Republican Sen. Rand Paul escalated his ongoing foreign policy feud with John McCain on Monday while arguing this his non-interventionist military views are supported by a sizable amount of GOP presidential primary voters.

"I want less, McCain wants more [military intervention]," Paul said at an event sponsored by the Wall Street Journal. "He wants 15 countries more, 15 wars more. But the thing is, is that there is a more and a less argument. When you poll that in Iowa, 45 percent agreed with McCain and 41 percent agreed with me."

Paul was referencing a Bloomberg/Des Moines Register poll from early October that asked:

"The Republican Party has two main views on foreign policy. Which is closer to your view—should the U.S. be quicker to intervene in conflicts overseas, as John McCain suggests, or should the U.S. pull back current military engagements to be less interventionist in foreign policy, as Rand Paul suggests?"

Paul was asked how he would deal with the possibility that his opponents and Super PACs would attack him for being weak on defense. But the Kentucky Republican said his viewpoint is gaining steam and would not necessarily be a hindrance if he runs for president in 2016.

"This is not a small movement, nor is it easy to say people like myself, who believe in less intervention, can be characterized as people who don't believe in a strong national defense," Paul said. "That is a caricature and I will have to fight that, but we'll see what happens."

McCain and Paul have sparred over the role the United States should play in the world. But the two seemed to be turning a corner recently when McCain said Paul was "evolving with experience" and told The New Yorker he would support Paul if he became the Republican presidential nominee.

In 2010, when Rachel Maddow cornered Rand Paul over his lack of support for the entire Civil Rights Act of 1964, most liberals proceeded to streak through the streets waving bloody shirts. We told you they were all racists and we were right!

The late Alexander Cockburn, at the time one of the most outspoken progressives alive, refused to join in. Though he said Paul had seemed “dumb,” he also burned Maddow for her “grandstanding.” “You think the Civil Rights Act of 1964 is going to come up for review in the U.S. Senate?” he asked rhetorically.

At the time Paul was locked in a Senate race with Kentucky’s Democratic attorney general Jack Conway. Cockburn called Conway “an awful neo-liberal prosecutor,” and then came this: “Between Conway and Paul, which one in the U.S. Senate would more likely be a wild card – which is the best we can hope for these days – likely to filibuster against a bankers’ bailout, against reaffirmation of the Patriot Act, against suppression of the CIA’s full torture history?” The answer, of course, was Paul. It wasn’t exactly an endorsement, but it was pretty damned close.

If you’ve never read Cockburn, do yourself a favor and pick up one of his books. He was a flamboyant writer, a refreshing contrast to today’s liberal wonks who communicate in the sort of prose usually found in Sharper Image instruction manuals. Long after the sixties ended, Cockburn remained the id of the anti-authoritarian left. This meant he was often spectacularly wrong, but also that he harbored little sympathy for the Democratic Party of JFK and Johnson. Watching Rand Paul was probably cathartic for him.

Last week progressive writer H.A. Goodman made ripples when he endorsed Rand Paul over Hillary Clinton at the Huffington Post. And while most liberals haven’t gone as far as Goodman, some, especially those who remember the ethos of last century’s counterculture, have developed a muted affinity for the Kentucky senator.

...

The Daily Treasury Statement that was released Wednesday afternoon as Americans were preparing to celebrate Thanksgiving revealed that the U.S. Treasury has been forced to issue $1,040,965,000,000 in new debt since fiscal 2015 started just eight weeks ago in order to raise the money to pay off Treasury securities that were maturing and to cover new deficit spending by the government.

During those eight weeks, Treasury took in $341,591,000,000 in revenues. That was a record for the period between Oct. 1 and Nov. 25. But that record $341,591,000,000 in revenues was not enough to finance ongoing government spending let alone pay off old debt that matured.

...

The only way the Treasury could handle the $942,103,000,000 in old debt that matured during the period plus finance the new deficit spending the government engaged in was to roll over the old debt into new debt and issue enough additional new debt to cover the new deficit spending.

This mode of financing the federal government resembles what the Securities and Exchange Commission calls a Ponzi scheme. “A Ponzi scheme," says the Securities and Exchange Commission, “is an investment fraud that involves the payment of purported returns to existing investors from funds contributed by new investors,” says the Securities and Exchange Commission.

“With little or no legitimate earnings, the schemes require a consistent flow of money from new investors to continue,” explains the SEC. “Ponzi schemes tend to collapse when it becomes difficult to recruit new investors or when a large number of investors ask to cash out.”

