CB File – August 28

About the File

As promised, Champion Briefs is committed to bringing you the best politics disads available and other positions for you to run. This week, the file contains two different midterm elections scenarios. One is based on the republicans winning and one is based on the democrats winning. The republicans winning the senate is probably the most likely/true uniqueness evidence as most sources are predicting that it will either be 51-49 in favor of the Republicans or an even 50-50 split with Biden being the tiebreaker. Remember that the cards from one disad can be used to answer the other disad. In addition to this, we have also provided a kritik of the politics disad for teams who run more kritikal affs as well as answers to this kritik.

Republicans Bad

Uniqueness

No Republican wave in the status quo, but a lot can change before the election.Carroll 8/27 (Carroll, James. “Analysts: don't expect a GOP wave in Senate.” The Courier-Journal. August 28, 2014. <

http://www.courier-journal.com/story/politics-blog/2014/08/27/analysts-see-no-republican-wave-in-senate-elections-perhaps-not-even-a-splash/14684831/>)

Well, right now, there's no GOP wave out there, as far as some top analysts can see. Indeed, a Republican

takeover of the Senate is not entirely a sure thing.¶ Now, The New York Times' Upshot currently gives the GOP what it calls a "moderate" 68 percent chance of taking the Senate. And the Times gives Republican McConnell strong prospects of beating his Democratic challenger, Kentucky Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes. Upshot says the senator has an 86 percent chance at winning a sixth term.¶ Grimes and Kentucky Democrats, of course, would

dispute that forecast.¶ In any case, this is not turning into the Republican year some certainly had reason to believe it would be, write Larry Sabato, Kyle Kondik and Geoffrey Skelley in the University of Virginia's Crystal Ball political newsletter and Politico.¶ "So where's the wave?" they ask. "This is President Obama's sixth-year-itch election. The map of states with contested Senate seats could hardly be better from the Republicans' vantage point. And the breaks this year - strong candidates, avoidance of damaging gaffes, issues such as Obamacare and immigration that stir the

party base - have mainly gone the GOP's way, very unlike 2012.""Nonetheless, the midterms are far from over. In every single one of the Crystal Ball's toss-up states, (Alaska, Arkansas, Iowa, Louisiana and North Carolina),

the Republican Senate candidate has not yet opened up a real polling lead in any of them. Democratic nominees have been running hard and staying slightly ahead, or close to, their Republican foes."

Democrats are going to keep control of the senate in the status quo – history proves.Huey-Burns 8/27 (How Democrats Can Hold Their Senate Majority By Caitlin Huey-Burns - August 27, 2014 Read

more:http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2014/08/27/how_democrats_can_hold_their_senate_majority_123782.html#ixzz3Bf3OYOxJ)

Republicans have a terrible record of beating incumbent Democratic senators, going back to their

last good year in this category, 1980,” wrote Larry Sabato and his “Crystal Ball” colleagues this week. “There is no obvious way for the GOP to gain the six seats necessary for control without taking down some incumbent Democrats, a task at which Republicans have struggled -- they haven’t beaten more than two

Democratic Senate incumbents since that huge 1980 landslide.” Democratic senators, especially those in red states

won by Mitt Romney, are certainly vulnerable. The unfavorable political climate has been well noted, and President Obama’s drag on candidates hasn’t eased (some are still reluctant to be seen with

him). But several Democratic incumbents are either leading or within the margin of error, according to polls. With the exception of Montana, South Dakota and West Virginia, no Republican challenger has pulled

into a significant lead in Democratic-held states. After Labor Day weekend, voters will begin to tune in in earnest to the congressional races in their states and districts and the ad wars will heat up. Contests will

surely tighten, and both Democrats and Republicans expect close races up until Election Day. But Democrats say they feel confident in their incumbents’ abilities, so far, to hold up against national headwinds .

Senate Majority Leader Predicts that Democrats will hold onto majority in SenateSherfinski 8/19/14, David. “Harry Reid: Dems will hold Senate ‘unless something unexpected happens.’” The Washington Times. 08-19-2014.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/aug/19/harry-reid-dems-will-hold-senate-unless-something-/

In the face of a challenging electoral landscape for his party in this year’s midterms, Senate   Majority Leader   Harry Reid predicted this week they’ll [that Democrats will] hold onto their tenuous majority in the   Senate barring some unforeseen incident. “We’ll keep the majority unless something unexpected happens,”   senate-majority/14209243/” target=”_blank”>the Nevada Democrat told the Reno Gazette-

Journal ahead of a local party confab Sunday. Mr. Reid’s party currently holds a five-seat majority in the upper chamber, but open seats in Montana, South Dakota and West Virginia appear likely to flip to the GOP at this point.

That means Republicans essentially need to unseat at least three incumbent Democrats in a

handful of winnable races in states like North Carolina, Alaska, Arkansas and Louisiana, while retaining GOP-held seats in competitive races in Kentucky and Georgia, to re-take control of the chamber.

Democrats are slightly ahead and have the ability to protect their majority in the SenateDahl 8/20/14, Dahl, Wills. “Democrats need to go big for November.” LA Post Examiner. 08-20-2014. http://lapostexaminer.com/democrats-need-go-big-

november/2014/08/20

First, a McClatchy-Marist poll shows the GOP taking a five-point lead on the House generic ballot, at 43-38. That was followed

by polls in Kentucky and Georgia showing Republicans inching ahead of their Democratic opponents there. On the other hand, a Fox News poll released Wednesday showed Democrats leading 46-39 on the generic ballot, surging from a mere two-point lead last month. And with polls showing Senator Kay Hagan stabilizing her modest lead in North Carolina, Democrats probably have a clearer path to protecting their majority than they had last June.

Democrats can hold onto majority in Senate Salvanto et all 6/27/14 Salvanto, Anthony et al. [Doug Rivers, Andy Guess]. “Republicans narrowly favored to capture Senate in November.” CBS

News. 06-27-2014. http://www.cbsnews.com/news/2014-midterms-republicans-narrowly-favored-to-capture-senate-in-november/

Elsewhere, though, we see larger leads for Democrats -- in Colorado, for example, and in New Hampshire, where Senator Jeanne Shaheen would comfortably defeat former Senator and possible GOP nominee Scott

Brown. Those results suggest the playing field is not expanding quite as far as Republicans might like. Our simulations also show Alaska's Democratic Senator Mark Begich slightly favored to hold onto his seat. Some previous public polling (though there hasn't been much) has suggested a toss-up, perhaps due to the relative dearth of reliable survey data.

Democrats have more campaign money to help them maintain senate majorityElliott 08-20-2014, Philip [Associated Press]. “News Guide: Democrats top GOP in House, Senate.” SeattlePi. 08-20-2014.

http://www.seattlepi.com/news/politics/article/News-Guide-Democrats-top-GOP-in-House-Senate-5701269.php

Senate Democrats' campaign arm outraised its GOP rival again last month and now has $32 million saved to help endangered incumbents defend their narrow   majority . The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee raised $7.7 million in July and is ready to spend the bulk of it in an effort to turn back

Republican challengers. The Democrats' campaign arm has now raised almost $104 million and, as of Aug. 1, the group has spent more than $73 million for the fall   campaign. The National Republican Senatorial Committee said over the weekend that it raised almost $5.4 million in July and has $26.6 million ready

to help candidates. Fundraising summaries show Republicans with $76 million raised and $53 million spent, outpacing 2010 and 2012 efforts.

Slight majority in the Senate is in favor of DemocratsWang 8/19/14, Sam. “Will the 2014 election be a wave or a ripple?” The New Yorker. 08-19-2014. http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/will-

2014-election-wave-ripple

According to [calculations based on public-opinion polls] these calculations, if the election were held

today, Democrats (and the two Independents who caucus with them) would end up with forty-nine or fifty seats, for a loss of five or six seats. In a fifty-fifty split, Vice-President Biden would break ties in favor of the Democrats. Therefore control of the Senate is on the razor’s edge, and Republicans are

at almost exactly even odds for taking over. To date, this 2014 Senate estimate has not moved much, staying within a narrow range.

Internals/LinksMidterm elections are always based on Obama’s approval ratings Cook 13—Charlie, political analyst for The National Journal

[9/12, http://www.nationaljournal.com/columns/the-cook-report/why-democrats-have-reason-to-fear-20130912]ab

Stepping back, midterm elections are, more often than not, referenda on the White House occupant. While the president’s name is not on the ballot, voters usually register their approval or disapproval of the administration through their votes for Congress. Obama’s job-approval ratings are currently in the low- to mid-40s, roughly where George W. Bush’s were at this point in his second term (his later dropped as low as 31 percent). Obama’s disapproval ratings are running just above his approval ratings—never a good sign—but the president’s numbers are not yet radioactive. The other relevant political axiom to keep in mind is that Americans often vote their pocketbooks, based on their perceptions of how the national economy is doing, how they are doing, and whether they are seeing the economy through a hopeful or a pessimistic lens. The U.S. economy, as measured by real gross domestic product, grew at a very healthy pace of 3.7 percent in the first quarter of 2012. However, for the remaining three quarters of last year and first two quarters of this year, the recovery did not proceed nearly as steadily: Growth ranged from as low as one-tenth of 1 point in the fourth quarter of last year to 2.5 percent in the second quarter of this year. Growth is not at the pace that you would want coming out of the longest, deepest, and most diffuse economic downturn since the Great Depression. The consensus of 55 top economists surveyed by Blue Chip Economic Indicators earlier this month called for the economy to increase by 2.1 percent in the third quarter of 2013 and 2.6 percent in the fourth quarter, with growth gradually rising to between 2.7 percent and 3 percent over the course of next year; the economists project unemployment to be at 6.8 percent in the final quarter of next year, somewhat better than the current level. Consumer confidence is a bit off its six-year high but still not remotely near the bullish years from 1983 through 2007. So, yes, people are feeling better about the economy than they did during the recession, but the numbers still aren’t good. A mediocre economy is certainly not an asset for the party holding the White House, but it may not be a strong drag, either. If Obama’s job ratings bounce around at or under 40 percent for long, Democrats should worry that the historic trend of the president’s party losing ground in the House may catch up with them. But these are the typical dynamics for a midterm election. Syria would definitely complicate matters.

