Tuesday, August 7, 2012

Barker's Newsbites: Tuesday, August 7, 2012


Yeah, yeah... I'm aware it's not even 9:00 a.m.!

A man can dream though... can't he?

Posted by at

7 comments:

William R. Barker said...

http://dailycaller.com/2012/08/07/emails-geithner-treasury-drove-cutoff-of-non-union-delphi-workers-pensions/

Emails obtained by The Daily Caller show that the U.S. Treasury Department, led by Timothy Geithner, was the driving force behind terminating the pensions of 20,000 salaried retirees at the Delphi auto parts manufacturing company.

The move, made in 2009 while the Obama administration implemented its auto bailout plan, appears to have been made solely because those retirees were not members of labor unions.

* AH... THE BRAVE NEW (FASCIST) WORLD OF THE AGE OF OBAMA...

(*SIGH*)

* FOLKS... THERE'S NOTHING FUNNY ABOUT THIS. (AND BTW... WHAT'S IT TELL YOU THAT THIS LATEST IS BEING OUTED BY THE DAILY CALLER AND NOT THE DAILY NEWS OR THE NEW YORK TIMES OR 60 MINUTES? HMM...?

The internal government emails contradict sworn testimony, in federal court and before Congress, given by several Obama administration figures.

* IF THIS IS TRUE...

(*SHRUG*)

They also indicate that the administration misled lawmakers and the courts about the sequence of events surrounding the termination of those non-union pensions, and that administration figures violated federal law.

* IF THIS CAN ALL BE CONFIRMED...

(*SHRUG*)

Delphi, a General Motors company, is one of the world’s largest automotive parts manufacturers. Twenty thousand of its workers lost nearly their entire pensions when the government bailed out GM. At the same time, Delphi employees who were members of the United Auto Workers union saw their pensions topped off and made whole.

* AND THAT DID INDEED HAPPEN! NO DEBATE ABOUT THOSE FACTS!

The White House and Treasury Department have consistently maintained that the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC) independently made the decision to terminate the 20,000 non-union Delphi workers’ pension plan. (The PBGC is a federal government agency that handles private-sector pension benefits issues. Its charter calls for independent representation of pension beneficiaries’ interests.) Former Treasury official Matthew Feldman and former White House auto czar Ron Bloom, both key members of the Presidential Task Force on the Auto Industry during the GM bailout, have testified - under oath - that the PBGC, not the administration, led the effort to terminate the non-union Delphi workers’ pension plan.

(*PURSED LIPS*)

The emails The Daily Caller has obtained show that the Treasury Department, not the independent PBGC, was running the show.

(*PURSED LIPS*)

* FOLKS... THE EMAILS ARE EMBEDDED WITHIN THE STORY. I URGE YOU TO CHECK THIS OUT FOR YOURSELVES. SEEMS GENUINE TO ME!

August 7, 2012 at 8:37 AM
William R. Barker said...

http://www.latimes.com/news/nation/nationnow/la-na-nn-investigators-kept-tabs-alleged-sikh-temple-shooter-20120806,0,2390104.story

Federal investigators had “looked at” Sikh temple gunman Wade Michael Page more than once because of his associations with right-wing extremists and the possibility that he was providing funding to a domestic terrorist group, but law enforcement officials at the time determined there was not enough evidence of a crime to open an investigation, a senior U.S. law enforcement official said.

* A COUPLE POINTS: 1) WHAT "RIGHT-WING EXTREMISTS?" FORGET THE WHO... BUT WHAT'S THE DEFINITION OF "RIGHT-WING EXTREMISTS?" 2) "DOMESTIC TERRORIST GROUP...???" UMM... PERHAPS A BIT OF DETAIL MIGHT COME IN HANDY RATHER THAN JUST THROWING OUT HOT-BUTTON WORDS? (JUST SAYIN'...!) 3) NOT ENOUGH EVIDENCE OF A CRIME TO INVESTIGATE... BUT... BUT... ISN'T THAT PUTTING THE CART BEFORE THE HORSE? ISN'T IT THE INVESTIGATION WHICH EITHER FINDS OR DOESN'T FIND EVIDENCE OF A CRIME...???

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity...

* FOLKS... THIS IS WHAT PASSES FOR "JOURNALISM" IN THE AGE OF OBAMA. FOLKS... THIS IS BULLSHIT.

