Rand Paul(R-TN) Exploits Drones Grandstanding With Fake Fundraising Letter

Rand Paul(R-TN) Exploits Drones Grandstanding With Fake Fundraising Letter

Though foes of drones on the right and left cheered Sen. Rand Paul's filibuster this week, with the tea partier delaying confirmation of CIA director John Brennan for a day, Paul's rant targeted a nonexistent dispute: whether or not Obama administration officials believed they could use drones (or other weapons) to kill American citizens within the borders of the United States without due process. Take away all Paul's hyped-up hysteria—watch out, Jane Fonda!—and he didn't truly disagree with the administration's position that in an extraordinary circumstance, such as an ongoing terrorist attack, the US government can deploy lethal force against evildoers who happen to be American citizens. So why did Paul go ballistic? Here's a clue: The day after he ended one of the longest filibusters in US history, he tried to cash in on his stunt by zapping out a fundamentally inaccurate fundraising email for his 2016 reelection campaign.

The note begins:

    Dear Patriot,

    My 13-hour filibuster yesterday is being called one of the longest in U.S. history.

    I had been trying for more than a week to get a straight answer on whether or not the Obama administration believed it had the authority to use drones to target and kill American citizens on American soil – without due process.

    And after receiving a letter from Attorney General Eric Holder claiming they DO have that authority, I could no longer sit silently at my desk in the U.S. Senate.

    So I stood for thirteen-straight hours to send a message to the Obama administration, I will do everything in my power to fight their attempts to ignore the Constitution!

    Millions of Americans chose to stand with me and put President Obama, Attorney General Holder, and Congress in the spotlight...

    And the good news is, it worked!

    Just hours ago, I received a letter from Attorney General Holder declaring the President DOES NOT have the authority to use drones to kill Americans on U.S. soil.

    Patriot, this shows what we can do when stand together and fight.

    So won't you help me continue the fight to protect our Constitutional liberties today?

This is a false account. In his first letter to Paul, Holder noted the obvious: If the United States were under attack from within, the president might have to order the use of lethal military force within the territory of the United States. This is how Holder put it:

    [T]he US government has not carried out drone strikes in the United States and has no intention of doing so. As a policy matter moreover, we reject the use of military force where well-established law enforcement authorities in this country provide the best means for incapacitating a terrorist threat…The question you have posed is therefore entirely hypothetical, unlikely to occur, and one we hope no president will ever have to confront. 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. For example, the president could conceivably have no choice but to authorize the military to use such force if necessary to protect the homeland in the circumstances like a catastrophic attack like the ones suffered on December 7, 1941, and September 11, 2001.

Consider a Mumbai-style attack on Washington, DC; as the assault is under way perhaps military force—with or without drones—might be used against the perpetrators, which could include terrorists holding American citizenship. In fact, during his filibuster, Paul conceded the point: "Nobody questions if planes are flying towards the Twin Towers whether they can be repulsed by the military. Nobody questions whether a terrorist with a rocket launcher or a grenade launcher is attacking us, whether they can be repelled."

So just as he did on the Senate floor, in this email, Paul is ginning up a quarrel that did not exist. Then the give-me-money note goes on to claim that due to Paul's heroic filibuster, Holder wrote a second note to the senator stating the president cannot use drones to kill Americans on US soil. That's wrong.

On Thursday, Holder sent Paul a curt two-sentence letter:

    It has come to my attention that you have now asked an additional question: "Does the President have the authority to use a weaponized drone to kill an American not engaged in combat on American soil?" The answer to that question is no.

Funny how Paul was an anti-Iraq invasion conservative-libertarian, yet uses the same mentality to juice up his wacko supporters and their endless paranoia. Tomorrow it will be Chinese military hiding  int eh sewers of new York waiting directions to invade America from below. Is there such a thing as a conservative who is not one part wacky and one part evil.

Gun Truth for Patriots Only

Gun Truth for Patriots Only

By cutting off federal funding for research [1] and stymieing data collection [2] and sharing [3], the National Rifle Association has tried to do to the study of gun violence what climate deniers have done to the science of global warming. No wonder: When it comes to hard numbers, some of the gun lobby's favorite arguments are full of holes.

Myth #1: They're coming for your guns.
Fact-check: No one knows the exact number of guns in America, but it's clear there's no practical way to round them all up (never mind that no one in Washington is proposing this). Yet if you fantasize about rifle-toting citizens facing down the government, you'll rest easy knowing that America's roughly 80 million gun owners already have the feds and cops outgunned by a factor of around 79 to 1.
gun ownership

Sources: Congressional Research Service [4] (PDF), Small Arms Survey [5]

Myth #2: Guns don't kill people—people kill people.
Fact-check: People with more guns tend to kill more people—with guns. The states with the highest gun ownership rates have a gun murder rate 114% higher [6] than those with the lowest gun ownership rates. Also, gun death rates tend to be higher in states with higher rates of gun ownership. Gun death rates are generally lower in states [7] with restrictions such as assault-weapons bans or safe-storage requirements.
ownership vs gun death

Sources: Pediatrics [8], Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [9]

Myth #3: An armed society is a polite society.
Fact-check: Drivers who carry guns are 44% more likely [10] than unarmed drivers to make obscene gestures at other motorists, and 77% more likely to follow them aggressively.
• Among Texans convicted of serious crimes, those with concealed-handgun licenses were sentenced for threatening someone with a firearm 4.8 times more [11] than those without.
• In states with Stand Your Ground [12] and other laws making it easier to shoot in self-defense, those policies have been linked to a 7 to 10% increase [13] in homicides.  


