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2010
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June
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- Barker's Newsbites: Wednesday, June 30, 2010
- Barker's Newsbites: Tuesday, June 29, 2010
- Barker's Newsbites: Monday, June 28, 2010
- Weekend Newsbites: Sat. & Sun., June 26 & 27
- Sarah Palin's "Going Rogue" Left Me Cold
- Barker's Newsbites: Friday, June 25, 2010
- Barker's Newsbites: Thursday, June 24, 2010
- Barker's Newsbites: Wednesday, June 23, 2010
- Barker's Newsbites: Tuesday, June 22, 2010
- Weekend Newsbites: Sat. & Sun., June 19 & 20
- Barker's Newsbites: Friday, June 18, 2010
- A Good Man Passed On Yesterday
- Barker's Newsbites: Thursday, June 17, 2010
- Barker's Newsbites: Wednesday, June 16, 2010
- I Love the WSJ, But Sometimes I Feel Like I'm Read...
- Barker's Newsbites: Tuesday, June 15, 2010
- Why Has Bob Etheridge Not Been Arrested...???
- Barker's Newsbites: Monday, June 14, 2010
- Weekend Newsbites: Sat. & Sun., June 12 & 13, 2010
- Barker's Newsbites: Friday, June 11, 2010
- Barker's Newsbites: Thursday, June 10, 2010
- Barker's Newsbites: Wednesday, June 9, 2010
- Barker's Newsbites: Tuesday, June 8, 2010
- Barker's Newsbites: Monday, June 7, 2010
- Back from South Carolina!
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June
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About Me
- William R. Barker
- Pearl River, NY High School Class of '81; Northeastern University, Boston, MA Class of '87.
12 comments:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bzDlN7VLmXQ&feature=player_embedded
* GOD BLESS JAN BREWER.
* GOD DAMN BARAK OBAMA.
* TELL ME WITH A STRAIGHT FACE THAT WE'RE NOT LOSING OUR COUNTRY... LITERALLY.
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20100626/D9GIOGSO0.html
A 15-year-old Mexican boy shot and killed by a U.S. Border Patrol agent was among El Paso's most wanted juvenile immigrant smugglers, according to federal arrest records reviewed by The Associated Press.
(*SMIRK*)
The records show Sergio Adrian Hernandez Huereca had been arrested at least four times since 2008 and twice in the same week in February 2009 on suspicion of smuggling illegal immigrants across the U.S.-Mexico border. Hernandez was repeatedly arrested along the U.S. side of the border near downtown El Paso, not far from where he was killed, but was never charged with a crime by federal prosecutors.
* AND THOSE FEDERAL PROSECUTORS SHOULD BE NAMED... AND FIRED.
* BARAK OBAMA IS PRESIDENT. HE'S BEEN PRESIDENT SINCE JANUARY 2009. THESE ARE "HIS" FEDERAL PROSECUTORS. THESE ARE HIS POLICIES. ON FRONT AFTER FRONT, THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION DELIBERATELY UNDERMINES THE RULE OF LAW.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-arizona-law-20100626,0,2047818.story
A White House showdown with the state of Arizona over its tough new immigration law is likely to unfold next week, when the Obama administration is expected to file a lawsuit aimed at blocking the state's bid to curb illegal immigration...
* TELL ME AGAIN WHICH COUNTRY BARAK OBAMA BELIEVES HE'S PRESIDENT OF...???
Obama administration officials declined to reveal the basis for the suit.
(*ROLLING MY EYES*)
The Obama administration tipped its hand on its plans earlier this month when Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said in an Ecuadoran television interview that a lawsuit was coming. Outraged, Brewer said the administration should "inform us before it informs the citizens of another nation."
* AGAIN... YOU CAN'T MAKE THIS STUFF UP, FOLKS!
"Perhaps the administration should focus on getting the assets they promised to the border region rather than wasting time and taxpayer dollars on suing the state of Arizona," said Brooke Buchanan, a spokeswoman for Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.).
(*CLAP-CLAP-CLAP*)
The Arizona law empowers police, after making a lawful stop, to verify the immigration status of people they reasonably suspect are in the country illegally.
