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2011
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September
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- Barker's Newsbites: Friday, September 30, 2011
- The Clinton Gambit
- Barker's Newsbites: Thursday, September 29, 2011
- Barker's Newsbites: Wednesday, September 28, 2011
- Philadelphia is Literally in a State of Societal C...
- Barker's Newsbites: Tuesday, September 27, 2011
- Barker's Newsbites: Monday, September 26, 2011
- Reforming Social Security (The Texas Model)
- Barker's Newsbites: Friday, September 23, 2011
- Barker's Newsbites: Thursday, September 22, 2011
- The Power of the Media
- By Walter E. Williams
- Barker's Newsbites: Wednesday, September 21, 2011
- Barker's Newsbites: Tuesday, September 20, 2011
- Barker's Newsbites: Monday, Sept. 19, 2011
- Post-Vacation Newsbites - From My Emails... (9/18/11)
- About the Newsbites...
- Back From Oregon
- Yet Another Barker Vacation Adventure, Folks!
- Barker's Newsbites: Thursday, September 1, 2011
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September
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About Me
- William R. Barker
- Pearl River, NY High School Class of '81; Northeastern University, Boston, MA Class of '87.
5 comments:
http://af.reuters.com/article/commoditiesNews/idAFS1E78J1KE20110920
Solyndra LLC's chief executive and chief financial officer will invoke their Fifth Amendment rights and decline to answer any questions put to them at a Congressional hearing on Friday, according to letters from their attorneys obtained by Reuters.
* NICE, HUH, FOLKS?! THESE ARE OBAMA'S BUDDIES! THESE ARE THE FOLKS OBAMA GAVE OUR MONEY TO!
* TWO-PARTER... (Part 1 of 2)
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2011/09/19/lightsquared-second-witness-rejects-white-house-testimony-guidance.html
A second government official has come forward saying the White House tried to influence his testimony concerning a wireless broadband project backed by a Democratic donor that military officials fear might impair sensitive satellite navigation systems.
LightSquared, a wireless network backed by billionaire Democratic donor Philip Falcone, could beam broadband Internet everywhere - but some military officials fear it could interfere with critical GPS signals. Now, as The Daily Beast's Eli Lake exclusively reports, two U.S. officials allege the White House tried to influence their testimony to rush key testing, to LightSquare's benefit.
* NOT ONE! BUT TWO!
Anthony Russo, director of the National Coordination Office for Space-Based Positioning, Navigation, and Timing, told The Daily Beast he rejected “guidance” from the White House’s Office of Budget and Management suggesting he tell Congress that the government’s concerns about the project by the firm LightSquared could be resolved in 90 days, a timetable favorable to the company’s plans.
Russo said he objected to that language because “I have low confidence that we can complete all of the testing in 90 days.” He estimated that such testing would take at least six months. Russo called the White House efforts to alter his testimony “guidance rather than pressure.”
(*SMIRK*)
Russo’s comments come just days after four-star Air Force Gen. William Shelton, who heads U.S. Space Command, told Congress in a classified briefing that he felt pressured by the White House to change his testimony about the same project to make it more favorable to the company.
* FOLKS... HOW MUCH EVIDENCE OF "CHICAGO POLITICS AS USUAL" COMING OUT OF THIS WHITE HOUSE DO YOU NEED?
* To be continued...
* CONCLUDING... (Part 2 of 2)
Harold Furchtgott-Roth, a former Republican-appointed FCC commissioner, said it was highly unusual to put a timeline on the kinds of technical tests discussed in the OMB paragraph.
“Primarily these types of tests sometimes have a finite end and sometimes they don’t,” he said. “Sometimes they go on for long periods of time. To pick a number and say the tests have to end by a certain date is not consistent with commission precedent. Secondly, you don’t know what you will find when you do the test; you can’t predetermine that you will absolutely be finished after 90 days.”
Rep. Paul Broun (R-GA), the chairman of the House Science Committee’s Subcommittee on Investigations and Oversight, said he was troubled that four out of the five government witnesses before his Sept. 8 hearing had “identical language in their written testimony reflecting the administration’s view of the LightSquared project. The language diminished the otherwise blunt assessments the witnesses articulated during the hearing when pressed by committee members.”
(*SMIRK*)
Last week, the Center for Public Integrity first reported a batch of emails between LightSquared executives and staffers of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP). The nonprofit investigative journalism organization reported that LightSquared CEO Sanjiv Ahuja met with the chief of staff for OSTP just eight days before Falcone and his wife gave $30,400 each to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC). Ahuja also contributed $30,400 to the Democratic Party, though he made the same contribution to the Republican Party in 2009.
* SO HE WAS TRYING TO INGRATIATE HIMSELF WITH BOTH DEMPUBLICANS AND REPUBLICRATS... THE THING IS... THE EXECUTIVE BRANCH IS CONTROLLED BY PRESIDENT OBAMA. (*SMIRK*) (*SHRUG*)
Furchtgott-Roth questioned the process by which the FCC granted a waiver to LightSquared so that it may use its initial license for satellite bandwidth to service terrestrial mobile devices. “In January the commission said LightSquared could use its license for exclusive terrestrial purposes,” he said. “That decision from January was an unprecedented and surprising development. That they would make this decision at the bureau level and not at the full commission level is just stunning.”
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/sep/20/taxpayers-foot-bill-justice-department-16-muffins/
[Eric Holder's] Justice Department spent more than $120 million in fiscal 2008 and 2009 to host law enforcement conferences across the country, many of which featured “extravagant and wasteful” costs for food, beverages and event planning, including spending $16 on each of 250 muffins served at an August 2009 legal conference in Washington, D.C., a report said Tuesday.
