Monday, March 28, 2011
Barker's Newsbites: Monday, March 28, 2011
On your knees! Heed our masters!
Folks... it's insanity. You know it. You've gotta know it.
Is the stock market up or down today? As I type this today's closing number is anyone's guess, but one thing anyone with half a brain must understand is that the stock market is totally disengaged from reality, manipulated by politicized trading as much as by computerized trading.
We truly are living in Orwell's world... the Age of Obama...
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* TWO-PARTER... (Part 1 of 2)
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/mar/25/now-even-the-loudest-obamacare-cheerlea-305819702/
Becoming the most hypocritical politician in America is not an easy goal to achieve, but New York’s Rep. Anthony Weiner, a Democrat, is up to the task.
Earlier this year, the Obama administration began rewarding its union friends and others with an escape from the clutches of Obamacare. Now one of the most outspoken Obamacare supporters - the man who actually said, “I wrote the bill … the bill and I are one” wants his own “get out of jail free” card from this abominable law.
(*SNORT*)
* THIS STORY HAS BEEN AROUND FOR SOME DAYS NOW, BUT THIS ARTICLE'S TONE IS ESPECIALLY WORTH REWARDING WITH A NEWSBITE.
Moments of unmistakable clarity may not always find their way to the president’s teleprompter, but occasionally, the curtains are pulled back on “the most open and transparent [administration] in history” to reveal what its footsoldiers think of their own law.
This conflict between politicians’ words and deeds is nothing new, of course, nor is the selective enforcement of bad laws.
(*JUST SHAKING MY HEAD*)
In 2007, the Association for Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), the defunct Leftist group with close ties to President Obama, was a vigorous proponent of the “living wage,” a euphemism for increasing the minimum wage.
Long before the organization collapsed in the wake of group leaders exposing themselves as eager enablers of child prostitution and reorganized under a new name, ACORN sought an exemption - its own waiver - from the minimum-wage laws it professed to love. Ironically, the community organizers had their own moment of clarity about the destructive nature of minimum-wage laws: “The more that ACORN must pay each individual outreach worker - whether because of minimum wage or overtime requirements - the fewer outreach workers it will be able to hire.”
(*LMAO*)
[G]rasping the inescapable reality that minimum-wage laws increase unemployment, these big-government types refused to abandon their pursuit of the destructive laws and instead simply wanted an exemption from them, an uneven playing field, instead of better laws that would benefit all Americans.
Fast-forward four years, and the community organizer in the White House evidently has had his own moment of clarity about the...health care law that bears his name.
* To be continued...
* CONTINUING... (Part 2 of 2)
Despite promises to the contrary, Mr. Obama’s own Medicare chief actuary estimates that up to 20 million Americans may lose their current health insurance.
Despite promises to the contrary, the CBO estimates Obamacare will destroy 800,000 jobs.
Despite promises to the contrary,HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius recently admitted cooking the books by double-counting $500 billion toward both Medicare savings and Obamacare implementation funds and admitted that a major program within Obamacare, the CLASS Act, is - in her words - “totally unsustainable.”
(*SNORT*)
So how does the White House respond to this unraveling? With more waivers.
HHS acknowledges issuing 1,040 “get out of jail free” cards to unions and other friends.
Five states have been graced with their very own ObamaCare waivers, including Massachusetts, New Jersey, Ohio, Tennessee and, newest pampered friend, Maine.
* HOME OF RINO SENATORS EXTRAORDINAIRE SUSAN COLLINS AND OLYMPIA SNOWE!
If you happen to live in one of the other 45 states, don’t worry. The same administration that predicted its $787 billion so-called “stimulus” spending spree would keep unemployment below 8% predicts that you’ll be just fine.
(*WRY SMILE*)
Sweetheart deals for friends is nothing new when it comes to ObamaCare. Just ask Nebraska Sen. Ben Nelson or Louisiana Sen. Mary L. Landrieu, both Democrats, who struck their respective Cornhusker Kickback and Louisiana Purchase backroom deals.
Or ask AARP. The interest organization for persons age 50 and older endorsed Obamacare - despite $500 billion in Medicare cuts - and was rewarded with a tax exemption on its highly lucrative Medigap policies.
Or ask the AMA, [which] may represent just 17% of American doctors - [yet]...endorsed Obamacare despite the fact that the majority of doctors oppose it - and [so now] will keep the government as a customer in its lucrative ICD-9 diagnosis-coding business.
(*SMIRK*)
Now Mr. Weiner wants in on the action. Why? He thinks escaping ObamaCare would mean that New York City “can save money and have more control over its own destiny.” (Regular Americans need not apply.)
Such is the standard operating procedure for big-government types: Impose ever-increasing burdens on hardworking Americans who play by the rules and don’t have best friends in Washington or armies of lobbyists at their disposal or millions of dollars for campaign contributions.
This sickening display shows that, at best, this administration is admitting that Obamacare is unraveling, in part, because its one-size-fits-all, big-government plan simply cannot accommodate all the unique needs of 310 million patients. At worst, its pay-for-play, politics-as-usual scheme is enriching administration cronies on the backs of everyone else.
As Mr. Weiner said, “A lot of people who got waivers were … people who are our friends.”
(*CONTINUING TO SHAKE MY HEAD IS DISGUST*)
The question remains: If ObamaCare is such a great law, why does the White House keep exempting its best friends from it?
http://blogs.abcnews.com/george/2011/03/cost-of-libya-intervention-600-million-for-first-week-pentagon-says.html
One week after an international military coalition intervened in Libya, the cost to U.S. taxpayers has reached at least $600 million, according figures provided by the Pentagon.
U.S. ships and submarines in the Mediterranean have unleashed at least 191 Tomahawk cruise missiles from their arsenals to the tune of $268.8 million, the Pentagon said.
U.S. warplanes have dropped 455 precision guided bombs, costing tens of thousands of dollars each.
A downed Air Force F-15E fighter jet will cost more than $60 million to replace.
And operation of the war craft, guzzling ever-expensive fuel to maintain their positions off the Libyan coast and in the skies above, could reach millions of dollars a week, experts say.
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/libya-us-intervention-fly-zone-cost-taxpayers-600/story?id=13242136
"Each sortie, even if it drops no munitions, is very pricey," said Winslow Wheeler of the Center for Defense Information. "These airplanes cost us tens of thousands of dollars to operate per hour, and the fancier you get in terms of planes, the costs get truly astounding."
The three B-2 stealth bombers that flew from Missouri to Libya and back on an early bombing mission each cost an estimated $10,000 per hour to fly, a defense official said. That means the planes, each on a 25-hour round-trip flight, ran up a bill of $750,000, and the 45 Joint Direct Attack Munitions (JDAM) they dropped added at least $1.3 million more.
The cost of operating the no-fly zone over Libya alone could cost the U.S. an estimated $30 million to $100 million a week, a study by the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments found.
So far the Pentagon has financed the mission to take out Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi's air defenses and disrupt his attacks on opposition forces using money in its existing budget, which has room for unanticipated military actions. ... But experts say the administration may have to submit an emergency supplemental budget request for Libya later this year, assuming U.S. involvement in the international military operation does not end swiftly.
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