Sen. Rand Paul is getting a make-over to cover-up blemished past

It’s all but official that Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) is going to make a bid for President in the 2016 elections, and that leaves many liberals groaning and fervently shaking their heads in disgust, while libertarians and teabillies alike are hopeful that Ron Paul 2.0 will summon victory from the depths of Mordor with the magic poodle toupee.

As he tours Iowa, the paleo-libertarian is said to be reinventing himself into a more likable character rather than being his father’s golem. Time Magazine’s next issue has him on the cover, with the headline, “The Most interesting Man in Politics,” a common phrase that’s often attributed to Paul these days as he has been called “The Most interesting Man in the Political World” and “The Most Interesting Man in the Senate.”

If by “interesting,” one means completely insane.

In an interview with Reason TV this summer, the Kentucky senator said:

I think Republicans could only win in general if they become more live and let live.

While he may be right on the money with that, don’t be fooled that “Plagarism Paul” has anything good in store for Americans. He’s taken after his father on many issues in regards to immigration, government funding for healthcare, poor Americans, and being severely anti-federal government and pro-state and business rights.

Rand trying to reinvent his image as a GOP candidate is going to take a lot more than a policy make-over, he’ll also need a time machine and one of those Men in Black mind erasers and a lot of Thorazine.

Any rational person should not be able to forgive any of the extremist statements that have spilled out of the exit hole of his brain-anus. He may be willing to buff and shine his scaly hide during election season but that doesn’t mean he won’t shed his skin again once in office, which admittedly has as must chance as avian swine racing taking over NASCAR as redneck’s favorite past time.

For instance, in a Senate subcommittee hearing on the human right to healthcare, the anti-dreamer said:

Rand Paul’s recklessness spins out of control

A couple of weeks ago, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) started making appearances on far-right radio, questioning Ebola assessments from the actual experts, blaming “political correctness,” and raising threats that seemed plainly at odds with the facts.

Soon after, Dr. Anthony Fauci, who directs the Allergy and Infectious Diseases Institutes at NIH, appeared on CBS and was presented with the Republican senator’s assessment. “I don’t think that there’s data to tell us that that’s a correct statement, with all due respect,” the doctor said.

At the risk of putting too fine a point on this, it’s no longer clear just how much respect Rand Paul is due. My msnbc colleague Benjy Sarlin reported yesterday from New Hampshire, where the senator appeared eager to move the public conversation backwards.

Rand Paul had a message for students at Plymouth State University who had gathered for a pizza party with the Kentucky senator on Thursday: Ebola is coming for us all and the government is hiding the truth about the deadly disease. […] 

“This thing is incredibly contagious,” Paul said. “People are getting it, fully gowned, masked, and must be getting a very tiny inoculum and they’re still getting it. And then you lose more confidence because they’re telling you stuff that may not be exactly valid and they’re downplaying it so much that it doesn’t appear that they’re really being honest about it.”

Political Dunce Rand Paul: If I Were President, I Would ‘Repeal ALL Previous Executive Orders’

Rand Paul (R-KY) apparently doesn’t like executive orders. While speaking before the New Hampshire chapter of Generation Opportunity, Paul told the audience that his first executive order “would be to repeal all previous executive orders.”

Presumably, this means the Emancipation Proclamation, Truman’s orders to end racial discrimination in the military, and Ford’s ban on political assassinations would all be gone under President Rand Paul. So naturally, his proclamation was met with “booming cheers” from the conservative audience.

Paul added that “Democracy is messy, but you have to build a consensus to pass things. But it ‘s also in some ways good, because a lot of laws take away your freedom. So it should be hard to pass a law. And it, frankly, when you do it the proper way, is.”

It didn’t take long for his office to start backtracking; late Friday, the Senator’s office suggested that Paul was speaking with a “rhetorical flourish,” saying that “it was not meant to be taken literally.”

Except Paul said something in the same vein last month, when asked by an NPR affiliate in Kentucky if he would ever issue an executive order. Paul said he would issue orders “only to undo executive orders.” Was he speaking with “rhetorical flourish” then, as well?

Given Paul’s audience, a certain degree of ignorance in regards to history, economics, sociology, human psychology, and reality is to be expected. These are, after all, the same people who think the Gilded Age was a great period of time and want to dial the clock back to a time before Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle revolted readers with its nauseating story of the meat-packing industry.

Still, Paul makes it sound like a President can issue any order they please, without regards to the limits assigned to them in the Constitution. Reading Paul’s words and having followed him for as long as I have leaves me with the distinct impression he either failed civics or he’s deliberately misrepresenting what the tool is about to the vast hordes who did fail civics.

