Well, folks, it's a big day - and it's gonna be a big week - for the unveiling of the latest U.S. Supreme Court decisions.
I'll probably be posting a few "stand alone" posts on various decisions, but for the moment let me just address one point that goes to the heart of what Barker's Newsbites are all about:
NOTE: Every single news article concerning a Supreme Court ruling you read from the mainstream media - or niche media - which does NOT include a link to the actual case...
(*PAUSE*)
...that's evidence of my contention that the main goal of the media is (besides financial profit seeking of course) not so much to "inform" you as it is to manipulate you.
Why not provide the links? I'll tell you why not; because the last thing publishers, editors, journalists, and hack pundits want is an informed, educated readership which gets accustomed to seeking primary sources for their news "verification" and thus becomes impervious to ideological manipulation.
Anyway... on to today's newsbites!
12 comments:
http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/11pdf/11-182b5e1.pdf
* ARIZONA v. UNITED STATES -- 76 PAGES. I'LL BE POSTING A STAND-ALONE ON THIS DECISION. (*WINK*)
http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/11pdf/10-9646g2i8.pdf
* MILLER v. ALABAMA -- 62 PAGES. MORE ON THIS ONE LATER AS WELL!
http://cnsnews.com/news/article/study-more-half-trillion-dollars-spent-welfare-poverty-levels-unaffected
* PRIMARY SOURCE: http://www.cato.org/publications/policy-analysis/american-welfare-state-how-we-spend-nearly-$1-trillion-year-fighting-poverty-fail
The government is not making much headway reducing poverty despite spending hundreds of billions of dollars, according to a study by the libertarian Cato Institute.
Despite an unprecedented increase in federal anti-poverty spending the national poverty rate has not declined, it finds.
“Since President Obama took office, federal welfare spending has increased by 41%, more than $193 billion per year.” the study says.
Federal welfare spending this year now totals $668 billion, spread out over 126 programs, while the poverty rate that remains stubbornly high at nearly 15% – roughly where it was in 1965, when President Johnson declared a federal "War on Poverty."
While the study concedes that some of the increased spending under Obama is a result of the recession and the counter-cyclical nature of anti-poverty programs, it also finds that some of the increase is deliberate, with the government having expanded eligibility for welfare programs.
“But the dramatically larger increase also suggests that part of the program’s growth is due to conscious policy choices by this administration to ease eligibility rules and expand caseloads,” the Cato report says. “For example, income limits for eligibility have risen twice as fast as inflation since 2007 and are now roughly 10 percent higher than they were when Obama took office.”
In fact, the study points out that according to the administration’s own projections, federal welfare spending is unlikely to decline even after the economy recovers...
(*JUST SHAKING MY HEAD*) (*SIGH*)
“The vast majority of current programs are focused on making poverty more comfortable – giving poor people more food, better shelter, health care, and so forth – rather than giving people the tools that will help them escape poverty.”
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/queens/unplugged_tsa_airhead_triggers_jfk_kKxMANCPErCWn6KLfDbbVI
These fools are keeping us safe?!?
The TSA’s bungling reached a new low yesterday when a JFK Airport terminal had to be evacuated and hundreds of passengers marched back through security screening all because one dimwitted agent failed to realize his metal detector had been unplugged, sources told The Post.
The stunning error led to hours of delays, two planes called back from the runway and infinite frustration for furious passengers.
“The truth is, this is the failure of the most basic level of diligence,” a law-enforcement source said. “How can you expect the public to feel confident of the mission of the TSA if they don’t even know if the lights are turned on?”
* HOW INDEED?
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/jun/25/justices-reject-obamas-racial-profiling-worries-ar/
An irony of the Supreme Court’s ruling Monday on Arizona’s immigration law is that the chief part President Obama and his top advisers complained about is the one part the court upheld.
(*SNORT*)
As Arizona was debating the law, Mr. Obama, Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. and other top officials said it would lead to racial profiling by allowing police to stop and demand the legal status of those they suspected to be in the country illegally. But that’s the one part of the law the Supreme Court upheld unanimously...
