Usa Thread

[unit731]

CBO says deficit problem is solved for the next 10 years

 

 

By Ezra Klein, Published: May 14, 2013 at 4:13 PM

 

 

It looks like we’ve moved to talking about possible scandals just in time, because according to the Congressional Budget Office, the debt disaster that has obsessed the political class for the last three years is pretty much solved, at least for the next 10 years or so.

 

The last time the CBO estimated our future deficits was February– just four short months ago. Back then, the CBO thought deficits were falling and health-care costs were slowing. Today, the CBO thinks deficits are falling even faster and health-care costs are slowing by even more.

 

Here’s the short version: Washington’s most powerful budget nerds have cut their prediction for 2013 deficits by more than $200 billion. They’ve cut their projections for our deficits over the next decade by more than $600 billion. Add it all up and our 10-year deficits are looking downright manageable. Following are the highlights.

 

LINK

 

More government lies - I suppose !

[Steve]

This stuff started happening before Dubya and Obama. 911 gave them an excuse to expand what was already there. The echelon computer was around before either President. Clinton signed the FSA act that allowed companies with diverse information to pool it and gather info on you. So, in theory if a conglomerate owned an HMO and a mortgage company they could in theory know if you've got cancer and deny you a mortgage. There was supposed to be a 'chinese wall' but human nature says 'chinese walls' are ALWAYS violated by someone at some point.

 

For years on here I and others have said there is no expectancy of privacy anymore. I assume all these posts are known and stored somewhere but we are all too unimportant for the government to do anything about it. I'm sure there are literaly hundreds of thousands if not millions of posts similar to these that are on sights way more ominous than what is essentially a 'thai pussy site' to the government (although we know its more than that and dear to our hearts )

 

This is one thing that both parties have agreed to and are comfortable with. The only ones in either parties that are against it are the 'fringe' of both. The libertarian-esque types like the Pauls and the far left that doesn't trust the government.

 

There is no collective public outcry. The majority of our fellow Americans are sheep. Unti some incident happens to them they are not going to pay it any mind.

 

Its a sad, sad state of affairs. I can't repeat enough, we no longer live in a free and fair Republic. That America died a while back. Hoover's FBI started that and what limited him was technology. His FBI spied on folks and broke every civil libertarian right we had. If you were a nobody you were okay. If you were anyone of note (MLK, entertainers, politcians, activists, etc.) then you had a file and that file had every thing.

[Flashermac]

Oh my, what a thought ... if J. Edgar Hoover had had modern technology!

 

 

p.s. The FBI does have a file on me. The FBI was formerly assigned to investigate all Peace Corps applicants. PC finally stopped that when they realised it took so long to complete that the applicants would already be sworn in and serving abroad before it was finished. I've been told they asked about your politics, but they especially looked into your sex life, asking if you were kinky, a nympho, a kiddie perv or whatever.

[scoobydoo]

The Navajo etc will rise to the top!!!!!!!!

[unit731]

Every small town and hamlet has one of these. Nondescript sometimes unmarked buildings.

In the larger ciies rented space in a basement of some government or other owned building.

 

It is the switching station for the phone company.

 

Anyone with a key to get into building or rented space could have access to anyones telephone conversations.

 

The authorities were always listening to calls. Warrant or no warrant. Legal or not legal. This practice has been going on since the telephone was invented.

 

So why the outcry now?

 

I don't think that the phone companies use switches anymore - or they are some modern equivalent of such.

 

Your telephone conversations have never been private.

 

[Flashermac]

Especially on a party line ...

[scoobydoo]

can the spooks intercept smoke signals?.......

[Flashermac]

Stranded travelers sing 'I Believe I Can Fly'

 

 

Dozens of frustrated Allegiant Air passengers bound for Phoenix belted out a 1990s hit after being stuck in Las Vegas for hours.

 

A video posted on YouTube by Dustin Kaelberer showed the passengers singing the R Kelly hit "I Believe I Can Fly" after being stuck on two planes at McCarran International Airport for about five hours.

 

"Pretty much everybody was just, if you don't laugh about it, you cry," Kaelberer told Las Vegas TV station KVVU.

 

Kaelberer said he boarded the first plane at 10:30 a.m., expecting an 11:10 a.m. departure for Phoenix. He said the first plane was pushed back and sat on the tarmac for about 45 minutes before it was pulled back to the terminal, but the passengers did not get off the aircraft.

 

The first plane was pushed back a second time and again sat on the tarmac for about a half hour before it was pulled back to the terminal, he said. This time the passengers were allowed to exit.

 

About 40 minutes later, the passengers boarded a second plane, pushed back and again sat on the tarmac for about a half hour, Kaelberer said.

