Monday, August 9, 2010
Barker's Newsbites: Monday, August 9. 2010
This is our America... please, God, don't let us lose it...
* Please Note: There's apparently a technical glitch effecting comments posted on certain Blogspot blogs - including mine. Please bear with me...
** OK... I may have found a fix. Note, there are (or at least should be!) nine Barker Newsbites within the Comments Section of this thread. None have the customary links to the original source material attached. Apparently the links themselves are causing the glitch - causing comments to simply disappear shortly after being posted. My "fix" is therefore to post the links here on the thread post itself in the same order as you'll find the comments.
Comments 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9.
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21 comments:
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/beltway-confidential/immigration-enforcement-union-took-a-no-confidence-vote-in-its-leadership-99976699.html
Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents believe overwhelmingly that their department leadership has become so politicized as to compromise the effectiveness of ICE and the safety of American people.
Their union has released a letter announcing its recent unanimous “vote of no confidence” in ICE agency heads, accusing them of “misleading the American public” regarding illegal immigration in order to further a pro-amnesty agenda.
In June, the National Immigration and Customs Enforcement Council - an AFL-CIO affiliate - and affiliated local councils cast a unanimous 259-0 vote of no confidence in ICE Director John Morton and Assistant Director Phyllis Coven.
In a letter announcing the vote, the National Council criticized the directors for “misguided and reckless initiatives,” and said their leaders have “abandoned the Agency’s core mission of enforcing United States immigration laws and providing for public safety, and have instead directed their attention to campaigning for policies and programs related to amnesty.”
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/local/Stewart-asking-Congress-to-subpoena-for-immigration-records-1007693-100077604.html
[In Virginia,] Prince William County's top elected official is asking Congress to subpoena federal immigration records in an effort to find out how many illegal immigrants were released onto county streets after arrest.
Citing Sunday's death of a local nun, killed in a crash in which an illegal immigrant with a long arrest record was charged with drunken driving, county Board of Supervisors Chairman Corey Stewart wants to see the paperwork of Immigration and Customs Enforcement for illegal immigrants picked up by the federal agency in the county. "We're going to get this done," Stewart said. "I think Congress should want this information - why try to keep this information covered up?"
The long-simmering issue of illegal immigration in Northern Virginia has reached a boiling point in recent days after the death of 66-year-old Sister Denise Mosier, a member of the Benedictine Sisters of Virginia.
Carlos A. Martinelly Montano, 23, was arrested and charged with drunken driving, involuntary manslaughter and felony driving on a revoked license. It's possible he could face a murder charge from the crash. Sisters Charlotte Range and Connie Ruth Lupton were critically injured and were undergoing surgery Thursday.
The arrest was Montano's third drunken driving arrest in five years. He had also been released to Immigration and Customs enforcement two times for being in the country illegally.
* DISGUSTING.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/aug/8/lack-of-resources-curtails-ice-tracking-illegals/
New guidance telling U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to focus on apprehending terrorists and criminals has many of ICE's rank-and-file agents wondering who then is responsible for tracking down and detaining the millions of other illegal border-crossers and fugitive aliens now in the country.
The new guidelines are outlined in a June 29 memo from Assistant Secretary John Morton, who heads the agency, to all ICE employees...Described in the memo as "lesser priorities" are foreign nationals caught crossing the border illegally or using phony immigration documents to gain entry, and those identified as fugitives after failing to show up for immigration or deportation hearings.
* SO LET ME GET THIS STRAIGHT... THE ADMINISTRATION'S CURRENT POSITION IS NOT JUST "SCREW ARIZONA," BUT "SCREW FEDERAL BENCH WARRANTS" AS WELL...???
More than a dozen veteran ICE agents told The Washington Times in the past week that the carefully worded memo had field agents wondering whether they would be detaining illegal border-crossers in the future and whether those apprehended by other law enforcement agencies would be turned over to ICE for eventual deportation. One high-ranking ICE official, who asked not to be identified because he was not authorized to discuss the memo publicly, said agents at a major field office who inquired were told, "Arresting and deporting aliens was administrative work, and that as ICE criminal investigators, they were not going to do administrative duties." According to the official, the agents were told that ICE criminal investigators would be involved only in high-profile drug and terrorism cases that involved the seizure of assets, and no longer would process illegal immigrants otherwise detained.
(*SMIRK*)
Rep. Ted Poe (R-TX), a member of the House Judiciary and Foreign Affairs committees who has steadfastly supported efforts at increasing the funding and manpower for enhanced security efforts at the nation's borders, said the Morton memo sends an "unfortunate message" to would-be illegal border-crossers. "The message to those not yet in the United States is that they will get a free pass once they gain entry," he said.
Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX), the ranking Republican on the House Judiciary Committee and a member of the House Committee on Homeland Security, said the new ICE guidelines demonstrated that despite promises from the Obama administration, it is "simply not serious about enforcing all of our immigration laws." Smith said overall deportations are down and catch-and-release policies are back as illegal immigrants - even those with so-called minor criminal records such as drunken driving - are still being released into communities across the U.S.
