Usually Right: Barker's Newsbites: Wednesday, May 1, 2013

Wednesday, May 1, 2013

Barker's Newsbites: Wednesday, May 1, 2013

Happy May Day!

19 comments:

William R. Barker said...: * TWO-PARTER... (Part 1 of 2)

http://www.cnbc.com/id/100691168

[I]n terms of actual growth, this is...the worst economy in 83 years.

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

GDP growth is in the midst of its longest sub-3% annual growth rate since 1929, the beginning of the Great Depression, according to Bespoke Investment Group.

The economy hasn't topped 3% since 2005 — before Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke took over—and is unlikely to do so this year.

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

[T]he U.S. is still stuck in the slow-growth morass it has endured since the beginning of the Great Recession.

* O-BAM-A! O-BAM-A! O-BAM-A!

[U]nemployment that counts the discouraged and underemployed, as well as the jobless (often called the "real" unemployment rate) has remained stubbornly high, at 13.8% of the workforce, according to the most recent count.

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

In fact, a state-by-state look at the numbers, released a few days ago and current through the first quarter, shows that just six states have real rates below 10%.

* OUTFUCKINGSTANDING...!!!

Over the past year, the rate actually rose in six states (Alaska, Delaware, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania) and was unchanged in three (Connecticut, Mississippi and Oregon).

* LET'S HAVE A FUCKING PARTY! FINANCED WITH DEFICIT SPENDING!

* HEY... FOLKS... GUESS WHAT?! OBAMA HAS A PLAN! (READ ON...!)

* TO BE CONTINUED...; May 1, 2013 at 12:14 PM
William R. Barker said...: * CONCLUDING... (Part 2 of 2)

Two months from now, revised government estimates are likely to show that the economy is even bigger than the currently stated $15 trillion.

* WE'RE GONNA "REVISE" THE NUMBERS! YIPPEE...!!! WE'LL JUST "DEEM" THEM BETTER! YEP... THAT'S THE PLAN! (I BELIEVE I ADDRESSED THIS A FEW DAYS BACK IN A NEWSBITE; THESE PEOPLE HAVE NO FUCKING SHAME... NONE...)

While the [regime] said the GDP revisions will present a more "encompassing" look at the economy, critics are howling that the changes are an attempt to mask weak growth and rationalize more debt.

(*SMIRK*)

"It shouldn't come as a surprise they are going to change the way this number is reported," said Michael Pento, founder of Pento Portfolio Strategies. "When GDP numbers are chronically bad - averaging just 1.45% in the last two quarters - and the labor force participation rate is perpetually falling, our government will do the same thing they did for the inflation data — tinker with the formula until you get the desired result," he said.

* THESE... PEOPLE... ARE... SCUM...

Under the new math, the government will add research and development spending, as well as the capital value of all books, movies, records, television programs and plays produced since 1929. In jacking up the economy's size, the revisions also will skew the ratio of debt to GDP, considered important in determining government spending.

(*JUST SHAKING MY HEAD*)

* WAIT, FOLKS... THERE'S MORE... THERE'S AN END GAME! IT'S NOT JUST ABOUT FOOLING YOU TO FOOL YOU; IT'S ABOUT KEEPING THE GRAVY TRAIN FLOWING! (READ ON!)

Of course, the recent attempt at debunking a critical study of the ratio by Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff also has dimmed the prospects for government debt-cutting. The two economists asserted that a 90% debt-to-GDP ratio restrained growth, but the data set they used has been challenged as faulty. The new GDP calculations, combined with the souring on the Reinhart-Rogoff conclusions, likely will add to the thirst to keep Washington's debt machine purring.

(*SMIRK*)

* MEANWHILE... (READ ON...)

Michael Pento points out that no matter what the government does, it can't mask that revenue collections have been nearly stagnant over the past six years — a metric that as much as anything else outside of employment indicates true growth, or the lack thereof.

* AND... (READ ON...)

And that has come as public debt has soared by $7 trillion.

(*PURSED LIPS*)

"The fact is that the U.S. economy isn't growing fast enough to significantly increase the revenue to the government, but our debt is still soaring," Pento said. "It's a shame they won't just implement real measures to grow the economy like reduce regulations, simplify the tax code and balance the budget."; May 1, 2013 at 12:14 PM
William R. Barker said...: http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_ADP?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2013-05-01-09-45-17

A report Wednesday from payroll processor ADP suggests that government spending cuts and higher taxes could be starting to weigh on the job market; the private survey shows U.S. companies added just 119,000 jobs in April, the fewest in seven months.

[N]ew requirements under President Barack Obama's health care law may be prompting some small and mid-size companies to hold back on hiring.

ADP also said that hiring in March was slower than first thought: the survey shows just 131,000 added, down from an initial estimate of 158,000.

* OOPS...

"This is a bit disappointing, it shows the economy is growing more slowly as we go into the spring and summer," said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Analytics, which compiles the report from ADP's data.

* BUT... BUT... BUT... SHOULDN'T THE ECONOMY BE GROWING FASTER AS WE GO INTO SPRING AND SUMMER...?!?!

