Friday, June 14, 2013

Barker's Newsbites: Friday, June 14, 2013


So let me ask you... if Barack Hussein Obama was a foreign sleeper agent... say one working for the Chinese... which policies of his would be different?

(*SHRUG*)

I'm just pointing it out, folks: Look at his policies. Acknowledge the results

Nope... not saying Obama is an enemy agent...

(*PAUSE*)

...but rather noting his actions are interchangeable with those a hostile foreign power would likely instruct him to advance.

15 comments:

William R. Barker said...

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-250_162-57589252/u.s.-syria-used-chemical-weapons-crossing-red-line/

The Obama administration has concluded that Syrian President Bashar Assad's government used chemical weapons against the rebels seeking to overthrow him and, in a major policy shift, President Obama has decided to supply military support to the rebels, the White House announced Thursday.

* A COUPLE POINTS: 1) I DON'T GIVE A RAT'S ASS THAT ASSAD HAS (SUPPOSEDLY) USED CHEMICAL WEAPONS AGAINST SYRIAN REBELS. LET THE SYRIANS WORK OUT THEIR OWN CIVIL WAR... JUST AS WE DID. 2) I DON'T NECESSARILY BELIEVE OBAMA. I BELIEVED BUSH - AND CLINTON - ABOUT "SADDAM'S WMD." REMEMBER HOW THAT WORKED OUT... 3) WHO THE HELL IS OBAMA TO GET US INTO YET ANOTHER WAR WITHOUT CONGRESS DECLARING WAR?! ONCE AGAIN OUR CONSTITUTION PROVES TO BE NO LIMIT UPON OBAMA'S POWER. ONCE AGAIN THE RULE OF LAW IS SHOWN TO BE NOTHING BUT A FIG-LEAF.

William R. Barker said...

http://cnsnews.com/blog/joe-schoffstall/fbi-director-testifies-he-doesnt-know-whos-leading-investigation-irs-case

While testifying before the House Judiciary Committee today, FBI Director Robert Mueller could not name the lead investigator in the IRS case involving the targeting of conservative groups.

It is now one month into the investigation.

(*PURSED LIPS*)

* AGAIN, FOLKS... FOR ALL INTENTS AND PURPOSES WE'RE LIVING IN AN UNACCOUNTABLE DICTATORSHIP. OBAMA AND HIS PEOPLE DO WHAT THEY WANT WHEN THEY WANT AND THE RULE OF LAW IS WHAT THEY SAY IT IS.

William R. Barker said...

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

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/06/14/the-sickening-snowden-backlash.html

It's appalling to hear the Washington bureaucrats and their media allies trash Edward Snowden as a traitor, when it's our leaders and the NSA who have betrayed us, writes Kirsten Powers.

* WRITES POWERS CORRECTLY!

Since Edward Snowden came forward to identify himself as the leaker of the NSA spying programs [against innocent Americans], the D.C. mandarins have been working overtime to discredit the man many view as a hero for revealing crucial information the government had wrongfully kept secret.

By refusing to play this role, Snowden has been called a "traitor" by House Majority Leader John Boehner.

* BOEHNER IS A PIECE OF SHIT...

Sen. Dianne Feinstein called the leaks "an act of treason."

(*JUST SHAKING MY HEAD*)

The fury among the protectors of the status quo is so great that you have longtime Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen smearing Snowden as a “cross-dressing Little Red Riding Hood.” The New York Times’s David Brooks lamented that Snowden, who put himself in peril for the greater good, was too “individualistic.” It seems that he wasn’t sufficiently indoctrinated to blindly worship the establishment institutions that have routinely failed us.

(*RUEFUL CHUCKLE*)

Brooks argued that “for society to function well, there have to be basic levels of trust and cooperation, a respect for institutions and deference to common procedures.”

* HOW'BOUT A DEFERENCE TO THE CONSTITUTION...?

(*A TEAR ROLLING DOWN ONE CHEEK*)

* TO BE CONTINUED...

William R. Barker said...