(*CHUCKLE*)
[A]ll eight justices upheld the provision allowing police to check the status of those they had “reasonable suspicion” were in the country illegally, and then report their identity to federal authorities. (The federal government could then decide whether it wanted to pick up and deport the illegal immigrants or let them go.)
The law had four chief components. Three sections that set up state criminal penalties for immigration violations were struck down in the 5-3 ruling.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/jun/25/homeland-security-suspends-immigration-agreements-/
The Obama administration said Monday it is suspending existing agreements with Arizona police over enforcement of federal immigration laws...
(*PURSED LIPS*)
...and said it has issued a directive telling federal authorities to decline many of the calls reporting illegal immigrants that the Homeland Security Department may get from Arizona police.
* AGAIN, FOLKS... OBAMA IS A TYRANT IN THE SENSE OF HOW OUR FOUNDERS USED THE WORD. THE RULE OF LAW MEANS NOTHING TO HIM AND HIS INSTINCTS ARE DICTATORIAL.
Administration officials, speaking on condition they not be named...
(*JUST SHAKING MY HEAD*)
...told reporters they expect to see an increase in the number of calls they get from Arizona police — but that won’t change President Obama’s decision to limit whom the government actually tries to detain and deport.
“We will not be issuing detainers on individuals unless they clearly meet our defined priorities,” one official said in a telephone briefing.
* AGAIN, FOLKS... THIS GOES BEYOND LEGITIMATE "PRIORATIZATION" - THIS IS OUTRIGHT REFUSAL TO FULFIL HIS CONSTITUTIONAL RESPONSIBILITY TO SEE THAT THE LAWS ARE FAITHFULLY UPHELD AND CARRIED OUT!
The Supreme Court ruled Monday that Arizona may not impose its own penalties for immigration violations, but it said state and local police could check the legal status of those they have reasonable suspicion to believe are in the country illegally.
That means police statewide can immediately begin calling to check immigration status — but federal officials are likely to reject most of those calls.
* FOLKS... DIRECT FROM TODAY'S U.S. SUPREME COURT MAJORITY RULING -- "Congress has done nothing to suggest it is inappropriate to communicate with ICE in these situations... Indeed, it has encouraged the sharing of information about possible immigration violations. A federal statute regulating the public benefits provided to qualified aliens in fact instructs that “no State or local government entity may be prohibited, or in any way restricted, from sending to or receiving from ICE information regarding the immigration status, lawful or unlawful, of an alien in the United States.” The federal scheme thus leaves room for a policy requiring state officials to contact ICE as a routine matter."
* FOLKS... THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION IS THUMBING ITS NOSE NOT JUST AT EXISTING FEDERAL LAW, BUT AT TODAY'S U.S. SUPREME COURT RULING! THIS ADMINISTRATION IS OUT OF CONTROL!
Federal officials said they’ll still perform the checks as required by law but will respond only when someone has a felony conviction on his or her record. Absent that, ICE will tell the local police to release the person.
* NOPE! NOT GOOD ENOUGH! NOT IN KEEPING WITH THE LAW... CERTAINLY NOT IN KEEPING WITH THE SPIRIT OF THE LAW. THIS IS CLEARLY A DELIBERATE ATTEMPT TO KEEP STATE OFFICIALS - AND THE AMERICAN PUBLIC - UNINFORMED OF THE MAGNITUDE OF THE ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION CRISIS. ARIZONA HAS EVERY RIGHT TO DEMAND WRITTEN CONFIRMATION OF FEDERAL "ORDERS" TO RELEASE ARRESTED ILLEGAL ALIENS WHO ARE IN CLEAR VIOLATION OF FEDERAL LAW JUST BY BEING HERE.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/jun/24/top-secret-what-food-stamps-buy/
Americans spend $80 billion each year financing food stamps for the poor...
* AND THE NOT SO POOR...
...but the country has no idea where or how the money is spent.
Food stamps can be spent on goods ranging from candy to steak and are accepted at retailers from gas stations that primarily sell potato chips to fried-chicken restaurants. And as the amount spent on food stamps has more than doubled in recent years, the amount of food stamps laundered into cash has increased dramatically, government statistics show.