Every single president (except William Henry Harrison, who’s presidency lasted about as long as one of Rush Limbaugh’s marriages) made use of the executive branch tool. And some of them more than others:

That’s what tyranny looks like. Look at how many times Obummer just dismissed the Constitution with a wave of his hand, like it didn’t matter. He’s drowning the country in executive orders, undermining our economy, and destroying God’s Own America.

He’s almost as bad as Clinton, and if you ask any rightist, that’s pretty bad.

Big Trouble for Mitch McConnell: Campaign Manager Taken Down in Bribery Scandal!

Just a few days ago, a scandal broke regarding Ron Paul’s bribery of a Bachmann campaign supporter to jump ship to his campaign in 2012. In that report, then Paul campaign staffer Jesse Benton was mentioned.

At the time, Benton was a member of Paul’s campaign who denied that there had been any sort of pay off to convince State Senator Kent Sorenson to support Paul. The report noted Benton was the Manager of Mitch McTurtle’s 2014 reelection campaign.

As of today, that’s no longer the case.

After submitting a resignation letter in the face of the growing scandal, Jesse Benton has ducked out of McConnell’s 2014 campaign.

Benton’s criminal-like behavior doesn’t begin there and it doesn’t end there. It was Benton who buried the thuggery of Rand Paul’s supporters, when one supporter stomped on the head of a MoveOn activist at a campaign event. He told his far right-wing buddies that he was “holding his nose” to work with McConnell, because it would help Rand Paul in 2016 (although he would admit to regretting those remarks later).

And now, he’ s being questioned for his role in “convincing” Kent Sorenson to jump ship to Paul’s campaign with a $73,000 bribe.

Benton is not a small-time figure; he’s married to Ron Paul’s granddaughter, was the spokesman for Rand Paul’s 2010 Senate campaign, and was the National Director of Ron Paul 2012; as Crooks and Liars put it, he’s essentially the “cultural ambassador of the Paul Family.” That this dragnet is entangling him shouldn’t surprise anyone.

McTurtle reportedly knew that there were bribery allegation a year ago against Benton; he chose to over look them, and now it’s looks like the net that caught Sorenson is going to entangle him as well. Alison Grimes asked, “What did Mitch know and when did he know it?” I think this is a question we all need to be asking right now.

Six Reasons Why Today’s Libertarian Movement Is Not At All Pro-Gay

Thanks to a New York Times Magazine article by Robert Draper, there’s been a lot of buzz lately about the libertarian tidal wave that’s allegedly poised to wash over the American landscape. Draper argues that young people are much more accepting of the libertarian get-rid-of-all-government argument and that Rand Paul is set to harness that energy all the way to the White House.

Except for this inconvenient fact: Polls show that young voters are the one segment of the population that actually favors more government and is most inclined to vote Democratic.

Draper does some fancy dancing around the topic of marriage equality, suggesting that support of it is somehow a sign of libertarian tendencies. In fact, there’s every reason to believe that the libertarian movement, at least as it is currently constituted, is not only not pro-gay, but actively hostile to LGBT issues. Here are six reasons that prove it.

1. Rand Paul. Let’s start with the standard-bearer for libertarianism, Sen. Rand Paul. Paul would have you believe that’s a moderate, when in fact he’s as homophobic as they come. He has repeatedly come out against marriage equality, going so far as to suggest that the Supreme Court ruling striking down DOMA would open the way to marriage with animals. Paul told Draper that the GOP can’t “completely flip” on gay marriage. To which we say, why not? If you’re wrong, why wouldn’t you change? In Paul’s case, it’s because he doesn’t think opposition to marriage equality is wrong.

2. The role of the Christian right. The relationship between the religious right and the libertarian movement is tighter than you think. Brian Brown of the National Organization for Marriage says that his group’s opposition to marriage equality “is actually a libertarian argument.” Anti-gay theocrats like David Barton exert great influence in the world of constitutional conservatives (a self-identification libertarians prefer). “To the extent it has a mass base, it’s likely as much or more among conservative Christian soldiers who despise government so long as they don’t control it as among dope-smoking free-loving free-thinking anti-interventionist Reason readers,”columnist Ed Kilgore notes perceptively. (Reason is the magazine published by the libertarian Cato Institute.)

3. A philosophy that is conveniently homophobic. A lot of libertarians object to the government recognizing your relationship on philosophical grounds. One of the most revealing moments in Draper’s article is an exchange with Mollie Z. Hemingway, a senior editor at The Federalist. Hemingway thinks that the government has to be in the marriage business because the heterosexual relationship is “ordered to producing children.” But the government shouldn’t extend those rights to same-sex couples. Hemingway thinks that those folks “should be free to organize their own lifestyle,” as if your committed relationship was the same as taking up RV-ing.

4. Less government = less protection. If you really want to get government out of the way, that means it should be less involved (if at all) in protecting workers against discrimination, people with HIV from untested treatments or shielding LGBT students from bullies. Amazingly, the vast majority of people espousing these views don’t happen to fall into any of these categories to explain to us why these protections are superfluous from the victim’s perspective.

