Friday, January 21, 2011

Barker's Newsbites: Friday, January 21, 2011


Remember this song...???

(*APPRECIATIVE CHUCKLE*)

Now SMILE... and have a nice frigg'n day!

(*HUGE FRIGG'N GRIN*)
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7 comments:

William R. Barker said...

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/21/business/economy/21bankruptcy.html?_r=2&src=busln

Policy makers are working behind the scenes to come up with a way to let states declare bankruptcy and get out from under crushing debts, including the pensions they have promised to retired public workers.

[S]ome states have deep structural problems, like insolvent pension funds, that are diverting money from essential public services like education and health care.

(*SMIRK*)

* NOTICE HOW THE WRITER JUST "SKIPS" RIGHT OVER "LESS ESSENTIAL PUBLIC SERVICES" - LIKE SAY POLICE AND FIRE!

(*SNORT*)

Bankruptcy could permit a state to alter its contractual promises to retirees, which are often protected by state constitutions...

* SORRY, KIDS; THE ONLY LEGITIMATE WAY TO BYPASS A CONSTITUTION IS VIA AMENDMENT. (OR AT LEAST IT WAS PRIOR TO THE AGE OF OBAMA...)

* IN ANY CASE... (*SNICKER*)... NOTHING TO WORRY ABOUT, FOLKS... THE OBAMA RECOVERY (*CHUCKLE*) PROCEEDS APACE!

January 21, 2011 at 9:20 AM
William R. Barker said...

http://www.nationaljournal.com/whitehouse/ge-s-immelt-to-head-obama-s-new-jobs-and-competitiveness-board-20110121

President Obama today will name General Electric CEO Jeff Immelt chairman of the new Council on Jobs and Competitiveness, the White House announced overnight.

* NAH... NO CRONY "CAPITALISM" FROM THIS WHITE HOUSE... (OLIGARCHY? WHAT OLIGARCHY?)

(*ROLLING MY EYES*)

The creation of the new entity...

* THE NEW FEDERAL ENTITY...

(*SMIRK*)

Immelt, a Republican, donated to both Hillary Rodham Clinton and John McCain during the last presidential cycle...

* OH, YEAH... IMMELT'S A REAL ROCK RIBBED "REPUBLICAN" ALRIGHT. (*SNORT*) CLEARLY IMMELT IS A MAN OF DEEP... er... "EVENHANDED" POLITICAL BELIEFS.

January 21, 2011 at 9:33 AM
William R. Barker said...

http://michellemalkin.com/2011/01/21/the-philadelphia-horror-how-mass-murder-gets-a-pass/

* IT IS TRUE THAT THIS STORY ISN'T GETTING NEARLY THE PRESS ATTENTION ONE WOULD THINK NORMAL.

* HMM... I WONDER WHY...

(*SMIRK*)

January 21, 2011 at 10:00 AM
William R. Barker said...

http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=41310

* THE WIT AND WISDOM OF PATRICK J. BUCHANAN

"O would some power the gift to give us to see ourselves as others see us," wrote the poet Robert Burns.

As Hu Jintao wings his way home, America's hectoring still ringing in his ears, he must be thinking that maybe we Americans should stop lecturing them and take a closer look at ourselves.

Revalue your currency, we demand of the Chinese, stop running these trade surpluses at our expense, start practicing free trade, and abandon these mercantilist and protectionist policies.

But why should they? Why should China abandon a trade policy that is working marvelously well for them, and adopt a trade policy that is failing dismally for us? Does that make sense?

* NO, PAT, IT SURE DOESN'T.

Why should any nation emulate the U.S. trade policy of the Bush-Clinton-Bush era that has stripped us of a third of our manufacturing jobs and made us dependent on China and the world for the needs of our national life and the borrowed money to pay for them?

(*SIGH*) (*NOD*)

Why would China, seeking to make herself an independent and self-sufficient nation, adopt a policy that cost us our independence?

* ALLOW ME TO ADD THAT CHINA IS SEEKING TO DISPLACE US AS #1 AND CHANCES ARE... (*FROWN*)... THEY'LL SOON SUCCEED.

Are our Milton Friedmanite free-traders unaware of how it was that, in the last third of the 19th century, we left the British in the dust? Are they unaware we had the highest tariffs on earth to price British products out of our market and goad rapacious Yankees into building new factories to produce the same goods we were then importing from Great Britain? Lest we forget, the Americans who turned this country into the industrial marvel of mankind were known as "Robber Barons." As they put America first in our rise, the Chinese are putting China first.

* AND OUR OLIGARCHS ARE HELPING THEM...!!!

Our grand strategists demand to know why the Chinese are making these brash claims to all the islands in the South China and East China seas. Why are they telling us to keep our aircraft carriers out of the Yellow Sea and out of the Taiwan Strait? Who do they think they are?

Well, maybe they think they're 19th-century Americans.

(*NOD*)

Did not James Monroe and John Quincy Adams brashly tell the great powers of Europe to stay out of our hemisphere?

