Rick Santelli: If Not For Tea Party, U.S. Would Be Rated BBB

Breaking: S&P downgrades U.S. to AA+

We told you so !!!

With a “negative outlook” to boot.

America is now a risky investment.

U.S. Treasuries, once undisputedly seen as the safest investment in the world, are now rated lower than bonds issued by countries such as the UK, Germany, France or Canada.

The outlook on the new U.S. credit rating is negative, S&P said in a statement, a sign that another downgrade is possible in the next 12 to 18 months.

See the last few updates in the other thread for details on this afternoon’s drama between S&P and the White House. Supposedly the agency admitted privately that it goofed in using the wrong debt-to-GDP baseline — a $2 trillion error. But when you’re $14 trillion in the hole and set to add $6 trillion more by the end of the decade, what’s $2 trillion, really? A deadbeat’s a deadbeat.

Odds of that negative outlook turning into a further downgrade if the Super Committee chokes: High. Stand by for updates.

Update: A grumpy White House points to S&P’s math error and calls it “amateur hour.”

Update: Zero Hedge has the text of S&P’s statement. The debt-ceiling deal wasn’t good enough:

We lowered our long-term rating on the U.S. because we believe that the prolonged controversy over raising the statutory debt ceiling and the related fiscal policy debate indicate that further near-term progress containing the growth in public spending, especially on entitlements, or on reaching an agreement on raising revenues is less likely than we previously assumed and will remain a contentious and fitful process. We also believe that the fiscal consolidation plan that Congress and the Administration agreed to this week falls short of the amount that we believe is necessary to stabilize the general government debt burden by the middle of the decade…

The political brinksmanship of recent months highlights what we see as America’s governance and policymaking becoming less stable, less effective, and less predictable than what we previously believed. The statutory debt ceiling and the threat of default have become political bargaining chips in the debate over fiscal policy. Despite this year’s wide-ranging debate, in our view, the differences between political parties have proven to be extraordinarily difficult to bridge, and, as we see it, the resulting agreement fell well short of the comprehensive fiscal consolidation program that some proponents had envisaged until quite recently. Republicans and Democrats have only been able to agree to relatively modest savings on discretionary spending while delegating to the Select Committee decisions on more comprehensive measures. It appears that for now, new revenues have dropped down on the menu of policy options. In addition, the plan envisions only minor policy changes on Medicare and little change in other entitlements, the containment of which we and most other independent observers regard as key to long-term fiscal sustainability…

When comparing the U.S. to sovereigns with ‘AAA’ long-term ratings that we view as relevant peers–Canada, France, Germany, and the U.K.–we also observe, based on our base case scenarios for each, that the trajectory of the U.S.’s net public debt is diverging from the others. Including the U.S., we estimate that these five sovereigns will have net general government debt to GDP ratios this year ranging from 34% (Canada) to 80% (the U.K.), with the U.S. debt burden at 74%. By 2015, we project that their net public debt to GDP ratios will range between 30% (lowest, Canada) and 83% (highest, France), with the U.S. debt burden at 79%. However, in contrast with the U.S., we project that the net public debt burdens of these other sovereigns will begin to decline, either before or by 2015.

Not only can’t the Super Committee fail, it’ll be under enormous public pressure to reach a grand bargain. That’s the silver lining in this cloud — they have to get serious now. They have no choice.

H/T Hotair

John Kerry — Media should not be giving equal time to Tea Party

Footage of Mass Troop Movements Across U.S. – What Are They Getting Ready For?

The following report was originally published at The Intel Hub

Editor’s Note: We’ve long reported about the training of US military personnel for domestic deployment in the event of large scale economic breakdown, civil unrest, terrorism, and catastrophic natural disasters like asteroids. It is clear based on historical precedent that the government would hold off as long as possible before alerting the American people of an impending disaster or emergency. We strongly believe that if an ‘event’ was imminent, details and clues would emerge through alternative news reports across the internet – most of which would trickle in from user comments, forum postings, video uploads, and independent research groups like The Intel Hub. Most, if not all, of that information would be ignored and/or discredited by mainstream media, especially if the government knew of such an event and expected pandemonium and hysteria as a result. Nonetheless, it has been our mission to report on the out-of-the-ordinary occurrences in the world in the hopes of alerting our readers to fan hitting scenarios. Non-traditional news reporting may be the only preemptive warning system we have. While we urge readers not to panic, we suggest, as always, to be aware of what’s going on around you and consider the possibilities – and to plan accordingly.