Myth #4: More good guys with guns can stop rampaging bad guys.
Fact-check: Mass shootings stopped by armed civilians in the past 30 years: 0 [21]
• Chances that a shooting at an ER involves guns taken from guards: 1 in 5 [22]

Myth #5: Keeping a gun at home makes you safer.
Fact-check: Owning a gun has been linked to higher risks of homicide [23], suicide [24], and accidental death [25] by gun.
• For every time a gun is used in self-defense in the home, there are 7 assaults or murders [26], 11 suicide attempts, and 4 accidents involving guns in or around a home.
• 43% of homes [27] with guns and kids have at least one unlocked firearm.
• In one experiment, one third of 8-to-12-year-old boys [28] who found a handgun pulled the trigger.

Myth #6: Carrying a gun for self-defense makes you safer.
Fact-check: In 2011, nearly 10 times more people were shot and killed in arguments [29] than by civilians trying to stop a crime [30].
• In one survey, nearly 1% [31] of Americans reported using guns to defend themselves or their property. However, a closer look at their claims found that more than 50% [31] involved using guns in an aggressive manner, such as escalating an argument.
• A Philadelphia study found that the odds of an assault victim being shot were 4.5 times greater [32] if he carried a gun. His odds of being killed were 4.2 times greater.

Myth #7: Guns make women safer.
Fact-check: In 2010, nearly 6 times more [33] women were shot by husbands, boyfriends, and ex-partners than murdered by male strangers.
• A woman's chances of being killed by her abuser increase more than 7 times [34] if he has access to a gun.
• One study found that women in states with higher gun ownership rates were 4.9 times [35] more likely to be murdered by a gun than women in states with lower gun ownership rates.

Myth #8: "Vicious, violent video games" deserve more blame than guns.
Fact-check: So said [36] NRA executive vice president Wayne LaPierre after Newtown. So what's up with Japan [37]?
      United States     Japan
Per capita spending
on video games     $44     $55
Civilian firearms
per 100 people     88     0.6
Gun homicides
in 2008     11,030     11

Sources: PricewaterhouseCoopers [38], Small Arms Survey [39] (PDF), UN Office on Drugs and Crime [40]

Myth #9: More and more Americans are becoming gun owners.
Fact-check: More guns [41] are being sold, but they're owned by a shrinking portion [42] of the population.
• About 50% [43] of Americans said they had a gun in their homes in 1973. Today, about [44] 45% [45] say they do. Overall, 35% of Americans [45] personally own a gun.
• Around 80% of gun owners are men. On average they own 7.9 guns each [46].

Myth #10: We don't need more gun laws—we just need to enforce the ones we have.
Fact-check: Weak laws and loopholes backed by the gun lobby make it easier to get guns illegally.
• Around 40% [47] of all legal gun sales involve private sellers and don't require background checks. 40% of prison inmates [48] who used guns in their crimes got them this way.
• An investigation found 62% of online gun sellers [49] were willing to sell to buyers who said they couldn't pass a background check.
• 20% of licensed California gun dealers [50] agreed to sell handguns to researchers posing as illegal "straw" buyers.
• The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives has not had a permanent director for 6 years [51], due to an NRA-backed requirement [52] that the Senate approve nominees.


