Very early this morning, the building housing Rand Paul’s office in Bowling Green went up in flames:
Fire Torches Building Housing Rand Paul's Bowling Green Office https://t.co/oKY8zoUm7h
— IndictedTrump2️⃣⏺2️⃣4⃣🍊 (@RealTrump2020_) July 21, 2023
"nine units responded to the scene – a total of 31 personnel" https://t.co/fYMKXyzhrA
— IndictedTrump2️⃣⏺2️⃣4⃣🍊 (@RealTrump2020_) July 21, 2023
And, yes, some people are jumping to the conclusion that this was 1) arson and 2) directed at Rand Paul.
BREAKING: Senator Rand Paul's office was destroyed this morning in a fire, this comes a day after announcing Fauci had been referred for investigation. pic.twitter.com/48Cu7rfLZL
— Patrick Webb (@pwleaks) July 21, 2023
BREAKING: The fire department is reportedly on scene at Rand Paul’s (R-KY) office in Bowling Green, Kentucky after it caught fire overnight. (story is still developing) pic.twitter.com/UVI83A6Haw
— TexasLindsay™ (@TexasLindsay_) July 21, 2023
Sen. Rand Paul’s office was not the only building impacted, the fire impacted multiple neighboring commercial businesses in downtown Bowling Green.
— TexasLindsay™ (@TexasLindsay_) July 21, 2023
A public information officer for the Bowling Green Fire Department, says no injuries have been reported. pic.twitter.com/VYh02Ew1q8
Several large tree limbs in front of Sen. Rand Paul's office had to be cut so a hose could reach the 2nd floor windows. Six units worked to extinguish the flames, with firefighters manning the aerials of trucks 1 and 6 to get at the fire from above. (Bowling Green Daily) pic.twitter.com/80t9ChetHN
— TexasLindsay™ (@TexasLindsay_) July 21, 2023
— TexasLindsay™ (@TexasLindsay_) July 21, 2023
We are certainly gratified to hear there were no injuries.
But to return to the suspicions, naturally, it is not impossible that some leftist or some other person who had a beef with Senator Paul decided to torch the place. But from what we have seen, there’s no showing that it is arson and even if it was arson, it appears to be the kind of building that has multiple offices, so we couldn’t assume Paul's office is being targeted. For instance, there is reportedly a law firm there, and do we have to tell you that sometimes lawyers make enemies?
But people do hate Rand Paul. Look at how many people regularly show support for that neighbor who attacked him. We aren’t saying that neighbor was politically motivated, but certainly the support for the attack by that neighbor is motivated by politics. And we know the left doesn’t mind arson as a tactic given the entire year of rioting we suffered in 2020.
However, many people have drawn the connections we aren’t ready to:
Omg.
— suzy (@Suzy_1776) July 21, 2023
Rand Paul’s office building on fire this morning. The roof has collapsed.
Authorities working to determine the cause. I have some guesses.
This fire comes the day after Rand Paul announced Fauci was referred to the DOJ for prosecution for lying under oath to congress. pic.twitter.com/h4sGnpXpxP
Honestly, as a motivation, the Fauci referral is weak sauce. This administration has made it clear that they will engage in political discrimination in its prosecutions. We doubt anyone seriously believes that the referral will go anywhere, including Senator Paul. At most, Paul is probably trying to highlight that inequality.
Sen. Rand Paul's office was burned in a raging fire on Friday morning, coincidentally following one day after referring Dr. Anthony Fauci for prosecution. The cause of the blaze is currently unknown. https://t.co/ziInsKcRg7
— Kyle Becker (@kylenabecker) July 21, 2023
And one of the Krassenstein brothers tries to 'both sides' this:
Rand Paul's office catches on fire, and all of the conspiracy theorists on both sides of the aisle are out.
— Ed Krassenstein (@EdKrassen) July 21, 2023
First, I want to say, I am sorry to hear about the destruction of Paul's office building, and hopefully not too many personal items were damaged.
With this said, all of… pic.twitter.com/Akyfh4Kqk7
The rest of the message:
With this said, all of those people who are cheering on the fire need to stop, and all of those who are pointing fingers and blaming certain people for the fire, need to stop as well.
I've seen Democrats blaming Paul, claiming he's trying to destroy evidence or collect insurance money. I've seen Republicans blaming Democrats for the fire, claiming that those close to Fauci are responsible for the fire.
This is irresponsible and based on no facts. The disgusting part is that most of those people blaming Democrats, are secretly hoping that Democrats did this, and those who are blaming Paul are secretly hoping that Paul did this.
Som[e] people really have some dark wishes. Let's just hope for the best, and if someone is responsible, let's allow investigators to figure that out. Stop cheering for destruction in order to OWN the Libs or OWN the Conservatives.
Except there are some facts to support the belief that it was arson targeting Paul, in the sense that 1) arson is something the left has a documented history of doing, and 2) the left has a history of wishing harm on Senator Paul. If a man who had been previously convicted of murder said he was going to kill his wife, and a few days later her dead body is found, a neutral third party would reasonably suspect that he killed her, even before a cause of death was found. That person couldn't reasonably say it was definitely murder and the husband was responsible, but they could reasonably suspect it might turn out to be the case.
