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It's funny but we haven't had a budget since 2009. Blame Harry Reid and the rest of his cronies for that one. The endless Continuing Funding Resolutions and stop-gap appropriation bills are what's been keeping things afloat, that and endless spending. It's impossible to be fiscally responsible without a budget, therefore every member of congress should be fired because they're not working off of a plan other than to get re-elected and run up record deficits. Raising the debt limit needs to be done, but not without a budget and a constitutional amendment for a balanced budget to be submitted to the states for ratification. That's the only way to force these fucktards to actually start doing their jobs and stop blaming each other for the mess we have. They're both to blame and continue to fiddle while Rome burns.

China had, at last count, almost two thousand nuclear weapons and climbing.

Uhh, try 200-300. And they presently lack an effective delivery mechanism. They're testing one now. They are not a significant threat to the United States at this time. Russia is.

From:
http://www.afr.com/p/national/transcript_interview_with_former_KnS7JDIrw73GWlljxA7vdK
"I personally think Snowden is a very troubled, narcissistic young man who has done a very, very bad thing."
"ideological embrace of transparency as a virtue."
"Likewise, at what point does a cultural tendency towards transparency flip-over to become a deep threat inside your system?"
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/aug/1/secrets-are-hard-to-keep-in-the-whole-wired-world/
"“a romantic, absolute attachment to transparency; [a belief] that secrecy in any form is wrong.”
https://www.fas.org/irp/news/2006/01/hayden012306.html
"The great urban legend out there then was something called "Echelon""
"It is not a driftnet over Dearborn or Lackawanna or Freemont grabbing conversations that we then sort out by these alleged keyword searches or data-mining tools or other devices that so-called experts keep talking about."
"If FISA worked just as well, why wouldn't I use FISA? To save typing?
No. There is an operational impact here, and I have two paths in front of me, both of them lawful, one FISA, one the presidential -- the president's authorization.
And we go down this path because our operational judgment is it is much more effective."
Interesting how the press picks up on the "FISA statute itself says that it will be the exclusive means by which electronic surveillance may be pursued"
and is then told : "I'm not asserting anything. I'm asserting that NSA is doing its job."
http://freebeacon.com/china-military-preparing-for-peoples-war-in-cyberspace-space/
"Cyber warfare may truly be called a people’s warfare"
...cyber reconnaissance, jamming, and attack”—from space vehicles.

Actually, Hayden knows exactly what he's talking about.

And by all means, no one is thinking about ways to defeat the US.

Who is "they"? Maybe the CIA checked into him and found him full of stuff. Everybody wants to be in the spotlight

David H. Petraeus and the CIA as he testified to congress about. He also said the Libyan security forces agreed with that assessment. Watch the CNN clip posted here.

http://freebeacon.com/petraeus-knew-almost-immediately-terrorists-responsible-for-benghazi-attack/

Any? Not true. Yes, it was under-manned; that has been acknowledged as a mistake. Incidentally, GOP forced a cut in overseas security recently before that as part of their Austerity Tour. They should accept some of the blame.

Any what? What do you think is not true about that statement? I see you are going the route where you blame republicans as if that makes everything else perfectly fine when 4 Americans are dead and 1 who was injured is still hospitalized 10 months later. Does your mind think oh, the republicans are involved so these deaths are justified now or something? Well, here are the facts about those cuts and why you are wrong. And this is not a democrat republican thing, it's a we failed to protect our personnel thing and we need to ensure it doesn't happen ever again thing.

The cut were to proposed increases, not the budget. The administration is charged with dividing the money up and how it is spent on each embassy. Somewhere in the administration, someone failed to acknowledge that we needed more security in a recently war torn area that just had 2 other terrorist attacks and known elements of al qeada were operating within the area on the anniversary of 9/11, three days after being warned by the host country of problems coming our way. Right now, we have closed embassies across the world because half of that information is present. How much extra money does it take to close an embassy for a few days while the threats can be assessed? Why couldn't resources from stable countries be moved to the unstable Benghazi to provide security? Why wasn't the military on standby ready to evacuate the people? Why didn't we work with the Libyan government to get their security forces in place to help with anything that might happen in the lead up to this. All that could be done without massive increased in the budget (the so called republican cuts)

Blaming this on the republicans not increasing the budgets and calling that cuts is an outright lie designed to deflect the focus where it doesn't belong. You may be clueless because of the politician's language when they spout the lie, or you may know full well that it is a lie and decided to repeat it, it doesn't matter that it's a lie and a red herring.

CIA asked to not publish connections to terrorists because they didn't want to tip their hand. It would have been best in my opinion to stay mum and simply say, "We are investigating various leads, and don't wish to give details at the moment to avoid spoiling the leads."

Someone is filling you full of bullcrap or you are confusing the Yemen terror plots with Benghazi. According to Petraeus' testimony to congress, he put together talking points concerning the events including the links to terrorism which was cleared by the intelligence portions of the agencies and all the sudden he sees Susan Rice in TV rambling about a movie on youtube.

BTW, here is the link to the Yemen terrorist and an analysis of them wanting to hold on the information. It appears the conclusion wasn't to strengthen actions against the terrorist, it was so the white house could break the news.

Recent articles likes this one suggest Tor is still 80% funded by the US government, but I can only track the sources as far as The Wall Street Journal last December . I guess this might not be true anymore, its hard to tell. I'm pretty sure I saw claims of ~70% funding from the NSA on the Tor Project site just a couple months ago, but maybe it was out of date and removed. Thanks for the update!

Got any sources that detail their funding breakdown? I'd like to know what it currently is.

