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While it may have less than the full effect of legislation...I recall a reference to BTC having already been cleared for campaign finance. Here are the links if you want to listen to the meetings (4hrs) to clear this up. My impression was the idea seemed to enliven the interest (and debate) from a politician's viewpoint. 11/18/2013 - http://www.hsgac.senate.gov/hearings/beyond-silk-road-potential-risks-threats-and-promises-of-virtual-currencies 11/19/2013 - 3:30-ish - http://www.banking.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Home.Home Seemed fairly clear to me the statement of this Senator may be in oppositely indicative. It is also clear that there is a lot of confusion in this arena...but I tend to believe a donation is still a donation...and that donations will not be suppressed. Just my opinion...you be the judge.

look at some of his other proposals: backup cams in all cars, a bill to ban rental cars, extensive markings and ID on parts, and the list goes on. A quick look at his campaign contributors is all the more proof you need .. he's a paid shill for the auto industry.

That seemed like a crazy law, like Republican federal level crazy, so I checked it out. You deliberately left out the word "recalled" cars. There is a HUGE difference between "banning car rentals" and "banning RECALLED car rentals". If a car is recalled because it has bad brakes, sticky accelerator or exploding gas tanks, I'd prefer it be illegal to rent that car to me on my next trip.

That sort of hyperbole undermines the rest of your argument's credibility. Schumer is a schmuck though.

look at some of his other proposals: backup cams in all cars, a bill to ban rental cars, extensive markings and ID on parts, and the list goes on. A quick look at his campaign contributors is all the more proof you need .. he's a paid shill for the auto industry.

That seemed like a crazy law, like Republican federal level crazy, so I checked it out. You deliberately left out the word "recalled" cars. There is a HUGE difference between "banning car rentals" and "banning RECALLED car rentals". If a car is recalled because it has bad brakes, sticky accelerator or exploding gas tanks, I'd prefer it be illegal to rent that car to me on my next trip.

That sort of hyperbole undermines the rest of your argument's credibility. Schumer is a schmuck though.

Anyone with $1,000 and an internet connection can get a gun made of good 'ol steel, which would perform massively better. In fact, you don't even need the $1,000. $500 would get you a very nice handgun in a private party sale.

$500? Try about $200 for an older six-shot revolver. And as far as 'untraceable' goes... this senator clearly is a total retard when it comes to understanding forensics. First, ballistics analysis becomes significantly more inaccurate with each shot; So unless you fire the gun during a crime, and then don't fire it again until they recover it, ballistics won't be of much help in a prosecution. They'll be able to throw up a lot of circumstantial evidence, but a good lawyer can put a pin in that easily enough. Secondly, most guns sold today do have serial numbers, and that's probably what he was referring to. Unfortunately, not all manufacturers put that serial number on in a way that is forensically recoverable after it is filed off or removed. If it is stamped; that is, imprinted, then it likely is. But if the serial number is raised/embossed, then forget it. Many are stamped, but not all are. Especially not older guns. As well, it's typically only the receiver that is stamped with a serial number, as this is what the law considers the actual 'firearm' part of the gun. However, depending again on make and model, a receiver is not difficult to construct from equipment available at your hardware store -- and yes, for less than $1000 too.

His argument doesn't hold water. The problem with 3D printers is that it would put a lot of businesses, well, out of business. And the biggest potential buyers of 3D printers is actually your local hardware and auto stores that right now have to pay a small fortune (which then you get to as well) ordering specialty parts out of a catalog. The entire after-market auto parts empire would deflate to maybe half its size if people could just bring in the broken part, and the store scans it in, or finds a match in a database, and then fires up the printer. 1 hour later, viola -- you have yourself a new plastic part for your car. And it doesn't cost you $60, but maybe $15 instead.

This, right here, is why this senator is pushing it. Lending credence to this theory -- look at some of his other proposals: backup cams in all cars, a bill to ban rental cars, extensive markings and ID on parts, and the list goes on. A quick look at his campaign contributors is all the more proof you need .. he's a paid shill for the auto industry.

Oh yes, firearms bad. 3d printers, terrorism, blah blah. The truth: It would put a big dent in the profits of the people writing his paycheck -- auto parts manufacturers.

Anyone with $1,000 and an internet connection can get a gun made of good 'ol steel, which would perform massively better. In fact, you don't even need the $1,000. $500 would get you a very nice handgun in a private party sale.

$500? Try about $200 for an older six-shot revolver. And as far as 'untraceable' goes... this senator clearly is a total retard when it comes to understanding forensics. First, ballistics analysis becomes significantly more inaccurate with each shot; So unless you fire the gun during a crime, and then don't fire it again until they recover it, ballistics won't be of much help in a prosecution. They'll be able to throw up a lot of circumstantial evidence, but a good lawyer can put a pin in that easily enough. Secondly, most guns sold today do have serial numbers, and that's probably what he was referring to. Unfortunately, not all manufacturers put that serial number on in a way that is forensically recoverable after it is filed off or removed. If it is stamped; that is, imprinted, then it likely is. But if the serial number is raised/embossed, then forget it. Many are stamped, but not all are. Especially not older guns. As well, it's typically only the receiver that is stamped with a serial number, as this is what the law considers the actual 'firearm' part of the gun. However, depending again on make and model, a receiver is not difficult to construct from equipment available at your hardware store -- and yes, for less than $1000 too.