* LET'S "HOPE" THAT THEY "CHANGE" THEIR MUFFIN SUPPLIER! (*DRY CHUCKLE*)
Acting Inspector General Cynthia Schnedar, in an audit report that examined taxpayer expenditures incurred by the Justice Department at 10 of 1,832 conferences held during fiscal 2008 and 2009, said investigators also found that another conference featured a lunch that cost $76 per person and coffee costing more than $1 per ounce.
(*SARCASTIC CLAP-CLAP-CLAP*)
* NOTE, FOLKS... 2008 AS WELL AS 2009... (*SHRUG*)
Other costly items cited in the report included a $32-per-person snack break consisting of Cracker Jacks, popcorn and candy bars, $7.32 Beef Wellington hors d’oeuvres, $10 cookies and $5 Swedish meatballs.
The numbers are included in a report that examined expenditures incurred by the Justice Department during fiscal 2008 and 2009 following a 2007 audit by the Inspector General's Office that also identified what it described at the time as “extravagant costs associated with food and beverages and event planning activities.” The new report said that while it found that the Justice Department had instituted conference cost guidelines since the 2007 report, individual components within the agency “are not taking all necessary steps to minimize conference-related costs and to eliminate wasteful spending.”
* IN ENGLISH: LAZY INCOMPETENT GOVERNMENT SCUMBAGS AREN'T BEHAVING RESPONSIBLY. (YEAH... I KNOW... "SHOCKING.") (*SNORT*)
The audit also identified what it called “unallowable and unnecessary event planning costs,” including the hiring of a consultant as an event planner for one conference who lived in Anchorage, Alaska, to act as the liaison with the conference hotel located in Palm Springs, California. The audit questioned as “unnecessary” nearly $3,500 in Justice Department funds paid to the consultant to travel three times between Alaska and California, especially since the event had been held at the same venue three times previously. Also questioned as unnecessary in the audit were over $29,000 in travel, lodging and food and beverage costs for a face-to-face planning meeting held in Palm Springs in January and February 2008 that was attended by Justice department employees and event planning consultants.
* FOLKS. MY POINT IN "NEWSBITING" THIS IS JUST TO DEMONSTRATE THAT GOVERNMENT HAS ALWAYS BEEN WASTEFUL AND IRRESPONSIBLE WITH TAXPAYER MONEY REGARDLESS OF WHICH PARTY IS IN CHARGE. WE NEED TO STARVE THE BEAST...!!! PERIOD!
http://news.yahoo.com/fact-check-rich-taxed-less-secretaries-070642868.html
President Barack Obama says he wants to make sure millionaires are taxed at higher rates than their secretaries.
The data say they already are.
(*SMIRK*)
On average, the wealthiest people in America pay a lot more taxes than the middle class or the poor, according to private and government data. They pay at a higher rate, and as a group, they contribute a much larger share of the overall taxes collected by the federal government. The 10% of households with the highest incomes pay more than 70% of federal income taxes, according to the Congressional Budget Office.
[Beyond that] they more than half of ALL federal taxes.
This year, households making more than $1 million will pay an average of 29.1% of their income in federal taxes, including income taxes, payroll taxes and other taxes, according to the Tax Policy Center, a Washington think tank.
* TO COMPARE AND CONTRAST... (KEEP READING...)
Households making between $50,000 and $75,000 will pay an average of 15% of their income in federal taxes.
* FURTHERMORE... (KEEP READING...)
Lower-income households will pay less. For example, households making between $40,000 and $50,000 will pay an average of 12.5% of their income in federal taxes. Households making between $20,000 and $30,000 will pay 5.7%.
* NOTE, FOLKS, HOW THE REPORT KEEPS ON REFERRING TO "AVERAGE" AS OPPOSED TO MEDIAN? THAT'S BECAUSE... (READ ON...)
The Tax Policy Center estimates that 46% of households, mostly low- and medium-income households, will pay no federal income taxes this year.
* THAT'S THE REAL CRIME, PEOPLE. WHAT'S "FAIR" ABOUT ALMOST HALF OF YOUR FELLOW AMERICAN "HOUSEHOLDERS" PAYING NO FEDERAL INCOME TAXES...? HMM...? NOTHING! THAT'S WHAT!
Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner was pressed at a White House briefing on the number of millionaires who pay taxes at a lower rate than middle-income families. He demurred, saying that people who make most of their money in wages pay taxes at a higher rate, while those who get most of their income from investments pay at lower rates. "So it really depends on what is your profession, where's the source of your income, what's the specific circumstances you face, and the averages won't really capture that," Geithner said.
* AND WHOSE F--KING FAULT IS THAT...?!?! THIS IS THE TAX CODE THAT THE DEMPUBLICANS AND REPUBLICRATS HAVE GIVEN US! (HEY... YOU ALL KNOW MY REFORM PROPOSALS! I WANT EVERYONE TO PAY HIS OR HER FAIR SHARE! WE NEED A FLATTER, FAIRER TAX CODE - PERIOD. OBAMA HAD TWO YEARS - WITH HIS ALLIES IN CONTROL OF BOTH HOUSES OF CONGRESS - TO FIX THE TAX CODE. HE DIDN'T EVEN ATTEMPT IT. OBAMA IS A PHONY, A FRAUD, AND A LIAR. AND THAT'S THE F--KING RECORD, FOLKS!
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