In January, ICE reduced the number of its detention facilities from 341 to 270 and ended outside contracts at 10 other sites. In March, Mr. Morton told the Senate Appropriations Committee that he intended to "change the jail-oriented approach of our current detention system, and am in the process of redesigning the system so it meets our needs as an agency that detains people for civil, not penal, purposes."
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/beltway-confidential/immigration-enforcement-union-took-a-no-confidence-vote-in-its-leadership-99976699.html
Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents believe overwhelmingly that their department leadership has become so politicized as to compromise the effectiveness of ICE and the safety of American people.
Their union has released a letter announcing its recent unanimous “vote of no confidence” in ICE agency heads, accusing them of “misleading the American public” regarding illegal immigration in order to further a pro-amnesty agenda.
In June, the National Immigration and Customs Enforcement Council - an AFL-CIO affiliate - and affiliated local councils cast a unanimous 259-0 vote of no confidence in ICE Director John Morton and Assistant Director Phyllis Coven.
In a letter announcing the vote, the National Council criticized the directors for “misguided and reckless initiatives,” and said their leaders have “abandoned the Agency’s core mission of enforcing United States immigration laws and providing for public safety, and have instead directed their attention to campaigning for policies and programs related to amnesty.”
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/local/Stewart-asking-Congress-to-subpoena-for-immigration-records-1007693-100077604.html
[In Virginia,] Prince William County's top elected official is asking Congress to subpoena federal immigration records in an effort to find out how many illegal immigrants were released onto county streets after arrest.
Citing Sunday's death of a local nun, killed in a crash in which an illegal immigrant with a long arrest record was charged with drunken driving, county Board of Supervisors Chairman Corey Stewart wants to see the paperwork of Immigration and Customs Enforcement for illegal immigrants picked up by the federal agency in the county. "We're going to get this done," Stewart said. "I think Congress should want this information - why try to keep this information covered up?"
The long-simmering issue of illegal immigration in Northern Virginia has reached a boiling point in recent days after the death of 66-year-old Sister Denise Mosier, a member of the Benedictine Sisters of Virginia.
Carlos A. Martinelly Montano, 23, was arrested and charged with drunken driving, involuntary manslaughter and felony driving on a revoked license. It's possible he could face a murder charge from the crash. Sisters Charlotte Range and Connie Ruth Lupton were critically injured and were undergoing surgery Thursday.
The arrest was Montano's third drunken driving arrest in five years. He had also been released to Immigration and Customs enforcement two times for being in the country illegally.
* DISGUSTING.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/aug/8/lack-of-resources-curtails-ice-tracking-illegals/
New guidance telling U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to focus on apprehending terrorists and criminals has many of ICE's rank-and-file agents wondering who then is responsible for tracking down and detaining the millions of other illegal border-crossers and fugitive aliens now in the country.
The new guidelines are outlined in a June 29 memo from Assistant Secretary John Morton, who heads the agency, to all ICE employees...Described in the memo as "lesser priorities" are foreign nationals caught crossing the border illegally or using phony immigration documents to gain entry, and those identified as fugitives after failing to show up for immigration or deportation hearings.
* SO LET ME GET THIS STRAIGHT... THE ADMINISTRATION'S CURRENT POSITION IS NOT JUST "SCREW ARIZONA," BUT "SCREW FEDERAL BENCH WARRANTS" AS WELL...???
More than a dozen veteran ICE agents told The Washington Times in the past week that the carefully worded memo had field agents wondering whether they would be detaining illegal border-crossers in the future and whether those apprehended by other law enforcement agencies would be turned over to ICE for eventual deportation. One high-ranking ICE official, who asked not to be identified because he was not authorized to discuss the memo publicly, said agents at a major field office who inquired were told, "Arresting and deporting aliens was administrative work, and that as ICE criminal investigators, they were not going to do administrative duties." According to the official, the agents were told that ICE criminal investigators would be involved only in high-profile drug and terrorism cases that involved the seizure of assets, and no longer would process illegal immigrants otherwise detained.
(*SMIRK*)
Rep. Ted Poe (R-TX), a member of the House Judiciary and Foreign Affairs committees who has steadfastly supported efforts at increasing the funding and manpower for enhanced security efforts at the nation's borders, said the Morton memo sends an "unfortunate message" to would-be illegal border-crossers. "The message to those not yet in the United States is that they will get a free pass once they gain entry," he said.
Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX), the ranking Republican on the House Judiciary Committee and a member of the House Committee on Homeland Security, said the new ICE guidelines demonstrated that despite promises from the Obama administration, it is "simply not serious about enforcing all of our immigration laws." Smith said overall deportations are down and catch-and-release policies are back as illegal immigrants - even those with so-called minor criminal records such as drunken driving - are still being released into communities across the U.S.
