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2011
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October
(24)
- Barker's Newsbites: Monday, October 31, 2011
- If You Don't See The Decline, You're Blind
- Weekend Newsbites: Sat. & Sun., Oct. 29 & 30, 2011
- Barker's Newsbites: Friday, October 28, 2011
- Barker's Newsbites: Thursday, October 27, 2011
- Barker's Newsbites: Wednesday, October 26, 2011
- Barker's Newsbites: Tuesday, October 25, 2011
- Barker's Newsbites: Monday, October 24, 2011
- Weekend Newsbites: Sat. & Sun., Oct. 22 & 23, 2011
- Barker's Newsbites: Friday, October 21, 2011
- Allied With Savages
- Barker's Newsbites: Thursday, October 20, 2011
- Barker's Newsbites: Wednesday, October 19, 2011
- Barker's Newsbites: Tuesday, October 18, 2011
- Attn: Dr. Nan Hayworth, Member of Congress (R-NY-19)
- Barker's Newsbites: Monday, October 17, 2011
- Weekend Newsbites: Fri.-Sat.-Sun., Oct. 14 thru 16...
- So... Front Page on Drudge... "Suicide of a Superp...
- Ranting, Raving, and (Maybe!) a Few Newsbites
- Drunk'n Debauchery in Key West 2011
- T...I...R...E...D... (Just... so... frigg'n... tir...
- Barker's Pre-Vacation Newsbites: Oct. 4, 2011
- Barker's Newsbites: Monday, October 3, 2011
- Weekend Newsbites: Sat. & Sun., Oct. 1 & 2, 2011
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October
(24)
About Me
- William R. Barker
- Pearl River, NY High School Class of '81; Northeastern University, Boston, MA Class of '87.
12 comments:
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_LONG_TERM_CARE_PROGRAM?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2011-10-14-15-24-47
The Obama administration Friday pulled the plug on a major program in the president's signature health overhaul law - a long-term care insurance plan dogged from the beginning by doubts over its financial solvency.
Known as CLASS, the Community Living Assistance Services and Supports program...it was supposed to function as a self-sustaining voluntary insurance plan, open to working adults regardless of age or health. But a central design flaw dogged CLASS from the beginning. Unless large numbers of healthy people willingly sign up during their working years, soaring premiums driven by the needs of disabled beneficiaries would destabilize it, eventually requiring a taxpayer bailout.
* SO IN OTHER WORDS, THE PROGRAM - AS DESIGNED BY THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION - WAS DESIGNED TO FAIL. GREAT! JUST SUPER!
The law required the administration to certify that CLASS would remain financially solvent for 75 years before it could be put into place. But officials said they discovered they could not make CLASS both affordable and financially solvent while keeping it a voluntary program open to virtually all workers, as the law also required.
After months insisting that problems could be resolved, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, finally admitted Friday she doesn't see how that can be done. "Despite our best analytical efforts, I do not see a viable path forward for CLASS implementation at this time," Sebelius said in a letter to congressional leaders.
* AND SOME PEOPLE WONDER WHY I FEEL THE NEED TO GO ON DRINKING VACATIONS...?!?!
"If healthy purchasers are not attracted ... then premiums will increase, which will make it even more unattractive to purchasers who could also obtain policies in the private market," Kathy Greenlee, the lead official on CLASS, said in a memo to Sebelius. That "would cause the program to quickly collapse."
* OH...! BUT READ ON, KIDDIES... READ ON...
That's essentially the same conclusion that one the government's top experts reached in 2009.
* SEE WHAT I MEAN ABOUT DELIBERATELY PUSHING FOR A PROGRAM THEY KNEW WOULD EVENTUALLY GO BUST AND REQUIRE A BAILOUT...?!?!
Nearly a year before the health care law passed, Richard Foster, head of long-range economic forecasts for Medicare warned administration and congressional officials that CLASS would be unworkable. His warnings were disregarded, as Obama declared his support for adding the long-term care plan to his health care bill.
* FOLKS... IF THIS ISN'T QUITE "CRIMINAL" BEHAVIOR IN A TECHNICAL SENSE, SURELY IT'S PROOF OF DELIBERATE BREACH OF FIDUCIARY RESPONSIBILITY ON THE PART OF PRESIDENT OBAMA, NANCY PELOSI, AND HARRY REID.
* OH... BUT THERE'S MORE! (READ ON...)
"The CLASS Act was a budget gimmick that might enhance the numbers on a Washington bureaucrat's spreadsheet but was destined to fail in the real world," said Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky.