Any shift means game over for the DemocratsEnten 7/15Democrats Are in a Perilous Position in 2014 Senate Races 12:14 PMJUL 15 By HARRY ENTEN http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/democrats-are-in-a-perilous-position-in-2014-senate-races/

In other words, the final outcome for the Senate could be anything from a minor Republican gain to a GOP romp. At the moment, the state of play seems manageable from a Democratic perspective, but the party’s position is perilous. A tiny shift could tip the canoe and spill a lot of Democrats overboard.

The race is extremely close, any policy shift can change public opinion and the outcome of the election.Wang, Sam. “Will the 2014 election be a wave or a ripple?” The New Yorker. 08-19-2014. http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/will-2014-election-wave-ripple

The last time any national question was this close was the Kerry v. Bush Presidential race, in 2004. In such a tight scenario, public opinion would have to shift across the board by only two percentage points to create a clear advantage for either side. But based on what’s happened so far in 2014, it’s doubtful that we

will see that much of a swing—we may be in for a suspenseful fall campaign. With margins this tight, what matters is not a wave but individual Senate campaigns. At the moment, polls indicate that six Senate races are within two percentage points or less: Arkansas, Colorado, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, and North Carolina. To win control, Republicans must win four of these races. As a result, state-specific details such as Iowan Joni Ernst’s views on impeachment and the United Nations’ Agenda 21, a third-party candidacy in North Carolina, and Mitch McConnell’s job-approval ratings in Kentucky may determine whether President Obama gets any judicial nominees approved in his last two years of office. Those local splashes, not a big

wave, will shape who controls next year’s Senate.

Virtually tied Senate race can be decided by any pressure points Rucker, Philip et al. [Robert Costa and Matea Gold]. “Unlike Previous midterm election years, no dominant theme has

emerged for 2014.” 08-09-2014. http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/unlike-previous-midterm-election-years-no-dominant-theme-has-emerged-for-2014/2014/08/09/8775aca6-1f0a-11e4-ae54-0cfe1f974f8a_story.html

As long as it has been polling, Gallup has asked voters to state their “most important problem.” For the first midterm cycle since 1998, no single issue registers with more than 20   percent of voters . Immigration was the top concern for 17 percent of those Gallup surveyed in July, while 16 percent said government dissatisfaction and

15 percent the economy. The result could be an especially unpredictable final 12   weeks of the campaign. With voter turnout expected to be low and several big races virtually tied, campaigns everywhere are searching for pressure points — by taking advantage of news events or

colorful and, at times, highly parochial issues — to motivate their base voters to go to the polls.

One mistake by the Democrats can shift the election in favor of the Republicans.Rucker, Philip et al. [Robert Costa and Matea Gold]. “Unlike Previous midterm election years, no dominant theme has

emerged for 2014.” 08-09-2014. http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/unlike-previous-midterm-election-years-no-dominant-theme-has-emerged-for-2014/2014/08/09/8775aca6-1f0a-11e4-ae54-0cfe1f974f8a_story.html

There is hope in the uncertainty for both parties. Democrats believe they have an opening to use wedge issues, such as same-sex marriage, access to birth control and abortion, to rally opposition against Republicans. Republicans,

meanwhile, see the potential to expand their opportunities and turn what they expect to be a good year into a great one. “It’s like a close basketball game and then something happens, there is a breakaway, and it goes from a three- to four-point game to a 10-point win,” Republican strategist Ed Rollins said.

Democrats have to be cautious due to close senate raceMasters, Clay. “Campaigns Ramp Up in Iowa’s Tight U.S. Senate Race.” Iowa Public Radio. 08-20-2014. http://iowapublicradio.org/post/campaigns-ramp-iowa-s-tight-us-senate-race

Republicans have their eye on a handful of seats they need to pick up to take control of the U.S. Senate this November. One is longtime Democratic Senator Tom Harkin, who’s retiring later this year. The open

seat pits Democratic Congressman Bruce Braley against Republican State Senator Joni Ernst.   Polls show the race neck and neck   as the candidates have just more than two months left to campaign. Historically, the party that’s in the White House fairs poorly in midterm elections. “That doesn’t mean that any one Democrat will do more

poorly,” said University of Northern Iowa Political Science Professor Donna Hoffman [said]. “It

does mean that the Democrats have to be very careful about their senate races because they do want to keep control of the Senate.”

Senate Candidates are neck and neck in important states, no decisive leadsEnten, Harry. “Six Consistently Close Races will Probably Decide Control of the Senate.” Five Thirty Eight. 08-20-2014. http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/six-consistently-close-races-will-probably-decide-control-of-the-senate/

Republicans look likely to pick up seats in Montana, South Dakota and West Virginia — putting the party within three seats of

the majority. The map right now is simple: Control of the Senate will be decided in Alaska, Arkansas, Colorado, Iowa, Louisiana and North Carolina. Republicans must win at least half of these races. Yet, we still can’t say with much confidence who will win the Senate. These are tight races. In our latest FiveThirtyEight forecast, we gave Republicans no higher than a 60 percent chance of

winning any of these six seats and no lower than a 40 percent chance. In the Huffington Post’s Pollster aggregates, no candidate in any of these races leads by more than 3.1 percentage points. All these races are too close to call.

Impacts

Shutdown General

Republicans winning meaning another shut down on horizon.The Atlantic 8/27 (Will Republicans Shut Down the Government Again? House GOP leaders fear a conservative revolt when government funding comes

up for a vote next month. MOLLY BALLAUG 27 2014, 2:20 PM ET http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/08/will-republicans-shut-down-the-government-again/379235/)

But not all Republicans are convinced the shutdown was such a disaster for them. A few weeks ago in Texas, I watched Cruz tell a roomful of conservative activists that the fight to defund Obamacare was actually a partial victory. "If you listen to Democrats, if you listen to the media—although I repeat myself—they will tell you that fight last summer and

fall didn't succeed," he said. But, he asked, "Where are we now today?" The president's approval ratings are lower than ever, voters overwhelmingly dislike Obamacare, and Republicans have a chance at winning a dozen or more

Senate seats. Rather than suffer a setback in the shutdown (which he did not mention), Cruz said, "I believe we have laid the foundation for winning the war to repeal Obamacare." If

conservatives buy Cruz's logic, which they tend to do, the prospect of another shutdown might not scare them much. And that could mean Congress is headed for trouble .

McConnell guarantees extreme action if election majority leaderKapur 8/20 (McConnell Promises Government Shutdown Wars In A GOP Majority BySAHIL KAPURPublishedAUGUST 20, 2014, 9:46 AM EDT

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/dc/mitch-mcconnell-government-shutdown-fights-republican-majority)

The government shutdown battles are poised to make a comeback if Republicans win control of the Senate this fall. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY)

promised in no uncertain terms that he'd use must-pass spending bills to force confrontations with President Barack Obama over policy reforms if he's elected majority leader. "We're going to pass spending bills, and they're going to have a lot of restrictions on the activities of the bureaucracy," McConnell told Politico while traveling on his campaign bus across Kentucky. "That’s something he won’t like,

but that will be done. I guarantee it." The Kentucky Republican added that Obama "needs to be challenged, and the best way to do that is through the funding process." Since they took control of the House in

2011, Republicans have forced a series of standoffs by attempting to use the appropriations process to make policy changes they otherwise lack the votes for in Congress. They've sought to attach extraneous provisions — known as riders — involving everything from restricting abortion rights, undoing coal pollution regulations and, of course, defunding Obamacare, which led to the first shutdown since 1996 last fall.

Elections favor republicans – same tactics which lead to previous shutdown.Kapur 8/20 (McConnell Promises Government Shutdown Wars In A GOP Majority BySAHIL KAPURPublishedAUGUST 20, 2014, 9:46 AM EDT http://talkingpointsmemo.com/dc/mitch-mcconnell-government-shutdown-fights-republican-majority)

McConnell's promise raises the already high stakes for the 2014 Senate races, where the electorate and the map favors Republicans . They have to win a net of six seats to take

control of the chamber. The House is all but certain to remain in Republican hands. Adam

Jentleson, a spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), slammed McConnell's remarks. "Yes,

Senator McConnell is pledging nothing but more gridlock and confrontation and doubling down on the exact same tactics that led to the shutdown last year," Jentleson told TPM.

"It's true, I'm just surprised he's saying it out loud." Rep. Steve Israel (D-NY), the chairman of House Democrats' electoral

arm, responded to McConnell's "shutdown threats" in a statement on Wednesday. “Once again, we’re seeing that Republicans see government shutdowns as partisan tools, not economic disasters," he

said. " It’s exactly this kind of reckless gamesmanship that led to the last shutdown and is leaving the door open for another at the end of September. For the sake of our economy, this Republican Congress needs to take shutdowns off the table once and for all."

Prominent Senate Republicans promise shutdown.Everett 8/27 Dems paint GOP as shutdown party, By BURGESS EVERETT | 8/27/14 3:42 PM EDT Updated: 8/27/14 4:01 PM EDT Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2014/08/democrats-republicans-shutdown-110394.html#ixzz3Bem03683

The shutdown talk is being stoked after recent comments by prominent Senate Republicans like Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and Marco Rubio of Florida that predicted a confrontational stance toward Obama on spending bills if either the GOP takes the Senate or the president announces new changes to immigration policy. McConnell

[they] “repeatedly threatened to shut down the government unless Republicans get exactly what they want,” said Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.) on Wednesday.

Rubio, she added, wants to “essentially bludgeon the president into submission over immigration

policy.” (Also on POLITICO: How Reid holds veto power over Obama) “Republican leaders, once again, prefer to threaten another government shutdown over advancing essential legislation,” said Drew Hammill, a spokesman for House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.).

