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Fiorina Steals The Show At Primetime Republican Debate

Fiorina Steals The Show At Primetime Republican Debate

She wasn’t even supposed to be there.

Carly Fiorina tore through her second Republican debate in the 2016 race with one fiercely articulate answer after another.

She exuded a fiery resolve and competency; a capacity for leadership and efficiency that seemed to elevate her above the petty squabbles of partisan rancor and the bluster of reality TV.

Her trajectory has been compared to that of another novice politician from the world of business, Donald Trump. Yet she had managed to emulate the best of the real estate mogul’s tactics with none of his liabilities. She exhibited his impatience for political niceties, but little of his craven nastiness. If she was brusque, she seemed to say, it’s because she had things to do, not people to smear.

As if in counterpoint to the The Donald’s habit of spackling over his ignorance with words like “greatest,” “terrific,” and “Trump,” Fiorina came armed with robust details, reams of hard data, and specific action plans, which she rattled off with confidence and poise. It was like viewing a PowerPoint presentation by flashes of lightning 

Fiorina had edged her way into the top-tier debate after CNN amended its rules to include polls that had come out after her strong showing in the August debate. In addition to Fiorina and Trump, nine other candidates had assembled in the shadow of Ronald Reagan’s Air Force One, docked at the Gipper’s presidential library in Simi Valley, California: the retired neurosurgeon Dr. Ben Carson, former Florida governor Jeb Bush, Texas senator Ted Cruz, Wisconsin governor Scott Walker, Florida senator Marco Rubio, former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, Ohio governor John Kasich, New Jersey governor Chris Christie, and Kentucky senator Rand Paul.

In areas where the candidates were generally agreed, Fiorina was uncommonly forceful and succinct in pronouncing the party line. Iran and Planned Parenthood, she said, were twin issues: The former regarded the defense and security of the nation; the latter, the character of the nation.

She repeated her promise from the August debate — to make two phone calls on her first day in office: one to “my friend Bibi Netanyahu” to assure him that the U.S. was allied with Israel, and the second to the Ayatollah of Iran, Ali Khamenei, to let him know that America was “back in the leadership business.”

Regarding Planned Parenthood, she cited the videos that had been produced by an anti-abortion group, edited to make it appear that the women’s health organization had been harvesting fetuses and selling them, claims which Fiorina seemed to take at face value. Anyone who watched the tapes, she said, would have serious doubts about the “character of our nation.”

Where other candidates seemed to falter or rest too easily on stale talking points, she brought a fresh sense of proficiency and resolve, a moral conviction that did not exclude a deep understanding on the complexities at play, which resisted being reduced to campaign slogans.

She was not shy about calling candidates out, especially Trump, who claimed to have brought immigration to the table, when he made his border wall project and the scourge of Mexican “drugs” and “rapists” the cornerstones of his announcement speech. Fiorina unequivocally that shut down: “Trump did not invent immigration. We have been talking about this for 25 years.”

On the issue of birthright citizenship, she told Trump: “You can’t just wave your hands and say make the 14th Amendment go away.” She cautioned that immigration reform would be a long, arduous process, implicitly warning voters to resist the simplistic deport-’em-all rhetoric of nativism, but that she knew what it would take to accomplish it: manpower, money, and leadership — “The kind of leadership that gets results.”

What could Trump say to that? “I agree 100 percent,” he said. Compared to the conspicuously data-armed Fiorina, Trump’s hand-waving began to resemble a bad joke.

Trump’s brand of braggadocio seemed, at last, to be reaching the limits of its effectiveness. He took repeated shots at a relatively easy target, Rand Paul, whose libertarian streak puts him on the outs with the party line on foreign policy, drugs, and marriage equality. Trump claimed Paul shouldn’t even be on the stage, given that he was #11 in the polls.

And when Paul accused Trump of “careless language” that included “junior-high”-caliber insults about people’s looks, Trump responded: “I never attacked him [Paul] by his looks, and believe me, there’s plenty of subject matter right there.”

Carson coasted on his mild manner and adherence to many conservative lines on wages, immigration, and Christianity. His anodyne temperament and air of benevolence, as usual, seeming to excuse the gaps in his expertise, even as he described social programs as a “spigot that dispenses all the goodies,” and on the question of minimum wage, said simply: “It’s all about America, you know.”