The slowdown in April was broad-based. Manufacturers cut 10,000 jobs, while firms in the service sector added the fewest in seven months. Construction firms added 15,000 jobs.

* HOW MANY OF THE CONSTRUCTION JOBS HAVE TO DO WITH STORM & OTHER NATURAL DISASTER DEMOLITION AND/OR REBUILDING? AS DISCUSSED IN A PREVIOUS NEWSBITE, "COSTS" SHOULD NOT BE CONFUSED WITH "PRODUCTION." (EXAMPLE: REBUILDING WEEK TEXAS AFTER THE EXPLOSION CREATES JOBS... SHOULD WE START BLOWING UP MORE TOWNS...???)

The ADP report is derived from payroll data and tracks private employment each month. It has diverged at times from the government's more comprehensive monthly jobs report, which will be released Friday. In March, the government said employers added 88,000 jobs, much lower than ADP's figure.

Zandi said that hiring is being affected by an increase in Social Security taxes at the beginning of the year and across-the-board spending cuts that kicked in March 1. Along with higher taxes on wealthier Americans, which also took effect Jan. 1, the tax increases and spending cuts could subtract 1.5 percentage points from growth this year, he said. That's the biggest government drag on the economy since the end of World War II, he said.

* THE SPENDING CUTS SUBTRACT DEFICIT SPENDING! DEFICIT SPENDING IS THE PROBLEM, NOT THE SOLUTION! MY GOD... OBAMA HAS ADDED $7 TRILLION DOLLARS TO OUR NATIONAL DEBT AND THE RESULT HAS BEEN...?!?!

* AND FOLKS... DON'T FORGET... REPAYMENT OF DEBT - DEBT PLUS INTEREST - IS A DRAIN ON SPENDING... SO REALLY... WHAT'S THE POINT...??? ALL WE'RE DOING IS SHIFTING THE TIMING - WHILE ADDING THE EXTRA BURDEN OF INTEREST OWED!

Health care "reform" may also be a reason some employers are holding back, Zandi said. Companies with 50 or more employees in 2013 have to provide insurance for their workers next year. Firms with 20 to 49 employees have cut hiring for three straight months, from 53,000 in January to just 17,000 last month.

* CONNECTING THE DOTS, FOLKS...???

Hiring has also slowed in restaurants, hotels and retailers. Zandi said those are industries where health care coverage is generally lower.

Zandi said he would like to see more data before drawing a firm conclusion, but it "feels like health care is having an impact."; May 1, 2013 at 12:43 PM
William R. Barker said...: http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/05/01/us-usa-explosions-boston-arrests-idUSBRE9400M720130501

Three additional suspects have been taken into custody in the investigation of last month's deadly bombings at the Boston Marathon, the Boston Police Department and a U.S. law enforcement source said on Wednesday.

A U.S. law enforcement source said that two of the suspects taken into custody on Wednesday include classmates of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev at the University of Massachusetts in Dartmouth. They are being held by immigration officials for violating the terms of their visas.

* AGAIN..

They are being held by immigration officials for violating the terms of their visas.

* AGAIN...

They are being held by immigration officials for violating the terms of their visas.

* APPARENTLY NO LESSONS WERE LEARNED FROM 9/11.

* COLLEGE STUDENTS WHO VIOLATE THEIR VISAS... (*SCRATCHING MY HEAD*)... ISN'T THAT EXACTLY THE DEMOGRAPHIC TARGETED FOR AMNESTY VIA "DREAM ACT" PROVISIONS...???

The source said they are likely to face charges related to obstruction of justice and with making false statements to investigators.

* YOU MEAN LIKE HILLARY DID AT THE BENGHAZI HEARINGS...???

Police are investigating whether the classmates threw away a backpack at Tsarnaev's request after the bombing, which killed three people and injured 264 others. Last week law enforcement officials were seen searching dumps in southeastern Massachusetts.

The third person taken into custody on Wednesday was a U.S. citizen, and all three were being investigated for actions taken after the bombings, the U.S. law enforcement source said.

* A NATURAL BORN U.S. CITIZEN OR A NATURALIZED CITIZEN... LIKE TSARNAEV...?

A Boston police spokeswoman, Katherine Shea, said she had no further details to provide on the suspects after their detention was reported on the department's official Twitter feed. Police said the arrests posed no danger to the public.

The one man criminally charged with the bombing, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, 19, is being held in a prison medical center. The charges carry the possibility of the death penalty. His older brother, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, died in a gunfight with police.

The lawyer for one of the men detained on Wednesday, identified as Dias Kadyrbayeye, said his client was being held for violations of his student visa.

* AND IF IT TURNS OUT THE FEDS DON'T HAVE ENOUGH TO CHARGE HIM IN CONNECTION TO THE BOMBINGS... IN CONNECTION WITH TERRORISM... WILL HE BE "LEGALIZED" - GRANTED AMNESTY?

The lawyer, Robert Stahl, said his client was "not a target" of the bombing investigation, but declined to comment on any other specifics. He said his client had "cooperated fully" with investigators and "wants to go home to Kazakhstan."; May 1, 2013 at 12:52 PM
William R. Barker said...: http://dailycaller.com/2013/05/01/new-boston-suspects-drove-car-with-terrorista-1-license-plates/

Two suspects taken into custody Wednesday in connection with the Boston Marathon bombing drove a car with “Terrorista #1″ license plates.