Before his rampage Sunday at a Sikh temple in Oak Creek, Wis., that left him and six others dead and three critically wounded, Page was known to civil rights groups as a member of two racist skinhead bands – End Apathy and Definite Hate. He was also believed to have been a low-level member of a national white supremacist group called the Hammerskins.

* KNOWN TO... er... CIVIL RIGHTS GROUPS? (Hmm... WHAT ABOUT KNOWN TO GOVERNMENT...?)

* HE WAS ALSO... er... "BELIEVED TO HAVE BEEN..." (*SNORT*)

* FOLKS... THIS ISN'T THE PENNYSAVER - THIS IS WHAT YOU'RE GETTING FROM THE LA FRIGGIN' TIMES!

* FOLKS... DON'T GET ME WRONG! I HAVE NO DOUBT THAT THIS WADE MICHAEL PAGE WAS A NUT AND MURDERER... BUT REGARDLESS OF HIS POLITICAL AND SOCIAL BELIEFS (AND I'M GUESSING HE HATED THE GOP AS WELL AS THE DNC!) AND "AFFILIATIONS" THIS CLEARLY ISN'T THE MUNICH PUTSCH OR BOLSHEVIK REVOLUTION!

* BOTTOM LINE, FOLKS... (*PURSED LIPS*)... THE LA TIMES APPEARS TO BE USING THIS STORY MORE AS A PROPAGANDA EXERCISE - TO SET AND ANTI-"RIGHT WING" TONE - THAN AS AN OPPORTUNITY TO REPORT THE STRAIGHT NEWS.

(*SHRUG*)

August 7, 2012 at 9:02 AM
William R. Barker said...

http://philadelphia.cbslocal.com/2012/08/07/violent-home-invasion-in-juniata-under-investigation/

A violent home invasion has Philadelphia police hunting for some preteen suspects.

Authorities say they beat a 51-year-old woman with some unusual items, including a plunger.

Police say it happened around 3:30 p.m. on Monday in the 1200 block of Luzerne Street.

* 3:30 P.M. ON A MONDAY... BROAD FUCKING DAYLIGHT ON A WEEKDAY...

(*SIGH*)

Authorities say a family friend found the victim in the backyard, on her knees, crying and begging for her life to be spared.

When police arrived, they found her room ransacked, cabinets emptied and the victim, an Asian female with mental disabilities, beaten and robbed.

* JEEZUS...!

“They hit her in the face with a rock, they used rope and also sticks and a potted plant,” Lt. John O’Hanlon explained.

Police say the three suspects, described by the victim as black juveniles, ran away with the victim’s purse. Police were eventually able to identify the suspects as 7, 10 and 12-year-old boys.

* JEEZUS...!

“It’s amazing that these kids so young can be so violent,” Lt. O’Hanlon added.

* NO! IT'S NOT! THIS IS PHILADELPHIA...!!! THESE ARE BLACK INNER-CITY "YOUTHS" IN PHILADELPHIA! I'M NOT SURPRISED. ARE YOU SURPRISED?

We talked to the victim’s family friend who asked that we don’t identify her. “They just followed her. She just got back from doing laundry. When she got home, they beat her and threw stuff into the house.”

* JEEZUS...

(*JUST SHAKING MY HEAD*)

August 7, 2012 at 9:13 AM
William R. Barker said...

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390443343704577549212130668218.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_AboveLEFTTop

It may seem amazing that Congress would even consider such a thing three months before the election, but banks have been lobbying to extend a deposit insurance program that was sold as a temporary response to the financial crisis in 2008.

It's called the Transaction Account Guarantee (TAG).

Whereas traditional insurance from the FDIC now covers up to $250,000 per account, TAG provides unlimited coverage for non-interest-bearing transaction accounts. These are typically checking and payroll accounts for corporations and municipalities, as well as some large personal accounts. Taxpayers now stand behind more than $1.3 trillion of TAG deposits.

TAG is scheduled to expire at the end of this year. But four years after the crisis, some bankers can't seem to wean themselves off government assistance.

The immediate danger to taxpayers is a back room deal on Capitol Hill. As lawmakers draft a continuing resolution to keep the government open past September, a TAG extension could be slipped into the legislative text at the last minute before taxpayers notice.

TAG has largely flown under the media radar because some of its most prominent backers have often postured as opponents of the giant banks. Congressman Barney Frank (D-MA) promised "death panels" for too-big-to-fail banks, but his 2010 Dodd-Frank law quietly extended TAG for two years.

