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2010
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July
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- Barker's Newsbites: Friday, July 30, 2010
- Barker's Newsbites: Thursday, July 29, 2010
- U.S. v. Arizona -- No. CV 10-1413-PHX-SRB
- Barker's Newsbites: Wednesday, July 28, 2010
- Barker's Newsbites: Tuesday, July 27, 2010
- Summer Reading 2010
- Barker's Newsbites: Monday, July 26, 2010
- Weekend Newsbites: Sat. & Sun., July 24 & 25, 2010
- Barker's Newsbites: Friday, July 23, 2010
- Barker's Newsbites: Thursday, July 22, 2010
- Barker's Newsbites: Wednesday, July 21, 2010
- Barker's Newsbites: Tuesday, July 20, 2010
- Barker's Newsbites: Monday, July 19, 2010
- Weekend Newsbites: Sat. & Sun., July 17 & 18, 2010
- Barker's Newsbites: Friday, July 16, 2010
- Barker's Newsbites: Thursday, July 15, 2010
- Barker's Newsbites: Wednesday, July 14, 2010
- Barker's Newsbites: Tuesday, July 13, 2010
- Barker's Newsbites: Monday, July 12, 2010
- Deputy Assistant Attorney General Julie Fernandes
- Weekend Newsbites: Sat. & Sun., July 10 & 11
- Barker's Newsbites: Friday, July 9, 2010
- Barker's Newsbites: Thursday, July 8, 2010
- Barker's Newsbites: Wednesday, July 7, 2010
- Barker's Newsbites: Tuesday, July 6, 2010
- Weekend Newsbites: Sat., Sun., & Mon., July 3/4/5
- Barker's Newsbites: Friday, July 2, 2010
- Operation Wetback
- Barker's Newsbites: Thursday, July 1, 2010
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July
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About Me
- William R. Barker
- Pearl River, NY High School Class of '81; Northeastern University, Boston, MA Class of '87.
11 comments:
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20100710/D9GS7K7O0.html
Six American service members and at least a dozen civilians died in attacks Saturday in Afghanistan's volatile east and south...
(*SIGH*)
Their deaths raised to 23 the number of American troops killed so far this month in the war.
* AND FOR WHAT? DOES ANYONE THINK WE'RE ANY "SAFER" BECAUSE 23 AMERICANS HAVE DIED IN AFGHANISTAN THIS MONTH?
Last month was the deadliest of the war for the multinational force, with 103 international troops killed, 60 of them Americans.
* SO... HOPE AND CHANGE, HUH...
http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article/539977/201007091902/ObamaCare-Dream-Turned-Nightmare.aspx
Key provisions of the president's health care reform are about to take effect. Don't expect any of it to be pretty. It turns out that - as predicted by health experts, and reported on this page - ObamaCare will make health insurance premiums rise rather than fall.
Tom Coburn of Oklahoma and John Barrasso of Wyoming are the only two members of the U.S. Senate with M.D.s, and their prognosis in the report, titled "Bad Medicine: a Check-up on the New Federal Health Law," is far from good.
"Independent experts have found that the new health law will increase the cost of health insurance and health care services," the two doctor-senators say, noting the Congressional Budget Office concludes that "premiums for millions of American families in 2016 will be 10%-13% higher than they otherwise would be. This represents a $2,100 increase per family, compared with the status quo."
Two thousand dollars more?
* YES... $2,000 MORE. (*SIGH*)
As the senators point out, "According to an April 2010 memo from the Actuary of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the medical device and pharmaceutical drug fees and the health insurance excise tax will generally be passed through to health consumers in the form of higher drug and device prices and higher insurance premiums, with an associated increase in overall national health expenditures." [A]ccording to the Joint Committee on Taxation, much of ObamaCare's new taxes will trickle down and end up being paid for by health care consumers. These include "the $60 billion tax on health plans, the $20 billion tax on medical devices and the $27 billion tax on prescription drugs."
Twenty-somethings are discriminated against under ObamaCare.
