Rand Paul Filibustering Senate

I don’t usually agree with Senator Rand Paul. But he’s filibustering the U.S. Senate right now. He’s holding up the confirmation of John Brennan to lead the CIA by speaking out about the U.S. Drone program.

And I think that highlighting this worrying policy of the U.S. where we send in robots to kill people without due process is an important conversation to have. And he’s using the Senate filibuster rule in a way I haven’t seen in real life. Ever.

I hope this act sparks more conversation about how we as a country allow drone strikes to occur because it happens in this nebulous place over “there” to “the enemy”. But we need to acknowledge that we are killing real people and not merely video game avatars.

So thank you Rand Paul for using the rules to speak out and push for change. I hope that more people in congress stand up and speak against the unsettling and problematic policies that are happening now. I hope that this at marks a shift toward actually doing the country’s business again. Where the debate and conversation happens and pushes the U.S. toward its best nature. I hope that it doesn’t entrench the party of “No” status or the partisan politics that have been the new norm.

And really, why hasn’t there been this conversation and train of questioning in the news media? What happened to our journalists?

I would love to see us move more toward the ideal presented in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, but I’ll be happy with functionality.

4 thoughts on “Rand Paul Filibustering Senate”

  1. Mr. Paul needs to read the Constitution before he complains someone is violating it. The 5th Amendment regarding due process makes an exception in “time of War or public danger”. I think that was what Holder was saying.

  2. Michael, as Senator Paul pointed out, that state would put the U.S. under Marshall Law, which is problematic and should be discussed further, hence the filibuster. That’s cool that there’s an exception for times like the Civil War, but since we haven’t been in a declared war since the first part of the last century, we aren’t in that type of extraordinary situation. And if we are in that type of situation, then maybe we should have that conversation.

  3. I think “public danger” would include stopping a terrorist act. For example, if they knew a plane was hijacked and headed towards the White House, they could shoot it down with a drone without going through due process. I think that’s all Holder was trying to say.

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