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2011
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April
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- Weekend Newsbites: Sat. & Sun., April 30 & May 1, ...
- Barker's Newsbites: Friday, April 29, 2011
- Barker's Newsbites: Thursday, April 28, 2011
- The NYT Never Ceases To Amaze
- Barker's Newsbites: Wednesday, April 27, 2011
- Barker's Newsbites: Tuesday, April 26, 2011
- Barker's Newsbites: Monday, April 25, 2011
- Weekend Newsbites: Sat. & Sun., April 23 & 24, 2011
- Barker's Newsbites: Friday, April 22, 2011
- Barker's Newsbites: Thursday, April 21, 2011
- Gang, I'm Not A Happy Camper
- Barker's Newsbites: Wednesday, April 20, 2011
- Barker's Newsbites: Tuesday, April 19, 2011
- Sarah Palin Sure Sounds Smart To Me!
- Barker's Newsbites: Monday, April 18, 2011
- Weekend Newsbites: Sat, & Sun., April 16 & 17, 2011
- Does Anyone Still Watch C.S.I. - The Original... L...
- Senate Vote Tally re: HR 1426 - The Budget "Compro...
- Barker's Newsbites: Friday, April 15, 2011
- HR 1473 - The Budget "Compromise"
- Barker's Newsbites: Thursday, April 14, 2011
- Barker's Newsbites: Wednesday, April 13, 2011
- Barker's Newsbites: Tuesday, April 12, 2011
- Barker's Newsbites: Monday, April 11, 2011
- Calling Rush Limbaugh - Rush Hudson Limbaugh III
- I Feel Betrayed By John Boehner and Nan Hayworth
- Weekend Newsbites: Sat. & Sun., April 9 & 10, 2011
- Barker's Newsbites: Friday, April 8, 2011
- Barker's Newsbites: Thursday, April 7, 2011
- Barker's Newsbites: Wednesday, April 6, 2011
- Barker's Newsbites: Tuesday, April 5, 2011
- Barker's Newsbites: Monday, April 4, 2011
- Weekend Newsbites: Sat. & Sun., April 2 & 3, 2011
- Barker's Newsbites: Friday, April 1, 2011
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April
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About Me
- William R. Barker
- Pearl River, NY High School Class of '81; Northeastern University, Boston, MA Class of '87.
9 comments:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703806304576234724010496418.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTop
A pattern of governance has emerged in Washington that departs substantially from that envisaged in our Constitution. Under our basic concept of governance: (1) a president and vice president are elected; and (2) the departments of government are staffed by constitutional officers including secretaries, undersecretaries, assistant secretaries and others who are nominated by the president and confirmed for service by the consent of the Senate. They are publicly accountable and may be called to testify under oath about their activities.
Over time, this form of governance has changed.
* AND NOT VIA CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT! THEREFORE... THIS "CHANGE" IS ILLEGAL.
[P]residents will [nowadays] name someone in the White House to oversee the department and keep a tight rein on its activities.
* THE SO-CALLED "CZARS."
In national security and foreign policy, the National Security Council (NSC) was established after World War II by the National Security Act of 1947. As late as 1961, under President Dwight Eisenhower, the NSC was supported by a small staff headed by an executive secretary with a "passion for anonymity" and limited to a coordinating role. In subsequent administrations, that passion disappeared and staff members took on operational duties that formerly were the responsibility of constitutionally confirmed cabinet officials. This aggrandizement of the staff function then spread into fields far beyond national security.
The practice of appointing White House "czars" to rule over various issues or regions [may] not a new invention, [but] centralized management by the White House staff has been greatly increased in recent years.
(*NOD*)
Beyond constitutional questions, such White House advisers, counselors, staffers and czars are not accountable. They cannot be called to testify under oath, and when Congress asks them to come, they typically plead executive privilege.
(*SIGH*)
The consequences, apart from the matter of legitimate governance, are all too often bad for the formation and execution of policy. The departments, not the White House, have the capacity to carry out policies and they are full of people, whether political appointees or career governmental employees, who have vast experience and much to contribute to the making of policy. When White House staffers try to formulate or execute policy, they can easily get off track in a way that would not happen in a regular department.
* LET'S SAY IT TOGETHER, FOLKS... L*I*B*Y*A...
To return to a more effective and constitutionally sound use of cabinet members and their departments in helping the president formulate policy, cabinet secretaries could be grouped into important functional categories—national security and foreign policy, economics, natural resources, human resources, the rule of law, education, health and others. All of these subjects involve more than one department. Sometimes the natural convener is obvious; in other instances the leading role might simply rotate.