His argument doesn't hold water. The problem with 3D printers is that it would put a lot of businesses, well, out of business. And the biggest potential buyers of 3D printers is actually your local hardware and auto stores that right now have to pay a small fortune (which then you get to as well) ordering specialty parts out of a catalog. The entire after-market auto parts empire would deflate to maybe half its size if people could just bring in the broken part, and the store scans it in, or finds a match in a database, and then fires up the printer. 1 hour later, viola -- you have yourself a new plastic part for your car. And it doesn't cost you $60, but maybe $15 instead.

This, right here, is why this senator is pushing it. Lending credence to this theory -- look at some of his other proposals: backup cams in all cars, a bill to ban rental cars, extensive markings and ID on parts, and the list goes on. A quick look at his campaign contributors is all the more proof you need .. he's a paid shill for the auto industry.

Oh yes, firearms bad. 3d printers, terrorism, blah blah. The truth: It would put a big dent in the profits of the people writing his paycheck -- auto parts manufacturers.

Its all about the term "to better manage the debate".
The US sock puppets on slashdot are reduced to trying to play catch up and then LOL comments start every time as new Snowden news sets them back.
The world now understands the domestic US legality of a massive ongoing surveillance network network.
The world now understands the international US relationships of a massive ongoing surveillance network wrt to their own mil, staff, lawyers and telcos.
A lot of countries now understand their top tech staff will give their own political staff junk encryption over generations and could do so without question.
The US public now understands the domestic US legality of a massive ongoing surveillance network wrt to their few remaining colour of law domestic freedoms..
The NSA grew very fast in the past 10 years and has build much political power.
So the "to better manage the debate" could also just be for internal US political consumption. They need calls for law reform and topics such as credit card tracking, or a.. "warrant can apply to millions of records and millions of individuals" to be quickly forgotten
http://www.paul.senate.gov/?p=press_release&id=1031
The NSA also has to think about long term future hiring and gov staff retention. The hire trusted CIA cleared, private contractors did not have gov meets private enterprise and entrepreneurship results expected.

The only Congressional report on the events is this one which occurred in 2009, 8 years after the event.

Unlike Benghazi, there was no drumbeat, from any source, on how Bin Laden was allowed to escape, no daily update from Fox on how the most wanted criminal in modern times was allowed to escape, no daily demands for Congressional hearings on the matter. None.

There are no rose colored glasses on this event. There were no investigations, no cries of indignation or threats of impeachment. Instead, there was silence and when pressed, Bush refused to answer any questions. The same way he did when pressed to turn over documents on the 9/11 attack.

You do know Bush turned over 1, ONE, document for the entire 9/11 Commission report. Both he and Cheney refused to appear before any Congressional hearing or provide information to any Congressional member without a lawyer being present and with no documentation of what took place.

Imagine if this administration had done the same thing over Benghazi. The South most certainly would have risen, and the lynchings would have been fierce.

You can't use the budget to take positive action

Fascinating, this must be a new rule passed after the Paul Wellstone Memorial Bank Bailout stunt the Senate pulled back when they wanted to pass TARP and the house voted against it the first time. Or not...

There also are special provisions in Senate rules to limit amendments to appropriations bills if those amendments propose unauthorized appropriations or changes in existing law. The Senate can, and sometimes does, choose not to enforce these restrictions.

http://www.senate.gov/CRSReports/crs-publish.cfm?pid=%26*2%3C4RLO8%0A

Here's your list of Senators to tar-and-feather. And here's your list of Representatives to treat likewise. Not to mention the President who signed it into law. A good portion of Congress opposed the law - but partisanship ruled the day (in fact, the only bipartisan thing about Obamacare was in OPPOSITION to it, not in favor).

let's try it again with better spacing shall we?
A single republican may have not voted for the individual mandate, but they had input in writing this bill to be sure:
http://www.finance.senate.gov/issue/?id=32be19bd-491e-4192-812f-f65215c1ba65
June 17th, 2009 Three Democratic and three Republican Finance Committee Members hold the first of 31 bipartisan meetings to discuss the development of a health care reform bill. Over the course of the next three months, this group, Baucus, Grassley, Kent Conrad (D-N.D.), Olympia Snowe (R-Maine), Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.), and Mike Enzi (R-Wyo.), met for more than 60 hours and the bipartisan principles they discussed became the foundation of the health care reform law.
I am shocked the site is still up actually. Anyway, I haven't looked into this, but I heard from someone more informed than I was that the individual mandate was not in the original bill, but was subsequently added when the insurance lobby got a hold of the original bill.

