Right, which means it wouldn't have to be an invasion or anything. But the existence of a response is specific. Maybe he just meant the consequence was that Assad would go to hell someday.

This is tougher talk that he's used on Iran. He just said a few days ago that Iran is a year away from a nuclear weapon, and that "all options are on the table." It's a calculated difference that has some meaning.

The consequences don't have to be a full scale invasion with no idea of what they're truly attempting to achieve however surely? (ie. other options are available) - consequences don't mean destruction, they could mean increased economic sanctions or whatever.

It amazes me after two ill thought out wars have wasted billions of dollars people seem so happy with the concept of investing in yet another ....

Going to have to kill the majority of them & occupy (or render uninhabitable) eventually, whether that's next week or next year doesn't matter a whole hell of a lot to a fair number of us, just so long as it isn't undertaken too late.

edit to add: But in this instance swapping one enemy for another enemy makes little to no sense.
(My original post was meant in a more general way, not specific to Syria)

I'm not sure if you responded to me by accident but no, I'm not "happy with the concept of investing in yet another" war. I'd rather just ignore Syria entirely, maybe help the rebels behind the scenes if that's feasible. Having that opinion, I'd rather not the president threaten consequences, or create this "red line" of chemical weapons use in Syria, because I do believe the United States' president's word should mean something. To that end, if the president does choose to create that red line, I do believe he has to have the plan to back it up, and he does need to keep his word, and yes, like I said (I guess you missed that part of my posts too), that doesn't need to be an invasion or anything.

Edit: And Obama is going to keep his word, if he has to. That's the position HE'S put us in. If he didn't say anything then we'd just be completely out of it. If it was Bush bumbling around saying whatever comes to his mind, it's a different deal. But Obama's foreign policy hasn't been like that at all, he's been measured, calculating, decisive. So those threats matter, which is a good thing (as long as he continues to have credibility, and only threatens when necessary and when he's prepared to back it up.)

Hey thanks.

If Assad falls, it removes a Iranian proxy in the region and weakens Iran. It cuts a link to Hezbollah in Lebanon and therefore lessens the pressure on Israel in the northern border (btw - I'm not a fan of current Israeli politics).

Assad's replacement may be more radical but it will not be as friendly to Iran. A fair chance it will be more friendly to the US than Assad was.

I would say these are good reasons to use aerial power to assist the rebels.

I don't think we are the world's police force or parents but I do think we should act if it serves our strategic interests.

Past history shows that force does work and, admittedly, times it didn't work. Since the 80's, wins include - Granada, Panama, Philippines, Yugoslavia, Libya 1, El Salvador, Iraq 1 (w/Kuwait). Losses include - Somalia, Lebanon. Still waiting on history books are - Libya 2, Afghanistan, Iraq 2.

I get Iraq being controversial. You can also say how we played the second half of Afghanistan is ill thought out, but I don't understand why you think entering Afghanistan to remove the Taliban/AQ after 9/11 was a waste.

It certainly removed a clear and present danger then.

That invasion didn't resolve the problem and instead perpetuated it at a huge cost of both in terms of financial and lives imho.

After more than a decade of intervention in Afghanistan, the insurgency (Taliban and other groups) remain resilient, the Afghan government is still weak, and the international community is fatigued.

The US government has repeatedly attempted to negotiate with the Taliban for a political reconciliation and is committed to a troop withdrawal by 2014 ... after which its incredibly likely the Taliban will take control back to at least some extent (this is somewhat obvious by the fact that there are repeated attempts to negotiate with them presently, if the Taliban had no power no one would be talking to them); thats hardly having 'removed' them from the picture. So in essence after 10 years of fighting the US is leaving behind an embittered country which is likely a fantastic breeding ground for resentment against the west ....

Education of the populace of such countries and helping them prosper would have been a far better way (both in terms of effectiveness but also minimizing cost) to avoid hatred of the west rather than bombing them into the stone age and occupying their countries imho.

My poster child for this would be China - the situation between China and the west today is FAR different than it was before that country became capitalist ... it can be argued that this also did come at a huge cost (the giving away of Hong Kong by the UK) however it was a cost which wasn't in terms of lives so a far better solution imho.

