Thursday, June 23, 2011

Barker's Newsbites: Thursday, June 23, 2011


Just... because...
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8 comments:

William R. Barker said...

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20110623/D9O1HG5G0.html

For the first time, minorities make up a majority of babies in the U.S....

* FOLKS... IT'S NOT ABOUT SKIN COLOR... IT'S ABOUT CULTURE...

Preliminary census estimates also show the share of African-American households headed by women - made up of mostly single mothers - now exceeds African-American households with married couples...

* FOLKS... THE ILLEGITIMACY RATE FOR WHITES IS NOTHING TO BRAG ABOUT... BUT FOR BLACKS AND HISPANICS...

(*SIGH*)

Demographers say the numbers provide the clearest confirmation yet of a changing social order, one in which racial and ethnic minorities will become the U.S. majority by midcentury.

Among African-Americans, U.S. households headed by women - mostly single mothers but also adult women living with siblings or elderly parents - represented roughly 30% of all African-American households, compared with the 28% share of married-couple African-American households.

(It was the first time the number of female-headed households surpassed those of married couples among any race group, according to census records...)

Female-headed households make up a 19% share among Hispanics and 9% each for whites and Asians.

* 30% FOR BLACKS... 19% FOR HISPANICS... 9% FOR WHITES... (OH, AND NOTE HOW ASIANS ARE JUST.. er... THROWN IN WITH WHITES.) (*SNORT*)

June 23, 2011 at 8:39 AM
William R. Barker said...

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

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304657804576401412033504294.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTop#articleTabs%3Dcomments

The number of food-stamp recipients has soared to 44 million from 26 million in 2007.

Not surprisingly, fraud and abuse are rampant.

Millionaires are now legally entitled to collect food stamps as long as they have little or no monthly income.

Thirty-five states have abolished asset tests for most food-stamp recipients.

The food-stamp poster boy of 2011 is 59-year-old Leroy Fick. After Mr. Fick won a $2 million lottery jackpot, the Michigan Department of Human Services ruled he could continue receiving food stamps. The Detroit News explained: "If Fick had chosen to accept monthly payments of his jackpot, the winnings would be considered income, according to the DHS. But by choosing to accept a lump sum payment, the winnings were considered 'assets' and aren't counted in determining food stamp eligibility."

These and similar "paperwork reduction" reforms advocated by [Obama's] Department of Agriculture (USDA) are turning the food-stamp program into a magnet for abuses and absurdities.

* DELIBERATELY I BELIEVE.

The Obama administration is far more enthusiastic about boosting food-stamp enrollment than about preventing fraud. Thanks in part to vigorous federally funded campaigns by nonprofit groups, the government's AmericaCorps service program, and other organizations urging people to accept government handouts, the number of food-stamp recipients has soared to 44 million from 26 million in 2007, and costs have more than doubled to $77 billion from $33 billion.

The USDA's Food and Nutrition Service now has only 40 inspectors to oversee almost 200,000 merchants that accept food stamps nationwide. The Government Accountability Office reported last summer that retailers who traffic illegally in food stamps by redeeming stamps for cash or alcohol or other prohibited items "are less likely to face criminal penalties or prosecution" than in earlier years.

* To be continued...

June 23, 2011 at 1:27 PM
William R. Barker said...

* CONTINUING... (Part 2 of 2)



Earlier this month, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel revealed that Wisconsin food-stamp recipients routinely sell their benefit cards on Facebook. The investigation also found that "nearly 2,000 recipients claimed they lost their card six or more times in 2010 and requested replacements." USDA rules require that lost cards be speedily replaced. The Wisconsin Policy Research Institute concluded: "Prosecutors have simply stopped prosecuting the vast majority of [food-stamp] fraud cases in virtually all counties, including the one with the most recipients, Milwaukee."

Troy Hutson, the chief of Washington state's food-stamp program, resigned in April after a Seattle television station revealed that some food-stamp recipients were selling their cards on Craigslist or brazenly cashing them out on street corners (for 50 cents on the dollar) and using the proceeds for illegal drugs and prostitution. Washington state Sen. Mike Carrell complained: "Dozens of workers at DSHS [the Department of Social and Health Services] have reported numerous unpunished cases of fraud to me. They have told me that DSHS management has allowed these things to happen, and in some cases actively restricted fraud investigations."

