Caroline Glick Gets Rand Paul

I'm a huge fan of Caroline Glick, she is a really no-nonsense supporter of Israel who thinks for herself and isn't afraid to call a spade a spade.  So I am really happy that she wrote a surprisingly pro-Rand Paul piece which defends him against his pro-Israel critics (e.g. Jen Rubin and AIPAC):

Last week, following the PLO's unity deal with terrorist groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad, Paul introduced the Stand With Israel Act. If it had passed into law, Paul's act would have required the US to cut off all funding to the Palestinian Authority, including its security forces. The only way the administration could have wiggled out of the aid cutoff would have been by certifying that the PLO, Hamas and Islamic Jihad had effectively stopped being the PLO, Hamas and Islamic Jihad

 

Paul's conditions for maintaining aid would have required the President to certify to Congress that the PA – run jointly by Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the PLO –formally and publicly recognized Israel as a Jewish state; renounced terrorism; purged all individuals with terrorist ties from its security services; terminated all anti-American and anti-Israel incitement, publicly pledged not to engage in war with Israel; and honored previous agreements signed between the PLO and Israel.

 

Paul's bill was good for America. Maintaining financial support for the Palestinian Authority in the aftermath of the PLO's unity-with-terrorists deal constitutes a breach of US anti-terror law.

 

Financing the PA also harms US national security. Hamas and Islamic Jihad are financed by Iran. So by funding the PLO's PA, which just united its forces with theirs, the US is subsidizing Iran's terror network.

 

Ending US financing of the PA would certainly be good for Israel. Indeed, just by sponsoring the bill Paul has helped Israel in two critical ways. He offered Israel friendship, and he began a process of changing the mendacious narrative about the nature of the Palestinian conflict with Israel to one based on the truth.
By extending his hand to Israel, Paul gave Israel an opening to build relationships with political forces with which it has not traditionally had close ties. Because most of Israel's supporters in Washington support an interventionist US foreign policy, isolationists like Paul have generally either stood on the sidelines of the debate, or in light of their desire to beat a quick retreat from the region, they have been willing, even happy to support the Arabs against Israel and blame Israel's supporters for getting the US involved in the Middle East.

 

...

 

Despite the protestations of AIPAC and other pro-Israel groups, it is far from clear that Israel would be worse off if it stopped receiving US aid. Indeed, it is likely that Israel's economy and military strength would both be enhanced by the strategic independence that an aid cut-off would bring about.

 

Yes, Paul is a complicated character. But that doesn't make him Israel's enemy. His bill was an act of friendship. And Israel can use more friends in Washington who actually do things that help it rather than suffice with declaring their support for Israel while standing by as its reputation is trashed.

 

...

 

The day after Paul introduced his bill, AIPAC came out against it. AIPAC opposed the bill, according to the Washington Post's Jennifer Rubin, (who herself violently opposed it), because its leadership believes that the PA security forces play a key role in fighting Hamas.

 

So a week after the Israeli government formally ended negotiations because the PA supports terror, AIPAC opposed ending US aid to the PA because, AIPAC claimed, it fights terror.

 

For her part, Rubin railed against Paul's initiative claiming that it was "a phony pro-Israel bill."

Paul submitted his bill for unanimous consent in order to fast track it to a vote and into law. AIPAC convinced some senators to vote against Paul's bill, and so killed it.

 

In an interview with Newsmax's Steve Maltzberg after the vote, Paul attacked AIPAC saying, "I think the American people, if they knew that [AIPAC opposed his bill], would be very, very upset and think, you know what, those people are no longer lobbying in favor of America and Israel if they're not willing to put restrictions on aid to Palestine."

 

In other words, Paul was saying, it is time to move on, and those who insist on acting as though nothing has changed since 1994 are not behaving as one would expect Israel's friends to behave.
And he is right.

 

Paul may be a cynical opportunist. But that's better than a messianic that prefers to believe that Israel is the devil than accept that the Peace Fairy doesn't exist.

 

And yes, his refreshing embrace of the truth as the basis for US policymaking makes him a better friend to Israel today than AIPAC that refuses to accept the truth (and like him, failed to support additional sanctions against Iran).
Rand Paul told Fox News after his bill failed to pass that he will not abandon the fight against US aid to the PA.