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

Tazhayakov and Kadrbayev, who are reportedly in FBI custody, drove around in a black BMW with “Terrorista #1″ license plates and were also photographed with Dzhokhar Tsarnaev in Times Square.

* NICE... A BLACK BMW...

* I WONDER IF THEY WERE GETTING FINANCIAL AID FROM THE AMERICAN TAXPAYER...??? (I WOULDN'T BE SURPRISED - WOULD ANY OF YOU BE?); May 1, 2013 at 12:56 PM
William R. Barker said...: http://www.atr.org/obamacares-tax-hike-train-wreck-a7587

Starting in tax year 2013:

ObamaCare Surtax on Investment Income: A new, 3.8 percent surtax on investment income earned in households making at least $250,000 ($200,000 single). This tax hike results in the following top tax rates on investment income: Capital Gains - 23.8%; Dividends - 43.4%; Other - 43.4%.

Medical device manufacturers employ 409,000 people in 12,000 plants across the country. ObamaCare imposes a new 2.3% excise tax on gross sales – even if the company does not earn a profit in a given year. In addition to killing small business jobs and impacting research and development budgets, this will make everything from pacemakers to artificial hips more expensive.

Before ObamaCare, Americans facing high medical expenses were allowed a deduction to the extent that those expenses exceeded 7.5% of adjusted gross income (AGI). ObamaCare now imposes a threshold of 10 percent of AGI. Therefore, ObamaCare not only makes it more difficult to claim this deduction, it widens the net of taxable income. According to the IRS, 10 million families took advantage of this tax deduction in 2009, the latest year of available data. Almost all are middle class. The average taxpayer claiming this deduction earned just over $53,000 annually. ATR estimates that the average income tax increase for the average family claiming this tax benefit will be $200 - $400 per year.

The 30 - 35 million Americans who use a pre-tax Flexible Spending Account (FSA) at work to pay for their family’s basic medical needs face a new ObamaCare cap of $2,500. Now, a parent looking to sock away extra money to pay for braces will find themselves quickly hitting this new cap, meaning they would have to pony up some or all of the cost with after-tax dollars.

* THUS DEFEATING THE PURPOSE OF THE FSA!

Needless to say, this tax will especially impact middle class families.

There is one group of FSA owners for whom this new cap will be particularly cruel and onerous: parents of special needs children. Nationwide there are several million families with special needs children and many of them use FSAs to pay for special needs education. Tuition rates at one leading school that teaches special needs children in Washington, D.C. (National Child Research Center) can easily exceed $14,000 per year. Under tax rules, FSA dollars can be used to pay for this type of special needs education. This ObamaCare tax provision will limit the options available to these families.

* THERE'S MORE. FEEL FREE TO READ THE FULL PIECE.; May 1, 2013 at 1:09 PM
William R. Barker said...: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/chi-at-least-8-wounded-in-separate-shootings-on-the-south-north-side-20130430,0,4341847.story

At least three people were killed and 17 wounded in shootings across Chicago overnight as the city saw its warmest weather in seven months.

(*CLAP...CLAP...CLAP*); May 1, 2013 at 1:14 PM
William R. Barker said...: * TWO-PARTER... (Part 1 of 2)

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-04-30/boston-manhunt-missed-the-boat-as-police-skip-street.html

How did hundreds of police who descended on the town fail to find a 19-year-old, who was unarmed and shot, lying under a tarp on a boat in the backyard of a house about 400 yards (366 meters) from where he had abandoned a car after fleeing the scene of the firefight?

* GOOD QUESTION...

Sue Lund lives about five blocks from where police engaged in a wild shootout April 19 with the two Boston Marathon bombing suspects and about eight doors down from where the one who escaped alive was found 18 hours later. Yet, during the all-day manhunt, she said police never searched her Franklin Street home or garden shed in Watertown, Massachusetts.

Ten other neighbors had the same story and said they didn’t know of any homes that had been searched on Franklin, where Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was discovered by someone on the street about 30 minutes after an area lockdown was lifted.

Authorities initially said Tsarnaev was found outside the 20-block area that was supposed to be subject to the most intensive part of the manhunt, including searches of the inside and outside of every house.

Edward Davis, Boston’s police commissioner, last week said that in fact, the younger suspect had been found inside that zone.

* GREAT... WONDERFUL... IS THERE A LICENSED SURVEYOR IN THE HOUSE...? (*SNORT*)

David Procopio, a spokesman for the Massachusetts State Police, said it remains under investigation whether the yard and boat at 67 Franklin St. in Watertown where Tsarnaev was found had been searched earlier on April 19.

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

He also said all the suspect’s movements from the time of the firefight until he was captured remains under investigation. “We do not know whether he was in the boat all day,” Procopio said in an e-mail.

While the FBI is overseeing the bombing investigation, the search in Watertown was done under joint direction of the state police and local police with assistance from numerous other local departments, said Procopio, who declined to identify those who oversaw the search of the area.

