Tuesday, May 21, 2013
Barker's Newsbites: Tuesday, May 21, 2013
Hey, Gang!
I wanna introduce you guys (and gals!) to a real stand-up guy, Ben Cheah, who is one of the co-authors of Rocky Road Blog.
I stumbled up the blog while doing research on Sammie (Mary's 2.0T Sonata!) with regard to her oil issue... the whole 5W-40 issue...
(*ROLLING MY EYES*)
I wrote the blog-owners - Ben and his buddy Jerry Cheung - and by the next morning Ben had replied... basically giving me a free tutorial on oil! (Ben's a chemical engineer; Jerry's a mechanical engineer!)
Over the last couple days we've gone back and forth and I'm really grateful for all of Ben's help!
Phil... Mary... both of you would no doubt appreciate their blog!
As for "He Whose Name Dare Not Be Spoken"... get a load of this, buddy!
Anyway... public shout-out to Ben, Jerry, their buddy Steven, and their blog!
(And now... on to today's newsbites!)
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http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/may/20/senate-panel-oks-tax-welfare-benefits-for-newly-le/?utm_source=Newsletter&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=Heritage%2BHotsheet
The Senate Judiciary Committee...
* THE DEMOCRAT-CONTROLLED SENATE JUDICIARY COMMITTEE...
...voted Monday to allow illegal immigrants who get legal status to begin collecting tax-welfare payments...
(*JUST THROWING MY HANDS IN THE AIR*)
In one major change, the committee voted 17-1 to make a third drunken-driving conviction a deportable offense for the newly legalized immigrants if at least one of those offenses occurs after they are approved for legal status.
* HOW ABOUT MAKING ONE DRUNKEN-DRIVING CONVICTION GROUNDS FOR IMMEDIATE DEPORTATION?!
* FOLKS... THE INMATES ARE RUNNING THE ASYLUM!
* FOLKS... NOTE... "DEPORTABLE OFFENSE" SIMPLY MEANS "ELIGIBLE" FOR BEING DEPORTED; THERE'S NO MANDATORY DEPORTATION!
* FOLKS... READ THE REST OF THE ARTICLE... IF, THAT IS, YOU CAN STOMACH WHAT YOU READ...
* TWO-PARTER... (Part 1 of 2)
http://www.nbcdfw.com/investigations/Accused-Fort-Hood-Shooter-Paid-278000-While-Awaiting-Trial-208230691.html
The Department of Defense confirms to NBC 5 Investigates that accused Fort Hood shooter Major Nidal Hasan has now been paid more than $278,000 since the Nov. 5, 2009 shooting that left 13 dead 32 injured. The Army said under the Military Code of Justice, Hasan’s salary cannot be suspended unless he is proven guilty.
* NOVEMBER 5, 2009...
* LET'S SEE... AFTER 2009 CAME THE 12 MONTHS OF 2010... FOLLOWED BY THE 12 MONTHS OF 2011... FOLLOWED BY THE 12 MONTHS OF 2012...
* TODAY IS MAY 21, 2013...
* FOLKS... IS THERE REALLY ANY DOUBT THAT THE INMATES ARE RUNNING THE ASYLUM... THAT THE INCOMPETENTS ARE RUNNING THE COUNTRY... THAT AMERICA IS BROKEN...?!?!
Meanwhile, more than three years later soldiers wounded in the mass shooting are fighting to receive the same pay and medical benefits given to those wounded in combat.
The Army has not classified the wounds of the Ft. Hood victims as “combat related” and declines to label the shooting a “terrorist attack."
* BULLSHIT! THIS IS OBAMA! OBAMA IS COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF! THE BUCK STOPS AT HIS DESK! IF FURTHER AUTHORITY BEYOND THIS WAS REQUIRED OBAMA COULD HAVE EASILY GONE TO CONGRESS AND GOTTEN IT! DON'T BLAME THIS SHIT OF "THE ARMY."
* TO BE CONTINUED...
* CONCLUDING... (Part 2 of 2)
Retired Army Spc. Logan Burnett, a reservist who, in 2009, was soon to be deployed to Iraq, was shot three times when a gunman opened fire inside the Army Deployment Center. ... Burnett nearly died. He's had more than a dozen surgeries since the shooting, and says post-traumatic stress still keeps him up at night. Burnett is now fighting a new battle; only this one is against the U.S. Army.