* OH... AND GET THIS! (READ ON...)
[Thanks to the way Obama administration officials and congressional Democratic leaders wrote ObamaCare], the program still counts as reducing the federal deficit by about $80 billion over the next ten years. That's because of a rule that would have required workers to pay in for at least five years before they could collect any benefits.
(*JUST THROWING MY HANDS UP IN THE AIR*)
http://campaign2012.washingtonexaminer.com/blogs/beltway-confidential/tester-takes-iran-linked-company-cash
Yesterday, at a Senate Banking Committee hearing, Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont., attacked U.S. companies that do business with Iran...
* WAIT FOR IT... WAIT FOR IT...
...despite the fact that Tester has taken money from companies that also did business with Iran.
(*HEADACHE*)
Tester took $2000 from General Electric and $8000 from Honeywell this year. Both companies have had well established business relationships with Iran.
* ISN'T IT SIMPLY MIND-BOGGLING HOW SOMEONE THIS STUPID CAN RISE TO BECOME A UNITED STATES SENATOR?
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/10/14/earlyshow/main20120395.shtml
There's a new twist in the government's "gunwalking" scandal involving an even more dangerous weapon: grenades.
* GRENADES...?!?!
CBS News investigative correspondent Sharyl Attkisson...said on "The Early Show" that the investigation into the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF)'s so-called "Fast and Furious" operation branches out to a case involving grenades.
Sources tell her a suspect was left to traffic and manufacture them for Mexican drug cartels.
* I'D LIKE TO STICK A GRENADES UP ERIC HOLDER'S...
(*BITING MY TONGUE*)
Police say Jean Baptiste Kingery, a U.S. citizen, was a veritable grenade machine. He's accused of smuggling parts for as many as 2,000 grenades into Mexico for killer drug cartels - sometimes under the direct watch of U.S. law enforcement.
(*BANGING MY HEAD AGAINST THE DESK*)
Law enforcement sources say Kingery could have been prosecuted in the U.S. twice for violating export control laws, but that, each time, prosecutors in Arizona refused to make a case.
* FOLKS... IN ALL SERIOUSNESS... THESE "PROSECUTORS" NEED TO BE PROSECUTED!
Grenades are weapons-of-choice for the cartels. An attack on Aug. 25 in a Monterrey, Mexico casino killed 53 people.
* PEOPLE... DO YOU UNDERSTAND WHAT IT IS YOU'RE READING HERE? DO YOU UNDERSTAND THAT EVEN IF YOU PUT THE WHOLE ISSUE OF PERJURY - LYING TO CONGRESS... OBSTRUCTING JUSTICE - ASIDE, YOU'RE STILL LEFT WITH A HOLDER JUSTICE DEPARTMENT BASICALLY FACILITATING NOT JUST CRIMINAL ENTERPRISE, BUT MURDER...?!?!
Sources tell CBS News that, in January 2010, ATF had Kingery under surveillance after he bought about 50 grenade bodies and headed to Mexico. But they say prosecutors wouldn't agree to make a case. So, as ATF agents looked on, Kingery and the grenade parts crossed the border - and simply disappeared.
* ERIC HOLDER REALLY SHOULD CONSIDER SUICIDE. (YES... I'M 100% SERIOUS.)
Six months later, Kingery...got caught leaving the U.S. for Mexico with 114 disassembled grenades in a tire. One ATF agent told investigators he literally begged prosecutors to keep Kingery in custody this time, fearing he was supplying narco-terrorists, but was again ordered to let Kingery go.
(*BITING MY LIP TILL I DRAW BLOOD*)
The prosecutors - already the target of controversy for overseeing "Fast and Furious," wouldn't comment on the grenades case.
* HAUL 'EM BEFORE A CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEE AND FORCE THEM TO COMMENT! UNDER OATH! MY GOD... THIS IS INSANE...!!!
U.S. Attorney Dennis Burke recently resigned and his assistant, Emory Hurley, has been transferred. Sources say Hurley is the one who let Kingery go, saying grenade parts are "novelty items" and the case "lacked jury appeal."
(*BLOOD PRESSURE NOW 190/130*)
Attkisson added on "The Early Show" that, in August, Mexican authorities raided Kingery's stash house and factory, finding materials for 1,000 grenades. He was charged with trafficking and allegedly admitted not only to making grenades, but also to teaching cartels how to make them, as well as helping cartel members convert semi-automatic rifles to fully-automatic.
