Tuesday, September 25, 2012

Barker's Newsbites: Tuesday, September 25, 2012


Yep... more country!

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15 comments:

William R. Barker said...

http://www.nationaljournal.com/egyptian-president-morsi-tepid-on-u-s-egypt-relationship-20120925

Egypt’s new president Mohamed Morsi on Monday described the relationship between the U.S. and Egypt as somewhere between friends and enemies, pointing to President Obama’s remarks that the two countries are not allies.

* HEY... FOLKS... REMEMBER... I GAVE OBAMA CREDIT FOR TRUTH TELLING ON THAT ONE! (AND THEN I CURSED HIM OUT FOR PISSING AWAY YET ANOTHER BILLION DOLLARS PLUS ON "FORGIVING" EGYPTS DEBT.)

When asked by CBS’s Charlie Rose how he would characterize U.S.-Egypt relations, Morsi was evasive. He said that the two countries are not enemies, but he would not necessarily consider the U.S. an ally.

* "...NOT NECESSARILY..." (*SMIRK*)

“This is dependent on the definition of an ally,” Morsi told Rose on CBS This Morning, speaking through a translator. “The understanding of an ally as a part of a military alliance, this is not existent right now. But if you mean by allied partnership and special diplomatic relationship and cooperation, we are that ally.”

* IN OTHER WORDS, THEY'RE NOT AN ALLY... BUT THEY'LL GLADLY TAKE OUR MONEY.

* WE'RE FOOLS. ABSOLUTE FOOLS.

* OH... AND I SUPPOSE EGYPT IS ONE OF THE COUNTRIES WE CONSIDER OUR "OTHER ALLIES" IN THE MIDDLE EAST... "ALONG WITH" ISRAEL. NICE. REAL NICE.

September 25, 2012 at 8:45 AM
William R. Barker said...

http://www.theatlanticwire.com/national/2012/09/sat-reading-scores-are-lowest-theyve-been-40-years/57208/

Coming in with an average SAT reading score of 496, 2012's graduating seniors have the dubious distinction of having attained the worst reading score since 1972.

* QUITE A LOT OF THINGS ABOUT OBAMA'S AMERICA REMIND ME OF THE 70's...

What's troubling beyond the low average score is that seniors' scores in "writing," a section related to "reading" and for most of us, life in some way or another, also dropped — to 488 — a decrease of nine points since the College Board started testing for it in 2006.

(*SARCASTIC CLAP-CLAP-CLAP*)

* AND, FOLKS... REMEMBER... THESE ARE THE KIDS TAKING THE TEXT... THE "COLLEGE BOUND" KIDS... THESE ARE THE "BEST AND BRIGHTEST" OF THEIR GENERATION!

September 25, 2012 at 8:51 AM
William R. Barker said...

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/09/25/us-usa-education-testing-idUSBRE88O05Y20120925

A national push to make public schools more rigorous and hold teachers more accountable has led to a vast expansion of testing in...

(*DRUM ROLL*)

* WAIT FOR IT... WAIT FOR IT...

...kindergarten.

* THE RETARDS ARE RUNNING THE ASYLUM. YEP. THE INMATES HAVE LEFT THE BUILDING.

And more exams are on the way, including a test meant to determine whether 5-year-olds are on track to succeed in college and career.

(*JUST THROWING MY HANDS UP*)

Paul Weeks, a vice president at test developer ACT Inc., says he knows that particular assessment sounds a bit nutty...

* AND YET... HE'S A VICE PRESIDENT OF TEST DEVELOPER ACT INC.!

But ACT will soon roll out college- and career-readiness exams for kids age 8 through 18 and Weeks said developing similar tests for younger ages is "high on our agenda."

* FOLKS... AGAIN... UNDERSTAND... IT'S FOLKS LIKE THIS WEEKS GUY WHO SET OUR NATIONAL AGENDAS!

* WE'RE... FUCKED...

September 25, 2012 at 8:58 AM
William R. Barker said...

http://pjmedia.com/blog/wasted-food-hungry-kids-michelle-obamas-bill-in-action/

In 2010, Michelle Obama went to a lame-duck session of Congress with a request: pass a nutrition bill giving the United States Department of Agriculture broad new powers to regulate school lunches.

