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[credit: Steve Sack, Star Tribune]
Wackydoodle axes: Is that ther' AC or DC? |
Uncle Sam is doing the fastest tap dance he can while K.J. Un and his Musudans supplies the music.
"Unacceptable" to his own party's progressive wing is B. O'Drama's offer to cut Social Security entitlements using an accounting trick known as "chained CPI"
{25.03.13,"Unchain My CPI"}. The equitable solution is
not further erosion of the elderly's buying power, but taxation of high wages exempt under the cap on FICA.
US Person thinks if we really are on the same boat, then
everybody should pay a fair share of operating costs.
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| [credit: Rick McKee, Augusta Chronicle] |
US representatives met with North Korean officials in New York in mid-March via their UN office. The "New York channel" has been a useful communication link in the past since the two nations do not have formal diplomatic relations and are technically still in a state of war, sixty years after a negotiated cease fire ended the Korean War. However, the unofficial channel has become a method of exchanging boilerplate without any candid exchanges that could lead to a diplomatic solution of a very
difficult relationship mired in cold war rhetoric. The State Department has not yet revised its travel advisory for Americans traveling to South Korea.
More: When Secretary John Kerry was Senator Kerry and head of the Foreign Relations Committee, he advocated direct bilateral talks with North Korea instead of imposing preconditions of behavior modification. During a prior round of brinksmanship in 2011, Kerry said, "We must get beyond the political point that engaging North Korea is somehow 'rewarding bad behavior'. It is
not." He further added that not officially talking to North Korea contributed to its "dangerous and destabilizing conduct". Kerry concluded that initiating bilateral negotiations would be a way take the initiative, deescalate a dangerous standoff and lay the groundwork for resumption of Six Party talks.
