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They are present and waiting to hear your pitch.

Alright, Pierluisi is present and waiting for your pitch.

28,100,000

27,450,000

Approved 

Approved. 

Murphy Administration Challenges Legality of McAllister Subpoena in Court

          As we enter the second stage of the Al-Najjar controversy, President Joseph Murphy has filed a lawsuit in the Washington, D. C. District Court. The suit alleges that Senator Jay McAllister’s subpoena is not legally enforceable based on its exact language. At present, the current investigation of the Senate ASFAJ Committee is based around the question of whether or not Joseph Murphy made contact with leaders of Hamas and Fateh to have them condemn Senator Al-Najjar for her op-ed blasting the Suvretta Accords and US support for Israel more broadly; the Murphy administration alleges in their suit that the Senate committee has requested material outside of this scope of inquiry, with the majority of years requested dating to before Al-Najjar being sworn in or her op-ed.

               In the broadest sense, the suit seems to assert that McAllister has gone on what is informally known as a ‘fishing expedition,’ subpoenaing a large number of files that are tangentially related to the matter at hand but not explicitly with the alleged wrong-doing. In this, Murphy does have legal precedent to pull from, namely Wilkinson v. United States, a Kennedy-era decision that established three foundational points for Congressional subpoenas: 1. That the investigation be authorized by the body of Congress at large; 2. That the subpoena have relevance to legislative activity (but need not result in legislation; and 3. That the specific inquiry must be limited to the matter at hand. However, McAllister also have some legal precedent supporting him: In 1975’s Eastland v. United States Serviceman’s Fund, the Supreme Court established a long-precedent of not involving itself in questions of Congressional subpoena, including both the Congress’ ability to issue them as well as limiting the ability to react against a President seen to be in contempt, declaring these to be ‘political issues’ as opposed to legal issues.

               Judge Bery A. Howell, Chief Judge of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, will decide whether to hear the case and receive any response from Senator McAllister or his legal representatives shortly.

Murphy v. McAllister, The United States District Court for the District of Columbia.docx

So after consulting with a large amount of the people running (basically those I had Telegram contacts for), I realized that there is a general interest in changing the structure of the race to cut down on primary rounds and to adjust it so that there was no way it overlaps with a graduation ceremony. So, here is our new structure:

December 6 – Primary round one due, platform deadline
December 10 – Primary round two due
December 14 – General round one due
December 18 – General round two due
December 22 - General round three due

Additionally, the December 6 round will be one of our 'optional' rounds - it will benefit you if you post (and you should def. submit a platform), but you won't be penalized for missing the round. At present, all candidates are the presumptive winners of their respective primaries (save Goose, per last announcement).

Quick note: 

Goose has brought to my attention that there was an emergency situation when the registration period elapsed - these are the kinds of things I am prone to be lenient on, so here is my official ruling:

Goose's registration as a candidate will count - however, IC his character will have missed the filing date and will be entering the race as an official Independent and seeking a write-in victory. The Republican Party is still free to support him as they wish, but the seat will officially be logged in the roster as I-affiliated RNC (unless Goose switches over characters after the races, then all of that is his call) and there will be a slight penalty, especially in early grading, given the write-in status of the campaign.

Approved.

Approved.

Approved. 

Approved.

Approved.

Approved.

Approved.

Approved, welcome aboard. 

Peace, my dude. Confirmed.

Economic Round Up, Q1 2014:
 

Unemployment Rate: 5.4%
Civilian Labor Force Participation Rate, Seasonally Adjusted: 66.2%
Jobs Added/Lost Last Quarter : +198,007
Gross Domestic Product Last Quarter: +6.4%
Inflation: 3.6%
Federal Funds Rate: 0.09%
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 16,001
Seasonally Adjusted Average Wage per Hour for all Nonfarm Employees: $27.13
Median Household Income: $59,742
Poverty Rate: 13.3%
National Average Price per Gallon of Regular Unleaded Gasoline: $2.59
U.S. Import and Export Index Summary: +1.02% on imports, +9.09% on exports
Percentage of Americans Without Health Insurance: 15.4%
Average Total Costs for non-Government Health Insurance (Premiums + Deductibles): $4,216 for individual coverage, $5,129 for family coverage

