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Paul said the special counsel is no longer looking at Russian collusion in the 2016 election.
“Going after someone’s personal attorney is a great overstep, I think, in the authority of the prosecutor,” Paul said. “This is why I have opposed, really, having special prosecutors for almost anything, because I think they abuse their authority. So I think Mueller has abused his authority.”
"On the orders of AG Jeff Sessions, Justice Department prosecutors have begun asking FBI agents to explain the evidence they found in a now dormant criminal investigation into a uranium deal that critics have linked to Bill & Hillary Clinton." https://www. https://t.co/5niInNSsfd
— Yashar Ali 🐘 (@yashar) December 21, 2017
I've annotated a couple of key dates, December 29th (the most recent data) and October 29th, so we can see the current state of play and compare it with how the race looked two months ago.
A pivotal vote on Muslim immigration split the Republican presidential field in the Senate—with Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) voting to continue to allow large-scale Muslim immigration and Senator Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) voting to pause Muslim immigration.The amendment, offered Sen. Rand Paul, would have suspended visa issuances to more than 30 Muslim countries with active Jihadist populations. Graham and Rubio were both members of the Gang of Eight, which proposed legislation that would expand Muslim immigration, and Paul and Cruz were both opponents of the Gang of Eight bill.
“During my time in the Senate, I’ve been amazed how many senators pose one way in public — as fiscal conservatives or staunch tea party supporters — and then in private do little or nothing to advance those principles,” Cruz says in his new book, “A Time for Truth.”
... The Texas senator titled the first chapter of his book “Mendacity,” and spends its pages cataloging the ways Senate Republicans betrayed him and the conservative movement he stands for.
“[O]ne particular Politico reporter often seems like he is Mitch McConnell’s press secretary; nearly every attack from leadership gets echoed and amplified in his stories.”
... The chapter casts Mitch McConnell as its chief villain, accusing the Senate Majority Leader of cowering in fights over the debt ceiling and Obamacare, too afraid of bad headlines from the liberal media to stand up for conservative principles. But McConnell isn’t portrayed as merely a coward — he’s also a tyrant, who threatens Cruz with media smears and withheld funding unless he, too, capitulates to the liberal agenda.
“The Republican leadership’s attacks are amplified and made more effective by using friendly media outlets,” Cruz wrote. “When leadership is displeased, they place hit pieces with journalists only too happy to cooperate. Indeed, so much so that one particular Politico reporter often seems like he is Mitch McConnell’s press secretary; nearly every attack from leadership gets echoed and amplified in his stories.”
While a measles outbreak was spurring new calls for vaccinations, Paul said in a Feb. 2 TV interview: “I have heard of many tragic cases of walking, talking normal children who wound up with profound mental disorders after vaccines.” ... Pediatric groups called the remarks irresponsible, saying the benefits of child vaccines greatly outweigh the risk.
Campaigning for a Nebraska Republican in August, Paul sparred with reporters who asked about his earlier calls to end foreign aid to all countries, including Israel... in 2011, Paul proposed a budget that would end all foreign aid, including that for Israel. He defended the position in an ABC News interview at the time.
Kentucky's Republican nominee for Senate, Rand Paul, is running away from his past support for abolishing the federal income tax in favor of a national sales tax... As the [Lexington] Herald-Leader wrote, Paul was on shaky ground when he said he has "never said anything like" support for the fair tax.
MJ Lee and Jeremy Diamond, CNN
Ted Cruz backers have ushered in a new era for super PACs.
Supporters of the Texas Republican presidential candidate made a bombshell announcement this week — that a network of four affiliated super PACs will have raised an eye-popping $31 million by the end of the week. The disclosure, coming within weeks of Cruz launching his campaign for president, has sent deep ripples through the political fundraising world.
The idea of not one, but multiple, affiliated super PACs ostensibly working together to haul in donations for the same presidential candidate is unprecedented, campaign finance experts say.
