Monday, December 5, 2011

Barker's Newsbites: Monday, December 5, 2011


One of my favorite Christmas songs...

...reaches right into your heart.
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9 comments:

William R. Barker said...

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/02/us/senate-declines-to-resolve-issue-of-american-qaeda-suspects-arrested-in-us.html?bl

* AS YOU KNOW...

The Senate on Thursday decided to leave unanswered a momentous question about constitutional rights in the war against Al Qaeda: whether government officials have the power to arrest people inside the United States and hold them in military custody indefinitely and without a trial.

(*SARCASTIC CLAP-CLAP-CLAP*)

* YEP... THE GREATEST DELIBERATIVE BODY IN THE WORLD...

(*JUST SHAKING MY HEAD IN DISGUST*)

After a passionate debate over a detainee-related provision in a major defense bill, the lawmakers decided not to make clearer the current law about the rights of Americans suspected of being terrorists. Instead, they voted 99 to 1 to say the bill does not affect “existing law” about people arrested inside the United States.

* AND WHAT EXACTLY IS "EXISTING LAW...???"

Congress a decade ago [authorized] use military force against the perpetrators of the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001.

It [said] the government may imprison suspected members of Al Qaeda or its allies in indefinite military custody.

Because the detainee-related provision includes no exception for suspects arrested domestically, the provision prompted a debate about whether it would change the law by empowering the government, for the first time, to lawfully arrest people inside the United States and hold them indefinitely in military custody, or whether it would change nothing because the government has that power already.

The debate brought new attention to the ambiguous aftermath of one of the most sweeping claims of executive power made by the Bush administration after Sept. 11: that the government can hold citizens without a trial by accusing them of being terrorists.

* WHICH CLEARLY - CONSTITUTIONALLY - IT CAN'T. BUT OF COURSE THOSE BIPARTISAN SCUMBAGS IN CONGRESS SIMPLY REFUSE TO COME RIGHT OUT AND SAY THIS! INDEED, BY THEIR SILENCE THEY ALLOW PRESIDENTS - FIRST BUSH, NOW OBAMA - TO CLAIM SUCH POWER AND USE SUCH POWER!

* BTW... THE MEMBERS OF THE U.S. SUPREME COURT ARE SCUMBAGS AS WELL FOR REFUSING TO PUT A STOP TO THIS INSANITY.

One of the proponents of making no exceptions for Americans, Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, said it would be “crazy” to exempt Qaeda suspects who are Americans and are arrested inside the country from battlefield-style detention. He argued that, to stop other attacks, they must be interrogated without the protections of the civilian criminal justice system.

* AND THIS SCUMBAG GRAHAM IS A LAWYER! HE SHOULD BE DISBARED!

Citizens who are suspected of joining Al Qaeda are opening themselves up “to imprisonment and death,” Mr. Graham said, adding, “And when they say, ‘I want my lawyer,’ you tell them: ‘Shut up. You don’t get a lawyer. You are an enemy combatant, and we are going to talk to you about why you joined Al Qaeda.’”

* JEEZUS, PEOPLE... IS THIS YOUR AMERICA? IT'S NOT MINE.

Senator Mike Lee, Republican of Utah, said citizen terrorism suspects should retain their “fundamental civil liberties” in order to protect the founding principles of the United States. “I think at a bare minimum, that means we will not allow U.S. military personnel to arrest and indefinitely detain U.S. citizens, regardless of what label we happen to apply to them,” he said.

* MIKE LEE - ONE OF THE FEW SANE MEMBERS OF THE U.S. SENATE.

Before voting to leave current law unchanged, the Senate rejected, 55 to 45, a proposal by Senator Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California, to instead say that Americans are exempt from detention under the 2001 authorization to use military force.

* FUNNY HOW THE NYT CAN'T PROVIDE THE HYPERLINK TO THE VOTE TALLY. (*SMIRK*)

December 5, 2011 at 9:45 AM
William R. Barker said...

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/04/realestate/jumbo-loan-limits-changed-again.html?ref=us

Less than two months after lowering the maximum loan amount that could be backed by the Federal Housing Administration, lawmakers in Washington reversed course just before the Thanksgiving holiday and once again raised that limit...to $729,750 for the next two years

* WE'VE DISCUSSED THIS BEFORE. THIS IS BIPARTISANISM, FOLKS. HOW DO YOU LIKE IT?