Republicans ahead in polls so they push for gov’t shutdown Ambinder 8/27 Marc Ambinder How Democrats might goad the GOP into shutting down the government AUGUST 27, 2014, AT 9:25 AM http://theweek.com/article/index/267110/how-democrats-might-goad-the-gop-into-shutting-down-the-government

The only way to punish Obama, really, is to punish his constituency, the thinking goes. Punish the people who get the most from Obama: So shut the government down, again. (GOP Sen. Marco Rubio has hinted that this

might happen.) Republicans might just figure that the GOP is so far ahead in the midterms that they won't face a voter revolt for doing so. So, let's say the GOP tries to punish Obama by indeed shutting the

government down. Again. The Democratic scenario has Republicans underestimating the price of such a move. Indeed, Democratic focus groups consistently show that the most unpopular thing the GOP can do, the one thing that will make people who are too disgusted to vote, vote, or who are capable of changing their vote to change their vote to the other side, is to shut down the government again. It is that unpopular.

Rubio on board with shutdownBobic 8/27 Igor Bobic Democrats Warn GOP About Risking Another Government Shutdown Posted: 08/27/2014 10:44 am EDT Updated: 08/27/2014 10:59

am EDT http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/08/27/democrats-government-shutdown_n_5722384.html

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) hinted this week that Republicans could use the budget process to try to block a likely presidential executive action on deportations. Lawmakers will have just 10 working days to agree to a continuing resolution to fund the government once they return from recess in

September. Injecting immigration into the mix by pushing to block expected deportation relief for undocumented immigrants could increase the chances of another government shutdown.

McConnell has promised that a Republican take-over of the Senate will lead to a full government shutdown.Grier 8/20/14 (Grier, Peter. “Mitch McConnell vows confrontation if GOP wins Senate. Serious?” Christian Science Monitor. August 20, 2014.

<http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/DC-Decoder/Decoder-Buzz/2014/0820/Mitch-McConnell-vows-confrontation-if-GOP-wins-Senate.-Serious>) Peter Grier is The Christian Science Monitor's Washington editor. 

WASHINGTON — Mitch McConnell has begun talking about how he’d run the Senate if his Republican Party wins control of the

chamber in the 2014 midterm elections.¶ On Tuesday Senator McConnell, currently the minority leader, told Politico’s

Manu Raju that if he becomes majority leader he’ll attach riders to appropriations bills in an effort to reverse or modify Obama administration positions on a wide range of issues, from the environment to health care.¶ This tactic would allow the GOP to maneuver around Senate rules and avoid Democratic filibusters.¶ “We’re going to pass spending bills, and they’re going to have a lot of restrictions on the activities of the bureaucracy,” McConnell told Politico’s Raju. “That’s something he won’t like, but that will be done. I guarantee it.”¶ Saying Obama “won’t like” such an approach, if it actually comes to pass, may be a bit of an understatement. Raju is correct in noting that using money bills in such a manner is “a recipe for a confrontational end to the Obama presidency.”¶ The question would be how far McConnell is willing to go. The Kentucky senator frames the move as a means to get Obama to “move toward the center,” and if, in fact, the riders are tweaks or changes to such large efforts asObamacare, they could be successful in that regard.¶ But if the riders are a backdoor means to repeal Obamacare or effect

similar large shifts in US priorities, then the president is likely to veto the bills. This could lead to rolling shutdowns of the government that make similar previous fights look like skirmishes.¶

Democrats seized on this possibility Wednesday and ran with it, framing McConnell’s words as a warning that if the GOP wins back the Senate there will be even more gridlock in Washington, if that’s possible.¶

“McConnell’s case for a GOP Senate – more shutdowns, more brinkmanship, more gridlock, less progress,” tweeted Obama aide Dan Pfeiffer Wednesday.

Shutdown w/ CDCGovt shutdown also closes majority of the CDC. This allows diseases to run rampant like the flu and the most recent outbreak of ebola.Wolfson 13 (Wolfson, Elijah. “Why the government shutdown is bad for Americans' health.” Al Jazeera America. October 5, 2013. <

http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2013/10/5/why-the-governmentshutdownisbadforamericanshealth.html>)

On the brink of this year’s flu season, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has been forced to shut down its disease-monitoring systems, significantly limiting its ability to identify and stymy outbreaks ranging from mutant seasonal flus to E. coli and more.¶ Shuttering of the monitoring system represents just one of several federal-government programs intended to safeguard Americans that are partially or

completely out of commission as a result of the government shutdown. Food inspection, clinical trials and medical research are also on hold, possibly putting millions of Americans at risk while Republican lawmakers continue to keep all “nonessential” federal workers furloughed in their effort to delay implementation of the Affordable Care Act.¶ The Department of Health and Human Services, in the midst of launching the health-insurance marketplacesthat are the engine of the Affordable Care Act, says its contingency plans following the shutdown account for all department activities “that involve the safety of human life and the protection of property,” but with 52 percent of its employees on furlough, residual effects of the shutdown are all but certain.¶ The CDC has already manufactured this year’s flu vaccine and distributed it to state and local health departments, but flu surveillance — one of the key tasks the CDC performs every year — was cut due to the shutdown. According to Barbara Reynolds, the CDC’s director of public affairs, 85 percent of the agency’s flu division has been furloughed. The CDC has retained just 32 percent of its staff.¶ “The longer we’re not able to collect (flu) data and analyze, the more likely it is that we’ll go into the flu season with gaps in our

knowledge and blind to what’s happening on a national level,” Reynolds said. The danger is that if this season’s flu virus takes an unanticipated turn, the CDC would have no way of knowing. And it’s not an

academic issue.¶ “Flu viruses are the most unpredictable viruses we have out there,” Reynolds said. The flu virus can mutate, and the mutations can be disastrous, particularly for those at high risk for flu-related death, such as young children, the elderly and those with compromised immune systems . The swine-flu epidemic four years ago is one recent example of how the virus can mutate in unexpected ways.¶ In addition to the flu, the CDC’s surveillance system, PulseNet, was tracking more than 30 different clusters of illnesses, at last

count. Furloughs are hampering the CDC’s ability to monitor outbreaks. Even running at full capacity, there is typically a 20-day lag between an outbreak’s beginning and the point of discovery.¶ “But without these systems operating at full capacity, we don’t know what could be smoldering out there,” Reynolds said.¶ The CDC still has the capacity to respond to outbreaks that occur, but the agency’s ability to find those outbreaks to begin with is hampered — particularly those coming from the nation’s food supply. Food-borne illnesses typically occur across large swaths of the country, with a single food source being distributed to consumers in multiple states as the most common culprit. With PulseNet effectively down, states have nowhere to report incidences and there is no central clearinghouse responsible for testing whether specific

incidences are due to genetically similar organisms or are isolated occurrences.¶ In other words, an outbreak may not be identified as such until it’s too late.

Furloughs prevent medical innovation, ensuring that millions of people will not receive cures for a variety of diseases Wolfson 13 (Wolfson, Elijah. “Why the government shutdown is bad for Americans' health.” Al Jazeera America. October 5, 2013. <

http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2013/10/5/why-the-governmentshutdownisbadforamericanshealth.html>)

Medical research halted¶ The furloughs may lead to public-health disasters today, and they may also result in a stymying of the medical science advancement needed to maintain the wellbeing of the country tomorrow. As of this week, the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the world’s largest source of medical-research funding, will cease reviewing or issuing new research grants. It will also stop initiating any new clinical trials or studies. As a result, the U.S. could see a significant setback in its medical-research industry.¶ “About 50 percent of our laboratory-based research is coming from the NIH, and all our clinical trials are funded by the NIH,” Nora Disis, director of the University of Washington’s Tumor Vaccine Group, told Al Jazeera. Due to furloughs, Disis’ clinic is unable to schedule a required visit from a federal

regulator. One trial has already been placed on hold, with more likely to follow.¶ Beyond the potential for long-term delays in innovation, the cessation of trials also has immediate effects on the patients enrolled in those trials.¶ “Many of our patients have advanced-stage breast cancer and have been through all the conventional therapies, and their only next treatment would be through a clinical trial,” said Dr. Lupe Salazar, an investigator at Tumor Vaccine Group. “That’s what we can’t offer them.”¶ It’s no different at the NIH Clinical Center, the Bethesda, Md. hospital where patients enrolled in NIH clinical studies are treated and monitored. The center will continue to be staffed to provide ongoing treatment to those already in beds, but patients who had been anticipating enrolling in trials

will be out of luck.¶ “We are approximating that around 200 new patients a week will be deferred until the government resumes full operations,” said Renate Myles, the NIH’s news media branch chief.¶ By the end of October, the NIH could be forced to turn away 1,000 patients, a relatively small number compared to the untold thousands or even millions that could sit waiting for a treatment or cure left languishing, untested, on the shelf.

Studies show that disease can cause extinction – especially if the disease is the magnitude of a large flu or an ebola outbreak.Viegas 8 (Viegas, Jennifer. “How Disease can Wipe Out an Entire Species.” NBC News. November 5, 2008. <

http://www.nbcnews.com/id/27556747/ns/technology_and_science-science/t/how-disease-can-wipe-out-entire-species/#.U_7Q_EsipuY>)

Disease can wipe out an entire species, reveals a new study on rats native to Australia's Christmas Island that

fell prey to "hyperdisease conditions" caused by a pathogen that led to the rodents' extinction.¶ The study, published in the latest issue of the journal PLoS One, presents the first evidence for extinction of an animal entirely because of disease.¶ The researchers say it's possible for any animal species, including humans, to die out in a similar fashion, although a complete eradication of Homo sapiens would be

unlikely.¶ "I can certainly imagine local population or even citywide 'extinction,' or population crashes due to introduced pathogens under a condition where you have a pathogen that can spread like the flu and has the pathogenicity of the 1918 flu or Ebola viruses," co-author Alex

Greenwood, assistant professor of biological sciences at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Va., told Discovery News.¶ The 1918 flu killed millions of people, while Ebola outbreaks have helped to push gorillas close to extinction.

ISIS

Republicans want to ramp up military efforts agains ISISSink 8/25 Senate Dem calls for Iraq vote By Justin Sink - 08/25/14 06:10 PM EDT Read more: http://thehill.com/policy/defense/215929-senate-dem-calls-

for-isis-vote#ixzz3BerVZp2Y

The president has informed Congress about the military action as required under the War Powers Resolution, and might be required to remove the initial group of military advisers dispatched there within the

month without more explicit congressional approval. But lawmakers on both sides of the aisle seem wary of a vote on the situation in Iraq, especially ahead of the midterm elections. While Republicans have so far urged the president to ramp up the mission against ISIS, they're reluctant to take a vote endorsing the president's efforts. Many Democrats, meanwhile, know their base voters oppose escalating war in the region.

