Rand Paul: Making clear my positions on the Trump recounts, COVID, lockdowns, schools, and masks

Sometimes it’s hard to know where to begin when someone throws a ton of crap against a wall to see what sticks, as was the case in a recent NKY Tribune column by Bill Straub. I’ll give it a shot though, because your readers deserve some modicum of truth and fairness, as well as words from my own mouth rather than those distorted and misunderstood by the ill-informed.

The screed began by attacking me for my support for President Trump, and for continuing to believe that he is entitled to recounts, legal challenges and fair play in our electoral system. In case it wasn’t noticed by the liberal media, it isn’t just me who supports him. It’s the state I represent, and by a large margin. I don’t think it’s spilling a lot of bourbon in Kentucky that I continue that support, even though it might upset some liberal editorial writers.

I do not know all the answers and never claimed to. I raised some and more importantly I backed the president’s right to raise them and have them adjudicated in a court of law. I’m glad a bunch of people who couldn’t pass high school statistics don’t see some anomalies in the vote counts. That doesn’t mean they don’t exist, and this kind of thing should always be checked into carefully, which is all we and many Kentuckians are asking.

The system that was set up this year in many states, with greater mail voting, is inherently a problem. It is more difficult to ascertain the validity of the ballot than it is with in person voting. That’s why we’ve traditionally limited the practice to those who had no choice.

The data dumps that I and others have referred to are anomalous because they show large winning percentages in excess of 90 percent for one candidate, and they contrast with every other dump in the spread between the candidates.

For the first time in history, we had tens of millions of mail-in votes. Is it too much to ask that they be validated in ways that satisfy the questions that our side has? I think not.

Our elections should be free and fair. We should likely revert to our traditional methods of voting in the future to avoid such questions, but for now, we deserve full and complete answers.

On the subject of COVID, lockdowns, masks and our schools, I will apologize to no one for my advocacy on behalf of the people of Kentucky – workers, business owners, schoolchildren, parents and everyone.

In fact, on the subject of schools, the one who should get an apology is me, from Dr. Fauci and every member of the liberal media who attacked me from May through now for saying schools should be open.

“Follow the science” was a mantra used by many this spring and summer to justify things that science did not, in fact, justify. The most prominent of these is closing schools. We had a multitude of evidence from last year that schoolchildren were not especially affected by COVID, that they weren’t good spreaders, and that the disease was less deadly to them than the yearly seasonal flu. Every country where this was studied agreed. The American Academy of Pediatricians agreed. The CDC now agrees.

I was the one who publicly stood up for parents and kids in the spring and summer, when others would not and I’ll continue to do that.

On the subject of lockdowns, the evidence doesn’t show much difference in states or countries that had them vs. the ones who didn’t. This virus is unfortunately going to naturally progress while we continue to work for a vaccine, and by being as safe was we can while keeping our economy open.

Lastly on the subject of masks — the author clearly cannot read and intentionally made my argument that cloth masks don’t really help much into an argument against all mask wearing. That’s not true. Here is my actual position.

As the only one in this argument who is a surgeon and wore masks daily for a living, of course I believe those masks work. Hospital/Surgical/N95 masks can both stop the spread of most diseases and marginally help the wearer as well.

But cloth masks, especially with the way I see most people wearing them, are largely for show or of minimal benefit. And the fact is, government mandates for mask wearing won’t work and are not within the power of government to enforce. If you want to wear one — great. If you are symptomatic, you should try to stay home. If you’re high risk, protect yourselves in any way you can, hopefully soon with a vaccine.

But this anti-science, economy destroying, child-harming nonsense from the petty tyrants and their media sycophants needs to stop, and I’ll keep sounding the alarm against them and fighting for a strong, healthy and free Kentucky.

Rand Paul is a U.S. Senator from Kentucky.