Thursday, October 4, 2012

Barker's Newsbites: Thursday, October 4, 2012


T-minus two days!

Yep... livin' the dream, folks! Austin... Texas Hill Country... San Antonio...

HERE WE COME...!!!

But, hey... till then... it's newsbites time!

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5 comments:

William R. Barker said...

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20121003/DA1LTPN80.html

A multibillion-dollar information-sharing program created in the aftermath of 9/11 has improperly collected information about innocent Americans and produced little valuable intelligence on terrorism, a Senate report concludes.

* AND DEMOCRATS CONTROL THE FRIGGIN' SENATE..! EVEN THEY CAN'T STOMACH THE INCOMPETENCE!

It portrays an effort that ballooned far beyond anyone's ability to control.

* NOT "ABILITY." NOPE. "WILLINGNESS!"

What began as an attempt to put local, state and federal officials in the same room analyzing the same intelligence has instead cost huge amounts of money for data-mining software, flat screen televisions and, in Arizona, two fully equipped Chevrolet Tahoes that are used for commuting, investigators found.

The lengthy, bipartisan report is a scathing evaluation of what the Department of Homeland Security has held up as a crown jewel of its security efforts. The report underscores a reality of post-9/11 Washington: National security programs tend to grow, never shrink, even when their money and manpower far surpass the actual subject of terrorism.

Because of a convoluted grants process set up by Congress, Homeland Security officials don't know how much they have spent in their decade-long effort to set up so-called fusion centers in every state.

(*SARCASTIC CLAP-CLAP-CLAP*)

Despite that, Congress is unlikely to pull the plug. That's because, whether or not it stops terrorists, the program means politically important money for state and local governments.

* MAKES YA "PROUD" TO BE AN AMERICA, HUH? (*SPITTING ON THE GROUND*)

A Senate Homeland Security subcommittee reviewed more than 600 unclassified reports over a one-year period and concluded that most had nothing to do with terrorism. The panel's chairman is Democrat Carl Levin of Michigan, the ranking Republican Tom Coburn of Oklahoma.

"The subcommittee investigation could identify no reporting which uncovered a terrorist threat, nor could it identify a contribution such fusion center reporting made to disrupt an active terrorist plot," the report said.

* HEY... IT'S ONLY MONEY, RIGHT?! (*SMIRK*)

"Congress and two administrations have urged DHS to continue or even expand its support of fusion centers, without providing sufficient oversight to ensure the intelligence from fusion centers is commensurate with the level of federal investment," the report said.

* YEP. SOUNDS LIKE OUR FEDERAL GOVERNMENT IN ACTION. SADLY...

(*PURSED LIPS*)

October 4, 2012 at 9:31 AM
William R. Barker said...

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

http://www.humanevents.com/2012/10/04/harsanyi-obamas-big-debate-tax-myths/

Not long ago, a former Obama staffer working with a Left-wing think tank concocted a study using an assortment of cooked-up assumptions that claimed Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney would have to increase taxes on the “middle class.”

In Washington, this is referred to as an “independent study.”

At the Denver debate, the president called this an “impartial” analysis.

The report, by the Tax Policy Center, “estimated” that Romney’s revenue-neutral tax plan would necessitate an $86 billion tax increase on the middle class, and more crucially, it allowed every Democrat in the country to pretend that an objective group had run the numbers somewhere and found that the GOP nominee was going to hike taxes on every family by — I don’t know, let’s say — $2,000 a year! (Why not, right?)

Few in the media were particularly put off by the fact that this fictitious assertion was endlessly repeated by Obama and friends.

(*SMIRK*)

As the president explains it, there’s simply no way to cut taxes and grow revenue at the same time. Math is math, after all. The president, likely because of his own record, seems to have forgotten about economic growth.

A recent paper by the American Enterprise Institute found that even using the Tax Policy Center’s parameters, Romney could reform the tax code and cut taxes by 20% and, with the modest growth encouraged by cuts, the plan could remain revenue-neutral.

