Wednesday, June 30, 2010

Barker's Newsbites: Wednesday, June 30, 2010


I'll give ya Justin Bieber...!
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11 comments:

William R. Barker said...

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=CNG.939483e305b1ba22fc2cd72e1641a9c0.5b1&show_article=1

Venezuela's legislature has voted to nationalize 11 oil rigs owned by the US firm Helmerich & Payne.

* WELL, PRESIDENT OBAMA...??? WILL YOU COMPLACENTLY ALLOW HUGO CHEVEZ'S VENEZUELA TO STEAL FROM A U.S. COMPANY?

June 30, 2010 at 9:32 AM
William R. Barker said...

* TWO-PARTER... (Part 1 of 2)

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704629804575325233508651458.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTop

The [Obama] administration's "stimulus" program has failed.

The contrast with President Reagan's anti-recession and pro-growth measures in 1981 is striking. Reagan reduced marginal and corporate tax rates and slowed the growth of non-defense spending.

Recovery began about a year later. After 18 months, the economy grew more than 9% and it continued to expand above trend rates.

* A REAL RECOVERY. A LONG LASTING RECOVERY.

[And the result of 18 months of Obamanomics:] Growth is slow and unemployment remains high.

Two overarching reasons explain the failure of Obamanomics. First, administration economists and their outside supporters neglected the longer-term costs and consequences of their actions. Second, the administration and Congress have through their deeds and words heightened uncertainty about the economic future. High uncertainty is the enemy of investment and growth.

[P]art of the [Obama] "stimulus" went to relieve state and local governments of their budget deficits. Transferring a deficit from the state to the federal government changes very little. Some teachers and police got an additional year of employment, but their gain is temporary. Any benefits to them must be balanced against the negative effect of the increased public debt and the temporary nature of the transfer.

* COST/BENEFIT, FOLKS... COST/BENEFIT. (*SIGH*)

The Obama economic team ignored past history. The two most successful fiscal stimulus programs since World War II - under Kennedy-Johnson and Reagan - took the form of permanent reductions in corporate and marginal tax rates.

Another defect of Obamanomics was that part of the increased spending authorized by the 2009 stimulus bill was held back. Remember the oft-repeated claim that the spending would go for "shovel ready" projects? That didn't happen...

(*SHRUG*) TRUTH, MY FRIENDS... TRUTH... (*SHRUG*)

* To be continued...

June 30, 2010 at 10:26 AM
William R. Barker said...

* CONTINUING... (Part 2 of 2)

In his January 2010 State of the Union address, President Obama recognized that the United States must increase exports. He was right, but he has done little to help, either by encouraging investment to increase productivity, or by supporting trade agreements, despite his promise to the Koreans that he repeated in Toronto. Export earnings are the only way to service our massive foreign borrowing. This should be a high priority. Isn't anyone in the government thinking about the future?

Mr. Obama has denied the cost burden on business from his health-care program, but business is aware that it is likely to be large. How large? That's part of the uncertainty that employers face if they hire additional labor.

The president asks for cap and trade. That's more cost and more uncertainty. Who will be forced to pay? What will it do to costs here compared to foreign producers? We should not expect businesses to invest in new, export-led growth when uncertainty about future costs is so large.

Then there is Medicaid, the medical program for those with lower incomes. In the past, states paid about half of the cost, and they are responsible for 20% of the additional cost imposed by the program's expansion. But almost all the states must balance their budgets, and the new Medicaid spending mandated by ObamaCare comes at a time when states face large deficits and even larger unfunded liabilities for pensions. All this only adds to uncertainty about taxes and spending.

Other aspects of the Obama economic program are equally problematic.

The auto bailouts ran roughshod over the rule of law. Chrysler bondholders were given short shrift in order to benefit the auto workers union. By weakening the rule of law, the president opened the way to great mischief and increased investors' and producers' uncertainty. That's not the way to get more investment and employment.