McConnell and republicans back military action against ISISSink 8/25 August 27, 2014, 05:27 pm McConnell: Congress will back Obama on ISIS By Justin Sink http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/216114-

mcconnell-congress-will-support-obama-on-isis

President Obama would have "a lot of congressional support" — including that of Minority Leader Mitch McConnell — if he

asked for a vote to authorize airstrikes against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), the Kentucky Republican said

Wednesday. "I think it would make sense for him to get our support," McConnell said in an interview with CNN. "It's pretty clear ISIS is a serious threat. They have the potential to hit us here at home. He's the president of the United States and, if he's prepared to try to prevent that, I'm sure he will have a lot

of congressional support." McConnell, who is facing a tough reelection battle this fall, says lawmakers wouldn't hesitate to take a tough vote before Election Day because "the security of the nation comes first."

Democrats don’t support military action against ISISFox News 8/17 Congressional Dems critical of Obama's efforts on ISIS, say 'mission is lost' Published August 17, 2014FoxNews.com

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014/08/17/congressional-dems-critical-obama-efforts-on-islamic-state-say-mission-is-lost/

Congressional Democrats were critical Sunday of President Obama’s efforts to stop Islamic militants in the Middle East, suggesting the “mission has been lost” and that U.S. troops might be needed in Iraq.

The criticism follows Islamic State’s unexpected rise in Syria and deadly run across Iraq, which has been met by a U.S. humanitarian effort that includes air strikes on the militant group’s military operations.

Air strikes against ISIS guarantees blowback on US soil and increased terrorismCrowley 8/10 Experts Warn of Terrorism Blowback From Iraq Air Strikes Michael Crowley @CrowleyTIME Aug. 10, 2014 http://time.com/3096348/isis-

iraq-barack-obama-blowback/

President Barack Obama’s air strikes against militants from the group Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria (ISIS)

“could increase the likelihood that ISIS or somebody inspired by ISIS, would strike against the

homeland,” says Seth Jones, a terrorism expert with Rand Corp. ISIS has long threatened America openly. In June the group’s leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, warned Americans that “soon enough, you will be in direct confrontation [with us].” Last week a spokesman for the group vowed that “we will raise the flag of Allah in the White House.” Despite that bombastic rhetoric, ISIS has thus far been consumed

with its fights in Iraq and Syria, and with capturing territory to form an Islamic caliphate. But counterterrorism officials worry that the fanatical group could now place a higher priority on attacking Americans. Jihadists in online forums and on Twitter are already calling for terrorist attacks in response to Obama’s intervention in Iraq. The prospect of blowback was on the mind of senior officials even before Obama approved air strikes last week. “That’s one of the downsides of U.S.

involvement,” former deputy CIA director Michael Morell told CBS News in June. “The more we visibly get involved in helping the [Iraqi] government fight these guys, the more we become a target .” A U.S. intelligence official would not say whether the threat level has escalated, saying the U.S. continues to monitor the known

ISIS threat. “ISIS has previously stated its willingness to strike targets outside of the region and the [intelligence community] is working in close coordination with our allies to track these threats,” says Brian Hale, spokesman for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. In July, Brett McGurk, the top

State Department official for Iraq, told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that the 30 to 50 suicide bombers per month deployed in Syria and Iraq by ISIS “are increasingly Western passport holders,” and that “it is a matter of time before these suicide bombers are directed elsewhere.”

EnvironmentIf elected, Republicans will roll back many of Obama’s environmental policies using riders.Sargent 8/20/14 (Sargent, Greg. “Morning Plum: The real consequences of GOP control of the Senate.” The Washington Post. August 20, 2014.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2014/08/20/morning-plum-the-real-consequences-of-gop-control-of-the-senate/)

In an extensive interview here, the typically reserved McConnell laid out his clearest thinking yet of

how he would lead the Senate if Republicans gain control of the chamber. The emerging strategy: Attach riders to spending bills that would limit Obama policies on everything from the environment to health care, consider using an arcane budget tactic to circumvent Democratic filibusters and force the president to “move

to the center” if he wants to get any new legislation through Congress. In short, it’s a recipe for a confrontational end to the Obama presidency…

Obama’s second term environmental policies are working. They are eliminating climate change caused by excess CO2 emissions and other greenhouse gases. Deutch 8/18/14 (Deutch, John. “Obama's Second-Term Energy Policy Is Working.” Wall Street Journal. <http://online.wsj.com/articles/john-deutch-

obamas-second-term-energy-policy-is-working-1408404210>

¶ President Obama has put energy and the environment at the top of his second-term agenda. The focus has been on climate change , and on exploiting the unexpected plenty of North American oil, gas and energy technology. The

administration's progress has been notable—especially in comparison with health care, immigration and foreign affairs.¶ The president's highest priority is to reduce the carbon-dioxide emissions of existing electricity generating power plants. In June the Environmental Protection Agency released an unexpectedly

thoughtful and well-supported plan setting specific goals for reducing emissions chosen from a menu of measures such as increased efficiency, emissions trading and fuel switching, mainly from coal to

natural gas for electricity generation. The projected CO2 reductions—about 30% below 2005 levels by 2030—are reasonable and shouldn't significantly increase industry or consumer costs.¶ Ironically, the EPA's regulations for existing power plants are more realistic than those it has issued for new coal and natural gas plants. The agency has justified its rules for new plants by asserting that carbon sequestration—the capture and storage of CO2 in underground reservoirs—is an "adequately demonstrated control technology." It certainly isn't, and it's also too expensive. But it likely doesn't matter since no one is planning a new coal-fired electricity generating plant in the U.S. in the foreseeable

future.¶ The president's strategy to reduce CO2 emissions through regulation thus appears to be succeeding, though the EPA may suffer a backlash. The public expects the agency to be a fair and capable administrator of a policy endorsed by a majority of Congress, rather than the

promoter of a presidential policy, no matter how meritorious, that doesn't command widespread public support.

Democrats Bad

Uniqueness

Dems are worried as Republicans continue to gain momentum and votes. Cameron and Donner 8/26 (Cameron, Carl and Donner, Jason. “Republicans gaining momentum in race for control of Senate.” Fox News

Politics. August 26, 2014. < http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014/08/26/republicans-gaining-momentum-in-race-for-control-senate/>)

However, the election is still 10 weeks from Tuesday, and Democrats who once felt the party would retain their majority are now worried the GOP's momentum could cost them even more than the six seats necessary for Republicans to retake control. ¶ "We all thought four were in the bag [for Republicans]," Democratic campaign strategist Joe Trippi said. "But right now, it's looking like the bottom end of that scale

isn't four anymore, it's five or six. And that means the entire Senate majority is on the bubble." ¶ In several

races, Republicans are pulling away from their Democratic rivals. ¶ South Dakota's popular Republican Gov. Mike Rounds has opened a double-digit lead over Democrat Rick Weiland in recent polls in that

state's Senate race. Even Reid admits Republicans are likely to win the seat of retiring Democratic Sen. Tim Johnson. ¶ In Montana, Republican Rep. Steve Daines has become a heavy favorite after acting Democratic Sen. John Walsh dropped out of the race amid allegations of plagiarism. ¶ A Rasmussen Reports poll shows Daines with a 20-point

lead over Walsh's replacement, state lawmaker Amanda Curtis, who touts her inexperience as an asset. ¶ Recent polls from West Virginia also show Republican Rep. Shelley Moore Capito opening up a double-digit lead over Democratic Secretary of State Natalie Tennant. ¶ Several other battleground contests remain close, but show Republicans gaining steam. In Arkansas, freshman Republican Rep. Tom Cotton has edged ahead of two-term Democratic incumbent Sen. Mark Pryor, 46 percent to 43 percent, according to the RealClearPolitics average of polls. ¶ Vulnerable freshman Democratic Sen. Kay Hagan also is battling for her political life in North Carolina. Recent polls have the state's House speaker Thom Tillis just inching ahead of Hagan in a sometimes-blue state that's turning redder. ¶ And in Louisiana, the marquee race between Republican Rep. Bill Cassidy and three-term Democratic incumbent Sen. Mary Landrieu is a dead heat. Due to the state's "jungle primary" system, where candidates of all parties compete, if no candidate reaches more than 50 percent in November, it heads to a December runoff. ¶ Democrats know President Obama's unpopularity has been hurting the party's candidates in Republican-leaning states. If 2014 becomes a referendum on the president, and a GOP wave sweeps

across the country, at least four more Democrats in other states could get sent packing. ¶ "I think we can pick up the six, maybe even a couple more," Republican campaign strategist Ed Rollins said. "The momentum's going our way. The president is certainly a drag on the Democrat ticket." ¶ The states that could fall in a potential GOP tidal wave include New Hampshire, Iowa, Colorado and Alaska.

Republicans should come out on topWashington Post 8/11 (Cillizza, Chris. “Republicans chances of winning Senate majority continue to brighten.” Washington post. August 11, 2014.

