In a lively, well-received speech at a Michigan GOP political conference in Mackinac Saturday, Republican presidential candidate Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky. criticized Democrat presidential candidate Hillary Clinton for her failures as Secretary of State and the Clintons for being “up to so many damn shenanigans.”
Taking aim at the former secretary of state, Paul said Clinton had “approved $100,000 for an electrical charging station for the embassy in Vienna, but denied money for security in Libya.”
“They spent money on Facebook ads, seems the State Department didn’t have enough friends; but yet Hillary denied additional security to our ambassador,” said Paul. “I think by her dereliction of duty, Hillary Clinton should forever be precluded from holding higher office.”
“Why did Hillary need a private server?” asked Paul. “The Clintons are up to so many damn shenanigans.”
“I’ve never seen anybody so abuse their public office to enrich themselves,” continued Paul. “I think even Democrats are having second thoughts.”
Paul also dug into the federal government’s superfluous spending projects with anecdotes that drew laughter and applause from the audience.
“We spent $250,00 just recently bringing 24 kids to go to space camp in Alabama,” said Paul. “We don’t have that kind of money … we don’t have money to be doing this stuff.”
“I’ll give you one more,” said Paul, warming to the subject. He told of the government spending $300,000 last year to study whether Japanese quail are more sexually promiscuous “when they’re on cocaine.”
The audience burst into laughter.
“I’m guessing we could have polled the audience on” how that study turned out, said Paul.
Lambasting federal agencies for having SWAT teams, Paul continued: “We have 48 federal agencies that have SWAT teams … the IRS has a SWAT team … the Department of Education has one.”
Paul blasted fellow GOP candidates, including Carly Fiorina who had taken the stage before him, for advocating arming supposedly “moderate” groups in the Middle East.
Iranian-backed rebels are killing al Qaeda in Yemen, he pointed out. Other candidates say we should arm the Saudi supported opposition, said Paul.
“I say maybe we should buy popcorn,” said Paul to hearty laughs and applause from the crowd.
Paul also called on the United States to stop funding any foreign government that persecutes Christians.
“We shouldn’t give any money to countries that persecute Christians … How would we define the persecution of Christians? Any country that has a law on the books that says that if you criticize the state religion you’ll get the death penalty or life imprisonment,” said Paul, citing laws in Saudi Arabia and other Islamic countries that punish those who convert to religions besides the state-sanction religion of Islam.
“How many countries have that law? Probably 25, 30,” he said. “How many get money from us? Most of them.”
Curt Mills contributed to this report.
