Friday, February 26, 2010

Barker's Newsbites: Friday, February 26, 2010


Newsbites for a snowy day - at least here in Harriman, NY!

(Thanks as always to my cyberbud Rodak for tuning in and occasionally leaving a comment...)
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8 comments:

William R. Barker said...

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/02/25/60minutes/main6242498.shtml

"60 Minutes" has obtained an FBI videotape showing a Defense Department employee selling secrets to a Chinese spy for cash. The video, which has never been made public before, offers a rare glimpse into the secretive world of espionage and illustrates how China’s spying may now pose the biggest espionage threat to the U.S.

Scott Pelley's report will be broadcast this Sunday, Feb. 28, at 7 p.m. ET/PT.

In the videotape obtained by "60 Minutes", Gregg Bergersen, a civilian Pentagon worker with a high-security clearance, is shown taking money, about $2,000, from the Chinese spy, Tai Shen Kuo. Bergersen then discusses how he will let Kuo look at secret documents. The documents included the types of weapons the U.S. was selling to its ally Taiwan as well as plans for a classified command and control system that was going to be used by Taiwan.

Bergersen clearly implicates himself on the videotape. "I'm very , very, very reticent to let you have it because it's all classified, but I will let you see it," he tells Kuo. "You know you can write all…the notes you want…it's just I can never let anyone know…I’d get fired for sure on that,” says Bergersen. "Well, not even get fired, I’d go to *** jail!"

That's where Bergersen is now, serving almost five years in federal prison for communicating national defense information. Kuo, a naturalized American citizen, was given 15 years for espionage. Both men pleaded guilty after being shown the tape and other evidence against them.

* FIVE YEARS...???? FIVE YEARS...?!?! AND KUO ONLY GETS FIFTEEN...??? WHAT EVER HAPPENED TO THE DEATH PENALTY - OR AT LEAST LIFE IN PRISON? WE ARE SO FRIGG'N SCREWED...

February 26, 2010 at 11:52 AM
William R. Barker said...

http://www.federalnewsradio.com/index.php?nid=27&sid=1898120

An internal State Department report says the agency's work in publicizing administration foreign policy and its relations with the media have been hurt by poor communication, lack of staffing and uneven leadership in the Bureau of Public Affairs.

A review by the department's inspector general found that some employees had been instructed not to return phone calls to reporters asking sensitive questions...The 63-page document also found that the duties of some career employees in the press office had been transferred to political appointees, which contributed to low morale.

The report's most damaging findings involve the Office of Broadcast Services, which produces and distributes audio and video content to worldwide media outlets. That office, it said, is beset by severe morale problems and hostility between employees and managers.

It said several employees expressed concern "that violence in the workplace could result because of the high levels of workplace animosity and tension."

February 26, 2010 at 11:52 AM
William R. Barker said...

http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/americas/02/24/venezuela.human.rights/index.html?eref=rss_world&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+rss%2Fcnn_world+%28RSS%3A+World%29&utm_content=Google+Reader

Venezuela routinely violates human rights, often intimidating or punishing citizens based on their political beliefs, an Organization of American States commission said in a report released Wednesday.

The 319-page report by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights says a lack of independence by Venezuela's judiciary and legislature in their dealings with leftist President Hugo Chavez often leads to the abuses. "The commission also finds that the punitive power of the state is being used to intimidate or punish people on account of their political opinions. The commission believes that conditions do not exist for human rights defenders and journalists to be able to freely carry out their work."

The OAS commission's report also notes "the existence of a pattern of impunity in cases of violence, which particularly affects media workers, human rights defenders, trade unionists, participants in public demonstrations, people held in custody, 'campesinos' (small-scale and subsistence farmers), indigenous people, and women."

February 26, 2010 at 11:53 AM
William R. Barker said...

* PART 1 of 2 --

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704479404575087311436130980.html

A bipartisan health-care consensus will remain elusive after yesterday's marathon summit... To listen to President Obama and his closest Democratic allies, you'd think John McCain had won the election and their bill had been drafted by Paul Ryan, Tom Coburn and the scholars at the American Enterprise Institute.