* CONCLUDING... (Part 2 of 2)

It’s the institutions that need to demonstrate respect for the public they allegedly serve. If Snowden or any other American is skeptical of institutional power, it is not due to any personal failing on their part. The lack of respect is a direct outgrowth of the bad behavior of the nation’s institutions, behavior that has undermined Americans’ trust in them. According to Gallup’s “confidence in institutions” poll, trust is at an historic low, with Congress clocking in at a 13% approval rating in 2012.

(Yes, this is the same Congress that has “oversight” of the government spying programs.)

When one major institution (the Washington media establishment) so seamlessly partners with another (the U.S. government) in trashing a whistleblower, it’s not hard to understand why Americans might be jaded. The New Yorker’s Jeffrey Toobin wrote that Snowden is "a grandiose narcissist who deserves to be in prison." MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell complained about Snowden’s naiveté and “maturity level,” as if only a child would believe the government should be transparent about its activity. Politico’s Roger Simon called Snowden “the slacker who came in from the cold,” with “all the qualifications to become a grocery bagger.”

* AND YET THE GOVERNMENT HIRED HIS SERVICES AT A SIX FIGURE SALARY...

That people feel comfortable sneering about grocery workers — a respectable job — and writing off Snowden’s years working as a security guard as sloth tells you a bit about the culture of the nation’s capital, doesn’t it?

(*NOD*)

But he didn’t finish high school! Actually, Snowden earned a general equivalency diploma (GED), but that hasn’t stopped his detractors from spitting this accusation like an epithet. On Wednesday's Late Show With David Letterman, Tom Brokaw dismissed Snowden as "a high school dropout who is a military washout."

* AND YET THE GOVERNMENT HIRED HIS SERVICES AT A SIX FIGURE SALARY...

On Tuesday, Sen. Susan Collins, mocked the 29-year-old man as “a high school drop-out who had little maturity [and] had not successfully completed anything he had undertaken.” Yes, if only he had gone to Harvard or Yale like our last four presidents, who have done such a bang-up job running the country.

* THAT WOULD BE BUSH... CLINTON... BUSH... OBAMA...

(*HIGH FIVES ALL AROUND*)

By the way, according to Glenn Greenwald, Snowden actually worked as a contractor for four years at the NSA, which suggests some level of specialized skill.

* OR... SOME BASIC LACK OF RUDIMENTARY PERSONNEL SELECTION SKILL...

(*SHRUG*)

It says something about the lack of a positive case for keeping the NSA spying programs secret that the main line of defense is to attack Snowden for lacking the proper credentials to speak out against the government.

William R. Barker said...

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/facing_nyc_fiscal_nightmare_3xOsBKbXD0VLbNUS0FADwM

New York’s budget has grown hugely over Mayor Bloomberg’s 12 years in office, and it may finally have outstripped the Wall Street generated tax revenues that [feed] it.

Spending from city revenues has risen from $28.9 billion when Bloomberg took office to $47.5 billion in fiscal year 2012; it will be an estimated $50.2 billion in 2013.

* GEEZUS...

Much of this spending has gone to rising compensation, and especially benefits, for city employees.

* GEEZUS FRIGGIN' CHRIST...

The annual price of financing workers’ pensions grew from $1.8 billion in Bloomberg’s inaugural budget to $8 billion in 2012.

* AND ARE THEY FULLY FUNDED...???

The tab for workers’ and retirees’ health care nearly doubled.

(*JUST SHAKING MY HEAD*)

The city’s debt has also soared.

* ONE MORE TIME...

The city’s debt has also soared[!]

According to the Citizens Budget Commission, total city debt hit $105 billion last year — almost double what it was when Bloomberg entered City Hall.

* GEEZUS...

As a result, pensions, health care and debt service alone now take more than 40-cents out of every dollar in taxes and fees city residents pay.

(*JUST SHAKING MY HEAD*)

New York’s budget absorbed some of these spending hikes during Wall Street’s go-go years. But since 2008, the city has closed budget deficits with a series of one-time revenue tricks that are getting harder to duplicate.

* SUCH AS...???

The good news is that the next mayor could start taming a swollen budget without cutting deeply into services. The bad news is that the only way to do it is to rein in worker-compensation costs by wringing savings out of the unions — not a strategy that the mayoral candidates have embraced so far.

