Wednesday, June 16, 2010
Barker's Newsbites: Wednesday, June 16, 2010
Ya know... a live performance may not always have the polish of a studio recording, but it'll tell you who's real and who's just the visual vehicle for computer generated, auto-tuned bull$hit.
Contrast live and intimate to live stadium...
Now... the studio version.
(*WINK*)
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http://www.ftc.gov/opp/workshops/news/jun15/docs/new-staff-discussion.pdf
* ONE NEED NOT BE A "CONSPIRACY THEORIST" TO LOOK ASKANCE AT THE FOLLOWING - FROM AN OFFICAL FEDERAL TRADE COMMISSION STAFF DISCUSSION DRAFT TITLED, "POTENTIAL POLICY RECOMMENDATIONS TO SUPPORT THE REINVENTION OF JOURNALISM"
* ONCE YOU LINK TO THE REPORT, SCROLL DOWN TO PAGE 17 (THAT'S WHERE IT GETS "INTERESTING.") --
Proposals for Increased Government Subsidies, Indirect and Direct --
A variety of proposals have emerged to allow further government support for journalism through either indirect or direct means. ... 1) Establish a “journalism” division of AmeriCorps...; 2) Increase funding for the CPB...; 3) Establish a National Fund for Local News...; 4) Provide a tax credit to news organizations for every journalist they employ...; 5) Establish Citizenship News Vouchers...; 6) Provide grants to universities to conduct investigative journalism...;
* NOTICE A CERTAIN "THEME" HERE, FOLKS? INCREASE SPENDING... (WHEN WE'RE ALREADY IN THE HOLE WITH REGARDS TO DEFICITS AND DEBT)... AND STEER PUBLIC MONEY TO AMERICORPS... THE CORPORATION FOR PUBLIC BROADCASTS... UNIVERSITIES...
* HMM... WHAT DO THE ABOVE ALL HAVE IN COMMON...??? IS IT A REPUTATION FOR IDEOLOGICAL DIVERSITY...? (*SMIRK*) IS IT A RECORD OF RIGHT WING BIAS...??? (*SNORT*) (*CHUCKLE*)
* NO... SERIOUSLY - THIS AIN'T FUNNY, FOLKS. TAKE A MOMENT TO THINK ABOUT THE DIRECTION THIS TRIAL BALLOON IS HEADING TOWARDS.
* ANYWAY... I'LL LEAVE IT TO ANY OF YOU WHO ARE INTERESTED TO BROWSE THE FULL REPORT FOR YOURSELVES. (IT'S 47 PAGES.)
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/politics/Once-a-government-pet-BP-now-a-capitalist-tool-95942659.html
* NEWSBITE READERS WILL BE FAMILIAR WITH MUCH OF THE FOLLOWING, BUT IT BEARS REPEATING --
Lobbying records show that BP is no free-market crusader, but instead a close friend of big government whenever it serves the company’s bottom line.
* DUH! THAT'S THE VERY ESSENCE OF CRONY "CAPITALISM." THE QUESTION IS... WHO ARE THE "CRONIES...???" (*SMIRK*)
[T]he [Sen. John] Kerry-BP alliance for an energy bill that included a cap-and-trade scheme for greenhouse gases pokes a hole in a favorite claim of President Obama and his allies in the media - that BP’s lobbyists have fought fiercely to be left alone. While BP has resisted some government interventions, it has lobbied for tax hikes, greenhouse gas restraints, the stimulus bill, the Wall Street bailout, and subsidies for oil pipelines, solar panels, natural gas and biofuels.
Now that BP’s oil rig has caused the biggest environmental disaster in American history, the Left is pulling the same bogus trick it did with Enron and AIG: Whenever a company earns universal ire, declare it the poster boy for the free market. As Democrats fight to advance "climate change policies," they are resorting to the misleading tactics they used in their health care and finance efforts: posing as the scourges of the special interests and tarring “reform” opponents as the stooges of big business.
There’s a problem: BP was a founding member of the U.S. Climate Action Partnership (USCAP), a lobby dedicated to passing a cap-and-trade bill.