Links:
[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/26/us/26guns.html?pagewanted=all
[2] http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/01/atf-obama-gun-reform-control-alcohol-tobacco-firearms
[3] http://www.jsonline.com/watchdog/watchdogreports/80518462.html
[4] http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/RL32842.pdf
[5] http://www.smallarmssurvey.org/publications/by-type/yearbook/small-arms-survey-2006.html
[6] http://www.deepdyve.com/lp/elsevier/state-level-homicide-victimization-rates-in-the-us-in-relation-to-TNMKd0qUVn
[7] http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2011/01/the-geography-of-gun-deaths/69354/
[8] http://www.pediatricsdigest.mobi/content/116/3/e370.full
[9] http://www.statehealthfacts.org/comparemaptable.jsp?ind=113&cat=2
[10] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16434012
[11] http://www.deepdyve.com/lp/american-public-health-association/when-concealed-handgun-licensees-break-bad-criminal-convictions-of-patzzJ6ljx?articleList=%2Fsearch%3Fquery%3Dfirearms%26dateFacetFrom%3DNOW%252FDAY-5YEARS%26internal_rental_state%3Drentable%26journal_journal_name%5B%5D%3DAmerican%2BJournal%2Bof%2BPublic%2BHealth
[12] http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/06/nra-alec-stand-your-ground?page=1
[13] http://econweb.tamu.edu/mhoekstra/castle_doctrine.pdf
[14] http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/01/nra-board-newtown-bushmaster
[15] http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/01/nra-board-members-selleck-nugent
[16] http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/12/nra-mass-shootings-myth
[17] http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2013/01/nra-membership-numbers
[18] http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/01/nra-life-duty-police-assault-rifle-gun-control
[19] http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/06/nra-alec-stand-your-ground
[20] http://www.motherjones.com/special-reports/2012/12/guns-in-america-mass-shootings
[21] http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/12/armed-civilians-do-not-stop-mass-shootings
[22] http://www.annemergmed.com/article/S0196-0644%2812%2901408-4/abstract
[23] http://injuryprevention.bmj.com/content/9/1/48.full
[24] http://aje.oxfordjournals.org/content/160/10/929.full
[25] http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0001457502000490
[26] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/9715182/
[27] http://ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/abs/10.2105/AJPH.90.4.588
[28] http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/107/6/1247.abstract?sid=96fc3066-8fc5-4c58-b518-1940841c762b
[29] http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2011/crime-in-the-u.s.-2011/tables/expanded-homicide-data-table-11
[30] http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2011/crime-in-the-u.s.-2011/tables/expanded-homicide-data-table-15
[31] http://injuryprevention.bmj.com/content/6/4/263.full
[32] http://ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/full/10.2105/AJPH.2008.143099
[33] http://www.vpc.org/studies/wmmw2012.pdf
[34] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1447915/
[35] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3456383/
[36] http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2012/12/national-rifle-association-has-video-game-too
[37] http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/07/a-land-without-guns-how-japan-has-virtually-eliminated-shooting-deaths/260189/
[38] http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Society/2012/0316/Top-video-game-markets-in-the-world/United-States
[39] http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&ved=0CDUQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.smallarmssurvey.org%2Ffileadmin%2Fdocs%2FA-Yearbook%2F2007%2Fen%2FSmall-Arms-Survey-2007-Chapter-02-annexe-4-EN.pdf&ei=Zp8JUZrxD8rhigK_iIBw&usg=AFQjCNFYCb3CI6fyWJpCx1qTfVYVdKB_wA&sig2=eeeku-E1n8tpFC6XbBDq6g
[40] http://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/data-and-analysis/homicide.html
[41] http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/09/mass-shootings-investigation
[42] http://themonkeycage.org/blog/2012/07/21/the-declining-culture-of-guns-and-violence-in-the-united-states/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+themonkeycagefeed+%28The+Monkey+Cage%29
[43] http://publicdata.norc.org/webview/velocity?var1=http%3A%2F%2Fpublicdata.norc.org%3A80%2Fobj%2FfVariable%2F4697_V5076&op1=%3C%3E&cases2=5&stubs=http%3A%2F%2Fpublicdata.norc.org%3A80%2Fobj%2FfVariable%2F4697_V1&var2=http%3A%2F%2Fpublicdata.norc.org%3A80%2Fobj%2FfVariable%2F4697_V5076&op3=%3C%3E&analysismode=table&v=2&var3=http%3A%2F%2Fpublicdata.norc.org%3A80%2Fobj%2FfVariable%2F4697_V5076&ao2=and&weights=http%3A%2F%2Fpublicdata.norc.org%3A80%2Fobj%2FfVariable%2F4697_V5084&cases3=7&V1slice=1972&ao1=and&previousmode=table&study=http%3A%2F%2Fpublicdata.norc.org%3A80%2Fobj%2FfStudy%2F4697&headers=http%3A%2F%2Fpublicdata.norc.org%3A80%2Fobj%2FfVariable%2F4697_V648&op2=%3C%3E&mode=table&ao3=and&V4slice=0&tabcontenttype=row&count=2&cases1=4
[44] http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/polls/postabcpoll_20130113.html
[45] http://www.gallup.com/poll/150353/self-reported-gun-ownership-highest-1993.aspx
[46] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2610545/
[47] http://www.nij.gov/pubs-sum/165476.htm
[48] http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/index.cfm?ty=pbdetail&iid=940
[49] http://www.fixgunchecks.org/deleteonlineoutlaws
[50] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2937134/
[51] http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2012/12/atf-ill-equipped-enforce-new-gun-laws
[52] http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/26/us/legislative-handcuffs-limit-atfs-ability-to-fight-gun-crime.html?pagewanted=all
[53] http://thenounproject.com/
[54] http://www.shutterstock.com/cat.mhtml?lang=en&search_source=search_form&version=llv1&anyorall=all&safesearch=1&searchterm=gun+man+woman&search_group=&orient=&search_cat=&searchtermx=&photographer_name=konstantynov&people_gender=&people_age=&people_ethnicity=&people_number=&commercial_ok=&color=&show_color_wheel=1#id=33221842&src=c4c1199215fa517793878a728c5ca0be-1-0