[W]ithout [a combat designation of his wounds] Burnett and other shooting victims are not given combat-related pay, they are not eligible for Purple Heart retirement or medical benefits given to other soldiers wounded either at war or during the Sept. 11, 2001 attack on the Pentagon. As a result, Burnett, his wife Torey, and the families of other Fort Hood victims miss out on thousands of dollars of potential benefits and pay every year.
* THIS... IS... OBAMA...!!!
The Army has categorized the shooting as a case of “workplace violence.”
* O*B*A*M*A HAS ALLOWED THIS "CATEGORIZATION" TO BE APPLIED...!!!
Burnett was stunned to see a letter detailing the more $278,000 Hasan has been paid since his arrest. NBC 5 Investigates received the letter from the Department of Defense in response to a request under the Freedom of Information Act.
"There have been times when my wife and I cannot afford groceries. We cannot afford gas in our car,” Burnett said. “Literally, times where we ate Ramen noodles for weeks on end. This [that Hasan is still earning a paycheck] makes me sick to my stomach,” said Burnett.
Rooney, a former prosecutor at Fort Hood, recently signed a bi-partisan letter urging defense secretary Chuck Hagel to "...reclassify the victims' deaths and injuries as 'combat related'..."
* O*B*A*M*A IS HAGEL'S BOSS!
* O*B*A*M*A WAS PANETTA'S BOSS!
* O*B*A*M*A WAS GATES' BOSS...!!!
The letter said the current situation has "...resulted in an embarrassing lack of care and treatment for the victims and their families. ... What happened here is not a case of workplace violence. What happened here was an attack on our military by a terrorist element specifically targeting our military, which just so happened to be in the United States of America,” said Rooney.
[T]he government’s National Counter-terrorism Center lists the shooting at Fort Hood as a “high fatality terrorist attack.”
NBC 5 Investigates wanted to ask Pentagon officials about Hasan's pay and the decision to classify the shooting as workplace violence, but the Army turned down requests for an interview. However, the Army's Chief of Media Relations told NBC 5 Investigates: "The Department of Defense is committed to the integrity of the ongoing court martial proceedings of Major Nidal Hasan and for that reason will not further characterize, at this time, the incident that occurred at Fort Hood on Nov. 5, 2009.”
* "ONGOING" COURT MARTIAL... (ONCE AGAIN... NOVEMBER 5, 2009...)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/post/the-white-house-claim-of-doctored-e-mails-to-smear-the-president/2013/05/20/a23343b6-c19e-11e2-8bd8-2788030e6b44_blog.html?wprss=rss_fact-checker
* THREE PINNOCIOS FOR DAN PFEIFFER!
* FOLKS... KESSLER IS NO CONSERVATIVE! THE WP IS NO CONSERVATIVE ORGAN! HECK... JUST CONSIDER THE LONG, UNWIELDY ROUTE KESSLER TAKES TO FINALLY GET TO HIS POINT!
* BOTTOM LINE... NICE TRY, PFEIFFER, AND SUPPORTIVE MEDIA WHO TRIED TO RUN WITH PFEIFFER'S BULLSHIT!
(*SMIRK*)
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2013/05/20/191774/white-house-more-top-aides-knew.html#.UZvI6tj1DXQ
* FOLKS... THIS IS MCCLATCHY - CONSISTENTLY THE MOST LIBERAL OF THE WIRE SERVICES!
The White House acknowledged Monday that senior aides to President Barack Obama knew a month ago that the Internal Revenue Service had targeted conservative groups, expanding on previous administration statements about who in the White House knew about the inquiry and when they knew about it.
* NICE TRY WITH "ACKNOWLEDGED" AND "EXPANDING," BUT....
Until now, the White House had said that only White House Counsel Kathryn Ruemmler had been told of the investigation of the IRS, and that her office had been informed the week of April 22.
* SO IN PLAIN ENGLISH... (*DRUM ROLL*)... THE ADMINISTRATION HAS NOW "ACKNOWLEDGED" THAT THEY LIED... THAT THEY'VE BEEN LYING FOR AT LEAST A MONTH.
Last week, Carney said the White House counsel’s office had been notified the week of April 22 of a coming inspector general report on the IRS. He denied that anyone knew of the IRS practices before that.
* CARNEY LIED.
