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MSNBCs Casey Hunt caught up with Senator Rand Paul in the halls of the Capitol Building this morning to ask his quick thoughts on the Senate version of the GOP Healthcare bill just released.

Paul was an initial and vocal critic of the House health care bill, and it appears that he is also frustrated with the version presented by his Senate colleagues, telling Hunt looks like were keeping Obamacare, not repealing it.

Why is this short and seemingly throw-away line so important? Well the GOP Senate has only the slightest of room to pass this bill as it will take only three Republican senators to vote against it to kill this version. Judging from Pauls comments, it appears that he will not be voting for this iteration of the bill.

The Libertarian leaning Kentucky Senator has promised a statement shortly.

Watch the clip above via MSNBC.

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Rand Paul on GOP Healthcare Bill: 'Looks Like We're Keeping Obamacare' - Mediaite

Ron Sachs/dpa/picture-alliance/NewscomHere's a novel idea. Members of Congress should have time to readfully read, from start to finishthe text of a bill before being asked to vote on it.

Frustrated by a secretive process for rewritting the House's health care bill, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) said Wednesday that he would reintroduce a resolution requiring the Senate to give its members sufficient time to read lengthy bills before they could be called upon to cast votes. His "Read the Bills" resolution would change Senate rules to require bills and amendments to be filed for one day per 20 pages before they could be considered, giving lawmakers time to digest legislation before giving their vote.

"Legislation is too often shoved through Congress without proper hearings, amendments, or debate, as the secrecy surrounding the Senate's health care bill and the pressure to vote for it with little time to fully evaluate the proposal once again remind us," Paul said in an emailed statement Wednesday.

The Senate version of the American Health Care Act (AHCA) is expected to be unveiled later today, after weeks of secretive work behind closed doors to draft changes to the bill. (UPDATE: The bill has been released. Read Peter Suderman's coverage of it here.)

As passed by the House, the AHCA is 131 pages long. Under Paul's proposed resolution, a 131-page bill would require a period of at least seven days between when it was filed and when it could be voted. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has promised there won't be a vote until next week, but the Senate version of the bill is likely to grow longer, perhaps much longer, than the House-passed version as amendments are added. For context, the final version of the Affordable Care Act was more than 900 pages long when it was passed in 2010.

"If we are to answer to the American people, it is imperative we pay close attention to the legislation we pass," Paul said.

Paul isn't the only member of the upper chamber to be rankled by the secretive, rushed legislating. Republican Sens. Susan Collins of Maine, Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, and Mike Lee of Utah have expressed concerns about having enough time to read and understand the bill before an expected vote next week. "Even though we thought we were going to be in charge of writing a bill within this working group, it's not being written by us," Lee told Bloomberg News earlier this week. "So if you're frustrated by the lack of transparency in this process, I share your frustration. I share it wholeheartedly."

With 52 Republicans in the Senate, it would take three defectors to block the bill's passage.

Paul is the most likely to jump ship. In addition to his complaints about the process, Paul has been openly dissatisfied the substance of the AHCA since it was first introduced by House Republicans in March, criticizing the bill for not going far enough to repeal taxes and regulatory mandates created under Obamacare. The tax credits included in the billa replacement for Obamacare's subsidies to help low-income Americans afford insurancehave been specifically targeted by Paul as "a new entitlement program."

"My main concern is I promised voters that I would repealvote to repeal Obamacare. And everything I hear sounds like Obamacare-lite," Paul told The Washington Post on Wednesday.

Despite months of criticism of the bill, Paul has not taken an official position on whether he will support it. He told Bloomberg News earlier this week that he would make that decision after seeing the text of the bill.

He will likely get to see it on Thursday. Whether he has time to read the whole thing remains to be seen.

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Frustrated with Secretive Health Care Bill, Rand Paul Proposes Giving Senators Time to Read It - Reason (blog)

US Senator Rand Paul has spoken out during the debate on war powers, saying that the current wars the US is leading are illegal, and that he isnt voting to go to war in 50 or 60 countries where terrorist powers are now based.

The hearing during which Rand Paul spoke out was the latest one in a yearlong string of debates over what to do with the open-ended 9/11 Proclamation on war authorization.

The divide between the members of Congress over the issue has been growing, with some using this debate for the singular purpose of imposing limitations on our president its just a fact, according to Republican Senator Bob Corker, while others may refuse to limit a president at war in any way.

Paul first of all argued about the role and specifics of Article II of the US Constitution, detailing the presidents duties as commander-in-chief.

He said that the founding fathers of the US George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin among them would disagree with you on saying that Article II gives the president power to commence in war, instead listing it as congressional duty, not presidents at all.

I want to know, are we going to limit the president's power? Are we going to take back our power? Are we going to limit the duration of the war? Are we going to identify our enemy? Paul asked during the statement.

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To lead a war against terrorism at least the way the US might see it is becoming less and less acceptable, Paul said.

