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Thread: Does Rand Paul's Playbook Work?

  1. #1

    Does Rand Paul's Playbook Work?

    By NASH JENKINS 10:46 PM EDT
    It starts with a complaint. A vote that most Republicans would consider routine is actually a violation of important principles. So then a threat is made; a lengthy filibuster on the Senate floor might be launched. Then, at the last minute, an anticlimactic change of heart occurs, and the measure passes along party lines.

    This is what one might call the Rand Paul playbook. The Kentucky senator summoned it once again this week as he held out support for President Donald Trump’s Secretary of State nominee Mike Pompeo in an important committee vote until the eleventh hour over concerns about his relative hawkishness.

    Critics were quick to say that Paul’s bark is worse than his bite, and this was not the only example. In the fall, he made a similar show of denouncing the Republican tax reform bill before ultimately voting for it in December. Two months ago, he briefly shut down the government by stalling a vote on a spending package in an hours-long speech on the Senate floor. The package passed.

    But those familiar with Paul’s thinking say that these minor rebellions, even the ones that don’t end up changing the outcome, earn him valuable political capital and almost always ignite a worthy debate, whether that’s about U.S. military policy or government spending. When the dust settles, he holds a prominent seat at the negotiating table.

    “He’s independent, and that gives him a voice stronger than most,” a Republican on Capitol Hill says. “It drives other Republicans crazy.”

    Consider, for instance, Pompeo’s nomination, which renewed old discussions about the appropriate extent of U.S. military action overseas. “The conversation about Pompeo’s hawkishness just wouldn’t be happening without Rand,” one Republican aide tells TIME.

    On more than one occasion in the weeks preceding the committee vote, Paul lashed out at Pompeo on Twitter. On March 14, he wrote, unfavorably, that “Pompeo as not learned the lessons of regime change and wants regime change in Iran.” The following day, Paul linked to a Fox News op-ed he had written in which he wrote, very plainly, that he “simply cannot support Pompeo’s nomination to be our chief diplomat.”

    “The neocons have been so completely and regularly wrong for decades now that it’s almost unimaginable to believe they would ever be in a position to advise a president again – let alone to wield the kind of power they will have if they lead some of our nation’s most powerful institutions,” he wrote elsewhere in the piece.

    Paul brought this ire to Pompeo’s confirmation hearing on April 12, criticizing the nominee’s record from his days in Congress backing military intervention strategies in Libya and Syria.

    “My main concern is — will you be one who will listen to what the president actually wants, instead of being someone who advocates for us staying forever in Afghanistan, another Iraq war, bombing Syria,” Paul said. “I guess that’s my biggest concern with your nomination, that I don’t think it reflects the millions of Americans who voted for President Trump because they thought it would be something different.”


    But in the end, that concern was evidently assuaged. Trump spoke to Paul three times over the course of Monday, according to individuals familiar with these talks, who say that the Kentucky Senator expected concessions. In exchange for Paul’s support, Pompeo would publicly admit that the Iraq War was a mistake — a topic he fumbled under Paul’s grilling at his confirmation hearing — and begin the effort to pull U.S. forces from Afghanistan.

    “Today, Senator Paul got a victory when Director Pompeo agreed to support the President’s statements, that the Iraq war was a mistake and we must stop nation-building in Afghanistan and beyond,” Sergio Gor, Paul’s communications director, told TIME in an email Monday evening.

    Trump has often eyed his fellow Republicans in Congress — and especially in the Senate — with a certain distrust, but that has not been the case between him and Paul. After a bout of hostility during the 2016 Republican primary, in which both men ran, Trump and Paul have developed a legitimate friendship, according to individuals familiar with it. They golf together. They talk about issues. The individuals familiar with this friendship say it is Paul’s flashes of obstinacy that endear him to the president — despite the fact that he votes with Trump’s positions the least of any Republican in the Senate.


    “People have very short memories here,” one Republican familiar with Paul’s thinking tells TIME. “People might say Rand Paul makes a stink and then falls in line, but that’s just not the reality. The record speaks for itself.”

    In any event, the negative consequences are negligible. He remains a favorite of Trump’s, arguably more and more so after every little headline-commanding rebellion. The Senate Majority Leader, Mitch McConnell, is his fellow Kentucky senator, and needs him as an ally to manage their shared home-state politics.

    His colleagues might get annoyed, but they don’t object too loudly to his prime committee assignments — largely because they fret how much noise he could make if he were completely on the outside. So they wait for his next play. If nothing else, he will be consistent on this.
    http://time.com/5251744/rand-paul-mike-pompeo-vote/



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  3. #2
    What a $#@!ing dumb article... $#@!ing fake news, no wonder..