* AND THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION'S RESPONSE: FIGHT AGAINST ARIZONA. FIGHT AGAINST THE RULE OF LAW. OBAMA, HOLDER, AND CLINTON SEEK TO ALIGN THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT WITH THE CRIMINALS AGAINST THE RIGHTS AND SAFETY OF AMERICAN CITIZENS. THERE'S SIMPLY NO OTHER WAY TO PUT IT!
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100626/ap_on_re_ca/cn_world_summit_protests
Black-clad demonstrators broke off from a crowd of peaceful demonstrators protesting a global economic summit in Toronto, torching police cruisers and smashing windows with baseball bats and hammers.
* SO MUCH FOR $1 BILLION SPENT ON... er... "SECURITY."
* POINT BLANK: THE POLICE SHOULD HAVE USED DEADLY FORCE.
The roving band of protesters in black balaclavas shattered shop windows for blocks, including at police headquarters, then shed some of their black clothes, revealing other garments, and continued to rampage through downtown Toronto.
* AGAIN... THIS IS NOT "SECURITY." THIS IS NOT "POLICE PROTECTION." THIS IS NOT ENFORCEMENT OF THE RULE OF LAW - OR EVEN ENFORCEMENT OF CIVILIZED BEHAVIOR.
Protesters torched at least two police cruisers in different parts of the city, including one in the heart of the city's financial district.
* THESE "PROTESTERS" SHOULD HAVE BEEN SHOT DEAD RATHER THAN ALLOWED TO TORCH THE VEHICLES.
* PEOPLE... THIS IS CANADA. THIS ISN'T AFRICA. IT'S NOT ASIA OR SOUTH AMERICA. THIS IS CANADA.
http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/2010/06/26/2010-06-26_2_census_bigs_axed_for_fakin_it.html
Two Census Bureau managers from a Brooklyn field office were fired after their bosses found they faked household surveys to meet deadlines, the Daily News learned.
* FIRED, HUH? HOW ABOUT... ARRESTED...??? CHARGED WITH A CRIME...?!?!
The managers - turned in by whistleblower employees - were caught last week. Now, at least 10,000 surveys need to be done or redone, officials said.
The Census bureau was not able to estimate how much it will cost to redo all the work...
* WAIT FOR IT...
* WAIT FOR IT...
(*DRUM ROLL*)
...but a spokesman said it was not an issue because the bureau was under budget on the massive project.
* AIN'T THE AGE OF OBAMA GRAND!
* SERIOUSLY, FOLKS... THIS IS HOW THESE PEOPLE THINK!!!
Census officials in Washington only admitted to a string of incomplete forms and poor tracking in disclosing the firings Friday afternoon. But [Census regional director Tony] Farthing corroborated worker accounts to the Daily News that managers Alvin Aviles and Sonya Merritt began dummying up responses in the final crush to finish the surveys, which field workers are supposed to compile from in-person household visits.
(*SMIRK*)
* SERIOUSLY, FOLKS... THEIR FIRST INSTINCT IS ALWAYS TO LIE AND COVER UP.
http://www.fox8.com/news/wjw-news-westlake-ohio-six-year-old-no-fly-list,0,1122601.story
Alyssa Thomas, 6, is a little girl who is already under the spotlight of the federal government. Her family recently discovered that Alyssa is on the "no fly" list maintained by U.S. Homeland Security.
"We were, like, puzzled," said Dr. Santhosh Thomas. "I'm like, well, she's kinda six-years-old and this is not something that should be typical."
Dr. Thomas and his wife were made aware of the listing during a recent trip from Cleveland to Minneapolis. The ticket agent at the Continental counter at Hopkins Airport notified the family. "They said, well, she's on the list. We're like, okay, what's the story? What do we have to do to get off the list? This isn't exactly the list we want to be on," said Dr. Thomas.
The Federal Bureau of Investigations in Cleveland will confirm that a list exists, but for national security reasons, no one will discuss who is on the list or why.
The Thomas family was allowed to make their trip but they were told to contact Homeland Security to clear-up the matter.
* OK. SO FAR, SO GOOD.
Alyssa just received a letter from the government, notifying the six-year-old that nothing will be changed and they won't confirm nor deny any information they have about her or someone else with the same name.
