Friday, October 11, 2013

Barker's Newsbites: Friday, October 11, 2013


Ahh... Friday... 

Thank God!

12 comments:

William R. Barker said...

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

http://www.humanevents.com/2013/10/11/is-red-state-america-seceding/

* BY PATRICK J. BUCHANAN

In the last decade of the 20th century, as the Soviet Empire disintegrated so, too, did that prison house of nations, the USSR.

Out of the decomposing carcass came Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and Moldova, all in Europe; Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan in the Caucasus; and Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan in Central Asia.

Transnistria then broke free of Moldova, and Abkhazia and South Ossetia fought free of Georgia.

Yugoslavia dissolved far more violently into the nations of Serbia, Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia, Montenegro, Macedonia and Kosovo.

The Slovaks seceded from Czechoslovakia.

(*PAUSE*)

Yet a Europe that plunged straight to war after the last breakup of Czechoslovakia in 1938 and 1939 this time only yawned. Let them go, all agreed.

(*SHRUG*)

The spirit of secession, the desire of peoples to sever ties to nations to which they have belonged for generations, sometimes for centuries, and to seek out their own kind, is a spreading phenomenon.

* TO BE CONTINUED...

William R. Barker said...

* CONTINUING... (Part 2 of 3)

Scotland is moving toward a referendum on independence from England, three centuries after the Acts of Union.

Catalonia pushes to be free of Madrid.

Milanese and Venetians see themselves as a European people apart from Sicilians, Neapolitans and Romans.

Dutch-speaking Flanders wants to cut loose of French-speaking Wallonia in Belgium.

(Francophone Quebec, with immigrants from Asia and the Third World tilting the balance in favor of union, appears to have lost its historic moment to secede from Canada.)

What are the forces pulling nations apart? Ethnicity, culture, history and language — but now also economics. And separatist and secessionist movements are cropping up here in the United States.

(*NOD*)

While many Red State Americans are moving away from Blue State America, seeking kindred souls among whom to live, those who love where they live but not those who rule them are seeking to secede.

* NO... HE'S NOT JOKING... READ ON!

The five counties of Western Maryland — Garrett, Allegheny, Washington, Frederick and Carroll - which have more in common with West Virginia and wish to be rid of Baltimore and free of Annapolis, are talking secession.

The issues driving secession in Maryland are gun control, high taxes, energy policy, homosexual marriage and immigration.

Scott Strzelczyk, who lives in the town of Windsor in Carroll County and leads the Western Maryland Initiative, argues: “If you have a long list of grievances, and it’s been going on for decades, and you can’t get it resolved, ultimately [secession] is what you have to do.”

(And there is precedent. Four of our 50 states — Maine, Vermont, Kentucky, West Virginia — were born out of other states.)

Ten northern counties of Colorado are this November holding non-binding referenda to prepare a future secession from Denver and the creation of America’s 51st state. Nine of the 10 Colorado counties talking secession and a new state, writes Reid Wilson of the Washington Post, gave more than 62% of their votes to Mitt Romney. Five of these 10 counties gave Romney more than 75% of their vote. Their issues with the Denver legislature: A new gun control law that triggered a voter recall of two Democratic state senators, state restrictions on oil exploration, and the Colorado legislature’s party-line vote in support of gay marriage.

* TO BE CONTINUED...

William R. Barker said...

* CONCLUDING... (Part 3 of 3)

In California, which many have long believed should be split in two, the northern counties of Modoc and Siskyou on the Oregon border are talking succession — and then union in a new state called Jefferson. “California is essentially ungovernable in its present size,” says Mark Baird of the Jefferson Declaration Committee. Baird hopes to attract a dozen counties to join together before petitioning the state to secede.

* CALIFORNIA IS UNGOVERNABLE NOT BECAUSE OF SIZE, BUT BECAUSE OF MYRIAD TANGIBLES AND INTANGIBLES INCLUDING DEMOGRAPHICS!

Like the western Maryland and northern Colorado counties, the northern California counties are conservative, small town, rural...

* WHITE. (DON'T BE AFRAID TO SAY IT; IT'S THE TRUTH! AND IT MATTERS!)

