http://www.etftrends.com/2015/02/winklevoss-twins-talk-bitcoin-innovation-gemini-exchange/

I would say Gemini in next month or two, ETF 4-5 months.

The development of policing in the United States closely followed the development of policing in England. In the early colonies policing took two forms. It was both informal and communal, which is referred to as the "Watch," or private-for-profit policing, which is called "The Big Stick” (Spitzer, 1979).

The watch system was composed of community volunteers whose primary duty was to warn of impending danger. Boston created a night watch in 1636, New York in 1658 and Philadelphia in 1700. The night watch was not a particularly effective crime control device. Watchmen often slept or drank on duty. While the watch was theoretically voluntary, many "volunteers" were simply attempting to evade military service, were conscript forced into service by their town, or were performing watch duties as a form of punishment. Philadelphia created the first day watch in 1833 and New York instituted a day watch in 1844 as a supplement to its new municipal police force (Gaines, Kappeler, and Vaughn 1999).

Augmenting the watch system was a system of constables, official law enforcement officers, usually paid by the fee system for warrants they served. Constables had a variety of non-law enforcement functions to perform as well, including serving as land surveyors and verifying the accuracy of weights and measures. In many cities constables were given the responsibility of supervising the activities of the night watch.

These informal modalities of policing continued well after the American Revolution. It was not until the 1830s that the idea of a centralized municipal police department first emerged in the United States. In 1838, the city of Boston established the first American police force, followed by New York City in 1845, Albany, NY and Chicago in 1851, New Orleans and Cincinnati in 1853, Philadelphia in 1855, and Newark, NJ and Baltimore in 1857 (Harring 1983, Lundman 1980; Lynch 1984). By the 1880s all major U.S. cities had municipal police forces in place.

These "modern police" organizations shared similar characteristics: (1) they were publicly supported and bureaucratic in form; (2) police officers were full-time employees, not community volunteers or case-by-case fee retainers; (3) departments had permanent and fixed rules and procedures, and employment as a police officers was continuous; (4) police departments were accountable to a central governmental authority (Lundman 1980).

In the Southern states the development of American policing followed a different path. The genesis of the modern police organization in the South is the "Slave Patrol" (Platt 1982). The first formal slave patrol was created in the Carolina colonies in 1704 (Reichel 1992). Slave patrols had three primary functions: (1) to chase down, apprehend, and return to their owners, runaway slaves; (2) to provide a form of organized terror to deter slave revolts; and, (3) to maintain a form of discipline for slave-workers who were subject to summary justice, outside of the law, if they violated any plantation rules. Following the Civil War, these vigilante-style organizations evolved in modern Southern police departments primarily as a means of controlling freed slaves who were now laborers working in an agricultural caste system, and enforcing "Jim Crow" segregation laws, designed to deny freed slaves equal rights and access to the political system.

The key question, of course, is what was it about the United States in the 1830s that necessitated the development of local, centralized, bureaucratic police forces? One answer is that cities were growing. The United States was no longer a collection of small cities and rural hamlets. Urbanization was occurring at an ever-quickening pace and old informal watch and constable system was no longer adequate to control disorder. Anecdotal accounts suggest increasing crime and vice in urban centers. Mob violence, particularly violence directed at immigrants and African Americans by white youths, occurred with some frequency. Public disorder, mostly public drunkenness and sometimes prostitution, was more visible and less easily controlled in growing urban centers than it had been rural villages (Walker 1996). But evidence of an actual crime wave is lacking. So, if the modern American police force was not a direct response to crime, then what was it a response to?

More than crime, modern police forces in the United States emerged as a response to "disorder." What constitutes social and public order depends largely on who is defining those terms, and in the cities of 19th century America they were defined by the mercantile interests, who through taxes and political influence supported the development of bureaucratic policing institutions. These economic interests had a greater interest in social control than crime control. Private and for profit policing was too disorganized and too crime-specific in form to fulfill these needs. The emerging commercial elites needed a mechanism to insure a stable and orderly work force, a stable and orderly environment for the conduct of business, and the maintenance of what they referred to as the "collective good" (Spitzer and Scull 1977). These mercantile interests also wanted to divest themselves of the cost of protecting their own enterprises, transferring those costs from the private sector to the state.

“It’s controversial, but first thing is all of your — 95 percent of your murders and murderers, and murder victims fit one M.O. You can just take the description, Xerox it, and pass it out to all of the cops. They are male, minorities, 15 to 25. That’s true in New York, it’s true in virtually every city in America,” Bloomberg is heard saying in the newly released audio.
 
“That’s where the real crime is,” he added. “You’ve got to get the guns out of the hands of the people that are getting killed. First thing you can do to help that group is to keep them alive.”
 
Bloomberg would later make even more candid comments, defending New York’s “stop-and-frisk” policy and even admitting that the city of New York does arrest mostly minorities.

“So one of the unintended consequences is, people say ‘Oh, my God you are arresting kids for marijuana that are all minorities.’ Yes, that’s true. Why? Because we put all the cops in the minority neighborhoods,” he said. “Yes that’s true, why do we do it? Because that’s where all the crime is. And the first thing you can do for people is to stop them getting killed.”

Prosperity Requires Privacy

Privacy is a prerequisite for a prosperous economy. Even the White House admits:

People must have confidence that data will travel to its destination without disruption. Assuring the free flow of information, the security and privacy of data, and the integrity of the interconnected networks themselves are all essential to American and global economic prosperity, security, and the promotion of universal rights.

Below, we discuss five ways that mass surveillance hurts our economy.

1. Foreigners Stop Buying American

Foreigners are starting to shy away from U.S. Internet companies, due to the risk that American spooks will spy on them.

American tech companies – including Verizon, Cisco, IBM and others – are getting hammered for cooperating with the NSA and failing to protect privacy. The costs to the U.S. economy have been estimated to be in the hundreds of billions of dollars. And see this and this.

That doesn’t even take into account the just-revealed NSA program of infecting virtually all popular Western hard drives with spyware. This will cause huge markets like China to insist that locally-produced hard drives be used, to make it harder for the NSA to hack into them.

So the NSA’s shenanigans are hurting dual pillars of the U.S. tech sector: computers and Internet. (The sale of mobile devices might not be far behind.)

2. Trust and the Rule of Law – Two Main determinants of Prosperity – Are Undermined By Surveillance

Trust is KEY for a prosperous economy. It’s hard to trust when your government, your internet service provider and your favorite websites are all spying on you.

The destruction of privacy by the NSA directly harms internet companies, Silicon Valley, California … and the entire U.S. economy (Facebook lost 11 millions users as of April mainly due to privacy concerns … and that was before the Snowden revelations). If people don’t trust the companies to keep their data private, they’ll use foreign companies.

And destruction of trust in government and other institutions is destroying our economy.

A top cyber security consultant points out:

If privacy is not protected while performing mass surveillance for national security purposes, then the people’s level of trust in the government decreases.

If Congress doesn't act before February 27, the Department of Homeland Security is going to run out of money and go into a partial shutdown. (Eighty-five percent of employees would still be working, but they wouldn't be getting paid.) Congress doesn't appear to have a plan for action; as of last week, before it broke for recess, House and Senate lawmakers were each telling each other to do something. Meanwhile, politicians in both parties have already skipped to the step where they blame the other party for the possible shutdown — making them seem pretty resigned to it happening. House Speaker John Boehner said on Sunday he's "certainly" ready for a DHS shutdown.

It helps that both parties think they can win on the politics of a shutdown. Democrats see this as a replay of the government shutdown of 2013, when congressional Republicans tried to undo a major Obama administration policy (then Obamacare; now the president's executive actions on immigration) as a condition of keeping the government open. Republicans, for their part, appear to believe that because the Senate's Democratic minority is filibustering their funding bill, Democrats will take the blame — though there's little indication that they would become willing to roll back all of Obama's executive actions to end a shutdown. It's also not clear if Republicans could get a critical mass of support within their own party for anything less.

But the nonchalance with which both parties are treating the prospect of a Department of Homeland Security shutdown raises a big policy question: why does the department even exist?

The answer is that it shouldn't, and it never should have. DHS was a mistake to begin with. Instead of solving the coordination problems it was supposed to solve, it simply duplicated efforts already happening in other federal departments. And attempts to control and distinguish the department have politicized it to the point where it can't function smoothly — and might be threatening national security.

This isn't to say that DHS should be fully liquidated. The argument is there's no reason for it to exist as its own department when it can be reabsorbed into the various departments (from Justice to Treasury) from which it was assembled.

Since neither side is fighting to make the case for DHS, it's as good a time as any to look back over the agency's decade-plus-long history, and assess how the department's actually worked. The answer appears to be that the problems built deep in the department haven't aided national security — and might have damaged it.

In the wake of the Charlie Hebdo attacks in Paris, western governments are moving fast to legitimize expanded powers of mass surveillance and controls on the internet, all in the name of fighting terrorism.

US and European politicians have called to protect NSA-style snooping, and to advance the capacity to intrude on internet privacy by outlawing encryption. One idea is to establish a telecoms partnership that would unilaterally delete content deemed to “fuel hatred and violence” in situations considered “appropriate.” Heated discussions are going on at government and parliamentary level to explore cracking down on lawyer-client confidentiality.

What any of this would have done to prevent the Charlie Hebdo attacks remains a mystery, especially given that we already know the terrorists were on the radar of French intelligence for up to a decade.

There is little new in this story. The 9/11 atrocity was the first of many terrorist attacks, each succeeded by the dramatic extension of draconian state powers at the expense of civil liberties, backed up with the projection of military force in regions identified as hotspots harbouring terrorists. Yet there is little indication that this tried and tested formula has done anything to reduce the danger. If anything, we appear to be locked into a deepening cycle of violence with no clear end in sight.

As our governments push to increase their powers, INSURGE INTELLIGENCE can now reveal the vast extent to which the US intelligence community is implicated in nurturing the web platforms we know today, for the precise purpose of utilizing the technology as a mechanism to fight global ‘information war’ — a war to legitimize the power of the few over the rest of us. The lynchpin of this story is the corporation that in many ways defines the 21st century with its unobtrusive omnipresence: Google.

Google styles itself as a friendly, funky, user-friendly tech firm that rose to prominence through a combination of skill, luck, and genuine innovation. This is true. But it is a mere fragment of the story. In reality, Google is a smokescreen behind which lurks the US military-industrial complex.

The inside story of Google’s rise, revealed here for the first time, opens a can of worms that goes far beyond Google, unexpectedly shining a light on the existence of a parasitical network driving the evolution of the US national security apparatus, and profiting obscenely from its operation.

Are you fucking kidding me? 84% of the ignorant masses actually believe 20,000 ragheaded camel jockeys in the Middle East who like to make gory Youtube videos and were funded and armed by the good old USA government are a CRITICAL threat to our country. That is the most pathetic thing I’ve ever read. Bernays was an absolute genius and his disciples have perfected the art of propaganda.

The US public education system has succeeded in dumbing down Americans to such an extent, they will believe anything they are told by the government and their MSM propaganda mouthpieces. I’m disgusted to be living amongst so many idiots and non-critical thinking believers. I sure hope it doesn’t take a majority to prevail, because we’re doomed if that is the case.

The confidence with which Bush is pursuing his strategy was evident last Wednesday in the Picasso-adorned Park Avenue home of private-equity titan Henry Kravis. It was Bush’s 62nd birthday, and he celebrated in Kravis’ 26-room penthouse with more than 40 of the richest people in New York. Among them were Bush’s cousin, George Walker IV, the chief executive of the investment management firm of Neuberger Berman, and real estate mogul Jerry Speyer, along with Ken Mehlman and Alex Navab of Kravis’ firm, KKR. The admission price: a minimum of $100,000, also the going rate for other Bush fundraisers.

Guests took an elevator straight to the foyer and noshed on salmon and other hors d’oeuvres while listening to Bush talk about strategy for the upcoming campaign.

“You don’t get the big job by tearing other people down and you don’t get it by trying to appeal to everyone,” a donor recalled Bush saying. “I’m going to play this thing my way and let the chips fall where they may.”

The donors understood, as Bush does, that he needs their sizable help to offset his shaky support from some of the party’s conservative activist base, miffed over his positions on immigration and the Common Core educational standards. The money he collected would pay for time later in the campaign that he could devote to grassroots campaigning.

As it turns out, Kravis’ $4 million haul has led to a donor arms race with Coral Gables billionaire Miguel “Mike” Fernandez, who wrote in an email obtained by POLITICO that he intends to raise $5 million at a fundraiser next week at his waterfront mansion. About $1 million of that haul would come from Fernandez himself.

All this money flows to Bush’s Right to Rise PAC and a separate super PAC that can take money in unlimited sums. The way that Bush set up the two committees — at the same time and with the same attorney, former Romney super PAC lawyer Charlie Spies — is “unique,” said elections law lawyer Kenneth Gross, a former attorney for the Federal Election Commission. Because Bush is not an announced candidate or a federal office holder, he is far freer than others to work with the super PAC to collect unlimited contributions. Once Bush announces his candidacy, he will be restricted from working directly with the super PAC. But, by then, the committee will have been thoroughly infused with Bush’s campaign DNA and operate almost automatically in accordance with his campaign vision.
In less than a month, Bush has attended and spoken at a dozen super PAC fundraisers — about as many as Romney did in the entire 2011-12 election cycle.

“What Bush has done will usher in two things with other candidates in the future: 1) the way to get big donors up front with a greater measure of coordination and 2) a way to delay your official candidacy,” Gross said.

So far, his fundraising efforts may have pushed one potential rival out of the race: Romney. Once the 2012 nominee realized the seriousness of Bush’s intentions, he began dialing donors. Many had already committed to Bush.

Bush also outmaneuvered Romney by getting to the 2012 nominee’s top Iowa consultant, David Kochel. Murphy made first contact in early fall just to feel Kochel out. Bradshaw followed up months later by phone.

As Right to Rise was being formed, the conversations turned more serious. Kochel met Bush on Jan. 21 in Washington. Nine days later, Bush offered him a top role in Right to Rise, with the implicit understanding he would be a leading player — not just an Iowa guy — if Bush ran for president.

“I felt like it was an important thing to do for my career and for where I thought I could be most helpful and useful in preparation for what could be a campaign in 2016,” Kochel said. He said he made the “difficult call” to a “gracious and generous” Romney.
The next week, Romney told supporters he would likely forgo a third run for the presidency. Bush then embarked on an effort to lock down the former governor’s New York-area supporters and keep them away from Christie and any other would-be 2016 contenders.
“Jeb was on the phone with me right away and he was very persuasive,” said one Wall Streeter who raised millions for Romney’s campaigns. “Jeb has done a very good job, and he’s a natural place where people will go who are Mitt supporters. And there has been a significant amount of outreach to all of Romney’s folks.”

This donor, who plans to hold a mega-fundraiser for Bush that he says will outstrip the Kravis affair, described his conversations with the former Florida governor as direct and convincing. “Nothing about him is overly flashy. But his plan is well thought-out. He’s just doing his thing and is not that into paying attention to what anyone else is doing.”

Another major bundler for Republicans, who backs a rival candidate, marveled at the aggressive nature of the Bush fundraising operation.

“Jeb has quickly come to dominate the New York-area money the way he dominates Florida money,” this person said. “The only place he doesn’t dominate yet is in California. But they could easily raise the $100 million they claim if not much more.”

Bush’s team is well aware that the huge dollar fundraisers, especially on Wall Street, open Bush up to attacks from both the left and the right that he is creature of the wealthy. And the frenzied vacuuming of cash plays directly into one Democratic line of attack, should Bush win the GOP nomination: portray him as another out-of-touch rich guy, as they successfully did with Romney.

