What they lack in intelligence they make up for in bad manners

 

Trump calls Fed chief Powell ‘numbskull’ as he urges interest rate cut

 

... Trump claimed at the White House that lowering rates by 2 percentage points would save the U.S. $600 billion per year, “but we can’t get this guy to do it.” “We’re going to spend $600 billion a year, $600 billion because of one numbskull that sits here [and says] ‘I don’t see enough reason to cut the rates now,’” Trump said. ...

Trump’s insult came hours after the Labor Department reported that U.S. producer prices rose less in May than some economists anticipated. ...

 

‘Immaturity’: Rand Paul rips White House after being ‘uninvited’ from picnic 

 

... “I’ve just been told that I’ve been uninvited from the picnic; I think I’m the first senator in the history of the United States to be uninvited to the White House picnic,” Paul told reporters. “The White House is owned by the taxpayers, we are all members of it, every Democrat will be invited, every Republican will be invited, but I will be the only one disallowed to come on the grounds of the White House.” ... 

 

The White House's Stephen Miller attacks libertarians for opposing the reconciliation bill's immigration enforcement spending

 ... the White House deputy chief of staff — and chief architect of Trump’s immigration agenda — is taking a sledgehammer to what remains of the libertarian-conservative fusionism that was prominent in the party pre-Trump.

“The libertarians in the House and Senate trying to take down this bill — they’re not stupid. They just don’t care,” Miller said in an interview with conservative activist and commentator Charlie Kirk last week.

“Immigration has never mattered to them; it will never matter to them. Deportations have never mattered to them; it will never matter to them. You will never live a day in your life where a libertarian cares as much about immigration and sovereignty as they do about the Congressional Budget Office.” ...

Miller’s aversion to libertarians, though, seems to go deeper than opportunistic messaging for the bill. He posted in 2022 that the uprising of the ideology in the House GOP is “how we ended up with open borders globalist [Paul] Ryan.” He blamed libertarian candidates for siphoning votes away from failed Trump-endorsed candidates in 2022 — Herschel Walker in Georgia, Blake Masters in Arizona, and Don Bolduc in New Hampshire.

“Another example of how libertarians ruin everything,” Miller said in one post responding to a 2022 Georgia Senate poll. ...

More.

The CBS Poll referenced in the story indicates 55% like Trump's deportation goals but 56% dislike his approach.

Polling on the reconciliation bill indicates most think it will help the wealthy and hurt poor and middle class people, with a third admitting they have no idea what's in the bill. Well, neither did many in the US House who voted for the damn thing.

This points up the political danger of these Christmas Tree bills adorned with something for everyone. They're too complicated to understand and therefore capture little enthusiasm. But Stephen Miller fancifully thinks otherwise:

“By including the immigration language with the tax cuts with the welfare reform, it creates a coalition. Politics is all about coalitions,” Miller said in the interview with Kirk — also praising Trump in the interview as “able to create a winning formula for populist, nationalist, conservative government.”          

But not libertarian government.

 

 

 

Resolution by Senators Ron Wyden and Rand Paul to scrap Trump's craziest tariffs fails 49-49

 Senate resolution to scrap Trump’s ‘Liberation Day’ tariffs fails despite some GOP support 

A Senate vote to scrap President Trump’s wide-ranging “Liberation Day” tariffs narrowly failed on Wednesday, sparing Republicans a second consecutive blow as the president’s trade policy continues to face opposition. 

Three Republicans — Sens. Susan Collins (Maine), Lisa Murkowski (Alaska) and Rand Paul (Ky.) — voted in favor of the resolution alongside every present Senate Democrat. 

But Democrats ran into attendance problems. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) was absent, along with Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who had voted in favor of a similar bill reversing tariffs on Canada earlier this month.

The final tally was 49-49.

McConnell and Whitehouse had both missed the two votes earlier in the day. One Senate GOP member told The Hill that McConnell was sick and unable to vote. ...

Mad King Ludwig declares war on Representative Thomas Massie (KY-4), one of only two Republicans remaining with the gumption to oppose the proposed continuing spending resolution

The other Republican opponent of the CR is Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky. He won his 2022 Senate race with 61.8% of the vote and won't need to stand for re-election until 2028 when Trump is history.

Massie is unafraid. He's been there, done that, and is still standing:

 Trump vows to "lead the charge" to unseat GOP Rep. Massie

Our servile GOP senators, who have been completely by-passed by DOGE, try to tell Elon Musk that he can't do that lol, now have to ask pretty please from White House chief of staff Susie Wiles

 

What an absolutely contemptible lot.