* YOU'RE READING THIS, FOLKS... RIGHT...??? IT'S NOT JUST ME...??? THIS SAYS... er... WHAT IT SAYS... RIGHT...???
(*MASSIVE MIGRAINE HEADACHE*)
* FIRST. OBVIOUSLY THE KID SHOULDN'T BE ON THE NO-FLY LIST. SECOND. IF SHE'S ON THE NO-FLY LIST SHE SHOULDN'T BE ALLOWED TO FLY. (THAT'S WHY THEY CALL IT THE "NO-FLY" LIST... RIGHT...???) SO... IT SEEMS TO ME THAT ANY WAY YOU LOOK AT THIS - AT WHAT YOU'RE READING - IT'S CLEAR THAT OUR FEDERAL GOVERNMENT IS TOTALLY 100% INCOMPETENT.
(*SIGH*)
* FOLKS... THIS IS "OUR" GOVERNMENT; OPERATING IN "OUR" NAME. AND OBAMA AND THE DEMS WANT TO "GROW" GOVERNMENT
http://www.taxpayer.net/search_by_category.php?action=view&proj_id=3586&category=Wastebasket&type=Project
[T]he Government Accountability Office (GAO) points out that Department of Energy DOE hasn’t had a cost-estimating structure in place for decades and can’t even say what it spends on its nuclear labs today.
The Department of Energy is the largest contracting agency in the federal government outside the Department of Defense, outsourcing a staggering 90% of its annual budget. But they don’t do it well. Poor contract management and oversight has landed the agency on GAO’s “High Risk List” of wasteful government programs since 1990.
* GREAT NEWS, HUH? (*SMIRK*) JUST "WONDERFUL" F--KING NEWS...
The National Nuclear Security Agency (NNSA) and Office of Environmental Management (EM) consume 60% of the DOE budget. Now, the Obama Administration wants to boost their budgets to $18 billion in fiscal year 2011 to finish several new facilities and launch two programs to extend the life of nuclear warheads. An NNSA report on its long-range plans released last month says the agency plans to spend $80 billion over the next ten years.
* SO... THE OBAMA PLAN IS TO GIVE AN INCOMPETENTLY RUN FEDERAL DEPARTMENT EVEN MORE MONEY TO PISS AWAY. GREAT... JUST GREAT.
Lawmakers have worried aloud that NNSA wouldn’t be able to handle its new fiscal responsibilities. “We need to know that NNSA has sound cost and schedule estimates,” said Senate Energy and Water Subcommittee Chairman Byron Dorgan (D-ND) at a budget hearing last March. “What I've not seen and what I want to see is a plan or strategy that shows how NNSA will be able to manage this many complex projects at once and pay for them in the coming years.”
* WHEN BYRON DORGAN IS WORRIED ABOUT WASTE... (*SIGH*) (*HEADACHE*)
Some of these projects are already showing signs of trouble. The budget for the Chemistry and Metallurgy Research Facility Replacement (CMRR) at Los Alamos National Laboratory has more than quadrupled in recent years, and that’s before design plans have even been finalized. The authorization bill report expresses concern that the facility is “appropriately sized” following cancellation of the Reliable Replacement Warhead planned for development there. And construction of a plant in Kansas City, MO that DOE outsourced to a private developer to save money is apparently short of cash since DOE asked for funding for facility “upgrades.”
* AGAIN, FOLKS... REITERATING... OBAMA WANTS TO GIVE THESE INCOMPETENTS A BUDGETARY INCREASE...!
http://blog.heritage.org/2010/06/25/morning-bell-halting-the-explosive-growth-of-welfare-entitlements/?utm_source=Newsletter&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=Morning%2BBell
[T]he current administration’s philosophy on government welfare: grow the number of Americans dependent on government by increasing spending.
When President Lyndon B. Johnson announced his famous “War on Poverty” in 1964, his intent was to win the war by eliminating the causes of poverty. He actually promised to shrink, not enlarge, the welfare state.
Just the opposite has occurred.
Today, we spend 13 times more on welfare than in 1965 (even after adjusting for inflation), and the welfare state has made the problem of poverty worse by [deliberately] undermining the very fundamentals that decrease dependence: stable families and a strong work ethic.