A single republican may have not voted for the individual mandate, but they had input in writing this bill to be sure: http://www.finance.senate.gov/issue/?id=32be19bd-491e-4192-812f-f65215c1ba65 June 17th, 2009 Three Democratic and three Republican Finance Committee Members hold the first of 31 bipartisan meetings to discuss the development of a health care reform bill. Over the course of the next three months, this group, Baucus, Grassley, Kent Conrad (D-N.D.), Olympia Snowe (R-Maine), Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.), and Mike Enzi (R-Wyo.), met for more than 60 hours and the bipartisan principles they discussed became the foundation of the health care reform law. I am shocked the site is still up actually. Anyway, I haven't looked into this, but I heard from someone more informed than I was that the individual mandate was not in the original bill, but was subsequently added when the insurance lobby got a hold of the original bill.

http://www.budget.senate.gov/democratic/index.cfm/senatebudget

The Senate passed their's on 3/23/13 as well. Then there were attempts to form a committee to discuss the differences, 18 times over the last 7 months. The HOUSE Republicans refused to appoint anyone to it so no negotiations were done. Please review -> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FFroMQlKiag

Presently there's a bill for a clean CR sitting in the HOUSE. The members have been asked if they would support this and a bipartisan group of them have said yes they would vote to support it and reopen the Govt. Enough members to pass this bill have been found in the HOUSE. Guess what, the leader of the House, a Republican, refuses to allow the bill to go up for a vote. Apparently this would be akin to releasing their hostages or something.

Now tell me exactly what about this process from the House side is okay with you? I could care less what it is they object to, pushing this country to the brink and then making demands is NOT how you do things properly. If the Senate and the President were to bend to their will on this they would do it every single year for whatever pet bullshit they could pull out of their ass. The proper answer to hostage takers is NO.

The Senate first passed their version of a budget 7 months ago - as did the House. Normally both sides would get together in committee to work out the differences. Except that 18 times over the last 7 months the House has REFUSED to appoint anyone to the committee to discuss it. Now who exactly isn't negotiating?

The health care stuff is now law. It passed, it's failed to be overturned more than 30 times, and it's withstood a court challenge. In fact if a clean CR were put up for a vote in the House right now it HAS the votes to pass - the majority wants it. But there's a minority that's managed to convince the leader to not even allow the clean CR to come up for a vote. I'm sorry but that's NOT how things are supposed to be done and it certainly shows no willingness to compromise. This is clearly hostage taking tactics and the budgets that they keep throwing over the fence have all sorts of interesting hooks in them not the least of which is failing to fund a significant piece of legislation that has withstood many many challenges. The minority doesn't get to control the majority, or shouldn't, in a Democracy...

http://www.budget.senate.gov/democratic/index.cfm/senatebudget

Instead of conjuring up a presidential conspiracy, you may be willing to consider information senator Tom Coburn (R-OK) posted on why the shutdown won't stop the ACA:

"It appears that substantial ACA implementation might continue during a lapse in annual appropriations that resulted in a temporary government shutdown for two reasons. The first is that the federal government will be able to rely on sources of funding other than annual discretionary appropriations to support implementation activities, including multiple-year and no-year discretionary funds still available for obligation as well as mandatory funds.....The HHS shutdown contingency plan that was prepared in anticipation of a possible government shutdown in FY2012 indicated that ACA implementation activities at CMS would continue because of the mandatory funding provided in the law."

Or is Tom Coburn too "liberal" for you to believe him?

That would be Senator Harry Reid (D-NV), leader of the Senate that didn't produce a budget for more than 1,400 days. It should be an annual event.

1,400 Days Later, Still No Senate Budget

Senator Reid still hasn't designated a conference committee to work with the House on the current budget matters.

Is that who you thought?

Bullshit. Peoples willful ignorance is what keeps an honest person off the ballot. They follow the bling wherever it goes. Turn off the TV and go to opensecrets, or votesmart, or better yet, congress itself. Yay! They're still up!

There is no excuse...

Recent history teaches us that he knows things that he is not allowed to talk about. This is his way of legally signalling that all is not well.

We have congresscritters trying to send the same message, without being labeled "traitors". See http://www.wyden.senate.gov/news/press-releases/wyden-udall-statement-on-reports-of-compliance-violations-made-under-nsa-collection-programs

If you look at the roots of all of this it goes back to the 1979 Supreme Court Ruling in Smith vs. Maryland where:

“A person has no legitimate expectation of privacy in information he voluntarily turns over to third parties’’

