Republican Sen. Rand Paul finally ended a 13-hour filibuster speech on the floor of the U.S. Senate on Thursday March 7, putting an end to his vocal stand against President Obama's drone policy and his nomination of John Brennan to be director of the CIA.
Paul began the speech at around 11:45 a.m. on Wednesday March 6. He stopped speaking around 12:40 a.m. on Thursday.
"I'm going to speak as long as I can to draw attention to something I find very disturbing," Paul said.
During his speech, Paul insisted that either Obama or Attorney General Eric Holder ensure that the drones will not be used to eliminate terrorism suspects in the U.S. He read aloud articles regarding the proliferation of unmanned weapons. Other conservative senators stood nearby to show support. Other speakers shook Paul's hand before temporarily taking the stage. According to Senate rules, legislators are allowed to put questions to the speaker, but whoever is conducting the filibuster must remain on the floor.
Among the bizarre events during the speech were Republican Sen. Ted Cruz's reading from Shakespeare's "Henry V" along with lines from the 1970 film "Patton." Republican Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida quoted rappers Jay-Z and Wiz Khalifa as well as the film "The Godfather."
"I rise today to begin to filibuster John Brennan's nomination for the CIA," Paul said. "I will speak until I can no longer speak. I will speak as long as it takes, until the alarm is sounded from coast to coast that our Constitution is important, that your rights to trial by jury are precious, that no American should be killed by a drone on American soil without first being charged with a crime, without first being found to be guilty by a court."
Although Brennan's nomination is expected to go through, Paul claims that the true aim of the speech was to set some clear limitations on the president's power, especially with regard to drones.
Social media was ablaze with commentary during and after the filibuster, including Twitter, with the hashtag #IStandWithRand going viral.
"Word on the street is... @SenRandPaul has gained 15k followers in the past 2 hours. What whaaaat!? #holla #IStandWithRand," one person tweeted.
"As long as they don't start reading Atlas Shrugged on the senate floor... I gotta #StandWithRand on this one," another wrote.