The health plan for New York’s workers is one of the best and most expensive in the country for employees of major cities, and nine out of 10 city New York workers don’t have to contribute a dime toward their premiums.

* DISGUSTING...

Further, the city pays the full cost of health care for retirees and their families.

(*PURSED LIPS*)

City workers in other places like Boston, Houston, and Phoenix contribute from 20%to 27.5% of their premiums, while New York state employees cover 16% or 31% of the cost. Most municipal governments also require their retired employees to contribute to health premiums.

The Independent Budget Office estimates that if New York City workers contributed just 10% of their premiums, and if city retirees on Medicare paid for 50% of their Part B premiums (which would amount to about $1,000 a year), the city could save $650 million in 2014.

If New York instead required its employees with family coverage to pay for 25% of their premiums and asked retirees too young for Medicare to pay half their premiums, as Chicago does, the annual savings would rise to $1.8 billion.

When Mayor Rudy Giuliani took office in 1994, the sanitation union refused to yield on staffing changes, even though recycling had cut the workload so sharply that many collectors only had to work half-days for full pay. So Giuliani promised to privatize city sanitation routes if he didn’t get savings, and the union finally compromised, saving the city hundreds of millions of dollars.

The need for cost-cutting comes as the tax burden has risen under Bloomberg to a 20-year high relative to size of the city’s economy, according to research by the Manhattan Institute’s E.J. McMahon.

* ONE MORE TIME...

...the tax burden has risen under Bloomberg to a 20-year high relative to size of the city’s economy...

(*SHRUG*)

[S]ooner or later the city will have to confront its darkening fiscal picture.

William R. Barker said...

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

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/350911/why-irs-ig-stopped-audit-gerald-walpin

Among all the unanswered questions about the IRS’s illegal targeting of conservative organizations, one is most crucial: Who ordered this extreme scrutiny?

Amazingly, IRS inspector general J. Russell George, responsible for the investigation asking those questions about the IRS, has testified that he did not obtain that information.

* REMIND YOU OF BENGHAZI? IT SHOULD. WE STILL - TO THIS DAY - HAVE NO IDEA WHO ORDERED/APPROVED THE "NON-RESCUE ATTEMPT" OPTION TAKEN WHICH ULTIMATELY LED TO THE DEATHS OF AMERICANS WHO HAD BEEN FIGHTING FOR THEIR LIVES FOR SEVEN HOURS WITHOUT REINFORCEMENT/RESCUE.

Details of that testimony are interesting. Representative Tom Graves (R-GA) asked, “Have you asked the individuals 'who ordered them' to use this extra scrutiny to punish, or penalize, or postpone, or deny?”

George turns around to confer with his assistant.

Just the fact that the inspector general had to confer to know the answer to this crucial question is amazing.

George’s assistant says something to him that is not recorded, but one can see the assistant shaking his head back and forth. Then George responds publicly to the question, saying, “During our audit, Congressman, we did pose that question and no one would acknowledge who, if anyone, provided that direction.”

Anyone who knows anything about the rights and responsibilities of an inspector general has to be shaking his head in disbelief at George’s "explanation."

First, every employee of the government has the responsibility to cooperate with and provide information to an IG concerning his work.

Second, George was particularly careful to limit his answer to the “audit phase.”

Every IG has two procedures to obtain information. One is audit procedure, to which IG George referred. That’s generally limited to accounting analysis, to determine whether there may be reason to open an investigation. Once there is reason — and there clearly was reason here, given the obviously illegal conduct — the IG opens an investigation, in which investigators, not auditors, pose the questions, the department employees are placed under oath, and, as a federal court has approved, informed that “failure to answer completely and truthfully may result in disciplinary action, including dismissal.”

The question is... why George’s office didn’t do this immediately.

* TO BE CONTINUED...

William R. Barker said...

* CONCLUDING... (Part 2 of 2)

* NOTE: Gerald Walpin - the author of this piece - was nominated by President George W. Bush in 2006 as inspector general of the Corporation For National and Community Service, and fired by President Obama in June 2009.

* READ ON...

