Rand Paul, Serial Panderer: 5 Major Flip-Flops That Reveal His Brazen Hypocrisy
Beginning Tuesday afternoon, presidential candidate Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., embarked upon his latest filibuster, this time in hopes of stalling the renewal of the USA Patriot Act. Based on his track record, we can safely expect him to entirely reverse his position within the week.
Before we get too carried away with using the word “filibuster” to describe what he’s doing, it’s not an actual filibuster because as of Wednesday evening Eastern time, there isn’t any Senate business that’d be delayed on the floor by his filibuster; therefore he’s not stalling a vote nor is he preventing the Senate from debating anything. So, technically, Paul is just talking a lot. However, if he continues past midnight Wednesday night, Paul’s monologue will begin to flummox some important proceedings.
Primarily, it’ll delay a vote that would give President Obama fast-track authority on implementing the controversial Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement.
Secondarily, and ironically, it could also delay a vote on the USA Freedom Act, a bill that would end the National Security Agency’s (NSA) bulk collection of electronic metadata. It’s safe to say that such a delay is an unintended negative consequence for die-hard Paul supporters on both the libertarian right, as well as Edward Snowden supporters on the left. Especially ironic is the fact that Paul tweeted at the outset of his filibuster, “It’s time to end the NSA spying!” Delaying the Freedom Act would, in effect, allow NSA spying to continue.
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