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2010
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March
(34)
- Barker's Newsbites: Wednesday, March 31, 2010
- Barker's Newsbites: Tuesday, March 30, 2010
- Barker's Newsbites: Monday, March 29, 2010
- Weekend Newsbites: Sat. & Sun., March 27 & 28, 2010
- None Of Your Goddamn Business!
- A George Will Column Deserving Its Own "Dedicated ...
- Barker's Newsbites: Friday, March 26, 2010
- Barker's Newsbites: Thursday, March 25, 2010
- Barker's Newbites: Wednesday, March 24, 2010
- Barker's Newsbites: Tuesday, March 23, 2010
- Regarding No Newsbites Since Friday...
- Tip of the Hat to Oli Mackson
- Barker's Newsbites: Friday, March 19, 2010
- Barker's Newsbites: Thursday, March 18, 2010
- Barker's Newsbites: Wednesday, March 17, 2010
- Annie (and Andy!) Get Your Guns...???
- Barker's Newsbites: Tuesday, March 16, 2010
- This "Newsbite" Deserves A Separate Posting
- Barker's Newsbites: Monday, March 15, 2010
- Weekend Newsbites: Sat. & Sun., March 13 & 14, 2010
- Barker's Newsbites: Friday, March 12, 2010
- Barker's Newsbites: Thursday, March 11, 2010
- Barker's Newsbites: Wednesday, March 10, 2010
- Barker's Newsbites: Tuesday, March 9, 2010
- Barker's Newsbites: Monday, March 8, 2010
- Weekend Newsbites: Sat. & Sun., March 6 & 7, 2010
- Barker's Newsbites: Friday, March 5, 2010
- Barker's Newsbites: Thursday, March 4, 2010
- Barker's Newsbites: Wednesday, March 3, 2010
- The Anti-Bunning Twenty-One
- Partial Kudos to President Obama
- Barker's Newsbites: Tuesday, March 2, 2010
- Egomaniacal... or simply yet another example of my...
- Barker's Newsbites: Monday, March 1, 2010
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March
(34)
About Me
- William R. Barker
- Pearl River, NY High School Class of '81; Northeastern University, Boston, MA Class of '87.
13 comments:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/05/AR2010030502974.html
President Obama's proposed budget would add more than $9.7 trillion to the national debt over the next decade, congressional budget analysts said Friday.
* I DIDN'T VOTE FOR THIS... DID ANY OF YOU? IN 2006 THE DEMS RAN ON A PLATFORM OF BRINGING FISCAL RESPONSIBILITY BACK; SINCE WINNING CONGRESS IN 2006 THEY'VE DONE EXACTLY THE OPPOSITE. AND SINCE OBAMA HAS BEEN PRESIDENT... THINGS HAVE GONE FROM BAD TO WORSE. THIS ISN'T OPINION - THIS IS FACT. THE NUMBERS DON'T LIE.
Proposed tax cuts for the middle class account for nearly a third of that shortfall.
* BRIBING US WITH OUR OWN MONEY; CUTE! FOLKS... WE'RE RESPONSIBLE FOR THE DEBT BEING ACCRUED! OUR CHILDREN WILL BE RESPONSIBLE... THEIR CHILDREN WILL BE RESPONSIBLE. THIS IS REPREHENSIBLE.
The 10-year outlook released by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office is somewhat gloomier than White House projections...
* OH... BIG FRIGG'N SURPRISE... (*SMIRK*)
...which found that Obama's budget request would produce deficits that would add about $8.5 trillion to the national debt by 2020.
* HMM... ISN'T THIS THE SAME OBAMA ADMINISTRATION AND DEMOCRATIC PARTY THAT KEEPS INSISTING THEIR PROJECTIONS CONCERNING THEIR HEALTH "REFORM" PROPOSALS COULDN'T POSSIBLE BE WRONG...???
(*SNORT*)
The CBO and the White House are in relative agreement about the short-term budget picture, with both predicting a deficit of about $1.5 trillion this year -- a post-World War II record at 10.3 percent of the overall economy -- and $1.3 trillion in 2011. But the CBO is considerably less optimistic about future years, predicting that deficits would never fall below 4 percent of the economy under Obama's policies...
