Wednesday, August 4, 2010
Barker's Newsbites: Wednesday, August 4, 2010
So... it's been almost a week since my last post!
Well... a weekend with Ted and Mary will do that...
(*GRIN*)
Wow... what would the brewery, distillery, and winery industries do without us - never mind butcher shops, grocery stores, bars and restaurants!
I've gotta tell ya... yeah, it's good to be us... but, man, it's exhausting...!!!
So, anyway... happy Wednesday to you all; back to the grind.
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http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1300240/Michelle-Obama-jets-Marbella-5-star-holiday-daughter-Sasha.html
The Obama administration faced an embarrassing diplomatic blunder today after it was forced to pull a warning about racism in Spain - just as the First Lady arrived in the country for a summer holiday.
* HMM... "DIPLOMATIC BLUNDER..." NOW REFRESH ME... WHO IS IN CHARGE OF DIPLOMACY FOR THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION? OH, YEAH... IT'S THE SECRETARY OF STATE... HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON!
(*SNORT*)
Staff at the U.S. State Department removed the contentious advice to travellers, which included the phrase 'racist prejudices could lead to the arrest of Afro-Americans who travel to Spain,' from its website on Monday.
The First Lady landed in the Costa del Sol this morning for a break with her youngest daughter Sasha, nine.
* SUPPORTING THE "RACIST REGIME" THAT IS... er... SUDDENLY NO LONGER VIEWED AS RACIST?
(*SNICKER*)
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=CNG.f0a53adeda976f1fb67d1f1646930c15.4c1&show_article=1
Oil prices stretched towards 82 dollars per barrel on Tuesday, on the back of buoyant market sentiment, the weak dollar and hurricane concerns in the US Gulf of Mexico, analysts said.
* "BUOYANT," HUH...?!
Oil prices stretched towards 82 dollars per barrel on Tuesday, on the back of buoyant market sentiment, the weak dollar and hurricane concerns in the US Gulf of Mexico, analysts said.
Oil had surged past 81 dollars on Monday, with sentiment boosted by soaring global stock markets, strong bank results and solid US economic data.
* "SENTIMENT BOOSTED?" HMM... SOUNDS TO ME LIKE WHAT'S "GOOD" FOR GLOBAL STOCK MARKETS AND BANKS AIN'T NECESSARILY GOOD FOR CONSUMERS.
(*SHRUG*)
http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/govt-and-politics/article_c847dc7c-564c-5c70-8d90-dfd25ae6de56.html
Missouri voters on Tuesday overwhelmingly rejected a federal mandate to purchase health insurance...
"The citizens of the Show-Me State don't want Washington involved in their health care decisions," said Sen. Jane Cunningham, R-Chesterfield, one of the sponsors of the legislation that put Proposition C on the August ballot. She credited a grass-roots campaign involving Tea Party and patriot groups with building support for the anti-Washington proposition.
Missouri was the first of four states to seek to opt out of the insurance purchase mandate portion of the health care law that had been pushed by Obama.
"It's a big number," state Sen. Jim Lembke, R-Lemay, said of the vote. "I expected a victory, but not of this magnitude. This is going to propel the issue and several other issues about the proper role of the federal government."
From almost the moment the Democratic-controlled Congress passed the health care law - which aims to increase the number of Americans with health insurance - Republicans have vowed to try to repeal it. Their primary argument is that they believe the federal government should not be involved in mandating health care decisions at the local level.
http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2010/08/administration-still-double-counting-medicare-cuts/60850/
Last year, the [Obama] administration grew fond of "double counting" the savings from the Medicare cuts in health care reform - claiming that they'd reduced the deficit, paid for reform, and extended the life of the Medicare trust fund.
Eventually, Republicans got around to asking for an analysis from the CBO, which told us what anyone who ever took first year accounting already knew: this is not true. (If you used the savings to "pay for" the new spending, you can't also say that you've used them to shore up the finances of Medicare.)
* ALL THIS NOTED, IT APPEARS THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION IS UP TO ITS OLD TRICKS...
Kathleen Sebelius, who certainly ought to know better, had a rather extraordinary exchange with Phil Klein of the American Spectator yesterday. In her opening remarks, Sebelius promoted a new report that said the changes made to Medicare would save $8 billion over the next two years, and $575 billion over 10. The report also says that, "Implementing these changes extends the life of the Medicare Trust Fund by 12 years from 2017 to 2029, more than doubling the time before the exhaustion of the Trust Fund."
During the question and answer session, [Klein] asked how the administration could claim the same money could be used to pay for two different things.... [he] then followed up by asking: "It's a budget convention, but in reality, the $575 billion can't be used to extend the trust fund for 12 years and simultaneously used to finance coverage for 30 million people. Is that correct?"
At this point, Sebelius jumped in to say "Actually, that is not correct. There are two different operating methods of looking at this, and the CMS actuary in the report that you cite differs in his strategic opinion from every accounting methodology that's used for every other program in the federal budget, that has traditionally used for Medicare. And he has a different interpretation that is not agreed upon by either the Congressional Budget Office or the OMB or traditionally in Congress."
[T]his is simply incorrect; no one at the CBO thinks that these sorts of word games are appropriate.
Moreover, this "accounting methodology" is not used for every other program in the federal budget; the special off-budget status of the trust funds is very rare. Indeed, the fact that the trust funds create these kinds of artifacts, which can be used by politicians in misleading ways, is one of the best arguments against this sort of accounting.
During the election, I [,Megan McArdle,] supported Obama's candidacy in part because he seemed to be serious about producing good numbers for his programs. It's extraordinarily dismaying to see his Health and Human Services Secretary so firmly committed to making obviously misleading claims about his largest legislative achievement.
http://www.house.gov/htbin/blog_inc?BLOG,tx14_paul,blog,999,All,Item%20not%20found,ID=100802_3727,TEMPLATE=postingdetail.shtml
* BY CONGRESSMAN RON PAUL (R-TX)
We are not at war with Pakistan.
Congress has made no declaration of war. (Actually, we made no declaration of war on Iraq or Afghanistan either, but that is another matter.) Yet we have troops in Pakistan engaging in hostile activities, conducting drone attacks and killing people.
We sometimes manage to kill someone who has been identified as an enemy, yet we also kill about 10 civilians for every 1 of those. Pakistani civilians are angered by this, yet their leadership is mollified by our billions in bribe money. We just passed an appropriations bill that will send another $7.5 billion to Pakistan. One wonders how much of this money will end up helping the Taliban.
This whole operation is clearly counterproductive, inappropriate, immoral and every American who values the rule of law should be outraged.
We should follow constitutional protocol when going to war. It is there for a reason. If we are legitimately attacked, it is the job of Congress to declare war. We then fight the war, win it and come home.
War should be efficient, decisive and rare.
However, when Congress shirks its duty and just gives the administration whatever it wants with no real oversight or meaningful debate, wars are never-ending, wasteful, and political...a perpetual drain on our economy and liberty.
The Founders knew that heads of state are far too eager to engage in military conflicts. That is why they entrusted the power to go to war with the deliberative body closest to the people – the Congress.
Decisions to go to war need to be supported by the people. War should not be covert or casual. We absolutely should not be paying off leaders of a country while killing their civilians without expecting to create a lot of new problems. This is not what America is supposed to be about.
(*CLAP-CLAP-CLAP*)
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