Bourbon County's Home of Conservative Values and Thought

Op-ed by Senator Rand Paul

Thursday, May 16, 2013

When I filibustered over domestic drone use, critics said that I was being ridiculous. They said that no American had been killed by a drone on American soil and that no one was likely to be anytime soon. President Obama responded that he hadn't killed anyone yet and didn't intend to - but he might.

That wasn't the point. The filibuster was about the limits of power. It was about how much authority the president imagined he had. Lincoln wrote that nearly any man can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man, give him power.

I think Mr. Obama has failed that test of power. From the cover-up in Benghazi to letting the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) target the Tea Party to First and Fourth Amendment violations in obtaining records from the press, Mr. Obama has shown disregard for the Bill of Rights and his responsibilities as commander in chief.

The handling of the tragedy in Benghazi continues to raise more questions than it produces answers....

Read the full article @ Washington Times...

MAY 9 UPDATE:  Boehner Calls for Release of Benghazi Emails as Pressure Grows on Administration

MAY 1 UPDATE:  "I write to share my support for H. Res. 36, which would create a House Select Committee on the Terrorist Attack in Benghazi. With 135 Republican cosponsors, the bill now has a "majority of the majority" and it's time for House leadership to advance it. The threshold for the Select Committee has been crossed, and it's time for a vote."

View HR36 Sponsors, Summary, & Text.

Article by Julian Pecquet

Wednesday, April 17, 2013

U.S. House Speaker John Boehner, an Ohio Republican, is trying to head off a GOP rebellion over his handling of the investigation into last year's fatal attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, by releasing an interim report of evidence by his panel chairmen.

A growing number of lawmakers - 119 so far - have signed on to a resolution from Rep. Frank Wolf (R-Va.) demanding that the House create a 19-member select committee to look into the attack that killed Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans on Sept. 11, 2012.

Boehner and the panel leaders, none of whom have joined Wolf's resolution, say a select committee would be expensive and time-consuming to create. Wolf is not on any of the committees of jurisdiction.

"At this point, I think that the standing committees of the House, whether they be the Oversight Committee or the Intelligence Committee, are working diligently on these issues," Boehner said last year after Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.), Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.) endorsed the idea in the Senate.

But the idea is gaining traction among the Republican grass roots: Members of conservative groups such as Revive America have been flooding lawmakers' phone lines.

Read the full story @ TheHill.com...

Also read:  Effort for Benghazi Select Committee Gains Momentum but Boehner Balks

Also read:  Revive America alerts on this issue...
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Highlights from the article
by Michael Patrick Leahy

Thursday, March 14, 2013

Pat Caddell, the Fox News Contributor and Democrat pollster who engineered Jimmy Carter's 1976 Presidential victory, blew the lid off CPAC on Thursday with a blistering attack on "racketeering" Republican consultants who play wealthy donors like "marks."

"I blame the donors who allow themselves to be played for marks. I blame the people in the grassroots for allowing themselves to be played for suckers....It's time to stop being marks. It's time to stop being suckers. It's time for you people to get real," he told the audience that included two top Republican consultants.

Caddell stole the show as a panelist in the breakout session titled "Should We Shoot All the Consultants Now?" He spoke with a fire and passion that electrified the room. When the session began the large room was half filled, but as word spread of the fireworks going on inside, the audience streamed in. By the end, it was standing room only.

"When you have the Chief of Staff of the Republican National Committee and the political director of the Romney campaign, and their two companies get $150 million at the end of the campaign for the 'fantastic' get-out-the-vote program...some of this borders on RICO [the 1970 Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act] violations," Caddell told the crowd. "It's all self dealing going on. I think it works on the RICO thing. They're in the business of lining their pockets."

"The Republican Party," Caddell continued, "is in the grips of what I call the CLEC--the consultant, lobbyist, and establishment complex." Caddell described CLEC as a self serving interconnected network of individuals and organizations interested in preserving their own power far more than they're interested in winning elections.

"Just follow the money," Caddell told a rapt audience. "It's all there in the newspaper. The way it works is this--ever since we centralized politics in Washington, the House campaign committee and the Senate campaign committee, they decide who they think should run. You hire these people on the accredited list [they say to candidates] otherwise we won't give you money. You hire my friend or else."

Caddell criticized the RNC's planned announcement on Monday of the RNC's Growth and Opportunity Project report, which he dismissed as "this whitewash...being produced at the RNC. You can not have the people who failed responsible for finding the solution."

Caddell predicted that the Republican Party, unless it became the anti-establishment, anti-Washington party, would become extinct, like the 19th century Whig Party. "These people [in the consulting-lobbying-establishment complex] are doing business for themselves. They are a part of the Washington establishment. These people don't want to have change."

