Statement on the Motion to Concur in the Senate Amendments to H.R. 8

We Are Already Over the Fiscal Cliff

2 January 2013

Despite claims that the Administration and Congress saved America from the fiscal cliff with an early morning vote today, the fact is that government spending has already pushed Americans over the cliff. Only serious reductions in federal spending will stop the cliff dive from ending in a crash landing, yet the events of this past month show that most elected officials remain committed to expanding the welfare-warfare state.

While there was much hand-wringing over the “draconian” cuts that would be imposed by sequestration, in fact sequestration does not cut spending at all. Under the sequestration plan, government spending will increase by 1.6 trillion over the next eight years. Congress calls this a cut because without sequestration spending will increase by 1.7 trillion over the same time frame. Either way it is an increase in spending.

Yet even these minuscule cuts in the “projected rate of spending” were too much for Washington politicians to bear. The last minute “deal” was the worst of both worlds: higher taxes on nearly all Americans now and a promise to revisit these modest reductions in spending growth two months down the road. We were here before, when in 2011 Republicans demanded these automatic modest decreases in government growth down the road in exchange for a massive increase in the debt ceiling. As the time drew closer, both parties clamored to avoid even these modest moves.

Make no mistake: the spending addiction is a bipartisan problem. It is generally believed that one party refuses to accept any reductions in military spending while the other party refuses to accept any serious reductions in domestic welfare programs. In fact, both parties support increases in both military and domestic welfare spending. The two parties may disagree on some details of what kind of military or domestic welfare spending they favor, but they do agree that they both need to increase. This is what is called “bipartisanship” in Washington.

While the media played up the drama of the down-to-the-wire negotiations, there was never any real chance that a deal would not be worked out. It was just drama. That is how Washington operates. As it happened, a small handful of Congressional and Administration leaders gathered in the dark of the night behind closed doors to hammer out a deal that would be shoved down the throats of Members whose constituents had been told repeatedly that the world would end if this miniscule decrease in the rate of government spending was allowed to go through.

While many on both sides express satisfaction that this deal only increases taxes on the “rich,” most Americans will see more of their paycheck going to Washington because of the deal. The Tax Policy Center has estimated that 77 percent of Americans would see higher taxes because of the elimination of the payroll tax cut.

The arguments against the automatic “cuts” in military spending were particularly dishonest. Hawks on both sides warned of doom and gloom if, as the plan called for, the defense budget would have returned to 2007 levels of spending! Does anybody really believe that our defense spending was woefully inadequate just five years ago? And since 2007 we have been told that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are winding down. According to the Congressional Budget Office, over the next eight years military spending would increase 20 percent without the sequester and would increase 18 percent with the sequester. And this is what is called a dangerous reduction in defense spending?

Ironically, some of the members who are most vocal against tax increases and in favor of cuts to domestic spending are the biggest opponents of cutting a penny from the Pentagon budget. Over and over we were told of the hundreds of thousands of jobs that would be lost should military spending be returned to 2007 levels. Is it really healthy to think of our defense budget as a jobs program? Many of these allegedly free-market members sound more Keynesian than Paul Krugman when they praise the economic “stimulus” created by militarism.

As Chris Preble of the Cato Institute wrote recently, “It’s easy to focus exclusively on the companies and individuals hurt by the cuts and forget that the taxed wealth that funded them is being employed elsewhere.”

While Congress ultimately bears responsibility for deficit spending, we must never forget that the Federal Reserve is the chief enabler of deficit spending. Without a central bank eager to monetize the debt, Congress would be unable to fund the welfare-warfare state without imposing unacceptable levels of taxation on the American people. Of course, the Federal Reserve’s policies do impose an “inflation” tax on the American people; however, since this tax is hidden Congress does not fear the same public backlash it would experience if it directly raised income taxes.