<http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2014/08/11/republicans-chances-of-winning-senate-majority-continue-to-brighten/]cc>)

The decision by Sen. John Walsh (D-Mont.) not to seek election in November in the wake of a plagiarism scandal is the latest piece of good news for Republicans as they strive to take control of the Senate in less than three months. Walsh’s departure from the race came in the same week that two Republican senators — Pat Roberts in Kansas and Lamar Alexander in Tennessee — defeated tea party challengers in primary fights, ensuring that every GOP senator seeking reelection would be the party’s nominee. These past seven days typified the fates of the two parties this

election cycle. Democrats have been hit by retirements in tough states — Montana, West Virginia, South Dakota

and, to a lesser extent, Iowa — and Republicans haven’t nominated the sort of extreme candidates who lack

broader appeal in a general election. Those realities — along with a national playing field in which a handful

of incumbent Democrats are defending Republican-leaning seats in places where President Obama is deeply unpopular — have made a GOP takeover a better-than-50/50 proposition . Let’s go through the races. Walsh’s decision not to run takes what was an uphill climb for Democrats and turns it into something close to a no-chance

race. (A committee of Democrats will pick the party’s nominee by Aug. 20.) Montana joins the contests for open seats in West Virginia and South Dakota in that category, meaning that, unless something drastically changes, Republicans should

have three takeovers in the bank — a nice head start going into Election Day. That means the party needs three more pickups to gain the Senate majority. And it has more than enough seats in play to do it. Democratic-held

seats in Alaska, Arkansas, Colorado, Iowa, Louisiana and North Carolina are competitive at this point. (Races

in Michigan, New Hampshire and Oregon seem to be moving in the Democrats’ direction.) Of that group, the seats in Louisiana and Arkansas seem to be the most endangered for Democrats, in large part because of the strongly Republican nature of both states. Sen. Mark Pryor (D-Ark.) has run a very good campaign, while Rep. Tom Cotton (R) has underwhelmed somewhat. (To be fair, Cotton, a freshman member of Congress, entered the race with impossibly high expectations.) And yet, the

public polling in the contest gives Cotton a narrow edge. (Internal polling shows Pryor in a slightly stronger position.) In Louisiana, Sen. Mary Landrieu (D) has a wide lead over Rep. Bill Cassidy (R) as well as two other Republicans in the contest. But Landrieu seems unlikely to win more than 50 percent of the vote Nov. 4, and if she doesn’t, she will face a runoff Dec. 6 against the second-place vote-getter, who is likely to be

Cassidy. Head-to-head polling between Landrieu and Cassidy gives the slightest edge to the challenger. Iowa, Colorado and North Carolina fit comfortably into the next tier of vulnerability. Iowa State Sen. Joni Ernst (R) has run a terrific campaign for the seat of retiring Sen. Tom Harkin (D) and has been aided by the stumbles of Rep. Bruce Braley (D). Republicans’ last-minute recruiting coup in Colorado landed them Rep. Cory Gardner, although Sen. Mark Udall (D) hasn’t been caught by surprise and is working hard to paint the GOP congressman as extreme on social issues. The North Carolina contest is the quietest close race in the country; Sen. Kay Hagan (D) isn’t well-defined as a candidate, but she has endured millions of dollars in spending byconservative groups relatively well. State House Speaker Thom Tillis performed well in the Republican primary, but his stewardship of the chamber will be a major issue this fall. Then there is Sen. Mark Begich (D-Alaska), who has run a solid campaign and is well-known and liked in the state. Republicans have a late primary — on Aug. 19 — and former U.S. attorney Dan Sullivan is expected to emerge with the party’s nomination. Early polling gives Begich a slight lead, but Sullivan remains relatively unknown and would seem to have room to grow. While Republicans are playing lots of offense this cycle, their path to the Senate majority is complicated by Democrats who are seriously contesting two GOP-held seats: in Georgia and Kentucky. Of the two, Kentucky seems the better opportunity, given Sen. Mitch McConnell’s middling poll numbers and the able campaign being run by state Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes. Polling gives McConnell a slight edge, but even his most ardent supporters acknowledge that his vote ceiling is somewhere between 51 and 52 percent. Georgia’s open seat is competitive because of a terrific recruit by Democrats in Michelle Nunn. She has performed exceptionally well on both the fundraising and polling fronts. But Republicans picked businessman David Perdue as their nominee, countering

Nunn’s “outsider” brand, and Georgia remains a comfortably Republican state — particularly in a midterm election such as this one. Add it all up, and Republicans have enough races within the margin of erro r to think that even the slightest national breeze blowing in their favor — and that wind looks likely to be there — will be enough to push them over the top in a few of these very close contests.

GOP is set to take over enough blue states to win the senateYiep 8/20 (Yiep, Randy. “What Presidential Votes Suggest About 2014 Senate Races — Charts.” Wall Street Journal. August 20, 2014.

<http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2014/08/20/senate-midterm-contest-presents-fewer-pickup-opportunities-than-in-years-past-charts/]cc>)

This year, seven Senate seats currently held by Democrats are in states that Mitt Romney won in

the 2012 presidential race. The three likeliest Republican pickups are the result of retirements: Sen. Jay

Rockefeller of West Virginia and Sen. Tim Johnson of South Dakota aren’t seeking re-election, while in Montana, Sen. Max Baucus resigned his seat earlier this year to become ambassador to China. (Sen. Baucus’s appointed replacement,

Sen. John Walsh, recently withdrew from the race amid plagiarism allegations.) All three states have been trending solidly Republican for some time. Two more GOP targets, Arkansas and Louisiana, have incumbents who are among the most conservative Democrats in the Senate. They also have highly regarded names: Sen. Mark Pryor of Arkansas is the son of a former senator and governor, while Sen. Mary Landrieu‘s father

was mayor of New Orleans. But it’s unclear if those factors are enough to overcome the states’ strong turn toward Republicans in recent elections. Finally, there’s North Carolina and Alaska. The incumbents, Sen. Kay

Hagan and Sen. Mark Begich, are among the most conservative Senate Democrats. Although the states lean Republican, that advantage has narrowed in recent elections. But Sen. Hagan’s 2008 campaign no doubt benefited from the Obama campaign’s efforts to put the state in play. Without that, she may have a steeper hill to climb. And Sen. Begich only narrowly defeated his 2008 Republican opponent, Sen. Ted Stevens, eight days after Sen. Stevens was found guilty of corruption charges.

Nate Silver says Republicans will winSilver 8/4 (Silver, Nate. “Republicans Remain Slightly Favored To Take Control Of The Senate.” Five Thirty Eight. August 4, 2014.

<http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/republican-gop-senate-forecast/]cc>) Correctly predicted the winner of all 50 states and DC in 2012 presidential election and his predictions of U.S. Senate races were correct in 31 of 33 states.

The problem for Democrats is that this year’s Senate races aren’t being fought in neutral territory. Instead, the Class II senators on the ballot this year come from states that gave Obama an average of just 46 percent of the vote

in 2012.1 Democrats hold the majority of Class II seats now, but that’s because they were last contested

in 2008, one of the best Democratic years of the past half-century. That year, Democrats won the popular vote for the U.S. House by almost 11 percentage points. Imagine if 2008 had been a neutral partisan environment instead. We can approximate this by applying a uniform swing of 11 percentage points toward Republicans in each Senate race. In that case, Democrats would have lost the races in Alaska, Colorado, Louisiana, Minnesota, New Hampshire, North Carolina and Oregon —

and Republicans would already hold a 52-48 majority in the Senate. It therefore shouldn’t be surprising that we

continue to see Republicans as slightly more likely than not to win a net of six seats this November and

control of the Senate. A lot of it is simply reversion to the mean.2 This may not be a “wave” election as 2010 was, but Republicans don’t need a wave to take over the Senate. However, I also want to advance a cautionary note. It’s still early, and we should not rule out the possibility that one party could win most or all of the competitive races. It can be tempting, if you cover politics for a living, to check your calendar, see that it’s already August, and conclude that if there were a wave election coming we would have seen more signs of it by now. But political time is nonlinear and a lot of waves are late-breaking, especially in midterm years. Most forecasts issued at this point in the cycle would have considerably underestimated Republican gains in the House in 1994 or 2010, for instance, or Democratic gains in the Senate in 2006. (These late shifts don’t always work to the benefit of the minority party; in 2012, the Democrats’ standing in Senate races improved considerably after Labor Day.) A late swing toward Republicans this year could result in their winning as many as 10 or 11 Senate seats. Democrats, alternatively, could limit the damage to as few as one or two races. These remain plausible scenarios — not “Black

Swan” cases. Still, the most likely outcome involves the Republicans winning about the six seats they need to take over the Senate, give or take a couple. What follows are probabilistic estimates of each party winning each race. (These forecasts are not the result of a formal model or statistical algorithm — although they’re based on an

assessment of the same major factors that our algorithm uses.) Summing the probabilities of each race yields an estimate of 51 seats3 for Republicans. That makes them very slight favorites — perhaps somewhere in the neighborhood of 60-40 — to take control of the Senate, but also doesn’t leave them much room for error. This bottom line is not much changed from our forecasts in June or in March (or even the one we issued last July). The outlook in some races has changed — but most of these changes are minor.

GOP wins Senate now Sullivan 8/20 (Sullivan, Andy. “U.S. Republicans see Senate chances bolstered by primary results.” Reuters. August 20, 2014.

<http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/08/20/usa-politics-republicans-idUSL2N0QP1YR20140820]cc>)

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Republicans counting on an unpopular president and a favorable electoral landscape to help them win control of the U.S. Senate could have another asset this year - stronger candidates who are less likely to say embarrassing things. As the months-long primary season nears its end,

Republican leaders appear to have achieved their goal of producing more disciplined Senate candidates who can avoid the kind of campaign blunders that cost the party winnable races in 2010 and 2012. Candidates backed by the party's establishment and business allies secured Republican Senate nominations in states

like North Carolina, Colorado and Arkansas that will be hotly contested in November, in some cases beating out

rivals backed by the insurgent Tea Party movement. Tea Party challengers also failed to unseat any of the 12 sitting Republican senators who are up for re-election. The Republican establishment celebrated another victory on Tuesday when

their preferred candidate, former Alaska Attorney General Dan Sullivan, won the nomination to oppose Democratic Senator Mark Begich. Sullivan beat two other contenders, including one endorsed by home-state Tea Party

hero Sarah Palin. The results have left Republicans upbeat about their prospects in the Nov. 4 elections, when

they need to pick up six seats from Democrats to win control of the 100-seat chamber. "It's the best recruiting class in decades," said Rob Engstrom of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which has spent at least $15 million to back business-

friendly candidates this cycle. Many forecasters now give Republicans a slightly better-than-even

chance of winning control of the Senate. They are heavily favored to pick up open Democratic seats in South Dakota, Montana and West Virginia, and six other competitive races will be fought in conservative-leaning states that President Barack Obama lost when he ran for re-election in 2012. Obama isn't likely to be much help for Democrats. His approval ratings have not topped 50 percent since early 2013, and vulnerable incumbents like Colorado Senator Mark Udall have been avoiding him on the campaign trail.

Internal Link

You can essentially use the same internal links that are present in the Republicans bad file. The only thing you might have to change is a few of the words in the tag line of each card. The bodies of the cards, however, indicate that the election could shift in either direction at any time.

