Saturday, September 14, 2013

Weekend Newsbites: Sat. & Sun., Sept. 14 & 15, 2913


A peaceful and rewarding Yom Kippur to all those who observe...

 Enjoy breaking the fast come Saturday sunset!

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8 comments:

William R. Barker said...

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

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/358448/there-ought-be-no-law-michael-walsh

The First Amendment clearly states: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

* AND BY "THE PRESS" THE FOUNDERS WEREN'T REFERRING SIMPLY TO "THE MEDIA" OF THE DAY, BUT RATHER TO THE PRINTING PRESS! (IN OTHER WORDS, ANYONE AND EVERYONE HAS A FIRST AMENDMENT RIGHT TO "PRINT" AND DISTRIBUTE THEIR "SPEECH" AS WELL AS... er... SPEAK THEIR SPEECH.

But the World’s Greatest Deliberative Body apparently thinks otherwise:

Journalists and bloggers who report news to the public will be protected from being forced to testify about their work under a media shield bill passed by a Senate committee Thursday.

But the new legal protections will not extend to the controversial online website Wikileaks and others whose principal work involves disclosing “primary-source documents . . . without authorization.”

Senate sponsors of the bill and a coalition of media groups that support it hailed Thursday’s bipartisan Senate Judiciary Committee vote as a breakthrough.

“We’re closer than we’ve ever been before to passing a strong and tough media shield bill,” Sen.Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) said. “Thanks to important bipartisan compromises, we’ve put together a strong bill that balances the need for national security with that of a free press.”

* FOLKS... WHAT THESE BASTARDS ARE ACTUALLY TRYING TO DO IS SUBVERT THE FIRST AMENDMENT'S INDIVIDUAL GRANT!

* TO BE CONTINUED...

September 14, 2013 at 1:04 AM
William R. Barker said...

* CONTINUING... (Part 2 of 3)

[U]nder the guise of “protection,” the Permanent Bipartisan Fusion Party...

(*PURSED LIPS*) (*NOD*)

...is moving toward its real goal of licensing journalists and creating an American version of Britain’s Official Secrets Act.

* YEP! EXACTLY!

The Senate bill has nothing to do with protecting journalists, and everything to do with the Government Class protecting itself from those who would expose its activities. Having successfully co-opted what used to be the national media — so much so that there is now a veritable revolving door between Washington and old-media institutions — Congress now seeks to shut down via exclusion all those who do not toe the party line. (And if you don’t believe me, just ask Senator Dianne Feinstein!)

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) insisted on limiting the legal protection to “real reporters” and not, she said, a 17-year-old with his own website.

* BUT, FOLKS... THAT'S EXACTLY WHO THE FOUNDERS WANTED TO PROTECT! THEY WANTED TO PROTECT THE RIGHTS OF INDIVIDUALS TO COMMUNICATE FREELY VIA VOICE AND PRINTING PRESS! THERE'S SIMPLY NO DOUBT OF THE CONCEPT OUR FOUNDERS MEANT TO PROTECT VIA THE FIRST AMENDMENT! (AND THE SECOND... WHICH I FEAR WILL SOONER RATHER THAN LATER COME INTO PLAY IN ORDER THAT "WE THE PEOPLE" CAN PROTECT THE RULE OF CONSTITUTIONAL LAW FROM THESE BASTARDS IN WASHINGTON!)

“I can’t support it if everyone who has a blog has a special privilege . . . or if Edward Snowden were to sit down and write this stuff, he would have a privilege. I’m not going to go there,” Feinstein said.

* FOLKS... WHAT'S IT GONNA TAKE...? CLEARLY THESE PEOPLE DON'T RESPECT OUR CONSTITUTION. CLEARLY THESE PEOPLE DO NOT RESPECT THE BILL OF RIGHTS! THEY... ARE... OUT... OF... CONTROL!

Feinstein introduced an amendment that defines a “covered journalist” as someone who gathers and reports news for “an entity or service that disseminates news and information.” The definition includes freelancers, part-timers and student journalists, and it permits a judge to go further and extend the protections to any “legitimate news-gathering activities.”

* IF ONLY SENATOR FEINSTEIN WOULD READ THE 45 WORDS OF THE FIRST AMENDMENT TO THE CONSTITUTION... THE FIRST AMENDMENT OF THE BILL OF RIGHTS...

(*SIGH*)

* TO BE CONTINUED...

September 14, 2013 at 1:05 AM
William R. Barker said...

* CONCLUDING... (Part 3 of 3)

The weasel word is, of course, “legitimate,” so that would leave out Tom Paine and the other illegitimate rabble-rousers who fomented the American Revolution.