Premium Costs Jump After Pre-Existing Conditions Policy Goes into Effect:

          Following the passage of legislation that would ban the ability of insurance providers to discriminate against those with pre-existing conditions, healthcare activists criticized significant jumps in pricing. Peter Staley, one of the leading advocates for HIV+ patients in the United States of America, hailed the policy as important for millions of Americans with pre-existing conditions but criticized the lack of a component that would keep costs down. While the average cost of premiums increased only by 15% in the aftermath of the legislation, cost increases were significant among some of the largest national providers of insurance, with some topping as high as 50% in the first quarter of 2014. A spokesperson for BlueCross BlueShield, who saw an average premium jump of 34.6% stated that the premium increases were ‘necessary to offset the costs of expanded coverage to clients who would require a significant amount of investment into their short-term and long-term care.” On the more positive side, approximately seven million Americans with pre-existing conditions have entered the health insurance rolls since January 1^st.
 

Wages Climb and Unemployment Drops as Job Applications Down

               One of the most significant criticisms leveled against Joseph Murphy during the 2012 presidential election was the general drop in income following the financial crisis of 2008. While wages began to rebound in late 2012, they are now at pre-crash levels for a variety of reasons. The most significant, according to economists, is an outpouring of significant growth that defined the economy following massive spending increases with previous budgets – wages generally follow the economy, and the economy has roared back to a place where wages are starting to lift.

               Some economists pointed to other components, such as the recent spate of states that have increased their minimum wage levels following the failure of a federal agreement to increase the minimum wage. According to Susan Newman, a Wall Street Journal economics analyst, “Bringing up the base line of wages is an important component of moving averages. Even though a relatively small number of the population is paid the minimum wage – approximately 2.3% - minimum wage increases tend to resonate through the pay scale and lift more boats in the process. If even 1% goes from making $18,000 a year to $20,000 a year, that moves the average in meaningful ways. If say, 10% of people get a boost following that to keep them in more professional but low-paid positions, that lifts the average by significant numbers.”

               While unemployment numbers are also down, Keyman reported that there were a number of issues driving that statistic. “First off, we’re not seeing as many people apply for jobs right now. Part of that is going to come from lack of confidence in finding work or reaching Social Security qualifying age, and I think some of that is people opting to try and take advantage of the new free university program. The second component is that even though employment is up full-time employment is down, this is largely to make up costs incurred by wage increases. Averages are up, most people will see either a net-neutral or net-positive change for this, but hours will be cut and likely benefits will decrease along with that.”

Large Numbers of Students Plan to Enter University while University Administrators Refer to Debt-Free Commitment as ‘Significant,’ ‘Overwhelming’ – Several States Plan to Avoid Program

               As a new policy covering four-year university programs was rolled out nation-wide, the number of students seeking admittance into four-year universities nearly doubled over application numbers for Fall of 2013 as more aspiring students sought to enter the realms of academia.

               Speaking to the Wall Street Journal, Harvard professor Theo Unger, who specializes in the economics of education and education systems, laid out some of the problems with the new program. “Reviews are showing us that public university applications are through the roof because students are no longer worried about the financial costs of university education. While universities are always happy to receive expanded support from the government, I do not believe that the total operating costs that this would inflict on universities or the cost to students was really taken into account. To apply to any university, you pay an application fee – with record numbers of applications,  this has resulted in record numbers of rejections; that is money lost to students and families who are trying to take advantage of this program. They are having to expand professorial staff, teaching faculty, janitorial staff, housing systems, gym facilities, catering facilities, classrooms, and so on and so forth to handle a greater capacity of students in order to maintain a reasonable acceptance rate.” Acceptance rates, something not often thought about outside of academia, are a critical component in university rankings, with high but reasonable rejection rates being one of the primary determiners of a university’s desirability, accessibility, and quality. Unger continued by expressing concern that the demand that universities maintain the average level of spending on students meant that costs would increase with the number of students admitted, as opposed to the kind of reduction in overall costs that can traditionally be incurred by expanding the scale of an operation. “Education, like all ventures, operates best at scale – to pull from business, it’s often cheaper to have a hundred thousand customers than ten thousand customers. That same logic applies to universities – it’s cheaper to have a hundred thousand students, assuming tuition is coming into the university, than ten thousand students, but that’s only the case if you are actually able to reduce costs. The way this legislation is worded, to me, suggests that universities will not be able to reduce the cost of operations as they expand because they have to maintain average spending. So instead of reducing as the number of students increases, the cost must remain static.”