From my personal experience as an IG of another agency, I suspect the answer. ... George is a career civil servant who depends on a steady salary and, thereafter, a pension.

But I learned, through being fired by the Obama administration, that performing one’s responsibilities as one should, and potentially adversely affecting the administration’s image, is not the way to keep one’s job. (Fortunately, I was not dependent on my federal IG salary.)

That reality was made apparent to me — and, through what happened to me, to all IGs — when I supported my staff of longtime dedicated civil servants, who had recommended taking action against one Kevin Johnson, a former NBA player who had misused, for personal purposes, about $750,000 of an AmeriCorps grant intended for underprivileged young people. What I did not then know was that he was a friend and supporter of President Obama — a fact that caused the proverbial you-know-what to hit the fan.

(*SMIRK*)

Without detailing all that happened, the bottom line was that I started to receive pressure to drop the case against Mr. Johnson.

When I declined to repudiate my staff’s work, the guillotine fell: I was summarily telephoned that if I did not resign in one hour, I would be fired. And I was, along with my special assistant, John Park.

The Wall Street Journal editorial board wrote of my firing: “The evidence suggests that [President Obama’s] White House fired a public official who refused to roll over to protect a Presidential crony.”

* THIS IS WHO BARACK HUSSEIN OBAMA IS...

(*SHRUG*)

Similar questions have been raised about other IGs who somehow have been discarded. Amtrak IG Fred Weiderhold, Treasury special IG Neil Barofsky, and International Trade Commission IG Judith Gwynn all left their positions after disputes that weren’t appreciated by the administration, giving more reason for others to go easy with the administration.

Further, the president has significantly failed to fill IG vacancies in important agencies (State, Interior, Labor, Homeland Security, and USAID) – well-documented by former IG Joseph Schmitz — demeaning the importance of the IG position.

This administration’s treatment of IGs is not conducive to active, independent, and objective inspectors general, and explains at least in part why key questions about the IRS still have not been asked or investigated.

William R. Barker said...

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/351038/obamas-social-innovation-slush-fund-michelle-malkin

We all know now what the vengeful Obama IRS has been doing to conservative non-profits the past four years: strangling them in the crib.

But do you know how much pampering and largesse far-left welfare-state charities have received while limited-government groups suffered?

You don’t know the half of it.

Before President Obama took office, I warned that Democrats planned to steer untold amounts of taxpayer dollars to his shady community-organizing pals. The Dems’ 2008 party platform proposed the creation of a “Social Investment Fund Network” to subsidize “social entrepreneurs and leading nonprofit organizations [that] are assisting schools, lifting families out of poverty, filling health-care gaps, and inspiring others to lead change in their own communities.”

Investigative journalist James O’Keefe’s pioneering work helped bring down the fraudsters of ACORN. But a thousand other ACORN-style knockoffs have metastasized in the shadows. Not long after Obama took office, big-government Democrats and Republicans handed him the $6 billion mandatory “volunteerism” package known as the “SERVE America Act.” The boondoggle fueled legions of new government “volunteers,” including a Clean Energy Corps, an Education Corps, a Healthy Futures Corps, a Veterans Service Corps, and an expanded National Civilian Community Corps for disaster relief and energy conservation.

* ALL POLITICIZED...

In addition to creating thousands of make-work jobs and boosting bloated national-service bureaucracies, the legislation also carved out a left-wing slush fund known as the Social Innovation Fund. In its four-year existence, SIF has doled out $140 million to 20 handpicked grant-making organizations, which in turn have chosen 197 “promising non-profits” for government support.

(*JUST SHAKING MY HEAD*)

Obama promised “accountability” measures to ensure the money is spent wisely. But who has been assessing the effectiveness of the spending? As I reported at the outset, it’s interest-conflicted foxes in the social-entrepreneurship community guarding the government-grant henhouse.

The Obama administration’s politicization of charity — or the “Solyndra-ization of philanthropy,” as the Manhattan Institute’s Howard Husock calls it — has created a permanent taxpayer-backed pipeline to Democratic partisan outfits masquerading as public-interest do-gooders.

William R. Barker said...