* ONE MORE TIME...

...so that would leave out Tom Paine...

* FOLKS... PLEASE... UNDERSTAND WHAT THESE BASTARDS ARE TRYING TO DO!

[I]t doesn’t matter whether Feinstein wants to “go there” — the Framers have already been and gone; as the feminists like to say, “What part of ‘no’ don’t you understand?” A federal license, no matter what its guise, is simply a license to smooch, and any journalist who would trust Chuck Schumer’s good intentions shouldn’t be allowed to cover the local sewer board meeting.

By the way, the Wikileaks bugbear is, to mix a metaphor, a complete red herring. There are already laws on the books against exposing national-security secrets — laws that this administration has shown itself perfectly willing to employ against the very journalists it now solicitously seeks to “protect.”

* YEP!

The Pentagon Papers case made it clear that the government cannot engage in prior restraint regarding publishing, but left open the question of punishment under the Espionage Act or other laws after the fact.

* YEP...

Besides, on closer examination, the “shield law” won’t really provide much of a shield should one of the security agencies decide otherwise:

* HERE'S WHY... (READ ON!)

[T]he bill also makes it clear that the legal protection is not absolute. Federal officials still may “compel disclosure” from a journalist who has information that could stop or prevent crimes such as murder, kidnapping or child abduction or prevent “acts of terrorism” or significant harm to national security.

(*SHRUG*)

The [Democrat-controlled] Senate Judiciary Committee approved the bill on a 13-5 vote and sent it to the Senate floor. Its sponsors are optimistic it will win passage there, but its fate remains in doubt in the Republican-controlled House of Representatives.

(I should hope so!)

Whatever one thinks of the merits of such a law, the fact remains that it is blatantly unconstitutional.

* BLATANTLY!

No law means no law.

* AT LEAST IT USED TO!

But don’t take it from me, take it from John Milton, in his famous essay that formed the cornerstone of the Bill of Rights: "And how can a man teach with authority, which is the life of teaching, how can he be a doctor in his book as he ought to be, or else had better be silent, whenas all he teaches, all he delivers, is but under the tuition, under the correction of his patriarchal licenser, to blot or alter what precisely accords not with the hidebound humour which he calls his judgment? — when every acute reader, upon the first sight of a pedantic license, will be ready with these like words to ding the book a quoit’s distance from him . . ."

A quoit’s distance isn’t nearly far enough to ding this wretched idea, when the First Amendment itself provides all the clarity the nation needs.

* IF ONLY THE AUTHOR HAD NAMED THE 13 "AYE" VOTERS...

September 14, 2013 at 1:06 AM
William R. Barker said...

http://cnsnews.com/news/article/alissa-tabirian/ice-released-2837-convicted-alien-sex-offenders-comply-supreme-court

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has released 2,837 convicted criminal alien sex offenders back into American communities in order to comply with a Supreme Court decision authored by Clinton-appointed Justice Stephen Breyer, according to a new report by the Government Accountability Office (GAO).

“There are circumstances in which criminal aliens who have been ordered removed from the United States – including those convicted of a sex offense – cannot be removed,” the report states. “For example, a criminal alien may not be removed because the designated country will not accept the alien’s return.”

* THEN YOU MAKE - FORCE - THE CRIMINAL ALIEN'S COUNTRY TO ACCEPT HIM! GEEZUS FRIGGIN' CHRIST... ARE YOU PEOPLE HIGH?

The GAO report refers to the 2001 Supreme Court case Zadvydas v. Davis to explain why ICE is required to release foreigners who have been convicted of sex crimes. In its 5-4 decision, the court ruled that the indefinite detention of removable aliens for greater than six months is unconstitutional unless there is “significant likelihood of removal in the reasonably foreseeable future.”

* ABSURD. THEY'RE CRIMINAL ALIENS! (THE KEY WORD BEING "CRIMINAL!")

“Freedom from imprisonment lies at the heart of the liberty protected by the Due Process Clause,” Associate Justice Stephen Breyer wrote in the majority opinion. Breyer was joined in this opinion by J.P. Stevens (a Gerald Ford apppointee), Sandra Day O'Connor (a Reagan appointee), Ruth Bader Ginsburg (a Clinton appointee), and David Souter (a George H.W. Bush appointee).

(*JUST SHAKING MY HEAD*)

But writing for the minority, Justice Antonin Scalia (a Reagan appointee) said: "Insofar as a claimed legal right to release into this country is concerned, an alien under final order of removal stands on an equal footing with an inadmissable alien at the threshold of entry: He has no such right."

