I'm watching Rand Paul's filibuster of the John Brennan confirmation, and I have to say, I agree with him 100 percent.
Sen. Paul, whom I disagree with on many issues, is absolutely right about the extreme dangers of President Obama's assassination doctrine and Brennan's drone policy.
He's pointing out how unconstitutional the President's powergrab is, and how dangerous it is, and how hypocritical it is. He noted that President Obama was concerned about people's privacy rights when it comes to tapping of phones, but then doesn't seem so concerned about privacy rights when he's sending drones to bomb them.
He properly called "gobbledygook" the Obama Administration's rationale for the drones, especially when Justice Department lawyers said that using drones are appropriate when the threat is "imminent" and then defined "imminent" as not immediate, which is classic Orwellian doublespeak.
Paul pointed out how outrageous it was for the Obama Administration to send a drone to kill the sixteen year old son of Anwar Al-Awlaki. Born in Colorado, Abdulrahman Al-Awlaki was killed two weeks after his father. And Rand Paul noted the disgusting comment that Obama's former press secretary Robert Gibbs said about this lethal hit, saying Abdulrahman should have had "a far more responsible father."
Paul also raised the concern that Obama or some future President could drop a drone bomb on a U.S. citizen right here in the United States. He acknowledged that President Obama said he wouldn't do that. But Paul said that's not an adequate response. He said he needed an assurance from the President that noncombatants cannot be killed in the United States. If they can, we're living in "a far different country" than he thought, the Senator said. He said he's concerned about the "slippery slope" about who is and who isn't a terrorist.
Paul said there's some contagion in the Oval Office that makes Presidents want to grab more and more power.
If you liked this story by Matthew Rothschild, the editor of The Progressive magazine, check out his story "The Supreme Court's Push to Lift Campaign Limits."
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