5. Religious liberty. Here’s where the libertarian argument is most often employed to ill purpose. The argument: the government should allow people to serve whomever they want, without fear of legal restrictions. If bakers want to refuse to bake wedding cakes for gay couples, fine. What better way to protect your freedom to discriminate than by passing laws to do so. Of course, a true libertarian would argue that people should be able to do as they please, but that more law is exactly the wrong answer. But more commonly the religious liberty argument is used to unite conservative evangelicals and libertarians. 

6. The funders are hypocrites. The Koch brothers (Charles and David) are the biggest funders of the libertarian movement. They help underwrite the Cato Institute, the libertarian think tank, and have spent tens of millions of dollars promoting libertarian causes that happen to coincide with their financial interests (such as killing climate change legislation). David Koch has said “I believe in gay marriage.” Nowhere is that reflected in the candidates given money by the organizations with financial ties to the brothers. Instead, those organizations are donating to Tea Party groups or offering ad support for mouth-breathing House Republicans who will stop anything LGBT in its tracks. And then, of course, there’s Peter Thiel, the gay billionaire who funded presidential quest of Ron Paul, Rand’s even crazier father, a campaign which came with a long list of homophobic attendants.

Now, there is a spirited debate within the libertarian ranks as to many of these issues. Many libertarians are very supportive of the LGBT community and suspicious of the religious right. They are more interested getting government out of the way, whatever the consequences might be. But the libertarian movement that is capturing political attention today is much more a pick-and-choose type of philosophy: easy to agree with principles when they support what you want, and easy to discard them when they don’t.

In too many ways, it’s morphing into a different brand of anti-gay conservatism, when one is already far more than enough.

Why Republicans Should Pray The Supreme Court Legalizes Gay Marriage

One of the most widely discussed issues on the political right is the danger supposedly posed by judicial “activism,” when judges are said to substitute their personal preferences for the clear intent of the law and the Constitution. The Supreme Court in particular has been a target of those who oppose judicial overreach.

Overlooked by these critics, however, is the fact that many of the Supreme Court decisions the right loves to hate (from Roe v Wade to Lawrence v Texas) have actually expanded individual rights and limited government power, making them entirely consistent with the presumption of liberty found in the Constitution.

The latest issue to spark outrage on the right is gay marriage. Former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, for example, railed against it at a rally for traditional marriage this past spring in Washington, D.C. “Judicial supremacy is a curse upon this great Republic,” he screamed, calling last year’s Supreme Court rulings in the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) and Proposition 8 cases the “greatest heresy of our time.” In the DOMA case, the court overturned that part of DOMA that defined marriage as the union of one man and one woman for the purpose of awarding federal benefits and legal privileges.

At the time, few realized the scope of that decision, but its legal reasoning has sparked an avalanche of state and federal court decisions over the past few months overturning state bans on same-sex marriage around the country. In 26 consecutive court cases, in states like Virginia, Oklahoma, Utah, and even Texas, judges have ruled that same-sex marriage bans violate both the due process and equal protection clauses of the Constitution. There is little doubt that same-sex marriage will again come before the Supreme Court, and soon. In one fell swoop, the Supreme Court could legalize gay marriage in every state of the Union.

Such a decision by SCOTUS would be breathtaking and deeply unsettling to the anti-marriage equality movement. But it would also be a godsend to the Republican Party. Here’s why.

Like it or not, opponents of gay marriage are losing the battle, faster than even supporters imagined. A substantial majority of voters now support it, 59 percent in the latest Washington Post/ABC News poll. Only a third opposes it, and that number shrinks every year.

And it’s not just a partisan issue anymore. Forty percent of Republicans support marriage equality, including half of Republican Millennials (29 and younger). Even evangelicals, the heart of the opposition to gay marriage, are changing. According to the Public Religion Research Institute, a quarter of evangelicals support gay marriage. Another quarter personally opposes it but no longer wants to prohibit it. Among evangelical Millennials, 44 percent support it. In short, all but the true believers realize the war has been lost.

Unfortunately, those true believers are still the loudest voices in the Republican Party, the ones who write its platform and set its agenda. With them as the face of the party, 2016 presidential candidates who want to grow the party and expand its reach (think Rand Paul or Paul Ryan) will have a very difficult time doing so. Younger voters, women, and independents simply do not support the Republican Party’s anti-gay (not to mention anti-choice and anti-immigrant) agenda, and they are unlikely to flock to the Republican Party if its platform and leadership still stigmatizes gays and lesbians.

OOPS! Didn't think that one through very well did we?

