Just based on the time of year I'm betting this has to about leaf blowing
— Chris Railey (@ChrisJRailey) November 6, 2017
That was also my first reaction to the “brutal” attack on Rand Paul by his gated-community neighbor. Paul was in his yard, on his riding mower, wearing ‘ear protection’… that, to me, said: Entitled guy blowing his tree-garbage onto his neighbors’ property, at a high decibel level. If you don’t think such behavior is outside of possibility, you’ve never lived next to one of these jagoffs. Even letting his dog befoul your lawn is at least quiet.
Rand Paul and neighbor have been sparring over yard waste and leaves blown on each other's lawns for years, a neighbor tells @DrewGriffinCNN
— Manu Raju (@mkraju) November 6, 2017
… Mr. Paul, 54, has long stood out in the well-to-do gated neighborhood south of Bowling Green, Ky., that he calls home. The senator grows pumpkins on his property, composts and has shown little interest for neighborhood regulations.
But the spectacle of the incident — one former doctor attacking another in broad daylight — was altogether different. Competing explanations of the origins of the drama cited stray yard clippings, newly planted saplings and unraked leaves…
Matthew J. Baker, a lawyer for Mr. Boucher, called the matter “a very regrettable dispute” between neighbors over a “trivial” matter.
The incident “has absolutely nothing to do with either’s politics or political agendas,” Mr. Baker said in a statement on Monday. “It was a very regrettable dispute between two neighbors over a matter that most people would regard as trivial.”…
“They just couldn’t get along. I think it had very little to do with Democrat or Republican politics,” said Jim Skaggs, who developed the gated community and who lives nearby. “I think it was a neighbor-to-neighbor thing. They just both had strong opinions, and a little different ones about what property rights mean.”
Asked about long-leveled allegations that Mr. Paul had disregarded neighborhood regulations, Mr. Skaggs, who is also a former leader of the county Republican Party, said that the senator “certainly believes in stronger property rights than exist in America.”…
Okay, maybe he was just mulching those leaves with his mower, so that the pieces would be smaller, easier for the wind to distribute and harder for his neighbors to rake up…
Mr. Paul is a libertarian, and a dick (but I repeat myself). My bet would be he righteously ignored the ‘neighborhood regulations’ one time too often, because His Home Is His Castle, and They Are Not the Boss of Me. Violence is never the best solution, but to quote Chris Rock, “I don’t approve… but I understand.”
As a psychiatrist I can’t tell you how many times I have heard landscaping and fencing disputes get out of hand.
— Emily Deans MD (@evolutionarypsy) November 7, 2017
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The politically interesting question: How long will his injuries keep Rand Paul away from the Senate? Not to underestimate the genuine suffering involved — broken ribs are the devil — but if *I* were a proudly independent sorta-Republican facing the goat rodeo that is the GOP tax bill in the making, I would not hesitate to seek any available excuse for staying away…