Then the doctor came out swinging against the anti-vaxxer hysteria, calling Trump’s remarks about the link between autism and the MMR vaccine meritless. And he spoke of his vision to renew the nation through a “Kennedy-esque” effort to galvanize industry, academia, and business; as well as his conviction that strong leadership in the global sphere needed to be tempered by intellect.

“Radical islam cannot be solved by intellect,” Rubio retorted. The Florida senator emerged as cool and collected, steeled in his determination to bring the fight to our enemies abroad. He decried the notion that “somehow by retreating we make the world safer,” saying it “has been disproven every single time.”

Paul cautioned that our military campaigns in the Middle East have historically had a way of backfiring, that “sometimes intervention makes us less safe.” Every time we’ve toppled a secular leader, he said, it has led to chaos. We do need to be engaged in global affairs, but sensibly, and a sensible foreign policy didn’t include fighting in a civil war when both sides were evil, or playing the patsy while fighting other people’s wars. 

Christie and Paul picked up the fight where they had left it last month, switching from domestic surveillance and due process to the question of drugs. Paul made the argument that locking up nonviolent offenders for drug charges—overwhelmingly people of color—was a gross national mistake, and that the 10th Amendment left questions of drug policy to the states. (Christie had said prior to the debate that he would kill recreational marijuana in states where it is legal.)

Huckabee and Cruz continued in their parallel quests to cast themselves as conservative America’s last best hope at an effective Christian theocracy, where Supreme Court Justices would only be nominated if they could be relied upon to uphold God’s laws. Huckabee said that under his presidency abortion would be outlawed unconditionally and made “as much a scourge in our past as slavery is.”

Cruz proudly proclaimed that thanks largely to his success at having torpedoed gun control legislation efforts after the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School, he had won the endorsement of Gun Owners of America. The Texas senator also echoed his apocalyptic claims regarding the deal with Iran, which he said was “nothing short of catastrophic.”

“If you are voting for Hillary Clinton,” he said “you are voting to give Ayatollah Khamenei a nuclear weapon.”

Kasich, who has emerged as a relative moderate and voice of reason in the GOP field, locked horns with the staunch conservative on his promises to tear up the Iran nuclear deal on his first day in office and to shut down the government over Planned Parenthood in the coming weeks. He argued that unilaterally rescinding the deal with Iran would have enormous consequences for our ability to work with our allies and build consensus. We can be strong as a country, he said, but not necessarily going it alone.

The Ohio governor and former House Budget Committee Chairman also expressed his sympathies with those who wanted to defund Planned Parenthood, but he stressed that “when it comes to shutting down the federal government, we need to be very careful about that.”

Finally, a barely visible Walker touted his union-busting accomplishments in Wisconsin.

Throughout the night, the candidates fell dispiritingly into line along a familiar range of topics: Environmental legislation could not solve climate change, only hurt U.S. businesses (besides, Rubio said, “America is not a planet”). The “judicial tyranny” of the five Supreme Court Justices who said gay people could marry must be stopped. Guns are good. Abortions are bad. And so on.

And underneath it all, as Fiorina’s star rose, voters witnessed the caving of one erst-frontrunner and perhaps the first implosion of another. Jeb Bush and Donald Trump’s limp and petty slap fighting culminated in arguably the most uncomfortable high-five in American political history, which, if nothing else, proved that neither man knows how to pivot.

Photo: Republican presidential candidate and former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina speaks during the second official Republican presidential candidates debate of the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign. September 16, 2015. REUTERS/Lucy Nicholson 

Our Moments Of Zen: 8 Reasons We’ll Miss Jon Stewart

Our Moments Of Zen: 8 Reasons We’ll Miss Jon Stewart

On Thursday night, Jon Stewart will take his final bow as the host of Comedy Central’s The Daily Show, a post he has held for 16 years and four presidential election cycles.

Stewart’s exit brings to a close an era in which the sardonic comedian became, despite himself, the most trusted man in news. The “angry optimist” who played court jester to the media-political machine and ended up becoming one of its most highly regarded and credible luminaries — much to his exasperation.

