Thursday, May 20, 2010

Barker's Newsbites: Thursday, May 20, 2010


Simpler times...
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10 comments:

William R. Barker said...

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20100520/D9FQHH2O0.html

Homeland Security and Pentagon officials are at loggerheads over a plan to send National Guard troops to the U.S.-Mexico border, even as President Barack Obama is pledging to bolster security there.

The Guard stalemate has festered for nearly a year, and frustrated lawmakers are demanding action to stem the spread of violence and drug trafficking that has spilled across the border into their states. The inaction raises questions about whether the White House is...

* IS EVEN MINIMALLY COMPETENT! JEEZUS... OBAMA IS THE PRESIDENT... HOMELAND SECURITY WORKS FOR HIM... THE PENTAGON FOLLOWS THE ORDERS OF THE PRESIDENT... DON'T PORTRAY THIS AS IF OBAMA IS A HELPLESS BYSTANDER!

Speaking at the White House on Wednesday with Mexican President Felipe Calderon, Obama said the U.S. is committed to standing with Mexico against the drug cartels.

* JEEZUS...!!! WOULDN'T IT BE NICE IF THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES WOULD STAND WITH... er... THE UNITED STATES...?!?!

"If you'll indulge me, we think we have another crisis on the border," Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., told Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano at a hearing this week. "I want to know about whether you're going to send the Guard to the border or not."

When she tried to explain other DHS improvements along the border, McCain cut her off.

"People's homes are being violated, and their families can't take kids to the bus stop," the senator fumed. "And you are very familiar with the issue, because you yourself asked for the Guard to go to the border back in 2006."

Napolitano, a former Arizona governor, responded that the request involves the White House as well as the Pentagon and the Homeland Security Department, and is still in the interagency process. While she said she would like the decision to be made as soon as possible, she added she could not say when she would have an answer.

* SERIOUSLY... WE'RE TALKING EITHER INCOMPETENCE ON A SCALE BEYOND COMPREHENSION, OR... THIS IS PURPOSEFUL - THE ACTUAL POLICY OF THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION.

May 20, 2010 at 9:22 AM
William R. Barker said...

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20100520/D9FQGC2G0.html

Tensions deepened Thursday on the Korean peninsula as South Korea accused North Korea of firing a torpedo that sank a naval warship, killing 46 sailors in the country's worst military disaster since the Korean War.

* WELL... THAT IS THE CONCLUSION OF INDEPENDENT MULTI-NATIONAL INVESTIGATION... (*SHRUG*)

President Lee Myung-bak vowed "stern action" for the provocation following the release of long-awaited results from a multinational investigation into the March 26 sinking near the Koreas' tense maritime border. North Korea, reacting swiftly, called the results a fabrication, and warned that any retaliation would trigger war. It continued to deny involvement in the sinking of the warship Cheonan.

"If the (South Korean) enemies try to deal any retaliation or punishment, or if they try sanctions or a strike on us .... we will answer to this with all-out war," Col. Pak In Ho of North Korea's navy told broadcaster APTN in an exclusive interview in Pyongyang.

The White House called the sinking an unacceptable "act of aggression" that violates international law...

* YA THINK...?!?!

China, North Korea's traditional ally, called the sinking of the naval ship "unfortunate"...

* GREAT, HUH?!?! THIS IS OUR "TRADING PARTNER." THIS IS THE COUNTRY WHOSE LEADER PRESIDENT OBAMA LITERALLY BOWS TO.

North Korea has waged a slew of attacks on South Korea since the 1950-53 fighting ended, including the 1987 downing of a South Korean airliner that killed all 115 people on board.

* AND BOTH OBAMA AND BUSH BEFORE OBAMA SAVED MOST OF THEIR THREATS FOR IRAN. THINK ABOUT IT... (*SMIRK*)

May 20, 2010 at 9:33 AM
William R. Barker said...

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704691304575254280783087118.html?mod=WSJ_hps_LEFTTopStories

China stands to lose little under the draft United Nations Security Council sanctions on Iran... In the draft sanctions, [China's] interests are protected.

The resolution - which followed 20 rounds of "hard bargaining," said Chinese diplomats quoted by the state-run Xinhua news agency - puts no direct restrictions on investing in Iran's energy sector. That should allow Chinese oil companies to continue working in Iran, and China to continue consuming Iranian oil. Iran was the third-biggest supplier of oil to China last year after Saudi Arabia and Angola.