As the nation’s largest producer of natural gas, BP saw many ways to profit from climate legislation, notably by persuading Congress to provide subsidies to coal-fired power plants that switched to gas.
(*SMIRK*)
BP signed off on Kerry’s Senate climate bill, which was hardly a capitalist concoction. One provision BP explicitly backed, according to Congressional Quarterly and other media reports: a higher gas tax. The money would be earmarked for building more highways, thus inducing more driving and more gasoline consumption.
(*RUEFUL CHUCKLE*)
* FOLLOW THE MONEY, FOLKS... ALWAYS FOLLOW THE MONEY...
Elsewhere in the green arena, BP has lobbied for and profited from subsidies for biofuels and solar energy, two products that cannot break even without government support.
Lobbying records show the company backing solar subsidies including federal funding for solar research. The U.S. Export-Import Bank, a federal agency, is currently financing a BP solar energy project in Argentina. Ex-Im has also put up taxpayer cash to finance construction of the 1,094-mile Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline carrying oil from the Caspian Sea to Ceyhan, Turkey - again, profiting BP.
(*SMIRK*)
Lobbying records also show BP lobbying on Obama’s stimulus bill and Bush’s Wall Street bailout. You can guess the oil giant wasn’t in league with the Cato Institute or Ron Paul on those.
(*FULL-THROATED LAUGH*)
BP has more Democratic lobbyists than Republicans. It employs the Podesta Group, co-founded by John Podesta, Obama’s transition director and confidant. Other BP troops on K Street include Michael Berman, a former top aide to Vice President Walter Mondale; Steven Champlin, former executive director of the House Democratic Caucus; and Matthew LaRocco, who worked in Bill Clinton’s Interior Department and whose father was a Democratic congressman.
(Former Republican staffers, such as Reagan alumnus Ken Duberstein, also lobby for BP, but there’s no truth to Democratic portrayals of the oil company as
an arm of the GOP.)
Two patterns have emerged during Obama’s presidency: 1) Big business increasingly seeks profits through more government, and 2) Obama nonetheless paints opponents of his intervention as industry shills. BP is just the latest example of this tawdry sleight of hand.
http://preview.bloomberg.com/news/2010-06-15/mexican-army-kills-15-as-soldiers-battle-gunmen-in-tourist-town-of-taxco.html
Mexican soldiers confronted an armed group today in the city of Taxco, killing as many as 15 people, the state attorney general said.
* TAXCO...??? WOW... WE'RE TALKING "THE PUBLIC MEXICO," A CITY TOURISTS THE WORLD OVER ARE FAMILIAR WITH. WHAT'S NEXT... CANCUN... ACAPULCO...?
* THE ARMY, FOLKS... (*PAUSE)... THE ARMY - NOT THE POLICE!
Separately, a police chief and his 26-year-old son were killed early this morning in Cuernavaca, about 50 miles from Mexico City, from gunshots to the head, according to an e-mailed statement from the Morelos state attorney general’s office.
* I USED TO VACATION IN MEXICO FREQUENTLY. ACAPULCO WAS KIM'S FIRST "FLY TO" VACATION WITH US WHEN SHE WAS 14 MONTHS OLD. I HATE TO SAY THIS, BUT I WOULD SUGGEST THAT ANYONE - ADULT... MALE... ANYONE - GO TO MEXICO NOWADAYS UNLESS IT'S AN ABSOLUTE BUSINESS OR PERSONAL NECESSITY.
* FOR FURTHER INFO - http://apnews.myway.com/article/20100616/D9GCAVCO0.html
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704009804575308470831235224.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_AboveLEFTTop
The National Rifle Association is suffering a sudden onset of amnesia this week, as the gun lobby cuts a deal to exempt itself from the latest Congressional attempt to repeal the First Amendment.
(*NODDING MY HEAD IN DISGUST*)
The campaign finance bill, sponsored by Senator Chuck Schumer and Representative Chris Van Hollen, is the Democratic response to the Supreme Court's January decision in Citizens United v. FEC, which restored the First Amendment Right of corporations, unions and nonprofits to make independent campaign expenditures.
