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Story highlights Rand Paul has christened himself a different kind of Republican: tree hugger. Paul has tried to cast himself as a fresher Republican face who can appeal to new audiences.

In a new book released on Tuesday, Paul said he composts and believes in clean air and clean water. Paul notes that he has planted giant sequoias in his yard and repurposed old trees used for a fort to build compost bins.

"None of this is at odds with wanting out government to be smaller, with wanting our regulatory bodies to protect both our land and water," Paul wrote in his third book, "Taking a Stand: Moving beyond partisan politics to unite America."

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"It boggles my mind to think that somehow Republicans have been branded as a party that doesn't like the environment," he said, pointing to avowed conservationist Republicans like Teddy Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln.

Paul also details his history planting trees and flowers at his house in Bowling Green, Kentucky and his childhood home in Lake Jackson, Texas. Some trees he has planted in Bowling Green are now 40-feet tall, according to the candidate.

"I'm a crunchy conservative and a tree hugger and proud of it," Paul writes.

Paul has tried to cast himself as a fresher Republican face who can appeal to new audiences, such as environmentalists. Paul has stressed repeatedly that the GOP needs to win over African-Americans and Hispanics, a point he returns to in the book.

The Kentucky senator wrote that the tension he has tried to soothe between the GOP and people of color is deep and complicated, but ultimately salvageable. That is if Republicans recognize that, admit it and make this minority outreach a priority.

"My Republican Party, the Republican Party I hope to lead to the White House, is willing to change," Paul wrote in his third book,

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Rand Paul: Republican brand 'sucks' and is 'broken ...

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Sen. Rand Paulplayed a major role in forcing the Senate to adjourn without taking action on a controversial surveillance program. And he made it clear Monday: he's nowhere close to done.

Paul said Monday that he would continue to try to block the reauthorization of the Patriot Act, which the Senate will again take up May 31.

"What I'm looking for right now is to see if the other side will negotiate," Paul said on "CBS This Morning." The Kentucky senator said he wants to put two amendments onto a bill that would stop the government from collecting bulk phone records and leave those records with the phone companies.

"I would like to have a vote on ending the bulk collection," he said. "I think we can win that vote."

Paul said on "Fox and Friends" thatdata that has been collected should be thrown out.

"I think it should be purged," Paul said. "I think that information was collected illegally and should be purged."

Prospective presidential candidate Gov. Chris Christie (R-N.J.) slammed Paul this weekend, saying theinability of Congress to act on the legislation is the result of "misguided ideologues."

[Read:Senate NSA vote underscores rift in 2016 field]

The Kentucky Republican said Christie's take "just wasn't very nice," and painted himself as a defender of the Constitution.

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Rand Paul on Mitch McConnell: I dont think we need ...

Sen. Rand Paul says he does not think he is being unreasonable in his stand against government surveillance practices.

Im just asking for two amendments and a simple majority vote on ending the National Security Agencys bulk data collection, the Kentucky Republican said on CBS This Morning on Tuesday.

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I think sometimes my party gets all caught up in the Second Amendment, which is fine, but we dont protect the Fourth Amendment enough, he added. But actually I think neither party ends up protecting the Fourth Amendment enough, which is the right to privacy.

Paul downplayed any bad feelings between him and his fellow Kentucky senator, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who failed to secure a deal in the Senate regarding the surveillance programs before Congress left for recess, in large part due to Paul.

I dont think we need counseling yet, he laughed. On the NSA thing, we are on opposite sides. I do think we keep it very civil.

Arguing that giving the government too much power opens the door for systemic bias to enter the system, Paul noted historical examples where race and political motivations played a role in government surveillance.

President Barack Obama is disingenuous about this, as he could end the practice on his own, Paul said on CBS.

Paul echoed the remarks in a later interview with Fox & Friends.

We did it to the Japanese-Americans in World War II. We did it to civil rights protesters during the 60s and to Vietnam War protesters. We just started grabbing them up and started looking at behavior we didnt like. So the right to dissent in a free country is very important, and some would say this has a chilling effect on a right to dissent, he said.

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Rand Paul 2016: I'm not being unreasonable on privacy ...

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Story highlights Hillary Clinton has faced controversy over keeping her State Department emails on a personal server Errol Louis: More damaging may be the potential conflicts revealed in the emails that are being released

The emails demonstrate that one of Clinton's main assets as a presidential candidate -- the alliances and personal connections she has painstakingly built over decades spent at the highest levels of government service -- can also be her greatest weakness.

Errol Louis

At least a dozen of the 296 emails made public are detailed missives from Sidney Blumenthal, a talented writer and ferocious partisan warrior who has been a defender of the Clinton family since Blumenthal, as a journalist, began writing one favorable analysis after another about then-Gov. Bill Clinton of Arkansas as he emerged on the national stage.

Blumenthal eventually traded in his press card for a White House pass, becoming a high-ranking adviser and speechwriter for the President though his impeachment and beyond, and authoring a book, "The Clinton Wars," detailing his days battling in the political trenches for Bill and Hillary.

As an adviser to Hillary Clinton's 2008 presidential campaign, Blumenthal did enough damage during the bruising primary against Barack Obama that the administration later reportedly barred him from working for Clinton at the State Department.

Fast forward to 2012: the recently released emails show Blumenthal was back on Clinton duty at the height of the crisis that engulfed Libya in the chaotic months following the 2011 overthrow and death of ex-dictator Moammar Gadhafi, sending a stream of detailed memos to then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton about the ins and outs of the power struggle among Libyan leaders seeking to replace Gadhafi.

Blumenthal's missives featured information on what he called private statements and thoughts of Yussef el Magariaf, a well-known leader of the opposition to Gadhafi who eventually became president of Libya's General National Congress and served as de facto leader of the country for about a year.

Clinton forwarded many of Blumenthal's emails for circulation to Jake Sullivan, her deputy chief of staff, who in some cases copied and pasted the information before sending it to top State Department officials as coming from "HRC friend," according to the New York Times.

Clinton made time to act on Blumenthal's information even in periods of emergency; Blumenthal even sent (and she circulated) emails on September 12, 2012, the day after a mob destroyed the U.S. consulate in Benghazi and killed American personnel, including U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens.

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Hillary Clinton's emails: A tangled mix of conflicts ...