Smells Like Teen Spirit

By Meta Pettus

(CBS) -- Republicans, led by House Speaker John Boehner, and Democrats, led by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, came up with dueling plans today to raise the debt ceiling and significantly reduce the deficit.

The plans share some common elements, but the party leaders quickly denounced each others' proposals. The bottom line remains that Congress is still up against the clock to raise the debt limit -- the legal limit the U.S. is allowed to borrow -- before August 2. The Obama administration and many economists have warned of economic catastrophe if the debt limit isn't raised by then.

Here's a look at how the plans compare:

How much does it raise the debt ceiling?

House Republican plan: Less than $1 trillion immediately -- enough to last at least through the end of the year

Boehner's plan would allow President Obama to make a separate request for a $1.6 trillion increase later, if Congress passes a special plan, created by 12-member "Joint Committee of Congress," for additional spending cuts. In essence, this plan could re-create the entire debt ceiling debate.

Senate Democratic plan: Reid says his plan would allow Congress to raise the debt limit "through 2012." Mr. Obama has said the debt ceiling must be raised by $2.4 trillion to last through 2012.



How much does each plan cut?



Both the GOP plan and the Democratic plan call for $1.2 trillion in immediate cuts, but they don't specify where those cuts would come from -- they simply say the cuts would come from discretionary spending. The Democratic plan specifies that those cuts include both defense and non-defense spending.

House Republican plan: $1.2 trillion in savings over a decade -- in both cuts and caps on discretionary spending. The spending caps would trigger automatic, across-the-board spending cuts if not met.

Senate Democratic plan: $2.7 trillion in savings over a decade.

In addition to the $1.2 trillion in unspecified discretionary spending cuts, Reid's plan counts $1 trillion in savings from winding down the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. This is seen as something of an accounting gimmick, although House Republicans included the savings in the budget they passed earlier this year.

That leaves $500 billion in savings to account for. As much as $400 billion comes from interest savings. Democrats point out that interest savings were included in the House-passed GOP budget as well.

The final $100 billion comes from "mandatory" savings. Democrats have loosely outlined where that money would come from, but the specifics are still unclear. For instance, that figure includes $30 billion in savings from "Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac reforms," and $40 billion in savings from "integrity savings"-- in other words, reducing fraud and abuse in mandatory programs. That figure also includes $15 billion in spectrum sales and $10 to $15 billion in agricultural subsidies.



Plans for deficit commissions



Both plans call for the creation of a bipartisan, 12-member deficit reduction committee. Both plans say that the committee's deficit reduction proposal should get an up-or-down vote, without any amendments, by the end of 2011.

House Republican plan: Boehner's plan for a deficit commission is more specific. It calls for the commission to identify $1.6 to $1.8 trillion in deficit reduction over a decade. Additionally, Republicans insist the committee will not recommend tax increases.

Under Boehner's plan, the commission would have until November 23 to report its recommendations to Congress. Both chambers would have to vote on it by December 23. As noted above, its passage is a condition of raising the debt ceiling again.

Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security?

Neither plan has a specific proposal for modifying Medicare, Medicaid or Social Security.

The difference: Democrats are boasting their plan does not affect the entitlement programs, while the GOP plan suggests the deficit commission will recommend modifications to the programs.

Other conditions?

House Republican plan: Unlike the GOP's earlier plan, "cut, cap and balance," Boehner's plan does not make raising the debt ceiling contingent upon passing a balanced budget amendment. It does, however, require that both the Senate and the House at least vote on a balanced budget amendment by the end of the year.

Why they oppose each other's plans

Boehner: The speaker said today that the Democratic plan is "full of gimmicks."

Under Reid's plan, Boehner said, "We're not making any real changes in the spending structure of our government." He added the plan "doesn't deal with the biggest drivers of our deficit and debt" -- entitlement programs.

Reid: Democrats plan say Boehner's plan is unacceptable since Congress would have to fight over raising the debt ceiling again in six months.

Reid said today, "Speaker Boehner's plan, no matter how he tries to dress it up, is simply a short-term plan, and is, therefore, a non-starter in the Senate and with the president.

