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Unlike pretty much any other industry, US liquid natural gas exporters have to get explicit permission from the US Department of Energy to export LNG.

Recently it was reported that the DOE will likely only approve would likely approve only three out of the 20 applications under review for exporting natural gas.

The price of natural gas in the US is way, way below the price of natural gas in Europe or Japan, and there is a huge amount of money to be made in exporting US LNG. Europe is currently held politically hostage by Russian natural gas supplies and prices.

However given the length of the DOE process and the time to build LNG terminals, it is unlikely the US will become a major player in the international natural gas market until 2020 at the earliest.

Obsolete talking point:

http://thehill.com/blogs/on-the-money/budget/295477-reid-to-seek-consent-to-convene-budget-conference-

Senate Republicans on Tuesday prevented Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) from setting up a budget conference.

Reid sought the Senate's unanimous consent to form a budget conference committee aimed at reconciling the wildly different House and Senate budget resolutions, but Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) objected.

Toomey said he was objecting on behalf of Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), the ranking member of the Senate Budget Committee who had a conflict and could not be present.

“It seems House Republicans don’t want to be seen even discussing the possibility of compromise with the Democrats for fear of a Tea Party revolt,” Reid said.

He noted that Republicans have called for “regular order” for years.

"A strange thing happened: House Republicans did a complete 180 — they flipped. They're no longer interested in regular order even though they preached that for years," Reid said.

[snip]

The Senate passed its first budget resolution in four years last month. Republicans had criticized Reid and Senate Democrats for their inaction on budgets, calling it irresponsible.

But, what's worse is that the spending hasn't been on anything which benefited the average citizen, it's mostly on things that benefit the rich.

Bush did pass the drug benefit bill when he was running for re-election, which of course was also a big payout for the drug companies. While I was looking that up, I checked to see who sponsored the bill, and it was the Republican House Speaker Dennis Hastert, who was implicated in a Turkish bribe by an FBI whistleblower who was subsequently fired. Hastert later retired and went on to earn $35k per month as a lobbyist for Turkey.

Words fail me.

Did you even read the article??

Sens. Mike Enzi (R-Wyo.) and Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), the other lead Senate co-sponsors along with Durbin, argue the bill will actually protect states' rights. They note that it would not force any state to collect taxes, and argue that states that choose to tax online purchases could lower other rates.

http://thehill.com/blogs/hillicon-valley/technology/295115-senate-poised-to-back-internet-sales-tax#ixzz2R8iOoOha

Personally I think the idea is very bad because it puts a business doing commerce between states open to audits from 50 jurisdictions.

However being a a bad idea is different from being unconstitutional.

Except the FBI have said he's not a suspect?

http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2013-04-16/national/38574599_1_saudi-suspect-saudi-official-boston-marathon

http://thehill.com/blogs/global-affairs/terrorism/294839-saudi-student-hurt-in-bombing-not-a-suspect-not-being-deported

Sorry for the late reply, but if what you said is really what you believe:

If I make 1 billion dollars and pay 10% tax, and you make 50 dollars and pay 10% tax, the system would be fair.

Then the system we have is not fair, even with all those loopholes you referred to. Wealthy people pay far more than non-wealthy (please make sure to go all the way down the page to 'Average Tax Rate By Average Gross Income').

Tax laws are going to change (example proposal), because the govt. beast is insatiable as long as fiscal insanity reigns as it has for many decades, but the problems are a) not taxes as much as spending and b) the income spreads have gotten too great for any tax system to be 'fair' to anyone. Whatever tax system you want to return to (including 0%, at least with respect to income taxes), it would have a far greater chance of success if wage disparities were at a 1960's level instead of the tax system.

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.

Read The Fine Article:

"The video series with an island theme provided filing season training for 1,900 employees in our Taxpayer Assistance Centers in 400 locations," the IRS said. "This example of video training alone saved the IRS about $1.5 million each year compared to the costs of training the employees in person."

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/290023-irs-star-trek-gilligan-training-videos-a-mistake-

The IRS said the "Gilligan's Island" video trained 1,900 employees at the agency's 400 Taxpayer Assistance Centers, which saved about $1.5 million as compared to the price it would take to train the employees in person.

Reading. It works.

There was also a Gilligan's Island video which so far the IRS has kept private.

I think the situation in Syria today has proven that some of our leaders are keenly aware of the past mistakes in arming an uprising against our enemies.

Fixed that for you.

It's actually rather scary that our last two Presidential elections both saved us from what would likely have been one the worst foreign policy mistakes in U.S. history. Romney, McCain, and Hilary Clinton all support arming the Syrian rebels. I may not always agree with Obama (heck, I usually don't agree with him), but on this issue, we dodged a bullet the size of a freight train by electing who we did. Just saying.