* TWO-PARTER... (Part 1 of 2)
http://www.nationaljournal.com/politics/why-you-can-t-trust-the-white-house-even-if-nobody-s-lying-20130521
* THIS ESSAY BY RON FOURNEER OF THE NATIONAL JOURNAL IS TITLED:
Why You Can't Trust the White House (Even If Nobody's Lying)
* AND SUBTITLED:
Shifting stories cast doubts on answer to core question: Did Team Obama know about IRS abuse in real time?
(*PURSED LIPS*)
“You and others have said that no one in the White House knew about IRS actions before getting the heads up on the inspector general's report last month,” George Stephanopoulos told senior White House adviser Dan Pfeiffer on Sunday. “Are you absolutely sure of that?”
“Yes,” Pfeiffer replied.
Do you believe him?
* I DON'T!
Knowing the consequences that would befall the Obama administration if the White House or Obama’s re-election campaign knew in real time that the IRS was targeting conservatives, I desperately want to believe Pfeiffer. I’ve known him for years. I like him. He’s never lied to me.
* THREE POINTS: 1) WHAT CONSEQUENCES? THE DEMOCRATS CONTROL THE SENATE. HARRY REID, NANCY PELOSI, BILL & HILLARY CLINTON, AND THE DEMOCRATIC ESTABLISHMENT ARE NOT... I REPEAT, NOT... GOING TO IMPEACH OBAMA AND REMOVE HIM FROM OFFICE - NO MATTER WHAT! 2) PFEIFFER JUST GOT THREE PINNOCHIOS FROM THE WASHINGTON POST FOR HIS RECENT SUNDAY NEWS SHOW TOUR! 3) HOW DO YOU KNOW PFEIFFER HAS NEVER LIED TO YOU vs. YOU JUST HAVEN'T CAUGHT HIM IN A LIE?
But Pfeiffer is part of an institution that has demonstrated an inability and/or unwillingness to tell the full truth about the IRS scandal and a spate of other controversies. The White House can’t be trusted.
* THE FISH ROTS FROM THE HEAD DOWN. BARRACK HUSSEIN OBAMA CAN'T BE TRUSTED.
* TO BE CONTINUED...
* CONCLUDING... (Part 2 of 2)
That depressing conclusion (not unique to the Obama White House, sadly) was driven home Monday when spokesman Jay Carney used his daily briefing to announce that presidential advisers knew more about the IRS scandal a bit sooner than previously disclosed.
* WHAT IS IT WITH THESE LIBERAL "JOURNALISTS" THAT THEY CAN'T BRING THEMSELVES TO CALL LIES... WELL... LIES...?!?!
He said the West Wing’s top lawyer, Kathryn Ruemmler, told White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough and other senior advisers on April 16 about an internal audit of Internal Revenue Service's scrutiny of conservative groups. The White House discussed the potential findings with the Treasury Department but did not inform Obama, Carney said. That contradicts earlier White House claims. The April 16 notification date is a weekly earlier than previously disclosed by the White House.
* FOLKS... NO NEED TO GET BOGGED DOWN ON DATES... BOTTOM LINE - PFIEFFER IS A LIAR... CARNEY IS A LIAR... THEY'VE BOTH BEEN CAUGHT!
Pfeiffer said in television interviews Sunday that the White House did not know the results of the probe until last week, when the inspector general’s report was released. Carney had previously said the White House lawyer was told “only about the fact that the IG was finishing a review” of the IRS’s actions, and he cast it as a “normal sort of heads-up."
Reporting on Monday’s briefing, The New York Times said “the details released by Mr. Carney on Monday went beyond a previous White House account.”
The Washington Post reported, “The administration’s accounts of what it knew about the IRS inquiry have shifted markedly over the past week. Officials initially maintained that the administration knew of an inspector general’s report was forthcoming but suggested that they did not know about its findings.”
* YADDA... YADDA... YADDA...
* LIES!
Discussions between officials at the Treasury Department, which oversees the IRS, and their bosses in the West Wing were more extensive than initially acknowledged.
* LIES BY COMMISSION... LIES BY OMMISSION... THE COMMON DENOMINATOR IS... L*I*E*S...!!!
To be fair, these are not blockbuster developments.
* MAYBE NOT TO LIBERALS AND DEMOCRATS IN THE MEDIA WHO "DESPERATELY WANT TO BELIEVE"...
