Either that or be open about it. It is hard to blackmail someone over something that is public knowledge.
Huh. Apparently, you're right. You can be a 50-something politician and have an affair with the 17-year-old daughter of one of your law clients, get a plea deal to misdemeanors instead of a felony, and it's okay as long as you come out with it a couple of years later, present your new baby, and talk about your ambitions to be a leader in the state senate. Truth is stranger than fiction.
oh look, its the garbage rag the Washington Examiner, dedicated to excusing and covering up the right's mistakes.
Oh, sorry, should I have found some garbage rag dedicated to excusing and covering up the left's mistakes? There are certainly a LOT more of those to choose from.
and yes youre still a crackpot who doesn't know what hes talking about concerning vaccines or pretty much any other topic.
Actually, you are an ignorant douchebag with no clue about anything, and a shill for the vastly harmful pharmaceutical industry.
he has also demonstrated significant ideological inconsistency as he navigates the mine field created by his libertarian leanings (they themselves inconsistent)
Clearly if you try to compare one libertarian's ideas with another, you may view them as inconsistent - but you can say the same about "progressive" or "liberal" or "conservative" or any other. However, the core principles of libertarianism itself is the most consistent of any other philosophy I know of. It's really simple too. You seem ignorant of what it's about.
Yes, Rand Paul is a politician. And "pure" libertarians have grown to distrust him, too, since he tries to express his views in a way that doesn't scare people. Even if he believes there should be no laws against possession of heroin, cocaine, and that the state should repeal any law that defines a "marriage", expressing such an idea would marginalize him to such an extent that he'd be unable to influence ANYTHING in Washington.
really? do you have any actual data beyond "I have heard of them too" to corroborate your claim? I'm guessing not because you would be more than gleeful to post any link
I can't be "gleeful" about people that are harmed by pharmaceutical companies. But for your information, it happens often enough (and since these multinational corporations are IMMUNE from liability for ANY harm, the government has a compensation program to assist people injured by them.
There are vaccines and there are vaccines. I see no problem with the proven ones for really tragic illnesses, such as polio, for instance. But when states start mandating things like Gardisil, which has caused some neurological problems in some patients and with very questionable benefits, it goes too far.
he has held both positions on a most important and significant issue
False. Rather, you cannot see past sound bites fed to you and fail to distinguish between subtle positions. "Non-interventionism" is not the same as "isolationism".
in case you aren't paying attention, he stood up and did this because he is running for president
That's pretty disingenuous, without merit, and without relevance. Paul has opposed these types of government intrusion and civil rights violations for a long time, long before he even entered politics. A passionate dislike for excessive government surveillance is just as likely a motivation for this as your biased viewpoint of him.
he was there for several other occasions when the patriot act was being debated, he did not filibuster any of those times
You are a victim of media manipulation. Here's your sign.
we do care about those things
but when they come out of the mouth of a guy who says:
"I've heard of many tragic cases of walking, talking normal children who wound up with profound mental disorders after vaccines."
then you really have to come to the conclusion that he says what he says in order to get press exposure, because clearly his remarks have no ground in "integrity" or "honesty" or anything like that
Why? Do you think he lied? Because I have heard of them, too. I've even heard of ones that didn't even survive. Why do you focus on that out-of-context quote instead of his entire point? Are there no issues with vaccines? Should the government be mandating 200 vaccine shots for every citizen, regardless of outcome, and regardless of the pharmaceutical company immunity from any liability, but retaining all the profits from government-supported funding? Do you distrust Rand Paul more than pharmaceutical companies? Because that's an easy choice for me.
I've seen quite a bit of coverage including major political sites like DrudgeReport
"Drudge Report"? How about NewsMax and jbs.org? Did you see it on those major political sites, too? Maybe a major political site like bible-prophecy.com?
Every post you make surprises me by your further decent into abject ignorance. There are PODCASTS with larger audiences than MSNBC, dude. You should really look for other sources of news.
If he was serious about getting into the oval office and serious about his libertarian ideals, he'd run as an independent.
HAHAHAHA. Okay. I thought your post was serious until then, but you gave away the gag.
But if that attention does not lead to action it didn't accomplish anything in the end.
That applies to about 99.9% of every effort to change things in Washington for the better. But 1000 of those actions just might.
it's in quotes because he's the little boy who cries wolf and everybody has stopped paying attention to him
Yea, because nobody gives a crap if the government is collecting all your information, reading your email, and listening to your phone calls. If you're not a terrorist, you have nothing to worry about, right? Who cares about the 4th Amendment, it's all antiquated and stuff. We just want our Facebook and our smart phones and the GPS on our cars so Big Brother knows where we are. Silly, to make an issue of NSA's actions.
What is the reason for the scare quotes on "filibuster"? Rand Paul's filibuster was, in fact, a filibuster, unlike the fake filibusters we have been subjected to over the last 40-odd years when the threat of a filibuster became a de-facto one, but without anyone actually having to stand in the chamber and talk for as long as they could stand to be there - ala "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington".
Are we so desensitized now by phony parliamentary maneuvers that don't actually require any effort on the part of our representatives that when someone actually follows the traditional route of discussion and debate and puts up a rhetorical fight we have to use scare quotes to distinguish it from the backroom posturing that normally goes on?
Machines have less problems. I'd like to be a machine. -- Andy Warhol