Originally published at: Rand Paul’s Fairweather Libertarianism Rears Its Head As He Criticizes DHS Officials
Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) broke with most of his Republican peers Thursday, using his chairmanship of the Senate Homeland Security committee to press immigration officials on agents’ violent behavior. He and ranking member Gary Peters (D-MI) teamed up to ask acting ICE chief Todd Lyons and Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Rodney Scott questions about…
When the closest you can come to a Republican with conscience is Rand Paul, you’ve got a problem. Rand has no conscience, of course. He has an angle here. Rand is interested only in what is good for Rand.
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It’s past time for today’s Republican party to go the way of the Whigs.
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“People can go out there and protest, but why are we going to encourage individuals to go out there and impede and put themselves in harm’s way? I think that’s the lesson learned from this,” [Lyons] said.
This is willful ignorance. The Gestapo claims that people have the right to protest, but if they try to protect the people that Gestapo is going after, they put themselves “in harms way.” He’s using the passive voice specifically here. The “harm” is not an abstract concept. It is an out of control secret police force attacking people in the street.
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If Paul’s neighbor had just been a little more thorough we’d all be better off.
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This statement is contradicted by the content of the article it is commenting on.
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Yeah, I suppose.
Am I the only one who always – ALWAYS – thinks Randal has an ulterior motive?
Also, I agree with @daveminnj that “If Paul’s neighbor had just been a little more thorough we’d all be better off.” That’s why Rene Boucher should be given another chance.
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“…border czar Tom Homan announced hat the administration was ending the Minnesota surge.”
I guess Kristi and Donnie got their kill quota.
Paul’s complaint is not unwelcome but still pretty tame stuff given the scope of the danger that needs to be confronted. Not the least of which frankly is a federal official in formal hearing asking …
This isn’t just evasive, it is inverted, an abrogation of responsibility: citizens exercising their constitutional rights – bearing witness to putative federal agents violating another’s constitutional rights – is not only “impeding” but causal to their own “harm” in turn (AKA beaten or murdered).
Federal agents – putative due to lack of ID – apparently have no real agency of their own, they can only react, inflexibly behave as they are, thus fault is almost exclusively credited to those who protest or “impede;” they are the only ones with a choice and the ability to make it.
Not that this is inconsistent with a twisted psychology in the country at large, where the Right is spoken of or written about as something fundamental or unalterable, barely human in fact, with the Left bearing primary responsibility for ‘doing something’ about it; see Murc’s Law for e.g.
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Sen. Pall only does what benefits Sen. Pall. He has an angle. That we don’t know the angle doesn’t change the fact that he has one.
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these hearings that no one hears are worthless. no Democrat should ever attend as long as the gop is in charge. Democrats should charter some planes and hold their own hearing in the street where Rene Good was murdered, weather be damned, millions of people that otherwise hear nothing would hear that.
Just after the Pretti killing in late January, public outcry reached such a fever pitch that even a few MAGA Republicans expressed their discomfort and called for an investigation. Thursday’s Senate hearing, and its House counterpart earlier in the week, were called in that aftermath.
But in the two weeks since, as the news cycle moved on, congressional Republicans have seemed less inclined to critique the agencies. During Tuesday’s House hearing, the only Republicans who offered even mild criticism of agents’ behavior were frontline members who sit in swing seats.
It’s the same arc as with 1/6. Several times now, we’ve seen events that are so shocking, they break through all of the normalcy and complacency and partisanship, and there is a bipartisan outcry.
Then the Reptiles get over it, and snap back to their default posture, which is bent over, grasping their ankles, and submitting to their orange master again.
Hillary was spot-on: Deplorable.
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EVERY “libertarian” is a fair weather schmuck.
You know, a Republican.
don
don’t be so quick to put down RAND PAUL…..he is born and raised in KY. Kentuckians are not wimpy people, they are not like the wimps from the northeast…they do have a habit of speaking up..disgree with them, fine, but it might be a good idea to listen to them.
The attitude is very consistent with that of most domestic abusers: “you made me hit you!” Not surprising that a lot of LEOs have that problem.
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OK. Sure. Whatever you say, Tacoma.
fascists that blow dope.
every politician has an ulterior motive..whether you agree with them or not, depends on who said/did it.