(*SHRUG*)
The White House pushed back its timeline by six or seven days and added some details about the inquiry notification.
Given the thousands of e-mails, hundreds of conversations, and dozens of people involved, it is possible that the White House innocently determined Monday that it had erred last week, and moved quickly to clear up the record.
* NO IT'S NOT.
In politics, as in life, when you constantly change your story, even on small matters, you sow doubt about your credibility and competence.
* I'M SORRY... DID I READ THAT CORRECTLY...? THE IRS BEING USED AS A POLITICAL SWORD AND SHIELD IS "A SMALL MATTER...?!?!" I THINK NOT!
The central question of the IRS scandal is whether Obama advisers at the White House or within the reelection campaign orchestrated or knew about the targeting of conservative groups.
* FOLKS... I REFER YOU TO: http://www.usalyright.blogspot.com/2013/05/an-obama-irs-conspiracy-theory-or-not.html
* TWO-PARTER... (Part 1 of 2)
http://thecable.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2013/05/21/rand_paul_my_colleagues_just_voted_to_arm_the_allies_of_al_qaeda
Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) blasted members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Tuesday, which voted overwhelmingly to arm elements of the Syrian opposition in a bill co-sponsored by Sen. Robert Menendez (D-NJ) and Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN). "This is an important moment," Paul said, addressing his Senate colleagues. "You will be funding, today, the allies of al Qaeda. It's an irony you cannot overcome."
* GOD ALMIGHTY... (*SIGH*)
The legislation, which would authorize the shipment of arms and military training to rebels "that have gone through a thorough vetting process," passed in a bipartisan 15-3 vote.
* YA MEAN LIKE THE "VETTING PROCESS" USED TO HIRE THE FOLKS WHO GUARDED OUR BENGHAZI CONSULATE... UNTIL THEY DIDN'T?
* YA MEAN LIKE THE "VETTING PROCESS" WHICH LEADS TO AL QIADA INFILTRATING THE AFGHAN ARMY AND POLICE AND THEN KILLING AMERICANS?
Paul offered an amendment that would strike the bill's weapons provision, but it was rejected along with another Paul amendment ruling out the authorization of the use of military force in Syria. (Connecticut Democrat Chris Murphy was the only senator to join Paul in support of the weapons amendment.)
* MOST SENATORS WANT A MILITARY DICTATOR SO AS TO AVOID TAKING RESPONSIBILITY FOR ANYTHING THAT GOES WRONG. THIS WAY THEY'RE ONLY "AUTHORIZING" OBAMA TO ACT.
* FOLKS... IF THIS CLEARS THE SENATE AND HOUSE AND IS SIGNED INTO LAW... WE'RE BASICALLY AT WAR WITH SYRIA.
* TO BE CONTINUED...
* THREE-PARTER... (Part 1 of 3)
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/348875/fire-bls%E2%80%99s-unemployment-rate-andrew-puzder-michael-talent
* WE'VE BEEN OVER THIS A MILLION TIMES... SO WHY NOT A MILLION AND ONE?!
Each month, the Bureau of Labor Statistics releases its latest news on the job market. The agency breaks down the jobs data six different ways and calculates six different unemployment rates. But all this data does little to answer clearly the one key question: Is it easier to get a job now than it was before?
If you just looked at April’s official unemployment rate of 7.5%, you could easily conclude that the employment situation is at least better than it was when unemployment peaked at 10% in October 2009. Yet, as millions of Americans know, jobs are still hard to find, and the labor market feels stagnant at best.
These Americans are not mistaken: The official unemployment rate is such a misleading statistic that anyone seeking a true picture of the American economy should stop using it. At the very least, they should consider it in context.
As most people know, the unemployment rate is simply the percentage of workers in the labor force who don’t have a job. But few people know how the BLS defines these terms, particularly “labor force.”
If a worker has not looked for a job in the last 30 days, that person is not considered part of the labor force - even if he or she still wants a job.
Perversely, if the economy gets so bad that large numbers of people stop looking for work, these dropouts actually decrease the unemployment rate.
Clearly, the unemployment rate gives an incomplete picture unless one also considers the percentage of Americans the BLS counts as the “labor force” — the labor-force-participation rate.
For example, when the unemployment rate peaked in October 2009 at 10%, the participation rate was 65%.
The participation rate has since dropped to 63.3%.
