The Senate has passed the House's version of the USA Freedom Act, making revisions in government intelligence policy, with the biggest effect on the National Security Agency's bulk data collection program. The vote was not a complete victory for Senator Rand Paul, a staunch critic of NSA spying, but he made a big difference in what transpired. On the other hand it was seen as a complete defeat for Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who said that the law's old provisions are what kept America safe since 9/11. Burgess Everett of Politico explains what the Senate vote means and explores the often changing McConnell-Paul relationship. No one can explain the indictment handed out last week against former House Speaker Dennis Hastert, who allegedly pulled out nearly two million dollars in hush money from various bank accounts to pay off someone he is said to have made unwanted sexual advances to decades ago, when he was a high school wrestling coach in Illinois. Jack Pitney, a noted Congress watcher and politics professor at Claremont McKenna College, shares his perspective. Beau Biden, the son of Vice President Joe Biden, succumbed to brain cancer at age 46. Larry Rasky, the former communications director for the V.P. during his presidential campaigns, talks about Beau's unlimited potential, and what has become the last unfathomable amount of grief for Joe Biden, who has already seen the deaths of his first wife and 18-month old daughter. Finally, in our "this week in political history" segment, conservative consultant and author Craig Shirley remembers Ronald Reagan, the 40th president of the U.S. who died 11 years ago this week. Craig walks us through Reagan's switch to conservatism during the 1964 Barry Goldwater campaign, through his governorship in California and on to his two terms as president. Image Via @BeauBiden This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
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