In what context does that have to do with the 2016 election?
The Senate will pass the House bill this week. Nothing really will change, it just looks like it will.
I guess to keep this on topic Rand Paul is the reason it got delayed and probably killed what little chance he had.
It's an enormous issue that will absolutely be asked during both party's debates, for starters.
The relevant section everyone's talking about (bulk data collection) has expired, even with McConnell's procedural advancement of the rest of the bill.
The Patriot Act will pass, but it is too late for the section's everyone's talking about.
It's an enormous issue that will absolutely be asked during both party's debates, for starters.
The relevant section everyone's talking about (bulk data collection) has expired, even with McConnell's procedural advancement of the rest of the bill.
The Patriot Act will pass, but it is too late for the section's everyone's talking about.
The section everyone is talking about, bulk data collection, is rewritten in the House bill and gives phone companies the job of maintaining records the government could search. The other two sections are not even being changed or contested. Very little is going to actually change when this passes and everyone is acting like it's such a huge deal but I guess that is what people do.
It's not like the NSA isn't going to have access to that meta data one way or the other.
The section everyone is talking about, bulk data collection, is rewritten in the House bill and gives phone companies the job of maintaining records the government could search. The other two sections are not even being changed or contested. Very little is going to actually change when this passes and everyone is acting like it's such a huge deal but I guess that is what people do.
It's not like the NSA isn't going to have access to that meta data one way or the other.
I know.
I just assumed the NSA would work around whatever was passed or wasn't regardless.
I think it's the symbolism more than anything but I guess it just rings hollow in the end.
Candidate
Hillary Clinton
Ted Cruz
Marco Rubio
Rand Paul
Bernie Sanders
Carly Fiorina
Mike Huckabee
Ben Carson
Rick Santorum
Martin O'Malley
George Pataki
I'd like to start doing a SOTU every Monday. What should I add too it? I'll also be doing the growth/decline rates of each candidate and their twitter followers.
So issues the Supreme Court will decide this month that will be hot topics: marriage, Obamacare (Democrats would be in hot water since subsidies disappearing with no plan b would haunt them). There is also a case that so far is state level, but may affect things federally one day: 1 person 1 vote lawsuit.
Regionally the entire population of a place is counted, but now will they decide if only eligible voters should be counted in those censuses. This means rural towns may get as much weight as a city or even more if the towns have more registered voters. If they do say only voters in local elections can be counted there will be two laws since the ones for larger elections aren't being contested. I'm guessing if the plaintiffs get a victory they will sue again to make the remainder of the laws alike.
Obama is such a hypocrite on the Patriot Act. The borders are wide open and we have no idea who's coming and going, but then he wants to turn right around and collect data from everyone in the name of "security".
CENTRAL, S.C. — Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina returned Monday to the neighborhood where he was raised to announce that he is running for president, injecting a hawkish foreign policy voice into a crowded field of Republican contenders.
Mr. Graham entered the race a year after his political career appeared briefly to be on the ropes, when Tea Party conservatives portrayed him as a moderate and tried to force him out of the Senate.
After fending off that challenge with ease, Mr. Graham, 59, has said his fear that the world is “exploding in terror and violence” inspired him to run for the White House. He will try to convince voters that a platform of pragmatism at home and “security through strength” abroad is the formula to give Republicans the best chance to beat Hillary Rodham Clinton if she becomes the Democratic nominee.
“I want to be president to protect our nation that we all love so much from all threats foreign and domestic,” he told about 1,200 supporters assembled in his hometown. “So get ready. I know I’m ready.”
Mr. Graham brings a long legislative record, having been first elected to the Senate in 2002 after serving eight years in the House of Representatives. He joins the nominating contest as an underdog who has struggled in early polls next to rivals who include former Gov. Jeb Bush of Florida, Senators Marco Rubio of Florida and Ted Cruz of Texas, and Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin.
“I think that no one here in South Carolina has any illusions that Lindsey Graham is on a fast track or even near the front part of the pack in that crowded group,” said Robert Wislinski, a political strategist in the state.
In previous election cycles, that might not have been the case for someone with Mr. Graham’s credentials. A former Air Force lawyer and judge, Mr. Graham has made multiple trips to Iraq and Afghanistan, burnishing his reputation as an authority on international affairs. With his years of experience, he may be seen as an elder statesman who can cast a light on Mr. Rubio’s scant record, or scold Senator Rand Paul for his isolationist policies.