"Insurance for younger Americans will be more expensive because of new rating rules in the law that allow a smaller difference between the premiums an insurance company can charge a younger person compared with an older person," the report points out. "Unsurprisingly, independent actuaries and private sector experts estimate that, in most states, premiums for the youngest third of the population could increase by 35% under the new tight age bands under the law."
* OH, YEAH... THAT'S CERTAINLY... er... "CHANGE!"
America has had the best health system in the world. Its flaws are directly attributable to government interfering in the free flow of private services - a forced employer-based system, prohibiting interstate insurance, etc. Making the system better was always a worthy dream, but by expanding government instead of freedom, the dream has been made into the nightmare now beginning.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/9faa13a4-8af1-11df-bead-00144feab49a.html
Europe’s energy commissioner has followed the US lead and called for a moratorium on deepwater drilling...
(*SMIRK*)
Günther Oettinger urged governments to impose a “de facto” moratorium on new wells until regulations were in place to prevent accidents such as BP’s Deepwater Horizon disaster in the Gulf of Mexico.
* OK... ONE MORE TIME... THERE WERE REGULATIONS IN PLACE - AN ENTIRE INSPECTION REGIME IN FACT. OBAMA'S GOVERNMENT - OBAMA'S REGULATORY AGENCY - DIDN'T DO ITS JOB. (RECALL, FOLKS... BUSH LEFT OFFICE IN JANUARY OF 2009...)
An offshore drilling ban would have the greatest impact on the UK, which is the EU’s largest oil and gas producer and which hopes to sustain its declining output by developing deepwater fields in the Atlantic.
Hilary Ross of Bond Pearce, a law firm that advises the oil and gas industry, also said she was "very worried by the commissioner’s knee-jerk reaction."
“This call from the EU is wholly disproportionate and goes well beyond the precautionary principle. It gets into pandering..."
* FOLKS. FORGIVE THE PUN, BUT THIS IS SIMPLY A SMOKESCREEN FOR THE ENVIRONMENTAL WACKOS TO USE IN ORDER TO PUSH THEIR "ARTIFICIAL ENERGY SCARCITY" AGENDA.
* REMEMBER, FOLKS... THE PEOPLE PUSHING THIS CRAP ARE LARGELY EITHER RICH ENOUGH NOT TO WORRY ABOUT WHAT ENERGY COSTS OR ELSE HAVE GOVERNMENT JOBS WHICH INCLUDE EITHER CHAUFFEUR DRIVEN GOVERNMENT OR CORPORATE CARS OR DIRECT FUEL COST REIMBURSEMENT.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703609004575355112899172210.html?mod=WSJ_hps_LEADNewsCollection
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti—Traffic inches past mountains of rubble. Tropical rains pound refugee camps where hundreds of thousands of people huddle amid the stench of excrement. Buildings marked for demolition lean drunkenly against each other.
Six months after January's earthquake devastated Haiti, killing some 230,000 people and injuring 300,000, the process of reconstruction appears to have come to a halt.
Billions of dollars in pledged aid have yet to arrive. Decisions on how to spend the money have not begun to be made. An estimated one million Haitians remain displaced. And everywhere, there is rubble.
* HOPE... CHANGE... HOPE... CHANGE... HOPE... CHANGE...
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704111704575354870221777334.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTop
His heart belonged to you," President Obama told the hundreds of West Virginians who attended Robert Byrd's funeral last week. "Making life better here was his only agenda."
Maybe so. But despite the $4 billion in pork that Byrd served his constituents over the past 19 years alone - not to mention the untold billions before observers started keeping tabs - West Virginia remains the third poorest state in the country. Government spending does not prosperity make.
When Byrd became senator in 1959, West Virginia ranked #39 in median family income, and #42 in per capita income. Today, it's #48 in both categories.
Russell Sobel, a professor of economics at West Virginia University [notes,] 51.3% of the state's economy relies on spending by the local, state and federal government - the highest level of any state. "We've created this culture of dependency," warns Mr. Sobel, "Our human capital is not good at competing in the marketplace; it's good at securing federal grants."
Sen. Byrd may have loved West Virginia. But a hearty economy would have been a greater legacy than the 30 taxpayer-funded projects that bear his name.