Mr. Obama said the key issue is "figuring out how can we control the huge expansion of entitlements," especially "the exploding costs of Medicare." He said Congress must fix "some fundamental structural problems" in U.S. health care, with reforms that lower spending by increasing "choice and competition."

Only minutes into the discussion, it became clear the Democratic strategy was to portray this debate as somehow taking place between the 49 yard lines. Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus chimed in that "The main point is, we basically agree."

Yet the reality is that there is a vast philosophical and policy gulf on health care in Washington. Everyone agrees there are severe problems in the health-care markets. The disagreement is over solutions.

The morning was dominated by an argument over whether ObamaCare would lower insurance costs, and the exchange was telling. Republicans, led by Tennessee Senator Lamar Alexander, rightly said that premiums would increase, while the President disagreed. "This is an example of where we've got to get our facts straight," he said, in keeping with his strategy of depicting any disagreement as factually challenged or politically motivated.

One fact is that the Congressional Budget Office estimates that premiums in the individual market would jump by 10% to 13% in 2016 because the government will mandate that consumers buy richer benefits than they otherwise would. Mr. Obama eventually conceded that point...

(*SHRUG*)

* TO BE CONTINUED...

February 26, 2010 at 12:45 PM
William R. Barker said...

* CONTINUING... (Part 2 of 2)

Despite vastly different consumer health needs and preferences, the core of ObamaCare is the brute-force regulatory standardization of benefits and how they should be paid for, so that government can afford to subsidize health care for all. West Virginia Democrat Jay Rockefeller let the mask slip when he said the goal is to stomp on the insurers and "clip their wings in every way you can," because it is "a rapacious industry that does what it wants." Mr. Rockefeller added that "Sometimes decisions have to come from Washington."

Mr. Ryan, the Wisconsin Republican, posed the fundamental question: "Should people in Washington decide exactly how this works and what you can and cannot buy?"

We thought the GOP acquitted itself fairly well, noting the irresponsibility of using Medicare cuts to float a new entitlement when the status quo has $37 trillion in unfunded liabilities.

[T]he root cause of surging health-care costs is the irrational and regressive tax preference for employer-sponsored insurance only, and both parties left it virtually unmentioned. [Republican Senator and physician Tom] Coburn argued that "If we don't reconnect health-care purchasing with health-care payment, we're not going to get good value out of this system."

Mr. Obama also claimed that "Every proposal that health-care economists say will reduce health-care costs, we've tried to adopt," yet this is demonstrably untrue. The White House has delayed its own excise tax on ultra-expensive health plans (previously sold as the key cost-control measure) until 2018, well after Mr. Obama is out of office, assuming he wins a second term.

In the end, after all the bipartisan cooing, the President's 20-minute closing argument explained where the debate really is. Democrats won the election and they are going to do what they want to do, starting next week and on a partisan vote if they can shanghai enough Members.

The point of yesterday's session was to give a soothing, moderate political gloss to a government health-care takeover that will raise costs, greatly expand the entitlement state, and reduce choice and competition—the opposite of everything Mr. Obama claims.

February 26, 2010 at 12:46 PM
William R. Barker said...

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2010/02/26/cnn-poll-majority-says-government-a-threat-to-citizens-rights/?fbid=WLkIastEl15

A majority of Americans think the federal government poses a threat to rights of Americans, according to a new national poll.

56% of people questioned in a CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey released Friday say they think the federal government's become so large and powerful that it poses an immediate threat to the rights and freedoms of ordinary citizens. Forty-four percent of those polled disagree.

The survey indicates a partisan divide on the question: 37% of Democrats, 63% of Independents and nearly 70% [of] Republicans say the federal government poses a threat to the rights of Americans.

According to CNN poll numbers released Sunday, Americans overwhelmingly think that the U.S. government is broken...

