Kentucky senator and presidential hopeful turns to Seinfeld-inspired tradition to vent about Donald Trump’s Yiddish and Marco Rubio’s absenteeism

This article is more than 4 years old

This article is more than 4 years old

As families across the US come together in joy two days before Christmas, Rand Paul has chosen instead to tweet out his annual list of Festivus Grievances. As the Kentucky senator explained last year, that’s what Festivus is for.



Dr. Rand Paul (@RandPaul) Christmas is a time for joy. For sharing blessings w/family & friends. It is not a time to air grievances. That's what #Festivus is for.

The presidential candidate is celebrating the season, as is his tradition, with a cathartic venting of feelings on social media under the hashtag #Festivus, which references the fictional holiday popularised by the sitcom Seinfeld.



But now that Paul is running for president, he is taking special care to direct his grievances against his GOP opponents.

“Where to start but @realDonaldTrump,” Paul began. “If u bring the Yiddish, know what it means. Guess that’s more of a kvetch than a grievance.”

He hit the real estate mogul with allegations of attempted sartorial bribery. “After the debates, @realDonaldTrump always trying to give us parting gifts of his made in China ties. Weird.”

Next, fellow Senator Ted Cruz came under Paul’s Festivus fire, with a thinly veiled reference to birther-truthism over Cruz’s Canadian roots:

Dr. Rand Paul (@RandPaul) My friend @tedcruz has still not pledged to issue exec order declaring Canadian "bacon" is not real bacon. Makes me suspicious. #Festivus

Paul hit out at each of his rivals in turn: at Carson for his mumbling, at Christie for his support of the Dallas Cowboys, at Jeb Bush for his awkwardness. Paul even hit out at Democratic candidates Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders, for toilet breaks and socialism respectively.



Florida senator Marco Rubio came under particular fire, for his low turnout record in the Senate while he’s been campaigning:



Dr. Rand Paul (@RandPaul) to my absentee friend @marcorubio, I didn't put your $170k+ salary in my waste report today. But I could have #Festivus

In the spirit of the season, Paul also released his Waste Report’s Airing Of Grievances: Festivus 2015, a report from the Senate homeland security and governance subcommittee on federal spending, which Paul chairs.

“Happy Festivus!” the report begins. “Once again, the federal government found new and inventive ways to waste the tax dollars of hard-working Americans this year.”

The report, which claims to have identified $1,026,957,650 in wasteful spending, took the government to task for more than 30 programs it considered frivolous, including paying for “a community college to develop a curriculum of winemaking studies” (an $853,000 grant to Washington community colleges, according to the report) and federal agencies spending money on yoga instructors for employees.

The report also slammed the Pentagon for spending $43m on a compressed natural gas (CNG) filling station in Afghanistan.