Some links -

Current Afghan Government negotiating with Taliban:
Afghanistan opposition parties in talks with Taliban, claim leaders | World news | guardian.co.uk

If you don't mind wading through a large document the Congressional Research Service details a fair few of the negotiations etc. here:
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/row/RL30588.pdf

I am just anti-war as you are but your example of China is extemely confusing. Capitalist? No wars? No loss of lives? We elect our Nobel Pirze winners president they throw them in jail. I wouldn't choose China as a poster child for anything.

I'm not saying that China is 'perfect' or a poster child for how countries should be at all (sorry if I wasn't clear about that) - but if you compare China today in terms of freedoms and standard of living in comparison with a couple of decades ago its night and day.

Yes there is huge room for improvement - but I think it'd be silly to not admit there has been a substantial change undertaken there - importantly without violence being involved.

The standard of living has been rising in china, as has the education and skill of the workers there - this in turn is increasing their social freedoms slowly.

On a political front also with regards to 'relations' to western countries (which is what we were originally discussing) things have changed from fear of the country and possible war to it being an economic relationship which is intermingled and inter-dependant (ie. violence unlikely) ...

All I'm saying is that surely this approach is better than war ...

PS - There is an article on the changes in China and Russia in recent decades here:
http://www.global-politics.co.uk/issue6/Calla/

It depends on your definition of the "problem". Lets say the US did not go into Afghanistan. Would there have been more (and successful) attacks?

Insurgency is still resilient - agree but weakend from 10 years ago certainly

Afghan government still weak - actually much stronger than the non-existent 10 years ago

International community is fatigue - agree

Education of the populace - ideal world, sure. In reality, 10 years ago in Afghanistan, do you really believe it would have worked? I certainly don't.

Not saying it'll work, but I like Obama's approach here. Gaza is hopeless but Abbas has delivered in a peaceful West Bank.

Obama urges Palestinians to return to peace talks with Israel - The Washington Post

If pro is the opposite of con, then the opposite of progress would be ...

Congress to force Postal Service to keep Saturday delivery - Yahoo! News

LOL!

We want to fund future pension plans that no other government agency has to.

Oh, you are running out of money, well you have to make your payments!

Wait... one of the things you want to cut is Saturday delivery?! Nope!



What a train wreck.

Nevermind.

Preliminary results indicate chemical weapons not used in Syria - CNN.com

I found the highlighted paragraph surprising At the airport, just as Obama is leaving, he talks to Bibi and Bibi calls and apologizes. Must be more to the story ... another example of Obama's power of persuasion.

Obama ends Israel visit by bringing together two estranged powers - The Washington Post

Three weeks into sequester and market has not tanked. Not to say it won't get worse, but the current list of impacts seem reasonable other than for scholarships for children of troops that were killed (there should be a law that public colleges accept them tuition free).

Senate passes first budget in four years - The Washington Post

Federal courts claim to have been impacted, but honestly, it's hard to tell, because they never move a case along over a 3-month period anyway, let alone 3 weeks. I have roughly equivalent motions that take a state court a week to rule on and a federal court a year and a half.

We last forty students from Stewart Air Base due to the sequester.

For those endorsing our time-to-get-out-of-Iraq approach (including me) should not lament our loss of influence. Obviously the seemingly voluntary movement towards Iran is troubling.

I always thought the one country in the region that we should have really gotten our grips into was Kuwait. There was a time when they would have agreed to anything. Iraq was/is certainly not the same opportunity.

A decade after Iraq invasion, America’s voice in Baghdad has gone from a boom to a whimper - The Washington Post

Sometimes you simply have to stop and admit that what you have (in Iraq and Afganistahn) is two big clusterfucks. Its time to let go of the fanciful notion that we can actually change anything there and get our people out of countries where they are not wanted, neigh are hated in some cases.

Time to stop play planetary police force, bring everyone home, fix OUR situations and then try to be a better example to the world.

Military might and projecting power is is 1912 anyway....

Looks like Cypress has a new deal, one that takes 40% of all deposits over 100,000 Euros. Yikes!

But only from 1 bank (apparently ... and best I could decipher from the various reports)

Since only 100K euros are insured, what did you expect? It's the same with FDIC, deposits over $100k are not insured.

Basically the bank is going bankrupt with the resulting damages to uninsured deposits. It sucks for a number of Cypriot businesses, but it's a lot more just than skimming from everyone, insured or not.