...and have little in common with San Francisco or Los Angeles, or Sacramento, where Republicans hold not one statewide office and are outnumbered better than 2-1 in both houses of the state legislature.

Folks on the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, bordered by Wisconsin and the Great Lakes, which is connected to lower Michigan by a bridge, have long dreamed of a separate state called Superior. The Upper Peninsula has little in common with Lansing and nothing with Detroit.

* AGAIN... FOLKS... DEMOGRAPHICS...

(*SHRUG*)

While the folks in western Maryland, northern Colorado, northern California and on the Upper Peninsula might be described as Red State secessionists, in Vermont the secessionists seem of the populist left. The Montpelier Manifesto of the Second Vermont Republic concludes: “Citizens, lend your names to this manifesto and join in the honorable task of rejecting the immoral, corrupt, decaying, dying, failing American Empire and seeking its rapid and peaceful dissolution before it takes us all down with it.”

* THAT'S NOT "LEFT." THAT'S ME AND YOU, PAT! THAT'S GEORGE WASHINGTON!

This sort of intemperate language may be found in Thomas Jefferson’s indictment of George III.

* OK... GEORGE WASHINGTON AND THOMAS JEFFERSON... AND ME AND YOU, PAT!

(*WINK*)

If America does not get its fiscal house in order, and another Great Recession hits or our elites dragoon us into another imperial war, we will likely hear more of such talk.

* I FREELY ADMIT... I'M FLABBERGASTED THAT WIDESPREAD VIOLENCE HASN'T ALREADY BROKEN OUT... OR IF NOT WIDESPREAD IN THE SENSE OF MOBS AND RIOTING, WIDE-SREAD IN TERMS OF POLITICAL ASSASSINATIONS.

William R. Barker said...

http://dailycaller.com/2013/10/10/irs-white-house-officials-that-shared-confidential-taxpayer-info-had-155-white-house-meetings/

Embattled IRS official Sarah Hall Ingram made 155 visits to the White House to meet with a top Obama White House official with whom she exchanged confidential taxpayer information over email.

* THE MEETINGS ARE ACTUALLY OLD NEWS... I COVERED THEM WHEN THEY WERE FIRST MADE PUBLIC DURING THE SUMMER... THE THING IS... THE MSM DIDN'T PUSH THE STORY. (WHAT A "SURPRISE," HUH?) THUS... YOU MAY JUST BE HEARING ABOUT IT NOW UNLESS YOU REMEMBER READING MY NEWSBITES OF THE TIME.

Of Ingram’s 165 White House meetings with White House staff, a staggering 155 of them were hosted by deputy assistant to the president for health policy Jeanne Lambrew, according to a June Watchdog.Org analysis of White House visitor records.

Ingram exchanged confidential taxpayer information with Lambrew and White House health policy advisor Ellen Montz, according to 2012 emails obtained by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

* WE COVERED THAT YESTERDAY, I BELIEVE... (OR MAYBE A COUPLE DAYS AGO... RECENTLY, ANYWAY!)

The White House recently took down visitor logs recording details of these meetings, citing the government shutdown.

* WHY TAKE DOWN LOGS? (I CAN SEE NOT UPDATING... BUT TAKING DOWN...???)

Ingram headed the scandal-plagued IRS office that oversaw tax-exempt organizations between 2009 and 2012, when she left to take over the IRS office in charge of ObamaCare implementation.

.* YEP. OBAMA GIVING THE AMERICAN PEOPLE THE FINGER.

Former IRS Exempt Organizations division director Lois Lerner, who apologized for improperly scrutinizing tax-exempt applications of conservative groups between 2010 and 2012, also received an email alongside Ingram, Lambrew and Montz that contained confidential information.

William R. Barker said...

http://www.wtnh.com/news/health/thousands-of-doctors-fired-by-united-healthcare

In the midst of major changes in health care, UnitedHealthCare has sent thousands of pink slips to Connecticut doctors.

* SO... IF YOU WANT TO KEEP YOUR DOCTOR YOU CAN... ONLY... NOT NECESSARILY...?