Although he often deprecated himself as a spitball-throwing silly man of the airwaves, he was anything but inessential. Here are eight reasons why he will be so dearly missed, and why we’re not about to see the likes of him again.

Stewart on Crossfire

Jon Stewart’s 2004 appearance on CNN’s Crossfire turned out to be the death knell of the show. Stewart appeared on the long-running liberal-conservative rock-em-sock-em sideshow at the height of its hysterical election coverage to beg them to dial down the infotainment antics and return to informing the American public. The show, he said, was not so much bad, as it was “hurting America.”

“Stop. Stop stop stop stop hurting America. And come work for us… see the thing is, we need your help. Right now you’re helping the politicians and corporations. […] You’re partisan… whaddya call it? Hacks.”

In a decidedly unamused tone, Stewart accused the pundits of failing in their responsibility to the public discourse: “We need help from the media and they’re hurting us.”

Three months later, CNN canceled the show.

Next: Chris Wallace

Setting Chris Wallace straight

Stewart’s appearance on Crossfire was not a fluke. The beleaguered comedian often had to explain to pundits and media personalities what a sad state of affairs it was when media professionals looked to the class clown as a touchstone for journalistic ethics.

“Here’s the difference between you and I,” Stewart laid it down for Wallace. “I’m a comedian first. My comedy is informed by an ideological background. […] but I’m not an ideologue.”

Wallace accused Stewart of using his comedy to further a progressive agenda, to which he responded that Wallace was “dead wrong” and “insane.”

Next: Stewart’s Post-9/11 Monologue

Stewart’s Post-9/11 Monologue

When The Daily Show returned to the air for the first time after the September 11 attacks, Jon Stewart opened with a sober, heartrending speech about the resilience, beauty, and strength of our country.

Next: Jim Cramer

Stewart vs. Jim Cramer

It was the culmination of a long on-air feud between Stewart and Jim Cramer, the histrionic host of CNBC’s Mad Money. For weeks, Stewart had taken Cramer to task for his irresponsible financial advice leading up to the 2008 global financial meltdown — slanted, overly optimistic guidance that Stewart characterized as “disingenuous at best and criminal at worst.”

“We’re both snake oil salesman to a certain extent, but we do label the show as snake oil here,” Stewart told Cramer. “I understand you want to make finance entertaining, but it’s not a f***ing game.”

The interview, which more resembled a deposition than a friendly late-night tête-à-tête concluded with a repulsed Stewart saying: “Maybe we can remove ‘In Cramer We Trust’ and go back to the fundamentals and I can go back to making fart noises and funny faces.”

Next: Glenn Beck

Stewart Does Glenn Beck

In a magnificent piece of extended performance art, Stewart opened a show with a masterful impersonation of Glenn Beck’s senseless monologues. In the same way that Beck made illogical leaps from liberal social programs to Nazism, Stewart unleashed a flurry of false equivalence to connect Beck’s brand of Christian moralism with Iranian theocracy. With spot-on mimicry of Beck’s childish, incoherent trains of thought, Stewart shattered the poor “strawman-slippery-slope dumb guy.”

Next: Bill O’Reilly

Stewart vs. Bill O’Reilly

A match made in media heaven: Bill O’Reilly, the journalist who became the Fox News mascot, and Jon Stewart, the comedian who became a credible news source. The two ended up meeting somewhere in the middle, in a series of earnest, hilarious, and squirm-inducing sparring sessions on each other’s shows, as well as the 2012 debate parody, The Rumble in the Air-Conditioned Auditorium.

In the following clip, after a lengthy bout, Stewart finally got O’Reilly to concede that there was indeed such a thing as white privilege: “I’ll call it this and it’s a word I think you’ll understand: it’s a factor.”

Next: The Koch Brothers

Stewart Embraces A New Sponsor

When Stewart learned that the Koch brothers had purchased commercial time on his show, he welcomed them to The Daily Show fold about as nicely as anyone could have expected him to.