But the government won’t say which stores are doing the most business in food stamps, and even it doesn’t know what kinds of food those taxpayer dollars buy.
(*JUST SHAKING MY HEAD*)
Coinciding with lobbying by convenience stores, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which administers the program in conjunction with states, contends that disclosing how much each store authorized to accept benefits, known as the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program (SNAP), receives in taxpayer funds would amount to revealing trade secrets.
* ARE THESE PEOPLE OUT OF THEIR FRIGGIN' MINDS? NO! THEY'RE GETTING AWAY WITH IT! THE AMERICAN PEOPLE ARE SO FUCKING STUPID THAT THEY ALLOW GOVERNMENT TO PULL THIS SHIT!
The USDA is notoriously secretive about who receives its money, relying on weak legal reasoning, said Steve Ellis of the watchdog group Taxpayers for Common Sense. “USDA hides behind a specious proprietary data argument: The public doesn’t want to know internal business decisions or information about specific individuals’ finances,” he said. “The USDA sees retailers, junk food manufacturers and the big ag lobby as their customers, rather than the taxpayer.”
(The agency also has no idea what type of food the benefits are buying, even though the combination of universal bar codes and benefit cards makes that entirely feasible.)
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Journalism/2012/06/25/How-Many-Deceptive-Edits-Before-Capus-Fired
How Many Deceptive NBC Edits Before Steve Capus Is Fired?
* THAT'S THE TITLE!
Well, we know the answer isn’t five.
(*SNICKER*)
Though it won’t speak the truth of why out loud, even the New York Times admits the NBC News brand is in trouble, and late yesterday Reuters gave us another example as to why:
Lawyers for Jerry Sandusky sought a mistrial before his conviction for child sex abuse on the grounds that prosecutors showed jurors an "inaccurate" version of a bombshell NBC News interview with the former football coach, and the mistake may now form part of the basis for an appeal.
In response to a subpoena, NBC News turned over three versions of Bob Costas' NBC News interview with Sandusky, which aired last November on different NBC shows.
One of those versions, which was broadcast on the 'Today' show, contained an erroneous repetition of a key question and answer - about whether Sandusky was sexually attracted to young boys...
The repetition, Sandusky's lawyers contend, made it appear to jurors that he was stonewalling.
Steve Capus runs both NBC News and MSNBC. Therefore, the most troubling part of the glossed-over-in-denial NYTs' piece should be this:
Mr. Capus won a significant endorsement this week: he signed a new long-term deal to continue as the top executive in the news division.
And yet Capus has not only overseen the NBC News brand's decline, [but] under his watch NBC has piled up a series of scandals based on outright fraudulent editing the likes of which even CNN can't lay claim to.
Just last week, Andrea Mitchell was caught red-handed in an attempt to edit Romney into what could've been a defining gaffe (which you can bet was the whole idea).
Earlier this year, NBC's once-legendary "Today Show" was caught editing a 911 tape to make the caller, alleged Trayvon Martin shooter George Zimmerman, look racist.
In August of 2011, NBC's Ed Schultz used deceptive editing to make Texas Governor Rick Perry - who was running for president at the time - look racist.
In August of 2009, NBC's Contessa Brewer was caught deceptively editing a piece of video to call the Tea Party racist, but only after she edited out the fact that the Tea Partier carrying a sidearm was a black man.
* FOLKS... YOU CAN'T MAKE THIS SHIT UP!
If you look at the timeline here, you'll see that the frequency of these fraudulent edits is increasing at a rapid rate - Which is probably no accident when you consider how close we are to voting Obama out of office.
In summation: NBC's brand is in trouble, the man behind the decline just got his contract renewed, and the frequency of brand-tarnishing frauds is increasing.
What are we to conclude from this?
Simple: NBC is willing to lose gobs of money and whatever is left of its reputation to get Barack Obama re-elected.
Capus has created an atmosphere in the news division where this kind of outright fraud is not only tolerated but probably winked at.
[W]here are our so-called media watchdogs: Howard Kurtz, Politico's Dylan Byers, and the Washington Post's Erik Wemple?
