Wednesday, June 20, 2012

Barker's Newsbites: Wednesday, June 20, 2012


I've wanted to make this song a Newsbites theme song for awhile now!

(*WINK*)

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6 comments:

William R. Barker said...

http://www.cnn.com/2012/06/20/politics/holder-contempt/index.html?hpt=hp_t1

President Barack Obama has asserted executive privilege over documents sought by a House committee investigating the botched Fast and Furious gun-running sting, according to a letter to the panel Wednesday from Deputy Attorney Gen. James Cole.

* AND THE GROUNDS FOR THIS FANTASTIC CLAIM ARE...???

The move means the Department of Justice can withhold the documents from the House Oversight Committee...

* WHICH IS ABSOLUTELY NOTHING NEW! THEY'VE BEEN WITHHOLDING THE DOCUMENTS ALL ALONG! THE ONLY DIFFERENCE IS THAT NOW OBAMA OFFICIALLY HAS HIS FINGERPRINTS ON THE COVER-UP.

Issa's committee wants documents that show why the Department of Justice decided to withdraw as inaccurate a February 2011 letter sent to Congress that said top officials had only recently learned about Fast and Furious.

* ONE CAN ONLY ASSUME THE ORIGINAL LETTER WAS "WITHDRAWN" BECAUSE HOLDER FOUND OUT THAT THERE WAS A BLUE DRESS... er... BECAUSE SOMEHOW HOLDER LEARNED THAT CONGRESSIONAL INVESTIGATORS HAD FOUND PROOF THAT THE LETTER WAS A LIE. (WHICH BRINGS US BACK TO THE COMMITTEE DEMANDING ALL PERTINENT DOCUMENTS WHICH PAINT THE TRUE PICTURE OF WHAT HAPPENED - WHO AUTHORIZED WHAT AND WHEN AND WHO KNEW WHAT WHEN.)

Issa has accused the attorney general of stonewalling an investigation into Fast and Furious and [furthermore charged that Holder's] Justice Department provided Congress with erroneous information about it.

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives launched Operation Fast and Furious out of Arizona to [supposedly] track weapon purchases by Mexican drug cartels.

* INSTEAD, IT SEEMS THAT THE IT WAS THE ATF BEHIND THE BUYS AND SALES!

However, ATF lost track of more than 1,000 firearms that the agency had allowed straw buyers to carry across the border...

* "STRAW BUYERS." AS I NOTED UP ABOVE... IT WAS THE ATF ITSELF WHICH WAS ENGAGING IN GUN RUNNING!

...and two of the lost weapons turned up at the scene of the killing of U.S. Border Patrol agent Brian Terry.

Asked by a reporter about why he was pushing so hard, Issa said it was because the nation and Terry's family deserved to know as much information as possible about the program linked to Terry's death.

June 20, 2012 at 11:14 AM
William R. Barker said...

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/jun/20/obama-asserts-executive-privilege-over-ff-docs/

* RE: OBAMA'S LAUGHABLE CLAIM OF EXECUTIVE PRIVILEGE

“The assertion of executive privilege raises monumental questions,” said Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa, ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee who first began the Fast and Furious investigation.

“How can the president assert executive privilege if there was no White House involvement? How can the president exert executive privilege over documents he’s supposedly never seen? Is something very big being hidden to go to this extreme? The contempt citation is an important procedural mechanism in our system of checks and balances,” he said.

“The questions from Congress go to determining what happened in a disastrous government program for accountability and so that it’s never repeated again.”

June 20, 2012 at 11:19 AM
William R. Barker said...

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304299304577350230665818646.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTop

In the 1990s Bill Clinton boasted that welfare reform took Americans off the dole. The Obama Administration boasts about how many it has added.

The next time someone moans about Washington "austerity," tell them about the Senate's food stamp votes on Tuesday. Democrats and a few Republicans united to block even modest reform in a welfare program that has exploded in the last decade...

* THESE SCUMBAG REPUBLICANS ARE: SCOTT BROWN, SUSAN COLLINS, OLYMPIA SNOWE, AND DEAN HELLER.

When the food stamp program began in the 1970s, it was designed to help about 1 of 50 Americans who were in severe financial distress. But thanks to eligibility changes first by President George W. Bush as part of the 2002 farm bill and then by President Obama in the 2008 stimulus, food stamps are becoming the latest middle-class entitlement.

One in seven Americans now qualifies.

A record 44.7 million people received food stamps in fiscal 2011, up from 28.2 million as recently as 2008.

* ONE... MORE... TIME...

A record 44.7 million people received food stamps in fiscal 2011, up from 28.2 million as recently as 2008.