Termination letters went to physicians caring for Medicare patients. Those letters were sent out to doctors caring for 'Medicare Advantage' patients.

* AH, YES... REMEMBER HOW THE DEMS RAIDED MEDICARE ADVANTAGE IN ORDER TO FUND OBAMACARE...?!

[This] comes at a questionable time. Open enrollment for Medicare starts next Tuesday, and it's still not clear at this time as to which doctors are still in the United network.

(*SNORT*)

* REMEMBER, FOLKS, BY AND LARGE OBAMA BOUGHT OFF THE INSURANCE INDUSTRY WITH THE PROMISE OF MILLIONS OF NEW, GOVERNMENT SUBSIDIZED "CLIENTS"... MEDICARE CLIENTS...

The Connecticut State Medical Society is fighting back. "What the government is looking for is to manage better care by adding a patient centered medical home so that you have a doctor who is totally invested with taking care of every aspect of the patient and coordinating it. This is clearly not a patient centered decision," said Dr. Michael Saffir, President of CT State Medical Society.

* SURPRISE, SURPRISE!

(*SNORT*)

Dr. Saffir says the State Medical Society is in contact with UnitedHealthcare. They are also asking doctors to call United to find out why they were terminated without cause as notified in the letter. He recommends that Seniors affected by this should call the office of the HealthCare Advocate of Connecticut.

William R. Barker said...

http://dailycaller.com/2013/10/10/white-house-takes-down-white-house-visitor-logs-blames-republicans/

The White House has taken down online White House visitor logs...

“Due to Congress’s failure to pass legislation to fund the government, the information on this web site may not be up to date. Some submissions may not be processed, and we may not be able to respond to your inquiries,” reads the index page for the visitor logs.

* SO WHY TAKE IT DOWN? AGAIN... I CAN SEE NOT UPDATING IT... BUT WHY TAKE IT DOWN?

“This dataset is currently private,” says the exact location on the page where the visitor logs used to be.

(*PURSED LIPS*)

The White House is currently embroiled in a growing scandal following revelations Wednesday that senior White House officials exchanged confidential taxpayer information on groups with IRS officials at the center of the IRS conservative targeting scandal.

The White House visitor logs include records of numerous White House meetings between IRS official Sarah Hall Ingram and White House official Jeanne Lambrew, who exchanged confidential taxpayer information in emails sent to one another.

The vanished visitor logs have been a key source of information on corruption at the IRS and the Obama administration throughout the scandal over targeted auditing of the president’s political enemies. (Related: Embattled IRS chief counsel met with Obama 2 days before agency changed targeting criteria)

(*SIGH*)

This is also one of many cases in which the shutdown has been cited as a reason to disappear information that is potentially embarrassing to the administration.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics quickly deep-sixed its September unemployment statistics as other employment proxies indicated the work situation has worsened once again.

The Department of Agriculture has buried its September food stamps statistics which are also expected to show increased poverty, dependency and economic regression under Obama.

William R. Barker said...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/virginia-politics/mcauliffe-among-investors-in-rhode-island-insurance-scam-that-preyed-on-dying-people/2013/10/10/b7d937e0-3127-11e3-89ae-16e186e117d8_story.html

Virginia gubernatorial candidate Terry McAuliffe...

* "FRIEND OF BILL..."

...was one of dozens of investors with a Rhode Island estate planner charged with defrauding insurers by using the stolen identities of terminally ill people, according to court documents filed Wednesday by federal prosecutors in Providence.

* WOULDN'T YA LOVE TO SEE WHO ELSE IS ON THE LIST?

McAuliffe’s name appeared on a lengthy list of investors with Joseph A. Caramadre, an attorney and accountant who obtained the identities of dying people to set up annuities that ultimately cost insurance companies millions of dollars, the documents say.

The list also included the law firm of a former Rhode Island Supreme Court justice, a Roman Catholic monsignor, a former Cranston, R.I. police chief, and a bookmaker, according to The Providence Journal, which first reported McAuliffe’s investment Wednesday.

* NAMES AND PARTISAN POLITICAL AFFILIATIONS, PLEASE!

Federal court documents do not accuse McAuliffe of wrongdoing...