With the help of staff coordinators in the White House, cabinet members might convene by themselves and then with the president. This would involve the departments and, at the same time, ensure that a presidential, rather than a departmental, point of view would prevail. Policy execution would be improved, as would support for legislative initiatives.
The main goal is to assure that a cabinet member - not a White House aide - is always in charge.
The result would be not so much cabinet government as presidential government with the heavy involvement of accountable officials in the administration.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704503104576250621348962998.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTop
* FOLKS. IF YOU'RE NOT A SUBSCRIBER TO THE WSJ OR OTHERWISE CAN'T CONNECT TO THE OP-ED UTILIZING THE ABOVE PROVIDED LINK, SIMPLY GOOGLE "Cap and Evade How Senate Democrats maneuvered to kill a bill to rein in the EPA's carbon rule" AND THAT SHOULD GET YOU A GATEWAY TO READ THE OP-ED.
* FOLKS... (*SIGH*)... THESE POLITICIANS ARE DISGUSTING.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704101604576248683931961412.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEFTTopOpinion
As the crisis at Japan's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant drags on, how worried should people living near the plant, further away in Japan, or here in America be about the radiation they may be exposed to? And how much do we really know about the long-term effects of radiation exposure?
We know enough to say with some confidence that the radiation-related risks are small immediately outside the 20-kilometer evacuation zone in Fukushima, very small in the rest of Japan, and minuscule in other countries, including the United States
[T]he radiation risks are not big enough to change our travel plans (even to Tokyo or Kyoto), and certainly not big enough to stop drinking the water or eating the food even close to the evacuation zone.
(Note: The author is the director of the Center for Radiological Research at Columbia University Medical Center.)
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704415104576250593440896056.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEFTTopOpinion
If the financial crisis revealed anything about homeownership in this country, it's that "ownership" is too often a misnomer.
Since the crisis began, more than five million homeowners - people who thought they'd achieved the American Dream - have seen their houses reclaimed by lenders. Thirteen million more will be forced out by 2015. That's hardly the kind of security one associates with owning.
Government-backed financial institutions like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac prop up a system in which homeowners can spend decades paying their mortgages, often with little money down. They go years without building significant equity in their homes, rendering them little more than glorified renters.
* YEP! AND WORST OF ALL, THE REAL RENTER SUBSIDIZE THE "GLORIFIED" RENTERS VIA THE GENERAL TAXPAYER PROVIDED TAX LOOPHOLE CALLED THE MORTGAGE DEDUCTION.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/12/world/europe/12france.html?hpw
France on Monday formally banned the wearing of full veils in public places...
(*CLAP-CLAP-CLAP*) (*STANDING OVATION*)
The police do not have the authority under the law to remove full veils, only to fine or require citizenship lessons for those who violate the new law.
* FAIR ENOUGH... AS A FIRST STEP THAT IS.
[French police] also showed few signs of moving quickly to enforce the new rules for fear of causing unrest in big cities with Muslim communities. “The law will be infinitely difficult to enforce, and will be infinitely rarely enforced,” Manuel Roux, a union leader for local police chiefs, told France Inter radio.
* I ASSUME DERELICTION OF DUTY IS A FIRING OFFENSE - EVEN IN LA BELLE FRANCE...
Patrice Ribeiro, general secretary of Synergie Officiers, a police union, said the law was “a source of trouble more than anything else.” In areas with large immigrant populations, he said in an interview, the law cannot be carried out strictly: “We’ll create riots.”
* TWO POINTS: 1) NOTICE IT'S THE UNIONS SPEAKING OUT AGAINST THE LAW? 2) SOUNDS LIKE THE SAME ARGUMENTS SOUTHERN DEMOCRAT POLITICANS USED TO MAKE IN THE 50's and 60's REGARDING ENFORCEMENT OF CIVIL RIGHTS LAWS.
(*SHRUG*)
The issue was set alight in April 2009 by André Gérin, then the Communist mayor of Vénissieux. Half of the town’s 60,000 residents are non-French citizens or their French-born children, and the niqab has been a relatively normal sight here. Mr. Gérin said at the time that the full facial veil, which is known in France erroneously as the burqa, should be banned in the name of the liberty and equality of women in a secular country.
