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.”

Students for Trump has 200 chapters in 38 states, began with a Rand Paul supporter

The LA Times reports here:

Students for Trump began as a Twitter account in October in a dorm room at Campbell University in Buies Creek, N.C. Ryan Fournier, a freshman and early supporter of Rand Paul, was drawn to Trump's blunt rhetoric and policies on border control and employment. ... More than 5,000 students in 200 chapters in 38 states are publicly on board. Fifteen chapters have taken hold in California, on campuses including UC Santa Barbara and USC.

In South Carolina Trump is capturing the libertarians and independents Rand Paul once hoped to bring together

Data from the latest SC House GOP poll of 3,500 likely voters shown at Real Clear Politics:

Ben Domenech says Trump and Cruz stole Rand Paul's libertarian foreign policy

Here for The Federalist.

But Domenech never mentions how Trump stole something else: attracting hordes of people to his appearances who come from all walks of life, but especially blue collar independents and Democrats.

That's what Rand Paul hoped to do all along, recreating the Republican brand.

Trump is succeeding at what elite libertarians have only been able to dream of politically, but now that they've got what they wished for they want nothing to do with it because Trump is uniting people through a conservative value: patriotic American nationalism.

Rand Paul doesn't get it, and neither does Domenech: Americans are conservative much more than they are libertarian.

Republican Iowa Caucus polling was off on average by 23%

Republican Iowa Caucus actual final results v Real Clear Politics poll averages on the day of the election:

Trump: 24.3 v 28.6, overestimated by 17.7%

Cruz:    27.6 v 23.9, underestimated by 13.4%

Rubio:  23.1 v 16.9, underestimated by 36.7%

Carson:  9.3 v   7.7, underestimated by 17.2%

Paul:      4.5 v   4.1, underestimated by 8.9%

Bush:     2.8 v   4.1, overestimated by 46.4%

Average miss for the top six: 23.4%

Average miss for the top three: 22.6% 

Rand Paul drops out of the presidential race to concentrate on reelection to the Senate

Story here.

And so dies his dream of uniting libertarians from all parties, which Donald Trump seems to be doing in spades but people like Rand Paul still don't get.