But they say few voters are paying close attention now. And once they are, these people say, Bush will be fully funded and able to spend all of his time selling his message of economic growth coupled with immigration and education reform.

One sign of Bush’s preparations for hitting the campaign trail was visible at the Kravis affair. To celebrate Bush’s birthday, the hosts brought him a slice of chocolate cake. But Bush didn’t indulge. Since late last year, the somewhat portly former governor has gone on the “paleo” diet to slim down.

Handed a piece of birthday cake, he plucked only the blueberry off the top and ate it.

Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush is putting his weight behind controversial spying programs at the National Security Agency, setting up a battle within the Republican Party ahead of the 2016 presidential race.

In a major foreign policy address at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs on Wednesday, the likely presidential candidate praised the NSA’s bulk collection of Americans’ phone data, which critics call a massive invasion of privacy.

“This is a hugely important program to use these technologies to keep us safe,” Bush said.

“For the life of me, I don’t understand [how] the debate has gotten off-track,” he added, while maintaining that program rules “do protect our civil liberties.”

The defense of the program puts Bush at odds with the libertarian wing of the Republican Party, including Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.).

Hillary Clinton allies say the former secretary of State and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) have everything to gain and nothing to lose from their secret meeting in December.

Clinton needs to make sure liberals are fully on board with her candidacy ahead of a likely 2016 run for the White House. Win over Warren, who some Democrats believe could give Clinton a run for her money in a Democratic primary, and Clinton would win over the left.

“No question Sen. Warren taps into a wellspring of enthusiasm among a part of the party which will be important in both primary season and [get out the vote] time,” said one longtime Clinton ally, who called the meeting “smart and sensible.”
At the same time, Warren has much to gain as well.

By tapping into Clinton, the Massachusetts senator can make sure she influences the race for the White House, even if she chooses against being a candidate; she has repeatedly ruled out running for president.

Warren also wants to make sure the causes she champions, particularly financial reform, are not given short shrift by the likely Democratic nominee, who is seen as close to Wall Street.

That sets up a couple of challenges for Clinton, since, the ally said, there are cases where her ideas diverge with Warren’s.

“It’s a delicate balance, because going too far left risks losing the center. But it’s doable.”

Another ally of Clinton’s predicted Warren “won’t come cheap,” and that the senator inevitably will want something in return, a political maneuver others in Clintonland acknowledge as well. They predict Warren will ask for commitments on policies that the senator champions.

“It remains unclear what Warren really wants out of all of this,” another Clinton backer said. “But she wants something. I’m sure it’s a mix of commitments, including promises to look out for progressive issues and policies. She’s no dummy.”

Progressives who have criticized Clinton and clamored for Warren to enter the race embraced the meeting, calling it “positive news.”

“And it will be even more positive news if economic populist thinkers are appointed to her inner circle,” said Adam Green, the co-founder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee (PCCC) in a statement on Tuesday. “The way for Democrats to win the general election in 2016 is by actively campaigning on an Elizabeth Warren-style economic message — big ideas like expanding Social Security benefits, a national goal of debt-free college and stopping Wall Street banks from wrecking our economy again.”

Clinton and Warren met at the former first lady’s request in December at the Clintons’ home in Northwest Washington, The New York Times reported Tuesday. Clinton asked for policy ideas and suggestions from Warren, according to the Times, but did not seek an endorsement.

Top Democratic officials, bundlers and political strategists said they took the meeting as an indication Warren will not enter the Democratic presidential primary.

“I think this is Hillary Clinton reaching out to a major player in the Democratic Party, and I think this is something she needs to do if she’s going to run the campaign everyone hopes she’ll be running,” a third Clinton source said.

Democrats who have spoken to Warren say they haven’t been given any real indication that Warren would run. “I take her at her word,” one Democratic strategist said.

Clinton supporters are also confident Warren won’t run against their candidate.

“I don’t think there’s anyone who still thinks Warren is running for president, but a lot of people expect this to be an inclusive presidential campaign, and this is a huge part of that,” one Clinton ally said.

The first longtime ally to the former first lady said that, despite some differences, the two “probably agree on more issues than disagree.”

A short two-mile drive northwest from the White House—encircled by the embassies of the United Kingdom, Bolivia, Brazil, Italy, Denmark, and New Zealand—Hillary Clinton invited Senator Elizabeth Warren to her home for a private, one-on-one meeting in December, reported the New York Times on Tuesday.

Clinton, who has all but announced her 2016 presidential candidacy, met with the Massachusetts senator at her brick, colonial-style home in Washington in an effort to “cultivate the increasingly influential senator and leader of the party’s economic populist movement,” according to the Times.

Clinton did not ask for an endorsement from Warren, but instead “solicited policy ideas and suggestions.” Though the two met without aides, the Times reported a Democrat briefed on the meeting called it “cordial and productive.”

Though the former secretary of state, U.S senator and First Lady is the current frontrunner for the Democratic nomination for president, many progressives have clamored for Warren to throw her hat in the 2016 ring, viewing Clinton as too hawkish on foreign policy and cozy with Wall Street.

Lindsey Graham running means that the establishment/warmonger vote is divided.

COLORADO: Clinton 43 - Paul 41
IOWA: Clinton 45 - Paul 37
VIRGINIA: Clinton 44 - Paul 42

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton runs best overall against leading Republican White House contenders in three critical swing states, Colorado, Iowa and Virginia, but U.S. Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky is in a virtual tie with her in Colorado and Virginia, according to a Quinnipiac University Swing State Poll released today. Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush ties her in Virginia, the largest of the three, and Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker is in a virtual tie in Colorado.

Secretary Clinton has a markedly better favorability rating than the Republicans in all three states, the independent Quinnipiac (KWIN-uh-pe-ack) University Poll finds. The Swing State Poll focuses on key states in the presidential election.

In this early look at possible 2016 presidential matchups, New Jersey Gov. Christopher Christie is the poorest performing Republican, trailing Clinton by margins of 5 to 10 percentage points, while each of the other Republicans is in the running in at least one state.

Walker has the lowest name recognition of any of the candidates.

In each state, Jeb Bush's family ties to the White House have more of a negative impact than Hillary Clinton's ties. Also in each state, 74 percent or more of voters say the fact that Clinton would be the first woman president would not affect their vote.

"Gov. Jeb Bush has a family problem. Many voters don't like him coming from a family of presidents," said Peter A. Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Poll. "If voters are still saying by 4-1 margins this makes them less likely to vote for him when the balloting begins, that will be trouble for him.

"Few voters, however, say they are put off by Mrs. Clinton being the wife of former President Bill Clinton."

"Several of the GOP contenders can take some solace from this poll, although Hillary Clinton remains queen of the public opinion hill at this point. The one GOPer for whom these numbers are a total drag is New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie," Brown added.

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker wins the 'fresh face' award, doing well against the Clinton standard, especially when he still remains an unknown to many voters. Gov. Mike Huckabee is within an average of five points of her in these three key states."

Colorado

Clinton gets 43 percent to Paul's 41 percent in the presidential race in Colorado. She tops or ties the other Republicans:

43 - 34 percent over Gov. Christie;
44 - 36 percent over Bush;
42 - 40 percent over Gov. Walker;
44 - 39 percent over former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee.

The Democrat's margin among women ranges from 8 to14 percentage points. Men are more closely divided, except for Paul's 8-point lead.

Her lead among independent voters ranges from too close to call against Paul or Walker to a 7 percentage point lead over either Bush or Christie.

Colorado voters don't think much of any of the candidates. They give Clinton a split 46 - 47 percent favorability rating. Favorability ratings for the Republicans are negative or split:

26 - 47 percent for Christie;
29 - 43 percent for Bush;
33 - 33 percent for Paul;
33 - 34 percent for Huckabee;
24 - 21 percent for Walker with 54 percent who don't know enough about him to form an opinion.