Next: The Rally to Restore Sanity

The Rally to Restore Sanity

What was the 2010 rally anyway? A bizarre comedy-concert and an inspired spoof of the alarming gatherings of the then-nascent Tea Party, the event drew over 200,000 people to the Washington Mall to express widespread exasperation at what Stewart called the “country’s 24-hour politico-pundit-perpetual-panic-conflictinator.”

“I can’t control what people think this was,” Stewart said in his concluding remarks. “I can only tell you my intentions. This was not a rally to ridicule people of faith or people of activism or to look down our noses at the heartland or passionate argument or to suggest that times are not difficult and that we have nothing to fear. They are and we do. But we live now in hard times, not end times.”

He continued:

The press is our immune system. If it overreacts to everything, we actually get sicker and perhaps eczema. And yet with that being said, I feel good. Strangely, calmly good, because the image of Americans that is reflected back to us by our political and media process is false. It is us through a fun-house mirror […] We hear every damn day about how fragile our country is, on the brink of catastrophe, torn by polarizing hate, and how it’s a shame that we can’t work together to get things done, but the truth is we do. We work together to get things done every damn day.

The only place we don’t is here or on cable TV. But Americans don’t live here or on cable TV. Where we live, our values and principles form the foundation that sustains us while we get things done, not the barriers that prevent us from getting things done. Most Americans don’t live their lives solely as Democrats, Republicans, liberals, or conservatives. Americans live their lives more as people that are just a little bit late for something they have to do, often something they do not want to do. But they do it, impossible things every day that are only made possible through the little, reasonable compromises we all make.

[…] The truth is there will always be darkness, and sometimes the light at the end of the tunnel isn’t the Promised Land. Sometimes it’s just New Jersey. But we do it anyway, together. If you want to know why I’m here and what I want from you, I can only assure you this: You have already given it to me. Your presence was what I wanted.

Photo: U.S. President Barack Obama (L) participates in a taping of the Daily Show with Jon Stewart at the Comedy Central Studios in New York, October 18, 2012.  REUTERS/Jason Reed

This Week In Crazy: Drink That Commie Kool-Aid

This Week In Crazy: Drink That Commie Kool-Aid

The End Is Near, but never near enough. Welcome to “This Week In Crazy,” The National Memo’s weekly update on the wildest attacks, conspiracy theories, and other loony behavior from the increasingly unhinged right wing. Starting with number five:

5. Elisabeth Hasselbeck

The arrest of Sandra Bland, the African-American woman who was found dead of an alleged suicide in a Texas jail cell, began with a routine traffic stop, and escalated with alarming speed when the white state trooper demanded Bland put out her cigarette, and she refused to do so.

The officer’s conduct has been widely condemned as overkill at best, racially motivated malice at worst.

So count on Fox News host Elisabeth Hasselbeck to tell you the side of the story that the Lamestream Media (and people of good conscience) refuse to acknowledge. On Monday’s edition of Fox & Friends, Hasselbeck exhibited both grace and good sense when she accused Sandra Bland of wielding what could have been perceived as a weapon at the officer. The weapon in question being the cigarette she refused to put out.

In an interview with former NYPD officer John Rafferty, Hasselbeck speculated that perhaps “there are times, I’m sure, someone has, in the history of this land, used a cigarette against a police officer, maybe chucked it at him, pushed it at him.” If the cop did see a “potential threat” here, did he not act correctly?

Media Matters has the video:

Via Raw Story and Media Matters

Next: Bryan Fischer

4. Bryan Fischer

Another day, another asinine comment. Conservative activist Bryan Fischer went on his radio show last Friday and blamed the Louisiana movie theater shooting that left two dead on… who else? Barack Obama.

The canard that the shooter, John Russell Houser, was an Obama supporter has been making the rounds in conservative outlets, and it stems from the fact that, despite being an avowed extreme conservative, Houser did vote for Obama in the 2012 election. But just because he voted for him doesn’t exactly mean he was full-blown Obamaphile. In fact, Houser viewed his vote for Obama’s second term as a way to accelerate the country’s liberal-driven demise. Houser’s senseless motives, in his own words, courtesy of Raw Story:

“Here is something that is truly funny: since I accepted this it came to me that the president is doing exactly what Tim McVeigh did, only the president is much more effective,” he wrote. “The way I see it, the faster he wrecks this nation, which in no way resembles what its founders envisioned, the faster working people with morals may re-assume command. […]”

He added: “Encourage whatever takes us forward. Right now, down is forward.”

In his other writings, Houser expressed support for far-right views. He said the United States needed a right-wing party like Greece’s neo-Nazi “Golden Dawn” and he registered in 2005 to attend at event hosted by white nationalists.

So Fischer’s assertion that Houser “was a big time Barack Obama supporter” is pretty much dead on arrival, much like Fischer’s credibility. Lest we forget, the hate group he once directed, the American Family Association (AFA), had to distance itself from Fischer on account of some of his more loathsome remarks.

Lately, Fischer has been firing on all cylinders with his nescient, vile ramblings— thanks, in part, to the Obergefell ruling, which legalized marriage equality in all 50 states. He proclaimed that June 26 (the day of the SCOTUS ruling) was the new 9/11 because “moral jihadists… blasted the twin pillars of truth and righteousness into rubble.”

So, you know, grain of salt and all that.

ViaRight Wing WatchandRaw Story

Next: Marco Rubio

3. Marco Rubio

The killing of Zimbabwe’s beloved Cecil the Lion by a Minnesota dentist sparked righteous anger and indignation across the Internet.

Of course it took exactly three seconds for it to become co-opted into everyone’s political point at once. The handy Mad Lib, which tweeters on all points of the political spectrum use, goes roughly thus: “I see you’re all upset about a lion. But where was the moral outrage when ____?” and here you may insert your own pet cause, movement of choice, or political football. Everything from climate change to the cancelation of Crystal Clear Pepsi. Whatever ticks you off.

Surely, when an issue gets this much widespread attention, we can expect some crass remarks and specious equivalence from dark, sunless corners of the Internet. Of course. But surely a statesman — a statesman vying for the Oval Office at that — has more decency and tact than to liken the senseless killing of an animal with women’s right to make their own decisions regarding their health?

Ah, I’m afraid not. Enter Senator Marco Rubio, who asks: “Where is all the outrage over the planned parenthood dead babies.”

RubioTweet

Click to enlarge

 

In this last minute rat race to squeeze into the top 10 slots for Fox News’ first major GOP debate, you can expect Republican candidates to say a lot of dumb crap to raise their profile. Don’t worry though. There’s only one more week ’til the debate.

And then… how many more weeks ’til the convention?

Oh. Oh dear.

ViaMother Jones

Next: Is The Pope The Antichrist?

2. People Who Think Pope Francis Is The Antichrist

Well, it’s an innocent enough question: Is the Pope the Antichrist?

Look at the signs. Pope Francis has been courting the ire of right wingers of all religious persuasions after urging global consensus and action on climate change, condemning the evils of capitalism, and expressing more open-mindedness on social issues than we’ve come to expect from the Holy Father, daring to ask the question, “If someone is gay and searches for the Lord and has good will, who am I to judge?”

In an article titled “Why So Many People Think Pope Francis is the Antichrist,” Christian news site Charisma asked the hard questions, such as: “Could Francis be the final pope before Christ’s return? Could he be the Antichrist? Is he the False Prophet?” And, by the by, what’s all this about the New World Order?

According to Right Wing Watch, the author of that article, Jennifer LeClaire, has in the past issued “‘prophetic’ warnings about how gays are possessed by demons and will work with Satan to ban straight marriage.” So that’s about how sound her reasoning is.

But of course that didn’t stop Matt Drudge, who, Talking Points Memo reports, picked up on the story, earnestly running the headline “POPE FRANCIS ANTICHRIST?”

Here’s the wrinkle though: LeClaire’s sources for comments the Pope allegedly made, equating the Quran and the Bible, are, in fact, fake news sites.

And so now we have this glorious daisy chain of the damned, whereby a guileless Christian site reports fake news as fact, and a conservative site, in turn, reposts the Christian site’s findings — and now, well, this happens.

ViaTalking Points MemoandRight Wing Watch

Next: Rick Wiles 

1. Rick Wiles

Screenshot/Youtube

Have you drunk “the Commie Kool-Aid” lately?

Do you find the “Communist-inspired cultural cleansing” puts a damper on your day?

Do all the hippies seem to get the jump on you, as some wise fellas once said?

In this case, “hippies” of course refers to the hordes of atheistic footsoldiers coming for your guns, indoctrinating your children, confiscating private property. This is all the opening act of a grand opera, currently in repertory in Rick Wiles’ emulsified brain, in which President Obama will take a cue from his totalitarian brethren in China and the former Soviet Union to enact a “cultural cleansing” that will erase all memory of American values and culture.

Wiles went on an protracted rant on the conservative radio program Trunews last Thursday, claiming that Obama and his “Obamanistas” are going to:

ruthlessly persecute any and all opponents. They will confiscate private property and wealth. They will destroy the careers and businesses of opponents. They will imprison those who dare to defy the revolution. They will send resisters to reeducation camps. And if all else fails to stop opposition to the Marxist revolution, they will slaughter millions of American resisters in a bloody cleansing of the general population.

Maybe you read about the tragedy in Chattanooga and thought it was the story of yet another disturbed, angry young man who had ready and easy access to guns. When in fact the shooter was “one of Barack Hussein Obama’s Muslim bros,” paving the way for this massive takeover. The more you know…

Wiles says he has been warning Americans that Obama would seize control of the country since 2007 — and now that Obama has all but installed his permanent dark dominion over these lands from sea to shining sea, it looks like Wiles may have been right.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got some powder to mix.

ViaRight Wing Watch

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Illustration: SS&SS via Flickr

NSA Surveillance Programs Expire As Senate Stalls

NSA Surveillance Programs Expire As Senate Stalls

By Lisa Mascaro, Tribune Washington Bureau (TNS)

WASHINGTON — After 14 years and hundreds of millions of records of Americans’ telephone calls, the National Security Agency stopped bulk collection of phone data Sunday, officials said, as legal authority for the once-secret program expired.

The move came as the Senate stalled on efforts to reform the agency’s authority. The portion of the 2006 Patriot Act amendments that the NSA has argued allows collection of telephone calling data and other records expired at midnight EDT in Washington.

Late afternoon Sunday, intelligence officials said they had started shutting down the system for scooping up and recording phone call data, which was put in place after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. The NSA collects what it calls metadata — records that include the numbers called from a phone and the length of calls, but not the content of the conversations.

Officials said they planned to shut down the program entirely at midnight, although their actions, which are classified, can’t readily be verified.

On Sunday evening, the Senate voted 77-17 to advance a House-passed bill that would reform NSA surveillance. That legislation would end the bulk collection of telephone data. Under it, phone companies, not the government, would hold the call data, and intelligence agencies would be required to have a warrant to search it.

Under Senate rules, no final vote on that measure can take place until later this week unless all senators agree. Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., refused, arguing that the House bill does not go far enough to rein in the intelligence agencies. His move guaranteed that the NSA’s legal authority would end, at least for now. The Senate appears likely to pass the House bill as early as Tuesday.

The lapse in the NSA’s power marks an important moment in the evolving U.S. response to the threat of terrorism. It is the first major legislative rebuff of domestic surveillance operations in the post-Sept. 11 era, and the most direct impact to date of the disclosures made by Edward Snowden, the former NSA contractor who revealed the existence of the data-collection program two years ago.

Paul conceded that the House bill ultimately would pass, but raised numerous questions about whether it goes far enough to curtail the NSA’s authority. Nevertheless, he declared a victory.

“Through my slowing the process down, talking about the Patriot Act, we now will end bulk collection of records,” said Paul, who has made opposition to surveillance one of the centerpieces of his campaign for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination.

“My concern is we might be exchanging bulk collection by the government (for) bulk collection by the phone companies,” he said.

Supporters of the NSA denounced Paul’s actions. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., the senior Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, accused him of acting “for his own political gain.”

“Holding critical national security programs hostage to raise political donations is outrageous, but that’s where we stand today,” Feinstein said in a statement.

The White House called the House bill a “reasonable compromise” and urged the Senate “to ensure this irresponsible lapse in authorities is as short-lived as possible.”

“On a matter as critical as our national security, individual senators must put aside their partisan motivations and act swiftly,” the White House said in a statement from press secretary Josh Earnest.

Debate over the program has sharply divided both the parties, but the split among Republicans has been the most vivid. The division has become a major element in the party’s presidential campaign and a key factor stalling Senate action.

As the process of shutting down the surveillance apparatus began, senators returned to the Capitol for a rare Sunday session facing a deadline, with no clear plan for meeting it.

Tensions spilled over quickly as Sen. John McCain of Arizona, who is a strong supporter of the NSA’s surveillance efforts, tried to prevent Paul, his fellow Republican, from speaking.

“This is what we fought the revolution over,” Paul thundered once he was allowed to speak. “This is a debate over your right to be left alone.”

The Senate visitors’ gallery was packed with Paul supporters wearing red T-shirts.

“People say, ‘How will we protect ourselves?'” without surveillance, he said, responding, “Use the Constitution. … Get a warrant.”

Paul sought to pin the program on the current administration, saying, “President Obama set this program up.”

The program was established by the George W. Bush administration without congressional authorization late in 2001. In 2006, after passage of the Patriot Act amendments, the Bush administration won approval from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which meets in secret, to continue the program under the Patriot Act’s section 215.

Over the last two years, however, the Patriot Act has come under increasing criticism from a coalition of liberal Democrats and libertarian-leaning Republicans. The Obama administration last year proposed ending the government’s collection of telephone data and instead having telephone companies hold the information. Obama said, however, that he would keep the current program intact until Congress acted on an alternative.

An effort last year to reform the NSA’s authorities also stalled in the Senate.

A federal appeals court this spring ruled that the Patriot Act did not provide legal authority for the collection of millions of telephone records. But noting that the law was about to expire, the judges said they would put their ruling on hold for a few weeks while Congress debated whether to renew it.

The House passed its bill, the USA Freedom Act, in mid-May to limit the NSA’s powers. That bill has support from the administration and a broad bipartisan swath of senators, but had been blocked in the Senate by Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky. He and other defense hawks in the GOP wanted to keep the program running as is, without changes.

McConnell reversed course Sunday and voted to advance the House bill.

On the other side, a group of senators led by Paul and Democrat Ron Wyden, D-Ore., have pushed to rein in the NSA.

“I believe that dragnet surveillance violates the rights of millions of our people every day,” said Wyden, who joined all Democrats in voting to advance the House-passed reform bill.

Although McConnell backs the presidential bid of Paul, his fellow Kentucky senator, the two are at odds on the surveillance issue. Speaking Sunday, McConnell referred bitterly to “demagoguery” and a “campaign of misinformation” regarding the NSA program, although he did not identify anyone as responsible.

Tension ran high at a closed-door party meeting Sunday evening, which Paul said he purposefully avoided.

Obama has warned against taking away what his national security team contends is a vital tool needed to root out terrorist threats at home and abroad.

Speaking on CBS’ “Face the Nation” on Sunday morning, CIA Director John Brennan decried “political grandstanding” and said Congress should extend the program. “These tools are important to American lives,” Brennan said.

Paul and other opponents of the NSA argue the collection of telephone data is not worth the infringement on civil liberties and believe the nation can be better protected if the program is scrapped and redone.

Paul’s stance has drawn sharp rebuke from several rivals for the Republican nomination. On Sunday, Jeb Bush, the former Florida governor, said that the nation’s security would be at risk if the Senate failed to reauthorize the law, which his brother enacted as president.

“There’s no evidence, not a shred of evidence, that the metadata program has violated anybody’s civil liberties,” Bush said, speaking on “Face the Nation.”

Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., joined Paul in opposing the House-passed bill Sunday. Fellow Republican presidential candidate Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas voted in favor, as did Sen. Bernie Sanders, the Vermont independent who is running for the Democratic nomination.

Two other parts of the Patriot Act that are set to expire would limit other aspects of the NSA’s surveillance operations that have been less contested. Those include the “lone wolf” provision, which allows the government to apply for court permission to wiretap an individual suspected of terror activities who is not part of a larger group, and another that allows the government to conduct “roving wiretaps” as suspects switch phones.

———

(Times staff writer Brian Bennett contributed to this report.)

Photo: Rand Paul for U.S. Senate, via Flickr