In January, ICE reduced the number of its detention facilities from 341 to 270 and ended outside contracts at 10 other sites. In March, Mr. Morton told the Senate Appropriations Committee that he intended to "change the jail-oriented approach of our current detention system, and am in the process of redesigning the system so it meets our needs as an agency that detains people for civil, not penal, purposes."
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704017904575409733776372738.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEFTTopOpinion
Meet Sally (not her real name; details changed to preserve privacy).
Sally is a terrific employee, and she happens to be the median person in terms of base pay among the 83 people at my little company in New Jersey, where we provide audio systems for use in educational, commercial and industrial settings.
She's been with us for over 15 years.
She's a high school graduate with some specialized training. She makes $59,000 a year - on paper. In reality, she makes only $44,000 a year because $15,000 is taken from her thanks to various deductions and taxes, all of which form the steep, sad slope between gross and net pay.
Employing Sally costs plenty too.
My company has to write checks for $74,000 so Sally can receive her nominal $59,000 in base pay. Altogether, company-paid benefits add $9,714 to the cost of employing Sally. Then the federal and state governments want a little something extra. They take $56 for federal unemployment coverage, $149 for disability insurance, $300 for workers' comp and $505 for state unemployment insurance.
Finally, the feds make me pay $856 for Sally's Medicare and $3,661 for her Social Security.
When you add it all up, it costs $74,000 to put $44,000 in Sally's pocket and to give her $12,000 in benefits. Bottom line: Governments impose a 33% surtax on Sally's job each year.
[E]very time I hire someone my obligations to the government go up. From where I sit, the government's message is unmistakable: Creating a new job carries a punishing price.
As much as I might want to hire new salespeople, engineers and marketing staff in an effort to grow, I would be increasing my company's vulnerability to government decisions to raise taxes, to policies that make health insurance more expensive, and to the difficulties of this economic environment.
* BOTTOM LINE... WHAT THE GUY IS SAYING IS DON'T COUNT ON HIM FOR CREATING NEW JOBS - HE JUST CAN'T AFFORD TO DO SO.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703720504575377141083733402.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEFTTopOpinion
If you have a child in college, or are planning to send one there soon, Craig Brandon has a message for you: Be afraid. Be very afraid.
"The Five-Year Party" provides the most vivid portrait of college life since Tom Wolfe's 2004 novel, "I Am Charlotte Simmons." The difference is that it isn't fiction.
The alcohol-soaked, sex-saturated, drug-infested campuses that Mr. Brandon writes about are real.
Many of the schools Mr. Brandon describes are education-free zones, where students' eternal obligations - do the assigned reading, participate in class, hand in assignments - no longer apply. The book's title refers to the fact that only 30% of students enrolled in liberal-arts colleges graduate in four years. (Roughly 60% take at least six years to get their degrees. That may be fine with many schools, whose administrators see dollar signs in those extra semesters.)
In an effort to win applicants, Mr. Brandon says, colleges dumb down the curriculum and inflate grades, prod students to take out loans they cannot afford, and cover up date rape and other undergraduate crime. The members of the faculty go along with the administration's insistence on lowering standards out of fear of losing their jobs.
There are several omissions in "The Five-Year Party." One is the role of college trustees, who share the blame for the failure of the institutions over which they have oversight. Mr. Brandon also gives the faculty a pass. It is hard to believe that professors are as powerless or as cowed as they are portrayed here. The book's chief villains are a new breed of college administrators, whom Mr. Brandon says have more in common with Gordon Gekko than Aristotle. Oddest of all is Mr. Brandon's failure to demand that students take responsibility for their conduct. He depicts them as victims of schools that either coddle them or take advantage of them and of a culture that discourages them from growing up. Mr. Brandon estimates that only 10% of the students at party schools are interested in learning.
Mr. Brandon's ideas for policy reform are uneven. A proposal for legislation that caps tuition increases to the rate of inflation may be unconstitutional if applied to private institutions and is a bad idea in any case; Washington shouldn't be dictating what schools can charge. Requiring students to pass a test administered by the College Board in order to get a diploma is another bad idea. It would be expensive and subject to ideological abuse.
"The Five-Year Party" is a useful handbook for parents to pack when they take their teenager on a college tour, and its list of suggested questions is smart. My favorite: How many of the school's professors send their own children there?
More broadly, Mr. Brandon urges parents not to assume that their child is college material and to consider community colleges and vocational schools, whose curriculums tend to focus on teaching specific job skills.
http://www.reuters.com/article/GCA-Housing/idUSTRE67826A20100809
Mortgage finance giant Freddie Mac on Monday said it would need another $1.8 billion in aid from taxpayers, bringing its total request since it was taken over by the government two years ago to more than $64 billion.
* AS THE OBAMA RECOVERY CONTINUES... (*SMIRK*)
The second largest U.S. residential mortgage funds provider reported a loss of $6.billion...in the second quarter...
