Category Archives: Politics

UPDATE V: Rand Paul Slaying The Drone (Political Triangulation)

Constitution, Founding Fathers, Homeland Security, libertarianism, Politics, Republicans, Ron Paul

Today, Rand Paul, the junior Senator from Kentucky, donned his superhero power cape and came to the Senate floor to do battle against the Killer Drone and his bipartisan posse (Republicans generally favor the drone program).

What’s not to like about Rand slaying The Drone, albeit quixotically?

WaPo:

Sen. Rand Paul’s (R-Ky.) talking filibuster against John Brennan’s nomination as CIA director is gaining supporters, and it’s now a bipartisan effort.
Paul began speaking just before noon Wednesday on the Senate floor in opposition to Brennan’s nomination, saying that he planned to speak “for the next few hours” in a rare talking filibuster.
Paul, who strongly opposes the Brennan nomination and the Obama administration’s use of unmanned aerial drones, became the first senator to make use of the procedural tactic in more than two years and the first to do so since the Senate approved a bipartisan rules reform package in January.

On a more serious note: “Rand Paul: Action Hero, Or Political Performance Artist?”, last week’s column, would have been better timed for this week.

And the questions the column posed still obtain: “Is this political Brownian motion—the case of activity substituting for achievement—or real Randian energy in furtherance of liberty? … Is Rand Paul an action hero, or … is he just a political performance artist?”

And should libertarians be so hard on the guy?

UPDATE I: As I wrote last week, “Rand Paul is front-and-center in mainstream media, showing what some call ‘leadership.'” Here are the many headlines Rand has grabbed just on the WaPo:

Sen. Rand Paul began the filibuster at 11:47 a.m. (AP)
Paul makes rare filibuster stand
Republican senator acknowledges his remarks won’t stop John Brennan’s confirmation vote to lead the CIA.

LIVE: Filibuster on the Senate floor
In the Loop: Filibusters ain’t what they used to be
The Fix: Rand Paul’s unpredictable streak

UPDATE II: DRUDGE: “RAND STANDS: HOUR 10.” The Drudge headline links to this Washington Times article.

UPDATE III (3/7): WINNING. Action hero it is. Rand Paul’s “Jimmy Stewart-esque filibuster over the Obama administration’s drone policy,” achieved something Chris Matthews “forgets” to mention:

The usually unresponsive potentate responded to Rand:

The U.S. government cannot target an American citizen who is not engaged in combat on American soil, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said Thursday during his daily press briefing. … Carney said that Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) had on Thursday asked the administration if the president has the authority to use a mechanized drone against an American on U.S. soil who is not engaged in hostile activities. “The answer to that question is no,” Carney said. Appearing on CNN on Thursday afternoon, Paul declared that Holder’s response was satisfactory and that he would allow a vote on Brennan’s nomination.
“I’m quite happy with the answer and I’m disappointed it took a month and a half and a root canal to get it,” Paul said.

Not so fast. Writes Reason’s Brian Doherty: “But who is a noncombatant? What constitutes engaging in hostile activities to the White House? Does this still leave the ‘we declare you a combatant” excuse? More clarity needed.'”

Via Politico, the complete text of a letter Attorney General Holder sent to Rand Paul today. In its entirety: “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.”
Still: what defines “engaged in combat” to you guys? Doesn’t seem to actively apply to most victims of overseas drones. Does it mean, as Lindsey Graham suggested, just being a member of Al-Queda, a topic on which the White House will undoubtedly declare itself sole judge (and then jury, and executioner)? Also, the mechanism of the kill–mechanized drone–isn’t the sole issue at point here. It’s summary executive power to decide who to kill without charge or trial in a Forever War.

POLITICAL TRIANGULATION. MSNBC’s Chris Matthews can rise on his hind legs all he likes, in trying to bad-mouth Rand Paul’s valiant effort. Politically, Rand has triangulated—gotten some on the Left to listen, neutralized flaccid neoconservatives such as McMussolini and Sen. Lindsey Graham, and galvanized idiotic GOPers—pure partisans, who care not about the principle (they love droning dem ‘terrorists’), but see this as a blow against Obama.