The case centered around the installation of a pen register, which records phone numbers dialed in the phone company office. As all of the current press indicates the NSA and other Federal Agencies and Administrations to justify scooping up all of information they can. In 1979 it was difficult to trace phone calls because most of the local COs were analog and getting this kind of data meant installing devices, requiring court orders, anybody remember rotary dial? The 1979 ruling has therefore been applied now in our current era where this information is "at hand." Using this we can now see why the large Data Center in Utah is being built to collect the billions of Call Detail Records and other Internet IP data that the NSA can gobble up. Strangely enough the safeguards that protect a US citizen fall down suddenly if you have contact with a foreign country. Let's see, going on vacation to Europe this year? You're sucked into the system. Have friends or family members overseas? You're sucked into the system. Compound that over zealous approach to collection and the fact that they can save the data for up to 10 years for historical analysis and you have a huge storage problem. Now if you add it Network Graph Analysis, you'll be sucked in if your friends or family members have contacts with people in other countries. That means effectively everybody in US is on a graph somewhere and it's being used to create fake evidence chains against your fellow citizens. I'm not advocating crime or terrorism in any way but there has to be oversight of law enforcement in this nation, with the NSA scoping up everything they can you have a police state where evidence can be created out of thin air and you can't challenge it's authenticity.

The ramifications of this are staggering and I for one have been in touch with my congressman and written to both my Senators to voice my opposition to it but the only way to fix this is to end the two party stranglehold of our government that has allowed this to happen behind closed doors. The FISA court needs to be abolished and the NSA systems need to be dismantled. That won't happen when you have elected officials who don't fear the electorate and the only way that will change is to force our government to enact:

• Term Limits. Stop allowing the same assholes who get re-elected over and over again from serving on these committees. Look at the Senate Intelligence Committee who has partial oversight of the NSA, how many members have changed over the past decade? Despite Republicans or Democrats running the Senate, the players strangely enough remain the same. Fuck that and start electing people who have your interests at heart, not the defense industry!
• Campaign finance reform. Washington politics runs on money, no money, no incentive for these fucktards to constantly get re-elected or to have the process corrupted by corporations and lobbying groups up on M street. Plus it will free up a lot of office space in DC.
• Get off your lazy butts and vote! General Elections get shitty turnout, it's time we take back our nation and get this career politicians afraid of the electorate again. Stop voting on pure party lines too. Democrats and Republicans could give a shit about you, it's about them maintaining power and getting re-elected so wake up.
• Stop Gerrymandering. Every 10 years we go through endless redistricting battles with lawsuits over

You're lying. Or perhaps just regurgitating lies you heard on Fox or AM radio. Not a big difference, either way.

Here's an official Senate report showing that removing the tax cap would ensure the solvency of Social Security for over 75 years (the maximum duration in their calculations).

Do you see how I keep citing numbers and figures? I'm able to do that because I'm telling the truth.

So we are back to the "third party doctrine" legal cover. You dial out to the phone company and your rights are gone as you entered the "phone number".
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/01/supreme-court-holds-warrantless-gps-tracking-unconstitutional/ has some emerging insights on long term US legal thought surround ongoing metadata use.
The public, press and political leaders and gov spy staff now have a clear understanding of what "metadata" is in 2013.
http://www.wyden.senate.gov/news/press-releases/wyden-continues-to-press-intelligence-officials-on-needed-domestic-surveillance-reforms
They also understand that its domestic vs the old line about only from a foreign country to the USA.
Recall the great quotes form 2006 and reflect where the privacy debate is thanks to Snowden and many others :)
http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-05-10-nsa_x.htm

I don't know what he's done or what arguments he's made, as president, about the patriot act, but as a senator he did try (and fail) to limit surveillance.

As a Senator he voted to extend FISA and that cost him my vote in the presidential election. I voted Green. Caveat: if there were any chance McCain would have taken my state, I would have held my nose and voted for Obama.

Grassley has a history of sending drooling stupid letters full of dipshit questions to NASA administrators. Here he's character-assinating the director of the Ames Research Center. Here he's making shit up about NASA and Google doing something nefarious. Here is an account of him badgering them about procurement practices.

Note that all of them contain demands for detailed histories, rationales and future plans, all to be delivered with two weeks.

Maybe this grandstanding fucktard should start writing similar letters to the Secretary of Defense. I hear they get a slightly larger portion of the budget pie than NASA does.

Grassley has a history of sending drooling stupid letters full of dipshit questions to NASA administrators. Here he's character-assinating the director of the Ames Research Center. Here he's making shit up about NASA and Google doing something nefarious. Here is an account of him badgering them about procurement practices.

Note that all of them contain demands for detailed histories, rationales and future plans, all to be delivered with two weeks.

Maybe this grandstanding fucktard should start writing similar letters to the Secretary of Defense. I hear they get a slightly larger portion of the budget pie than NASA does.