* DID YOU KNOW THIS, FOLKS...?

Like all government deposit insurance, TAG rewards poorly run banks at the expense of well-run institutions, distorts the allocation of capital, and is used to justify additional regulation. And of course it puts taxpayers on the hook for private risk-taking.

While it creates the veneer of safer banking, TAG also sows the seeds of future instability. Hard as it may be for some youngsters to believe, interest rates normally don't stay near zero. When rates inevitably rise, expect a lot of cash to exit non-interest-bearing accounts for better returns.

Today, one of TAG's most ardent champions is Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH), who is running for re-election as a champion of the little guy. Give him credit for nerve. His website proclaims that a bill he recently drafted "would eliminate government subsidies enjoyed by trillion-dollar megabanks." The site doesn't mention that his separate plan to extend TAG would protect government subsidies for those same mega-banks.

Mr. Brown and Senate Banking Chairman Tim Johnson (D-SD) recently sent a letter to the White House warning that ending the TAG program could "disrupt the stability of the banking system."

Ironically, this time taxpayers might find an unlikely ally in the Obama Administration. That's because lobbyists urging a TAG extension claim that the lousy economy and continuing problems in the banking system make it necessary. Team Obama may not wish to implicitly concede that its policies in both areas have failed. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, who has done as much as anyone to expand the taxpayer safety net, was reluctant to endorse an extension at a recent Senate hearing.

Lawmakers should consider how far they can stretch that net before taxpayers simply cannot cover the tab for Washington's moral hazard. A 2010 report from the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond found that from 1999 to 2009 the coverage provided by the federal safety net surged to 59% from 45% of all liabilities at financial firms.

Moving that number much closer to zero over the next decade should be high on Mr. Romney's agenda.

* FOLKS... HERE'S WHAT PISSES ME OFF ABOUT THIS ARTICLE. WHERE IS MENTION OF THE REPUBLICANS? WHERE DOES ROMNEY STAND? WHERE DO BOEHNER AND MCCONNELL STAND? WOULDN'T IT BE NICE TO KNOW?!

August 7, 2012 at 1:29 PM
William R. Barker said...

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

http://washingtonexaminer.com/york-when-1099-felons-vote-in-race-won-by-312-ballots/article/2504163

In the eyes of the Obama administration, most Democratic lawmakers, and left-leaning editorial pages across the country, voter fraud is a problem that doesn't exist.

* ACTUALLY IT GOES BEYOND THAT. FOR THE DEMS... WELL... VOTER FRAUD IS PART OF THEIR ELECTION STRATEGY.

That argument becomes much harder to make after reading a discussion of the 2008 Minnesota Senate race in "Who's Counting?" - a new book by conservative journalist John Fund and former Bush Justice Department official Hans von Spakovsky.

Although the authors cover the whole range of voter fraud issues, their chapter on Minnesota is enough to convince any skeptic that there are times when voter fraud not only exists but can be critical to the outcome of a critical race.

In the '08 campaign, Republican Sen. Norm Coleman was running for re-election against Democrat Al Franken. It was impossibly close; on the morning after the election, after 2.9 million people had voted, Coleman led Franken by 725 votes.

Franken and his Democratic allies dispatched an army of lawyers to challenge the results.

After the first canvass, Coleman's lead was down to 206 votes.

That was followed by months of wrangling and litigation.

In the end, Franken was declared the winner by 312 votes. He was sworn into office in July 2009, eight months after the election.

During the controversy a conservative group called Minnesota Majority began to look into claims of voter fraud. Comparing criminal records with voting rolls, the group identified 1,099 felons - all ineligible to vote - who had voted in the Franken-Coleman race.

(*JUST SHAKING MY HEAD*)

Minnesota Majority took the information to prosecutors across the state, many of whom showed no interest in pursuing it - [even though] Minnesota law requires authorities to investigate such leads.

And so far, Fund and von Spakovsky report, 177 people have been convicted - not just accused, but convicted - of voting fraudulently in the Senate race.

Another 66 are awaiting trial.

("The numbers aren't greater," the authors say, "because the standard for convicting someone of voter fraud in Minnesota is that they must have been both ineligible, and 'knowingly' voted unlawfully." The accused can get off by claiming not to have known they did anything wrong.)

