Imagine sitting at your local Starbucks restaurant or enjoying drinks at your favorite bar with friends and a drone blows half the place up because President Obama thinks he has the authority to conduct drone military strikes here at home on his own people. Senator Paul Rand Paul tried to put the brakes on President Obama’s “license to kill” obsession by filibustering John Brennan’s CIA nomination March 6, 2013.That’s right Senator Paul exercised his right as a member of Congress, enshrined in the United States Constitution, to draw attention to a very serious matter. When the Senate was set to vote on John Brennan’s nomination for head of the CIA, Paul led a 13-hour filibuster against the nomination demanding Obama put in writing he would never use drones kill Americans not involved in combat.
Why did Paul take such a bold stand? Attorney General Eric Holder wrote a letter indicating the president has the power to conduct drone strikes on American soil but “has no intention of doing so.” “No intention” isn’t the same as “won’t ever” and Paul rode herd on this administration’s frightening interpretation of its executive war powers.
“You should be charged, you should be imprisoned if they can make the charges stick. But they shouldn’t just drop a Hellfire missile on your café experience,” declared Paul on the Senate floor.
