Wednesday, December 26, 2012

Post-Christmas Thru New Year's Day Newsbites 2012


Ho...

Ho...

(*HEAD COLLAPSING UPON THE DESK; TAKING A WEE NAP*)

I'm up! I'm up!

Yep... stopped by Phil's last night...

(*MOANING*)

Anyway... since news will be spotty over the "lull" I figure one "Post Christmas" newsibite posting should do for all that comes up now thru New Year's.

14 comments:

William R. Barker said...

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/international/benghazi_penalties_are_bogus_ncP7RZx5uTIgDPbTp5WtoN?utm_medium=rss&utm_content=International

The four officials supposedly out of jobs because of their blunders in the run-up to the deadly Benghazi terror attack remain on the State Department payroll — and will all be back to work soon, The Post has learned.

(*SNORT*)

The highest-ranking official caught up in the scandal, Assistant Secretary of State Eric Boswell, has not “resigned” from government service, as officials said last week. He is just switching desks. And the other three are simply on administrative leave and are expected back.

(*JUST SHAKING MY HUNGOVER HEAD*)

The four were made out to be sacrificial lambs in the wake of a scathing report issued last week that found that the U.S. compound in Benghazi, Libya, was left vulnerable to attack because of “grossly inadequate” security.

State Department leaders “didn’t come clean about Benghazi and now they’re not coming clean about these staff changes,” a source close to the situation told The Post., adding, the “public would be outraged over this.”

* THE PUBLIC DOESN'T CARE. (*SHRUG*)

House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairwoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL) told The Post this is “yet another ruse about the tragedy of Benghazi.” “State Department officials proclaimed . . . that heads would roll . . . Now we see that the discipline is a lie and all that has happened is the shuffling of the deck chairs.”

* WHAT ELSE IS NEWS...

* FOLKS... NOW THAT OBAMA'S BEEN RE-ELECTED...

(*SHRUG*)

William R. Barker said...

http://cnsnews.com/news/article/social-security-ran-478b-deficit-fy-2012-disabled-workers-hit-new-record-december

The Social Security program ran a $47.8 billion deficit in fiscal 2012...

* SERIOUSLY, FOLKS... THOUGHT I BRING IT UP QUITE FRECUENTLY... WHAT PERCENTAGE OF THE AMERICAN PUBIC WOULD YOU GUESS IS AWARE THAT SOCIAL SECURITY IS UPSIDE DOWN... RUNNING AT A DEFICIT... AND THAT IT'S BEEN UPSIDE DOWN AND RUNNING AT A DEFICIT FOR YEARS NOW...?

The Social Security Administration also released new data revealing that the number of workers collecting disability benefits hit a record 8,827,795 in December...

(*CLAP...CLAP...CLAP*)

The overall number of Social Security program beneficiaries — including retired workers, dependent family members and survivors and disabled workers and their dependent family members — also hit a record in December, climbing to 56,758,185 in December.

(*CLAP...CLAP...CLAP*)

[F]or every 1.67 Americans who worked full-time in the private sector in 2011, there is now 1 person collecting benefits from the Social Security administration.

William R. Barker said...

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/dec/25/fathers-disappear-from-households-across-america/

Nicole Hawkins‘ three daughters have matching glittery boots, but none has the same father. Each has uniquely colored ties in her hair, but none has a dad present in her life.

* I'M GUESSING THE MOTHER IS A WHORE AND THE SPERM DONORS ARE SCUM. MERRY CHRISTMAS!

As another single mother on Sumner Road decked her row-house stoop with Christmas lights and a plastic Santa, Ms. Hawkins recalled that her middle child’s father has never spent a holiday or birthday with her. In her neighborhood in Southeast Washington, 1 in 10 children live with both parents, and 84% live with only their mother.

* ANYONE WANNA GUESS THE RACIAL DEMOGRAPHIC OF "HER NEIGHBORHOOD?"

In 1960, just 11 percent of American children lived in homes without fathers.

* AND IN THE AGE OF OBAMA...??? (READ ON...)

In every state, the portion of families where children have two parents, rather than one, has dropped significantly over the past decade.

Even as the country added 160,000 families with children, the number of two-parent households decreased by 1.2 million.

Fifteen million U.S. children, or 1 in 3, live without a father, and nearly 5 million live without a mother.

* MERRY... FRIGGIN'... CHRISTMAS...