As one source put it: There's no telling how much damage Kingery did in the year-and-a-half since he was first let go.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2011/10/13/obama_spoke_about_fast__furious_before_holder_claimed_he_knew.html
* IF ERIC HOLDER DOESN'T END UP IN JAIL...
(*SHRUG*)
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2011/10/obama-sends-100-us-troops-to-uganda-to-combat-lords-resistance-army/
Two days ago President Obama authorized the deployment to Uganda of approximately 100 combat-equipped U.S. forces to help regional forces “remove from the battlefield” – meaning capture or kill – Lord’s Resistance Army leader Joseph Kony and senior leaders of the LRA.
* ANOTHER UNCONSTITUTIONAL ABUSE OF POWER BY OBAMA.
The president made this announcement in a letter to House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, Friday afternoon, saying that “deploying these U.S. Armed Forces furthers U.S. national security interests...
* YET ANOTHER LIE.
The forces will deploy beginning with a small group and grow over the next month to 100. They will ultimately go to Uganda, South Sudan, the Central African Republic, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, with the permission of those countries.
* AND CONGRESS SITS SILENTLY... AS DO THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. DISGUSTING.
As for how long the US troops will be in the region, a spokesman at US Africa Command says he could not provide specifics, “but our forces are prepared to stay as long as necessary to enable regional security forces to carry on independently.
* SOUND FAMILIAR...? (*SIGH*)
The president in his letter noted that Congress passed “the Lord’s Resistance Army Disarmament and Northern Uganda Recovery Act,” signed into law on May 24, 2010, in which, the president said, “the Congress also expressed support for increased, comprehensive U.S. efforts to help mitigate and eliminate the threat posed by the LRA to civilians and regional stability.”
* ON MAY 24, 2010 BOTH HOUSES OF CONGRESS WERE CONTROLLED BY THE DEMOCRATS.
The act passed both houses of Congress with overwhelming support on May 10, 2010 with language that included “providing political, economic, military, and intelligence support for viable multilateral efforts to protect civilians from the Lord’s Resistance Army.”
* THOSE MINORITY REPUBLICANS WHO DID VOTE FOR THIS BILL DESERVE OUR CONTEMPT... BUT AGAIN... IN MAY OF 2010 NANCY PELOSI WAS SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE AND HARRY REID WAS MAJORITY LEADER OF THE SENATE.
http://dailycaller.com/2011/10/14/114-year-old-electric-car-gets-same-40-miles-to-the-charge-as-chevy-volt/
Meet the Roberts electric car. Built in 1896, it gets a solid 40 miles to the charge - exactly the mileage Chevrolet advertises for the Volt - the much-touted $31,645 electric car General Motors CEO Dan Akerson called “not a step forward, but a leap forward.”
* CUTE, HUH? FUNNY! ONLY... NOT SO FUNNY THAT TAXPAYERS ARE SUBSIDIZING THIS LEVEL OF INCOMPETENCE AND WASTE.
[D]on’t let the car’s 115 years let you think it isn’t tough: It’s present-day owner, who prefers not to be named, told The Daily Caller it still runs like a charm, and has even completed the roughly 60-mile London to Brighton Vintage Car Race.
If you didn’t know there are electric cars as old as the Roberts, you aren’t alone. Prior to today’s battle of electric v. gas, there was another battle: Electric v. gas v. steam. This contest was fought in the market place, and history shows gas gave electric and steam an even more thorough whooping than Coca-Cola gave Moxie.
But while the Roberts electric car clearly lacked GPS, power steering and, yes, air bags, the distance it could achieve on a charge, when compared with its modern equivalent, provides a telling example of the slow pace of the electric car. Driven by a tiller instead of a wheel, the Roberts car was built seven years before the Wright brothers’ first flight, 12 years before the Ford Model T, 16 years before Chevrolet was founded and 114 years before the first Chevy Volt was delivered to a customer.
http://www.politico.com/blogs/joshgerstein/1011/Obama_administration_appeals_ruling_on_White_House_visitor_logs.html
The Obama administration is appealing a judge's ruling that Secret Service records of visitors to the White House complex are subject to disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act.
* DAMN "FREEDOM..." (*SMIRK*)
The Justice Department filed a formal notice of appeal Friday afternoon regarding U.S. District Court Judge Beryl Howell's August ruling rejecting arguments that the so-called WAVES records belong to the White House even though they are maintained and used by the Secret Service.
* THE MOST TRANSPARENT ADMINISTRATION IN HISTORY... (*SNICKER*)
The decision to appeal the ruling to the D.C. Circuit would appear to be in tension with Obama's repeated pledges to operate the most transparent administration in history.