What we think Krassenstein is getting hung up on is the difference between evidence and proof. Evidence is simply any information pointing toward a particular conclusion. And evidence can point in many different directions. Proof is what you have when the evidence reaches a specific degree of certainty. You can have evidence of something, without proof, but naturally, you can’t have proof without evidence. We don’t have proof anyone burned down Rand Paul’s office on purpose, but there’s some evidence that would lead a reasonable person to suspect it. Frankly, anyone investigating at the scene is committing malpractice if they aren’t at least considering it—and, to be fair, that is true almost any time someone attacks a politician or his or her property.
How did you get this footage of me typing this tweet?? 😂
— TexasLindsay™ (@TexasLindsay_) July 21, 2023
Others drew other connections, along with other reactions:
Just on the 20th, he introduced A bill to prohibit Federal employees and contractors from directing online platforms to censor any speech that is protected by the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, and for other purposes.
— Mendy 🌳 (@justbeingmendy) July 21, 2023
Not to mention that he is on the…
That NATO article 5 stuff didn’t sit so well with letter agencies
— @subterdude (@subterdude) July 21, 2023
I hope he had copies of all his records on Fauci. Probably has it all digital and in multiple places.
— Jaya Phillips (@JayaLove) July 21, 2023
Dear Lord please protect Senator Paul, you know we need him as POTUS one day
— RAD 🪂⭐️ 🇦🇺 🇮🇳 🇺🇸 🇵🇼 🕉️ ⚓️ (@0uttaBubblegumz) July 21, 2023
Rand Paul sure has been 'unfortunate' these past 7-8 years, or so. 🤬
— KarenAnn (@realkarenfitz) July 21, 2023
— We Have It All (@WeAreWoke1776_3) July 21, 2023
No, this isn't suspicious...not at all... what are you a conspiracy theorist ?? 🫣🫣😳😳😳 https://t.co/BTlSpiqNma
— Sydney Somerville🇺🇸🇺🇲📚📚🇨🇦 (@cindy_csomer37) July 21, 2023
This might be a good chance to bring up a pet peeve. Now, we don’t have any problem with Ms. Somerville’s sarcastic tweet, but we kind of hate the overuse of the word ‘conspiracy theory’ as a pejorative term and we're using her tweet as an excuse to get this off our chest.
In criminal law, a conspiracy is nothing more than two people agreeing to do a thing and doing some overt act in furtherance of it. And, by the way, that overt act only has to be a step on the road to accomplishing the conspiracy’s goals. For instance, imagine that two people agree to counterfeit money and then one of them buys a printing press. Buying a printing press is not itself illegal, normally, but it still counts as an overt act in furtherance of a conspiracy. Some American jurisdictions make the conspiracy itself a crime, others use it as a method of spreading liability around, and some do both. So, to return to our counterfeiting hypothetical, if one member of the conspiracy shoots a security guard while stealing ink and paper for the scheme, the other member might end up being criminally liable for that shooting, even if he or she didn’t know about it ahead of time.
One point we are getting to is that conspiracies happen all the time. There are undoubtedly thousands of people sitting in prison right now because a jury of their peers determined that a conspiracy existed and that person was a part of it—beyond a reasonable doubt. And conspiracies litter our history. On September 11, 2001, more than nineteen men conspired to hijack planes and use them to attack the World Trade Center, the pentagon and an uncertain third target. And when Lincoln was murdered, that was part of a larger conspiracy to murder a huge chunk of his cabinet and essentially decapitate the Union government in the hopes of giving the Confederacy a chance to start up again. We generally only hear about John Wilkes Booth because everyone else screwed up their assassination attempts that night. People use the term ‘conspiracy theory’ as a pejorative, as if it never happens, but it’s a documented fact that they do happen, all the time.
The other thing to note is that often that pejorative label is applied to situation where no conspiracy is alleged. The idea that some guy intentionally set Senator Paul’s office on fire out of political hatred is not a conspiracy at all. Because as we just said, it was hypothetically some guy, meaning one person, and conspiracies require an agreement between two or more persons.
All of which is not to say that all ‘conspiracy theories’ are true or all suspicions involving one person committing a politically motivated crime are true, but let’s not abuse our language, either.
Finally, some leftists took an opportunity to dunk on him:
BREAKING: Fire at Rand Paul's office extinguished by socialism. pic.twitter.com/9AFGFTK2LY
— Middle Age Riot (@middleageriot) July 21, 2023
Rand Paul's office committed suicide rather than work with that dillbag anymore. https://t.co/ifTaheappT
— Rick G. Rosner (@dumbassgenius) July 21, 2023
These kinds of people only prove our point. The left isn’t against political violence—they are only against it in certain cases.
***
Editor's Note: Do you enjoy Twitchy's conservative reporting taking on the radical left and woke media? Support our work so that we can continue to bring you the truth. Join Twitchy VIP and use the promo code SAVEAMERICA to get 40% off your VIP membership!
Join the conversation as a VIP Member