GOP senators tell Musk DOGE actions will require their votes 

Republican senators told tech billionaire Elon Musk at a closed-door meeting Wednesday that his aggressive moves to shrink the federal government will need a vote on Capitol Hill, sending a clear message that he needs to respect Congress’s power of the purse. ...

Paul and other Republican senators said Musk appeared open to the idea but didn’t seem to expect DOGE’s cuts and workforce reductions would need to come back to Congress for ultimate approval. ...

GOP lawmakers say Musk’s failure to brief them in advance about impending cuts and funding freezes — or to respond to their questions and concerns about actions taken by DOGE — reflected his belief that he thought the administration could largely bypass them by simply impounding funds lawfully appropriated by Congress. ...

Several GOP senators vented their frustrations over Musk’s operating style — especially his team’s failure to respond promptly to their concerns — at a meeting last week with White House chief of staff Susie Wiles.

Wiles told frustrated senators they should contact her directly with their concerns over funding freezes and reductions in force pushed by Musk and his team of young engineers.

Sources familiar with Wednesday’s meeting said the GOP senators who complained about Musk and his methods last week were much more cordial when they met with him face-to-face in the wood-empaneled Mansfield Room just off the Senate floor. ...

Judicial overreach drives Trump critics within the GOP to support him, including Mitch McConnell, Susan Collins, and Mike Pence

 Even former Trump Vice President Mike Pence, who has refused to endorse Trump, called the verdict an “outrage.” ...

“He might win in a landslide,” said Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) last month about the political impact of a guilty verdict on Trump’s chances in the general election. “It looks so awful.”

Paul noted that New York’s statute of limitations had expired on Trump’s falsification of business records, which forced Bragg to combine them with campaign finance violations to bring his case forward.

More.

It's still December 2015 when Donald Trump mocked Rand Paul about ISIS: “So they can kill us, but we can’t kill them?”

Paul again condemned Trump’s call to shut down parts of the Internet by arguing that to do so would violate the First Amendment, and he blasted Trump’s call to kill the families of terrorists as a violation of the Geneva Conventions. 

“So when you ask yourself, whoever you are that think you’re going to support Donald Trump, think: Do you believe in the Constitution?” Paul said. “Are you going to change the Constitution?”

While Paul spoke, Trump dismissed the senator with a wave of his hand. When it was his turn to respond, Trump said: “So they can kill us, but we can’t kill them? That’s what you’re saying.”

Here.

LOL, would be Immanentizer of The Eschaton Josh Hawley is lone No vote in US Senate to admit Sweden and Finland to NATO

 Rand Paul votes Present!

Hawley had a perfect chance to vote for global thermonuclear war, and missed it!

Story.

Norman Ornstein cracks an Al Franken joke and no one laughs

Rand Paul to Mitt Romney, the Massachusetts Puritan: Cut the petty holier than thou crap

Ain't gonna happen Senator Paul. There's something in the water up there in Massachusetts that once you drink of it, you're infected forever. Same thing happens with the water in Utah. But hooah anyway.

Rand Paul on Romney: There Will Be A "Backlash" For "Holier Than Thou" Anti-Trump Op-Ed:

I don`t know how it really helps anybody`s cause for people to stand up there like they`re holier than thou. And it`s like, look at me, how virtuous I am. And I`m going to bring down the presidency by criticizing his character in front of the whole nation. It does nobody any good. And, in the end, I think it`s going to look petty, and I think there`s going to be a backlash to this. ...

I question [Trump] on policy when I disagree with him. He knows I have stood up to him. I have talked to him on the phone and he says, "I know where your principles are and I know you can`t move on this particular vote." And we still have a good conversation. And I think that`s different than attacking and trying to go for the jugular of someone`s character. And so I do think it`s different. ...

[I]f there were an election between Donald Trump in a primary and Romney, I think Romney would be wiped out.  

Hooah Rand Paul: Edward Snowden is no traitor, he didn't sell secrets to anybody, he proved Clapper a liar

Quoted here in July:

"He didn't sell secrets to the Russians, he wasn't a traitor. He revealed something that revealed the highest ranking member of our intelligence community lied. I think he did it as a whistle-blower, he was reporting malfeasance," Paul said.

Paul, who previously joked about Snowden sharing a prison cell with former intelligence director James Clapper, whose inaccurate testimony Snowden exposed, doubled down after polling students, finding a similar number viewed Snowden as a traitor and a whistleblower.

"I don't see him as a traitor at all," Paul added about Snowden, saying later, "People have to decide on Snowden. My preference has become stronger and stronger that he was revealing the government was lying to us in a big way." Paul said he'd like to see a deal struck where Snowden can return from Russia without a long prison sentence.