If you are right of center than Big Government is out to make your lives worse. If your are left of center then it is those Corporations that are out to make your lives worse.

... And the extremists on both sides see the ever-increasing collusion between the two as the real culprit. There's still competition between corporations, but it's competition for influencing the right politicians or bureaucrats, instead of being better at serving customers.

Jeff Immelt has become very adept in this environment. Far from being vilified and sanctioned for the massive migration of GE jobs overseas, he actually has Obama going to foreign countries promising billions of dollars for infrastructure investments, of which the vast majority, of course, will not only go into GE's pockets, but actually create a huge new captured market for GE.

So there was no hacking involved. Simply someone handing out a password to a database to someone else who was not authorized.

It's called social engineering, and it is a well recognized hacking technique used in some infamous cases.

Since someone in the US Army or someone the Army authorized handed over the credentials you can hardly call it an act of war.

War, no. But it is still espionage apparently conducted by one of the last countries controlled by a Communist government whose officials periodically make public statements about attacking the United States with nuclear weapons.

The nature of the information they sought access to, and apparently obtained, isn't benign.

Dam - Sensitive Army database of U.S. dams compromised

. . . The database categorizes U.S. dams by the number of people that would be killed if a dam fails. They include “significant” and “high” hazard levels. . .

“In the wrong hands, the Army Corps of Engineers’ database could be a cyber attack roadmap for a hostile state or terrorist group to disrupt power grids or target dams in this country,” Van Cleave said in an email.

Gen. Keith Alexander, commander of the U.S. Cyber Command, warned in a 2011 speech that cyber attacks were escalating from causing disruptions to actual destructive strikes, including cyber attacks on hydroelectric dams.

Alexander provided what he said were indirect examples of two types of anticipated cyber attacks. . . The second involved the catastrophic destruction of a water-driven electrical generator at Russia’s Sayano-Shushenskaya dam, near the far eastern city of Cheremushki, in August 2009. One of the dam’s 10 650-megawatt hydro turbine generators, weighing more than 1,000 tons, was mistakenly started by a computer operator 500 miles away.

As a result, the generator began spinning, rose 50 feet in the air, and exploded, killing 75 people and destroying eight of the remaining nine turbines at the dam. . . more

China has no more ambition or motive to attack the US than Russia does.

Are you quite sure about that?

Guess Who's Coming to Dinner

Do you really think old-school strong arm tactics would work in today's globally connected world, with a cell phone camera in every pocket and 24/7 shock and awe news? Not a chance

These days, a union is a vestigial lump that drags down the workers. Don't get me wrong, they were great 100 years ago, and I thank them for dialing in the 40 hour work week. Good job on that one. Now go away, you're not needed anymore.
What good have the unions done in preventing jobs from being shipped overseas?
What have the unions done to slow the encroaching robots, per TFA
Have the unions done anything to keep American jobs out of illegal hands?
Unions haven't even been able to keep pay rates increasing to match inflation. That should be an easy sell.What good are unions doing today, other than keeping the spectre of the old boogey man from breaking your legs if you misbehave?

You think the rich and powerful are destroying the unions, but you're missing the fact that the rich and powerful *ARE* the unions. Union bosses are getting paid well into the 6-figures for NOT doing anything.

Here are a few links, cuz I didn't feel like littering my paragraphs with [source website] every 3rd word.

Transportation Union

Eight of the union bosses on the taxpayer payroll at the Department of Transportation make more than $170,000
labor unions have in recent years become “increasingly dependent” on public sector unionization because private sector unions’ membership levels have plummeted

Teachers Union

Of the more than 7,700 words written by Feaver in the past couple years, he mentions kids, students or children a collective 16 times. The word training appears twice, but only once in reference to teachers honing their skills. Feaver mentioned retirement 44 times in the compiled writings.... Talk of pay earns another 40 mentions ... Health insurance also earned high mentions from the union president, grabbing 21 references.

Union boss boss

The union leader has earned well over $200,000 every year since he was promoted to Secretary Treasurer in 2003.
The president is also onboard with Trumka’s message. Obama’s union connections are well documented: White House visitor rolls show the godfather of organized labor [Trumka] making some 70 visits to Obama’s White House.
...a major contributor to Democrats during election years, spending almost $1 million on the 2010 midterm elections, 93 percent of those donations going to Democratic candidates. In 2008, over a million dollars, a full 91 percent of the $1.3 million the union donated to congressional campaigns, went to filling Capitol Hill with Democrats.

Want your neighbor's house? Just call the bank.

http://freebeacon.com/democratic-domain/

Yes, SB County actually has this in the planning stages.

The US government will have plenty to fear if they don't boost taxes, paying off debt, and funding total obligation. National debt of 15 trillion? It will take time, but we can dig out of that. Total Obligation with Obamacare is estimated at around $82 trillion and growing? Terrifying - that is well over the GDP of the WORLD. Economists say debt-to-GDP is 1:1, I say debt to tax income is 7:1, and that is if we applied all of it just to paying debt, which we can't because 84% of the budget is immovable (Social Security, Medicare/Medicaid, Defense, and other programs - those three alone are 54%). This obligation is quickly spiraling out of control. If it isn't fixed soon, it will be too late to fix it at all.

  I've read 34% of people (56% between 18 and 34) of Americans have ZERO dollars saved for retirement according to polls, and are completely relying on Social Security and Medicare, which are so far underwater that it may be too late to say them (I say it almost certainly is, but we can try). Now think of millions of armed Americans without a paycheck or medical care (Obamacare is doomed as well because it is also total obligation). So what does the government have to fear? The middle and lower classes revolting. Don't count on the military helping, as most of them were poor to begin with.