The Senate Appropriations Committee supposedly did this unanimously so not a single one of these people can claim it's not their fault:

BARBARA A. MIKULSKI - Maryland
CHRIS COONS - Delaware
DAN COATS - Indiana
DIANNE FEINSTEIN - California
JACK REED - Rhode Island
JEANNE SHAHEEN - New Hampshire
JEFF MERKLEY - Oregon
JERRY MORAN - Jerry Moran
JOHN BOOZMAN - Arkansas
JOHN HOEVEN - North Dakota
JON TESTER - Montana
LAMAR ALEXANDER - Tennessee
LINDSEY GRAHAM - South Carolina
LISA MURKOWSKI - Alaska
MARK BEGICH - Alaska
MARK KIRK - Illinois
MARK PRYOR - Arkansas
MARY L. LANDRIEU - Louisiana
MIKE JOHANNS - Nebraska
MITCH MCCONNELL - Kentucky
PATRICK J. LEAHY - Vermont
PATTY MURRAY - Washington
RICHARD C. SHELBY - Alabama
RICHARD J. DURBIN - Illinois
ROY BLUNT - Missouri
SUSAN COLLINS - Maine
THAD COCHRAN - Mississippi
TIM JOHNSON - South Dakota
TOM HARKIN - Iowa
TOM UDALL - New Mexico

But maybe this was one of those "voice votes" where it wasn't really unanimous. It's being reported as unanimous, though, so the disgraced need to issue press releases disclaiming responsibility immediately, if they want to squirm out of this. I live in NM so I blame you, Tom Udall. Explain yourself.

Feingold for president. http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=107&session=1&vote=00313

"In the development of the DES, NSA convinced IBM that a reduced key size was sufficient"

Yes, I think that's more or less covered.

As to your second quote, lets just put in the whole paragraph for clarity. Apparently it only means that NSA could be involved in the proposal review process, not that they control it, nor do they control the funding, and they aren't involved in the actual work. The NSF (National Science Foundation) is still quite independent.

UNCLASSIFIED SUMMARY: INVOLVEMENT OF NSA IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE DATA ENCRYPTION STANDARD

The NSA has not put pressure on the NSF to prevent funding of grants for cryptological research. However, the very uncertainty and ambiguity surrounding cryptology has prompted some NSA officials to express concern to NSF about certain grants with cryptological ramifications and to suggest that NSA be involved in reviewing these proposals. The NSF has agreed to the latter request, since it views NSA as the only location of competent cryptological expertise in the Government, but has not lessened its interest in, or willingness to fund, good research proposals in this field.

I think these two paragraphs from the same paper are worth noting:

There has been no direct or indirect Government harassment of scientists working the field of computer security. Nor has any university withdrawn library material as a result of NSA pressure. Nevertheless, the very newness of public cryptology and the vagueness and ambiguity of Federal regulations pertaining to cryptology create an uncertainty which in itself is not conducive to creative scholarly work.4

In the development of the DES, NSA convinced IBM that a reduced key size was sufficient; indirectly assisted in the development, of the S box structures; 5 and certified that the final DES algorithm was, to the best of their knowledge, free of any statistical or mathematical weaknesses. NSA did not tamper with the design of the algorithm in any way. IBM invented and designed the algorithm, made all pertinent decisions regarding it, and concurred that the agreed upon key size was more than adequate for all commercial applications for which the DES was intended.

Nice reference, I'm saving the link.

http://www.intelligence.senate.gov/pdfs/95nsa.pdf
"In the development of the DES, NSA convinced IBM that a reduced key size was sufficient"
"However, the very uncertainty and ambiguity surrounding cryptology has prompted some NSA officials to express concern to NSF about certain grants with cryptological ramifications and to suggest that NSA be involved in reviewing these proposals."

The law is public.

No... It is not!

Stop trolling :-)

Senator Feinstein, yesterday, proposed the Preventing Antibiotic Resistance Act of 2013 specifically designed to stop low-dose antibiotic use in animals (used primarily to increase slaughter weights and NOT used for actual therapy). Check it out.

It's worth pointing out that the actual research in PLOS ONE that the summary links to is specifically drawing a comparison between farm workers in antibiotic free farms and industrial farms. Industrial farms are kind of screwing us over.

You are correct

Senator Jeff Merkley (D-OR) and Senator Mike Lee (R-UT), accompanied by Senators Patrick Leahy (D-VT), Dean Heller (R-NV), Mark Begich (D-AK), Al Franken (D-MN), Jon Tester (D-MT), and Ron Wyden (D-OR)

BTW I found that information with one Google search and two clicks, but apparently that was too much work for the author of TFA. Sad.

I also note that my senator is not one of the sponsors of this bill and I would be interested to hear her explanation why not. (I only have one senator right now. There's a special election coming up to fill the vacancy.)

How is this treason? Treason is specifically defined in the Constitution.

Seeing as the President has sworn to "preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States", it seems to me that the President is in violation of his oath.

Further, any Senator who supports this sort of program, is even more blatantly in violation of his oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic (emphasis mine).

Posting AC for the obvious reason.

I agree that national defense is valid expense for the Federal Government, but the US seems to take it too far. Why can every other country in the world manage to spend less on their defense than the US? The US spends many times more than other countries, sometimes an order of magnitude more. The military-industrial complex has grown much too large and has become a large drain on our resources.