Well, just the Islamic State [IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL] is in 32 countries right now. I mean, you add in Taliban and you add in Al-Qaeda, we're probably [talking about] at least 50 or 60 countries. I'm not voting to go to war in 50 or 60 countries.

Thus, there should be a strict and specific limitation for war powers, Paul argued, saying that if they pass something for the sake of it, and not to limit the war powers, it wouldnt be acceptable.

Some people, Paul noted, say that you got all the Article II, and it would just be nice to have an AUMF [Authorization of Use of Military Force].

No, it wouldn't be nice. That's the Constitution. There's supposed to be no war without an AUMF. We have been illegally at war for a long time now. This is illegal war, at this point, he said.

Another key document related to the war powers that is mentioned by Paul is the 9/11 Proclamation, which was very specific to 9/11, and weve had people just saying, you can do anything you want now for 15 years.

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However, there is a practical question related to this, Paul noted.

Is doing anything you want, killing every perceived enemy and every perceived leader or chieftain of five people in some misbegotten village, is it helping?

He gave an example of US forces killing four or five terrorists in a village, but also killing their wives and children: Is it better? Do we have less terrorists now or more?

For a hundred years they'll be talking about the time the Americans came and killed women and children. For a hundred years, they're going to be talking about the Saudis dropping bombs on a funeral procession. That does not go away. These people remember the battle of Karbala in 680AD. They have long memories, Paul said.

We're not going to defeat terrorism by having war in 60-some odd countries and dropping drones on everybody that we think in a village is of a radical ideology. And I just say now, I won't vote for something that doesn't limit the president's power, but simply gives a rubber stamp to what we're doing, the senator concluded.

Originally posted here:
America illegally at war for a long time now US Senator Rand Paul ... - RT

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky) announced this afternoon that a "discussion draft" of the rushed, flawed, and secretive Senate version of the American Health Care Act will be unveiled Thursday, in advance of a hoped-for vote a week hence, on June 29. "Oh they'll have plenty of time" [to read the bill], McConnell said. "This will be about as transparent as it can be." Uh-huh.

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Kentucky), long considered the most likely Republican "no" vote, did not sound enthused about the legislation today. While stressing that he'll decide only after reading the bill, Paul reiterated in remarks recorded by Bloomberg News political reporter Sahil Kapur that he's "not interested in voting for anything that's a new entitlement program," and that it might be better to "start over." More from Paul:

The House bill has 90 percent of the subsidies of Obamacare.If this gets any more subsidies in it, it may well be equal to what we have in Obamacare. So it really wouldn't be repeal. []

I think they've forgotten all the rallies where they said they were going to repeal it. I mean, we had thousands of people standing up and cheering us on saying they were going to repeal it. And now they've gotten kind of weak-kneed and I think they want to keep it. But they're getting hit from both sides. Conservatives who are in the know are going to know that this isn't repeal. And no Democrat likes it because they think it's going to go too far. So I think you're going to wind up with what you had in the House billabout 20 percent of the public's going to think it's a good idea.

The other most likely "no" vote has always been Paul's pal Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), who, while also keeping his vote open, said in a Facebook video today that:

Even though I've been a member of this working group among Senate Republicans assigned to help narrow some of the focus of this, I haven't seen the bill....And it has become increasingly apparent in the last few days that even though we thought we were going to be in charge of writing a bill within this working group, it's not being written by us, it's apparently being written by a small handful of staffers for members of the Republican leadership in the Senate....We should have been able to see it weeks ago if we were going to voting on it next week.

But even if Lee and Paul revolt, as many have been predicting, the unpopular bill still needs one more Republican hand on the steely knife to kill the beast. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), while mocking Democratic complaints about process, said Tuesday the legislation still has "got a long way to go." Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), a key moderate, said, "I would like a more open process, that's for sure," and: "I cannot say what I would vote for if I haven't seen it.That's where a real problem is, because nobody I shouldn't say that." And Sen. John McCain (R-Arizona) quipped that, "I'm sure the Russians have been able to hack in and gotten most of it."

Peter Suderman earlier today floated various theories for Republicans' odd AHCA behavior.

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Rand Paul, Mike Lee Rip into Health Care Bill, Which Is Now Expected Thursday - Reason (blog)

it was unconscionable for President Donald Trump to promise $110 billion in new arms sales to Saudi Arabia a country that Human Rights Watch notes has repeatedly used U.S. weapons in attacks that are likely (to) constitute war crimes.

But it is also unconscionable for members of Congress, especially Democrats, to aid and abet Trumps wrongdoing.

Human Rights Watch reports that it has documented 81 apparently unlawful attacks in Yemen over the past two years by a Saudi-led coalition that includes a number of predominantly Sunni Muslim countries. "In almost two dozen of these cases, including the attack on the funeral hall, we were able to identify the U.S. weapons that were used, the international monitoring and advocacy group reported in March. According to the United Nations, at least 4,773 civilians have been killed and 8,272 wounded since this conflict began, the majority by coalition airstrikes. The war has driven Yemen, already the poorest nation in the Middle East, toward humanitarian catastrophe. Both the coalition and Houthi-Saleh forces have blocked or restricted critical relief supplies from reaching civilians. Seven million people face starvation, and cholera ravages parts of the country.