Republican Kentucky Senator Rand Paul wants to run for president in 2016, but also wants to run for reelection the the US Senate in case (ha ha) he doesn't win the presidency. But a Kentucky law"preventing candidates from having their names appear more than once on the ballot" would make that difficult if not impossible. So now Rand Paul suddenly cares a whole lot about federal law:

Joe Biden was re-elected to the Senate in 2008 in Delaware and resigned to assume the vice presidency he won in the same election. Former U.S. Sen. Joe Lieberman ran for re-election in 2000 while teaming with Democratic presidential nominee Al Gore as his running mate. U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan did the same thing while running as Republican Mitt Romney's running mate in the 2012 presidential election.
Paul, the son of former presidential candidate Ron Paul, said those examples only strengthen his position.
"Can you really have equal application of federal law if someone like Paul Ryan or Joe Lieberman can run for two offices but in Kentucky you would be disallowed?" Paul said. "It seems like it might not be equal application of the law to do that. But that means involving a court, and I don't think we've made a decision on that. I think the easier way is to clarify the law."

"Clarify" it. Ha ha.

Kentucky lawmakers considered legislation this year that would have relieved Paul from the potential quandary. The GOP-led state Senate passed a bill that would have revised the ballot law so as not to apply to candidates running for president or vice president. The measure died in the Democratic-run House.
Paul's camp maintains that states don't have authority to restrict ballot access for federal elections. A Republican with considerable tea party support, Paul maintains that federal law governs federal elections.

'So much for states' rights, when it comes to Rand Paul getting what the fuck he wants. 

Yeesh. 

Would that he and his cohorts showed so much passion for federal governance of elections when it came to protecting voting rights.

Watch Rand Paul: Poverty Wages are ‘Tough Love People Have to Accept’

New video has surfaced of Kentucky Senator Rand Paul not only defending the concept of poverty wages for hard-working Americans, but going as far as to claim that they are “the tough live that people have to accept” in order to get our economy out of the Bush Recession that his very own Republican Party’s extremist policies created.

Made during a Tea Party in Kentucky, his comments provide a glimpse into Sen. Paul’s extremely greedy and dangerous “free market” ideology, where large big-box retailers are free to enslave the working class with poverty wages, and if the workers don’t like being forced to rely on government assistance, well that’s just corporate America’s “tough love that people have to accept”.

Do you think that it’s ever dawned on this Tea Party “darling” that the “people” he so callously refers to are hard working Americans who are looking for their own tiny slice of the American dream, becoming a part of our once-great middle class?

Forget about raising the minimum wage. In Rand Paul’s mind, the real solution to putting more money in the pockets of everyday Americans is to give them “lower wages”.

Rand, you can keep your “tough love”. Please watch the video BELOW:

Rand Paul Wins CPAC Straw Poll with 31 Percent of Vote

Rand Paul won the 2014 Conservative Political Action Conference presidential straw poll, the WaPo reports:

Paul won 31 percent of the vote (compared with the 25 percent he won last year), beating a crowded field of more than two dozen names, including a number of potential 2016 GOP presidential contenders. He crushed second-place finisher Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.), who came in with 11 percent.

Rounding out of the top finishers in the poll, which was voted on by 2,459 CPAC attendees, were former neurosurgen Ben Carson (9 percent) and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (8 percent).

Paul's father Ron and Mitt Romney have been the top picks in the CPAC straw polls since 2007.

Rand Paul Calls Federal Judge's Kentucky Gay Marriage Ruling 'Illegitimate'

Kentucky Senator Rand Paul released a statement following U.S. District Judge John G. Heyburn II’s ruling that Kentucky must recognize legal same-sex marriage from outside the state.

Said Paul:

"I believe in the historic and religious definition of marriage. I also believe this power belongs to the states and the people, not the federal government. It is illegitimate for the federal courts to intrude here."

Governor Steve Beshear is hiring an outside counsel to defend the state's ban in the appeal of the ruling after Attorney General Jack Conway, in an emotional and tearful announcement, said he would not.

Questions surround Rand Paul’s NSA suit

After talking about suing the NSA for weeks, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) followed through on his rhetoric yesterday. But if the goal was to help start a conversation and generate some attention, the senator may not be entirely pleased by the direction of the discussion thus far.

Kentucky Republican Sen. Rand Paul is going after the National Security Agency – in court this time.

 

“I am filing a lawsuit against President Barack Obama because he has publicly refused to stop a clear and continuing violation of the 4th Amendment,” Paul said in a statement Tuesday announcing his filing of a class-action lawsuit against the NSA. “The Bill of Rights protects all citizens from general warrants. I expect this case to go all the way to the Supreme Court and I predict the American people will win.”

 

Paul is teaming up with former Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli and the conservative advocacy group Freedomworks in filing the suit against the NSA over its collection of phone records from American telecommunications companies.