The Root of ALL Evil? (reposted)

So, I have been reading Atlas Shrugged again and I have reached one of the many thought provoking parts of the book. It is a speech, a speech given by one of the central characters Francisco d' Anconia. Say what you will about the philosophical undertones in this book, and they are a plenty; to me this is just simply a brilliant piece of prose... The following is an excerpt from Atlas Shrugged, by Ayn Rand:

"So you think that money is the root of all evil?" said Francisco d'Anconia. "Have you ever asked what is the root of money? Money is a tool of exchange, which can't exist unless there are goods produced and men able to produce them. Money is the material shape of the principle that men who wish to deal with one another must deal by trade and give value for value. Money is not the tool of the moochers, who claim your product by tears, or of the looters, who take it from you by force. Money is made possible only by the men who produce. Is this what you consider evil?

"When you accept money in payment for your effort, you do so only on the conviction that you will exchange it for the product of the effort of others. It is not the moochers or the looters who give value to money. Not an ocean of tears not all the guns in the world can transform those pieces of paper in your wallet into the bread you will need to survive tomorrow. Those pieces of paper, which should have been gold, are a token of honor--your claim upon the energy of the men who produce. Your wallet is your statement of hope that somewhere in the world around you there are men who will not default on that moral principle which is the root of money, Is this what you consider evil?

"Have you ever looked for the root of production? Take a look at an electric generator and dare tell yourself that it was created by the muscular effort of unthinking brutes. Try to grow a seed of wheat without the knowledge left to you by men who had to discover it for the first time. Try to obtain your food by means of nothing but physical motions--and you'll learn that man's mind is the root of all the goods produced and of all the wealth that has ever existed on earth.

"But you say that money is made by the strong at the expense of the weak? What strength do you mean? It is not the strength of guns or muscles. Wealth is the product of man's capacity to think. Then is money made by the man who invents a motor at the expense of those who did not invent it? Is money made by the intelligent at the expense of the fools? By the able at the expense of the incompetent? By the ambitious at the expense of the lazy? Money is made--before it can be looted or mooched--made by the effort of every honest man, each to the extent of his ability. An honest man is one who knows that he can't consume more than he has produced.'

"To trade by means of money is the code of the men of good will. Money rests on the axiom that every man is the owner of his mind and his effort. Money allows no power to prescribe the value of your effort except the voluntary choice of the man who is willing to trade you his effort in return. Money permits you to obtain for your goods and your labor that which they are worth to the men who buy them, but no more. Money permits no deals except those to mutual benefit by the unforced judgment of the traders. Money demands of you the recognition that men must work for their own benefit, not for their own injury, for their gain, not their loss--the recognition that they are not beasts of burden, born to carry the weight of your misery--that you must offer them values, not wounds--that the common bond among men is not the exchange of suffering, but the exchange of goods. Money demands that you sell, not your weakness to men's stupidity, but your talent to their reason; it demands that you buy, not the shoddiest they offer, but the best that your money can find. And when men live by trade--with reason, not force, as their final arbiter--it is the best product that wins, the best performance, the man of best judgment and highest ability--and the degree of a man's productiveness is the degree of his reward. This is the code of existence whose tool and symbol is money. Is this what you consider evil?

"But money is only a tool. It will take you wherever you wish, but it will not replace you as the driver. It will give you the means for the satisfaction of your desires, but it will not provide you with desires. Money is the scourge of the men who attempt to reverse the law of causality--the men who seek to replace the mind by seizing the products of the mind.

"Money will not purchase happiness for the man who has no concept of what he wants: money will not give him a code of values, if he's evaded the knowledge of what to value, and it will not provide him with a purpose, if he's evaded the choice of what to seek. Money will not buy intelligence for the fool, or admiration for the coward, or respect for the incompetent. The man who attempts to purchase the brains of his superiors to serve him, with his money replacing his judgment, ends up by becoming the victim of his inferiors. The men of intelligence desert him, but the cheats and the frauds come flocking to him, drawn by a law which he has not discovered: that no man may be smaller than his money. Is this the reason why you call it evil?

"Only the man who does not need it, is fit to inherit wealth--the man who would make his own fortune no matter where he started. If an heir is equal to his money, it serves him; if not, it destroys him. But you look on and you cry that money corrupted him. Did it? Or did he corrupt his money? Do not envy a worthless heir; his wealth is not yours and you would have done no better with it. Do not think that it should have been distributed among you; loading the world with fifty parasites instead of one, would not bring back the dead virtue which was the fortune. Money is a living power that dies without its root. Money will not serve the mind that cannot match it. Is this the reason why you call it evil?