 

We must hope that he is true to his word.

A Great Mark Levin Interview of Rand Paul on the GOP Budget Betrayal

Ted Cruz Seems to Be Outdoing Rand Paul on Iran

As I've said numerous times before, foreign policy is the one aspect of Rand Paul's policy planks that I don't always agree with, especially on Iran.  And while he publicly opposed additional sanctions on Iran, Ted Cruz has penned a great piece in Foreign Policy on the subject.  When it comes down to it, being weak on Iran is a huge no-no.  I hope Rand Paul does a course correction before it is too late. I'm not saying he needs to be a proponent of a US attack on Iran, he simply needs to be tougher.  Extremely tough sanctions could cause the collapse of Iran without a shot being fired.::

According to the interim agreement regarding Iran's nuclear program that was reached this weekend in Geneva, not one centrifuge will be destroyed. Not one pound of enriched uranium will leave Iran. Not one American unjustly detained in Iran's notorious prisons will be released. But Iran will start to receive, in a matter of days, $7 billion in relief from international economics sanctions.

This appears to be an unfortunate case of history repeating itself. As happened with North Korea in 1994, fascination with the negotiation process has blinded American diplomats to the true nature of their negotiating partners. Substantive sanctions relief has been exchanged for vague promises that the growth of a nuclear program will be curbed. Press reports on that failed deal are ominously similar to what we are reading today:

"President Clinton on Tuesday approved a deal reached by U.S. negotiators in Geneva to stop North Korea's nuclear weapons program, saying the agreement 'will make the United States, the Korean peninsula and the world safer'.... The accord, concluded Monday in Geneva, gives North Korea a series of economic and political benefits in exchange for promises to freeze and eventually dismantle its current nuclear facilities, which the CIA believes have been used to make the material for one to two nuclear weapons."

We all know how this story played out. North Korea lied, cheated, and stalled for time, all the while using the economic windfall from the United States to finance its nuclear program until it was ready to test a weapon in 2006.

Likewise, the mullahs in Tehran can now laugh all the way to the bank while they spend the time and money they have gained in Geneva pursuing nuclear capability. And all Americans have bought for $7 billion is the prospect of additional negotiations that might result in progress at some point down the road. But given the unfortunate results of these most recent negotiations, it is difficult to place much faith in such rosy scenarios -- especially as the existential threat represented by a nuclear-armed Iran makes North Korea pale by comparison.

...

We should have demanded preconditions from the Iranians before any direct meetings took place, and we can at least do so now before additional negotiations begin. We can start by reclaiming the moral high ground and demand the Iranian regime immediately and unconditionally release the three Americans they are unjustly detaining, Saeed Abedini, Amir Hekmati, and Robert Levinson. American citizens are not bargaining chips, and there should be no further discussion while they are languishing in prison.

In addition, Iran should affirm Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state. The noxious rhetoric in which Israel is referred to as a "rabid dog" that is "doomed to failure and annihilation" should be utterly unacceptable to the United States. Tolerating such verbiage on the eve of the Geneva negotiations sent a dangerous signal to Iran that the Obama administration was more eager to get a deal than to stand with Israel.

Finally, the United States should be crystal clear that to gain any further sanctions relief, Iran must take concrete steps not just to pause the nuclear program but to dramatically scale it back by, for example, ceasing the enrichment of uranium, exporting any remaining stockpiles of enriched uranium, and permitting full and unconditional inspections of the Arak nuclear facility. The burden should be on Iran, not the United States, to demonstrate it is a good-faith negotiating partner.