I have little hope that a majority of Congress and the President will change their ways and support real spending reductions unless forced to by an economic crisis or by a change in people’s attitudes toward government. Fortunately, increasing numbers of Americans are awakening to the dangers posed by the growth of the welfare-warfare state. Hopefully this movement will continue to grow and force the politicians to reverse course before government spending, taxing, and inflation destroys our economy entirely.

https://www.facebook.com/ronpaul/posts/10152213497061686

Northern Ireland police face sixth consecutive day of riots in Belfast

From:
AFP January 09, 2013
11:07AM

LOYALIST protesters have attacked Northern Ireland police with petrol bombs, fireworks, bottles and stones during the sixth consecutive night of disorder in the capital Belfast.
Police were able to maintain order in the city's combustible eastern neighbourhoods on Tuesday without resorting to plastic bullets or water cannon, which were both used to quell Monday's unrest. No injuries were reported.

Pro-British protesters have taken to the streets of Belfast almost every night since December 3, when the city council announced it would no longer fly the British flag all year round at the City Hall.

The decision sparked riots at the start of December which gave way to largely peaceful protests, but the violence has flared again since the start of the new year.

There are fears of more trouble on Wednesday as the flag is flown for the first time since the ruling in order to mark the birthday of Prince William's wife, the Duchess of Cambridge.
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Rioters on Monday used weapons including hatchets and sledge hammers to attack police and their vehicles, the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) said.

Britain's Northern Ireland minister, Theresa Villiers, said the province was being "held to ransom" by the protesters and called for an end to their demonstrations, including peaceful rallies that have blocked traffic for weeks.

"It's not acceptable that those who say they are defending a Union flag are actually doing it by hurling bricks and petrol bombs at police. It's disgraceful, frankly," she told BBC radio.

She added that the protests were doing "huge damage to Northern Ireland's image abroad".

The flag ruling has raised tensions in the British province between loyalists - who want to maintain the links to Britain and are mostly Protestant - and largely Catholic republicans who want a united Ireland.
Northern Ireland's chief police officer Matt Baggott on Monday accused the paramilitary Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF), which murdered more than 500 people during the province's 30-year sectarian conflict, of whipping up the disorder.
On Monday, police battled to separate a crowd of around 250 loyalists from some 70 Catholic republicans, who hurled missiles including bottles at the protesters.
Around 1000 loyalists had earlier staged a peaceful demonstration outside the City Hall as councillors held their first meeting since their decision to take the flag down.

More than 60 police have been injured and over 100 people arrested since the disorder began.
Four people have been charged in connection with Monday night's disorder and were due to appear in court on Tuesday.
Politicians from both sides have received death threats in recent weeks, but MPs from all major parties have insisted that the spate of violence does not pose a serious threat to Northern Ireland's peace process.
Some 3000 people were killed in the three decades of sectarian bombings and shootings in Northern Ireland known as The Troubles.
A 1988 peace agreement brought an end to most of the violence and led to the creation of a power-sharing government between Protestants and Catholics, but sporadic bomb threats and murders by dissident republicans continue.

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/world/n-ireland-police-face-6th-day-of-riots/story-fnd134gw-1226550173567

China pollution anger spills into media
]Anger has mounted in China over pollution which reached hazardous levels in recent days, with state media questioning the nation's breakneck development and government transparency over air quality.

State media joined internet users in calling for a re-evaluation of China's modernisation process, which has seen rapid urbanisation and economic development achieved at the expense of the environment.

Dense smog shrouded large swathes of northern China at the weekend, cutting visibility to 100 metres in some areas and forcing flight cancellations. Reports said dozens of building sites and a car factory in the capital halted work as an anti-pollution measure.

Beijing authorities said readings for PM2.5 - particles small enough to deeply penetrate the lungs - hit 993 micrograms per cubic metre at the height of the pollution, almost 40 times the World Health Organisation's safe limit.

In an editorial on Monday the state-run Global Times newspaper called for more transparent figures on pollution, urging Beijing to change its 'previous method of covering up the problems and instead publish the facts'.