* GOTTA LUV THE LIB MEDIA! WOULD "APPEAR TO," HUH? (*SNORT*)
The position taken by the Obama Justice Department, namely that White House visitor records are presidential records and not agency records, is essentially the same one that the department took under President George W. Bush.
* BUSHBAMA...??? O'BUSH...???
* SERIOUSLY, FOLKS... IT'S NOT REALLY FUNNY. OBAMA IS A SERIAL LIAR AND A FRAUD. (AND HE'S PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES...)
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/afghanistan/la-fg-pentagon-drone-20111014,0,5628010.story
A Marine and a Navy medic killed by a U.S. drone airstrike were targeted when Marine commanders in Afghanistan mistook them for Taliban fighters, even though analysts watching the Predator's video feed were uncertain whether the men were part of an enemy force.
* WELL... AS LONG AS IT'S NO ONE THAT ANY OF YOU READING THIS KNOW AND LOVE... FUCK 'EM, RIGHT?
(*SIGH*)
* AND, YEAH... THAT'S BASICALLY WHAT I BELIEVE MOST OF YOU THINK DEEP DOWN. IF MY ILL-OPINION BOTHERS YOU... DO SOMETHING TO CHANGE IT.
Marine Staff Sgt. Jeremy Smith, 26, and Navy Hospitalman Benjamin D. Rast, 23.
* DEAD.
Marine officers on the scene and the Air Force crew controlling the drone from half a world away were unaware that analysts watching the firefight unfold via live video at a third location had doubts about the targets' identity.
* OH, WELL... AS LONG AS THEY WERE "UNAWARE" WE'LL JUST FILE THE REPORT UNDER "SHIT HAPPENS."
The incident closely resembles another deadly mistake involving a Predator in early 2009. In that attack, at least 15 Afghan civilians were killed after a Predator crew mistook them for a group of Taliban preparing to attack a U.S. special forces unit.
* WHAT THE FUCK ARE WE STILL DOING IN AFGHANISTAN?! SHEDDING BLOOD AND TREASURE ON A NO-WIN SITUATION, THAT'S WHAT!
* ONE... MORE... TIME: EVERY AMERICAN DEATH OR INJURY IN AFGHANISTAN OR IRAQ IS A WASTE OF AN AMERICAN LIFE OR AMERICAN BLOOD. WHAT'S GOING ON IS NOT WAR TO DEFEND AMERICA OR EVEN VITAL AMERICAN INTERESTS. WHAT'S GOING ON IS NATION BUILDING AND WE'RE FAILING AT THAT.
http://www.cnbc.com/id/44902075
The U.S. plans on being an active partner as efforts intensify to get Europe get back on its feet financially, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner told CNBC Friday.
* IN OTHER WORDS... MORE BAILOUTS.
With global leaders preparing for next month's Group of 20 nations (G20) summit in Cannes, France, the International Monetary Fund - of which the U.S. is the greatest contributor - is being relied on to help underwrite whatever efforts are needed to backstop toxic European sovereign debt.
* MORE BAILOUTS...
Geithner said the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has "very substantial" resources to fund a device that could look like the Troubled Asset Relief Program...
* ANOTHER TARP BAILOUT...
* BANKERS, KLEPTOCRATS, OLIGARCHS, AND CRONY-CAPITALISTS OF THE WORLD UNITE...!!!
* FOLKS... SERIOUSLY... THE ONLY WAY TO STOP THESE SCUM FROM RAPING THE AMERICAN TAXPAYER ONCE AGAIN IS TO - LITERALLY - PUT BULLETS IN THEIR HEADS. NOTHING ELSE CAN STOP THEM. THEY HAVE THE POWER AND THEY'LL CONTINUE TO ABUSE IT - AND US - AS LONG AS THEY'RE ALIVE AND IN A POSITION TO DO SO.
"Through the IMF, of course, we're already playing a very major role," he said in a live interview in Paris. "We're happy to see the IMF continue to play that role in support of a more forceful, comprehensive strategy where Europe's own resources - very ample resources - are deployed on a much more substantial scale."
(*MIGRAIN HEADACHE*)
* OH...! AND GET THIS...! (READ ON...)
The comments give a lift to U.S. stocks...