The firefight where the older brother was killed left people in Watertown rattled and the lockdown trapped them in their homes in fear. Early that morning when police fired more than 200 rounds at the two suspects, and the two returned fire and threw bombs, more than a dozen bullets entered surrounding homes, according to Kathy Alpert, who lives nearby.

* AND OF COURSE WE'VE NEVER LEARNED HOW AN UNTRAINED 19 YEAR OLD POTHEAD WAS ABLE TO ESCAPE THE CHASE... ESCAPE THE FIREFIGHT... IN THE FIRST PLACE.

* BTW... GREAT SHOOTING, GOOD GUYS! THE OLDER BROTHER WAS ABLE TO HIT HIS TARGET... SHOOT ONE OF THE COPS... BUT WHILE FIRING MORE THAN 200 ROUNDS THE POLICE COULDN'T KILL BOTH TERRORISTS THEN AND THERE.

* TO BE CONTINUED...; May 1, 2013 at 2:27 PM
William R. Barker said...: * CONCLUDING... (Part 2 of 2)

The manhunt harnassed K9 units, SWAT teams, bomb squads, the air force wing of the state police and various other investigative units, according to Procopio. Before heavily armed forces scoured the area and helicopters buzzed the skies, Governor Deval Patrick ordered the lockdown across the Boston area, asking people to stay inside, and shut down the mass transit system.

[B]y around 6:15 p.m. on April 19, with the sun setting, Patrick lifted the lockdown even as authorities came up empty in their search.

* ...EVEN AS AUTHORITIES CAME UP EMPTY IN THEIR SEARCH.

David Henneberry, who lives in the white three-story Victorian home at 67 Franklin St., went outside for some fresh air when he noticed the tarp on his boat in the backyard was loose. Then he saw blood and someone inside.

* PRIVATE... CITIZEN... DAVID... HENNEBERRY...

Henneberry went into his house and called police. He declined to comment when reached by Bloomberg News.

The actual capture took some time because authorities assumed the younger suspect was still armed and dangerous. SWAT teams and soldiers dressed for combat stormed down the street screaming for everyone to get inside, said Deanna Finn, who lives at one end of Franklin Street. Something might have spooked the police, who fired 30 or more rounds and lobbed flash grenades at the boat on the trailer. The burst of bullets shredded the hull and hit neighboring houses, residents said.

* IF THIS IS TRUE... IF "SOMETHING SPOOKED THE POLICE"...

(*JUST SHAKING MY HEAD*)

The capture would come about an hour later, after a robot was sent in to tear off part of the tarp and an infrared scanner on a helicopter showed the suspect lying prone and motionless. Initial reports described the gunfire and grenade explosions as a firefight with a desperate fugitive. In fact, it was a one- sided shootout.

* DID YOU KNOW THIS...???

Investigators didn’t recover a weapon from the boat, according to two federal law enforcement officials who asked not to be identified in discussing an active criminal probe.

* THIS IS THE FIRST TIME I'M HEARING THIS!; May 1, 2013 at 2:27 PM
William R. Barker said...: http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/obamas-25m-hotel-and-vehicle-rental-tab-last-mexico-trip_720427.html

* YA KNOW, FOLKS... THIS SORT OF SHIT IS JUST IRRESPONSIBLE. I DON'T CARE IF IT'S BUSH OR REAGAN OR OBAMA.

As the White House first announced in March, Barack Obama is scheduled to visit Mexico and Costa Rica later this week. The trip is billed as "an important opportunity to reinforce the deep cultural, familial, and economic ties that so many Americans share with Mexico and Central America." And at yesterday’s White House press conference, the president stated that he is "very much looking forward to taking the trip down to Mexico" this week.

But the trip won’t exactly be cheap for taxpayers, assuming the costs mirror those incurred by the American taxpayers for President Obama's last trip to Mexico, for the G-20 summit in June 2012. According to recently discovered documents relating to the costs of that trip, taxpayers paid nearly $2.5 million for hotel and “vehicle rental.”; May 1, 2013 at 3:00 PM
William R. Barker said...: * THREE-PARTER... (Part 1 of 3)

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/347041/how-serious-are-republicans

Shortly after President Obama finally released his proposed budget a couple weeks ago, Representative Greg Walden of Oregon, the chairman of the National Republican Campaign Committee, launched a stinging attack on the president... not over the president’s call for more taxes and spending or because the president’s budget never balances and adds trillions to the national debt, but because the president actually proposed modestly slower growth in Social Security benefits.

A “shocking attack on seniors,” Representative Walden called it, accusing the president of “trying to balance this budget on the backs of seniors.”

* GREG WALDEN OF OREGON IS A RINO. HE'S AN ASS. HE'S A PIECE OF SHIT.

It is true that the president’s proposal for “chained CPI” is not immune from criticism. It is likely to save far less than advertised — certainly not enough to deal with our massive and growing debt — and it would mean a huge tax middle-class tax hike over time, as workers were pushed into higher tax brackets more quickly. But that’s not what Walden said.

This could be viewed as just another example of Representative Walden’s penchant for being a big-spending Republican. (He has a lifetime score of just 62% from the anti-spending Club for Growth.)

