Rand Paul to Use Incorrigible Dickishness For a Good Cause

The Patriot Act, the knee jerk post-9/11 law that authorizes various taxpayer-funded entities to violate the rights of taxpayers in the name of freedom™, is set to expire at the end of the month, unless Congress reauthorizes it. And in order to reauthorize it, they’ll have to get it past Presidential candidate and famous prick Rand Paul.

Paul told the New Hampshire Union Leader that he would “lead the charge” on filibustering the law, which was hastily signed into law in the weeks after 9/11. He added:

We will be filibustering. We will be trying to stop it. We are not going to let them run over us. And we are going to demand amendments and we are going to make sure the American people know that some of us at least are opposed to unlawful searches.

Paul likely isn’t bluffing. Say what you will about his foreign policy bluster, his moral inconsistency in favoring freedom for everybody except pregnant women, or his propensity for shushing and correcting female journalists; if the man says he’s going to be a real dick about something by never shutting up about it, history tells us that he is not lying. In 2013, he filibustered for nearly 13 hours to delay a confirmation vote for John Brennan, who Obama had nominated for CIA director. Later that month, he threatened to filibuster gun control legislation. Both of those filibusters were eventually ended by cloture vote, but hey, it’s the thought that counts.

The Huffington Posts’s Igor Bobic notes that Paul isn’t the only elected official opposed to reauthorizing the legislation; Oregon Senator Ron Wyden (a Democrat) has been a loud and proud critic of the Patriot Act in the past (especially Section 215, which has served as the foundation for the government’s bulk collection of ~~communication between private citizens~~ your dick pics).

And apropos of nothing, this dumb law has been in effect for 13 and a half years, and until today, I didn’t realize that it was an acronym for Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act of 2001. I like to picture it as a cross stitched acrostic framed in lace over Dick Cheney’s guest toilet.