The 2010 takeover of Congress by the Republicans, Caddell said, "was not engineered by the Washington Republican establishment. They [the establishment] then took that victory and threw it away."

Caddell cautioned Republicans not to read too much in the 2012 results where they maintained control of the House of Representatives. "You won the House [in 2012] because of the reapportionment that came after the 2010 [Tea Party] victories," he said. Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL), elected in 2010, and Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI), elected in 2012, had to fight this establishment at every step in the process and "claw their way" to electoral success, Caddell said.

Nancy Smith, a grassroots activist who co-founded an independent Virginia group that focused on door-to-door canvassing and get-out-the-vote in the 2012 election, was effusive in her praise of Caddell's critique. "This talk by Caddell is what this entire conference should be about."

Read the complete article at Breitbart.com...

2013-05-25, Saturday

Bluegrass Bulletin   David Adams vs Obamacare: Judge Grants Standing

Bluegrass Bulletin   Eric Holder: Caught Red-Handed Lying To Congress

FOX News   The Sad Truth About Today's Modern Germany and Jews

FOX News   Republican Rips Obama For Meeting With Illegal Immigrants, Icing Out Officer Union

2013-05-24, Friday

WHAS News   Crowd Gathers in Frankfort to Protest Medicaid Expansion

FOX News Video   40th Anniversary Reunion for Vietnam POWs

FOX News   Hand of Lincoln: Abe's Note Saving Teen Soldier Up For Sale

2013-05-23, Thursday

FOX News   Homeland Security Bulletin Warns 3D-printed Guns May Be 'Impossible' To Stop

GOP USA   Establishment vs Tea Party

2013-05-21, Tuesday

Courier-Journal   Lawsuit Seeks to Strike Down Medicaid Expansion in Kentucky

2013-05-20, Monday

CBN News Video Expose'   Paris Under Siege:  The Islamization of France

Victoria Jackson   Navy SEAL Chopper Crash: Allegations Against Government Backed by Facts

FOX News   Justice Department Affidavit Labels FOX News Journalist as Possible 'Co-conspirator'

Dick Morris TV Lunch Alert   AP Scandal Wrecks Obama-Media Marriage

2013-05-17, Friday

Human Events   IRS Sued For Stealing The Medical Records of 10 Million Americans

FOX News   IRS Official Who Oversaw Unit Targeting Tea Party Now Heads ObamaCare Office

FOX News   Second Court Invalidates Obama Appointments to Labor Board

Washington Post   Yes, The 37th Obamacare Repeal Vote Matters

2013-05-16, Thursday

Rand Paul   A Staggering Abuse of Power: Obama Acts As Though We No Longer Have A Constitution

2013-05-15, Wednesday

Courier-Journal   Gov. Steve Beshear Presses on Despite Lawsuit

2013-05-13, Monday

FOX News   Doctor Kermit Gosnell Found Guilty of Murdering Infants in Late-term Abortions

2013-05-10, Friday

FOX News   OUTRAGEOUS ABUSE:  Tea Party Rejects IRS Apology for Tax Scrutiny

FOX News   Letter From IRS to Waco Tea Party

GOP The Daily Dose   British National Archives Show A Son Was Born to Obama Sr. in 1961 in Kenya

Hot Air   Feds Demand Removal of 3-D Printable Gun Plans From the Internet

2013-05-09, Thursday

FOX News   Boehner Calls For Release of Benghazi Emails as Pressure Grows on Administration

FOX News   Pentagon Scrubs 3D Gun Plans From Internet, Says Designer

Dick Morris TV Lunch Alert   FHA: The New Fannie Mae

Dick Morris TV Lunch Alert   Benghazi Hearings Will Explode Obama

National Review   The Rand Machine Ramps Up ~ Top Aide Prepares for A Presidential Campaign

Red Alert Politics   Ted Cruz: Biden's Shotgun Advice Is "Useful" If "Attacked By A Flock Of Geese"

2013-05-08, Wednesday

Politico   Huckabee: Benghazi Will Drive Obama From Office

2013-05-06, Monday

FOX News   Shots Fired From World's First 3D-Printed Gun  (Heard 'round The World)

Townhall   Star Parker   Planned Parenthood Targets Black Women

Townhall   Michelle Malkin   A National Security History Lesson for Marco Rubio   (2013-04-26)

2013-05-05, Sunday

Political Outcast   Are We Hearing the Death Rattle of Liberalism?   (2013-04-26)

FOX News   BENGHAZI: Names of "Whistleblower" Witnesses Revealed

American Thinker   The Complete Benghazi Timeline in Spreadsheet Format

National Review   Rand Paul Embraces Israel

Back In River City   The Rest of the Story on Common Core: Part 1 in a Series

Townhall Finance   Can Liberals Be This Dumb?  Forward!

