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Sen. Rand Paul renewed his skepticism Tuesday of a U.S.-Mexico border wall, asserting that the Trump administration has not justified the $46 billion for construction included in the pending House budget reconciliation package. The Kentucky Republican, who chairs the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, made the comments at the tail end of an oversight hearing intended to evaluate President Donald Trump’s fiscal 2026 budget request on homeland security and immigration.“So I know that the wall has a great symbolic value, but I think we should reassess … what we want to do and how much it costs,” Paul...

Officials are hoping to set the record straight that, despite recent cuts, the National Weather Service was not hindered from forecasting this weekend’s deadly storms.

President Donald Trump today on Capitol Hill expressed frustration over Republican holdouts for his "One Big, Beautiful Bill." One Republican in particular found himself in Trump's cross hairs: Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., who has criticized the bill. Trump laid into him saying, "I don't think Thomas Massie understands government. I think he's a grandstander, frankly. He'll probably vote [no] - we don't even talk to him much. I think he should be voted out of office. I just don't think he understands government." "If you ask him a couple of questions, he never gives you an answer... he just says:...

Sen. Rand Paul attacked the economic logic of President Donald Trump’s aggressive tariff strategy on Sunday — and agreed that the policies raise constitutional concerns. The Kentucky Republican said Trump’s sweeping tariffs on foreign trading partners are based on “an economic fallacy” about trade deficits and objected to the president’s move to pursue them without congressional approval during an interview on ABC’s “The Week.” “In the past, the court has allowed these things, but I think it’ll be an interesting thing because most tariffs in our history have been passed by Congress,” he said. “We’ve never had widespread tariffs that...

The first Democrat is now officially running for Sen. Mitch McConnell's seat. Pamela Stevenson, the top-ranking Democrat in the Republican-led Kentucky House, has launched her bid for the seat. Stevenson, a retired Air Force colonel, has served in the state House since 2021. Republican and former attorney general, Daniel Cameron, is also running for McConnell's seat. There are several other Republicans considering running, including Congressman Andy Barr. McConnell announced in February he would not seek re-election. His term ends in January 2027.

At least 14 deaths have been confirmed from violent tornadoes that swept through the commonwealth late Friday evening into early Saturday morning, causing significant damage in the London and Somerset areas. The wave of tornadoes flattened buildings, destroyed cars, kept thousands without power and collapsed homes and neighborhoods throughout southeastern Kentucky. The worry was that after the sun rose on Saturday more could be found injured or dead. It was the worst tornado in Somerset since 2012 when six people were killed. Gov. Andy Beshear issued a state of emergency Friday night in anticipation of the severe storms that were...

GOP senators have raised concerns about the deficit impact of the emerging package, as well as the cuts to Medicaid and clean energy funding. WASHINGTON — As House Republicans scramble to corral the votes to pass a massive bill for President Donald Trump's agenda, their Senate counterparts are making clear the emerging package won’t fly as written when it reaches them.Sen. John Hoeven, R-N.D., was categorical that the product coming out of various House committees cannot pass the Senate as it currently stands.“No. We’ll make changes,” Hoeven said. “We’ve been talking with the House and there’s a lot of things...

A Mag 4.1 earthquake just a few miles south of Knoxville TN at 9:00 EDT 10 May 2025 shook the geological region around between Knoxville and Atlanta GA this morning. No nationally reported reports of damage or injuries, but a low magnitude earthquake less than 5.0 seldom causes much damage. Hillside rock falls and tree falls in the already wet soil after several days of rain are likely the closer to the epicenter one goes. Unlike California's very broken earth and rocks, where small magnitude earthquakes are not felt very distance from the epicenter, the very large, very rigid Eastern...

The Democrat and RINO effort to blow up Trump’s global tariffs suffered an embarrassing failure in the Senate this evening after two senators failed to vote. As The Gateway Pundit reported, Senator Rand Paul (RINO-KY) had sponsored a resolution that would have terminated ALL of Trump’s tariffs, including those on America’s top adversary, China. The vote deadlocked 49-49, meaning it failed by one vote. But there were three Republicans who voted to stab Trump in the back and end the global tariffs: Rand Paul of Kentucky Susan Collins of Maine Lisa Murkowski of Alaska Senators Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) and Senator...

President Donald Trump will veto a Senate resolution aimed at ending his global tariffs, even though the measure has bipartisan support. The White House warned several lawmakers in a letter sent to congressional offices. Senators Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and Rand Paul, R-Ky., are supporting the resolution. Paul, who has been a fierce critic of Trump’s tariffs, recently told the Wall Street Journal that he is "not alone" in his skepticism of the administration’s tariff policies. He also noted that "millions of investors who are self-interested have misgivings about tariffs." The administration reportedly wrote in its warning to lawmakers that it...

