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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: i-node who wrote (663217)	7/21/2012 5:01:56 AM
From: THE WATSONYOUTH	3 Recommendations Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1577859

I'm probably naive on this but I will predict after the Republicans sweep the Presidency, House and Senate in Nov, a patriotic minority of Democratic senators (maybe 15) will have had enough..... forcing Reed to allow a vote on the Bush Tax cuts ...... the tax cuts will be extended for everyone ......thus thumbing their noses at a lame duck Obama. True to form.......like a petulant 5 year old.....Obama will veto....... further enraging the entire country. Sen. Thune: Budget Decision Delay Could Ignite Recession Thursday, 19 Jul 2012 07:43 AM By Greg McDonald Sen. John Thune is pushing for a quick budget decision in Congress to avoid automatic spending cuts early next year, saying putting it off until after the election would be irresponsible and could lead to another recession. “We want to do something about it — we want to do something now as opposed to after the election when you get into the cloud of a lame-duck session,” the South Dakota Republican told Fox News’ Greta Van Susteren Wednesday. “And that's not a good time in which to legislate and not a good time to get good fiscal policy.” Automatic defense and domestic spending cuts totaling $1.2 trillion over the next 10 years will be triggered on Jan. 2 unless Congress acts, thanks to the failure last year of the bipartisan congressional supercommittee to reach a deal on tax and spending measures to bring the deficit under control. Editor’s Note: You Owe It to Yourself to Know What Obama and Bernanke Are Hiding From Americans Deep partisan divides remain, and both parties have threatened in their own ways to take the nation over the so-called “fiscal cliff” rather than give in on their opposing positions, especially on taxes. The Republican-controlled House is expected to vote next week to extend the tax cuts enacted in 2001 and 2003. But Thune said he expects no action in the Democratic-controlled Senate until at least after Congress returns from its traditional month-long summer recess beginning August. Thune, a member of the Senate Budget and Finance Committees, said Congress should act now to extend the tax cuts enacted in 2001 and 2003 that expire at the end of the year and move as well to “avert the defense cuts” he said would “devastate our national security priorities.” “Right now the fiscal cliff, as it’s been described, consists of really those two elements,” Thune said. “And the concern is — according to the Congressional Budget Office — if we don’t take steps to address that, then in the first six months of next year it could cost our economy 1.3 percent in economic growth, which, according to the CBO, would probably result in a recession.” He called the threat by Democrats to allow the tax cuts to expire if Republicans continue their refusal to increase rates on the nation’s wealthiest income-earners “terribly alarming and irresponsible.” Thune also said the longer Congress does nothing, the harder it is for U.S. business to make sound judgments about future investments and hiring. “We need to eliminate the uncertainty by providing at least a year of certainty with regard to tax rates and then we ought to get into a debate next year about how to reform the tax code and make it more simple, more clear, more fair, lower the rates and broaden the tax base,” he said. “Until that time businesses need certainty. “That's why I believe that the Senate ought to do what the House is going to do next week, and that is to extend the rates for a full year,” he added. But said at the moment the Senate is acting as “an extension of the presidential campaign” and appears willing to do nothing under the leadership of Majority Leader Harry Reid. “Right now we are getting showboats on the floor of the United States Senate and we aren’t dealing with the problems and challenges that face our economy, and the job creators, and the American people,” he said. Read more on Newsmax.com: Sen. Thune: Budget Decision Delay Could Ignite Recession Important: Do You Support Pres. Obama's Re-Election? Vote Here Now!

To: i-node who wrote (663217)	7/21/2012 10:44:16 AM
From: bentway	Respond to of 1577859

W is committed to hiding from his miserable failure as a president. No (R) WANTS him at the convention. Where's the call for him to attend? Romney doesn't want the guy anywhere NEAR him. He let Cheney fund-raise for him, but refused to have a picture taken with the HOST of the fund raising party!