Almost daily, Mr. Obama uses his rhetorical skill to castigate businessmen who have the audacity to hope for profitable opportunities. No president since Franklin Roosevelt has taken that route. President Roosevelt slowed recovery in 1938-40 until the war by creating uncertainty about his objectives. It was harmful then, and it's harmful now.

* YEP. ROOSEVELT'S POLICIES WORSENED AND PROLONGED THE GREAT DEPRESSION; IN FACT, THEY CREATED THE "GREAT" IN GREAT DEPRESSION!

June 30, 2010 at 10:26 AM
William R. Barker said...

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704103904575336900576460806.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTop

A new tax on financial companies seemed like a good idea to Chris Dodd and Barney Frank at 3 a.m. last Friday, but now their $19 billion levy is threatening to blow up their 2,319-page financial bill. So they're scrambling to replace that cash, but the bigger news here is that Barney and Chris need to impose a bailout tax for what they claim is a bill that will end bailouts.

* DAMN GOOD QUESTION, ISN'T IT...??? WHY WOULD A BAILOUT TAX BE REQUIRED FOR A BILL SUPPOSED... ENDING BAILOUTS...???

CBO estimates that the bill's vaunted "Orderly Liquidation Authority," which is being sold as tough medicine for failing banks and their creditors, will cost taxpayers $20.3 billion between now and 2020.

* HMM... $20,300,000,000 HUH? SOUNDS LIKE - AS USUAL - THE REAL CHUMP IS THE U.S. TAXPAYER. (OR AT LEAST THE LIKES OF BARNEY FRANK AND CHRIS DODD SEEM WILLING TO PLAY US FOR CHUMPS... AGAIN.)

The $19 billion Dodd-Frank bailout tax was especially pernicious because it essentially left it to regulators to decide who would pay.

(*SNORT*) CAN YOU SAY "POLITICAL S*L*U*S*H FUND...??? (*SMIRK*)

The sages at the new Financial Stability Council would make the call, guided by, among other factors, a particular company's "importance as a source of credit for households, businesses, and State and local governments" and "the company's importance as a source of credit for low-income, minority, or underserved communities and the impact the failure of such company would have on the availability of credit in such communities."

Imagine the corruption and favoritism possibilities.

(*NODDING*)

Most absurd is the claim that any of this money, however it is raised, will somehow be reserved for bank failures. Congress will spend it immediately. Taxpayers will pay for bailouts like they always do, when they happen, and this bill makes them more likely.

* YEP. NO DOUBT. (*SIGH*)

June 30, 2010 at 10:27 AM
William R. Barker said...

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100630/ap_on_go_co/us_congress_war_funding

House Democrats, who are trying to pass a long-stalled war funding bill this week, have attached $10 billion to help local school districts avoid teacher layoffs when schools reopen.

* THESE PEOPLE ARE SCUM. OH, YES... REPUBLICANS PULLED THE SAME NONSENSE WHEN THEY RAN CONGRESS, BUT TWO POINTS: 1) TWO WRONGS DON'T MAKE A RIGHT; 2) I CALLED THE REPUBLICANS ON THIS SORT OF THING TOO BACK THEN JUST AS I DO NOW.

* A "WAR FUNDING BILL" SHOULD BE A WAR FUNDING BILL - PERIOD. AND EDUCATION BILL SHOULD BE AN EDUCATION BILL - PERIOD.

The approximately $70 billion measure is anchored by President Barack Obama's $30 billion request for the troop surge in Afghanistan and contains money for disaster aid accounts, foreign aid and disability benefits for Vietnam veterans exposed to Agent Orange.

* THIS IS WRONG! THIS IS WHY WE'RE IN THE SHAPE WE'RE IN! CONGRESS OWES THE AMERICAN PEOPLE STRAIGHT TALK AND SPECIFIC LEGISLATION ON ONE TOPIC AT A TIME.