* NO... OF COURSE NOT... DUE DILIGENCE... WHAT'S THAT?!

His campaign spokesman said McAuliffe was a “passive investor” who was deceived like many others.

* SO... STUPIDITY... NOT SHEER LAZINESS...???

Spokesman Josh Schwerin also said... “Terry was one of hundreds of passive investors several years ago and had no idea about the allegations against the defendant — who, at the time, was widely respected by business leaders and elected officials,” Schwerin said.

* WIDELY RESPECT BY WHO? (BESIDES MCAULIFFE THAT IS?)

“The allegations are horrible and he never would have invested if he knew he was being deceived.”

* "ALLEGATIONS...?!?!" THE DOUCHEBAG HAS PLED GUILTY!

Caramadre and his former employee Raymour Radhakrishnan were charged in November 2011 in a 66-count indictment accusing them of wire fraud, money laundering and witness-tampering. Both men pleaded guilty last November, the FBI said in a press release.

Federal authorities say Caramadre, through his firm Estate Planning Resources, began developing products in the 1990s that used the identities of terminally ill people to purchase variable annuities from insurance companies. The annuities offered death benefits when those annuitants died. The investments — which Caramadre allegedly made on behalf of himself, friends, family and others — included returns of all the money invested and sometimes a guaranteed profit, federal authorities said.

* NICE... (*GNASHING MY TEETH*)

In 2006, Caramadre also began investing in “death-put bonds” that relied on obtaining the identities of terminally ill people, according to prosecutors. These investments allowed the owner to redeem the bonds years or decades earlier than the maturity date when the bond’s co-owner died.

(*JUST SHAKING MY HEAD*)

The FBI, in a November 2012 press release announcing mid-trial guilty pleas by Caramadre and Radhakrishnan, said Caramadre located terminally ill people by visiting AIDS patients at a hospice, locating relatives of terminally ill people, and placing an ad in a local Catholic newspaper offering $2,000 cash to people with a terminal illness.

In 2009, Caramadre gave McAuliffe’s campaign an $26,599 contribution, including an in-kind event donation of $1,599, according to records kept by the Virginia Public Access Project.

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

William R. Barker said...

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303382004579129582433593424.html?mod=WSJ_hps_LEFTTopStories

Jihadi-led rebel fighters...

* OBAMA ADMINISTRATION SUPPORTED FIGHTERS...??? (I HAVE NO IDEA. I ASSUME IT'S QUITE POSSIBLE THOUGH.)

...in Syria killed at least 190 civilians and abducted more than 200 during an offensive against pro-regime villages, committing a war crime, an international human-rights group said Friday.

* HUMAN RIGHT WATCH.

Lama Fakih of Human Rights Watch said the rebel abuses in Latakia "certainly amount to war crimes," and may even rise to the level of crimes against humanity. The group said more than 20 rebel groups participated in the Latakia offensive.

* MORE THAN 20...

Five groups, including two linked to al Qaeda and others with jihadi leanings, led the campaign, which appeared to have been funded in part by private donations raised in the Persian Gulf, the report said.

* AGAIN... WERE ANY OF THESE ANIMALS ARMED AND/OR TRAINED AND/OR LOGISTICALLY OR OTHERWISE ASSISTED BY THE UNITED STATES ON OBAMA'S ORDERS?

The Western-backed Syrian opposition must cut ties with the groups that led the Latakia offensive, the report said.

The Aug. 4 attacks on unarmed civilians in more than a dozen villages in the coastal province of Latakia were systematic and could even amount to a crime against humanity, Human Rights Watch said in a 105-page report. The findings are based on a visit a month later to the area, with permission from the Syrian regime.

The report quoted witnesses as saying rebels went house to house, killing entire families or killing the men and taking women and children hostage. One survivor, Hassan Shebli, told Human Rights Watch he fled as rebels approached his village of Barouda at dawn, but was forced to leave behind his wife, who was unable to walk without crutches, and his paralyzed 23-year-old son. When Mr. Shebli returned days later, after government forces retook the village, he found his wife and son buried near the house and bullet holes and blood splattered in the bedroom, the New York-based group said.