(*SARCASTIC CLAP-CLAP-CLAP*) GREAT JOB, HILLARY! YOU SURE KNOW HOW TO GET A DEAL DONE! (*SMIRK*)

Some proposed measures are legally required, such as an embargo on selling Iran eight categories of heavy conventional weapons or a ban on Iran investing in uranium mining abroad. Yet most of the new measures are left up to the discretion of individual nations. Countries are "called upon" to inspect ships suspected of having contraband headed to or from Iran, but they aren't required to do so.

The ship's flag state must also give its consent to allow boarding.

(*SNICKER*)

The financial elements of the sanctions are likewise to be implemented on a voluntary basis.

(*LAUGHING MY ASS OFF*)

* PAY CLOSE ATTENTION TO YOUR LOCAL NEWSPAPER COVERAGE AND NETWORK NEWS COVERAGE OF SECRETARY OF STATE CLINTON'S "DEAL." SEE IF ANY OF THIS STUFF GETS MENTIONED... (*SMIRK*)

The financial aspects of the resolution are also limited in scope: In a bow to Russian demands, they calls on banks and insurance companies to not do business with Iranian financial institutions that are tied to nuclear proliferation. Proving such ties could be difficult. A list of newly blacklisted entities isn't part of the draft, and must still be worked out. Countries are also only "called upon" to adopt measures prohibiting Iranian banks from setting up on their territories. They aren't required to do so, diplomats said.

* FOLKS... REPORTS LIKE THIS ARE THE REASON YOU READ NEWSBITES. (*SHRUG*)

May 20, 2010 at 11:21 AM
William R. Barker said...

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703691804575254551641408986.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_MIDDLETopOpinion

Last week California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger said revised budget numbers show the state is now $19 billion in debt. Say what? This is like a Hollywood horror story that has a new sequel every six months. The income and sales tax increases enacted last year were supposed to stanch the red ink, but the debt keeps rising.

* REMEMBER, FOLKS... (*RUEFUL CHUCKLE*)... WE'RE IN THE MIDST OF AN ECONOMIC... er... RECOVERY. (YEAH... THAT'S IT... A RECOVERY...)

Democrat Darrell Steinberg, the [California] senate president...wants the governor to agree to another income tax increase on the rich, even though California currently has one of the highest tax rates in the U.S.

This is a state that IRS statistics indicate has lost some $10 billion in wealth from out-migration in the past five years.

* REALITY SUCKS, HUH? (*SMIRK*)

Another tax hike won't help to reverse that trend.

"The Democrats in Sacramento don't get it," says Republican Congressman Darrel Issa. "Our high tax rates are driving this state off a financial cliff."

* ACTUALLY IT'S HIGH SPENDING WHICH IS DRIVING THE STATE OFF THE CLIFF... BUT ISSA IS CORRECT THAT ABOVE A CERTAIN POINT RAISING TAXES IS COUNTERPRODUCTIVE, ACTUALLY LEADING TO LOWER RATHER THAN HIGHER STATE REVENUES.

May 20, 2010 at 11:21 AM
William R. Barker said...

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/b9d90504-6379-11df-a844-00144feab49a.html

With financial year 2011 less than six weeks away...[Illinois] faces unfunded [state pension plan] liabilities of about $78bn, the biggest pension hole in the US, and contributions [due] of more than $4bn for 2011, the largest single element of its $13bn budget deficit.

Illinois used to have a plan to pay off the gaping shortfall in the pension funds that pay retired teachers, university employees, state workers, judges and politicians, Dan Long recalls.

Mr Long, director of the Commission on Government Forecasting and Accountability, the non-partisan auditing arm of the Illinois state legislature, remembers that, back in 1994, the state laid out a proposal that would have paid off most of what was then a $17bn gap by 2011.

But Illinois could not stick to the plan.

* HEY... WASN'T BARAK HUSSEIN OBAMA A MEMBER OF THE ILLINOIS STATE SENATE FROM JANUARY 8, 1997 THRU NOVEMBER 4, 2004? (*SMIRK*)

Illinois is the poster child of unfunded pensions in the US.

* AND THAT'S SAYING SOMETHING, WHAT WITH CALIFORNIA AND NEW YORK... (*SIGH*)

* PEOPLE. WHEN YOU READ OF "ECONOMIC RECOVERY" THINK BACK TO THE THINGS YOU LEARN VIA BARKER'S NEWSBITES.