(*NOD*)

We can't win or end our wars, balance our budgets or control our borders. California and Illinois appear about to go belly-up. The U.S. government is running a third straight deficit of near 10% of our entire economy.

We used our stimulus money to save government jobs. They used theirs for bullet trains.

Time to see ourselves as others see us.

January 21, 2011 at 10:01 AM
William R. Barker said...

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/21/us/21bccola.html?_r=1

As San Francisco struggles under ballooning pension and health care costs, the city’s [government] retirees will receive unexpected "cost-of-living" bonuses totaling $170 million.

The city’s anticipated budget deficit for the coming year is $360 million.

* FOLKS... IF VIOLENCE ISN'T THE ANSWER... WHAT IS...???

A political battle has raged over the city’s growing retirement obligations. In November, Proposition B, which would have required city workers to contribute more toward their pensions and benefits, was soundly defeated.

* FOLKS... IS DEMOCRACY REALLY A SUICIDE PACT?

Meanwhile, the [government retiree's'] fund’s fundamentals deteriorated as it gradually accounted for its huge losses in the stock market crash. It took in $414 million in contributions in 2010 but paid out $819 million.

(*JUST SHAKING MY HEAD*)

On Jan. 4, an actuarial firm reported that the $13.1 billion San Francisco Employees’ Retirement System now had an unfunded liability of $1.6 billion - triple its shortfall a year earlier.

(*CONTINUING TO JUST SHAKE MY HEAD*)

Gary A. Amelio, the system’s chief since January 2010, quietly decreed in mid-December - in spite of the [latest] shortfall [and previous shortfalls] - that “excess” earnings on investments in 2010 entitled retirees to an unexpected cost-of-living increase of as much as 3.5 percent this year. The special $170 million bonus is in excess of regular cost-of-living adjustments, or COLAs.

* AGAIN, FOLKS, IF VIOLENCE ISN'T THE ANSWER... WHAT IS...???

“The irony of issuing bonus payments to retirees at a time the pension fund is a billion dollars down is insane. It really is,” said Jeff Adachi, San Francisco’s public defender and the chief proponent of Proposition B, which he says would have saved the city $120 million this year. “It’s like a bankrupt corporation paying dividends to its shareholders.”

The city is required to inject cash if necessary to pay its retirees. This year, it will pay $325 million, or 13.6% of the total payroll of $2.4 billion.

In the coming fiscal year, it will pay 18.1% - about $434 million.

Three years from now, according to the actuarial report, the city will be paying 28.8% of payroll, or about $691 million.

January 21, 2011 at 6:06 PM
William R. Barker said...

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20110121/us_nm/us_schwarzenegger_lawsuit

The parents of a college student stabbed to death 2 1/2 years ago sued former California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger on Thursday over his decision to reduce the prison term of a politically-connected assailant convicted in the slaying.

* WHILE THE LAWSUIT HAS NO CHANCE OF SUCCEEDING - NOR SHOULD IT... THE GOVERNOR WAS ACTING WITHIN HIS CONSTITUTIONAL POWERS - I CERTAINLY WOULD SHED NO TEARS IF THE FATHER WERE TO "DEAL" WITH SCHWARZENEGGER IN THE SAME WAY I WOULD WERE I HE.

* I'LL LEAVE WHAT I MEAN BY THAT TO YOUR IMAGINATIONS.

Esteban Nunez, the son of former California Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez, was sentenced to 16 years in prison after pleading guilty to voluntary manslaughter and assault with a deadly weapon for his role in an October 2008 drunken brawl near San Diego State University that led to the fatal stabbing of Luis Santos, a 22 year-old student.

Schwarzenegger...shortened the sentence to seven years in one of his last acts as governor on January 2.

Fabian Nunez is a prominent Los Angeles Democrat whose six years as a state legislator included four years as Assembly speaker. A political ally with Schwarzenegger on a number of issues, he left office in late 2008.

* THE APPLE DIDN'T FALL FAR FROM THE TREE; NUNEZ "SENIOR" IS A SCUMBAG AS WELL.

January 21, 2011 at 6:18 PM
William R. Barker said...

http://detnews.com/article/20110121/METRO01/101210376/Detroit-women-get-no-help-in-arrest-of-alleged-car-thief

An alleged car thief got more than he bargained for when three women yanked him out of the vehicle he was trying to steal, held him down and made a citizen's arrest.

But when the women repeatedly called Detroit Police, they said nobody responded, so they decided to walk the man to the nearby Central District police station.

On the way, they said they encountered a Detroit police officer - who they claim refused to take the man into custody.

Lydia Officer complained about the incident at Thursday's meeting of the Board of Police Commissioners; Detroit Police Chief Ralph Godbee promised to investigate.

When Ms. Officer complained at Thursday's commissioner's meeting, Chief Godbee called the Detroit officer's behavior "inexcusable."

"This leads me to think maybe he was doing something he wasn't supposed to be doing," Godbee said. "We'll get to the bottom of this."

"I wasn't trying to be a hero," Lydia Officer said. "I just didn't want my car stolen."

(*STANDING UP TO APPLAUD*)

January 21, 2011 at 6:25 PM

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