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/business/7101738.html
Diamond Offshore announced Friday that its Ocean Endeavor drilling rig will leave the Gulf of Mexico and move to Egyptian waters immediately - making it the first to abandon the United States in the wake of the BP oil spill and a ban on deep-water drilling.
Larry Dickerson, CEO of Houston-based Diamond, signaled that other of his company's rigs could be relocated, too.
"As a result of the uncertainties surrounding the offshore drilling moratorium, we are actively seeking international opportunities to keep our rigs fully employed," Dickerson said. "We greatly regret the loss of U.S. jobs that will result from this rig relocation."
It was unclear how many U.S. jobs could leave with the Ocean Endeavor, but typically more than 100 workers are on the rig at any given time, doing everything from drilling to cooking meals. Onshore, a network of businesses supplies the rigs with groceries, equipment, uniforms and drilling materials.
"It's not unusual for an energy service company to have 1,000 vendors that they buy from or purchase services from," noted Rep. Kevin Brady, R-The Woodlands. As a result, Brady said, the economic damage from the moratorium stretches far and wide.
* AS THE AGE OF OBAMA CONTINUES TO LEAVE ITS MARK... (*SIGH*)
Although the administration on Thursday lost its second bid to keep the ban in place while it appeals a federal court's decision to strike down the moratorium, federal regulators plan to try again with a revised version soon.
Dan Pickering, a financial analyst with Tudor, Pickering Holt & Co. Securities, said the legal uncertainties surrounding the ban - and the administration's plan to issue a new, revised moratorium - ensure that no companies will resume deep-water drilling in U.S. waters anytime soon.
"Are you really going to spend $5 million … getting ready to drill a well that someone would then probably block you from drilling?" Pickering said. (Pickering added that prospects are high that a dozen rigs ultimately could leave the Gulf of Mexico because of the ban.)
"There are two types of rigs in the deep-water Gulf today: those that are leaving the country and those that want to, because with this moratorium hanging over their heads, they simply can't go back to work," Brady said. "I'm afraid this is the first of many rigs and many American jobs to leave the Gulf."
Once the rigs relocate, it could be a minimum of five to 10 years before they return, predicted Rep. Pete Olson, R-Sugar Land. "We cannot afford to lose these jobs or the energy they provide," Olson said.
* OBAMA... DOESN'T... CARE... (*SHRUG*)
http://www.bangordailynews.com/detail/148373.html
The first family will spend next weekend vacationing on Mount Desert Island [Maine].
* YEP. MAINE. NOT ALABAMA. NOT MISSISSIPI. NOT LOUISIANA. NOT FLORIDA.
* FOLKS... TO REITERATE: OBAMA... DOESN'T... CARE... (IF HE DID, HE'S SURE AS HELL BE ACTIVELY SUPPORTING THE GULF REGION ECONOMY.)
U.S. Rep. Chellie Pingree (D-ME) [noted] “What an honor that the Obama family has chosen Maine for vacation when they could have gone anywhere in the country..."
* YEP! AND THAT'S THE POINT. OBAMA COULD HAVE - AND SHOULD HAVE - SHOWN SOLIDARITY WITH THE PEOPLE OF THE GULF.
* TWO-PARTER... (Part 1 of 2)
http://money.cnn.com/2010/07/09/smallbusiness/irs_1099_flood/
With a new mandate looming that will require business owners to file millions more tax forms...according to a report released this week by National Taxpayer Advocate Nina Olson...[:] "The new reporting burden, particularly as it falls on small businesses, may turn out to be disproportionate as compared with any resulting improvement in tax compliance,"
* IMAGINE THAT... (*SMIRK*)
Olson's office, which operates independently within the IRS, flagged the new reporting requirements as one of its priority issues for the next year. Like many who have delved into the details of the new rules, Olson is concerned about their far-reaching scope and potential
The expanded reporting requirements, which Congress slipped into the landmark health care reform bill passed in March, are an attempt to create a paper trail of 1099s exposing business-to-business payments that might otherwise stay off the radar. But the cost of that paper trail could swamp the small companies, sole proprietors freelancers forced to generate it.
