Friday, July 20, 2012

Barker's Newsbites: Friday, July 20,2012



Am I going to address the Colorado shooting?

Nope.

What's to be said?

A nut with a gun. Happened to be a white guy. Horrific crime.

BUT... not the symptom of the wholesale breakdown of society that these "wildings" and "flash mob" robberies and riots are.

I'd be saying the same thing if this Holmes were black or Hispanic.

Remember John Allen Muhammad and Lee Boyd Malvo?

(*SHRUG*)

Nuts. Criminals. Same as Holmes... same as Son of Sam... same as the Columbine "kids" or Seung-Hui Cho...

We're talking sick individuals. NOT the same as a "random wilding..."

Anyway... just laying out my position so that it's crystal clear. 

10 comments:

William R. Barker said...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/celebritynews/2461820/Our-attitude-to-violence-is-beyond-a-joke-as-new-Batman-film-The-Dark-Knight-shows.html

The new Batman film reaches new levels of brutality, so why are we letting children watch it? Jenny McCartney looks at a society seduced by sadism.

* READ THE PIECE.

* I AGREE.

* IT'S A DELIBERATE COARSENING OF THE CULTURE - ROTTING THE CULTURE FROM WITHIN.

William R. Barker said...

http://frontpagemag.com/2012/jamie-glazov/the-dark-muslim-brotherhood-world-of-huma-abedin-2/

* MAKE OF THIS WHAT YOU WILL... CONSIDER THE SOURCE... QUESTION THE CREDIBILITY... BUT THEN DO A BIT OF RESEARCH AND SEE IF YOU CAN FIND OFFICIAL U.S. GOVERNMENT INVESTIGATIVE RESULTS SHOWING THAT IT'S BULLSHIT.

(*SHRUG*)

* LISTEN... IF IT WERE ME... IF I WERE BEING ACCUSED OF HAVING TIES THAT MADE ME A SECURITY RISK... I'D BE DEMANDING THAT THE FBI INVESTIGATE ME AND PUBLICLY CLEAR ME - IF THEY COULD.

(*SHRUG*)

William R. Barker said...

http://www.glennbeck.com/2012/07/19/developing-michele-bachmann-responds-to-attacks-after-she-calls-for-investigation-into-muslim-brotherhood/

* SAME HERE, FOLKS...

(*SIGH*)

* IF YOU'VE HEARD SNIPETS OF BOEHNER AND MCCAIN SLAMMING BACHMANN... WELL... DON'T RELY ON THE MSM FILTER. GET BACHMANN'S TAKE. READ EXACTLY WHAT SHE SAID AND WROTE!

(*SHRUG*)

* NOPE... DOESN'T SOUND ALL THAT UNREASONABLE TO ME.

* AGAIN... ALL I'M INTERESTED IN IS GETTING TO THE BOTTOM OF THIS... SEPARATING FACTS FROM FICTION.

(*SHRUG*)

William R. Barker said...

* THREE-PARTER... (Part 1 of 3)

http://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/doublex/2012/07/single_motherhood_worse_for_children_.html

At first glance, I might qualify as the poster boy for [a] recent Slate article defending single mothers and their children.

Raised by a strong and resourceful single mother, I turned out OK. ... I have managed to steer clear of prison, earn a Ph.D., hold down a decent job, and marry up. My life is proof positive...that married-parent families “do not have a monopoly on joy or healthy environments or thriving children.”

But, as a social scientist, I can also say that the academic research paints a much more complicated picture of the impact of family structure on children than does my life story or [another's anecdotal] experience.

It is true...that most children from single-parent homes turn out fine. In her book, For Better or For Worse, psychologist E. Mavis Hetherington estimated that about 75% of children of divorce suffered from no major pathologies. In other words, most children of divorce do not end up depressed, drugged out, or delinquent.

But Hetherington...also was honest enough to admit that divorce tends to double a child’s risk of a serious negative outcome.

Specifically, she found that “25% of youths from divorced families in comparison to 10% from non-divorced families did have serious social, emotional, or psychological problems.”

* TO BE CONTINUED...

William R. Barker said...

* CONTINUING... (Part 2 of 3)

Other research suggests that the children of never-married single parents tend to do somewhat worse than children of divorced single parents.

Take two contemporary social problems: teenage pregnancy and the incarceration of young males. Research by Sara McLanahan at Princeton University suggests that boys are significantly more likely to end up in jail or prison by the time they turn 30 if they are raised by a single mother.

