Tracy Bloom: Rand Paul, Truthdigger of the Week!

The confirmation of John Brennan, the man tapped by President Obama to head the Central Intelligence Agency, appeared to be a slam dunk. That is, until Senator Rand Paul, R-Kentucky, took to the Senate floor to begin a lengthy filibuster of Brennan's nomination, that served as a scathing indictment of the Obama administration's targeted killings policy: "I will speak until I can no longer speak," Paul, who vehemently opposed Brennan's nomination, said on the Senate floor shortly before noon Eastern time Wednesday, as he began his old school style talking filibuster. "I will speak as long as it takes, until the alarm is sounded from coast to cost, that our Constitution is important, that your rights to trial by jury are precious, that no American should be killed by a drone on American soil, without first being charged with a crime, without first being found to be guilty by a court." By its end, nearly 13 hours later, Paul had indeed sounded the alarm bells over the administration's deeply troubling policy. His talking filibuster was a rarity in the Senate, which nowadays allows its members to "filibuster" by refusing to end debate, or proceed with a nomination, unless a majority 60 vote thresh hold is met. The last time the kind of talking filibuster that Paul mounted, happened was more than two years ago, when Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders took the Senate floor to stall a tax cut deal. By using the procedural tactic the way it was intended, Paul pressed his case against the administration's controversial drone strike policy, which potentially allows the government to target American citizens on US soil in extraordinary circumstances. This policy itself represents nothing short of an egregious violation of the US Constitution's Fifth Amendment guarantee, that no person shall be deprived of life without due process of law, and of American civil liberties in general. This is an issue that should unite both sides of the political spectrum. Yet, it was Republicans, most notably the junior senator from Kentucky, and aided by others in the GOP, including Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, Florida Senator Marco Rubio, Texas Senator Ted Cruz, and Utah Senator Mike Lee, who led the charge to get Attorney General Eric Holder to clarify whether the administration believed it had the power to use unmanned aerial drones within the US to kill its own citizens.