As Travis Waldron explained this morning, Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) put a hold on a transportation bill that has broad bipartisan support in an attempt to force the Senate to enact his preferred policy on aid to Egypt. Although Paul’s tactic cannot prevent the widely supported bill from passing if Majority Leader Reid Harry (D-NV) decides to force the issue, Paul’s recalcitrance can force the Senate to waste up to 30 hours of floor time before it can receive a final vote.

Unfortunately, Paul is not just restricting this obstructionist tactic to one bill:

Paul is holding up confirmation of one of President Obama’s judicial nominees, Adalberto Jose Jordan, to the United States Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit. The nomination cleared a procedural hurdle with an overwhelming 89-5 vote Monday evening.

But Paul is forcing the Senate to conduct at least some of the remaining 30 hours of required debate on the judicial nominee. Often, that time requirement is waived by senators when an issue gains wide bipartisan support.

Thirty hours does not sound like a lot, until you multiply it across all the other business that the Senate needs to consider. Indeed, if Paul can force 30 hours of delay every time the Senate tries to confirm a single nominee, he can prevent Congress from completing any other business for years:

This is why the Senate’s broken rules cannot coexist with the Tea Party. So long as there are just a handful of senators willing to engage in maximal delay over petty disagreements, each individual member of the Senate cannot enjoy this power to gum up the entire body.

WASHINGTON, DC — Seven months after endorsing Mitt Romney, a prominent congressional candidate in Utah admonished the presidential hopeful’s “self-deportation” policy, dismissing it as not “practical” and “not going to happen.”

Sandstrom, a state representative is running in Utah’s newly-created 4th congressional district, made the remarks during an interview with ThinkProgress on Saturday at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington, DC.

Despite endorsing Romney for president last July, Sandstrom had few kind words to offer the Massachusetts Republican on the subject of immigration. “I think we’re sticking our heads in the sand if we think that 12 million people are going to leave this country. They’re not,” insisted the Utah GOPer. He went on to say that if Republicans “keep ignoring the Hispanic population,” they will “relegate [them]selves to a minority party.”

SANDSTROM: Once we’ve done those two things, I think we can look at the people already here. I want to look at the people already here because I think we’re sticking our heads in the sand if we think that 12 million people are going to leave this country. They’re not.

KEYES: You think “self-deportation” is not really practical?

SANDSTROM: No, I don’t think self-deportation is practical. [...]

KEYES: Someone like Mitt Romney who is advocating this policy of self-deportation, has members like Kris Kobach on his campaign team. Do you think that’s going to send the wrong message nationally for Republicans?

SANDSTROM: I think the idea of self-deportation can happen in the extent that if you can’t qualify, if you’ve been a criminal element, we want you to leave and self-deport or go, but not for all 12 million. I think that’s where I differ slightly from Romney is that I think that’s not going to happen. I think that we need to look at a way to help the people that have not been criminals in this country or the people that were brought here at a young age to remain, because if we don’t do that, I think that’s one thing as a Republican Party, even as a conservative, we are going to relegate ourselves to a minority party if we keep ignoring the Hispanic population in this country and the Hispanic vote.

In his current position as state representative, Sandstrom has gained notoriety for championing a Utah immigration bill that many have compared to Arizona’s infamous SB 1070 legislation. Though the bill was defeated in the Utah House last week, 37-36, Sandstrom is still pushing to revive the measure.

Sandstrom is certainly no moderate on immigration, yet even he knows that Romney’s policy of “self-deportation” is laughable. Still, at least one Romney endorser is sticking by the presidential candidate’s immigration idea: Kansas Secretary of State and SB 1070 author Kris Kobach.

Appearing on a webcast hosted by the conservative Family Research Council, Walker Nickless, the Bishop of Diocese of Sioux City, Iowa, warned the Obama administration’s new contraception policy is the work of “the devil,” who “wants to silence the [Catholic] Church’s voice.” During the interview, first flagged by Right Wing Watch, Nickless said, “The power of evil, the devil, is certainly looking everywhere where the power of evil can make a difference.” “And that’s why we’ve got to stand up and violently oppose this,” he added, “we cannot let darkness overshadow us.” Watch it:

While it’s unclear if Nickless is calling for literal violence in opposition to the mandate — something that’s difficult to square with Jesus Christ’s teaching that “if someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other” — or merely calling for strong resistance, his comment underscores the extreme rhetoric with which some religious conservatives have responded to the Obama Administration’s effort to ensure that all women have access to contraception. Some recently told Sean Hannity they’d be willing to die before complying with the law.