Impacts (Econ)

Econ LowEconomy is weak, the growth rate is extremely low Schwartz 4/30/14 Schwartz, Nelson. “Once More, Economy Exhibits Weakness.” The New York Times. 04-30-2014. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/01/business/economy/us-economy-barely-grew-in-first-quarter.html?emc=edit_na_20140430&nlid=68263207&_r=2

For all the attention devoted to the quarterly fluctuations, the current underlying rate of expansion is not much different from

the frustratingly slow trajectory in place ever since the economy began to recover from the Great Recession. The average quarterly rate of growth since the summer of 2009 stands at 2.2 percent. Even if activity picks up in the current quarter and the second half of the year, said Dan North, chief economist at Euler Hermes North America, a large insurer, the annual growth rate in 2014 will most likely still be below the post-World War II average just over 3 percent.“We’ve been living in sub 3-percent land, and people have gotten used to that as the new normal,” Mr. North said. “But it’s not. It’s anemic.”

There are multiple sources of weakness in US economySchwartz 4/30/14 Schwartz, Nelson. “Once More, Economy Exhibits Weakness.” The New York Times. 04-30-2014. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/01/business/economy/us-economy-barely-grew-in-first-quarter.html?emc=edit_na_20140430&nlid=68263207&_r=2

Moreover, the rebound of the housing market after the crisis in the middle part of the last decade seems to be fading. For the second quarter in a row, private residential real estate investment fell, shaving 0.2 percent off total economic growth last quarter. “Weather was a factor, but it has become increasingly clear that the housing recovery has lost steam over the past six months, as higher mortgage rates and higher prices have weighed on buyer demand for new homes,” Ryan Wang, United States economist at HSBC, said in a note to clients. Corporate investment in equipment, which jumped sharply in the fourth quarter of 2013, reversed course in the first quarter, a major

reason overall business investment slackened, shaving 0.4 percent off growth. Other major sources of weakness included a slower buildup in inventories, which reduced the pace of expansion by 0.6 percent, and a weakening trade balance, cutting 0.8 percent off total growth.

Obamacare BadObamacare increases federal deficit, which is bad for the overall economy.MacKenzie 14 MacKEnzie, D.W. “Tragic Problems With the (Un)Affordable Care Act.” 02-11-2014. http://dailyreckoning.com/tragic-problems-with-the-

unaffordable-care-act/

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) recently published a report examining some of these. It actually contains nothing new. Many commentators have commented on the projection of lower labor-force participation. The availability of Obamacare subsidies will allow lower-income Americans to work less. People do in fact work less if their costs are shared. The tendency of people to withhold work from collective undertakings is

known among economists as a tragedy of the commons. Reduced Labor Force Participation means both lower total tax revenue and higher spending on government benefits. Long-term forecasts of the CBO report serious imbalances between tax revenues and federal spending. Federal deficits are projected to remain high, but “manageable,” for about a decade.

The US is already in a deficit, Obamacare increases national debt MacKenzie 14 MacKEnzie, D.W. “Tragic Problems With the (Un)Affordable Care Act.” 02-11-2014. http://dailyreckoning.com/tragic-problems-with-the-

unaffordable-care-act/

Economist Laurence Kotlikoff estimates that average rates of taxation would have to rise 56% to cover projected increases in federal expenditures. Kotlikoff’s estimate may be high, but even a lower figure would leave Americans in dire financial straits. Taxpayers simply will not be able to fund all projected increases in all current federal programs. Bond investors will not finance our

rising national debt in unlimited amounts. The ACA’s increased spending and lower labor force participation, on top of this, makes national bankruptcy that much more likely.

If Republicans win Senate majority, they will make reforms to ACA. Democrats will leave it in place.Benen 8/11/14 Benen, Steve. “Senate Republicans eye ACA repeal vote if given majority.” 08-11-2014. http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-

maddow-show/senate-republicans-eye-aca-repeal-vote-if-given-majority

That said, it’s only responsible for Americans to consider the consequences of electoral outcomes. If the public rewards congressional Republicans with control of the upper chamber for the first time since 2006, what can voters expect? Carl Hulse reported   that the GOP majority, if it exists, would focus on deficit reduction, the Keystone XL pipeline, and, well, this. Even as they talk about pragmatic

achievable solutions, though, Republicans also say they [and] are likely to take an early symbolic vote on repeal of the health care law, which would face a certain veto by Mr. Obama. After that showdown, Republicans say,

they could [and then] move on to more realistic proposals and changes in the law.

The worse the economy gets, the less buying power America has. Any downturn in the US economy has global effects WFW [World Financial Watch]. “How Does the US Economy Affect the World Economy?” No Date.

http://www.worldfinancialwatch.com/us-economy/how-does-the-us-economy-affect-the-world-economy/

The US dollar is used in most international transactions, so it stands to reason that anything that happens with the US economy will affect international finances in a substantial way. As the United States Federal

Reserve raises interest rates, the foreign exchange value of the dollar usually goes up as well. One of the biggest ways the US affects the world’s economy, though, is its buying power [when Americans buy less].   With gas prices going up and the dollar not worth as much as it used to be, Americans are buying less. Many countries that export goods to the US will have a reduction in demand for their products. Nations with less than stable economies could suffer dramatically from this downturn in spending, which would cause them to be less capable of buying American exports, furthering the downward spiral.

Lack of economic growth in the US allows other countries to catch us, leading to loss of US hege and great power warsKhalilzad 11 Khalilzad, Zalmay. “The Economy and National Security.” 02-08-2011. http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/259024/economy-and-

national-security-zalmay-khalilzad

We face this domestic challenge while other major powers are experiencing rapid economic growth. Even though countries such as China, India, and Brazil have profound political, social, demographic, and economic problems, their economies are growing faster than ours, and this could alter the global distribution of power. These trends

could in the long term produce a multi-polar world. If U.S. policymakers fail to act and other powers continue to grow, it is not a question of whether but when a new international order will emerge. The closing of the gap between the United States and its rivals could intensify geopolitical competition among major powers, increase incentives for local powers to play major powers against one another, and undercut our will to preclude or respond to international crises because of the higher risk of escalation. The stakes are high. In modern history, the

longest period of peace among the great powers has been the era of U.S. leadership. By contrast, multi-polar systems have been unstable, with their competitive dynamics resulting in frequent crises and major wars among the great powers. Failures of multi-polar international systems produced both world wars.

Kritik of PTX

LinksThe disad is an attempt to form pure politics, giving power to ambiguous actors leading to bare life and biopolitical control.Ranciere 2011 (Jacques, “The Thinking of Dissensus: Politics and Aesthetics” in Paul Bowman and Richard Stamp, Reading Ranciere 2011,

http://chtodelat.org/wp-content/uploads/2006/08/ranciere_-thinking_of_dissensus_2011.pdf)

Similarly, the Arendtian idea of the separation between political life and¶ bare life was reversed in Agamben’s theorization of the ‘state of exception’.¶ The latter becomes the great narrative of Modernity as the subsumption¶ of political life under ‘bare life’. This subsumption accounts for Hobbes’¶ theory as well as for the Rights of Man, the French revolutionary sovereignty¶ of

the people, or genocide. The idea of the purity of politics leads to¶ its contrary, to empty the stage of political invention by sweeping aside its¶ ambiguous actors. As a result, politics comes to be identified with the act¶ of a power that appears as an overwhelming historico-ontological destiny:¶ we are all, from the outset, refugees in the homogeneous and pervasive¶ space of the camp, entrapped in the complementarity of bare life and¶ exception (cf. Agamben 1998; Rancière 2004c).¶ If, at the beginning of the 1990s, I was addressing the standard theories¶ of the return of the political, I found myself more and more concerned¶ with this infiniticization of the logic of exceptionality, with this double¶ reversal of the political and the aesthetic exceptionality whose conjunction¶ constitutes the ‘ethical’ trend. I try to oppose to it a way of

thinking aesthetical¶ and political dissensuality apart from the idea of purity. The exceptionality¶ of politics is the exceptionality of a practice that has no field of¶ its own but has to build its stage in the field of police. And the autonomy¶ of art, in the aesthetic regime, is heteronomy as well: art is posited as a specific¶ sphere falling under a specific experience, but no boundary separates¶ its objects and procedures from the objects and procedures belonging to¶ other spheres of experience.

The disad impact only gives the perception of probability because specific scenarios have been securitized. The reality is their impacts become less likely with each step.Daase and Kessler, 7 (Knowns and Unknowns in the ‘War on Terror’: Uncertainty and the Political Construction of Danger CHRISTOPHER DAASE &

OLIVER KESSLER* Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, Munich, Germany & Bielefeld University, Germany)

This is not the place to criticize the methodology of implausible scenario planning. Instead, we simply want to point to one

plain effect of such, which was described by Carl Conetta & Charles Knight (1998: 36): ‘Conflict scenarios, both wild and tame, can gain more credibility in the telling than they deserve.’ Cognitive studies speak here of an ‘Othello Effect’, as when false accusations change Othello’s cognitive frame and ultimately lead him to kill his beloved wife,

Desdemona. The point is that even the most absurd scenarios will gain in plausibility if a chain of potentialities changes cognition. They are thereby included in the realm of the possible, if not even the probable: ‘Although the likelihood of the scenario dwindles with each step, the residual impression is one of plausibility’ (Conetta & Knight, 1998: 38). That this ‘Othello Effect’ is relevant for

international relations is obvious: we just need to look at the alleged connection between Saddam Hussein and Al- Qaeda. What the US government tried to prove was disputed right from the beginning. False evidence was repeatedly presented and repeatedly refuted. But, that did not prevent the US government from attempting to present the improbable yet possible connection of

Iraq to terrorist networks, and the improbable yet possible proliferation of an improbable yet possible nuclear weapon to bin Laden as casus belli. As Donald Rumsfeld famously once

said: ‘Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence’ – which is nothing else than to admit that, under conditions of known unknowns and unknown unknowns, different evidence criteria prevail. Unknown unknowns are not only hard to identify, but also hard to refute.