Thirty percent of the inmates in the Polk County, Iowa, jail were collecting food stamps that were being sent to their non-jail mailing addresses in 2009.

Looser federal rules are spurring a bureaucratic crime wave. Last December, two veteran employees for New York City's Human Resources Administration were busted for concocting 1,500 fake food-stamp cases that netted them $8 million. Nine Milwaukee, Wis., staffers plundered almost $300,000 from the program during the last five years, and a Louisiana state bureaucrat pleaded guilty last year for her role in a scam that snared more than $50,000 in fraudulent food-stamp benefits.

[Obama's] USDA has vetoed all proposals from local or state governments to prevent food stamps from being used for junk food. With the feds' approval, food stamps are increasingly being redeemed at fast-food restaurants...

* FOLKS... YA JUST CAN'T MAKE THIS SHIT UP!

The [Obama] administration is seeking to compel California, New York and Texas to cease requiring food-stamp applicants to provide finger images.

* AGAIN... YA JUST CAN'T MAKE THIS SHIT UP...!!!

But the Obama administration doesn't deserve all the blame. Food-stamp enrollment surged before Mr. Obama took office. The number of food-stamp recipients on George W. Bush's watch rose by more than 50%, even before the recession hit in 2007. As Slate reporter Annie Lowrey wrote for the online magazine last December, President Bush and his food-stamp chief Eric Bost "went on a quiet crusade to expand eligibility, increase enrollment, and reduce stigma around nutrition aid."

* YEP! BUSH'S "COMPASSIONATE CONSERVATISM." SQUANDERING OUR MONEY OF COURSE!

H.L. Mencken quipped that the New Deal divided America into "those who work for a living and those who vote for a living." The explosion in the number of food-stamp recipients tilts the political playing field in favor of big government. The more people who become government dependents, the more likely that democracy will become a conspiracy against self-reliance.

June 23, 2011 at 1:27 PM
William R. Barker said...

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304569504576403801370802370.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_MIDDLE_Video_Top

Chrysler Group LLC is exploring whether it can start manufacturing vehicles in China...

* TO THE GEOGRAPHICALLY CHALLENGED AMONGST YOU... CHINA IS A DIFFERENT COUNTRY THAN... er... THE U.S.A.

* ACTUALLY... WE'RE TALKING DIFFERENT CONTINENTS... WIDELY SEPARATED DIFFERENT CONTINENTS...

* OH... AND CHINESE WORKERS... BY DEFINITION... NOT AMERICAN WORKERS.

* CHRYSLER WOULD LIKE TO THANK YOU ALL FOR THE BAILOUT!

June 23, 2011 at 2:21 PM
William R. Barker said...

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303339904576403413040676384.html?mod=WSJ_hp_LEFTWhatsNewsCollection

More unemployed Americans filed for new jobless benefits last week....

* WELL AT LEAST THE REPORTER DIDN'T THROW THE WORD "UNEXPECTEDLY" INTO THE ABOVE SENTENCE!

(*CHUCKLE*) (*GRIN*)

Initial jobless claims rose by 9,000 to a seasonally adjusted 429,000 in the week ended June 18, the Labor Department said Thursday. The prior week's figure was revised higher to 420,000, from an originally reported 414,000.

* SO THAT'S 9,000 PLUS 6,000...

The data was worse than expected. Economists surveyed by Dow Jones Newswires had forecast claims would fall by 1,000.

* PERHAPS IT'S TIME DON JONES NEWSWIRES START SURVEYING... er... BETTER ECONOMISTS - YOU KNOW... THE ONE'S WHOSE PREDICTIONS TEND TO BE RIGHT RATHER THAN WRONG?

Economists generally think the economy is adding more jobs than it is shedding once the weekly claims figure falls below 400,000. Claims have been above that level since early April.

