Quick answers to US politics queries for those of us not in the know.

Amigo is about half right, but doesn't always speak simply. That's why they won't let him have an avatar.

I don't know what email account I made this A2K thing with. It's long gone.

You misspelled moron, home slice . . .

What difference does it make? MsOlga has run out of questions because we already answered them all. That means there will be no answers, true or false.

Couldn't Beck be both?

Not true at all , Thomas.

Questions come up as new issues appear.

Jeez, amigo, same thing happened to me, sort of--when the current model a2k came in, I couldn't remember what my email account three IP-mergers-swallowups back was, so theyt wouldn't let me use my a2k username--they said someone else was already using it, AND THE SOMEONE ELSE WAS ME, DAMMIT, but would they listen? noooo. so i had to revert to abuzz names, and it still kinda rankles.

I'm curious, Monterey Jack. What was your previous, real A2K username? (If you don't mind saying.)

my username was username.

he is

Ah! Now I know who I'm talking to!

(Sounds like someone from a Kurt Vonnegut novel! )

Some debt ceiling questions:

Is there a precedent to the situation that the US finds itself in at the moment?

If so, what were the circumstances & how were they resolved?

Is it unusual for US governments to raise the debt ceiling?

If not, how often has the debt ceiling been raised in past recent history? And in what sorts of circumstances?

(I didn't want to interrupt the flow of RJB's thread by asking these questions there. Nor is this the thread for debating the current impasse, OK?
But I'd be very interested know more about the background to this issue, if anyone would care to supply the information. Thanks in advance.)

Not really. Off the top of my head, the closest thing to a precedent was the Iranian hostage crisis of 1979---with Carter in the role of Obama, the hostage-taking Mullahs in the role of the Tea Party, and the hostages in the role of the American people. Of course, that's more of an analogy than a precedent.


No, so far Congress has always treated it as a formality. At most, members of the opposition have often voted "no" as a means of political posturing, Senator Obama having been one of them in 2006. But that's it. Congress has never failed to raise the debt ceiling once it had approved the budget.


Dozens of times. CNN, in the first Google hit for the search phrase "how often has the debt ceiling been raised?", counts 74 times starting in 1962. That sounds about right to me.

Thank you very much, Thomas.


That many times!
And here was I, thinking this was some sort of unique situation!


I will say no more.

This article will give you a good background to past battles over raising the debt ceiling.

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/fights-over-debt-limit-have-long-history-2011-07-28

This is disgraceful - not only do you persist in vast ignorance, you're also misleading innocent foreigners who have no way of knowing we defaulted twice in the 20th century, in 1934 (see Perry v. United States) and in 1979 as well. This August 2nd "deadline" is imaginary - our debt/GDP ratio is over 100% NOW:
http://able2know.org/topic/173915-48#post-4683274
Anybody interested should read the entire relevant thread - if you had, you wouldn't be making such absurd factual errors. Pls stick to particle physics

Thanks, Butrflynet & High Seas.