Tuesday, January 25, 2011

Barker's Newsbites: Tuesday, January 25, 2011


I say bring back the ol' Variety Show format!

("Glee" my frigg'n ass...)

(*GRUMBLE*) (*GRUMBLE*) (*GRUMBLE*) (*SPIT*)
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6 comments:

William R. Barker said...

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704279704576102490181486806.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_LEFTTopStories

When Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) delivers the Republican response to President Barack Obama's State of the Union address Tuesday, many viewers will get their first look at a man whom GOP leaders are trusting to manage a central policy issue - how to cut the federal budget - that could shape the party's image for years.

* OF COURSE YOU FOLKS ARE ALREADY FAMILIAR WITH RYAN -- http://www.roadmap.republicans.budget.house.gov/

Republicans not only have made Mr. Ryan chairman of the House Budget Committee, but on Tuesday the House is expected to vote to give him unprecedented powers to force spending cuts for the current fiscal year. That authority will allow Mr. Ryan to act unilaterally in setting an overall spending level for the rest of the year, a job usually handled by his full panel.

(*CLAP-CLAP-CLAP*)

Hours later, Mr. Ryan will speak to the nation in a televised address following Mr. Obama's remarks to a joint session of Congress.

* FOLKS... I URGE YOU TO WATCH RYAN'S "REBUTTAL." A DECISION HAS TO BE MADE. MORE BORROWING? MORE SPENDING? MORE DEBT? OR ARE WE READY TO FACE OUR PROBLEMS AND DEAL WITH THEM HONESTLY?

"Up until this point, the Republican leadership has been vague about what federal programs they want to cut," said Sen. Bernie Sanders, a Vermont independent who caucuses with Democrats. "On the other hand, Congressman Ryan has been very clear on this subject."

* DAMN STRAIGHT! YES...! HONESTY...! A HONEST DISCUSSION FEATURING SPECIFIC POLICY PROPOSALS! AT LAST...!!!

Mr. Ryan is an intellectual who has spent scant time working outside the Washington Beltway. He supported the Wall Street bailout that was a big spark behind the tea-party rebellion.

* YEP. FULL DISCLOSURE. (*NOD*) RYAN WAS WRONG TO GO ALONG WITH THE BAILOUTS. HE WASN'T ALONE THOUGH. FOLKS... YOU'RE NEVER GONNA FIND PERFECTION IN AN INDIVIDUAL. HECK... NO DOUBT EACH OF YOU CAN START COUNTING MISTAKES YOU'VE MADE OVER THE YEARS AND SPEND A FAIR AMOUNT OF TIME DOING SO.

January 25, 2011 at 8:59 AM
William R. Barker said...

http://www.myfoxny.com/dpp/news/local_news/queens/worker-hurt-in-fight-with-teens-at-wendys-in-queens-20110124

* YOU'VE HEARD THE PHRASE "DISPARATE IMPACT?" HOW'BOUT "DISPARATE PERPDOM...?"

* WATCH THE VIDEO. (ALL TOO FAMILIAR UNFORTUNATELY...)

A fight broke out at a Wendy's in Queens Village, leaving one of the workers seriously injured.

* BY "FIGHT" THEY MEAN VICIOUS ASSAULT PERPETRATED BY A PACK OF ANIMALS.

In the video, you can see the cashier get pummeled to the ground by teenage girls.

* BY "TEENAGE GIRLS" THEY MEAN "PACK OF ANIMALS."

A Wendy's employee told Fox 5 that it started with one girl attacking the woman and a large group of them jumped in and punched her. The worker said it all began when the group started fighting and throwing food. She was behind the counter when her co-worker walked over to try and stop them, she said.

The woman who was attacked suffered a concussion and is currently unable to work.

Two of the teens have been identified by school officials as students at Martin van Buren High School, which is just down the block. School officials said they are working closely with the NYPD to investigate the incident.

* "INCIDENT," HUH?

