(RepublicanWire.org) – Kentucky Senate Democratic nominee, Charles Booker, released a disgusting ad attacking Senator Rand Paul with the suggestion that he’s pro-lynching.
Charles Booker, a former state lawmaker who is the Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate in Kentucky, released a video Wednesday that attacks Paul for opposing an anti-lynching bill in 2020. The ad does not mention why Paul opposed the bill, or that he co-sponsored a new bipartisan version of that legislation this year that went on to become law.
“My opponent?” he continues, as an image of Paul grimacing appears. “The very person who compared expanded health care to slavery. The person who said he would have opposed the Civil Rights Act. The person who single-handedly blocked an anti-lynching act from being federal law.”
“The choice couldn’t be clearer,” Booker states as the camera shifts back to him. “Do we move forward together? Or do we let politicians like Rand Paul forever hold us back and drive us apart?”
The ad takes Rand Paul’s remarks and positions out of context, especially with regard to the anti-lynching proposal that he blocked.
In 2020 Paul held up a bill that would make lynching a federal hate crime, however, that’s not the full story. Paul said at the time that lynching should be “universally condemned,” but objected to language in the bill that included non-fatal injuries as lynching.
“If you’re gonna call something an anti-lynching bill, but you’re gonna have a new conspiracy charge for someone who has minor bruising, we don’t think that’s appropriate. And someone has to read these bills and make sure they do what they say they’re going to do rather than it be just a big PR effort, and then everybody gets up in arms and wants to beat up anybody who wants to read the bill, and actually make the bill stronger,” he told reporters.
In 2022, Paul co-sponsored an updated version of that bill with Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) that addressed his concerns.
“Strengthening the language of this bill has been my goal all along, and I’m pleased to have worked with Senators Cory Booker and Tim Scott to get this right and ensure the language of this bill defines lynching as the absolutely heinous crime that it is,” said Dr. Paul. “I’m glad to cosponsor this bipartisan effort and urge the Senate to quickly pass it.”
The ad by Booker, was called “powerful” by some media organizations.