In November 2012, President Obama signed Presidential Policy Directive 20 which lays out the specific "rules of engagement" regarding cyber- defense and offense. http://thehill.com/blogs/defcon-hill/policy-and-strategy/267879-report-obama-authorizes-new-cyber-warfare-directive We in new territory here so it remains to be seen whether the policy, in practice, complies with binding international treaties on the "rules of war". If the question is whether the US government, or any government, has the right to respond to a cyber attack with deadly force, I think you have to refer to the treaties with specific cases in mind for the legal perspective. Having the "right" from a moral perspective is something completely different.

If the rationale provided by China for banning "highly-sensitive" GPS is genuine (and that's one wobbly "if" right there) then Allah-or-whomever praise the US; all such regimes should live in perpetual fear.

Thankfully, after more than four wasted years of temporary insanity we are resuming our GMD deployment, so fuck North Korea and their ballistic pipe-bombs too.

His publicity stunt is bringing the constitutional threat the President's Drone policy represents to the attention of most Americans.

He has said repeatedly what he wants, and you are right, it is nothing legislative - he simply wants the President to say in a clear statement that the government will not kill non-enemy combatants inside the United States.

The "sequestration" cuts are $85B out of $3.6T, or ~2.4 %. This has motivated politicians from both parties, and loud-mouthed political actors of all stripes, to make wild claims about terrible consequences if the cuts were to be made. The implicit claim is that cutting 2.4% across the board would result in an "unready, hollow force", 9% unemployment, and all sorts of other horrific things (which I'm sure you've heard of by now).

Is it even true? From cutting a measly 2.4% of future spending? Or is it yet another shock doctrine exercise to distract us from other things we should be paying attention to instead? There's a book, BTW.

• How did we get de-industrialized over the past 40 years? Was there an upside for someone, and if so, who?
• Why does petroleum cost over $100/bbl when there is no shortage, demand has been decreasing since 2008, and it costs a small fraction of that to produce?
• Who supports "Al Qaeda"? (Hint)
• Why is wealth distribution becoming more and more polarized?
• Do wealthy companies, individuals, and organizations control the world's governments through (surprisingly affordable) "lobbying"?
• What will you retire on?
• How will climate change affect you over your lifetime?
• Where will your potable water come from 20 years from now?
• Why do we continue to eat such a massively unhealthy diet? What fraction of "out of control" medical care costs are directly attributable to that?
• Will your job or a job like it still exist in 2025? What will you be doing then?
• Why did we invade Iraq? Why are we still in Afghanistan? Why are we rattling our sabers at Iran if our "allies" in the middle east are by far the greatest financiers of terrorism?

etc.

The United States is headed for another trillion dollar deficit. (Even the rosy CBO numbers project an $800 billion deficit.) And beyond that the debt bomb of unfunded entitlements and pension liabilities only threatens to make things worse.

"If you add up the total debt — state, local, the works — every man, woman, and child in this country owes 200 grand (which is rather more than the average Greek does). Every American family owes about three-quarters of a million bucks."

Where is the brokest nation in the history of the world going to borrow the money for more space flight? When hyperinflation kicks in, we won't be able to afford it or much of anything else.

Now only if the Republican-controlled house had passed several budget bills and sent them to the Senate, where one man prevents them from ever even getting debated, much less voted on. Oh wait, that's exactly why we haven't had a budget in over 1,000 days and counting.

Remember when Obama's budget received a unanimous NAY vote from everyone in the Senate, regardless of party affiliation? That was a hum-dinger, wasn't it?

The Ryan budget passed the House in March. The Senate refused to vote on it for 2 months. Then when they saw in an off-cycle election that part of the plan (reforming medicare) could be successfully attacked, they decided to vote on it just so the could use it to attack the Republicans. The Democrat controlled Senate also voted down the Obama plan (97-0). The Democrats also voted down a budget offered by Toomey and passed by the House.
http://thehill.com/blogs/floor-action/house/219093-paul-ryan-budget-passes-house-with-ten-republican-defections
http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/163307-senate-votes-down-ryan-budget-medicare-
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0511/55721.html

If it were simply a matter of not liking the bills being offered, they could simply hold the vote and go on record as rejecting them. But they have refused to vote on budgets because they didn't want to be on record.

The Constitution, as you point, puts the power of the purse in the House (part of the deal that set up the bicameral legislature). It's not unlike the Senate having to approve Presidential appointments. And just like with Presidential appointments, the Senate is really just supposed to filter out the total crap - not try to micromanage the final product.

The last time the Senate passed a budget was April 2009. Even before the Republicans controlled the House the Democrats couldn't pass a budget. They were supposed to pass a budget before the 111th congress ended in 2010 but failed despite controlling the House, Senate, and Presidency.

The Ryan budget passed the House in March. The Senate refused to vote on it for 2 months. Then when they saw in an off-cycle election that part of the plan (reforming medicare) could be successfully attacked, they decided to vote on it just so the could use it to attack the Republicans. The Democrat controlled Senate also voted down the Obama plan (97-0). The Democrats also voted down a budget offered by Toomey and passed by the House.
http://thehill.com/blogs/floor-action/house/219093-paul-ryan-budget-passes-house-with-ten-republican-defections
http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/163307-senate-votes-down-ryan-budget-medicare-
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0511/55721.html

If it were simply a matter of not liking the bills being offered, they could simply hold the vote and go on record as rejecting them. But they have refused to vote on budgets because they didn't want to be on record.