* HEY - IT'S ONLY MONEY, RIGHT? WE TAXPAYERS WILL "MAKE GOOD" THE LOSSES WHILE THE FREDDIE MAC INSIDERS WHO CAUSED THE MESS ENJOY THE FRUITS OF THEIR MULTI-MILLION DOLLAR GOLDEN PARACHUTES.
* AGAIN, FOLKS... NOT KIDDING ABOUT THE AMERICAN OLIGARCHY...
That compares with an $8 billion loss in the prior quarter and is the best three-month performance in a year.
* "AND IS THE BEST THREE-MONTH PERFORMANCE IN A YEAR...???" (*SNORT*)
The plan to put Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae into conservatorship was meant to be temporary. But nearly two years later, Treasury Secretary Timothy ["The Tax Cheat"] Geithner has only just begun the process of figuring out how to overhaul the U.S. housing finance system.
The U.S. Treasury took control of Freddie Mac and its sister entity, Fannie Mae, at the height of the financial crisis in 2008 as loan losses mounted. Since the government takeover, the two firms together have requested close to $150 billion from the government's unlimited credit line, scheduled to expire at the end of 2012.
The financial regulatory overhaul, which was signed into law by President Barack Obama last month, did not address reorganizing Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae...
(*SNORT*) (*SNICKER*)
http://www.federalnewsradio.com/?sid=2022811&nid=15
Utah Republican Senator Orrin Hatch has introduced a bill that could slim the government's workforce. The Reduce and Cap Federal Workforce Act would bring down and freeze the number of civilian feds at February of 2009 levels. Agencies would need to make those reductions through attrition. The bill would exempt the Defense and Homeland Security departments and some intelligence agencies. Hatch says the government has become bloated, and his bill would cut it down to size.
* AS USUAL, I HAVE A BETTER IDEA: LET'S REWIND TO FEDERAL WORKFORCE LEVELS OF JANUARY 2001, PRESIDENT CLINTON'S LAST PARTIAL MONTH IN OFFICE.
* AND LET'S NOT EXEMPT DEFENSE AND HOMELAND SECURITY; RATHER, LET THESE CLOWNS IN CONGRESS DO THEIR FRIGG'N JOB AND MAKE THE TOUGH CHOICES!
* OH... AND WHILE WE'RE AT IT... DISCONTINUE FEDERAL PENSIONS! TAKE THE MONEY THE GOVERNMENT "CONTRIBUTES" INTO EMPLOYEE PENSION FUNDS AND JUST ADD IT DIRECTLY TO EMPLOYEE SALARIES; LET AMERICANS DECIDE HOW TO INVEST THEIR OWN SAVINGS!
* OH... AND NO MORE GOVERNMENT PROVIDED HEALTH INSURANCE. AGAIN, ADD THE GOVERNMENT'S EXISTING "CONTRIBUTION" TO EMPLOYEE INSURANCE TO EMPLOYEE SALARIES. IF OBAMACARE IS ALL IT'S ADVERTISED AS THEN (*SMIRK*) THERE SHOULD BE NO PROBLEM!
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/Time-to-admit-Obamanomics-has-failed-1008050-100154469.html
It's no coincidence that Christina Romer, chairwoman of [President Obama's] Council of Economic Advisers, announced her retirement the day before Friday's brutal unemployment report. With 131,000 more jobs lost in July, and downward revisions of 97,000 for the previous two months, it's easy to see why she would start looking for the exits.
Romer is best known for drafting the February 2009 report "The Job Impact of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan," which the White House used as an ammunition belt in the fight to gain passage of its $862 billion economic stimulus bill (the actual cost of which exceeds $1 trillion when interest is included).
Romer predicted that following passage of the stimulus bill, unemployment would plateau below 8% last fall...
(*SNORT*)
...and by this month register at 7%.
* BANG UP JOB, CHRISTINA!
[U]nemployment stands at 9.5% today. (It would be higher except that hundreds of thousands of frustrated job seekers have given up looking for new jobs and dropped out of the labor force.)
Predictably, the stimulus bill has proven to be an extraordinary waste of borrowed money that has failed to create jobs, generate economic growth or do much of anything other than line the pockets of White House political allies.
(*SHRUG*) (*NOD*)
(That and give $308 million in subsidies to BP before the Gulf oil spill disaster, and subsidize a study on what happens when monkeys snort coke.)
As Romer fades back to her teaching post at Berkeley...
* WHAT'S SHE GONNA TEACH - HOW TO BE WRONG...?!?! (SERIOUSLY, FOLKS... WHATCHYA WANNA BET THAT HER BERKELY SALARY/BENEFITS PACKAGE IS IN THE HIGH SIX FIGURES...???
Obama is adding to the economic misery by creating an environment of regulatory uncertainty. The Wall Street "reform" law Obama recently signed potentially requires 533 new regulations, 60 studies and 93 reports, according to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Obama's Environmental Protection Agency has 29 active rulemakings, and there are 100 new rules on the Labor Department's agenda and 26 at the Transportation Department.