* I FEAR VIOLENCE IS THE ONLY ANSWER.

Before the change, according to rules that went into effect on Oct. 1, the maximum loan the F.H.A....could back was $625,500.

* BUT, NO... THE INSANE FIGURE OF OVER HALF A MILLION DOLLARS WASN'T QUITE INSANE ENOUGH FOR OUR OVERLORDS IN WASHINGTON! NO.. THEY FIGURES GOING UP TO ALMOST THREE QUARTERS OF A MILLION DOLLARS WAS THE RIGHT MOVE FOR... er... THOSE POOR PEOPLE NEEDING MCMANSION FINANCING.

(*SMIRK*)

Last year, there were 1,541 loans from $625,500 to $729,750 issued in New York City, all backed by the federal government, according to data analyzed by the Furman Center for Real Estate and Urban Policy at New York University. Fannie and Freddie accounted for the vast majority...

(*SARCASTIC CLAP-CLAP-CLAP*)

The National Association of Realtors, which opposed lowering the limits, spent $17.6 million lobbying Congress last year, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

* FOLKS... THESE BIPARTISAN BASTARDS IN CONGRESS HAVE LEARNED NOTHING! I FEAR UNLESS WE STARTING KILLING THEM... THEY'RE GONNA CONTINUE TO KILL US!

(NOTE... NO THREAT OF ACTUAL VIOLENCE IF TO BE IMPLIED BY MY STATEMENTS; I'M SIMPLY THROWING OUT A HYPOTHETICAL!)

The F.H.A. does not issue loans but instead offers private lenders guarantees against homeowner default. ... It backs loans in which down payments can be as low as 3.5% of the cost of the home.

(*MORE SARCASTIC CLAPPING*)

About 90% of loans issued in the country are backed by the federal government.

(*RISING TO MY FEET TO SARCASTICALLY APPLAUD*)

* NAH... NO SOCIALISM HERE, FOLKS; NOTHING TO SEE... JUST GO BACK TO PLAYING ANGRY BIRDS ON YOUR MADE-IN-CHINA SMART PHONES!

December 5, 2011 at 9:47 AM
William R. Barker said...

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/04/health/policy/parting-shot-at-waste-by-key-obama-health-official.html?ref=us

The official in charge of Medicare and Medicaid for the last 17 months says that 20% to 30% of health spending is “waste” that yields no benefit to patients, and that some of the needless spending is a result of onerous, archaic regulations enforced by his agency.

(*MIGRAINE HEADACHE*)

* AND THIS IS FROM ONE OF OBAMA'S PET LEFTISTS - DR. DONALD M. BERWICK!

December 5, 2011 at 9:47 AM
William R. Barker said...

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/04/world/americas/us-drug-agents-launder-profits-of-mexican-cartels.html?src=me&ref=world

Undercover American narcotics agents have laundered or smuggled millions of dollars in drug proceeds as part of Washington’s expanding role in Mexico’s fight against drug cartels, according to current and former federal law enforcement officials.

* YEP. FEEL FREE TO RE-READ THAT. YEP. A COUPLE TIMES IF NEED BE. YEP... IT DOES INDEED SAY WHAT IT SAYS... (*SIGH*)

The agents, primarily with the Drug Enforcement Administration, have handled shipments of hundreds of thousands of dollars in illegal cash across borders, those officials said, to identify how criminal organizations move their money, where they keep their assets and, most important, who their leaders are.

As it launders drug money, the agency often allows cartels to continue their operations over months or even years before making seizures or arrests.

* YEP... (*SIGH*)

Those are precisely the kinds of concerns members of Congress have raised about a gun-smuggling operation known as Fast and Furious, in which agents of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives allowed people suspected of being low-level smugglers to buy and transport guns across the border in the hope that they would lead to higher-level operatives working for Mexican cartels. After the agency lost track of hundreds of weapons, some later turned up in Mexico; two were found on the United States side of the border where an American Border Patrol agent had been shot to death.

* FRIGG'N NYT SCUMBAGS! THE RIFLE USED TO KILL U.S. BORDER AGENT BRIAN TERRY WAS AN OPERATION FAST AND FURIOUS WEAPON! THE NYT WRITER - GINGER THOMPSON - AND/OR HER EDITOR MUST KNOW THIS! WHY MUDDY THE WATERS? WHY NOT JUST REPORT THE TRUTH AS IT IS INSTEAD OF TRYING TO DOWNPLAY WHAT THE INCOMPETENCE OF HOLDER'S JUSTICE DEPARTMENT LED TO?