UPDATE IV: Gloats Glenn Beck (who harbors no love for the GOP): “Did Rand Paul just kill the old GOP?”

Rand Paul has a long way to go to become my action hero. Let’s see him use the tactics he has applied against drones on the homegrown terrorists of the TSA.

UPDATE V (3/8): Via LRC.COM, William Grigg unpacks “What Holder Really Said”:

…Like all statements from people who presume to rule others, this brief message from Holder – – who is Nickolai Krylenko to Obama’s Josef Stalin – should be read in terms of the supposed authority claimed thereby. This means removing useless qualifiers in the interest of clarity.
What Holder is saying, in substantive terms, is that the President does have the supposed authority to use a drone to kill an American who is engaged in “combat,” whether here or abroad. “Combat” can consist of expressing support for Muslims mounting armed resistance against U.S. military aggression, which was the supposed crime committed by Anwar al-Awlaki, or sharing the surname and DNA of a known enemy of the state, which was the offense committed by Awlaki’s 16-year-old son, Abdel. Under the rules of engagement used by the Obama Regime in Pakistan, Yemen, and Afghanistan, any “military-age” male found within a targeted “kill zone” is likewise designated a “combatant,” albeit usually after the fact. This is a murderous application of the “Texas Sharpshooter Fallacy,” and it will be used when — not if — Obama or a successor starts conducting domestic drone-killing operations.
Holder selected a carefully qualified question in order to justify a narrowly tailored answer that reserves an expansive claim of executive power to authorize summary executions by the president. That’s how totalitarians operate.

MORE.

[SNIP]

Will Grigg is right, but nothing Grigg says detracts from Rand’s effort. Grigg’s analysis, invaluable as it usually is, is not an argument against … putting up a fight.

I myself believe that the only fight that’ll bear fruit is the fight Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) alluded to:

“The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is it’s natural manure.”

UPADTED: Ciao, Chavez (Wealthy Commie Croaks)

Democracy, Foreign Policy, Politics, Propaganda, Socialism

The “loss” of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has hit hard at MSNBC. (Rachel Maddow is sure to turn on the waterworks during her show.) How do you omit the pejorative “socialist,” in a piece about the death of one? Look to one Tracy Connor, staff writer at NBC News, who finesses an economy partly nationalized or under threat of expropriation with upbeat words: Chavez was a “self-styled populist,” who initiated “government reforms that championed the downtrodden,” and who “took greater control of the state-run oil company.”

More control than complete state control? More control than the nationalization of industry?

“A kind of very personalized socialism” is Eugene Robinson’s spin. Robinson is a writer at the Washington Post and an MSNBC pundit. Chavez, like the Cuban brothers, followed a “pure ideology model,” Robinson noodled.

Robinson proceeded to underscore the broad popular support Chavez enjoyed among his people, and then … contradicted himself (Robinson did; Chavez was consistent), saying that Chavez’s popularity ran counter to his many anti-democratic policies.

Robinson is no different to almost every single American voter, politician and chattering-class member. He equates crude majoritarianism with justice. If the masses want something—the masses must be right. Where mobocracy appears manifestly unjust, reason people like Robinson, this must be because it veered from the express wishes of the upright majority that unleashed the People’s Power.

News flash: Chavez was on his way to securing leader-for-life status because he had the support of the masses. Democracy—rule by absolute and unfettered majorities—is dictatorship by any other name.

More eulogizing for “Hue” courtesy of Eugene Robinson: Chavez was “quick witted,” “loose,” “idiosyncratic.”

UPDATE: Via Nick Gillespie come some facts about the “affable” commie who croaked, including that Chavez had amassed a fortune of $1 billion.

