Wednesday, March 30, 2011

Barker's Newsbites: Wednesday, March 30, 2011


Oh, those crazy androgynous Brits!
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9 comments:

William R. Barker said...

http://blog.heritage.org/2011/03/30/morning-bell-harry-reid-chooses-shutdown-over-responsibility/?utm_source=Newsletter&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=Morning%2BBell

You would think liberals in Congress have nothing better to do with their time.

Amid a war in Libya, an effort to aid earthquake and tsunami-stricken Japan, a continuing war in Afghanistan, rising gas prices and endless unemployment, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) and the Democratic leadership in the U.S. Senate are refusing to accept a modest agreement to fund the federal government through the end of the fiscal year.

* "MODEST" IS RIGHT. THE REPUBLICANS LOOK "GOOD" ONLY IN RELATION TO THE DEMS!

What’s Senator Reid wrangling over? A mere $51 billion in additional budget cuts, which amounts to a few days of government deficit spending.

Reid’s stonewalling isn’t just about dollars and cents, or saving federal funding for a Cowboy Poetry Festival.

Reid and the Democrats in Congress are setting the groundwork for a partial government shutdown so they can attempt to lay the blame at the feet of the Tea Party and Republicans in Congress and gain politically.

(*SIGH*)

* LET'S REFRESH SOME MEMORIES:

Last May, then-House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD) announced that, for the first time since 1974, the [then-democrat controlled] House would not pass a budget resolution.

Never in modern history had a Congress ignored this basic mandated responsibility.

* THE AGE OF PELOSI WAS AS "GRAND" IN ITS OWN WAY AS THE AGE OF OBAMA! (*SNORT*)

Rather than stem the tide of big government spending, liberals in Congress opted to burn through borrowed cash as they pleased with no end in sight.

* WHICH THEY DID...!

* NOW... FAST FORWARD TO THIS YEAR... REPUBLICANS CONTROL THE HOUSE... JOHN BOEHNER IS SPEAKER...

Enter the 112th Congress and H.R. 1, the House Republicans’ FY 2011 budget which cut spending by $61 billion.

It passed the House some 39 days ago, and yet under Reid’s leadership, the Senate has done nothing to move that bill forward or offer any serious alternative, for that matter.

* YEP. ABSOLUTELY TRUE.

In the meantime, the House has passed two stopgap spending measures to temporarily fund the government, waiting for Reid to get his chamber in order.

Yesterday, Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY) gave America some insight into his party’s game plan. The Washington Examiner reports that on a conference call yesterday, Schumer, without realizing reporters were already listening, instructed his fellow Democratic senators to tell the reporters that the GOP is refusing to negotiate.

* F--KING LYING BASTARD!

As House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) said yesterday, “Chuck Schumer did us a favor, he exposed their tactic. … He’s basically instructing his members to deem any spending cut unreasonable - any spending cut … So clearly they are not serious.”

(*NOD*)

The Senate Democrats’ inaction combined with their rhetoric means one thing: they want a government shutdown at all costs, and they want to blame it on Republicans. Their end goal: more spending and supposed political gain.

(*SIGH*)

Yesterday, former Democrat National Committee (DNC) Chairman Howard Dean told the audience at a National Journal Insider’s Conference: “If I was head of DNC, I would be quietly rooting for it…I know who’s going to get blamed – we’ve been down this road before.” Dean continued: “From a partisan point of view, I think it would be the best thing in the world to have a shutdown.”

(*SHAKING MY HEAD IN DISGUST*)

* THINK ABC, NBC, CBS, AND CNN ARE GONNA BE JUMPING ON THIS? (*SPITTING ON THE FLOOR IN DISGUST*)

Reid’s inaction, Schumer’s political gamesmanship and Dean’s blunt honesty tell the whole story. This is not about putting America on a smart fiscal path, it’s about putting Democrats on a preferred political path.

March 30, 2011 at 9:59 AM
William R. Barker said...