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In the last month and a half, The Intel Hub has received hundreds of credible tips from citizens who witnessed and or photographed domestic military/foreign movements within The United States.

While some of the reports can be written off as normal troop movements, the sheer amount of reports indicates something possibly more sinister.

To top it off, a large majority of military vehicles that have been spotted were not painted for desert conditions, rather they were sporting digital and city camouflage.

We now have reports and video evidence of multiple military convoys traveling in and around Portland Oregon.

This comes just days after The Intel Hub released photos sent to them by a concerned citizen that showed a military convoy of tanks, humvees, and jeeps, in the same type of camouflage and a week after multiple sightings of black helicopters throughout The United States.

Clyde Lewis, a veteran radio host, has had multiple callers report military movements seen in both Portland and Oregon City, Oregon.

Note: All footage of military vehicles inside the United States was taken on public roadways by numerous people not affiliated with The Intel Hub.

For more info go to The Intel Hub

Fiscal Conservatives Barred from Supercommittee Created by Debt Ceiling Legislation

Well here’s the first thing we can see wrong with the “Super Congress”

The debt ceiling deal will pass the Senate early this afternoon. No suspense there. But the vote will be worth watching for another reason: Three Republican Senate sources tell TWS that senators who vote against the deal will be ineligible to serve on the so-called “supercommittee” for deficit reduction that the legislation creates.

While there’s certain logic to such a policy, it could be self-defeating. Excluding those who vote against the debt deal will ensure that some of the most fiscally conservative members of the Senate Republican caucus, including most of its freshmen, will be reading about the committee’s activities in the newspaper rather than guiding its decisions. Among those who have already declared their opposition to the deal: libertarian-leaning senators Mike Lee and Rand Paul; Jim DeMint, the aggressive fiscal hawk from South Carolina; conservative reformers Ron Johnson from Wisconsin and Pat Toomey from Pennsylvania; the ranking member on the Senate Budget Committee, Jeff Sessions; and Florida’s Marco Rubio, already one of the highest-profile conservatives in Congress.

More worrisome for conservatives, however, is that private whip counts in the Senate found that some 20 Republicans expressed support for the proposals that came out of the Gang of Six. And while many of the components of that plan have merit as individual policy proposals, the package involves compromises on taxes anathema to most conservatives. Picking a Gang of Six member – or supporter – would further antagonize conservatives skeptical of the debt ceiling deal.

There’s the problem. If, say, a dozen of the strongest fiscal conservatives vote against the deal, the pool of Republicans that can be expected to hold the line on taxes shrinks very quickly. And if a key Republican objective for the committee is to block tax increases, the exclusion of these strong fiscal conservatives makes meeting that goal more difficult.

Mitch McConnell, who will make the selections, isn’t worried. He told Fox News Channel’s Neil Cavuto yesterday that the likelihood of tax hikes coming out of the committee is “pretty low.”

“What I can pretty certainly say to the American people, the chances of any kind of tax increase passing with this, with the appointees of John Boehner and I, are going to put in there are pretty low,” said McConnell. He added: “I’m comfortable we aren’t going to raise taxes coming out of this joint committee.”

UPDATE: McConnell spokesman Don Stewart says all senators will be considered. (Time will tell) “No one is stronger in his opposition to tax hikes than Sen. McConnell. He will have serious discussions with all those who are interested in serving prior to making any appointments.”

Weekly Standard

I might add:….

In addition, the Obama administration has already indicated that it will take the deciding vote as the de facto 13th member of the Super Congress. During his press briefing yesterday, White House press secretary Jay Carney said that the government would work with the Super Congress to hike taxes in 2012 and beyond.

As the Huffington Post reported last month, the debt deal that has already been passed by the House and faces the Senate tomorrow will create an unconstitutional “Super Congress” that will be comprised of six Republicans and six Democrats and granted “extraordinary new powers” to quickly force legislation through both chambers.

Legislation decided on by the Super Congress would be immune from amendment and lawmakers would only be able to register an up or down vote, eliminating the ability to filibuster. The Speaker of the House would effectively lose the power to prevent unpopular bills from making it to the House floor.

But far from just being a committee that would make recommendations concerning the debt ceiling, the body is now to be granted “even greater super powers, according to multiple news reports and congressional aides with knowledge of the plan,” writes Michael McAuliff.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) pulled no punches in making it plain that the Super Congress would have supreme authority. “The joint committee — there are no constraints,” Reid said on the Senate floor. “They (the Super Congress) can look at any program we have in government, any program. … It has the ability to look at everything.”