At the outset, there are some relevant questions surrounding the senator’s new lawsuit. For example, if there’s already a pending federal case, filed months ago by conservative provocateur Larry Klayman, raising the identical concerns, isn’t Rand Paul’s lawsuit redundant?

 

For that matter, why did Paul wait so long between saying he’d file the suit and actually going to court? Why did the Kentucky Republican run this entre effort through his campaign operation instead of his Senate office?

 

But by last night, an unexpected question had emerged: was the text of Paul’s lawsuit stolen from someone else? [Updated below.]

 

A few months ago, the GOP senator found himself in the middle of a humiliating plagiarism scandal. As we documented in detail at the time, Paul presented others’ work as his own, on a wide variety of occasions, and in several types of media (speeches, op-eds, and books). After presenting a series of odd and unpersuasive defenses, Paul eventually acknowledged that he and his staff had “made mistakes” – but he was still a victim of journalists who accurately reported on his missteps.

 

The controversy eventually faded, but the Washington Post’s Dana Milbank reports that Paul, already caught plagiarizing late last year, is now being accused of stealing his NSA lawsuit from its author.

Since December, the libertarian lawmaker, a tea party favorite, had been working with former Reagan administration lawyer Bruce Fein to draft a class-action suit seeking to have the National Security Agency’s surveillance of telephone data declared unconstitutional; the two men appeared together as early as last June to denounce the NSA’s activities.

 

But when Paul filed his suit at the U.S. District Court in Washington on Wednesday morning, Fein’s name had been replaced with that of Ken Cuccinelli, the failed Republican gubernatorial candidate in Virginia who until last month had been the state’s attorney general. Cuccinelli has never argued a case in that courthouse, and he isn’t even a member of the D.C. bar (he also filed a motion Wednesday seeking an exception to allow him to argue this case in D.C.). But he is, like Paul, a tea party darling.

Fein, a well-known D.C. constitutional lawyer, especially prominent in Republican circles, was reportedly supposed to be paid by Rand Paul’s political action committee, but according to Milbank’s reporting, he has not yet been fully compensated for his work. That Fein’s name was apparently removed from the lawsuit that Fein wrote only adds insult to injury.

 

Milbank has seen both documents and told readers, “[A] Jan. 15 draft of the complaint written by Fein has long passages that are nearly identical to those in the complaint Cuccinelli filed Wednesday. Except for some cuts and minor wording changes, they are clearly the same documents.”

 

The senator was supposed to have a conference call with reporters yesterday afternoon to talk about his new lawsuit. That call was later canceled.

 

Update: The executive director of Paul’s PAC insists Fein “was paid for work on this matter.” What’s more, while Milbank quotes Fein’s ex-wife as the attorney’s spokesperson, Paul’s group produced an email from Fein saying she does not speak for him.

Paul targets ‘Post Office Gun Ban’

The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee met yesterday to tackle an important bill that probably won’t get too much attention: a wide-ranging postal reform package. It’ll tackle several key areas of postal policy, including postage rates, post-office banking, pensions for USPS employees, etc.

 

But during the hearing, Sen. Rand Paul had a new postal provision he’s apparently excited about. The Kentucky Republican wants to include a provision in postal reform that would “remove a federal ban on guns in post offices.”

Paul said his gun rights amendment would allow licensed gun owners to carry weapons inside post offices, rather than having to unholster them and keep them in the car. Guns are banned in federal buildings, including post offices.

Yep, when it comes to postal reform, Paul’s priority is allowing more guns in post offices.

 

As Lisa Rein’s Washington Post report noted, the senator’s provision wasn’t added to the legislation – committee members said the idea “would require more study” – but some on the far-right nevertheless seem quite excited about the possibility.

‘I’m not sure I’m saying that’

For the last generation or so, the political fight over the minimum wage has been fairly narrow. Both parties broadly supported the concept a minimum wage, but argued over the details: how much it should be, when to increase it, whether to index it to inflation, etc.

 

Just over the last few years, as the radicalization of Republican politics as intensified, the nature of the debate itself changed. Prominent GOP lawmakers – Marco Rubio, Lamar Alexander, Joe Barton – have been willing to admit they not only reject Democratic calls for a wage increase, they believe the minimum wage should be lowered to zero. The law itself, they argue, is a mistake.

 

It’s a fairly risky posture for a politician take. The minimum wage is very popular with the American mainstream, as are Democratic calls for an increase. Republicans generally feel like they can get away with blocking wage increases – though even that’s a dodgy move in an election year – but usually hedge before calling for the law’s destruction.

 

Which brings us to an interesting interview last night between Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and Wolf Blitzer, shortly after President Obama’s State of the Union address.

BLITZER: He announced on increasing the minimum wage, the federal contractors would get an increase immediately to $10.10 an hour, which is not a huge amount of money by any means, but it’s a little bit more than the current minimum wage. Are you with him on that?