The Constitution, as you point, puts the power of the purse in the House (part of the deal that set up the bicameral legislature). It's not unlike the Senate having to approve Presidential appointments. And just like with Presidential appointments, the Senate is really just supposed to filter out the total crap - not try to micromanage the final product.

The last time the Senate passed a budget was April 2009. Even before the Republicans controlled the House the Democrats couldn't pass a budget. They were supposed to pass a budget before the 111th congress ended in 2010 but failed despite controlling the House, Senate, and Presidency.

Wow, you really eat this shit up.

Every single point I made (with the possible exception of the Russian government actually having control of their own intelligence agencies - I'd call that one open to debate) amounts to pure documented fact. Not speculation, not even stretching the data to fit an information vacuum.

Though, I suppose you might not remember the Iran Contra affair. You might not have flown in the past 10 years. You might not read Slashd... Oh... No, I guess you do. Huh, funny that.


You can list as many of the negatives as you wish but your argument has no merit if you only include those.

Remind me which branch of the US government controls the GCSB (in case you need a cite for that one, click on the FP link for this very thread) or the KGB? Or hey, we can throw the Mossad in there if you like. I could go on, they pretty much all have a list of publicly known sins a mile long. The US only dominates the list out of sheer volume, not as anything special.


We do have the right to [sue] AT&T et al, actually.

No, we don't, actuallydon't . I am not really sure where the whole travel point is going as it is patently incorrect.

Funny, the US Department of State seems to know what I meant. Perhaps you should re-read it if you didn't get it the first time?

He didn't.

http://thehill.com/blogs/hillicon-valley/technology/268929-leahy-denies-supporting-bill-to-allow-warrantless-email-searches

According to this, Leahy claims CNET was incorrect in its original article and that he never supported the warrantless wiretapping. When he tried to clarify this stance, CNET comes out with this article saying that he backtracked because of the backlash caused by their article. Not going to make the judgment call on which side is right, but it should at least be noted that there are two sides to the story.

The proposed plan would fence off a majority of the initial blueprint laid out in the final days of the George W. Bush administration. It faces a 30-day protest period and a 60-day process to ensure it is consistent with local and state policies. After that, the department would render a decision for implementation.

“This proposal will place further limitations on the exploration and development of our country’s natural resources and is yet another example of how this administration continues to stand in the way of North American energy independence," Rep. Ed Whitfield (R-Ky.), the chairman of House Energy and Commerce's subcommittee on Energy and Power, said in a statement to The Hill.

(Source : Comments section of - http://thehill.com/blogs/hillicon-valley/technology/267413-texas-secession-petition-gains-enough-signatures-for-white-house-response) Don't know the origin of this, but I liked it. "Dear Red States We're ticked off at your Neanderthal attitudes and politics and we've decided we're leaving. We in California intend to form our own country and we're taking the other Blue States with us. In case you aren't aware that includes New York, Hawaii, Oregon, Washington, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Illinois and the rest of the Northeast. We believe this split will be beneficial to the nation and especially to the people of the new country of The Enlightened States of America (E.S.A). To sum up briefly: You get Texas , Oklahoma and all the slave states.We get stem cell research and the best beaches.We get Andrew Cuomo and Elizabeth Warren. You get Bobby Jindal and Todd Akin.We get the Statue of Liberty. You get OpryLand.We get Intel and Microsoft. You get WorldCom.We get Harvard. You get those ignorant fools at Ole' Miss.We get 85 percent of America 's venture capital and entrepreneurs. You get Alabama .We get two-thirds of the tax revenue. You get to make the red states pay their fair share. Since our aggregate divorce rate is 22 percent lower than the Christian Coalition's, we get a bunch of happy families. You get a bunchof single moms.With the Blue States in hand we will have firm control of 80% of the country's fresh water, more than 90% of the pineapple and lettuce, 92%of the nation's fresh fruit, 95% of America's quality wines (you can serve French wines at state dinners) 90% of all cheese, 90 percent of the high tech industry, most of the US low sulfur coal, all livingredwoods, sequoias and condors, all the Ivy and Seven Sister schools plus Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Cal Tech and MIT.With the Red States you will have to cope with 88% of all obese Americans and their projected health care costs, 92% of all US mosquitoes, nearly 100% of the tornadoes, 90% of the hurricanes, 99%of all Southern Baptists, virtually 100% of all televangelists, RushLimbaugh, Bob Jones University, Clemson and the University of Georgia.We get Hollywood and Yosemite, thank you.38% of those in the Red states believe Jonah was actually swallowed by a whale, 62% believe life is sacred unless we're discussing the deathpenalty or gun laws, 44% say that evolution is only a theory, 53% that Saddam was involved in 9/11 and 61% of you crazy bastards believe you are people with higher morals then we lefties.We're taking the good weed too. You can have that crap they grow in Mexico.Sincerely,A Citizen of the Enlighten

Ah, poperatzo, good to hear from you.