The predilection among men to walk away from their babies is concentrated in the inner cities. In Baltimore, 38% of families have two parents, and in St. Louis the portion is 40%.

* THINK THEY'LL EVER GET AROUND TO MENTIONING RACE...???

(*SMIRK*)

* AH... HERE IT COMES... PAGE 2:

Though income is the primary predictor, the lack of live-in fathers also is overwhelmingly a black problem, regardless of poverty status, census data show. Among blacks, nearly 5 million children, or 54%, live with only their mother. Twelve percent of black families below the poverty line have two parents present, compared with 41% of impoverished Hispanic families and 32% of poor white families.

* YEP. YOU READ THAT RIGHT! POOR HISPANIC FAMILIES ARE MORE LIKELY TO HAVE TWO PARENTS IN THE HOME THAN POOR WHITE FAMILIES!

In all but 11 states, most black children do not live with both parents.

* ONE MORE TIME, FOLKS...

In all but 11 states, most black children do not live with both parents.

(*PURSED LIPS*)

In every state, 7 in 10 white children do live with both parents.

* AND YET... AGAIN:

In 1960, just 11 percent of American children lived in homes without fathers.

* THAT'S WHITE... BLACK... BROWN... YELLOW... RED...

(*SIGH*)

In all states but Rhode Island and Massachusetts, most Hispanic children do.

In Wisconsin, 77% of white children and 61% of Hispanics live with both parents, compared with [little] more than 25% of black children.

* FOLKS... WE HAVE A BLACK PROBLEM HERE IN AMERICA. I KNOW MANY OF YOU DON'T WANNA HEAR THIS. HELL... I DON'T WANNA HEAR IT! BUT THERE YA GO!

But the move toward single-parent homes has included every race, and from Curtis Bay in Baltimore to Millcreek outside Salt Lake City to Vancouver, Wash., just north of Portland, there are 1,500 neighborhoods with substantial white populations where most white households lack fathers. Maine, Vermont and West Virginia have the lowest dual-parenthood rates for whites.

The largest geographic area of sustained fatherlessness contains the rural, largely black poor across Arkansas, Mississippi and Louisiana, tributaries of broken homes running 400 miles along the Mississippi River from Memphis, Tenn., where in some neighborhoods 82% of children live with their mothers alone, to Baton Rouge, La., in parts of which less than one-fifth of children have both parents at home.

Black families differ from other racial groups in that the average black single mother has more children, not fewer, than her counterpart with a father present.

* REMEMBER MY OPENING SNARK...?

(*SHRUG*)

Hispanic single mothers were most often dealing with the most mouths to feed but still had fewer children than their married counterparts.

* FOLKS... WE'RE IN TROUBLE...

William R. Barker said...

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324669104578203440990704994.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_LEFTTopStories

Toyota Motor Corp. agreed to pay about $1.1 billion to settle a class-action lawsuit stemming from complaints of unintended acceleration in its vehicles that soured its reputation for quality and undermined its sales globally.

The settlement includes no admission of fault or unlawful conduct by Toyota...

* SO YOU STILL WANNA SAY THE U.S. LEGAL SYSTEM IS THE ENVY OF THE WORLD...??? WE'RE A SICK SOCIETY.

A U.S. government probe of unintended acceleration in accidents involving Toyotas absolved the throttle-control electronics in the vehicles.

* AND YET...

(*SIGH*) (*SHRUG*)

It found that driver error was to blame for most of the mishaps with sticky accelerator pedals and floor mats playing a role in others.

* IN OTHER WORDS... IDIOTS WHO COULDN'T BE BOTHERED TO KEEP THEIR CARS CLEAN AND FLOOR MATS PROPERLY POSITIONED.

Toyota's costs related to the recalls and probes are likely to exceed $3.1 billion.

* AGAIN... FOLKS... WE ARE A SICK SOCIETY. I AM ALL TOO OFTEN NOWADAYS ASHAMED TO BE AN AMERICAN.

William R. Barker said...

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_HOBBY_LOBBY_BIRTH_CONTROL?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2012-12-27-07-36-47

Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor has denied a request to block part of the federal health care law that requires employee health-care plans to provide insurance coverage for the morning-after pill and similar emergency contraception pills.

Hobby Lobby Stores and a sister company, Mardel Inc., sued the government, claiming the mandate violates the religious beliefs of its owners.