Eh now that it is class warfare and there is a semantical explanation for theft Jphillips finds it okay. LOL.

Best I can figure, this version of it -- while uncomfortable to me in principle -- seems better than the original.

This seems to be somewhat more rational, with the losses limited to one bank that (apparently) was the worst offender of the bunch in terms of making bad loans, etc. And it does seem to be at least somewhat analogous to an FDIC type deal, where whatever is over the insured limit is lost for everybody & the bank management/ownership is out on its ear.

The bank is bankrupt. How do you propose to fix things? At least this way the insurance is honored. I'd prefer the bank didn't overleverage and go bust, but the horse is out of the barn now.

This. It's now basically a managed bankruptcy. A lot of innocent people will still get hurt, but the only other option is a bailout and I doubt panerd is down with that. At least this way the insurance is honored and the people that fucked things up will be punished severely.

I don't think that's really even an option, is it?

I mean, not via anything other than an insane amount of charity of the part of the EU (or one or more EU members).

I think Iceland also let the bad banks fail and then prosecuted those at the banks that broke laws. Makes sense. Getting back 70% of your uninsured deposit at a failed bank isn't really that bad, all things considered.

It was more a theoretical option. When a bank fails either the depositors/shareholders lose or there's some injection of cash.

Perhaps the worst attempt I've ever seen at making a local story a national issue.


http://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/lo...200047701.html

There are stories that pretty much are explained by the title.. this is one of them.

‘Anti-Sharia’ GOP Lawmakers Confuse Mop Sink For Muslim Foot-Washing Station | Mediaite

Another milestone, not sure how much of this can be attributed to Obama vs just how our society has evolved.

Majority of Supreme Court justices question constitutionality of Defense of Marriage Act - The Washington Post

:D

SI

Awesome.....

Woman tries to hop border fence with four senators watching | Fox News

that should mean that Prop 8 shouldn't be struck down because it's up to the state how to define marriage?

I went to this training on medical tourism the other day. it's not something that I'll ever work in, but it was pretty fascinating. I didn't realize the scale was so big - 1.5 million or so Americans went abroad for a medical service in 2012. And there's a lot of talk that medical tourism could be a part of the state-run exchanges, and that more domestic health insurance companies might even try to encourage overseas treatment. It's beyond silly that it costs more to get treated down the street than it would if you took a two-week vacation to Thailand for the same procedure, but that's reality, and its something that's becoming more and more a part of our own health care system, even for the insured.

My dad goes to Mexico for all his dental work. He recently got $2000 worth of work done for $500. And it's not work done by one of those quack dentists that solicit patients on the street.

Ya, that was covered too, overseas medical care still has a reputation for being generally "shady" but that's changing, standards of accreditation are gradually becoming uniform. You can go through a company that will send you do an "approved" provider in whatever country specializes in what you need, and if things go wrong, you can sue the company (and sometimes, the foreign hospital has even consented to be bound by U.S. medical malpractice law). Depending on the country and procedure you can throw in a 5-star resort to stay at and still come out way ahead.

Generally, the rule of thumb down there is the good dentists don't need to stand on the street and solicit work from passerbys. The guy my dad goes to is actually from California. He does work for cash down in Mexico.

It doesn't necessarily follow that way. If they rule that DOMA is struck down because marriage regulation is up to the states, that doesn't mean they are reversing Loving v. Virginia, for example. The statute could be unconstitutional on both federalism and equal protection grounds. Kennedy was indicating that if it's unconstitutional on federalism grounds, then the court didn't need to consider the equal protection argument in that case. But it isn't inconsistent for the court to rule that the federal government can't regulate marriage, but also say that the states can't use their regulation power to discriminate.

This is becoming a big thing for IVF and similar non-covered costs. A friend of ours went to a really nice doctor in India and ended up paying less than 10k for IVF that would have cost over 20k here. They could've had a surrogate for another 3k or so.

More principled conservatism and not racism from AK Rep. Don Young:

Don't know all the details but like the increased visa for highly skilled workers.

Business, labor are said to agree on terms of new guest-worker program - The Washington Post

Anybody else really tired of the 'Gang of Eight' or whatever number it ends up being for a given bill/session? The whole concept that somehow these people are the only ones that can craft or present bipartisan legislation just really drives me up a wall.