How do you expect to have "secret voting" when Mitt Romney's son holds an equity interest in a company that makes voting machines (a company which has donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to the Romney campaign).

The vote is secret since there isn't personally identifiable information linked to the vote itself.

Do you think that everyone at the company are both Romney only voters and are unethical? If not, how would they expect to keep quiet the sort of conspiracy you posit? Surely they would expect their behavior to be under scrutiny?

Does their contract cover the whole state, and do they actually have the means to change the vote?

We've outsourced our elections.

Only the manufacture of voting machines, and do you really want the government in that business? The elections are supervised the same old way, and votes are still cast by voters.

I have absolutely zero confidence in the integrity of US elections. and not because of "voter fraud".

Voter fraud? The very idea! Rest assurred, it doesn't always work. ;) (Just because I know you've listened.)

Besides, don't worry, the the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, the NAACP and the ACLU have your back, in yet another embarrassment to the United States.

Still Obama. You don't seem to understand credibility vs ability. Romney's budgets in MA, and his proposed budgets for the US are full of lies that don't add up. Obama's budget - and his inability to find funding for planetary science (and fight those in both parties who oppose such funding) is an issue of ability. He's not making up numbers.

Earth calling!

Senate rejects Obama budget in 99-0 vote

...

In a 99-0 vote, all of the senators present rejected the president’s blueprint.

It’s the second year in a row the Senate has voted down Obama’s budget.

Obama's 2012 budget failed 97 to 0 last May...

Two years in a row, Obama hasn't been able to get even ONE Democrat Senator to vote for his budget.

OMFG that's PATHETIC.

Corn-fed beef is cheaper, so if you eat a burger every day, you can't complain about it.

Then again, all this meat consumption (over a pound per U.S. resident per day; about 25% of it beef) is really a bad thing. Screws up your health, screws up the environment, depletes a non-renewable resource (oil) in the form of fertilizers and diesel fuel needed to grow all that corn.

The oil issue was pumping up corn prices even before the drought. Oil prices can only go up, so we're going to have to get used to eating less meat, no matter how "anti-agriculture" it might seem.

Gee, that's real interesting. There sure are a lot of pretty pictures in those articles, and a lot of Democrats-did kind of verbage. You'd almost think someone created those articles on purpose!

To quote Tom Hanks, I bet that's a coinke-dinkie.

And then to look at the budget articles from the mid-2000's...why, there's almost nothing there!

I'm sure it's just another big coinke-dinke. No one ever manipulates Wikipedia! Why, it's the gold standard for truth and objectivity!

I guess I should ignore the New York times (that bastion of hard-core right-wingers)
http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/f/federal_budget_us/index.html

And Politifact, they're clearly clueless:
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2011/aug/05/buddy-roemer/obama-submitted-budgets/

The Hill is totally wrong.
http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/163347-senate-votes-unanimously-against-obama-budget

In fact, even that RWNJ hotbed, the Huffington Post, acknowledges it:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/16/house-gop-budget-plan-senate_n_1522393.html
"Democrats haven't passed a budget since 2009, opting against weeklong floor debates that would have exposed party members to dozens of politically difficult votes or put themselves on record in favor of tax hikes or huge deficits."

But hey, enjoy your wikipedia edits. Propagandist.

Agreed. The Whitehouse needs to keep their hands off of the Electrical sector and let us continue to do what we're doing.

Federal Energy Regulatory Commission Chairman Jon Wellinghoff is pandering to Congress and the Whitehouse with untrue statements such as:
“No. 1, I don’t have an effective way to confidentially communicate [cyber threats] to the utilities,” Wellinghoff said. “And No. 2, I have no effective enforcement authority, and I’ve said this for six years now. And I’ve also said I don’t care who has the authority, but Congress should give someone the authority.”

#1 is untrue in regards to the Electrical sector. FERC can communicate confidentially via NERC Cyber Alerts. Additionally NERC has the ES-ISAC private alerts that can be issued for lower-priority items. I received a draft alert from the ES-ISAC just yesterday which will be released in a matter of days
#2 is untrue in regards to the Electrical sector. FERC via the 2005 legislation received the ability to fine $1MM/incident/day and has delegated this to NERC which enforces the FERC Orders 693 (Electrical) and 706 (Cyber CIP) via NERC standards.

There is the Water ISAC which my Irrigation District also has alerts from. I'm not in the Oil or Gas industries, but I imagine FERC should have the same authority over them and they have the Energy ISAC for communications.

