Usually Right: Barker's Newsbites: Thursday, April 17, 2014

Thursday, April 17, 2014

Barker's Newsbites: Thursday, April 17, 2014

Yep... anyone paying attention to the time-stamp... it's past 1:35 a.m.

Lots of good posts over the last couple days; found myself still blogging after midnight and so I figured I'd get an early start on Thursday's newsbites!

Enjoy!

And... learn...

17 comments:

William R. Barker said...: * TWO-PARTER... (Part 1 of 2)

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014/04/16/feds-accused-leaving-trail-wreckage-after-nevada-ranch-standoff/

The federal agency that backed down over the weekend in a tense standoff with a Nevada rancher is being accused of leaving a trail of wreckage behind.

Fox News toured the damage - allegedly caused by the Bureau of Land Management - which included holes in water tanks and destroyed water lines and fences. According to family friends, the bureau's hired "cowboys" also killed two prize bulls.

"They had total control of this land for one week, and look at the destruction they did in one week," said Corey Houston, friend of rancher Cliven Bundy and his family. "So why would you trust somebody like that? And how does that show that they're a better steward?"

On a Friday night conference call, BLM officials told reporters that "illegal structures" on Bundy's ranch - water tanks, water lines and corrals - had to be removed to "restore" the land to its natural state and prevent the rancher from restarting his illegal cattle operation. However, the court order used to justify the operation appears only to give the agency the authority to "seize and impound" Bundy's cattle.

"Nowhere in the court order that I saw does it say that they can destroy infrastructure, destroy corrals, tanks ... desert environment, shoot cattle," Houston said.

Bundy's friends say the BLM wranglers told them the bulls were shot because they were dangerous and could gore their horses. One bull was shot five times.

* FOLKS... I DON'T OFTEN US THE NAZI OR SOVIET ANALOGY... BUT GEEZUS...

But Houston said the pen holding the bull wasn't even bent. "It's not like the bull was smashing this pen and trying tackle people or anything," he said. "The pen is sitting here. It hasn't moved. No damage whatsoever. Where was the danger with that bull?"

Plus he said BLM vehicles appear to have crushed a tortoise burrow near the damaged water tank. "How's that conservation?" he asked.

The BLM has not yet responded to a request for comment on these allegations.

* AND SUPPOSEDLY BUNDY IS THE BAD GUY...???

* TO BE CONTINUED...; April 17, 2014 at 1:40 AM
William R. Barker said...: * CONCLUDING... (Part 2 of 2)

Bundy has refused to pay the grazing fees or remove his cattle, and doesn't even acknowledge the federal government's authority to assess or collect damages. The bureau has said if Bundy wasn't willing to pay, then they would sell his cattle. However, there was a problem with that plan - few in Nevada would touch Bundy's cattle for fear of being blacklisted. "The sale yards are very nervous about taking what in the past has been basically stolen cattle from the federal government," Nevada Agriculture Commissioner Ramona Morrison said.

* SOUNDS LIKE THE SALES YARDS ARE OWNED AND RUN BY MEN AND WOMEN I'D BE PROUD TO KNOW.

Documents show the BLM paid a Utah cattle wrangler $966,000 to collect Bundy's cattle and a Utah auctioneer to sell them. However, Utah Gov. Gary Herbert refused to let Bundy cattle cross state lines, saying in a letter: "As Governor of Utah, I urgently request that a herd of cattle seized by the Bureau of Land Management from Mr. Cliven Bundy of Bunkerville, Nevada, not be sent to Utah. There are serious concerns about human safety and animal health and well-being, if these animals are shipped to and sold in Utah."

* TOO BAD UTAH'S GOVERNOR DIDN'T HAVE THE BALLS TO SIMPLY DECLARE THAT THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT IS IN THE WRONG. BUT, HEY... SOME SAY ACTIONS SPEAK LOUDER THAN WORDS; IN THE END HE DID EFFECTIVELY CUT THE FEDS OFF AT THE KNEES.