Official PM2.5 figures have only been monitored in China's major cities since the beginning of last year.

The paper ran a story on differences between air quality figures given by Chinese authorities and the US embassy in Beijing.

'The choice between development and environmental protection should be made by genuinely democratic methods,' the Global Times said.

'Environmental problems shouldn't be mixed together with political problems.'

An editorial in the state-run China Daily blamed the pollution on China building its cities too quickly, adding that 'China's process of industrialisation has not finished'.

'In the middle of a rapid urbanisation process, it is urgent for China to think about how such a process can press forward without compromising the quality of urban life with an increasingly worse living environment,' it said.

The China Daily also called on Beijing's five million car owners and government officials who use state-owned cars to rethink their driving habits, while also urging the government to tackle 'pollutants emitted by industries'.

Smog levels eased in the capital on Monday, with the PM2.5 reading at 400 in central Beijing, but the crisis still dominated discussion on Sina Weibo, China's hugely popular version of Twitter.

'This pollution is making me so angry,' said one web user, who also posted a picture of herself wearing a face mask.

Just saw this on the news, how is that possible in modern times? Disgraceful.

As they said on the news, China uses FIFTY PERCENT of the world's coal. That's phenomenal.

Aaron Swartz, Coder and Activist, Dead at 26

We often say, upon the passing of a friend or loved one, that the world is a poorer place for the loss. But with the untimely death of programmer and activist Aaron Swartz, this isn’t just a sentiment; it’s literally true. Worthy, important causes will surface without a champion equal to their measure. Technological problems will go unsolved, or be solved a little less brilliantly than they might have been. And that’s just what we know. The world is robbed of a half-century of all the things we can’t even imagine Aaron would have accomplished with the remainder of his life.

Aaron Swartz committed suicide Friday in New York. He was 26 years old.

When he was 14 years old, Aaron helped develop the RSS standard; he went on to found Infogami, which became part of Reddit. But more than anything Aaron was a coder with a conscience: a tireless and talented hacker who poured his energy into issues like network neutrality, copyright reform and information freedom. Among countless causes, he worked with Larry Lessig at the launch of the Creative Commons, architected the Internet Archive’s free public catalog of books, OpenLibrary.org, and in 2010 founded Demand Progress, a non-profit group that helped drive successful grassroots opposition to SOPA last year.

“Aaron was steadfast in his dedication to building a better and open world,” writes Internet Archive founder Brewster Kahle. “He is among the best spirits of the Internet generation. I am crushed by his loss, but will continue to be enlightened by his work and dedication.”

In 2006 Aaron was part of a small team that sold Reddit to Condé Nast , Wired’s parent company. For a few months he worked in our office here in San Francisco. I knew Aaron then and since, and I liked him a lot — honestly, I loved him. He was funny, smart, sweet and selfless. In the vanishingly small community of socially and politically active coders, Aaron stood out not just for his talent and passion, but for floating above infighting and reputational cannibalism. His death is a tragedy.

I don’t know why he killed himself, but Aaron has written openly about suffering from depression. It couldn’t have helped that he faced a looming federal criminal trial in Boston on hacking and fraud charges, over a headstrong stunt in which he arranged to download millions of academic articles from the JSTOR subscription database for free from September 2010 to January 2011, with plans to release them to the public.

JSTOR provides searchable, digitized copies of academic journals online. MIT had a subscription to the database, so Aaron brought a laptop onto MIT’s campus, plugged it into the student network and ran a script called keepgrabbing.py that aggressively — and at times disruptively — downloaded one article after another. When MIT tried to block the downloads, a cat-and-mouse game ensued, culminating in Swartz entering a networking closet on the campus, secretly wiring up an Acer laptop to the network, and leaving it there hidden under a box. A member of MIT’s tech staff discovered it, and Aaron was arrested by campus police when he returned to pick up the machine.