Maria Recio, McClatchy Washington Bureau
Ted Cruz has a Latino name. He has a Latino background. And he’s one of the few Latinos to have ever run for the presidential nomination of a major party.
But is he Latino enough?
As we’ve said before the people who most fear a legitimate (semi) libertarian movement within the GOP are the old big government Republicans, it’s not liberals. (At least not yet.)
Of course there is a long way to go before even the primaries start. People like Ramesh Ponnuru will have plenty of time to make their case for Jeb Bush or, well, I guess Jeb Bush. Perhaps the country will turn and embrace yet another big government Republican. (Not to mention yet another Bush.) But I think that is an increasingly tall order.
Rand Paul really isn’t a libertarian. He has strong libertarian tendencies, but he has some serious conservative tendencies as well. This is actually where I think the great swathe of suburban, more or less Republican voters are. They are sick of the endless wars. They want taxes simplified and reduced. They want to be left alone in their private lives. They are not interested in regulating the private lives of others. And by and large Republicans are not terribly fond of GW Bush who is seen by many as a spendthrift and an unwise executive.
Ponnuru and his friends at AEI probably see the GW Bush years in a different light however.
So this is what I would do if were a man like Ted Cruz.
I'd want to get that coalition together now, early, before Jeb Bush gets any money and any support. I'd want to rebuild that Reagan coalition. So I'd be going to these groups right now. And the first thing I'd say to them: I'm going to run and run early.
And I'm to put Allen West on my VP ticket.
And then, for you libertarians, I'm going to make Rand Paul my Secretary of the Treasury and he can do what he damn well wants to the Federal Reserve and the IRS. He can take them down, abolish them, do what he wants.
And then you energy voters, Sarah Palin, Secretary of Energy. Drill, baby, drill, Drill in your backyard if you want to. Two dollar a gallon gas for every American family. Keystone pipeline, open it up!
Scott Walker, Secretary of Labor. Right-to-work all over, folks, every state.
Herman Cain, Secretary of Commerce. De-regulate, de-regulate, de-regulate. EPA gone, OSHA gone, the whole lot.
John Bolton, Secretary of State. Tell your enemies where to get off, rebuild your alliances.
Ambassador to the United Nations... no one.
Dr. Ben Carson, Secretary of Health and Human Services. End the welfare culture in this country.
Attorney General, Mark Levin. Stick it to the vote fraudsters, people.
And for the Christians, who often don't care about politics, but they do care about the education of their children, I'd say to them: vote for me this time and we will get rid of Common Core, we're going to get rid of the Department of Education, we're going to protect your home-schooling rights because David Barton will be Secretary of Education.
You could fill the whole cabinet, folks. Fill it now.
Would you rally to a team like that? Would you get out of bed every day, can't wait to get to the phone banks, and open your checkbook, and knock on doors to get those people in power.
And wouldn't it unify the base? Because everyone's getting something. You might not like Sarah Palin, but you love Allen West. You might not like John Bolton, but you like Rand Paul.
It's inspiring, with a clear policy direction. You know what you're going to get. Because where else do you work your butts off for a nebulous promise. We don't do it in business. We don't do it in our education. We know what we're going to get. That's why we work. With this team, we will work like nothing else.
And think about it, folks. You've never had a bigger team of Constitutionalists, conservatives, and libertarians, than you have today. Far more than Reagan had. And you've got all of these millions of people just itching to save their country. You've got all of these leaders out there that can't wait to gut the federal government.
You put the base with the leaders and who is going to stand in your way? Imagine, right now, you put your eggs in one basket. And they can demonize a Mitt Romney. Try and demonize 20 hard-core, Constitutional conservatives, a bunch of Rottweilers, who don't take any crap from anyone... who are all backing each other up.
You've got a team, folks. You win football with a good team. Why not win politics that way? Because you've done it before.
