+Senate | 312 days ago

Rand Paul Has Some Lame Questions for FBI Chief Robert Mueller

By Massimo Calabresi

There’s another Aug. 2 deadline looming in Washington that also features a stand-off between a Tea Party favorite and the Obama administration. Senator Rand Paul, the freshman from Kentucky, has placed a hold on the otherwise broadly supported bipartisan bill that would allow FBI Director Robert Mueller to extend his 10-year stint by two more years. The White House says that Mueller needs to be confirmed by Aug. 2 or his term will end before Labor Day.

What does Paul want in exchange for dropping the hold? A face-to-face meeting with Mueller to ask a series of questions he posed in a four-page letter to the director a week ago. The two are scheduled to meet on Thursday afternoon, a Paul aide says, after Mueller cut short an out-of-town trip for the meeting.

Paul’s questions are pretty lame.

+Uncategorized | 573 days ago

In Victory Speech, Rand Paul Misquotes Thomas Jefferson

By Michael Scherer

Maybe there is something in the tea–this habit that Tea Party candidates have, on election night, of misquoting the nation’s founding fathers. Just now, in a rousing victory speech, Kentucky’s newest senator, Rand Paul, announced, “Thomas Jefferson wrote, ‘That government is best that governs least.’” Except, no. He didn’t. Henry David Thoreau did. According to [...]

+Health Care | 595 days ago

Rand Paul’s Medicare Shorthand

By Kate Pickert

Kentucky’s Republican Senate candidate Rand Paul is in a spot of trouble over a comment he made about how to shore up Medicare. Speaking at a town hall in September 2009, Paul said “a $2,000 Medicare deductible would solve a huge amount of problems.” His Democratic opponent, Jack Conway, has seized on the statement, highlighting [...]

+Uncategorized | 608 days ago

What Would Don Draper Say?

By Michael Scherer

Yesterday, I caught a new spot for Campbell’s soup that boasts of the company’s “farm-grown ingredients.” I did a double take. “Farm-grown ingredients”? As opposed to what? Test-tube carrots? Magically conjured potatoes? I imagined Peggy on Mad Man presenting the idea to Don Draper. The scene did not end well. I mention this only as [...]

+Tea Party | 628 days ago

Wave? Not yet in KY, CA & FL

By Jay Newton-Small

Sure, all those pundits on cable and inside the Beltway may be predicting a wave year where Dems lose the House and maybe even the Senate. But the tsunami hasn’t yet been reflected in three new CNN/TIME/Opinion research polls of registered voters in Kentucky, California and Florida out today. In fact, most races were tied [...]

+Senate | 735 days ago

Why Can’t Rachel Maddow And Rand Paul Get Along?

By Michael Scherer

Last week, Rand Paul turned on Rachel Maddow. After Maddow invited him on her show, and painted his libertarian views as a proxy support for private sector segregation, Paul announced that he had been attacked by the “Looney Left.” So it goes. Politics ain’t T-ball. Yet we can all still hope that one day Maddow [...]

+Uncategorized | 739 days ago

In Response To “Looney Left,” Rand Paul Says He Supports Civil Rights Act

By Michael Scherer

On the Laura Ingram show Thursday, Rand Paul said that he would have supported the Civil Rights Act in 1964, and still supports it. Though he retains some concern over government dictating to business: (via Taegan Goddard)

+2012 Election | 739 days ago

Rand Paul Shifts Gears

By Adam Sorensen

The electoral inadvisability of discussing his views on the 1964 Civil Rights Act have dawned on Rand Paul. He has abandoned his first instinct to defend himself on abstract, philosophical grounds and shifted to a more political tack. “I will not support any efforts to repeal the Civil Rights Act of 1964,” he says in [...]

+2012 Election | 739 days ago

Rand Paul’s Dilemma: Theory Vs. Practice

By Michael Scherer

UPDATE: Thursday on the Laura Ingram show, Rand Paul responded to last night’s Rachel Maddow interview. The libertarian approach, which heavily favors private rights over government rights, has always produced some interesting conversations. Most libertarians, for instance, don’t own a bong or watch extremely violent pornography, but Republican doctors like Ron Paul will defend your [...]

+2012 Election | 740 days ago

The Wave Only Gets Bigger

By Michael Scherer

From the top of my Time.com story about last night: This is how it goes in 2010 at the ballot box: old orders are upended, political lions become roadkill, chosen successors get left behind and the outsider, riding a wave of discontent, becomes the new front-runner. In quick succession Tuesday night, the jittery inhabitants of [...]