The difficulty in passing the bill in the House is magnified by disagreement between Republicans supportive of the war - who insist the measure be "clean" of unrelated spending - and Democrats who want funding for the unpopular war to carry unrelated party priorities. Republicans are threatening to withhold support for the overall package if Democratic add-ons are included.

* AND ON THIS ONE THE REPUBLICANS ARE THE GOOD GUYS AND THE DEMOCRATS ARE THE BAD GUYS. IT'S THAT SIMPLE...

June 30, 2010 at 10:27 AM
William R. Barker said...

* TWO-PARTER... (Part 1 of 2)

http://swampland.blogs.time.com/2010/06/30/faced-with-the-blagojevich-scandal-did-barack-obama-tell-the-whole-truth/?xid=rss-topstories

Faced With The Blagojevich Scandal, Did Barack Obama Tell The Whole Truth?

* THAT'S ACTUALLY THE TITLE OF THE TIME MAGAZINE PIECE. IT SEEMS THE MSM IS STARTING TO PAY ATTENTION TO THE "SMOKE." WE'LL SOON KNOW IF THERE'S ANY "FIRE."

Just weeks after President Obama won the 2008 election, the governor of Illinois was charged with trying to sell Obama's old Senate seat. It was an early challenge for the then president-elect, and he responded in a grand gesture of transparency. He asked Greg Craig, his future White House Counsel, to investigate “any staff contacts or communications” with Governor Rod Blagojevich's office.

Less than two weeks later, Craig released a public report, which purported to remove any lingering doubt about the President's involvement in the matter. It read in part: "The President-Elect had no contact or communication with Governor Blagojevich or members of his staff about the Senate seat. In various conversations with transition staff and others, the President-Elect expressed his preference that Valerie Jarrett work with him in the White House. He also stated that he would neither stand in her way if she wanted to pursue the Senate seat nor actively seek to have her or any other particular candidate appointed to the vacancy."

This all seemed rather open and shut. ... But recent testimony in the Blagojevich trial suggests that Craig's report and Obama's effort at transparency failed to tell the entire story. On Tuesday, an Illinois union leader, Thomas Balanoff, testified that he received a phone call the day before the election from President Obama to discuss Valerie Jarrett and the Senate seat. Balanoff would serve as a go-between, connecting the Obama inner circle to the Blagojevich inner circle.

Balanoff's testimony: "Tom, I want to talk to you with regard to the Senate seat," Obama told him. Balanoff said Obama said he had two criteria: someone who was good for the citizens of Illinois and could be elected in 2010. Obama said he wasn't publicly coming out in support of anyone but he believed Valerie Jarrett would fit the bill. "I would much prefer she (remain in the White House) but she does want to be Senator and she does meet those two criteria," Balanoff said Obama told him. "I said: 'thank you, I'm going to reach out to Gov. Blagojevich."

(*SHRUG*) (*SMIRK*)

* To be continued...

June 30, 2010 at 10:48 PM
William R. Barker said...

* CONTINUING... (Part 2 of 2)

Three days later, Balanoff testified that he had a meeting with Blagojevich at which he recommended Valerie Jarrett for the Senate seat.

Now, it is true, according to this testimony, that Obama never explicitly recommends Jarrett for the job. But it is also true that Balanoff understood the conversation to be, effectively, a recommendation. This sort of wink-wink communication is, it must be said, standard to Chicago politics, where smart politicians know a certain percentage of their peers are probably wire tapped by federal investigators, and another percentage are on their way to jail.

Balanoff's testimony, given under oath, raises questions about what else Craig left out of his 2008 report.

It is not explained, for instance, why the Craig report mentions a conversation Balanoff had with Jarrett about the seat, but not the one Balanoff had with Obama. Asked about Balanoff's testimony at Tuesday's press briefing, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said he would not comment on “an ongoing trial.”

(*SMIRK*) (*SNICKER*)

The Balanoff disclosures stop short of incriminating Obama in Blagojevich's allegedly criminal scheme. But they shed new doubt both on President Obama's declared commitment to transparency and the credibility of the staff account of his role in the Blagojevich matter. If the Craig report chose to omit any mention of a conversation with a known go-between for Blagojevich, in which the President is, at least, understood to be recommending Jarrett, then there is no telling what other salient facts were also left out.