In an opinion Wednesday, Sotomayor said the stores fail to satisfy the demanding legal standard for blocking the requirement on an emergency basis. She said the companies may continue their challenge to the regulations in the lower courts.

* FOR WHAT IT'S WORTH... THOUGH I HATE TO SAY IT... SOTOMAYOR IS PROBABLY ON SOLID LEGAL GROUND HERE - PRECEDURALLY, I'M TALKING ABOUT.

Company officials say they must decide whether to violate their faith or face a daily $1.3 million fine beginning Jan. 1 if they ignore the law.

* SEE... THIS IS WHAT'S UNCONSTITUTIONAL AND UNAMERICAN - REQUIRING EMPLOYERS TO PROVIDE INSURANCE IN THE FIRST PLACE! (AND OF COURSE THE FINE ITSELF IS "CRUEL AND UNUSUAL" IN A CONSTITUTIONAL SENSE AS WELL.)

Attorneys for the government have said the drugs do not cause abortions and that the U.S. has a compelling interest in mandating insurance coverage for them.

* WRONG AND WRONG AGAIN!

In ruling against the companies last month, U.S. District Judge Joe Heaton said churches and other religious organizations have been granted constitutional protection from the birth-control provisions but that "Hobby Lobby and Mardel are not religious organizations."

* NO INDIVIDUAL SHOULD HAVE TO PAY ANOTHER INDIVIDUAL'S HEALTH INSURANCE EXCEPT IF WE'RE TALKING A PARENTAL RELATIONSHIP INVOLVING MINORS.

William R. Barker said...

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/editorials/state_benghazi_baloney_sUsGpKQwbTsQx6Zp7gvV6H

* SUBTITLE: HOW COULD THIS NOT MAKE YOU SICK...?

Many Americans were incensed last week when four mid-level State Department officials appeared to take the full fall for the Sept. 11-anniversary terrorist strike in Benghazi and were forced to resign.

Boy, were they wrong.

It’s not that senior officials have finally ’fessed up and taken their punishment.

Rather, it turns out that no one has truly been punished at all — and certainly no one’s been fired.

As The Post’s Josh Margolin reported yesterday, “The four officials supposedly out of jobs because of their blunders in the run-up to the deadly Benghazi terror attack remain on the State Department payroll — and will all be back to work soon.”

That’s true even for Eric Boswell, the assistant secretary of state for diplomatic security and the senior-most of the four.

An official State Department report on the attack, which took the lives of US Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans, singled out Boswell for censure over the “systemic failures and leadership deficiencies” in Foggy Bottom.

State Department spokewoman Toria Nuland said last week that Boswell resigned as assistant secretary.

But Margolin reports that Boswell is merely “switching desks” and that he “gave up only the presidential appointment as assistant secretary, not his other portfolios.”

That’s not even a slap on the wrist for the man the State Department insists is ultimately responsible for the “grossly inadequate” security measures in Libya that made Ambassador Stevens easy prey.

But none of this is truly surprising, given how duplicitous the State Department has been during every moment of the Benghazi affair.

First it lied about the presence of a group of “protesters” outside the Benghazi consulate on 9/11; its own review has shown that to be a falsehood.

Then it lied and blamed the terrorist attack on an obscure California filmmaker who put a shoddy, anti-Islamic video on YouTube — and who is now sitting in federal lock-up despite having no connection to the day’s events.

But this lie was the pettiest of all — assuring the public that it was holding its own people accountable for what went wrong.

What’s the truth?

Boswell still has a job, and the other three officials are on administrative leave; they’re expected to be back in Foggy Bottom soon.

Which means they’re basically on an extended Christmas vacation right now.

And it means that the only State Department official who lost his job due to Benghazi was... Ambassador Stevens.

William R. Barker said...

http://washington.cbslocal.com/2012/12/28/us-soldier-suicides-outnumber-combat-deaths-in-2012/

American soldier suicides continue to outnumber combat-related deaths in 2012, and the trajectory for soldier suicides continues to get worse.

* GEEZUS...

As of Dec. 7, Stars and Stripes reports that 212 soldiers have died in combat-related deaths in Afghanistan.

* THAT NUMBER SOUNDS LOW... (*PURSED LIPS*)

Statistics released by the Department of the Army show that through November potentially 303 active-duty, Reserve and National Guard soldiers committed suicide.

* GEEZUS...