               Some college towns, largely dependent on universities for their economic livelihoods, are also feeling the pressure. Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum explained this angle to the Wall Street Journal: “Tallahassee is a big place, but the range where students choose to live to have access to the university is fairly narrow, really just a few square miles in an already over-developed segment of the city. We are going to have to rework zoning laws, capacity limits, housing construction tax codes, and probably look into an expansion of eminent domain practices to provide land to housing developers.” Some small business owners additionally criticized the move, such as Gillum constituent and bar owner Andreas Smith, who said that the string of bars, nightclubs, restaurants, independent shops, and other locations that ring the university community were at extreme risk of being driven out due to the need of housing development: “Those establishments that were further away from the foot traffic, they stand to benefit – those of us that have spent our lives working in establishments in primo locations are going to feel the crunch here.” At present, Florida’s legislature is still debating whether the grants offered by the federal government to match a debt-free college experience are actually beneficial to students.

               Some smaller university leaders also expressed concern. Timothy Donovan, Chancellor of the Vermont State Colleges system, expressed deep concern about the growth of a student population. “Take Johnson State College, for example. It can support about 4,000 students. That’s on a thousand acres, and it’s in a county of 3,500 people. The local population needed to expand the study body of Johnson State College is just not one of the native resources of this area. Even if funding is no longer an issue for students, we’re not going to be able to actually expand capacity here. You’d need to grow the city in significant ways, and there’s no way to do that overnight. We’re going to have to turn away a lot of these students, so the policy doesn’t necessarily help them unless they have the kind of family war chest that lets them relocate to a larger university and that depends on the larger university having the capacity to take them.” This informs another major concern, which Donovan explained at length: “We’re going to receive more applicants – we will have to find a way to decide who gets free college if we do not have a massive expansion of support facilities; that means we’re going to select for the very best and the very brightest students. That’s good for us as institutions, it’s bad in an economy where access to a college education is so critical to your economic well-being; the bachelor’s degree, it’s value in American society is now reduced to such a point that a lot of businesses see it as necessary just to get in the door; when we cut people who maybe aren’t the highest performers in academia out of this process, they are going to struggle unless businesses correct this assumption, and that will not be a short process.”

               Theo Unger estimates that some of the larger universities will be able to expand their capacity significantly by 2020, but that it will be a long process for most universities and he projects that there will be a significant drop in the quality of education between now and then. “We’re going to have to expand class sizes, we’re going to have lower the quality that we look for instructors, and we’re going to have experiment quite a bit more with online teaching – something that teaching staff is loathe to do. The University of Texas, given a few years, will be fine – other universities are going to struggle under this new system and students are going to be let down.”
 

               Education reformer and activist bell hooks, who expressed support for the spirit of the policy, criticized its short-term ramifications as letting down an entire generation of students. “We know from study after study after study that the best way to guarantee a quality education that builds students is small, personalized-as-much-as-possible classroom settings that allows a lot of one-on-one interaction. That was already dying off, but it seems impossible now. We know from similar studies that the advent of nation-wide standardized testing as a precondition to funding has reduced the quality of students as there was a declining reward for teaching broader intellectual tools as opposed to basic rote memorization of facts. University staff was already playing catch up to try and make sure that students developed the skills that they used to develop in primary education but aren’t anymore – as the student population increases this problem is going to be exacerbated and they are going to be run ragged; bluntly, that means a reduced educational experience and reduced outcomes.”

