Spam hits the Congressional Record!

The news media got all excited the other day when Senator Rand Paul decided to stand up and filibuster for what turned out to be one of the longest filibusters in Senate history against the nomination of John Brennan as the CIA Director because he apparently decided to stand up and do it the old fashioned way by talking and talking and talking...all that talking, of course, being entered into the Congressional Record since he really did say it all on the Senate Floor.

Funny thing, though, the subject of his talking wasn't Brennan, or the CIA or the price of tea in China.  It was all about drones!  He was taking the position that he said that the President had claimed the right to be able to kill American citizens on US soil with a drone.

A ridiculous assertion on the face of it, as the very thought of such is appalling to any red blooded American who has even a passing exposure to the US Constitution in something approaching a civics class.

Nevertheless, that was Paul's rant, daring the President, and then, when Eric Holder answered his rant with a letter exposing his rant as false, Paul claimed victory anyway and walked away!

Now, we've got evidence that the whole thing was just a scam - Congressional Spam, if you will!  It seems that Rand Paul has issued the following fund raising letter!  Preplanned, no less!

Now, I'll be one of the first to say that I'm a bit queasy over the idea that the President can, without any due process, just declare any US citizen a dead person anywhere in the world, even outside the US.  It does make me uncomfortable.  i'd like to see some oversight on that one from a court of law.  The US does have a secret court system expressly designed for such top secret things as wiretapping our enemies, and I can see these courts expanded for this purpose, with some provision for some kind of "devil's advocate" to force better justification and oversight of evidence.

But to use the floor of the US Senate as a patsy for the setting for a fund raising letter in such a cynical manner is too much.  It's common practice to use one's positions on various subjects and speeches in the Congress as fodder for fund raising, but to hold up the nomination of a well respected nominee for the purpose of building media attention for a fund raising effort is just one or two steps over the line.

At least for me.