Another former drug agency official offered this explanation for the laundering operations: “Building up the evidence to connect the cash to drugs, and connect the first cash pickup to a cartel’s command and control, is a very time consuming process. These people aren’t running a drugstore in downtown L.A. that we can go and lock the doors and place a seizure sticker on the window. These are sophisticated, international operations that practice very tight security. And as far as the Mexican cartels go, they operate in a corrupt country, from cities that the cops can’t even go into.”

* WHY DO WE NEED TO BUILD UP EVIDENCE? I THOUGHT THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES SUPPOSEDLY HAD THE POWER TO ORDER THE ASSASINATIONS OF AMERICANS ABROAD; SO ONE WOULD THINK HE'S CLAIM THE SAME AUTHORITY TO ORDER THE ASSASINATIONS OF FOREIGN DRUG CARTEL MEMBERS... WOULDN'T YOU...???

Former counternarcotics officials, who also would speak only on the condition of anonymity about clandestine operations, offered a clearer glimpse of their scale and how they worked. In some cases, the officials said, Mexican agents, posing as smugglers and accompanied by American authorities, pick up traffickers’ cash in Mexico. American agents transport the cash on government flights to the United States, where it is deposited into traffickers’ accounts, and then wired to companies that provide goods and services to the cartel. In other cases, D.E.A. agents, posing as launderers, pick up drug proceeds in the United States, deposit them in banks in this country and then wire them to the traffickers in Mexico.

(*HEADACHE*)

So far there are few signs that following the money has disrupted the cartels’ operations, and little evidence that Mexican drug traffickers are feeling any serious financial pain. Last year, the D.E.A. seized about $1 billion in cash and drug assets, while Mexico seized an estimated $26 million in money laundering investigations, a tiny fraction of the estimated $18 billion to $39 billion in drug money that flows between the countries each year.

December 5, 2011 at 9:48 AM
William R. Barker said...

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204531404577052194234235910.html

During the debate this fall over President Obama's American Jobs Act, the White House released a study suggesting some 280,000 teacher jobs were at risk as part of a vast downsizing of local governments across America.

* AH... BUT HERE'S THE CONTEXT:

[Such] hyperbolic rhetoric ignores a decades-long growth of public employment that has left many municipal governments with nearly historic high levels of government workers relative to the population - even after the cutbacks of the last few years.

Take local "education workers." Hiring has far outpaced the growth in student enrollment, driving down the number of students per teacher in American public schools to 15.6 in 2010 from 26.9 in 1955, according to the National Center for Education Statistics.

Robust hiring has continued even during periods of enrollment declines, including from 1971 through 1984, when the number of public-school students fell virtually every year, declining in total by 15%, while the ranks of teachers grew by 7%.

(*SHRUG*)

Data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics show that local education employment is back to about where it was in 2006 after recent cutbacks. Sound terrible? Maybe not so much when you consider that public-school enrollment has been stagnant since 2006.

(*SMIRK*)

In 1955, teachers constituted about 65% of local education workers; today, despite years of rapid gains in teacher ranks, they amount to only about 40% of the eight million local education workers. Local districts have bulked up on other workers - from instructional aides to administrative personnel to social workers and counselors.

(*JUST SHAKING MY HEAD*)

Per-pupil spending in public schools has grown to $10,500 today from $2,831 (in 2010 dollars) in 1961, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. Has the spending paid off? Mean scores on the SAT's reading test are down 7% since 1966, while reading scores for 17-year-olds on the National Assessment of Educational Progress test, administered since 1971, are flat over that time.

(*SIGH*)

* FOLKS... WAKE UP! PLEASE... WAKE UP!

December 5, 2011 at 9:48 AM
William R. Barker said...

http://paul.house.gov/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1932:euro-crisis-destabilizing-the-dollar&catid=62:texas-straight-talk&Itemid=69

In response to pressure from Wall Street, the White House and central banks in Europe, the Federal Reserve last week drastically cut interest rates for currency swaps to benefit troubled European banks.

This will flood world markets with more dollars and will soon mean rising prices for every American at the grocery store.