               Unger additionally criticized the amount of funds distributed in the program as inefficient for the challenges ahead. “This expansion program for faculty, staff, student support, etc. amounted to $64 billion. The University of Central Florida, the largest public university in the United States, is nearly $2 billion per year to run; Texas A&M, the second largest, is roughly $6.5 billion. The difference in quality between these universities is significant – A&M is about a hundred ranking spots higher than UCF – and that quality comes at a cost. These budgets will balloon and they will balloon rapidly. That’s not even getting into what I think might be the most significant component. A number of universities, which I would include A&M, Florida State, Louisiana State, the University of Southern California, have extensive athletics programs – they operate these athletics at an immediate loss, but they in turn make a profit by licensing university logos to apparel shops – a significant part of this process, at least as administrators interpret it, is having quality sports teams that brings in fans not associated with the university itself – they’ve now lost their most significant recruiting tool for students, especially given the NCAA restriction on what kind of benefits can be provided to students. So there will be a net loss here that they are going to have to rely on these funds to make up. The funds provided here are just not enough – this is not a three quarters of a trillion dollars provided over a decade project, this is a multi-trillion dollar over five or six years project, with significant maintenance after, if you don’t want local communities, students, and universities to bear the brunt of these costs.”

At present, a number of states have opted not to apply for the funds laid out in the bill, hoping that they will find loopholes that allow them to retain the present system until significant reforms can be put into place. At present, most of the New England, Midwestern, and Southern states are attempting to opt out of the program at present, hoping that there will be significant increases in federal funding before they bring the state budgets into play. This has had some ramifications at the university level, as some schools have delayed expansions plans and even their regular admittance cycles to see which way their legislative bodies go

"Excellent, thank you. That will be provided as soon as possible."

The State Department's representative inquires if there is a formal date at which point the turned over documents should begin, noting that in the absence of a date the body of paper work turned over to the United States Senate would be massive and require a significant amount of time to compile. 

Q1 2014 Roundup:

National:
- Thirteen states (Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Missouri, Montana, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington) all increase their minimum wages through state legislative action.
- Two revelers are killed at Austin’s South by Southwest festival after a drunk driver speeds through a barricade.
- Colorado authorizes the legal sale and possession of marijuana within the state.
- A federal judge rules that Kentucky’s refusal to recognize gay marriages performed outside of the state is unconstitutional; similarly, separate judges rules that Texas and Virginia’s ban on same-sex marriage are unconstitutional. All rulings are stayed. On the other hand, a similar ruling on same-sex marriage’s constitutionality in Michigan is not stayed, likely leading to the Supreme Court.
- The Massachusetts legislature formally bans the practice of ‘upskirt’ photography, two days after the commonwealth’s supreme court ruled that it was technically legal under then-present laws.
- A gas explosion in East Harlem kills eight residents and causes the collapse of the building; several nearby buildings are damaged and nearly seventy people are injured.
- An oil barge capsizes in Galveston Bay, dumping nearly one hundred million barrels of oil in the process.
- Liz Wahl and Abby Martin, two anchors at the Russian-owned RT network, resign on air in protest of Russian governmental policies.