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-201_162-57589367/cbs-news-confirms-sharyl-attkissons-computer-hacked/

CBS News announced Friday that correspondent Sharyl Attkisson's computer was hacked by "an unauthorized, external, unknown party on multiple occasions," confirming Attkisson's previous revelation of the hacking.

* GOVERNMENT PARTIES...???

Friday's announcement comes on the heels of last month's revelation that the Justice Department had seized the emails and phone records of Fox News correspondent James Rosen.

"Evidence suggests this party performed all access remotely using Attkisson's accounts. While no malicious code was found, forensic analysis revealed an intruder had executed commands that appeared to involve search and exfiltration of data. This party also used sophisticated methods to remove all possible indications of unauthorized activity, and alter system times to cause further confusion. CBS News is taking steps to identify the responsible party and their method of access."

To be clear, the federal government has not been accused in the intrusion of Attkisson's computer...

* AT THIS POINT IN TIME...

...CBS News is continuing to work to identify the responsible party.

* "WHOMEVER" THAT MAY BE...

(*SMIRK*)

William R. Barker said...

* THREE-PARTER... (Part 1 of 3)

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/06/14/us-usa-detroit-creditors-idUSBRE95D0OS20130614

Detroit defaulted on some debt on Friday...

* A DEMOCRAT-CONTROLLED CITY... IN A DEMOCRAT-CONTROLLED COUNTRY.

...and proposed most creditors receive just pennies on the dollar owed by the insolvent city in order to avoid the largest municipal bankruptcy filing in U.S. history.

* ...PENNIES ON THE DOLLAR...

In a forceful opening salvo of negotiations with holders of as much as $18.5 billion of debt, Detroit Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr announced a moratorium on some principal and interest payments, including one due on Friday.

* CREDITORS SHOULD IMMEDIATELY BEGIN ACTION TO ASSUME OWNERSHIP OF CITY LAND, ASSETS, AND PROPERTY AS REPAYMENT.

Under his proposal, Orr said unsecured debt holders would be paid less than 10 cents on the dollar...

* WELL... IF SOME DEBTS ARE UNSECURED THEN THAT'S THE PROBLEM OF THE LOANER. (BUT BOTH FEDERAL AND STATE AUTHORITIES SHOULD INVESTIGATE WHETHER ANY CRIMINAL ACTIVITY OCCURRED IN THE UNSECURED LOAN GRANTING. IN OTHER WORDS, WERE SMALL INVESTORS SCREWED BY INSTITUTIONAL MANAGEMENT?)

Some $11.5 billion of the debt is unsecured and $7 billion secured, according to figures presented by Orr.

* WOW... HOW DOES THIS HAPPEN...???

* TO BE CONTINUED...

William R. Barker said...

* CONTINUING... (Part 2 of 3)

Orr said secured creditors would get better treatment, although how much better was not specified.

"We may try to get a discount from them, but the reality is they are secured," Orr said. Secured credit means an asset is pledged to back the debt, for example Detroit has secured its interest rate swap agreements with casino revenue.

He said the city would skip a $34 million payment due on Friday on $1.43 billion of pension certificates of participation, to allow the city to conserve cash needed to provide services to residents.

Fitch Ratings said this amounted to a default which would result in a downgrade of the credit rating on that debt.

* HOW CAN DETROIT HAVE AN RATING - OTHER THAN THE LOWEST WHICH EXISTS - IN THE FIRST PLACE?

"If the payment doesn't get made, we would downgrade the rating ... for default," said Arlene Bohner, a Fitch analyst.

* "DOWNGRADE?" ISN'T "DEFAULT" BY ITS VERY NATURE AN ADMISSION ONE IS TOTALLY UNCREDITWORTHY...?!?!

"Financial mismanagement, a shrinking population, a dwindling tax base and other factors over the past 45 years have brought Detroit to the brink of financial and operational ruin," Orr said in a statement.

* THE BRINK...???

Orr said the city was "insolvent," unable to pay its debts, and needed shared sacrifices from everyone including debt holders, to have any hope of a revival.

