Rand Paul Was Appointed to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee

This should be fun.  The Daily Caller points out some points of contention between John McCain and Rand Paul, who are now both on the committee:

Though they are both Republicans, Paul and McCain have clashed repeatedly over foreign policy and national security. "I worry a lot about the rise of protectionism and isolationism in the Republican Party," McCain said when Paul was first elected. "I admire his victory, but … already he has talked about withdrawals [and] cuts in defense."

"Calling me an 'isolationist' is about as accurate or appropriate as calling Senator McCain an 'imperialist,'" Paul shot back in his book "The Tea Party Goes to Washington."
...

The two senators have most recently sparred over the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). Paul said that McCain was responsible for changes to the bill that unconstitutionally left Americans vulnerable to being detained without trial if accused of terrorism. McCain's office countered that the bill protected constitutional rights.

McCain and Paul have differed on military involvement in Libya, arming Syrian rebels, the size of the Pentagon budget, warrantless surveillance and foreign aid. Paul also opposed the Iraq War and tried to revoke its congressional authorization. McCain was a staunch supporter of the war.

Despite their disagreements, the two have collaborated on legislation in the past. But tensions between Paul and McCain escalated during the NDAA fight.

"I find it disappointing that one member of the United States Senate feels that his particular agenda is so important that it affects the lives and the readiness and the capabilities of the men and women who are serving in the military and our ability to defend this nation," McCain said of Paul's NDAA filibuster. "I think it's hard to answer to the men and women in the military with this kind of behavior, but I will leave that up to the senator from Kentucky to do so."

McCain went so far as to suggest Paul's tactics lend "credence" to Democratic filibuster reform proposals.

"The right to due process, a trial by jury, and protection from indefinite detention should not be shorn from our Bill of Rights or wrested from the hands of Americans," Paul said of the McCain-led conference committee report on the NDAA. "It is a dark day in our history that these rights have been stomped upon and discarded."

Rand Paul Set to Visit Israel Next Week

Senator Rand Paul's visit to Israel is coming up.   My guess is that once he sees the situation on the ground, he can only become more Pro-Israel.  Here is the story from the Jerusalem Post which has some of the details of his trip:

Kentucky Republican senator Rand Paul, a fierce opponent of US foreign aid who is being touted already as a likely 2016 presidential candidate, is scheduled to arrive in Israel Sunday for his first-ever visit.

Paul, who espouses the libertarian views of his father Ron Paul, is scheduled to meet Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and President Shimon Peres on Monday.

...

Paul, one of eight senators who voted against the so-called "fiscal cliff" agreement in the US Senate this week, is scheduled to speak at a private reception Monday on the issue of fiscal responsibility and reducing US foreign aid during a speech at the Jerusalem Institute for Market Studies (JIMS). JIMS describes itself as "an independent, nonprofit economic policy think tank whose mission is to promote social progress in Israel through economic freedom and individual liberty."

...

After meeting Netanyahu and Peres, Paul is scheduled to go to Jordan on Tuesday and meet with King Abdullah II and PA Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.

He will return to Israel Wednesday and tour the Galilee.

The trip is sponsored by the American Family Association, a conservative Christian group that promotes fundamentalist Christian values. Paul will be part of a group of some 50-100 evangelical Christian, including politically well-connected figures in South Carolina and Iowa, which will hold early 2016 caucuses and primaries.

Rand Paul's Great Interview with Hugh Hewitt

Here are some key excerpts of Rand Paul's interview with Hugh Hewitt.  You can get the whole transcript here:

HH: Gosh, I hope every one of my shows is as significant as Paul Ryan and Rand Paul after a major vote this year. That would be a good 2013 for me. Can you tell us why and how you voted no on H.R. 8?

RP: Well you know, I think the biggest problem we face as a country is this debt crisis. The fiscal crisis was sort of a created concoction by the President, because he said he wanted taxes to go up. So he forced the taxes up on some folks, but it did nothing to address the real problem, which is the debt crisis, and in fact, I think made it worse, because this bill had $330 billion dollars worth of new spending in. So I just can’t vote for more spending, taxes going up. It really was going the wrong direction, as far as I’m concerned.

...

RP: Everything is done with a political end in mind. Everything is done, and everything has been done for the last several years based on envy, fear, jealousy, all things that I think aren’t really what typify what’s made our country great. And so no, I object to the way he’s characterized these things. And really, I tell people over and over again, the facts of the matter are that the rich pay most of the taxes in our country as it is now. And the other fact is that when you take money out of the private economy, whether it’s rich people’s money, middle class or poor, when you take it out of the private sector, you’re taking it out of the efficient sector, and you’re giving it to government. And there’s no objective evidence that government spends it wisely.

...

RP: Yeah, and here’s the thing, and the reason why I don’t is I don’t believe these people. They always put the spending cuts ten years from now when there’s a new Congress. All these budgets, they say, will balance, take 28, 30 years to balance. So I think you have to have an amendment. But as far as the entitlements, what I don’t like about what the Democrats do is they say oh, if you give us this, if you trade us this, we’ll agree to fix entitlements. Well, entitlements affect all Americans, Republicans or Democrats. They’re not broken because of either party’s fault. They’re broken because we’re living longer, and because the Baby Boomers are retiring. So I think as an obligation as a good legislator, you should just agree to fix them. But they always want to trade something. They want to see that they’ll raise taxes on some more people, give them some more spending for earned income tax credit or what have you, but they want something in exchange for doing what is the right thing, and that’s to fix entitlements so we can save them.