(*SIGH*)
...and would begin to grow rapidly after 2015.
* ENOUGH! DON'T YOU FOLKS GET IT...??? ALL THE TALK ABOUT DEFICIT REDUCTION COMING OUT OF THE MOUTHS OF ADMINISTRATION FIGURES AND DEMOCRATS IN CONGRESS IS BULL$HIT!
Deficits of that magnitude would force the Treasury to continue borrowing at prodigious rates, sending the national debt soaring to 90 percent of the economy by 2020, the CBO said.
Interest payments [alone!] on the debt would also skyrocket by $800 billion over the same period.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703915204575104100666730236.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_RIGHTBelowPepperandSalt
Over the last three days, ABC's World News devoted almost six times as much coverage to Senator Jim Bunning and his temporary hold-up of an unemployment bill as the program did for the ongoing revelations that Democratic Charlie Rangel violated House ethics with his trips to the Caribbean.
[ABC] World News investigated and followed the Republican for four minutes and 38 seconds over two days. In comparison, the program could only manage a scant 48 seconds of coverage for Rangel.
(Anchor Diane Sawyer on Wednesday finally asked George Stephanopoulos about the news that Rangel was stepping down from his powerful Ways and Means committee.)
The difference here is that Rangel's story was an actual scandal and ABC only treated Bunning's actions, which amounted to not giving unanimous consent to a $10 billion spending bill, as a scandal.
(*SNORT*) (*CHUCKLE*)
on March 2, ABC correspondent Jonathan Karl hyperbolically reported how Bunning was "denying" people unemployment. Karl confronted the politician and tried to force his way onto a Senator's only elevator.
The reporter breathlessly asserted, "We wanted to ask the Senator why he is blocking a vote that would extend unemployment benefits to more than 340,000 Americas, including Brenda Wood, a teacher in Austin, Texas who has been out of work for two years."
On Wednesday, anchor Diane Sawyer explained in a matter-of-fact tone: "Congressman Charlie Rangel of New York, powerful, immensely powerful, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee is stepping down as chairman."
(*GUFFAW*)
Guest Stephanopoulos did describe the resignation as a "real blow" to Democrats. But the brief coverage lacked the dramatic tone of ABC's stakeout for Senator Bunning.
World News featured Bunning for two minutes and 16 seconds on Monday and two minutes and 22 seconds on Tuesday. The program devoted 48 seconds to Rangel on Wednesday.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703915204575103791277332222.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEFTTopOpinion
Nancy Pelosi is trying to shoo House Democrats into voting for the Senate health care bill, but members are more worried than ever that the Senate won't then implement the necessary changes through the reconciliation process to make the final bill acceptable.
They have good reason for concern.
President Obama may wind up just signing the Senate bill into law no changes whatsoever -- preserving some of the most egregious elements that made the Senate bill such a public lightning rod.
These include not just the "Cornhusker Kickback," "Louisiana Purchase" and other special-interest deals rolled into the Senate bill last December to buy wavering Democratic votes. Democrats also would have to explain all over again why 800,000 seniors in Florida will be spared Medicare Advantage cuts, while those elsewhere won't.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703862704575100082049276188.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEFTTopOpinion
The Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP) of World War II will finally be given the recognition and honor they deserve on March 10. That's when they will receive the Congressional Gold Medal in a ceremony to be held at the United States Capitol.
* FOLLOW THE LINK. READ THE ARTICLE. IT'S THE LEAST - THE VERY LEAST - THAT YOU CAN DO TO HONOR THESE BRAVE WOMEN.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703915204575103533212727258.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_AboveLEFTTop
[On Thursday] the Obama Administration released a list of state "finalists" for $4.35 billion in Race to the Top education grants.
Joe Williams of Democrats for Education Reform said that New York's appearance on the list of 16 finalists was "baffling." Andrew Rotherham, who writes the left-leaning Eduwonk blog, noted that Ohio's presence on the list "is not a great sign." New York has a law in place that prevents student test scores from influencing teacher tenure decisions. Ohio allows teachers unions to decide when student data can be used to evaluate instructors. Both states cap the number of charter schools that are allowed to operate.
