Please read the newsbites, folks...
(*SMILE AND WINK*)
Not for my stats...
(*GUFFAW*)
...but because you'll learn stuff you might otherwise not learn.
Reading doesn't mean you have to come away sharing my perspective, but without being too egotistical...
(*SMILE*)
...my perspective transcends typical partisan blather and is undeniably well-informed.
What do you have to lose...?
8 comments:
* TWO-PARTER... (Part 1 of 2)
http://www3.blogs.rollcall.com/218/democrats-turn-back-gops-piecemeal-funding-strategy/
* HERE'S THE FIRST PARAGRAPH...
House Republicans tried to soften the blow — in reality and politically — of a government shutdown Tuesday with bills that would provide funding for veterans, for national parks and for the District of Columbia. But Democrats said no.
* HMM... HOW'BOUT A SMALL EDIT: "ON TUESDAY, HOUSE REPUBLICANS OFFERED DEMOCRATS BILLS FULLY FUNDING VETERANS PROGRAMS, NATIONAL PARK BUDGETS, AND THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA. DEMOCRATS SAID NO."
* I SUGGEST THAT EDIT BECAUSE... WELL... THAT'S THE ACTUAL NEWS! THAT'S WHAT HAPPENED!
The House rejected the veterans affairs funding bill, 264-164, with 33 Democrats joining all Republicans in support of the measure.
The national parks bill was rejected 252-176, with 22 Democrats joining all but one Republican (Rep. Don Young of Alaska) in support of the measure...
[T]he D.C. funding bill was rejected 265-163, with 34 Democrats joining all Republicans in support of the measure.
(*SHRUG*)
* WERE THE NUMBERS REVERSED... WERE THE PLAYERS REVERSED... THIS IS WHERE THE MEDIA WOULD BE THROWING OUT TERMS SUCH AS "WITH BIPARTISAN SUPPORT..."
(*SMIRK*)
* COM'ON, FOLKS... YOU KNOW IT'S TRUE! YOU DON'T HAVE TO BE A BARKERIST TO ADMIT THIS - ONLY A REGULAR MEDIA CONSUMER!
(*CHUCKLE*)
Leading up to the government shutdown, Democrats joined with Republicans in both chambers to overwhelmingly pass a bill that would ensure the troops continued to get paid in the event of lapsed appropriations.
* SO THE DEMOCRATS WILL COOPERATE "FOR THE TROOPS" BUT NOT FOR VETERANS... NOT FOR OUR NATIONAL PARKS... NOT FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA...???
* FOLKS... WHO IS PLAYING GAMES HERE...?!?!
The White House said earlier in the day that President Barack Obama would veto the stand-alone CR’s should they make their way to the Oval Office...
* AND IN RESPONSE...
“How does the White House justify signing the troop funding bill, but vetoing similar measures for veterans, National Parks, and the District of Columbia?” asked Michael Steel, a spokesman for Speaker John A. Boehner, R-Ohio, in a statement. “The President can’t continue to complain about the impact of the government shutdown on veterans, visitors at National parks, and DC while vetoing bills to help them. The White House position is unsustainably hypocritical,” Steel said.
(*SHRUG*)
* TO BE CONTINUED...
* CONCLUDING... (Part 2 of 2)
The bill to fund the operations of the District of Columbia through Dec. 15 was perhaps thought to be a gift to Democrats, who have traditionally aligned themselves with D.C. residents more so than their GOP counterparts in the fight for self-determination. But Democrats turned away the measure, sticking to their broader political strategy to defeat the piecemeal bills in defiance of the new Republican approach.
Rep. José E. Serrano, D-N.Y., a longtime ally of the District and ranking member on the appropriations subcommittee that has jurisdiction over D.C. affairs, suggested that he would have to avoid Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton, D-D.C., for the next few days, suggesting that his “no” vote would have consequences for their relationship going forward.
At one point appearing as though she were close to tears, Norton delivered an impassioned plea for members to vote to fund D.C. through the government shutdown.
* I BET YOU WON'T SEE VIDEO OF THAT BEING AIRED ON ABC, CBS, NBC, OR CNN - LET ALONE MSNBC. (IT DOESN'T FIT WITH THE NARRATIVE!)
Republicans, for their part, expressed — perhaps even feigned — shock that Democrats would vote against the bill.
* YEAH. FAIR ENOUGH. NO DOUBT MANY REPUBLICANS FEIGNED SHOCK.