At the time, the NRA's Wayne LaPierre called Citizens United "a defeat for arrogant elitists who wanted to carve out free speech as a privilege for themselves and deny it to the rest of us."
Look who's arrogant and elitist now.
(*GRITTING MY TEETH*)
Under the Schumer-Van Hollen bill, political speech would be bound up with new restrictions, including special burdens on government contractors and corporations that have a certain level of foreign ownership or received TARP funds. The bill also includes disclosure rules designed to hit corporations, requiring CEOs to appear to "approve this message" the way politicians do, and for groups to identify their donors.
Except for the NRA.
(*SIGH*)
Under the NRA carve-out in the House bill, the new rules won't apply to any organizations that have been around for more than 10 years, have more than a million members and receive less than 15% of their funding from corporate donors.
That fits the NRA nicely, though as best we can figure, everyone else, from the Sierra Club to Planned Parenthood, fails to qualify. So much for defending the little guy against the fat cats.
(*SIGH*)
This backroom deal came at the behest of Democrats from conservative states, for whom the NRA's scorecard of their legislative record can be a major boost or obstacle to election. Creating a special exception for the NRA, and thereby assuring the Democrats "good grades" on Second Amendment rights, eases the way for the bill to be passed. A failing grade on First Amendment rights is somebody else's problem.
* BASTARDS! DIRTY, NO GOOD SONS OF... (*BITING MY TONGUE*)
By erecting what amounts to a grandfather clause of First Amendment rights, the bill creates a sort of interest-group incumbency, concentrating the power to speak freely among a handful of large and longstanding groups.
* I'D SAY "UNBELIEVABLE," BUT... UNFORTUNATELY... SUCH CONTEMPTIBLE BEHAVIOR IS MORE THE RULE THAN THE EXCEPTION NOWADAYS.
Cutting a special deal at the expense of the First Amendment with lawmakers who have decided for now to stop gutting the Second Amendment reveals an NRA that is unprincipled and will be weaker for it in the long run.
* THE LEADERSHIP IS UNPRINCIPLED; NOT THE MEMBERSHIP. I WOULDN'T BE SURPRISED IF THERE'S A MEMBERSHIP REVOLT.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704312104575298802622225806.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_AboveLEFTTop
[I]n the Age of Obama, the business class has managed to be both self-serving and naive.
* WELL... LET'S NOT PRETEND THAT THE SAME WASN'T TRUE DURING THE AGE OF BUSH, THE AGE OF CLINTON, AND SO ON AND SO FORTH ALL THE WAY BACK TO THE LOUISIANA PURCHASE. STILL, THE POINT IS, CORPORATE CRONYISM IS ALIVE AND WELL UNDER THE VEIL HELD BY MSM HANDS THAT SEEKS TO CREATE THE FALSE PICTURE THAT BIG BUSINESS IS "REPUBLICAN."
Last Thursday, Bill Gates of Microsoft, Jeff Immelt of General Electric, John Doerr of the venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and others nabbed headlines with a call to triple government funding for energy research to $16 billion a year from about $5 billion today. ... By coincidence, this effort might also benefit the nonpolitical likes of GE and Kleiner Perkins...
(*SMIRK*)
[T]he CEO agenda here goes far beyond basic research to having government "fund, build and accelerate the commercialization of advanced energy technologies." This is especially odd in a $5 trillion global market in which one form of energy is interchangeable for another: Unlike a breakthrough cancer drug, say, a kilowatt is a kilowatt. The vast market rewards for better, cheaper energy products ought to be incentive enough for businesses to turn new technology into something of commercial value.
Anyway, didn't President Obama say the other day that "we are on the threshold of incredible advances"? And didn't he then announce "the Advanced Energy Initiative - a 22% increase in clean-energy research - at the Department of Energy, to push for breakthroughs" in "zero-emission coal-fired plants, revolutionary solar and wind technologies, and clean, safe nuclear energy."
Oh, sorry. That was President Bush, in his 2006 State of the Union.
