Saturday, January 11, 2014
Weekend Newsbites: Sat. & Sun., Jan. 11 & 12, 2014
Mornin', kids!
(What's that...? It's AFTER noon...? Oh...)
Afternoon, kids!
Hoping to work on the travelogue today - once Mary gets home and showered from the gym.
In the meantime... newsbites...
Oh... and today's (uh... this weekend's) newsbite theme song...
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6 comments:
http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/sessions-every-one-job-added-nearly-5-people-left-workforce_774106.html
Alabama senator Jeff Sessions responds to the latest jobs report:
Today’s jobs report underscores a deeper problem facing our economy: a large and growing block of people who are chronically jobless and completely outside the workforce.
In December, the economy added only 74,000 jobs (not nearly enough to keep up with population growth) while 347,000 left the workforce. That means for every one job added, nearly 5 people left the workforce entirely.
There are now nearly 92 million Americans outside the workforce, resulting in the lowest participation rate in 36 years. The President’s immigration plan will only make things dramatically worse – and no amount of ‘promise zones’ will be a sufficient remedy for the millions of displaced workers.
* TWO-PARTER... (Part 1 of 2)
http://www.latimes.com/opinion/commentary/la-oe-bacevich-failed-wars-20140112,0,5920178.story#axzz2qC8aRBub
The United States no longer knows how to win wars, but it continues to start them.
* THAT'S THE SUBTITLE OF THE ARTICLE... AND I AGREE WITH IT!
The U.S. military is like the highly skilled, gadget-toting contractor who promises to give your kitchen a nifty makeover in no time whatsoever. Here's the guy you can count on to get the job done. Just look at those references!
Yet by the time he drives off months later, the kitchen's a shambles and you're stuck with a bill several times larger than the initial estimate. Turns out the job was more complicated than it seemed. But what say we take a crack at remodeling the master bath?
(*SNORT*) (*NOD*)
That pretty much summarizes the American experience with war since the end of the Cold War. By common consent, when it comes to skills and gadgets, U.S. forces are in a league of their own. Yet when it comes to finishing the job on schedule and on budget, their performance has been woeful.
Indeed, these days the United States absolves itself of any responsibility to finish wars that it starts. When we've had enough, we simply leave, pretending that when U.S. forces exit the scene, the conflict is officially over. In 2011, when the last American troops crossed from Iraq into Kuwait, President Obama proudly declared that he had made good on his campaign promise to end the Iraq war. Sometime late this year, when the U.S. terminates its combat role in Afghanistan, he will waste no time consigning that war to the past as well.
Yet the Iraq war did not end when the United States withdrew. Even with Washington striving mightily to ignore the fact, the violent ethno-sectarian struggle for Iraq triggered by the 2003 U.S.-led invasion continues. In recent days, events such as Al Qaeda's ferocious welcome-to-the-new-year assault on the cities of Fallouja and Ramadi — roughly the equivalent of a Confederate army laying siege to Gettysburg sometime during the presidency of Ulysses S. Grant — have made it impossible to pretend otherwise.
Events in Afghanistan are likely to follow a similar trajectory. No serious person thinks that the war there — launched even earlier, back in 2001 — will end just because U.S. troops are finally packing up to go home. No doubt the American public will forget Afghanistan as quickly as it forgot Iraq. Yet as with Iraq war, the struggle to determine Afghanistan's fate will continue, its duration and outcome no less uncertain.
The truth is something few people in the national security establishment are willing to confront: Confusing capability with utility, the United States knows how to start wars but has seemingly forgotten how to conclude them. Yet concluding war on favorable terms — a concept formerly known as victory — is the object of the exercise. For the United States, victory has become a lost art. This unhappy verdict applies whether U.S. forces operate conventionally (employing high-tech "shock and awe" tactics) or unconventionally ("winning hearts and minds").
* OUR SQUEEMISHNESS AND "COMPASSION"... OUR "CIVILIAZED NORMS"... WILL NOT ALLOW US TO WIN A WAR.
* TO BE CONTINUED...
