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2011
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November
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- Justin Bieber MUST STOP SINGING...!!!
- Barker's Newsbites: Wednesday, November 30, 2011
- Barker's Newsbites: Tuesday, November 29, 2011
- Barker's Newsbites: Monday, November 28, 2011
- Ho! Ho! Ho! Merry Thanksgiving 2011...!!!
- Barker's Newsbites: Wednesday, November 23, 2011
- Barker's Newsbites: Tuesday, November 22, 2011
- Nan Hayworth (R-NY-19) Can Drive Me Nuts...
- Barker's Newsbites: Monday, November 21, 2011
- Weekend Newsbites: Sat. & Sun., Nov. 19 & 20, 2011
- Barker's Newsbites: Friday, November 18, 2011
- Will Congresswoman Nan Hayworth (R-NY-19) Go Along?
- Barker's Newsbites: Thursday, November 17, 2011
- Barker's Newsbites: Wednesday, November 16, 2011
- Why I Don't Trust Congresswoman Nan Hayworth (R-NY)
- Barker's Newsbites: Tuesday, November 15, 2011
- Carl David VanDemark, Esq. v. Barker
- Barker's Newsbites: Monday, November 14, 2011
- Weekend Newsbites: Sat. & Sun., Nov. 12 & 13, 2011
- Barker's Newsbites: Friday, November 11, 2011
- Barker's Newsbites: Thursday, November 10, 2011
- I Hate Mitt Romney
- Barker's Newsbites: Wednesday, November 9, 2011
- Barker's Newsbites: Tuesday, November 8, 2011
- Barker's Newsbites: Monday, November 7, 2011
- Saturday Night's Cain-Gingrich Debate
- Weekend Newsbites: Sat. & Sun., Nov. 5 & 6, 2011
- Barker's Newsbites: Friday, November 4, 2011
- Barker's Newsbites: Thursday, November 3, 2011
- Barker's Newsbites: Wednesday, November 2, 2011
- Barker's Newsbites: Tuesday, November 1, 2011
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November
(31)
About Me
- William R. Barker
- Pearl River, NY High School Class of '81; Northeastern University, Boston, MA Class of '87.
7 comments:
http://blog.heritage.org/2011/11/03/morning-bell-debunking-obamas-latest-jobs-myth/?utm_source=Newsletter&utm_medium=Email&utm_source=Newsletter&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=Morning%2BBell
Imagine a high-speed train zooming down hundreds of miles of glistening train track stretching across sunny California, connecting Anaheim to San Francisco.
It’s a bullet train dream, and it’s a prime example of President Barack Obama’s latest plan to create jobs in America.
The trouble is that this dream is far from reality. The Los Angeles Times reported this week that the California high-speed train - which is funded in part by $3 billion in federal grants from President Obama’s stimulus - is now expected to cost $98 billion, twice what was expected, and will take an additional 13 years to complete, extending the project to 2033.
Questions remain about where the funding will come from, whether the project is viable, and whether the projected ridership will even materialize.
[P]rojects like these are central to President Obama’s plan to put Americans back to work.
http://blog.heritage.org/2011/11/02/morning-bell-obamas-student-loan-gift-to-occupy-wall-street/?utm_source=Newsletter&utm_medium=Email&utm_source=Newsletter&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=Morning%2BBell
Last week President Obama came "bearing gifts" in a speech at the University of Colorado in Denver - "relief" from student loan debt, delivered by way of an executive order without congressional authorization.
Under the President’s plan, money lenders cannot require students to pay more than 10% of discretionary annual income for student loans.
It also completely forgives student loans in 20 years, five years fewer than before.
* AND SINCE THE "LOANS" ARE IMPLICITLY GUARANTEED BY THE U.S. GOVERNMENT THIS MEANS THAT THEY'LL BE MADE REGARDLESS OF REPAYMENT PROSPECTS AND WHEN DEFAULTED UPON... THE TAXPAYER WILL PICK UP THE TAB.
But here’s the fine print, a key fact that the President failed to mention in his speech: For all its pomp and circumstance, the President’s plan would save college students less than $10 per month...
* SO... SCREW FUTURE TAXPAYERS (WHO CAN NEITHER VOTE FOR NOR AGAINST YOU) WHILE EXPANDING THE SIZE AND SCOPE OF GOVERNMENT... INCREASE THE DEFICIT... INCREASE DEBT... AND BY THE WAY... FAIL TO MEANINGFULLY "HELP" EVEN THE COLLEGE GRADUATES YOU CLAIM TO BE HELPING. AIN'T THE AGE OF OBAMA WONDERFUL?!