Your summary includes the quote: "As it stands now, the rates are so damaging that Pandora — the top player in the space — has made it clear it may never be profitable. Yes, never." The link you included talks about Pandora's founder supporting a bill and opposing another one, but in that article he never says anything like "the rates are so damaging that Pandora — the top player in the space — has made it clear it may never be profitable". That quote does come from the TechDirt article without a source.

And that's a huge problem with cyber: attribution. Even if an attack appears to be coming from a particular source, that doesn't mean it originated from and/or was ordered by that source. In fact, intentional misattribution or denial of attribution is yet another element of cyber operations. From a US perspective, we still don't have a comprehensive set of rules of engagement for cyber, or even really have consistent, well-understood definitions for what constitutes "cyber war" (though there's certainly a lot of hype...)

Some relevant recent articles:

---

Cyber Command struggles to define its place on a shifting battlefield - Nextgov

The U.S. Cyber Command, which directs network offensive operations for the Pentagon and protects its networks, is becoming more open about the military’s capabilities in cyberspace. Recently, the Defense Department was forced to show part of its hand when leaks surfaced about U.S.-manufactured cyber weapons and cyber espionage missions. Still, since 2011, the department has told the world it stands prepared to protect U.S. national security interests through cyberspace maneuvers.

http://www.nextgov.com/cybersecurity/2012/08/hacker-wars/57438/

---

Confusion Reigns In Cyber Planning - AVIATION WEEK

Pentagon warfighters have for years been asking for a cybercombat policy, rules of engagement, funding and a less-fragmented chain of authority. But those needs remain unfulfilled as bureaucrats, lawmakers and top Defense Department civilian officials thrash about in a pit of indecision while an international complex of digital threats continues to emerge.

http://www.aviationweek.com/Article.aspx?id=%2Farticle-xml%2FDT_05_01_2012_p38-444018.xml&guid=74908

---

'Turf War' Slows New U.S. Cyber Rules - Defense News

Despite the ongoing concern about the escalating pace of cyber attacks, a new set of standing rules of engagement for cyber operations — policy guidelines that would specify how the Pentagon would respond to different types of cyber attacks — is being delayed by a debate over the role of the U.S. military in defending non-military networks, sources said.

http://www.defensenews.com/article/20120507/C4ISR01/305070015/-8216-Turf-War-8217-Slows-New-U-S-Cyber-Rules

---

Pentagon revamps rules of engagement for cyberwar - The Hill

The Pentagon is rewriting the book on how it defends against and possibly responds to cyberattacks against the United States, the top uniformed officer in charge of the effort told Congress on Tuesday.

http://thehill.com/blogs/defcon-hill/policy-and-strategy/218435-pentagon-revamps-rules-of-engagement-for-cyberwar

Of course, having passed more of his budgets through Congress than Obama has (who can't even get Congressional Democrats to vote for his ideas in bill form), Ryan has had to be the adult in the room and actually consider the effects of things on the deficit and future entitlements.

Sigh, no.

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2012/apr/06/mitt-romney/romney-says-obama-failed-pass-budget/
http://thehill.com/blogs/floor-action/house/218931-house-clobbers-obama-budget-proposal-in-0-414-vote

From both articles:

White House officials said Rep. Mick Mulvaney (R-S.C.), the sponsor of the alternative, was using Obama's top-line spending and revenue numbers as a budget proposal, without any specifics. On the House floor, Budget Committee Ranking Member Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) agreed that Mulvaney's amendment was not, in fact, Obama's entire budget proposal.
"This is politics at its absolute worst: presenting something as the President's budget without the policy detail, without the explanation to the American people about what's in the President's budget," he said. "And as a result, he presents a very misleading version of what the President has asked us to do."

He’s right about the rejection. After Obama submitted his fiscal year 2013 budget proposal on Feb. 13, 2012, House Republicans put it up for a floor vote.

The result: 414-0 against.

The same thing happened a year earlier in the Senate. That vote: 97-0 against. Democrats didn’t support the plan because it has been supplanted by another deficit-reduction plan Obama had later outlined. Republican leaders demanded a vote on Obama’s budget to show that Democrats don’t support any detailed budget blueprint, according to The Hill.

Such votes are taken "just as a means of embarrassing the president and his party," said Patrick Louis Knudsen, a senior fellow with the conservative Heritage Foundation.

"Usually it’s brought up by the opposition party because they generally anticipate that a president’s budget won’t get very much support especially if it has controversial elements to it," he said.

Other experts agree. Said Steve Ellis, of Taxpayers for Common Sense: "That was pure political theater and was done to score rhetorical points."

Basically the votes were taken to score gotchas against the president. The one in the house by erasing all the details and just "basing" it on his big numbers. Of course no one would vote for that.

This VP pick shows that Romney is more interested in governing well and taking on serious issues than he is interested in short-term political gain from a couple of poll points in a swing state or two. Ryan was by far the best serious candidate for the VP job.