* SOUNDS REASONABLE TO ME!

Justice Anthony Kennedy (also a Reagan appointee) concurred, noting that "the authority to detain beyond the removal period is to protect the community, not to negotiate the aliens' return... An alien's admission to this country is conditioned upon compliance with our laws, and removal is the consequence of a breach of that understanding."

* ONE... WOULD... THINK...!!!

Justice Clarence Thomas (a George H.W. Bush appointee) and William Rehnquist (a Nixon appointee) also dissented from Breyer's opinion.

The GAO report also revealed that large numbers of aliens that ICE did in fact manage to deport from the country simply turned around and came back in--and then committed another offense inside the United States.

* THE PENALTY FOR THAT SHOULD BE DEATH. (*SHRUG*) AND, YES... I'M ABSOLUTELY SERIOUS!

"According to the data that ICE-ERO provided to us," said the GAO report, "of 4359 alien sex offenders who were removed from the country between January and August 2012, 220 of them (5%) had previously been removed but subsequently returned to the United States and were arrested for another offense."

(*JUST SHAKING MY HEAD*)

Also, about five percent of released aliens sex offenders did not register as sex offenders in the communities where they settled as required by federal law. “The risk that alien sex offenders will reside in U.S. communities without being registered is increased,” the GAO concluded.

September 14, 2013 at 10:36 AM
William R. Barker said...

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

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324009304579043063675186946.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTop

The oil and gas fracking boom increased household disposable income by $1,200 last year as lower energy costs flowed to consumers, according to a new study from IHS Global Insight.

* BULLSHIT! (AND I'M ALL FOR FRACKING!)

* THAT SAID... THOSE WHO DIRECTLY PURCHASE NATURAL GAS TO HEAT THEIR HOMES HAVE NO DOUBT BENEFITED. AS TO BUSINESSES WHICH RELY UPON NATURAL GAS... I HAVEN'T SEEN THE BENEFITS TRICKLING DOWN - THOUGH NO DOUBT THE INVESTORS HAVE SEEN RISING PROFITS (WHICH IS GOOD)!

So Americans may want to know that President Obama's nominee to chair the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) thinks natural gas is a "dead end."

* FOLKS... THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION IS "ANTI-ENERGY." (AT LEAST WHEN IT COMES TO FOSSIL FUEL; AT LEAST WHEN ONE TAKES COST-BENEFIT INTO ACCOUNT.)

That nominee is Ron Binz, and in March 2013 he spoke at an Edison Foundation panel on utilities and green technologies. To fight global warming, he argued, government must adopt a "new regulatory model, because that's where it's going to start."

* ONE MORE TIME... (*SIGH*)... MAN'S ACTIVITIES HAVE RELATIVELY LITTLE TO DO WITH "CLIMATE CHANGE." (REMEMBER FOLKS... GOBAL "WARMING" IS OUT; GLOBAL "CLIMATE CHANGE" IS IN.)

Duke Energy CEO Jim Rogers challenged Binz by noting that the 2009 Pelosi cap-and-trade bill hadn't passed, yet utilities have since cut carbon emissions sharply by switching to natural gas from coal. This shift is "an incredible example" of how "policy didn't get done, but at the end of the day technology produced the result. You seem to believe that this transition will only happen if it's driven by policy," Mr. Rogers asked.

"Well, natural gas is a good example," Mr. Binz replied, meaning of his policy preferences. "It's been called for many years a transition fuel. The industry has sort of jettisoned that label lately. It seems to be a permanent fuel. On a carbon basis you hit the wall in 2035 or so with gas. I mean, you do."

Binz said switching to gas might be "a good move" for the interim, "but we also need to understand that without CCS, without carbon capture and storage, I think that's a dead end, a relative dead end — it won't dead end until 2035 or so. But that's when we need to do better on carbon than even natural gas will allow us to do under current assumptions."

* BLAH, BLAH, BLAH, BLAH, BLAH...

* TO BE CONTINUED...

September 15, 2013 at 2:27 PM
William R. Barker said...

* CONCLUDING... (Part 2 of 2)

So there it is: Natural gas is a dead end not because there will be too little gas but because by 2035 it won't reduce carbon emissions as much as Mr. Binz wants.

Naturally, Mr. Binz's alternatives to gas are green "renewables" like wind and solar.

(*ROLLING MY EYES*)

Or so he said at a November 2012 forum at the University of Denver, citing research from the federal National Renewable Energy Laboratory. The 2012 study does show that the 80% scenario is theoretically possible... but only if the assumptions are wildly unrealistic.