* WELL CALL ME AN ENTHUSIASTIC COMMIE-SYMP THEN! (*WINK*) GO, GIRIN, GO!
On Monday, in his office, Mr. Gérin said the burqa was “just the tip of the iceberg” of the spread of Muslim radicalism and separatism that threatened the French Republic. ... Speaking of young Muslim women who refuse to participate in school sports, or Muslim men who refuse to allow a male doctor to treat their wives or who allegedly compel their wives to wear the veil, Mr. Gérin called the law “a wake-up call,” a means “to eradicate this minority of fundamentalists, ‘the gurus’ who instrumentalize Islam for political reasons.”
(*THUMBS UP*)
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/12/education/12college.html?_r=1&hp
Student loan debt outpaced credit card debt for the first time last year and is likely to top a trillion dollars this year as more students go to college and a growing share borrow money to do so.
* F--KING LEMMINGS!
* F--KING POOR, STUPID KID AND POOR, STUPID PARENTS...
(*SIGH*)
While many economists say student debt should be seen in a more favorable light...
(*SNORTING WHILE ROLLING MY EYES*)
* YEAH... BECAUSE "MANY ECONOMISTS" OBVIOUSLY KNOW EXACTLY WHAT THEY'RE DOING - WHICH IS WHY... er... THE ECONOMY IS RUNNING LIKE A F--KING TOP!
(*PUTTING THE GUN BARREL IN MY MOUTH*)
Last year, graduates who took out loans left college with an average of $24,000 in debt.
(*SARCASTIC CLAP-CLAP-CLAP*)
Default rates are rising...
* IMAGINE THAT! (*LOOK OF FAUX SHOCK*)
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110411/ap_on_re_us/us_obama_debt_limit
The White House said Monday that President Barack Obama regrets his vote as a senator in 2006 against raising the debt limit - the same kind of increase he's now pressuring Congress to approve.
(*JUST SHAKING MY HEAD IN WRY AMUSEMENT*)
Obama "thinks it was a mistake," presidential spokesman Jay Carney told reporters.
* DOES ANYONE - ANYONE AT ALL - BELIEVE THAT IF MCCAIN HAD WON AND OBAMA WAS STILL IN THE SENATE THAT HE'D BE TALKING THIS WAY TODAY? ANYONE...? ANYONE AT ALL...?
[I]n 2006 when Republican George W. Bush was president...Obama, a freshman senator from Illinois, declared on the Senate floor: "The fact that we are here today to debate raising America's debt limit is a sign of leadership failure. ... Increasing America's debt weakens us domestically and internationally. Leadership means that 'the buck stops here.' Instead, Washington is shifting the burden of bad choices today onto the backs of our children and grandchildren. America has a debt problem."
(*CHUCKLE*) MY, OH, MY HOW THINGS HAVE CHANGED... (*SMIRK*)
The country will reach its debt limit of $14.3 trillion by May 16. If Congress doesn't raise it by then or shortly thereafter, the government would not be able to make debt payments...
* THAT'S A LIE. A FALSEHOOD. AN INCORRECT STATEMENT. (*SMIRK*) WE'VE GONE OVER THIS BEFORE. AS IS OFTEN THE CASE, THE MEDIA TENDS TO PARROT WHATEVER LINE OF CRAP THE DEMS FEED TO THEM. (*SHRUG*)
Republicans who control the House are threatening to withhold their votes to increase the debt ceiling unless Obama agrees to major spending cuts. The White House is insistent that the debt ceiling be extended without any attempts to cut spending attached to it.
(*SNORT*) AMAZING! IT'S JUST UNBELIEVEABLE HOW IRRESPONSIBLE THESE CLOWNS ARE!
* FOLKS... UNDERSTAND... THE DEMOCRATS (DEFINITELY OBAMA, REID, AND PELOSI AND THE MAJORITY OF THE DEM LEADERSHIP) ACTUALLY FAVORS PILING DEBT ON TOP OF DEBT. MY GOD... THEY ADMIT IT...! THEY DON'T EVEN TRY TO HIDE IT!
The White House's "explanation" Monday of Obama's changed position on the debt limit was an attempt to prepare for the fight by inoculating the president against charges of flip-flopping already being leveled by Republicans.
Congress is forced to increase the debt limit every several years...
* UM... NO. ANOTHER FALSE PREMISE THROWN OUT AS FACT BY THE MEDIA.
* FOLKS... ASK YOURSELF THIS QUESTION: WHY CALL SOMETHING A "LIMIT" IF IT'S NOT MEANT TO... er... LIMIT ANYTHING...