CPAC Blackballs The Doughball

Conservatism, John McCain, Politics, Race, Republicans

Conspicuous by his absence from this year’s Conservative Political Action Conference will be Chris Christie. New Jersey’s popular Republican governor is getting his comeuppance. He campaigned for the Democrat Barack Obama throughout October of 2012. Now the governor has not been invited to partake at CPAC. “He’s not … conservative,” offered Al Cardenas, who is chairman of the American Conservative Union that sponsors CPAC.

CPAC has hosted many unconservative members of the regime, McMussolini, for example.

• As part of the unholy McCain-Kennedy-Specter trinity, McCain worked to legalize 20 million deadwood illegal immigrants.
• He blessed Bush’s deficit spending and obscene stimulus package.
• By National Review’s count, McCain voted for higher taxes 50 time.
• He disparaged Mitt Romney for making it in the private sector.

On and on.

The Conservative Political Action Conference would be acting slightly less incongruously were they to blackball Christie for being the consummate backstabbing, slimy, opportunistic politician. Republicans who are not conservative are the norm—and certainly more common than the GOP’s Arlen Specters.

Meanwhile, CPAC and the Republicans have commenced a “slobbering love affair” with Ben Carson.

UPDATED: RT Reminds Me That Some Media Know How To Interview (If You Want An Interview…Read On)

Etiquette, Ilana Mercer, Ilana On Radio & TV, Intelligence, Journalism, Media, Objectivism, Politics, Pop-Culture

The Barnum & Bailey Circus of American public life is on display today with the coronation of King Tut, down to the identity group freak shows. My, my, how far we’ve fallen as a culture.

Bring back the vomitorium says I (I am well aware that the concept is misrepresented, but the misrepresentation is worth retaining. It’s a good one).

I have been able to avoid some of the solipsistic orgy over Obama—to say nothing of the obscene platitudes and paradoxes: The Ass With Ears spoke of “Preserving our individual freedoms” through “require[d] collective action.” Moron.

This morning, I gave a prerecorded interview to RT (Russia Today TV, where my Paleolibertarian Column features). It was a pleasant, polite, intellectually stimulating, and professionally conducted exchange.

Ideas were the focus, not personalities. It always is this way with RT.

My RT experience has been vastly different from my experience with American hosts. How? Well, the RT producer’s starting point is a familiarity with and interest in some of the work written by the interviewed individual. She’ll point out which aspects piqued her curiosity, what she’d like to explore on air, etc.

Wow. Intellectual curiosity and courtesy: What old-fashioned concepts!

On the other hand, inquiries stateside invariably begin with the host’s persona and perspective. As follows:

US host: “Like, hey, We want to interview you.”
Ilana: “Sure, what about?”
US host: “Check us out on YouTube. We don’t read.”

You are expected to come on a show and rap, move your mouth. If you’re as chatty and as self-absorbed as your hosts invariably are, then all’s copacetic. But if you’re a person who tends to use words sparingly and with attempted precision, you’re out of luck.

When my daughter was seven-years old, her school assigned her the task of describing her parents. On her father, daddy’s darling heaped unrealistic praise. For her devoted mother, this perceptive chatterbox of a child reserved a matter-of-fact appraisal. “My mother,” she wrote in her girly cursive, “is a quiet woman who speaks mainly when she has something to say.”

To that my friend, writer Rob Stove, responded: “If everyone rationed speech thus, the entire mainstream punditocracy would cease to exist.”

Amen.

If he’s having a good day, your host may just exhibit a limited interest in you, not in your output, by sending you some obscure link or file that has caught his attention. The idea is that his inner world and current preoccupations should become your own.

In any event, if you want to interview me, do as RT does: Check out and choose a topic from my weekly output.

UPDATE (Jan. 21, 2013): The interview was on RT’s “The Truthseeker.” The process was fun and professional. The end result not ideal, as the sound conked-out on me and only a short snippet was harvested from the lengthy interview. There’s always a next time.