Sen. Paul to keynote NOM spinoff group's gala

Robert George, Maggie Gallgher, Luis Tellez, and Sean Fieler are all prominent National Organization For Marriage personalities (cofounders, founding board member, and major donor, respectively) who now direct most of their energy to George's new group, the American Principles Project, which has the basic goal of keeping social issues (so-called) at the heart of the Republican party. In just a fe weeks, the APP will hold its annual gala; extremely anti-gay commentator Erick Erickson will emcee; Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) will keynote: 

 

[APP Gala]

No surprise to see Senator Paul, an obvious 2016 hopeful, catering to this org. He's running right. Far-right. 

But don't let me stand in the way of the senator or anyone else on the conservative side who is eager to get on board APP. After all, the last time Robert and Maggie (and Luis and Sean, et al.) set up a group and tried to convince the GOP it was the way of the future, they helped us ultimately win eighteen states and re-elect America's first marriage equality president. With that kind of track record, I might join them in a post-dinner toast.

Rand Paul has another problem

In 2010 Rand Paul explained that he formed the board in 1997 along with 200 young ophthalmologists to protest a decision by the American Board of Ophthalmologists to grandfather those who were certified by 1992, but to limit certification for a ten year period for those first certified after that date. Rand Paul fell within the latter group. He found that decision “discriminatory” and unfair so he set up the NOB along with his wife and father-in-law to certify himself. Despite calling itself “national,” it appears to have operated purely in Kentucky. The board remained in operation until 2000, when it was dissolved. It was reinstated in 2005. Since the certification story broke, the NOB again dissolved in 2011.

In the spring of 2010 stories first swirled around Sen. Rand Paul’s certification as an ophthalmologist by an outfit called the “National Ophthalmology Board,” an entity he founded. This week I discovered that while he continues to present himself as “board certified” the NOB has been out of business since 2011, and in any event, does not under Kentucky law permit him to advertise as “board certified.”

However, it is not clear how that entity would have comported within Kentucky law. Michael S. Rodman, executive director of the Kentucky Board of Medical Licensure tells Right Turn, “The Kentucky Board of Medical Licensure does not  license physicians based on their specialty board certification nor is it a requirement for licensure. ” However, he explained that “Board does address specialty board certification  through our regulation on physician advertising.” Rodman confirmed that if a board is not on the list, then a Kentucky specialist is prohibited from advertising himself as board certified.  That list does not include the National Ophthalmology Board.

A physician in Kentucky and elsewhere can still practice without certification, but since the 1990′s the certification has become increasingly important in the medical field. Beth Ann Comber of the American Board of Ophthalmology tells me, “Board certification, and especially MOC [Maintenance of Certification] participation, by an ABMS-recognized board helps patients make more informed choices regarding their medical care. Today, the internet connects patients with a wealth of physician information, but it’s often difficult for patients to determine where the information on those sites comes from, how the ratings are determined, and where paid advertising stops and unbiased information begins. . . .Certification is voluntary, so physicians who make the choice to participate in continuous learning and quality improvement activities are doing so out of a personal commitment to high standards for their patients and their practice.” Moreover, “there are many hospitals, private practice groups, insurers, etc. that require board certification for staff privileges or leadership positions. Some medical specialty societies also require board certification for membership or offer a special class of membership for board certified physicians.”

Rand Paul continues to perform eye “surgery in his home state, often getting favorable media attention for performing free eye procedures. His profile on the website of the Tri-Star Greenview Regional Hospital, where Paul has privileges, includes the notation “Specialty Board Certifications: Ophathalmology.” Likewise on the Healthgrades  Web site where patients can locate physicians his entry reads: “Ophthalmology, Board Certified.”

Since 2005 Rand Paul has not been certified by any board recognized by the state of Kentucky, and since 2011 has had no certification since the NOB was dissolved. I asked Rand Paul’s staff a series of questions, trying to determine why he still held himself out as a “certified” ophthalmologist:

Did the National Board of Ophthalmology have examinations and/or continuing education requirements? If so, what were they?
How many doctors claimed certification through the NBO? Did they continue to do so or did they obtain American Board of Ophthalmology certification?
When it dissolved, did Dr. Rand stop presenting himself as “board certified”?
The Kentucky Board of Licensure’s list of approved accreditation boards does not appear to include the NBO so why did Dr. Rand believe he had the right under Kentucky law to advertise as board certified? Did he receive an exemption or opinion of some sort from the state licensure board?
Is he continuing to hold himself out as “board certified”?
Has he taken any continuing education since he was originally certified? Since 1997?