(*CHUCKLE*) (OH, COM'ON... LAUGH... THAT WAS FUNNY - AND RIGHT ON TARGET!) (*SNICKER*)
In the 2010 version, Mr. Obama said that "Last year, we made the largest investment in basic research funding in history—an investment that could lead to the world's cheapest solar cells . . . No area is more ripe for such innovation than energy."
Jimmy Carter liked solar cells too. In 1979, he unfurled a plan for "this nation's first solar bank, which will help us achieve the crucial goal of 20% of our energy coming from solar power by the year 2000."
(*ROFLMAO*)
[I]n 1979, Congress chartered another "coordinated" business-government effort called the Synthetic Fuels Corporation to rally new energy sources. The Synfuel brain trust famously funded the Great Plains Coal Gasification Plant in Beulah, North Dakota. This boondoggle will seem relatively less notorious when the "FutureGen" carbon capture and storage project in Mattoon, Illinois - funded and then killed by the Bush Administration, and then refloated last year by the Obama Administration - fails a fifth or sixth time.
(*STRAIGHT FACE*) (FOLKS... IT'S REALLY NOT FUNNY... THESE MORONS HAVE PISSED AWAY TENS OF BILLIONS OF OUR DOLLARS.)
* FOLKS... MANY CEOs AND SUPER-RICH INDIVIDUALS WON'T THROW THEIR OWN "GOOD" MONEY AFTER BAD; THE PROBLEM IS, THEY HAVE NO PROBLEM WITH LOBBYING TO THROW OUR GOOD MONEY AT PROJECTS THAT IF THEY FAIL COST THE MOVERS AND SHAKERS LITTLE, BUT IF THE PUBLIC "INVESTMENTS" SUCCEED - THE PRIVATE INTERESTS OF THE MOVERS AND SHAKERS WILL REAP THE FINANCIAL BENEFIT. CUTE... REAL CUTE...
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704009804575308763321043220.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTop
In choosing to address the nation last night before today's meeting with BP execs, Mr. Obama signalled plainly that he's not interested in anything they have to say. The inverted two-step was a pure show of power.
* YEP. THAT PRETTY MUCH SUMS IT UP. OBAMA IS A DANGEROUS, INCOMPETENT DEMAGOGUE.
President Obama may not be instinctively a man of the market, but he does understand its vulnerability to the manipulation of symbols. ... The foot is now on the neck of BP, whose share price is down by half, costing shareholders $90 billion in lost wealth.
* "POTENTIAL" WEALTH... "POTENTIAL" WEALTH... LET'S NOT RESORT TO OBAMA'S LEVEL. (*PURSED LIPS*)
Notice that this week's passion play began with all the major oil execs (not just BP's) hauled before Ed Markey's House subcommittee, in a guilt-by-association exercise designed to advance the cause of anticarbon legislation.
From trying to distance itself from the spill the White House is turning on a dime to hype the Gulf disaster beyond its already alarming proportions. The goal: to steamroll into law a new climate-and-energy bill the public has said again and again it doesn't want.
http://www.kfyi.com/pages/local_news.html?feed=118695&article=7247400
The situation with cross-border violence and drug smuggling has gotten so bad along Arizona's southern border with Mexico, that the U.S. Government has set up warnings in Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge miles from the border, in effect, closing that part of the park to tourists.
* ARE YOU F--KING KIDDING ME...?!?!
* I DON'T EVEN KNOW WHAT TO SAY TO THIS...!!!
Proponents say the level of violence from drug cartels has gotten so bad, that the barricades are necessary to protect American citizens.
* BARRICADES TO STOP AMERICANS FROM ENTERING AN AMERICAN FEDERAL WILDLIFE REFUGE FOR FEAR OF FOREIGN CITIZENS (AND PERHAPS CORRUPT MEXICAN POLICE AND TROOPS)???
* MY GOD! OBAMA SHOULD BE IMPEACHED! THIS IS NOT "THEORETICAL" OR "GENERAL." THIS IS A SPECIFIC - MANAGEABLY SMALL - PIECE OF IDENTIFIABLE SOVEREIGN AMERICAN TERRITORY THAT OUR FEDERAL GOVERNMENT IS FOR ALL INTENTS AND PURPOSES CEDING AUTHORITY OVER!
