Tagged: Rand Paul

Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul says the President shouldn't be able to authorize drone strikes on U.S. citizens until there is some sort of review process in place.

Speaking Sunday on CNN's "State of the Union" program, the Republican from Bowling Green said that it was "very unseemly that a politician gets to decide the death of an American citizen."

"They should answer about this 16-year-old boy, al-Awlaki’s son, that was killed, not in collateral damage but in a separate strike. They never answered that. I think you should be tried for treason if you’re an American citizen, you go overseas and you take up arms. I’m probably for executing you but I want to hear the evidence," Sen. Paul said.

Paul was referring to Abdulrahman al-Awlaki, the teenager son of Anwar al-Awlaki, an American-born al- Qaeda propagandist killed by a U.S. drone strike in Yemen a year ago. The teenager was killed in a separate strike some two weeks after his father was killed.

Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul says he plans to refile a bill that would scale back the power of the Transportation Security Administration. The Bowling Green Republican told Politico he has two different measures ready to go—one that would privatize the TSA, and another that would create a passenger bill of rights.

Paul introduced those bills during last year’s Congress, but both measures failed to get out of the Senate Commerce Committee. Paul wants to end the TSA screening operation and force airports to hire private companies to conduct security screenings. Paul’s legislation would also allow some fliers to opt out of pat-downs, and create an expedited screening program for frequent fliers.

Sen. Paul drew national attention last year when he resisted a pat-down at the Nashville airport. That refusal caused him to miss a speech he was scheduled to make, and a video of the incident went viral on the internet.

With the news that more than a dozen tea party groups are actively recruiting a GOP candidate  to run against U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell in 2014, it’s worth taking a look at how Kentucky tea party-endorsed candidates have fared in statewide or Congressional races.

Since forming in the run up to the 2010 mid-term elections, Kentucky's tea party has won more than a third of the races its challenged for prominent offices, and its candidates have won several primaries over Republican establishment candidates.

Here's a rundown: