Snopes gives a pretty good rundown of the "free cell phone" program:

snopes.com: Free 'ObamaPhones' for Welfare Recipients

Obama doesn't give away free cell phones. He simply extended a Reagan program that provided discounts for landline phone service. The free cell phones come from companies who participate in the program, not from the government.

Kinda too bad it doesn't cost $5.01.

I can't believe she went to my little high school. She was 2 years ahead of me in school, and I really don't remember anything about her except her being a stud athlete.

So in your class yearbook she didn't win "most likely to bang General Petraeus"? That would have been awesome.

I bet you she never planned on her 15 minutes being like this.

This is what happens when a General takes orders from his privates.

Even Old Main at the University of Wyoming says "Wyoming University." But unlike CU or DU, no one refers to UW at WU.

sheesh there are free cellphones just for joining plans certain plans at the right time.

nice

Not if you don't have credit.

FBI's abuse of the surveillance state is the real scandal needing investigation | Glenn Greenwald | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk

Peacefully grant the city of Austin Texas to withdraw from the state of Texas & remain part of the United States. | We the People: Your Voice in Our Government

I think there's petitions for secession there for every state. Most of them only have a couple of thousand signatures. We have more posts in our Maximum Football thread. And yet this "drive for secession" is national news. No political slant there.

When did people get all this free time???? I want some!!!

They better not leave out Driftwood!

It's not political slant, it's sensationalism. It's the same reason Tea Party rallies of a couple hundred folks were covered live.

Yeah, its the Universal Services Fund (or USF). Its been a part of any bill from a phone company for 20+ years now & is used to pay for discounted/free service to eligible income households.

I bet if I filed something in federal district court here petitioning for the secession of Idaho I could get on Anderson Cooper by the end of the week. The downside is I'd be disbarred.

Wear a mask.

Obama really is charmed. This is his economy now.

Poll: If government careens off fiscal cliff, GOP to shoulder blame - NBC Politics

The most interesting thing about this whole thing is that she clearly looks like she can curl more weight than me.

Is this whole thing boring to anyone else? I know it's a big story and all, but it just doesn't have the same spark as your normal political sex scandal. Doesn't hold a candle to John Edwards. I do feel bad for his wife though. She seems like a sweet older lady and now has to face all this because her husband is a dirtbag.

This is easily my favorite political scandal of the last five years, even if I do feel bad for Petraeus tarnishing his legacy. The whole thing with the FBI agent sending shirtless photos and the original whistleblower potentially taking down two generals in the span of five days clenched it.

Jill Kelley ( or whatever her name is) has officially had more success against American command and control structures than AL Quaeda has had in ten years.

I pity that Petraeus had to resign his job for like 170k and will make, what, 5X that amount the second he works in the private sector?

Did that press conference really just happen? Brutal stuff. I think being re-elected have caused his management skills to regress if that's possible.

lol.

I didn't see the conference but the odds of the fiscal cliff apparently increased. Obama's proposals below aren't that bad and I'm not significantly affected.

I'm mentally preparing myself that the automatic cuts are going to happen. Trying to convince myself that this needs to happen to really shake things up (e.g. we've failed twice below and just kicked the can).

http://money.cnn.com/2012/11/14/news...html?hpt=hp_t1

Don't know about you guys but it seems as if Israel started this latest round. They must have waited until after the election ... assume they were hoping for a Romney win (what do Mormons think of Jews anyway?).

Hamas, Emboldened, Tests Its Arab Alliances - NYTimes.com

Actually, in the days preceding the airstrike, I believe it was said that Hamas had fired close to 500 missiles into Israel...you know, during the continuing ceasefire they agreed to but haven't honored.

Exactly.

Can you quote a source it was Hamas? The article implied it was fringe groups and not Hamas.

from today's AP article on the latest/newest attack on Jersusalem


Maybe that's a way to indicate that it's a more extreme faction within Hamas, but the wording seems pretty clear that it's still an element within Hamas.

I've said it before and I'll say it again - both sides are in the wrong imho ....

If this is ever going to stop then the 'tit for tat' has to stop, until one side stops retaliating then this will continue.

The side which stops will fear looking weak etc. - but ultimately be the stronger and braver of the two as eventually the other side will realise they look like aggressive prats to the outside world and stop their offensive.

For a similar case in point look at IRA vs England, when England was retaliating to the bombings the violence just continued and generally escalated - eventually once England stopped retaliating and just dealt with attacks as they occurred (ie. trying to defuse bombs/minimise damage) things slowly calmed down.

If its today on the newest attack ... sure, they just killed their Chief of Defense (or whatever).

Do you have an aritcle that says 500 missiles fired into Israel preceding the killing.

From Jeffrey Goldberg:


They have a right to defend themselves, but what they are doing is counterproductive.

