a GOP executive committee meeting – blasts Graham on a number of fronts, including his votes to confirm liberal, pro-Obamacare Supreme Court justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan, his support of amnesty for illegal aliens and his backing of U.S. President Barack Obama’s “cap and trade” energy tax hike. In fact the document lists nearly thirty examples of...

Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY), who was part of the "Gang of Eight" that wrote the Senate's immigration bill, lamented that there were not more John McCains in the House of Representatives. Sen. McCain (R-AZ) has been lauded as Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's "favorite Republican," and President Barack Obama, when asked by Jay Leno on Tuesday to speak about his "bromance" with McCain," described it as a "romantic comedy." But there are not as many Republicans who are so willing to compromise like McCain in the House, much to Schumer's chagrin. "Well, the problem is, why aren't there more John...

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg’s lobbying outfit has launched a $350,000 ad buy to defend House Budget Committee chairman Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) amid his push for comprehensive immigration reform. Politico reports that Zuckerberg’s FWD.us-run group, Americans for a Conservative Direction, has bought up $350,000 worth of television ad airtime targeted at Ryan’s district. "The spot from the FWD.us affiliate begins with a picture of Ryan and says, ‘Amnesty? Not a chance,’ and goes on to say the House budget chairman is looking at a ‘conservative solution’ to the issue of immigration,” Politico wrote on Thursday. “It then focuses on more...

Here's an easy way to tell when your position isn't a conservative one. When you're standing with Van Jones, your position isn't a conservative one. When you're standing with Code Pink, then your position is not a conservative one. No amount of noise or chest-beating is going to change that.

Sen. Rand Paul renews fight over indefinite detention of US citizens The Hill Nov. 25, 2012 Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) is bringing a new — and more aggressive — approach to a longstanding debate over the Defense authorization bill, threatening to filibuster the bill to get a vote on his amendment limiting indefinite detention. Paul’s amendment takes a new tack to curb the military’s ability to indefinitely detain U.S. citizens suspected of terrorism by affirming they have the right to a speedy trial by jury under the Sixth Amendment. His push to change the indefinite detention laws for U.S. citizens...

As of this writing, Senator Rand Paul is still on his feet filibustering the nomination of John Brennan to be director of the CIA. But as he eventually made clear, his goal is not so much to actually stop Brennan, as it is to make a meal of the comments made this morning by Attorney General Eric Holder when he was pressed about U.S. policies on drone strikes on terrorists during an appearance before the Senate Judiciary Committee. When asked whether the government considered it had the right to use an armed drone on an American citizen within the borders...

I asked the president, can you kill an American on American soil, it should have been an easy answer. It’s an easy question. It should have been a resounding, an unequivocal, “No.” The president’s response? He hasn’t killed anyone yet. -- Rand Paul I do not believe that question deserves an answer. -- Lindsey Graham Mr. Holder’s letter answers Mr. Rand’s question, “Does the president have the authority to use a weaponized drone to kill Americans not engaged in combat on U.S. soil. The answer to that question is 'no.’”-- Jay Carney I don’t think that what happened yesterday is...

This morning, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) told Glenn Beck’s radio team that he had some new information about the U.S. government drone program — information that some individuals might find troubling. Later in the day, TheBlaze obtained letters that were sent to the senator by Attorney General Eric Holder and President Barack Obama’s chief counter-terrorism adviser John Brennan. It is select contents in Holder’s letter that citizens might find most problematic. After Paul sent an inquiry to learn more about the government’s drone program and to ask whether “the president has the power to authorize lethal force, such as a...

Attorney General Eric Holder has responded to Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul's question about whether the federal government can legally use a drone strike against an American citizen on U.S. soil if the person is "not engaged in combat": Earlier this week, Holder wrote in a letter to Paul that the president has the authority to order militarized drone strikes on American citizens within the United States, but only in “an extraordinary circumstance.” In protest, Paul spoke for 13 hours straight on the Senate floor Wednesday, arguing against the drone policy.

Here's the statement he released last night, following the Cavuto segment that Ed wrote about yesterday. I think he's right: Even during the filibuster, he allowed for the use of military force (i.e. drones) to stop an attack on U.S. soil that's in progress. His objection was to the White House using drones to liquidate someone who was merely plotting, who hadn't lifted a finger (yet) to do any actual damage. “My comments last night left the mistaken impression that my position on drones had changed.“Let me be clear: it has not. Armed drones should not be used in normal...

Sen. Rand Paul blasted Attorney General Eric Holder’s announcement that drone strikes could be carried out on U.S. soil under extreme circumstances, with the Kentucky Republican suggesting that means Americans could be killed while they’re “eating dinner” or “at a cafe.” “The thing about the drone strike program is we’re not talking about someone’s actively attacking America — we’re not talking about planes flying into the World Trade Center,” Paul said on Fox News on Tuesday. “What we’re talking about is you’re eating dinner in your house, you’re eating at a cafe or you’re walking down the road.” He continued:...