* CONCLUDING... (Part 2 of 2)
As a consequence, instead of promoting stability — perhaps the paramount U.S. interest not only in the Islamic world but also globally — Washington's penchant for armed intervention since the end of the Cold War, and especially since 9/11, has tended to encourage just the opposite. In effect, despite spilling much blood and expending vast amounts of treasure, U.S. military exertions have played into the hands of our adversaries, misleadingly lumped together under the rubric of "terrorists."
How can we explain this yawning gap between intention and outcomes? Fundamentally, a pronounced infatuation with armed might has led senior civilian officials, regardless of party, and senior military leaders, regardless of service, to misunderstand and misapply the military instrument. Force is good for some things, preeminently for defending what is already yours. Not content to defend, however, the United States in recent decades has sought to use force to extend its influence, control and values.
* THE AMERICAN PEOPLE - PARTICULARLY THE CHICKEN HAWKS - ARE JUST AS INFATUATED WITH ARMED MIGHT. AMERICANS OVERWHELMINGLY CONFUSE PATRIOTISM AND HONORING SACRIFICE WITH SLAVISH DEVOTION TO CLICHES. THE AMERICAN PEOPLE ARE THUS EASILY MANIPULATED BY LEADERS ATTACHING THEMSELVES TO "NATIONAL SECURITY."
In a world divided between haves and have-nots, between postmodern and pre-modern, and between those for whom God is dead and those for whom God remains omnipresent, expecting coercion to produce reconciliation, acceptance or submission represents the height of folly. So force employed by the United States in faraway places serves mostly to inflame further resistance, a statement that is true whether we're talking about putting "boots on the ground" or raining down Hellfire missiles from the heavens.
What then is to be done? That which Washington is least capable of undertaking: Those charged with formulating policy must think anew. For starters, that means lowering expectations regarding the political effectiveness of war, which is demonstrably limited.
Take force off the metaphorical table to which policymakers regularly refer. Rather than categorizing violence as a preferred option, revive the tradition of treating it as a last resort. Then get serious about evaluating the potential for employing alternative forms of power, chiefly economic and cultural, to advance American interests. The result won't be a panacea. But it won't cost as much as open-ended war. And rather than creating new problems, this alternative approach just might solve some old ones.
* A BRILLIANT PIECE...
http://bostonherald.com/news_opinion/columnists/howie_carr/2014/01/auntie_zeituni_makes_it_work
Paging Auntie Zeituni…
If only Barack Obama would spend more time with his beloved relative in South Boston, perhaps he would better understand the ever-growing welfare state he so zealously presides over.
Last week he was pushing for yet another extension in unemployment benefits, dismissing the argument that “it will somehow hurt the unemployed because it saps their motivation to get a new job.” (His audience, gathered together in the middle of what used to be called a “work day,” cheered wildly.)
“That really sells the American people short …” Auntie Zeituni’s nephew said. “I can’t name a time when I met an American who would rather have an unemployment check than the pride of having a job.”
Auntie Zeituni, does your nephew really believe such arrant nonsense?
Maybe Barack could claim he wasn’t talking about welfare but “unemployment,” although it’s getting harder and harder to tell the difference. Or perhaps Auntie Zeituni doesn’t count, because she’s not an American, just an illegal alien... or was... until she was granted “sanctuary.”
Let’s face it, in the modern Democrat party, the dirtiest four-letter word of all is “work.”
Granted, Obama’s dismal economy is responsible for tens of millions of Americans on the sidelines — 92.5 million now out of the workforce, according to Friday’s numbers, up 525,000 just last month alone. And doubtless millions of those unemployed would like to return to productive life. But c’mom... what about the 9 million plus on SSDI?
(*NOD*)
It’s so out of control the Democrat district attorney of Manhattan uncovered a $400 million rip-off centered in the NYPD and FDNY! Husbands and wives, brothers and sisters, a 32-year-old — all being coached by shysters how to dress shabbily, misspell the simplest words and stare off into space when asked questions.
They were, in short, being trained to behave like Obama voters.
Everything free in America! Who cares? It all comes out of “Obama’s stash,” as two of his most loyal voters in (where else?) Detroit once laughingly described the welfare-industrial complex.