May 20, 2010 at 11:21 AM
William R. Barker said...

http://article.nationalreview.com/434392/dying-for-the-karzai-cartel/ann-marlowe

We are supporting a criminal state in Kabul that is likely involved with the insurgency itself. There is almost nothing to distinguish the Taliban from the Karzai mafias, whose tentacles reach down to the most obscure rural districts.

American commanders will tell you of governors, police chiefs, district governors, and district police chiefs so corrupt, abusive, and vicious that the Taliban are a desirable alternative. We are talking about Afghan government officials who sell famine aid for their own profit, rape boys and women, run drugs in police cars - and often conspire with insurgents to kill Afghan civilians and security forces, and even American troops.

Ahmad Wali Karzai is running a mafia out of Kandahar, and his brother Hamid Karzai is protecting him. This mafia is worth over a billion a year to him, if the Times of London is to be believed: "One senior coalition figure calculated that the 'Karzai cartel' was making a turnover of a billion dollars a year from the coalition involvement in Afghanistan, through lucrative contracts and sub-contracting spin-offs in convoy protection, construction, fuel, food, and security."

In fact, it may no longer be the case that Ahmad Karzai does what he does in order to strengthen the hand of his brother. It may be that Hamid does what he does to strengthen the hand of Ahmad. The Afghan state is being hollowed out from the inside and becoming a branch of a lucrative criminal enterprise. Why would the Karzais have any interest in defeating the insurgency? They are profiting from it. Our so-called allies, Karzai, Inc., may no longer differ much from the terrorists who would likely govern southern and eastern Afghanistan if we leave.

Descending to the level of tactics, ours aren’t leading to a situation where we can leave. It’s impossible for us to go until we can stand up the Afghan National Police (ANP or AUP), but it’s impossible to do that when the local governance they are meant to support undermines the rule of law.

Neither our strategy nor our tactics are working in Afghanistan. We shouldn’t be surprised: There’s never been a counterinsurgency that worked when the people didn’t support the government. The Pentagon’s map of Afghanistan’s 80 most key districts shows only five “sympathetic” to the Afghan government — and none supporting it. Only 24 percent of Afghans in the broader group of all 121 key districts support the Karzai government.

We are caught in a trap of our own making, supporting an Afghan president who stole an election and who has no more legitimacy than the Taliban we replaced. We are apparently supporting him under the false hypothesis that his mafia provides “security,” even as it demonstrably fails to do so, even as citizens are rightly turning against it. Effectively, we are in Afghanistan so that the Karzai cartel can steal even more money. Is that worth losing our soldiers for?

May 20, 2010 at 6:20 PM
William R. Barker said...

http://article.nationalreview.com/434567/the-courts-power-grab/thomas-sowell

You might think that being a Supreme Court justice would be the top-of-the-line job for someone in the legal profession. But many Supreme Court decisions suggest that too many justices are not satisfied with their role, and seek more sweeping powers as supreme policy-makers, grand second-guessers, or philosopher-kings.

The latest example of this is the recent Supreme Court decision in the case of Graham v. Florida. The issue was whether the Constitution permitted a state to impose a sentence of life without the possibility of parole when the criminal was a youthful offender. The Supreme Court voted 6 to 3 that this was a violation of the Constitution.

* CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS VOTED WITH THE EXTRA-CONSTITUTIONALISTS.

If your copy of the Constitution doesn’t say anything about youthful offenders, do not worry that you have a defective copy. There is no such statement in the Constitution. What the justices cited as the alleged basis for their decision was the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition against “cruel and unusual punishments.”

Since 37 out of the 50 states permit sentences of life without the possibility of parole, such a sentence is not unusual.

* CORRECT! BY SIMPLE DEFINITION!

How about cruel? If it is cruel, then why is it okay to impose that sentence on people who are not youthful?

* DAMN GOOD QUESTION...

The case of Graham v. Florida involved a 16-year-old repeat offender, who was convicted of a home-invasion robbery while on probation from a previous felony. He was sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. The Supreme Court then overruled that decision.