Paul Ryan:
Voted YES on $192B additional anti-recession stimulus spending. (Jul 2009)
VVoted YES on Constitutionally defining marriage as one-man-one-woman. (Jul 2006)
Voted YES on making the PATRIOT Act permanent. (Dec 2005)
Voted YES on Constitutional Amendment banning same-sex marriage. (Sep 2004)
Voted YES on extending the PATRIOT Act's roving wiretaps. (Feb 2011) Voted YES on $15B bailout for GM and Chrysler. (Dec 2008)
Voted YES on extending the PATRIOT Act's roving wiretaps. (Feb 2011)
Voted YES on allowing electronic surveillance without a warrant. (Sep 2006)
Voted YES on extending unemployment benefits from 39 weeks to 59 weeks. (Oct 2008)
Voted NO on removing US armed forces from Afghanistan. (Mar 2011
)
Voted YES on declaring Iraq part of War on Terror with no exit date. (Jun 2006)
http://www.ontheissues.org/House/Paul_Ryan.htm/

"by the people, for the people" gets so corrupted in DC because of all of the lobbying and grandstanding that goes on. This whole hype of the TSA was unnecessary and now we've created a bigger bureaucracy in Washington. The whole body scan thing was a lobbied effort. Since we know nobody in DC actually does their own work and relies on lobbyists and staff to come up with things to do, twist enough arms, throw enough cash around and you can usually get what you want. Also don't forget all of those ex-government directors and leaders who've gone into lobbying for those companies as well. All under the guises of

“Lobbyists are not the problem. Terrorists are the ones who can do harm to innocent victims."

Really? what an astute observation from somebody who gets paid to lobby in favor of this horseshit.

Blah

Lobbyists and the way Washington DC operates are at the core of our greater ills and as long as we have revolving door policies allowing ex government officials to join lobbying groups and legal practices that attempt to influence our government, it will always be driven by money because we all know fear pays. Especially for Chertoff.

Eventually people in this country will come to their senses and realize that this is all theater and doesn't make them safer, it does cost them more and makes their lives inconvenient and more exposed. So much for the land of the free.

Until then I shall continue to work on my mind scanning device that will sense brainwave patterns and automatically recover memories and thoughts so we can weed out terrorists everywhere. Once I've figured out the electronics and made it sufficiently unsafe in terms of radiation exposure, I will then get a lobbying firm and sell it on the hill. It will eliminate the need for body scans entirely however there will be some side effects I fear: Loss of Memory, False prosecutions, Secret Lists and longer lines at the airport, bus terminal, subway and any other public transit location where people congregate.

Sen. Paul's version S. 3359 One Subject at a Time Act

Would this be the same Senator Paul who insists on tacking abortion riders onto flood insurance bills?

I note that even the official summary of the bill has the phrase "and for other purposes" tacked onto it.

1) Health insurance =/= costs =/= access to care. I don't know why, but people outside healthcare policy ALWAYS make this mistake.

However, it's the reason why those of us who actually work in the field tend to be against Obama's plan, even when we're as progressive as Jon Stewart. (I'm in health policy, but I'm not the author of the piece. JSIA.)

So can we have fewer talking points and more attention to detail please?

2) Costs have increased dramatically (i.e., 19-30%) where Obama's exchanges have been implemented.

3) Insurers are still free to kick individuals with pre-existing conditions off their plans. They can just do so by increasing premiums to a point where they know the individuals can no longer afford it and have to take the tax increase. It's why it's still best to create a shell corporation and purchase insurance through a group.

4) Massachusettes has had no demonstrable impact on the number of bankruptcies due to medical bills (i.e., most bankruptcies). Because MA's law is structurally identical to the ACA, that tends to suggest that the ACA won't really help patients' budgets.

5) Premiums can still increase dramatically each year. Although dramatic increases (IIRC, more than 5%) have to undergo a regulatory review, all the review has to show is that the costs are driven my medical costs instead of profits.

I could go on and on all day. Bascially, the plan is good for hospitals, doctors, and insurers because they get paid a lot more consistently thanks to the government, which has basically forced everyone to become a customer. But that doesn't make it a good deal for people. When insurance premiums and OOP expenditures can go up by double-digits while individuals' wages remain the same, it just drives what little remains of the middle class into the poor house.

Which is why this former Obama voter and health policy researcher is sitting out this election.

Even supporting CISPA.

Read your own links. They haven't "supported the bill", they've "been supportive of finding the right language for the bill". As in, trying to fix it.

Google blatantly advertisers Chrome on their websites and YouTube (but only to IE users.. heh), they have billboards and TV advertising campaigns, they pay OEM's, hardware manufacturers and shareware/freeware authors to bundle Chrome with their products, they aggressively try to put Chrome on your computer if you install any other software from Google, they pay makers of Angry Birds to have Chrome-only HTML5 version of their game and make websites that purposely only work with Chrome. They game and spam other search engines like Bing too.

Seems like they went full in and do whatever they can to get that market share. Even supporting CISPA.

Not being enamoured by republicans and tea party doesn't imply he's a fan of democrats.