"GOP Sen. Rand Paul says he expects to have enough votes in Senate to pass resolution to effectively block Trump’s tariffs. But Paul, who expects the vote Wednesday, attacked Speaker Johnson’s move to block such resolutions as “dishonesty.”" *** The background to this, via Politico: The White House warned that Trump will veto a bipartisan Senate resolution that would terminate his sweeping global “Liberation Day” tariffs. The statement of administration policy from the Office of Management and Budget, sent to congressional offices Monday, comes ahead of an expected vote this week forced by several Democrats led by Sen. Ron Wyden...

The University of Louisville has agreed to pay nearly $1.6 million to settle a lawsuit filed by a former professor after he was fired for criticizing sex change surgeries and hormone therapies for children. Dr. Allan Josephson worked for nearly 15 years as the chief of the University of Louisville’s Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Psychology. In his lawsuit, Josephson asserts that he successfully revitalized the underperforming department during his tenure, earning exemplary marks in his annual performance evaluations from 2014 to 2016. In spite of his professional accolades, the complaint alleges that he was demoted in 2017,...

Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., is continuing his push against President Donald Trump's tariffs, with legislation he is co-sponsoring against them to come before the Senate next week. Paul says lawmakers should be in control of tariffs, rather than Trump, through the use of a national-emergency law. The discussion will come less than a month after Paul was one of the only two chamber Republicans to vote against his party's budget, which is seen as a key part of the president's tax cuts, The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday. "I don't have any bad feelings towards the president, but this is...

Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) said on Sunday he does not think the law would allow President Trump to send United States citizens convicted of violent crimes to Salvadoran prisons, despite the president’s suggestion that he might be open to that possibility. “No, ma’am. Nor should it be considered appropriate or moral,” Kennedy told NBC News’s Kristen Welker when asked on “Meet the Press” whether he thinks such a move would be legal. “We have our own laws,” he continued. “We have the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution. We shouldn’t send prisoners to foreign countries in my judgment.” Trump, in a...

WEST POINT, Ky. (WDRB) -- Some Kentucky flood victims say they’re being denied federal assistance, not because they weren’t impacted by the recent natural disasters, but because of where their mailbox happens to be. Tommy Stucker lost two homes on Dixie Beach Road near West Point — one damaged by a tornado, the other by flooding. But despite the devastation, Stucker said he’s been told by FEMA that he does not qualify for aid. “They said that my area was not under a disaster relief yet,” Stucker said. Stucker’s property is technically in Jefferson County — just feet away from...

The president will direct agencies to boost coal leasing, mining and exports. But these steps are unlikely to usher in a coal renaissance.President Donald Trump plans to sign an executive order Tuesday aimed at boosting the struggling U.S. coal industry, according to White House officials.Flanked by coal miners wearing hard hats at the White House, Trump will direct federal agencies to loosen various restrictions on coal mining, leasing and exports. He will instruct the Interior Department to resume coal leasing on millions of acres of public lands, and he will order the Energy Department and other agencies to study whether...

Sen. Rand Paul — a right-wing firebrand from a deep red state — is in some ways an unlikely figure to articulate a searing case against Donald Trump’s agenda. But the senator from Kentucky is issuing a stark warning to fellow Republicans that Trump’s tariff policies could lead to a generational political loss for the party. And he’s raking in surprising praise from his Democratic colleagues as he pushes back relentlessly on the airwaves and the Senate floor against what he describes as Trump’s executive overreach and infringement on Congress. In an impassioned floor speech ahead of his vote to...

President Donald Trump has fired several members of his National Security Council team. DailyMail.com confirmed an Axios report released Thursday morning. The dismissals come after National Security Advisor Michael Waltz accidentally added The Atlantic's editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg to a Signal chat where top administration officials were discussing an attack on the Houthis in Yemen. Trump has publicly supported Waltz, a former Florida congressman, in the aftermath of Signalgate, despite some White House insiders labeling him a 'f***ing idiot.' However The New York Times reported Thursday morning that far-right conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer visited the Oval Office on Wednesday and pressed...

Just hours after President Donald Trump announced massive new tariffs on nearly all imports to the United States, a bipartisan group of senators made the first push to stop the most nonsensical part of Trump's global trade war. With a 51-48 vote, the Senate approved a resolution to block Trump's tariffs on imports from Canada, which he imposed by declaring an economic emergency in early February. The measure to cancel that emergency declaration, sponsored by Sens. Tim Kaine (D–Va.) and Rand Paul (R–Ky), faces an uncertain future in the Republican-controlled House and a near-certain veto if it reaches Trump's desk—but...

A bipartisan pair of senators is warning the White House that recent US strikes on the Houthis in Yemen risk “emboldening” the Iranian-backed group and flouted the law regarding congressional oversight of military operations. The letter from Sens. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., and Rand Paul, R-Ky., shared first with Semafor, concerns the strikes that have made headlines recently.... “Neither the U.S. strikes since October 2023 ordered by President Joe Biden, nor the previous years-long campaign against the Houthis conducted by Saudi Arabia were successful in establishing deterrence against the Houthis,” Merkley and Paul wrote in the letter sent to President Donald...