That bill was passed in late December of that year [while Democrats still held power], and the new regulations have started to go into effect, with the predictable results of wasted food and angry, hungry children.

The cinnamon rolls and chili everyone loved from their childhood are now gone. Bands and other school groups can no longer sell candy bars as a fundraiser. The government is mandating everything from portion size to how many tomatoes have to be on a salad.

P.J. Moran, a food service director for a small district in rural Kansas, said wastage has gone up “at least 20%” over last year, as students, particularly at the grade school level, cannot refuse anything on their trays — but, of course, cannot be forced to eat it.

* STUPID... FUCKING... BITCHES... AND... BASTARDS...

* NEXT NANCY PELOSI IS GONNA MAKE A PUBLIC STATEMENT ABOUT HOW THE WASTE IS "STIMULATIVE."

(*SMIRK*)

At the high school and junior high levels, things are more flexible, but not much. Moran said those students can refuse up to three items on the tray, but must take the fruit and vegetable servings whether they plan to eat them or not.

The district’s principal, Jim Bolden, said that at the beginning of the year, food service put fresh peaches on the students’ trays, only to helplessly watch them be thrown away by students who didn’t want them: "I bet we threw away four boxes of peaches."

* READING THIS STORY IS LITERALLY MAKING ME SICK TO MY STOMACH.

September 25, 2012 at 9:06 AM
William R. Barker said...

http://www.wwntradio.com/news/news.php/displayType/article/11183/2012/09/obama-usda-offering-women-hispanic-farmers-over-13-billion-in-discrimination-payouts

As part of “a new era of civil rights” at the Department of Agriculture, Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack announced Monday that Hispanic and women farmers and ranchers who believe USDA discriminated against them can file claims to get a piece of at least $1.33 billion in cash awards and tax relief payments and up to $160 million in farm debt relief, beginning this week.

(*JUST SHAKING MY FUCKING HEAD*)

Women and Hispanic ranchers and farmers who feel the agency denied their loan or loan servicing applications because of their race or gender at various periods from 1981 to 2000 can file claims alleging discrimination from Sept. 24, 2012, to March 25, 2013, for a slice of the payout.

* FOLKS... YOU UNDERSTAND WHAT YOU'RE READING - RIGHT?

* "...WHO FEEL THE AGENCY..." FOLKS. THE GOVERNMENT IS URGING HISPANICS AND WOMEN TO CLAIM THAT... (*PAUSE*)... IT... THE GOVERNMENT... DISCRIMINATED AGAINST THEM!

* AND, FOLKS... OF COURSE WHILE THEY'RE BEING GENEROUS WITH TAXPAYER MONEY, ONCE "DISCRIMINATION" HAS BEEN JUDGED TO HAVE TAKEN PLACE NONE OF THE GOVERNMENT EMPLOYEES WHO WOULD HAVE BEEN RESPONSIBLE FOR THE "DISCRIMINATION" WILL BE CHARGED OR PUT IN ANY LEGAL OR FINANCIAL JEAPARDY PERSONALLY... BUT YOU AND I GET HOSED! SOUND GOOD TO YOU...?!?!

“Hispanic and women farmers who believe they have faced discriminatory practices from the USDA must file a claim by March 25, 2013 in order to have a chance to receive a cash payment or loan forgiveness,” Vilsack explained in a statement Monday. “The opening of this claims process is part of USDA’s ongoing efforts to correct the wrongs of the past and ensure fair treatment to all current and future customers.”

* FOLKS... THESE "CLAIMS" ARE GOING TO BE LARGELY "PROCESSED" - NOT ADJUDICATED. IF THE CLAIM FORMS ARE FILLED OUT PROPERLY... WELL... I'M GUESSING THE CHECKS WILL COME!

This is the third settlement to interest groups the USDA is believed to have discriminated against during the Obama administration.

* COINCIDENCE...??? (*SMIRK*) WAS BILL CLINTON REALLY SUCH A RACIST...??? (*SNORT*)

* FOLKS... UNDERSTAND... OBAMA USES TAXPAYER MONEY TO BUY LOYALTY. IT'S THAT FRIGGIN' SIMPLE AND CORRUPT.