Specifically, McLanahan and a colleague found that boys raised in a single-parent household were more than twice as likely to be incarcerated, compared with boys raised in an intact, married home, even after controlling for differences in parental income, education, race, and ethnicity.

Research on young men suggests they are less likely to engage in delinquent or illegal behavior when they have the affection, attention, and monitoring of their own mother and father.

But daughters depend on dads as well.

One study by Bruce Ellis of the University of Arizona found that about 33% of girls whose fathers left the home before they turned six ended up pregnant as teenagers, compared with just 5% of girls whose fathers were there throughout their childhood.

This dramatic divide was narrowed a bit when Ellis controlled for parents’ socioeconomic background — but only by a few percentage points.

The research on this topic suggests that girls raised by single mothers are less likely to be supervised, more likely to engage in early sex, and to end up pregnant compared with girls raised by their own married parents.

It’s true that poorer families are more likely to be headed by single mothers. But even factoring out class shows a clear difference.

Research by the Economic Mobility Project at Pew suggests that children from intact families are also more likely to rise up the income ladder if they were raised in a low-income family, and less likely to fall into poverty if they were raised in a wealthy family. For instance, according to Pew’s analysis, 54 of today’s young adults who grew up in an intact two-parent home in the top-third of household income have remained in the top-third as adults, compared with just 37% of today’s young adults who grew up in a wealthy (top-third) but divorced family.

Why is this? Single mothers, even from wealthier families, have less time. They are less likely to be able to monitor their kids. They do not have a partner who can relieve them when they are tired or frustrated or angry with their kids. This isn’t just a question of taking kids to the array of pampered extracurricular activities that many affluent, two-parent families turn to; it’s about the ways in which two sets of hands, ears, and eyes generally make parenting easier.

This recognition that it is easier to parent, and that kids are more likely to thrive, in a two-parent home might be one reason why the divorce bug seems to be on the wane in progressive enclaves like Park Slope and Seattle, according to the New York Times. After the turmoil of the divorce revolution of the 1970s and early 1980s, a marriage mindset has reasserted itself among college-educated Americans. (Barack and Michelle Obama embody the new mindset; Newt Gingrich and his three wives embody the ‘70s mindset.)

* TO BE CONTINUED...

William R. Barker said...

* CONCLUDING... (Part 3 of 3)

Today, college-educated Americans are divorcing less, steering clear of non-marital childbearing, and enjoying relatively high-quality marriages. By contrast - as I recently pointed out in "When Marriage Disappears" - Americans without college degrees are divorcing at high rates, witnessing dramatic increases in non-marital childbearing, and seeing their marital quality deteriorate.

The decline of marriage among poor and working-class Americans is partly a consequence of changes in the American economy. In today’s post-industrial economy, it is harder for less-educated Americans, especially poor and working-class men, to find stable, decent-paying jobs. This makes these men less attractive as marriage partners, both in their own eyes and in the eyes of their partners. Hence, less-educated Americans are less likely to get and stay married, even when they are having children.

But my research also suggests that changes in the culture...are implicated in the growing marriage divide between college-educated and less-educated Americans.

Specifically, the growing secularization and liberalization of American society seem to be playing out differently by class.

Surprisingly, college-educated Americans are now more likely to attend church than their less-educated fellow citizens, and they have also become more marriage-minded since the 1970s — in their attitudes toward divorce, for instance — whereas [non-college educated] Americans have become less marriage-minded over the same time.

(These cultural changes are only reinforcing the marriage divide in America, insofar as religious attendance and marriage-minded norms tend to strengthen marriage.)

The retreat from marriage in America...has led to “diverging destinies” for children from less-educated [vs.] college-educated homes.

Children from poor and working-class homes are now doubly disadvantaged by their parents’ meager economic resources and by the fact that their parents often break up. By contrast, children from more-educated and affluent homes are doubly advantaged by their parents’ substantial economic resources and by the fact that their parents usually get and stay married.

William R. Barker said...

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390444464304577537233908744496.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTop

This column has already told the story of Frank VanderSloot, an Idaho businessman who last year contributed to a group supporting Mitt Romney.

* TO RECAP:

An Obama campaign website in April sent a message to those who'd donate to the president's opponent. It called out Mr. VanderSloot and seven other private donors by name and occupation and slurred them as having "less-than-reputable" records.

Mr. VanderSloot has since been learning what it means to be on a presidential enemies list.

Just 12 days after the attack, the Idahoan found an investigator digging to unearth his divorce records. This bloodhound—a recent employee of Senate Democrats—worked for a for-hire opposition research firm.