Huffington Post   PA Police: Cherlie LaFleur Threw Her Dead Newborn Baby In High School Trash

Life News   Studies: Birth Control, Contraception Don't Cut Abortions   (2012-02-17)

2013-05-04, Saturday

Business Insider   Ron Paul   The Internet Tax Mandate Is Backwards Thinking

The Tennessean   This Is Not The Time To Enforce Internet Sales Tax

FOX News   What the Rise of Republican Governors Tells Us About the GOP's Future

Dick Morris TV History Video   Why Lincoln Was A Republican

Red State   Obamacare Is Not Living Up to Its Promises and Even the Media Knows It

Michelle Malkin   Meet Obama's Chicago Fat Cat Commerce Nominee

The Daily Caller   Gabriel Gomez Closing in on Ed Markey in Massachusetts Senate Race

Campaign For Liberty   Tim Carney on The Real Lessons of Boston

2013-05-03, Friday

Dick Morris TV Lunch Alert   Alarming New Twist In The ObamaCare "Death Panel" Scheme

2013-05-02, Thursday

Mark Levin   As Far As I'm Concerned ObamaCare is BoehnerCare and McConnellCare

Dick Morris TV Lunch Alert   Backdoor Gun Control: Ammo Purchases

Political Outcast   Stabbings, Stabbings and More Stabbings ~ Why Haven't We Heard From Obama?

Hot Air   May Day in Seattle Goes About As Well As You'd Expect

2013-05-01, Wednesday

Kentucky.gov   Grimes Gets Public Input on Online Voter Registration and Early Voting

GOP USA   Obama Administration Received Warning LAST YEAR about Boston Bomber

2013-04-30, Tuesday

Dick Morris TV Lunch Alert   ObamaCare Is Falling Apart

Dick Morris   Obama Losing Power

2013-04-29, Monday

FOX News Video   Effort to Intimidate Potential Benghazi Whistleblowers?

FOX News   Gunmakers Aim For Greener Pastures As States Pass New Firearms Laws

2013-04-28, Sunday

Gateway Pundit   Closed Door Tea Party Caucus Meeting Has "Big Turnout"

Breitbart   Twinkies On The Rebound With No Union Label

2013-04-27, Saturday

Free Republic   The Republican Civil War

South Carolina Conservative   SC House Passes Obamacare Nullification by a Large Margin

Tech Dirt   Everywhere, Big Brother Is Smiling: Congress Sells Your Privacy For A Cool $84 Million

2013-04-25, Thursday

FOX News   Reps Challenge "Inexplicable" DHS Ammo Purchases

Twitchy   Gosnell trial: Evil smiles. Literally

Twitchy   Twitter Reacts to Kermit Gosnell Acquittals

WKYT   Push in Washington to Cut Free Phone Program

Release date: September 18, 2012

A look at how our current crises are caused by too much government, and how Ayn Rand's bold defense of free markets can help us change course.

The rise of the Tea Party and the 2010 election results revealed that tens of millions of Americans are alarmed by Big Government, but skeptical that anything can or will be done to stop the growth of the state. In Free Market Revolution, the keepers of Ayn Rand's legacy argue that the answer lies in her pioneering philosophy of capitalism and self-interest - a philosophy that more and more people are turning to for answers. In the past few years, Rand's works have surged to new peaks of popularity, as politicians like Paul Ryan, media figures like John Stossel, and businessmen like John Mackey routinely name her as one of their chief influences. Here, Brook and Watkins explain how her ideas can solve a host of political and economic ills, including the debt crisis, inflation, overregulation, and the swelling welfare state. And most important, they show how Rand's philosophy can enable defenders of the free market to seize the moral high ground in the fight to limit government. This is a fresh and urgent look at the ideas of one of the most controversial figures in modern history - ideas that may prove the only hope for the future.

Buy it at Amazon.com...

More Recommended Reading:

GoodReads.com ~ Listopia

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Published 1787-1788

The Federalist Papers (correctly known as The Federalist) are a series of 85 articles advocating the ratification of the United States Constitution. Seventy-seven of the essays were published serially in The Independent Journal and The New York Packet between October 1787 and August 1788. A compilation of these and eight others, called The Federalist, was published in 1788 by J. and A. M'Lean.

The Federalist Papers serve as a primary source for interpretation of the Constitution, as they outline the philosophy and motivation of the proposed system of government. The authors of the Federalist Papers wanted to both influence the vote in favor of ratification and shape future interpretations of the Constitution. According to historian Richard Morris, they are an "incomparable exposition of the Constitution, a classic in political science unsurpassed in both breadth and depth by the product of any later American writer."

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