* TWO-PARTER... (Part 1 of 2)

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704471904576228473270290208.html

Talk to top U.S. officials here about how things are going in Egypt, and the gist of the answer reminds me of what Apollo XI astronaut Michael Collins told Mission Control while sailing over the Sea of Tranquility: "Listen, babe, everything is going just swimmingly."

Talk to secular Egyptians about what they make of that sanguine point of view, and they'll tell you the Americans are on the far side of the moon.

* THE AUTHOR OF THIS PIECE IS BRET STEPHENS.

Soon after my arrival here, I am met by an Egyptian friend - I'll call him Mahmoud - who is Muslim by birth but decidedly secular by choice. He looks shaken. [Mahmoud] thinks that levels of street crime in Cairo are no worse than before the revolution, when incidents of hooliganism and looting spiked to Baghdad-like levels. But there's something different, too. "People are much more scared than they used to be," he says. "And it comes from the fact that there's no police. People understand there's potential for a minor incident to turn into a major massacre. If someone goes nuts, everyone will go nuts."

(*PURSED LIPS*)

From the hotel we walk toward Tahrir Square, site of the massive protests that last month brought down Hosni Mubarak. ... Much was made, too, of how the protests were a secular triumph in which the Muslim Brotherhood was left to the sidelines. But that judgment now looks in need of major revision.

Mahmoud points to a building facing the square where, until a few weeks ago, a giant banner demanded "80 Million Noes" to a package of constitutional amendments meant to pave the way toward parliamentary and presidential elections in just a few months time.

(The banner had been placed there by the secular groups at the heart of the protests, which have good reason to fear early elections. Early elections will only benefit well-organized and politically disciplined groups like the Brotherhood and the remnants of Hosni Mubarak's National Democratic Party, which is really the party of the Egyptian military.)

* To be continued...

March 30, 2011 at 11:44 AM
William R. Barker said...

* CONTINUING... (Part 2 of 2)

In the event, the ayes had it with a whopping 77%, despite a fevered turnout effort by "No" voters.

"The West seems to be convinced that the revolution was led by secular democratic forces," says Mahmoud. "Now that myth is shattered. Which means that either the old order" - by which he means the military regime - "stays in power, or we're headed for Islamist dominance."

* I'M BETTING ON THE MILITARY... BUT I'M FAR FROM UNCONCERNED. WE'LL SEE!

From Tahrir Square, we walk past the burnt-out shell of the municipal tax office to meet up with some of Mahmoud's friends. George (another pseudonym) is a twenty-something Coptic Christian from a middle-class family. His parents, who run a small factory in upper Egypt, see no future for him in the country, and they want him to emigrate. "Canada or Australia?" he asks me. I tell him the weather is better Down Under, but that he might be better off staying put and fighting for a better future for his country. He looks at me doubtfully.

Egypt's Copts, some 15% of the population and the largest non-Muslim group anywhere in the Middle East, have good reasons to be worried. Though the protestors at Tahrir made a show of interfaith solidarity, the sense of fellowship is quickly returning to the poisonous pre-Tahrir norm. Earlier this month a Coptic church south of Cairo was burned to the ground, apparently on account of an objectionable Coptic-Muslim romance. The episode would seem almost farcical if it weren't so commonplace in Egypt, and if it didn't so often have fatal results.

(*SIGH*)

The threat to the Coptic community is also a reminder that beyond the Muslim Brotherhood there are Egypt's still more extreme Salafis. "The issue is not that they have gotten stronger since the revolution," Mahmoud explains. "It is that they are getting bolder. There is no counterbalance to their street dominance in certain poor neighborhoods. They're not scared of the government. They're not scared of being prosecuted."

(*PURSED LIPS*) (*JUST SHAKING MY HEAD*)

* MEANWHILE...

Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Ambassador Margaret Scobey deliver upbeat assessments about developments in the country.

Who are you going to believe: Secular Egyptians themselves or the crew who, just a few weeks ago, was saying the Mubarak regime was in no danger of collapse?

(*JUST MUMBLING TO MYSELF*)

March 30, 2011 at 11:45 AM
William R. Barker said...