About 53% of those who died by suicide in the military in 2011, the most recent year for which data is available, had no history of deployment to Iraq or Afghanistan, according to the Defense Department. And nearly 85% of military members who took their lives had no direct combat history, meaning they may have been deployed but not seen action.

* WE HAVE A FUCKING PROBLEM ON OUR HANDS, FOLKS...

“As part of the Army’s team-based and holistic approach to suicide prevention and stigma reduction, Army chaplains remain committed to fostering a resilient and ready force by enhancing strength, reducing stigma and encouraging help-seeking behaviors,” the Army’s Maj. Gen. Donald L. Rutherford, Chief of Chaplains, said in the Department of Defense press release.“

* DOES ANYONE... ANYONE AT ALL WHO IS READING THIS... DOES ANYONE FEEL "COMFORTED" OR "RELIEVED" BY WHAT YOU'VE JUST READ...?

William R. Barker said...

http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/obama-orders-raise-biden-members-congress-federal-workers_692223.html

President Barack Obama issued an executive order to end the pay freeze on federal employees, in effect giving some federal workers a raise. One federal worker now to receive a pay increase is Vice President Joe Biden. According to disclosure forms, Biden made a cool $225,521 last year. After the pay increase, he'll now make $231,900 per year.

Members of Congress, from the House and Senate, also will receive a little bump, as their annual salary will go from $174,000 to 174,900. Leadership in Congress, including the speaker of the House, will likewise get an increase.

* HO... HO... HO, INDEED!

* FOLKS... THESE PEOPLE ARE SCUM; OBAMA IS A PIECE OF SHIT. NONE OF THESE ELECTED OFFICIALS DESERVE RAISES BASED UPON THE MERITS, AND EVEN IF THEY DID... TO SET AN EXAMPLE THEIR PAY SHOULD REMAIN FROZEN AND THEIR BENEFITS SHOULD BE CUT.

William R. Barker said...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/why-not-let-taxes-rise-on-the-middle-class/2012/12/28/b7f69ace-50fe-11e2-8b49-64675006147f_story.html

Barring a last-minute breakthrough, taxes will go up for every American taxpayer on Jan. 1 — and that’s a development conservatives should welcome.

* AND I DO IN THE SENSE THAT IF THEY'RE GONNA KEEP SPENDING...

(*SHRUG*)

Until now, the growth of government under President Obama has not hit the pocketbooks of most Americans. During Obama’s first term, federal spending grew to more than 24% of GDP — the highest it has been since 1946. Yet almost no one in the country (except smokers and those who frequent indoor tanning salons) saw their taxes rise. Quite the opposite: 160 million Americans saw their payroll taxes reduced from 6.2% to 4.2%.

How can we expect people to care about the growth of government if it doesn’t cost them anything?

* EXACTLY!

Instead of paying for the current miasma of spending, we’ve been borrowing the money from our children and grandchildren. The national debt has grown by nearly $6 trillion in the four years since Obama took office. That generational theft [should not be allowed to] continue. We must not keep financing big government by passing the bills on to the next generation.

Ideally, we would stop the spending binge and live within our means. But if the nation is not up to that, then we should all pitch in and pay for it — all of us.

(*APPLAUSE*)

William R. Barker said...

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324669104578209013558161212.html?mod=WSJ_hp_LEFTWhatsNewsCollection#articleTabs%3Darticle

The U.S. government on Friday came down squarely in Argentina's favor in its litigation with holdout creditors suing the South American country over its defaulted bonds.

The cases stem from Argentina's sovereign default in 2001. About 93% of the almost $100 million of defaulted bonds were tendered in 2005 and 2010, but a few holdouts did not accept the deal that offered just 33 cents on the dollar and have dogged Argentina in courts across the globe to collect the full value of the bonds.

* IN OTHER WORDS, FOLKS, OBAMA IS BACKING THE DEADBEAT ARGENTINIANS AGAINST OUR OWN CITIZEN CREDITORS.

* READ THE COMMENTS POSTED BY WSJ READERS... VERY ILLUMINATING.

William R. Barker said...

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

http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/336632/mega-scandal-everyone-has-forgotten-john-fund

Last week, over the holidays, the House Ethics Committee quietly joined its Senate counterpart in finding that no members or staffers — or at least any it claimed jurisdiction over — broke congressional rules while obtaining “VIP” mortgages from Countrywide.

* YOU FOLKS REMEMBER "THE FRIENDS OF ANGELO PROGRAM," RIGHT?!