I got back a nonresponsive answer that recited his medical school and residency record. As to the certification issue, a Rand Paul spokeswoman would only say:

In 1997, Dr. Paul led a nationwide protest against the American Board of Ophthalmology’s decision to require recertification for younger ophthalmologists, but not for older ophthalmologists. Over 200 young ophthalmologists co-signed a letter with Dr. Paul to protest the policy. When ABO refused to extend their recertification policy to all ophthalmologists, the group formed a competing board certification group called the National Board of Ophthalmology.  The group administered its own certification exam for about a decade, but is no longer active.
NBO is a nonprofit corporation and all who took part were volunteers without salary. Dr. Paul has not profited in any way from this group.
The decade-long battle against a policy that the ABO did not make binding on all members is just another example of Dr. Paul’s willingness to fight against any law or rule that doesn’t include equal protection for everyone.

In refusing to answer the direct questions Rand Paul will prompt further inquiry as to whether he skated around Kentucky law, received appropriate continuing education and represented himself forthrightly to his patients, paid or otherwise. It is noteworthy that he says 200 people signed the letter; he does not confirm that any of them relied on the NBO certification.

Rand Paul is already under fire for plagiarism charges, and has reacted angrily to that story. (“It annoys the hell out of me. I feel like if I could just go to detention after school for a couple days, then everything would be okay. But do I have to be in detention for the rest of my career?”)  His reaction doesn’t bode well for presidential campaign-level scrutiny. At one point he told the New York Times, “To tell you the truth, people can think what they want, I can go back to being a doctor anytime, if they’re tired of me. I’ll go back to being a doctor, and I’ll be perfectly content.” If he does, he would be smart to get certified by the American Board of Ophthalmologists to be fully compliant with state law and give patients the reassurance he’s current on the latest developments in his field.

So long as he is a U.S. senator with presidential aspirations, however, he will need to respond calmly and honestly with controversies about his own actions and record. By providing so little information he guarantees continued scrutiny.

Maddow: Rand Paul Threatens To Quit If Criticism Won’t Stop Read

The battle between Rachel Maddow and Rand Paul over his plagiarism is now in the third week, and she is still hammering Paul. The confrontation began after Maddow first pointed out Paul’s plagiarism during a speech in Virginia. In the speech he made in support of Ken Cuccinelli, Paul was caught lifting parts of a Wikipedia entry on the movie Gattaca. Following that was a series of reports citing Paul plagiarizing during other speeches and in a book. She refused to let him go because he only partially owned up to what he did. Maddow now points out that Paul can’t handle criticism as he appears to melting down.

Maddow shows a series of headlines from Paul’s hometown press criticizing him for plagiarizing and not owning up to what he did. Amidst all the criticism, Paul threatens to quit and leave politics altogether unless all the reporting stops. The New York Times reported him saying, “To tell you the truth, people can think all they want, I can go back to being a doctor anytime, if they’re tired of me. I’ll go back to being a doctor, and I’ll be perfectly content.”

The National Review Online described Paul as being furious over all the press coverage of his allegations. They reported Paul saying, “It annoys the hell out of me. I feel like if I could just go to detention after school for a couple days, then everything would be okay. But do I have to be in detention for the rest of my career?” 

Maddow points out that it’s probably good to find out now that Paul can’t handle criticisms. “This is a key moment for him and his political future, but if this is the way he handles pressure, that is probably a good thing to know about him now. It is probably better that we learn that fact about him now, rather than some time in the future,” said Maddow.

Rand Paul Admits ‘We Probably Can’t Defeat Or Get Rid Of Obamacare’

Rand Paul, who is carefully plotting his path to win the White House, this afternoon finally admitted what much of America has known for a long time. The Tea Party Republican senator from Kentucky said he’s “acknowledging that we probably can’t defeat or get rid of Obamacare,” but suggested “by starting with our position of not funding it maybe we get to a position where we make it less bad.”

Speaking with reporters at the Mackinac Republican Leadership Conference in Michigan, the libertarian son of former Congressman Ron Paul spoke against shutting down the government over Obamacare.

“In the end the sausage factory in Washington will make sausage,” Paul told The Detroit News. “Nothing good will happen though. They’ll pass a continuing resolution. When they do that though, they’re acknowledging that we’re borrowing $30,000 a second and I think that’s unconscionable.”

He also spoke pessimistically about the GOP’s chances of successful obstruction. “Because Democrats perceive disunity, our leverage doesn’t really work,” Paul said. “Leverage doesn’t work unless people believe you’ll actually do something. The fact that Democrats don’t believe we’ll do anything, in the end they’ll get what they want and a bill will be cobbled together.”

The 50-year old freshman senator has been working closely with David Lane, an evangelical political operative who is largely funded by the Mississippi-based American Family Association. Lane’s expertise is reportedly in getting out the vote, and convincing evangelicals to vote for candidates they find less-than appealing. His daughter, Jillian Lane, is a staffer working for Senator Paul in his D.C. office.