(*SIGH*)
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704662604576257273696136418.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
Pakistan has privately demanded the Central Intelligence Agency suspend drone strikes against militants on its territory...
* AND IF OBAMA DOESN'T? QUESTION: WILL CONGRESS SIMPLY ALLOW OBAMA TO START A WAR WITH PAKISTAN?
(*JUST SHAKING MY HEAD*)
* HEY... LET ME ASK YOU FOLKS... ISN'T IT SECRETARY OF STATE CLINTON'S JOB TO SEE THAT OUR SUPPOSED "ALLIES" STAY OUR ALLIES?
Pakistan has also asked the U.S. to reduce the number of U.S. intelligence and Special Operations personnel in the country, according to U.S. and Pakistani officials.
* AND AGAIN I POSE THE QUESTION: WHAT IF OBAMA REFUSES? (AND BY WHAT RIGHT - OTHER THAN THE ARGUMENT THAT "MIGHT MAKES RIGHT" - COULD OBAMA REFUSE?)
The U.S. strategy in the war in Afghanistan hinges on going after militants taking refuge in Pakistan. The breakdown in intelligence cooperation has cast a pall over U.S.-Pakistani relations, with some officials in both countries saying intelligence ties are at their lowest point since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks spurred the alliance.
* OBAMA AND CLINTON... HE'S THE PRESIDENT, SHE (SUPPOSEDLY) RUNS FOREIGN POLICY. WHAT A CLUSTER-F--K!
Drone strikes are opposed by an overwhelming majority of Pakistanis, and are widely seen as a violation of Pakistan's sovereignty.
* YA THINK...?!?!
(*SNORT*)
U.S. officials on Monday publicly sought to play down the tensions.
(*LAUGHING OUT LOUD WHILE ROLLING MY EYES*)
The CIA has been caught off guard by Islamabad's recent actions, including a rare public statement by Pakistan's Army chief, Gen. Ashfaq Kayani, condemning a March 17 U.S. drone strike that Pakistan said killed up to 40 people in North Waziristan.
* SEEMS THAT WE HEAR ABOUT THE CIA BEING CAUGHT... er... OFF GUARD... FAIRLY REGULARLY.
The U.S. hasn't committed to adjusting the drone program in response to Pakistan's request.
* FOLKS... SERIOUSLY... TALK ABOUT VIOLATIONS OF INTERNATIONAL LAW! BASICALLY, IF OBAMA REFUSES TO ABIDE BY PAKISTAN'S "REQUEST," THAT'S PRETTY MUCH AN ACT OF WAR AGAINST A SOVEREIGN STATE.
The CIA operates covertly, meaning the program doesn't require Islamabad's support, under U.S. law.
* UH... MEANING ALSO THAT TECHNICALLY SPEAKING, OUR SPIES ARE... er... SPIES - LIABLE TO ARREST AND IMPRISONMENT... EVEN EXECUTION.
Pakistan has limited control over the tribal areas, and the region has in the past decade become a home base for myriad militant groups.
* NO DOUBT! BUT THERE'S A DIFFERENCE BETWEEN EXERCISING LIMITED CONTROL AND HAVING LEGAL CONTROL. PAKISTAN IS PAKISTAN! (JEEZUS FRIGG'N CHRIST... WHAT ARE THESE BOZOS GETTING US INTO...?!?!)
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/12/us/politics/12missouri.html?_r=1&hpw#
Missouri’s Democratic attorney general broke with his party on Monday and urged a federal judge to invalidate the central provision of the new health care law.
* WHOA...!
[Attorney General] Koster chose to file a “friend of the court” brief in the United States Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit, in Atlanta, which is reviewing one of five challenges to the act that have moved into the midlevel appellate courts.
In Missouri, a ballot referendum aimed at nullifying the law was approved by nearly three to one last year, and the legislature recently passed resolutions urging Mr. Koster to join the legal challenges. The state’s lieutenant governor, a Republican, filed a lawsuit last year seeking to block the law.
Though Mr. Koster has been slow to weigh in, he did not mince words, arguing in the court brief that Congress had overstepped its authority by mandating that individuals buy health insurance, which he called “a substantial blow to federalism and personal freedom.”
“If Congress can force activity under the Commerce Clause, then it could force individuals to receive vaccinations or annual checkups, undergo mammogram or prostate exams or maintain a specific body mass,” he wrote.
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