Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee to hold hearings with state and DHS officials at Senator Paul's insistence.
Sen. Paul's Press release:
WASHINGTON, D.C. - In response to the recent apprehension of two suspected terrorists in his hometown of Bowling Green, Ky., earlier this month, Sen. Rand Paul immediately insisted on an investigation into what procedures and safeguards broke down, allowing the men into the United States.
Following his correspondence with the Departments of State and Homeland Security seeking answers on the process of screening and obtaining visas, Senators Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.), have agreed to assist in scheduling hearings to investigate the procedures and safeguards for both visas and political asylum.
"It is the primary duty of our government to provide for the defense of the people," Sen. Paul said. "The fact that two Iraqi refugees, one who was previously held for attempting to bomb American troops, were allowed into our country raises many questions about federal immigration policies and their role in protecting our citizens."
"Without a screening process for potential visa and refugees entering the United States, we put our country in grave danger. The role of the federal government in the war on terror must include the ability to secure our borders and keep out those who wish to do us harm. I look forward to participating in these upcoming hearings."
Posted by Tim Shoemaker on 06/23/11 Last updated 06/23/11
The House Financial Services Domestic Monetary Policy and Technology Subcommittee is holding an important hearing today at 2pm entitled "Investigating the Gold: H.R. 1495, the Gold Reserve Transparency Act of 2011 and the Oversight of United States Gold Holdings."
The Financial Services press release stated:
H.R. 1495, the "Gold Reserve Transparency Act of 2011," calls for an audit by the Treasury that gives a full and thorough accounting of the U.S. government's gold reserves, requiring an inventory and assay of the gold reserves. The Treasury's audit is subject to independent review by the Government Accountability Office, allowing them access to any pertinent records or locations, including Fort Knox.
The hearing will discuss recent audits of U.S. gold reserves; challenges to conducting a full audit; and impediments to an accurate assessment of the US gold position, including any leases, swaps or other encumbrances placed upon the gold reserves; and also examine changes to the legislative proposal that will ensure a full and accurate audit, assay, and inventory of U.S. gold reserves.
Knowing how much gold the US Government is holding and what it's worth is of critical importance to our nation's monetary policy. Some prominent political figures have suggested the US must return to a gold standard within the next decade, and conducting a thorough audit and inventory of the gold is a sound first step.
WASHINGTON, D.C. - Sen. Rand Paul released the following statement this evening in response to President Barack Obama's address regarding troop withdrawals in Afghanistan.
"President Obama in his speech tonight addressed the need to reduce troops on the ground in Afghanistan, as the American people and their representatives in Congress - both Republican and Democrat - question our need to remain there. But even with the President's call for a draw-down of 10,000 troops this year and 20,000 next year, there will still be 70,000 left on the ground by the end of 2012, which is more than were there at the beginning of his Administration.
"Considering the elimination of Osama bin Laden, terrorist bases, and Taliban presence, it is time to turn our attention to bringing our troops out of Afghanistan. We cannot and should not police nations, build their bridges and roads, and spend endless resources doing so when here at home we are struggling with our own financial crisis. The President's weak withdrawal plan, coupled with the unconstitutional war he is waging in Libya, shows a lack of leadership in an area we simply cannot afford to support."
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Sen. Rand Paul spoke today at a full committee hearing of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee regarding invasive TSA searches. Below is video and transcript of that hearing.
TRANSCRIPT:
SENATOR RAND PAUL: Currently the invasive pat-down searches are random and not based on risk assessment?
JOHN S. PISTOLE, Administrator of the Transportation Security Administration at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security: No, actually they are based on intelligence that we know specifically from Christmas Day, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the way he concealed that device. There are some random pat-downs if that’s what you’re referring to, but it is based on intelligence.
