Wednesday, February 8, 2012

Barker's Newsbites: Wednesday, February 8, 2012


For those of you who are new to the blog, the "newsbites" are inside the comment section.

I urge newcomers to browse around the archives as well as browsing the last few day's stand along posts and newsbites.
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7 comments:

William R. Barker said...

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2012/02/08/obama_in_2007_you_cant_be_against_outside_groups_and_then_for_them.html

While running as a candidate, Obama railed against 527's and said that someone can't be against them one day and for them the next. (December 22, 2007)

Earlier this week the Obama campaign announced that the President will embrace the Super PAC Priorities USA that will be backing him.

(*SNORT*)

"You can't say yesterday you don't believe in them and today you have three-quarters of a million dollars being spent for you," Obama said.

"You can't just talk the talk," Obama told an audience during the campaign event. "The easiest thing in the world is to talk about change during election time. Everybody talks about change at election time. You've got to look at how do they act when it's not convenient, when it's harder."

* FOLKS... (*SIGH*) (*JUST THROWING UP MY HANDS*)

February 8, 2012 at 4:18 PM
William R. Barker said...

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/4115452/Pakistan-blasts-lethal-US-drone-attacks.html

Pakistan yesterday warned Britain to help stop the American "Drone Wars" that are slaughtering hundreds of its innocent civilians.

Pakistan's High Commissioner to Britain Wajid Shamsul Hasan told The Sun in an exclusive interview that his country's relations with America are at their lowest ebb.

(*SARCASTIC CLAP-CLAP-CLAP*)

* HIL-LAR-Y! HIL-LAR-Y! HIL-LAR-Y!

* O-BAM-A! O-BAM-A! O-BAM-A!

The nuclear power chillingly declared it "has the means" to retaliate unless the carnage ceases.

February 8, 2012 at 4:24 PM
William R. Barker said...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/feb/08/glaciers-mountains?intcmp=122

The world's greatest snow-capped peaks, which run in a chain from the Himalayas to Tian Shan on the border of China and Kyrgyzstan, have lost no ice over the last decade, new research shows.

* OOPS!

(*SMIRK*)

The discovery has stunned scientists...

(*SNORT*)

...who had believed that around 50bn tonnes of meltwater were being shed each year and not being replaced by new snowfall.

The {NON) melting of Himalayan glaciers caused controversy in 2009 when a report from the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change mistakenly stated that they would disappear by 2035, instead of 2350.

(*SMIRK*)

* READ THE FULL PIECE. BOTH SIDES ARE REPRESENTED. THAT SAID... IT'S PRETTY CLEAR THAT THE GLOBAL WARMING EXTREMISTS JUST GOT CAUGHT WITH THEIR PANTS DOWN... AGAIN.

February 8, 2012 at 5:24 PM
William R. Barker said...

http://news.investors.com/Article/600452/201202080802/government-dependence-jumps-under-president-obama.htm

The American public's dependence on the federal government shot up 23% in just two years under President Obama...

* AKA: THE FOOD STAMP PRESIDENT

...with 67 million now relying on some federal program, according to a newly released study by the Heritage Foundation.

(*JUST SHAKING MY HEAD*)

The increase under Obama is the biggest two-year jump since Jimmy Carter was president, the data show.

(*HEADACHE*)

* HTHE ACTUAL STUDY CAN BE FOUND AT: http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2012/02/2012-index-of-dependence-on-government

Dependence on the government has climbed steadily since 1962, when the index stood at 19.

By 1980, the index had risen to 100.

It stood at 294 in 2010, the last year for which the data are available. The D.C.-based Heritage Foundation has produced the index for nine years.

The report also found that spending on "dependence programs" accounts for more than 70% of the federal budget. (That, too, is up dramatically. ... [I]n 1962 just over a quarter of federal spending went to dependence programs.)

At the same time, fewer Americans pay income taxes.... Almost half (49.5%) didn't pay income taxes in 2009, the latest year for which the researchers have data.

(Back in the late 1960s, only 12% of Americans escaped the income tax burden.)

In 2010, for the first time ever, average spending on dependence programs per recipient exceeded the country's per-capita disposable income.

The dependency index has dipped only seven times in the past 49 years, three of which were under President Reagan and two under President Clinton.