Education Secretary Arne Duncan has repeatedly indicated that such policies would hurt a state's chances of receiving a grant, not make it a finalist.
(*SMIRK*)
And he's gone out of his way to praise states that have removed barriers to school choice and using student records to identify good teachers.
* WATCH WHAT THEY DO - NOT WHAT THEY SAY.
There were 41 applicants in total, and no one was surprised that reformist states like Florida, Massachusetts, Tennessee and Louisiana made the cut. But so did Kentucky, which doesn't even have a charter law.
(*SMIRK*)
No doubt it's just coincidence that 10 of the 16 finalists, including politically important Ohio, have a Democratic governor. The eleventh, Washington, D.C., is also run by a Democrat.
* IT'S REALLY NOT FUNNY... BUT STILL... HOW CAN YOU HELP BY LAUGH AT THE SHEER MOXY OF THESE PEOPLE...
Mr. Duncan insists that most of these states will be disappointed, and we hope he sets the grant bar high. But the expansive nature of this list, which includes so many obviously undeserving states, is the result of a political process that has put Mr. Duncan under enormous pressure to make too many people happy.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703915204575103273147345014.html
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, facing the worst budget crisis in [California] state history, cut about $600 million in overall funding for 10-campus University of California and the 23-campus California State University.
Then the U.C. regents and C.S.U. trustees, facing budget crises of their own, reduced programs, furloughed workers, and raised tuition.
Students and faculty erupted throughout California...
Berkeley Chancellor Robert Birgeneau claimed that protests "exemplified the best of our tradition of effective civil action." And so Berkeley students organized a "mobilizing conference," then disrupted the university by pulling fire alarms and occupying a building in November.
(*SNORT*)
* MY THOUGHT...? FIRE BIRGENEAU.
Despite the budget cuts, California will this year devote $3 billion to the U.C. system. That's about $13,000 per student—more than the $10,000 per student that Illinois devotes to the University of Illinois and better than double the $6,000 per student that New York devotes to the SUNY system. Yet Mr. Schwarzenegger did not denounce the agitation at Berkeley. He gave in to it.
* TYPICAL SWARZENEGGER.
(*SHRUG*)
"I will protect education funding in this budget," he proclaimed in his state of the state address in January. Although still facing an enormous deficit, he proposed to increase funding for higher education by 12%.
(*HEADACHE*)
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703862704575099832389494288.html
Last spring the House agreed to investigate seven members of the House subcommittee on defense spending, including its chairman the late John Murtha. The matter went over to the Office of Congressional Ethics (OCE), an independent body of ethics scrubbers—including former Members Abner Mikva, Bill Frenzel and Porter Goss—that Speaker Nancy Pelosi very publicly created two years ago.
At issue was the charge that defense-industry clients of the lobbying shop of Paul Magliocchetti and Associates (PMA) were funneling campaign contributions to Congressmen in exchange for government contracts. PMA's business collapsed in November 2008 after the FBI raided its Virginia offices under suspicion of illegal campaign contributions. Its founder was a former aide for the defense subcommittee and his mentor was John Murtha. According to the Seattle Times, in "the 2008 defense bill alone, lawmakers gave PMA clients 172 earmarks."
The report issued by the OCE is a story for our times.
For starters, it recommended dismissal of the cases of Murtha, James Moran (D., Va.,), Norman Dicks (D-WA), Marcy Kaptur (D-OH), and C.W. Young (R-FL). This came after the OCE reviewed available documents and interviewed the Members. All claimed the earmarks were awarded solely on merit and not as a quid pro quo.
But Rep. Peter Visclosky (D-IN) and Rep. Todd Tiahrt (R-KS) refused to be interviewed by the OCE, leaving the committee dependent on the existing paper trail.