* YEAH, YEAH... ALL WELL AND GOOD, BUT BEYOND THAT, HOW MANY NEW JOBS NEED TO BE CREATED (WITH NONE LOST!) EACH MONTH BASED UPON WORKFORCE POPULATION GROWTH ALONE? Hmm....???

A Labor Department official said six states were estimated because of a computer malfunction at the department...

* THE COMPUTER ATE HIS HOMEWORK...? CUTE.

* BTW... SINCE WE ONLY HAVE 50 STATES... (COUNT THE STARS ON THE FLAG)... THOSE SIX STATES REPRESENT 8.3% OF THE UNITED STATES. NOT EXACTLY A ROUNDING ERROR. (*SMIRK*)

The Federal Reserve Wednesday downgraded its assessment of the U.S. economy...

* WELL, HELL... I DID THAT THE MOMENT MCCAIN AND OBAMA WERE THE TWO CANDIDATES FOR THE PRESIDENCY IN 2008!

June 23, 2011 at 2:21 PM
William R. Barker said...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/john-mccains-neverending-war/2011/06/21/AGlbiSgH_story.html

* BY GEORGE F. WILL

Elevating the fallacy of the false alternative to a foreign policy, John McCain and a few others believe Republicans who oppose U.S. intervention in Libya’s civil war - and who think a decade of warfare in Afghanistan is enough - are isolationists.

This is less a thought than a flight from thinking, which involves making sensible distinctions.

* JOHN MCCAIN IS INCAPABLE OF THOUGHT. HE'S A MORON. OH... SURE... HE COMES TO THE CORRECT CONCLUSION AT TIMES, BUT THAT'S LIKE SAYING IF YOU PLAY #7 AT ROULETTE SOONER OR LATER YOU'RE GONNA HIT IT. (*SNORT*)

* OH... AND BESIDES BEING A MORON... JOHN MCCAIN IS A BACK-STABBING, SELF-SERVING, TRAITOROUS DIRTBAG. (SEE: PALIN, S.)

Last Sunday on ABC’s “This Week,” McCain warned that the GOP has always had “an isolation strain.” He calls it “the Pat Buchanan wing”...

* GOD BLESS PAT BUCHANAN! IF THERE WAS EVER A GUY WHO IS RIGHT ALMOST AS OFTEN AS I AM... IT'S BUCHANAN!

Between wishing success to people fighting for freedom and sending in the Marines (or the drones), there is as much middle ground for temperate people as there is between Buchanan, a sort of come-home-America conservative, and McCain, a promiscuous interventionist. ... Under the McCain Doctrine, America’s military [active military interventions] would never stop.

U.S. involvement in the Second World War lasted 1,346 days.

U.S. fighting in Afghanistan reached that milestone six years ago (June 14, 2005).

* THIS BEARS REPEATING:

U.S. involvement in the Second World War lasted 1,346 days.

U.S. fighting in Afghanistan reached that milestone six years ago (June 14, 2005).

America is fighting there, in Iraq, in western Pakistan, in Yemen and in Libya. Where next? Under the McCain Doctrine, wherever U.S. “values” are affronted...

(*SIGH*)

* I'VE ALWAYS SAID, FOLKS, MCCAIN IS MORE DANGERIOUS THAN OBAMA.

Is Jim Webb an isolationist? Virginia’s Democratic senator, who was Ronald Reagan’s secretary of the Navy, discusses Libya with a trenchancy that befits a decorated Marine combat veteran (Vietnam) and that should shame reticent Republicans:

“Was our country under attack, or under the threat of imminent attack? Was a clearly vital national interest at stake? Were we invoking the inherent right of self-defense as outlined in the United Nations charter? Were we called upon by treaty commitments to come to the aid of an ally? Were we responding in kind to an attack on our forces elsewhere, as we did in the 1986 raids in Libya after American soldiers had been killed in a disco in Berlin? Were we rescuing Americans in distress, as we did in Grenada in 1983? No, we were not.”

* OH... AND BTW... UNLIKE MCCAIN, WEBB ACTUALLY DID MORE DAMAGE TO THE ENEMY THAN TO HIS OWN FORCES' MULTI-MILLION DOLLAR JETS AIRPLANES. (*SMIRK*)

McCain...says we must achieve regime change in Libya because if Gaddafi survives, he will try to “harm” America. (This is always the last argument for pressing on with imprudent interventions (see Vietnam, circa 1969): We must continue fighting because we started fighting.)