(*SHRUG*)
“I can’t believe the gentleman would oppose this bill,” said Appropriations Chairman Harold Rogers, R-Ky. “This is a clean-funding mechanism, nearly identical to what was included in the initial clean continuing resolution. “This funding is solely local and does not come out of the federal covers. they will fund critical district programs, law enforcement, safety, the schools and other essential municipal activities. I can’t believe that I’m hearing opposition to that from that side of the aisle or any side of any aisle,” Rogers said.
But Democrats continued to insist the issue wasn’t over funding D.C.
* OR PUT ANOTHER WAY... DEMOCRATS REFUSE TO ALLOW D.C. FUNDING...
(*SHRUG*)
“This debate is heartbreaking to me,” said Norton, maintaining that Republicans were playing politics with D.C. “This is a living, breathing city.”
* ISN'T POLITICS WHAT YOU PEOPLE DO IN WASHINGTON? THE REPUBLICANS ARE USING WHAT LEVERAGE THEY HAVE TO DEFUND OBAMACARE. THE DEMOCRATS ARE PUTTING OBAMACARE ABOVE ALL ELSE.
http://washingtonexaminer.com/shutdown-overreach-more-guards-at-wwii-memorial-than-benghazi-park-service-closes-park-it-doesnt-run/article/2536710
The National Park Service is sending so many officials out to shut down federal parks that it might have to suspend furloughs if the government closure continues.
(*SNORT*)
At the World War II Memorial on The Mall in Washington, where veterans have been staging protests to keep it open, Washington Examiner's Charlie Spiering reports that at least seven officials were dispatched Wednesday morning to set up a ring of barricades to block tourists from the memorial.
That is two more than the State Department had in Benghazi a year ago on the night of the terrorist attack that killed four, including the U.S. ambassador.
(*PURSED LIPS*)
National Park Officials closed down the educational Claude Moore Colonial Farm near the CIA in McLean, Va., even though the federal government doesn't fund or staff the park popular with children and schools.
* YES... RE-READ THAT... BY ALL MEANS...
National Park Officials closed down the educational Claude Moore Colonial Farm near the CIA in McLean, Va., even though the federal government doesn't fund or staff the park popular with children and schools.
* OBAMA'S NATIONAL PARK OFFICIALS!
Just because the privately-operated park is on Park Service land, making the federal government simply its landlord, the agency decided to close it.
* NICE, HUH?
A Claude Moore Colonial Farm official said that the privately-funded staff is on the job Wednesday, but barred from letting anybody visit the historically accurate buildings or animals. Anna Eberly, the managing director, sent out an email decrying the decision and rude National Park Service staff handling the closure.
* I ONLY WISH I WERE MANAGING DIRECTOR! I'D TELL THE FEDS WHERE TO STICK THEIR INSTRUCTIONS AND RISK ARREST FOR CIVIL DISOBEDIANCE!
Pointing to Park Service claims that parks have to be closed because the agency can’t afford staff during the government closure, Eberly wrote: “What utter crap. We have operated the Farm successfully for 32 years after the NPS cut the Farm from its budget in 1980 and are fully staffed and prepared to open today. But there are barricades at the Pavilions and entrance to the Farm.
* AGAIN... RE-READ THIS TO UNDERSTAND WHO OBAMA REALLY IS... WHO HIS PEOPLE REALLY ARE...
Eberly wrote: “What utter crap. We have operated the Farm successfully for 32 years after the NPS cut the Farm from its budget in 1980 and are fully staffed and prepared to open today. But there are barricades at the Pavilions and entrance to the Farm.
* GOOD FOR ANNA EBERLY!
And if you were to park on the grass and visit on your own, you run the risk of being arrested. (Of course, that will cost the NPS staff salaries to police the Farm against intruders while leaving it open will cost them nothing.”)
* AND TEA PARTY AMERICANS ARE THE PROBLEM...??? REALLY...??
She added: “In all the years I have worked with the National Park Service, first as a volunteer for six years in Richmond where I grew up, then as an NPS employee at the for eight very long years and now enjoyably as managing director for the last 32 years — I have never worked with a more arrogant, arbitrary and vindictive group representing the NPS.
* MAKES SENSE! THIS IS THE AGE OF OBAMA! THE REGIME HAS HAD FIVE YEARS - AND THERE ARE THREE TO GO! (GOD HELP US...)
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2442195/Why-want--Harry-Reid-dismisses-funding-childrens-cancer-research-separately-rest-government.html
The U.S. Senate's leading Democrat found himself in embarrassingly hot water Wednesday, after dismissing the idea of funding children's cancer research through the government shutdown.