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/us-secret-service-outdated-computer-mainframe-system-1980s/story?id=9945663

A classified review of the United States Secret Service's computer technology found that the agency's computers were fully operational only 60 percent of the time because of outdated systems and a reliance on a computer mainframe that dates to the 1980s, according to Sen. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn.

Lieberman says he's had "concern for a while" about the Secret Service computers. A 60 percent, fully operational average is far worse than "industry and government standards that are around 98 percent generally," Lieberman said.

A Secret Service contracting memo from Oct. 16, 2009, reviewed by ABC News found, "Currently, 42 mission-oriented applications run on a 1980s IBM mainframe with a 68 percent performance reliability rating. Networks, data systems, applications, and IT security do not meet current operational requirements. The IT systems lack appropriate bandwidth to run multiple applications to effectively support USSS offices and operational missions around the world."

This is not the first time that drastically out of date computer systems have been discovered in federal agencies. The FBI revealed it suffered from major computer problems following the scrutiny the bureau received after the 9/11 attacks.

* I'M SURPRISED THE REPORTER/EDITOR DIDN'T BRING UP NOTORIOUS FAA TECHNOLOGY PROBLEMS! LISTEN... THE SECRET SERVICE... THE FBI... THE FAA... AND OBAMA AND THE DEMS LOOK AT THE TRACK RECORD AND TALK ABOUT HOW GOVERNMENT CAN HELP "MODERNIZE" ELECTRONIC RECORD KEEPING AND SUCH WHEN IT COMES TO HEALTH "REFORM?"

(*SNORT*)

February 26, 2010 at 12:46 PM
William R. Barker said...

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704479404575087163975017470.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEFTTopOpinion

[Dr. Bill Frist; former Senate Majority Leader]Applying the reconciliation process is dangerous because it would likely destroy its true purpose, which is to help enact fiscal policy consistent with an agreed-upon congressional budget blueprint. Worse, using reconciliation to amend a bill before it has become law in order to avoid the normal House and Senate conference procedure is a total affront to the legislative process.

Budget reconciliation is an arcane Senate procedure whereby legislation can be passed using a lowered threshold of requisite votes (a simple majority) under fast-track rules that limit debate. This process was intended for incremental changes to the budget—not sweeping social legislation.

Using the budget reconciliation procedure to pass health-care reform would be unprecedented because Congress has never used it to adopt major, substantive policy change. The Senate's health bill is without question such a change: It would fundamentally alter one-fifth of our economy.

The first use of this special procedure was in the fall of 1980, as the Democratic majority in Congress moved to reduce entitlement programs in response to candidate Ronald Reagan's focus on the growing deficit. Throughout the 1980s and '90s, reconciliation was used to reduce deficit projections and to enact budget enforcement mechanisms. In early 2001, with projected surpluses well into the future, it was used to return a portion of that surplus to the public by changing tax rates.

Senators of both parties have assiduously avoided using budget reconciliation as a mechanism to pass expansive social legislation that lacks bipartisan support.

In 1993, Democratic leaders—including the dean of Senate procedure and an author of the original Budget Act, Robert C. Byrd— appropriately prevailed on the Clinton administration not to use reconciliation to adopt its health-care agenda.

It was used to pass welfare reform in 1996, an entitlement program, but the changes had substantial bipartisan support.

In 2003, while I was serving as majority leader, Republicans used the reconciliation process to enact tax cuts. I was approached by members of my own caucus to use reconciliation to extend prescription drug coverage to millions of Medicare recipients. I resisted.

The Congress considered the legislation under regular order, and the Medicare Modernization Act passed through the normal legislative procedure in 2003.

Applying the reconciliation process is dangerous because it would likely destroy its true purpose, which is to help enact fiscal policy consistent with an agreed-upon congressional budget blueprint. Worse, using reconciliation to amend a bill before it has become law in order to avoid the normal House and Senate conference procedure is a total affront to the legislative process.

Thomas Jefferson once referred to the Senate as "the cooling saucer" of the legislative process. Using budget reconciliation in this way would dramatically alter the founders' intent for the Senate, and transform it from cooling saucer to a boiling teapot of partisanship.