* LIKE I WROTE UP ABOVE... (*SHRUG*)

Or perhaps it was just reflexive and mindless partisanship. Anything President Obama proposes, Republicans must oppose (and vice versa, of course). But in many ways, Walden’s remarks illustrate a problem with the current Republican party as a whole. Too many Republicans don’t really want to cut spending — or, at least, not spending that benefits their own constituencies.

* FOLKS... WE DON'T HAVE A TWO-PARTY SYSTEM. WITH HAVE AN OLIGARCHY SPLIT BETWEEN THOSE WHO CALL THEMSELVES DEMOCRATS AND THOSE WHO CALL THEMSELVES REPUBLICANS.

* TO BE CONTINUED...; May 1, 2013 at 3:34 PM
William R. Barker said...: * CONTINUING... (Part 2 of 2)

Recall that during last year’s presidential campaign, Mitt Romney’s big complaint about ObamaCare was that it cut $716 billion from Medicare over ten years.

Medicare is facing a minimum of $42 trillion in future red ink[!] Perhaps someone should be praised for cutting it[!]

It would have made sense to criticize the president for spending those savings on other aspects of ObamaCare. One could certainly question whether the president’s proposed cuts were the best way to reduce Medicare spending, or even whether they would be effective. But Governor Romney focused his criticism on the idea of the cuts themselves.

* FOLKS... YOU CERTAINLY KNOW MY OPINION OF ROMNEY!

Elsewhere, Republicans continue to resist any efforts to reduce defense spending.

(*NOD*)

Modest defense cuts were included in the sequester of course — over the strenuous objections of GOP hawks such as John McCain, Lindsey Graham, and Representative Buck McKeon. But advocates of increased defense spending have hardly given up the fight — expect continued efforts this fall to undo the sequester’s effects on the Pentagon.

(*SIGH*)

There is also some parochialism: attempting to funnel federal money to one’s district at the expense of the broader public purse. Thus Representative Steve Stockman of Texas opposes cuts to NASA (invoking the specter of an asteroid crashing into Earth), and Representative Jim Jordan pushes the army to buy Abrams tanks, built in his home state of Ohio, that the army says it doesn’t need.

* EVEN JIM JORDAN...

Republican senators from farm states are among the biggest defenders of farm subsidies. Representatives from the northeast demanded federal assistance after Hurricane Sandy. And so on.

More of it is just political cowardice, out of fear of cutting something that might offend some voter, somewhere. Notice how quickly the FAA’s sequester issues were resolved once potential voters (and campaign donors) squawked. The furloughs of air-traffic controllers were unnecessary, resulting from union contract issues and the deliberate decision of the Obama administration to make the sequester as painful as possible, and should have been fixed. But it’s clear that Republicans moved so fast in part because it was largely upper-middle-class voters who were affected.

Similar meekness is pushing other Republicans to suggest that the party should move away from “austerity” to support a “growth agenda.”

House majority leader Eric Cantor, for example, has expressed a desire to “focus on what lies beyond these fiscal debates.”

* AS REGULAR READERS KNOW... I'D CHEER AT NEWS OF CANTOR'S DEATH.

* TO BE CONTINUED...; May 1, 2013 at 3:35 PM
William R. Barker said...: * CONCLUDING... (Part 3 of 3)

And, Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal exhorts Republicans, “We seem to have an obsession with government bookkeeping. . . . We as Republicans have to accept that government number-crunching — even conservative number-crunching — is not the answer to our nation’s problems.”

* CONTEXT... CONTEXT... IF YOU WANNA CRITICIZE JINDAL'S ACTUAL RECORD THAT'S ONE THING. OTHERWISE...

(*SHRUG*)

But can we really expect an economy to grow with a federal government that, according to the Congressional Budget Office, will consume 43% of GDP by mid-century?

* NO WAY WE'RE GONNA MAKE IT TO MID-CENTURY.

Can we have economic growth with a national debt in excess of 104% of GDP and total liabilities, including unfunded obligations, approaching 800% of GDP?

* YEP... YOU READ THAT RIGHT... "APPROACHING 800% OF GDP."

Republicans like to pretend that you can deal with the debt crisis by eliminating “waste, fraud, and abuse” in the federal budget, and certainly there is plenty of that. But you simply cannot balance the budget by cutting the usual suspects. Foreign aid amounts to just 1% of federal spending. Federal subsidies to Planned Parenthood and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting amount to a combined 0.02%. In fact, all domestic discretionary spending — everything from the Department of Education to the FBI, from NASA to the Food and Drug Administration — accounts for just 16% of all federal spending.

And that percentage is declining.

The president proudly, and correctly, points out that even in his bloated budget, domestic "discretionary" spending will amount to just 2.5% of GDP by 2023, a historic low.

* YOU UNDERSTAND THAT THE CAVEAT IS "DISCRETIONARY" SPENDING... RIGHT? EVERYTHING ELSE IS ON UNAFFORDABLE AND UNSUSTAINABLE AUTO-PILOT. (SO IS "DISCRETIONARY" SPENDING IN THE REAL WORLD, BUT AT LEAST THEY GO THROUGH THE MOTIONS OF "NEW" BUDGETING EVERY YEAR SUPPOSEDLY ALLOWING CUTS.)

Defense currently constitutes another 20% of federal spending.

* "DEFENSE." WHAT A JOKE. IS OUR SOUTHERN BORDER "DEFENDED?" WAS BOSTON "DEFENDED?" DID OR DID NOT 9/11 HAPPEN IN THE FIRST PLACE...?!?!

* FOLKS... OUR "DEFENSE" BUDGETS ARE IN LARGE PART LINKED TO AN AMERICAN EMPIRE THAT WE SPEND TRILLIONS "DEFENDING" WHILE DERIVING LESS THAN FAIR RATE OF RETURN ON OUR INVESTMENT IN IT. FOLKS... TRILLONS AND TRILLIONS OF DOLLARS SPENT OVER THE DECADES AND STILL, FIFTY YEARS AFTER THE CUBAN MISSILE CRISIS CASTRO STILL GIVES US THE FINGER. NORTH KOREA HAS NUCLEAR WEAPONS. CHINA DOESN'T EVEN BOTHER TO HIDE THE FACT THAT THEY AND RUSSIA ENGAGE IN ACTIVE CYBERWAR AGAINST US ON A DAILY BASIS. WHAT HAS THE EMPIRE BOUGHT US...???

And the really big money resides in entitlement programs, especially Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security, which account for 44% (and counting) of all federal spending.

Another six cents out every dollar that the federal government spends is for interest on our current federal debt.

It is easy to cut spending that you don’t like. But if Republicans are serious about cutting spending, lowering our debt, and reducing the size of government, they are going to have to cut spending that they like. They are going to have to make cuts that affect their districts and their constituents. They are going to have to accept cuts in defense. And, they are going to have to structurally reform entitlements, even at the risk of angering seniors.

That might make you ask: Are Republicans really serious about cutting spending?

* NO. THEY'RE NOT. AND THAT'S WHY AMERICA IS DOOMED.; May 1, 2013 at 3:35 PM
William R. Barker said...: http://michellemalkin.com/2013/05/01/the-camp-bastion-cover-up/

* REMEMBER CAMP BASTION, FOLKS?

Do you remember what happened last year on 9/14?

Benghazi isn’t the only bloody disaster being covered up by the Obama administration. As I reported in a series of columns and blog posts last fall, three days after the deadly siege on our consulate in Libya, the Taliban waged an intricately coordinated, brutal attack on Camp Bastion in Afghanistan.

(*NOD*)

Two heroic U.S. Marines — Lt. Col. Christopher Raible and Sgt. Bradley Atwell — were killed in the battle.

Many fallen and surviving Marines have been honored for their brave, quick-thinking actions to save their comrades and civilians caught in the crossfire [and yet] family members are angry that military brass are still trying to suppress details of the fateful budget and strategic decisions that led to the attack.

“This is political,” one Camp Bastion relative told me this week. “Just like Benghazi, they don’t want people to know.”

The attack came exactly six months after a failed jihadi suicide attack targeting former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta.

In case you were sleeping or had forgotten: The meticulously coordinated siege at Camp Bastion by 15 Taliban infiltrators — dressed in American combat fatigues and armed with assault rifles, rocket-propelled grenades and other weapons — resulted not only in two deaths and nearly a dozen injuries, but also in the most devastating loss of U.S. airpower since Vietnam.

* THE MOST DEVASTATING LOSS OF U.S. AIRPOWER SINCE VIETNAM...!

Camp Bastion is Britain’s main military base in Afghanistan; it’s adjacent to our Marines’ Camp Leatherneck.

Eight irreplaceable U.S. aircraft were destroyed or put out of action during the raid.

(*PURSED LIPS*)

A trio of refueling stations was decimated; a half-dozen hangars were damaged.

Camp Bastion family members are hearing that U.S. and British military leaders left their loved ones vulnerable to attack by outsourcing watchtower security on the base to soldiers from Tonga, who were known to fall asleep on the job.

(*PURSED LIPS*)

Deborah Hatheway, aunt of Sgt. Atwell and the family’s spokesperson, is naming names and mincing no words. She says Major General Charles “Mark” Gurganus, who recently returned to the U.S. after commanding coalition forces in Afghanistan, was ultimately responsible for skimping on security patrols. “He might as well have made it easier for the Taliban by cutting the perimeter fence himself and putting out the welcome mat,” Hatheway told me.

This is the same Gurganus who ordered Marines to disarm — immediately after the failed jihadi attack on Panetta last year — because he wanted them “to look just like our (unarmed) Afghan partners.”

* GEEZUS... THIS IS A PRESENT DAY U.S. MARINE GENERAL...

Hatheway says her family has learned that “it took over an hour before any of the other coalition forces arrived to help the Marines, who were already engaged with the terrorists and had it under control.” In addition, she says, they’ve learned that those on the ground did not have “proper protective gear available … or properly functioning weapons.”

Bastion families have raised questions with politicians and Pentagon officials in Washington, but are being forced to jump through Freedom of Information Act hoops to get to the bottom of the story.