PAUL: I guess this little girl would be part of the random pat-downs, this little girl from Bowling Green Kentucky, one of my constituents. They’re still quite unhappy with you guys as well myself and a lot of other Americans who think you’ve gone overboard, you’re missing the boat on terrorism because you’re doing these invasive searches on six-year old girls. Same week that this happened I got a call from another neighbor of mine in Bowling Green, a little boy had a broken foot and crutches. They didn’t want to go through all the screenings, so they took the crutches off and the cast and he wanted to hobble through on his broken foot. His dad was helping him. TSA said “back away, back away.” Then he had to go through the special search because he previously had a cast on, even though the cast went through the belt. When the dad comes close they say “back away, back away.” “If you don’t back away you won’t fly.”
This kind of gets back to this whole idea of what are willing to do, what are we willing to give up as a country. In your interview with ABC News, you said “I see flying as a privilege.” There are those of us who see otherwise. The Supreme Court concluded in Saenz vs. Roe in 1999 says that although the word travel is not found in the text in the constitution, yet the constitutional right to travel from one state to another is firmly embedded in our jurisprudence. Justice Stewart went on to say in Shapiro vs. Thompson that the right to travel is so important that it is assertable against private interference as well as governmental action. A virtually unconditional constitutional right guaranteed by the Constitution to us all. This isn’t to say we don’t believe in safety procedures. But I think I feel less safe when you’re doing these invasive exams on a six-year old.
It makes me think you’re clueless, if you think she’s going to attack our country and you’re not doing your research on the people who want to attack our country. It absolutely must involve a risk assessment of those who are traveling. And the fact that she’s being patted down and I don’t feel comfortable really with your response that we are no longer doing random pat-downs. I think you ought to get rid of the random pat-downs. The American public is unhappy with them, they’re unhappy with the invasiveness of them. The Internet is full of jokes about the invasiveness of the pat-down searches and we ought to just consider, is this what we’re willing to do. The other thing is while we’re doing that there are examples of where we’ve had let-downs. When Faisal Shahzad got on the plane, the alleged TimesSquare bomber, he was on a watch list. Everybody said, “it was the airline that let us down.” Well he had to go through TSA screening. There were 10 hours, we ought to be able to react. Is the TSA looking at flight manifests? Doing background research of people getting on and off the planes? Are we targeting or looking at those who might attack us?
I really get the idea that because our approach is so politically correct and has to be so universal that 6 year olds and 9 year olds and people in wheelchairs. You know you probably saw in the news, just the other day the young man that is mentally handicapped, who had a plastic hammer because you are telling people “to fit this in a box, to do this, tell your agents to do this.” They took away something the boy had had for 29 years, and if you have ever dealt with a child with autism there are certain things that comfort them and keep them calm. And to do that, it just really just shows that no one is thinking. They are giving this rote automaton “crack down, pat people down, and do this.” And if we are not thinking about catching terrorists, I mean should be about police work. I mean most of these people have, you know, police work would catch them. The hi-jackers who came here were over-staying their welcome and were on student-visas but were not going to school. We need to be doing better police work and doing less of the universal giving up of our freedom to live our life the way we would like to live our life. I would like you to comment a little bit about the right to travel as a privilege and a little bit about the idea about universality of insult that we are being given versus targeting this toward people that might attack us.
Right, and I just wanted to follow up on that, I mean 10 years is a long time. We’ve been a decade now, we don’t have a frequent flyer program, we don’t have a trusted traveler program. I know I don’t want this to be against the TSA, I know most of the agents and I think they are good people. But at the same time, you know they are wasting their time, all these Congressman and Senators go back and forth, but to be so fair we have to search all of them. We know them by name a lot of times, and we are getting the pat down searches everybody else is “to be fair.” But so are the frequent travelers, my brother-in-law is on 2 to 3 planes a week, he’s an air force grad. He is unlikely really, he is not a terrorist okay. And so we are wasting time on these people, and I really think as far at the privacy issue, let a private company, encourage a private company, that we’re beginning this, let’s turn it over, let’s have a frequent flyer program that you can voluntarily participate in. But let’s get it done. Thank you.