The JSTOR hack was not Aaron’s first experiment in liberating costly public documents. In 2008, the federal court system briefly allowed free access to its court records system, Pacer, which normally charged the public eight cents per page. The free access was only available from computers at 17 libraries across the country, so Aaron went to one of them and installed a small PERL script he had written that cycled sequentially through case numbers, requesting a new document from Pacer every three seconds, and uploading it to the cloud. Aaron pulled nearly 20 million pages of public court documents, which are now available for free on the Internet Archive.

The FBI investigated that hack, but in the end no charges were filed. Aaron wasn’t so lucky with the JSTOR matter. The case was picked up by Assistant U.S. Attorney Steve Heymann in Boston, the cybercrime prosecutor who won a record 20-year prison stretch for TJX hacker Albert Gonzalez. Heymann indicted Aaron on 13 counts of wire fraud, computer intrusion and reckless damage. The case has been wending through pre-trial motions for 18 months, and was set for jury trial on April 1.

Larry Lessig, who worked closely with Aaron for years, disapproves of Aaron’s JSTOR hack. But in the painful aftermath of Aaron’s suicide, Lessig faults the government for pursuing Aaron with such vigor. “[Aaron] is gone today, driven to the edge by what a decent society would only call bullying,” Lessig writes. “I get wrong. But I also get proportionality. And if you don’t get both, you don’t deserve to have the power of the United States government behind you.”

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2013/01/aaron-swartz/?cid=5308804

In other news France has intervened in Mali.

http://edition.cnn.com/2013/01/13/world/africa/mali-military-offensive/index.html?hpt=hp_t2

Not that surprised. France has quite a few assets in France

BTW, 26-27 seems a common age for suicide. Not sure why.

Apparently breaking news the courts have just ordered the arrest of pakistani pm and others. The pakistani stock exchange just crashed also.

Pakistan's Supreme Court has ordered the arrest of the prime minister in connection with a corruption case linked to power projects, television channels reported, plunging the country into fresh political turmoil.

The surprise move came as a populist cleric, who is believed to be backed by the military, demanded the resignation of the government in protests attended by thousands of followers in the heart of the capital Islamabad.

Five hurt in shootings at US gun shows

DateJanuary 20, 2013 - 1:38PM

.Five people have been injured by accidental gunfire at three gun shows in the United States.

Authorities say three people were injured at a gun show in Raleigh, North Carolina.

A state agriculture department spokesman says a shotgun discharged as its owner unzipped its case for a law enforcement officer to check at a security entrance, injuring two bystanders and a retired deputy sheriff.

In Indiana, police say a 54-year-old man was injured when he accidentally shot himself while leaving a gun show.

And in Ohio a gun dealer was checking out a semi-automatic handgun he had bought when he accidentally pulled the trigger, injuring his friend.

AAP

http://www.theage.com.au/world/five-hurt-in-shootings-at-us-gun-shows-20130120-2d0x9.html

Oh dear, this is a case Joffa of "only in America." What on earth would anyone need a semi-automatic weapon?

A shotgun generally isn't a semi-automatic weapon. It's single action.

And this isn't really down to the gun, it's down to the MORON owner storing it loaded.

The simple fact is that guns only exacerbate a situation. If someone is confronted and pulls out a gun, what's stopping the assailant from pulling out a gun? The stakes are raised and the problem remains. Self defense is bullshit.

I still firmly believe that anyone who breaks in my house has the right to be shot in the face.

It's not the fact that guns are too frequently 'readily available', it's more down to a clear lack of education. They ran a gun story a few weeks back on the news and as they were narrating they showed a woman buying a gun which she couldn't cock and didn't have the strength to properly wield.

Then there's these guys who store their guns loaded, etc. It's all just ridiculous.

China warning not to side with US

DateJanuary 23, 2013

A CHINESE military officer has warned Australia not to side with the United States and Japan if war breaks out in the East China Sea.

Senior Colonel Liu Mingfu said the US and Japan had provoked the ire of the Chinese people for ''violating the security, peace and stability of the Asia Pacific''.