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/france/7832032/France-to-raise-retirement-age-to-62.html
The French will have to work beyond the age of 60 in order to get a full pension after President Nicolas Sarkozy's Right-wing government raised the retirement age to 62.
* WELL GOD BLESS FRANCE'S "RIGHT WING!"
The change is expected to come into place in 2018 as part of an effort to get the country's spiralling public finances under control.
* WOW...! DEALING DIRECTLY WITH DEMOGRAPHIC AND FINANCIAL REALITY! WHAT A CONCEPT! (PAGING ALL AMERICAN POLITICIANS...)
The move has been strongly opposed by the opposition Socialist Party and labour unions, but Eric Woerth, the labour minister, said the measure was a "real moral obligation," given France's burgeoning deficit and its aging population, which he said threatens the viability of the money-losing pension system.
* IF REALITY CAN MUG THE FRENCH PERHAPS THERE'S HOPE FOR AMERICA... (*HOPEFUL SHRUG*)
The French budget deficit was at 7.5% of gross domestic product last year. The conservative government has vowed to bring it under 3% - the threshold set by the European Union - by 2013.
* IT'S A START...! (*THUMBS UP*)
In Germany the retirement age has been raised from 65 to 67, while Britain may increase it to 68.
* I KNOW IT'S TOUGH... BUT REALITY MUST BE FACED! (*CLAP-CLAP-CLAP*) GOOD FOR GERMANY AND THE BRITS!
Other recent measures aimed at getting the [French] deficit under control include a three-year spending freeze and a crackdown on tax loopholes.
* BRAVO!
http://blog.heritage.org/2010/06/16/morning-bell-a-crisis-of-competence/?utm_source=Newsletter&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=Morning%2BBell
White House spokesman Robert Gibbs billed the [President's] speech [last night] as an “inflection point,” where the President’s initial response would be replaced by more decisive action. But this is now day 57. Where has the decisive action been up to this point? The Obama administration has not been working in a coordinated fashion.
Federal regulatory red tape has gotten in the way of the cleanup, including: 1) missed opportunities to burn off more of the oil because of overblown air pollution concerns; 2) holdups in the use of dispersants; 3) permit delays in allowing the state of Louisiana to create artificial barriers against the encroaching oil slick; 4) failure to waive regulatory prohibitions against foreign assistance; and 5) failure to approve barges and booms in time to block oil from reaching Alabama’s Magnolia River.
Instead of providing leadership and properly coordinating the response, the Obama administration has chosen to shift blame and politicize the disaster, including: 1) “not-at-all veiled shot[s] at the Bush Administration” for the state of the Minerals and Management Service; 2) vague threats of criminal prosecution from Attorney General Eric Holder; 3) a moratorium on offshore oil drilling which could kill 120,000 jobs in the Gulf alone; and 4) pushing caps on carbon dioxide emissions which have no hope of cleaning up a single drop of oil spilled.
The President asserted: “Time and again, the path forward has been blocked … by oil industry lobbyists.” But the reality is that BP lobbyists have been pushing for the President’s energy agenda from the beginning.
The President claimed: “Countries like China are investing in clean energy jobs and industries that should be right here in America.” But the reality is that China will account for nearly 45% of oil demand growth in the next five years, receives 70% of its energy from coal already, and is projected to nearly triple coal capacity by 2030.
The Obama administration’s constant blame shifting, politicization, and lack of organization demonstrate a crisis of competence. To restore America’s faith, the White House should drop irrelevant policy priorities, refrain from making the economic damage worse, end unnecessary bureaucratic delays, and restructure the response and recovery efforts. As MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann said following the address: “It was a great speech if you’ve been on another planet for the last 57 days.”
http://www.cnbc.com/id/37732312
More than 90 U.S. banks and thrifts missed making a May 17 payment to the U.S. government under its main bank bailout program..