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704471904576229031304191212.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEFTSecondBucket

President Obama's High-Speed Rail (HSR) program came to its unofficial end on March 11 when Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood announced that the $2.4 billion in federal money promised to Florida would instead be redirected to passenger rail projects in other states.

* F--KING OBAMA! F--KING LAHOOD! THAT $2.4 BILLION SHOULD HAVE GONE RIGHT BACK INTO THE FEDERAL COFFERS - IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN "REDIRECTED" TOWARDS SAVING! INSTEAD... IT'S BEING "REDIRECTED" TOWARDS SQUANDERING.

Florida's new governor Rick Scott followed the examples of Governors John Kasich (R–OH) and Scott Walker (R–WI) in February when he rejected a federal grant of $2.4 billion to fund an HSR line between the Orlando and Tampa.

(*ENTHUSIASTIC CLAPPING*)

[Gov.] Scott argued that the project's future subsidies and projected cost overruns would burden Florida's taxpayers and could not justify a costly project that would serve only a small fraction of the state's travelers.

(*CLAP-CLAP-CLAP*)

While Florida's grant of $2.4 billion was one of several dozen such passenger rail awards provided by the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) in 2009 and 2010, it was one of only two...that were targeted for genuine HSR service - i.e., trains that average 150 mph or more.

(*JUST SHAKING MY HEAD*)

For example, the rejected Ohio rail project would have an average speed of only 39 mph, slightly less than the top speed of Henry Ford's Model T, introduced in 1908.

(*BANGING MY HEAD ON THE DESK TOP*)

[W]hat is left of Obama's once lofty "transformational transportation" plan is now little more than an extravagant Amtrak bailout plan costing $53 billion over six years.

* DON'T SPEND THE MONEY...!!! DON'T BORROW AND SPEND THE MONEY...!!!

Amtrak often boasts of its record ridership, and in its fiscal year 2008 annual report, its president noted that 2008 marked Amtrak's sixth consecutive year of record ridership. What is unmentioned is that Amtrak accounts for less than one half of 1% of all interstate passenger travel, and 40% of that travel occurs in the Northeast Corridor.

* FOLKS... CONSIDER THIS: WHAT SORT OF RESULT DO YOU THINK YOU'D GET IF YOU WERE TO CRUNCH THE NUMBERS CONCERNING THE DEMOGRAPHICS OF THE SUBSIDIZED RIDERSHIP? I'LL TELL YOU WHAT YOU'D FIND... YOU'D FIND A VERY, VERY LARGE PERCENT OF FOLKS MAKING IN THE SIX FIGURES HAVING THEIR TRAIN FARES SUBSIDIZED BY THE REST OF US.

* OH... AND LET'S CONSIDER WASTE...

Amtrak's load factor in 2010 averaged 47%, and Acela clocks in at about 55%, leaving plenty of available seats.

* TRANSLATION: WE ALREADY SUBSIDIZE FAR MORE PASSENGER RAIL TRANSPORTION THAN IS NEEDED! AN AVERAGE LOAD FACTOR OF 47% MEANS AN AVERAGE OF 53% OF SEATS UNOCCUPIED! (IMAGINE IF PLANES ROUTINELY FLEW OR HOTEL OCCUPANCY AVERAGED ANYTHING ALONE THESE DISMAL LINES! IMAGINE A HOSPITAL WHERE 53% OF THE BEDS WERE ROUTINELY UNOCCUPIED; WHAT WOULD THAT TELL YOU ABOUT THE HOSPITAL?)

Amtrak receives the highest per-passenger federal subsidy of any mode [of transportation]: $237.53 per 1,000 passenger-miles compared to $4.23 per 1,000 passenger-miles for commercial aviation.

(*JUST SHAKING MY HEAD*) FOLKS... THIS IS OUR MONEY! I DON'T WANT TO SUBSIDIZE MY BUDDY THE RICH LIGHTING DESIGNER OR MY BUDDY THE RICH MIDTOWN MANHATTAN ATTORNEY OR EVEN MY BUDDY THE CORPORATE I.T. MANAGER!

March 30, 2011 at 11:45 AM
William R. Barker said...

