Rand Paul Stop Brennan Nomination With Filibuster; Update: Cruz Joins In!; Update: Democrat To Join In; Update: Rubio Joins! Update: Reid Tries To Shut Down Filibuster…Fails!

Rand Paul began filibustering the Brennan nomination about 4 hours ago. Mike Lee has now joined him.

Paul vows to continue the filibuster until Obama declares drone strikes on American citizens on American soil as unconstitutional and that he has no authority to make any such decision:

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) has launched a talking filibuster against the nomination of John Brennan to be director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).

“I’m here to filibuster John Brennan’s nomination to be director of CIA,” Paul said on the Senate floor Wednesday. “I will speak for as long as it takes.

“I will speak today until the president says, ‘no’ he will not kill you at a café.”

Paul has said he wants more answers from the administration on whether American citizens can be targeted by armed drones inside the United States before he’ll lift his filibuster on Brennan’s nomination. …

“Has America the beautiful become ‘Alice in Wonderland’?” Paul said. “When I asked the president can you kill an American on American soil, it should have been an easy answer — an unequivocal no.

“But his answer was, ‘I haven’t killed anyone yet and I have no intention of killing Americans, but I might.’”Paul said the possibility that a citizen could be targeted without being charged in the courts went against the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution, which gives citizens the right to a trial by a jury of their peers.

“The Fifth Amendment should also protect you from a president who might kill you with a drone,” Paul said. “No American should be killed in their house without a warrant. … But [Obama] says trust him, he hasn’t done it yet.

“Mr. President that’s not good enough. … I will not sit quietly in my office and let him shred the Constitution.”

He spoke about the Posse Comitatus Act, how Obama and pals are barred from using the military on American soil unless an insurrection or war is declared.

The point, Paul says, is that military and police power are separated from judicial power for a reason, and the reason is due process. Without that separation, the executive will be transformed into a tyrannical power, regardless of whether the executive chooses to exercise that power or not. The answer from Eric Holder that “we probably won’t exercise that power” doesn’t address the issue.

…Paul just asked whether this power would have been so acceptable to Democrats 40 years ago. What if, Paul wondered, someone had dropped a Hellfire missile on Jane Fonda or college students at the time who were raising money for the Viet Cong? Would the same Democrats who are sitting on the sidelines now have protested such tactics at the time? After all, raising money for the enemy is arguably treason, and Paul said he’d have called it that — but those students would have deserved to get their day in court.

[youtube]http://youtu.be/zBpYkzYL-TM[/youtube]

Great points….BUT where was he during the Hagel nomination? A nominee just as dangerous as Brennan.

He should of done this during Hagel as well….but he didn’t. So letting a dangerous clown like Hagel slide is ok but when Paul wants to talk about drones than he is going to fight?

Come on….

Given all that I still support what he is doing but as Malkin said, I just don’t get how you square the circle.

UPDATE

Via Ed Morrissey:

Ted Cruz has just joined in to ask questions of Paul, in what looks like a pretty smart strategy. Paul has specifically stated that he will take questions without relinquishing control of the floor, and both Cruz and Lee are asking oddly lengthy questions. In other words, they’re providing Paul with short opportunities to rest his voice, and to add more ammunition to his rhetorical magazine. Puns very much intended, by the way.

UPDATE

Democrat joins in

UPDATE

Rubio up and speaking:

Just when you thought the #filiblizzard couldn’t get any better:

Rubio…joins in. And he starts with a water joke.—
DrewM (@DrewMTips) March 06, 2013

Heh… @marcorubio tells Rand Paul to have water nearby. LoLoL—
Bryan Tupper (@BryTupper) March 06, 2013

Rubio: “Let me give you some free advice. Keep some water nearby.”—
Lachlan Markay (@lachlan) March 06, 2013

Anyone notice this filibuster is turning into a preview of the GOP Presidential Debate 2016?

UPDATE

Poor widdle Hairy:

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., asked Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., to drop his filibuster so that the Senate could proceed with votes this evening, but Paul declined to do so.

“I have no problem with people talking a long time,” Reid said, before asking if Paul and two other senators would limit themselves to speaking for 30 minutes more each.

Reid asked for unanimous consent, but Paul objected. “The only thing I would like is a clarification,” Paul said, proposing that Holder retract his claim that “it is possible, I suppose, to imagine an extraordinary circumstance in which it would be necessary and appropriate under the Constitution and applicable laws of the United States for the President to authorize the military to use lethal force within the territory of the United States.”

Paul noted that Holder seemed to contradict that statement during testimony this morning; he said he would end the filibuster immediately if Holder put his apparent retraction into a “coherent letter.”

Reid decided to continue with Senate business tomorrow rather than fight for time today.

And then he tried to take his ball and go home:

Curt

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