* TARP, FOLKS... THEY'RE TALKING ABOUT TARP.
The statistics, compiled by SNL Financial from U.S. Treasury data, showed 91 banks and thrifts skipped the May dividend payment under the Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP. It was the first missed payment for 23 of the banks; for the others, it was at least their second miss.
* SO... ABOUT THAT "OBAMA RECOVERY..." (*SNICKER*)
* SERIOUSLY, FOLKS... I'M NOT "PLEASED" BY THIS NEWS, BUT FOR CHRIST'S SAKE... HOW MANY TIMES DO THE DEMOCRATS AND THEIR MEDIA ALLIES HAVE TO LIE TO YOU ABOUT "THE SUCCESS OF STIMULUS" AND "THE EVER STRONGER ECONOMY" BEFORE YOU FACE THE FACT THAT THIS ADMINISTRATION IS EVEN MORE CLUELESS (IF SUCH A THING IS POSSIBLE) THAN THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION WAS...???
The number of banks missing their TARP payments rose for the third straight quarter.
(*SIGH*)
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/spain-the-new-crisis-in-euroland-2002676.html
European leaders meet in Brussels today amid growing fears that Spain, Europe's fifth-largest economy, is preparing to ask for a bailout which would dwarf the €110bn (£90bn) rescue plan for Greece.
* PAY NO ATTENTION TO THE MAN BEHIND THE CURTAIN; THE GREAT AND POWERFUL OBAMA COMMANDS ECONOMIC RECOVERY!
The Spanish government yesterday dismissed reports that it was already in discussions with the European Commission, International Monetary Fund and the US Treasury for a rescue package worth up to €250bn.
* HMM... WONDER WHAT GEITHNER (THE TAX CHEAT) HAS TO SAY...???
Officials in Madrid, Brussels and Paris were forced to deny that a Spanish bailout – which would take the European debt and euro crisis into a potentially dangerous new phase – was on the Brussels summit agenda.
* "NOT ON THE AGENDA" ISN'T THE SAME AS "NOT PRESENTLY UNDER DISCUSSION." (*SMIRK*)
Worryingly for the EU [and ultimately for US taxpayers who would be called upon to bail out the EU], the doubts about Spain – whether real or driven by speculation – are eerily similar to the gradual seeping away of confidence that sent Greece into a financial death spiral in March and April.
The Spanish government's cost of borrowing hit a new record yesterday. The interest rate gap, or spread, between 10-year Spanish bonds and their German equivalents, rose by more than 0.10 of a point to 2.23 percentage points.
A senior Spanish banker, Francisco Gonzalez, chairman of the BBVA financial services group, confirmed that foreign private banks were now refusing to provide liquidity to their Spanish counterparts. "Financial markets have withdrawn their confidence in our country," he said. "For most Spanish companies and entities, international capital markets are closed."
The collapse of Spain's housing boom has helped fuel a deep downturn which has sent unemployment spiralling to 20%...
* HEY... (*PAUSE*)... ISN'T SPAIN'S "GREEN ECONOMY" THE TEMPLATE FOR OBAMA'S GREEN ECONOMY...??? (RHETORICAL QUESTION; THE ANSWER IS "YES.") (*SMIRK*)
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/Bonus-bonanza-for-federal-workers-96431779.html
Under the Obama administration, the government is doing such a good job that it's decided to reward itself.
(*SMILEY SMIRK*) (*RUEFUL CHUCKLE*)
Last year, Uncle Sam paid out $408 million in bonuses to 1.3 million federal workers, according to the Asbury Park Press, which obtained the information through a Freedom of Information Act request.
That's about $80 million more than the previous year.
About one in four federal workers received a bonus, and awards ranged from $25 to, in the case of one lucky State Department worker, $94,500.
That $408 million figure only counts bonuses that were handed out to about 65% of the federal work force.
The FOI request didn't cover awards handed out by the Defense and Treasury departments, security agencies, the White House, Congress and various other federal agencies and commissions.
In 2008, the last year information was available, the Department of Defense alone handed out $92 million in bonuses to its 687,000 employees.
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