A != B doesn't imply !A = B, even if you're so far off to the side that you only see black and white.

As for your other question, how about this?
Granted, it's not much, and democrats and republicans are both so far out on the right side from a global perspective as to make them near indistinguishable, but at least the democrats seem "less worse" than the republicans when it comes to Internet questions.

Apparently you're referring to the notion that Ron Paul is a great admirer of Ayn Rand and/or follows her philosophy. I hadn't heard that before, and a brief search turned up no real support for that view*. Your post is at best woefully incomplete and at worst simply irrelevant. How you got so many up-mods is beyond me.

* One site implies that Ron Paul's son Rand Paul was named in Ayn's honor, but his actual name is Randal and his wife shortened it to Rand from Randy. Another article says "Dr. Paul has said he is a great admirer of Ayn Rand", though I was unable to locate any direct quote to support this statement. This article is similar. I was unable to locate anything short of a few fringe views. Libertarians and libertarianism was apparently influenced by Ayn, but by no means exclusively.

A tentative deal struck late Tuesday between House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp (R-Mich.) and Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) would cut federal healthcare spending by $21.1 billion.

The savings would be used to pay for a "doc fix" that would eliminate a scheduled 27.4 percent reduction in Medicare physician payment rates for 10 months.

Savings include:

- A $5 billion cut to the health law's $15 billion prevention trust fund;

- The elimination of $2.5 billion in enhanced Medicaid payments to Louisiana in the wake of Hurricane Katrina;

- A $4 billion reduction in so-called Medicaid Disproportionate Share Hospital (DSH) payments to hospitals that take care of people without insurance;

- A $6.8 billion reduction in federal payments to hospitals that collect "bad debt" from insolvent patients, down to 60 percent; and

- Cuts to how much Medicare pays for clinical laboratory tests.

How is it that reducing the funding by 33% *isn't* an attack on women if reducing the fund by a lesser amount *is*?

Would be an incredible success. Part of the cost of medicare is that only disabled and seniors are allowed on it, leaving the profitable rest of the population to the private insurance market. If the risk pool were allowed to include the healthy and young, you would start to see serious improvements in medical outcomes and at a reasonable coverage rate.

[1] http://thehill.com/homenews/house/64029-medicare-for-everyone

you are rather simpleminded and frozen in your political outlook if you think the D party doesnt covent defense spending nearly as much as the R party. Two sides of the same coin.

You're the one who's "frozen in your political outlook". Obama's budget proposal would cut military spending. By quite a bit, in fact. See for yourself. Click the department totals tab.

Nice fantasy: depending on Obama's budget. I live in reality. Obamas budget was defeated by a unanimous vote (0 voting for, 414 D and R voting against) in case you didn't notice. Try to read what I said instead of being frozen to your preconceived "D Good R Bad" misconception: 2 sides, same coin. Learn. Or else all you will ever be is a convenient dupe for one side or the other.

Google did indicate that they're lobbying on it, but won't say which way, which leads to the question. If they're lobbying against it, why would they hide it?

http://thehill.com/blogs/hillicon-valley/technology/223069-google-acknowledges-lobbying-on-cybersecurity-bill-cispa

There are strong indications that Google is actually supporting the bill behind closed doors and hiding it avoid a public backlash.

http://thehill.com/blogs/hillicon-valley/technology/221977-gop-chairman-google-supportive-of-controversial-cybersecurity-bill-cispa

Google did indicate that they're lobbying on it, but won't say which way, which leads to the question. If they're lobbying against it, why would they hide it?

http://thehill.com/blogs/hillicon-valley/technology/223069-google-acknowledges-lobbying-on-cybersecurity-bill-cispa

There are strong indications that Google is actually supporting the bill behind closed doors and hiding it avoid a public backlash.

http://thehill.com/blogs/hillicon-valley/technology/221977-gop-chairman-google-supportive-of-controversial-cybersecurity-bill-cispa

Just so. Google "is working behind the scenes" to get CISPA enacted. I wonder if that isn't because they maybe think they can exempt themselves from something by getting involved, or perhaps they were threatened elsewhere for their embarrassing (to its proponents) public opposition to SOPA. Another reason -- as explained in this Lifehacker story -- is that CISPA pushes the role of censor onto the state expressly, where SOPA would have required Google et al. to take on that task themselves, and at the behest of any copyright holder. CISPA is much broader and gives the government all sorts of powers it really shouldn't have under any rational reading of the Bill of Rights (the first and fourth amendments, particularly).

"All digital communication is inherently recorded, so in some twisted sense it's more like dumpster diving and less like wiretapping to snoop in e-mail."

Not at all. First, it isn't "inherently recorded", any more than your snail mail is "inherently copied" when it is put in a bin at the post office.