Out-of-wedlock childbirth is at an historic high of 40% and means-tested welfare has grown faster than any other sector of government.
[S]ince the 1960s, the United States has spent $15.9 trillion on welfare.
Despite the current state of the nation’s debt, President Barack Obama plans to spend $10.3 trillion more over the next 10 years.
The [Republican driven] welfare reforms [President Clinton finally signed in] 1996 attempted to tame this beast by putting in place reforms that would make welfare programs do what they should: move people out of poverty. It did this by restructuring one of the more than 70 welfare programs. What had been the Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) – a cash-assistance program – became the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program. Instead of simply receiving a check from the government each month, recipients were now required to be involved in work or a work preparation activity for 20 to 30 hours a week in order to receive aid.
These reforms were dramatically successful. State welfare agencies became job placement offices, and recipients moved from a cycle of poverty into job seeking and employment. The number of families in poverty dropped by 2.8 million and the child poverty rate dropped significantly.
[Now however,] Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) is...push[ing] his tax-extenders bill.
Bundled together with the many egregious pieces of this bill is a $2.5 billion Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) emergency fund.
This is obviously the wrong approach. Instead of throwing more money at the ever-expanding and fiscally unsustainable welfare state, Congress should implement practices that work to move people out of poverty, versus those that do nothing but grow federal bureaucracies.
Throwing more money at the ever-growing behemoth that has become the U.S. welfare system will do nothing to improve the well-being of our nation’s poor. Instead, it will lead to increased dependence and unsustainable national spending. Congress must implement policies that attack the roots of poverty, instead of promoting it with more handouts. This is the only way the United States will produce self-reliant individuals and stable families: the greatest weapons against poverty.
I truly believe this Maoist is out to destroy the US. His parents were Marxists his grandparents were Marxists. All his cohorts are either former terrorists, or outright Socialists.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704911704575327140759374532.html
Canada did not have a banking crisis in 2008... "One of the fundamental reasons is that Canadian banks, the lenders on residential mortgages, lend and hold," [notes Canadian Finance Minister Jim Flaherty]. "Someone getting a mortgage normally meets with a live human being in a bank branch and the bank will know something about the person before it makes the loan." Banks don't sell them, either, he adds; "there wasn't that repackaging securitization - selling the loans - that happened a lot elsewhere."
* MEANING HERE IN THE GOOD OLD "INNOVATIVE" U.S.A.
* REMEMBER, THOUGH, FOLKS... "CRONY CAPITALISM" ISN'T CAPITALISM NOR IS OLIGARCHY CAPITALISM.
[B]orrowers can't treat their obligations lightly, as is too often the case in the U.S. "Someone can't just walk away from a home with a mortgage," Mr. Flaherty says. "They remain personally liable [for the loan] and that makes a big difference."
(*CLAP-CLAP-CLAP*)
[T]he Canadian tax code "does not encourage excessive risk-taking in home ownership because the mortgage interest is not deductible." For "politicians [deductibility] has a lot of attraction. But it's bad policy," he says, because it encourages home buyers to take on more than they can handle. Instead Canadian tax law tries to reward home ownership by making the capital gain on a principal residence tax deductible. "But that's at the end, not at the beginning of a real-estate relationship," Mr. Flaherty says. This, he contends, tempers the appetite for risk.
Yet it wasn't only that American home buyers took on too much risk. Many investors in subprime loans thought they were buying a sure thing and the quasi-government agencies known as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac played no small role in encouraging that perception.
How come the Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CHMC), which is the Canadian version of Fannie, didn't do the same?
The CHMC is not a government-sponsored enterprise; it is, Mr. Flaherty says, "a government agency" and that means "we watch quite carefully what risks they take." The size and scope of the agency, moreover, is far less ambitious. Fannie, Freddie and the Federal Housing Administration had, in June 2008, more than 50% of the subprime borrowers' market in the U.S. The Canadian government, by contrast, keeps CHMC on a short leash.
* OH... AND BTW...
Canada's home ownership rate of 68% is roughly equal to the U.S.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703615104575328981319857618.html
Like many bad ideas, the current Keynesian revival began under George W. Bush.
* ABSOLUTELY! FAIR IS FAIR AND RIGHT IS RIGHT!