[A] CNN correspondent had challenged Senate Democrats' earlier lament that clinical trials for pediatric cancer therapies were among government services cut off Monday at midnight.
'If you can help one child, why won't you do it?' asked CNN reporter Dana Bash.
'Why, why, why would we want to do that?' countered Reid.
* YEP... THERE'S VIDEO AND AUDIO... HE SAID IT!
'I have 1,100 people at Nellis Air Force Base that are sitting home' because of government employee furloughs, he told Bash and a roomful of other journalists. 'They have – they have a few problems of their own.'
* LISTEN. FIRST OF ALL LET ME SAY I'M NOT A HUGE SUPPORTER OF GOVERNMENT FUNDED CLINICAL TRIALS. I SIMPLY BELIEVE THE PRIVATE SECTOR IS THE PLACE FOR DRUG DEVELOPMENT. THAT SAID, I BELIEVE THE POINT THE REPORTER WAS GETTING AT IS "WHAT ARE YOUR PRIORITIES?"
'You all talked about children with cancer unable to go to clinical trials,' Bash began. 'The House is presumably going to pass a bill that funds the NIH. Will you, [Mr. Reid,] at least, pass that? And if not, aren't you playing the same political games that Republicans are?'
* A REASONABLE QUESTION!
House Republicans have pressed forward with a collection of six legislative proposals to independently fund specific portions of the federal government through the length of the shutdown. The first one, which provided military servicemen and women with paycheck guarantees, passed easily on Monday after Reid declined to block it in the Senate; President Obama signed it two hours before the shutdown deadline.
* FOLKS... REID AND OBAMA EITHER HAVE PRINCIPLES OR THEY DON'T. BY MAKING ONE ARGUMENT AND THEN IMMEDIATELY VIOLATING THE LOGIC OF THAT ARGUMENT WITH REGARD TO MILITARY FUNDING REID AND OBAMA AND THE DEMOCRATS HAVE SHOWN THEIR PRINCIPLES TO BE HOLLOW.
But the other five proposals, including one that would continue funding the National Institutes of Health, are still in doubt. That bill, and another freeing up money to pay members of the National Guard and military reserve units were added on Wednesday to three that failed to pass a day earlier. Those isolate and fund the national parks, museums and monuments; the Department of Veterans Affairs; and the city government of Washington, D.C.
Republicans took another stab at the legislation on Wednesday...[but] too few Democrats defected to their side.
'What right do they have to pick and choose which part of government is going to be funded?' Reid [asked] during Wednesday's press conference.
* ER... UMM... ISN'T THAT CONGRESS' JOB...??? TO PRIORITIZE SPENDING...??? TO LIVE WITHIN THE NATION'S MEANS... THE GOVERNMENT'S REVENUE STRICTURES...???
* SERIOUSLY, FOLKS... WHAT IS WRONG WITH THIS MORON...?!?!
Each week the NIH Clinical Center in Bethesda, Maryland welcomes about 200 new patients, CNN reports, including 30 children. They are now learning that their cancer trials will be on hold while the government is shut down.
(*PURSED LIPS*)
http://www.bizjournals.com/nashville/blog/2013/09/tns-health-insurance-co-op-offers.html?page=all
Community Health Alliance, Tennessee's health insurance co-op, is running a unique promotional program to drive enrollment in its plans for sale on the exchange: health insurance in exchange for a smartphone.
(*BLINKING*)
As part of its Community Health Connection Program, CHA is offering qualified individuals an LG Lucid 2 4G smart phone (or equivalent model), a phone plan and tech support, included as a cost of their health plan benefits. The phone plan includes unlimited talk, unlimited texting and 1.2GB of data.
* INCLUDED AS A COST OF THEIR HEALTH PLAN BENEFITS...?!?!
CHA is selling individual plans on the new federally run Tennessee marketplace in five of the state's eight regions.
* WELCOME TO OBAMACARE...
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/03/us/snowdens-e-mail-provider-discusses-pressure-from-fbi-to-disclose-data.html?_r=0
One day last May, Ladar Levison returned home to find an F.B.I. agent’s business card on his Dallas doorstep.
So began a four-month tangle with law enforcement officials that would end with Mr. Levison’s shutting the business he had spent a decade building and becoming an unlikely hero of privacy advocates in their escalating battle with the government over Internet security.
* SOUNDS LIKE AMERIKA 2013 - THE AGE OF OBAMA.
The owner of the e-mail service said he closed it down after the government, in pursuit of Edward J. Snowden, sought untrammeled access to the protected messages of all his customers.