If the participation rate had not declined since 2009, we’d have an unemployment rate today of 9.9%, nearly identical to the official unemployment peak.
In other words, nearly the entire improvement in the unemployment rate since October of 2009 is due to a drop in the percentage of people the BLS considers labor-force participants.
* TO BE CONTINUED...
* CONTINUING... (Part 2 of 2)
The participation rate last hit 63.3% during the Carter administration, in May of 1979.
Over the ensuing 21 years, under Presidents Reagan, Bush, and Clinton, the participation rate rose steadily, reaching 67.3% by April 2000.
All of that growth is now gone, and we’re back to the lackluster level of the Carter presidency. But we’re actually worse off today: When we had a 63.3% participation rate in 1979, the official unemployment rate was 5.6%, 1.9 points lower than the current 7.5%!
Not everyone who leaves the work force has given up. Some retire... and the Baby Boomer generation is reaching retirement age. But the Boston Federal Reserve published a study recently finding that the bulk of the decline in labor-force participation is due to economic factors rather than demographic ones.
The BLS reported that in April there were 6,413,000 people out of work who “want a job now” but were excluded from the ranks of the officially unemployed. Adding them back into the labor force produces an unemployment rate of 11.2%.
The BLS also reports an unemployment rate that includes all persons who have searched for work during the prior twelve months (as opposed to the past 30 days), plus all people who want a full-time job but are employed part-time for “economic reasons,” such as reduced hours or an inability to find a full-time job. That unemployment rate, the widest measure the government calculates, is 13.9%.
* THAT'S THE U6 NUMBER I OFTEN REFER TO.
The BLS is not trying to mislead the public; it has used the same basic formula for decades. But some things have changed: The participation rate’s volatility has historically been very limited. In the 21 years from January 1988 through January 2009 (the month President Obama assumed office), the participation rate increased from 65.8 percent to 66.2%, only 0.4 percentage points. The peak was 67.3%, only 1.5 points above the trough of 65.8%.
During the last four years, the participation rate has declined from 66.2% to 63.3%, nearly double the change we experienced over the prior 20 years. This volatility has rendered the official unemployment rate unreliable and misleading.
* I KNOW YOUR EYES ARE GLAZING OVER. IN SHORT... BOTTOM LINE... THE ECONOMY HAS GONE TO HELL UNDER OBAMA.
* TO BE CONTINUED...
* CONCLUDING... (Part 3 of 3)
So what measurements should we use to determine the health of the labor market?
A more realistic and informative metric would be what we call the “growth ratio” — the year-over-year growth in the number of jobs (measured through the BLS’s household survey) divided by the year-over-year growth in the civilian non-institutional population (the number of people who could be in the labor force). This fraction tells us whether job creation is keeping pace with, running ahead of, or falling behind population growth.
A growth ratio equal to one indicates that employment grew as fast as the population, indicating that the labor market, and the real unemployment rate, remain unchanged. A growth ratio above one indicates job growth in excess of population growth, which should reduce the number of unemployed people and result in a lower unemployment rate. A ratio between zero and one indicates that, while employment grew, it did not keep up with population growth. A negative ratio indicates that employment fell.
In April, the growth ratio clocked in at 1.18, indicating that employment growth over the previous twelve months was slightly greater than population growth. The average for the recovery to date is a dismal 0.96 — indicating that employment growth has, on average, failed to beat population growth, supporting the conclusion that the real unemployment rate has not declined. Over the last year or so, the growth ratio has clocked in around 1.20 — better, but still only slightly ahead of population growth.
* THIS IS IF WE TAKE THE NUMBERS AT FACE VALUE. (WHICH I DON'T.) THIS IS VIA VERY ROUGH OFTEN APPLES TO ORANGES COMPARISONS THAT DON'T ACCOUNT FOR RELATIVE LIFESTYLE DECLINE.
Compare these ratios with the negative ratios during the Great Recession, when the growth ratio averaged -2.34. April’s growth ratio of 1.18 is about half that rate. Considering the growth ratio’s massive decline during the recession, the ratio now should be consistently hitting 1.5 or higher, as it has in prior recoveries. It isn’t. This reveals a stagnant jobs market and a weak economy ill-prepared for any future economic distress.
In a real recovery, the economy creates enough jobs to repair the damage done and keep up with population growth; it does not just shed workers. In this respect, the current recovery has been an unequivocal failure. The numbers should reflect that.
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