(*NOD*)

[U]nder our current form of special interest corporatism certain businesses are granted too-big-to-fail status and are never allowed to go bankrupt. They keep profits generated during the good times generated by the Fed's monetary inflation, yet their losses are socialized through inflationary bailouts. This means you and your family eventually pay for the Fed's decisions because every dollar you earn is worth less.

This extra liquidity will temporarily ease the cash crunch for irresponsible bankers, but in the long run it will make the situation much worse for consumers all over the world.

Central banks are grasping at straws, hoping that flooding the world with money created out of thin air will somehow resolve a crisis caused by uncontrolled government spending and irresponsible debt issuance. But those governments and central banks never grasp that it is their own monetary policies that allowed European banks to become so wantonly overleveraged in the first place.

If those banks need liquidity, they should generate it the old fashioned way: by attracting depositors. If they cannot do so, they should be allowed to fail.

* AMEN!

Americans deserve sound money that cannot be manipulated and created out of thin air by central planners who deceitfully promise prosperity. Fiat money caused this European crisis and the financial crisis before it. More fiat money is not the cure.

(*NOD*)

Congress should not permit this type of open-ended commitment on the part of the Fed, a commitment which could easily cost American taxpayers trillions of dollars. These dollar swaps are purely inflationary and will harm Americans as much as any form of quantitative easing.

* BUT CONGRESS WILL PERMIT THIS.

* I FEAR VIOLENCE IS THE ONLY ANSWER.

December 5, 2011 at 2:45 PM
William R. Barker said...

http://blog.heritage.org/2011/12/05/morning-bell-agenda-21-and-the-threat-in-your-backyard/?utm_source=Newsletter&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=Morning%2BBell

Ready to trade in your car for a bike, or maybe a subway instead?

Interested in fewer choices for your home, paying more for housing, and being crammed into a denser neighborhood?

You can have all this and more if radical environmentalists and “smart growth” advocates have their way and local, state, and the federal government impose the policies set forth in the United Nations’ Agenda 21.

* FOLKS... I MYSELF USED TO POOH-POOH THIS AGENDA 21 STUFF... BUT APPARENTLY IT'S SERIOUS ENOUGH BUSINESS THAT THE HERITAGE FOUNDATION IS BOTHERING TO PUBLICLY ADDRESS THE ISSUE - AND WARN AGAINST AGENDA 21!

Agenda 21 is a voluntary plan adopted at the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development. It calls on governments to intervene and regulate nearly every potential impact that human activity could have on the environment. The end goal? Getting governments to “rethink economic development and find ways to halt the destruction of irreplaceable natural resources and pollution of the planet.”

* BLAH, BLAH, BLAH...

* YEAH... I TOO READ THE WORD "VOLUNTARY" AND READING IT SET ME AT EASE. HOWEVER... READ ON AND THAT EASE WILL VANISH!

Nothing about Agenda 21 is binding, and it’s not a threat in and of itself. Instead, the threat Americans need to be concerned about is the one that lies in their own backyard.

In a new paper, “Focus on Agenda 21 Should Not Divert Attention from Homegrown Anti-Growth Policies,” Wendell Cox, Ronald Utt, Brett Schaefer explain: "Opponents of Agenda 21 should not be distracted from the more tangible manifestation of the smart-growth principles outlined in that document. If they focus excessively on Agenda 21, it is much more likely that homegrown smart-growth policies that date to the early 1970s and undermine the quality of life, personal choice, and property rights in American communities will be implemented by local, state, and federal authorities at the behest of environmental groups and other vested interests."

* IN OTHER WORDS, AMERICAN BUREAUCRATS AREN'T TREATING AGENDA 21 AS "VOLUNTARY;" INSTEAD THEY'RE USING IT AS A SORT OF FRAMEWORK AND EXCUSE FOR IMPLEMENTING AGENDA 21 TYPE POLICIES RIGHT HERE IN AMERICA!

Where do these home-grown smart-growth policies stand today?

The Obama Administration has embraced them while also increasing environmental regulations and restrictions on the use of natural resources.

But the White House isn’t the only one behind the smart-growth movement.

Local and state officials, along with interest groups, are promoting the policies at all levels of government.

December 5, 2011 at 3:52 PM
William R. Barker said...

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

** HAT TIP TO MIKE D!

http://dailycaller.com/2011/12/05/rand-paul-prevents-war-with-russia/

When John McCain proclaimed in 2008, “Today, we’re all Georgians,” unfortunately he was not talking about the Southern state.