* WELL... (*HEMMING AND HAWING*)

Would it?

Economic forecasting is about as reliable as campaign tax plans.

The president’s economic policy, on the other hand, has been deployed and has been focused on wealth transfer in the name of fairness and spending in the name of recovery — all of it rooted in the necessity for higher taxes.

* YEP. AND THERE'S THE KEY POINT. WE KNOW WHAT OBAMA BELIEVES. WE KNOW WHAT HE'S DONE. WE KNOW IT HASN'T WORKED.

(*SHRUG*)

* TO BE CONTINUED...

October 4, 2012 at 12:32 PM
William R. Barker said...

* CONCLUDING... (Part 2 of 2)

Take this piece of warped logic from Obama: If Romney were to keep tax rates exactly where they are, he would be in fact cutting taxes for the rich. Only raising taxes can keep the status quo.

* YEAH... OBAMA DID SAY SOMETHING ALONE THOSE LINES... IT'S THE SAME OLD "BASELINE BUDGETING" ILLOGIC.

The president’s plan already features a slew of increases. Some, such as taxes on investments, might not be felt directly by you — at least not yet. ObamaCare, as we know, is loaded with tax hikes you’ll pay soon enough, one way or another.

* THAT... IS... TRUE...!

* FOLKS... THERE'S A FRIGGIN' REASON WHY THE DEMS WROTE AND PASSED THE BILL BACK IN 2010 BUT IT ONLY STARTS GOING INTO EFFECT BIG-TIME STARTING IN 2014!

And the individual mandate is a tax (at least according to the administration) that promises to be one of the largest in American history.

* YEP... (*SMIRK*)... ACCORDING TO THE "LEARNED" CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS, THE INDIVIDUAL MANDATE IS... er... A "TAX." (OF COURSE IT'S NOT... BUT REPUBLICANS WERE TOO STUPID TO STAND BY THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND THE CONSTITUTION AGAINST A ROGUE SUPREME COURT MAJORITY.)

Moreover, the American Action Forum recently released a study examining the Obama administration’s tax plan itself: To achieve primary budget balance by 2022, as Obama claims he can, taxing only millionaires would require raising their taxes to 123.9%.

(*SNORT*)

Taxing people making $500,000 would require an increase to 95.5%, and assuming the deficit reduction Obama promises, taxpayers making $30,000 would see a $1,500 hike in taxes every year over the next 10.

* FOLKS... OUR TAX CODE IS FUCKED. AT LEAST ROMNEY IS ADDRESSING THE HEART OF IT - RATES vs. DEDUCTIONS. AT LEAST HE'S STARTING A TRUE CONVERSATION!

So even if someone could conduct a study factoring in every make-believe tax-cheating plutocrat of the liberal imagination, there simply aren’t enough people to pay for Obamaworld.

* THEY'VE DONE ALL SORTS OF MATH ON THIS. YOU COULD SIMPLY CONFISCATE THE NET WEALTH OF EVERY MILLIONAIRE AND IT WOULD FUND THE GOVERNMENT FOR A FEW MONTHS. AND THEN WHERE WOULD WE BE?

But it’s one thing to believe in the supernatural ability of raising taxes to fix the economy and lift the poor; it’s another to argue that lower tax rates can cause mass destruction.

* YEAH, YEAH... BUT LET'S NOT FORGET... THE PROBLEM IS OVERSPENDING MORE THAN OVERTAXING. (THE THING IS... OBAMA DOESN'T BELIEVE THIS. ROMNEY DOES... SORTA... AT LEAST MORE THAN OBAMA.)

October 4, 2012 at 12:32 PM
William R. Barker said...

http://heritageaction.com/2012/10/heritage-action-combats-gargantuan-farm-food-stamp-bill-your-help/?utm_source=heritageaction&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=wwf-farm-establishment

The farm bill is a big issue — a $1 trillion issue, to be precise.