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/editorials/pelosi_dishonors_the_house_CFzYBk05Zc7IxBsP0oHKmI
If you thought that a formal censure was the most serious punishment Congress could give one of its own members short of expulsion — guess again.
Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has just proved that, to the folks on Capitol Hill, censure — for all the stern rhetoric involved — is just a joke.
[Former democratic Speaker of the House and present democratic House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi has] just endorsed Rep. Charles Rangel for re-election.
* YES...
The same Charlie Rangel whom she publicly rebuked in the well of the House of Representatives back in December 2010 for 11 violations of ethics rules.
* FOLKS... (*SIGH*)... THIS IS WHO THE DEMOCRATS ARE!
Pelosi is just the latest major pol to rush to Rangel’s side in his primary battle — clearly unconcerned by the fact that his censure was the first of a member of the House in nearly 30 years.
(So much for her promise to “drain the Washington swamp.”)
[Pelosi's] endorsement puts the lie to the notion that Rangel actually suffered anything but a minor inconvenience.
Censure, in other words, isn’t worth the paper it’s written on.
Rangel effectively ignored it from the get-go, saying he was “not going to be judged by this Congress.”
So why should anyone else being investigated for ethics violations fear the outcome of such a probe?
Congress can’t — and won’t — police itself. When it comes to disciplining its own members; it’s a sad, sick joke.
* BOEHNER AND THE REPUBLICANS - AND MITT ROMNEY - SHOULD SHINE THE SPOTLIGHT ON THIS ONE AND DEMAND PELOSI'S RESIGNATION AS HOUSE MINORITY LEADER BASED UPON HER CLEAR LACK OF BASIC GOOD JUDGMENT. LET HER CAUCUS AND THE MSM TWIST THEMSELVES INTO PRETZELS ATTEMPTING TO DEFEND PELOSI WITHOUT DEFENDING RANGEL.
(*SMIRK*)
* BUT, NO... NEITHER BOEHNER NOR ROMNEY WILL HAVE THE BRAINS - OR THE BALLS.
(*SIGH*)
* TWO-PARTER... (Part 1 of 2)
http://paul.house.gov/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1985&Itemid=69
* THE LATEST FROM RON PAUL! DR. RON PAUL THAT IS - CONGRESSMAN RON PAUL (R-TX)
This week the Supreme Court is expected to issue its long-awaited decision regarding the constitutionality of the "ObamaCare" law.
I recently discussed absurd legal arguments by ObamaCare advocates that Congress can compel the purchase of health insurance, and the dismal record of federal courts applying so-called "judicial review" in protecting liberty.
It is obvious that ObamaCare's legal apologists either are wholly ignorant of constitutional principles, or wholly lawless in their blatant disregard for those principles.
* IT'S BOTH.
Likewise, supporters of ObamaCare are willfully ignorant of basic economics.
The fundamental problem with health care costs in America is that the doctor-patient relationship has been profoundly altered by third party interference.
Third parties, either government agencies themselves or nominally private insurance companies virtually forced upon us by government policies, have not only destroyed doctor-patient confidentiality, they also inescapably drive up costs because basic market disciplines - supply and demand, price sensitivity, and profit signals - are destroyed.
(*NOD*)
ObamaCare, via its insurance mandate, is more of the same misdiagnosis.
Gabriel Vidal, Chief Operating Officer of a U.S. hospital system, sees this problem squarely in his daily work. As he explains, ObamaCare will only make matters worse because it fails to recognize that "costs are out of control because they do not reflect prices created by the voluntary exchange between patients and providers...
Instead, "health costs reflect the distortions that government regulators have introduced through reimbursement mechanisms created by command-and-control bureaucracies at federal and state levels." ... "But it is theoretically and practically impossible for a bureaucrat- no matter how accurate the cost data, how well-intentioned and how sophisticated his computer program - to come up with the correct and just price. The (doctor-patient) relationship has been corrupted by the intrusion of government and its intermediaries (HMOs, for example) to such an extent that we can no longer speak of a relationship that can produce meaningful pricing information."
