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2010
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August
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- The Last Hurrah...???
- Barker's Newsbites: Tuesday, August 31, 2010
- The Man is an A--hole... (And that's all there is ...
- Barker's Newsbites: Monday, August 30, 2010
- Restoring Honor - August 28, 2010
- Barker's Newsbites: Friday, August 27, 2010
- Barker's Newsbites: Thursday, August 26, 2010
- Barker's Newsbites: Wednesday, August 25, 2010
- Is Hamas a Terrorist Organization?
- Barker's Newsbites: Tuesday, August 24, 2010
- Barker's Newsbites: Monday, August 23, 2010
- Barker's Newsbites: Thursday, August 19, 2010
- Barker's Newsbites: Tuesday, August 17, 2010
- So... when's the last time you got new tires?
- Barker's Newsbites: Monday, August 16, 2010
- Weekend Newsbites: Sat. & Sun., August 14 & 15, 2010
- Harold Curtis VanDemark
- Barker's Newsbites: August 13, 2010
- Vernon Baker
- Barker's Newsbites: Thursday, August 12, 2010
- Barker's Newsbites: Wednesday, August 11, 2010
- Barker's Newsbites: Tuesday, August 10. 2010
- Barker's Newsbites: Monday, August 9. 2010
- Weekend Newsbites: Sat. & Sun., August 7 & 8, 2010
- Barker's Newsbites: Friday, August 6, 2010
- Barker's Newsbites: Thursday, August 5, 2010
- Barker's Newsbites: Wednesday, August 4, 2010
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August
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About Me
- William R. Barker
- Pearl River, NY High School Class of '81; Northeastern University, Boston, MA Class of '87.
10 comments:
http://www.house.gov/htbin/blog_inc?BLOG,tx14_paul,blog,999,All,Item%20not%20found,ID=100816_3732,TEMPLATE=postingdetail.shtml
* BY CONGRESSMAN RON PAUL (R-TX) --
It has been months now since the new healthcare reform bill was passed into law. As is so typical, this massive piece of legislation was passed with a sense of urgency so acute that leadership declared America could not afford to wait until legislators, their staff and the general public had time to thoroughly read the bill.
(*SMIRK*) (THOUGH, FRANKLY... THERE'S NOTHING REALLY "FUNNY" ABOUT THE LEGISLATIVE REALITY REFERRED TO ABOVE.)
The truth comes out eventually, however. Much like the recently discovered exemption from Freedom of Information Act requirements for the SEC that was slipped into the equally massive and “urgent” financial reform bill, we are finally seeing what other insidiousness has been hiding in the fine print of the healthcare reform bill.
One such disaster-waiting-to-happen is one of the revenue generating provisions used to claim that the healthcare reform bill was “paid for.”
Seventeen billion dollars in additional tax revenues is supposed to come from an onerous new IRS reporting requirement that any taxpayer with business income who spends over $600 in one year with one business will have to report those expenditures to the IRS.
Mind you, this is a cumulative total of $600 in transactions in one year.
This will involve so much extra accounting and paperwork that the IRS claims it will be unable to deal with it effectively, and even the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (to whom it should be a boon) has come out against it! (Apparently they realize they will actually lose customers, especially small businesses, to bankruptcy because of this!)
Gold dealers are especially alarmed by this provision, as most of their transactions easily top $600. This represents a significant outlay of time and paperwork and no additional revenue for businesses with which to hire people. Not to mention this makes every business a de facto IRS agent, as if they didn’t have enough to worry about already!
Of course, there is a tremendous outcry against this. Several other legislators also see how unreasonable this is and are trying to repeal it. However, this would simply mean that $17 billion in healthcare funding will have to come from somewhere else, and there are no good options. Taxes from some other equally bad collection scheme? Borrowing and more debt? Creating more money from thin air and adding to inflationary pressures?
The best answer, of course, would be to repeal the entire health care law, along with all other unconstitutional spending. But Congress is more likely to continue the shell game to cover the fact that we are broke and can afford none of this.
This whole idea of “paying for” new programs is a political euphemism that suggests that raising taxes is just as good as cutting spending since neither one increases the national debt. Raising taxes and overwhelming small businesses with paperwork and regulations still increases governmental burden on our fragile economy. But this is our government’s idea of “fiscal restraint” in action.