"Money is your means of survival. The verdict you pronounce upon the source of your livelihood is the verdict you pronounce upon your life. If the source is corrupt, you have damned your own existence. Did you get your money by fraud? By pandering to men's vices or men's stupidity? By catering to fools, in the hope of getting more than your ability deserves? By lowering your standards? By doing work you despise for purchasers you scorn? If so, then your money will not give you a moment's or a penny's worth of joy. Then all the things you buy will become, not a tribute to you, but a reproach; not an achievement, but a reminder of shame. Then you'll scream that money is evil. Evil, because it would not pinch-hit for your self-respect? Evil, because it would not let you enjoy your depravity? Is this the root of your hatred of money?

"Money will always remain an effect and refuse to replace you as the cause. Money is the product of virtue, but it will not give you virtue and it will not redeem your vices. Money will not give you the unearned, neither in matter nor in spirit. Is this the root of your hatred of money?

"Or did you say it's the love of money that's the root of all evil? To love a thing is to know and love its nature. To love money is to know and love the fact that money is the creation of the best power within you, and your passkey to trade your effort for the effort of the best among men. It's the person who would sell his soul for a nickel, who is loudest in proclaiming his hatred of money--and he has good reason to hate it. The lovers of money are willing to work for it. They know they are able to deserve it.

"Let me give you a tip on a clue to men's characters: the man who damns money has obtained it dishonorably; the man who respects it has earned it.

"Run for your life from any man who tells you that money is evil. That sentence is the leper's bell of an approaching looter. So long as men live together on earth and need means to deal with one another--their only substitute, if they abandon money, is the muzzle of a gun.

"But money demands of you the highest virtues, if you wish to make it or to keep it. Men who have no courage, pride or self-esteem, men who have no moral sense of their right to their money and are not willing to defend it as they defend their life, men who apologize for being rich--will not remain rich for long. They are the natural bait for the swarms of looters that stay under rocks for centuries, but come crawling out at the first smell of a man who begs to be forgiven for the guilt of owning wealth. They will hasten to relieve him of the guilt--and of his life, as he deserves.

"Then you will see the rise of the men of the double standard--the men who live by force, yet count on those who live by trade to create the value of their looted money--the men who are the hitchhikers of virtue. In a moral society, these are the criminals, and the statutes are written to protect you against them. But when a society establishes criminals-by-right and looters-by-law--men who use force to seize the wealth of disarmed victims--then money becomes its creators' avenger. Such looters believe it safe to rob defenseless men, once they've passed a law to disarm them. But their loot becomes the magnet for other looters, who get it from them as they got it. Then the race goes, not to the ablest at production, but to those most ruthless at brutality. When force is the standard, the murderer wins over the pickpocket. And then that society vanishes, in a spread of ruins and slaughter.

"Do you wish to know whether that day is coming? Watch money. Money is the barometer of a society's virtue. When you see that trading is done, not by consent, but by compulsion--when you see that in order to produce, you need to obtain permission from men who produce nothing--when you see that money is flowing to those who deal, not in goods, but in favors--when you see that men get richer by graft and by pull than by work, and your laws don't protect you against them, but protect them against you--when you see corruption being rewarded and honesty becoming a self-sacrifice--you may know that your society is doomed. Money is so noble a medium that is does not compete with guns and it does not make terms with brutality. It will not permit a country to survive as half-property, half-loot.

"Whenever destroyers appear among men, they start by destroying money, for money is men's protection and the base of a moral existence. Destroyers seize gold and leave to its owners a counterfeit pile of paper. This kills all objective standards and delivers men into the arbitrary power of an arbitrary setter of values. Gold was an objective value, an equivalent of wealth produced. Paper is a mortgage on wealth that does not exist, backed by a gun aimed at those who are expected to produce it. Paper is a check drawn by legal looters upon an account which is not theirs: upon the virtue of the victims. Watch for the day when it bounces, marked, 'Account overdrawn.'

"When you have made evil the means of survival, do not expect men to remain good. Do not expect them to stay moral and lose their lives for the purpose of becoming the fodder of the immoral. Do not expect them to produce, when production is punished and looting rewarded. Do not ask, 'Who is destroying the world? You are.

