Saturday, June 12, 2010

Weekend Newsbites: Sat. & Sun., June 12 & 13, 2010


Oh, well... guess you can't find everything on YouTube, but what the heck - that's life...

Originally I was looking for one of my favorite songs - "I'll Be Seeing You" - the swinging version Frank sings on "I Remember Tommy."

(*SHRUG*)
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5 comments:

William R. Barker said...

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/12/world/asia/12karzai.html?hp

[While] Americans and [our] NATO partners are pouring tens of thousands of additional troops into the country to weaken hard-core Taliban and force the group to the bargaining table. [Afghan President Hamid] Karzai appears to believe that the American-led offensive cannot work.

* IS IT JUST ME, OR DOES ANYONE ELSE SEE THE "DISCONNECT" UPON WHICH WE CONTINUE TO THROW AWAY AMERICAN LIVES AND TREASURE...???

Two senior Afghan officials were showing President Hamid Karzai the evidence of the spectacular rocket attack on a nationwide peace conference earlier this month when Mr. Karzai told them that he believed the Taliban were not responsible. “The president did not show any interest in the evidence - none - he treated it like a piece of dirt,” said Amrullah Saleh, then the director of the Afghan intelligence service. Mr. Saleh declined to discuss Mr. Karzai’s reasoning in more detail. But a prominent Afghan with knowledge of the meeting, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that Mr. Karzai suggested in the meeting that it might have been the Americans who carried it out.

* AND THIS IS OUR "ALLY."

Karzai had lost faith in the Americans and NATO to prevail in Afghanistan. [According to] Mr. Saleh and other officials, Karzai has been pressing to strike his own deal with the Taliban and the country’s archrival, Pakistan, the Taliban’s longtime supporter. According to a former senior Afghan official, Mr. Karzai’s maneuverings involve secret negotiations with the Taliban outside the purview of American and NATO officials.

* OH, YEAH... APPARENTLY SECRETARY OF STATE HILLARY CLINTON IS DOING A BANG-UP JOB. PRESIDENT OBAMA'S FOREIGN POLICY IS REALLY HAVING AN... er... IMPACT. (*PURSED LIPS*)

“The president has lost his confidence in the capability of either the coalition or his own government to protect this country,” Mr. Saleh said in an interview at his home. “President Karzai has never announced that NATO will lose, but the way that he does not proudly own the campaign shows that he doesn’t trust it is working.”

* CAN WE PLEASE JUST GET THE F--K OUT OF THERE...?!?!

People close to the president say he began to lose confidence in the Americans last summer...

* HUMM... NOW WHO WAS PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES BACK IN THE SUMMER OF 2009...? (*SMIRK*)

* SERIOUSLY... FOLKS... LET'S GET THE F--K OUT OF AFGHANISTAN. KARZAI IS A CROOK AND OBAMA IS AN INCOMPETENT. THERE'S NOTHING TO BUILD A "VICTORY" UPON!

June 12, 2010 at 12:37 PM
William R. Barker said...

http://blog.heritage.org/2010/06/11/morning-bell-prolonging-educations-race-to-the-bottom/?utm_source=Newsletter&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=Morning%2BBell

For close to four decades, the federal government has operated under the seemingly simple premise that increased spending on education will translate into academic achievement.

This line of thinking has resulted in inflation-adjusted federal expenditures on education increasing 138% since 1985.

Per-pupil expenditures have ballooned to over $11,000 per student, and are even higher in most urban areas including the District of Columbia where the government spends $14,500 on each child.

Billions upon billions of dollars have been poured into our public school system because the federal government...is convinced that it is best suited to administer our country’s education system.

[T]his approach has been a miserable failure. The high school drop out rate continues to skyrocket and academic achievement continues to be stagnant despite decades of increased federal spending and involvement in education. [W]e hopelessly watch other countries outpace us in math and the sciences.

President Obama and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan remain impervious to the education crisis and are committed to strengthening the federal stranglehold over our country’s education system.

Just months after taking office, President Obama signed into a law the gargantuan “stimulus bill” stuffed with wasteful spending adding to the federal government’s girth. The Department of Education received an unprecedented $100 billion in additional money through the stimulus. But months after the bill’s passage, two things are clear: the stimulus bill is not growing our economy and more federal money towards education is not improving our schools.

(*MIGRAINE HEADACHE*)

Undaunted by the obvious, liberal lawmakers in the House are planning on making yet another push this week to include an additional $23 billion dollars for emergency education spending to prevent “catastrophic” public education layoffs.

(*MIGRAINE HEADACHE GETTING WORSE*)

But for decades, states have continued to bloat their staff rolls, particularly non-teaching staff positions. Since 1970 for instance, student enrollment in public elementary and secondary schools has increased just 7%, while public elementary and secondary staff hires have increased 83%.

* FOLKS... IS ANY OF THIS GETTING THROUGH TO YOU...??? I MAY NOT BE A "MATH GUY," BUT I CAN READ THE WRITING ON THE WALL! CAN YOU...???

Another bailout from Washington could exacerbate states’ fiscal problems by creating disincentives for states to tackle out-of-control spending and make the difficult budgetary decisions necessary to produce long-term education reforms.