That letter was sent three days before the BLM round-up, which is why the cattle were still being held Saturday in temporary pens just a few miles from Bundy's ranch. Morrison says BLM was sitting on cattle because it had no way to get rid of them - setting up a potential tragedy as orphaned calves were not getting any milk and feed costs were about to skyrocket.

The showdown is far from over. The BLM says it will "continue to work to resolve the matter administratively and judicially," though Bundy still doesn't recognize federal authority over the federal lands that he continues to use in violation of a court order. The federal judge who issued that decision says Bundy's claims "are without merit."

* AND WHAT ELSE WOULD YOU EXPECT HIM TO SAY...???

That order from October 2013 says Bundy owes $200 per day per head for every day he fails to move his cattle. That amounts to roughly $640 million in damages owed to the federal government for illegally grazing his cattle.

* LADIES AND GENTLEMEN... I GIVE YOU... AMENDMENT EIGHT OF THE BILL OF RIGHTS OF THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES. (PRIMA FACIE.); April 17, 2014 at 1:40 AM
William R. Barker said...: http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304311204579505953682216682?mg=reno64-wsj&url=http%3A%2F%2Fonline.wsj.com%2Farticle%2FSB10001424052702304311204579505953682216682.html

Anyone wondering why the U.S. economy can't seem to grow at its usual pace should examine one product category where production is booming: federal regulation.

Washington set a new record in 2013 by issuing final rules consuming 26,417 pages in the Federal Register.

While plenty of government employees deserve "credit" for this milestone, leadership matters. And by this measure President Obama has never been surpassed in the Oval Office.

* POOR, STUPID, AMERICAN SHEEPLE...

The latest rule-making tally comes from the Competitive Enterprise Institute's Wayne Crews, who on April 29 will publish his annual review of federal regulation in "Ten Thousand Commandments." This is important work because politicians and the media treat regulation as a largely cost-free public good. Mr. Crews knows better.

Congress may be mired in gridlock, but the federal bureaucracy is busier than ever. In 2013 the Federal Register contained 3,659 "final" rules, which means they now must be obeyed, and 2,594 proposed rules on their way to becoming orders from political headquarters.

* AGAIN... FOLKS... AMERICA IS CLEARLY NO LONGER A REPUBLIC... AND ARGUABLY WE'RE NOT A DEMOCRACY EITHER!

The Federal Register finished 2013 at 79,311 pages, the fourth highest total in history. That didn't match President Obama's 2010 all-time record of 81,405 pages. But Mr. Obama can console himself by noting that of the five highest Federal Register page counts, four have occurred on his watch. The other was 79,435 pages under President George W. Bush in 2008.

* ANOTHER DOUCHE...

And the feds aren't letting up. Mr. Crews reports that there are another 3,305 regulations moving through the pipeline on their way to being imposed. One hundred and ninety-one of those are "economically significant" rules, which are defined as having costs of at least $100 million a year. (Keep in mind that the feds routinely low-ball their cost estimates so the public will continue to think regulation is free.)

Drawing largely on government statistics, Mr. Crews estimates that the overall cost of regulatory compliance and its economic impact is about $1.9 trillion annually. This means that the burden of complying with federal rules costs roughly the annual GDP of Australia, Canada or Italy.

This regulatory tax makes U.S. businesses less competitive, but it also burdens every American because it is embedded in the prices of all goods and services. Mr. Crews estimates that "U.S. households 'pay' $14,974 annually in regulatory hidden tax," or 23% of the average income of $65,596.

* FOLKS... FORGET "AVERAGE" INCOME. MEDIAN INCOME IS WHAT MATTERS, AND MEDIAN INCOME IS AROUND $40K.

All of this is the fruit of ObamaCare, Dodd-Frank, and the manifold other expansions of government that have marked the Obama years. By far their greatest and most tragic cost has been slower economic growth, which has meant fewer jobs, lower incomes and diminished economic possibilities for tens of millions of Americans.