* ANYONE WANNA LAY ODDS ON WHETHER THESE ANIMALS GET MORE THAN A SLAP ON THE WRIST?

(*SMIRK*)

January 25, 2011 at 12:15 PM
William R. Barker said...

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704698004576103940087329966.html?mod=WSJ_hp_MIDDLENexttoWhatsNewsTop

Less than one-third of U.S. elementary- and high-school students have a solid grasp of science, according to national test scores released Tuesday.

(*SARCASTIC CLAP-CLAP-CLAP*)

Scores from a recent international science exam showed U.S. students trailing their counterparts in many European and Asian countries.

(*JUST SHAKING MY HEAD IN DISGUST*)

[Only] 34% of the nation's fourth-graders and 30% of eighth-graders scored proficient or above on the exam...

(*GRITTING MY TEETH*)

...while 21% of 12th-graders met the mark.

(*SIGH*)

January 25, 2011 at 3:56 PM
William R. Barker said...

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704624504576098462358709304.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_MIDDLESecond

In fiscal 2007, when George W. Bush was president [and Congress was totally controlled by a nearly elected Democratic majority led by Nancy Pelosi in the House and Harry Reid in the Senate] the [U.S. national] debt increased $161 billion; in 2008, another $458 billion; and in 2009 (which began under Mr. Bush and ended under Barack Obama), it reached $1.4 trillion.

In President Obama's first two full years in office, 2010 and 2011, it will increase another $1.3 trillion each year.

Add it all together and Mr. Obama has presided over the creation of more new debt in two years than Mr. Bush did in eight.

* AND OF COURSE THE COMPARISON BECOMES EVEN MORE POINTED WHEN YOU FACTOR IN THE DEMOCRATIC CONGRESS BUSH HAD TO CONTEND WITH DURING HIS LAST TWO YEARS IN OFFICE.

[T]hese spending increases are not a surprise, a mistake or a worry in the current administration; they simply reflect the belief of the Democratic president and Congress that we must Europeanize America - make the government larger, broader, and in charge of as many things as possible.

(*SORROWFUL NOD*)

[Now] with the broad Republican victory in last November's elections, things have dramatically changed.

* AMEN, SWEET JESUS, AMEN...! (*DRAMATICALLY FALLING TO MY KNEES, LIFTING MY ARMS UP IN PRAISE*)

The health-care law enacted by the last Congress is enormous - more than 2,000 pages - and full of provisions that will expand government control of health care and limit what individuals and employers can do.

The bill contains 10 years of higher taxes - on earned and investment income beginning in 2013 - to fund only six years of subsidies.

It double-counts $398 billion of Medicare savings and adds 32 million more people to government health-care coverage, while claiming implausibly to reduce the federal deficit at the same time.

(*SMIRK*)

[ObamaCare's] projections are false: The Medicare actuary says 375,000 people should have already signed up for the new high risk pools for the uninsured, but only 8,000 have.

In the state of New Hampshire the government has spent nearly double the $650,000 that the federal government allotted to help run the program, and yet only about 80 members have signed up for the program.

In a recent survey by the Physicians Foundation, 60% of private practice doctors say the law will force them to close their practices or restrict them to certain patients.

(*SARCASTIC CLAP-CLAP-CLAP*)

January 25, 2011 at 3:56 PM
William R. Barker said...

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703909904576052150177439350.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTop

Liberals were once skeptical of public-sector unionism.

In the 1930s, New York Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia warned against it as an infringement on democratic freedoms that threatened the ability of government to represent the broad needs of the citizenry.

[I]n a 1937 letter to the head of an organization of federal workers, FDR noted that "a strike of public employees manifests nothing less than an intent on their part to prevent or obstruct the operations of Government until their demands are satisfied. Such action, looking toward the paralysis of Government by those who have sworn to support it, is unthinkable and intolerable."

Private-sector union leaders were also divided. George Meany, the president of the AFL-CIO from 1955-1979 who came out of the building trades, argued that it was "impossible to bargain collectively with the government." Private unionists more generally worried that rather than winning a greater share of profits, public-sector labor would be extracting taxes from a public that included their own workers. But in the late 1950s, with the failure of the labor movement's organizing campaign in the South, Meany's own executive council insisted on the necessity of winning the right to organize public employees.

The first to seize on the political potential of government workers was New York City Mayor Robert F. Wagner. The mayor's father, a prominent New Deal senator, had authored the landmark 1935 Wagner Act, which imposed on private employers the legal duty to bargain collectively with the properly elected union representatives of their employees. Mayor Wagner, prodded by Jerry Wurf of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), gave city workers the right to bargain collectively in 1958.

Running for re-election in 1961, Mayor Wagner was opposed by the old-line party bosses of all five boroughs. He turned to a new force, the public-sector unions, as his political machine. His re-election resonated at the Kennedy White House, which had won office by only the narrowest of margins in 1960.

Ten weeks after Wagner's victory, Kennedy looked to mobilize public-sector workers as a new source of Democratic Party political support. In mid-January 1962, he issued Executive Order 10988, which gave federal workers the right to organize in unions.

* READ THE FULL ARTICLE TO GET A FULLER HISTORY OF HOW MUCH DAMAGE WAGNER'S INITIAL ACTION ON A LOCAL SCALE FOLLOWED BY JFK's ON THE NATIONAL STAGE LAID THE FOUNDATION FOR THE UNTENABLE FINANCIAL SITUATION WE FIND OURSELVES IN TODAY.

Restraining the immense clout that government-employee unions have accumulated over the past half-century will be difficult, but not impossible. ... Collective bargaining by public employees was not rooted in deep-seated American tradition. [T]he decision to grant this privilege was a political decision designed to enhance the power of a pressure group whose interests, even many liberals assumed, would be at odds with those of the general public.

* AND THOSE LIBERALS - INCLUDING THE LIKES OF FIORELLO LAGUARDIA AND FDR - WERE RIGHT.

January 25, 2011 at 3:56 PM
William R. Barker said...

http://www.wusa9.com/news/local/story.aspx?storyid=132655&catid=158

Night after night, year after year, this nightside reporter observed lights left on in federal government buildings. So I decided to see just how much taxpayers were spending to keep empty buildings illuminated.

Just how much are the federal agencies electricity bills costing you, the taxpayer?

One month's electricity bill at the Department of Labor topped $1,000,000 (one million dollars).

That was a bill paid in July of last year.

The month before, the department paid a bill of nearly $700,000. And utility costs of that magnitude are not unusual.

The Department of Health and Human Services paid a bill last August of $799,000 for a month of service.

The Department of Commerce paid a bill last June of $794,000.

* OH...! AND YOU'RE GONNA LOVE THIS ONE...!!!

[R]ecords provided to us by DOT show the Department routinely was charged late fees, up to $800.

(*POUNDING MY DESK AND SCREAMING LIKE A MANIAC*)

"It doesn't matter whether it's a dollar or $700. The fact that there are any late payments indicates mismanagement," said Tom Schatz, President of Citizens Against Government Waste. "Turning off the lights is about the simplest way that the government can save money. There is no excuse not to do this on a regular basis."

The buildings are large, and some appear to be making an effort to turn off their lights consistently, like the Department of Health and Human Services.

The Department of Energy headquarters was so dark on one of our nighttime visits, we could barely see its sign...but its monthly electricity bills still average $260,000.

The Department of Transportation's side-by-side Wright Buildings on Independence Avenue always appear to have the majority of their lights on, including those in the cafeteria, even though a metal gate keeps anyone from entering after hours.

The Environmental Protection Agency appears to leaves its lights on.

At the Department of Education, several floors always seem illuminated.

Only one time, at the Department of Agriculture, did we see a cleaning person through a window.

January 25, 2011 at 6:51 PM

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