The findings are bound to feed mounting Western unease about the tactics of some of those trying to topple Mr. Assad and about the growing role of jihadi rebels, including foreign fighters linked to al Qaeda.

* YA THINK...?!?!

The main Western-backed rebel alliance, the Free Syrian Army, distanced itself from the five rebel groups named by Human Rights Watch as the main perpetrators.

* "DISTANCED THEMSELVES..." UH-HUH...

"Anyone who commits such crimes will not belong to the revolution anymore," said spokesman Louay Mikdad.

Human Rights Watch said at least 67 of the 190 civilians slain by the rebels were killed at close range or while trying to flee. There are signs that most of the others were also killed intentionally or indiscriminately, but more investigation is needed, the group said.

William R. Barker said...

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

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304520704579127891764805638.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTop

They had 3½ years to set it up!

They give speeches about ObamaCare but when it's unveiled what the public sees is a Potemkin village designed by the noted architect Rube Goldberg.

They knew exactly when it would be unveiled, on Oct. 1, 2013. On that date, they knew, millions could be expected to go online to see if they benefit. What they got was the administration's version of Project ORCA, the Romney campaign's computerized voter-turnout system that crashed with such flair on Election Day.

[T]he real story of last week, this week and the future, the one beyond the shutdown, the one that normal people are both fully aware of and fully understand...is the utter and catastrophic debut of ObamaCare. Even for those who expected problems, and that would be everyone who follows government, it has been a shock.

Here is why the roll-out is so damaging to ObamaCare: because everyone in America knows we spent four years arguing about the law, that it sucked all the oxygen from the room, that it commanded all focus, that it blocked out other opportunities and initiatives, and that it caused so many searing arguments.

Throughout the struggle the American people must have thought: "OK, at the end it's gotta be worth it, it's got to give me at least some benefits to justify all this drama." And at the end they tried to log in, register and see their options, and found one big, frustrating, chaotic mess. As if for four years we all just wasted our time.

A quick summary of what didn't work. Those who went on federal and state exchanges reported malfunctions during log-in, constant error messages, inability to create new accounts, frozen screens, confusing instructions, endless wait times, help lines that put people on hold and then cut them off, lost passwords and user names.

After the administration floated the fiction that the problems were due to heavy usage, the Journal tracked down insurance and technology experts who said the real problems were inadequate coding and flaws in the architecture of the system.

* ONCE AGAIN... OBAMA LIED...!!!

* TO BE CONTINUED...

William R. Barker said...

* MAKE IT "THREE-PARTER" -- CONTINUING... (Part 2 of 3)

There were no enrollments in Delaware in three days.

North Carolina got one enrollee.

In Kansas ObamaCare was unable to report a single enrollment.

A senior Louisiana state official told me zero people enrolled the first day, eight the second.

The founder of McAfee slammed the system's lack of security on Fox Business Network, calling it a hacker's happiest nocturnal fantasy. He predicted millions of identity thefts.

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius — grilled, surprisingly, on "The Daily Show" — sounded like a blithering idiot as she failed to justify why, in the middle of the chaos, individuals cannot be granted a one-year delay, just as businesses have been.

More ominously, many of those who got into the system complained of sticker shock—high premiums, high deductibles.

* WHAT WAS THAT...??? CAN YOU REPEAT YOURSELF... I DON'T THINK I HEARD YOU PROPERTY...

More ominously, many of those who got into the system complained of sticker shock—high premiums, high deductibles.

(*SILENCE*)

* TO BE CONTINUED...

William R. Barker said...

* CONCLUDING... (Part 3 of 3)

Where does this leave us?

Congressional Republicans and the White House may soon begin a series of conversations centering on the debt-ceiling fight. Good: May they turn into negotiations.

Republicans are now talking about a grand bargain involving entitlement spending, perhaps tax issues. But they would make a mistake in dropping ObamaCare as an issue.

A few weeks ago they mistakenly demanded defunding — a move to please their base.

