As some may or may not know, Rep. Peter King (R) NY is about to reconvene his committee hearings on the radicalization of Islam in America.

I support his efforts to keep talking about this topic.  It is worth investigating.  Obama and Napolitano are even reported to be helping his efforts.  Napolitano is starting an investigation of radicalization in our prison system.

What is best is that King has properly expressed just what it is and how we should be approaching this discussion.  King has likened the Jihadists to the Mafia and says that it should be investigated with this approach in mind.  Its not about Italians, its about a certain small group of criminals who happen to be Italian.  We have survived investigating the Mafia as a Nation.  If we realise that Jihad is being investigated in the same manner, then maybe we can get the ball rolling and start talking realistically about this legitimate problem, without all the hyperbole about xenophobia and other bs.

Cheers to Mr. King.

I'm reading this right? Our Congress decides to side against our President and with the leader of a foreign nation?

Shame on them. It's another in a series of amazingly low lows.

Throw the treasonous bums out. 

 cookinlover wrote: 
I understand the Russians managed to obtain one at the cost of ten agents' lives and studied its star-descending properties intensely.  Khruschev himself was invited to witness a demonstration.

 romeotuma wrote: 
If there is any good coming out of what is happening right now, it's that a light is finally shining on the government, and wall st, etc. so that the rest of the world can see the discrepancies.

Call it class war...  this is not about political parties...  now, 261 members of Congress—  more than half—  are millionaires, which makes it very clear that the Bush tax cuts for the rich will not be changed by Congress...

there are only two ways to deal with the federal deficit—  raise taxes and/or cut spending...

if the taxes are not raised on the millionaires, then more federal programs must be trimmed which will affect lower income people who are the people who need the money...  the rich will just bitch— they will still eat well, wear nice clothes, and spend lots of time in Tahiti...

let them eat cake...  off with their heads...

 hippiechick wrote: 

It certainly provides lots of jobs in scores of Congressional Districts...

 musik_knut wrote: 
This is about financing this big ass plane that we no longer use, but provides a bunch of jobs (and pork)

 oldslabsides wrote: 
what is it at worst? 

...is at best an obscene joke.

 hippiechick wrote: 

With troops in harm's way, they must be provided for. No getting around that fact.

 buddy wrote: 

The N word was not shouted out. With scores of recording devices, including those of Congressional Staff Members, not a single device picked up the N word. This has become urban myth...

See what Congress thinks is important:

Senate Approves $60 Billion For War, While House Cuts $24 Billion For Unemployed Workers And State Aid

 buddy wrote: 

Social Security is now paying out more than it is taking in for the first time ever.  Medicare is being gutted, by half a trillion dollars for openers.  That is the reality.  Medicare is the shining example of an American Government single payer plan.  Medicare should be receiving more funding to restore it to its level of quality services we were assured at its inception.  Instead, we are resigning our seniors to medical obscurity and an earlier death due to declining services by taking away the funding it so badly needs.  Look to the future folks, when you hit 65, you might as well kiss your ass goodbye as the American people and Government will have pegged you as over the hill and socially unproductive and no longer worth the expense of keeping you alive, even though you have paid into the system your entire life. 

As others have noted, Congress starts out with lofty goals and then abandons them after realization.  The real ultimate goal of a single payer program as stated over and over again in sound bites by our present leaders from as far back as 5 or more years, regardless of their present denial, will lead to a program just like Medicare.  Awkward, unwieldly and frought with corruption, Medicare is a shadow of what it was supposed to be, with tens of trillions of unfunded liabilities.  Mediocre health care will be the standard for all of us, we will have achieved the lowest common denominator once again.

Today will be historical as this plan passes the House and will eventually become law.  It will also be historical as this will be the day that our economy will become the biggest train wreck on the planet and forces this country into bankruptcy.  So party hardy, celebrate the victory for unsound accounting and political corruption.  Start digging into your pockets now and wait for the benefits to take place as early as 2014.  Its going to be a long 4 years, with the country rotting beyond repair in between.  

I am for reform and agree that something needs to be done, but not this and this way.  This is plan is so corrupt that we are raising the bar of political corruption to historic new levels.  We have finally achieved a new level of transparency.  We see the corruption and we excuse and approve it because the ends justify the means.  This is the direct opposite of the founding principals of this country yet that is what America will be remembered for.

 dmax wrote: 
I'm pretty sure it was on the back of a Wheaties box... either that or Franco-American spaghetti.

 cookinlover wrote: 
You read about it on the Etch-a-Sketch or saw it on the Lite Brite?

 dmax wrote: 
I knew America was king of the world when the Slinky arrived.

 islander wrote: 
Well, there was Teflon and Silly Putty.

 dmax wrote: 
We should have aimed higher.

Seriously though, there are opportunities. If we developed the next big thing in energy, we would solve a number of our international problems and at the same time take a step up on the podium again. If we managed to get survivor and the bachelor canceled it would also be a positive step.

 buddy wrote: 
America was great in the mid century - and it wasn't because we had universal health care. It was because we had high standards for ourselves and a lot of hard work to do.

Our TV shows were Bonanza and Dick Van Dyke instead of "reality" shows with foul-mouthed idiots.

Kennedy told us that the moon was our target, and we respected his challenge.

The center of intellectual development, even to the point of creating Tang, was here - not outsourced.

And the whole world looked towards us to lead them into the New Frontier. 

 Mugro wrote: 
I think you could have left out the woe is me bit there and had the same impact.

Yes,we are very divided. No, piling on more debt isn't the best idea. maybe we need to rethink our spending overall, not just infrastructure and health care. If you list countries by military expenditures, we spend more money on our military than the next 14 countries combined. We could transfer enough to cover the bloated giveaway to industry that is health care insurance reform and still spend more than the next 12 countries combined. We could probably make a dent on infrastructure and still outspend the rest of the top 10 - and a bunch of those guys are our allies.

I think we do need to frame the debate in a different way  - let's take a look at our real sacred cows and maybe think about a bbq to feed a few people. In this particular case, guns are killing people, but it's with dollars instead of bullets.