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Marco Rubio Wants To Permanently Extend NSA Mass Surveillance (nationaljournal.com)
SonicSpike writes: Marco Rubio wants Congress to permanently extend the authorities governing several of the National Security Agency's controversial spying programs, including its mass surveillance of domestic phone records. The Florida Republican and 2016 presidential hopeful penned an op-ed on Tuesday condemning President Obama's counterterrorism policies and warning that the U.S. has not learned the "fundamental lessons of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001." Rubio called on Congress to permanently reauthorize core provisions of the post-9/11 USA Patriot Act, which are due to sunset on June 1 of this year and provide the intelligence community with much of its surveillance power. "This year, a new Republican majority in both houses of Congress will have to extend current authorities under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, and I urge my colleagues to consider a permanent extension of the counterterrorism tools our intelligence community relies on to keep the American people safe," Rubio wrote in a Fox News op-ed.
While I agree with your sentiment in terms of how we should treat the other peoples of this planet, I don't believe the radical Muslim world's hate for the US and the West - and what they represent, for that matter - has anything to do with how the West has treated them.
I mean, come on. They attack and destroy girls' schools, just because they exist. They destroy irreplaceable historic monuments, just because they exist. What did either of those do to them to "earn" their wrath?
#DeleteChrome
Where I'm not ready to call them sheep, it sure seems that the establishment is going to line up behind Rubio as their last hope now that Bush has proven to be unable to get *any* votes. But I expect that the newly released voters who support the candidates who are now going to be exiting the Republican field to be switching to their 2nd choice. For the most part this *won't* add much to Trump who is nobody's second choice. How that breaks between Rubio and Cruz is the $1M question, and the establishment is clearly going to do what it can to help Rubio..
What's going to be really telling is how the ex-supporters of Huckabee and Paul fall, given that the candidate tried to throw their support at Trump for some reason that escapes me. Maybe they are not thinking clearly and think that Trump has a chance here and are angling for a VP pick? It's pretty clear that Trump is only going to fade from this point because he won't be able to gather support as the field narrows with people dropping out. He has negatives that rival Hillary's in the Republican party.... Yea, he's going to win a primary or two in the liberal states, but in purple and blue states he's going to be soundly beaten by Cruz and Rubio who are the two viable candidates in this race now. Carson is out of money and only has maybe two more primaries before he's going to be forced to pull the plug, the rest of the field who are still in this (Like Bush) will just ride out the money they have and follow suit. By the end of February we may be down to effectively three contenders, which is when Trump will start to fade into the background..
I'm not ready to call the race between Cruz and Rubio, but Trump will finish this behind them. He has money, but no experience in the "ground game" like Cruz or the Television presence and speaking ability of Rubio. If he continues the shrill "It's not fair" mud slinging fest he's been engaged in with Cruz over the last few days, he may finish way back from the field.
In the end, We are going to have a president of Cuban descent in 2017 because just like Sanders hasn't a prayer being the democratic nominee, Hillary hasn't a prayer in the general w/o an independent or third party candidate to suck away the middle right votes. She's establishment, though and through and this election is about throwing the bums in Washington (DC) out.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
With the exception of the last presidential election a LOT of people have been voting Republican, from the Federal level on down. Republicans have gained seats in the Senate, and the house, have more governorships than we've seen in modern history, and made gains in state legislators nation wide almost without exception. Maybe everybody is nuts, but it seems that there are a LOT of people doing the crazy thing here.
I think you are ignoring (perhaps willfully) that much of that gain in the R column is the result of changing the rules, not necessarily an increase in voters. The Republican side is pretty notorious for outrageous acts of gerrymandering, for a start. Continuing on from there, Citizens United has benefitted Republicans *much* more than Democrats. And if you really want to wade into the muck, we have heretofore unseen levels of voter disenfranchisement, primarily at the hands of (you guessed it) the Republicans.
So are there more Republican voters? Maybe. Maybe not. But by most estimations, that's not what has increased their grip on the government. And that is, by my reckoning, circumventing what little democracy we had left in this country.
People who say "sheeple" have about as much sophistication as an AOL user, and in fact are probably actually AOL users.