“I have more experience with our national security than any other candidate — that includes you, Hillary,” Mr. Graham said to the cheering crowd.
Dressed in a dark suit with a gold and blue tie, Mr. Graham mixed personal anecdotes — of growing up, living and working in a pool hall and taking care of his sister after the deaths of his parents — with thundering promises to confront radical Islam with military force.
Part of Mr. Graham’s challenge will be differentiating himself from the foreign policies of former President George W. Bush and Senator John McCain of Arizona, his close friend, who failed to win the presidency in 2008. So far, Mr. Graham has suggested sending more American troops to Iraq and supporting regional forces in the Middle East to blunt the threat of Islamic State militants.
“I’m afraid some Americans have grown tired of fighting them,” Mr. Graham said. “I have bad news to share with you: The radical Islamists are not tired of fighting you.”
On domestic policy, Mr. Graham has left himself vulnerable to criticism from within his party.
Open to making deals with Democrats to move bills forward, he is often criticized for sounding like a Democrat on climate change, spending and immigration. Speaking about Social Security on Monday, Mr. Graham suggested that the rich should be willing to pay a little more to help those in need.
In 2013, he worked with a bipartisan group of senators on legislation that would have created a path to citizenship for millions of immigrants. The plan failed, but Mr. Graham has made the case that Republicans are in danger of further losing Hispanic support because of opposition to immigration reform.
Strategists say that fund-raising will be an obstacle for Mr. Graham but that if his candidacy gains traction he could benefit from South Carolina’s status as a the second state to hold a primary.
“Jeb Bush has pulled up the Brink’s truck and is about to dump it on the 2016 field, so it will be interesting to see how everybody competes with that,” said Luke Byars, who advised Mr. Graham during his last campaign.
One way Mr. Graham will look to compete is by revealing more about his roots.
Main Street, a two-lane strip that is next to train tracks and dotted with a deli, a cobbler and an auto-repair shop, was closed for the event, and Mr. Graham’s campaign team turned his family’s old bar — then called the Sanitary Café — into a makeshift war room. Old friends and relatives and fans came from across South Carolina to wish him well.
“We need somebody who was in the military who knows what’s going on,” said Lou Hansen, 74, who served in Vietnam. “People are going to realize how good he is when he gets on the debate stage. He’s going to rock them.”
Experiencing the early deaths of his parents, he sometimes recalls, made him mature more quickly. Ms. Nordone, who introduced her brother, said she hoped to be with him on the campaign trail frequently to show voters Mr. Graham’s softer side.
“He’s kind of like a brother, a father and a mother rolled into one,” Ms. Nordone, 50, said. “I’ve always looked up to Lindsey.”
So issues the Supreme Court will decide this month that will be hot topics: marriage, Obamacare (Democrats would be in hot water since subsidies disappearing with no plan b would haunt them). There is also a case that so far is state level, but may affect things federally one day: 1 person 1 vote lawsuit.
Regionally the entire population of a place is counted, but now will they decide if only eligible voters should be counted in those censuses. This means rural towns may get as much weight as a city or even more if the towns have more registered voters. If they do say only voters in local elections can be counted there will be two laws since the ones for larger elections aren't being contested. I'm guessing if the plaintiffs get a victory they will sue again to make the remainder of the laws alike.
LuLu you need to explain better what 1 person 1 vote means. I don't know anything about this but based on what you are saying I am assuming it has to do with local electoral districts and how they are drawn. If that is the case then it has to do with how the census deems who is a person only when it comes to voters.
So if a town with 100,000 people has 90,000 of age or eligible voters they will have the same weight as a city of 600,000 with 90,000 eligible voters. I see nothing wrong with this. Why would you count children, illegals and felons as people under one person one vote. Going on population density is not an accurate representation of the electoral map.
If this is indeed the case then it is huge because it would effect redistricting and that would effect national elections. I am going to also assume this case is brought up by a Republican because there is no way in hell a Democrat would bring this.
Then again I could be wrong about what your trying to say.
Obamacare
They had a clean chance to kill the bill and they didn't, so I don't see them losing this time, which if they do will be an ugly slow drawn out death of Obamacare. If the SC follows the rule of law they will kill the subsidies because it is as clear as day how it is written in the law with no wiggle room.
Maybe Kennedy will make up for his mistake.
Marriage
I have a good feeling on this one I don't think they are going to kick it back and they decided for it.