Posted by Tim Shoemaker on 06/22/11 Last updated 06/22/11
The Hill reports that Speaker John Boehner has announced two votes on Libya this week, one to authorize the military intervention, and another that would cut off funding, effectively bring on an end to the US role in bombing Libya.
The vote could come as early as Thursday in the House.
Contact your representative and urge them to oppose the administration's unauthorized military adverturism in Libya.
Recently, a viral video put out by Moveon.org starring former Labor Secretary under Bill Clinton, Robert Reich, purports to "connect the dots" on the "truth about the economy" in under two and a half minutes! That is, the truth according to Robert Reich.
I won't bother linking to that video here, partially because Moveon.org doesn't need my help in generating web traffic to a video; but mostly because the twisted class warfare logic doesn't deserve a spot here on the C4L site, and trust me, the brevity of his argument was much appreciated.
Robert Murphy's response however, is worth taking a listen to, whether or not you've seen the video (he explains Reich's argument at the beginning).
The latest press release from Senator Rand Paul's office, "Democrats Want to Make Getting a Job Easier - for 200 Bureaucrats":
WASHINGTON, D.C. - Today, Sen. Rand Paul issued the following statement regarding today's vote on the motion to proceed with the nominations bill, S. 679.
"Despite a loud and clear message from voters last November for reform in Washington, the U.S. Senate has been more or less a body of inaction. Our country is faced with record deficits, the very real threat of a catastrophic debt crisis, yet the fact we reached our current debt limit was ignored. Our President is unconstitutionally waging war in Libya. The Senate has gone almost 800 days without passing a budget. The unemployment rate is at 9.1 percent, and the only solution Democrats are offering is more government jobs. This bill paves the way for 200 presidential appointees to bypass the transparency and accountability our government owes its citizens. If their idea is creating jobs of political favor for Washington bureaucrats by bypassing the Senate confirmation process, instead of addressing the pressing issues facing our country, the degradation of Washington is much worse than any of us imagined.
"Holding czars and bureaucrats accountable to the citizens they serve is the government's duty. To eschew this process in the name of 'efficiency' is a lie to the taxpayers who fund their paychecks. That is why I, along with Sen. David Vitter, am introducing an amendment to put an end to Obama's unelected, unaccountable czars."
On May 24, 2011, Texas State Rep. David Simpson wrote an open letter to fellow state officials in response to threats received from the U.S. Department of Justice concerning the Travelers' Dignity Act:
Dear Sirs:
Today you received a letter from Mr. John E. Murphy, United States Attorney, Western District of Texas in regards to House Bill 1937 currently up for consideration by the Senate.
In his letter, Mr. Murphy made a veiled threat to the elected officials of Texas that if we move to protect the constitutional rights of our citizens, the TSA could shut down flights to and from Texas airports.
175 years ago in the first battle of the Texas Revolution against Mexico, a small band of Texans stood in defiance at Gonzalez, turning back the attempt to deprive them of their weapon of defense, a single cannon.
Gentlemen, we find ourselves at such a watershed moment today. The federal government is attempting to deprive the citizens of Texas of their constitutional rights under the Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution and Article 1, Section 9 of the Texas Constitution. If we do not stand for our citizens in the face of this deprivation of their personal rights and dignity, who will?
Time is critical. If the bill does not pass the Senate tonight it may very well be dead until the next legislative session. Meanwhile, our wives, our children, our mothers and grandmothers, will be rudely violated by federal employees out of control.
My response to Mr. Murphy’s factually inaccurate letter follows. Please give this matter your immediate attention.
For Texas And Liberty!
David Simpson
Rep. Simpson proceeds to dissect the DOJ's threats point-for point. An interesting read.
Check out all of Rep. Simpson's counter-arguments here.
In his latest statement at a Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Subcommittee Hearing, Senator Paul questions the efficiency of government welfare programs and suggests private charity and true philanthropy could meet individuals needs more efficiently.
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