The $1.25 billion Pigford II settlement — which covered black farmers who charged that the USDA had discriminated against them when applying for loans from 1981 to 1996 but missed the filing deadline in the original 1999 Pigford settlement (named for the lead plaintiff, Timothy Pigford, in a class action lawsuit against the government) — made headlines in 2011 for the allegations of fraud in the program.

The Keepseagle settlement made $760 million available to Native American farmers and ranchers who believe they did not receive the same farm loan opportunities as whites between 1981 and 1999.

The USDA plans to engaged in outreach through mail, media, and community advocacy groups to ensure that those eligible are aware of the claims process. The agency has print, video and audio outreach messages in English and Spanish on its website.

* YEP. THESE BASTARDS ARE ACTUALLY "MARKETING" THE GIVEAWAYS!

September 25, 2012 at 9:25 AM
William R. Barker said...

http://paul.house.gov/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=2015:interest-rates-are-prices&catid=64:2012-texas-straight-talk&Itemid=69

* BY THE HON. RON PAUL (R-TX)

One of the most enduring myths in the United States is that this country has a free market, when in reality, the market is merely the structural shell of formerly free institutions.

(*NOD*)

Government pulls the strings behind the scenes. No better illustration of this can be found than in the Federal Reserve's manipulation of interest rates.

The Fed has interfered with the proper function of interest rates for decades, but perhaps never as boldly as it has in the past few years through its policies of quantitative easing. In Chairman Bernanke's most recent press conference he stated that the Fed wishes not only to drive down rates on Treasury debt, but also rates on mortgages, corporate bonds, and other important interest rates. Markets greeted this statement enthusiastically, as this means trillions more newly-created dollars flowing directly to Wall Street.

* FUNNY THING, THOUGH... MARKETS ACTUALLY HAVEN'T BEEN RISING - EXCEPT INITIALLY (FIRST DAY) - ON THIS LATEST OFFICIAL FED POLICY PRONOUCEMENT. I FEAR THIS MEANS THAT THE GAME IS UP. WHEN EVEN WALL STREET NO LONGER BUYS WHAT BERNANKE AND OBAMA ARE SELLING...

(*SHRUG*)

Because the interest rate is the price of money, manipulation of interest rates has the same effect in the market for loanable funds as price controls have in markets for goods and services. Since demand for funds has increased, but the supply is not being increased, the only way to match the shortfall is to continue to create new credit. But this process cannot continue indefinitely. At some point the capital projects funded by the new credit are completed. Houses must be sold, mines must begin to produce ore, factories must begin to operate and produce consumer goods.

But because consumption patterns have either remained unchanged or have become more present-oriented, by the time these new capital projects are finished and begin to produce, the producers find no market for their goods.

Because the coordination between savings and consumption was severed through the artificial lowering of the interest rate, both savers and borrowers have been signaled into unsustainable patterns of economic activity.

Resources that would have been used in productive endeavors under a regime of market-determined interest rates are instead shuttled into endeavors that only after the fact are determined to be unprofitable. In order to return to a functioning economy, those resources which have been malinvested need to be liquidated and shifted into sectors in which they can be put to productive use.

Another effect of the injections of credit into the system is that prices rise. More money chasing the same amount of goods results in a rise in prices. Wall Street and the banking system gain the use of the new credit before prices rise. Main Street, however, sees the prices rise before they are able to take advantage of the newly-created credit.

* AND THUS...

The purchasing power of the dollar is eroded and the standard of living of the American people drops.

* BINGO!

We live today not in a free market economic system but in a "mixed economy" marked by an uneasy mixture of corporatism; vestiges of free market capitalism; and outright central planning in some sectors.

Each infusion of credit by the Fed distorts the structure of the economy, damages the important role that interest rates play in the market, and erodes the purchasing power of the dollar.

Fed policymakers view themselves as wise gurus managing the economy, yet every action they take results in economic distortion and devastation.

Unless Congress gets serious about reining in the Federal Reserve and putting an end to its manipulation, the economic distortions the Fed has caused will not be liquidated; they will become more entrenched, keeping true economic recovery out of our grasp and sowing the seeds for future crisis.

September 25, 2012 at 10:42 AM
William R. Barker said...

http://rsc.jordan.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=309730

* BY CONGRESSMAN JIM JORDAN (R-OH); CHAIRMAN OF THE REPUBLICAN STUDY COMMITTEE AND A REAL REPUBLICAN!