Sen. Lindsey Graham - Sancho Panza to McCain’s Don Quixote - says “Congress should sort of shut up” about Libya. This ukase might make more sense if Congress had said anything institutionally about Libya.

* LINDSEY GRAHAM... (*SIGH*) (*GNASHING OF TEETH*)... IF THERE'S ANY U.S. SENATOR I HATE MORE THAN JOHN "CRASH" MCCAIN, IT'S LINDSEY "MY HEAD'S SO FAR STUCK UP MCCAIN'S ASS I CAN'T BREATH" GRAHAM...!!!

June 23, 2011 at 3:08 PM
William R. Barker said...

http://www.nationalreview.com/exchequer/270372/how-much-credibility-does-gop-have-taxes

The most ambitious deficit-reduction plan so far has been the Ryan Roadmap, which the House passed and then sent to its death in the Senate.

But even under the Roadmap, spending as a share of GDP would continue to rise through 2037...

(*BLOOD BOILING*)

...and would stay above 19% of GDP until 2063.

(*BLOOD SHOOTING OUT OF MY EARS*)

Publicly held debt would hit 100% of GDP in 2043...

(*GNASHING MY TEETH*)

[T]he most aggressive deficit-reduction plan yet produced by Republicans by design holds tax revenues below projected spending.

* INSANITY...

For decades to come, the deficit-reduction plan is a plan for deficits.

* WHAT'S IT GONNA TAKE...?!?! THIS IS NOT WHAT REPUBLICANS WERE ELECTED TO DO. WE NEED REAL CUTS - NOW!

Federal spending in 2012 is expected to hit 23.6% of GDP, but tax revenue is only going to hit 16.6%. That’s bad. (Real bad.) But these are poison years.

Let’s revisit happier days: From 1980–2000, federal outlays averaged 21.3% of GDP, taxes averaged 18.5%, deficits 2.8%.

(So, if there’s a post-recession return to historical norms, one or both of those factors still has to move by total of 2.8% of GDP to balance the budget. That would mean cutting about $400 billion from the 2012 budget or adding $400 billion in taxes, or a bit of both.)

Is there a consensus for cutting spending to 18.5%, the level we might expect taxes to hit?

* I'M FOR IT!

That’s a big drop from the forecast level of 2012 spending, about a 22% cut.

* CUT AWAY!

(The last time federal spending was only 18.5 percent of GDP was . . . 1999, not exactly the Dark Ages or a time of notable national austerity.)

On the flipside: Is there a consensus for taxation at 21%?

That’s pretty high - higher than it has ever been, in fact, even during World War II, when taxes topped out at 20.9% of GDP in 1944.

(The last time it’s been close - 20.6 percent - was in . . . 2000, not exactly the Dark Ages or a time of notable national austerity.)

* HERE'S HOW WILLIAMSON - THE AUTHOR - CONTINUES:

I don’t want taxes or spending at 21.3% of GDP. I don’t want them at 18.5%, for that matter. I might go for spending at 14.2% and taxes at 16.1% as a good start, which would take us to the savage Darwinian conditions of . . . 1951, not exactly the Dark Ages or a time of notable national austerity.

* PRAISE JESUS! AMEN...!!! HEAR! HEAR!

But here’s the thing: If you want spend 21%, you really need to tax 21%. If you want to tax "only" 18.5%, you can only spend 18.5%.

So far, Republicans have been pretty insistent about [not raising] taxes - and not without reason - but if you are not willing to move one variable, then you have to show yourself willing and able to move the other variable far enough to bring things into balance.

The Republicans have been moving in the right direction, but they aren’t quite there.

You want to take taxes off the table, then show me you can get the job done with cuts alone - not on paper, but in Congress.

(*FALLING TO MY KNEES BEFORE THE WISDOM OF WILLIAMSON*)

Democrats are a lost cause. Their commitment to maintaining the current path of entitlement spending and public-sector expansion will ensure national bankruptcy at virtually any level of taxation. (Don’t believe me? Have a gander at what a $30 trillion deficit looks like.)