Because Jeb Bush is son to former President George H.W. Bush and brother to former President George W. Bush, 39 percent of Colorado voters are less likely to vote for him, while 8 percent are more likely and 52 percent say the family tie won't affect their vote.

Only 24 percent of voters are less likely to vote for Hillary Clinton because of President Bill Clinton, while 15 percent are more likely and 59 percent say it will make no difference.

The fact that Hillary Clinton would be the first woman president makes no difference in their vote, 74 percent of Colorado voters say.

"Today, at least, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker and Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky give former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton a run for her money in Colorado," said Tim Malloy, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Poll.

"Neither gender nor spouse seem to raise red flags for Hillary Clinton."

Iowa

While she doesn't hit the all-important 50 percent mark, Clinton tops all the listed Republicans in Iowa:

45 - 38 percent over Huckabee;
45 - 37 percent over Paul;
44 - 34 percent over Christie;
45 - 35 percent over Bush;
45 - 35 percent over Walker.

The Democrat's lead among women ranges from 20 to 28 percentage points. Clinton trails among men by margins of 3 to 14 percentage points.

Her lead among independent voters ranges from 9 to 16 percentage points.

Iowa voters give Clinton a 49 - 40 percent favorability rating. Favorability ratings for the Republicans are negative or divided:

28 - 38 percent for Christie;
25 - 37 percent for Bush;
28 - 31 percent for Paul;
35 - 33 percent for Huckabee;
21 - 23 percent for Walker with 55 percent who don't know enough about him to form an opinion.

WASHINGTON — Senator Rand Paul is eyeing April 7 as the day he will announce his plans to run for president, people close to him said, a step that would position him ahead of his potential Republican rivals as a declared candidate and allow him to begin raising money directly for his campaign 10 months before the Iowa caucuses.

Mr. Paul, the junior senator from Kentucky and the heir to the robust Ron Paul grass-roots network, will take the next month to continue talking with members of his family about whether they are comfortable moving forward with the exhausting and, at times, agonizing rigors of a modern presidential campaign.

Only his family’s doubts could change his mind at this point, said associates of the senator, who insisted on anonymity because Mr. Paul’s plans had not yet taken final shape.

An announcement in early April would afford Mr. Paul certain advantages with the Federal Election Commission calendar. April 1 is the beginning of a quarterly reporting period, and he would have almost that entire time to raise money toward what his advisers hope would be a strong initial total to demonstrate that he is a serious competitor. Once he announced, Mr. Paul would also be able to transfer into his presidential campaign any of the $2.9 million he had in his Senate campaign account at the end of 2014.

As metro Atlanta dithered in a nearly frozen state on Monday evening, U.S. Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., gathered with some brave souls in Buckhead to lay the groundwork for what could become the skeleton of a presidential campaign here.

Right now, the project is called “Build America,” with local GOP activist Julianne Thompson and state Rep. John Pezold, R-Fortson, among the co-chairs. Former Hall County commissioner Ashley Bell is on the list of national co-chairs.

Before the event, Paul checked in by telephone for a quick interview. A partial transcription:

Insider: This “Build America” project of yours – should we consider this a shadow campaign, a preliminary campaign?

Paul: It’s an acknowledgement that people in Washington don’t build anything, and don’t really know much about what goes on in the rest of America. I live in fly-over America. I’m very conscious that people in Washington and many of the elites in our country have no idea what somebody in Georgia thinks would be good for business – someone who has a McDonald’s or runs a grocery store – what they do to stay in business and make a payroll.

This is a way to get me to bypass official Washington, bypass lobbyists and have people that I can meet in all the different states. Should we run, sure, they become people that can get me information and that can be a voice for reason outside of official Washington.

Insider: On Sunday, House Speaker John Boehner said he was “certainly” willing to shut off funding to the Department of Homeland Security over the House bill that also includes a repeal of President Barack Obama’s executive order forestalling deportation of millions of illegal immigrants. Senate Majority Mitch McConnell has said there won’t be a shutdown. Where are you on this?