* AND THE AMERICAN SHEEPLE JUST... TAKE IT.; April 17, 2014 at 1:40 AM
William R. Barker said...: http://www.myfoxny.com/story/25266957/portland-plans-reservoir-flush-after-teen-cited

* FILE UNDER: ARE THESE PEOPLE FUCKING RETARDED...?!?! (RHETORICAL QUESTION!)

Once again, Portland officials are preparing to flush millions of gallons of treated water because a young person urinated into a city reservoir.

Water Bureau Administrator David Shaff said 38 million gallons will be discarded because a 19-year-old was caught in the act on Wednesday.

* FOR GOD'S SAKE... FOR THE SAKE OF SANITY... DISGARD THIS SHAFF GUY INSTEAD!

Three years ago, the city drained a 7.5 million-gallon reservoir.

The open reservoirs hold water that's already been treated and goes directly into mains for distribution to customers.

The urine poses little health risk, but city officials don't want customers to think the water's tainted.

* THE URINE POSES NO HEALTH RISK! NONE! ZIP! ZERO! NADA! IT'S A FUCKING RESERVOIR! BIRDS FLY OVER IT AND POOP IN IT!!! YOU FUCKING MORONS...!!!

Shaff says the city has plenty of water to meet demand.

The reservoir is one of five the city is in the process of replacing with underground storage to comply with federal regulations.

* WHICH TELLS YOU HOW FUCKING NUTTY FEDERAL REGULATIONS ARE...!!! MY GOD... MAN HAS PROSPERED FOR 14,000 YEARS OF SO WITHOUT HAVING TO RELY UPON UNDERGROUND STORAGE...!!!; April 17, 2014 at 1:41 AM
William R. Barker said...: http://cnsnews.com/news/article/terence-p-jeffrey/electricity-price-surged-all-time-record-march

The average price for a kilowatthour (KWH) of electricity hit a March record of 13.5 cents, according data released yesterday by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That was up about 5.5% from 12.8 cents per KWH in March 2013.

The relative price of electricity in the United States tends to rise in spring, peak in summer, and decline in fall. Last year, after the price of a KWH averaged 12.8 cents in March, it rose to an all-time high of 13.7 cents in June, July, August and September.

If the prevailing trend holds, the average price of a KWH would hit a new record this summer.

* BUT REMEMBER, FOLKS... THERE IS NO INFLATION...

(*SNORT*)

The BLS’s seasonally adjusted electricity price index rose to 209.341 this March, the highest it has ever been, up 10.537 points — or 5.3% - from 198.804 in March 2013.

* CHANT IT WITH ME, FOLKS... O-BAM-A! O-BAM-A! O-BAM-A!

In its press release on the Consumer Price Index, BLS noted that the overall energy index declined in March, driven by declining gasoline and fuel oil indexes, despite increases in natural gas and electricity.

* YEAH... THAT'S LIKE SAYING IT'S A GOOD THING THAT WHEN MY JUGLAR VIEN WAS SLASHED THE BLEEDING SLOWED AS I BLED TO DEATH...

(*SNORT*)

* FOLKS... WHAT ARE YOU PAYING AT THE PUMP? THAT'S ALL YOU NEED TO KNOW.

Historically, rising electricity prices have not been inevitable in the United States.

* NOT BEFORE THE AGE OF OBAMA, ANYWAY!

The BLS’s annual electricity price index — which goes back a century — shows that electricity prices generally declined in the United States between 1913 and the end of World War II. They then held relatively steady for about two decades before beginning to escalate in the late 1960s.; April 17, 2014 at 1:42 AM
William R. Barker said...: * TWO-PARTER... (Part 1 of 2)

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2014/04/16/Brain-Surgery-Patient-s-Obamacare-Plan-Denies-Meds-Drops-Doctors

A New York woman suffering from a neurological disease that has required four brain surgeries has been dropped by all of her doctors and denied medications due to her ObamaCare plan.

"I've been vomiting. I lost 22 pounds. The pain is unbearable," said Margaret Figueroa, 49, on Wednesday. "My medication helps me function during the day."

