Tag: Rand Paul

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budgets & spending cuts too much government

Everybody Pays – Nobody Wants

Festivus, Christmas, Rand Paul, government waste

Senator Rand Paul has just issued The Festivus Report 2025, in part a laundry list of absurd government spending at your expense and mine — to buy things that nobody wants but all of us American taxpayers must pay for.

Well, not nobody-nobody: The recipients of the largesse? They’re the exception; they want it. But these exceptions can’t justify expenditures wholly unrelated to the proper government function of protecting life and liberty from foreign and domestic threats.

“Congress keeps shoveling money toward pet projects and special interests while hardworking Americans pay the price through inflation and crushing interest rates — even after President Trump took action to end most foreign aid programs,” says Paul.

Examples:

  • $5 million for cocaine for dogs.
  • $3.3 million to Northwestern University to fund “safe space ambassadors” and combat “systemic racism.”
  • $7.5 billion for an EV charger network that built just 68 charging stations throughout the country.
  • $244,252 for a Pakistan cartoon series about fighting “climate change.”
  • $2.8 million “for aborted fetal tissue to be implanted in humanized mice.”
  • $2 million for “gender-​affirming care” and influence campaigns in Guatemala.
  • $200 billion to schools in pandemic-​relief money “wasted on things like rooms at Caesars Palace, renting out MLB stadiums, and ice cream trucks.”
  • $22.6 billon on “things like furniture, car repairs and home down payments, as well as welfare for illegal immigrants.”
  • $700,000 to fuel anti-​gas-​stove propaganda.

And so much more. Take it all back, Santa!

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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defense & war national politics & policies

The War on Drugs War

Rand Paul, Donald Trump, Mitch McConnell, drug war, human rights

The Trump Administration is at war … with Senator Rand Paul. 

Tensions between the President and Senator Paul have heated up noticeably since mid-​October, with Trump taking sharp public swipes at Paul, a longtime ally. This scuffle seems primarily driven by Paul’s outspoken criticism of the Venezuelan boat strikes, which Trump sees as a betrayal of his “tough on drugs” agenda and a threat to GOP unity. 

The budget hawk angle — mentioned here in a weekend update — is a secondary irritant, tied to Paul’s broader push for fiscal restraint. But it hasn’t dominated the feud.

While Trump decries a lack of unity, Paul offers Trump’s bellicosity as “detrimental to the party.”

Against the Kentucky senator’s war-​powers/​war-​crimes critiques, the president is acerbic: “Rand wants trials for narco-​terrorists 2,000 miles away? Tell that to the fentanyl orphans.”

Tough zinger, sure, but think about it: it’s the standard argument against all civil liberties. The idea that those suspected by the government of awful crimes, even lacking any proof or semblance of due process, do not deserve rights. 

Leading to a modern adaptation of “Kill them all and let God sort them out” in the Carribean.

Meanwhile, in a bizarre reversal of the ongoing marijuana legalization and hemp deregulation trend, the federal government has “turned back the clock”: Tucked into the continuing resolution (CR) that ended the 43-​day government shutdown, Congress passed (and Mr. Trump signed) language that effectively bans most hemp-​derived products containing more than 0.4 milligrams of THC per container — a threshold so low it sweeps up even basic CBD items, which naturally contain trace THC.

Since Kentucky sports over 5000 acres devoted to the ancient industrial product, you might suspect that this could be part of Trump’s war on Kentucky’s junior senator.

But it appears the state’s senior senator was behind the move!

New War on Drugs, meet the old War on Drugs.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Accountability budgets & spending cuts national politics & policies too much government

Blame Rand Paul?

Rand Paul, CR, Continuing Resolution, debt, spending, Congress

“The Republican plan adds about $2 trillion to the debt,” Senator Rand Paul explained at the beginning of the month, referring to the Continuing Resolution (CR) which remains, to this day, unresolved. “I’m opposed to deficit spending,” he added, insisting that he would “vote for something with less deficit, but not a $2 trillion deficit.”

Most of the shutdown screaming blames President Donald Trump, but Trump’s a big advocate for the CR. Trouble is, it requires a 60 percent Yea vote in the Senate. All but three Democrats voting Nay ensure that the CR will continue to fail.

So, Sen. Paul’s continuing Nay vote isn’t the cause really; a switch on his part wouldn’t allow the bill to pass. The folks worried about losing their SNAP benefits (just about the only Americans not in government who’ve noticed the shutdown) shouldn’t blame anyone other than those nay-​saying Democrats.

From the beginning, Paul has noted a different irony — his alignment with the bulk of Democrats in opposing the CR. He’s against its continuation of old spending expectations; Democrats, on the other hand, demand even more, especially securing the renewal of Obamacare subsidies.

While the CR failed a 13th time, yesterday, Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D‑Ct.) said that lawmakers had set aside a USDA contingency fund “for exactly these kinds of purposes” — that is, to fund SNAP during the shutdown. The White House insists it lacks legal authorization for this, and, besides, November’s food subsidy requires $9 billion, and the fund falls short by four.