* HMM... SOUNDS LIKE THE LAWYERS AND LOBBYISTS FULL EMPLOYMENT ACT TO ME!
Add Obama's determination to raise everybody's taxes by allowing the Bush cuts from 2001 and 2003 to expire Jan. 1, 2011, and it's easy to why banks, businesses and consumers are hoarding trillions of dollars that could otherwise spur economic growth. (And we haven't even addressed the destructive effect on economic growth of Obama's nationalization of major portions of the economy, including the banks, health care and the auto industry.)
The economy is stalling, unemployment seems stuck at European levels of idleness, the federal deficit and the national debt are at historic highs, public confidence in Congress is at its lowest-ever level and big majorities of Mainstream Americans say Obama has the country on the wrong path. Obamanomics has failed miserably and it's time for everybody in this town to admit it so we can move on.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/38575419/ns/business-us_business/
* NOTE FOLKS - MSNBC NEWS!
The bank at the center of a House ethics investigation of U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) was the weakest to receive funds from the government's Troubled Asset Relief Program at the time of its rescue, according to an analysis by the Investigative Reporting Workshop.
When then-Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson announced creation of the so-called "Capital Purchase Program" in October 2008, he said it was directed at "healthy institutions."
* HE LIED. HE SHOULD BE CHARGED, CONVICTED, AND JAILED.
* FOLK... YOU THINK I'M KIDDING ABOUT THIS OLIGARCHY BUSINESS? I'M NOT. IT'S NOT COINCIDENCE THAT OBAMA'S SECRETARY OF THE TREASURY IS A TAX CHEAT.
* FOLLOW THE PEOPLE... FOLLOW THEIR POSITIONS... FOLLOW THE MONEY.
Nevertheless OneUnited Bank of Boston received a $12.1 million capital injection from the Treasury Department on Dec. 19, 2008.
The money has not been repaid, according to Treasury Department documents.
[T]he bank, on whose board [Congresswoman's Waters'] husband served...is based in Boston, but it has major operations in Los Angeles and Miami.
Bank officials began asking Waters to help arrange meetings with regulators in late August 2008, with the requests growing more urgent as the takeover of Fannie and Freddie was unfolding, according to the House Ethics Committee report. ... While it is not unusual, or improper in most cases, for members of Congress to arrange meetings with administration officials for their constituents, the Ethics Committee alleges that Waters helped set up the meeting to help protect her own financial interests, which is against House rules.
* WOW... IMAGINE THAT - "AGAINST HOUSE RULES." (*SMIRK*)
The probe is focused on the fact that Waters’ husband, Sidney Williams, owned stock in the bank and served as a director from 2004 until April 2008.
(*RUEFUL CHUCKLE*)
Paulson told House investigators he didn't know of Williams' position with the bank.
* YEAH... SURE... (*SMIRK*) (*ROLLING MY EYES*)
The ethics panel report shows that Cohee, the bank CEO, and Robert Cooper, the bank's lawyer, who is now chairman of the National Bankers Association, attended the meeting. Though other banking association officials attended, OneUnited was the only bank directly represented in the session, according to the report.
(*MORE EYE ROLLING*)
The bank at the center of a House ethics investigation of U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) was the weakest to receive funds from the government's Troubled Asset Relief Program at the time of its rescue, according to an analysis by the Investigative Reporting Workshop.
When then-Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson announced creation of the so-called "Capital Purchase Program" in October 2008, he said it was directed at "healthy institutions."
* HE LIED. HE SHOULD BE CHARGED, CONVICTED, AND JAILED.
* FOLK... YOU THINK I'M KIDDING ABOUT THIS OLIGARCHY BUSINESS? I'M NOT. IT'S NOT COINCIDENCE THAT OBAMA'S SECRETARY OF THE TREASURY IS A TAX CHEAT.
* FOLLOW THE PEOPLE... FOLLOW THEIR POSITIONS... FOLLOW THE MONEY.
Nevertheless OneUnited Bank of Boston received a $12.1 million capital injection from the Treasury Department on Dec. 19, 2008.
The money has not been repaid, according to Treasury Department documents.
[T]he bank, on whose board [Congresswoman's Waters'] husband served...is based in Boston, but it has major operations in Los Angeles and Miami.
Bank officials began asking Waters to help arrange meetings with regulators in late August 2008, with the requests growing more urgent as the takeover of Fannie and Freddie was unfolding, according to the House Ethics Committee report. ... While it is not unusual, or improper in most cases, for members of Congress to arrange meetings with administration officials for their constituents, the Ethics Committee alleges that Waters helped set up the meeting to help protect her own financial interests, which is against House rules.
* WOW... IMAGINE THAT - "AGAINST HOUSE RULES." (*SMIRK*)
The probe is focused on the fact that Waters’ husband, Sidney Williams, owned stock in the bank and served as a director from 2004 until April 2008.
(*RUEFUL CHUCKLE*)
Paulson told House investigators he didn't know of Williams' position with the bank.
