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Sen. Rand Paul took a stand Thursday — and he wasn’t alone.In his latest move to buck his party leadership on the floor, the Kentucky Republican invoked an obscure 1970s law to force the Senate to vote on selling $700 million worth of fighter jets to Pakistan. While Paul got his debate on the floor and a roll-call vote, the Senate scuttled his effort, 71-24, on a procedural vote.“I can’t in good conscience look away as America crumbles at home and politicians tax us to send the money to corrupt and duplicitous regimes abroad,” Paul said on the Senate floor Thursday. “Pakistan is at best a frenemy. Part friend — and a lot of enemy.”But just because the Senate voted against Paul doesn't mean he's standing alone. In fact, Senate Foreign Relations Chairman Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) says he shares Paul's concerns about selling $700 million in F-16 fighter jets to Pakistan when the country has failed to root out the Haqqani network, the Taliban offshoot that's used Pakistan as a safe haven to launch attacks in Afghanistan, including against U.S. troops.Corker says he’s allowing the F-16 sale to proceed, but he's blocking Pakistan’s request for U.S. help to finance the deal, which he can do single-handedly as Foreign Relations chairman. Still, he said bluntly on the Senate floor that he disagreed with Paul’s tactics, if not his overall aims.When the history books get written on this stuff, none of this is going to compute. Trying to wrap my head around why we're giving $700 million away in military technology to a country that many suspect kep Osama's wherabouts a secret, and that teaches and spreads the same sort of extremist ideology that we've been trying to stem off for almost two decades now. The military industrial complex has a firm grip on our politicians' nuts. It's pathetic. Are their no other legit buyers out there? , sell it to one of them at a lower cost if you've got to. Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2016/0...#ixzz42XE7eu7G