Pennsylvania business networking organization SMC Business Councils surveyed its members and found that they currently average 10 filings a year of 1099 forms. The new rules would push that average to more than 200 filings per year for a typical small business, the industry group estimates.
* OH, YEAH... THAT OBAMA... HE'S REALLY GIVING US "CHANGE WE CAN BELIEVE IN." (*SMIRK*)
* To be continued...
* CONTINUING... (Part 2 of 2)
In a late May speech before the two payroll industry trade group, IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman announced a major exception to the new rules: The IRS plans to exempt transactions made through credit and debit cards. ... But SMC Business Councils President Tom Henschke, a vocal critic of the new law, estimates that exempting credit-card transactions would affect less than 10% of his members' reporting requirements. "Most of the small businesses out there that do small business [purchasing] don't do it by credit card," he said. "One of the reasons is the transaction cost is very high - 2% to 3%."
Henschke thinks the main beneficiaries of the exemption are likely to be credit-card companies, which will gain an added hook to get small businesses to pay their fees.
(*SNORT*) (*SNICKER*) OH, YEAH... OBAMA AND THE DEMS, THEY'RE ALWAYS LOOKING OUT FOR "THE LITTLE GUY." (IF - THAT IS - YOU CONSIDER AMEX, MASTERCARD, AND VISA TO BE "THE LITTLE GUYS."
* FOLKS... THIS DOESN'T HAPPEN BY "ACCIDENT." LEGISLATION IS WRITTEN BY EXPERTS. WHAT DO YOU WANNA BET THAT FOLLOWING THE MONEY (CAMPAIGN CONTRIBUTIONS) WOULD TELL AN INTERESTING TALE...??? (*SMIRK*) (*SNICKER*)
Henschke foresees another unintended consequence of the new reporting provisions: that in order to cut down on tax forms to be filed, businesses will trim the number of vendors they do business with. "I've actually heard businesses talking about consolidating their purchases, going from 150, 200 vendors, down to less than 100," he said. "That will most certainly lead to some small businesses being swept under the door."
* DUH! (*ROLLING MY EYES*)
The taxpayer advocate's office shares that concern. "Many large vendors already have computer systems that can track purchases by customer. They are likely to advertise that they will track each customer's total purchases and send them a report at the end of the year that business customers can use to comply with the Form 1099 filing requirement," the office wrote in its report. "Small businesses that lack the capacity to track customer purchases may lose customers, leaving the economy with more large national vendors and less local competition."
That was just one of seven major pitfalls the Taxpayer Advocate Service foresees in the new rules. It also questions whether they will actually do much to close the tax gap. Because of product returns and other complications, the payments documented by the 1099 trail won't match up cleanly against the revenue businesses report. "The IRS will face challenges making productive use of this new volume of information reports," Olson's office concluded.
* SERIOUSLY, FOLKS... WE'RE TALKING ABSOLUTE INCOMPETENTS PRESENTLY RUNNING OUR FEDERAL GOVERNMENT...!!!
http://www.thewrap.com/television/column-post/biden-does-leno-stops-traffic-lax-passengers-furious-19120
Vice President Joe Biden held up airplane traffic for hours on Friday night at Los Angeles International Airport after an appearance on Jay Leno ‘s ‘Tonight Show,’ leaving restless passengers fuming.
A spokesman for the vice president said he was unaware of the FAA temporary flight restriction that stopped flights coming in, and delayed those going out.
“I know we didn’t ask for anything,” Biden’s spokesman James Carney told TheWrap. “There was no sign of any stoppage. And there shouldn’t have been one.”
* YA KNOW, I BELIEVE CARNEY. AND, YEAH... I BELIEVE IF BIDEN HAD KNOWN - BEEN TOLD AT THE TIME - HE WOULD HAVE BEEN FURIOUS.