Paul: It’s not so much being for or against. It’s deciding how you’re for or against something. For example, I think it is very important that the president not be able to write law and that he execute law written by Congress. And that he not execute action that contradicts what Congress wants. That doesn’t really indicate what my position is on immigration or on the shutdown, but it does mean that I’m very much worried about a president who thinks he can write the law….

I guess I don’t look at it as shutdown versus not shutdown. It would be better if government weren’t run this way. We lurch from deadline to deadline to deal with what’s called a continuing resolution, which means they glom all the spending together in one bill…

Insider: So would you be siding with McConnell on this?

Paul: It’s difficult to say exactly what that is. We just had a vote on whether or not to attach the instructions that we would not fund the executive order on immigration. I think every Republican but one, myself included, voted to say to the president that you can’t write the law….

The question is what ultimately happens. I guess it doesn’t really mean I’m for shutting down the Department of Homeland Security – just that I’m trying to send a message that we need to obey the Constitution. It’s really not easily done, because we have no power to make him do it. The president could even veto it if we passed it, and right now we have no Democrats on board. So really, we are truly at an impasse, and I really don’t know what the answer is — how we come out of the impasse.

Insider: You’re being squired around town by former Hall County commissioner Ashley Bell, who has worked with Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus on bringing more minorities into the GOP. How is that working?

Paul: No. 1, it’s the right thing to do, but No. 2, I think it’s our route to electoral success for the presidency. I tell everybody, the party’s got to look like the rest of America – black, white, brown, rich, poor, with tattoos, without tattoos, with earrings, without earrings. We’ve got to look more like America.

I’m trying everything I can to broaden that reach. Part of that is admitting that there still is, in some ways, two Americas – liked Martin Luther King talked about in ’67. Then it was de jure, or by law, now it’s sort of de facto. But it still exists. Some of it actually is still a legal problem. Minorities tend to get caught up in the criminal justice system more than whites. I think some of it’s a disproportionate amount of poverty and lack of good representation.

If people are always in one neighborhood, more people of that color are going to get snatched up, even though white kids are doing the same thing. Police just don’t happen to be in their neighborhood as much. It adds up after a while.

Insider: Did you hear what FBI Director James Comey said on this topic last week?

Paul: Yes, but I’m not sure I completely agree with him. He was talking more about – and I think it’s important to talk about this – that people still make judgments based on the color of their skin. I think that’s probably true.

But I think in the war on drugs, it’s more to do with an inadvertent racial outcome, because many of the policemen in the big cities are black. And I don’t know that black policemen are prejudiced in their arrests. I think they just tend to go where crime is. And unfortunately there are a disproportionate amount of African-Americans among the poor, Hispanics among the poor. But if you look at whites according to income, you’d find that a disproportionate amount of poor whites are incarcerated, too.

So what I would say is that sentences needs to be fairer. Putting somebody in jail for 50 years for selling marijuana is ridiculous and ought to stop.

When people have served their time, they ought to get their right to vote back. I have a bill with [Senate Minority Leader] Harry Reid to restore federal voting rights after you’ve served your time….

Insider: How often are we going to be seeing you down here?

Paul: You know, Atlanta – I love coming back to Atlanta. I met my wife here. She worked for Sprint back in the ‘80s. We met about ’89. I was at Georgia Baptist Medical Center, which is now Atlanta Medical. I also did a couple months at Grady when I was in medical school in ’87. So I have fond memories of Atlanta.

I was a Braves fan when they lost a hundred games.

Insider: It’s about to be déjà vu.

My companies puts $2 for every $1 I put into my 401K up to 5% of my total income, then it tapers down up to 10% of total income. I wonder if I will be able to roll this over into the ETF?

After 25 years of service my company also provides 40% of my highest year salary for 25 years or until death, whichever comes first. I am willing to put my entire 401K into the ETF knowing I will still be getting a decent check every month once retired.