I have to say I don't understand why there's no outrage here.  KnC owes us multiple units and has cost us a ton of mining time.  Why am I the only one that seems pissed?

Its worse than that, check reddit, search for xapo (/r/bitcoin only)...

For five months, Democratic Virginia Senator Tim Kaine has been calling on Congress to assert itself in the war against ISIL. "The current crisis in Iraq, while serious and posing the possibility of a long-term threat to the United States, is not the kind of conflict where the president can or should act unilaterally," said Kaine in June. He and Arizona Senator John McCain, a Republican, started working together on the contours of a new Authorization of Military Force, superseding and ending the 2002 authorization passed by a spooked, pre-election Congress.

In September, Kaine released a draft of the new authorization that repealed the 2002 AUMF and would allow the administration "to use all necessary and appropriate force to participate in a campaign of airstrikes in Iraq, and if the President deems necessary, in Syria, to degrade and defeat ISIL."
The draft stayed on the table. As recently as last week, the Kaine version of the AUMF was an idea that (many) Democrats and the White House were able to ignore.

Kentucky Senator Rand Paul swooped in. He gave an interview to New York Times reporter Jeremy Peters, which was splashed on the newspaper's website with the headline "Rand Paul Calls for a Formal Declaration of War Against ISIS." Instead of a sleepy issue that the administration could sit on for a while, Paul made a new AUMF a subject of debate—on libertarian terms.

That was clear to anyone who read the resolutions. Kaine's began with some throat-clearing "Whereas-es" about ISIL terror, such as:
Whereas ISIL’s grisly execution of United States hostages, recruitment of United States citizens and others to serve as foreign fighters that threaten to return to the United States and other nations, and pledges to carry out additional acts of violence directly against the United States make it a threat of growing significance to the United States.

Paul's version started 200-odd years earlier.
Whereas President George Washington, who presided over the Constitutional Convention, lectured: ''The Constitution vests the power of declaring war with Congress. Therefore no offensive expedition of importance can be undertaken until after they have deliberated upon the subject, and authorized such a measure.'';
Whereas James Madison, father of the Constitution, elaborated in a letter to Thomas Jefferson: ''The constitution supposes, what the History of all Governments demonstrates, that the Executive is the branch of power most interested in war, and most prone to it. It has accordingly with studied care vested the question of war in the Legislature.'';
Whereas James Madison wrote in his Letters of Helvidius: ''In this case, the constitution has decided what shall not be deemed an executive authority; though it may not have clearly decided in every case what shall be so deemed. The declaring of war is expressly made a legislative function.''

Unlike Kaine, Paul made no mention of specific ISIL threats against the continental United States. As he's said in many speeches, Paul saw ISIL as "a clear and present danger to United States diplomatic facilities in the region." Also, as Peters first reported, Paul's version included a sunset provision to terminate the 2001, post-9/11 Authorization of Military Force against al-Qaeda and allies, "on the date that is one year after the date of the enactment of this joint resolution."

This was important. Last year, Paul told me that most of the War on Terror's over-reaches came from "a very expansive understanding of the use of the Authorization of Force in 2001." He had been trying to get Congress to officially declare the Iraq war over, and finding very few takers. Same was true for repealing the 2001 AUMF. "I think it would have absolutely no chance of going anywhere if I were to introduce it right now," he said.

Kaine's version of the AUMF remains the one with the most potential support in Congress. Paul's, unsurprisingly, is the bolder version, the one that would separate the senators who support an unending War on Terror from the ones who want to handle foreign policy threats individually. Meanwhile, there's no AUMF far enough along in the legislative process for the White House to worry about it.

"We will continue to engage with the Congress on the elements of an AUMF to ensure that they are appropriately tailored, while still preserving the authorities the President needs to execute his counter-ISIL strategy and to respond as might be necessary to defend the United States," said National Security Council spokesman Alistair Baskey.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Sen. Rand Paul today released a draft Declaration of War resolution against Islamic State (also known as ISIS) that he intends on introducing when Congress comes back into session in December.

As the New York Times reported today, Sen. Paul plans to introduce a resolution to declare war against the Islamic State, terminate the authority under the 2002 Iraq AUMF, and set a date for expiration of the 2001 Afghanistan AUMF.

“When Congress comes back into session in December, I will introduce a resolution to declare war against ISIS. I believe the President must come to Congress to begin a war and that Congress has a duty to act.Right now, this war is illegal until Congress acts pursuant to the Constitution and authorizes it,“ Sen. Paul said.