He said China was a peace-abiding nation but would fight ''to the death'' if sufficiently provoked.

Colonel Liu's warning raises the nightmare possibility of Australia having to choose between its dominant economic and security partners as a territorial contest between Japan and China over the Senkaku or Diaoyu Islands continues to escalate.

China, Japan and Japan's defence ally, the United States, have traded military and diplomatic warnings over the disputed islands, while China has placed the People's Liberation Army on combat alert.

''America is the global tiger and Japan is Asia's wolf and both are now madly biting China,'' Colonel Liu said.

''Of all the animals, Chinese people hate the wolf the most.

''Australia should never play the jackal for the tiger or dance with the wolf.''

China and Japan are Australia's two dominant export markets while the US is Australia's defence treaty partner.

Colonel Liu asked that his message be conveyed directly to the Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, as she prepares to deliver a major speech on national security.

Like previous prime ministers, she has consistently maintained that Australia will not have to choose between its economic and security interests.

Colonel Liu likened Australia to a ''kind-hearted lamb'' that China would discourage from being led astray.

He has taught at the PLA's National Defence University but said he was speaking in his personal capacity.

His views do not represent Chinese government policy, but he said they were consistent with what mainstream Chinese political and military leaders think, if not what they say.

Colonel Liu is one in a group of outspoken hawkish PLA officers, who do not claim to speak on behalf of the leadership, but are given a conditional licence to speak stridently on some issues at some times.

Foreign diplomats say the ambiguity of their status can serve a useful purpose by conveying unofficial warnings and testing foreign and domestic reactions.

But they say hawkish commentators can potentially influence China's internal political contests and place pressure on leaders to demonstrate their nationalistic credentials.

Colonel Liu, with other military figures, has been buoyed by the arrival of the Communist Party and PLA boss, Xi Jinping.

One of Mr Xi's new political mottoes, the ''China Dream'', echoes the title of a best-selling book by Colonel Liu, which has had sales restrictions removed since Mr Xi's arrival.

Colonel Liu said ''the China Dream'', as articulated in his book and by Mr Xi, would be realised when China surpassed the US to be the world's ''No. 1''.

Colonel Liu's new book, Why the People's Liberation Army Can Win, has also reached best-seller lists. He is working on a book about the future of China-US relations.

Colonel Liu said Australia needed to recognise that the US was reaching the dying days of its global dominance.

''American hegemony is not at its dawn and not at its zenith,'' he said. ''It is at its sunset and night is coming.



Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/world/china-warning-not-to-side-with-us-20130122-2d56p.html#ixzz2IhljQYJl

It's only a matter of time before China declares war on us and invades us for our mineral wealth. They're going to need ALL of our coal sooner rather than later. Doesn't China use something like 50% of the worlds coal?

So with North Korea now saying theyll undertake nuclear tests in the direction of US, how long till US lose their shit?

That's why they've got the early warning systems in place. I'd say a major military conflict will take place before the end of the year.

Thousands of people rally in Washington DC for greater gun control in the US

by:
Brett Zongker From:
AP January 27, 2013
10:16AM

THOUSANDS of people in the US, many holding signs with the names of gun violence victims and messages such as "Ban Assault Weapons Now", have joined a rally for gun control, marching from the Capitol to the Washington Monument.

Participants were led by Washington Mayor Vincent Gray and other officials, and the crowd stretched for about two blocks along Constitution Avenue. Police blocked off half the road.
Participants held signs reading "Gun Control Now" and "Stop NRA", referring to the National Rifle Association, an influential gun rights lobbying group, among other messages. Other signs were simple and white, with the names of victims of gun violence.

About 100 residents were expected from Newtown, Connecticut, where a gunman killed 20 children and six adults at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in December. The rally was organised in response to that shooting.
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Once the crowd arrived at the monument, speakers called for a ban on military-style assault weapons and high-capacity ammunition magazines.