Lane, who recently demanded war against “pagan” imposed “homosexual marriage,” is planning an October trip to Israel for the radical right wing Republicans lining up in a premature race to 2016. In addition to Senator Paul, rumored to be on the trip to Jerusalem is Senator Ted Cruz.

In a July World Net Daily op-ed, Lane, head of the AFA’s American Renewal Project and virulently anti-gay, wrote:

“Where are the champions of Christ to save the nation from the pagan onslaught imposing homosexual marriage, homosexual scouts, 60 million babies done to death by abortion and red ink as far as the eye can see on America?”

“Who will wage war for the Soul of America and trust the living God to deliver the pagan gods into our hands and restore America to her Judeo-Christian heritage and re-establish a Christian culture?”

Stephen Colbert Exposes Rand Paul’s Flip-Flopping On Syria

The mainstream media is criticized for being shallow and easily manipulated. This was obvious this week when Jimmy Kimmel pretty much embarrassed all corners of the media as they reported a twerking video as fact when in fact it was a hoax. While this incident is funny and inconsequential it speaks of a news media that no longer check sources but uses others willing to provide the information as reliable sources.

The problem is that this extends to consequential stories that have national and international repercussions. Americans saw videos of a horrific gassing of innocent civilians. Most in the mainstream media reported this incident as fact. Not as widely reported was the possibility that some of the Syrian rebels may have done it to force retaliation by the United States but this, so far, has been completely unsubstantiated and is generally believed to be a flimsy ruse by Russia to protect an ally. Regardless of the truth, it is clear that reporting influences public opinion which has  a material effect on our actions, treasure, and ultimately our democracy.

Case in point: Rand Paul has been all over the mainstream media criticizing every move the President makes. Paul flips and flops as the president changes his stance based on getting diplomatic results. Not at all an unreasonable thing to do. But Rand Paul’s kneejerk opposition to whatever it is the president says shows his lack of seriousness and consistency. Yet the mainstream media continues to seek out this man, the man whose knowledge was questioned by John Kerry in open committee, for a narrative. Worse, there is no pushback by the mainstream media from Rand Paul’s inconsistency.

After the president gave his speech this week, Rand Paul provided a sort of a rebuttal. He was subsequently interviewed by various networks. In the following video, Colbert uses snippets of Rand Paul’s own statements to refute past and current Rand Paul statements. It is quite funny and likely embarrassing for Paul. Or, in a sane world, should be.

Here’s the video:

Rand Paul Struggles To Tie Obama To IRS Scandal

Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) went on CNN’s State of the Union on Sunday to use the IRS scandal to attack the Obama administration, but flubbed a key part of his case: he couldn’t defend the claim that IRS was targeting conservative groups as part of a political strategy to help the White House.

Paul, like most Republicans, has been spinning the scandal as an Obama Administration attack on dissenters. “What the IRS did is how the KGB used to target dissidents,” he wrote in a CNN op-ed. “It is how they deal with troublemakers in China.”

Some have argued the extra IRS scrutiny was part of a failed attempt to implement election law, as opposed to a political crackdown. Host Candy Crowley asked Paul why this interpretation was wrong. He couldn’t give her a reason:

CROWLEY: We do know this one place processes 70,000 applications. Can you see in your mind’s eye a way this might not have been political, that this was a misguided stupid way to sort but that they didn’t intend it to be some kind of political attempt to harass the Tea Party?
PAUL: I would think if there’s any chance that this was a mistake, the Investigator General wouldn’t be coming out and saying otherwise, and the IRS themselves wouldn’t be saying –
CROWLEY: They say it’s a mistake. I think the question is whether it’s political.
PAUL: Well, I think we’re going to have to see the memorandum. Apparently there is a policy, and I think we’re going to find there’s a written policy that says we were targeting people who were opposed to the President. And when that comes forward, we need to know who wrote the policy and who approved the policy…now there’s rumors who wrote the policy is the person running Obamacare, which doesn’t give us a lot of confidence about Obamacare.
CROWLEY: Senator, I have to run. I’m way over on this, but I have to just go back to something you said. Are you telling me you think there’s a memo somewhere in which someone said in the memo we’re targeting people going after the president? Is that what I heard you say?
PAUL: Well, we keep hearing the reports and we have several specifically worded items saying who was being targeted. In fact, one of the bullet points says those who are critical of the President. So I don’t know if that comes from a policy, but that’s what’s being reported in the press.

It’s unclear what Paul’s source for that last claim is, but the Investigator General’s report Paul references found no evidence that conservative groups were targeted as part of a political strategy to weaken the president’s political opponents. The report blamed independent IRS management for allowing the practice to go on in the lower-level Cincinnati office.

Republicans, by contrast, have tended to portray this as part of a concerted Obama Administration strategy to attack conservatives. They have also used the controversy to attack Obamacare.