* A COUPLE POINTS: 1) IT WASN'T A MISTAKE; 2) IT WASN'T "A COUPLE WEEKS AGO." THE NATIONAL GOP RAN THEIR 2010 AND 2012 CAMPAIGNS LARGELY ON THE PLATFORM OF USING CONTROL OF THE NATION'S PURSE STRINGS TO CUT DEFICITS (DEEP AND QUICKLY!) AND TO KILL OBAMACARE. THE WON THE HOUSE BACK IN 2010 ON THESE PROMISES AND IF ANYTHING MADE THE REPEAL OF OBAMACARE THE MORE VISABLE CENTER SUPPORT BEAM OF THEIR 2012 ELECTION EFFORTS WHERE THEY KEPT CONTROL OF THE HOUSE!

They will be tempted to abandon even the word ObamaCare now, but this is exactly when they should keep, as the center of their message and their intent, not defunding ObamaCare but delaying it.

* THE WRITER OF THIS PIECE, PEGGY NOONAN, IS TOO CLEVER BY HALF IF SHE THINKS ONE CAN ALLOW THE CANCER OF OBAMACARE TO ENTER THE BOBY POLITIC AS AN ENTITLEMENT PROGRAM AND THEN LATER KILL IT. NO... OBAMACARE MUST BE DEFUNDED NOW SO AS TO SPOT IT TENTACLES FROM GROWING AND SPREADING AND ULTIMATELY STRANGLING THE EXISTING SYSTEM (WHICH DOES INDEED REQUIRE OVERHAUL).

Do Republicans really want to turn abrupt focus to elusive Medicare cuts just when it has become obvious to the American people that parts of ObamaCare (like the ability to enroll!) are unworkable?

A closing thought on the oft-repeated liberal argument that ObamaCare must stay untouched and go forward as written. They say it was passed by Congress, adjudicated by the courts and implicitly endorsed in the 2012 election; its opponents are dead-enders who refuse to accept settled outcomes.

There was always something wrong at the heart of this argument, and it's connected, believe it or not, to a story involving Johnny Carson.

His show was a great American institution. When Carson retired in 1992, David Letterman was assumed to be his heir. Instead, NBC chose Jay Leno. In time Mr,. Leno faltered, and NBC came back to Mr. Letterman, who now was receiving more lucrative offers from the other networks. Everybody wanted him. But it was his long-held dream to host "The Tonight Show," and he anguished. Then, as Bill Carter reported in "The Late Shift," his advisers came to him. "The Tonight Show" starring Johnny Carson doesn't exist anymore, they said. It's gone. It's Jay Leno's show now. If you want to take a lesser deal to be his successor, go ahead. But the old "Tonight Show" is gone. This helped clarify Mr. Letterman's mind. He went with CBS.

OK, the Affordable Care Act doesn't exist anymore. It was passed and adjudicated, but since then it has changed, and something new taken its place. Hundreds of waivers and exceptions have been granted. The president decided he had the power to delay the participation of businesses, while insisting on the continued participation of individuals. The program debuted and the debut was a disaster and Americans who want to be part of it haven't been able to join. ObamaCare doesn't exist anymore. It isn't the poor piece of legislation it was, it's a new and different poor piece of legislation.

* ALL THE MORE REASON BACKING EFFORTS TO DEFUND OBAMACARE! OBAMACARE AS MANGLED BY OBAMA IS NO LONGER THE OBAMACARE LEGISLATED AND THUS SHOULD BE SEEN AS VOID. DEFUNDING IT WOULD VOID IT.

William R. Barker said...

http://www.infowars.com/tsa-loudspeakers-threaten-travelers-with-arrest-for-joking-about-security/

Travelers who crack jokes about the TSA’s ludicrous security procedures could face arrest, according to a new loudspeaker warning being broadcast at airports in the U.S.

* I JUST HEARD THE CLIP; IT SEEMS TO BE THE REAL DEAL.

While traveling through George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston, Matt Miller heard a security announcement repeatedly aired on the airport intercom that left him disturbed.

“You are also reminded that any inappropriate remarks or jokes concerning security may result in your arrest,” the loudspeaker message states.

* YEP... THAT'S WHAT I HEARD. LISTEN FOR YOURSELVES!