You didn't have a founding father, guys. You didn't just have George Washington. You had George Washington and Thomas Jefferson and Sam Adams and Benjamin Franklin and James Madison.
It was a team that won the first American Revolution and you need a team to win the Second American Revolution.
NEW ORLEANS, May 31, 2014 — Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Tex., excited the crowd at the Republican Leadership Conference when he addressed them this afternoon. He followed up his appearance with a victory in the event’s 2016 presidential straw poll, which was sponsored by Conservative Intel.
In the straw poll, 633 ballots were cast, which was attended by more than 1,500 people. The results were as follows:
1. Ted Cruz — 30.33 percent
2. Ben Carson — 29.38 percent
3. Rand Paul — 10.43 percent
4. Mike Huckabee — 5.06 percent
5. Rick Perry — 4.90 percent
6. Curt Clawson (write-in) 4.58 percent
7. Jeb Bush — 4.42 percent
8. Marco Rubio — 3.32 percent
9. Rick Santorum — 2.37 percent
10. Paul Ryan — 2.05 percent
11. Allen West (write-in) — 2.05 percent
12. Chris Christie — 1.11%
“Everybody’s gone completely crazy on this voter ID thing,” Paul told The New York Times in an interview on Friday. “I think it’s wrong for Republicans to go too crazy on this issue because it’s offending people.”
...He has even softened his stance on immigration, saying he favors legislation in which all the country's illegal immigrants can get work visas.
But just as Hispanics slammed Paul for being "offensive," even after he took a more liberal approach to immigration in favor of amnesty, black leaders gave him no credit for his softer stance on voter ID laws.
“Get real, Senator,” a black member of the Tennessee General Assembly told the Times. “To come here, to Memphis of all places, and espouse the principles and ‘goodness’ of today’s Republican Party, excuse me if I’m not buying it.”
Why does the government issue photo IDs? It’s not the private sector issuing them, it’s not the [Ku Klux] Klan issuing them. The government is issuing voter ID so the government can know who you are. Now why does the government want to know who you are? Because they want to know who they are giving driver's licenses to; if a police officer stops you they want to know who you are. They want to know if you have insurance. They want to know your age if you want to buy booze. And I can go on and on. There wouldn’t be government-issued photos IDs but for the government.
So my question is [this]: Is the government – are all state governments racist because they are requiring you to have a photo ID, that is a photo with your pigmentation on it? I mean, this is so asinine what the Left is up to in this administration.
You know what it is? Let’s just be honest, they want to defend fraud. They want to defend fraud. You can’t get on an airplane without a government issued ID. You can’t buy booze without a government issued ID. You can’t lease an apartment without a government issued ID. You can’t do damn near anything without a government issued ID.
Except vote! Anyone can vote without a photo ID at the polls!
Have you ever tried to check into a hotel without a government ID? Have you ever tried to rent a car without a government ID? Don’t we hold voting, like, at the top? Haven’t we fought the civil rights movement for people to have the right to vote? Why is it ipso facto discriminatory against minorities for people to show an ID? If you have a specific case in which a state, a town, a county or somebody has discriminated against you because of your race, you can bring a federal lawsuit under the Voting Rights Act, still today and a state lawsuit under state voting rights acts, still today!
But voter integrity is something the Democrat party rejects. Because they want multiple voting. Because they want dead people voting.
Who uses it? The big cities use it, among others. When LBJ was running for president or first, for the Senate, it was rural areas that were using it.
So this isn’t some civil rights issue. This is to promote fraud.
This past weekend in Miami, Florida, we caught up to one of the elusive and endangered Senate “Wacko Birds” ... Ted Cruz, and asked him what his thoughts were about being called such a term.
Cruz looked at me and the Miami Herald’s Marc Caputo, chuckled, and responded, “I take that as a badge of honor.”
Earlier in the week, Senator Paul responded to McCain’s not-so-senatorial use of words by saying ,“I treat Sen. McCain with respect. I don’t think I always get the same in return.”