* FOLKS. THE INMATES ARE RUNNING THE ASYLUM. WHEN A NATION (THE U.S.) WHICH ALREADY BORROWS 43-CENTS OF EVERY DOLLAR SPENT ON BASIC OPERATING EXPENSES (WITH NO END IN SIGHT) ANNOUNCES A NEW ROUND OF BAILOUTS - BAILING OUT FOREIGNERS - THIS IS TREATED BY WALL STREET AS "GOOD NEWS."
* AGAIN, FOLK... OTHER THAN BY VIOLENCE... WE'RE NOT GONNA TAKE THESE PEOPLE DOWN. THE REPUBLICAN PARTY IS JUST AS RIDDLED WITH THESE SCUM AS IS THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY AND THIS IS A TWO-PARTY SYSTEM.
Geithner declined to give a specific number on what would be required to aid Greece and any other potential countries that need help meeting their obligations. Estimates have run as high as $2 trillion for a liquidity fund, and Geithner said that whatever the figure is, it should leave no doubt that there will be more than enough.
(*JUST WEEPING FOR MY COUNTRY*)
https://www.facebook.com/sarahpalin?sk=info
* NOTICE THAT "POLITICAL VIEWS" NO LONGER READS "REPUBLICAN" BUT INSTEAD LISTS PALIN VIEWS SIMPLY AS "CONSERVATIVE."
* GOD BLESS SARAH PALIN!
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/10/15/us-italy-demonstrations-violence-idUSTRE79E1ZR20111015
Hundreds of hooded, masked protesters rampaged through Rome in some of the worst violence in the Italian capital for years Saturday, torching cars and breaking windows during a larger peaceful protest against elites blamed for economic downturn.
* BUY GUNS, PEOPLE. LEARN HOW TO SHOOT. LEARN HOW TO CARE FOR AN MAINTAIN YOUR WEAPONS AND AMMO. THIS AIN'T ITALY OR GREECE... BUT THEN AGAIN... AMERICA IN THE AGE OF OBAMA AIN'T THE AMERICA WE GREW UP IN EITHER.
Police repeatedly fired tear gas and water cannon in attempts to disperse them but the clashes with a minority of violent demonstrators stretched into the evening, hours after tens of thousands of people in Rome joined a global "day of rage" against bankers and politicians.
* TENS OF THOUSANDS... (*SIGH*)
Smoke rose over many parts of the neighborhood between the Colosseum and St John's Basilica, forcing many residents and peaceful demonstrators to run into buildings and churches for shelter as militant protesters ran wild.
(*PURSED LIPS*)
After police managed to push the well-organized radicals away from the St John's area, they ravaged a major thoroughfare, the Via Merulana - building barricades with garbage cans and setting the netting of the scaffolding of a building on fire. The violence at times resembled urban guerrilla warfare as protesters hurled rocks, bottles and fireworks at police, who responded by repeatedly charging the demonstrators.
At one point radicals surrounded a police van near St John's Basilica, pelted it with rock and bottles, and set it on fire. The two occupants managed to escape, television footage showed.
(*JUST SHAKING MY HEAD*)
http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/052226f8-f80c-11e0-a419-00144feab49a.html#axzz1azkvvpiE
Barack Obama, U.S. president, offered more support for protesters against the global financial system after a weekend of demonstrations in cities around the world...
(*SIGH*) FOLKS... OBAMA - LIKE ANY GOOD FASCIST - IS SIMPLY PLAYING BOTH ENDS AGAINST THE MIDDLE. HE WANTS A "PRIVATE SECTOR" UNDER GOVERNMENT CONTROL. (*SHRUG*) THAT'S WHAT FASCISM IS IN TERMS OF AN ECONOMIC MODEL - NO SWASTIKAS, GESTAPO, OR CONCENTRATION CAMPS REQUIRED. SOFT TOTALITARIANISM UNDER A PATERNALISTIC REGULATORY STATE IS STILL THE OPPOSITE OF FREEDOM - THE OPPOSITE OF INDIVIDUAL FREEDOMS.
* WHILE OBAMA DEMONIZES "WALL STREET" AND "THE BANKERS" HE SOLICITED CAMPAIGN DONATIONS AND IN RETURN DELIVERS BAILOUTS TO THESE SAME "FAT CATS." IN MANY WAYS BARAK HUSSEIN OBAMA IS THE ULTIMATE ROBBER BARON.
* FOLKS... BOTTOM LINE... OBAMA VOTED FOR THE BUSH BAILOUTS AS A U.S. SENATOR AND THEN AS PRESIDENT PRESIDED OVER MORE BAILOUTS. THAT'S THE SIMPLE TRUTH OF THE MATTER.
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