Education Secretary Arne Duncan told the crowd it was not about taking away constitutional rights to keep and bear arms, but about gun safety and saving lives. He said he and President Barack Obama would do everything they could to enact gun control policies.
"We must act, we must act, we must act," said Duncan.

Eleanor Holmes Norton, Washington, DC's non-voting representative in Congress, said the gun lobby could be stopped. The crowd chanted back, "Yes, we can."
Norton said the nation didn't act after previous mass killings, but she said "we the people", won't give up this time.
"We are all culpable if we do nothing now," she said.

Actress Kathleen Turner was also expected to appear, along with Marian Wright Edelman of the Children's Defense Fund and Colin Goddard, a survivor from the 2007 Virginia Tech massacre that left 32 dead, the largest mass shooting in US history.

Molly Smith, the artistic director of Washington's Arena Stage, and her partner organised the march.

While she's never organised a political march before, Smith said she was compelled to press for a change in the law.

The march organisers support Obama's call for a ban on military-style assault weapons and high-capacity ammunition magazines as well as for universal background checks for gun sales. They also want lawmakers to require gun safety training for all buyers of firearms.
Smith said she supported a comprehensive look at mental health and violence in video games and films. But she said the mass killings at Virginia Tech and Aurora, Colorado, and Newtown, Connecticut, all started with guns.

"The issue is guns. The Second Amendment gives us the right to own guns, but it's not the right to own any gun," she said.

"These are assault weapons, made for killing people."


http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/world/thousands-of-people-rally-in-washington-dc-for-greater-gun-control-in-the-us/story-fnd134gw-1226562770328

Kerry appointed next US secretary of state

by: By Ivan Couronne From: AAP January 30, 2013

..Kerry - a senator from Massachusetts best known outside the United States for his unsuccessful 2004 presidential campaign - was nominated last month to take over the foreign affairs portfolio in Obama's second term team.

The Senate voted 94-3 in favour of the veteran Democratic legislator after the chamber's Foreign Relations Committee, which Kerry chairs, approved the nomination earlier on Tuesday.

His nomination was pushed through the Senate in a matter of days, given the clear bipartisan support for the 69-year-old veteran Democratic politician, who spent 28 years in the Senate and has allies on both sides of the aisle.

"John has earned the respect of leaders around the world and the confidence of Democrats and Republicans in the Senate, and I am confident he will make an extraordinary secretary of state," Obama said in a statement.

"I look forward to his counsel and partnership in the years ahead as we ensure American leadership in the world and advance the interests and values that keep our nation strong."

Kerry is known to have long coveted the job, but almost lost out to US ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice, seen as Obama's first choice.

Rice withdrew from consideration for the post under Republican fire over the administration's confused public response to the September 11 attack on a US mission in Libya that left four Americans dead.

Earlier, Kerry said he was "humbled" and gratified by the support from his colleagues on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, who voted unanimously in his favour.

"They've been wonderful, they've been really superb," he said of his fellow committee members, adding that he was a little sad to leave the august chamber.

"I'm very wistful about it, it's not easy," he said.

At his confirmation hearing last week, Kerry called for "fresh thinking" as he outlined his foreign policy agenda and plans for relations with Iran, China and the Middle East.

"American foreign policy is not defined by drones and deployments alone," he told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

"We cannot allow the extraordinary good that we do to save and change lives to be eclipsed entirely by the role that we have had to play since September 11th, a role that was thrust upon us," he said.

The decorated Vietnam veteran turned anti-war activist built strong credentials in the Senate. He has sat down with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, soothed nerves in Pakistan and visited the Gaza Strip.

But he will face a number of significant challenges in the months and years to come, as the United States tries to extricate itself from war in Afghanistan and rebuild ties in the Middle East in the wake of the Arab Spring revolts.

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/breaking-news/us-senate-confirms-kerry-for-state-dept/story-e6frf7k6-1226564776063