Paul Says G.O.P. Push on Voting Laws Is Alienating Blacks

MEMPHIS — Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky on Friday broke with fellow Republicans who have pushed for stricter voting laws as a way to crack down on fraud, saying the party was alienating and insulting African-Americans.

“Everybody’s gone completely crazy on this voter ID thing,” Mr. Paul said in an interview on Friday, adding that much of the bitterness in the debate over voting rights was wrapped up in race. “I think it’s wrong for Republicans to go too crazy on this issue because it’s offending people.”

Mr. Paul traveled to Memphis — a mostly black city and a Democratic stronghold with its own painful racial history — to speak at the spring meeting of the Republican National Committee. But before he talked to his fellow Republicans, he sat down with a group of black pastors to discuss his views on voting, public education and antipoverty policy.

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Rand Paul staffer has disturbing record

An aide to Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) has a history of  inflammatory comments about race and the Civil War.

As first reported by the Washington Free Beacon, a conservative online publication, Paul new media staffer Jack Hunter has for years been a provocative talk radio host who called himself the “Southern Avenger.” Before that, he was a member of the League of the South, a group that advocates Southern secession.

“Sen. Paul holds his staff to a standard that includes treating every individual with equal protection and respect, without exception,” spokeswoman Moira Bagley said in a statement.

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Is Rand Paul Going Mainstream or the GOP Going Libertarian?

Rand Paul seems to be crossing over to the mainstream — or maybe, it’s the other way around.

When Kentucky’s junior senator arrived in Washington just over two years ago, he seemed destined to inhabit the role of perpetual outlier. But now, he’s in the mix on just about everything that is happening, and talked about as a credible Republican presidential contender in 2016.

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My take is that Rand understands something that his father, a great man of principle, never seemed to grasp. Ron Paul's flaw, one  that has been a major reason libertarians have never been more than a blip on the political radar screen, was failing to realize that you can have all the principles in the world, but if you don't win elections the other people will dictate policy.

Rand is a moderate libertarian. That is of course anathema to a lot of the hard core libertarians. But while his father must be given credit for shining a light on libertarianism, he never had a shot at winning a national election. Rand does. Great politicians are never ideologues. They are men like LBJ and Reagan who understand the art of the deal and how to get a good chunk of what they want by negotiation and compromise with the understanding they can go after the rest later on.

I don't know if I can support Rand Paul for president. It's too soon for that. But I will say that he is clearly a far savvier politician than his father.

Rand Paul gets his answer

About that filibuster...

"It has come to my attention that you have now asked an additional question: 'Does the President have the authority to use a weaponized drone to kill an American not engaged in combat on American soil.' The answer to that question is no." 

-Eric Holder Attorney General of the United States
From here.