* AND THE COURTS...??? (I ASSUME WE'LL GET THERE... LET'S KEEP READING!)
Prosecutors, it turned out, were pursuing a notable user of Lavabit, Mr. Levison’s secure e-mail service: Edward J. Snowden, the former National Security Agency contractor...
* VETTED FORMER NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY CONTRACTOR...
(*SMIRK*)
...who leaked classified documents that have put the intelligence agency under sharp scrutiny.
* ON THE VILLAIN VS. HERO SCALE... MY TAKE IS THAT SNOWDEN IS MORE HERO THAN VILLAIN.
Mr. Levison was willing to allow investigators with a court order to tap Mr. Snowden’s e-mail account; he had complied with similar narrowly targeted requests involving other customers about two dozen times. But they wanted more, he said: the passwords, encryption keys and computer code that would essentially allow the government untrammeled access to the protected messages of all his customers. That, he said, was too much.
* AND IT IS TOO MUCH! (DID A COURT SIGN OFF ON SUCH A REQUEST...?!?!)
“You don’t need to bug an entire city to bug one guy’s phone calls,” Mr. Levison, 32, said in a recent interview. “In my case, they wanted to break open the entire box just to get to one connection.”
On Aug. 8, Mr. Levison closed Lavabit rather than, in his view, betray his promise of secure e-mail to his customers. The move, which he explained in a letter on his Web site, drew fervent support from civil libertarians but was seen by prosecutors as an act of defiance that fell just short of a crime.
* DO YOU KNOW WHAT WE CALL AN ACT OF DEFIANCE JUST SHORT OF A CRIME? FREEDOM!
* GEEZUS, PEOPLE... THE ENEMY IS INSIDE THE GATES... INSIDE THE OVAL OFFICE... INSIDE THE HALLS OF CONGRESS... AND I FEAR... INSIDE THE HALLS OF THE SUPREME COURT.
The full story of what happened to Mr. Levison since May has not previously been told, in part because he was subject to a court’s gag order.
(*SNORT*)
* NO... NO IRONY THERE...
But on Wednesday, a federal judge unsealed documents in the case, allowing the tech entrepreneur to speak candidly for the first time about his experiences.
* BY WHAT AUTHORITY AND BY WHAT CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHT WAS HE GAGGED IN THE FIRST PLACE...?!?!
He had been summoned to testify to a grand jury in Virginia; forbidden to discuss his case; held in contempt of court and fined $10,000 for handing over his private encryption keys on paper and not in digital form; and, finally, threatened with arrest for saying too much when he shuttered his business.
* DOES THIS SOUND LIKE AMERICA TO YOU, FOLKS?
Spokesmen for the Justice Department and the F.B.I. said they had no comment beyond what was in the documents.
* AMERIKA 2013.
Mr. Levison said he set up Lavabit to make it impossible for outsiders, whether governments or hackers, to spy on users’ communications. He followed the government’s own secure coding guidelines, based on the N.S.A.’s technical guidance, and engineered his systems so as not to log user communications. That way, even if he received a subpoena for a user’s communications, he would not be able to gain access to them. For added measure, he gave customers the option to pay extra to encrypt their e-mail and passwords.
* FOLKS... YOU HAVE THE LINK... READ THE FULL STORY FOR YOURSELVES.
http://cnsnews.com/news/article/terence-p-jeffrey/treasury-under-obama-us-govt-debt-held-public-90
The U.S. Treasury released its last Daily Treasury Statement for fiscal 2013 yesterday afternoon, revealing that during the presidency of Barack Obama the U.S. government debt held by the public has increased 90%.
The U.S. Treasury divides the U.S. government's debt into two general categories: debt held by the public and intragovernmental debt.
Debt held by the public consists primarily of U.S. Treasury securities — including bills, notes and bonds — that the Treasury sells on the open market to everybody from individual families and investors to government entities in the People’s Republic of China.
Intragovernmental debt is money the Treasury has "borrowed" from the Social Security Trust Fund and other government sources to pay for current government expenses.
* AND HOW DO THEY REPAY THIS "BORROWED" MONEY WHEN THE FACT IS THAT THE REASON THE MONEY WAS "BORROWED" IN THE FIRST PLACE IS BECAUSE OUR FEDERAL GOVERNMENT CAN'T EVEN COME CLOSE TO MEETING YEARLY OPERATING EXPENSES WITH YEARLY REVENUE! IT'S A SCAM! A PONZI SCHEME! THE MONEY HAS BEEN STOLEN AND SQUANDERED!
Under Obama, intragovernmental debt has increased "only" about 10%...
