>>6007789 (pb)

I think "they" were spying without the warrant. I think spying on opponents is wholesale. Cruz, Paul, Trump, Jeb, Carson, they are all subjected to it. The justification is pure politics.

The FISA warrant is used to legitimize, to get a court to find that the snooping is justified. A side benefit of getting a warrant is that is the snooping is ever found out, the snooper has a statutory defense to otherwise criminal use of the snoop. Nobody will go to jail for snooping on Trump's people. See 50 USC 1509(b).

>>6007916

"Ripen" appears in the UC agreement just above too. It means that the agreed to time for debate on whatever they are voting on –expires–.

Senate procedure is arcane, and for the most part is not worth learning. I speak from experience there. It does help undertand the machinations, but the big takeawy is that the press doesn;t understand the procedure, so most public reports on what is going down are at least technically incorrect; and as far as substance goes, the Senators lie about the contents of the various measure. Lying goes on by both sides. It facilitates keeping the public in the dark. Just remember, we have free and open elections, so whatever the government does is legitimate.