Yes, the figure for war spending I quoted is over several decades, but we have already spent at least 1.5 trillion on the wars, all of it deficit spending. I am unable to find a corraborating source for your 2.6 trillion figure, the only other article I found referenced the Senate Budget Committee (republican members) http://www.budget.senate.gov/republican but I could find no reference to this material on their site. I would be more inclined to believe the CBO than a partisan committee, and the CBO says its projections have not changed very much in the years since the passage of the legislation (http://www.cbo.gov/publication/43104). Notice the net budgetary impact graph at the bottom of the page, It is projecting the effect of the legislation is a reduction of the deficit in contrast to the war spending which only added to the deficit. Not only are we paying for the wars now, we will be paying for them far into the future. At least when we pay for health care each year we get something back for our money, any benefits from the wars will be long gone by the time we pay for them.

National defense is a necessary part of a nation-state, but how did attacking a country that had nothing to do with 9/11 and didn't pose an immediate threat (false claims of WMD notwithstanding) promote the security of the US? A major impetus behind the 9/11 attacks was the previous foray into Iraq and our backing of the House of Saud, our current foray into Iraq will no doubt have similar consequences in the future. You're welcome kids!

In the world in which we live, giving up defense to provide healthcare is likely to mean eventually you are likely to have neither unless you have a strong benefactor to protect you. The US has played the role of benefactor to Europe since the end of WW2. Who will protect America if it gives up its own defense?

Nobody is saying the US should give up its defense, but maybe it should just defend itself rather than providing defense for foreign countries. Also, calling pre-emptive attacks "defense" is massively stretching the meaning of the word.

This is a huge problem, and I cannot believe counterfeiting was not even mentioned in the ITC report. Fake chips have shown up in military equipment, threatening untold number of lives. Here's a presentation by an Analog Devices rep reporting on the problem (pdf): http://www.armed-services.senate.gov/statemnt/2011/11%20November/Toohey%20Slides%20B%2011-08-11.pdf

I'm the guy who finds your posts to demonstrate stupidity and enjoys pointing out your bullshit. And you came through in classic form. See you took one of the few actual statistics, in what was just a narrative (i.e. not a study or scientific paper but merely the opinions of a man who writes for a living), that said:

[O]nly 1.3% of those born into the poorest 10% managing to “struggle upward” into the top 10%, while nearly one third of those born into the top 10% are able to hold on to their class position.

And apparently read it as "only 1.3% of the top 10% got there due to hard work." It's not a difficult statement to understand and yet you completely and totally failed to grasp the idea presented. Just like you don't understand the ramifications that the best predictor of a child's future economic status is the parent's economic status. Which in addition to not leading to the result you think it does, isn't even that overwhelming a predictor (see fig. 7 on page 11 for data about sons or fig. 11 on page 15 for data about families) for the middle three quintiles (30% or less) and 41% for the ends.

And then you proceed to redefine your terms. Perhaps in your world view hard work is strictly physical labor, in which case your narrow perspective guarantees that you will never succeed and you will forever be a bitter whiner who blames his self selected failure on someone else. Here's a hint, which I suspect is going to fall on a deaf ears: physical labor isn't hard. It's the easiest thing out there, everyone is capable of doing it. Hard is doing something that takes years of dedicated effort to learn, hard is risking your future in order to found a business, hard is working 16 hours a day most every day of the week year after year, hard is knowing that you have to make trade offs today in order to have success tomorrow.

I'm going to guess that your next desperate attempt to wiggle out from under the feces flowing from your mouth will be to redefine "nearly no one" as being any amount less than 100%, but just in case you aren't too terrified of facing the naked the truth about how full of shit you are, here's a a profile of the 112th US Congress which happens to describe their prior occupations. Of note:

81 educators
17 doctors
2 veterinarians
2 psychologists
an optometrist
an ophthalmologist
6 nurses
3 sheriffs
2 deputy sheriffs
2 FBI agents
a border patrol agent
a firefighter
a physicist
a chemist
6 engineers
a microbiologist
9 accountants
4 pilots
an astronaut
2 pro football players
17 farmers
11 ranchers
9 social workers
9 national guard members
10 judges
26 prosecutors

There's more, but I figure 226 (out of 541) congressional members having held non-political jobs far exceeds any normal definition of "nearly none".

Alexander (R-TN)
Blunt (R-MO)
Boozman (R-AR)
Burr (R-NC)
Chambliss (R-GA)
Coats (R-IN)
Cochran (R-MS)
Corker (R-TN)
Cornyn (R-TX)
Enzi (R-WY)
Graham (R-SC)
Isakson (R-GA)
Johanns (R-NE)
Johnson (R-WI)
McCain (R-AZ)
Moran (R-KS)
Portman (R-OH)
Pryor (D-AR)
Sessions (R-AL)
Shelby (R-AL)
Thune (R-SD)
Wicker (R-MS)

This bill passed with little fanfare; you didn't see Republicans hopping mad about it the way you saw them last year when another revenue bill was proposed. Why? What is the difference?

The bill blocked by Republicans raised tax revenue from ultra-high incomes above $1,000,000 -- not "millionaires", but people who *earn a million dollars in one year*, meaning super-zillionaires. Today's bill, on the other hand, raised revenue mostly from "poor" people, if "poor" means "people who earn less than a million dollars in one year".