Washington needs to stop creating new programs and spending so much money. That would be true fiscal restraint.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/7948878/US-breast-cancer-drug-decision-marks-start-of-death-panels.html
A decision to rescind endorsement of the drug would reignite the highly charged debate over US health care reform and how much the state should spend on new and expensive treatments.
Avastin, the world’s best selling cancer drug, is primarily used to treat colon cancer and was approved by the US Food and Drug Administration in 2008 for use on women with breast cancer that has spread.
It costs $8,000 a month and is given to about 17,500 women in the US a year.
The drug was initially approved after a study found that, by preventing blood flow to tumours, it extended the amount of time until the disease worsened by more than five months. However, two new studies have shown that the drug may not even extend life by an extra month.
* OBVIOUSLY I CAN'T SPEAK TO THE ACCURACY OF THESE TWO "NEW STUDIES." THAT SAID, PLEASE NOTE... "MAY NOT." (*SHRUG*)
* IN ANY CASE, WHILE EACH OF US MAY COME UP WITH OUR OWN COST/BENEFIT FORMULA, THE REALITY IS THAT WE'RE TALKING RATIONING TO ONE EXTENT OR ANOTHER. AND TO THE PERSON WHOSE CARE IS BEING "RATIONED," WELL... IF EARLIER DEATH RESULTS THEN ISN'T THAT THE BOTTOM LINE FOR THAT PERSON?
The FDA advisory panel has now voted 12-1 to drop the endorsement for breast cancer treatment. The panel unusually cited "effectiveness" grounds for the decision. But it has been claimed that "cost effectiveness" was the real reason ahead of reforms in which the government will extend health insurance to the poorest.
(*SHRUG*)
If the approval of the drug is revoked then US insurers would be likely to stop paying for Avastin.
* I HAVE A BUDDY WHO STILL GOES OFF ON SARAH PALIN FOR HER USE OF THE TERM "DEATH PANELS." WELL... LIKE IT OR NOT, CAUSE AND EFFECT CAN'T BE ARGUED WITH. IF "PANEL" DECISIONS LEAD TO EARLIER DEATHS... (*SHRUG*)
The Avastin recommendation led to revived allegations that President Barack Obama’s overhaul of the US health care system would mean many would be denied treatments currently available.
During the debate, those opposed to the reforms cited Britain’s National Institute for Clinical Excellence, which decides whether new treatments should be made available on the NHS on the basis of cost effectiveness, as an example of the sort of drug rationing that amounted to a "death panel."
http://media.washtimes.com/media/misc/2010/Aug/16/2010_CMPR_Final.pdf
Earlier this decade, China began a new phase of military development by articulating roles and missions for the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) that go beyond China’s immediate territorial interests.
As the 2010 Quadrennial Defense Review Report notes, “China is developing and fielding large numbers of advanced medium-range ballistic and cruise missiles, new attack submarines equipped with advanced weapons, increasingly capable long-range air defense systems, electronic warfare and computer network attack capabilities, advanced fighter aircraft, and counter-space systems.”
China’s military build-up opposite [Taiwan] continued unabated. The PLA is developing the capability to deter Taiwan independence or influence Taiwan to settle the dispute on Beijing’s terms while simultaneously attempting to deter, delay, or deny any possible U.S. support for the island in case of conflict. The balance of cross-Strait military forces continues to shift in the mainland’s favor.
China has made steady progress in recent years to develop offensive nuclear, space, and cyber warfare capabilities - the only aspects of China’s armed forces that currently could be used to pose a global threat.
