What’s on your mind this weekend, Bleeding Heartland readers? Rand Paul was in Cedar Rapids on Friday to headline the Republican Party of Iowa’s spring fundraiser. Links and highlights are after the jump. Nothing I read convinced me that Paul has any chance of becoming president someday, but count on him to try.

Speaking of Rand, did you know that he was never board-certified? I learned that recently from an ophthalmologist and eye surgeon. After I mentioned that Iowa Department of Public Health Director Mariannette Miller-Meeks is also an ophthalmologist, she looked up Miller-Meeks in the academy database and commented, “She’s well-trained.” Miller-Meeks did her residency at the University of Iowa and a fellowship at the University of Michigan. She is board-certified and was re-certified about ten years ago.

This is an open thread: all topics welcome. In previous years I’ve posted Mother’s Day links here, here, and here. Best wishes to those who celebrate today, and healing thoughts to those who grieve on Mother’s Day.

The Iowa Republican blog’s Kevin Hall liveblogged the Iowa GOP’s Lincoln Dinner event, for those who want to know about the rest of the speeches and the notable attendees. This was my favorite line from Hall’s post:

7;23 pm – I am wondering how many references to Abraham Lincoln we will hear tonight, since this is the Lincoln Dinner, and Rand Paul’s father thinks [what] Lincoln did was merely a way to seize power.

Hall also pointed out that Paul screwed up the television networks’ audio feed by moving away from the podium. When he runs for president, he’ll need to stop making rookie mistakes.

Paul went after Hillary Clinton hard over last year’s attack in Benghazi, Libya. The crowd went wild. (Senator Chuck Grassley had already gotten a huge response when he said it was time to hold the Obama administration accountable for Benghazi.) David Lauter reported for the Los Angeles Times,

Sen. Rand Paul sharply attacked former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, declaring that her actions in the months leading up to the killing of the U.S. ambassador to Libya last year were “inexcusable, it was a dereliction of duty, and it should preclude her from holding higher office.” […]

In the months before the attacks, he noted, the State Department repeatedly had turned down requests from diplomatic personnel in Libya for more security. Clinton, testifying before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, on which Paul sits, said that the cables asking for additional resources had been handled by lower-level officials in the department and had never reached her desk.

That, Paul said, was exactly the problem.

When asked by committee members whether she had read those requests, “She said, ‘No.’ She says, ‘I’m busy, I get lots of cables,'” Paul said. “A I say, Look, I don’t expect you to read every cable from Bulgaria or Estonia, but I do expect you from one of the five most dangerous countries in the world, Libya, to be reading those cables.’ ”

Administration officials have said Congress did not provide enough money to cover all the State Department’s security needs, but Paul ridiculed that argument, pointing to examples of other places where State spent money on lesser priorities.

It’s as if this guy never heard of embassy attacks during the Reagan and Bush presidencies. When terrorists attacked us in Beirut in 1983, 241 servicemen were killed. Reagan’s Defense Secretary later claimed to have “begged” the president to put the Marines in a “more defensible position.”

I know that Republicans are excited about anything that gives them hope to beat Hillary Clinton, but she would destroy Rand Paul in a general election. Repeating “Benghazi” 1,001 times will be about as effective as all the “Slick Willie” talk was against Bill Clinton during the 1990s.

On Friday afternoon, Paul held a press conference in Cedar Rapids. O.Kay Henderson posted the audio at Radio Iowa. He criticized the Internal Revenue Service for the way bureaucrats scrutinized tax documents from tea party groups.

“I’m offended when any kind of government entity targets people for their political or religious beliefs,” Paul said, “so it’s, you know, particularly offensive, since I’m one of the groups they were targeting. They didn’t audit me personally, but, you know, government should never be used to bully people.”

A lot of those tea party groups are just astroturf. The abuse of tax-exempt status is a much bigger problem in this country than the IRS hassling a few tea party activists.

According to Henderson, Paul “described himself as ‘the bridge between the House and Senate’ in the current immigration reform debate.” You can bank on that issue hurting him in the 2016 Iowa caucuses.

Finally, Paul told reporters that he wants to be part of making the GOP more appealing to the middle of the electorate.

“I think people are looking for something different. You might accuse me of being not exactly the traditional cookie-cutter Republican,” Paul told reporters on an afternoon of political events in Cedar Rapids. “I do know the GOP needs to grow and I want to be part of growing the GOP.” …]

The party needs to change, Paul said Friday, and that means taking another look at policies that have alienated some groups. For instance, Paul favors relaxing federal sentencing laws for drug crimes, which disproportionately penalize racial minorities.

“We need to have a Republican Party that looks like the rest of America. We need a more inclusive, diverse party,” he said. “We cannot compete unless we are going to go out and say to African-Americans, we want you in our party.” […]

On Friday, Paul met with about 10 evangelical pastors, an influential group in Iowa’s Republican caucuses, and was to speak at the Iowa state party’s annual Lincoln Day dinner. He was expected to meet with a Republican women’s group at a Cedar Rapids-area home in the afternoon and speak at a county GOP breakfast Saturday. […]

Among the challenges Paul faces is explaining his opposition to a federal gay marriage ban to influential cultural conservatives in Iowa and South Carolina. Paul says he would fight gay marriage at the state level, an explanation that suffices for Tamara Scott, among Iowa’s leading Christian conservatives.

Adam Sullivan of the Iowa City Press-Citizen covered Paul’s speech to GOP activists in North Liberty on Saturday.

Paul, who also spoke in Cedar Rapids on Friday night, said the Tea Party movement in the last few years has been fueled by discontent with both parties.

“It was a reaction not only to bad things Democrats were doing but also reaction to some Republicans voting to bail out business and big business in particular,” Paul told about 100 people gathered at the North Liberty Community Center. “A lot of people in here may have a small business – if you go under taxpayers not coming to bail you out.”

Paul criticized federal policymakers for failing to address the United States’ $16 trillion debt. He pointed out that even the controversial sequester budget cuts from earlier this year don’t actually decrease spending, but instead only slow projected spending growth.

Paul called for a flat 17 percent income and corporate tax, but said he’d support almost any tax proposal that decreases federal revenue. Paul harshly criticized those who support raising taxes on high earners.

“If you want to help poor people, you have to help rich people. … Poor people work for rich people,” Paul said.

There’s a great bumper sticker slogan: Paul 2016, because poor people work for rich people.