The five-year statutes of limitations for prosecuting Clapper expired in March 2018.

Our feckless Congress let him off.

One rule for Clapper, another for Snowden, who marks his fifth year in Russian exile this summer.

Sandy Pensler grows even more desperate in Michigan Republican race for US Senate, enlists Rand Paul for robocalls

I got that call this afternoon, just days after getting one from Rick Santorum urging a vote for Pensler. Clearly this is Pensler's play for the libertarian vote after the earlier play for the Catholic vote.

Pensler is counting on his expensive ad campaign overcoming Trump's endorsement of his challenger, John James, and on the fractured nature of Republican politics in Michigan to eek out a win, which is a phenomenon of its libertarian leanings.

And as everyone knows, libertarians are a contrary bunch who can hardly come to agreement about anything among themselves, let alone unite anyone around their views once in office. Pensler himself has alienated Polish-Americans with his holocaust remarks. He fits right in with the libertarians.

The right thing to do in this context is vote for John James.

Rand Paul on John Brennan: He's unhinged, deranged, an insult to our government

Quoted here:

PAUL: “John Brennan started out his adulthood by voting for the communist party presidential candidate. He is now ending his career by showing himself to be the most biased, bigoted, over the top, hyperbolic, sort of unhinged director of the CIA we have ever had. And really it is an insult to our government to have a former head of the CIA to calling the president treasonous just because he doesn’t like him. But I realized that Brennan — I filibustered Brennan, I tried to keep Brennan from ever being the leader of the CIA. But realized that Brennan and Clapper are known for wanting to expand the authority of the intelligence agencies to grab up everyone’s information, including Americans. So I don’t have a lot of respect for these people even before they decided to go on hating the president. I dislike these people because they wanted to grab up so much power and use it against the American people. ... Some people are deranged with Trump and that’s why I think they’re crazy.”

Amid today's hysteria over the Trump-Putin presser, Rand Paul spoke up in support of the president

Here:

"Absolutely I'm with the president on this".

Man UP!

Rand Paul doesn't have much of a memory, or imagination

Crackpot Rand Paul suggests DACA amnesties be subtracted from regular immigration numbers

Oh yeah, that's fair. These people snuck in line, and we're supposed to put them ahead of people who waited patiently and obeyed the law!

Go back to Kentucky, Senator, and chop some wood.

Sen. Rand Paul: We know Obama spied on General Michael Flynn because he outed him

Here.

Unhinged John McCain says Rand Paul is working for Vladimir Putin: The American people were right not to elect McCain

Imagine this guy in charge of the nuclear arsenal, quoted here:

“You are achieving the objectives of Vladimir Putin... trying to dismember this small country [Montenegro] which has already been the subject an attempted coup.

If they object, they are now carrying out the desires and ambitions of Vladimir Putin and I do not say that lightly.

I note the senator from Kentucky leaving the floor without justification or any rationale for the action he has just taken.

That is really remarkable, that a senator blocking a treaty that is supported by the overwhelming number—perhaps 98, at least, of his colleagues—would come to the floor and object and walk away.

The only conclusion you can draw when he walks away is he has no justification for his objection to having a small nation be part of NATO that is under assault from the Russians.

So I repeat again, the senator from Kentucky is now working for Vladimir Putin.”

Rand Paul: John Lewis isn't immune from criticism just because he's a civil rights icon

No, he's immune because he's BLACK, but Rand Paul won't say that.

Rand Paul, quoted here:

[B]eing a civil rights icon ... I would also say that that doesn't make us immune from criticism or debate. So, John Lewis isn't in a position where there can't be a healthy debate back and forth. Because he's a civil rights icon shouldn't make him immune. ...  I should be able to honestly disagree with him, and not have it all come back to, I have no appreciation for a civil rights icon because of this. And I think that's the part that I think is sometimes unfair in this.

Rand Paul prefers histrionics to repeal of Obamacare, Diane Feinstein absent from vote for pacemaker surgery

The roll call vote, narrowly successful 51-48, is here.

Sen. Paul, making the good the enemy of the perfect as usual for the libertarians, views the repeal framework as a debt disaster:

Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul was the sole Republican to vote against the measure, citing the budget measure’s failure to meet the requirements set forth in the balanced budget amendment.

“As a physician, I cannot wait to repeal Obamacare and replace it with a health care system that relies on freedom to provide quality, comprehensive, and affordable care,” he said in a statement. “But putting nearly $10 trillion more in debt on the American people’s backs through a budget that never balances is not the way to get there. It is the exact opposite of the change Republicans promised, and I cannot support it, even as a placeholder.”