Candidate
Hillary Clinton
Ted Cruz
Marco Rubio
Bernie Sanders
Rand Paul
Carly Fiorina
Mike Huckabee
Ben Carson
Rick Santorum
Martin O'Malley
George Pataki
I'd like to start doing a SOTU every Monday. What should I add too it? I'll also be doing the growth/decline rates of each candidate and their twitter followers.
The majority of Twitter followers are millennials, and it's predicted the majority (slight, but still the majority) of eligible millennial voters will sit out this presidential election. I would assume that would translate to even the people following her - in other words, I don't think it's a great barometer of success at all.
Polling (even the ones relied on in 2012) is notoriously wavering and unreliable too so I don't think those are great either.
There's obvious groups of front-runners and outliers, but it's anyone's game on the Republican side now. Marco has the steady poll numbers and biggest grassroots support, Jeb has the big donors, and Scott has the Koch brothers. All bets are off for them.
It's simply not worth following the Democrats' #s (barring some miracle arriving for Martin O'Malley, which isn't happening).
So issues the Supreme Court will decide this month that will be hot topics: marriage, Obamacare (Democrats would be in hot water since subsidies disappearing with no plan b would haunt them). There is also a case that so far is state level, but may affect things federally one day: 1 person 1 vote lawsuit.
Don't forget the major Death Penalty by Injection case!
It just got more complicated because Nebraska has broken federal laws by illegally ordering a drug from India to kill their prisoners and two others (still anonymous) have done the same thing...
The majority of Twitter followers are millennials, and it's predicted the majority (slight, but still the majority) of eligible millennial voters will sit out this presidential election. I would assume that would translate to even the people following her - in other words, I don't think it's a great barometer of success at all.
Polling (even the ones relied on in 2012) is notoriously wavering and unreliable too so I don't think those are great either.
There's obvious groups of front-runners and outliers, but it's anyone's game on the Republican side now. Marco has the steady poll numbers and biggest grassroots support, Jeb has the big donors, and Scott has the Koch brothers. All bets are off for them.
It's simply not worth following the Democrats' #s (barring some miracle arriving for Martin O'Malley, which isn't happening).
Don't rule out John Kasich from Ohio he is expected to announce. He is by far one of the most qualified of anyone in both fields. With 18 years in congress and in his second term as Governor which he won 64% to 33% taking all but two counties. That will take Ohio off the map as a swing state and all he would need to do is tap Macro as VP and lock up Florida.
I was going to post the youth vote thing but you beat me to it. With a majority of millennial voters sitting out and you have to assume the remaining all won't vote Democrat it's not a good sign. Need to keep an eye on the polling to see if it plunges or ticks up closer to election.
Don't forget the major Death Penalty by Injection case!
It just got more complicated because Nebraska has broken federal laws by illegally ordering a drug from India to kill their prisoners and two others (still anonymous) have done the same thing...
So far only rumors, but I heard it's Middle America. I wouldn't be surprised if it turned out to Oklahoma though Governor Fallin has been on the edge of her seat waiting for the greenlight to execute prisoners.
LuLu you need to explain better what 1 person 1 vote means. I don't know anything about this but based on what you are saying I am assuming it has to do with local electoral districts and how they are drawn. If that is the case then it has to do with how the census deems who is a person only when it comes to voters.
So if a town with 100,000 people has 90,000 of age or eligible voters they will have the same weight as a city of 600,000 with 90,000 eligible voters. I see nothing wrong with this. Why would you count children, illegals and felons as people under one person one vote. Going on population density is not an accurate representation of the electoral map.
If this is indeed the case then it is huge because it would effect redistricting and that would effect national elections. I am going to also assume this case is brought up by a Republican because there is no way in hell a Democrat would bring this.
Then again I could be wrong about what your trying to say.
Obamacare
They had a clean chance to kill the bill and they didn't, so I don't see them losing this time, which if they do will be an ugly slow drawn out death of Obamacare. If the SC follows the rule of law they will kill the subsidies because it is as clear as day how it is written in the law with no wiggle room.
Maybe Kennedy will make up for his mistake.
Marriage
I have a good feeling on this one I don't think they are going to kick it back and they decided for it.
Oops, thought I mentioned districts somewhere Here's the article:
Quote:
“Equality of representation in the legislature is a first principle of liberty,”John Adams wrote in 1776.
Most Americans would agree. But does “equality of representation” mean equal numbers of people—or equal numbers of voters?
