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Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul speaks during the Texas Republican Conventi on at the Fort Worth Convention Center in Fort Worth, Texas, on June 6, 2014. On Friday, Sept. 19, 2014, Paul said that the United States intervention in the Middle East has made the Islamic State militant group stronger.

Los Angeles Times (MCT)

Published: September 20, 2014

LOS ANGELES Sen. Rand Paul said Friday that the United States intervention in the Middle East has made the Islamic State militant group stronger, and that he voted this week against arming Syrian rebels because he fears the weapons would end up in the hands of the terrorists.

I think for the last year or two, when weve been giving weapons to the Syrian rebels, weve actually allowed ISIS to grow stronger, Paul, using an acronym for the group, said in an interview after speaking on a school-choice panel in the San Pedro neighborhood of Los Angeles.

The Kentucky Republican, who said that he will decide by spring whether to run for president in 2016, has come under repeated criticism for his foreign policy views from more hawkish members of his own party. While he opposes much U.S. involvement overseas, Paul has tried to distance himself from the isolationist views espoused by his father, the former Rep. Ron Paul, who also ran for president.

But in voting against arming the Syrian rebels, Paul was in the minority. The legislation was approved on a bipartisan vote by both the Senate and the House this week, and was signed into law by President Barack Obama on Friday.

In the interview, Paul attributed the rise of radical Islamists to the fall of secular dictators in the Middle East. He said he was weary of inserting the United States in that regions civil wars, but added that the nation must act against the Islamic State because of the threat that group poses to the West. He has not specified how he would do that.

I dont want our troops back in Iraq. Im willing to provide air support, intelligence, coordination and money and armaments and thats quite a bit, but the Iraqis need to step up and fight, he said. Our intervention has made ISIS stronger but now its such a problem that I do think we have to do something about it.

He spoke to the Los Angeles Times after participating in a panel about school choice at the Alliance Alice M. Baxter College-Ready High School in San Pedro. Paul favors local control and decision-making and is critical of educational testing and standards that come from the federal government.

Excerpt from:
Rand Paul says US intervention made Islamic State stronger

Politics Panel - Rand Paul was against bombing ISIS before he was for it
Jean Card, Jean Card Ink / U.S. News World Report, Nate Sweet, Progressive Commentator, Hughey Newsome, Project 21 / Move-On-Up joins Thom Hartmann.

By: The Big Picture RT

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Politics Panel - Rand Paul was against bombing ISIS before he was for it - Video

Rand Paul: I #39;m Not For Arming Radical Jihadists in Syria
Rand opposes arms to so-called moderate Islamists in Syria.

By: jim hoft

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Rand Paul: I'm Not For Arming Radical Jihadists in Syria - Video

Senator Rand Paul, R-Ky., speaks at the 2014 National Urban League Conference July 25, 2014 in Cincinnati. Jay LaPrete/Getty Images

In his latest appeal to voters who don't traditionally fall into his party's mold, Sen. Rand Paul, R-Kentucky, on Thursday scorned Republican-led attempts to restrict voting rights for minorities.

"So many times, Republicans are seen as this party of, 'We don't want black people to vote because they're voting Democrat; we don't want Hispanic people to vote because they're voting Democrat,'" he said during remarks at the Liberty Political Action Conference in Alexandria, Virginia. "We wonder why the Republican Party is so small. Why don't we be the party that's for people voting, for voting rights?"

Paul supports various state laws that have surfaced across the country requiring voters to voters to show a photo ID at polling places. Civil rights groups have censured that requirement, arguing such requirements disenfranchise some black voters who don't have and ID and can't get one.

Still, the libertarian-leaning crowd tendered fertile turf for Paul to marry his support for hands-off-government-fueled privacy policies and civil rights-inspired criminal justice reforms. He has long made the case that millions of people across the country are prevented from voting because they have criminal records.

To rectify that, Paul has introduced legislation in Congress that would restore voting rights to some convicted felons and make it easier to expunge criminal records, among other things. His latest bill would impose the same sentences for powder and crack cocaine offenses. The majority of people arrested for crack cocaine is African-American.

Also coming out strong against police militarization - a campaign he launched in the wake of violent protests that erupted in Ferguson, Missouri last month after an unarmed teenager was shot dead by an officer - Paul argued that while "you want your police to be aggressive," in many drug-related incidents that aggression is taken unreasonably far.

"If someone's got some pot, you want to break down the door at two in the morning with masks and gas and concussion grenades?" he asked. "I think it's a little crazy to have this war on drugs gone so far."

The tactic aimed at minority voters comes as Paul readies a likely bid for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination. He implored his party Thursday to make overtures to return to the GOP's essentially defunct big-tent philosophy.

"The bottom line is, we're not winning," Paul said. "...We're not winning because, it's pretty simple, we don't have enough people in the group yet. The liberty movement has been more open to receiving people of all walks of life... I think we have been much more open, sometimes, than the Republican Party in general."

Originally posted here:
Sen. Rand Paul woos minorities in critique against voting, drug laws

By Ashley Killough, CNN

updated 8:39 AM EDT, Fri September 19, 2014

Sen. Rand Paul, R-Kentucky, is openly weighing a presidential bid.

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

Alexandria, Virginia (CNN) -- Fresh off his Senate floor speech against arming Syrian rebels, Sen. Rand Paul shifted gears Thursday night to lambast the current state of police militarization in the United States, especially when it comes to the war on drugs.

The Kentucky Republican told a libertarian-leaning audience in Alexandria, Virginia that police sometimes direct their focus on the wrong crimes.

"You want your police to be aggressive," he said. "But if someone's got some pot, you want to break down the door at two in the morning with masks and gas and concussion grenades?"

Paul was speaking to the Liberty Political Action Conference, where moments before his speech he was on stage with his father, former Rep. Ron Paul, to deliver a scholarship award.

It was a rare dual appearance by the two, as Rand Paul, who's laying the groundwork for a potential presidential bid, has attempted to differentiate himself from his father's legacy as a vocal libertarian. (Rand Paul, however, dutifully quoted his father at the end of his speech: "Freedom is popular. Bring it on.")

On militarization, Rand Paul said the public may never really know what happened to Michael Brown, the unarmed 18-year-old shot dead by police in Ferguson, Missouri last month, and he didn't weigh in on the still unfolding controversy.

See the rest here:
Rand Paul: Police militarization, war on drugs is 'out of control'