Rand Paul: Enough is Enough, We Want our Freedoms Back

Frank Rich Wrote a Surprisingly Glowing Piece About Rand Paul

Although disdainful of some of Rand Paul's positions, Frank Rich's profile of Rand Paul in New York Magazine is pretty glowing of Rand Paul personally.  More and more liberals are showing respect for him, which is something I haven't seen much before towards a GOP politician:

This has been quite a year for Paul. Not long ago, he was mainly known as the son of the (now retired) gadfly Texas congressman Ron Paul, the perennial presidential loser who often seemed to have wandered into GOP-primary debates directly from an SNL sketch. Like his father, Rand Paul has been dismissed by most Democrats as a tea-party kook and by many grandees in his own party as a libertarian kook; the Republican Establishment in his own state branded him "too kooky for Kentucky" in his first bid for public office. Now BuzzFeed has anointed him "the de facto foreign policy spokesman for the GOP"—a stature confirmed when he followed Obama's prime-time speech on the Syrian standoff with a televised mini-address of his own.

But even before an international crisis thrust him center stage, Paul had become this year's most compelling and prescient political actor. His ascent began in earnest in March with the Twitter-certified #standwithrand sensation of his Ayn Rand and Gabriel García Márquez. He has, in the words of Rich Lowry of National Review, "that quality that can't be learned or bought: He's interesting." 

...

Nature abhors a vacuum, and Paul doesn't hide his ambitions to fill it. In his own party, he's the one who is stirring the drink, having managed in his very short political career (all of three years) to have gained stature in spite of (or perhaps because of) his ability to enrage and usurp such GOP heavyweights as John McCain, Mitch McConnell, and Chris Christie. He is one of only two putative ­presidential contenders in either party still capable of doing something you don't expect or saying something that hasn't been freeze-dried into anodyne Frank Luntz–style drivel by strategists and focus groups. The other contender in the spontaneous-authentic political sweepstakes is Christie, but like an actor who's read too many of his rave reviews, he's already turning his bully-in-a-china-shop routine into Jersey shtick. (So much so that if he modulates it now, he'll come across as a phony.) Paul doesn't do shtick, he rarely engages in sound bites or sloganeering, and his language has not been balled up by a stint in law school or an M.B.A. program. (He's an ophthalmologist.) He speaks as if he were thinking aloud and has a way of making his most radical notions sound plausible in the moment. It doesn't hurt that some of what he says also makes sense.

...

As a foe of the bank bailout of 2008 and the Fed, Paul is anathema as much to the Republican Wall Street financial Establishment as he is to the party's unreconstructed hawks. Those two overlapping power centers can bring many resources to bear if they are determined to put over a Christie or Jeb Bush or a Rubio—though their actual power over the party's base remains an open question in the aftermath of the Romney debacle. What's most important about Paul, however, is not his own prospects for higher office, but the kind of politics his early and limited success may foretell for post-Obama America. He doesn't feel he has to be a bully, a screamer, a birther, a bigot, or a lock-and-load rabble-rouser to be heard above the din. He has principled ideas about government, however extreme, that are nothing if not consistent and that he believes he can sell with logic rather than threats and bomb-­throwing. Unlike Cruz and Rubio, he is now careful to say that he doesn't think shutting down the government is a good tactic in the battle against Obamacare.

He is a godsend for the tea party—the presentable leader the movement kept trying to find during the 2012 Republican freak show but never did. Next to Paul, that parade of hotheads, with their overweening Obama hatred and their dog whistles to racists, nativists, and homophobes, looks like a relic from a passing era. For that matter, he may prove equally capable of making the two top Democratic presidential prospects for 2016, Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden, look like a nostalgia act.

This leaves Paul—for the moment at least—a man with a future. If in the end he and his ideas are too out-there to be a majority taste anytime soon, he is nonetheless performing an invaluable service. Whatever else may come from it, his speedy rise illuminates just how big an opening there might be for other independent and iconoclastic politicians willing to challenge the sclerosis of both parties in the post-Obama age.

Rand Paul: Federal Employees Should Have to Enroll in Obamacare

Latest PPP Poll: Rand Paul Leads in NH, But Once Again Loses Women & Seniors

The latest PPP poll pretty much the same story as before, Rand Paul takes the Very Conservative (thought his time does well amongst the "somewhat conservative", Men and those under 65.  He is in 2nd or 3rd place among Women, Seniors and "moderates". He has been spending a lot of time on minority outreach, which is good, but he really shouldn't forget women and seniors.  He can reach out to as many minorities as he likes but if women and especially seniors aren't with him, he won't get the nomination.  And we've seen this weakness in poll after poll.