Still, that's a total of 243 people either convicted of voter fraud or awaiting trial in an election that was decided by 312 votes. With 1,099 examples identified by Minnesota Majority, and with evidence suggesting that felons, when they do vote, strongly favor Democrats, it doesn't require a leap to suggest there might one day be proof that Al Franken was elected on the strength of voter fraud.

* TO BE CONTINUED...

August 7, 2012 at 5:32 PM
William R. Barker said...

* CONCLUDING... (Part 2 of 2)

And that's just the question of voting by felons[!] Minnesota Majority also found all sorts of other irregularities that cast further doubt on the Senate results[!]

The election was particularly important because Franken's victory gave Senate Democrats a 60th vote in favor of President Obama's national health care proposal - the deciding vote to overcome a Republican filibuster.

If Coleman had kept his seat... there would have been no 60th vote, and no ObamaCare.

Voter fraud matters when contests are close. When an election is decided by a huge margin, no one can plausibly claim fraud made the difference. But the Minnesota race was excruciatingly close. And then, in the ObamaCare debate, Democrats could not afford to lose even a single vote. So if there were any case that demonstrates that voter fraud both exists and has real consequences, it is Minnesota 2008.

Yet Democrats across the country continue to downplay the importance of the issue.

* BECAUSE... VOTER... FRAUD... TENDS... TO... FAVOR... DEMOCRAT... CANDIDATES...!!!

Last year, Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, chairman of the DNC, denounced "the gauzy accusation that voter fraud is somehow a problem, when over and over again it has been proven that you're more likely to get hit by lightning than you are to [be] a victim of voter fraud."

Wasserman Shultz and her fellow Democrats are doing everything they can to stop reasonable anti-fraud measures [such as] removing ineligible voters from the rolls and voter ID.

"When voters are disenfranchised by the counting of improperly cast ballots or outright fraud, their civil rights are violated just as surely as if they were prevented from voting," write Fund and von Spakovsky.

"The integrity of the ballot box is just as important to the credibility of elections as access to it."

* THAT'S HOW I SEE IT TOO!

August 7, 2012 at 5:32 PM
William R. Barker said...

http://www.judicialwatch.org/press-room/press-releases/general-services-administration-with-the-blessing-of-the-obama-white-house-tells-law-enforcement-to-stand-down-and-not-enforce-the-law-against-occupy-protestors-a/

Judicial Watch announced today that it has obtained records from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) indicating that the General Services Administration (GSA), with the blessing of the Obama White House, instructed law enforcement officers to “stand down” and not arrest “Occupy Portland” protestors who were in violation of the law.

* FOLKS... (*SIGH*)... ESPECIALLY YOU LIBERALS OUT THERE... THE CONCEPT OF "EQUAL PROTECTION/EQUAL JUSTICE/EQUAL TREATMENT UNDER THE LAW" IS... OR AT LEAST USED TO BE... A BEDROCK UNDERPINNING OF THE AMERICAN IDEAL. DO ANY OF YOU... ANY OF YOU... HONESTLY BELIEVE THAT HAD THE PROTESTERS BEEN "TEA PARTY" PROTESTERS ENGAGED IN ILLEGAL ACTIVITIES THAT THE WHITE HOUSE WOULD HAVE INTERVENED? (AND IF THEY DID INTERVENE IN SUCH A CASE IT WOULD NO DOUBT BE TO DEMAND THE HARSHED FEDERAL CHARGES BE PROFFERED!)

* FOLKS... CONNECT THE DOTS... THINK BACK TO THE NEWSBITE CONCERNING UNION VS. NON-UNION PENSION FUNDING BY THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION...

(*SHRUG*)

“We now have a new GSA scandal – one that involves the Obama White House,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “These documents clearly show that federal agencies colluded with the Obama White House to allow the Occupy Wall Street protestors to violate the law with impunity. These documents tell us that the GSA and DHS can’t be relied upon to protect federal workers or property.”

* YEP. PRETTY MUCH.

* OH... AND ACCORDING TO THE WASHINGTON POST (WHICH CORRESPONDS WITH MY MEMORY)... (READ ON!)

The Obama White House denied on multiple occasions during the Occupy protests last year that anybody in the Obama administration had given aid or encouragement to the demonstrations, many of which erupted into public and private property destruction, arrests for drug dealing and prostitution and public health violations.

(*SHRUG*)

August 7, 2012 at 9:31 PM

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)