June 30, 2010 at 10:48 PM
William R. Barker said...

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/06/30/justice-dept-lawyer-accuses-holder-dropping-new-black-panther-case-political/

A former Justice Department attorney who quit his job to protest the Obama administration's handling of the New Black Panther Party voter intimidation case is accusing Attorney General Eric Holder of dropping the charges for racially motivated reasons.

* I WOULD HATE TO BELIEVE RACE PLAYED A PART. I TEND TO BELIEVE IT WAS STRICTLY PARTISAN POLITICS. UNSAVORY, YES... BUT RACIAL... NO, I'D HAVE TO SEE SOME PRETTY CONVINCING BACK-UP TO SUCH A CHARGE.

J. Christian Adams, now an attorney in Virginia and a conservative blogger, says he and the other Justice Department lawyers working on the case were ordered to dismiss it. "I mean we were told, 'Drop the charges against the New Black Panther Party,'" Adams told Fox News, adding that political appointees Loretta King, acting head of the civil rights division, and Steve Rosenbaum, an attorney with the division since 2003, ordered the dismissal.

Asked about the Justice Department's claim that they are career attorneys, not political appointees, Adams said "obviously, that's false." "Under the vacancy reform act, they were serving in a political capacity," he said. "This is one of the examples of Congress not being told the truth, the American people not being told the truth about this case.

Adams claimed an unnamed political appointee said if somebody wants to bring these kinds of cases, "that's not going to be done out of the civil rights division."

* I'M NOT COMFORTABLE WITH "UNNAMED" SOURCES. IF YOU'RE GOING TO ACCUSE SOMEONE, BACK IT UP WITH THE NAME OF THE PERSON YOU'RE ACCUSING.

Adams also accused Deputy Attorney General Thomas Perez of lying under oath to Congress about the circumstances surrounding the decision to drop the probe.

* SEE... THAT'S BETTER - ADAMS IS NOW NAMING NAMES.

"There is a pervasive hostility within the civil rights division at the Justice Department toward these sorts of cases," Adams told Fox News' Megyn Kelly. Adams says the dismissal is a symptom of the Obama administration's reverse racism and that the Justice Department will not pursue voting rights cases against white victims.

* WELL... IF THERE'S BEEN A PATTERN THEN IT'S UP TO ADAMS TO LAY IT OUT IN ORDER TO MAKE HIS CASE.

"In voting, that will be the case over the next few years, there's no doubt about it," he said.

* AGAIN... I'M CERTAINLY OPEN TO TIME PROVING ADAMS CORRECT... BUT UNTIL THEN... (*SHRUG*)

Adams also says that after the dismissal, Justice Department attorneys were instructed not to bring any more cases against racial minorities under the Voting Section.

* I'D NEED TO SEE CONVINCING EVIDENCE IN ORDER TO TAKE THIS ACCUSATION AT FACE VALUE.

* BTW... THIS IS HOW AN INTELLECTUALLY HONEST PERSON READS AND ANALYSES THE NEWS. ALWAYS BE SKEPTICAL. ALWAYS ASK QUESTIONS. IT'S NOT ABOUT WHAT YOU'D "LIKE" TO BELIEVE OR WHAT FITS WITHIN YOUR WORLD VIEW, IT'S WHAT MAKES SENSE AND PASSES THE SMELL TEST.

June 30, 2010 at 10:49 PM
William R. Barker said...

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0610/39225.html

Rep. Steve Scalise (R-La.) wanted to fly 10 lawmakers down to the Gulf of Mexico to see the damage caused by BP’s gigantic oil spill first hand.

House Democrats said no.

* GOOD! NOW IF ONLY DEMOCRATS WOULD SAY NO TO THEIR OWN MEMBERSHIP!