The CATO Institute did a study last year of welfare benefits in the U.S. It won’t surprise you to learn that Massachusetts was No. 1 in handouts among mainland states (trailing only Barack’s home state of Hawaii and his current address, D.C.).
Here a woman and two children (the typical welfare “family”) can grab up to $42,515 in tax-free handouts every year. That same woman would need to earn $50,540 working to match what she can collect on the dole.
(Say what you will about the Tsarnaevs. They were good at making bombs, but they were also good at math. If the infidels were going to support them so handsomely while they waged jihad, why work?)
Years ago, a Republican governor of Massachusetts struck yet another dog-whistle w-word from the vocabulary of the hackerama — welfare.
The Mass. welfare department was rechristened the Department of Transitional Assistance.
And now... U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX) is suggesting that welfare nationally be renamed “transitional living fund.”
(*JUST SHAKING MY HEAD*)
Because, she said last week, these are “not handouts, but safety nets.”
(*SIGH*)
What is it with this word “transitional?” Do the politicians really think that if they change the name, no one will notice that none of their constituents work anymore? But Obama et al. have tried it before — AFDC became TANF, Temporary Aid to Needy Families. (Other than the fact that it’s not temporary, most of them aren’t needy and that very few of them are real families, it’s quite an accurate description of the program.)
I watch Obama pandering to his shiftless, lowlife base, and I wonder if during his years with the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, he ever delved into the Bible, specifically 2 Thessalonians 3:10: “If a man will not work, neither let him eat.”
What would your nephew make of that, Auntie Zeituni?
* TWO-PARTER... (Part 1 of 2)
http://thehill.com/business-a-lobbying/business-a-lobbying/195155-supreme-court-to-decide-the-limits-of-executive-power
Nothing less than the boundaries of executive power are at stake Monday as the Supreme Court considers whether President Obama violated the Constitution during his first term.
* BULLSHIT.
* THIS IS ONE PARTICULAR ISSUE... ONE WHERE I PERSONALLY LEAN TOWARDS OBAMA'S POSITION.
* YEAH, FOLKS... YOU READ THAT RIGHT. I'M NOT A FAN OF FAUX CONGRESSIONAL SESSIONS. THAT SAID, I'LL WAIT TILL THE COURT RULES AND I'VE READ THE VARIOUS OPINIONS.
* BOTTOM LINE... IF OBAMA WINS HERE THAT WILL HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH OTHER CASES WHERE HE'S UNDENIABLY VIOLATED THE CONSTITUTION.
Oral arguments slated for Monday will center on a trio of recess appointments to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) that were deemed unconstitutional by lower courts.
If they uphold the decision, experts say the justices could endanger hundreds of NLRB decisions.
Even more significant are the ramifications for future presidents, with the court poised either to bolster or blunt the chief executive’s appointment powers.
* NOTICE THAT SO FAR NO ONE IS TALKING ABOUT THE CONSTITUTION AND WHETHER OR NOT OBAMA VIOLATED IT WITH HIS APPOINTMENTS? (SCUMBAG MEDIA...)
Presidents have for decades used recess appointment powers when the Senate is away to install judges and fill top federal vacancies that ordinarily would be subject to confirmation proceedings. But with the disputed NLRB appointments, Obama became the first president to appoint nominees when the Senate was in a “pro-forma” session, when the upper chamber is briefly called to order and adjourned every few days.
* EXACTLY!
The sessions are intended to prevent recess appointments, and usually only a handful of senators are present for them. In filling the NLRB posts, the Obama administration claims that the Senate is generally not available to conduct business during the sessions, so the president’s recess appointment power is in effect.
“The sham pro-forma sessions are nothing more than that,” said Catholic University law professor Victor Williams, who filed a brief backing the government’s position.
* AND I TEND TO "BUY" THIS POSITION. (FOLKS... I DON'T WANT CONGRESS PLAYING GAMES WITH THE CONSTITUTION ANYMORE THAN I WANT A PRESIDENT PLAYING GAMES WITH IT!)