China’s space activities and capabilities, including ASAT programs, have significant implications for antiaccess/area-denial in Taiwan Strait contingencies and beyond. Many of China’s non-military space programs, including the manned program and the planned space station, are run by the PLA. In January 2007, China
successfully tested a direct-ascent ASAT weapon against a PRC weather satellite, demonstrating its ability to attack satellites in low-Earth orbit. China continues to develop and refine this system, which is one component of a multi-dimensional program to limit or prevent the use of space-based assets by potential adversaries during times of crisis or conflict. Over the long term, improvements in China’s C4ISR, including space-based and over-the-horizon sensors, could enable Beijing to identify, track, and target military activities deep into the western Pacific Ocean.
http://blog.heritage.org/2010/08/17/morning-bell-solutions-for-america/?utm_source=Newsletter&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=Morning%2BBell
Last night at the Beverly Hills home of “West Wing” producer John Wells, after the string quartet quieted down, President Barack Obama told the assembled Hollywood elite, who paid $2,500 a person for cocktails and $30,400 a couple for dinner: “We have been able to deliver the most progressive legislative agenda - one that helps working families - not just in one generation, maybe two, maybe three.”
* IN THE CONTEXT OF REALITY... "PROGRESSIVE" MEANS IRRESPONSIBLE AND WRONG-HEADED.
Since 2000, federal spending has grown across the board. Discretionary spending has expanded 79% faster than inflation.
Under President Obama’s budget, Washington is projected to spend $3,618 billion, raise $2,118 billion, and run a $1.5 trillion deficit in 2010.
By 2020 President Obama’s budget would double the publicly held national debt.
On every issue, the Left has only two answers: more federal spending and more federal control.
Conservatives have not, and should not, shy away from opposing these policies. But conservatives also must offer an alternative vision of America’s future; one that is consistent with our nation’s founding principles and empowers the people to compete in the 21st century. Today, The Heritage Foundation is releasing just such an alternative: “Solutions for America”
* FOR DETAILS: http://thf_media.s3.amazonaws.com/2010/pdf/SolutionsForAmerica.pdf
* SEE ALSO: http://www.roadmap.republicans.budget.house.gov/
* BASICALLY, FOLKS, IT'S JUST BULLSHIT WHEN THE DEMS AND THEIR MEDIA AND ACADEMIC LAP DOGS CLAIM THAT CONSERVATIVES AND REPUBLICANS HAVE NO SOLUTIONS OF THEIR OWN.
http://www.minyanville.com/businessmarkets/articles/ford-tarp-bailout-auto-oems-bailouts/8/16/2010/id/29624
* WOW...! YOU'VE GOTTA READ THIS ONE!
Owing to the NAFTA agreement, the auto industries of Canada, Mexico, and the USA are configured to function in an integrated single market. Due to the absence of tariffs or other border frictions, for example, the big auto OEMs have been free to optimize their North American assembly-plant footprints based on costs, vehicle specialization, and other purely production factors.
Ford is no exception.
Ford can produce upward of 300,000 mid-sized sedans (e.g. the Ford Fusion) at its world-class manufacturing complex in Hermosillo, Mexico, for sale on dealer lots throughout North America.
Likewise, its range of crossover vehicles, such as the Ford Edge, are made at its big facility in Oakville, Canada, for retail distribution in Canada, the USA, and Mexico.
Finally, its slate of pick-ups, SUVs, and compact cars are made at specialized plants in Michigan, Ohio, Illinois, Kansas, and Kentucky, for sale in all three markets.
The broad contour of Ford’s logistical flow within the NAFTA single market, then, is that family-size sedans flow north, crossover vehicles flow south, and trucks and compacts go in both directions.
So with Mr. Market functioning at his efficient best, President Obama showed up last week at Ford’s South Side plant in Chicago in what amounted to an exercise in carrying coal to Newcastle. Specifically, he announced that Uncle Sam would be favoring Ford with a $250 million loan guaranteed by the Export-Import Bank. In the words of the latter’s press release, “The loan facility will finance….export sales for over 200,000 vehicles being sold to buyers in Canada and Mexico."
Say again![?]
Every one of said 200,000 pickups, SUVs, and compact cars made in Ford’s US plants would be sold in Canada and Mexico anyway because that’s how Ford’s integrated North American production and marketing system is set up[!]
Since there's virtually no possibility of even a single incremental export sale to Canada and Mexico under this scheme, the below-market interest subsidy on the loan will go straight to Ford’s bottom line. Indeed, some fancy economist would doubtless judge that this subsidy amounts to a pure dead-weight social loss. Another description would be that it’s pointless, wasteful and, well, dumb.
