Rand Paul: ‘My Critics Want a Terrorist Attack to Blame on Me’ and ‘I’m Not Going to Take It Anymore’ [+videos]

By Julian Hattem. Sen. Rand Paul burst back into Washington on Sunday evening making clear that he is not relenting in his battle to hobble the Patriot Act.

“Are we going to so blithely give up our freedom? Are we going to so blindly go along and take it?” the Kentucky Republican and presidential candidate said from the Senate floor, raising his voice to reach the approximately two dozen supporters wearing “Stand with Rand” t-shirts in the chamber gallery.

“I’m not going to take it anymore,” he added. “I don’t think the American people are going to take it anymore.”

Paul spoke minutes after an altercation with Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), a frequent sparring partner over the years who accused the Kentucky Republican of not understanding Senate rules.

The Senate is holding a rare Sunday session on National Security Agency legislation in large part because of Paul, who more than a week ago objected to a short-term extension of the Patriot Act. (Read more from “Rand Paul: ‘I’m Not Going to Take It Anymore'” HERE)

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Rand Paul: My Critics “Secretly Want There to be an Attack on the US so They can Blame it on Me”

People here in town think I’m making a huge mistake. Some of them, I think, secretly want there to be an attack on the United States so they can blame it on me. One of the people in the media the other day came up to me and said, “oh, when there’s a great attack aren’t you going to feel guilty that you caused this great attack?” It’s like the people who attack us are responsible for attacks on us. Do we blame the police chief for the attack of the Boston bombers?

The thing is that there can be attacks even if we use the Constitution, but there have been attacks while collecting your bulk data. So the ones who say when an attack occurs it’s going to be all your fault, are any of them willing to accept the blame? We have bulk collection now, are any of them willing to accept the blame for the Boston bombing, for the recent shooting in Garland? No, but they’ll be the first to point fingers and say, “oh, yeah it’s all your fault, we never should have given up on this great program.” I’m completely convinced that we can obey the Constitution, use the Fourth Amendment as intended, spirit and letter of the law, and catch terrorists.

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