(*JUST SHAKING MY HEAD*)

The cost has more than doubled in that same period, to $78 billion [per year]...

Once there was a stigma to going on the dole, and it was seen as a last resort. But now the Agriculture Department runs radio and TV ads prodding people to get the free food, as in a recent campaign that says food stamps will help you lose weight.

* YOU KNOW IT'S TRUE, FOLKS; YOU'VE ALL HEARD THE COMMERCIALS.

A federal website boasts about strategies that have "increased program participation" with special emphasis on Hispanics because "our data show that many low-income Latinos simply don't apply for [food stamps] even though they're eligible."

Alabama Republican Jeff Sessions proposed reforms to limit the worst excesses. One proposal would have established a federal asset test to ensure that food stamps aren't going to families that may not have an income but have tens of thousands of dollars in savings or may even live in a million-dollar home. (Some 39 states have no real asset test for food stamps, which means wealthy families without anyone in the job market are eligible.) (Another 27 states have gross-income limits that are above 130% of the federal poverty guidelines.)

That amendment lost 56-43, with every Democrat except Missouri's Claire McCaskill opposing it.

Mr. Sessions also tried to end the preposterous federal policy of paying some $500 million in bonuses to states that sign up more people for food stamps. (This is the way government becomes a permanent feedback loop promoting even bigger government.) That amendment lost 58-41...

* AGAIN... REPUBLICAN SCUMBAGS: SCOTT BROWN, SUSAN COLLINS, DEAN HELLER, OLYMPIA SNOWE... PLUS THIS TIME - LISA MURKOWSKI.

Still to come is an amendment on another egregious practice that lets some 15 states automatically enroll families for food stamps if they get federal home-heating subsidies. Some states mail heating subsidy checks of as little as $1 a month so families can qualify for federal food stamp benefits of as much as $130 a month. That amendment too is expected to fail.

* FOLKS... REMEMBER THAT OLD CLICHÉ ABOUT "THE ONLY GOOD POLITICIAN IS A DEAD POLITICIAN..."

(*SHRUG*)

[T]he news in the Senate vote is that the political class still isn't remotely serious about reforming government.

* WHICH IS WHY I SAY THAT IT WOULD BE BETTER IF THEY WERE KILLED BEFORE THEY CAN FINISH THE JOB OF DESTROYING OUR COUNTRY.

June 20, 2012 at 11:51 AM
William R. Barker said...

http://blog.american.com/2012/06/obamaleaks-strikes-again/

The Obama administration is under fire for leaking classified information, with members of Congress demanding a special counsel to investigate ObamaLeaks.

You would think, under the circumstances, Team Obama would finally take former Secretary of Defense Gates’s advice and “shut the [blank] up.”

Apparently not.

There has been yet another dangerous leak of highly classified information about an ongoing covert operation. The Washington Post reports:

(http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/us-israel-developed-computer-virus-to-slow-iranian-nuclear-efforts-officials-say/2012/06/19/gJQA6xBPoV_story.html?hpid=z1)

"The United States and Israel jointly developed a sophisticated computer virus nicknamed Flame that collected intelligence in preparation for cyber-sabotage aimed at slowing Iran’s ability to develop a nuclear weapon, according to Western officials with knowledge of the effort."

* AND SO ON AND SO FORTH... BUT HERE'S THE KEY BLURB FOR PURPOSES OF THIS NEWSBITE:

"Flame came to light last month after Iran detected a series of cyber-attacks on its oil industry. The disruption was directed by Israel in a unilateral operation that apparently caught its American partners off guard, according to several U.S. and Western officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity."

Note the disclosure that the cyber attack on Iran’s oil industry—which Iran detected and which brought Flame to public attention was a “unilateral operation” by Israel that “caught its American partners off guard.”

It’s not our fault, you see. Blame Israel for this disclosure.

(*SNORT*) (*JUST SHAKING MY HEAD*)

Yet in the process of pinning the blame on Israel, whoever leaked this information is disclosing still further sensitive intelligence information and further damaging the trust necessary for cooperation in the vitally important effort to stop Iran’s pursuit of the bomb.

* FOLKS... THIS PRESIDENCY IS A DISASTER.

June 20, 2012 at 12:25 PM
William R. Barker said...

http://thehill.com/blogs/e2-wire/e2-wire/233795-bid-to-kill-epa-coal-plant-rules-thwarted-in-senate

Senate [Democrats - with the help of five Republicans -] today blocked a GOP-led effort to scuttle Environmental Protection Agency [over-]regulations that mandate cuts in mercury pollution and other toxic emissions from coal-fired power plants.

* EVEN WITH ME ATTEMPTING TO IMPART SOME FAIRNESS INTO THIS OPENING PARAGRAPH OF THE HILL STORY, CLEARLY YOU CAN SEE THAT THE FIX IS IN.