Removing Democrats from power probably is a precondition for averting a national fiscal meltdown. A necessary condition, but not a sufficient one.

* MEANING THAT REPUBLICANS NEED TO BE AS HONEST WITH THE AMERICAN PEOPLE AS KEVIN D. WILLIAMSON JUST WAS!

June 23, 2011 at 4:47 PM
William R. Barker said...

http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/270233/department-food-subsidies-victor-davis-hanson

The Department of Agriculture no longer serves as a lifeline for millions of struggling homestead farmers. Instead, it is a vast, self-perpetuating post-modern bureaucracy with an amorphous budget of some $130 billion - a sum far greater than the nation’s net farm income this year.

* THAT IS AMAZING, ISN'T IT? INSANE... ABSOLUTE LUNACY...

[T]he more the Agriculture Department has pontificated about family farmers, the more they have vanished - constituting now only about 1% of the American population.

(*PAUSE*) FOLKS... DID YOU KNOW... (*KEEP READING*):

Net farm income is expected in 2011 to reach its highest levels in more than three decades...

Somebody should explain that good news to the Department of Agriculture[!]

This year, [Obama's] will give a record $20 billion in various crop “supports” to the nation’s wealthiest farmers - with the richest 10% receiving over 70% of all the redistributive payouts.

(*HEADACHE*)

If farmers on their own are making handsome profits, why, with a $1.6 trillion annual federal deficit, is the Department of Agriculture borrowing unprecedented amounts to subsidize them?

* DAMN GOOD QUESTION, ISN'T IT...?!?!

At least $5 billion will be in direct cash payouts.

(*BANGING MY HEAD AGAINST THE WALL*)

Seventy percent of all subsidies go to corn, wheat, cotton, rice, and soybean farmers. (Yet no one in the USDA can explain why cotton and soybeans are subsidized, but not lettuce or carrots.)

Most other farmers receive no federal cash. (Somehow peach, melon, and almond growers seem to be doing fine without government checks in the mail.)

(*GRITTING MY TEETH*)

Then there is the more than $5 billion in ethanol subsidies...

* DON'T GET ME STARTED! (THE REPUBLICANS BETTER FOLLOW THROUGH ON REMOVING THESE SUBSIDIES FOR GOOD...)

[W]hile the Obama administration discourages new production of far cheaper transportation fuels derived from natural gas, oil, shale oil, and tar sands - whose newly discovered known reserves are nevertheless reaching all-time highs - it is borrowing billions to pay farmers to grow uncompetitive fuel.

(*MY BRAIN ANEURYSM IS ABOUT TO BURST*)

* BUT, WAIT! THERE'S MORE!

In a brilliantly conceived devil’s bargain, the Department of Agriculture gives welfare to the wealthy on the one hand, while on the other sending more than $70 billion to the lower-income brackets in food stamps.

Originally, the food-stamp program focused on the noble aim of supplementing the income of only the very poor and the disabled. But now eligibility is such that some members of the middle class find a way to manipulate these grants. In fact, 2011 could be another sort of record year for the Agriculture Department, as it may achieve an all-time high in subsidizing 47 million Americans on food stamps - nearly one-sixth of the country.

(*SARCASTIC CLAP-CLAP-CLAP*)

The Department of Agriculture is now sending more than $1 billion to African-American farmers who sued the government, alleging past discrimination in federally subsidized farm lending programs.

* IF YOU DON'T KNOW ABOUT THIS, LOOK INTO IT; YOU'LL BE DISGUSTED. IT'S A FRIGG'N SCAM!

The multilayered Department of Agriculture has no real mission, much less a methodology other than to provide cash to congressional pet constituencies. Its vital functions, such as crop reporting and forecasting, food inspection, and scientific research, are buried beneath politically driven cash transfers and could easily be farmed out to other agencies.

In these days of record federal deficits and unsustainable national debt, it is long past time to eliminate the department - or at least rename it “The Department of Food Subsidies.”

June 23, 2011 at 5:05 PM

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