"You stand in the midst of the greatest achievements of the greatest productive civilization and you wonder why it's crumbling around you, while you're damning its life-blood--money. You look upon money as the savages did before you, and you wonder why the jungle is creeping back to the edge of your cities. Throughout men's history, money was always seized by looters of one brand or another, whose names changed, but whose method remained the same: to seize wealth by force and to keep the producers bound, demeaned, defamed, deprived of honor. That phrase about the evil of money, which you mouth with such righteous recklessness, comes from a time when wealth was produced by the labor of slaves--slaves who repeated the motions once discovered by somebody's mind and left unimproved for centuries. So long as production was ruled by force, and wealth was obtained by conquest, there was little to conquer, Yet through all the centuries of stagnation and starvation, men exalted the looters, as aristocrats of the sword, as aristocrats of birth, as aristocrats of the bureau, and despised the producers, as slaves, as traders, as shopkeepers--as industrialists.

"To the glory of mankind, there was, for the first and only time in history, a country of money--and I have no higher, more reverent tribute to pay to America, for this means: a country of reason, justice, freedom, production, achievement. For the first time, man's mind and money were set free, and there were no fortunes-by-conquest, but only fortunes-by-work, and instead of swordsmen and slaves, there appeared the real maker of wealth, the greatest worker, the highest type of human being--the self-made man--the American industrialist.

"If you ask me to name the proudest distinction of Americans, I would choose--because it contains all the others--the fact that they were the people who created the phrase 'to make money.' No other language or nation had ever used these words before; men had always thought of wealth as a static quantity--to be seized, begged, inherited, shared, looted or obtained as a favor. Americans were the first to understand that wealth has to be created. The words 'to make money' hold the essence of human morality.

"Yet these were the words for which Americans were denounced by the rotted cultures of the looters' continents. Now the looters' credo has brought you to regard your proudest achievements as a hallmark of shame, your prosperity as guilt, your greatest men, the industrialists, as blackguards, and your magnificent factories as the product and property of muscular labor, the labor of whip-driven slaves, like the pyramids of Egypt. The rotter who simpers that he sees no difference between the power of the dollar and the power of the whip, ought to learn the difference on his own hide-- as, I think, he will.

"Until and unless you discover that money is the root of all good, you ask for your own destruction. When money ceases to be the tool by which men deal with one another, then men become the tools of men. Blood, whips and guns--or dollars. Take your choice--there is no other--and your time is running out."

The above is an excerpt from Atlas Shrugged, © Copyright, 1957, by Ayn Rand. It is reprinted with permission from the Estate of Ayn Rand.

By The Time I Get To Arizona (I will have been profiled)

President Barack Obama, urging Congress today to press forward on "comprehensive immigration reform,'' warned that the absence of federal action will only encourage "misguided efforts'' such as those in Arizona.

With support from some Republicans as well as Democrats in the Senate, the president is attempting to renew a long-simmering debate over immigration reform in Congress. His goal, he maintains, is not only strengthening the borders, but also addressing the fate of the many millions of immigrants who already have arrived in the U.S. illegally.

"Surely we can all agree that when 11 million people are living here illegally, that's unacceptable,'' Obama said today at a naturalization ceremony for 24 members of the Armed Forces on the South Lawn of the White House. "The American people deserve a solution."

Poll: Trust in American Government at an all time low

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Nearly 80 percent of Americans say they do not trust the U.S. government to do what is right, expressing the highest level of distrust in Washington in half a century, according to a public opinion survey.

Only 22 percent of Americans say they trust the government "just about always" or "most of the time," according to the Pew Research Center survey released on Sunday.

Americans' trust in the federal government has been on a steady decline from a high of 73 percent during the Eisenhower administration in 1958, when the "trust" question was first posed in a national survey, the research center said.

Economic uncertainty, a highly partisan environment and overwhelming discontent with Congress and elected officials were all factors contributing to the current wave of public distrust, the report said.

The long, bitter debate over the healthcare law that U.S. President Barack Obama signed last month made negative feeling about government, particularly Congress, even worse, according to the report based on a series of surveys of some 5,000 people.

About 25 percent had a favorable opinion of Congress, the lowest in 25 years of surveying, and less than half (40%) said the Obama administration was doing an excellent or good job, Pew said.

Americans were found to be more frustrated than angry, with 56 percent expressing frustration with the federal government, compared with 21 percent who said they were angry.

Forty-three percent of Republicans, 50 percent of independents who lean Republican and 57 percent of those who agree with the Tea Party movement said the government presents a major threat to their personal freedom.