Trumps alliance with the Saudis which renews the worst of past U.S. practices and extends them at a point when Riyadh is engaged in a brutal assault on the people of Yemen must be scrutinized, checked, and balanced by the House and Senate. But that will happen only if Democrats form a united front and side with responsible Republicans to prevent arms sales to the Saudis. On June 16, 47 senators voted to block a substantial portion of the arms deal the president has promised the Saudis. Unfortunately, 53 senators, including five Democrats, sided with Trump.

That a majority of senators would turn a blind eye to what is happening in Yemen is horrific. That a group of Democrats would join that majority, at a time when a number of Republicans are saying no to Trump, is indefensible.

This is not a close call, as U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis., and Congressman Mark Pocan, D-Town of Vermont, have made abundantly clear as steady critics of the Saudi arms deal.

Human rights groups have been outspoken in objecting to arms sales to the Saudi regime.

Two years of conflict have forced 3 million people to flee their homes, shattered the lives of thousands of civilians and left Yemen facing a humanitarian disaster with more than 18 million in desperate need of assistance. Yet despite the millions of dollars worth of international assistance allocated to the country, many states have contributed to the suffering of the Yemeni people by continuing to supply billions of dollars worth of arms, said Lynn Maalouf, who serves as deputy director for research at Amnesty Internationals Beirut regional office. Weapons supplied in the past by states such as the UK and USA have been used to commit gross violations and helped to precipitate a humanitarian catastrophe. These governments have continued to authorize such arms transfers at the same time as providing aid to alleviate the very crisis they have helped to create. Yemeni civilians continue to pay the price of these brazenly hypocritical arms supplies.

Recognizing the madness of providing the Saudis with more weaponry and justifiably concerned that officials in Riyadh will take from the approval of increased arms sales an implicit signal of U.S. approval for more warfare and killing Sen. Rand Paul broke with Trump and launched a move to block the president's morally reprehensible choice.

Displaying a picture of a child who was killed in Yemen, the Kentucky Republican pleaded with his Senate colleagues to prevent Trump and his Saudi allies from making circumstances on the ground dramatically worse. One group said that the impending famine in Yemen may reach biblical proportions think about that. It is astounding what is being done, said Paul, who declared that we will force this vote for these children in Yemen because we have a chance today to stop the carnage. We have a chance to tell Saudi Arabia weve had enough.

The senators impassioned argument won support from across the political spectrum. In addition to Baldwin, teaming with Paul were Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy and other Democrats who have made human rights concerns a priority. When the key vote came, Paul, Baldwin, Murphy and their allies succeeded in generating a historic level of opposition to giving a blank check to the Saudis.

The initiative gained the support of four Republican senators Paul and Mike Lee of Utah, Todd Young of Indiana, and Dean Heller of Nevada as well as 43 Democrats. Unfortunately, the five Democratic senators who sided with the administration Indianas Joe Donnelly, Missouris Claire McCaskill, Floridas Bill Nelson, West Virginias Joe Manchin, and Virginias Mark Warner tipped the balance toward Trump's position.

The determination of those Democrats to back Trumps Saudi agenda is shameful. They are aiding and abetting not just an irresponsible and wrongheaded Republican president but also policies that are likely to lead to significantly more death and more suffering.

Thats frustrating. But it is important to recognize that the fight to limit arms sales to Saudi Arabia is gaining momentum. An effort by Paul and Murphy to block tank sales to Saudi Arabia last year drew just 27 votes. This year, 20 more senators sided with Paul and Murphy.

Numbers like these in the Senate, (which is) historically reluctant to adopt measures that could potentially damage the U.S.-Saudi alliance, show the tide is shifting, explained Alexandra Schmitt of Human Rights Watch. This level of bipartisan support for this resolution could be a game changer and is hopefully the beginning of the end to U.S. cooperation in Saudi-led coalition abuses in Yemen. The Senate should keep up pressure on the Trump administration until the Saudis end their unlawful attacks and credibly investigate the scores they have already conducted.

Thats right. Responsible members of the Senate and the House should keep up pressure on the thoroughly irresponsible Trump administration.

At the same time, Americans of all political backgrounds should keep up pressure on the members of Congress who empower this president especially those Democrats who align with a Trump administration that shows so little regard for human rights and human life.

Share your opinion on this topic by sending a letter to the editor to tctvoice@madison.com. Include your full name, hometown and phone number. Your name and town will be published. The phone number is for verification purposes only. Please keep your letter to 250 words or less.

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John Nichols: Unlikely team: Rand Paul and Tammy Baldwin fight Trump's Saudi arms deal - Madison.com