This failed lender at one time provided a huge share of the questionable subprime mortgages issued by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac...

* YOU REMEMBER FANNIE AND FREDDIE... DOWD AND FRANKS... THE VARIOUS DEMOCRAT INSIDERS WHO MADE TENS OF MILLIONS = IN SOME CASES HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS - RUNNING THE "TOO BIG TO FAIL" QUASI-GOVERNMENTAL MORTGAGE PROVIDERS (OFF THE CLIFF)... RIGHT?

Fannie and Freddie scooped up Countrywide loans and pooled them and others into mortgage-backed securities that were sold with an implicit taxpayer guarantee that eventually became explicit. The taxpayer guarantee allowed — indeed, encouraged — the lenders to be reckless, creating a moral hazard. In 2008, this set-up helped bring down the whole house of cards built by subprime mortgages.

* WHILE HE WHOSE NAME DARE NOT BE MENTIONED STILL TENDS TO GIVE GOVERNMENT AND THOSE CONNECTED TO GOVERNMENT A (RELATIVE) BREAK COMPARED TO THE CONTEMPT HE FEELS (AS DO I AS WELL!) FOR THE RATERS AND OTHERS INVOLVED IN THE HOUSING CRASH, EVEN HWNDNBM UNDERSTANDS (I THINK) THAT THE FOLKS RUNNING FANNIE AND FREDDIE WERE SCUMBAGS AND BY SOMETHING LIKE 10-1 THEY WERE DEM-CONNECTED SCUMBAGS.

But far from being dismantled, Fannie and Freddie have avoided insolvency, thanks to massive taxpayer bailouts. Talk of winding them down has faded on Capitol Hill and is being discouraged by the Obama administration. The two entities, along with the Federal Housing Administration, currently back some 90% of new mortgages. Talk about there being no consequences for failure.

* AND THE PEOPLE RUNNING FANNIE AND FREDDIE TODAY... MULTI-MILLIONAIRES. RICH AND GETTING RICHER.

At least Countrywide had to be sold to Bank of America in 2008; and two years later, Countrywide’s disgraced CEO, Angelo Mozilo, had to pay a $22.5 million fine, the largest ever at that time for a senior executive of a public company, for insider trading and concealing information on Countrywide’s deteriorating mortgages. But Mozilo avoided criminal charges and to date has never satisfactorily explained Countrywide’s infamous “Friends of Angelo” program, which provided discount mortgages and other benefits to numerous executives at Fannie and Freddie as well as executive-branch officials and up to 30 members of Congress and their staffers.

(Countrywide wouldn’t have thrived or been allowed to go off the ethical rails without lots of “friends” in government.)

* FOLKS... MODERN DAY AMERICA HAS MORE IN COMMON WITH SOUTHERN EUROPEAN AND RUSSIAN AND CHINESE AND SOUTH/CENTRAL AMERICAN NATIONS AND MEXICO THAN MANY OF YOU WANT TO BELIEVE. OLIGARCHY AND INSIDER CORRUPTION THRIVE ALONG WITH GOVERNMENT GROWTH. THE TWO GO HAND IN HAND.

* TO BE CONTINUED...

William R. Barker said...

* OOPS... MAKE THAT A THREE-PARTER... (Part 2 of 3)

Representative Darrell Issa (R., Calif.), chairman of the House Government Reform and Oversight Committee, issued a report last July concluding, among other things, that Countrywide lobbyists would frequently refer members of Congress and their staff to the company’s VIP desk so they could receive “enhanced customer service.” E-mail evidence was found showing that specific requests for personal loans were made to the VIP desk and quickly facilitated. Issa’s committee found that more than six current and former lawmakers — including retiring Senate Budget Committee chairman Kent Conrad, a North Dakota Democrat, and House Armed Services Committee chairman Buck McKeon, a California Republican — obtained mortgages through the Countrywide VIP program.

(*PURSED LIPS*)

Countrywide’s most famous client was Democratic senator Chris Dodd, chair of the Financial Services Committee from 2006 to 2010. Although he and Conrad were cleared of ethics violations by the Senate Ethics Committee in 2009...

* HA! HA! HA! HA! HA!

* SERIOUSLY, FOLKS... IF YA DON'T LAUGH... WHAT'S LEFT?