William Beach, who authored the Heritage study...says his team's research shows that economic effects account for only one-fifth of the change in the index.

[T]he index shot up 8% in 2010, a year when the economy grew by 3%. Also, in the wake of the 1981-82 recession — which lasted nearly as long as the so-called Great Recession (16 months vs 18 months), and saw unemployment rise higher (peaking at 10.8% vs. 10%) — the dependence index climbed only 6%, then fell the very next year.

[T]he time it's taken for employment to reach its pre-recession peak has climbed the past four decades, right along with the growth in federal dependency. The current jobs recession hit a post-World War II record of 48 months in January, with payrolls still 5.6 million below their January 2008 high.

* O-BAM-A! O-BAM-A! O-BAM-A!

Various studies have shown that extending unemployment benefits can keep unemployment rates higher than they would otherwise have been.

Obama's own former economic adviser, Larry Summers, noted in the 1999 Concise Encyclopedia of Economics that "government assistance programs contribute to long-term unemployment ... by providing an incentive, and the means, not to work."

February 8, 2012 at 5:45 PM
William R. Barker said...

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/08/opinion/another-2012-campaign-for-sale.html?_r=2&ref=opinion

Two years ago, while delivering his State of the Union address, President Obama looked the Supreme Court justices in the face and told them...“I don’t think American elections should be bankrolled by America’s most powerful interests.”

On Monday, the president abandoned that fundamental principle...

* AND THE EDITORS OF THE NYT ARE SURPRISED...???

(*SNICKER*)

His aides announced that the Obama campaign would begin to assist the “super PAC” that can raise and spend unlimited sums to support the president’s re-election effort.

Even White House and cabinet officials are expected to appear at fund-raising events for Priorities USA Action.

(*SMIRK*)

[While] the Citizens United decision naïvely believed that the super PACs would remain separate from individual campaigns, the White House’s decision to allow insiders like Kathleen Sebelius, the health and human services secretary, and Jim Messina, the Obama campaign manager, to speak at Priorities USA Action events shows how ludicrous that notion has become...

February 8, 2012 at 6:28 PM
William R. Barker said...

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/editorials/following_the_money_NM8MNcfCKJHb4ow2v7tN4I

Obama surrogates have been running a shadowy super PAC of their own all along.

Obama lieutenants Bill Burton (a top campaign and White House spokesman) and Sean Sweeney (Rahm Emanuel’s former chief of staff) left the White House together in February 2011 to found Priorities. The group is funded by Hollywood, bankers and unions — and it’s already running a flood of attack ads against Mitt Romney.

* OH... AND FOLKS... REMEMBER...

Back in 2008, then-candidate Obama pledged to accept federal matching funds in the general election, which would have limited his campaign pot — but then went back on his word, freeing him to raise $750 million.

(*SMIRK*)

* NOT TO BELABOR THE POINT... BUT OBAMA IS A FAKE, A FRAUD, AND A PHONY. IT REALLY IS JUST THAT SIMPLE.

February 8, 2012 at 6:33 PM
William R. Barker said...

http://www.businessinsider.com/the-sad-spectacle-of-obamas-super-pac-2012-2

* AND FINALLY... ROBERT B. REICH

(*SMIRK*)

It has been said there is no high ground in American politics since any politician who claims it is likely to be gunned down by those firing from the trenches.

That’s how the Obama team justifies its decision to endorse a super PAC that can raise and spend unlimited sums for his campaign.

Baloney. Good ends don’t justify corrupt means.

(*SHRUG*)

The sad truth is Obama has never really occupied the high ground. He refused public financing in 2008. Once president, he didn’t go to bat for a system of public financing that would have made it possible for candidates to raise enough money from small donors and matching public funds they wouldn’t need to rely on a few billionaires pumping unlimited sums into super PACS.

He hasn’t even fought for public disclosure of super PAC donations.

And now he’s made a total mockery of the Court’s naïve belief that super PACs would remain separate from individual campaigns by officially endorsing his own super PAC and allowing campaign manager Jim Messina and even cabinet officers to speak at his super PAC events.

Obama will not appear but he, Michelle Obama, and Vice President Joe Biden will encourage support of the super PAC.

(*JUST SHAKING MY HEAD*)

February 8, 2012 at 6:41 PM

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