* BTW, THE FIVE TURNCOAT REPUBLICANS: COLLINS, SNOWE, BROWN, AYOTTE, AND ALEXANDER.

* ON THE OTHER HAND...

Democratic Sens. Mary Landrieu (La.), Joe Manchin (W.Va.), Ben Nelson (Neb.), Mark Warner (Va.), and Jim Webb (Va.) joined most Republicans in supporting Inhofe's failed proposal.

* WHO KNOWS IF ALL FIVE DEMOCRATS WOULD HAVE VOTED THE SAME WAY HAD THE FIVE TURNCOAT REPUBLICANS STOOD WITH THEIR PARTY, BUT GIVING THEM THE BENEFIT OF THE DOUBT, I THANKS THEM FOR AT LEAST TRYING TO STEM THE TIDE OF DEMOCRATIC INSANITY.

“A substantial amount of the electricity we produce in the country comes from coal. And this new regulation would devastate the jobs that depend on this cheap, abundant resource,” said Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) on the Senate floor Wednesday ahead of the vote.

* THE DEMS DON'T CARE. (*SHRUG*) NEITHER DO THE FIVE REPUBLICAN TURNCOATS.

Mitt Romney, the presumptive GOP White House nominee, criticized the EPA rule but did not comment directly on Inhofe’s resolution.

* BECAUSE ROMNEY'S A SCUMBAG. (*SHRUG*)

In a floor speech Wednesday, Senator Manchin of West Virginia (D) expressed support for Republican Inhofe's resolution ahead of the vote, splitting with Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) who strongly opposed it. "From the day I arrived in the Senate I've been determined to stop the EPA's job-killing agenda, and this resolution of disapproval takes an important step to rein in this out of control agency," Manchin said.

June 20, 2012 at 6:44 PM
William R. Barker said...

http://washingtonexaminer.com/holder-retracts-claim-bush-team-knew-about-fast-and-furious/article/2500157

In a second major retraction over its version of the [Fast and Furious] gun-walking scandal, the [Obama] Justice Department has retracted Attorney General Eric Holder's [false] charge in a hearing last week that his Bush administration predecessor had been briefed on the affair.

In a memo just released by Sen. Chuck Grassley, the Iowa senator reveals [the following]:

To: Reporters and Editors

Re: Second retraction of Fast and Furious Assertions

Date: Wednesday, June 20, 2012

The Justice Department has retracted a second statement made to the Senate Judiciary Committee.

During a hearing last week, Attorney General Eric Holder claimed that his predecessor, then-Attorney General Michael Mukasey, had been briefed about gun-walking in Operation Wide Receiver. Now, the Department is retracting that statement and claiming Holder "inadvertently" made that claim to the Committee.

The Department's letter failed to apologize to former Attorney General Mukasey for the false accusation.

This is the second major retraction the Justice Department has made in the last seven months.

In December 2011, the Department retracted its claim that the ATF had not allowed illegally purchased guns to be trafficked to Mexico.

In addition, the Justice Department released only one page of additional material prior to the Attorney General's meeting on Capitol Hill on Tuesday. It is a page of handwritten notes by a public affairs specialist for the Deputy Attorney General, which the Department says it "just recently discovered." The notes indicate that when Deputy Assistant Attorney General Jason Weinstein met with senior ATF officials on April 28, 2010, regarding the problem of gun-walking in Wide Receiver, the Deputy Attorney General's public affairs specialist also attended the meeting.

The notes indicate that Fast and Furious was also a topic discussed at the meeting, in addition to Wide Receiver. These notes further corroborate contemporaneous emails in 2010 that show Criminal Division Chief Lanny Breuer and Weinstein seemed to have been more concerned about the press implications of gun-walking than they were about making sure ATF ended the practice.

The notes also undermine the claim that senior DOJ officials failed to "make the connection" between the gun-walking in Wide Receiver - which Breuer admitted to knowing about - and gun-walking in Fast and Furious. In fact, both cases were discussed by senior Department leadership and senior ATF leadership.

Grassley made the following comment on these developments:

"This is the second time in nearly seven months that the Department has gotten its facts wrong about gun-walking. ... In his eagerness to blame the previous administration, Attorney General Holder got his facts wrong. And his tactic didn't bring us any closer to understanding how a bad policy evolved and continued. Bad policy is bad policy, regardless of how many administrations carried it out. Ironically, the only document produced yesterday by the Department appears to show that senior officials in the Attorney General's own Department were strategizing about how to keep gun-walking in both Wide Receiver and Fast and Furious under wraps."

June 20, 2012 at 6:51 PM

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