That question is raised by the Court’s decision Monday to hear the case of Evenwel v. Abbott. Evenwel is a challenge to the Texas Legislature’s plan for state Senate districts. The appellants are registered voters from Senate districts that have significantly more eligible voters than some others. The legislature’s districts vary from each other in raw population by less than 10 percent; but in their “citizen voting-age population,” or CVAP, the variation can be as high as 50 percent.
There is also a case like that in Arizona and both are from Republicans, you got that part right. If they succeed they will overturn old Supreme Court rulings.
[...]That Hillary will coast I doubt surprises you. Sure, has her B-list challengers stoking the populist embers in the Democratic base. Bernie Sanders and Martin O’Malley are in. Lincoln Chafee and Jim Webb may soon follow suit. Each may put up a good fight, raise some decent money and earn a moment in the sun. Collectively, they will force Hillary to finesse sticky issues that pit the Democratic Party’s working class against its donor class. But they won’t fundamentally alter the trajectory of the race. After all, you don’t really think she is going to make herself a fat target and campaign from inside the Goldman Sachs boardroom do you?
For example, while others demand restoring FDR’s Glass-Steagall regulations and breaking up the big banks, she will blur the issue by proposing something like her own tidy package of incredibly wonky banking regulations. They may call them small-bore; she will say she is looking forward and not backward. In the blizzard of policy details, most voters won’t understand what the candidates are talking about, but they will nevertheless walk away thinking Hillary knows what she’s talking about. That will be good enough.
What about the emails? The foreign Clinton Foundation donors? Won’t anything else unnerving turn up? Oh, we’ll have our little media frenzies. The emails she did turn over to the State Department are already drip-drip-dripping out. She may well testify again to the House Benghazi committee. But [Ba]s we’ve seen with the “Clinton Cash” book release, these kerfuffles mainly serve to whip up Republican froth. Meanwhile Democratic voters are experiencing Clinton Fatigue Fatigue. Comforted by the notion that Clintons know how to shake it off, they’ll do the same.
Might Hillary’s old Iraq vote give a challenger the same opening Barack Obama took to paint her as excessively hawkish? No, because the foreign policy debates of today are not deeply dividing the left. Consider that the most pacifistic of the left have long complained about the president’s use of drones and government surveillance, yet Obama enjoys near unanimous approval among Democrats. Obama has even edged into Syria, as the rise of ISIS brought him closer to Clinton’s earlier position in favor of a more robust military role. There’s no position that Clinton currently holds that makes her vulnerable.
You are probably more shocked that Jeb will have it so easy. He starts off as such a weak frontrunner. He’s mired in a five-way tie for first place nationally, at a piddling 10 percent, in the most recent Quinnipiac Republican primary poll. He’s in a virtual four-way tie in New Hampshire. He doesn’t even amount to the frontrunner in Iowa. And he will face a 2016 conservative field at least a step up from the 2012 clown show. Is there no one who could pick up a head of steam and best Bush mano-a-mano?
Pundits have concocted pat scenarios in which an insurgent could dethrone the scion. All Ted Cruz has to do is unite the Tea Party with the social conservatives. All Marco Rubio had to do is unite the Tea Party with the Establishment. All Rand Paul had to do is attract libertarians who haven’t been Republican activists. Heck, earlier this year, yours truly floated that all Scott Walker has to do is unite the conservative opinion leaders with the conservative grassroots to leap ahead of Bush.
None of that will happen. The Republican Party is just too splintered and too fractionalized. And any conservative consolidation project is severely hampered by the bottomless pit of Republican candidates. Last week we were blessed with Rick Santorum and George Pataki. Lindsey Graham and Rick Perry are expected to jump in this week. I can’t believe I’m saying this out loud, but it really looks like Donald Trump won’t be far behind.
Each of these hopefuls may be more implausible than the next. But the more candidates that can claim their own chunk of the conservative base—Santorum’s blue-collar social conservatives, Graham’s hard-core hawks, Trump’s angry rich guys who dole out “wife bonuses”—the harder it is for conservatives to pool their resources.
And if there’s one thing Jeb Bush will have that the rest of the field won’t, it is resources. His latest round of “I haven’t made a final decision" coyness is just so can he legally milk every last dollar from the Bush family’s vast donor network for his Right to Rise Super PAC before he becomes an official candidate and canvasses his rich friends all over again for direct donations.