Heritage Action has dutifully tracked the farm and food stamp bill, to ensure that lawmakers in Congress do not continue to waste taxpayers’ money and to call for the separation of farm policy from food stamp policy.

(For the past forty years, the spending in this bill has done nothing but increase.)

Heritage Action, together with your grassroots support, is pushing Congress to bring this spending to a halt at long last.

Take a look at what we’ve accomplished together:

In early August, we called it like we saw it. The farm bill is no such thing. The outrageous truth is that 80% of the spending in the farm bill goes toward food stamps. The Federal Agriculture Reform and Risk Management (FARRM) Act of 2012 (H.R. 6083) that passed out of the House Agriculture Committee was an atrocious market-distorting welfare bill rife with special interest handouts, price supports, and new shallow loss crop insurance subsidies. The 10-year spending projections of this bill according to CBO was $957 billion — a 60% increase from the 2008 bill that passed by the Pelosi-led Congress despite President Bush’s veto.

Heritage Action’s CEO Mike Needham and Congressman Marlin Stutzman (R-IN) explained that this type of spending results from an “unholy Washington alliance between rural lawmakers and their urban and suburban colleagues.”

Thanks to our pressure, a matter of days later, we were able to report that Congress was headed into uncharted territory for the farm bill when Congress decided not to take up a one-year extension of the disastrous 2008 farm bill.

* NOT TO!

We noted: "The fact that a one-year extension, as opposed to the committee-passed five-year bill, was even on the table is uncharted territory and a significant sign that opposition to Washington’s 'business as usual' approach is growing.”

Following this victory, we reminded you of the part you play in this important battle and that your calls really do make a difference. Part of the reason this awful bill did not pass — apart from its painfully clear need of reform — is that representatives from farm districts were getting next to no calls from constituents urging for its passage. Meanwhile, they heard your voice calling for much needed reforms, not the faux reforms included in the committee-passed bills.

It is clear that you have an impact on whether or not a bill gets passed, and thankfully, the hole in taxpayers’ pockets was not made any larger since the farm and food stamp bill was not reauthorized. It expired this past weekend and the earth did not tilt on its axis!

Heritage Action made it very clear that the sky would not fall as a result of the bill’s expiration, and everything is fine. The only real, tangible effect is that producers of certain commodities would be uncertain about the size of payments they may receive. And with farmers earning record profits, this concern is negligible.

(Farmers, like any businessperson, should prepare fiscally on their own and accept the kind of responsibility that all other entrepreneurs and businesspeople take on when they run a business.)

October 4, 2012 at 12:54 PM
William R. Barker said...

http://washingtonexaminer.com/the-smirk-rnc-plays-up-obamas-body-language/article/2509830#.UG3qsa6z7Hu

* NOW, FOLKS... REGULARS KNOW... I'M NOT BIG ON "POLITICS" PER SE... THE CAMPAIGN... BUT THIS COMMERCIA STRIKES A CORD SIMPLY BECAUSE BOTH MARY AND I WERE COMMENTING ABOUT "THE OBAMA SMIRK" ALL DURING THE DEBATE - WHICH WE WATCHED LIVE.

Exactly 12 hours after the first presidential debate ended, the Republican National Committee has released a new web video that zooms in on what pundits are calling his "smirk" at many of challenger Mitt Romney's lines Wednesday night.

From the RNC: "Good morning, we're out with a new video 'Smirk' highlighting the president's debate performance where he was visibly uncomfortable as he struggled to give Americans answers on how he'll turn our country around with another four years. As Morning Joe said this morning - it appeared as if Obama thought debating was beneath him."

* FOLKS... YOU KNOW ME... I'M NOT A PARTISAN REPUBLICAN AS SUCH... I'M IDEOLOGICALLY DRIVE... BUT THIS FRIGGIN' AD IS RIGHT ON TARGET.

* HEY... AND I'M A GUY WHO KNOWS HIS SMIRKS!

(*SMIRK*) (*SNORT*) (*CHUCKLE*)

October 4, 2012 at 4:04 PM

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