Rand Paul Launches Filibuster – The Talking Kind – Against John Brennan

 

 

Rand Paul Filibuster

 

 

 

 ” With a blanket of snow the capitol and the federal government shut down and John Brennan poised to be confirmed as CIA Director, Sen. Rand Paul, R-Kentucky, who has a little bit of libertarian running in his veins, is engaging in the most traditional form of filibuster – talk.

In today’s Washington the filibuster has evolved into a sort of bipartisan détente that most everything requires 60 votes, which has sort of made  the word lose some of it’s meaning.

But Paul doesn’t have 40 votes and he wants to make a point about Brennan, the White House adviser who is seen as architect of the administration’s policy of using unmanned drone to kill suspected terrorists in foreign countries. A vote to make Brennan CIA Director could come as soon as today.

Mr. Smith would be proud. That’s how most Americans probably view a filibuster: Jimmy Stewart as Mr. Smith reading aloud for hours and hours in pursuit of righting some wrong.

The wrong, for Rand Paul,  is the Obama administration’s targeted killing program – the use of drones to bomb suspected terrorists in foreign lands – is Constitutional. His concern hit a new level Monday when his office released a letter from Attorney General Eric Holder explaining that the administration feels it has the ability, in the extremely unlikely situation, to kill Americans on U.S. soil to avert an imminent terror attack.

Watch:  Eric Holder Downplays Possibility of Domestic Terror Killings

“I rise today to begin to filibuster John Brennan’s nomination for the CIA, Paul declared at about 11:47 a.m. ET. “I will speak until I can no longer speak. I will speak as long as it takes, until the alarm is sounded from coast to coast that our constitution is important, that your rights to trial by jury are precious, that no American should be killed by a drone on American soil without first being charged with a crime, without first being found to be guilty by a court. that Americans could be killed in a cafe in San Francisco or in a restaurant in Houston or at their home in bowling green, Kentucky, is an abomination. it is something that should not and cannot be tolerated in our country.” “

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