Reddit Politics Summary Wednesday Dec 27th 17

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This is a digest of the top posts on reddit/r/politics over the last 24 hours.
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Man who defended gay marriage with viral speech about his two mothers is now running for Iowa State Senate

(25198) (comments)

Mueller is reportedly zeroing in on the Trump campaign's data operation — and the RNC

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• Investigators have been looking into whether Russia provided the campaign with voter information stolen by Russian hackers from election databases in several states, and whether the Trump campaign helped Russia target its political ads to specific demographics and voting precincts. It is not surprising that federal investigators have begun to examine the possibility that Russia and the Trump campaign helped each other during the election.
• Deep Root accidentally leaked the sensitive personal details of roughly 198 million citizens in June, as its database was left exposed on the open web for nearly two weeks. The firm had stored details of about 61% of the US population on an Amazon cloud server without password protection.
• We basically had to build a $400 million operation with 1,500 people operating in 50 states, in five months to then be taken apart.

Tax reform shows that Donald Trump is a weak president. It’s not a victory.

(4949) (comments)

CNN footage of Trump golfing leaves conservatives furious

(3498) (comments)

• Per pool report, Trump is golfing today in Florida. His 85th day golfing and 111th at a Trump property since becoming president.

NY AG Schneiderman Pretty Much Confirms That He Could Become Trump’s Biggest Nightmare

(2984) (comments)

• Whether that action will take form in the shape of a pardon firing of Mueller himself is anyone’s guess – but we do know that New York State plans to put itself on the front lines when necessary.
• Therefore, if Mueller’s investigation exposes individuals, including Trump himself, to state criminal liability, states like New York, Virginia, and Illinois may find themselves cast as the key defenders of the realm. Russian collusion in the election would almost certainly violate election laws in at least those states, not to mention the 39 others that have potentially applicable laws against election interference.
• Conservative states’-rights enthusiasts would need to twist themselves into unrecognizable shapes to explain why a federal official should not submit to state authority, or alternatively, why a state prosecution isn’t grounds for impeachment. So it may be that the Schneidermans and the Becerras of America become the forces to ultimately stop the Trump machine in its tracks; such an outcome would be deliciously ironic.

Trump Presidency Is Tainted, Not FBI, Says Watergate Reporter Carl Bernstein

(2546) (comments)

• that he keeps using is ‘tainted.’ There’s really only one institution that has really been tainted through these months and that is the Trump presidency," Bernstein said.
• The president has accused McCabe of being a puppet of Hillary Clinton, ostracizing the director over his reported plans to retire in March.
• "If the president is as confident as he says, if this investigation is going to end very soon with him being exonerated, he ought to welcome all of this instead of attacking constantly," Bernstein said.

Former Federal Judge: Trump Is Packing the Courts with Unqualified Conservative Extremists

(2445) (comments)

• President Trump began his term having to fill 150 vacancies in the federal courts, or about 10 percent of the federal judiciary, largely due to a backlog caused by Republican obstruction of confirmations during the Obama administration. But legal experts say Trump’s appointments to the lower courts will have the most impact on American life because those courts decide nearly all cases, ranging from voting rights and contraception to gay rights and immigration. JUAN GONZÁLEZ: We begin today’s show looking at how President Trump is shaping the federal judiciary with the confirmation of a 12th circuit court judge earlier this month.
• Grasz is one of at least four Trump nominees the ABA deemed "not qualified." Meanwhile, Trump’s nominee to a lifetime appointment on the U.S. District Court in Washington withdrew from consideration, after widely circulated video showed he was unable to answer basic questions about the law and had never tried a case in court. Many of Trump’s appointees have drawn scrutiny, including Leonard Grasz, who was the Senate—who the Senate confirmed earlier this month to the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals despite a "not qualified" rating from the American Bar Association.
• We have one Supreme Court justice, and everybody pays a lot of attention to that, but the reality is that the lower courts is where the action is.

Sen. Ron Wyden cosponsors bill to legalize marijuana across U.S.

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• "Ultimately, Congress must act to put an end to the cycle of uncertainty and permanently protect state medical marijuana programs — and adult use — from federal interference," Blumenauer said earlier this month. "The American people have spoken.
• Blumenauer has also launched a political-action committee, called the Cannabis Fund, to unseat anti-marijuana lawmakers. The committee has garnered at least $2,000, according to the Federal Election Commission.

Barack Obama: It's 'Hugely Liberating' to No Longer be President

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Trump Becomes First President in 71 Years to Lose 'Most Admired Man' Poll in First Year

(1283) (comments)

• Trump came in second to Barack Obama, with the former president notching 17 percent of the vote to Trump's 14 percent. On the plus side, it was a slightly narrower margin than last year's poll, which Obama won 22-15.