Yeah. It's McShameful

I hear a lot of contradictory things about how safe fracking is. Putting that off to the side, it would be wonderful to be a top energy - oil & gas producer (and teamed with Mexico and Canada).

It certainly changes the world dynamics if we become energy independent. I get Obama's base is more con vs pro but I think he should help us come to a middle ground.

How the US oil, gas boom could shake up global order - Open Channel

We won't ever be energy independent. Oil is sold by private companies to the most profitable location. Right now the U.S. is around tenth in oil exports even though we produce less than we use.

How about "significantly less dependent on foreign oil"?

bipartisan agreement that it's stupid.

:confused:

How is Obama's base more con vs. pro on increased energy independence?
The base is probably more pro environmental safety, but that's separate from energy independence (unless you believe that we can't extract more energy safely no way no how).

Yeah, these guys aren't going to frack the hell out of the environment for 50/barrel oil. It'll always be expensive and we will never produce enough to lower costs. If costs drop, they will just hold off on looking for more.

Yup, poorly stated. Obama's base is likely more con vs pro on fracking.

I don't know if we can extract/frack safely, have to read more on it. I have to believe (1) fracking will impact the aquifer and (2) big business have been known to lie.

Is it me or does it seem that Obama is escalating tensions in Korean peninsula?

In the past, haven't we just said words and essentially ignored NK threats as rhetoric? It seems that we are now going out of our way to up the ante and show we aren't scared.

US Navy shifts destroyer in wake of North Korea missile threats - World News

Sending a single destroyer is not exactly an escalation. I'd call that interpretation media-hype.

Been reading a little more on fracking. Obama is certainly for the energy output of fracking but not sure about fracking itself. I suspect yes from how he highlighted it in his speech but probably doesn't want to come out and say it to give him some future wiggle room.

President Obama Gets It: Fracking Is Awesome - Forbes

I'm convinced that if fracking were as safe as its proponents claim, it wouldn't have so many exceptions written into environmental laws like the Safe Drinking Water Act and the Clean Air Act.

Personally speaking I think Fracking and the Monsanto protection act are short-termist thinking which will eventually come home to roost in a very bad way environmentally speaking ... time will tell.

You know, at some point, the Right of Right Wingers have to be so far right that they end up on the left side right?

(Rand Paul) has lent his name to fundraising pitches for the National Association for Gun Rights, a group that says the National Rifle Association is too willing to compromise on gun rights.

Rand Paul-backed group attacks Republicans - Kate Nocera - POLITICO.com

I would say that support for the 2nd amendment (or support for any of the amendments) is a hardline centrist position.

Well, you're welcome to that opinion Dutch.. of course, I think you'd be in a vast minority with that, but hell, it's America, you're free to be wrong ;) (as am I)

If you want to be a hero Senator you can get away with Paul's games, but that means you won't be President. It takes a village, Rand, and you're burning the village down.

I would hope we would all defend all amendments equally if a foreign enemy tried to strip us of any of them....even the ones we don't neccessarily understand. But you have to first recognize the diversity of our nation as a strength and not the selfish strength of your particular community to understand that centrist position.

I think Dutch is right, in theory, that support of the amendments should be centrist. I think unrestricted, unequivocal support of something that was enacted 200 years ago with no idea what was to come is a little silly.

The Supreme Court has held time and again that the right to bear arms is not without limits. So seeking where those limits should be seems pretty reasonable.

Don't bother with the liberals... now that Obama is in office they don't care about the 4th amendment much either.

Arguably the Patriot Act didn't do much for the 4th either.

Absolutely agree. Both parties choose which part of the constitution they wish to destroy when "their guy" is in office. This was my point exactly. For at least our lifetimes the 2nd amendment has been a big staple of the right and the 1st/4th of the left. My point being now that Obama is in office the 4th means nothing anymore.

Like Dutch said don't know how any of these are up for debate but if you choose to strongly defend free speech and the right to bear arms you are somehow labeled as "unelectable". Kind of sad actually that you need to shit on the Constitution to be "electable"

"Obama is wrong on the 4th amendment BUT" or "Bush is wrong on the 4th amendment BUT..." nonsense that allows both parties to slowly take away freedoms.