* SOUNDS LIKE A GREAT SYSTEM, HUH... SUSPECTS CAN SIMPLY REFUSE TO COOPERATE. (*SMIRK*)
In the case of Mr. Visclosky, the OCE reported he "solicited PMA clients for campaign contributions and provided them with special access to him and his staff one week before authoring their earmarks." The OCE further notes in its report to Congress that the documents it reviewed "show that PMA clients perceived a connection between appropriations requests and campaign contributions" to Mr. Visclosky.
The OCE does not have subpoena power. But it found "probable cause" that there was a quid pro quo and noted that his actions "were similar to those that the Ethics Committee admonished in the past." It voted 6-0 for further investigation of Mr. Visclosky.
In the case of Mr. Tiahrt, the OCE report found that the Congressman's military legislative assistant was present at fund-raisers, a no-no. His constituents also seemed to perceive a connection between giving money and getting earmarks. ... The OCE voted 4-0, with 2 abstentions, that Congress should review these allegations.
Thus we arrive at the denouement, the decision by the real Ethics Committee—the House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct. Get this: The Committee said late last week it could find no evidence "that members or their official staff considered campaign contributions as a factor when requesting earmarks."
Not even a "factor"? Instead the villains are the lobbyists, who, the report says "employed 'strong-armed' tactics" to try to link contributions to earmarks. The report also said there was a "wide-spread perception among corporations and lobbyists" that contributions were linked to access and earmarks. Imagine that.
What this judgment means is that the earmark favor factory has now been given an ethics green light. The culture of earmarks, of which there were nearly 10,000 in the FY2010 spending bills, will not be uprooted by this Congress. Unlike the cherry blossoms, this doesn't make a pretty picture.
* ALL UNDER NANCY PELOSI'S WATCH... (*SHRUG*)
http://blog.heritage.org/2010/03/06/think-medicaid-expansion-is-a-good-idea-think-again/
Most everyone agrees that decreasing the number of the uninsured is an important goal of health care legislation. What is not agreed upon is the best way to achieve that goal.
Obama’s health care plan depends on expanding the number of Americans enrolled in Medicaid...
New research by Heritage’s health fellow Brian Blase presents evidence suggesting that Medicaid expansion would be both costly and do little to improve the health of the uninsured.
Blase examines the “TennCare” program, a Tennessee public program enacted in 1994 that dramatically increased the expansion of Medicaid to Tennessee’s uninsured population.
The TennCare program quickly added over half a million individuals to Medicaid, enrolling one-fourth of the entire state. [C]osts...skyrocketed.
Per-capita Medicaid spending from 1994-2004 increased by 146% in Tennessee, which was over double the national average increase of 71%.
The most shocking result of Blase’s analysis was not just the increase in costs. It was the apparent lack of improvement in health outcomes in Tennessee in the years following TennCare’s enactment.
Blase concluded that, relative to eight surrounding states, the quality of health care in Tennessee actually declined after the expansion of Medicaid.
The decline in Tennessee’s mortality rate for 15-64 year olds – those most likely to be impacted by TennCare – compared less favorably after TennCare to the states surrounding Tennessee that before its enactment. On average, the mortality rates of the eight surrounding states to Tennessee declined by 5.2% from 1994-1998. Tennessee’s mortality rate declined by only 2.1%.
The lessons learned from TennCare should serve as a warning of what we should expect from a national program of Medicaid expansion. In short, it will be costly and will do little to improve health care quality in the United States.
The notion of expanding coverage is meaningless if it does not improve the health of the uninsured. There are seemingly dozens of ways to increase insurance coverage with better results than a vast and costly expansion of Medicaid. Congress should strongly consider the weaknesses of the Tennessee’s experience before they prescribe the nation similar medicine to TennCare.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/05/AR2010030502972.html
While health-care reform occupies the spotlight, the Obama administration is pushing for another Washington takeover - this time of the student loan system.
Starting in July, all 19 million students who want government-backed loans will line up at offices designated by the U.S. Education Department. Gone will be the days when students and their colleges picked the lender that best fit their needs; instead, a federal bureaucrat will make that choice for every student in America based on still-unclear guidelines.They say that this will save taxpayers up to $87 billion in subsidies that now go to "greedy" banks.