* YEAH... SURE... (*SMIRK*) (*ROLLING MY EYES*)
The ethics panel report shows that Cohee, the bank CEO, and Robert Cooper, the bank's lawyer, who is now chairman of the National Bankers Association, attended the meeting. Though other banking association officials attended, OneUnited was the only bank directly represented in the session, according to the report.
(*MORE EYE ROLLING*)
Mortgage finance giant Freddie Mac on Monday said it would need another $1.8 billion in aid from taxpayers, bringing its total request since it was taken over by the government two years ago to more than $64 billion.
* AS THE OBAMA RECOVERY CONTINUES... (*SMIRK*)
The second largest U.S. residential mortgage funds provider reported a loss of $6.billion...in the second quarter...
* HEY - IT'S ONLY MONEY, RIGHT? WE TAXPAYERS WILL "MAKE GOOD" THE LOSSES WHILE THE FREDDIE MAC INSIDERS WHO CAUSED THE MESS ENJOY THE FRUITS OF THEIR MULTI-MILLION DOLLAR GOLDEN PARACHUTES.
* AGAIN, FOLKS... NOT KIDDING ABOUT THE AMERICAN OLIGARCHY...
That compares with an $8 billion loss in the prior quarter and is the best three-month performance in a year.
* "AND IS THE BEST THREE-MONTH PERFORMANCE IN A YEAR...???" (*SNORT*)
The plan to put Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae into conservatorship was meant to be temporary. But nearly two years later, Treasury Secretary Timothy ["The Tax Cheat"] Geithner has only just begun the process of figuring out how to overhaul the U.S. housing finance system.
The U.S. Treasury took control of Freddie Mac and its sister entity, Fannie Mae, at the height of the financial crisis in 2008 as loan losses mounted. Since the government takeover, the two firms together have requested close to $150 billion from the government's unlimited credit line, scheduled to expire at the end of 2012.
The financial regulatory overhaul, which was signed into law by President Barack Obama last month, did not address reorganizing Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae...
(*SNORT*) (*SNICKER*)
Utah Republican Senator Orrin Hatch has introduced a bill that could slim the government's workforce. The Reduce and Cap Federal Workforce Act would bring down and freeze the number of civilian feds at February of 2009 levels. Agencies would need to make those reductions through attrition. The bill would exempt the Defense and Homeland Security departments and some intelligence agencies. Hatch says the government has become bloated, and his bill would cut it down to size.
* AS USUAL, I HAVE A BETTER IDEA: LET'S REWIND TO FEDERAL WORKFORCE LEVELS OF JANUARY 2001, PRESIDENT CLINTON'S LAST PARTIAL MONTH IN OFFICE.
* AND LET'S NOT EXEMPT DEFENSE AND HOMELAND SECURITY; RATHER, LET THESE CLOWNS IN CONGRESS DO THEIR FRIGG'N JOB AND MAKE THE TOUGH CHOICES!
* OH... AND WHILE WE'RE AT IT... DISCONTINUE FEDERAL PENSIONS! TAKE THE MONEY THE GOVERNMENT "CONTRIBUTES" INTO EMPLOYEE PENSION FUNDS AND JUST ADD IT DIRECTLY TO EMPLOYEE SALARIES; LET AMERICANS DECIDE HOW TO INVEST THEIR OWN SAVINGS!
* OH... AND NO MORE GOVERNMENT PROVIDED HEALTH INSURANCE. AGAIN, ADD THE GOVERNMENT'S EXISTING "CONTRIBUTION" TO EMPLOYEE INSURANCE TO EMPLOYEE SALARIES. IF OBAMACARE IS ALL IT'S ADVERTISED AS THEN (*SMIRK*) THERE SHOULD BE NO PROBLEM!
It's no coincidence that Christina Romer, chairwoman of [President Obama's] Council of Economic Advisers, announced her retirement the day before Friday's brutal unemployment report. With 131,000 more jobs lost in July, and downward revisions of 97,000 for the previous two months, it's easy to see why she would start looking for the exits.
Romer is best known for drafting the February 2009 report "The Job Impact of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan," which the White House used as an ammunition belt in the fight to gain passage of its $862 billion economic stimulus bill (the actual cost of which exceeds $1 trillion when interest is included).
Romer predicted that following passage of the stimulus bill, unemployment would plateau below 8% last fall...
(*SNORT*)
...and by this month register at 7%.
* BANG UP JOB, CHRISTINA!
[U]nemployment stands at 9.5% today. (It would be higher except that hundreds of thousands of frustrated job seekers have given up looking for new jobs and dropped out of the labor force.)
Predictably, the stimulus bill has proven to be an extraordinary waste of borrowed money that has failed to create jobs, generate economic growth or do much of anything other than line the pockets of White House political allies.
(*SHRUG*) (*NOD*)
(That and give $308 million in subsidies to BP before the Gulf oil spill disaster, and subsidize a study on what happens when monkeys snort coke.)
As Romer fades back to her teaching post at Berkeley...