The impetus for recess appointments has faded now that Senate Democrats have changed their chamber’s rules to allow for a simple majority vote on presidential nominees. Nevertheless, the case could stunt Obama's and future presidents' authority when it comes to staffing administrations.
* BULLSHIT AGAIN! (YA MIGHT WANNA GOOGLE ARTICLE II, SECTION 3, CLAUSE 2, OF THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES.
(*JUST SHAKING MY HEAD*)
The case was brought by Noel Canning, an Oregon-based soft drink bottling and distribution company that challenged the appointments as unconstitutional.
In January of last year, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals agreed.
The appellate court ruling under now review at the Supreme Court found a narrow window for the president to make recess appointments. Under its decision, the president can only make such appointments when the Senate is in recess between sessions of Congress, and only if a vacancy occurred in that same time period.
That goes well against protocol adopted by past Democratic and Republican presidents.
* SEE WHAT I'M TALKING ABOUT, PEOPLE?! NEITHER THIS REPORT NOR THE EDITORS OF THE HILL GIVE A RAT'S ASS FOR WHAT THE CONSTITUTION ITSELF SAYS! THEY DON'T EVEN ATTEMPT TO ADDRESS THE CONSTITUTIONAL LANGUAGE NOR REAL-TIME HISTORICAL CONTEXT!
* CONTINUING... (Part 2 of 2)
A Congressional Service Research report found 329 such appointments since 1981...
* 1981...??? HOW'BOUT 1791! (FOLKS... AGAIN... THE MSM IS LARGELY CONTEMPTUOUS OF THE CONSTITUTION.)
...that would not meet that criteria and would be ruled void if the appeals court decision was law.
* UNLESS THE COURT RULED OTHERWISE... THAT THE RULES COULD REMAIN SINCE FUTURE "PROPERLY APPOINTED" APPOINTEES COULD ALWAYS VOID THEM ON A CASE BY CASE BASIS!
Some see the fight against the labor board as a broader effort in which opponents have sought to stymie the Obama administration’s rules and regulations.
* "SOME." (AS IN CLEARLY THE HILL ITSELF! AGAIN... SEPARATE NEWS FROM EDITORIALIZING... NAH... NOT WHEN IT COMES TO TRYING TO SUPPORT OBAMA!)
“I think the battle against the NLRB over the last few years has been a proxy war about the proper role and scope of government,” said Wilma Liebman, who served as chairwoman of the NLRB from January 2009 to August 2011.
* AND WILMA LIEBMAN IS... er... NON-PARTISAN...?
(*SNORT*)
* AGAIN, FOLKS... NOWADAYS THE MSM DOESN'T EVEN TRY TO HIDE THEIR ATTEMPT MANIPULATION OF PUBLIC OPINION.
The NLRB has had its decisions overturned by the high court before. In 2010, the Supreme Court found the board lacked the authority to make decisions for more than two years because it only had two members — one short of a quorum.
* THAT'S BASIC PARLIAMENTARY PROCEDURE!
About 600 NLRB decisions were made in that time period, and the board was forced to go back through about 100 of them.
* THUS MY EARLIER CALL OF "BULLSHIT" ON THE CHEAP FEAR-MONGERING TACTIC OF SAYING AN ANTI-OBAMA DECISION WOULD VOID PAST RULINGS WILLY NILLY.
In Monday’s arguments, attorneys with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce will argue on behalf of Noel Canning that the NLRB operated without a quorum for well over a year, causing confusion for both employers and employees.
The Obama administration’s case hinges on winning three points, according to Georgetown University Law Center’s Nicholas Quinn Rosenkranz, who is arguing against the government. First, it must convince the justices that presidents may make appointments during regular recesses and not, as the appeals court ruled, only during the breaks between numbered sessions on Congress. Next, the court must agree that the appointments may include the filling of vacancies that existed before the recess began, rather than those that occurred during a recess. Finally, it must conclude that the pro-forma sessions do not count as formal sessions of Congress.
Proving all three points, particularly the last, would be a tall order, said Rosenkranz, who predicted a 9-0 ruling in favor of Noel Canning.
“I don’t think this is a close case,” he said.
* WE... WILL... SEE...
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