Friday, December 16, 2011
Barker's Newsbites: Friday, December 16, 2011
Folks... I apologize in advance.
I've been searching YouTube for the past hour searching for the perfect rendition of "Angels We Have Heard on High" - and apparently there is none.
The closest I could come up with is this guy...
(*SHRUG*)
Hey... he's not me... but I guess he's ok.
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http://www.vanityfair.com/online/daily/2011/12/In-Memoriam-Christopher-Hitchens-19492011
Christopher Hitchens - the incomparable critic, masterful rhetorician, fiery wit, and fearless bon vivant - died today at the age of 62.
* R.I.P.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/marines-promoted-inflated-story-for-medal-of-honor-winner/2011/12/14/gIQAlhYwuO_print.html
With Dakota Meyer standing at attention in his dress uniform, sweat glistening on his forehead under the television lights, President Barack Obama extolled the former Marine corporal for the “extraordinary actions” that had earned him the Medal of Honor, the nation’s highest award for valor.
Obama told the audience in the White House East Room on Sept. 15 that Meyer had driven into the heart of a savage ambush in eastern Afghanistan against orders. He’d killed insurgents at near-point-blank range, twice leapt from his gun turret to rescue two dozen Afghan soldiers and saved the lives of 13 U.S. service members as he fought to recover the bodies of four comrades, the president said.
But there’s a problem with this account: Crucial parts that the Marine Corps publicized and Obama described are untrue, unsubstantiated or exaggerated, according to dozens of military documents McClatchy Newspapers examined.
(*SIGH*)
* YOU KNOW WHAT, FOLKS? I'M JUST GONNA LET YOU USE THE LINK TO READ THE FULL STORY FOR YOURSELVES. IT'S JUST TOO DISHEARTENING TO HAVE TO "BARKERIZE" IT.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/dec/16/congress-overturns-incandescent-light-bulb-ban/
* FILE UNDER: I WISH THESE INCOMPETENT BASTARDS WOULD ALL DIE! (MERRY FRIGG'N CHRISTMAS!)
Congressional negotiators struck a deal Thursday that overturns the new rules that were to have banned sales of traditional incandescent light bulbs beginning next year.
That agreement is tucked inside the massive 1,200-page spending bill that funds the government through the rest of this fiscal year, and which both houses of Congress will vote on Friday.
Congressional Republicans dropped almost all of the policy restrictions they tried to attach to the bill, but won inclusion of the light bulb provision...
(*FANTASIZING ABOUT GOING POSTAL ON CAPITAL HILL*)
At $915 billion in discretionary spending, the bill amounts to $750.6 million per page...
(*SARCASTIC CLAP-CLAP-CLAP*)
* BUT, HEY... REPUBLICANS HAVE "SAVED" THE INCANDESCENT LIGHT BULB!
(*SMIRK*) (*GNASHING MY TEETH*)
http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=48181
* BY PATRICK J. BUCHANAN
For the Army and Marines who lost 4,500 dead and more than 30,000 wounded, many of them amputees, the second-longest war in U.S. history is over. America is coming home from Iraq.
* NOT SO FAST, HOSS... (READ ON!)
[N]ot all the Americans are really coming home. Some 16,000 will remain in the huge fortress that houses the U.S. embassy and in fortified consulates in Basra, Irbil and Kirkuk.
(*SIGH*)
Two-thirds of all Americans have concluded the war was not worth it.
* COUNT ME PART OF THAT TWO-THIRDS.
In each diplomatic post, the State Department employees will be outnumbered by private security contractors, 5,000 of whom will provide for their protection and secure travel.
(*SNORT*)
* SERIOUSLY, FOLKS... TELL ME THIS DOESN'T SOUND LIKE SOME SCI-FI SCENARIO FROM A 1970's OR 1980's MOVIE.
(*JUST SHAKING MY HEAD*)
U.S. Ambassador James Jeffrey warns of the dangers that await U.S. diplomats who venture outside the compounds: "If we move out into the Iraqi economy, out into the Iraqi society in any significant way, it will be much harder to protect our people."
NBC reported this week that two five-vehicle convoys loaded with Blackwater security types were necessary to escort two U.S. teachers to a meeting in a Bagdad hotel.
* FOLKS... YA JUST CAN'T MAKE THIS SHIT UP!
What kind of victory did we win if, eight years after we ousted Saddam Hussein and helped install a democratic government, Americans in Iraq should fear for their lives?
* GOOD FRIGG'N QUESTION, HUH?!
Why was no parade held, so Iraqis could cheer departing Americans for having liberated them from the tyranny of Saddam?
