Pop Media Misreport DC Protesters Accosting Rand Paul, Who Sponsored the Breonna Taylor Bill

P. Gardner Goldsmith | August 31, 2020
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If there were a proverbial “cake” for self-righteous, thuggish ignorance, and if there were another cake for ignorant or misleading pop media reporting, this would take both in a sugar-high feast.

As many conservatives and libertarians knew almost immediately after the event, Kentucky Senator Rand Paul (R), his wife, and a police officer were surrounded and accosted by hundreds of near-rioting “protesters” last Thursday as the attendees walked back from President Donald Trump’s speech concluding the Republican National Convention in Washington, D.C.

And, evidently eager not to surprise, the “protesters” not only shoved the Pauls around, as Robby Soave writes for Reason, one kindly thug tried to “bicycle” the couple.

The police prevented the protesters from getting close to the Pauls, but there was a great deal of shoving. Someone attempted to throw a bike at them, and the officer escorting the Pauls was briefly knocked off balance. Sen. Paul later told Fox News that he feared for their safety.

And since Paul was attacked in his own yard by a neighbor in 2017 -- an attack that was so vicious Rand suffered six broken ribs and a punctured lung – and he was present when a gunman attacked Republicans at a D.C. softball gathering the same year, it’s sensible to assume he now has a pretty good sense of dangerous aggressors.

’I truly believe this with every fiber of my being, had they gotten at us they would have gotten us to the ground, we might not have been killed, might just have been injured by being kicked in the head, or kicked in the stomach until we were senseless,’ he said.

If that weren’t enough, while the new gang of thugs jostled and harassed, many decided to expose their trashy ignorance by shouting at Rand, “Say her name!” implying he'd been ignoring the shooting death of Breonna Taylor, the 26-year-old woman who died after plainclothes Louisville Metro police executed a no-knock search warrant and allegedly shot her eight times on March 13.

If the agitators had spent a bit more time finding out about Rand, they might have known that he has “said her name.” In fact, Senator Rand Paul is the man who sponsored the “Justice for Breonna Taylor Act” to federally PROHIBIT no-knock warrants, he sponsored legislation to prohibit the use of drones on Americans, and, as Reason also has pointed out, he has been one of the most consistent politicians when it comes to speaking out against the unconstitutional militarization of local and state police forces around America.

Evidently, a few minutes following such news is too much for these D.C. thugs as they wallow in their mind-boggling ignorance.

Likewise, actual journalism might be too much heavy lifting for many pop media outlets. For example, US News offered this headline on an Associated Press report that they spread:

Sen. Paul Complains About 'Angry Mob' Encounter After RNC

Uh. Yeah. US News editors? There’s video of this. Everywhere… Why frame it as a somehow over-sensitive Rand Paul “complaining” about an “angry mob” as if he is mischaracterizing the people who yelled at him and surrounded him and his wife?

And why not embed the video? It’s not copyrighted. 

Perhaps you did all this to shade the truth? Perhaps you don’t want people to actually know that the crowd was belligerent, verbally and physically abusive, and that Rand wasn’t simply a “complainer”?

Then there’s what sometimes appears to be a pro-liberty, but is increasingly disappointing Forbes Magazine, which published a piece by Lisetta Voytko titled:

Rand Paul Says ‘Crazed Mob’ Attacked Him By White House, But Videos Raise Questions

Really?

In a manner similar to ABC News, which described the mob as merely “rowdy,” Voytko questioned his sense of threat. She questioned what any reasonable person can see in a minute-long video as the Pauls ARE followed by a huge mob, surrounded, cramped in, shoved, yelled-at, and forced to stumble and halt their forward progress, even as a cop is shoved and Rand asks him if he’s okay.

Attempting to frame this as anything other than what it is – which is a bunch of ignorant thugs going after the one guy in D.C. who has not only tried to constrain the growing police-state in the U.S., but also the guy who has tried to get the U.S. to spend less, to get soldiers home, and to get D.C. a bit closer to the U.S. Constitution -- is obscene.

But this kind of journalistic malfeasance will, no doubt, continue, as the leftists pushing it ride their sugar-highs and keep turning away from reality. Let's just hope that some of the thuggish folks out there wake up and realize that violent threats against Rand Paul are beneath contempt and reflect how blind they are to who Rand is and what he has tried to do to pull back unconstitutional police activity.

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