* WELCOME TO THE AGE OF OBAMA, MY FRIENDS!
Moreover, while the President was in town to collect $2.5 million from several fund-raising events, he used the occasion to brag that the South Side plant had also been the recipient of a $400 million loan to encourage more fuel-efficient vehicles.
* WAIT FOR IT... WAIT FOR IT...
Here’s where it gets dumber. The new Ford Explorer to be made at the Chicago plant will average less than 25 mpg in combined city and highway driving. This means that it would actually flunk the Obama Administration’s new fuel economy standard (CAFE) for lights trucks which will reach 29 mpg when fully effective!
* FOLKS... I COULDN'T MAKE THIS SHIT UP IF I TRIED... (*SIGH*)
http://www.forbes.com/2010/08/11/fact-and-comment-opinions-steve-forbes.html?boxes=opinionschanneleditors
[W]ith great fanfare the [Obama] Administration announced last year that it would shovel out $8 billion to help fund several high-speed rail corridors around the country.
While that's seemingly small change by today's government standards, transportation officials understand that these appropriations are but a down payment on massive amounts of money yet to come. Traditionally, once a pork barrel scheme is started, nothing in heaven or on Earth is likely to stop it.
Despite the fact that almost all the world's bullet trains operate in the red, they have cast a spell over political elites. Environmentalists love them because they will allegedly get us out of our automobiles. Unions love them because government projects mean bloated payrolls, pay packages and pensions. And the poor taxpayer gets railroaded.
If the White House has its way the federal government - as well as state and local ones - will spend hundreds of billions of dollars over the next couple of decades on projects that will be mammoth money losers and serve but a tiny fraction of the U.S. traveling public.
* READ THE FULL ARTICLE TO GET THE FULL FLAVOR OF EXACTLY HOW WASTEFUL AND IRRATIONAL OBAMA'S PLAN IS.
http://factcheck.org/2010/08/obamas-latest-social-security-whopper/
* THIS ONE IS ESPECIALLY ENLIGHTENING INTO THE CHARACTER OF OUR 44TH PRESIDENT.
* HERE... DIG THE TITLE:
"Obama’s (Latest) Social Security Whopper"
* AND FOLKS... THIS IS FROM FACT-CHECK... NOT EXACTLY KNOWN FOR THEIR "RIGHT WING BIAS."
(*CHUCKLE*)
* BEYOND THIS PARTICULAR FACT-CHECK, CHECK OUT THE SIDEBARS...
http://www.nationalreview.com/exchequer/243893/bobby-bailout-casey-put-taxpayers-hook-teamsters-shenanigans
Sen. Robert Casey (D-PA) and Rep. Earl Pomeroy (D-ND) are pushing legislation that would commit taxpayers’ dollars to bailing out the Teamsters’ retirement pension fund.
Under the Democrats’ plan, the U.S. Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp., which is basically a pension-insurance fund run by the federal government, would be able to receive tax dollars to bail out so-called orphan pensions - pensions for which employers have ceased making contributions, usually for reasons of insolvency.
Under normal circumstances, PBGC does not use taxpayer money to bail out pensions; it charges an insurance premium to the funds it covers and uses that money to make good on pension obligations if a particular pension fund goes bankrupt. (It’s like an FDIC for pension funds: If a fund is sufficiently mismanaged, PBGC can step in, take it over, and take care of its obligations.)
The Casey bill would change all that, creating a “fifth fund” within PBGC that would receive taxpayer support.
Currently, federal law carefully specifies that PBGC obligations are not obligations of the U.S. government.
Casey-Pomeroy would reverse that, mandating that “obligations of the corporation that are financed by the [fifth fund] shall be obligations of the United States.”
In other words: You, sucker, are paying the bill.
[The democrats' proposed bill] establishes a precedent for taxpayer-funded bailouts of union pensions.
As galling as it would be to bail out the Teamsters and their other private-sector union buddies - whose meatheaded management of their pensions has left them with as much as $165 billion in unfunded obligations, according to Moody’s - things would immediately get much, much worse if that precedent were used to justify a bailout of the public-sector unions, whose unfunded pension liabilities run into the trillions.