To: i-node who wrote (663217)	7/21/2012 10:54:39 AM
From: bentway	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1577859

Intrade -- Obama is gaining Obama 60.3 Romney 37.3

To: i-node who wrote (663217)	7/21/2012 11:04:05 AM
From: bentway	1 Recommendation Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 1577859

Where Obama Shines By DAVID BROOKS It won’t help him win many votes this year, but it should be noted that Barack Obama has been a good foreign policy president. He, Vice President Joseph Biden, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the rest of his team have created a style of policy making that is flexible, incremental and well adapted to the specific circumstances of this moment. Following a foreign policy hedgehog, Obama’s been a pretty effective fox. Some eras call for bold doctrines, new global architecture and “Present at the Creation” moments. This is not one of those eras. Today, the world is like a cocktail party at which everybody is suffering from indigestion or some other internal ailment. People are interacting with each other, but they’re mostly focused on the godawful stuff going on inside. Europe has the euro mess. The Middle East has the Arab Spring. The U.S. has the economic stagnation and the debt. The Chinese have their perpetual growth and stability issues. It’s not multi-polarity; it’s multi-problemarity. As a result, this is more of an age of anxiety than of straight-up conflict. Leaders are looking around warily at who might make their problems better and who might make them worse. There are fewer close alliances and fewer sworn enemies. There are more circumstances in which nations are ambiguously attached. In this environment, you don’t need big, bold visionaries. You need leaders who will pay minute attention to the unique details and fleeting properties of each region’s specific circumstances. You need people who can improvise, shift and play it by ear. Obama, Clinton and the rest are well suited to these sorts of tasks. Obama has shown a good ability to combine a realist, power-politics mind-set with a warm appreciation of democracy and human rights. Early in his term, he responded poorly to the street marches in Tehran. But his administration has embraced a freedom agenda more aggressively since then, responding fairly well to the Arab Spring, rejecting those who wanted to stand by the collapsing dictatorships and using American power in a mostly successful humanitarian intervention in Libya. Obama has also shown an impressive ability to learn along the way. He came into office trying to dialogue with dictators in Iran and North Korea. When that didn’t work, he learned his lesson and has been much more confrontational since. Early in his term, he tried nation-building in Afghanistan. When that, unfortunately, didn’t work, he scaled back that effort. Obama has managed ambiguity well. This is most important in the case of China. When the Chinese military was overly aggressive, he stood up to China and reasserted America’s permanent presence in the Pacific. At the same time, it’s misleading to say there is a single China policy. There are myriad China policies on myriad fronts, some of which are confrontational and some of which are collaborative. Obama has also dealt with uncertainty pretty well. No one knows what will happen if Israel or the U.S. strikes Iran’s nuclear facilities. Confronted with that shroud of ignorance, Obama has properly pushed back the moment of decision-making for as long as possible, just in case anything positive turns up. This has meant performing a delicate dance — pressing Israelis to push back their timetable while, at the same time, embracing their goals. The period of delay may be ending, but it’s been useful so far. Obama has also managed the tension between multilateral and unilateral action. No one can say he is hesitant to work with coalitions. Look at the Libyan action, or the Iranian sanctions. But when it comes to decimating Al Qaeda, the U.S. has been quite willing to go it alone, continuing and expanding many policies of George W. Bush. There have been failures on Obama’s watch, of course. Some of these flow from executive hubris. Obama believed that he could help resolve the Israeli-Palestinian dispute. He proceeded clumsily, pushed everybody into a corner and now peace is farther away than ever. Some failures flow from excessive politicization. An inexcusable blunder by Obama was to announce the withdrawal date from Afghanistan at the same time he announced the surge into Afghanistan. That may have kept the Democratic base happy, but it sent thousands of soldiers and Marines on a mission that was doomed to fail. Over all, though, the record is impressive. Obama has moved more aggressively both to defeat enemies and to champion democracy. He has demonstrated that talk of American decline is hooey. The U.S. is still responsible for maintaining global order, for keeping people, goods and ideas moving freely. And, partly as a result of his efforts, the world of foreign affairs is relatively uncontentious right now. Foreign policy is not a hot campaign issue. Mitt Romney is having a great deal of trouble identifying profound disagreements. If that’s not a sign of success, I don’t know what is.