The disad describes litigation in police power. This function of institutional elitism isn’t politics and shuts out the possibility for democratic subjectivity. Only the aff can challenge the logic of litigation and legislation that prevents addressing the concerns of both the disad and the aff.Mathien, 2010. (Thomas, University of Toronto). “Review: Dissensus: On Politics and Aesthetics.” Politics in Review. No. 5. Google. ZDS

Since political acts are open to any person whose concerns have been neglected by previous acts of rule, they are fundamentally democratic. As claims (involving some logos) and not merely utterances of suffering (mere exercise of the capacity to express pain, simple phonē), they have the effect of shifting the way in which the

social is perceived. The effective political act produces the ability to see the incompleteness of a system of consensus. It stands in contrast to the ‘distribution of the sensible’ that Rancière associates with what he calls the ‘police,’ a consensus frame of mind whose motto might be, ‘Move along, there is nothing to see here’ (37). The political insists that there is indeed something to see, a new subject in the political process. The political refigures what is common, and in doing so destabilizes institutions. Democracy as Rancière understands it (and as he points out in criticizing the so-called ‘democratizing mission’ undertaken by the Bush administration) is the power of the people that no legitimate institution entitles them to exercise, a power ‘that at once legitimitizes and delegitimitizes [sic] every set of

institutions, or the power of any one set of people’ (53). True democracy—and its companion, true communism—are not embodied in institutions, even when people’s political actions give rise to institutions. In fact the various institutionalizations have been inadequate to the aims of these actions, which are fundamentally intempestive, both belonging to and not belonging to a time. Democracy and communism have no reality apart from the thinking and acting of those committed to the unconditional equality of anybody and everybody (82). At this stage a

commentator might suggest that the political act of the citizen is an act that demands recognition—the

perception of a new subject—and engagement and ultimately a response. Litigation is a dispute that demands resolution, and that cannot happen until there is consensus, a new shared understanding of what is common. This is nothing but the return of what Rancière calls the ‘social’. Programs do arise from democratic action, but they are limited and prone to being co-opted. As Rancière remarks about any program to build an inclusive community, if it did exist and was a good one, capitalists would buy it and exploit it as they saw fit (83). However, programs are no more his concern than are states of consensus. It is the process that both produces, and then challenges, various programs and various forms of the social that concerns him.

The diads impact only gives the perception of probability because specific scenarios have been securitized. The reality is their impacts become less likely with each step.Daase and Kessler, 7 (Knowns and Unknowns in the ‘War on Terror’: Uncertainty and the Political Construction of Danger CHRISTOPHER DAASE &

OLIVER KESSLER* Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, Munich, Germany & Bielefeld University, Germany)

This is not the place to criticize the methodology of implausible scenario planning. Instead, we simply want to point to one

plain effect of such, which was described by Carl Conetta & Charles Knight (1998: 36): ‘Conflict scenarios, both wild and tame, can gain more credibility in the telling than they deserve.’ Cognitive studies speak here of an ‘Othello Effect’, as when false accusations change Othello’s cognitive frame and ultimately lead him to kill his beloved wife,

Desdemona. The point is that even the most absurd scenarios will gain in plausibility if a chain of potentialities changes cognition. They are thereby included in the realm of the possible, if not even the probable: ‘Although the likelihood of the scenario dwindles with each step, the residual impression is one of plausibility’ (Conetta & Knight, 1998: 38). That this ‘Othello Effect’ is relevant for

international relations is obvious: we just need to look at the alleged connection between Saddam Hussein and Al- Qaeda. What the US government tried to prove was disputed right from the beginning. False evidence was repeatedly presented and repeatedly refuted. But, that did not prevent the US government from attempting to present the improbable yet possible connection of

Iraq to terrorist networks, and the improbable yet possible proliferation of an improbable yet possible nuclear weapon to bin Laden as casus belli. As Donald Rumsfeld famously once said: ‘Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence’ – which is nothing else than to admit that, under conditions of known unknowns and unknown unknowns, different evidence criteria prevail. Unknown unknowns are not only hard to identify, but also hard to refute.

InternalsBiopower - Securitization tactics are by definition biopolitical – we are turned into nothing more than docile objects while the government itself turns into a form of terrorism. Gorrelick 8 (Nathan, Ph.D. student of Comparative Literature at the State University of New York at Buffalo, where he holds a Presidential Fellowship.

Theory & Event, Volume 11, Issue 2 “Imagining Extraordinary Renditions” 2008. Project Muse AD 7/9/09)

But if torture operates as a metaphor for brutal, authoritarian statism, this is so because it speaks to an entire epistemology of security wherein the life of the individual is only valuable insofar as it maintains some utility for the biopolitical population of which it is a part. The population, increasingly in need of protection from the disorderly world of threats, is harnessed in opposition to its dangerous others. This is particularly true for the war on terror; as Giorgio Agamben warned

immediately after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, "A state which has security as its only task and source of legitimacy is a fragile organism; it can always be provoked by terrorism to turn itself terroristic."32 Aimé Césaire noted this phenomenon in his articulation of the full brutality of colonialism, and in

his equation, "colonization = thingification"; as extraordinary rendition demonstrates, the total securitization of everyday life, like colonization, conceptually transforms people into objects through (and against) which to define state authority.33 This radical objectification manifests as "force, brutality, cruelty, sadism... forced labor, intimidation, pressure... contempt, mistrust, arrogance, self-complacency, swinishness, brainless elites, degraded masses."34 Yet, as Césaire demonstrates, this "thingification" of life is not an accidental byproduct of European liberal

humanism. Instead, the worst forms of violence are, in a very real sense, necessitated by the Enlightenment and the western metaphysical tradition of which it is a product. In Césaire's words, "through the mouths of the Sarrauts and the Bardes, the Mullers and the Renans, through the mouths of all those who considered -- and consider -- it lawful to apply to non-European peoples 'a kind of expropriation for public purposes' for the benefit of nations that were stronger and better equipped, it was already Hitler speaking!"35 Moreover, as Césaire and many

other colonial and post-colonial thinkers suggest, the cultivation of the fundamental unit of political and moral account -- the sovereign subject -necessitates an other against which to define legitimate subjectivity. The other is constituted in opposition to everything that the sovereign, rational, autonomous self supposedly is not. The irrational other, thus devalued, can be abused, erased or exterminated with impunity.

ImpxFear of international threats empowers the sovereign to wage war in the name of the masses – their impacts are inevitable in the security mindset.Thacker , 5 (Eugene, Associate Professor of Literature, Communication, & Culture at Georgia Institute of Technology, “Nomos, Nosos and Bios,”

http://www.culturemachine.net/index.php/cm/article/view/25/32)

There must be some set of principles for allowing, in exceptional circumstances, the introduction of sovereign power. In other

words, there must be some set of conditions that can be identified as a threat, such that a corresponding state of emergency can be claimed, in which the formerly decentralized apparatus of biopolitics suddenly constricts into the exception of sovereignty. 'It is at this moment that racism is inscribed as the basic mechanism of power, as it is exercised in modern States' (2003: 254). But I would argue that Foucault means 'racism' here in a specific, medical and biological sense. Racism in this sense is a biologically-inflected political relation in which war is rendered as fundamentally biological: Wars are no longer waged in the name of a sovereign who must be defended; they are waged on behalf of the existence of everyone; entire populations are mobilized for the purpose of wholesale slaughter in the name of life necessity: massacres have become vital Â… the existence in question is no longer the juridical existence of sovereignty; at stake is the biological existence of a population. (1978: 137) In a curious turn of phrase, Foucault later calls this a 'democratization of sovereignty,' a condition in which the sovereign state of emergency emerges through a widespread and generalized threat to the population (2003: 37). In such conditions, both a medical-biological view of the population, and a statistical-informatic means of accounting for the population, converge in the identification of potential threats and possible measures of security. In a sense, it is war that acts as the hinge between population and information, but a war that always puts at stake the biological existence of the population (and thus nation). The body natural, even as it serves as an analogy for the body politic, is always what is fundamentally at stake in the body politic.

Institutional politics subverts the potential of radical politics into the logic of the police state. That we cannot stop indefinite detention because it prevents elites from addressing another issue is a joke about politics.MOUFFE 1996 CHANTAL MOUFFE, Senior Research Fellow in the Center for the Study of Democracy at the University of Westminster in

London.Democracy, Power, and the "Political" in DEMOCRACY AND DIFFERENCE: CONTESTING THE BOUNDARIES OF THE POLITICAL, Edited by Seyla Benhabib,

Princeton University Press,

By bringing to light the potential consequences of Rawls's project, my aim was to reveal the danger of postulating that

there could be a rational definite solution to the question of justice in a democratic society. Such an idea leads to the closing of the gap between justice and law that is a constitutive space of modem democracy. To avoid such a closure, we should relinquish the very idea that there could be such a thing as a "rational" political consensus-that is, one that would not be based on any form of exclusion. To present the institutions of liberal democracy as the outcome of a pure deliberative rationality is to reify them and make them impossible to transform. It is to deny the fact that, like any other regime, modem pluralist democracy constitutes a system of relations of power and to render the democratic challenging of those forms of

power illegitimate. In the end, the rationalist defense of liberal democracy, in searching for an argument that is beyond argumentation and in wanting to define the meaning of the universal, makes the same mistake for which it criticizes totalitarianism: the rejection of democratic indeterminacy and the identification of the universal with a given particular. Modem democratic politics, linked as it is to the declaration of human rights, does indeed imply a reference to universality. But this universality is conceived as a horizon that can never be reached. Every pretension to occupy the place of the universal, to fix its final meaning through rationality must be rejected since the recognition of undecidability is the condition of existence of democratic politics.