 

He said the second plane was pulled back to the terminal, and passengers were kept on the plane. He said about an hour after boarding the second plane, it was pushed back and finally took off for Phoenix.

 

Kaelberer said that while stuck on the plane, there was no air and several passengers became ill. He said some passengers even asked for water, and they were told there was no water on the airplane.

 

"People were getting nose bleeds, they were throwing up in the bathrooms because of the heat," Kaelberer told KVVU.

 

The high temperature in Las Vegas on Sunday was 110 degrees, according to the National Weather Service.

 

It was during the final pushback that one of the passengers began playing "I Believe I Can Fly" on his phone, Kaelberer said.

 

Instead of getting angry about their ordeal, the passengers decided to laugh it off and vent their frustrations by singing along.

 

Kaelberer said the passengers were promised compensation for their ordeal, but he has yet to receive it.

 

Brian Davis, spokesman for Allegiant Air, said the flight was delayed about four hours and passengers were stuck on the aircraft for two stretches of more than an hour.

 

He said there was air on the plane but it wasn't at full power. He did admit it got quite warm onboard.

 

Davis said passengers were provided free beverages on the airplane and a $100 credit for future travel with Allegiant.

 

 

http://www.clickorlando.com/lifestyle/travelgetaways/stranded-travelers-sing-i-believe-i-can-fly/-/1636534/20516204/-/auvjauz/-/index.html

[cavanami]

27 Edward Snowden Quotes About U.S. Government Spying That Should Send A Chill Up Your Spine

 

http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/27-edward-snowden-quotes-about-u-s-government-spying-that-should-send-a-chill-up-your-spine

 

Would you be willing to give up what Edward Snowden has given up? He has given up his high paying job, his home, his girlfriend, his family, his future and his freedom just to expose the monolithic spy machinery that the U.S. government has been secretly building to the world. He says that he does not want to live in a world where there isn’t any privacy. He says that he does not want to live in a world where everything that he says and does is recorded. Thanks to Snowden, we now know that the U.S. government has been spying on us to a degree that most people would have never even dared to imagine. Up until now, the general public has known very little about the U.S. government spy grid that knows almost everything about us...

 

#1 “The majority of people in developed countries spend at least some time interacting with the Internet, and Governments are abusing that necessity in secret to extend their powers beyond what is necessary and appropriate.â€

#2 “…I believe that at this point in history, the greatest danger to our freedom and way of life comes from the reasonable fear of omniscient State powers kept in check by nothing more than policy documents.â€

#3 “The government has granted itself power it is not entitled to. There is no public oversight. The result is people like myself have the latitude to go further than they are allowed to.â€

#4 “…I can’t in good conscience allow the US government to destroy privacy, internet freedom and basic liberties for people around the world with this massive surveillance machine they’re secretly building.â€

#5 “The NSA has built an infrastructure that allows it to intercept almost everything.â€

#6 “With this capability, the vast majority of human communications are automatically ingested without targeting. If I wanted to see your e-mails or your wife’s phone, all I have to do is use intercepts. I can get your e-mails, passwords, phone records, credit cards.â€

#7 “Any analyst at any time can target anyone. Any selector, anywhere… I, sitting at my desk, certainly had the authorities to wiretap anyone, from you or your accountant, to a federal judge, to even the President…â€

#8 “To do that, the NSA specifically targets the communications of everyone. It ingests them by default. It collects them in its system and it filters them and it analyzes them and it measures them and it stores them for periods of time simply because that’s the easiest, most efficient and most valuable way to achieve these ends. So while they may be intending to target someone associated with a foreign government, or someone that they suspect of terrorism, they are collecting YOUR communications to do so.â€..

[Flashermac]

Like Bradley Manning, the big problem is the way Snowflake went about it. He could have approached some liberal Congressmen, saying he had important information he wanted them to see. He'd have had them on his side and offering him some protection. Instead, he and Manning both grandstanded. Then they think they are martyrs when the fit hits the shan.

 

Snowflake says he doesn't want to live in a country that spies on its own citizens. So what does he do? He flees to CHINA, of course.

 

I was talking to a US Army intelligence officer at the VFW last week. She said she has seen so many of the Bradley Manning type. The work ensures that they must be highly intelligent, but they usually come with the idea that they are smarter than everyone else and are "underappreciated". It is their ego that drives them to violate their oaths and throw everything wide open. Not to say that some of the information shouldn't be, but much of what they release endangers other people's live.

 

e.g. Manning released the US Embassy in Beijing's secret correspondence with dissidents in China. Now Beijing knows exactly who they are and what they have been up too. Thanks, Brad. You're a hero - not!