Why Rand Paul is Right and Obama, McCain and Graham are Wrong

Something different happened this week.  In a Senate where true filibusters had long been replaced by the mere threat of filibuster - where Senators no longer stand and talk to stall a bill but simply vote against a "cloture motion", Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) went old school.

Incensed by the implication by Attorney General Eric Holder's implication that while the US had never used a drone strike against a US citizen on US soil, that the executie branch might have the right to do so, Paul took to the Senate floor for over 12 hours.

Paul's filibuster was impressive on multiple levels:
(1) He Actually Filibustered - rather than hiding behind procedural rules, Paul took to the floor to make his point and left no lack of clarity about what he was doing and why.
(2) He Filibustered Something Relevant - filibustering the CIA director nomination on the basis of what the CIA director might actually order is a pertinent filibuster.  Paul did not filibuster some unrelated nomination, he filibustered a nominee until it was clear what that nominee could or could not do in office.
(3) He Was Dead Right - the notion that without charge or trial that the US government could even conceive of killing an American on American soil should outrage each and every US citizen.  Liberals were all too proud to protest during the Bush administration when the government encroached on civil liberties, but have been silent as the Obama administration has continued many of the same policies - or even worse in this case.  On the left, only Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) showed up to support Paul's cause.  Good for Senator Wyden - and shame on the rest of the Democrats in the Senate.
(4) He Got His Way - Paul's filibuster was successful.  Attorney General Holder clarified, in no uncertain terms, that the executive does NOT have the authority to kill Americans on American soil.  Paul won a meaningful victory for American civil liberties.
(5) He Was True to His Word - Paul stated that he was filibustering the Brennan nomination to ensure that Americans would not be killed on American soil - once he was assured, he not only voted to invoke cloture, he also voted for the nominee.  There was nothing below board or disingenuous about what Paul did - he stated a clear principle (that we all should support) and didn't move the goal posts when he got what he wanted.

I am astounded that Holder or any Obama administration official ever implied the right to kill Americans without review in the first place.  He was dead wrong and I feel better now that he has admitted as much.

I am even more astounded at the sniping by John McCain and Lindsey Graham at Senator Paul for his filibuster.  In a year where John McCain promised not to filibuster, then filibustered the nomination of Chuck Hagel, a man he once named as a probable Secretary of Defense in a McCain administration, McCain has no moral high ground.  This is the same McCain who said we couldn't afford the Bush tax cuts, then turned around and hurled mud at President Obama for supporting a very modest partial repeal of those cuts.  In the realm of respectful politics, what Rand Paul did is far ahead of what John McCain has done of late.

Rand Paul captured the spirit of liberty, the very spirit that I have previously written is the key to the Republicans not being relegated to a minority party for the next 50 years.  Republican leaders would be wise to pay attention and learn from what happened this week, not shove it to the side as childishness.

Rand Paul is to be commended for his actions this week.  I certainly don't agree with a lot of his views, but this was a classy, principled defense of our rights.  We all owe Senator Paul a debt of gratitude.

The Idiocy of Grover Norquist...and Why the GOP Is Right to Abandon Him

When economics become a religion, we should all be concerned.  Few moral issues are black and white, but clear cut cases do exist - I think that we would all agree that rape is always immoral (most of us wouldn't even quibble over whether or not it is "legitimate" rape), so is child pornography and infanticide.  But in economics, decisions are rarely clear cut - they invariably involve complex trade-offs.  Most of us would agree that free markets are generally more efficient than government control - but few of us would want to leave national defense, police work or workplace safety up to the private market. 

So when people start treating economic concepts like religion - on either the right or the left, be very worried.  Grover Norquist has been an economic theologist for a long time.  Norquist has never worked in the real world - he has worked for lobbying groups, been a speechwriter and, most famously, founded "Americans for Tax Reform", a group essentially dedicated to a singular concept - that taxes should never go up - under any circumstances.  Norquist's lack of practical experience isn't, in and of itself, worthy of dismissing all of his ideas - many great thinkers spent their careers in either academia or the political sphere.  But it does help to explain his black and white view of a decidedly gray world.

Norquist's crowning achievement is his "Taxypayer Protection Pledge", which has been signed by 219 House Republicans and over 39 Republican Senators (no current Democrats have signed the pledge.)  The pledge states, simply, that an elected official will "oppose any and all efforts to increase the marginal income tax rate for individuals and business; and to oppose any net reduction or elimination of deductions and credits, unless matched dollar for dollar by further reducing tax rates."

This pledge is pretty on its face absurd.  Think about this hypothetical situation: a massive economic crisis happens and Congress, whether wise or stupid, decides to eliminate all taxes for 1 year and finance the government solely on debt.  Under the terms of Norquist's pledge, taxes would have to stay at zero, otherwise you would be supporting an "effort to increase the marginal tax rate for individuals and businesses".

But maybe the pledge doesn't apply to TEMPORARY tax cuts, you might say.  But that's exactly what we are talking about in the current fiscal cliff debates - tax cuts that were made on a temporary basis in 2003 and extended on a temporary basis in 2010.  The Bush/Obama tax cuts were never passed into law as permanent cuts.

Norquist says the government has a spending problem and he is clearly right.  But it also has a revenue problem - the federal cut of US GDP has never been lower in the past 60 years - and 60 years ago we didn't have Medicare, Medicaid, Homeland Security, the EPA, OSHA or a whole lot of other things that we take for granted as basic functions of government these days.

Norquist's pledge is absurd - and he has no standing to "require" Republicans to adhere to it - he isn't a government official and doesn't directly represent anyone other than himself.  Yet, for too long, GOP candidates bought into Norquist's nonsense lock, stock and barrel.  

Republicans have started backing away from the pledge.  Lindsey Graham, Saxby Chambliss, Peter King and Tom Cole have all more or less disavowed the pledge.  They are right to.  Hopefully more courageous members of the Republican party will abandon the religious lunacy and join the real conversation as to how we put our budgetary house in order.