(*SMIRK*)

The lab assumes that gas as a share of the U.S. power mix could plunge to 3% by 2050 from 16% in 2010, and coal to 9% from 51%. Wind will climb to 39% from 2%, and solar from 0.01% to 7%. Mr. Binz wants to make that happen, and don't worry about the costs of the transition.

* AS I WAS SAYING UP ABOVE... "...WHEN YOU TAKE COST-BENEFIT INTO ACCOUNT."

(*SHRUG*)

He said that this "renewable energy future was no more costly, or in the realm of the same cost, as any other clean technology. In other words, if you accept that we're going to have to make these reductions in carbon and in other criteria pollutants, renewables are not going to be more expensive as a total package than other proposals such as nuclear, such as carbon sequestration from coal and natural gas." (Note those words "we're going to have to make these reductions in carbon." This is a man whose overriding policy motivation is making carbon more expensive so it can be phased out of the U.S. economy.)

In Denver, Mr. Binz also instructed the audience that "We're coming off an election where one of the themes was, we're all in this together. And I think that is the kind of message that needs to be stressed. One utility's exhalation of carbon dioxide is everybody's problem."

(*ROLLING MY EYES*)

* FOLKS... I'M NOT MAKING LITE OF POLLUTION... I'M SIMPLY BRINGING REALITY TO THE FORE. WE'RE NOT TALKING HUGE STRIDES FORWARD FOR RELATIVELY LITTLE COST; WE'RE TALKING HUGE COST INCREASES FOR RELATIVELY SMALL IMPROVEMENT! (AND THAT'S ACCORDING TO "THEIR" OWN NUMBERS! WHICH OFTEN TURN OUT TO BE WRONG!)

* FOLKS... PEOPLE LIKE BINZ DON'T PAY FOR THEIR OWN GAS... THEY DON'T PAY FOR THEIR OWN AIR TRAVEL... THEY DON'T PAY FOR THEIR OWN LUXURY HEATED AND COOLED HOTELS. UNDERSTAND THIS: PERSONALLY... PEOPLE LIKE BINZ PAY NO COST FROM WHAT THEIR POLICIES COST THE REST OF US.

September 15, 2013 at 2:28 PM
William R. Barker said...

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324549004579068914192280866.html

Congress's investigation into the IRS targeting of conservatives has been continuing out of the Syria headlines, and it's turning up news.

Emails unearthed by the House Ways and Means Committee between former Director of Exempt Organizations Lois Lerner and her staff raise doubts about IRS claims that the targeting wasn't politically motivated and that low-level employees in Cincinnati masterminded the operation.

* WE'VE KNOWN THIS ALL ALONG... (MOVE ON, WSJ!)

In a February 2011 email, Ms. Lerner advised her staff — including then Exempt Organizations Technical Manager Michael Seto and then Rulings and Agreements director Holly Paz — that a Tea Party matter is "very dangerous," and is something "Counsel and [Lerner adviser] Judy Kindell need to be in on." Ms. Lerner adds, "Cincy should probably NOT have these cases."

That's a different tune than the IRS sang in May when former IRS Commissioner Steven Miller said the agency's overzealous enforcement was the work of two "rogue" employees in Cincinnati.

* FOLKS... I ADMIT IT... EVEN I'M TIRED OF THIS. UNTIL THEY ACTUALLY ARREST PEOPLE...

(*SHRUG*)

* BUT MY REACTION REINFORCES MY OVERALL CASE - THIS IS A LAWLESS ADMINISTRATION WHICH DOES WHAT IT WANTS AND GETS AWAY WITH IT!

* THE FACT IS... PEOPLE SHOULD BE GOING TO JAIL!

When the story broke, Ms. Lerner suggested that her office had been unaware of the pattern of targeting until she read about it in the newspaper. "So it was pretty much we started seeing information in the press that raised questions for us, and we went back and took a look," she said in May.

* SHE LIED!

Earlier this summer, IRS lawyer Carter Hull, who oversaw the review of many Tea Party cases and questionnaires, testified that his oversight began in April 2010. Tea party cases under review are "being supervised by Chip Hull at each step," Ms. Paz wrote to Ms. Lerner in a February 2011 email. "He reviews info from TPs, correspondence to TPs etc. No decisions are going out of Cincy until we go all the way through the process with the c3 and c4 cases here." TP stands for Tea Party, and she means 501(c)(3) and 501(c)(4) nonprofit groups.

The emails also put the targeting in the context of the media and Congressional drumbeat over the impact of conservative campaign spending on the 2012 elections.