* HOWEVER... THERE'S MORE TO THE STORY:
Larry Summers, then a private economist, told Congress that a "timely, targeted and temporary" spending program of $150 billion was urgently needed to boost consumer "demand."
Democrats who had retaken Congress adopted the idea (they love an excuse to spend) and the politically tapped-out Mr. Bush went along with $168 billion in spending and one-time tax rebates.
The cash did produce a statistical blip in GDP growth...
* WHILE PILING ON DEBT...!!! (*CURSING, RANTING, RAVING*)
...in mid-2008, but it didn't stop the financial panic and second phase of recession.
[E]nter Stimulus II, with Mr. Summers again leading the intellectual charge, this time as President Obama's adviser and this time suggesting upwards of $500 billion.
When [the Democrat-controlled] Congress was done two months later, in February 2009, the amount was $862 billion.
A pair of White House economists famously promised that this spending would keep the unemployment rate below 8%.
* YOU DO ALL REMEMBER THIS... RIGHT...???
Seventeen months later, and despite historically easy monetary policy for that entire period, the jobless rate is still 9.7%.
* U-6 UNEMPLOYMENT IS ACTUALLY 16.6% (AS OF MAY).
Yesterday, the Bureau of Economic Analysis once again reduced the GDP estimate for first quarter growth...
The response at the White House and among Congressional leaders has been . . . Stimulus III.
(*HEADACHE*)
While talking about the need for "fiscal discipline" some time in the future, President Obama wants more spending today to again boost "demand." Thirty months after Mr. Summers won his first victory, we are back at the same policy stand.
* THE INMATES ARE RUNNING THE ASYLUM, FOLKS...
The difference this time is that the Keynesian political consensus is cracking up. In Europe, the bond vigilantes have pulled the credit cards of Greece, Portugal and Spain, with Britain and Italy in their sights. Policy makers are now making a 180-degree turn from their own stimulus blowouts to cut spending and raise taxes. The austerity budget offered this month by the new British government is typical of Europe's new consensus.
(*CLAP-CLAP-CLAP*)
The larger lesson here is about policy. The original sin - and it was nearly global - was to revive the Keynesian economic model that had last cracked up in the 1970s, while forgetting the lessons of the long prosperity from 1982 through 2007. The Reagan and Clinton-Gingrich booms were fostered by a policy environment for most of that era of lower taxes, spending restraint and sound money. The spending restraint began to end in the late 1990s, sound money vanished earlier this decade, and now Democrats are promising a series of enormous tax increases.
President Obama's tragic mistake was to blow out the U.S. federal balance sheet on spending that has produced little bang for the buck. The fantastical Keynesian notion (the "multiplier") that $1 of spending produces $1.50 in growth was long ago demolished by Harvard's Robert Barro, among others. That $1 in spending has to come from somewhere, which means in taxes or borrowing from productive parts of the private economy. Given that so much of the U.S. stimulus went for transfer payments such as Medicaid and unemployment insurance, the "multiplier" has almost certainly been negative.
(*NOD*)
* BTW... INTELLIGENT PEOPLE HAVE ALWAYS KNOWN THIS!
http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2010/06/27/business-energy-af-libya-bp-oil_7723451.html
Libya will allow BP to begin drilling in its offshore deepwater region next month, despite the massive Gulf of Mexico oil spill, the head of Libya's National Oil Co. said Sunday.
* SO, ENVIRONMENTALIST WACKOS OF THE WORLD, ANSWER ME THIS: WHICH DO YOU THINK PROVIDES SAFER DRILLING - THE GULF OF MEXICO UNDER U.S. REGULATION OR... THE LIBYAN DEEP WATER REGION OF THE MEDITERREAN SEA UNDER... er... LIBYAN ENVIRONMENTAL REGULATIONS...??? HMM...???
Shokri Ghanem, who serves as Libya's de facto oil minister, said the April explosion of the Deepwater Horizon rig, and the subsequent spill, were "tragic," but the oil industry is also moving into "new frontiers."
"An accident will not stop us from digging in this new frontier," Ghanem said. "Life must go on, but we will learn a lot of lessons."
* IS ANYONE SURPRISED...??? ANYONE...???
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