Security justifies war and genocideCampbell and Dillon 93 (David and Michael, Assistant Professor in Political Science at The Johns Hopkins University and Senior Lecurer in

Politics and International Relations at the University of Lancaster, “The Political Subject of Violence,” http://books.google.com/books?id=6kS8AAAAIAAJ&pg=PA97&lpg=PA97&dq=review+of+michael+dillon's+politics+of+security&source=bl&ots=dxyRyld_LJ&sig=q1QwCTHyCz5CmTM1gNxny6iWBQo&hl=en&ei=qbZXSoT0AZDQtgP5q-XWBg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=10, AD:7/10/9) AJK

No other concept in international relations packs the metaphysical punch, nor commands the disciplinary power of ‘security’. In its name peoples have alienated their fears, rights and powers to gods, emperors, and most recently, sovereign states, all to protect themselves from vicissitudes of nature – as well as from other gods, emperors, and foreign states. In its name weapons of mass destruction have been developed which transfigured national interest into a security dilemma based on a suicide pact. And, less often noted in IR, in its name billions have been made and millions killed while scientific knowledge has been furthered and intellectual dissent muted. We have inherited an onto- theology of security, that is, an a priori argument that proves the existence and necessity of only one form of security because there currently happens to be a widespread, metaphysical belief in it. Indeed, within the concept of security lurks the entire history of western metaphysics, which was best described by Derrida ‘as a series of substitutions of center for center’ in a perpetual search for the ‘transcendental signified’. From God to Rataional Man, from Empire to Republic, from King to the People – and on occasion in the reverse direction as well, for history

is never so linear, never so neat as we would write it – the security of the centre has been the shifting site from which the forces of authority, order, and identity philosophically defined and physically kept at bay anarchy, chaos, and difference. Yet the centre, as modern poets and postmodern critics tell us, no longer holds. The demise of a bipolar system, the diffusion of power into new political, national, and economic constellations, the decline of civil society and the rise of the shopping mall, the acceleration of everything – transportation, capital and information flows, change itself – have induced a new anxiety. As George Bush

repeatedly said – that is, until the 1992 election went into full swing - “The enemy is unpredictability. The enemy is unstability.’

Biopower wages war on entire populations and as conflict grows nuclear war becomes the only possible outcome. Foucault 78 (Michel, Professor of Philosophy at the College de France, The History Of Sexuality: An Introduction, Volume 1, 136-137)

Since the classical age the West has undergone a very profound transformation of these mechanisms of power. “Deduction” has tended to be no longer the major form of power but merely one element among others, working to incite, reinforce, control, monitor, optimize, and organize the forces under it: a power bent on generating forces, mak ing them grow, and ordering them, rather than one dedicated to impeding them, making them submit, or destroying them. There has been a parallel shift in the right of death, or at least a tendency to align itself with the exigencies of a life-administering power and to define itself accordingly. This death that was based on the right of the sovereign is now manifested as simply the reverse of the right of the social body to ensure, maintain, or develop its life. Yet wars were never as bloody as they have been since the nineteenth century, and all things being equal, never before did regimes visit such holocausts on their own populations. But this formidable power of death—and this is perhaps what accounts for part of its force and the cynicism with which it has so greatly expanded its limits—now presents itself as the counterpart of a power that exerts a positive influence on life, that endeavors to administer, optimize, and multiply it, subjecting it to precise controls and comprehensive regulations. Wars are no longer waged in the name of a sovereign who must be defended; they are waged on behalf of the existence of everyone; entire populations are mobilized for the purpose of wholesale slaughter in the name of life necessity: massacres have become vital. It is as managers of life and survival, of bodies and the race, that so many regimes have been able to wage so many wars, causing so many men to be killed. And through a turn that closes the circle, as the technology of wars has caused them to tend increasingly toward all-out destruction, the decision that initiates them and the one that terminates them are in fact increasingly informed by the naked question of survival. The atomic situation is now at the end point of this process: the power to expose a whole population to death is the underside of the power to guarantee an individual’s con tinued existence. The principle underlying the tactics of battle—that one has to be capable of killing in order to go on living—has become the principle that defines the strategy of states. But the existence in question is no longer the juridical existence of sovereignty; at stake is the biological existence of a population. If genocide is indeed the dream of modern powers, this is not because of a recent return of the ancient right to kill; it is because power is situated and exercised at the level of life, the species, the race, and the large-scale phenomena of population.

AT Kritik of PTXRealism is inevitably true. The states of the world are in competition and all questions of security come down to self-defense and if necessary warLipshutz 98 [Ronnie D., Professor, Department of Politics U Cali-Santa Cruz; “On Security”,

http://www.ciaonet.org/book/lipschutz/lipschutz11.html AD 07/11/09]

In the most basic sense, what the American people have to deal with when they adjust to the world outside U.S. frontiers is 170 [sic] assorted nation-states, each in control of a certain amount of the earth's territory. These 170 nations, being sovereign, are able to reach decisions on the use of armed forces under their government's control. They can decide to attack other nations. ¶ Despite the political and economic changes of the past decade, such sentiments still represent the basic premise of national security policy: There exist threats to the territory of one state posed by the activities of other states. In this neorealist world, with each state in command of a discrete territory and population, and with each capable of monopolizing the legitimate use of force within that territory, the essential security function remains, as the authors of the book quoted above and others suggest, self-defense and, if necessary, war. Other threats may exist and be of concern to governments but, according to the traditional line of thinking, they are not security threats.¶ Why, then, should we bother to revise security? In an essay published in Foreign Affairs in 1989, entitled "Redefining Security," Jessica Tuchman Mathews argued that the concept of security needed to be rethought. As she put it, "Global developments now suggest the need for . . . national security to include resource, environmental and demographic issues." 10 According to this view, the global expenditure of $1 trillion per year could no longer be justified when there were so many other problems that promised to undermine "national security" much more effectively than the Soviet Union. What Mathews and others left unexamined was the meaning of her use of the term "security." The concept seemed, at the time, self-evident: To secure the state against those objective threats that could undermine its stability and threaten its survival. In choosing as her audience the readers of Foreign Affairs , Mathews, who had been a member of the National Security Council during the Carter Administration, took aim at White House policymakers, the Cabinet agencies, the Pentagon, the U.S. Congress, and relevant interest groups and think tanks, all of whom played some role in assessing threats to the United States and formulating what they thought were appropriate responses.

Empirical reality validates security problemsLiotta 5 (PH, Professor of Humanities and Executive Director of the Pell Center for International Relations and Public Policy at Salve Regina University, security dialogue 36:1 "through the looking glass: creeping vulnerabilities and the reordering of security")

Although it seems attractive to focus on exclusionary concepts that insist on desecuritization, privileged referent objects, and the ‘belief’ that threats and vulnerabilities are little more than social constructions (Grayson, 2003), all these concepts work in theory but fail in practice. While it may be true that national security paradigms can, and likely will, continue to dominate issues that involve human security vulnerabilities – and even in some instances mistakenly confuse ‘vulnerabilities’ as ‘threats’ – there are distinct linkages between these security concepts and applications. With regard to environmental security, for example, Myers (1986: 251) recognized these linkages nearly two decades ago: National security is not just about fighting forces and weaponry. It relates to watersheds, croplands, forests, genetic resources, climate and other factors that rarely figure in the minds of military experts and political leaders, but increasingly deserve, in their collectivity, to rank alongside military approaches as crucial in a nation’s security. Ultimately, we are far from what O’Hanlon & Singer (2004) term a global intervention capability on behalf of ‘humanitarian transformation’. Granted, we now have the threat of mass casualty terrorism anytime, anywhere – and states and regions are responding differently to this challenge. Yet, the global community today also faces many of the same problems of the 1990s: civil wars, faltering states, humanitarian crises. We are nowhere closer to addressing how best to solve these challenges, even as they affect issues of environmental, human, national (and even ‘embedded’) security. Recently, there have been a number of voices that have spoken out on what the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty has termed the ‘responsibility to protect’:10 the responsibility of some agency or state (whether it be a superpower such as the United States or an institution such as the United Nations) to enforce the principle of security that sovereign states owe to their citizens. Yet, the creation of a sense of urgency to act – even on some issues that may not have some impact for years or even decades to come – is perhaps the only appropriate first response. The real cost of not investing in the right way and early enough in the places where trends and effects are accelerating in the wrong direction is likely to be decades and decades of economic and political frustration – and, potentially, military engagement. Rather than justifying intervention (especially military), we ought to be justifying investment.

The threats are not constructed myths but rather very real concerns to our vital security that must be addressed by policy action. Chilton 9 (Kevin, General, US Air Force. Strategic Studies Quarterly, “Waging Deterrence in the Twenty-First Century” Spring 2009. http://www.au.af.mil/au/ssq/2009/Spring/chilton.pdf AD 7/11/09)

At its most fundamental level, deterrence functions in the same way regardless of the kind of action we seek to prevent. Convincing a competitor that the perceived benefits of its attack will be outweighed by the perceived costs and that restraint offers an acceptable outcome remains the way to achieve decisive influence over competitor decision making. Nevertheless, the form of warfare we seek to deter can alter both the nature and the difficulty of the task at hand. Three emerging forms of twenty-first-century warfare pose particularly tough challenges for deterrence strategists, policy makers, and practitioners. ¶ First, the task of identifying the key decision makers we seek to influence is more difficult when deterring nonstate actors. For example, alQaeda’s shift to a more distributed network of terrorist cells in the wake of Operation Enduring Freedom has made “decision makers” out of regional and local operatives. This distributed nature of transnational terrorist networks complicates the conduct of an effective

deterrence campaign, but it also offers additional opportunities. A recent Institute for Defense Analyses

report highlighted that there are multiple components of the global terrorist network that we can seek to influence in a deterrence campaign. Thus, deterrence could play an important role in the broader campaign against transnational terrorists if it were able to constrain the participation of key components of a movement and undermine support within a movement for the most catastrophic kinds of attacks. ¶ Second, the nature of transnational terrorist movements results in these adversaries valuing and fearing profoundly different things than their state-actor counterparts. Transnational terrorists need to spread their ideology; raise and distribute funds; motivate, recruit, and train new operatives; and gain public acquiescence to (if not active support for) their presence and operations, all while remaining hidden from their enemies. This creates a potentially rich new set of perceptions to influence through deterrence activities, but

affecting those perceptions is likely to require the creative development of new means of doing so. ¶ It is indeed clear how important deterrence may be in countering the threats posed to US vital interests by transnational terrorism. Given that our conflict with these adversaries is likely a long-term one and that the potential benefits of successfully deterring certain kinds of catastrophic terrorist attacks (e.g., the use of weapons of mass destruction) far exceed the costs of attempting to do so, we should work more aggressively on adding deterrence to our counterterrorism repertoire.