* WHAT'S SHE GONNA TEACH - HOW TO BE WRONG...?!?! (SERIOUSLY, FOLKS... WHATCHYA WANNA BET THAT HER BERKELY SALARY/BENEFITS PACKAGE IS IN THE HIGH SIX FIGURES...???
Obama is adding to the economic misery by creating an environment of regulatory uncertainty. The Wall Street "reform" law Obama recently signed potentially requires 533 new regulations, 60 studies and 93 reports, according to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Obama's Environmental Protection Agency has 29 active rulemakings, and there are 100 new rules on the Labor Department's agenda and 26 at the Transportation Department.
* HMM... SOUNDS LIKE THE LAWYERS AND LOBBYISTS FULL EMPLOYMENT ACT TO ME!
Add Obama's determination to raise everybody's taxes by allowing the Bush cuts from 2001 and 2003 to expire Jan. 1, 2011, and it's easy to why banks, businesses and consumers are hoarding trillions of dollars that could otherwise spur economic growth. (And we haven't even addressed the destructive effect on economic growth of Obama's nationalization of major portions of the economy, including the banks, health care and the auto industry.)
The economy is stalling, unemployment seems stuck at European levels of idleness, the federal deficit and the national debt are at historic highs, public confidence in Congress is at its lowest-ever level and big majorities of Mainstream Americans say Obama has the country on the wrong path. Obamanomics has failed miserably and it's time for everybody in this town to admit it so we can move on.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents believe overwhelmingly that their department leadership has become so politicized as to compromise the effectiveness of ICE and the safety of American people.
Their union has released a letter announcing its recent unanimous “vote of no confidence” in ICE agency heads, accusing them of “misleading the American public” regarding illegal immigration in order to further a pro-amnesty agenda.
In June, the National Immigration and Customs Enforcement Council - an AFL-CIO affiliate - and affiliated local councils cast a unanimous 259-0 vote of no confidence in ICE Director John Morton and Assistant Director Phyllis Coven.
In a letter announcing the vote, the National Council criticized the directors for “misguided and reckless initiatives,” and said their leaders have “abandoned the Agency’s core mission of enforcing United States immigration laws and providing for public safety, and have instead directed their attention to campaigning for policies and programs related to amnesty.”
[In Virginia,] Prince William County's top elected official is asking Congress to subpoena federal immigration records in an effort to find out how many illegal immigrants were released onto county streets after arrest.
Citing Sunday's death of a local nun, killed in a crash in which an illegal immigrant with a long arrest record was charged with drunken driving, county Board of Supervisors Chairman Corey Stewart wants to see the paperwork of Immigration and Customs Enforcement for illegal immigrants picked up by the federal agency in the county. "We're going to get this done," Stewart said. "I think Congress should want this information - why try to keep this information covered up?"
The long-simmering issue of illegal immigration in Northern Virginia has reached a boiling point in recent days after the death of 66-year-old Sister Denise Mosier, a member of the Benedictine Sisters of Virginia.
Carlos A. Martinelly Montano, 23, was arrested and charged with drunken driving, involuntary manslaughter and felony driving on a revoked license. It's possible he could face a murder charge from the crash. Sisters Charlotte Range and Connie Ruth Lupton were critically injured and were undergoing surgery Thursday.
The arrest was Montano's third drunken driving arrest in five years. He had also been released to Immigration and Customs enforcement two times for being in the country illegally.
* DISGUSTING.
New guidance telling U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to focus on apprehending terrorists and criminals has many of ICE's rank-and-file agents wondering who then is responsible for tracking down and detaining the millions of other illegal border-crossers and fugitive aliens now in the country.
The new guidelines are outlined in a June 29 memo from Assistant Secretary John Morton, who heads the agency, to all ICE employees...Described in the memo as "lesser priorities" are foreign nationals caught crossing the border illegally or using phony immigration documents to gain entry, and those identified as fugitives after failing to show up for immigration or deportation hearings.
* SO LET ME GET THIS STRAIGHT... THE ADMINISTRATION'S CURRENT POSITION IS NOT JUST "SCREW ARIZONA," BUT "SCREW FEDERAL BENCH WARRANTS" AS WELL...???
More than a dozen veteran ICE agents told The Washington Times in the past week that the carefully worded memo had field agents wondering whether they would be detaining illegal border-crossers in the future and whether those apprehended by other law enforcement agencies would be turned over to ICE for eventual deportation. One high-ranking ICE official, who asked not to be identified because he was not authorized to discuss the memo publicly, said agents at a major field office who inquired were told, "Arresting and deporting aliens was administrative work, and that as ICE criminal investigators, they were not going to do administrative duties." According to the official, the agents were told that ICE criminal investigators would be involved only in high-profile drug and terrorism cases that involved the seizure of assets, and no longer would process illegal immigrants otherwise detained.
