CNN poll, March: 53 percent see Hillary Clinton favorably, 44 percent say unfavorably.
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June 02, 2015
 
 
Morning Jolt
... with Jim Geraghty
 
 
 
A Sudden Tremor in the 2016 Conventional Wisdom

CNN poll, March: 53 percent see Hillary Clinton favorably, 44 percent say unfavorably.

CNN poll, this morning: 46 percent see Hillary Clinton favorably, 50 percent say unfavorably.

Surely the Washington Post poll out this morning will have better numbers for her, right?

Clinton’s favorability ratings are the lowest in a Post-ABC poll since April 2008, when she was running for president the first time. Today, 41 percent of Americans say she is honest and trustworthy, compared with 52 percent who say she is not — a 22-point swing in the past year.

Clinton’s favorability rating has fallen steadily since she left the Obama administration in early 2013. Today, 45 percent see her positively while 49 percent see her negatively. That compares with ratings of 49 percent and 46 percent two months ago. Just 24 percent have a strongly favorable impression of her — down six points in the past two months — while 39 percent have a strongly unfavorable impression, up four points.

I am serious! And don’t call me “Shirley”!

But hey, the more people see her, the more people will like her, right?

The FBI’s Domestic-Surveillance Air Force, Unveiled with Perfect Timing

Looks like the FBI wants to prove Rand Paul and the domestic-surveillance opponents right.

The FBI is operating a small air force with scores of low-flying planes across the country carrying video and, at times, cellphone surveillance technology — all hidden behind fictitious companies that are fronts for the government, The Associated Press has learned.

The planes’ surveillance equipment is generally used without a judge’s approval, and the FBI said the flights are used for specific, ongoing investigations. In a recent 30-day period, the agency flew above more than 30 cities in 11 states across the country, an AP review found.

Aerial surveillance represents a changing frontier for law enforcement, providing what the government maintains is an important tool in criminal, terrorism or intelligence probes. But the program raises questions about whether there should be updated policies protecting civil liberties as new technologies pose intrusive opportunities for government spying . . .

Some of the aircraft can also be equipped with technology that can identify thousands of people below through the cellphones they carry, even if they’re not making a call or in public. Officials said that practice, which mimics cell towers and gets phones to reveal basic subscriber information, is rare.

Recording video from above seems pretty standard; in an era of news choppers, the public is pretty acclimated to the concept of somebody watching them from an aircraft above. But the FBI’s ability to gather information from cell phones below without a warrant seems like a much grayer area.

Can This Party’s Coalition Be Saved?

Leave it to Ace to clarify everything revealed in the increasingly contentious split over the Patriot Act, Rand Paul’s all-out opposition, the hawks’ reaction to Paul, and Paul’s reaction to them:

Rand Paul is not just criticizing his named enemies in the Senate, then. He’s criticizing the millions of GOP voters whose instincts tend to be more conventional and interventionist than his own. And when John McCain calls Ted Cruz a “wacko bird,” he is of course telling millions of GOP voters that they themselves are “wacko birds” -- worse than that, really, because at least Cruz is his own wacko bird. Cruz’ fans, in McCain’s insult, are merely the crude-minded follower of a wacko bird…

Political unions don’t fall apart because of dissidents and heretics; there are always dissidents and heretics. Political unions fall apart because the Establishment, the leadership, the allegedly cool hands at the wheel, prove themselves to be incompetent and let once-mendable tears and rips become irreparable.

But, that aside, my point is that this is how people who despise each other and who do not want to be united with one another behave.

It’s not the Libertarians’ fault they treat conservatives with performative contempt; playing the role of Goth Fonzie is how they show they’re not with the squares. Nor is it the fault, really, of the Establishment that they dislike people who don’t find them as irreplaceable and important as they themselves do.

It is the nature of every power elite, after all, to be smug and walk with unearned swagger.

On paper, I should be relatively easy pickings for Rand Paul. I’ve been not just critical of the NSA domestic-surveillance programs, but I came pretty close to frothing at the mouth at that 2013 event at the Heritage Foundation. And I either agree or begrudgingly nod at a lot of what Paul says . . . and then he goes and says something like, “People here in town think I’m making a huge mistake. Some of them, I think, secretly want there to be an attack on the United States so they can blame it on me.”

Put aside all the “false flag” conspiracy theories a comment like that is destined to generate; it’s unfair to ask Rand Paul or any other lawmaker to carefully tailor his remarks so that it doesn’t stir irrational conclusions in inherently irrational people. The bigger problem for Paul is that he can’t lead the Republican party when he’s accusing some members of the Republican party’s coalition of wanting to see terrorist attacks in order to prove a point.

A.J. Delgado is convinced Paul only meant John McCain and Lindsey Graham in that statement of “some” “people in town.” I don’t know how she can draw that conclusion with certainty, but even if she’s interpreting Paul’s statement correctly, that’s still a rotten thing to say. Let’s assume John McCain and Lindsey Graham are every bit the fair-weather RINOs conservatives fear they are; do you really think that as the Patriot Act expired, either of them was saying, “Come on, al-Qaeda! Let’s get moving, ISIS! I want to see bodies in the streets so I can finally prove Rand Paul wrong once and for all!”

If you do think that, you’re wrong.

Even if you think of McCain and Graham as the worst options the Republican party could possibly offer, a lot of Republicans disagree with you. These guys are deeply unpopular with conservative activists, but they’re not that unpopular with Republicans as a whole. Lindsey Graham won 56 percent in a 7-way primary in 2014. John McCain won 56 percent in a three-way primary in 2010. For better or worse, there are a lot of Republicans in states like South Carolina and Arizona who are just fine with these guys. Those aren’t blue or purple states.

Politics -- particularly presidential politics -- requires building coalitions. If Rand Paul wants to be the Republican nominee, he has to bring together his base -- those non-traditionally-GOP libertarians, the Silicon Valley crowd, the minority audiences intrigued by his arguments on mandatory sentencing and the drug war -- as well as the parts of the GOP that aren’t his base. Right now, Rand Paul isn’t just failing to win them over; he’s antagonizing them by accusing them of having bad motives.

I Guess the Table with All the Options on It Is a Drop-Leaf Table

He’s so shameless.

President Obama, in September 2013 joint press conference with Bibi Netanyahu:

As President of the United States, I’ve said before and I will repeat that we take no options off the table, including military options, in terms of making sure that we do not have nuclear weapons in Iran that would destabilize the region and potentially threaten the United States of America.

President Obama, this week:

I can, I think, demonstrate, not based on any hope but on facts and evidence and analysis, that the best way to prevent Iran from having a nuclear weapon is a verifiable, tough agreement. A military solution will not fix it. Even if the United States participates, it would temporarily slow down an Iranian nuclear program but it will not eliminate it.

Sure sounds like we’re taking it off the table!

ADDENDA: Arlington Memorial Bridge, which crosses the Potomac River and connects the Lincoln Memorial and Arlington Cemetery, is deteriorating from corrosion. After a thorough inspection, engineers decreed the bridge is now a heavy-handed metaphor.

Meanwhile, down in North Carolina . . .

The Board of Trustees of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill voted 10-3 Thursday morning to rename a building that, for more than 80 years, bore the name of a Confederate soldier and founder of the Ku Klux Klan in the state.

Hm. It’s unacceptable to name buildings after Klan members, you say? This could get really awkward for the state of West Virginia.

 
 
 
 
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