In the meantime, a few officers in the know have begun leaking to the press. A little-noticed article by Washington Post reporter Rajiv Chandrasekaran two weeks ago reported that “several officials with direct knowledge of the assault said in recent interviews that staffing decisions by U.S. and British commanders weakened the base’s defenses, making it easier for the insurgents to reconnoiter the compound and enter without resistance.”

* SEE: http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/taliban-attack-exploited-security-cutbacks/2013/04/20/b22a0c18-a796-11e2-8302-3c7e0ea97057_story.html I'M GONNA NEWSBITE IT SEPARATELY!

Cue the stonewalling.; May 1, 2013 at 6:05 PM
William R. Barker said...: * FIVE-PARTER... (*Part 1 of 5)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/taliban-attack-exploited-security-cutbacks/2013/04/20/b22a0c18-a796-11e2-8302-3c7e0ea97057_story.html

The Taliban fighters who blew up a half-dozen U.S. Marine fighter jets on a sprawling NATO base last fall were able to walk easily onto the encampment because patrols of the perimeter had been scaled back and watchtowers left unmanned, according to senior military officials.

After the attack, which resulted in the deaths of two Marines and the largest loss of allied materiel in the 11-year-long Afghan war, the top U.S. commander on the base did not order a formal investigation into the security lapses or sanction any personnel responsible for guarding the facility, the officials said.

* AND WHAT DOES THE WASHINGTON POST SAY...? ARE YOU VERIFYING THIS...?

In the days following the raid, some U.S. and NATO military leaders insisted that the Taliban got lucky by choosing to breach where they did. But several officials with direct knowledge of the assault said in recent interviews that staffing decisions by U.S. and British commanders weakened the base’s defenses, making it easier for the insurgents to reconnoiter the compound and enter without resistance. Once inside, 15 insurgents used grenades to destroy almost an entire squadron of Marine AV-8B Harrier jets, a loss estimated by military officials at about $200 million.

* I'M ASSUMING THE WASHINGTON POST IS REFERRING TO U.S. AND NATO MILITARY LEADERS THEY TRUST...

The new account of the attack illustrates the challenge of withdrawing troops from Afghanistan in the coming months. Unlike Iraq, from which U.S. forces departed largely peacefully, Afghanistan remains perilous. U.S. intelligence officials say Taliban operatives are on the lookout for opportunities to strike if U.S. and NATO commanders reduce security as they send home thousands of troops.

* I'LL TAKE THIS LAST PARAGRAPH AS VERIFICATION THAT THE WP BELIEVES THEIR SOURCES.

* TO BE CONTINUED...; May 1, 2013 at 11:12 PM
William R. Barker said...: * CONTINUING... (Part 2 of 5)

The attack occurred on Camp Bastion, a British-run NATO air base in Helmand province that adjoins Camp Leatherneck, a vast U.S. Marine facility that serves as the NATO headquarters for southwestern Afghanistan. Because Leatherneck does not have a runway, the Marines use Bastion as their principal air hub. Several hundred Marines live and work on the British side, and dozens of U.S. helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft park there.

The British are responsible for guarding Bastion, which is ringed by a chain-link fence and triple coils of razor wire. There are numerous tall watchtowers on the perimeter, which allow sentries to scan the horizon for potential attackers. Instead of placing their own soldiers in the towers, British commanders handed the job to troops from the Pacific island of Tonga, which has sent 55 soldiers to Afghanistan.

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

* WHAT HAPPENED - IF ANYTHING - TO THE BRITISH COMMANDERS AFTER THE SMOKE CLEARED...?

On the night of the attack — Sept. 14 — the tower closest to the Taliban point of entry was unmanned, according to four U.S. military officials who were at Camp Leatherneck at the time or received briefings about the incident later. Those officials and other military officers interviewed spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the attack or security measures at Camp Bastion, key elements of which remain classified.

* NICE...

Several watchtowers at Bastion were manned at the time, but the Tongan soldiers in those posts could not observe the area around the empty tower, the officials said. “There was dead space,” one official said.

A senior U.S. officer with direct knowledge of security on the bases said it was common for Bastion’s watchtowers to be unmanned.

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

Long-standing U.S. military security protocols permit towers to be unoccupied only if other posts can observe the unmanned tower’s entire area of responsibility.

“Security at Camp Bastion is constantly reviewed . . . and is appropriate to the currently assessed threat level,” the British Ministry of Defense said in a statement responding to questions from The Washington Post.

* SOMEONE IS LYING.

* TO BE CONTINUED...; May 1, 2013 at 11:13 PM
William R. Barker said...: * CONTINUING... (Part 3 of 3)

U.S. Marines responsible for protecting Camp Leatherneck and Camp Bastion have not relied on watchtowers alone to protect the facilities. Since U.S. troops established Leatherneck in 2009, teams of Marines have patrolled a 230-square-mile swath of desert around the bases in an attempt to identify Taliban activity and persuade residents in makeshift villages there to report on suspicious activity.

In December 2011, 325 Marines were assigned to patrol the area, according to the senior U.S. officer with knowledge of security measures. In the month before the attack, however, the number was cut back to about 100, the officer said. “We reduced the force to patrol [the area around the base] to the point where it was an unacceptable risk,” the officer said.