House Education Committee chairman John Kline (R-MN) criticized the President’s plan [pointing out] it’s not something America can afford: "This administration has been bypassing Congress on issue after issue after issue - they’ve sort of famously issued hundreds of rule changes and executive orders to bypass Congress, so I think that’s a mistake… We simply can’t keep providing money from the federal government in the form of subsidized or actual loans and Pell Grants when we don’t have the money."
* ONE MORE TIME, FOLKS... THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT BORROWS 43-CENTS OF EVERY DOLLAR IT SPENDS. THE DEBTS INCURRED ARE DEBTS TO US... OUR CHILDREN... OUR GRANDCHILDREN...
Apart from the cost and the President’s continued penchant for circumventing Congress, Heritage education expert Lindsey Burke says that the expanded student loan forgiveness is bad policy.
Burke writes that the plan “shifts the burden of paying for college from the student - the person directly benefiting from college - to the nearly three-quarters of Americans who did not graduate from college.” In addition...it does nothing to make college more affordable in the long run–in fact, it serves to make college more expensive.
When it comes down to it, a major reason for tuition inflation over the years is government involvement in the first place.
Pell grants have increased 475%, while the cost of college has increased 439% since 1982 - faster than increases in the cost of health care - after adjusting for inflation. Federal subsidies insulate colleges from being remotely worried about spending money wisely or cutting costs.
* DUH! (ONLY... IT'S NOT "DUH" TO THE AVERAGE HALF-WITTED AMERICAN. GOD HELP US!)
If the President were truly interested in making college more affordable, Burke recommends that he consider limiting the number of years a student is eligible for federal subsidies, tying aid to merit, and encouraging states to put more course content online.
[I]nstead of building an America in which future generations will be free to learn, grow, invent, and lead, the President is resorting to policies that curry their short-term political favor but will lead to long-term malaise.
http://ricks.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2011/11/02/actually_failure_is_an_option
* BY TOM RICKS - NOT EXACTLY A COMMIE-PINKO... (*CHUCKLE*)
If there is one phrase I could expunge from the U.S. military vocabulary, it would be that "Failure is not an option."
Of course it is! And refusing to think about it seriously actually makes a bad outcome more likely.
Yesterday morning one of my...colleagues, Shannon O' Reilly, was wondering aloud why the Pentagon didn't plan more for the option of the United States being kicked out of Iraq.
The excuse being given, apparently, is that there was worry that such planning would leak.
I think that is just too damn convenient an alibi. I actually think that the bureaucracy dislikes planning for anything less than victory. No one likes planning retreats. The Army especially emphasizes optimism even when it isn't called for.
The problem with this is that, as David Kilcullen has pointed out repeatedly over the years, the host government you establish in places like Afghanistan and Iraq must at some point stand on its own two feet and demonstrate its independence.
Inevitably, it will have to distance itself from the U.S. government.
Basically, we should have expected to be kicked out at some point. In fact, had we done so, it might have been spun as a sign of success. But that would require some unconventional thinking, some serious consideration of the American relationship with host nation governments - and some long-term planning for that day of expulsion.
http://detroit.cbslocal.com/2011/11/04/d-dot-drivers-refuse-to-run-routes-bus-riders-stranded/
People who catch the bus in Detroit may be waiting a while Friday morning. About 100 Detroit Department of Transportation bus drivers are at work, but are refusing to drive their buses.
* I HOPE TO HELL THEY'RE NOT GETTING PAID!
WWJ’s Scott Ryan spoke with Henry Gaffney, spokesman for the D-DOT bus drivers union AFL-CIO Local 26, who said this was not an organized maneuver by the union. Gaffney said it’s a matter of bus drivers fearing for their safety, citing an incident that happened Thursday afternoon. “Our drivers are scared, they’re scared for their lives. This has been an ongoing situation about security. I think yesterday kind of just topped it off, when one of my drivers was beat up by some teenagers down in the middle of Rosa Parks and it took the police almost 30 minutes to get there, in downtown Detroit,” said Gaffney.
* DON'T GET ME WRONG. I SYMPATHIZE WITH THE DRIVERS! THEY'RE HEROES FOR TAKING THIS ACTION... BUT AS WITH CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE... BEING WILLING TO PAY THE PRICE IS WHAT SEPARATES BRAVERY, INTEGRITY, AND SELF-SACRIFICE FROM JUST PLAIN ILLEGALITY.
Speaking live on WWJ, Mayor Dave Bing spokesman...said they are working hard to resolve the matter and get drivers back on the road. “We’re working diligently with the union and encouraging the drivers to get back on the buses and get on the street.”
