U.S. Senator Rand Paul Discusses Fauci, COVID, Inflation, & More During Stop In Brownsville1/26/2022 Darren Doyle, story and photos: Dr. Rand Paul, U.S. Senator, made a brief stop in Brownsville this afternoon to discuss a variety of issues and answer questions in the Edmonson County Community Center. The first topic he addressed was the COVID pandemic. "I think what's clear now, is that particularly the statistics that've come out, they've looked at a million people, the CDC did, and wanted to know what was the protection from vaccination and the protection from being infected," he said at the event. "They found that those who are vaccinated vs. unvaccinated were 20 times less likely to be in the hospital--if you'd been vaccinated. They also found that if you'd had the disease previously, whether you were vaccinated or not, you were 55 times less likely to be in the hospital than someone unvaccinated." Dr. Paul said it was important to know that there is value for someone with natural immunity, which he said was not discussed in the mainstream near enough. He said he was opposed to vaccination mandates, especially for kids. "If you want to, fine. It's a free country and people should make their own decisions," he said. "The reason we shouldn't force them is this: the death rate for children from COVID is about one in a million. The death rate for being struck by lightning is greater than being killed from COVID for kids. We don't mandate you wear a helmet with a lightning rod on it when you go outside, so we really shouldn't mandate that you should vaccinate your kids." He also said that boys from the ages of 16 to 24 have a greater risk of heart inflammation with the more vaccines they take. "I think it's complete idiocy and malpractice for colleges to be saying your kid has to have a booster," he said. He then said the former argument was that vaccinating children was also for the benefit of older relatives but he said that's now no longer true. "The vaccine doesn't stop you from catching it or transmitting it," he said. "If you've been vaccinated and I'm not, and each of us get COVID, there's a 25% we infect someone in our household whether you've vaccinated or not. Once again, not an argument for not being vaccinated, vaccinated probably keeps you out of the hospital, but it is an argument against mandating this, and I just don't see forbidding kids to go to school, not letting them play sports, not letting them be in choir if they haven't been vaccinated. I think it should be the parents' choice. I'm the same way on the masks. The cloth masks don't work. Even the CDC admits it now, even doctors on CNN, who are usually inclined for more government, the doctors on CNN are saying they are facial decorations, the cloth masks. So why would we mandate that your kid be in a mask all day long that doesn't even really work?" He encouraged those with COVID to seek treatment early and that kids were never really the problem with spreading the virus. He also said that lockdowns were not the answer to keep the virus from spreading. He referred to the CDC again. "If you look at the CDC website, over the age of 65, 97% of the people over 65 got vaccinated. So, overwhelmingly, the people who were at risk got vaccinated. And really, it's not so bad for those above age 50--it's like 80% of the people did. So it isn't that nobody was getting vaccinated, the truth is, virtually everybody got vaccinated. And so, I don't think we need to mandate something that most people chose voluntarily. To me, it's inconsistent with who we are as a country to tell you what kind of medicine you have to take and what kind of injections you have to take." Dr. Paul said that while he would recommend it, he reiterated that he was opposed to the mandates. He said he supported the state legislation that limited the powers of the governor and felt like the country was on its way out of the pandemic. "Overall, I think the country is strong and we can get through this. It's pitted us a little bit against each other and I don't like that, but the difference between the philosophies of those who believe in mandates and those who don't is, I have an opinion on masks, but I'm not going to make you accept my opinion. You can wear 'em, you can put your kids in 'em, that's your decision, but the people on the other side, who believe that they're so fervently right, want to tell you what to do and they're going to mandate your behavior, and there's something wrong with that." He said that's why no one person should be in charge of medicine. "We've given Dr. Fauci too much power over the rest of us, and it really should be, you go to your doctor and if you don't like your doctor's opinion, you get another doctor's opinion, and that's the way it should work in a free country." Dr. Paul said the battle against inflation is tough because all the stimulus money paid out by the U.S. Government was borrowed and that simply put, more money was printed to make it happen. As a result, the costs of goods and services are going up and it's a classic lesson that reflects nothing in life is free. "We're still borrowing a great deal this year, and I think inflation gets worse next year." He later asked for any questions from the crowd and the Edmonson Voice asked him his stance on the voting rights bill, specifically about voter suppression in the United States.
"There's no voter suppression in our country. None," he replied. "In fact, the Supreme Court looked at this a while back, and there was a time in the south when there was voter suppression and the federal government got involved and through (the) Voting Rights of 1965, the federal government policed state elections. They looked at this in 2012 and they pulled back. And the reason they did is, they looked at Alabama, Mississippi, and South Carolina where it had been a problem in the sixties and they measured the vote, and they found out that African-Americans vote at the same rate as white Americans or higher. In 2020, more people voted than have ever voted...so really, it's dishonest. The people who are trying to push this voting rights bill, what they're trying to push is a votes-by-mail bill, where you don't have to show any identification, and groups can go in and gather--I mean, how many people would think it would be a fair election for your next judge-executive if one person can bring in 5,000 votes in a box, give them to you and then we count them. Wouldn't people suspect that some of them might not be real? But the thing is, voting in person works. A republican and a democrat sit at a desk, and there's a book. It's not rocket science here. The democrat watches the republican to make sure he or she doesn't cheat and vice versa, and there can't be more votes than the people in the book. But all of the sudden, when votes are flooding in and more people vote than are actually in the book, that's a problem." After he finished speaking to the audience he took a few minutes for some photos and spoke to the Voice individually. We asked him what was the status of his ongoing feud with Dr. Anthony Fauci. "I think it's most important, not necessarily him or I, but it's important that if this pandemic came from a lab in China, that we get to the bottom of that and try to make sure it doesn't happen again," he answered. "He's been in favor of research where you take a known virus that has lethality or deadliness and you combine it with an unknown, and you experiment to create new viruses that are not found in nature. That's called Gain-of-Function research. I think that's very dangerous and we shouldn't be doing it in China or in the U.S. And so, if we take over, if the republicans win the senate, we'll investigate the origins of the virus, but also investigate whether or not we should be sending taxpayer dollars to do research that I think could've caused this pandemic." The Senator also took a short tour of the senior food pantry, also located in the Community Center and said he would try to find ways to provide aid in that area. Dr. Paul also reportedly made stops in Munfordville, E-town, and Brandenburg today. You can connect with Senator Paul by emailing him at this link.
1 Comment
verlon s harder
2/5/2022 09:14:27 am
Not a fan of him at all
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