    It's really $#@!ing retarded, I hope that is why you posted it.

    (edit: despite it being a Time article, it gets better as the article goes on and makes a couple good points)
    Last edited by dannno; 04-24-2018 at 05:39 PM.
    "He's talkin' to his gut like it's a person!!" -me
    "dumpster diving isn't professional." - angelatc
    "You don't need a medical degree to spot obvious bullshit, that's actually a separate skill." -Scott Adams
    "When you are divided, and angry, and controlled, you target those 'different' from you, not those responsible [controllers]" -Q

    "Each of us must choose which course of action we should take: education, conventional political action, or even peaceful civil disobedience to bring about necessary changes. But let it not be said that we did nothing." - Ron Paul

    "Paul said "the wave of the future" is a coalition of anti-authoritarian progressive Democrats and libertarian Republicans in Congress opposed to domestic surveillance, opposed to starting new wars and in favor of ending the so-called War on Drugs."

  4. #3
    Critics were quick to say that Paul’s bark is worse than his bite, and this was not the only example. In the fall, he made a similar show of denouncing the Republican tax reform bill before ultimately voting for it in December. Two months ago, he briefly shut down the government by stalling a vote on a spending package in an hours-long speech on the Senate floor. The package passed.

    Example 1: In the fall, he denounced the tax reform bill as not having enough tax cuts - but voted for it anyway - because they are STILL TAX CUTS which is better than no tax cuts

    Example 2: He was against a spending bill, and it passed anyway (without his vote)


    Those are the two examples his critics bring up? I guess that's a good example of how Rand Paul's critics are completely retarded.

    Who the $#@! is paid to come up with this bull$#@! and how do they sleep at night??
    "He's talkin' to his gut like it's a person!!" -me
    "dumpster diving isn't professional." - angelatc
    "You don't need a medical degree to spot obvious bullshit, that's actually a separate skill." -Scott Adams
    "When you are divided, and angry, and controlled, you target those 'different' from you, not those responsible [controllers]" -Q

    "Each of us must choose which course of action we should take: education, conventional political action, or even peaceful civil disobedience to bring about necessary changes. But let it not be said that we did nothing." - Ron Paul

    "Paul said "the wave of the future" is a coalition of anti-authoritarian progressive Democrats and libertarian Republicans in Congress opposed to domestic surveillance, opposed to starting new wars and in favor of ending the so-called War on Drugs."

  5. #4
    ^That is the past, this is what they claimed happened:

    The Kentucky senator summoned it once again this week as he held out support for President Donald Trump’s Secretary of State nominee Mike Pompeo in an important committee vote until the eleventh hour over concerns about his relative hawkishness.
    If you watched the interviews, Rand Paul said he would vote for Pompeo if he agreed that there was no military solution in Afghanistan and Syria. Pompeo allegedly agreed over a private conversation, Trump also told Rand he would be bringing troops home soon, so Rand agreed.
    "He's talkin' to his gut like it's a person!!" -me
    "dumpster diving isn't professional." - angelatc
    "You don't need a medical degree to spot obvious bullshit, that's actually a separate skill." -Scott Adams
    "When you are divided, and angry, and controlled, you target those 'different' from you, not those responsible [controllers]" -Q

    "Each of us must choose which course of action we should take: education, conventional political action, or even peaceful civil disobedience to bring about necessary changes. But let it not be said that we did nothing." - Ron Paul

    "Paul said "the wave of the future" is a coalition of anti-authoritarian progressive Democrats and libertarian Republicans in Congress opposed to domestic surveillance, opposed to starting new wars and in favor of ending the so-called War on Drugs."

  6. #5
    It works, I can't say if some other tactic would work better but it does work.
    What we need is more liberty candidates so they can take different approaches and reap the benefits of each.
    Never attempt to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and annoys the pig.

    Robert Heinlein

    Give a man an inch and right away he thinks he's a ruler

    Groucho Marx

    I love mankind…it’s people I can’t stand.

    Linus, from the Peanuts comic

    You cannot have liberty without morality and morality without faith

    Alexis de Torqueville

    Those who fail to learn from the past are condemned to repeat it.
    Those who learn from the past are condemned to watch everybody else repeat it

    A Zero Hedge comment

  7. #6
    “People have very short memories here,” one Republican familiar with Paul’s thinking tells TIME. “People might say Rand Paul makes a stink and then falls in line, but that’s just not the reality. The record speaks for itself.”
    ..
    Last edited by dannno; 04-24-2018 at 05:40 PM.
    "He's talkin' to his gut like it's a person!!" -me
    "dumpster diving isn't professional." - angelatc
    "You don't need a medical degree to spot obvious bullshit, that's actually a separate skill." -Scott Adams
    "When you are divided, and angry, and controlled, you target those 'different' from you, not those responsible [controllers]" -Q

    "Each of us must choose which course of action we should take: education, conventional political action, or even peaceful civil disobedience to bring about necessary changes. But let it not be said that we did nothing." - Ron Paul

    "Paul said "the wave of the future" is a coalition of anti-authoritarian progressive Democrats and libertarian Republicans in Congress opposed to domestic surveillance, opposed to starting new wars and in favor of ending the so-called War on Drugs."