International:
- Hamas Chairman Khaled Mashal and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas sign formal paper work agreeing to an official end of hostilities between the two organizations and paving the way for open elections in Palestinian claimed territory in 2015.
- Belgium becomes the first nation to legalize euthanasia for terminally ill patients.
- The Ukrainian Parliament removes Viktor Yanukovych from office; he is replaced Oleksandr Turchynov.
- Latvia joins the Eurozone.
- Nicholas Maduro withdraws all Venezuelan representatives from Panama, citing growing tensions and the belief that Panama was involved in an elaborate conspiracy against the Venezuelan government.
- Malaysian Airlines Flight 370 disappears over the Indian Ocean; searches are underway but hope is waning.
- Ayatollah Ali Khameini has reportedly entered exile in Russia, after a brief period of time in Georgia.
- The International Court of Justice suspends Japanese whaling permits, ruling that the venture is primarily commercial and not, as the Japanese government has asserted, scientific.
- Israel announces the death of Ariel Sharon, the former Prime Minister who had been in a vegetative state since a freak stroke in 2006.
- Escalating tensions lead to the Pakistani government launching a massive day-time air raid against the Taliban near the Khyber Pass; thirty Taliban fighters, including one senior commander, are reported killed in the strike.
- Forty American political activists associated with Code Pink are detained at Cairo International Airport, reportedly for trying to enter the Gaza Strip without authorization; the activists, mostly women, are expected to be returned to the United States shortly.

Business:
- Comcast and Time Warner Cable merge to become the single largest cable provider in the United States of America.
- Facebook buys the Oculus display for nearly $2,000,000,000.

Arts and Entertainment:
- The 86^th Academy Awards happen. 12 Years a Slave wins Best Picture; Alfonso Cuaron Best Picture for Gravity; Matthew McConaughey takes Best Actor for Dallas Buyer’s Club; and Cate Blanchette wins Best Actress for Blue Jasmine. Presenter John Travolta wins headlines after he mispronounces the name of winner Idina Menzel.
- Shirley Temple Black, child actress turned Republican politician, Ford administration official, and ambassador dies at the age of 85.  
- Two previously unknown works by the Greek erotic poet Sappho are discovered and released to the public.
- Pete Seeger, renowned folk musician and symbol of the early counter-culture, dies at 94.
- Beck’s Morning Phase defeats early favorite 1989 by Taylor Swift to be named Album of the Year at the Grammys.
- Philip Seymour Hoffman, Academy Award winning actor, dies at the age of 46 following a heroin overdose. Long open about his struggles with various addictions, Hoffman had been clean for more than two decades before relapsing in 2013.
- Two mainstays of classic rock, The Allman Brothers Band and Pink Floyd, separately announce their formal disbanding.
- Following criticism about its lack of diversity, Saturday Night Live announces the hirings of Sasheer Zamata and Leslie Jones.  
- Jimmy Fallon takes over as host of the Tonight Show, returning the NBC mainstay to New York after forty-two years in California. Fallon broke the ice on his first broadcast by formally ending the blacklist of Joan Rivers from the program, in place since a personal dispute with Johnny Carson 1986.
- The fourth season premier of Downton Abbey becomes the most watched program in PBS history.
- CBS show How I Met Your Mother receives significant pushback after an episode featured all major cast members in yellow face and performing with faux Asian accents – the creator apologized shortly after the episode debuted. The scandal helped spark off another, distantly related issue, where #CancelColbert trended on Twitter after the comedian employed Asian stereotypes on his program.

Science and Technology:
- South Korea establishes its first base on mainland Antarctica.
- The world’s largest and most advanced solar power plant opens in California.

Human Interest:
- Hiroo Onoda, a former Japanese Imperial Army officer who terrorized tourists and civilians alike during a refused surrender that lasted until 1974, dies in Tokyo; Onoda was the second longest-lasting hold out of Japanese Imperial forces, surpassed only by Teruo Nakamura.

Sports:
- Norway tops 2014 Winter Olympics with most gold metals at eleven, Russia claims most medals at ten gold and twenty-nine in total; the United States comes in second for most medals and fourth in gold total, behind Canada. The Netherlands tops podium sweeps with four.  
- The Seattle Seahawks defeat the Denver Broncos in a 48-3 blowout, scoring the first Superbowl victory for Seattle’s team; while viewer ratings were good, half-time viewership declined as many turned into the McKnight/Murphy interview.  
- Dale Earnhardt, Jr. wins the Daytona 500 during a tornado warning, breaking his losing streak of 55 races.
- The FAA orders the Washington Nationals to stop using unmanned aerial vehicles as part of its production process, citing the flights as unauthorized.
- ESPN assumes exclusive broadcasting rights of the Pro Bowl.