Did we win the "hearts and minds" of the Iraqi people when they are burning American flags in Fallujah to celebrate our departure?
What did we accomplish if hatred of America is so widespread our diplomats live in constant peril?
(*PURSED LIPS*) (*GRITTING MY TEETH*)
* I'LL LEAVE THE REST OF BUCHANAN'S COLUMN FOR YOU TO READ YOURSELVES... IF YOU CAN STOMACH THE TRUTH.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-12-16/sec-sues-former-freddie-mac-chief-executive-richard-syron-in-new-york.html
Daniel Mudd, the former chief executive officer of Fannie Mae, and Richard Syron, ex-CEO of Freddie Mac, were sued by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission for understating by hundreds of billions of dollars the subprime loans held by the agencies.
(*SNORT*)
* BETTER LATE THAN NEVER, I SUPPOSE, BUT IF WHAT THEY DID MERITS A LAWSUIT BY THE SEC... (*PAUSE*)... WHY DOESN'T IT MERIT CRIMINAL CHARGES?
The lawsuits filed today in Manhattan federal court were followed by an SEC statement that it had entered into non-prosecution agreements with each lender.
(*JUST SHAKING MY HEAD*)
* FOLKS... YOU'VE HEARD OF KUBUKI THEATRE, RIGHT...
(*SNORT*)
From 2007 to 2008, Freddie Mac executives said the company’s exposure was between $2 billion and $6 billion when it was actually as high as $244 billion, according to one SEC complaint. From 2006 to 2008, Washington-based Fannie Mae executives said the firm’s exposure to subprime mortgage and reduced documentation loans was about $4.8 billion when it was nearly 10 times greater, according to the regulator.
* AND SUCH ACTIONS DON'T QUALIFY AS CRIMES... AS FRAUD?
(*JUST SHAKING MY HEAD*)
“Under the agreement, without admitting or denying liability, Fannie Mae has offered to accept responsibility for its conduct and to not dispute, contest or contradict a set of factual statements regarding the disclosures,” Fannie Mae said today in a securities filing.
* TELL ME WITH A STRAIGHT FACE THAT REFORMING *THIS* SYSTEM WON'T REQUIRE VIGILANTE JUSTICE!
Also named as defendants are Patricia Cook, Freddie Mac’s former executive vice president; Donald Bisenius, ex-senior vice president at Freddie Mac; Enrico Dallavecchia, who was chief risk officer for Fannie Mae; and Thomas Lund, Fannie’s Mae’s former executive vice president.
* ANYONE CURIOUS AS TO THE POLITICAL TIES OF THESE DEFENDANTS?
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203413304577088584233162756.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEFTTopOpinion
The sparring between Republicans and Democrats over how to pay for an extension of the payroll-tax break is one more sign of how rotten the tax code is and why the entire thing needs to be thrown out...
* ALONG WITH MOST OF THE POLITICIANS!
House Republicans on Tuesday passed a bill to extend a payroll-tax break...
* THUS FURTHER WIDENING THE GAP BETWEEN WHAT'S COMING IN VS. WHAT'S GOING OUT...
(*SIGH*)
The whole idea of having a dedicated payroll tax that supports a Social Security "trust fund" rests on the notion that you get what you pay for.
(*STANDING FUCKING OVATION*)
Social Security is just another redistribution-of-income program.
* BUT THE POLITICIANS WON'T FESS UP TO THIS! THEY PRETEND THERE'S A TRUST FUND. THERE'S NOT! THE MONEY'S BEEN SPENT! HECK... SOCIAL SECURITY ISN'T EVEN AN ABOVE WATER PONZI SCHEME SCHEME ANYMORE - IT WENT UPSIDE DOWN LAST YEAR!
Unlike the 2001 bipartisan, marginal income-tax rate cuts, the payroll-tax cut was sold in 2010 as a one-year tax "holiday" with the intention of boosting the economy.
* AND NOW THEY'RE GONNA EXTEND IT - EVEN THOUGH THE EVIDENCE IS IN THAT IT DIDN'T BOOST THE ECONOMY AS PROMISED.
* FOLKS... THEY'RE BRIBING YOU WITH YOUR OWN FUCKING MONEY YOU FUCKING IDIOTS...!!! (I KNOW... I KNOW... YOU GUYS KNOW THIS; MY RANT IS DIRECTED AT THE 300,000,000 AMERICANS (PLUS!) WHO DON'T READ "BARKER'S NEWSBITES.")
Instead of squabbling over how to extend the payroll tax break, the GOP should concentrate on revising the tax code so it promotes growth and jobs, while reforming our entitlements.
(*NOD*)
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