  8. #7
    Quote Originally Posted by dannno View Post
    What a $#@!ing dumb article... $#@!ing fake news, no wonder..

    It's really $#@!ing retarded, I hope that is why you posted it.
    Seemed a pretty positive article to me. Your mileage may vary.

  9. #8
    Quote Originally Posted by Swordsmyth View Post
    It works, I can't say if some other tactic would work better but it does work.
    What we need is more liberty candidates so they can take different approaches and reap the benefits of each.
    YES!!

    We need more Rands and more Rons.. but until we have a pretty significant number of Rons, Rands work better and get us more liberty.
    "He's talkin' to his gut like it's a person!!" -me
    "dumpster diving isn't professional." - angelatc
    "You don't need a medical degree to spot obvious bullshit, that's actually a separate skill." -Scott Adams
    "When you are divided, and angry, and controlled, you target those 'different' from you, not those responsible [controllers]" -Q

    "Each of us must choose which course of action we should take: education, conventional political action, or even peaceful civil disobedience to bring about necessary changes. But let it not be said that we did nothing." - Ron Paul

    "Paul said "the wave of the future" is a coalition of anti-authoritarian progressive Democrats and libertarian Republicans in Congress opposed to domestic surveillance, opposed to starting new wars and in favor of ending the so-called War on Drugs."



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  11. #9
    Quote Originally Posted by dannno View Post
    One Republican???? Anonymous?

    $#@!ing dumbshits.
    That was a positive comment. Are you in opposite land today?

  12. #10
    Quote Originally Posted by phill4paul View Post
    Seemed a pretty positive article to me. Your mileage may vary.
    A couple parts are, but most of it is horse $#@!.
    "He's talkin' to his gut like it's a person!!" -me
    "dumpster diving isn't professional." - angelatc
    "You don't need a medical degree to spot obvious bullshit, that's actually a separate skill." -Scott Adams
    "When you are divided, and angry, and controlled, you target those 'different' from you, not those responsible [controllers]" -Q

    "Each of us must choose which course of action we should take: education, conventional political action, or even peaceful civil disobedience to bring about necessary changes. But let it not be said that we did nothing." - Ron Paul

    "Paul said "the wave of the future" is a coalition of anti-authoritarian progressive Democrats and libertarian Republicans in Congress opposed to domestic surveillance, opposed to starting new wars and in favor of ending the so-called War on Drugs."

  13. #11
    Quote Originally Posted by dannno View Post
    ^That is the past, this is what they claimed happened:



    If you watched the interviews, Rand Paul said he would vote for Pompeo if he agreed that there was no military solution in Afghanistan and Syria. Pompeo allegedly agreed over a private conversation, Trump also told Rand he would be bringing troops home soon, so Rand agreed.
    Yeah. The article covered that...

    IBut in the end, that concern was evidently assuaged. Trump spoke to Paul three times over the course of Monday, according to individuals familiar with these talks, who say that the Kentucky Senator expected concessions. In exchange for Paul’s support, Pompeo would publicly admit that the Iraq War was a mistake — a topic he fumbled under Paul’s grilling at his confirmation hearing — and begin the effort to pull U.S. forces from Afghanistan.

  14. #12
    Quote Originally Posted by phill4paul View Post
    That was a positive comment. Are you in opposite land today?
    Hmm ya I see it now..

    I guess it's not as bad as I thought, the beginning just sounded like a huge hit piece and he was agreeing with the critics.. then I saw the source (TIME) and flipped the $#@! out.


