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.