The welfare reforms of 1996 achieved great success thanks to a two-part strategy.

Strong work requirements were the first half of the equation.

Second, Congress replaced the open-ended entitlement formula for cash welfare with something known as a block grant.

In the old system, states got a blank check from the federal government. More people on welfare meant more federal money for the state to pass out. Block grants, on the other hand, provide states with predetermined funding. In return, the states get flexibility to design programs around the needs of their own citizens.

Despite the success of and enormous public support for work requirements, the Obama administration wants to waive these work requirements. That’s not only illegal; it will hurt the very people the president claims he wants to help. That’s why the House voted last week to block this action.

* BUT SAID VOTE WILL HAVE NO EFFECT. FRANKLY, EVEN IF THE SENATE WERE TO VOTE ALONG WITH THE HOUSE... EVEN IF CONGRESS WERE ABLE TO MUSTER A VETO-PROOF BIPARTISAN COALITION TO SAVE THE GINGRICH-CLINTON REFORMS OF '96... MY GUESS IS THAT OBAMA WOULD SIMPLY IGNORE CONGRESS' VOTE.

As important as the 1996 reforms were, they only dealt with 1 of about 70 different federal welfare programs.

In the Farm Bill alone, 6 different programs exist to provide food and nutrition assistance. The largest is commonly known as Food Stamps, which still operates like an open-ended entitlement. The more people who sign up, the more money the federal government gives to the states.

The number of people receiving Food Stamps is now at an all-time high.

(In fact, the number of people added to the Food Stamp rolls between April and June is greater than the number of jobs created.)

Last week, RSC members introduced a bill to finally apply welfare reform to Food Stamps and the other 5 food welfare programs in the Farm Bill. By implementing a block grant and strong work requirements, the State Nutrition Assistance Flexibility Act will make food welfare more effective and more affordable. And that’s the best outcome for everyone.

* GREAT IDEA! FAT CHANCE OF GETTING IT THROUGH THE HOUSE - LET ALONE THE SENATE!

September 25, 2012 at 10:51 AM
William R. Barker said...

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/sep/25/obama-us-will-stop-iran-developing-nukes/

Speaking at the opening of the United Nations General Assembly Tuesday, President Obama portrayed the deaths of four Americans in Libya as a result of inflamed tensions over an anti-Islam movie produced in the U.S., rather than a terrorist attack.

(*PURSED LIPS*)

Although his administration in recent days acknowledged that the deaths of Ambassador Chris Stevens and three others were caused by a terrorist act on Sept. 11, Mr. Obama didn’t mention terrorism as the likely cause in front of the international audience.
* FOLKS... I WANT TO BE FAIR TO THE PRESIDENT. THEREFORE... HERE'S THE LINK TO THE ACTUAL SPEECH:

http://www.nationaljournal.com/whitehouse/full-text-president-obama-s-speech-at-the-united-nations-general-assembly-20120925

* FROM PARAGRAPH 4: "Along with three of his colleagues, Chris was killed in the city he helped to save."

* NOT "MURDERED." NOT EVEN "KILLED BY TERRORISTS."

(*SHAKING MY HEAD*)

* FROM PARAGRAPH 6: "The attacks on our civilians in Benghazi were attacks on America."

* NOT "THE TERRORIST ATTACKS." CERTAINLY NOT "THE PREMEDITATED TERRORIST ATTACKS."

(*PURSED LIPS*)

* YOU KNOW WHAT, FOLKS... LIKE I SAID... I'LL LEAVE IT TO YOU TO READ THE SPEECH AND DECIDE FOR YOURSELVES. ME? I'M DISGUSTED.

September 25, 2012 at 12:18 PM
William R. Barker said...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/dana-milbank-how-america-views-the-campaign/2012/09/24/1dadf2b8-0690-11e2-afff-d6c7f20a83bf_print.html

As heads of government arrived in New York on Monday to attend the opening of the United Nations General Assembly, President Obama also made his way to Manhattan but to see a different group of world leaders: Barbara, Elisabeth, Joy, Sherri and Whoopi.

It bordered on scandalous that Obama, joined by the first lady, would make time to sit down with the women of “The View” even as he declined foreign leaders’ requests to meet with him one on one in New York this week.

* FOLKS... THIS IS DANA FRIGGIN' MILBANK WRITING IN THE WASHINGTON FRIGGIN' POST...