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704425804576220670543010068.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTop

* OP-ED BY SENATOR MARCO RUBIO (R-FL)

Our generation's greatest challenge is an economy that isn't growing, alongside a national debt that is. If we fail to confront this, our children will be the first Americans ever to inherit a country worse off than the one their parents were given.

* RUBIO's "MATH" BEARS REITERATION...

...an economy that isn't growing, alongside a national debt that is.

(*SIGH*) DO YOU UNDERSTAND WHAT THIS MEANS, PEOPLE...? DO YOU?

Current federal policies make it harder for job creators to start and grow businesses. Taxes on individuals are complicated and set to rise in less than two years. Corporate taxes will soon be the highest in the industrialized world. Federal agencies torment job creators with an endless string of rules and regulations.

On top of all this, we have an unsustainable national debt.

(*SIGH*)

[T]he world's largest bond fund, PIMCO, recently dumped its holdings of U.S. debt.

(*CLENCHED JAW*)

In a few weeks, we will once again reach our legal limit for borrowing, the so-called debt ceiling. The president and others want to raise this limit. They say it is the mature, responsible thing to do.

I will vote to defeat an increase in the debt limit unless it is the last one we ever authorize and is accompanied by a plan for fundamental tax reform, an overhaul of our regulatory structure, a cut to discretionary spending, a balanced-budget amendment, and reforms to save Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.

(*CLAP-CLAP-CLAP*)

[N]on-defense discretionary spending is a mere 19% of the budget. ... To get our debt under control, we must reform and save our entitlement programs.

* WELL... I DON'T KNOW ABOUT "SAVING" OUR ENTITLEMENT PROGRAMS. IT SEEMS TO ME THAT IT'S TIME TO FUNDAMENTALLY RE-EXAMINE THE SOUNDLESS OF THE ENTITLEMENT MENTALITY.

* MY SECOND POINT... WE NEED TO CUT "DEFENSE" SPENDING. FAR TOO MUCH OF OUR "DEFENSE" SPENDING IS ACTUALLY "OFFENSE" SPENDING. WE MUST RE-EXAMINE OUR SUPPOSED ROLL AS WORLD'S POLICEMAN AND INTERNATIONAL SANTA CLAUS.

[I]nstead of simply raising the debt limit, we should reassure job creators by setting a firm statutory cap on our public debt-to-GDP ratio. A comprehensive plan would wind down our debt to sustainable levels of approximately 60% within a decade and no more than half of the economy shortly thereafter. If Congress fails to meet these debt targets, automatic across-the-board spending reductions should be triggered to close the gap. These public debt caps could go in tandem with a Constitutional balanced budget amendment.

* SOUNDS LIKE A REASONABLE PROPOSAL.

March 30, 2011 at 11:46 AM
William R. Barker said...

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110330/ap_on_re_as/as_afghanistan

Afghanistan's president on Wednesday condemned the actions of a group of U.S. soldiers charged with murdering three unarmed Afghans, charging they killed for entertainment after taking drugs. It was Hamid Karzai's first public mention of the actions of five soldiers from the 5th Stryker Brigade who have been charged with murder and conspiracy in the deaths of the three men in southern Afghanistan.

"They killed our youth for entertainment, they killed our elders for entertainment," Karzai said told thousands of new teachers at a graduation ceremony in the capital Kabul.

The president said the American soldiers used opium and marijuana supplied by their Afghan translators.

"So during the night they smoked marijuana and opium and in the morning they went out to kill local people," he said, referring to the drugs mentioned in court documents on the case.

Rolling Stone posted 17 photos from a cache of about 150 photos linked to the ongoing war crimes probe involving the soldiers from an Olympia, Washington-based platoon. (The German news magazine Der Spiegel had previously published three of them.)

Spc. Jeremy Morlock...the first of the five to be court-martialed, was sentenced last week to 24 years in prison after pleading guilty to three counts of murder, as well as conspiracy and other charges. He said the killings were part of a deliberate plan to murder Afghan civilians.

* WHY ISN'T MORLOCK BEING EXECUTED? WHY WASN'T THE PROPER SENTENCE - THE DEATH SENTENCE - HANDED OUT?

* A 24-YEAR PRISON SENTENCE? THAT'S IT? MORLOCK IS 23-YEARS-OLD! (23 + 24 = 47)

* MORLOCK SHOULD BE HUNG FROM THE NECK TILL DEAD - PUBLICLY HUNG BY THE NECK... IN AFGHANISTAN... BEFORE THE AFGHANI PEOPLE... BEFORE THE WORLD!

March 30, 2011 at 1:17 PM
William R. Barker said...

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703712504576232481675369892.html?mod=WSJ_hp_LEFTTopStories

President Barack Obama, under pressure to respond to rising gas prices, on Wednesday outlined initiatives to cut U.S. reliance on foreign oil, including plans to expand oil production, increase the use of natural gas in vehicles and boost ethanol output.

* TWO POINTS: 1) FOCUS ON WHAT OBAMA DOES... NOT WHAT HE SAYS; 2) BOOST ETHANOL OUTPUT...?!?! IS HE INSANE...?!?! NO... HE'S NOT INSANE... HE'S SIMPLY OUT TO BRIBE DOMESTIC ETHANOL SPECIAL INTERESTS AT THE COST OF A HIT TO TAXPAYERS, DRIVERS, AND YES, EVEN THE ENVIRONMENT HE PROFESSES TO CARE ABOUT.

* FOLKS... THE ETHANOL ISSUE ISN'T EVEN DEBATABLE. CORN-BASED ETHANOL IS BAD - PERIOD!

He promised that the federal government would purchase only alternative-fuel vehicles, including hybrid and electric cars, as well as those that can run on a mix of gasoline and ethanol, by 2015.

* AGAIN, FOLKS... ETHANOL IS BAD. ONCE AGAIN OBAMA IS CALLING FOR "FULL SPEED AHEAD" IN THE WRONG DIRECTION!

* OH... AND AS TO ELECTRIC CARS... THEY'RE CALLED GOLF CARTS. (*SMIRK*) OTHER THAN THAT, ELECTRIC CARS REQUIRE AN INFRASTRUCTURE (THAT DOESN'T EXIST!!!) IN ORDER TO CHARGE!

* OH... AND BTW... WHERE DO YOU THINK THE ELECTRICTY COMES FROM...???

(*JUST SHAKING MY HEAD*)

* IN CONTRAST...

On Tuesday, House Republicans said they would introduce legislation requiring the administration to sell more offshore leases and to issue drilling permits within a set time frame.

(*CLAP-CLAP-CLAP*)

Mr. Obama put forward an overall goal of reducing oil imports by one-third by 2025, with about half the reduction from decreasing consumption and half from increasing domestic supply.

* FOLKS... IT'S 2011! IT'S MARCH 2011! EVEN IF OBAMA (GOD FORBID!) WINS RE-ELECTION, HE'LL BE OUT OF OFFICE IN 2017. BEYOND THAT, WE ELECT A NEW CONGRESS EVERY TWO YEARS. THIS TALK OF OBAMA'S "GOAL" FOR 2025 (14 YEARS DOWN THE ROAD) IS ABSOLUTE NONSENSE. AGAIN... WATCH WHAT OBAMA DOES... NOT WHAT HE SAYS. SO FAR - AS SEVERAL YEARS WORTH OF NEWSBITES ATTEST - OBAMA HAS DONE EVERYTHING WITHIN HIS POWER TO MAKE AMERICANS PAY MORE AND GET LESS AT THE PUMP AND INDEED ANYWHERE ENERGY USE COMES INTO PLAY.

March 30, 2011 at 1:31 PM
William R. Barker said...

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703712504576232421328148128.html?mod=WSJ_hp_LEFTWhatsNewsCollection

The same "too big to fail" firms that nearly brought down the financial system in 2008 have become larger and more interconnected, continuing to hold an unfair advantage over smaller competitors, according to Neil Barofsky, the man charged with watching over a key bailout plan.

In his last day as the special inspector general for the Troubled Asset Relief Program, Mr. Barofsky told a House panel that the federal program mostly benefited Wall Street firms...

* FOLKS... (*SIGH*)... THIS IS WHAT "BI-PARTISANISM" MEANS - ESTABLISHMENT REPUBLICANS AND DEMOCRATS "ASSISTING" THEIR BUSINESS ALLIES AT THE EXPENSE OF THE AMERICAN TAXPAYER. (HEY... IT STARTED WITH BUSH... IT WAS SUPPORTED BY BOTH MCCAIN AND OBAMA...)

[Barofsky] also warned that the Dodd-Frank overhaul of financial regulation has "clearly failed" to damp expectations that the government will bail out companies that are important to the financial system.

(Credit-rating firms continue to give large financial institutions higher credit ratings based on an implicit government backstop, while creditors let those firms borrow at rates that don't fully account for the risks created by their behavior, he said.)

(*SIGH*)

* FOLKS... THIS WAS CHRIS DODD AND BARNEY FRANK! THIS IS YET ANOTHER CLEAR EXAMPLE OF THE FOX GUARDING THE HEN HOUSE! (JEEZ... GOT KNOWS CHARLIE RANGEL WAS NO DOUBT INVOLVED AS WELL!) (TIM "THE TAX CHEAT" GEITHNER? CHECK HIS FINGERPRINTS!)

* FOLKS... IS THERE ANY LIMIT TO THE ABUSE THE AMERICAN PEOPLE WILL TOLERATE...?

Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-NC), chairman of the [House Oversight and Government Reform] subcommittee...said Dodd-Frank "reinforced the bailout culture, perpetuated the moral hazard of government intervention and tipped the economic scales for a few at the expense of growth and competition."

* FOLKS... AT LEAST SOME REPUBLICANS ARE WEARING WHITE HATS ON THIS ONE... (*SIGH*)... BUT OBAMA CONTROLS THE EXECUTIVE BRANCH AND HARRY REID CONTROLS THE SENATE.

Timothy Massad, Treasury's acting assistant secretary for financial stability, who testified on a subsequent panel, said that moral hazard is "a real and significant concern..."

Mr. Massad stressed that TARP has cost much less than expected, but Mr. Barofsky cautioned that such estimates distract from TARP's "considerable nonfinancial costs," which may be significantly higher.

* FOLKS... THESE SUPPOSED "REPAYMENTS" ARE OFTEN A FRAUD - AS OUTLINED OVER THE YEARS VIA NEWSBITES. FOR EXAMPLE, REMEMBER WHEN GM "PAID OFF" TARP LOANS USING... er... OTHER TARP LOANS?

(*SMIRK*) (*SNORT*) (*SNICKER*)

* AGAIN, FOLKS, I ASK YOU... IS THERE LITERALLY NO ABUSE THE AMERICAN PEOPLE COLLECTIVELY WON'T STOMACH?

March 30, 2011 at 1:45 PM
William R. Barker said...

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/30/nyregion/30dropout.html?ref=nyregion

New York City’s high school graduation rate may be slightly lower than advertised because some dropouts have been improperly left out of the calculations, the state comptroller’s office said Tuesday.

(*SMIRK*)

The comptroller conducted an audit because of allegations made in 2009 that the city may have been inflating its graduation rate by counting some dropouts as “discharges,” a classification that generally refers to students who transfer to private schools or to schools outside the city. Discharges are not counted against a school’s graduation rate, but dropouts are.

The audit found that in roughly 15% of the 500 cases it looked at, students who entered high school in 2004 and who had been classified as discharged by the Department of Education should have been classified as dropouts.

(*SNORT*)

Extrapolating to the system as a whole, the errors would have reduced the city’s graduation rate for 2008 to 62.9 percent from 65.5 percent for non-special-education students.

* SO PUT ANOTHER WAY... 38.1% OF CHILDREN ENTRUSTED TO THE SELFLESS EDUCATORS OF THE NYC SCHOOL SYSTEM..

(*DRUM ROLL*)

...FAIL TO GRADUATE.

(*SARCASTIC CLAP-CLAP-CLAP*)

March 30, 2011 at 7:03 PM

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