The [Obama] administration is supporting a move to implement national education standards, using the $4.35 billion Race to the Top grant program to secure those ends.

* NOW PAY ATTENTION, PEOPLE... KEEP READING...

National standards will give the federal government – not parents – more power over education.

Now, instead of petitioning their local schools boards for curriculum changes, parents will have to trek to Washington to lobby D.C. bureaucrats for input in the content taught at their children’s school.

* IN OTHER WORDS, THEY KEEP ON MOVING THE GOALPOSTS FURTHER AND FURTHER AWAY FROM LOCAL CONTROL WHILE ADDING UNFUNDED MANDATES THAT HAVE TO BE PAID FOR VIA THE TAXES OF PEOPLE WHO WILL NOW HAVE EVEN LESS VOICE IN HOW THEIR TAXES WILL BE SPENT...!!!

Progressives dream of making us more and more dependent on big government, and that has never looked so promising after Obama victories in widening government’s hold in health care, banking and now education. If this past year and a half is any indication of what’s to come, two things are clear: (a) we will see more and more of our freedoms diminish and (b) the girth of our federal government’s waist-line will surely grow.

June 12, 2010 at 12:59 PM
William R. Barker said...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/06/12/AR2010061204152.html

President Obama urged reluctant lawmakers Saturday to quickly approve nearly $50 billion in emergency aid to state and local governments...

* FOLKS... HE'S NOT TALKING THE OIL SPILL... HE'S SIMPLY ASKING FOR MORE SPENDING ON TOP OF MORE SPENDING.

In a letter to congressional leaders, Obama defended last year's huge economic stimulus package, saying it helped break the economy's free fall, but argued that more spending is urgent and unavoidable.

* FIRST... THINK ABOUT IT... THIS "LETTER" IS RELEASED ON A SATURDAY. (*SMIRK*)

* SECOND... LAST YEAR'S "STIMULUS" WAS A TOTAL FAILURE - WORSE THAN A FAILURE IN FACT! NOT ONLY DID IT NOT FULFILL OBAMA'S PROMISE THAT WITH IT UNEMPLOYMENT WOULD STAY BELOW 8%, BUT ALONG WITH THE UNEMPLOYMENT NOW, OBAMA HAS LOADED UP THE ECONOMY WITH FUTURE UNSUSTAINABLE DEBT.

* THIRD... THE LAST - THE VERY LAST - THING THE OBAMA/PELOSI/REID GOVERNMENT SHOULD BE DOING IS ADDING MORE DEBT UPON THE SHOULDERS OF OUR GENERATION AND THE NEXT GENERATION AND THE NEXT.

Don Stewart, a spokesman for Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), called the letter full of "contradictions."

"He's calling on Congress to pass a bill that will add about $80 billion to the deficit, but then calls for fiscal discipline; he says these measures need to be targeted and temporary, but then calls for extending programs passed in the stimulus more than a year ago," Stewart said in an e-mail.

* YEP. SOUNDS ABOUT RIGHT; STANDARD OBAMA PLAYBOOK.

Republicans have offered an alternative package that proposes to cover the cost of additional jobless benefits - but not aid to state governments - by cutting federal spending elsewhere.

(*CLAP-CLAP-CLAP*)

In contrast to the Democratic bill, the GOP measure would reduce deficits by nearly $55 billion over the next decade, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.

* WHAT ELSE CAN I TELL YOU, PEOPLE...??? IT IS WHAT IT IS. THE TRUTH WILL OUT!

June 13, 2010 at 9:25 PM
William R. Barker said...

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=CNG.55afc2f458ef4cadcb6e3e32530d858a.1d1&show_article=1

A key governor on Sunday blasted the lack of leadership in the US response to the worst ever US oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, saying decisions were being gummed up in committee.

Governor Bob Riley of Alabama said he was more frustrated with the Obama administration's lack of coordination and unity of purpose than he was BP, the British energy giant blamed for the spill.

* WHICH IS RIGHT IN LINE WITH THE BACK-UP INFO YOU'VE BEEN READING ALL ALONG HERE AT NEWSBITES. (*SHRUG*)

Riley, a Republican, said decisions were being stalled because each government agency represented on the "unified command" running the response has a veto on decisions advanced by other government agencies. As an example, he said a Coast Guard plan for protecting the Alabama shoreline has been held up for 45 days because another member of the committee is reviewing it.

* FOLKS... COM'ON... INTUITIVELY YOU KNOW THE GOVERNOR ISN'T EXAGGERATING. WOULD MCCAIN HAVE DONE BETTER? WHO KNOWS. BUT WHAT WE DO KNOW IS THAT OBAMA HAS MADE A HASH OF THINGS.

June 13, 2010 at 9:35 PM
William R. Barker said...

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/14/business/media/14cache.html

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission is looking for ways to “support the reinvention of journalism.” Possible measures to "help" the troubled U.S. news business, outlined in a paper published last month and scheduled to be discussed at a meeting Tuesday, include public subsidies...

* IF THIS DOESN'T SEND A CHILL DOWN YOUR SPIN THEN I JUST DON'T KNOW IF IT'S POSSIBLE FOR ANYTHING TO GET THROUGH TO YOU. (*SIGH*)

June 13, 2010 at 9:35 PM

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