(*SIGH*)

* FEAR NOT, THOUGH, LIBERALS! MILBANK THEN SPENT THE NEXT FOUR PARAGRAPHS ATTACKING ROMNEY... DECLARING "ROMNEY DOES IT TOO"... EVEN WHILE IGNORING (OF COURSE!) THE FACT THAT ROMNEY ISN'T THE SITTING PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES AND THUS ISN'T IN A POSITION TO MEET "OFFIICALLY" WITH ANY FOREIGN LEADERS - NEVER MIND ADDRESS THE UN!

(*SMIRK*) (*SNORT*)

* FOLKS... IT'S AMAZING... THE REST OF THE PIECE IS ALSO MAINLY ROMNEY BASHING!

* FOLKS... YOU CAN'T MAKE THIS SHIT UP!

September 25, 2012 at 12:26 PM
William R. Barker said...

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

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/a-bogus-defense-of-obamas-intelligence-briefing-record/2012/09/25/f5ae10de-071d-11e2-afff-d6c7f20a83bf_story.html

Washington Post fact checker Glenn Kessler takes issue with my report that since taking office President Obama has skipped his daily intelligence meeting more than half the time.

So let’s fact check the fact checker.

After hearing from sources in the intelligence community that President Obama was not attending his daily intelligence meeting on a daily basis, I asked researchers at the Government Accountability Institute, a non-partisan research group headed by Peter Schweizer (who is also my business partner in a speechwriting firm, Oval Office Writers) to examine at Obama’s official schedule.

We found during his first 1,225 days in office, Obama had attended his daily meeting to discuss the Presidential Daily Brief (PDB) just 536 times — or 43.8% of the time.

During 2011 and the first half of 2012, his attendance became even less frequent — falling to just over 38%.

By contrast, Obama’s predecessor, George W. Bush almost never missed his daily intelligence meeting.

After Islamist radicals stormed our embassy in Cairo and terrorists killed our ambassador to Libya on Sept. 11, I further reported that Obama also skipped his daily intelligence meeting every day in the week leading up to the attacks.

The day after the attack, he scheduled but then canceled his daily intelligence meeting, while finding time to go to Las Vegas for a campaign rally.

These facts are not in dispute.

* REPEAT:

These facts are not in dispute.

* ONE MORE TIME:

These facts are not in dispute.

Indeed, before publishing both of my columns, I specifically asked National Security Council spokesman Tommy Vietor if there were instances where the president had, in fact, held his daily meeting on the PDB that did not appear on the official public calendar.

He offered no examples, and not once did he challenge the numbers I presented.

Neither has any White House official challenged them in the weeks since this controversy erupted.

So, as a factual matter, Kessler offers no evidence that the information I presented on Obama’s PDB meeting attendance is wrong.

* TO BE CONTINUED...

September 25, 2012 at 12:52 PM
William R. Barker said...

* CONCLUDING... (Part 2 of 2)

What Kessler and the Obama White House do argue is a matter, not of fact, but of opinion — that it does not matter if Obama attends a daily intelligence meeting because he reads his PDB every day.

Kessler compares Obama to former presidents going back to Reagan and Nixon and finds that “many did not have an oral briefing” – and that this means Obama has simply “chosen to receive his information in a different manner than his predecessor.” There are several problems with this.

First, Kessler ignores one giant difference between then and now: Sept. 11, 2001.

(*NOD*)

Comparing lax presidential briefing habits before and after 9/11 is like comparing lax presidential security habits before and after the Kennedy assassination.

After terrorists killed 3,000 people in our midst, everything changed — and the president’s daily intelligence meeting took on dramatically increased importance. President Bush made it a priority to sit down with his senior intelligence advisers every day to discuss overnight intelligence on threats to the country. President Obama has not.

Kessler notes that Bill Clinton’s CIA director could not get a meeting with him, and that Clinton was known to comment that his morning papers were better than the intelligence brief. This is more an indictment of Clinton than a defense of Obama. On Clinton’s watch, terrorists attacked us repeatedly without cost or consequence — from the first World Trade Center attack in 1993, to the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia in 1996, to the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998, to the U.S.S. Cole in 2000.

* HELL... I BLAME OBAMA FOR 9/11!