- -   -    -

HH: Senator Paul, when we went to break, we were talking about entitlements. And I know that your position that we ought to do the right thing on them, do you think we need to chain the CPI for Social Security and Medicare?

RP: Well you know, I think a lot of people don’t understand exactly what that means. I have a bill that would do two things. It would raise the age gradually, a couple of months a year over about 20 years, and then I would means test the benefits. I think means testing is a little more acceptable than slowing down the cost of living increases for everyone. What you do with means testing is that the richest among you will actually get a cut in their Social Security, and then you work your way down to the poorest among us, who won’t have any cut. And so then something like a chained CPI and all these other complicated formulas won’t hurt the people on the lowest end of the totem pole. And so I think that’s the better way to approach it.

HH: Let me ask you about that, because a lot of people instantly say Social Security, at least, was always about a savings program. If you begin to means test it, you break faith with people who have for decades been paying in on the expectation they would get back.

RP: It’s been a fiction, though, for a few decades now. And now for the first time in the last two years, Social Security pays out more than comes in. In fact, with Medicare, it’s dramatic. You pay a dollar in Medicare taxes, and you get three dollars in return receipts, so really, these things are so broken and have to be changed. I think means testing is a way of doing it that’s acceptable to people. And what people need to understand is if you were, if you made over a $100,000 dollars a year, that’s basically the top bracket for Social Security. You get about $2,200 dollars a month. My plan that means test takes about $300 dollars a month from those who made more than $100,000 dollars a year. So they would actually get less, but it would actually start having savings immediately. If you do not do that, you have to do all these manipulations to CPI that really, you know, there are a lot of poor people in our country who are having trouble living on the Social Security check they have. And you slow that down, I just think it’s harder to get through Congress, it’s harder to make work. I’ve told the President, Biden, I’ve told all the Democrats, why don’t you work with us on this, because you keep saying you want the rich to pay more. This is a way that the rich receive a little bit less in benefits. It doesn’t, it helps to make the system solvent, and I think it’s the best way to go.

HH: Now I want to go back to the debt ceiling, since that looms on March 1. Are you afraid, now we will hear, and we’ve already begun to hear, that if we do not raise the debt ceiling in time to borrow more, that the bond vigilantes will arrive, they’ll attack our bond rating, they will attack our credit rating, and everyone will suffer. What’s your response to that, Senator Paul?

RP: The best way is to affirmatively pass legislation, and Senator Toomey had this last time, and I was a co-sponsor, affirmatively pass legislation that says the tax receipts will go to pay for the interest on the debt. The first one in line will be interest on the debt. And then we also designated, I think, a few other people – Social Security soldiers’ salaries, the military, things like that. We prioritize our spending, and we go ahead and pay tax receipts. So that way, we let the world know we will not default. So when they play this game, they are always saying that we will default. They want to scare both Congress into voting for more spending and more debt. But they also want to scare the marketplace, and I think it’s a bad idea to scare the marketplace. I would preemptively go ahead and put out there that we will never default on our debt, that it is an obligation, something that’s a Constitutional obligation that we have to pay the interest on our debt. So I would let the world know we would do that, and I think that would give a great deal of confidence. You know, we bring in billions of dollars of tax revenue every month. And there’s actually plenty of it to pay interest, Social Security, soldiers’ salaries. Eventually, you get down to a lot of the discretionary spending, but I think you could delay discretionary spending and have none of it for about three months. People might discover that we don’t need most of the discretionary spending.

HH: Now Senator, that might be interesting, but I know Senator Reid will not bring that forward. And so if we’re up against the wall in late February, and it appears that we are going to run up against the limit, and there has not been any sort of prioritization of payment beginning with sovereign debt and then down through the Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, Marines, et cetera, are you afraid of what will happen if we get to that limit and we have not established that prioritization, and we can’t borrow?

RP: Well, that’s why our job is to talk about prioritizing, how we would pay for it. Our other job is that what we ought to do is what we did last time, is the House passed in advance a bill that says we will agree to raise the debt ceiling. Actually, we had over $2 trillion dollars we were going to agree to, if you’ll pass a balanced budget amendment. So the only way to get the leverage of the debt ceiling to work is you have to be willing to go through the deadline. If you’re willing to go through the deadline, and have the Treasury keep taking tax receipts, and continue to pay the interest on the debt, and pay for the primary functions of government, if you’re willing to do that, which would be saying that part of the government wouldn’t get funding until we got a solution, I think you would finally get to a point of leverage where Congress would say you know what? We should have a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution, and I think we could pass it. I know we can pass it in the House. We just have to get some Democrats to agree that there’s a fiscal problem in our country.

