IN: David Bruce Vitter (born May 3, 1961) is an American lobbyist, lawyer and politician who served as United States Senator for Louisiana from 2005 to 2017. He was the first Republican elected to the Senate from his state since the Reconstruction Era. Previously, he served in the United States House of Representatives, representing the suburban Louisiana's 1st congressional district. He served as a member of the Louisiana House of Representatives before entering the U.S. House.

Vitter has been actively involved with legislation concerning illegal immigrants. In June 2007, he led a group of conservative Senators in blocking federal Immigration Legislation that would have granted a pathway to legal residence to 12 million illegal immigrants coupled with increased border enforcement. The bill's defeat won Vitter national attention as the bill was supported by President George W. Bush, John McCain, and Ted Kennedy, among others. Vitter characterized the bill as amnesty, which supporters denied. Bush accused the bill's opponents of fear mongering.  In October 2007, Vitter introduced an amendment withholding Community Oriented Policing Services funds from any sanctuary city which bans city employees and police officers from asking people about their immigration status in violation of the Illegal Immigration Act. Democratic Senator Dick Durbin, in opposition to the amendment, said these cities do not want to inquire about someone's status if they report a crime, are a victim of domestic violence or get vaccinations for their children. The amendment was defeated.  In November 2007, Vitter introduced a bill requiring banks to verify that no customer was an illegal immigrant before issuing banking or credit cards. The bill never made it out of committee.  In March 2008, Vitter reintroduced the latter two proposals and cosponsored ten of eleven other bills in a Republican package of tough immigration enforcement measures including jail time for illegal border crossing; deportation for any immigrant (legal or illegal) for a single driving while intoxicated; declaration of English as the official language (thereby terminating language assistance at voting booths and federal agencies)' additional construction of a border fence; permission for local and state police to enforce immigration laws and penalties for states who issue drivers licenses to illegals. None of these proposals passed, partially because the Democratic-controlled Senate preferred a comprehensive approach which would include a guest-worker program and a path to citizenship for the current population more akin to the package defeated by Vitter in 2007.  In April 2008, Vitter introduced a joint resolution proposing a constitutional amendment that a child born in the United States is not a citizen unless a parent is a citizen, lawful permanent resident, or alien serving in the military. Currently the Constitution grants citizenship to children born within the U.S. regardless of the legal status of the parents. The bill never made it out of the Democratic-led committee.

How can he sleep at night knowing he's responsible for such disgusting bills?

OUT: 


IN: Big Brother and the Holding Company is an American rock band that formed in San Francisco in 1965 as part of the same psychedelic music scene that produced the Grateful Dead, Quicksilver Messenger Service, and Jefferson Airplane. They are best known as the band that featured Janis Joplin as their lead singer. Their 1968 album Cheap Thrills is considered one of the masterpieces of the psychedelic sound of San Francisco; it reached number one on the Billboard charts, and was ranked number 338 in Rolling Stone's the 500 greatest albums of all time. The album is also included in the book 1001 Albums

Joplin sang for the first time with Big Brother in 1966. Years later, Andrew described the band's first impressions of her:  We were the established rock and roll band. We were heavy. We were like: all right, out of three or four bands in this city, we are one of them. We're in the newspapers all the time. We're working out. We are doing this woman a favor to even let her come and sing with us. She came in and she was dressed like a little Texan. She didn't look like a hippie, she looked like my mother, who is also from Texas. She sang real well but it wasn't like, "Oh we're bowled over." It was probably more like, our sound was really loud. It was probably bowling her over. I am sure we didn't turn down enough for her. She wrote letters home about how exotic all of us were. The names of the bands. That kind of thing. In other words, we weren't flattened by her and she wasn't flattened by us. It was probably a pretty equal meeting. She was a real intelligent, Janis was, and she always rose to the occasion. She sang the songs. It wasn't like this moment of revelation like you would like it to be. Like in a movie or something. It wasn't like, "Oh my God, now we have gone to heaven. We have got Janis Joplin." I mean she was good but she had to learn how to do that. It took her about a year to really learn how to sing with an electric band.  It took a while for some of the band's followers to accept the new singer and her current boyfriend, keyboardist Stephen Ryder. Her music was completely different from that which Big Brother was playing at that time. Big Brother had a very experimental and unconventional sound, but with Joplin, they became more disciplined musicians, their songs adopted a more traditional structure, and the band started to increase its popularity in the San Francisco psychedelic scene.

Did they eventually have positive things to say about her?

OUT: but with Joplin, they became more disciplined musicians, their songs adopted a more traditional structure, and the band started to increase its popularity in the San Francisco psychedelic scene.


IN: Brad Rogers Carson (born March 11, 1967) is an American lawyer and politician from the state of Oklahoma who served as the Acting Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness from 2015-16. In that role, he initiated a number of notable reforms to include opening up all combat positions to women, open service by transgender service members, and new recruiting and retention practices. A member of the Democratic Party, he served in the United States House of Representatives from 2001-05. He served as Undersecretary of the Army from 2014-15 and as General Counsel of the Army from 2012-2014.

In 2004, Carson sought the open U.S. Senate seat being vacated by retiring Republican Don Nickles. Although he easily won the Democratic nomination, he faced a tough general election contest with Coburn, who had won the nomination by an unexpectedly large margin. Carson described himself as a Conservative Democrat. Carson distanced himself from the national Democratic Party on most public policy matters. He portrayed himself as more moderate than his Republican opponent. Coburn, by contrast was one of the "true believers" in the 1995 Republican House freshman class and its Contract With America. This race was considered one of a handful of competitive races for the U.S. Senate in 2004.  Both Carson and Coburn were fairly conservative on social issues. For example, Coburn and Carson both presented themselves as supporting the traditional definition of marriage as "a union of one man and one woman" in the gay marriage debate. Although registered Democrats outnumbered registered Republicans in Oklahoma by almost 2 to 1 at the time, most Oklahoma Democrats are quite conservative by national standards.  By many accounts, the 2004 U.S. Senate campaign between Carson and Coburn was one of the most partisan races of that year. Coburn claimed that a vote for Carson was a vote for Democrats such as Tom Daschle, Hillary Clinton and Ted Kennedy. Carson was also hampered by George W. Bush's tremendous popularity in the state (the John Kerry campaign made virtually no effort in Oklahoma). In the November election, Coburn defeated Carson by a large margin, 53 percent to 42 percent. While Carson trounced Coburn in the 2nd District, Coburn swamped Carson in the Oklahoma City metropolitan area and the closer-in Tulsa suburbs. Coburn won the state's two largest counties, Tulsa and Oklahoma, by a combined 86,000 votes -- more than half of his overall margin of 166,000 votes.  Despite Carson's loss, election analyst Stuart Rothenberg called the Carson campaign one of the four best run campaigns in the nation in 2004. The Weekly Standard called him "The Perfect Democrat" After the election, Carson wrote an article for The New Republic which was the subject of much discussion.

What did he do after the election?

OUT:
After the election, Carson wrote an article for The New Republic which was the subject of much discussion.