Republicans want to be able to take trips using their office spending allowance.

* WHICH IS THE NORM, HOWEVER... NOW'S THE PERFECT TIME TO END THE PRACTICE. ENOUGH WITH THE JUNKETS!

Congress has held upwards of 20 hearings on the disaster, often duplicative ones each week, as lawmakers struggle to grasp and fully realize the scope of BP’s giant oil spill.

* THESE ARE THE IDIOTS RUNNING OUR COUNTRY...

(*GRITTING MY TEETH*)

June 30, 2010 at 10:49 PM
William R. Barker said...

http://content.usatoday.com/communities/onpolitics/post/2010/06/national-debt-soars-to-highest-level-since-wwii/1

The federal debt will represent 62% of the nation's economy by the end of this year, the highest percentage since just after World War II, according to a long-term budget outlook released today by the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office.

At the end of 2008, the debt equaled about 40 % of the nation's annual economic output, according to the CBO.

* 40% BUSH AFTER SIX YEARS OF A RINO CONGRESS AND TWO YEARS OF A PELOSI/REID CONGRESS... 62% AFTER AN ADDITIONAL MERE 18 MONTHS OF DEMOCRATIC CONTROL OF BOTH ELECTED BRANCHES OF THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT. THERE'S JUST NO WAY TO SPIN THAT, FOLKS; IT IS WHAT IT IS.

* NOTE... USA TODAY ACTUALLY COULD HAVE GONE BACK TO THE END OF 2006 - MARKING THE END OF REPUBLICAN CONTROL OF BOTH ELECTED BRANCHES OF THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT. NOT TO BE TOO CYNICAL, BUT I'M GUESSING THEY DIDN'T USE 2006 NUMBERS BECAUSE THAT WOULD MAKE THE CONTRAST BETWEEN REPUBLICAN GOVERNANCE AND DEMOCRATIC GOVERNANCE EVEN MORE PRONOUNCED!

"The driver of this debt is spending," said New Hampshire Sen. Judd Gregg, the top Republican on the Senate Budget Committee. "Our existing debt will be worsened by the president's new health care entitlement programs…as well as an explosion in existing health care and retirement entitlement spending as the Baby Boomers retire."

June 30, 2010 at 11:03 PM
William R. Barker said...

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2010/06/30/the_standard_for_judging_kagan.html

There seems to be one thing on which everyone can agree. From archconservative pundits to archliberal White House staffers responsible for Solicitor General Elena Kagan's confirmation to the Supreme Court, all agree that the test is whether she is in the "mainstream of current legal thought."

But it would seem to me that such a standard only makes sense if you approve of where the mainstream currently is.

After all, James Madison, who largely wrote the Constitution, obviously would be unqualified to interpret it today because it is a mathematical certainty that he would be appalled at the "mainstream of current legal thought."

For instance, consider a leering Democratic senator grilling Madison in 2010 on his views concerning the current mainstream theory of "a living Constitution," which requires that the Constitution be viewed in the context of today's events. Being an honest man, Madison would have to repeat what he said whilst he was alive: "Do not separate text from historical background. If you do, you will have perverted and subverted the Constitution, which can only end in a distorted, bastardized form of illegitimate government."

Oh dear, that puts Madison dangerously outside the current mainstream.

[W]ouldn't it make sense for those of us who believe in original intent (and in this instance "us" would seem to include almost all Republican senators, based on their public statements) to support only nominees who hold to the standard of the mainstream of legal thought as of Sept. 17, 1787, when the writing of the Constitution was completed (or perhaps as of March 4, 1789, when the Constitution went into effect)?

(*CLAP-CLAP-CLAP*) (*WHISTLE*) (*ENTHUSIASTIC FOOT STAMPING*)

* I URGE ALL OF YOU TO UTILIZE THE ABOVE PROVIDED LINK TO READ THIS OUTSTANDING PIECE IN ITS ENTIRETY.

June 30, 2010 at 11:18 PM

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