    But in the end, that concern was evidently assuaged. Trump spoke to Paul three times over the course of Monday, according to individuals familiar with these talks, who say that the Kentucky Senator expected concessions. In exchange for Paul’s support, Pompeo would publicly admit that the Iraq War was a mistake — a topic he fumbled under Paul’s grilling at his confirmation hearing — and begin the effort to pull U.S. forces from Afghanistan.
    Last edited by dannno; 04-24-2018 at 05:38 PM.
    "He's talkin' to his gut like it's a person!!" -me
    "dumpster diving isn't professional." - angelatc
    "You don't need a medical degree to spot obvious bullshit, that's actually a separate skill." -Scott Adams
    "When you are divided, and angry, and controlled, you target those 'different' from you, not those responsible [controllers]" -Q

    "Each of us must choose which course of action we should take: education, conventional political action, or even peaceful civil disobedience to bring about necessary changes. But let it not be said that we did nothing." - Ron Paul

    "Paul said "the wave of the future" is a coalition of anti-authoritarian progressive Democrats and libertarian Republicans in Congress opposed to domestic surveillance, opposed to starting new wars and in favor of ending the so-called War on Drugs."

  15. #13
    Quote Originally Posted by dannno View Post
    Hmm ya I see it now..

    I guess it's not as bad as I thought, the beginning just sounded like a huge hit piece and he was agreeing with the critics.. then I saw the source (TIME) and flipped the $#@! out.
    Lol. When I saw the publisher I thought the same and so scrutinized the article. I was pleasantly surprised. Which is why I posted it. I wouldn't have posted a hit piece.

  16. #14
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  17. #15
    Quote Originally Posted by AuH20 View Post
    Assuming we dont start more new ones during that time, I will be very surprised.

    Gulag Chief:
    "Article 58-1a, twenty five years... What did you get it for?"
    Gulag Prisoner: "For nothing at all."
    Gulag Chief: "You're lying... The sentence for nothing at all is 10 years"



  18. #16
    Quote Originally Posted by AuH20 View Post
    Rand definitely sounds like he is on the Q train.
    Never attempt to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and annoys the pig.

    Robert Heinlein

    Give a man an inch and right away he thinks he's a ruler

    Groucho Marx

    I love mankind…it’s people I can’t stand.

    Linus, from the Peanuts comic

    You cannot have liberty without morality and morality without faith

    Alexis de Torqueville

    Those who fail to learn from the past are condemned to repeat it.
    Those who learn from the past are condemned to watch everybody else repeat it

    A Zero Hedge comment



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  20. #17
    Quote Originally Posted by brushfire View Post
    Assuming we dont start more new ones during that time, I will be very surprised.
    Look to Africa. https://theintercept.com/2016/09/29/...ase-in-africa/

  21. #18
    Account Restricted. Admin to review account standing


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    Quote Originally Posted by Swordsmyth View Post
    Rand definitely sounds like he is on the Q train.
    The latest incarnations of 'Q' are most likely a circular maze of disinfo, but there are intense conflicts going on behind the scenes.
    Last edited by AuH20; 04-24-2018 at 08:46 PM.

  22. #19
    Quote Originally Posted by AuH20 View Post
    The latest incarnations of 'Q' are most likely a circular maze of disinfo, but there are intense conflicts going on behind the scenes.
    What if it is all disinfo ?
    Do something Danke

  23. #20
    Does Rand Paul's Playbook Work?
    Yes, in the land of make believe.

  24. #21
    Quote Originally Posted by timosman View Post
    Yes, in the land of make believe.
    So you are admitting it works in D.C.?
    Never attempt to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and annoys the pig.

    Robert Heinlein

    Give a man an inch and right away he thinks he's a ruler

    Groucho Marx

    I love mankind…it’s people I can’t stand.

    Linus, from the Peanuts comic

    You cannot have liberty without morality and morality without faith

    Alexis de Torqueville

    Those who fail to learn from the past are condemned to repeat it.
    Those who learn from the past are condemned to watch everybody else repeat it

    A Zero Hedge comment

  25. #22
    Quote Originally Posted by Swordsmyth View Post
    So you are admitting it works in D.C.?
    Ok, touché. As long he promises not to run for POTUS again I am cool.

  26. #23
    Quote Originally Posted by timosman View Post
    Ok, touché. As long he promises not to run for POTUS again I am cool.
    He would make a great VP on a Trump ticket though
    It's all about taking action and not being lazy. So you do the work, whether it's fitness or whatever. It's about getting up, motivating yourself and just doing it.
    - Kim Kardashian

    Donald Trump / Crenshaw 2024!!!!

    My pronouns are he/him/his

  27. #24
    Quote Originally Posted by TheTexan View Post
    He would make a great VP on a Trump ticket though

    Hands down, I would vote Rand for president. I'm just concerned about tactics...

    Gulag Chief:
    "Article 58-1a, twenty five years... What did you get it for?"
    Gulag Prisoner: "For nothing at all."
    Gulag Chief: "You're lying... The sentence for nothing at all is 10 years"





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  29. #25
    inarresting article.

    Don't need a weather man to know which way the wind blows



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