* BY WHOSE ORDER...???

The top U.S. commander at Leatherneck at the time, Marine Maj. Gen. Charles Gurganus, who approved of the reduction, said force levels for perimeter patrols were based on U.S. and NATO assessments of possible threats. At the time, other military officials said, Marine intelligence analysts did not issue any specific warnings of a frontal assault by the Taliban.

* HAS GURGANUS BEEN COURT MARTIALED? FORCED TO RETIRE? (OR HAS HE BEEN PROMOTED...???)

Military officials believe the reduction in patrols allowed the insurgents to conduct detailed reconnaissance of the airfield before the attack, identifying the times during which guard towers were unoccupied and sketching maps of where planes were parked. The insurgents even publicized the maps after the attack.

On the night of the attack, Taliban insurgents dressed in what officials believe were stolen U.S. military uniforms slipped onto the base and destroyed the aircraft.

Two Marines, Lt. Col. Christopher Raible, 40, and Sgt. Bradley Atwell, 27, were killed.

In the wake of the attack, the top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan, Marine Gen. John R. Allen, assigned his deputy, Lt. Gen. Adrian Bradshaw of the British army, to investigate the incident.

Gurganus ordered a colonel on his staff to conduct a review of security procedures on the bases. Gurganus did not order a formal Marines Corps judge advocate general investigation into the attack. He said he could not because Bastion is a NATO facility.

* BULLSHIT.

* TO BE CONTINUED...; May 1, 2013 at 11:14 PM
William R. Barker said...: * CONTINUING... (Part 4 of 4)

Other senior officers, however, contended that a formal U.S. investigation was warranted because two Marines were killed and so many aircraft were destroyed.

* YEP... (NOW WHICH STORY SOUNDS MORE REASONABLE TO YOU, MY BELOVED READERS...?)

When the House Armed Service Committee asked to see the initial Marine security review earlier this year, senior officers on the Pentagon’s Joint Staff deemed it insufficient for release and ordered the Marines to conduct a fuller review, military officials said. But that examination still fell short of an official investigation.

No U.S. or British military personnel have been reprimanded as a result of the attack.

* FOLKS... AMERICA AS WE KNEW IT IS OVER. THE INMATES ARE RUNNING THE ASYLUM.

The Marine Corps does not plan to release its review.

(*PURSED LIPS*)

NATO also intends to keep its investigation confidential, in part to avoid embarrassing the British for leaving towers unmanned, according to officers briefed on the findings.

(*BITING MY PURSED LIPS*)

* TO BE CONTINUED...; May 1, 2013 at 11:15 PM
William R. Barker said...: * CONCLUDING... (Part 5 of 5)

“We’ve corrected the deficiencies in security, but we don’t want to put a stick in the eye of our closest ally,” said a senior U.S. official who served in Afghanistan at the time.

* ONCE UPON A TIME THE BRITS WOULD HAVE DONE WHAT NEEDED TO BE DONE. SO WOULD HAVE WE. GOD HELP THE WEST.

Instead, the Marine Corps has sought to focus attention on the heroic response of Marine aviators during the attack. Mechanics, supply clerks and pilots grabbed rifles and ran onto the flight line to fight the insurgents, who had split into three five-man teams. Raible, a Harrier squadron commander, charged into the combat zone armed with only a handgun.

Had Raible and his fellow Marines not responded so quickly, senior officers said they believe, the human toll and property damage would have been far worse. “Their actions prevented an even greater loss,” one of the officers said. “But they never should have been put in that position in the first place.”

“You can’t defend everywhere every day,” Gurganus said in response to a question about the attack. “You base your security on the threat you’ve got.” He said the Taliban caught “a lucky break.”

* GURGANUS COMES OFF AS A COMPLETE DISGRACE TO HIS UNIFORM.

“When you’re fighting a war, the enemy gets a vote,” he said.

Other military officials said security incidents on the bases in the preceding months should have prompted increased vigilance. In March 2012, an Afghan interpreter working for British forces at Camp Bastion drove a flaming vehicle toward a U.S. military aircraft carrying then-Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta. The vehicle crashed into a ditch and missed Panetta’s plane.

* DUH!

Marine officers also had been concerned about the performance of the Tongan troops, who were sometimes found asleep at their posts.

The senior officer with knowledge of security matters said some officers raised questions about the reduction of Marines to patrol the perimeter with Gurganus and were told that it was an “acceptable risk.”

* SOUNDS LIKE GURGANUS SHOULD BE COURT MARTIALED FOR DERELICTION OF DUTY!

In the months leading up to the September attack, Gurganus and his predecessor had to withdraw about 10,000 U.S. troops from Helmand, reducing total force levels to about 7,000. That cutback, the senior officer said, increased pressure to trim the patrol.

Despite the troop reduction, several officers stationed at Leatherneck at the time said many Marines with idle time could have been assigned to guard duty. Instead, some of them took online college classes and others worked out in the gym twice a day. And two weeks after the attack, a Texas hold ’em poker tournament was held at one of the recreation centers at Leatherneck.

* GEEZUS...; May 1, 2013 at 11:16 PM

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