The Senators above, 21 Republicans and 1 Democrat, voted AGAINST the zillionaire-tax bill and FOR today's tax bill. They hypocrites of the first order, who practically shut down and bankrupted the entire government so that super-zillionaires wouldn't have to pay up, but quietly agreed to squeezing you and me out of a few more pennies.

Share this with your friends in those states so these hypocrites can be voted out of office.

"Marketplace Fairness Act of 2013"
http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=113&session=1&vote=00113

"Paying a Fair Share Act of 2012"
http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=112&session=2&vote=00065

Alexander (R-TN)
Blunt (R-MO)
Boozman (R-AR)
Burr (R-NC)
Chambliss (R-GA)
Coats (R-IN)
Cochran (R-MS)
Corker (R-TN)
Cornyn (R-TX)
Enzi (R-WY)
Graham (R-SC)
Isakson (R-GA)
Johanns (R-NE)
Johnson (R-WI)
McCain (R-AZ)
Moran (R-KS)
Portman (R-OH)
Pryor (D-AR)
Sessions (R-AL)
Shelby (R-AL)
Thune (R-SD)
Wicker (R-MS)

This bill passed with little fanfare; you didn't see Republicans hopping mad about it the way you saw them last year when another revenue bill was proposed. Why? What is the difference?

The bill blocked by Republicans raised tax revenue from ultra-high incomes above $1,000,000 -- not "millionaires", but people who *earn a million dollars in one year*, meaning super-zillionaires. Today's bill, on the other hand, raised revenue mostly from "poor" people, if "poor" means "people who earn less than a million dollars in one year".

The Senators above, 21 Republicans and 1 Democrat, voted AGAINST the zillionaire-tax bill and FOR today's tax bill. They hypocrites of the first order, who practically shut down and bankrupted the entire government so that super-zillionaires wouldn't have to pay up, but quietly agreed to squeezing you and me out of a few more pennies.

Share this with your friends in those states so these hypocrites can be voted out of office.

"Marketplace Fairness Act of 2013"
http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=113&session=1&vote=00113

"Paying a Fair Share Act of 2012"
http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=112&session=2&vote=00065

In case you need a list of senators to not re-elect:
https://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=113&session=1&vote=00113#state

You know, frivolous stuff like robotics research.

I understand that he may not understand everything, but a lot of what is in his list is frivolous. Here is another NSF-funded robotics research "project": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-hwBOBeDFHw If they want to play, then they can do it on the universities' dimes. The universities certainly charge enough to pay for this.

Referencing some more from here: http://www.coburn.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?a=Files.serve&File_id=2dccf06d-65fe-4087-b58d-b43ff68987fa

• How about this: http://nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0909289 This does not benefit the U.S. society all that much. It seems like something that the travel industry should pay for.
• We even paid to research if terrorism affected John McCain's chances for the 2008 election: http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2008/10/01_terror.shtml His campaign or the GOP could have researched that themselves.

It depends on what is meant by duplication. If two groups are researching the same thing using the same means regarding the same factors, then that is doing something in parallel. I can see that as a (possible) waste of money that could be used to research something else concurrently. Only slight related, when it is different agencies funding the same party, then you have fraud: http://www.nature.com/news/duplicate-grant-case-puts-funders-under-pressure-1.9984

Replication is different and would not fall under duplication as it is done serially. First, one group does research into the topic followed by a separate group that tries to reproduce the results. Trying to replicate the results at the same time as another group that is unfinished with their research is potentially wasteful.

If the results are useful, then I am sure some entity will try to reproduce it without government funding. If the project was politically-motivated, then I am almost certain another party will fund research into that topic without need for government funding.

Personally, I wish the news would do a little research into past projects that were duplicated to either prove or disprove the issue with duplication. They just want a fight between the two parties to get more readers. I guess this was too hard for them to find: http://www.coburn.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?a=Files.serve&File_id=2dccf06d-65fe-4087-b58d-b43ff68987fa Page 20 talks about duplication between the various agencies. Skimming through that report really makes me want to have the NSF cleaned. For example, "An Indiana University (IU) professor received a $263,281 grant from the NSF to study the social impact of tourism in the country of Norway." Funding that over cancer research?!?

Why don't we put India in charge of the US. We wouldn't need congress any more.

Or better yet remind them who they are working for. If they do not hear a peep out of the average citizen then they assume there really is a labor shortage and good old Microsoft would never lie would they?

Instead of whining in a slashdot post go email, call, tweet, or whatever to your senator! The link I provided is all 100 of them.

If your senator is a democrat tell them how much wages have not went up and how job ads actually state "H1B1 rates in salary and how employers are abusing the system as it was designed to only allow an employer to hire someone at a comparative rate. Never as a way to lower costs.