Ron Paul's vibrant fan base is in open rebellion today over Rand Paul's reversal on domestic drone strikes. The Kentucky senator, whose famous 13-hour Senate floor filibuster did much to strengthen his ties with his father's hardcore following, told Fox Business Network on Tuesday he's OK with drone strikes on American citizens who, for instance, rob a liquor store

Last year, for the first time in decades, Republicans lost the advantage on foreign policy in a presidential campaign. Exit polls showed that voters trusted Barack Obama more than Mitt Romney to handle an international crisis (57 percent trusted Obama, 50 percent trusted Romney). And of the small number of voters who put foreign policy as their top issue, Obama won by a margin of 56 percent to 33 percent. Part of this, of course, is due to the incumbent’s advantage. But Republicans, following the setbacks in the Iraq War and Afghanistan, will have a tough job restoring their advantage...

Sen. Rand Paul declared "victory" Thursday after Attorney General Eric Holder assured him that the president cannot use a drone to kill a non-combatant American on U.S. soil -- an assurance Paul had sought during his 13-hour filibuster the day before. "Hooray!" Paul responded, when read the letter for the first time during an interview with Fox News. "For 13 hours yesterday, we asked him that question, so there is a result and a victory. Under duress and under public humiliation, the White House will respond and do the right thing." During his dramatic filibuster, which delayed a vote on...

On “Fox News Sunday,” Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol echoed an editorial he wrote this week slamming Kentucky Republican Sen. Rand Paul for suggesting at the Conservative Political Action Conference that the “GOP of old has grown stale and moss-covered.” “I think it is the Republican Party, to the degree that it has been a successful party and an important party and a contributor to American well-being over the last 50, 60 years, has been so in large part because it has been the party of strong national security,” Kristol said. “Republicans were not — you can say they...

The U.S. Senate voted 58-41 Tuesday to confirm former Nebraska senator Chuck Hagel as America’s new defense secretary, but not without a little controversy. Four Republican senators backed Hagels’ confirmation: Sens. Thad Cochran (Miss.), Mike Johanns (Neb.), Richard Shelby (Ala.), and Rand Paul (Ky.), as noted yesterday on TheBlaze. Understandably, Sen. Paul’s vote took some by surprise. After all, didn’t the Kentucky senator vote against cloture before voting for Hagel’s confirmation (answer: Yes). In an attempt to figure out this apparent contradiction, Fox News Channel’s Bill Hemmer on Wednesday asked the senator about his “aye” vote. “You helped lead the...

Well. So Ron Paul is picking up steam in Iowa. May even be a frontrunner. And here he is (beginning at 4:06 in the video) saying of Bradley Manning, the U.S. soldier who leaked thousands of pages of classified U.S. government documents to Wikileaks, that Manning is a "true patriot" and a "political hero." I kid you not. Here’s the link to the video. Wait 'til Newt, Mitt, Rick, Rick, Michele, and Jon hear about this.

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) blasted fellow GOP Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) on Thursday, saying the two “think the whole world is a battlefield.” Paul criticized the hawkish senators for thinking the laws of war should take precedence over the Bill of Rights. The two had criticized Paul’s statements about drone policy during the Kentucky Republican’s 13-hour filibuster on Thursday. “They think the whole world is a battlefield including America and that the laws of war should apply,” Paul said in an interview on Fox News about McCain and Graham, who had described Paul’s comments about drones...

Boston’s top cop wants drones hovering over next year’s marathon, but getting his hands on one may be easier said than done. More than 30 states, including Massachusetts, are rushing to restrict the use of drones by law enforcement, with some seeking to ban it in all but the most extreme circumstances. Even if unmanned aerial systems could have shortened the search for the terrorists who wreaked havoc on Boston last week, many people are deeply skeptical about giving authorities carte blanche to use potentially dangerous technology. “It’s not surprising that you have law enforcement agencies rushing out to use...

So, will Rand Paul, Mike Lee, and Dianne Feinstein go to bat for Dzhokhar Tsarnaev? In December, with many conservatives cheering him on, Paul (R., Ky.) railed against the “abomination” of designating American citizens as enemy combatants — i.e., detaining them indefinitely outside the civilian criminal-justice system. Mike Lee (Utah), a conservative favorite, was his principal Republican partner in the Senate effort.

Sen. Rand Paul said Sunday that President Barack Obama and former President George W. Bush could have "conceivably been put in jail” for their drug use, ruining their lives and impacting their getting elected to office. "Look, the last two presidents could have conceivably been put in jail for their drug use and I really think - look what would've happened, it would've ruined their lives. They got lucky. But a lot of poor kids, particularly in the inner city, don't get lucky and they don't have good attorneys and they go to jail for some of these things and...