Tagged: Rand Paul

The effort to legalize industrial hemp is gaining steam nationally and in Kentucky. State lawmakers will hold a hearing today in Frankfort about the issue, and some heavy-hitters are lined up to back the effort.

Appearing at Monday's hearing will be U.S. Sen. Rand Paul, U.S. Representatives John Yarmuth and Thomas Massie, and former CIA Director James Woolsey. Also appearing will be Kentucky Agriculture Commissioner James Comer, who has made the legalization of industrial hemp his number one legislative priority.

Law enforcement groups remain opposed to legalizing hemp because they say it will be impossible to distinguish between hemp and marijuana. Supporters say it's not difficult to tell the difference between the two plants.

Kentucky Public Radio Frankfort Bureau Chief Kenny Colston is covering today's hearing on hemp and we'll have updates online, at our Facebook page, and during our state and regional newscasts later today on All Things Considered.

Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul has been chosen to deliver the Tea Party's response to President Obama's State of the Union Address Tuesday night.

The Bowling Green Republican will follow Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, who will give the official Republican response to the President's speech. Paul has admitted he is considering a run for the White House in 2016, and recently told reporters he wants to find a way to "part of the national debate."

WKU Public Radio is airing live coverage of the President's State of the Union address and the Republican response. That coverage begins Tuesday at 8 p.m. central/9 eastern.

This will be the third time the Tea Party has offered a response to President Obama's State of the Union address. Sen. Paul will speak from the National Press Club in Washington D.C.

Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul says the President shouldn't be able to authorize drone strikes on U.S. citizens until there is some sort of review process in place.

Speaking Sunday on CNN's "State of the Union" program, the Republican from Bowling Green said that it was "very unseemly that a politician gets to decide the death of an American citizen."

"They should answer about this 16-year-old boy, al-Awlaki’s son, that was killed, not in collateral damage but in a separate strike. They never answered that. I think you should be tried for treason if you’re an American citizen, you go overseas and you take up arms. I’m probably for executing you but I want to hear the evidence," Sen. Paul said.

Paul was referring to Abdulrahman al-Awlaki, the teenager son of Anwar al-Awlaki, an American-born al- Qaeda propagandist killed by a U.S. drone strike in Yemen a year ago. The teenager was killed in a separate strike some two weeks after his father was killed.