PBGC already has more obligations than it can meet...PBGC [is] already is more than $20 billion in the red - which is to say, the guys who are supposed to cover you when your pension fund cannot cover its obligations cannot cover their obligations - and its own analysis suggests it will be $34 billion short by 2019.
Guess who they’ll be going to for that money?
Casey’s bill would allow for the transfer of money from the “fifth fund” to other PBGC funds. ... There is no statutory limit on the amount of taxpayer money that could be committed to bailing out union pensions under the Casey bill.
Taxpayers already have an unlimited commitment to bailing out Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac - do we really want to offer a bottomless well of public money to the Teamsters, too?
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/243918/dismantling-america-thomas-sowell?page=2
* BY THOMAS SOWELL
The first open attack on the Constitution by a president of the United States was made by our only president with a Ph.D., Woodrow Wilson. Virtually all the arguments as to why judges should not take the Constitution to mean what its words plainly say but “interpret” it to mean whatever it "ought to mean," in order to meet “the needs of the times,” were made by Woodrow Wilson.
It is no coincidence that those who imagine themselves so much wiser and nobler than the rest of us should be at the forefront of those who seek to erode constitutional restrictions on the arbitrary powers of government. How can our betters impose their superior wisdom and virtue on us, when the Constitution gets in the way at every turn, with all its provisions to safeguard a system based on a self-governing people?
To get their way, the elites must erode or dismantle the Constitution, bit by bit, in one way or another. What that means is that they must dismantle America. This has been going on piecemeal over the years, but now we have an administration in Washington that circumvents the Constitution wholesale, with its laws passed so fast that the public cannot know what is in them, its appointment of “czars” wielding greater power than Cabinet members’, without having to be exposed to public scrutiny by going through the confirmation process prescribed by the Constitution for Cabinet members.
Now there is leaked news of plans to change the country’s immigration laws by administrative fiat rather than congressional legislation, presumably because Congress might be unduly influenced by those pesky voters - with their constitutional rights - who have shown clearly that they do not want amnesty and open borders, despite however much our betters do.
If the Obama administration gets away with this, and can add a few million illegals to the voting rolls in time for the 2012 elections, that can mean reelection, and with it a continuing and accelerating dismantling of America.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704868604575433882374313148.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_AboveLEFTTop
President Obama kicked off a five-state campaign swing yesterday with a stop at a "clean energy" plant in Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin. As it happens, Mr. Obama couldn't have chosen a better company to demonstrate the risks that taxpayers are taking with their billions in "green stimulus investment."
ZBB [Energy Corporation] has been around for more than a decade... Since going public in June of 2007, ZBB has been hemorrhaging money. The firm lost $4.9 million in fiscal 2008 and $5.5 million in fiscal 2009. In its most recent filing, in May, it said it had lost $6.9 million for the first nine months of its current fiscal year. It explained it had a "cumulative deficit" of $44.1 million and informed shareholders that it "anticipates incurring continuing losses." It acknowledged that its ability to continue as a "going concern" was predicated on its ability to drum up additional funds.
In March the company engaged in various stock transactions - including a private placement to the company's directors - to raise some $1.9 million. It obtained a $1.3 million loan from the federal stimulus program and borrowed $1.5 million more from Investors Bank. In June it announced a debt agreement, which would allow it to tap a further $10 million.
Meanwhile, a review by the company's audit committee last fall discovered that ZBB's former CEO had been wrongly compensated as both an employee and an independent contractor, and that the company had failed to withhold his proper taxes. He stepped down, and the management team was reshuffled.
ZBB's initial public offering was priced at $6 a share in 2007, and it closed yesterday at 70 cents.
* NOW... ALL THIS SAID...
Last January, when the Department of Energy announced $2.3 billion in "clean energy manufacturing tax credits," ZBB was one of 183 recipients - collecting $14 million.
[ZBB] acknowledged in its May filing that the 72,000 square foot manufacturing facility it bought in 2006 is "currently producing at less than 10% of its expected capacity." That means it can't currently access the $14 million in federal tax credits, which were supposed to help with equipment for a new facility.
* THANK HEAVEN FOR SMALL FAVORS!
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