As for Nixon and Reagan, comparing Obama’s briefing habits to those of presidents who served 30 to 40 years ago — in an era when advanced technology consisted of electric typewriters — is irrelevant in an age of 21st-century surveillance and collection capabilities. The volume, speed and complexity of intelligence has changed dramatically in the intervening decades — and with it the need for interactive briefings.

Without criticizing Obama, former CIA Director Mike Hayden recently explained the value of the in-person meeting: “With President Bush, I really saw the value of the personal interaction that we had on an almost daily basis. There was rich give and take, so that not only did the president get the advantage of knowing the analysts’ innermost thoughts, but they also were able to leave the room understanding what the president believed he needed in order to make the kind of decisions he had to make.”

* MAKES SENSE, DOESN'T IT, FOLKS?

In addition to the PDB, Hayden said, Bush also two received two longer, magazine-length pieces each week, and additional in-person briefings were held on each of these. On Thursdays, Hayden also briefed Bush for a half-hour on sensitive collection programs and covert action.

Perhaps Obama does not feel he needs such daily interaction. But the fact that he has not been having it is indisputable.

(Though interestingly, since my columns appeared, Obama attended his PDB meeting seven days in a row for the first time in seven months. If live briefings are no better than paper briefings, why has Obama suddenly begun receiving briefings in-person?)

* AND I'M SORRY... THAT'S NOT A CHEAP SHOT... THAT'S A "GOTCHYA" IN THE TRUE MEANING OF THE TERM!

It is a fact that for eight years before Obama took office, there was a daily meeting to discuss the PDB.

And it is a fact that on taking office, Obama stopped holding the daily intelligence meeting on a daily basis.

Kessler may not think that is important, and he is entitled to his own opinion — but not his own facts.

I give Four Pinocchios to the "Fact Checker."

September 25, 2012 at 12:52 PM
William R. Barker said...

http://news.investors.com/ibd-editorials/092412-626886-white-house-still-spinning-mideast-fairy-tale.htmhttp://news.investors.com/ibd-editorials/092412-626886-white-house-still-spinning-mideast-fairy-tale.htm

The [Obama administration] insists Islamists really like America and Obama, that it "takes time to build a democracy," and that embassy marauders and murderers are just peeved over a cheesy Internet movie trailer.

In fact, anti-American (and anti-Israeli) attitudes among Egyptians have been clear and quantifiable for years, even during the much-romanticized "Arab Spring" uprising. And Obama is ignoring the data now like he ignored them then.

[H]ard data from a Pew Research Center poll taken in 2010 showing the vast majority of Egyptians hate America and shun our values. They never wanted Western-style democracy or protection of human rights. They wanted a theocracy based on barbaric Shariah law.

Over 80% want to stone to death Muslims who leave Islam and also stone women accused of adultery. Other highlights:

82% of Egyptians dislike the U.S. — the highest unfavorable rating of the 19 Muslim nations surveyed.

49% of Egyptians said Islam had played only a "small role" in public affairs under President Hosni Mubarak, while 95% preferred the religion play a "large role in politics."

77% think thieves should have their hands cut off.

54% support a law segregating women from men in the workplace.

54% believe suicide bombings that kill civilians can be justified.

Nearly half support the terrorists Hamas, 30% have a favorable opinion of Hezbollah and one in five have positive views of al-Qaida and Osama bin Laden.

This explains why so many young Arab men — the same demographic lionized by the media as the "freedom fighters" of Tahrir Square — chanted "Obama, Obama, there are a billion Osamas," as they tore down our embassy flag and hoisted the black flag of al-Qaida.

Instead of romanticizing last year's Tahrir Square protesters with the rest of the media, we looked at the empirical evidence and warned that they'd turn on us as well as our ally Israel.

Another Egyptian public opinion poll — conducted in 2011 by Shoen LLC. and also ignored by the major media — found that a stunning 70% of Egyptians want to tear up the 30-year peace treaty with Israel.

We used such data to warn that the Egyptian elections Obama engineered would lead to a radical outcome throughout the Mideast. We were right, he was wrong, and now he's doubling down on his mistakes.

The president was wrong in Libya, as well, where he thought the vacuum left by Muammar Gadhafi would never be filled with "Islamic extremism," as Ambassador Christopher Stevens worried in his diary.