* FUCK THAT! AGAIN... THOSE WHO LOANED DETROIT MONEY WITH NO COLLATERAL... THEY DESERVE WHAT THEY GET... BUT ARE THESE NO COLLATERAL UNSECURED LOANS ON THE UP AND UP IN THE FIRST PLACE? HOW...???

Insolvency and inability to pay debts are two tests a government must meet for a judge to accept a Chapter 9 municipal bankruptcy.

"It looks and feels like a pre-packaged bankruptcy plan," said Richard Ciccarone, managing director at McDonnell Investment Management, in reaction to the proposal.

Orr, a bankruptcy attorney brought in by the state of Michigan to clean up the city's finances, repeated after the meeting that he sees a 50/50 chance of a bankruptcy filing.

It would be a first for a major U.S. city as New York, Philadelphia and Cleveland all avoided formal bankruptcy filings during their financial difficulties.

* WHAT DO DETROIT, NEW YORK, PHILADELPHIA, AND CLEVELAND ALL HAVE IN COMMON...

(*SHRUG*)

* TO BE CONTINUED...

William R. Barker said...

* CONCLUDING... (Part 3 of 3)

New York also declared a moratorium on some debt payments in the 1970s, but creditors were ultimately paid in full under a restructuring agreement, said Jim Spiotto, municipal bankruptcy expert at law firm Chapman and Cutler in Chicago.

* SO WE'VE ACHIEVED A MILESTONE... OUR ECONOMY IS BACK IN THE 1970'S...

In addition to the financial details, the 134-page document presented on Friday describes collapsing city services, rising crime and falling tax receipts.

* FOLKS... AS GOES DETROIT...

(*SHRUG*)

Detroit is the poorest large city in the United States with more than a third of its residents living below the official government poverty line, while its population has shrunk to about 700,000 people.

The city has the highest violent crime rate of any major U.S. city, some 78,000 abandoned and blighted structures, and 40% of street lights do not work, the document said. Only about a third of the city's ambulances were in service in the first quarter of 2013. Just 53% of owners paid their 2011 property taxes...

Orr said unsecured creditors, including bondholders and pension funds...

* DOES IT STRIKE ANYONE ELSE AS OBSCENE THAT PENSION FUNDS ARE ALLOWED MAKE UNSECURED LOANS OF THEIR MEMBERSHIP'S MONEY...???

...will receive a pro rata share of $2 billion of notes the city would issue and pay off as its financial circumstances improve.

City workers and retirees would also face changes to their pensions and health care coverage "consistent with available funding."

* SO MUCH FOR YOUR "NEGOTIATED AND PROMISED BENEFITS." (THEY DO UNDERSTAND THAT POLICE OFFICERS AND RETIRED POLICE OFFICERS HAVE GUNS... RIGHT...?)

At the same time, Orr proposes "investing" $1.25 billion over the next 10 years to improve the city's infrastructure, remove or repair crumbling houses and update computer systems.

* SPENDING. IT'S CALLED SPENDING.

Much of Detroit's debt is insured, giving bondholders protection against defaults. Two of the insurers, MBIA, Inc and Assured Guaranty, confirmed they attended the meeting.

* AND WHAT WILL PAYING OFF THE CLAIMS DO TO THE INSURANCE COMPANIES...??? (DO I SMELL A NEW GOVERNMENT BAILOUT...?)

Leaders of some of Detroit's 48 public sector unions were upset by Orr's proposals, which included spinning off the water and sewer services into an independent authority as well as making the changes to pensions and health care coverage. "When you're backed into a corner, the only thing you can do is fight and the only way we can fight is to strike," said Mike Mulholland, secretary and treasurer of AFSCME Local 207, the union which represents water and sewer workers.

* THIS SHOULD BE INTERESTING...

William R. Barker said...

http://www.federalnewsradio.com//414/3358039/DoD-maintains-BRAC-fight-despite-opposition-from-Congress

The Senate Armed Services Committee appeared poised Thursday to mirror its House counterpart in rejecting the Defense Department's repeated requests for another round of military base closures. But DoD maintains it needs to shed excess infrastructure one way or another, and keeping bases it doesn't want is costing taxpayers billions of dollars each year.