I'm pretty sure just about every liberal who posts in this thread does not like the Patriot Act, so your typical act of making inaccurate assumptions and grouping people together is unnecessary.

And the original post about Rand Paul was just saying that it's pretty extremist to say that the NRA is too willing to compromise. You can like the 2nd Amendment and think that's a pretty crazy position to take.

Why confine it to "this thread"? The renewal of the Patriot Act got a good deal of votes from Democratic Representatives and Senators.

Nah I was actually talking about the Congress and their voting records (which are hard to dispute but I guess you can explain some of the flip flopping in between presidents) but I guess I am the only one making assumptions.

He prefers ad hominem responses when he gets his panties in a wad.

Well, the response by Dutch was to a liberal on this board and Panerd said, "Don't bother with the liberals." So even if you were to show that liberals elsewhere supported it, that's kind of a worthless response if liberals on this board do not.

However, if you look at the roll call votes for the renewal of the Patriot Act, while many Democrats did support it, there were also many that voted against and those were liberals.

So when you told Dutch not to bother with liberals, you thought Dutch was talking to a Congressman and not SirFozzie?

So let's take a look at those voting records:

In the Senate, there was one Democrat who voted against the Patriot Act in 2006 when Bush was Pres and voted for when Obama was Pres

Levin (D-MI)

However, there were 5 more that went the opposite way (supporting it under Bush, opposing it under Obama)

Baucus (D-MT)
Cantwell (D-WA)
Durbin (D-IL)
Lautenberg (D-NJ)
Udall (D-NM)


In the House, there were 10 Democrats who voted against the Patriot Act in 2006 when Bush was Pres and voted for when Obama was Pres

Collin Peterson
Corinne Brown
Gary Ackerman
George Butterfield
Jay Inslee
Joe Baca
Nick Rahall
Nita Lowey
Stephen Lynch
Susan Davis

However, there were 5 more that went the opposite way (supported it under Bush, but opposed)

Brad Sherman
Gene Green
Marcy Kaptur
Rick Larsen
Robert Andrews


So you have a grand total of 11 Democrats who suddenly supported it when Obama came into office against 10 Democrats who suddenly opposed it when Obama came into office. Everyone else who was in office in both 2006 and 2011 voted exactly the same both times.

An uptick in the rhetoric. I don't recall us using "clear and present danger" before.

North Korea warns its military allowed to wage nuke strikes against US - World News

The only reason there is a supposed escalation is because nobody is paying attention to NK anymore. They have to keep upping the ante just to get a response. I really want to see them attempt something where China doesn't just smack them down for being stupid.

Almost everyone, including Rand Paul, agrees that there should be some limits on what arms can be owned by civilians. The argument is about where to draw the line. That isn't an argument of strict constructionist vs. radical liberals. Rand thinks assault weapons are fine, but RPGs and .50 caliber machine guns aren't, the crazed liberal just adds assault weapons to Paul's list. You can disagree with that, but the difference isn't nearly as stark as you would like to portray.

You hit on what annoys me so much about politics. Everybody characterizes their opponent as being diametrically opposed to them when in reality, the differences are far narrower. Nobody is willing to determine where in the middle is the right place, they just characterize a shift in any direction to be tantamount to a move to the full extreme position.

Ten hours later...


So which is it?

The point of the first is that Rand is backing ads hitting the GOP leadership. He can't win the nomination if the GOP establishment is pissed at him. Ron was his own guy, but he didn't go out of his way to anger party leaders.

I don't think the comment about the AG is appropriate as president and I'll take it as a joke that went a too far. The WH hostile work environment is a surprise.

I do think in a earlier time, Obama (color not withstanding) would be more akin to JFK and Clinton than Carter.

Obama rekindles talk about boys club after comment about California attorney general - The Washington Post

Not sure what to think yet but the Second (or is it Third) Act is just starting.

Obama budget would cut entitlements in exchange for tax increases - The Washington Post

I'm going to go out on a limb and predict the GOP says this is DOA.

I get a lot of people would say this is a waste of money but I've always had a fondness for NASA and would support the use of $2.6B tax payer money to fund this. I think the science/technology that comes out of this would be cool.

President Obama to direct NASA to grab an asteroid, send astronauts - The Washington Post

If they're going to that kind of stuff, might as well just target the moon rather than waste time roping in an asteroid.