The blood of Stevens and other diplomats is on the hands of the president and his secretary of state. They scaled back diplomatic security as a gesture of trust toward the new regimes.

This was a fatal mistake.

The president says the flowering of democracy in Egypt and the other Muslim states where he backed Islamist coups is a "work in progress."

We can't risk seeing how it plays out.

September 25, 2012 at 1:32 PM
William R. Barker said...

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2012-09-25/decling-economic-freedom-united-states

* "OLD" NEWS, ACTUALLY. (FROM LAST WEEK I BELIEVE.) FRANKLY WHEN IT FIRST CAME OUT I WAS TOO DEPRESSED TO ADD IT TO NEWSBITES.

The United States, long considered the standard bearer for economic freedom among large industrial nations, has experienced a remarkable plunge in economic freedom during the past decade.

From 1980 to 2000, the US was generally rated the third freest economy in the world, ranking behind only Hong Kong and Singapore.

The ranking of the U.S. has fallen precipitously; from second in 2000 to eighth in 2005 and 19th in 2010.

By 2009, the United States had fallen behind Switzerland, Canada, Australia, Chile, and Mauritius, countries that chose not to follow the path of massive growth in government financed by borrowing that is now the most prominent characteristic of US fiscal policy.

By 2010, the United States had also fallen behind Finland and Denmark, two European welfare states.

Moreover, it now trails Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Estonia, Taiwan, and Qatar.

(*SARCASTIC CLAP-CLAP-CLAP*)

* JUST A COINCIDENCE, ROB... JUST A COINCIDENCE...

(*SMIRK*)

September 25, 2012 at 4:21 PM
William R. Barker said...

http://reason.com/blog/2012/09/24/pakistani-government-minister-offers-100

As readers of Reason 24/7 already know, the Pakistani government's Railway Minister, Ghulam Ahmad Bilour, offered a $100,000 bounty for the "noble cause" of murdering the makers of "Innocence of Muslims."

You may be relieved to learn that Islamabad's Foreign Office said that the offer was merely "representative of Bilour's personal views and had nothing to do with the official policy of the government of Pakistan."

(*SNORT*)

How did the State Department respond to a minister from a government that receives more than $1 billion a year in U.S. foreign aid begging al-Qaeda to murder an American resident for his free speech?

* NOT BY DEMANDING GHULAM AHMAD BILOUR'S OUSTER!

* FRANKLY... THAT'S ABOUT ALL WE NEED TO KNOW, FOLKS.

(*SHRUG*)

September 25, 2012 at 5:10 PM
William R. Barker said...

http://www.bizjournals.com/boston/news/2012/09/24/state-pension-funding-plummets.html

* WE'RE TALKING ABOUT MASSACHUSETTS...

The [blue] state’s unfunded pension liability has nearly doubled in five years to approximately $24 billion and is likely to worsen in the months ahead as the commonwealth continues to absorb the fallout from the credit-market crash of 2008.

* OOPS...

Jim Lamenzo, the actuary for the state’s Public Employee Retirement Association Commission, said during a presentation Monday that the state’s unfunded pension liability stood at $23.6 billion as of Jan. 1, but has undoubtedly grown in the interim due to the delayed ripple effects of the state’s near 30% investment loss in the year following the downturn.

* SO... TWENTY-SIX POINT SIX BILLION... PLUS... IN UNFUNDED PUBLIC PENSION LIABILITIES ALONE! GOOD JOB! KUDOS! WAY TO FRIGGIN' GO!

* AND JUST FOR A BIT OF HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE...

Lamenzo said the state’s unfunded pension liability totaled $12.1 billion on Jan. 1, 2008 and was $4.8 billion as of Jan. 1, 2000 — that is, the commonwealth’s unfunded obligation to retired public workers has essentially quintupled over an 11-year span.

* YEP. ALLOW ME! YES... MITT ROMNEY WAS GOVERNOR OF MASSACHUSETTS FROM JANUARY 2, 2003 THRU JANUARY 4, 2007... BUT HOW MUCH BLAME TO ASSIGN HIM vs. HIS PREDECESSORS AND SUCCESSOR (NOT TO MENTION THE DEMOCRATIC LEGISLATURE)... FRANKLY I DON'T KNOW.

September 25, 2012 at 5:51 PM

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