* THIS IS NOT A PARTISAN OBSERVATION. INSERT CHENEY FOR BIDEN. THE THING IS, WHOEVER THE VICE PRESIDENT IS... WHOEVER THE PRESIDENT IS FOR THAT MATTER... THIS SORT OF SECURITY OVERKILL IS NOT ONLY RIDICULOUS AND UNNECESSARY, BUT IT'S ACTUALLY A SYMPTON OF HOW OUT OF TOUCH MODERN WASHINGTON IS WITH THE IDEALS OF AMERICA.
* OH... AND BY THE WAY... THE FRIGG'N QUEEN OF ENGLAND DOESN'T GET THIS SORT OF "SECURITY" - NOR DOES THE BRITISH PRIME MINISTER. (NOR DID THEY EVEN AT THE HEIGHT OF "THE TROUBLES!")
Passengers were stuck for anywhere from 45 minutes to four hours as a result (including this writer), leaving many of them fuming. In one LAX terminal, flights on Horizon, Alaska and Virgin Air had three-hour delays.
“I sincerely hope that the vice president was oblivious to the number of lives he inconvenienced by deciding to land at LAX and his attempted humor on the Tonight Show,” said Will Roos, the owner of an environmental company GreenUp who was on his way back from a business trip in Sun Valley.
He added: “Just on our small propeller plane it resulted in half the passengers missing their flight, everyone missing their checked luggage, and more than four hours of delay for those lucky enough to make it on the plane."
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703636404575353052562578046.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_MIDDLETopOpinion
J. Christian Adams,, a former career Justice Department lawyer who resigned recently to protest political interference in cases he worked on, made some news yesterday in testimony before the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights.
* NOPE... NOT JUST ABOUT THE PANTHER CASE... KEEP READING!
He testified...
* TESTIFIED. TESTIFIED UNDER OATH! TESTIFIED UNDER OATH UNDER THREAT OF PERJURY CHARGES SHOULD HIS TESTIMONY BE FOUND TO BE DISHONEST!!!
...that last year Deputy Assistant Attorney General Julie Fernandes made a jaw-dropping announcement to attorneys in Justice's Voting Rights section. She said she would not support any enforcement of a key section of the federal "Motor Voter" law - Section 8 - which requires states to periodically purge their voter rolls of dead people, felons, illegal voters and those who have moved out of state.
* FOLKS... THIS COLUMN IS DATED JULY 8TH. SOMEHOW I MISSED IT. THIS IS THE FIRST I'M HEARING OF THIS. THIS IS BIG!
According to Mr. Adams, Justice lawyers were told by Ms. Fernandes: "We're not interested in those kind of cases. What do they have to do with helping increase minority access and turnout? We want to increase access to the ballot, not limit it."
If true, Ms. Fernandes was endorsing a policy of ignoring federal law and encouraging potential voter fraud.
* FOLKS... THIS IS UNBELIEVABLE! HAVE ANY OF YOU HEARD ABOUT THIS PRIOR TO READING THIS NEWSBITE...???
[T]here is some evidence backing up Mr. Adams. Last year, Justice abandoned a case it had pursued for three years against Missouri for failing to clean up its rolls. When filed in 2005, one-third of Missouri counties had more registered voters than voting-age residents. What's more, Missouri Secretary of State Robin Carnahan, a Democrat who this year is her party's candidate for a vacant U.S. Senate seat, contended that her office had no obligation to ensure individual counties were complying with the federal law mandating a cleanup of their voter rolls.
The case made slow but steady progress through the courts for more than three years, amid little or no evidence of progress in cleaning up Missouri's voter rolls. Despite this, Obama Justice saw fit to dismiss the case in March 2009. (Curiously, only a month earlier, Ms. Carnahan had announced her Senate candidacy.)
* FOLKS... THIS IS SCARY SHIT!
Missouri has a long and documented history of voter fraud in Democratic-leaning cities such as St. Louis and Kansas City. Ms. Carnahan may now stand to benefit from voter fraud facilitated by the improperly kept voter rolls that she herself allowed to continue.
Mr. Adams' allegations would seem to call for the senior management of Justice to be compelled to testify under oath to U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. But Justice is making none of its officials available and is refusing to enforce subpoenas issued by the commission. The more this story develops, the more it appears Justice is engaged in a massive coverup of its politicization of voting rights cases.
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