It reminds me of car trips I used to take with my brothers when we were kids. My younger brother would poke at me constantly. He was trying to annoy me, get a rise out of me. At some point I'd smack him hard for it. He'd go screaming to my Mom that I was hitting him and he didn't do anything to deserve it.

My little brother was Hamas, I was Israel. Now I'm not saying everything Israel does is right, but when you poke at someone over and over, they are going to smack you back. And when they do, you can't sit around playing the innocent victim.

If I were an Israeli I think I'd be a hard core right wing militant. I'm not saying that's the best policy, but I'd have a hard time just sitting there and tolerating this with my vastly superior military. I'd expel the Palestinians from Gaza and the West Bank. If anybody didn't like it and started shit I'd take and keep their land and expel them from it. Israel would just keep growing. I think they show incredible restraint.

I like how West Bank faction is doing it in bits and pieces and I have not heard of them (at least recently) attacking Israel. They are winning political points and sooner or later they will get their way.

I get Gaza are the extremists but this last incident seemed to be started by Israel and seemed to be unprovoked (or, at least, not a proportional response).

BTW - if I lived in Gaza, I would move to the West Bank.

I'm pretty sure that's not an option for them.

Yup, you are right.

http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/fea...433987466.html

I would allow people from Gaza to West Bank. I would think there would be a flood of innocent civilians migrating. For the extremists that come through, I think Abbas would take care of them since he knows they would be a threat to him.

As much as I can understand the right-wing Israelis' desire to be more aggressive dealing with the Palestians, I can certainly also understand the frustration of being basically locked up in a place that "will not be liveable by 2020."

Israel and Gaza is a mess. War is coming, Israel is going in, there will be civilians killed, after several weeks the pressure to withdraw will be too much, Israel withdraws, Gaza rebuilds and the cycle begins again.

Innocent civilians aside, this should be interesting theatre to see if Israel has improved from their last Lebanon experience (and the use of drones).

Not alot of press from Obama or Hillary on this one. I'm good with Obama focusing on the fiscal cliff.

Road to war? Israel steps up airstrikes, mobilizes troops along Gaza border - CNN.com

FWIW - Palestinian Presidential and Parlimentary elections in 2013. Fascinating to see if the Palestinians reinforce their 2006 support of Hamas.

Interesting article on the Israeli "patriot" missile defense system. I would be suspect of the success rate since we know the patriot system was overstated back then.

http://www.nbcnews.com/technology/te...lict-1C7127842

Does Hamas really want peace?

Hamas is trying to use children as shields again:

PHOTO: Hamas missile launch pad next to mosque, playground. Civilian factories, gas station also half a block from Fajr-5 firing site. « Klein Online

I think that as soon as Israel is wiped off the map, Hamas will be all-in on a peace plan.

LONG-TERM GOALS

Israel: The incorporation of the Palestinian territories into Israel without representation for the Palestinians.

Palestine: The creation of the state of Palestine and the elimination of the State of Israel.

Islamic States: The creation of the state of Palestine and the elimination of the Israeli State.

International: Isreael and Palestine States co-exist peacefully

SHORT-TERM GOALS

Israel: Stopping the Palestinian Statehood goal

Palestine: Achieve Statehood with Palestinian Territories

Islamic States: Achieve Statehood with Palestinian Territories

Western Powers: Achieve Statehood with Palestinian Territories



The problem is that only the Western Powers really desire this two-state co-existance. While our short-term goals align with the Islamic world, we all know the Short-term isn't the end state...which is why Israel balks at this so much.

The major players involved in the region want something entirely different in the long run. Which is how the Western Powers always get themselves into trouble with this moderator crap we always play. The way the Western Powers have always handled these types of problems in our own regions has been through warfare...so we're being quite hypocritical with trying to get them to settle their differences peacefully...and demanding that everybody achieve goals they don't really want. It's noble, but ultimately, futile.

Maybe the Israel stuff should go in its own thread?

Seriously, WHY are we allies with Israel?

Why do we give aid to the Arabic nations?

I dunno, maybe it's because ... ah screw it. If you're asking that question, there's honestly no point in even trying to reason with you.

Because we're fucking stupid.

It has one - people just aren't using it.

Someone made one yesterday.

I think its because we need oil, so we need to play this tightrope game.

I think we should focus on non-arabic muslim countries (e.g. Indonesia, Malaysia) who are moderate and win them over.

Complaints about where topics should be posted belong in the "Complaints about where topics should be posted" thread. :)

How nice:

Anonymous wages war on Israel with hacks and memes

Ha, people who think Anonymous is a group. How funny.

LOL

Deport Everyone That Signed A Petition To Withdraw Their State From The United States Of America. | We the People: Your Voice in Our Government

Not good news from Reid. Are they bringing back a super committee to do the negotiations?