Now Mr. VanderSloot has been targeted by the federal government. In a letter dated June 21, he was informed that his tax records had been "selected for examination" by the Internal Revenue Service. The audit also encompasses Mr. VanderSloot's wife, and not one, but two years of past filings (2008 and 2009).

Two weeks after receiving the IRS letter, Mr. VanderSloot received another—this one from the Department of Labor. He was informed it would be doing an audit of workers he employs on his Idaho-based cattle ranch under the federal visa program for temporary agriculture workers.

Perhaps all this is coincidence.

Perhaps something in Mr. VanderSloot's finances or on his ranch raised a flag.

* OR...

Did Mr. Obama pick up the phone and order the screws put to Mr. VanderSloot? Or — more likely — did a pro-Obama appointee or political hire or career staffer see that the boss had an issue with this donor, and decide to do the president an unasked-for election favor? (Or did he or she simply think this was a duty, given that the president had declared Mr. VanderSloot and fellow donors "less than reputable?")

We don't know what happened, and that's the problem. Entrusted with extraordinary powers, Mr. Obama has the duty to protect and defend all Americans — regardless of political ideology. By having his campaign target a private citizen for his politics, the president forswore those obligations. He both undermined public faith in federal institutions and put his employees in an impossible situation.

Every thinking American must henceforth wonder if Mr. VanderSloot has been targeted for inquiry because of his political leanings.

As for Mr. VanderSloot, to what authority should he appeal if he believes this to be politically motivated — given the Justice Department on down is also controlled by the man who targeted him?

(The White House did not return an email requesting comment.)

If this isn't a chilling glimpse of a society Americans reject, it is hard to know what is. It's why presidents are held to different rules, and should not keep lists. And it's why Mr. Obama has some explaining to do.

William R. Barker said...

* THREE-PARTER... (Part 1 of 3)

http://freebeacon.com/cronyism-built-that/

President Obama’s record of rewarding political donors with taxpayer dollars and plum administration posts is facing a new round of scrutiny thanks to GOP challenger Mitt Romney’s effort to make it a central issue of the campaign.

“[President Obama] thinks it’s his right to give taxpayer money to those who have supported him financially,” former Gov. John Sununu (R., N.H.) said Tuesday on a conference call hosted by the Romney campaign. “It’s insulting to hard-working entrepreneurs who really do create jobs.”

The most publicized instance of so-called “crony capitalism” — investing taxpayer dollars in firms tied to political donors — is the failed solar panel company Solyndra.

Obama bundler George Kaiser was a major stakeholder in Solyndra through his Kaiser Family Foundation, and made several trips to the White House in March 2009 to meet with senior administration officials. In July 2009, Kaiser bragged about securing face time with “all the key players in the West Wing of the White House,” as well as his “almost unique advantage” when it came to steering taxpayer funds toward his pet causes.

“There’s never been more money shoved out of the government’s door in world history, and probably never will be again, than in the last few months and in the next 18 months,” Kaiser told members of the Tulsa Rotary Club. “And our selfish parochial goal is to get as much as it for Tulsa and Oklahoma as we possibly can.”

Although things did not pan out for Solyndra — the company filed for bankruptcy in September 2011 — Kaiser can expect to see a better return on his investment than American taxpayers. As part of an agreement to restructure Solyndra’s loan agreement in 2010, Obama’s DOE granted priority status to private investors like Kaiser with respect to the first $75 million recovered in the event of the firm’s bankruptcy, a move that many suspect violated federal law.

Taxpayers, meanwhile, are unlikely to recover much of the money invested on their behalf.

* TO BE CONTINUED...

William R. Barker said...

* CONTINUING... (Part 2 of 3)

Emails uncovered by Congressional investigators reveal that Solyndra helped secure its $535 million loan guarantee with the help of Steve Spinner, another prominent Obama donor.

After bundling more than $500,000 for Obama in 2008, Spinner was named to the White House transition team and later served as “chief strategic operations officer” of the DOE loan program that funded Solyndra.

Spinner’s wife Allison worked for a law firm that represented Solyndra and several other green energy outfits that applied for taxpayer funding. Records show that her firm, Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, received $2.4 million in federal funds in legal fees associated with Solyndra’s loan application.

More than 70% of DOE and loans under Obama went to Democratic donors and bundlers, Peter Schweizer reported in Throw Them All Out.

