Vox Sentences: Will Rand Paul change the Republican party — or will it change him?

1. "Defeat the Washington machine. Unleash the American dream."

Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) waves to supporters after taking the stage to announce his candidacy for the Republican presidential nomination at the Galt House Hotel on April 7, 2015, in Louisville, Kentucky. (Luke Sharrett/Getty Images)

• It's official: Rand Paul is running for president.

  [NYT / Jeremy Peters and Alan Rappeport]

• Paul announced his candidacy at the Galt House Hotel, fitting given his Ayn Rand fandom.

  [Politico / Glenn Thrush]

• Andrew Prokop has a really detailed breakdown of Paul's policy views. In short: massively shrink government, be more hesitant to use force abroad, and break up the prison-industrial complex.

  [Vox / Andrew Prokop]

• Paul has released detailed budgets explaining how he wants to cut the federal budget. He calls for spending levels that are as far below former budget chair Rep. Paul Ryan's (R-WI) as Ryan's are below Democratic budgets'.

  [Vox / Dylan Matthews]

• Paul's non-interventionist views on foreign policy — including vociferous opposition to NSA surveillance — are probably the thing that distinguishes him most strongly from other GOP contenders.

  [Vox / Zack Beauchamp]

• A hawkish conservative advocacy group is already planning millions of dollars in ad buys opposing Paul in early primary states.

  [Bloomberg View / Josh Rogin]

• Paul's only plausible path to the nomination involves winning over supporters of his father, former Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX), who ran a surprisingly strong campaign in 2012, and adding more traditional conservatives and independents.

  [FiveThirtyEight / Harry Enten]

• One problem with that plan is that it requires Paul to moderate his more out-there libertarian stances, which risk losing him his base.

  [Vox / Zack Beauchamp]

• Paul is also trying to mimic his father's success with small donors, which helped make the elder Paul a major contender.

  [NYT / Derek Willis]

• In his announcement, Paul consciously tried to appeal to young people and people of color, two groups that Republicans have traditionally struggled to win over.

  [LA Times / Seema Mehta]

• Paul declared that in his vision of America, "Any law that disproportionately incarcerates people of color is repealed," which would be … basically every law.

  [Vox / Dara Lind]

• Ramesh Ponnuru: Paul can't change the Republican party because the party doesn't think it needs to get more dovish on foreign policy to win.

  [Bloomberg View / Ramesh Ponnuru]

• Nick Gillespie: even if he moderates his positions, Paul is by far the most interesting GOP contender, one who has "fundamentally changed the conversation about privacy, drones, and government surveillance."

  [Reason / Nick Gillespie]

2. Convicting Dzhokhar Tsarnaev

Members of the legal defense team for Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, including, at right, Judy Clarke. (Scott Eisen/Getty Images)

• Jury deliberations have begun in the trial of alleged Boston marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who faces 30 counts, including 17 that carry the death penalty.

  [Boston Globe / Milton Valencia and Patricia Wen]

• The charges include "conspiracy to use a weapon of mass destruction resulting in death" and "use of a weapon of mass destruction resulting in death; aiding and abetting."

  [WBUR]

• Judy Clarke, one of Tsarnaev's lawyers, admitted in her opening statement, "It was him." The case went to trial most likely to preserve the option for an appeal and because a plea deal sparing Tsarnaev death couldn't be reached.

  [ABC News / Brian Ross, Megan Chuchmach, Aaron Katersky, and Michele McPhee]

• Clarke's defense has thus emphasized Tsarnaev's youth and painted his late older brother Tamerlan as the instigator: "We don’t deny that [Dzhokhar] fully participated in the events, but if not for Tamerlan, it would not have happened."

  [NYT / Katharine Q. Seelye and Richard Oppel]

• Clarke is known for representing infamous clients like Unabomber Ted Kaczynski and Atlanta Olympics bomber Eric Rudolph, in an effort to spare them the death penalty.

  [Vanity Fair / Mark Bowden]

• After (presumably) finding Tsarnaev guilty, the jury enters a second phase where it will decide whether to impose a life sentence or death.

  [WSJ / Jennifer Levitz]

3. Push barman to open old wounds

Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras meets with Katja Kipping, Chairwoman of the German left-wing party Die Linke, and Gregor Gysi, Bundestag faction leader of Die Linke on March 24, 2015, in Berlin, Germany. (Pool/Getty Images)

• Greece's left-wing Syriza government has asked for $303 billion in World War II reparations from Germany.

  [BBC]

• That would obviate the need for the current bailout from European institutions, which is only worth $240 billion.

  [Washington Post / Anthony Faiola]

• As of February, the country's entire debt load was only $320 billion, which the reparations payment would be nearly enough to pay off in full.

  [Bloomberg / Fabio Benedetti-Valentini]

• The German vice chancellor called the demand "stupid," but two left-leaning opposition parties (the Greens and Die Linke, a descendent of the party that ruled East Germany) are calling for repayment of the loan Nazi Germany forced the Bank of Greece to make in 1942.

  [Reuters / Andreas Rinke and Gernot Heller]

• Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras is visiting Moscow this week, leading to speculation that he is seeking a bailout from Russia in place of one from the European Central Bank, International Monetary Fund, and the European Commission.

  [The Guardian / Helena Smith and Alec Luhn]

• Greece has a payment to make to the IMF this week, and while Greek officials insist they can make it, it's unclear with what money, and the Greek finance minister's sudden flight to DC to meet with IMF head Christine Lagarde isn't alieving any fears.

  [NYT / Landon Thomas]

4. Misc.

• It's official. If you crunch the numbers, Furious 7 is both the fastest and the most furious Fast & Furious movie to date.

  [Bloomberg / Mark Glassman and Chandra Illick]

• American politicians are obsessed with Neville Chamberlain, and it completely baffles Katy Lee, Vox's resident Brit.

  [Vox / Katy Lee]

• For most of my childhood, my main ambition in life was to get a Nickelodeon Super Toy Run, in which winners get to run through a toy store for five minutes and keep anything they grab. Here, two '90s era winners remember the glorious experience.

  [AV Club / Marah Eakin]

• Pro tip: don't run your drug-dealing operation on Venmo.

  [Capital New York / Conor Skelding]

• Every literary reference on Archer, in one supercut.

  [Slate / Sharan Shetty]

• The Rock eats about 821 pounds of cod every year.

  [FiveThirtyEight / Walt Hickey]

5. Verbatim

• "'You know what interested Brian [Williams] about politics?' marvels one longtime NBC correspondent, recently departed. 'Brian was obsessed with whether Mitt Romney wore the Mormon underwear.'"

  [Vanity Fair / Bryan Burrough]

• "Hari's rule? 'If a third grader can't pronounce it, don't eat it.' My rule? Don't base your diet on the pronunciation skills of an eight-year-old."

  [Gawker / Yvette d'Entremont]

• "'The worst thing to be called,' [director Darren] Aronofsky’s assistant told me, long after he’d moved on, 'is a really good assistant.'"

  [Dissent / Francesca Mari]

• "And then the Avengers teamed up with the evil super-powered leader of Scientology. And they all flew in a spaceship powered by the souls of Scientologists. And they fought a giant alien pyramid."

  [NY Mag / Abraham Reisman]

• "They placed a subject in the brain scanner, displayed some images, and monitored how the subject's brain responded. The measured brain activity showed up on the scans as red hot spots, like many other neuroimaging studies. Except that this time, the subject was an Atlantic salmon, and it was dead."

  [Brain Decoder / Moheb Costandi]

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