I actually think its a worthwhile project - possibly more so than the moon (unless you're building a moon base with a manufacturing capacity) ...

My reasoning is simply that asteroids have potentially travelled huge distances so might tell us information about remote regions they've travelled through in some manner etc. all of which we might not discover any other way at present.

Not sure how much doing similar on the moon would cost but suspect it is more than asteroid.

Any word on what the tax increases are?


It depends on what the proposed tax increases are. Obama already got his tax hikes on the rich (not to mention the "surcharge" on top of that they will also be hit with due to Obamacare).

Boehner rejected it and admitted he hadn't read it.

Why the hell Obama is so desperate to be seen as the one who will cut SS and Medicare is beyond me. If it happens in a bargain, fine, but just like 2010 and Medicare, in 2014 the GOP will run endless commercials saying Obama wants to cut SS, and this time they'll be right.

Oh, and it would also be good if we tried to give people jobs. Shockingly, contractionary fiscal policy is contractionary.

Vote Dem in 2014 we won't fix the economy and we'll cut SS!

Fucking spineless morons.

Medicare has to be reformed...SS does too, but it's a simple fix, but it will require some short-term moderate pains.

SS is a simple fix by either increasing retirement age, reducing benefits etc. I do not think Medicare is an easy fix.

I'm not arguing that. I'm arguing the politics of proposing the cuts knowing the GOP will say no and then giving the GOP ready made ads to scare seniors. It would be different if you believed the GOP would work with you, but this is the exact same plan they ran on in 2010 to devastating effect.

But at least David Brooks or the WaPo editorial board will write something nice about Obama.

I wonder how President Bush's 2005 social security reform (privatizing investments for individuals) would be looking right now in this booming market?

Where do I start, Medicare is extremely over legislated and has so much internal excess that the first place they (CMS) looks at is streamlining and trimming the fat.

They spend hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars on external agencies auditing Medicare payors and Medicare replacement plan payors, sometimes 2-3 times a year.

They have advisory committees and peer review committees that release weekly updates on changes/potential changes that nearly require a fulltime person at most plans to track, not to mention the strain it puts on medical providers. Often these 'change' proposals drag on for months, change annually or even more frequently. Why? Sometimes it is hard to figure out why, though I suspect many of the salaries that go to the committees that are in charge of these things could be well served spent elsewhere.

Despite all this going on within CMS, they still manage to never get their internal pricing calculators released on time, which creates hundreds of thousands of wasted dollars with health insurance companies and medical providers in rework when they do finally get them out. Who do those loses get passed on to? Yep, the consumer in higher healthcare costs, higher premiums and reduced benefits.

We are in the second quarter of 2013 and they have still not released their ESRD pricing logic and the pricing logic for multiple inpatient services (Psych, Long Term Care, etc) yet either.

They have mandated that state Medicaid agencies provide enhanced payments to PCP's that meet certain criteria for E&M services (I.E office visits) and preventive care (mostly immunizations) effective 01/01/2013, however state Medicaid payors are unable to pay those enhanced payments until CMS gives final approval of each states implementation, which will be July 1st at the earliest and knowing CMS, likely October. Once they give this approval, all claims that qualify from dates of service 01/01/13 and on have to be reconsidered to pay the enhanced payments. This will literally cripple payors if this has to be done claim by claim, vs. a mass payout, which appears how it will have to be done now.

I could go on, but basically Medicare is an easy fix......The agency (CMS) that oversees it just needs to look in the mirror and do some serious internal reorganization instead of continuing to bleed millions of dollars every year on all the preventable bullshit above.

Will this happen? Doubt it, because it simply makes too much sense.

And yet Congress micromanages the USPS.

This. I worked for a contracting group doing some Medicare IT work for about two years in Baltimore. The amount of wasted taxpayer dollars I saw during my time there would have made most citizens vomit on the spot.

Just allowing government health organisations to negotiate freely with regards to pricing for drugs would HUGELY reduce health costs in the US imho - it amazes me for a country so proud of its free-market roots it has a system wholly rigged purely to generate money for corporations.

And yet its overhead is still lower than private insurers.

The reality is the country is getting older. The only way to solve that is some combination of raising taxes, reducing provider reimbursements or paying for fewer treatments.