“You can call it crony capitalism or venture socialism — but by whatever name, the Energy Department’s loan guarantee program privatizes profits and socializes losses,” the Washington Post editorial board wrote in November 2011.

A confidential 2009 memo authored by former White House economic adviser Larry Summers paints a damning picture of the administration’s approach to crafting the stimulus package. “The short-run economic imperative was to identify as many campaign promises or high priority items that would spend out quickly and be inherently temporary,” Summers wrote. “The stimulus package is a key tool for advancing clean energy goals and fulfilling a number of campaign commitments.”

In several cases, including Solyndra, advancing the president’s green energy agenda went hand in hand with providing financial payoffs to prominent campaign donors.

California investment guru John Doerr, for example, has personally contributed more than $170,000 to Democratic campaigns and committees since 2008, and more than $2 million over the past 20 years. His investment firm, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (KPCB), which lists former Vice President Al Gore as a partner, has given more than $1 million to Democrats since 2005.

An early and outspoken advocate for federal investment in “green” technology, Doerr was named to the president’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board in 2009, where he helped craft the $787 billion stimulus package.

Of the 27 companies list in KPCB’s “green-tech” portfolio, 16 received some form of taxpayer support.

* TO BE CONTINUED...

William R. Barker said...

* CONCLUDING... (Part 3 of 3)

Another prominent Obama donor who has benefited handsomely from the president’s policies is Steve Westly. A frequent guest at White House events and state dinners, Westley served as California co-chair and a National Finance Committee member of Obama’s 2008 campaign and currently sits on the DOE’s Energy Advisory Board. He has bundled at least $700,000 in campaign donations for Obama since 2008 and personally given about $260,000 to Democratic campaigns and committees since 2007.

Westly’s investment firm, the Westly Group, had a financial stake in four green energy companies that received more than half a billion dollars in federal funding in 2009.

The group’s website once touted the firm as being “uniquely positioned” to take advantage of the influx of taxpayer funding in green technology, and currently notes that “To win in the clean technology space, a company must navigate the halls of government.”

One of the companies Obama “liked” was the Exelon Corporation, a Chicago-based utility and recipient of hundreds of millions of dollars in stimulus funding. One of the most politically connected firms in the country, Exelon employees have made up one of President Obama’s top sources of campaign contributions throughout his career.

Exelon was Obama’s fourth-largest campaign donor when he ran for Senate in 2004, contributing more than $73,000, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

The firm donated $326,000 to Obama’s presidential campaign in 2008.

The firm has ties to several top Obama bundlers, as well as to Obama campaign adviser David Axelrod and former White House chief of staff and current Chicago mayor Rahm Emmanuel.

As the Washington Free Beacon reported in June, an Exelon subsidiary was recently awarded a lucrative 20-year contract to install solar panels manufactured by federal inmates on government facilities.

Such cronyism is not exclusive to the green energy sector. DreamWorks Animation CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg has bundled at least $500,000 for Obama’s reelection campaign, and is the largest contributor to Priorities USA, the Obama-allied Super PAC.

The Securities and Exchange Commission is currently investigating whether DreamWorks made illegal payments to Chinese officials in order to secure exclusive film rights in the communist nation. The New York Times reported that Katzenberg, as well as Vice President Joe Biden, were intimately involved in negotiating an agreement under which China would up its annual quota of foreign-produced films from 20 to 34 and allow studios to keep a greater percentage of box-office revenue.

DreamWorks announced a $2 billion deal with the Chinese government in February to build a production studio in Shanghai just days after Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping held an extensive meeting with Barack Obama in Washington, D.C.

Obama’s penchant for crony capitalism, critics say, explains his comment over the weekend that “If you’ve got a business, you did not build that — somebody else made that happen.” “He thinks that government is there to pick who should succeed and who should fail,” Sununu said on the conference call. “It’s in his political genes.”

“Big government lends itself to big cronyism,” said political analyst Jay Cost. “In Obama’s legislation, we see vast payoffs to interest groups that have benefited the Democratic Party.”

* FOLKS... HAVE REPUBLICANS DONE IT TOO? SURE! BUT OBAMA WAS SUPPOSED TO BE MR. HOPE & CHANGE - REMEMBER? AND IN ANY CASE, OBAMA'S BIG GOVERNMENT POLICIES ENSURE THAT MORE TAXPAYER MONEY IS STEERED TO HIS POLITICAL ALLIES BECAUSE MORE MONEY - PERIOD - IS "AVAILABLE" UNDER OBAMANOMICS TO BE "STEERED!"