Spark Notes

The Republicans, concerned with getting reelected by frothing, cretinous Teatards have taken a principled stand against raising the debt ceiling, something every single incumbent has voted for in the past.
Not voting for it could mean the collapse of the US economy with all the attendant damage that would do to the world.
Of course there are ways around that; Obama could simply declare it unconstitutional not to vote for it, citing the 14th Amendment, among other solutions, but he has decided not to bother with such routes.
Instead, he dangles massive spending cuts including to the aforementioned entitlement programs while asking for a pittance in tax revenue from the GOP, and of course military cuts are not even considered...
He's being the adult, the better man, he's compromising~
Of course, the elephant in the room is why all those who bankroll the GOP and the Democrats, the various corporate entities and the super-rich who would be harmed (but by no means be the worst affected) by a default on American debt would even allow their lackeys in Congress to actually implement such a threat.
And the answer is: they wouldn't (Boehner's postponed the vote, even). It's all theater, a convenient way for everyone (except the vast majority of the American people) to get what they want; less government handouts to the most vulnerable Americans, less money being paid by the wealthiest Americans, and maintaining a facade of the wise elder statesman, valiantly holding off the barbarians at the gates, while the barbarians get to pretend they're upholding real American values.
Oh, and they get to sack America again.

Needs Work

Your own... Chocolaty... Jesus...
Don't hear your prayers, he's candy to share...
Your own... Chocolaty... Jesus...
Don't get on your knees for prayer, he's always there...
At Zerelda Lee's Candy Wares...

How Concise

"The CIA funnels opium and other drugs into underworld organizations in return for said criminal enterprises' complicit involvement with the suppression of local socialist and revolutionary movements. Most notably, this happened during the Vietnam War when the CIA was buying heroin from Khmer warlords in Cambodia and selling it to the mafia so they could flood the streets of Harlem and other black neighborhoods with enough dope to keep the Black Panthers and other Black Power groups too stoned to fight."

-Anonymous, 06/11/11

The Value of Planning Ahead

I'm curious as to why Osama didn't take the Assange route and tuck away some incriminating documents concerning his job history at the CIA somewhere, ordering someone to release them should he ever be caught or killed.
Even if we did capture him and put him on trial, its not like we'd do any but the most superficial of trials, sort of like the one Saddam got that was cut off before they could get to his complicity and work for the US government.

Osama

The Taliban offered to hand Bin Laden over to a neutral third party nation for a criminal trial if we stopped bombing and provided evidence he did it.


So we went ahead and declared war on a nation and a peoples that had nothing to do with 9/11, mostly ignoring Al'Qaeda's Saudi and Pakistani relations.

Meanwhile, we let him escape at Tora Bora because of an unwillingness to commit more troops to the fight, losing bearing on him for 10 years. And yet we continued to fight a war there predicated on capturing him and ending support for his terrorist network while he and his group slipped out of Afghanistan altogether.

In that decade,
Tens of thousands more refugees have been created

And those are just the more prevalent problems, not to mention the fact that "Al'Qaeda in Iraq" was one of the bullshit reasons we invaded that country.

We finally kill him (in Pakistan, shock of shocks) after most of you have seemingly forgotten about this fucking boogeyman and you all cheer!

I hope that price which we continue to pay, which your children will continue to pay was worth it.

Enjoy your corpse.