What debt crisis? President Obama heads off to be serenaded by Jennifer Hudson for lavish 50th birthday celebration

With hindsight, a low-key dinner with close family and friends would probably have been more appropriate.

But the small matter of a multi-trillion dollar debt crisis was not going to stop President Barack Obama pulling out all the stops for his birthday party.

There has been speculation for days as to whether the President was going to make it to his own fundraising 50th birthday party – a lavish affair at a $40,000 a night ballroom in Chicago, with Dreamgirls star Jennifer Hudson booked to sing for the birthday boy.

But with the announcement last night that a debt deal had been agreed, it finally appears as if the party is back on.

Helicopters could be heard over the Chicago lakefront as authorities performed security drills in preparation for the President’s visit.

The celebrity-studded event, which will be held at the exclusive Aragon Ballroom on Wednesday – the day before President Obama’s birthday – is scheduled to feature star singer Jennifer Hudson.

Also set to perform for the President are jazz musician Herbie Hancock and trendy punk rock band OK GO.

Tickets for the fundraising dinner cost an astonishing $35,800 a person. Additional contributions of $50 will gain entry to the concert with limited seating, while $1,000 donors receive ‘premium’ seats for President Obama’s birthday and $10,000 tickets include ‘preferred’ seating along with the chance to take a photograph with Obama.

Daily Mail

Joe Biden likens tea partiers to terrorists

Is this man kin to Al Gore or something? Give this man a pink slip, Please !

 

Vice President Joe Biden joined House Democrats in lashing tea party Republicans Monday, accusing them of having “acted like terrorists” in the fight over raising the nation’s debt limit, according to several sources in the room.

Biden was agreeing with a line of argument made by Rep. Mike Doyle (D-Pa.) at a two-hour, closed-door Democratic Caucus meeting.

“We have negotiated with terrorists,” an angry Doyle said, according to sources in the room. “This small group of terrorists have made it impossible to spend any money.”

Biden, driven by his Democratic allies’ misgivings about the debt-limit deal, responded: “They have acted like terrorists.”

Biden’s office initially declined to comment about what the vice president said inside the closed-door session, but after POLITICO published the remarks, spokeswoman Kendra Barkoff said: “The word was used by several members of Congress. The vice president does not believe it’s an appropriate term in political discourse.”

Biden later denied he used that term in an interview with CBS.

“I did not use the terrorism word,” Biden told CBS Evening News anchor and managing editor Scott Pelley.

Earlier in the day, Biden told Senate Democrats that Republican leaders have “guns to their heads” in trying to negotiate deals.

The vice president’s hot rhetoric about tea party Republicans underscored the tense moment on Capitol Hill as four party leaders in both chambers work to round up the needed votes in an abbreviated time frame. The bill would raise the debt limit by as much as $2.4 trillion through the end of next year and reduce the deficit by an equal amount over the next decade.

Democrats had no shortage of colorful phrases in wake of the deal.

Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-Mo.) called it a “Satan sandwich,” and Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill.) called seemed to enjoy the heat analogy, saying: “the Tea Partiers and the GOP have made their slash and burn lunacy clear, and while I do not love this compromise, my vote is a hose to stop the burning. The arsonists must be stopped.

Read more from Politico (if you can stand it)

And You Thought CNN Wasn’t Partisan

Just listen to this young CNN supposed “journalist” and watch Rand Paul school him when the young man gives him the chance. As you watch this, I think you’ll be surprised how rude this Don Lemon is to Rand Paul and constantly interrupts Rand Paul.

We Have a Debt Ceiling Deal: Reid signs off on bipartisan debt deal

Well as you read this article from The Hill, you’ll see this deal is a joke…..”$1.2 Trillion in spending cuts now and creates a select bicameral committee to find another $1.6 trillion in savings later in the 112th Congress.” Where’s the guarantee that the “select bicameral committee” will find those cuts? What is a “bicameral committee” ? Bicameral,  is the practice of having two legislative or parliamentary chambers. Thus, a bicameral parliament or bicameral legislature is a legislature which consists of two chambers or houses.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has signed off on a tentative bipartisan deal forged between President Obama and GOP leaders to raise the debt limit.

But the emerging deal may be imperiled by last-minute reluctance from House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), who worries the proposal cuts too much from future Pentagon budgets.

Congressional sources familiar with the outlines of the deal say it would cut the deficit by about $2.8 trillion and raise the debt limit by a similar amount. The deal includes $1.2 trillion in spending cuts up front and creates a select bicameral committee to find another $1.6 trillion in savings later in the 112th Congress.