Whatever the scope of the Second Amendment may be after the Supreme Court’s decision in DC v. Heller, it unambiguously does not apply to private businesses. Nevertheless, Starbucks has been caught up in a two year fight over its permissive guns policy ever since gun advocates started meeting — with their firearms openly displayed — in California Starbuckses two years ago.

Starting today, gun reform advocates are renewing their push for Starbucks to change its policy. The National Gun Victim’s Action Council (NGAC) announced a Starbucks boycott until the company prevents customers from openly carrying guns in their coffee shops. “Starbucks allowing guns to be carried in thousands of their stores significantly increases everyone’s risk of being a victim of gun violence,” said Elliot Fineman, the council’s CEO. The Fellowship of Reconciliation posted an open letter to Starbucks asking the corporation to change its policy for the sake of public safety:

Today, we ask you to take the next logical step in corporate responsibility and leadership. Join Disney, IKEA, Peets, California Pizza Kitchen, and other chains to ban handguns and other firearms in your stores. It is…a matter of providing an inclusive, supportive, and safe work environment, not only for your partners but also your customers. Now that you have made the corporate decision to sell beer and wine in your stores, the issue of public safety is heightened: guns and alcohol do not mix.

The Firearms Council countered with its own petition, calling on its supporters to thank Starbucks for “recognizing the importance of choice.”

But public support and data are on the side of the gun reform advocates. In 2010, 56 percent of people surveyed said they favored Starbucks and other businesses having strict anti-gun policies. In California, the San Mateo County Sheriff’s Office warned that it is not recommended to openly carry a gun because police officers cannot quickly distinguish between an armed person who is a danger to others and “people are simply ‘exercising their rights.’” And a study in 2000 found that there is no evidence that “permissive gun carry laws” would deter criminals. “Until proven otherwise, the best science indicates that more guns will lead to more deaths,” the researchers wrote.

Sen. Scott Brown’s (R-MA) entire re-election campaign messaging is centered around his alleged independence — trying to sell him to Massachusetts voters as being for them and not a creature of his party. Given that Democrats enjoy about a 20-point advantage over Republicans in party leanings in the Bay State, Brown’s only hope for victory against Democrat Elizabeth Warren this November is successfully distancing himself from the unpopular national GOP establishment. But revelations about his coordination with the national party and a ThinkProgress examination of his campaign fundraising suggest the freshman Republican’s record does not match his rhetoric.

In his campaign kickoff last month, Brown boasted:

Once again I won’t have the political establishment behind me – not the one on Beacon Hill, and certainly not the one on Capitol Hill. All I will have going for me is my independent record as your United States Senator, and the independent spirit of the Massachusetts voter. I’ll take those advantages any day over the political machine, and with your help in this campaign we will beat the odds again together.

Brown has attempted to solidify his independence by taking credit for an agreement in which he and Warren agreed try to prevent outside groups from spending their money on independent expenditure advertisements. But according to a Huffington Post report, even that non-coordination agreement was a product of Brown campaign coordination with the top lawyer for the National Republican Senatorial Campaign (NRSC), the Washington, DC-based party committee charged with electing Republican candidates to the Senate. The Microsoft Word document files sent to reporters by the Brown campaign indicated that the NRSC counsel authored both the original version of the agreement and the cover letter.

This coordination between candidates and the national party committees is nothing unusual, but is hardly the benchmark of a candidate without the political establishment behind him.

Beyond just the logistical aid, the Brown campaign has received significant financial backing from the Republican establishment. The NRSC has already given Brown $43,100 — the legal maximum.

And it’s not the just party committee opening its wallet to back Brown; his campaign has received $134,500 from the leadership PACs of former Gov. Mitt Romney (R-MA) and 20 of his Senate Republican colleagues. That total includes $10,000 from Sen. Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s (KY) Bluegrass Committee, $5,000 from Sen. Minority Whip Jon Kyl’s (AZ) Senate Majority Fund, and $10,000 from NRSC Chairman John Cornyn’s (TX) Alamo PAC.

Again–this sort of national party support is typical for a vulnerable member of either party. But, given Brown’s instance that he belongs not to the national GOP but to the Massachusetts voters, that level of “typical” is precisely the problem.