February 26, 2010 at 1:35 PM
William R. Barker said...

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=alet_UTqF04M

Fannie Mae, the mortgage-finance company under federal conservatorship, said it will seek $15.3 billion in aid from the U.S. Treasury after posting a 10th straight quarterly loss.

A fourth-quarter net loss of $16.3 billion pushed the company to request its fifth draw on an unlimited lifeline from the government, Washington-based Fannie Mae said in a filing today with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Fannie Mae, which posted $120.5 billion in losses over the previous nine quarters, has taken $59.9 billion in federal aid since April. The Treasury owns 79.9 percent of Fannie Mae’s outstanding common shares.

Washington-based Fannie Mae, which owns or guarantees about 28 percent of the $11.8 trillion U.S. home-loan market lost $74.4 billion for the 12 months ended Dec. 31, compared with $59.8 billion in 2008.

Fannie Mae’s borrowings from Treasury will total $76.2 billion after the next payout, carrying with it an annual dividend cost of $7.6 billion, which the company said it will repay by borrowing more money from the Treasury.

* DOES THE ABOVE MAKE ANY SENSE TO ANYONE READING THIS...??? WHAT IS AN "ANNUAL DIVIDEND COST?" AND IF THIS COST IS A DEBT - OR A COST - THAT FANNIE MAE CAN'T AFFORD TO BEGIN WITH, WHY WOULD WE WANT THE TREASURY "LOANING" FANNIE MAE AN ADDITIONAL $7.6 BILLION TO REPAY IT...???

The company said the ability to tap continuing cash infusions from the Treasury this year “is critical to keeping us solvent and avoiding the appointment of a receiver.”

* BUT THEY'RE NOT SOLVENT - NOT INDEPENDENTLY SOLVENT! THEY'RE IN DEBT, HEMORRHAGING MONEY, AND ONLY TAXPAYER WELFARE IS KEEPING THEM IN EXISTENCE. I MEAN... JEZZ... THEY'RE "SOLVENT" IN THE SENSE THAT EDSEL WOULD BE MANUFACTURING CARS TODAY IF THE GOVERNMENT HAD BAILED THEM OUT AND THEN GIVEN THEM AN "UNLIMITED LIFETIME DRAW" UPON THE FEDERAL TREASURY. ARE YOU FRIGG'N KIDDING ME...?!?!

Losses at Fannie Mae are likely to grow with rising unemployment and costs to implement President Barack Obama’s plans to reduce foreclosures, the company said.

* AND DOESN'T THAT INFO JUST SCREAM THE WORD "SOLVENT" AT YOU... (*SMIRK*)

Fannie Mae and McLean, Virginia-based Freddie Mac survived last year on investments the government made in the companies after regulators put them in conservatorship in September 2008. The Treasury on Christmas Eve removed a $200 billion limit on each company, extending unlimited backing through 2012.

* ON "INVESTMENTS...???" "INVESTMENTS...?!?!" THAT'S WHAT THEY'RE CALLING BAILOUTS, WELFARE...??? (*SNORT*)

The two companies own or guarantee more than $5 trillion in U.S. residential debt, and were responsible for as much as 75 percent of the new mortgages made last year.

* NO, NO... THEY DON'T "OWN" OR "GUARANTEE" MORE THAN $5 TRILLION... WE THE TAXPAYERS DO... OUR CHILDREN AND GRANDCHILDREN DO.

Fannie Mae’s net worth, or the difference between assets and liabilities, was negative $15.3 billion as of Dec. 31, compared with negative $15 billion on Sept. 30 and negative $10.6 billion on June 30, according to company statements.

The amount of nonperforming loans that Fannie Mae guarantees for other investors rose to $174.6 billion from $163.9 billion in the third quarter, according to the filing. Fannie Mae also owned $41.9 billion in non-performing loans as of Dec. 31, up from $34.2 billion in the third quarter.

The fair value of Fannie Mae’s assets was negative $98.8 billion last quarter, compared with negative $90.4 billion at the end of September.

February 26, 2010 at 9:03 PM

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