Vogue Profile of Rand Paul

Check out this pretty nice and long profile of Rand Paul in Vogue:

"If he announces, he'll be considered a first-tier candidate," says James Carville, Bill Clinton's 1992 campaign manager, who knows a thing or two about winning elections—and who adds that he'll tip his hat to Paul if he can find a way to broaden his appeal without losing his Tea Party base. The senator is already catching the eye of elite operatives, including Obama's political guru David Axelrod—currently a news analyst for NBC. "He's not your father's Dr. Paul," he tells me.

Rand Paul Responds to Putin

Notice Obama didn't.  Anyway, here is the best part (at least in my opinion) though be sure to read the whole thing:

And I respond to him directly with the statement that yes, American is indeed exceptional. Our history has proved it so. While we all share the same Creator, we do not all share the same richness of history regarding human rights, freedom and democracy. There has been in the past 200 years a city on the hill that has shone brighter than all others. We will not be ashamed of that. May God allow us to continue to model this example to the world in these difficult times.

Syria Fails Reagan's 4 Conditions for Military Intervention

According to Reagan's 4 conditions for military intervention that he listed in his autobiography, he would be on Rand Paul's side in the fight against intervention. Obama's plan for an "unbelievably small" attack that makes Assad eat his Cheerios with a fork doesn't meet any of the conditions. All Presidents should refer to these often when they contemplate military action (h/t Newt):

1. The United States should not commit its forces to military action overseas unless the cause is vital to our national interest.

2. If the decision is made to commit our forces to combat abroad, it must be done with the clear intent and support needed to win. It should not be a halfway or tentative commitment, and there must be clearly defined and realistic objectives.

3. Before we commit our troops to combat, there must be reasonable assurance that the cause we are fighting for and the actions we take will have the support of the American people and Congress. (We all felt that the Vietnam War had turned into such a tragedy because military action had been undertaken without sufficient assurances that the American people were behind it.)

4. Even after all these other combat tests are met, our troops should be committed to combat abroad only as a last resort, when no other choice is available. (Ronald Reagan: An American Life, 466)

Rand Paul: Accept the Russian Proposal on Syria

Looks like the Russians have found a way out of the Syria mess without an armed intervention.  Syria will just have to hand over their chemical weapons to international supervision.  Needless to say Rand Paul supports this option:

"I think it would be a great step forward if Assad were willing to do it and if Russia were willing to monitor it or an international authority with Russia," Paul, an outspoken opponent of U.S. military strikes in Syria, said in a phone interview with Breitbart News on Monday. "I think part of diplomacy and getting things to work is allowing people to save face. If there's a way Russia can save face in this thing and be part of an international coalition, that's what we should shoot for."

"I think one of the biggest problems with bombing Assad is that if we bomb Assad and we destabilize the chemical weapons and they become loose within the country and al Qaeda gets access to them, then I think that's the real disaster," Paul explained. "Even [Secretary of State John] Kerry admitted it would take 75,000 American troops to secure these weapons, and that's what I've been saying all along—that bombing may actually lead to more instability." 

"But having an international body take control of the chemical weapons would add much greater stability, and I think it would be a benefit for all of us if that would happen," he added.

Could this be a ruse?  How do you ensure that all the chemical weapons are turned over?  I'm sure Assad will keep some in reserve but if he uses them he admits to lying to everyone and even Russia will probably be pissed off.  I hope the Obama administration isn't so focused on forcing Assad to use a fork with his Cheerios that it says no to this proposal.

Rand Paul's Letter to his Senate Colleagues Urging Them to Vote NO on Intervention in Syria

PaulSyriaDC 9-9-13

The Only Way the US Wins in Syria is if a Western Style Democracy Takes Hold and That Isn't Going to Happen

I've been on vacation the last couple of weeks, in Israel, and I've been really amazed how people have gone so crazy over Syria in the US while I was gone.  Look, I am not for chemical attacks on anyone but why is a chemical attack so much worse than the 100,000+ who have been murdered with good old fashioned guns and knives?  Are we saying that it's only wrong to kill your own people if you don't do it the old fashioned way?