HH: If we are at this point, find majorities of Republicans willing to go through the deadline, enough to stop any kind of debt relief bill, how long will they stay strong on that, do you think, Rand Paul? Will they fold up when the media begins to barrage them with criticism?

RP: Well, here’s the problem. And this is it in a nutshell. We give up before we ever get started, usually. So we give in and we have absolutely no leverage, because we know that many have the spine of an invertebrate. And so, like for example, we gave up the whole fight over whether or not we were going to pay for the Sandy emergency funding before it got started, $60 billion dollars, you know, not offset at all. The Republican alternative in the Senate was $24 billion now, and they’d give you more later, but not offset, either. I said let’s give them the $9 billion that they need to spend in the next year. That’s all they’re estimating they’re going to spend. But I offset mine with real cuts.

The Senate Doesn't Even Want to Know How the Secret FISA Courts Operate

It's just amazing that we have a shadow court system that is essentially operating without any sort of oversight and the Senate doesn't even want to know anything.  I'm sure there are no abuses going on.  You can always trust government functionaries after all:

FISA courts operate in secret, which is to be expected. What is not to be expected is that the elected branches of the federal government will conduct a debate about the proper scope of the law without knowing how the law is actually interpreted in practice.

 

We might as well have a debate about the Constitution with a secret Supreme Court. (Well, that probably wouldn't be all that different from the current state of affairs.)

 

Sen. Jeff Merkley asked that we be given some window into what the important rulings and precedents of the secret court might be, with the understanding that nothing endangering national security would be declassified. If we are going to discuss these issues, it would be awfully sporting to know what we are talking about.

 

Nah, the Senate decided. Merkley's amendment was defeated by a vote of 54 to 37. Who needs to know these things anyway? That's why the government hires national-security professionals, who will always act in our interests.

 

So Sen. Ron Wyden, a fellow Democrat from Oregon, offered a different amendment. He just wanted some general reporting on the privacy impact of the law, some more disclosure. Transparency, the president tells us, is a good thing, right?

 

"I think we ought to know, generally, how many Americans are being swept up under the legislation," Wyden said on the Senate floor. Not explicit tips on ongoing terror investigations. Just making sure the surveillance is focused on, you know, terror investigations.

 

"One of the biggest misconceptions about NSA is that we are unlawfully listening in on, or reading e-mails of, U.S. citizens," the National Security Agency told CNN in a statement. "This is simply not the case. NSA is unwavering in its respect for U.S. laws and Americans' civil liberties."

 

No one should think the targets are U.S. persons," said Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the California Democrat who chairs the Senate Intelligence Committee. "Thirteen members of the intelligence committee who have voted on this do not believe this is a problem."

 

Okay. Well, then that's what some small measure of transparency will show us, right? Or do we just have to take the NSA and the Intelligence Committee's word for it? (Wyden incidentally serves on Intelligence and he still has a wee bit of a problem with these assurances.)

 

Turns out that the Senate didn't want to know. Wyden's amendment was defeated by a vote of 52 to 43.

 

By now, you might be able to sense a pattern developing here. So you would probably not be surprised to learn that only a dozen senators supported Rand Paul's proposal that emails and text messages be subject to the same Fourth Amendment protections as telephone calls.

 

...

 

I guess if you believe government powers are never abused, or that Democrats will protect our civil liberties even when a president of their own party is in power, it's fine not to do "this."
Just reauthorize the sunsetting provisions so we can all find out what's in them.

 

Our government is run by Sergeant Schultz from Hogan's Heroes.  I know nothing!

Bernie Quigley in The Hill: Rand Paul/Mike Lee 2016

It's nice having company in my excitement over Rand Paul.  Here is a post by Bernie Quigley in The Hill's blog:

We are at a sea change and two to watch at the quiet turning of the tides today are Rand Paul and Mike Lee, senators from Kentucky and Utah, who voted against the fateful "fiscal cliff" agenda last night. The century might start this year with them. 
...
Paul and Lee have added strength, maturity and character to the Senate since assuming office in 2011. They and they alone in the Senate have brought the Tea Party's passionate rants to responsible and effectively engaged government. We start again with them. Both should have their eyes on the Oval Office in 2016.
And Rand Paul in particular might consider a conspicuous trip to Israel, as all do who look to the Oval Office. It would clarify things about Dad. Because Ron Paul, who opposed the Israeli lobby's efforts and the neocon adventures in wonderland, was unfairly caricatured as an anti-Semite in his opposition to the invasion of Iraq. And Rand Paul would find kinship with Moshe Feiglin, the liberty candidate for the Knesset who opposed American influence in Israel since 2001. Feiglin's rise to the Knesset this month has already changed the culture and historical trajectory of Israel. Israel rises to a new phase and a generational shift this year and potentially America does as well. These two, Rand Paul and Moshe Feiglin, rise in the world together and possibly fate intends for them to do so.

Rand Paul: They Campaigned on Going After the Rich and That is What They Are Doing

Taxes may be going up on the rich as part of the deal but don't necessarily expect higher revenues or even any economic growth:

Rand Paul on Wolf Blitzer Commenting on the Fiscal Cliff Deal

Senator Rand Paul says we don't need more revenue, we need less revenue and a lot less spending. Right on!: