Kentucky Senator Rand Paul, the guy that you spend every party trying to find excuses to get away from, has launched into a filibuster intended to stop the renewal of a controversial provision of the Patriot Act.

Ha, ha, ha, just kidding! It's actually intended to garner attention and remind everyone that he's still running for president. No, seriously you guys, it's a real grown-up campaign, why are you laughing?

Paul took the mic sometime after 1 p.m. and is currently babbling about privacy and liberty, which is different from his normal behavior only in that he's not allowed to take a pee break.

At issue is Section 215 of the Patriot Act, which the Second Circuit just ruled cannot be used to collect the phone records of every American. It's set to expire on June 1, so Congress hastily cobbled together a renewal called the USA Freedom Act, which is still super problematic. It reins in some government spying, but not all of it, so now Paul is filibustering to hold off a vote on the renewal.

One problem with that: The Senate wasn't actually debating the USA Freedom Act when he grabbed the mic, so he's actually just eating up time on an unrelated trade bill. In fact, at first there was some consternation when many people assumed that he was trying to filibuster that bill instead.

So, technically, this isn't quite a filibuster. It's just a lot of talking. The vote isn't even scheduled to take place until tomorrow, which means that so far, Rand Paul hasn't delayed anything.

So what's going on here? Paul's probably bidding for the attention of Libertarians, conspiracy theorists, and political junkies who love to buzz about stunts like these. Insiders still remember all the attention he got in 2013 for a 13-hour filibuster about drones, so today's babble is entirely on-brand.

(Sidenote on the previous filibuster: Paul insisted that he was delaying the vote so that he could get a promise from the White House that they wouldn't kill American citizens on American soil, when in fact Attorney General Eric Holder had already said that they wouldn't.)

Don't expect Paul to continue for long. Congress, which never met a vacation it didn't like, is scheduled to leave town for Memorial Day weekend on Thursday. A Paul filibuster could force them to stay longer, but at the expense of annoying everyone in Washington, leaving him with even fewer friends than he already has. Nobody seems to be concerned about their long-weekend plans.

"He'll get his headline, and then we'll move on," said John McCain.