Anyway, what's clear is that this is a no win situation for the US.  What does the US gain by attacking without changing the situation on the ground?  The US will simply look impotent.  And if they do change the situation on the ground, it brings Islamists into power, which is bad for the US and bad for Israel.  Seriously, do we really want to be al-Qaeda's air force?  And what is the probability that a western style democracy takes hold?  Pretty much close to zero.  The only thing that might make sense for us would be to help the Syrian Kurds carve out an autonomous area in Syria, as they are actually our allies.  I doubt this administration would actually do that however as that makes way too much sense for them to do it.  They only make boneheaded foreign policy moves (see the overthrow of Mubarak and their support of a Chavez-like dictator in Honduras among others).

One thing I will have to say about Obama though is that he has done something that few have been able to do, unite the right and left in Israel.  No, they are not united in supporting his move to attack Syria. They are united in thinking that Obama is just not a serious actor on the world stage and he has made a laughingstock of the US by waffling the way he did.  Attack or don't attack but make a decision and stick with it (though honestly I heard about as much support for intervention in Syria there as I do here, almost none).  

What really is the case to risk American lives in Syria?  John Kerry made it sound like this is all going to be like some video game where some soldiers push some buttons and some missiles are shot.  But this is serious business.  Some American child is going to lose their father because of a decision to go into Syria.  And for what?  What interest do we even have there?  You can just as easily argue that it is in our interest to keep Assad in power as it is to overthrow him.  

And as a Soviet immigrant to the US, I have to say I am deeply troubled by the fact that Putin is running rings around a US President.  How bad a President do you have to be to make the Russians look good?  To make Putin look like a reasonable and dependable ally?  Putin has no respect for Obama and it shows.  

Rand Paul on Fox News Sunday Discussing the NSA

I wish Rand Paul would stop helping the Muslim Brotherhood by calling for a cutoff of aid to the Egyptian military

I knew full well that when I started supporting Rand Paul that I didn't agree with him on everything, especially foreign policy.  I do agree that we shouldn't be invading anyone and even that we should reduce our foreign aid dramatically to certain countries.  But right now Egypt is run by a pro-western, pro-Israel government and they are fighting for their lives against the genocidal hate group known as the Muslim Brotherhood.  Their battle is really the same fight as ours.  If we lose Egypt to that latest reincarnation of totalitarianism we will have created ANOTHER Iran through inaction and that greatly threatens our interests and the lives of the people of Israel.

So really, I wish he would stop.  Just look at his bedfellows, Carl Levin, Pat Leahy and Lindsey Graham.  You know you've made a wrong decision if you are on the same side as Lindsey Graham and Carl Levin at the same time.  And G-d forbid he succeeds in cutting off aid this time.  That will do us absolutely no good.  The money will simply now come from the gulf states or even worse, the Russians.  

Honestly, I'm pretty annoyed at this point by his stance.  How can you say you are pro-Israel when you do something which is so clearly against Israel's interests.  We need groups like the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas and Al Qaeda put down, we shouldn't be giving them comfort by cutting off aid to their enemies in the middle of a fight.  

Seriously, if Ted Cruz comes out for the Egyptian military in this thing I might consider a Jews for Ted Cruz page.  It even rhymes.

Instapundit Defends Rand Paul From Those Accusing Him of Isolationism

Chris Christie, Jonathan Tobin and all the other "national security hawks" who seem to hate Rand Paul with a passion should read Instapundit:

DRIVING IN TO WORK, I HEARD KEN WALL — SUBSTITUTE HOSTING ON KILMEADE AND FRIENDS — saying that the big question facing Republicans today is whether we want a strong military "like Reagan" or we want "the military footprint of Guatemala," which he repeatedly said is what Rand Paul wants.

Two things here: (1) Boy, the GOP establishment must hate Rand Paul; and (2) What a dumb way of stating the military and security choices that face America. We're not in the Reagan era. We're not even in the Carter era (I told you a Carter rerun would be a best-case scenario). And, more importantly, a lot of the stuff being done in the name of national security — like drone strikes on American citizens, or mass-spying (and mass-lying) by the NSA, FBI, et al.– is stuff that aims inward, at Americans. In the Reagan era, national security aimed outward, at the Soviet Union and its allies.