Fiscal Cliff 2012 - US Business News — Emboldened by Election, Democrats Draw New Line - CNBC

You know - for everyone who bitches about how much of a typical "blind liberal" I am, based upon the preliminary research that I've done looking at it, I might be okay with changing to a Chained-CPI.

I haven't exhaustively researched it, so maybe I'm missing something, but it seems, from the ways I've seen it presented, to be logical.

Social Security isn't a driver of the debt, there's no reason to make big changes to that program.

That's absolutely true. I'm just saying...moving to a Chained-CPI at some point doesn't seem illogical.

No I very much doubt they do ... the IRA didn't either, the leaders wanted a fully independant Ireland and the extremist elements wanted to commit acts of violence.

(the thing is that violent thugs without financial support are rather limited in the destruction they can do - however while they're seen as 'freedom fighters' by their supporters they've access to funds and weapons - once their supporters stopped seeing the IRA as freedom fighters their campaign of violence dribbled out and proper peace talks were achievable)

Somebody refresh my memory and/or correct me where I'm wrong.

S.S. is still a source of revenue for the general budget, via borrowing from the trust fund. That borrowing in turn currently accounts for around half of the "intra-governmental" debt, which in turn is roughly one-third of the entire national debt. By my simple math, it's basically 16% of the current total national debt.

Meanwhile, the S.S. fund just went into the red (outgoing vs non-interest income) as of 2011 & is expected to remain there going forward. In other words, it now has to spend the interest on the (now) steadily shrinking surplus in order to pay beneficiaries. That should hold up for about a decade more, give or take, and then it will have to start tapping its own cash reserves.

So, if that's all correct then ...
1) SS is technically part of the debt load, but only because of past borrowing by the general fund, not through any fault of its own (so far)

2) The only way to prevent an short-term increase in debt that relates to S.S. is to stop borrowing money from it in the first place.

Right?

edit to add: Please don't bitch about my lazy use of a generic term like "general fund". It's late, I've been sick all week, I don't believe the finer points of precisely who borrows the money from S.S. is germaine to the discussion.

Sure it's not the entire budget - defense is about even - but this curve isn't at least a worry?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_...aid.2C_by_year

(and wiki has the enacted budget for 2012 at $778.574 billion)

Obama's approval up, I think this does set the Dems up in stronger position for the forthcoming discussions (but I think Gallup wasn't that accurate in the elections).

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/...to-58-percent/

FWIW - a picture of Obama having fun. See comments below whether Mitt would have done something like this, I think not myself.

President Obama and McKayla Maroney = not impressed (PHOTO)

Social Security has a dedicated tax and the SS commissioners say the worst case scenario still has SS paying out 78% of promised benefits and a higher inflation adjusted amount than current.

The problem is medical expenses. Fix medical expenses, fix the debt.

Why not fix it so it's paying out 100% though? And yes, there are several ways to do that, one by raising the cap, and one by moving to a Chained CPI for example. Look - the system isn't part of a debt problem, but that doesn't mean that we shouldn't try to improve it so that it's even more solvent.

Changing it to a chained CPI would mean it won't be paying out at 100% of current promised benefits. I don't know if the chained 100% or current 78% would be higher, but the whole point of going to a chained CPI is to pay out less over time.

The reason I don't want SS part of these talks is that it's taking money from something that isn't in crisis. Medicare/Medicaid is the real problem, but politically it's a lot harder to fix. Lumping in SS makes things easier, but it doesn't solve the real problems.

That's the whole problem with Simpson-Bowles. It gets to a balanced budget by magically stating that medical cost inflation all but stops. They don't say how, it just does. Not dealing with medical costs will make any other deal next to worthless. All changing SS does is change SS.

I do think Burma has progressed enough to have a visit. Not sure if its strategic or not, Burma borders China. Interesting the article calls it Burma. It was Burma and then changed to Myanmar and now back? I'm all for giving some love to SE Asia.

President Obama defends historic trip to Burma - The Washington Post

I don't recall seeing a lot of state secession stuff in 2004. Sure, there were quite a few "I'm going to move" folks but that's a far cry from a whole state or even the petitioning we're seeing now. Here were the articles I could find and, frankly, it sounds like the closest we got to secession in 2004 was a couple of dozen folks in Vermont politely talking about it.

Blue State Secession | The Nation
If at first you don’t secede - Salon.com

That said, each will get equally far.

SI

I appreciate Perry's approach to this (can't find a full story but here's a shorter version):
Gov. Perry doesn't want Texas to secede

It was basically: "Good deal: I support the right to petition the government. As for Texas, I'm going to get back to creating jobs here."