(*SMIRK*)
Rep. Ted Poe (R-TX), a member of the House Judiciary and Foreign Affairs committees who has steadfastly supported efforts at increasing the funding and manpower for enhanced security efforts at the nation's borders, said the Morton memo sends an "unfortunate message" to would-be illegal border-crossers. "The message to those not yet in the United States is that they will get a free pass once they gain entry," he said.
Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX), the ranking Republican on the House Judiciary Committee and a member of the House Committee on Homeland Security, said the new ICE guidelines demonstrated that despite promises from the Obama administration, it is "simply not serious about enforcing all of our immigration laws." Smith said overall deportations are down and catch-and-release policies are back as illegal immigrants - even those with so-called minor criminal records such as drunken driving - are still being released into communities across the U.S.
In January, ICE reduced the number of its detention facilities from 341 to 270 and ended outside contracts at 10 other sites. In March, Mr. Morton told the Senate Appropriations Committee that he intended to "change the jail-oriented approach of our current detention system, and am in the process of redesigning the system so it meets our needs as an agency that detains people for civil, not penal, purposes."
Meet Sally (not her real name; details changed to preserve privacy).
Sally is a terrific employee, and she happens to be the median person in terms of base pay among the 83 people at my little company in New Jersey, where we provide audio systems for use in educational, commercial and industrial settings.
She's been with us for over 15 years.
She's a high school graduate with some specialized training. She makes $59,000 a year - on paper. In reality, she makes only $44,000 a year because $15,000 is taken from her thanks to various deductions and taxes, all of which form the steep, sad slope between gross and net pay.
Employing Sally costs plenty too.
My company has to write checks for $74,000 so Sally can receive her nominal $59,000 in base pay. Altogether, company-paid benefits add $9,714 to the cost of employing Sally. Then the federal and state governments want a little something extra. They take $56 for federal unemployment coverage, $149 for disability insurance, $300 for workers' comp and $505 for state unemployment insurance.
Finally, the feds make me pay $856 for Sally's Medicare and $3,661 for her Social Security.
When you add it all up, it costs $74,000 to put $44,000 in Sally's pocket and to give her $12,000 in benefits. Bottom line: Governments impose a 33% surtax on Sally's job each year.
[E]very time I hire someone my obligations to the government go up. From where I sit, the government's message is unmistakable: Creating a new job carries a punishing price.
As much as I might want to hire new salespeople, engineers and marketing staff in an effort to grow, I would be increasing my company's vulnerability to government decisions to raise taxes, to policies that make health insurance more expensive, and to the difficulties of this economic environment.
* BOTTOM LINE... WHAT THE GUY IS SAYING IS DON'T COUNT ON HIM FOR CREATING NEW JOBS - HE JUST CAN'T AFFORD TO DO SO.
If you have a child in college, or are planning to send one there soon, Craig Brandon has a message for you: Be afraid. Be very afraid.
"The Five-Year Party" provides the most vivid portrait of college life since Tom Wolfe's 2004 novel, "I Am Charlotte Simmons." The difference is that it isn't fiction.
The alcohol-soaked, sex-saturated, drug-infested campuses that Mr. Brandon writes about are real.
Many of the schools Mr. Brandon describes are education-free zones, where students' eternal obligations - do the assigned reading, participate in class, hand in assignments - no longer apply. The book's title refers to the fact that only 30% of students enrolled in liberal-arts colleges graduate in four years. (Roughly 60% take at least six years to get their degrees. That may be fine with many schools, whose administrators see dollar signs in those extra semesters.)
In an effort to win applicants, Mr. Brandon says, colleges dumb down the curriculum and inflate grades, prod students to take out loans they cannot afford, and cover up date rape and other undergraduate crime. The members of the faculty go along with the administration's insistence on lowering standards out of fear of losing their jobs.
There are several omissions in "The Five-Year Party." One is the role of college trustees, who share the blame for the failure of the institutions over which they have oversight. Mr. Brandon also gives the faculty a pass. It is hard to believe that professors are as powerless or as cowed as they are portrayed here. The book's chief villains are a new breed of college administrators, whom Mr. Brandon says have more in common with Gordon Gekko than Aristotle. Oddest of all is Mr. Brandon's failure to demand that students take responsibility for their conduct. He depicts them as victims of schools that either coddle them or take advantage of them and of a culture that discourages them from growing up. Mr. Brandon estimates that only 10% of the students at party schools are interested in learning.
Mr. Brandon's ideas for policy reform are uneven. A proposal for legislation that caps tuition increases to the rate of inflation may be unconstitutional if applied to private institutions and is a bad idea in any case; Washington shouldn't be dictating what schools can charge. Requiring students to pass a test administered by the College Board in order to get a diploma is another bad idea. It would be expensive and subject to ideological abuse.
"The Five-Year Party" is a useful handbook for parents to pack when they take their teenager on a college tour, and its list of suggested questions is smart. My favorite: How many of the school's professors send their own children there?
More broadly, Mr. Brandon urges parents not to assume that their child is college material and to consider community colleges and vocational schools, whose curriculums tend to focus on teaching specific job skills.
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