* SEE, FOLKS... THIS IS CONGRESS... THIS IS "BIPARTISANISM." WE HAVE MET THE ENEMY AND HE IS US!

The last time DoD analyzed its bases in 2004, it estimated it had 24 percent more infrastructure than it needed. Keeping those bases open was one matter during a period when money flowed relatively freely to the Pentagon, but DoD has argued that era is over. Under sequestration, the Pentagon is eliminating training for military members, deferring critical maintenance on weapons systems and facilities, cutting back contracts and furloughing most of its civilian employees.

The department says under those circumstances, paying to heat, cool and maintain mostly-vacant buildings isn't the wisest move.

* YA FUCKING THINK...?!?!

Lawmakers have been unmoved by the argument.

* YOU HAVEN'T SEEN OBAMA GO ON NATIONAL TV TO MAKE THE CASE FOR FISCAL SANITY, HAVE YOU?

In its version of the 2014 Defense authorization bill, the House Armed Services Committee voted to prohibit DoD from even studying another round of real estate divestitures through the Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) process.

* BOEHNER MUST DIE FOR AMERICA TO LIVE. (IN ALL SERIOUSNESS, FOLKS... AS LONG AS THESE BASTARDS ARE IN OFFICE... AMERICA IS FUCKED.)

The Senate is marking up its version of the bill in a closed session this week, but the subcommittee with jurisdiction over the issue passed similar language.

* BOEHNER... REID... MCCONNELL... PELOSI... OBAMA...

(*SIGH*)

William R. Barker said...

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324188604578541393405898474.html?mod=itp

Karl Rove's recollection of the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act ("Immigration Reform and the Hispanic Vote," op-ed, June 6) is, shall we say, highly selective.

* THE AUTHOR OF THIS PIECE IS EDWIN MEESE. AND MR. MEESE JUST CALLED KARL ROVE A GOD-DAMNED LIAR.

(*NOD*)

That law, he writes, "essentially told those here illegally that if they had arrived in the U.S. prior to 1982 and wanted to become citizens, simply raise your right hand." He asserts that the Gang of Eight bill is different because it "has plenty of penalties and hurdles for those here illegally who seek citizenship."

* AND WITH THESE TWO STATEMENTS ROVE MANAGES TO TELL TWO SEPARATE LIES!

Well, I was there in '86. I read that bill carefully. (We did that back then.) And I can tell you that Mr. Rove's blithe description of the bill is way off the mark.

The 1986 act didn't turn illegal immigrants into citizens on the spot. It granted temporary resident status only to those who could prove they had resided continuously in America for five years. After 18 months, their status could be upgraded to permanent residency, and only after another five years could they become U.S. citizens.

* BUT...

But advancement to citizenship was not automatic.

Immigrants had to satisfy various requirements along the way. They had to pay application fees, learn to speak English, understand American civics, pass a medical exam and register for military selective service. Those with convictions for a felony or three misdemeanors were ineligible.

Sound familiar? It's pretty much the same "penalties and hurdles" set forth by the Gang of Eight. Today they call it a "roadmap to citizenship." Ronald Reagan called it "amnesty."

The '86 reform bill also had supposedly "rigorous" border security and immigration law enforcement provisions.

So how did that pan out?

On the day Reagan signed "comprehensive" reform into law, only one thing changed: Millions of unlawful immigrants gained "legal" status. The promised crackdowns on security and enforcement never happened. Only amnesty prevailed.

Since the '86 amnesty, the number of illegal immigrants has quadrupled. That should teach Congress a very important lesson: Amnesty "bends" the rule of law. And bending the rule of law to reach a "comprehensive" deal winds up provoking wholesale breaking of the law. Ultimately, it encourages millions more to risk entering the country illegally in the hope that one day they, too, might receive amnesty.

On legislation as important as this, lawmakers must take the time to read the bill, not rely on others' characterizations of what it says. We can't afford to have Congress "pass the bill to find out what's in it."

William R. Barker said...

http://www.cnbc.com/id/100816356

U.S. oil prices rose to the highest level since September on Friday as tensions escalated between the U.S. and Syria.

(*PURSED LIPS*)