* OVER FIVE YEARS! THE NATION'S TOTALITY OF INTRAGOVERNMENTAL DEBT HAS INCREASE 10% OVER FIVE YEARS!
During Obama’s presidency, intragovernmental debt has declined as a percentage of the overall debt and debt held by the public has increased as a percentage of the overall debt. This happened as surpluses in Social Security taxes (over Social Security benefits paid) have dwindled and the Treasury has been forced to borrow proportionately more money from the public rather than from Social Security to pay the government's current expenses.
* AND EXACTLY HOW MUCH DOES OUR BROKE-ASS FEDERAL GOVERNMENT OWE SOCIAL SECURITY...???
* FOLKS... AGAIN... IT'S ALL A SCAM... A MASSIVE PONZI SCHEME... INTERGENERATIONAL THEFT ON A SCALE NEVER BEFORE IMAGINED...
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/oct/2/nsa-chief-figures-foiled-terror-plots-misleading/
The Obama administration’s credibility on intelligence suffered another blow Wednesday as the chief of the National Security Agency admitted that officials put out numbers that vastly overstated the counterterrorism successes of the government’s warrantless bulk collection of all Americans’ phone records.
* YOU'RE READING THIS... RIGHT...?
Pressed by the Democratic chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee at an oversight hearing, Gen. Keith B. Alexander admitted that the number of terrorist plots foiled by the NSA’s huge database of every phone call made in or to America was only one or perhaps two — far smaller than the 54 originally claimed by the administration.
* CLAIMED UNDER OATH...? IF SO...
(*PURSED LIPS*)
Gen. Alexander’s dramatic concession is the latest in a series of recent, or recently revealed, intelligence "misstatements" that have embarrassed the Obama administration.
* LIES! OBAMA ADMINISTRATION LIES! (LET'S NOT PUSSYFOOT AROUND THE WORD!)
The news was revealed on the day the administration filed court papers opposing a request from communications providers that they be allowed to tell the public how many and what types of government orders they received.
(The authority used by the NSA to compel phone companies to hand over domestic phone metadata, conferred by Section 215 of the USA Patriot Act, also gags the companies from even disclosing that they have received an order...)
Gen. Alexander told the hearing that his agency was “already, I think, in agreement on releasing the total number of orders or other [legal] process issued under various NSA security authorities … and the total number of targets affected by those orders.” But in its court filing Wednesday, the Justice Department argued that allowing the companies to release detailed information about the secret orders “would be invaluable to our adversaries.”
* NICE... BOTH WORK FOR OBAMA... BOTH GIVE DIFFERENT STORIES...
* FOLKS... THIS ISN'T JUST SIMPLE INCOMPETENCE. NOR IS IT MISCOMMUNICATION. MY GUESS? IT'S DELIBERATE. CONFUSE THINGS! BE ON ALL SIDES OF ALL ISSUES! SAY ONE THING UNDER OATH, THE OPPOSITE AS "ADMINISTRATION POLICY."
The tension between Gen. Alexander’s statements at the hearing and the Justice Department’s court filing the same day highlights the steep hill the general and his colleagues have to climb to persuade many lawmakers to preserve the domestic phone records mass-collection program.
* HOW CAN THIS MAN STILL RETAIN HIS POSITION?! HOW CAN HOLDER RETAIN HIS?! AGAIN... THIS IS THE WAY OBAMA WANTS IT! THESE ARE DELIBERATE, PURPOSEFUL DECISIONS!
The “lack of information” about the scale of the program “frankly, scares people and causes distrust. It makes them distrust our government,” said Sen. Al Franken, Minnesota Democrat.
* OH, PLEASE! WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN THE LAST FIVE YEARS! OBAMA DOUBLES DOWN ON PRETTY MUCH EVERY THOUGHTLESS AND STUPID ACTION EVER TAKEN BY BUSH AND FROM MOST OF THE LEFT... SILENCE.
A number of senators made it clear at the hearing that they supported the domestic data gathering.
* LET ME GUESS... JOHN MCCAIN AND LINDSEY GRAHAM... PETER KING...
Sen. Lindsey Graham, South Carolina Republican, baldly stated that the metadata program would have thwarted the Sept. 11 plot because at least one of the 19 hijackers was in telephone contact with a known terrorist facility in the Middle East.
* WHY WASN'T THE BOSTON BOMBING THWARTED...?!?! WHY WAS THE TIMES SQUARE BOMBING ONLY PREVENTED BY DUMB LUCK? OH, PLEASE... SAVE IT, LINDSEY!
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