...Dodd retired the next year after it became clear that revelations about his involvement with Countrywide had destroyed his political standing in his home state of Connecticut. He was nonetheless able to shepherd the now-infamous Dodd-Frank bill into law before he stepped down. Dodd-Frank is a rat’s nest of new regulations on financial firms, but it goes notably light on regulating the housing industry and its cozy relationship with the federal government.

Despite its explosive findings, Representative Issa’s committee lacked any jurisdiction to suggest punishment for any individuals. The matter was handed off to the secretive House Ethics Committee, which quietly issued a report just two days after Christmas. This report concluded: While these allegations concern serious matters, almost all of the allegations concerned actions taken outside, or well outside, the jurisdiction of this Committee . . . because they occurred before the third Congress prior to the current Congress. In addition, several of the Members and employees mentioned in the allegations are no longer serving in or employed by the House, and therefore are outside the Committee’s jurisdiction.

In other words, some of the suspect droids have moved on, so it’s time the rest of us did, too.

* NICE...

* TO BE CONTINUED...

William R. Barker said...

* CONCLUDING... (Part 3 of 3)

Indeed, the name of only one member of Congress or staffer is mentioned in the entire report, that of Representative Pete Sessions, a Texas Republican who took a Countrywide loan but insisted on not getting favorable treatment or terms.

(*SNORT*)

But even while it is maddeningly silent on who was involved in the Countrywide scandal, the House Ethics Committee report does uncover exactly how corrupt the program was. “Countrywide partnered with Fannie Mae in a strategic business alliance that also included joint lobbying efforts,” it concludes. “Countrywide lobbyists and CEO Angelo Mozilo used discounted loans as a tool to ingratiate itself with policymakers in an effort to benefit the company’s business interests,” Issa said in a release about the report. As Politico notes, the report discloses that at least four Capitol Hill staffers in critical positions for Countrywide, including aides on the House Financial Services and Senate Banking panels, obtained VIP loans from the firm. These loans started as early as 1998.

Left unsaid is that Countrywide, Fannie, and Freddie were also able to kill attempts to rein in the subprime-mortgage market while it was pumping up the unsustainable housing bubble, starting in the late 1990s, and peaking between 2004 and 2006.

The Ethics Committee insists that some House members and staffers didn’t know they were receiving favorable treatment; the committee also suggests that the discounts these individuals obtained might have been equal to or less generous than the terms offered by other lenders. The entire culture of Congress was corrupted by the housing government- industrial complex, and the Ethics Committee report only skims over the surface of that scandal.

* I TRULY SEE NO ANSWER SANS VIOLENCE. MAKE ME SUPREME DICTATOR FOR A YEAR AND I'LL HANDLE THE ACTION AS IT SHOULD BE HANDLED! (I KNOW... I KNOW... FANTASY...)

Representative Hansen Clarke, a Michigan Democrat who will soon retire, was asked by Dave Weigel of Slate this month to name the most important lesson he’d picked up in Congress. His statement is extraordinary: "Everybody in this building knows that the housing market was the root of the financial crisis. Here’s the problem: They’re scared of crossing the financial industry and being defeated with the industry’s money. So they’re silent. Silent. Silent. Silent. Their rationale is: If I get defeated, I’m not going to be able to do anything. That’s what the problem is."

* OH... BULL! THEY'RE IN ON IT! AGAIN... SANS VIOLENCE... AMERICA IS DONE.

William R. Barker said...

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-12-31/u-s-gasoline-at-pump-averaged-record-high-in-2012-aaa-says-1-.html

Motorists in the U.S. paid record high prices for gasoline in 2012...

The national average price of gasoline in 2012 was $3.60 a gallon, nine cents more than the previous annual record set last year, said Heathrow, Florida-based AAA, the nation’s largest motoring group.

The U.S. produced 6.98 million barrels of oil a day in the week ended Dec. 21, the most since March 1993, according to Energy Department data. Drillers in states like North Dakota and Texas have spurred the output growth with increased use of methods such as directional drilling and hydraulic fracturing.

* THIS IS MAINLY ON PRIVATE LAND, FOLKS... WHERE OBAMA COULDN'T STOP IT.

* FOLKS... THE LEFT IS RABIDLY AGAINST FRACKING AND RIGHT NOW A NEW GENERATION OF CHILDREN AND HIGH SCHOOL AND COLLEGE STUDENTS IS BEING PROPAGANDIZED INTO BEING ANTI-FRACKING...

(*PURSED LIPS*)