Approved, welcome back.

Al-Najjar, Murphy Both Draw Criticism in Palestine Dispute

               A new scuffle has emerged in Washington between New Jersey Senator Nadia Al-Najjar and sitting President Joseph Murphy over the Suvretta accords, committee placement, and accusations that President Murphy would bring in Palestinian leaders from abroad to attack the sitting Senator.

               CNN addressed the accusations the disputes in terms of severity, reaching out first to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and Hamas leader Khaled Mashal. Chairman Mashal refrained from providing any commentary at length, merely stating that he had not spoken to President Murphy directly in some time and had little interest in being involved in the domestic politics of the United States, citing a desire to preserve relations that have grown more productive and friendly in recent years. President Abbas released a formal statement: “Neither I nor any member of my staff have been approached about formally criticizing Senator Al-Najjar for her statements, nor would we consider it appropriate to interfere in an internal party dispute in the United States.” Likely, both men are hedging their bets in advance of the Palestinian general election which will see both men lead their respective parties into their first internationally-observed and Israel-recognized head-to-head election. A representative of the third signatory to the Suvretta Accords, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, was less reserved in his statements: “The editorial by Senator Al-Najjar was rife with inflammatory language that is not reflective of improving conditions, and we strongly condemn this characterization of the current state of affairs in Israel as inaccurate.”

               At root of the dispute, and explaining Barak’s comments, was an editorial published in the New York Tikes by Senator Al-Najjar who criticized Murphy’s handling of the peace process and blasted the Suvretta Accords. A response was quickly offered by Senator Abigail Spinoza (R-NV), who is of Mizrahi Jewish ancestry and who argued that the Suvretta Accords were “a single diplomatic achievement [that] should be viewed with some approval.” Additionally, as Spinoza correctly predicted, Al-Najjar has met with some pushback in her own home state, which has the second largest Jewish population per capita after New York. Her predecessor as New Jersey’s Senator, Frank Lautenberg, was of Jewish ancestry and considered one of the most reliably pro-Israeli votes in the United States Senate – a move that made him fairly popular in a state that is widely considered a significant component of the pro-Israel lobby in the United States. At base, Al-Najjar’s decision to make this a central component of her appeal in the Garden State is politically questionable.

               The bigger issue for many, however, is whether Joseph Murphy threatened to bring in newfound friends in the Palestinian world to resolve an inter-party dispute. At present, no definitive evidence to this end has been presented, though these issues are often in flux. However, Murphy has found himself under fire from his longtime thorn, McAllister Media, who stated in a piece that "A White House official or the President, threatening to use the office of the Presidency in a way to ask foreign leaders to attack elected officials with whom he disagrees, could be seen as a severe and flagrant abuse of power." 

               As this is likely a developing story, stay tuned.

Pertaining to the issue with Huffines, the AB has convened and we have held a vote on the question of whether Fisher’s comments to Huffines over Telegram should be treated as in-character. By a majority vote on both issues and then a unanimous (of those available) decision on the wording of the ruling, we have made the following decisions.

Decision one, in two parts:

1. Per Section 5 of the rules, Telegram communications between players is generally considered out of character, but we also have the ability to deem a conversation in-character if we believe that it is relevant to the game. We have decided that as the conversation in question regarding the al-Najjar character was motivated by IC issues and carried IC repercussions, it should be considered IC.

2. However, this conversation was also on Telegram, meaning that a second set of rules from Section 5 are also in effect. That means that there was no formal recording or documentation of this conversation from an IC perspective, and the accusations should be considered hearsay.

Decision three, in one part:

3. Comments made by a journalist character within the context of a pre-interview setting would also be considered hearsay, without formal recording or documentation.

(I would also add that, in my personal interpretation of the material provided on the third decision, that it is somewhat clear that the character is being sarcastic, albeit in a hamfisted way - that is, however, a question for spin.)

In conclusion, this means that this issue will largely be resolved via spin war.