Furthermore, no issues in the 2015 pipeline are conducive to bringing conservatives together. The landscape is littered with land mines, like the recent ill-fated push for state “religious freedom” laws. The incessant and irritating Senate floor grandstanding by Sen. Ted Cruz and Rand Paul, some of which we’re watching unfold right now, is just the warm-up to the inevitable spending bill compromises between Republican congressional leaders and President Obama to keep the government open, raise the debt ceiling, pay for the Highway Trust Fund and keep the Export-Import Bank. All this will conspire to make conservatives as divided as ever, tripping up Republican candidates right and … right. [...]
What about Gov. Scott Walker? When I talked him up in February, he was fresh off his strong performance in one of the first Iowa cattle calls, and even today he holds a precarious first-place position in Iowa polls. But his quick rise was blunted by a series of wobbly moments: saying he was ready for ISIS because he fought unions, inelegantly dodging a question about evolution and redefining the meaning of “flip-flop” to exempt any utterance made by a non-legislator.
In a vacuum, each individual gaffe is not fatal. But when you’re trying to scrounge up enough cash to avoided being drowned by the Bush machine, such mistakes keep donors from betting it all on you. I’m not being theoretical; the Koch brothers have signaled that Walker is their personal favorite, yet their plan is to spread their money around several candidates.
Bush may not entirely dazzle either. He won’t coast quite like Hillary. Just like in 2012, several in the GOP pack will get their 15 minutes as frontrunner—we’ll probably have a day when even Ben Carson looks serious. A debate quip here, a poor straw poll finish there, and boom, suddenly there will be “AmBushed” headlines and hashtags galore. But once the new leaders take their turns being hazed by the media, questions will be raised anew whether they were ready for their close-up—and conservative voters will flinch. Lacking a strong challenger that can consolidate the Right, Bush’s steadiness will be sufficient to hold on to his Establishment support and his fat war chest, helping him outlast the pack just like Mitt Romney, John McCain and Bob Dole.
Once the two political heirs clinched their respective nominations, the wailing will begin: Bush versus Clinton. Again. Can’t we find anybody else?
Fear not. That is when the real fun begins.
Hillary will no longer be just talking to Democratic primary voters, so how much daylight will she put between herself and President Obama, and on what issues? And the presence of Tea Party-types like Cruz will pull Jeb and everyone else rightward throughout the campaign. Will Jeb be able to pivot back, or will he be weighed down by some of his more right-wing remarks in the primary, as Romney was four years ago?
Both nominees have it in them to scramble toward the proverbial center. Yet their pedigrees—along with the backdrop of President Obama’s firmly left-of-center record, which is constantly injected into the campaign—make it impossible to replicate the Bush v. Gore 2000 festival of poll-tested rhetorical mush (the super boring presidential race itself, not the gripping Bush v. Gore post-election legal drama). They will have to duke it out over ideology.
Neither candidate can simply lean on their name. Hillary can’t blithely point to Bill’s record of job growth to explain how she would tackle this decade’s seemingly intractable challenges of flat wages, crushing student debt and runaway global carbon emissions. Jeb has the unprecedented challenge of producing ideas that persuade the public he isn’t going to repeat his brother’s mistakes, be it with the domestic economy or with foreign relations.
Couldn’t we find anyone else? We could! We will choose not to.
We want it this way: a bona fide heavyweight bout. Two veterans who need to prove they can strike out on their own. Hillary out for redemption after the bitter 2008 loss and the humiliations from her time in the East Wing. Jeb determined to show he’d be the best Bush of them all, restoring the luster to the family name.
Beyond the personal drama, deep down we also know that by passing on the less tested insurgents, in favor of a final contest between the wonkier and less folksy representatives of long-standing political families, we will avoid electing anyone for commander-in-chief that would drive the nation off the cliff. Or so we hope.
So relax, political junkies of 2015. Forget about pressuring your family to spend winter vacation in New Hampshire. Un-follow all those official campaign Twitter feeds. Turn off the push notifications on your new Apple Watch. Take that week off in December so you can sleep in the street waiting to get into Star Wars: The Force Awakens, if you really insist. You won’t need to watch the presidential wannabes on C-SPAN freezing in the Iowa snow.
We all know how this show is going to end. Anyone who says they don’t is just fooling themselves.
Governor Fallin has been on the edge of her seat waiting for the greenlight to execute prisoners.
Here's the article: