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2011
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March
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- Barker's Newsbites: Thursday, March 31, 2011
- Barker's Newsbites: Wednesday, March 30, 2011
- Barker's Newsbites: Tuesday, March 29, 2011
- Tell Me Once Again We're Not Taxed Enough
- A Shameless Liar and Absolute Incompetent
- Barker's Newsbites: Monday, March 28, 2011
- Weekend Newsbites: Sat. & Sun., March 26 & 27, 2011
- Patrict J. Buchanan
- Barker's Newsbites: Friday March 25, 2011
- Barker's Newsbites: Thursday, March 24, 2011
- Barker's Newsbites: Wednesday, March 23, 2011
- Biden: The Two-Faced "Prince?"
- Obama: The Man Who Would Be King?
- Barker's Newsbites: Tuesday, March 22, 2011
- Barker's Newsbites: Monday, March 21, 2011
- Weekend Newsbites: Sat. & Sun., March 19 & 20, 2011
- Barker's Newsbites: Friday, March 18, 2011
- St. Paddy's Day Newsbites: March 17, 2011
- Rhetoric Notwithstanding... I Still Don't "Get" Yo...
- A Caution from Heritage Concerning Nan Hayworth
- Nan Hayworth
- Barker's Newsbites: Tuesday, March 15, 2011
- Barker's Newsbites: Monday, March 14, 2011
- Weekend Newsbites: Sat. & Sun., March 12 & 13, 2011
- Barker's Newsbites: Friday, March 11, 2011
- Barker's Newsbites: Thursday, March 10, 2011
- Barker's Newsbites: Wednesday, March 9. 2011
- Barker's Newsbites: Tuesday, March 8, 2011
- Barker's Newsbites: Monday, March 7, 2011
- The Anti-Krugman: Kristen Powers... A Lib Tells Th...
- Paul Krugman Is Such An A--hole
- Weekend Newsbites: Sat. & Sun., March 5 & 6, 2011
- Barker's Newsbites: Friday, March 4, 2011
- Prima Della Pastrami
- Barker's Newsbites: Thursday, March 3, 2011
- Barker's Newsbites: Wednesday, March 2, 2011
- Barker's Newsbites: Tuesday, March 1, 2011
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March
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About Me
- William R. Barker
- Pearl River, NY High School Class of '81; Northeastern University, Boston, MA Class of '87.
16 comments:
http://www.cnbc.com/id/41911006
The Bureau of Labor Statistics publishes the “Labor Force Participation Rate” each month, along with a litany of other metrics that are used to give us the headline jobs number and the unemployment rate.
The official size of the U.S. labor force is shrinking.
The government's definition of the labor force is all individuals 16 years of age and older, who are employed or seeking employment. It does not include students; retirees; anyone with unreported income, or "discouraged" workers.
The participation rate is the comparison of the "labor force," those looking for work or employed, and everyone else. That ratio is currently 64.2% seasonally adjusted, and 63.9% non-seasonally adjusted, the same level as last month.
Both of those percentages are currently running at 27-year lows, meaning the percentage of Americans not working or even trying to join the work force is at a near three-decade high.
* NOT WORKING... NOT WORKING OR EVEN TRYING TO JOIN THE WORK FORCE...
(*SIGH*)
It is imperative that we continue to monitor this relationship in order to determine if an improving unemployment rate means that American workers are finding jobs, or have just given up looking.
(*NOD*)
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110305/ap_on_re_eu/eu_italy_speak_our_language
FLORENCE, Italy – Svetlana Cojochru feels insulted. The Moldovan has lived here seven years as a nanny to Italian kids and caregiver to the elderly, but in order to stay she's had to prove her language skills by writing a postcard to an imaginary friend and answering a fictional job ad.
"I feel like a guest," said Cojochru. She had just emerged from Beato Angelico middle school where she took a language test to comply with a new law requiring basic Italian proficiency for permanent residency permits following five years of legal residence.
* HELL... UNLESS SHE WAS INCREDABLY HOT I'D THROW HER OUT OF THE COUNTRY JUST BECAUSE SHE FEELS INSULTED!
* SERIOUSLY...! YOU WANNA WORK IN ITALY - TAKING A JOB FROM AN ITALIAN - AT A BEAR MINIMUM YOU SHOULD SPEAK ITALIAN!
Italy is the latest Western European country turning the screws on an expanding immigrant population by demanding language skills in exchange for work permits, or in some cases, citizenship. While enacted last year in the name of integration, these requirements also reflect anxiety that foreigners might dilute fiercely-prized national identity or even, especially in Britain's case, pose terror risks.
* THANK GOD THE FRIGG'N EUROPEANS ARE FINALLY "GETTING" IT!
So far, Italy is only giving a gentle turn to the screw. Cojochru and other test-takers described the exam as easy. No oral skills were tested.
In Austria, terms are tougher. There, where native speakers have been sometimes known to scold immigrant parents for not speaking proper German to their children, foreigners from outside the European Union need to prove they speak basic German within five years of receiving their first residency permit. Failure to do so can bring fines and jeopardize their right to stay.
(*CLAP-CLAP-CLAP*)
Austria's Cabinet approved new rules requiring most immigrants to have elementary German skills before they even enter the country.
(*SUSTAINED, ENTHUSIASTIC APPLAUSE*)
Britain's government has pledged to dramatically cut immigration...
(*CLAP-CLAP-CLAP*)
Since 2005, would-be citizens and permanent residency holders have been asked to prove their command of "Britishness" by answering multiple choice questions, in English, on British history, culture and law, from explaining the meaning behind the fireworks-filled Guy Fawkes Night, to knowing which British courts use a jury system.
(*APPROVING NOD*)
http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2011/03/04/rep-charles-rangel-causes-stir-in-courtroom-while-supporting-bail-for-afrika-owes/
* YOU'RE NOT GONNA FRIGG'N BELIEVE THIS ONE, GANG!
Congressman Charles Rangel caused a stir in court Friday while trying to lend his support for bail of Afrika Owes.
* AND WHO IS... er... AFRIKA OWES YOU MAY ASK...?
Owes, 17, had been a student at the prestigious Deerfield Academy in Massachusetts. Prosecutors say she was also a member of a drug gang that terrorized 137th Street in Harlem.
* WELL... INNOCENT UNTIL PROVEN GUILTY, NO?
The judge refused to release Owes on her own recognizance, saying tapes from Rikers Island have her involved in running guns and getting orders to “shoot for the head.”
* SO MUCH FOR INNOCENT...
WCBS 880′s Irene Cornell reports Rangel caused a stir in the courtroom, repeatedly standing up and interrupting the judge.
A court officer told Rangel three different times to sit down. When he stood up again, Judge Edward McLaughlin had apparently had enough.
“I see someone standing who should not be standing, unless you have a bad back like I do,” McLaughlin said. Rangel sat down.
* LISTEN. HAD IT BEEN YOU OR ME, NO DOUBT MCLAUGHLIN WOULD HAVE HAD US THROWN IN JAIL FOR CONTEMPT AND FINED.
* HEY... I KNOW IN THE REAL WORLD A U.S. CONGRESSMAN - EVEN A KNOWN CROOK LIKE CHARLIE RANGEL - IS GOING TO BE GIVEN "DEFERENCE" THAT AN "ORDINARY" CITIZEN WON'T BE, BUT THREE TIMES...??? THREE TIMES...???
Rangel says Owes was a straight-A student and should be given a chance to straighten herself out.
* THIS IS A REPRESENTATIVE OF "THE PEOPLE"?
Owes was one of fourteen suspected “137th Street Crew” gang members arrested last month. Prosecutors said the gang used shootings, beatings and robberies to protect their turf and gain street status on a stretch of West 137th Street. The gang allegedly openly dealt crack in apartment lobbies, near Harlem Hospital and near the Abyssinian Baptist Church.
* THIS IS THE SCUM CHARLIE RANGEL HOPES TO SET LOOSE UPON SOCIETY.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703530504576164880968752682.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_AboveLEFTTop
The 2010 Dodd-Frank law was sold as a way to prevent future bank bailouts.
(*SNORT*) (*DARK CHUCKLE*)
Recent data from the Federal Reserve and Ms. Bair's FDIC confirm that the biggest banks still enjoy advantages over their smaller rivals, and by some measures these advantages have been growing since the July enactment of Dodd-Frank.
* THAT'S SHEILA BAIR, CHAIRMAN OF THE FEDERAL DEPOSIT INSURANCE CORPORATION.
On Friday Ms. Bair sent a letter to Standard & Poor's, the giant credit-ratings agency.
S&P, like most of the financial community, suspects that Washington will open the checkbook again when Wall Street stumbles. Therefore the firm has given the largest financial institutions higher credit ratings to reflect this potential government support. Ms. Bair's note assures S&P that she will put the wood to big banks and their creditors if they end up in the FDIC's new resolution process for systemic firms. Therefore, she argues, the giant banks should no longer receive higher ratings, because Uncle Sam isn't coming to their rescue.
[I]f Ms. Bair were the only Washingtonian with a say in this matter, investors might start to believe that the freedom to fail really has been restored. But investors are still expressing a different belief.
* AND WITH GOOD REASON!
FDIC data show how much banks pay to borrow money.
One would expect that if Dodd-Frank really eliminated the possibility of government assistance for the largest banks and their creditors, then such creditors would be no more or less willing to lend to the big banks than to their smaller competitors. But in the second half of 2010, right after the passage of the law, banks with more than $100 billion in assets clearly enjoyed a lower cost of funds than banks in every other category.
(*SMIRK*)
While the FDIC collects data on banks, the Federal Reserve collects data for bank holding companies. Its data only go through the third quarter, but they also show a funding advantage for the biggest players. And an analysis by Mike Mayo of Credit Agricole Securities (USA) shows that for all of 2010, the 10 largest bank holding companies, on average, paid 29 basis points less on interest-bearing liabilities than the next 40 bank holding companies.
(*JUST SHAKING MY HEAD*)
* FOLKS... I GOTTA BE HONEST... I COULDN'T DEFINE "BASIS POINT." THAT SAID, I GET THE GENERAL IDEA. (*SMIRK*)
[T]he big guys have been enjoying free money for years since the crisis, and the benefits of scale for even longer. If Dodd-Frank was really working as advertised, wouldn't the loss of special government protection create at least a competitive speed bump? (Some claim that mandated capital raises after the crisis have made them a safer investment, but those changes were underway long before last summer's passage of Dodd-Frank.)
What's remarkable about the FDIC data is that the biggest banks seem to be accelerating through the first months of Dodd-Frank. Looking at the FDIC's data on non-deposit, interest-bearing liabilities, the big guys' funding advantage over the other banks in the second half of last year was even larger than in the first half - before the great "reform" was enacted.
(*CONTINUING TO JUST SHAKE MY HEAD*)
[T]he biggest institutions are even bigger than they were before the financial crisis...
In a Wednesday visit to the Journal, Kansas City Fed President Thomas Hoenig said that the banking giants' "huge" edge over their smaller rivals is due in large part to government support. ... Hoenig expects more bailouts of financial giants in the next crisis, regardless of who the Secretary of the Treasury is.
That sounds right to us, which is also what the market is saying.
Dodd-Frank is making the big banks bigger and more protected than ever against failure.
* WHICH WE KNEW IT WOULD ALL ALONG... (*SIGH*)
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703580004576180150725708620.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEFTTopOpinion
George Will writing in Newsweek, Feb. 27:
Generations hence, when the river of time has worn this presidency's importance to a small, smooth pebble in the stream of history, people will still marvel that its defining trait was a mania for high-speed rail projects. This disorder illuminates the progressive mind. . . .
Forever seeking Archimedean levers for prying the world in directions they prefer, progressives say they embrace high-speed rail for many reasons - to improve the climate, increase competitiveness, enhance national security, reduce congestion, and rationalize land use. The length of the list of reasons, and the flimsiness of each, points to this conclusion: the real reason for progressives' passion for trains is their goal of diminishing Americans' individualism in order to make them more amenable to collectivism.
To progressives, the best thing about railroads is that people riding them are not in automobiles, which are subversive of the deference on which progressivism depends. Automobiles go hither and yon, wherever and whenever the driver desires, without timetables. Automobiles encourage people to think they - unsupervised, untutored, and unscripted - are masters of their fates. The automobile encourages people in delusions of adequacy, which make them resistant to government by experts who know what choices people should make.
Time was, the progressive cry was "Workers of the world unite!" or "Power to the people!" Now it is less resonant: "All aboard!"
(*CLAP-CLAP-CLAP*)
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0311/50703.html
The Obama administration late Friday appealed a judge's orders directing the Interior Department to act on several Gulf of Mexico deepwater drilling permits.
* FOLKS... GLENN BECK IS RIGHT... OBAMA IS TRYING TO "COLLAPSE THE SYSTEM."
Friday's appeal challenges rulings by Judge Martin Feldman of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana, who on Feb. 17 gave Interior 30 days to make a verdict on five pending deepwater drilling permits applications. He later added two additional permits to that order.
* I UNDERSTAND IT'S NOT GOING TO HAPPEN, BUT AGAIN... IF THERE WAS EVER A PRESIDENT WHO NEEDED IMPEACHING IN ORDER TO STOP THE DAMAGE HE'S DOING...
(*SHRUG*)
Earlier in February, the judge held Interior in contempt, citing "dismissive conduct" by blocking offshore drilling during last year's spill.
* A MEANINGLESS "SANCTION." IF THE JUDGE HAD BEEN SERIOUS, HE WOULD HAVE ORDERED SECRETARY OF THE INTERIOR SALAZAR JAILED.
(*SHRUG*)
http://www.suntimes.com/4139474-417/homicide-case-involving-daley-nephew-closed-without-charges.html
For the first time, the Chicago Police said Friday they know who hit David Koschman and knocked him to the ground in a drunken confrontation in the Rush Street area, leading to his death from a brain injury 11 days later - but they’re not telling.
They said they are closing Koschman’s 2004 homicide case without asking the Cook County state’s attorney’s office to charge anyone because they concluded the punch was thrown in self-defense.
Police reports made public Friday black out the name of the man who detectives concluded threw the lone punch at Koschman. But the descriptions they provided and accounts given by witnesses and others to the Chicago Sun-Times make clear it was Richard J. “R.J.” Vanecko, a nephew of Mayor Daley and White House Chief of Staff Bill Daley.
* RAISE YOUR HAND IF YOU'RE CONFIDENT THAT IF IT WERE YOUR SON OR NEPHEW THE CASE WOULD HAVE BEEN CLOSED... NO CHARGES.
(*SHRUG*)
As Koschman lay unconscious on Division Street at Dearborn, Vanecko and a friend, Craig Denham, ran away, jumped in a cab and headed to a bar, according to the police reports released Friday.
* NICE...
* HOPE... CHANGE... HOPE... CHANGE...
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/261285/mitch-daniels-s-obamacare-problem-michael-f-cannon
Mitt Romney isn’t the only Republican presidential hopeful with an Obamacare problem: Indiana governor Mitch Daniels, were he to become the GOP’s nominee, could also undermine the repeal campaign that has united the party’s base and independent voters.
Mitch Daniels’s record also bears similarities to Obama’s, and his approach to Obamacare as governor has been an anchor on the repeal movement.
Whereas ObamaCare requires states to open their Medicaid programs to families of four earning $31,000 (138% of the federal poverty level), Daniels expanded Indiana’s Medicaid program to families of four earning $44,000 (200% of poverty).
* THE RESULT...
From 2008 to 2010, Indiana’s Medicaid enrollment spiked: Adult enrollments grew 21%, a rate nearly double the national average. By 2010, Daniels had enrolled another 62,000 Hoosiers in government-run health care.
Daniels and his conservative fans make much of the fact that this “Healthy Indiana Plan” (HIP) offers high-deductible coverage combined with a taxpayer-funded health savings account, whereas Obamacare simply expands traditional Medicaid with its notoriously lousy access to care. But that’s just another way of saying Daniels made Medicaid more attractive: Under his plan, the government hands out coverage plus something a lot like cash.
* I AGREE WITH THE AUTHOR, HOWEVER, JUST FOR FUTURE REFERENCE, DANIELS PLAN IS A HUGE IMPROVEMENT OVER EITHER OBAMACARE OR ROMNEYCARE. HIGH DEDUCTIBLE COVERAGE IS THE KEY TO TRUE INSURANCE AND DANIELS SEEMS TO "GET" THIS.
Health savings accounts are supposed to reduce dependence on government. Daniels is using HSAs to expand dependence on government.
* WELL... AGREED IN ABSOLUTE TERMS... BUT STICKING TO THE CONCEPT, DANIELS IDEAS ARE DEFINITELY PEGGED TO REALITY AND IT'S IMPORTANT WE UNDERSTAND THAT - PARTICULARLY AS CONTRASTED TO OBAMACARE AND ROMNEYCARE.
[L]ike Obamacare, HIP is fiscally unsound and pushes states’ Medicaid costs onto federal taxpayers. Every $1 Indiana spends on HIP triggers at least $2 of spending by the federal government; no matter what state you call home, you’re paying for Mitch Daniels’s government-run health-care plan.
* NOW THAT I CAN'T DEFEND. YET... I "UNDERSTAND" THAT OUR FEDERAL SYSTEM HAS BEEN SKEWED AND BASICALLY WHAT DANIELS DID WAS TAKE ADVANTAGE OF GAMING THE SYSTEM HE WAS STUCK WORKING WITHIN. (*SHRUG*)
Meanwhile, Daniels is stunting both the momentum for repeal of ObamaCare and his credibility as a standard-bearer for it. Indiana was party to a lawsuit in which a federal judge declared the entire law unconstitutional and void. That court order relieved Daniels of any obligations Obamacare creates. Shortly after that ruling, however, Daniels orchestrated a letter co-signed by 20 other governors suggesting “improvements” that they would like to see before implementing their own Obamacare bureaucracies. While those changes would effectively gut much of the law, they would leave Obamacare’s entitlement spending intact, and would even allow governors to offload the cost of their Medicaid programs onto taxpayers in other states.
* AGAIN, I SEE THE AUTHOR'S POINT... BUT IT'S NOT TOTALLY UNREASONABLE FOR DANIELS TO PUSH A FALL-BACK PLAN IF HE DOUBTS THAT THE SUPREME COURT STRIKING DOWN OBAMACARE IS A CERTAINTY. (*SHRUG*)
Daniels can spare himself and the repeal movement such setbacks by following the lead of Florida governor Rick Scott (R.) and Alaska governor Sean Parnell (R.) and flatly refusing to implement any aspect of Obamacare. Daniels could even organize another letter in which his fellow governors all make the same announcement.
* AND INDEED, THAT'S WHAT I'D PERSONALLY FAVOR HIM DOING! MY BOTTOM LINE... I HAVE MY PROBLEMS WITH DANIELS, BUT HE'S NO ROMNEY; AND HE'S CERTAINLY NO OBAMA.
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/261405/egypt-s-copts-suffer-more-attacks-nina-shea
Copts in Egypt are begging for Egyptian Armed Forces protection today after a Muslim mob of several thousand attacked their church in the village of Soul, about 30 kilometers from Cairo, last night. The Church of St. Mina and St. George was torched, and its clergy are unaccounted for. The fire department and security forces failed to respond to Coptic pleas for help during the arson attack.
According to a report from the Washington-based Coptic American Friendship Association, the mob, chanting “Allahu Akbar,” pulled down the church’s cross and detonated a handful of gas cylinders inside the structure. The ensuing fire destroyed the church and all its contents, including the sacred relics of centuries-old saints.
It is reported that a romantic relationship between a Christian man and a Muslim woman, which sharia forbids, and the refusal of the woman’s father to kill her to restore the community’s “honor,” aroused the Muslim ire.
* SEE: http://www.aina.org/news/20110304222016.htm
There are growing concerns that Egypt’s 10 million or so Coptic Christians are being targeted under the cloak of political chaos during these uncertain times.
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/261386/loughner-indictment-legally-suspect-and-tactically-foolish-andrew-c-mccarthy
[T]he Justice Department’s strategy in the Loughner case is legally suspect (to say the least) and tactically foolish.
* NOT SURPRISING CONSIDERING WHO OUR NATION'S ATTORNEY GENERAL IS... (*SIGH*)
There are federal charges that apply to the shootings of the federal officials. That’s the federal case here.
* ONLY IT'S NOT...! (READ ON!)
To the contrary, shooting people who are not federal officials in a mall is not a federal offense - such shootings are state crimes, for which Arizona provides very severe sentences, including death if death has resulted.
* EXACTLY...!!!
* ERIC HOLDER IS A TOTAL INCOMPETENT!
* FOLKS... THIS ARTICLE IS TOO INVOLVED TO EASILY "BARKERIZE." PLEASE FOLLOW THE LINK AND READ THE (SINGLE PAGE) PIECE FOR YOURSELF.
http://pajamasmedia.com/files/2011/03/2011-03-03-DEI-Grassley-to-Schapiro-SEC-Becker-due-3-71.pdf
* FOLKS... (*SIGH*)... FOLLOW THE LINK... (*JUST SHAKING MY HEAD*)
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/07/world/africa/07libya.html?hp
The Libyan military drove rebel forces back along the main coastal road on Sunday, ambushing the advancing militias as they entered the town of Bin Jawwad and pushing them out with tank fire and airstrikes, according to witnesses near the town.
* TANKS... AIRSTRIKES...
* PLEASE SEE: http://www.whitehousedossier.com/2011/03/05/golf-2/
A correspondent for Sky News, a British satellite TV channel and the only foreign news organization in the city, reported seeing the [Qaddafi] militia fire on ambulances trying to remove the wounded from the streets.
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/tina-brown-reveals-newsweek-magazine-abcs-week-christiane/story?id=13068817
Tina Brown revealed the first look at the newly redesigned Newsweek magazine this morning on "This Week with Christiane Amanpour."
The new cover features United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in the magazine's special edition, "150 Women Who Shake the World."
* HA! HA! HA!
* THE ACTUAL TITLE OF THE ARTICLE: "HOW SHE'S SHATTERING GLASS CEILINGS EVERYWHERE."
(*CHUCKLE*)
Although Brown is one of the most highly respected magazine editors in the world, her legendary 35-year career...
* HEY... DO YOU GET THE FEELING ABC NEWS LIKES TINA BROWN? (*SMILE*) (*CHUCKLE*)
...has not been without the occasional disappointment, such as the much-heralded but short-lived Talk magazine - which also featured Hillary Clinton on the front cover of its first issue.
(*SNORT*)
Later this month Brown will be hosting the second annual Woman in the World Summit in New York City, an invitation-only event that will bring together powerful people across multiple disciplines. Speakers will include former President Bill Clinton, Melinda Gates, New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg, and Secretary of State - and Newsweek cover girl - Hillary Clinton, among others.
* FOLKS... ON A SERIOUS NOTE... THE REASON I EVEN INCLUDE THIS PARTICULAR NEWSBITE IS SIMPLY TO REINFORCE HOW IN THE BAG THE MAINSTREAM MEDIA IS FOR THE DEMS. NEWSWEEK ISN'T NATIONAL REVIEW... IT'S NOT THE ATLANTIC... BUT ACTUALLY.. IT IS. THERE'S NO LONGER EVEN AN ATTEMPT TO PORTRAY AN ESTABLISHMENT MSM ORGAN SUCH AS NEWSWEEK AS NON-PARTISAN.
(*SHRUG*)
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/06/business/06gret.html?hp
It’s hard to say what’s more exasperating: the woeful performance of the credit ratings agencies during the recent mortgage securities boom or the failure to hold them accountable in the bust that followed.
The Dodd-Frank financial reform law, enacted last year, imposed the same legal liabilities on Moody’s, Standard & Poor’s and other credit raters that have long applied to legal and accounting firms that attest to statements made in securities prospectuses...which subjected the ratings agencies to what is known as expert liability under the securities laws.
But since Dodd-Frank passed, Congress’s...attempt to protect investors from misconduct by ratings agencies has been thwarted by, of all things, [President Obama's] Securities & Exchange Commission.
The S.E.C., which calls itself “the investor’s advocate,” is quietly allowing the raters to escape this accountability.
* DO YOU SEE A PATTERN HERE, FOLKS? OBAMACARE PASSES... THEN OBAMA SELECTIVELY ISSUES WAIVERS TO FAVORED SPECIAL INTERESTS; OBAMA DECIDES TO "NO LONGER DEFEND" THE DEFENSE OF MARRIAGE ACT IN COURT - THOUGH THIS ACT IS A LAW... A LAW SIGNED INTO LAW BY NONE OTHER THAN BILL CLINTON; AND NOW THERE'S THIS.
(*SHRUG*)
When Dodd-Frank became law last July, it required that ratings agencies assigning grades to asset-backed securities be subject to expert liability from that moment on. This opened the agencies to lawsuits from investors, a policing mechanism that law firms and accountants have contended with for years. The agencies responded by refusing to allow their ratings to be disclosed in asset-backed securities deals. As a result, the market for these instruments froze on July 22.
The S.E.C. quickly issued a “no action” letter, indicating that it would not bring enforcement actions against issuers that did not disclose ratings in prospectuses. This removed the expert-liability threat for the ratings agencies, and the market began operating again.
At the time, the S.E.C. said its action was intended to give issuers time to adapt to the Dodd-Frank rules and would stay in place for only six months.
* WAIT FOR IT... WAIT FOR IT...
But on Jan. 24 [of this year Obama's] S.E.C. extended its nonenforcement stance indefinitely.
Issuers are selling asset-backed securities without the ratings disclosures required under S.E.C. rules, and rating agencies are not subject to expert liability.
* FOLKS... THIS IS HOW A MONARCHY WORKS... A DICTATORSHIP... (*SHRUG*)... THIS IS THE RULE OF LAW AT THE ULTIMATE "DISCRETION" OF ONE MAN - BARAK HUSSEIN OBAMA. THIS IS NOT AMERICA.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/americas-secret-plan-to-arm-libyas-rebels-2234227.html
Desperate to avoid US military involvement in Libya in the event of a prolonged struggle between the Gaddafi regime and its opponents, the Americans have asked Saudi Arabia if it can supply weapons to the rebels in Benghazi.
The Saudi Kingdom...has so far failed to respond to Washington's highly classified request, although King Abdullah personally loathes the Libyan leader, who tried to assassinate him just over a year ago.
* TWO POINTS: 1) SMART POLICY; 2) WHY ARE WE READING ABOUT IT...?!?!
Saudi Arabia is already facing dangers from a co-ordinated day of protest by its own Shia Muslim citizens who, emboldened by the Shia uprising in the neighbouring island of Bahrain, have called for street protests against the ruling family of al-Saud on Friday.
After pouring troops and security police into the province of Qatif last week, the Saudis announced a nationwide ban on all public demonstrations.
If the Saudi government accedes to America's request to send guns and missiles to Libyan rebels, however, it would be almost impossible for President Barack Obama to condemn the kingdom for any violence against the Shias of the north-east provinces.
* AGAIN... THE FACT THAT THIS ALLEDGED REQUEST WAS IMMEDIATELY LEAKED TO THE MEDIA... (*SIGH*)... OBAMA IS IN WAY OVER HIS HEAD AND OBVIOUSLY THERE ARE PEOPLE IN KEY POSITIONS WHOSE HEADS SHOULD ROLL.
* ONE WOULD ASSUME THAT EVEN IF THE REQUEST WENT DIRECTLY FROM THE OVAL OFFICE TO KING ABDULLAH THAT SECRETARY OF STATE CLINTON AND HER TEAM AS WELL AS CIA DIRECTOR PANETTA AND HIS TEAM AS WELL AS OBAMA CLOSEST SECURITY ADVISORS WERE IN ON THIS. WHERE'D THE LEAK COME FROM? WHY CAN'T AMERICA UNDER OBAMA KEEP ANY HIGHLY CLASSIFED REQUESTS HIGHLY CLASSIFIED...?!?!
http://thehill.com/blogs/healthwatch/health-reform-implementation/147715-number-of-healthcare-reform-law-waivers-climbs-above-1000
The number of temporary healthcare reform waivers granted by the Obama administration to organizations climbed to more than 1,000, according to new numbers disclosed by the Department of Health and Human Services.
(*JUST SHAKING MY HEAD*)
* WHY WOULD ANYONE NEED A WAIVER FROM ABIDING BY REGULATIONS OBAMA AND THE DEMS PUT INTO LAW BECAUSE SUPPOSEDLY THEY'RE GOOD FOR US...???
(*SNORT*)
HHS posted 126 new waivers on Friday...
* NOTICE HOW THIS KEEPS ON HAPPENING... THE FRIDAY NEWS DUMPS; SO MUCH FOR TRANSPARENCY IN GOVERNMENT.
In order to avoid disruption in the insurance market, the healthcare overhaul gives HHS the power to grant waivers to firms that cannot meet new annual coverage limits in 2011.
* FIRMS AND OTHER PLAYERS WHO ARE - INTERESTINGLY ENOUGH - MORE OFTEN THAN NOT POLITICAL ALLIES OF OBAMA AND THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY.
* OH... BTW... "TROOPER - SO SORRY ABOUT TRAVELING AT 95 mph IN A 65 mph ZONE. HERE'S MY OBAMA WAIVER... MAY I GO NOW?"
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