(*NOD*)
Absent such pricing information, our system increasingly resembles socialist systems with centralized price setting, shortages, rationing, apathy, and declining quality of care.
As the situation deteriorates, fewer bright young people want to practice medicine and fewer foreign doctors seek to immigrate here.
* TO BE CONTINUED...
* CONCLUDING... (Part 2 of 2)
The problem is acute and worsening. Obamacare's third party insurance mandate is only the first step toward what the political left really wants: a single payer government healthcare system.
Meanwhile, conservatives seem resigned to a third party insurance system...
* NO... NOT "CONSERVATIVES"... REPUBLICANS!
...and therefore fail to present a viable alternative to the American people.
They continue to speak in terms of saving the healthcare "system" when in fact what America needs is a rejection of all government systems in favor of free market mechanisms.
* FOLKS... THE GOP SUCKS. IT REALLY IS THAT SIMPLE. THEY'RE THE LESSER OF TWO EVILS - NOTHING MORE.
In a free market, most Americans would pay cash for basic services and maintain inexpensive high-deductible insurance for catastrophic injury or [serious] illnesses only.
Health insurance would be decoupled from employment, which would unleash entrepreneurs who now fear quitting their jobs and losing their health insurance.
Costs would plummet due to real competition among doctors, price sensitivity among patients, and elimination of enormous paperwork costs.
Doctors would be happier, spending their time treating patients rather than managing their practices.
Congress needs to let markets work by aggressively repealing healthcare laws, including: the HMO Act of 1973; the Medicare Part D prescription drug benefit passed in 2003, and the ObamaCare bill passed in 2010.
Furthermore we must begin scaling back Medicare coverage altogether for younger generations so they will not rely on a system that cannot remain solvent in future decades.
Only by taking these steps now can we begin to undo the harm done by government to the once noble field of medicine.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304782404577486302897095274.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEFTTopOpinion
Scarborough Shoal is a minuscule rock formation in the South China Sea that was discovered by an unlucky British East India Company ship, the Scarborough, which grounded there in 1784. This outcropping has been claimed by both China and the Philippines because of the rich fishing beds that surround it and the possibility of drilling for oil.
You would think that the Philippines would have the better claim, having built a lighthouse and planted its flag there in the 1960s.
The shoal is only 140 miles west of Luzon, the main Philippine island, well within Manila's 200-mile "exclusive economic zone" as recognized under international law.
* ON THE OTHER HAND...
It is 750 miles from the Chinese landmass.
Nevertheless, China is trying to assert its sovereignty over nine-tenths of the South China Sea based on tendentious historical "evidence" ranging from purported trips by Chinese explorers 2,000 years ago to a 1947 map issued by China's Nationalist government and recognized by no other state.
However unconvincing its claims, China is attempting to make good on them by sending fishing vessels and paramilitary patrol boats into disputed waters.
In early April, a Philippine navy ship tried to prevent Chinese fishermen from poaching seafood from the area. Two armed boats from the Chinese Marine Surveillance Agency intervened and a standoff ensued.
Over the past two months, China sent more than 20 ships to the shoal, including as many as seven paramilitary vessels. The Philippines' interests were protected by two Coast Guard cutters. The standoff finally ended, at least for the time being, when the Philippines withdrew its vessels rather than risk losing them in an approaching typhoon.
The U.S. is bound to protect the Philippines under the terms of a 1951 treaty. Yet even as our ally was being bullied by China, the Obama administration adopted a pose of studied neutrality.
The Philippines has offered to submit the Scarborough Shoal dispute to an international tribunal under the Law of the Sea Treaty, which both Beijing and Manila have signed. But China refuses, no doubt knowing it would lose.
The Chinese leadership must figure they have a better chance to assert their claim by force majeure because there is no way a weak state like the Philippines can stand up to them.
The Obama administration did not orchestrate an international campaign to rally support for the Philippines.
[I]t failed to take the most dramatic step of all by not sending an American destroyer or other warship to Scarborough Shoal.
* THIS IS AMERICA 2012 - THE AGE OF OBAMA.
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