On July 10, 2012 then Lerner-adviser Sharon Light emailed Ms. Lerner a National Public Radio story on how outside money was making it hard for Democrats to hold their Senate majority. The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee had complained to the Federal Election Commission that conservative groups like Crossroads GPS and Americans for Prosperity should be treated as political committees, rather than 501(c)(4)s, which are tax-exempt social welfare groups that do not have to disclose their donors. "Perhaps the FEC will save the day," Ms. Lerner wrote back later that morning.

That response suggests Ms. Lerner's political leanings, and it also raises questions about Ms. Lerner's intentions in a separate email exchange she had when an FEC investigator inquired about the status of the conservative group the American Future Fund.

The FEC and IRS don't have the authority to share that information under section 6103 of the Internal Revenue Code. But the bigger question is why did they want to? After the FEC inquiry, the American Future Fund also got a questionnaire from the IRS.

Ms. Lerner famously invoked her right against self-incrimination rather than testify under oath to Congress.

The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee reported this summer that its investigation had found Ms. Lerner had sent official IRS documents to her personal email account, and many questions remain unanswered.

Democrats want to pretend the IRS scandal is over, but Ms. Lerner's role deserves much more exposure.

September 15, 2013 at 2:43 PM
William R. Barker said...

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324576304579075202045519252.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_BelowLEFTSecond

In 2001, while Americans were reeling from the deadly terrorist attacks that took the lives of thousands of innocent civilians in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania, former Salvadoran guerrilla leader Salvador Sánchez Cerén was leading a mob that celebrated the carnage by burning the American flag in the streets of San Salvador.

Now the former terrorist is the country's vice president...

(*SIGH*)

...and is running for president in 2014.

Last week the U.S. government's Millennium Challenge Corporation — an independent foreign-aid agency created by Congress in 2004 — approved a new package of $277 million in aid for El Salvador...

* AND WHY, PRAY TELL, DO WE NEED "CONGRESSIONALLY CREATED INDEPENDENT AGENCIES" DISPENSING GOVERNMENT LARGESS...???

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry is chairman of the MCC board, which includes Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew, U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman and Morton Halperin of George Soros' Open Society Foundations.

* AND MORTON HALPERIN OF GEORGE SOROS' OPEN SOCIETY FOUNDATION...???

Mr. Sánchez Cerén's onetime guerrilla group — the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front — is El Salvador's ruling political party, and he is vice president under FMLN President Mauricio Funes. The Funes-Sánchez Cerén government, in office since 2009, has made El Salvador decidedly poorer and less free. Its international reputation as a destination for capital has seriously deteriorated, and allegations of corruption are rife. The World Economic Forum, the World Bank and Transparency International have all noted the country's worsening investment climate.

El Salvador's reversal of fortune started under Mr. Funes's predecessor, center-right president Tony Saca, in office from 2004-09. He also had a problem with the rule of law. Mr. Saca has since been kicked out of the Arena party and today plays the role of third-party king maker.

* DON'T WE HAVE ENOUGH TROUBLE HERE AT HOME TO WORRY ABOUT...???

Yet the most troubling development has to do with the Funes government's efforts to consolidate power by eliminating the independence of the country's Supreme Court. In 2010, when the FMLN disapproved of a ruling on judges from one of the high court's panels, the party's supporters broke into the court building so pro-FMLN judges could be installed. That set off a constitutional crisis. When a settlement on the judges was negotiated by the political parties behind closed doors, bypassing the constitution and the rule of law, the U.S. Millennium Challenge Corporation applauded.

* FIGURES...

That was bad enough. But that solution isn't giving the FMLN the results it wants now, and the party once again seems to be trying to remove uncooperative judges so that it can name its own bench.

* FOLKS... UNDERSTAND... TO THOSE OF YOU WHO WANT THE U.S.A. TO BE THE WORLD'S POLICEMAN... THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS WHEN WE'RE NOT ALSO JUDGE, JURY, PROSECUTOR, AND ULTIMATELY EXECUTIONER. (I SAY WE MIND OUR OWN FRIGGIN' BUSINESS AND ONLY INTERVENE WHEN WE NEED TO PROTECT OUR VITAL NATIONAL INTERESTS.)

Others in the region who have managed this kind of coup against institutional checks on power include the late Hugo Chávez in Venezuela and Nicaraguan strongman Daniel Ortega. If the FMLN prevails, another domino will have fallen in Latin America, this time underwritten by the U.S. government.

* WHILE MEANWHILE... IN THE MIDDLE EAST... WE'RE ARMING AND TRAINING AL QIADA...

(*JUST SHAKING MY HEAD*)

September 15, 2013 at 8:35 PM

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