In gleeful anticipation, members of Congress have lined up to spend those billions on Pell Grants and almost a dozen other programs. Banks are punished. Students are helped. Members of Congress look good.
The Education Department will borrow money at 2.8% from the Treasury, lend it to you at 6.8% and spend the difference on new programs. So you'll work longer to pay off your student loan to help pay for someone else's education - and to help your U.S. representative's reelection.
The estimated $87 billion in savings isn't real. According to a July 2009 letter from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) to Sen. Judd Gregg (R-NH), the savings are closer to $47 billion including administrative costs, if we use the same "scoring" (i.e., cost analysis) method that Congress required the CBO to use when it scored the Troubled Asset Relief Program last year because the method would more accurately calculate the cost to taxpayers.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2010/03/07/case_for_a_scythe_104668.html
To the drafters of the 14th Amendment, the phrase "privileges or immunities" was synonymous with "basic civil rights." But in 1873, the court held that only some of the rights enumerated in the Bill of Rights restrict states by being "incorporated" into the 14th Amendment's "due process" clause.
Since 1897, the court has held, with no discernible principle, that some rights enumerated in the Bill of Rights are sufficiently fundamental to be "incorporated" but others are not. This doctrine bears the oxymoronic name "substantive due process."
Substance is what process questions are not about. (*SMIRK*)
And even Justice Antonin Scalia, who recognizes that "substantive due process" is intellectual applesauce, thinks it is too late to repudiate 137 years of the stuff.
(*SIGH*)
* SCALIA IS WRONG. FOR TRUE CONSTITUTIONALISTS, JUSTICE THOMAS IS OUR TRUE ROLE MODEL.
[P]rotecting the individual's right to keep and bear arms for self-defense was frequently mentioned by those who drafted and ratified the 14th Amendment, the purpose of which was to protect former slaves and their advocates from being disarmed by state and local governments determined to assault their security and limit their autonomy.
[T]he central tenet of American political philosophy is that government is instituted not to bestow rights but to protect pre-existing rights, aka natural rights - those essential to the flourishing of our natures. In its 2008 decision, the court affirmed that the Second Amendment did not grant a right to keep and bear arms, it "codified a pre-existing right."
"Privileges or Immunities" are all those Rights that, at the time the 14th Amendment was ratified, were understood to be central to Americans' enjoyment of the blessings of liberty.
* BRIBING US WITH OUR OWN MONEY; CUTE! FOLKS...
That works damned well for Republicans with the rich.
Over the last three days, ABC's World News devoted almost six times as much coverage to Senator Jim Bunning and his temporary hold-up of an unemployment bill as the program did for the ongoing revelations that Democratic Charlie Rangel
Bunning's showboating negatively, and immediately affects the lives of millions of Americans. Rangel's rather commonplace transgressions hurt virtually nobody but Rangel himself. If it weren't covered at all, nobody would be able to detect it in their own lives.
Politics is populated by amoral people on the make, just as police forces are populated by amoral, brutal thugs. I thought these were "news"bites? This sh*t ain't news, amigo.
RODAK WRITES...
"That works damned well for Republicans with the rich."
(*SMIRK*) (*ROLLING MY EYES*) (*GRIN*)
Oh, Rob...
(*CHUCKLE*)
Red meat for the Left, but for average Americans... not so much anymore.
At least that's what the polls indicate.
RODAK CONTINUES...
"Rangel's rather commonplace transgressions hurt virtually nobody..."
Again. My only wish is that more likely voters were exposed to your opinions, Rob. Seriously!
(*GRIN*)
Oh, well... I guess we'll both just have to take what we can get.
(*WINK*)
BILL
Your retorts are too lame to respond to. As I've been telling you for years, you can cut and paste with the best of them. But you've got no game.
You are a poster boy for Stanley Fish. All you can do is stack up "facts." You are unable to give them any meaning. You don't, it seems, think that giving them meaning is of any importance. When others do give them meaning, you shrug, roll your eyes, and inarticulately go out with your scissors to snip more factoids out of their context. Why bother?
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