The role of an appellate court is not to simply second-guess the decision of the trial judge and jury, much less usurp the responsibility of legislatures to make social policy. But the pretense of applying the Constitution gives appellate judges the power to do both. The bolder justices go further, citing practices in other countries as supporting their decisions that are supposedly based on the Constitution of the United States. If justices can pick and choose which legal principles and practices they will follow, from the many widely varying principles and practices in countries around the world, then they can find a basis for doing just about anything they feel like doing.

* AND THERE YOU HAVE IT FOLKS.

May 20, 2010 at 6:21 PM
William R. Barker said...

http://preview.bloomberg.com/news/2010-05-20/stocks-fall-for-sixth-day-u-s-futures-drop-as-euro-weakens-oil-declines.html

A weeklong rout in stocks deepened, with U.S. benchmark indexes losing the most in more than a year...

The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index plunged 3.9% to 1,071.59 at 4 p.m. in New York, its biggest drop since April 2009.

The Stoxx Europe 600 Index lost 2.2%...

[T]he Dow Jones Industrial Average fell, dragging the gauge down 376.36 points, or 3.6%, to 10,068.01 for its biggest tumble since March 5, 2009.

* HEY... FOLKS... THE MARKETS COULD REBOUND TOMORROW. IN FACT, I WOULDN'T BE SURPRISED IF THEY DID. THAT SAID... IF THEY DO... IT'LL BE AN ARTIFICIAL GAIN DRIVEN BY POLITICAL GAMESMANSHIP AND SPECULATION.

* FOLKS... DO YOU REALLY BELIEVE THE ECONOMY IS RECOVERING...??? REALLY...??? TRULY...???

* HEY... ON THE BRIGHT SIDE... THE FUNDAMENTAL TRUTH IS THAT THE MARKETS ARE OVER-VALUED! THEY SHOULD BE FALLING...!!!

* RECOGNIZING YOU HAVE A PROBLEM IS THE FIRST STEP TOWARDS DEALING WITH IT - SOLVING IT!

May 20, 2010 at 6:29 PM
William R. Barker said...

http://www.chicagobusiness.com/cgi-bin/news.pl?id=38097

Commonwealth Edison Co. is asking the Illinois General Assembly to lock in an electric rate hike for four years, freezing rates at a level above what consumers likely would pay during that time. In return, the utility, which wants lawmakers to approve the 11th-hour proposal before the end of the week, would give $500 million to the state to help plug its giant budget deficit.

* ILLINOIS AGAIN, HUH... (*SMIRK*)

The proposal would help solve a problem facing parent Exelon Corp., whose expectation that profits will plummet in coming years has caused its stock price to fall. The benefits Exelon and ComEd would get would dwarf what they’re offering. Chief among them would be enshrining in law a minimum 10.3% return on equity for the utility and automatically increasing customers’ rates when profits fall short of that mark.

* NICE... (*SNICKER*)

ComEd rates are expected to rise 8% in June, to about 12.2 cents per kilowatt-hour from 11.3 cents. ComEd wants to lock that price in for the next four years.

* I BET THEY DO...!!! (*SNORT*)

“While we can’t share details at this early point, we can confirm that we have been talking to Illinois state leaders about a potential public/private partnership to address economic issues facing the state and its residents,” a ComEd spokeswoman said in an e-mail.

* I CAN'T BELIEVE EVEN CHICAGO DEMOCRATS ARE... er... AUDACIOUS ENOUGH TO INK A DEAL LIKE THIS AFTER CRAINE'S HAS LET THE CAT OUT OF THE BAG. WE'LL SEE... TIME WILL TELL!

May 20, 2010 at 7:53 PM
William R. Barker said...

http://www.todaystmj4.com/news/local/94313854.html

A bartender was videotaped burning a statue of President Obama.

(*SNORT*)

People in West Allis [Wisconsin] were shouting and laughing as the bartender torched the statue for the crowd.

West Allis Police say they found out about the incident after it was reported at Yester Years Pub and Grill on Greenfield Avenue.

West Allis police say the Secret Service is also investigating.

(*SNICKER*)

* CALL ME CRAZY, BUT IT SEEMS LIKE THIS IS MORE A MATTER FOR THE BUILDING DEPARTMENT AND THE TOWN FIRE CHIEF.

* SERIOUSLY... LET ME GET THIS STRAIGHT... BURNING THE AMERICAN FLAG IS CONSTITUTIONALLY PROTECTED SPEECH BUT BURNING - IN EFFIGY - A POLITICIAN ISN'T...???

May 20, 2010 at 7:54 PM

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