* HE'S PUTTING THE CART BEFORE THE HORSE! THE PROBLEM ISN'T CAUSED BY THE DRIVERS... THE PROBLEM IS THAT THE MAYOR CAN'T CONTROL CRIME!
Gaffney said bus safety is an ongoing problem.
* OF COURSE IT IS! THIS IS DETROIT, ONE OF THE "CROWN JEWEL" CITIES OF LONG-TIME DEMOCRATIC CONTROL!
“If it’s to the point where if the driver is not safe on the bus, then the passengers are not safe, then the citizens are not safe. You know, what about them too? We have no security, you can’t get the police, nobody is doing anything to protect us. And I’ve been begging the mayor and the council for two years to do something to help us,” said Gaffney.
* FOLKS... UNDERSTAND... THE AMERICAN DECLINE I CONSTANTLY RAIL AGAINST IS REAL... VERY, VERY REAL.
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Unable-to-pay-bill-Mich-city-apf-2920161472.html?x=0
HIGHLAND PARK, Mich. (AP) -- As the sun dips below the rooftops each evening, parts of this Detroit enclave turn to pitch black, the only illumination coming from a few streetlights at the end of the block or from glowing yellow yard globes.
It wasn't always this way. But when the debt-ridden community could no longer afford its monthly electric bill, elected officials not only turned off 1,000 streetlights. They had them ripped out - bulbs, poles and all. Now nightfall cloaks most neighborhoods in inky darkness.
The city is $58 million in debt and has many more people than jobs, plus dozens of burned-out or vacant houses and buildings. With fewer than 12,000 residents, its population has dwindled to half the level from 20 years ago.
* FOLKS... UNDERSTAND... EVENTUALLY THE PIPER MUST BE PAID AND THIS IS WHAT IS HAPPENING IN MICHIGAN AND ELSEWHERE THROUGHOUT THE COUNTRY.
The city's monthly electric bill has been cut by 80%. The amount owed DTE Energy - $4 million - goes back about a decade, but utility executives hesitated to turn off the juice.
* A HECK OF A WAY TO CUT ELECTRICITY BILLS, BUT, IF YOU'RE NOT WILLING TO CUT ELSEWHERE...
* HEY... GIVE HIGHLAND PARK SOME CREDIT - THEIR CHOICES CONCERNING WHERE TO CUT MAY BE DUMB, BUT AT LEAST THEY'RE CUTTING!
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/11/03/us-detroit-financial-manager-idUSTRE7A26XK20111103
* AND SPEAKING OF MICHIGAN...
Detroit is in "extremely serious financial condition," as it is projected to run out of cash next year and must take action to avoid a state takeover, Mayor Dave Bing said on Thursday.
(*SARCASTIC CLAP-CLAP-CLAP*)
Michigan's largest city is facing a projected cash shortage of about $150 million by the end of March, a statement from his office said.
Detroit's shaky finances are a major concern in the municipal bond market. Its debt rating has fallen into the junk category, stung by the city's high debt levels, falling population, and dim economic prospects.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203716204577015702644712634.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEFTTopOpinion
Widening shortages of some essential injected drugs for chemotherapy and other treatments are leaving vulnerable patients without the medicines they need.
So far, Washington's response will only reinforce the problem.
The problems have affected mostly older sterile, injected (parenteral) drugs that are generic and typically sold at low prices for slim profit margins. The shortages have caused patients to miss or delay chemotherapy or to get inferior antibiotics, anesthetics and intravenous nutrition.
(More than 200 drugs are on the current shortage list kept by the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists.)
President Obama blames the shortages on the paucity of manufacturers for these products.
* AS USUAL, HE'S WRONG.
A dwindling number of competent manufacturers aren't the cause of the problem; they're its symptom. Branded drugs have only a single manufacturer, and they aren't facing the same problems.
(*SMIRK*)
On Oct. 31, President Obama signed an executive order that, most notably, requires firms to give advance notice when they believe a drug may soon become scarce.
* AND GUESS WHAT, FOLKS... (READ ON...)
[A]ll this will do is institutionalize shortages by tipping off hospitals and market middlemen to buy up remaining supplies.
* ECONOMICS 101. (I GUESS THEY JUST DON'T TEACH THIS STUFF IN "COMMUNITY ACTIVIST SCHOOL" OR EVEN LAW SCHOOL.)
* ANYWAY, FOLKS... I ADVISE YOU TO READ THE FULL OP-ED BY DR. GOTTLIEB FOR YOURSELVES. (BUT I'LL GIVE YOU THE BOTTOM LINE NOW...)
Allowing generic injectables to be priced competitively would allow manufacturers to recoup the costs of production and bring shortages to an end.
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