It appears that the tens of millions who may not get their EBT cards filled at the beginning of November remain unaware of what the battle is really about.

But they may be getting a clue: it’s not about them.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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First Amendment rights national politics & policies partisanship

Who Is the Lawfare King?

Rand Paul, Senate, honor

Last Sunday on Meet the Press, Sen. Rand Paul (R‑Ky) addressed two areas where President Trump has stumbled in recent days, losing many conservatives and civil libertarians: censorship and lawfare. 

“Senator,” Kristen Welker asked, “do you believe that President Trump is sending the message that he only supports free speech when it’s speech that he agrees with?”

“Well, I can’t control everything the president says. And I don’t think that having the FCC weigh in on licenses is right. I will fight that,” the junior senator from Kentucky declared. “But I can tell you that throughout government, the censorship apparatus that Biden had put in place is gone.”

Under President Biden, the senator explained, employees and ex-​employees of both the FBI and Department of Homeland Security set up offices inside Twitter, while “Facebook was told to take down information concerning the origins of the Covid virus” under threat of “being broken up by antitrust. So we have had official censorship going on for many years now, and everybody on the left just looked the other way. 

“They actually had an office, an office of censorship.”

Welker then inquired if he thought it was “appropriate for the president to direct the attorney general to go after his political opponents”?

“I think lawfare in all forms is bad,” Rand Paul replied. “What they did to Donald Trump was an abomination. But yes, it is not right for the Trump administration to do the same thing.

“We need to get politics out of the judicial system as much as we can. But we can’t do it without acknowledging that the king of lawfare was Biden.”

True enough, with the full title: Marionette Censor Joe, King of Lawfare, First of His Name If Not of His Kind.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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ideological culture national politics & policies

The Uninvited

Rand Paul

There’s talk of proof that Iran now possesses a nuclear weapons capacity; Israel bombed the targets; war drums are beating — but for a short time yesterday, the news was all abuzz over the Trump Critic Snub.

The federal government’s official debt rushed to the $37 trillion mark — but Senator Rand Paul (R‑Ky.) took a few moments to shake his head over how he and his grandson were singled out by not being invited to the White House picnic.

“I just find it so incredibly petty,” Senator Paul said. “It’s really kind of sad that this is where we are.”

Politics is a petty business, too often, and this sure looked like one of those moments to upgrade the word with a capital P. Or with a T, for You-Know-Who.

Oddly, though, often it was the senator who was besmirched with the P word, not the prez!

“His complaint has sparked bipartisan mockery online,” explains Newsweek. “Vince Langman, a self-​described member of the MAGA movement, told his 381,000 followers on X, formerly Twitter: ‘Rand Paul crying like a school girl because President Trump uninvited him from the White House picnic is the funniest thing I’ve seen on X in weeks.’”

I don’t know. Is it funnier than the Deep State admitting that it had been faking and fanning the flames of the UFO craze all along? 

Or blaming Senator Paul for noticing and not the White House for the actual snub?!?

The attack on Paul is dumb: the Kentucky senator has always been an equal opportunity critic.

Thankfully, Rand Paul and his grandson — and, presumably, Rep. Thomas Massie, another Big Beautiful Bill critic — are back on the picnic list.

Maybe they can hold a moment in silence, amidst the fun, as the debt hits $37 trillion.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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national politics & policies regulation subsidy

The Great De-Platforming?

Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, AM radio, technology, regulations, mandates

“There is a certain amount of irony in seeing Republicans come to the floor proposing mandates on business,” said Senator Rand Paul (R‑Ky.) in the U.S. Senate, yesterday. Kentucky’s junior senator objected “to Republicans picking winners and losers.”

At issue is a bill pushed by Senator Ted Cruz (R‑Tx.), the AM For Every Vehicle Act. Automobile manufacturers are phasing out amplitude modulation (AM) on radio receivers, and Cruz objects primarily on two rationales: 

  1. emergency roadway communications rely upon AM frequencies, and 
  2. since conservatives dominate AM talk radio, the move looks suspiciously like a sneaky way to decrease conservative and Republican political influence. 

“AM radio is where a lot of talk radio is found,” argues Cruz, “and talk radio is overwhelmingly conservative. And let’s be clear: Big business doesn’t like things that are overwhelmingly conservative.”

Technology and media change all the time, and as ostensible advocates for free markets, it’s no business of Republicans so much as to nudge the market in one direction or the other. Perhaps AM’s days are numbered. 

Shed a tear and move on.

Cruz characterizes the issue as one of free speech. Paul expresses incredulity: “The debate over free speech, as listed in the First Amendment, is that government shall pass no law. It has nothing to do with forcing your manufacturer to have AM radio.”

It gets messier: electric car manufacturers say that the AM band interferes with their batteries, and the technology to shield the batteries is expensive. So Cruz’s law would forbid companies from charging more for this tech.

If you ask me, the batteries being harmed by AM radio indicates a glaring defect not in a radio platform but in the platform of electric cars.

So it’s great that Rand Paul’s amendment to undermine Cruz’s mandate would also nix the electric car tax credit. 

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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