The tentative deal hangs on so-called triggers intended to give lawmakers strong incentive to implement the second round of deficit reduction.

A person familiar with the deal said Obama and Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) agreed that if the select committee deadlocked or Congress failed to pass its recommendations, it would automatically trigger $1.2 trillion in across-the-board spending cuts.

The president and McConnell agreed to divide the automatic spending cuts evenly between defense and nondefense programs, according to the source. Obama also persuaded GOP leaders to set up firewalls to ensure a significant amount of the spending cuts would take place in fiscal years 2012 and 2013.

A second congressional source confirmed this account.

However, the tentative deal may be in jeopardy because Boehner as of Sunday evening was trying to walk back the proposed defense cuts, according to sources.

One congressional source said Boehner wants to shrink the defense spending cuts slated for 2012 and 2013.

An aide familiar with the deal said if the special bicameral committee fails to produce a viable deficit-reduction package, the automatic spending cuts triggered as a penalty would include cuts to Medicare. But the aide said Medicare beneficiaries would not feel a direct impact. Instead, healthcare providers and insurance companies would see lower payments.

But first he must convene a meeting of the Senate Democratic caucus to explain the deal and convince his colleagues to support it. While many Democrats are angry it does not raise taxes, they are afraid that opposing it could lead to a national default next week.

 

An aide said Democratic leaders are waiting on Boehner to endorse the proposal before unveiling it to the Senate Democratic caucus.

If Boehner finally agrees to the deal, Reid is expected to use a message from the House as the legislative vehicle to pass the deal through the upper chamber.

But doing so would still require the Senate to spend Monday, Tuesday and part of Wednesday processing it unless every senator agrees to truncate the timeline. If a conservative senator drags out the proceedings, Congress will not make the Aug. 2 deadline set by Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner.

Senate conservatives say they don’t have plans to delay consideration of a possible bipartisan debt-ceiling agreement.

Leaders from both parties though will face a fight to convince lawmakers to vote for the compromise proposal.  Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-Ariz.), the co-chairman of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, rejected the plan, calling it a “cure as bad as the disease.”

Senate Democratic caucus members from the left and center of the political spectrum have also voiced their displeasure with the emerging deal.

Read more @ The Hill

UPDATE: Senate Defeats Reid Plan; Leaders Work to Finalize Deal Today

Just to add an update to this story: The main bloc of spending cuts seems to be now in defense….“One Republican source warned that a “large bloc” of GOP lawmakers would oppose the deal if those cuts are too deep, noting that there are dozens of Republicans on the House Armed Services Committee alone who “agree with the unanimous chorus from senior military leadership — we’re at the bare minimum for (defense) spending without deeply damaging an already stressed force.” More @ Fox News

This looks like just like I predicted….they’re going to agree on giving the President the authority to raise the debt ceiling sure as the world….we’re giving too much power to the President, earlier this year he started the war with Libya without Congressional consistent in violation of the Constitution , Obama is letting the EPA enforce Cap & Trade because they can’t get the Treaty passed thru the Senate and I can’t keep up with the rest, there is so much power  being shifted to the executive branch,most of which is unconstituitonal….

A Republican source close to the negotiations tells NBC News that both sides are “very close” to agreement on a two-step debt-ceiling deal.

It is essentially the original Boehner plan — without the balanced-budget amendment and with modified triggers, what amounts to an escape hatch if a joint committee can’t get the cuts needed. The plan would get enough in cuts, roughly $1 trillion, to last about six or seven months.

At the same time, a joint congressional committee would be established that would be tasked with getting enough in cuts to raise the debt ceiling again and get past the 2012 election – in the range of $1.4 trillion to $1.8 trillion.

The source said the White House’s concern was that if a joint committee couldn’t find something, the White House wanted a way to access the second tranche. The original Boehner plan did not include a way without the joint committee finding something.

Here are the options if a committee can’t find something:
1. A balanced-budget amendment sent to states, which is “not going to happen,” the source said;
2. Across the board cuts that include Medicare and Defense, but NOT Social Security. The goal is that just the threat of this should provide “total motivation” for a committee to find a solution.

The whole thing then triggers the McConnell disapproval process, in which a two-thirds majority would be needed to disapprove of the president’s spending proposals.

The original Boehner plan didn’t have the votes to pass the House in the first try this past week. But this should pass, because it should get the support of many Democrats. Democrats aggressively whipped against the original Boehner proposal.

A House GOP Leadership aide says, “Discussions are moving in the right direction, but serious issues remain. And no agreement will be final until Members have a chance to weigh in.”

MSNBC