There's also much, much less trust in the government regarding its use of these inward-aiming powers. That distrust is entirely rational. Anyone who thinks that the GOP can, or should, just try a Reagan rerun on national security isn't serious.

Rand Paul on CBS: It's Mitch McConnell Who Probably Has to Hold HIS Nose Because of Benton

A worthwhile interview on the CBS Morning Show:

Rand Paul Talking the IRS and Defunding Obamacare on Hannity

Rand Paul on The Daily Show

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
Get More: Daily Show Full Episodes,The Daily Show on Facebook

Does Rand Paul Understand Milton Friedman?

There has been a bit of a kerfuffle over Rand Paul mentioning Milton Friedman as a potential candidate for Federal Reserve Chair (were he still alive and Rand Paul President).  People from both the left and the right seem to have criticized Senator Paul for "not understanding Milton Friedman".  To counter that, Rand Paul wrote this response in the National Review which seems to indicate he does understand some of what Milton Friedman was saying and at this point anyone criticizing the Senator is really just nitpicking and will likely not convince many Americans of anything. (people don't really have the patience to listen to arguments on whether a politician understand the work of dead economists as they don't either):

It is, however, disappointing when National Review joins the fray and publishes opinion claiming that Friedman "would likely have supported a much more aggressive monetary response to our economic downturn."

Professor Ivan Pongracic of Hillsdale College explains that Friedman's insight was that the Fed's inaction in the Great Depression was in the context of a banking system in which the central bank had monopolized the position of lender of last resort.

Pongracic writes:

Friedman and Schwartz claimed that the depression would not have been a Great Depression if there had been no Federal Reserve in the first place: "[I]f the pre-1914 banking system rather than the Federal Reserve System had been in existence in 1929, the money stock almost certainly would not have undergone a decline comparable to the one that occurred."

That point was effectively elaborated by Milton and Rose Friedman in Free to Choose:

Had the Federal Reserve System never been established, and had a similar series of runs started, there is little doubt that the same measures would have been taken as in 1907 — a restriction of payments. That would have been more drastic than what actually occurred in the final months of 1930.

The existence of the Reserve System prevented the drastic therapeutic measure: directly, by reducing the concern of the stronger banks, who, mistakenly as it turned out, were confident that borrowing from the System offered them a reliable escape mechanism in case of difficulty; indirectly, by lulling the community as a whole, and the banking system in particular, into the belief that such drastic measures were no longer necessary now that the System was there to take care of such matters.

I would also like to point out that Anna Schwartz, Friedman's co-author in his seminal piece of work on the Great Depression had this to say about the Federal Reserve's actions:

For her part, Schwartz is now conflicted about Bernanke's application of her and Friedman's theories. "You don't have to lower the interest rates to the extent that he has in order to increase the money supply," she informed me. "The essential action should be increasing the money supply. That's the lesson of the Great Depression."

She upholds the analogy between today's crisis and what she and Friedman prescribed in The Great Contraction. "There's nothing contradictory in The Great Contraction with reference to what the Fed should be doing currently.... And I don't believe there's any contradiction between what The Great Contraction was reporting and the current condition of the banking system in this country."

Schwartz sounded alarmed, though, at the zealousness with which Bernanke has put "monetary expansion" into practice. She berated the Fed for going too far and predicted that it will have to raise interest rates "in the near future" to arrest inflation. Asked if she sees hyperinflation on the horizon, she exclaimed, "Oh, yes!"

Personally, I think Rand Paul did do a bit of a misstep with mentioning Friedman.  Yes, you can dig up pieces of his work on monetary policy to support the proposition that he would be a good, conservative Fed chair interested in sound money.  Plus you can always point to his very libertarian writings such as "Capitalism and Freedom" and "Free to Choose".  However, he and his minions were instrumental in destroying the Bretton Woods system, an action which left our currency in shambles and allowed for massive deficit spending.  For that, I will never forgive Milton Friedman. 

I really think Rand Paul just mentioned his because he was a somewhat libertarian economist that people have heard of.  He really should stick with the Austrians, no matter how obscure.