If your senator is a republican tell them it is an assault on the free market as employers get to choose where to hire, but you do not have the choice to do the same. Mention government interference and tax dollars wasted, then close with the same line I had above in your own words how it is not going as intended.

Also, mention one of the organizations was a fraudalent fake one by Microsoft looking for cheaper workers. Not an actualy organization of I.T. professionals who are lobbying for this as this is self centered and not in the will of your constitutions. Call them too as the staff checks the amount of calls everday and a spike is certainly noticed by the senator.

Remember the DMCA 2.0 law requiring DRM TCPA chips in every computer sold? It was thrown out after we at slashdot put down such links. Senators got so much of an earfull that was cancelled. Slashdot generates 10,000 if not 100,000 of views for stories. So spend 3 minutes and do your part.

Usually, when I read /., I find a lot of people praising unbounded capitalism, the invisible hand, criticising unions because they've destroyed Detroit / they keep bad teachers from being fired / they forced Apple to resort to sweatshops in China. But when it's turn for the invisible hand to slap the kind of people who usually post here, the comments have a much different tone and the proposals push in another direction.

The H-1B visa is not the "invisible hand" of "unbounded capitalism". It's a device of the rather visible hand of government intended to reduce the salaries of skilled workers. Don't believe me? Sounds paranoid? Here's Alan Greenspan's testimony on the issue.

The second bonus would address the increasing concentration of income in this country. Greatly expanding our quotas for the highly skilled would lower wage premiums of skilled over lesser skilled. Skill shortages in America exist because we are shielding our skilled labor force from world competition. Quotas have been substituted for the wage pricing mechanism. In the process, we have created a privileged elite whose incomes are being supported at noncompetitively high levels by immigration quotas on skilled professionals. Eliminating such restrictions would reduce at least some of our income inequality.

Yeah, Alan, it's skilled workers who are the "privileged elite"... not those who own the companies who are paying them. Pull the other one, it's got bells on.

Would this be the same Dianne Feinstein that voted yea on a bill that limits the government's power to regulate guns? Not to mention that the regulations on the sales of games with mature content to minors is working very well and that the percentage of video games with a mature rating is pretty low. So yeah, Dianne, keep pursuing tougher regulation on video games instead of tightening regulations on guns - that definitely seems like the logical stance for a senator to make.

There's nothing good about energy beets. We already know we can use algae, and that it is superior in a variety of ways.

Do not cheer this. There is nothing good about this. It is merely less evil than using corn as a fuel feedstock.

Correct and since bio algae is already certified at all levels and WSU/UoW received > $140 million in recent DoE money to expand moreso with the WSU research [jointly with Oregon State and others]: Bio Algae is here. http://www.tricity.wsu.edu/bsel/pnnl.html

Impacts The collective goal at BSEL is to move science to industrial processes in a manner that improves energy security, reduces petroleum imports and decreases the impact of fuels on the environment. PNNL currently has approximately 60 issued and pending patents in the area of biobased processing (30 issued US patents, 19 issued in the last six years). These have resulted in ten commercial licenses and license options. This work has also resulted in one R&D 100 Award Presidential Green Chemistry Award, and provided the basis for creation of a new company.

The advances at WSU, UoW, Oregon State and all the Public/Private patent pending research is probably one reason for this grant to do something alternative--they have to as the other areas are mature and highly patented.

$80 Million to WSU/UofW and later more: http://www.cantwell.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/2011/9/biofuel-research-at-uw-and-wsu-to-help-power-the-economy

This is long overdue.

Then the BioJetFuel project of WSU with Alaska Airlines: http://researchnews.wsu.edu/environment/338.html

What if we agree to limit the drones to magazines of less than ten rounds, would that be OK?

Like the legislation brought forth by the uppity bitch whose site you linked to, you know damn good an well that there will be an exemption for government agents and LEOs.

Thus, not a compromise at all...

I guess I did miss the point. Since in my family it was all about how misguided the Vietnam war was and talks of student sit ins and such. Fonda was naive but she was, I think, on the correct side of the argument.

But I guess you missed the point too. Holder stated [1] that the Executive Branch wasn't going to make a blanket statement hemming in the Executive to use drones during such events as Peal Harbor and 9/11. So what we've got is a temper tantrum which compares two of the most epic events in US history where the power of the Executive would have swept pretty much anything before it to a single Vietnam war protester who happened to get a lot of attention because she was a celebrity over whom the Executive could only exert the most minor of authority. If a drone were to have killed Jane Fonda it would have been an obvious criminal action. If a drone had shot down one of the remaining jets after the towers were hit it would have been a justified use of a military force to avoid a larger death toll. Trying to compare the two is simply trying to derail the stated response to (Rand's) original question.

[1] http://paul.senate.gov/files/documents/BrennanHolderResponse.pdf

What if we agree to limit the drones to magazines of less than ten rounds, would that be OK?

Well, AG Holder specifically said that it has never happened.
http://paul.senate.gov/files/documents/BrennanHolderResponse.pdf

Congressman, no. On the other hand... there appears to be one person to keep around for a while.