My Hat is off to Rand Paul

U S Senator Rand Paul (R) KY

Yesterday Rand Paul started a filibuster on the U S Senate floor that I was glad to see.  Finally someone is taking head on the POTUS and how he is trampling the Constitution.

Nearly 13 hours after he started, Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., ended a dramatic, old-fashioned filibuster early Thursday morning — having held the floor for most of the day and night to rail against the administration’s drone program while holding up the nomination of John Brennan for CIA director.

Business in the Senate ground to a halt Wednesday as Paul, aided by colleagues from both parties, launched into the filibuster as he challenged the president’s authority to kill Americans with drones.

Paul’s filibuster was longer than most in U.S. history, as most flame out by the 10-hour mark. Paul finished speaking around 12:40 a.m. local time, and his filibuster lasted 12 hours and 52 minutes.

“My legs hurt. My feet hurt. Everything hurts right now,” Paul told Fox News shortly after stepping off the Senate floor, saying he believes “we did the best that we could.”

Paul is one of several lawmakers — on both sides of the aisle — who has raised concerns about the legal justification for launching drone strikes against Americans overseas. But Paul took to the floor after receiving a statement from Attorney General Eric Holder that creaked open the door to the possibility of using a drone to kill an American inside the United States.

“To allow one man to accuse you in secret — you never get notified you’ve been accused,” Paul said on the floor. “Your notification is the buzz of propellers on the drone as it flies overhead in the seconds before you’re killed. Is that what we really want from our government?”