SI

Wasn't it the Obama administration that started the online petition thing, where they promised a response after X number of signature? It's just a new forum, an official forum even. It's pretty incredible troll bait. (an even then, they got a couple of thousand of signatures each, how many of them were really sincere and not double trolling Republicans, we can't be sure, but it's a minuscule number either way). There were plenty of psycho whiners the previous elections too. Bush was a Nazi, caused 9/11, people definitely called on the U.N. to arrest him for war crimes, he stole the 2004 election (not even 2000 mind you, but 2004, Berkeley professors and RFJ JR. believe this). They just have slightly different tones but its the same kind of stuff.

For as many crappy and downright dumb things he said during the primaries, I do commend him not mincing words on this. And (as a side note) Gingrich calling Romney's quote out about 'gifts' that Obama voters received, as being ridiculous.

Perry's a lot more of a shrewd operator than I gave him credit for, after doing a bit of reading.

SI

I think there was more "I'm leaving the country and moving to a European or Canadian utopia".

If you ask me, all these thoughts of seceding just takes too much time. I think THIS guy had the right idea of streamlining the process.

Virginia man kills family and himself over fear Obama would be re-elected | The Raw Story

Somehow I'm not sure his wife or kids would agree. :|

You've got to be kidding me:

Senate bill rewrite lets feds read your e-mail without warrants - Yahoo! News

/Sigh/ Here we go again

SI

Leahy was hoping nobody would notice.

Well, it's not like he's trying to infringe on reproductive rights, so...we're all good. Sign him up for three more terms!

I hope someone notices/remembers, come voting time in his state.


Hmmmmm.....

Leahy draws back support for warrantless email amendment - Yahoo! News

If he was in my state, he would lose my vote (if he ever had it to begin with) just as fast. :)

As soon as someone finds out about it... MAGIC! It's gone!

SI

That's what I was thinking too. It's like catching your kid with his hand in the cookie jar and you ask him what he's doing and he says, "I was going to get you a cookie". Suuuurrrrreeee you were.

I guess this is how they welcome Hillary to the region. I try not stereotype all of Hamas (there's got to be some moderates right?) but its tough after seeing the pictures.

Gaza conflict: Egyptian president says peace in Gaza is 'imminent' and predicts lasting ceasefire will begin from tomorrow | Mail Online

The "lasting" ceasefire is underway.

We'll see how long it lasts, likely not long. But Hillary did talk with Egypt Mursi and he brokered the deal, so hopeful that we are mending relations with Egypt since post-Mubarak.

Nothing about the US but other winners-losers in the region. I think Obama-Hillary has strengthened the US hand. Publically reinforced US support for Israel and Hillary was able to talk with Egypt to help broker the truce.

After Israel-Gaza: Who won, who lost? - CNN.com

Thank you Saxby. You will probably get beat next time you run in GA and your local legacy may be tarnished but you are doing the right thing by willing to explore all options.

Some Republicans move away from no-tax pledge - CNN.com

Not good if this is what the Dems are thinking. I get maximizing what you can get (especially if the other guy is down) but the article didn't talk about consequences of going off the cliff - recession?

I don't like this game.

Patty Murray likely to be a key voice in Senate on budget deal - The Washington Post

Sellout Sax is a dead duck come primary season. Treacherous piece of shit deserves the tar & feathers treatment.

The "cliff" isn't really a "cliff" it's more of a "fiscal slope." There's time after the expiration date to right the ship before the consequences kick in.

Haven't seen the below discussed. Its actually pretty cool to think US being much less dependant on the ME. I assumed that GWB should get more credit for this but did some googling and surprisingly ... Obama has been a fan of fracking.

http://money.cnn.com/2012/11/12/news...rgy/index.html

Yeah, that's the latest description. I get wanting to set expectations but think the vast majority of people (and the market) will see this as another "delay, kick the can (a 3rd time) down the road".

I tend to side with the markets crashing and us going back into a recession.

But this "short term" pain may be worth the long term health of the country ...

The markets aren't going to magically "crash" and send us back into recession if we don't have a comprehensive deal before the fiscal cliff. They're far too rational for that, and they've already priced that (as well as numerous other reasons for lower growth expectations) in.

Don't buy into the media-hysteria so much. Getting a long-term deal is important yes, but it's not a "drop dead moment" like the media is portraying it to be.

So I have some time before I lose confidence and yank all my assets out of the markets?

I currently have about 30% in bonds. I think I should feel good about this but after the lost decade with 2 recessions in 10 years ... I am thinking about pulling alot/majority out until after Jan/Feb. I get I might miss out on a rally but I'm feeling pessimistic.

Sorry, should have added my safe harbor statement - don't follow me, I'm lousy at the stock market.

Saxby Chambliss is a worthless piece of shit. Just because he decided to stop sucking Grover Norquist's cock doesn't really change that.

Saxby, Graham, McCain ... I like the trend.

Lindsey Graham: 'I Will Violate The Pledge' To Not Increase Taxes