__________________________________________________



TEXT OF RESOLUTION:

Whereas Article I, section 8, of the United States Constitution provides, ‘‘The Congress shall have the Power to . . . declare war’’;

Whereas President George Washington, who presided over the Constitutional Convention, lectured: ‘‘The Constitution vests the power of declaring war with Congress. Therefore no offensive expedition of importance can be undertaken until after they have deliberated upon the subject, and authorized such a measure.’’;

Whereas James Madison, father of the Constitution, elaborated in a letter to Thomas Jefferson: ‘‘The constitution supposes, what the History of all Governments demonstrates, that the Executive is the branch of power most interested in war, and most prone to it. It has accordingly with studied care vested the question of war in the Legislature.’’;

Whereas James Madison wrote in his Letters of Helvidius: ‘‘In this case, the constitution has decided what shall not be deemed an executive authority; though it may not have clearly decided in every case what shall be so deemed. The declaring of war is expressly made a legislative function.’’;

Whereas the organization referring to itself as the Islamic State has declared war on the United States and its allies; And

Whereas the Islamic State presents a clear and present danger to United States diplomatic facilities in the region, including our embassy in Baghdad, Iraq, and

Whereas the Islamic State presents a clear and present danger to United States diplomatic facilities in the region, including our embassy in Baghdad, Iraq, and consulate in Erbil, Iraq:

Now, therefore, be it Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,


SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
This joint resolution may be cited as the ‘‘Declaration of War against the Organization known as the Islamic State’’.


SEC. 2. DECLARATION OF A STATE OF WAR BETWEEN THE PEOPLE AND GOVERNMENT OF THE UNITED STATES AGAINST THE ORGANIZATION KNOWN AS THE ISLAMIC STATE.

(a) DECLARATION.—The state of war between the United States and the organization referring to itself as the Islamic State, also known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), which has been thrust upon the United States, is hereby formally declared pursuant to Article I, section 8, clause 11, of the United States Constitution.

(b) AUTHORIZATION.—The President is hereby authorized and directed to use the Armed Forces of the United States to protect the people and facilities of the United States in Iraq and Syria against the threats posed thereto by the organization referring to itself as the Islamic State, also known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS).

(c) RULES OF CONSTRUCTION.—

(1) SCOPE OF AUTHORITY.—Nothing in this section shall be construed as declaring war or authorizing force against any organization—

(A) other than the organization referring to itself as the Islamic State, also known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS); or

(B) based on affiliation with the organization referring to itself as the Islamic State, also known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS).

(2) LIMITATION ON USE OF GROUND COMBAT FORCES.—Nothing in this section shall be construed as authorizing the use of ground combat forces except—

(A) as necessary for the protection or rescue of members of the United States Armed Forces or United States citizens from imminent danger posed by the organization referring to itself as the Islamic State, also known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS);

(B) for limited operations against high value targets; or

(C) as necessary for advisory and intelligence gathering operations.

(d) WAR POWER RESOLUTION REQUIREMENTS.—

(1) SPECIFIC STATUTORY AUTHORIZATION.—

Consistent with section 8(a)(1) of the War Powers Resolution (50 U.S.C. 1547(a)(1)), Congress declares that this section is intended to constitute specific statutory authorization within the meaning of section 5(b) of the War Powers Resolution (50 U.S.C. 1544(b)).

(2) APPLICABILITY OF OTHER REQUIREMENTS.—Nothing in this resolution supersedes any requirement of the War Powers Resolution (50 U.S.C. 1541 et seq.).


SEC. 3. REPEAL OF PRIOR AUTHORIZATION FOR USE OF UNITED STATES ARMED FORCES AGAINST IRAQ.
The authorization for the Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution of 2002 (Public Law 107–243; 50 U.S.C. 1541 note) is hereby repealed.


SEC. 4. NO EXISTING AUTHORITY.
The Authorization for the Use of Military Force (Public Law 107–40; 50 U.S.C. 1541 note) does not provide any authority for the use of military force against the organization referring to itself as the Islamic State, and shall not be construed as providing such authority.


SEC. 5. SUNSET OF 2001 AUTHORIZATION FOR THE USE OF MILITARY FORCE.
The Authorization for the Use of Military Force (Public Law 107–40; 50 U.S.C. 1541 note) shall terminate on the date that is one year after the date of the enactment of this joint resolution.


SEC. 6. EXPIRATION.
The declaration and authorization in this joint resolution shall expire on the date that is one year after the date of the enactment of this joint resolution.