That compares with 18 percent of Democrats, 21 percent of independents who lean Democratic and 9 percent of those who disagree with the Tea Party movement.

The main survey of 2,505 adults was conducted March 11-21. Three other surveys of about 1,000 adults each were conducted March 18-21, April 1-5 and April 8-11. The margin of sampling error for the surveys is plus or minus 4 percentage points.

Source, Reuters

Yikes! When Colonialism Attacks!!!

This is pretty random, but interesting and important. At least I think. The pictured map is from 1914... 98 years ago.

Punks Jump Up to get BEATDOWN!

The Prince George's County Police lie. As an organization, and as individuals. Point Blank. From Terrance Johnson to the present day. If you are black, especially a black male; you are already all to familiar with this. I just wanted to be on record with that. Now more than ever... As the spotlight gets warmer on the most recent example of P.G.'s finest doing what they do so well (this time somebody had a camera). I can't help but be reminded of their brutality, some directed towards me, sometimes at others.
Now that they have apparently crossed the line by brutally beating a 21 year old, white male student, whose grandfather happens to be a retired Montgomery County judge. Why is this such an outrage? We all know that the P.G. County Police have a long decorated history of brutality and abuse. We all know the cops are going to be suspended, even fired perhaps... the public will have it's pound of flesh and the outrage will do what it always does... FIZZLE OUT and take a nap. Cycle complete. I guess I will close with sort of a #shoutout to John McKenna the student that was actually the most recent recipient of PG street justice. I hope you get every dollar and cent that you can from those wretched cowards. I mean it. People I urge you to know and defend your rights as vigorously and tenaciously as possible. We are human, are we not?

POTUS looks to replace Stevens on SCOTUS

Now that the dust is settling in the aftermath of the announcement of Justice John Paul Stevens looming retirement. Get ready for a new storm of partisan bickering and filibuster threats as President Barack Obama is soon to nominate a replacement. Stay tuned this will be interesting.

Nuclear Security Summit

President Barack Obama embarks this week on the most elaborate diplomatic undertaking of his presidency, playing host to nearly 40 heads-of-state at a high-wattage summit intended to avert the catastrophic possibility of nuclear terrorism.

Setting the stage for the “sense of urgency” he’s called for at the summit, Obama spent four hours Sunday meeting with heads of state from Pakistan, India, South Africa, and Kazakhstan, as well as “courtesy call” with the acting president of Nigeria..

In remarks Sunday before his bilateral meeting with South African President Jacob Zuma, Obama set the stage for the two-day summit beginning Monday, calling terrorists with nuclear weapons “the single biggest threat to U.S. security... something that could change the security landscape of this country and around the world for years to come," and warning that "we know that organizations like al Qaeda are in the process of trying to secure a nuclear weapon."

Monday, Obama will have bilateral meetings with heads of state from China, Jordan, Malaysia, Ukraine and Armenia.

The gathering of high-level delegations from 46 nations at the call of an American president is almost without precedent, White House officials said. They say the last such meeting was the 1945 conference President Harry Truman hosted in San Francisco that led to the organization of the United Nations.

The large turnout for this week’s two-day meeting is testament to the relatively uncontroversial notion behind the session, said Steven Pifer, an arms control expert with the Brookings Institution.

“Most of the countries in the world, with the exception of North Korea, have an interest in limiting the threat posed by nuclear smuggling efforts,” Pifer said. “President [Obama] wants, four years from now, to have a high degree confidence that stocks of highly enriched uranium anywhere in the world are under very strong safeguards.”

However, the formal large-group sessions of the summit may end up taking a backseat to the one-on-one meetings leaders are holding along its fringes. Obama is planning at least nine such sessions on the summit’s sidelines. It is in those meetings where the president’s top foreign policy priority at the moment, winning international sanctions to dissuade Iran from pursuing its nuclear ambitions, will be hashed out.

“That is an issue that is separate from the agenda of the summit. However, of course, the United States continues to work through the U.N. Security Council…to insist that Iran meet its obligations under the Non-Proliferation Treaty,” Obama National Security Council spokesman Ben Rhodes said last week. “This, I’m sure, will be a subject at some of the President’s bilats.”



Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0410/35633.html#ixzz0ku0hz7sl

source: politico.com article by Josh Gerstein

Whistling Dixie (behind your back as usual)

RICHMOND -- Gov. Robert F. McDonnell, reviving a controversy that had been dormant for eight years, has declared that April will be Confederate History Month in Virginia, a move that angered civil rights leaders Tuesday but that political observers said would strengthen his position with his conservative base. The two previous Democratic governors had refused to issue the mostly symbolic proclamation honoring the soldiers who fought for the South in the Civil War. McDonnell (R) revived a practice started by Republican governor George Allen in 1997. McDonnell left out anti-slavery language that Allen's successor, James S. Gilmore III (R), had included in his proclamation. McDonnell said Tuesday that the move was designed to promote tourism in the state, which next year will mark the 150th anniversary of the start of the war. McDonnell said he did not include a reference to slavery because "there were any number of aspects to that conflict between the states. Obviously, it involved slavery. It involved other issues. But I focused on the ones I thought were most significant for Virginia."

The proclamation was condemned by the Virginia Legislative Black Caucus and the NAACP. Former governor L. Douglas Wilder called it "mind-boggling to say the least" that McDonnell did not reference slavery or Virginia's struggle with civil rights in his proclamation. Though a Democrat, Wilder has been supportive of McDonnell and boosted his election efforts when he declined to endorse the Republican's opponent, R. Creigh Deeds.

Source: excerpts of Washingtonpost.com article by Anita Kumar and Rosalind S. Helderman

Obama Signals Posture Change on Earth Crushers

A year after his groundbreaking pledge to move toward a "world without nuclear weapons," President Obama on Tuesday unveiled a policy that constrains the weapons' role but appears more cautious than what many supporters had hoped, with the president opting for a middle course in many key areas.

Under the new policy, the administration will foreswear the use of the deadly weapons against nonnuclear countries, officials said, in contrast to previous administrations, which indicated they might use nuclear arms against nonnuclear states in retaliation for a biological or chemical attack.

But Obama included a major caveat: The countries must be in compliance with their nonproliferation obligations under international treaties. That loophole means Iran would remain on the potential target list.

"The massive nuclear arsenal we inherited from the Cold War era of bipolar military confrontation is poorly suited to address the challenges posed by suicidal terrorists and unfriendly regimes seeking nuclear weapons," says the document, which the Pentagon released Tuesday. "Therefore, it is essential that we better align our nuclear policies and posture to our most urgent priorities -- preventing nuclear terrorism and nuclear proliferation."

Source: excerpt of Washingtonpost.com article by Mary Beth Sheridan and Walter Pincus

Black by Popular Demand

He may be the world's foremost mixed-race leader, but when it came to the official government head count, President Barack Obama gave only one answer to the question about his ethnic background: African-American.

The White House confirmed Friday that Obama did not check multiple boxes on his U.S. Census form, or choose the option that allows him to elaborate on his racial heritage. He ticked the box that says "Black, African Am., or Negro."

via msnbc.com

Tears of a Clown

You look like MC Hammer on crack Humpty... oh ummm... In other news... Resident RNC clown Michael Steele is rumored to be resigning his RNC leadership post over the recently publicized spending debacle. RNC staffers are alleged to have run up exorbitant tabs at numerous "inappropriate" establishments, in particular a lesbian bondage themed night club in Los Angeles.

The Humpty Dance is your chance... do the hump!

Heath Care Reform Clears it's Final Hurdles

Now that health care reform has finally cleared and all the fixes and amendments are finally done, I can do a little gloating, just a little though. In all seriousness, #HCR as it's known in the Twitterverse has had and will have an immeasurable effect on the direction of our nation. I hope that we all sit up and take notice of not just the medical and political ramifications, but take notice of the social ones as well. Are we living in a post racial America? Are we one nation united in liberty and justice for all?

Friend or Foe? State your Biz...

In the coming months keep more of an eye than usual on the Mid-East, U.S. Israeli relations in particular. In what seems to be a ramp up to some sort of action in Iran be it further sanctions or military actions; what role will Israel play? As U.S. Israeli tensions are mounting over perceived snubs and the Israeli hard line in the Palestinian peace process, what role will Israel play?

Bunning Strikes Himself Out!

Retiring GOP Senator from Kentucky caves on unemployment extension. "We cannot keep adding to the debt and passing the buck," Bunning said. "What matters is that we get our spending problems under control." Said Bunning Tuesday in Washington.