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