End GOP's endless Senate filibusters

From today's Courier-Journal:

The official government shutdown may have ended but the gridlock continues in Washington thanks to Senate Republicans who have now blocked three of three candidates President Barack Obama had nominated to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

...Republicans have dug in out of sheer partisan obstruction under current rules that require 60 votes just to permit discussion of the president’s nominees to the court that considers important challenges to federal laws and regulations. (U.S. District Judge Robert L.) Wilkins’ nomination failed on a vote of 53-38.

Kentucky’s Mitch McConnell, Senate Republican leader, gloated, using his irrelevant opposition to the Affordable Care Act as an excuse.

Health law needs time to take root

From today's Herald-Leader:

(Mitch) McConnell's rants against what he calls Obamacare are purely political. He's hoping to capitalize on President Barack Obama's unpopularity in Kentucky by linking Democratic candidate Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes to the president's signature achievement. He's also hoping to mollify Republican primary voters who preferred a government default to perceived government overreach.

McConnell's alternatives (interstate insurance sales, high-risk pools, employer associations and reforms to be named later) are Republican boilerplate.

They fall far short of what Kentuckians were gaining from Obama's reforms, even before the Oct. 1 opening of kynect.com. which has been enrolling McConnell's constituents at a rate of 1,000 a day.

Mitch McConnell meets the press

Today's Courier-Journal highlights Mitch McConnell's brazen hypocrisy:

The Louisville Republican, already famous for sticking to talking points and ignoring questions he doesn’t like, promptly laid down the law to the waiting press corps.

“I’m probably not going to be answering questions about anything else but I’m happy to respond to questions about Obamacare,” Mr. McConnell said, according to LEO Weekly. “As you can imagine, I prefer the news of that day to be what I’d like it to be rather than what you all may be interested in pursuing.”

Apparently those rules apply only to him. Mr. McConnell then lectured reporters on how to question Alison Lundergan Grimes, the Democrat running against him, about the health law.

Who had the worst week in Washington? Sen. Rand Paul

The Washington Post's "Worst Week in Washington" goes to Rand Paul:

First, MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow showed that a speech Paul gave supporting Ken Cuccinelli’s Virginia gubernatorial campaign contained lines cribbed from a Wikipedia entry on the film “Gattaca.” Then BuzzFeed and Politico got in on the act, noting that Paul had taken chunks of text from publications by the Heritage Foundation and the Cato Institute, among other sources.

...“To tell you the truth, people can think what they want, I can go back to being a doctor anytime, if they’re tired of me,” Paul told the New York Times. “I’ll go back to being a doctor, and I’ll be perfectly content.” Very presidential of him.

...Rand Paul, for looking like a copycat when people like their presidential candidates to be original, you had the worst week in Washington. Congrats, or something.

Rand Theft Caught'O

The Daily Show takes on the Rand Paul plagiarism scandal. Check it out!

Paul's pouty reaction

Today's Herald-Leader discusses Rand Paul's childish response to the plagiarism charges against him:

Trying to put this behind him, Paul said that he and his staff will attribute sources "if it will make people leave me the hell alone."

A curious remark for someone who has sought attention at every turn, grandstanding at Senate hearings, touring television talk shows, accepting speaking invitations in states critical to a presidential bid.

Paul's sense of self-grandeur is so great that, like a pouting child, he threatened to leave politics altogether if everyone keeps being mean to him. "People can think what they want. I can go back to being a doctor any time," he said.

Sen. Rand Paul-agiarism

From today's Courier-Journal:

In two speeches (Rand Paul) has taken phrases and sentences directly from the website Wikipedia. In another, he took words from an Associated Press article and didn’t give credit. In a book, he lifted three pages from reports written by conservative and libertarian think tanks like the Heritage Foundation and the Cato Institute.

...The real insult here is that Mr. Paul would expect voters to believe his half-baked, nutty explanations. The real insult is that he would expect us to believe he’s not at fault and this is the result of partisan opponents.

But the biggest insult is that he would use a writer’s or researcher’s words, claim them as his own and expect everyone to look away when he gets caught.

McConnell's plan: Cut Social Security and Medicare

$24 Billion... up in smoke. Washington at its worst. And now? Mitch McConnell and the Tea Party in Washington are demanding painful cuts to Social Security and Medicare. Kentucky seniors could pay $6,000 more a year. Cutting Social Security and Medicare may be Mitch McConnell's plan. Tell him, it's not yours!

'Sen. Moonbeam' speaks

A great editorial from the Courier-Journal:

At a Liberty University speech (Rand Paul) warned students that “in your lifetime” society could eliminate the weak or less intelligent by culling inferior DNA.

Possible? Yes. But such eugenics programs have been discredited by scientists, ethicists and most everyone, and are not on the front burner of political thought today.

...as a Forum Flashes colleague noted, the choice of subject matter seemed so politically random: “It’s like he watched ‘Gattaca’ the night before, and said, ‘Dude, we NEED to talk about this, like, RIGHT NOW.’ ”