No, the 2008 Republican presidential nominee was declaring his - indeed, all of our - support for the nation of Georgia, which that year became involved in a brief military conflict with neighboring Russia over who had claim to the region of South Ossetia.

* JOHN MCCAIN IS A MENTALLY UNSTABLE MORON. (IT REALLY IS JUST THAT SIMPLE!)

Which country’s soldiers fired first became a matter of international dispute...

* GEORGIA STARTED IT.

(*SHRUG*)

...the Bush administration made clear that this would not become America’s dispute...

* GOLD STAR FOR DUBYA!

A few days ago, some Republican senators attempted to lay the groundwork for a shooting war with Russia. I wish I were exaggerating.

* I WISH HE WAS TOO; UNFORTUNATELY... HE'S NOT. (FRIGG'N IDIOTS...!)

Last week, while most senators were focused on the important national issues of war funding and Americans’ constitutional liberties, Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) seemed more concerned with the fate of a foreign country. Behind the scenes, Rubio moved to have a unanimous consent vote that would have hastened Georgia’s entry into NATO.

(*BANGING MY HEAD AGAINST THE WALL*)

The unanimous consent vote never happened because Senator Rand Paul single-handedly prevented it.

(*STANDING FUCKING OVATION*)

This is not a triviality. Make no mistake: Bringing Georgia into NATO could lead to a new military conflict for the United States, which is why any move that would facilitate Georgia’s entry into the alliance should be publicly debated. Rubio’s attempt to push this through by unanimous consent - that is to say, without any formal debate or vote - is highly suspect and calls into question the senator’s better judgment.

* AMEN!

* To be continued...

December 5, 2011 at 4:21 PM
William R. Barker said...

* CONCLUDING... (Part 2 of 2)

But what Sen. Rubio was advocating is nothing new. Examining the political context of McCain’s "declaration of solidarity" with Georgia in 2008 should give Americans pause about the Washington establishment’s foreign policy agenda.

* DAMN STRAIGHT!

After the 2008 South Ossetia conflict, Pat Buchanan wrote: "Who is Randy Scheunemann? He is the principal foreign policy adviser to John McCain and potential successor to Henry Kissinger and Zbigniew Brzezinski as national security adviser to the president of the United States. But Randy Scheunemann has another identity, another role. He is a dual loyalist, a foreign agent whose assignment is to get America committed to spilling the blood of her sons for client regimes who have made this moral mercenary a rich man. From January 2007 to March 2008, the McCain campaign paid Scheunemann $70,000 - pocket change compared to the $290,000 his Orion Strategies banked in those same 15 months from the Georgian regime of Mikheil Saakashvili. What were Mikheil’s marching orders to Tbilisi’s man in Washington? Get Georgia a NATO war guarantee. Get America committed to fight Russia, if necessary, on behalf of Georgia. Scheunemann came close to succeeding."

(*MIGRAINE*)

Buchanan’s description of Scheunemann and his activities is instructive...

* DAMN STRAIGHT! (I LAUDED BUCHANAN AT THE TIME!)

Georgia’s entry into NATO would commit the United States to fighting for Georgia. Buchanan explains what would have happened in 2008 if Georgia had been part of NATO at that time: "Had Scheunemann succeeded, U.S. soldiers and Marines from Idaho and West Virginia would be killing Russians in the Caucasus, and dying to protect Scheunemann’s client, who launched this idiotic war the night of Aug. 7. That people like Scheunemann hire themselves out to put American lives on the line for their clients is a classic corruption of American democracy."

* IF SOMEONE WERE TO PUT A BULLET IN SCHEUNEMANN'S HEAD I'D SHED NO TEARS.

It’s worth noting that at the same time Bush and Gates were saying America should not become involved in this affair, both were calling on NATO to admit Georgia, as was then-U.S. Senator Barack Obama.

* YEP!

(*STEAM RISING FROM MY CRACKED SKULL*) (*BLOOD PRESSURE SHOOTING THROUGH THE ROOF*)

[W]hether the American people stand with Sen. Rand Paul - the only Capitol Hill leader who tried to prevent a war with Russia last week - or with McCain, Obama, Bush and Rubio, is an issue still up for debate.

And it deserves to be debated.

(*SINCERE CLAP-CLAP-CLAP*)

* AMEN...

December 5, 2011 at 4:21 PM

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