Maybe not necessary, but as it has always been implemented, SMTP, IMAP, POP and otherwise, it is stored on each server while they wait to copy it to the next server, and it is stored for a long time on the receiving server waiting for the final (usually human) recipient to acknowledge receipt and request deletion - I have always set my clients to automatically delete received messages after 15 days, during which time, I assume that my ISP is backing the, almost always unencrypted, e-mail up on their disaster recovery system.

To sum it up: there is no real sense in which electronic communications are "inherently recorded" by any middleman, at all, any more than a telephone conversation, unless you count temporary storage, which should be set up as just that... temporary, and wiped when a file is deleted.

Have a look through: RFC5321 and predecessors, those are the rules your e-mail travels under, whether or not they should be amended to ensure privacy is another debate, this is the way things have worked in e-mail for 30 years. Nothing guarantees privacy, an obliquely related quote from the transport standard:

SMTP mail inherently cannot be authenticated, or
integrity checks provided, at the transport level. Real mail
security lies only in end-to-end methods involving the message
bodies, such as those that use digital signatures (see RFC 1847 [43]
and, e.g., Pretty Good Privacy (PGP) in RFC 4880 [44] or Secure/
Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions (S/MIME) in RFC 3851 [45]).

Know anybody who uses digital signatures or PGP in regular e-mail conversations? I know exactly one, a geek celebrity who presumably doesn't want people making up quotes attributed to him.

"Similarly for GPS tracking, that's just like old-school tailing a car, but cheaper and more clandestine - what's not to like?"

And this is yet another false argument. GPS tracking is, indeed, inherently worse and more intrusive than an "old-school tail", in several ways. Thankfully the courts, unlike you, have recognized this fact.

If you didn't recognize the sarcasm, I apologize... "What's not to like" comes from the perspective of people who "do" law enforcement, and, thankfully, in January of this year, SCOTUS came out on our side for once.

None of the basic issues have changed. Emails need be no different from telephone conversations. Nor internet sessions. ISPs could (and should) operate like common carriers, such as the old-school telephone companies. That would solve much, right there. Many of these privacy issues would disappear overnight.

Old school telephone lines could be, and were regularly, tapped, with and without warrants - information gained from a warrantless wiretap can not be used to prosecute nor get a warrant, but it certainly did happen. Open and publicly auditable police protection isn't likely to come about any time soon, we certainly have never had it in the past.

E-mail needs to grow up, I use G-mail because it serves my needs, and my needs do not include private e-mail conversation.

What I find horrifying is the security theater that goes around supposedly "sensitive" information handling. Footers on unencrypted e-mails instructing the recipient to de

Even God wants you to fail.

Another thought; since this was a put together deal by a bunch of investors to sell off at a later date, (or so it seems) it reminds me of the late 90's when groups of "investors" were buying up mom and pop dial up ISP's bundled them under the same name then selling them off, they had no intention of doing anything for the customer, the individual accounts were just a body count.
Lightsquared seems like a similar deal:
"The legal team now includes Theodore Olson, who helped George W. Bush secure the presidential election win in 2000"
http://www.dailyfinance.com/2012/03/14/lightsquared-gathers-lawyers-goes-to-war/

Ole Teddy seems like a guy that should be sent to prison for a rectal refit considering the Bush presidency was one of the single worst things to ever happen to this country.

Republicans urge FCC to allow Lightsquared: Really why? Would this have to do with their having insider knowledge and profiting from it?
http://thehill.com/blogs/hillicon-valley/technology/216273-republican-urges-fcc-to-approve-lightsquared

Congress insider trading:
http://articles.businessinsider.com/2011-11-14/politics/30396448_1_stock-market-market-moving-information-trades

Scumbags...

You guys all remember that we read this back in 2010, right?

I mean, s/Fark/Gawker/ and all that, the only notable difference is that the Fark guy said only 1% of the comments were worth anything, while the Gawker guy says 1 in 5. Which would be a huge improvement if it had any basis in reality.

Too late. Harper has been busy shipping all our enriched uranium to the States. http://thehill.com/blogs/e2-wire/e2-wire/201531-report-canada-shipping-highly-enriched-uranium-into-the-united-states

I talk to my Russian coworker about this kind of thing frequently. He claims that A) most people would vote for Putin because he is the best, and B) that voter fraud in Russia isn't much different than in the US.

For example, he asked me how I felt that there are two million dead voters in America. Russia doesn't have that problem (apparently).

Also note that although we see pictures of people protesting, the vast majority of Russians aren't protesting, and often view those protesters as trouble-makers financed by foreigners.

Another important point is that Russia doesn't have the same free speech protections we have here, so often opposing viewpoints don't get the voicing they deserve, so it isn't surprising they all favor Putin. That is why freedom of speech, that is the freedom to criticize government openly, is essential for democracy. We may not like Fox News, but it's good to have someone who is constantly looking for the bad things our president does.

Or does DHS just think it has enough scanners once TSA installs the 250 new scanners in this year's budget?

Probably that one. It's not like they're going to --GASP-- spend less money by not buying full body scanners. They're just going to spend that money on other stupid stuff.