Figueroa suffers from a disease known as Arnold Chiari Malformation and Syringomyelia. Even though the ObamaCare plan she purchased assured her that she was covered, her insurance card was denied when she went to fill her prescriptions.

Then she learned that none of her doctors accept her ObamaCare plan.

Figueroa says she cannot find a doctor who accepts her ObamaCare plan; indeed, there are only six doctors in all of Staten Island who take her plan, none of whom she's been able to get appointments with.

Figueroa's congressman, Rep. Michael Grimm (R-NY), intervened to help her obtain some of her vital prescriptions. Grimm says he's already received calls from at least a dozen Staten Island residents facing the same problem with ObamaCare's "narrow networks" – extreme restrictions to doctor and hospital access imposed by ObamaCare.

"Even though the insurance company cashed your check, it doesn't mean it (the policy) has been implemented," said Grimm at a Wednesday press conference with Figueroa. "That's the problem – that the back end of ObamaCare hasn't been fully built. You can go on the front end of an application and look at a list of plans, but what they don't tell you is that many of those plans don't have doctors yet."

Figueroa is not alone. As Breitbart News reported in January, the Washington Post warned that "ObamaCare's narrow networks are going to make people furious – but they might control costs."

* WELL, SURE! I MEAN... IF YOU'RE NOT BEING TREATED... IF YOU CAN'T GET YOUR MEDICATIONS...

(*JUST SHAKING MY HEAD*)

* TO BE CONTINUED...; April 17, 2014 at 11:46 AM
William R. Barker said...: * CONCLUDING... (Part 2 of 2)

Breitbart News contributor Scot Vorse learned the hard way about ObamaCare's narrow networks when the nearest dentist who accepted the mandatory dental plan he was required to purchase for his children was over 100 miles away.

* FOLKS... I'VE THROWN THIS THOUGHT OUT BEFORE, BUT IT'S WORTH REPEATING: WHY DIDN'T THEY START WITH "MANDATORY DENTAL CARE" AND "OBAMADENTALCARE" TO SEE HOW THE CONCEPT WOULD WORK IN THE REAL WORLD? I'LL TELL YOU WHY: BECAUSE THE POINT OF OBAMACARE WASN'T MEDICAL - IT WAS POLITICAL... IT WAS IDEOLOGICAL.

* FOLKS... IF YOU HAVEN'T LOST YOUR PRIVATE (OR GOVERNMENT WORKER/RETIREE) PLAN YET "ALL" YOU'VE PROBABLY FACED ARE CONTINUING PREMIUM INCREASES FOR THE SAME SERVICES YOU UTILIZED BEFORE. BUT OUR FELLOW CITIZENS WHO HAVE LOST THEIR FORMER PLANS BECAUSE OBAMACARE REGULATIONS PUT THEM OUT OF BUSINESS... IF THEY'RE LUCKY THEY'VE GOTTEN OBAMACARE... BUT FROM YOU KNOW ABOUT OBAMACARE LET ME ASK YOU THIS - IF YOU'RE ACTUALLY SICK... IS OBAMACARE WORTH A DAMN?

ObamaCare's narrow networks have also shut out access to top cancer centers.

* FOLKS... WHAT IS WRONG WITH US AS A PEOPLE THAT WE'VE ALLOWED THIS WITHOUT BURNING WASHINGTON D.C. TO THE GROUND WITH THE DEMOCRATS LOCKED IN THE WHITE HOUSE AND THE CAPITAL BUILDING...?!?! (YES, YES... A RANT... NOT A THREAT... NOT A CALL TO VIOLENCE...)

The Associated Press says just 4 of 19 nationally recognized comprehensive cancer centers offer ObamaCare access through all insurance plans in their state ObamaCare exchanges, and a McKinsey and Co. study revealed 38% of all ObamaCare plans only allow patients to pick from just 30% of the largest 20 hospitals in their areas.

Experts say the narrow network horror stories will only grow as more and more ObamaCare customers attempt to use their ObamaCare insurance only to realize its harsh realities.

* FOLKS... IF NOT FOR YOUR PRESENT SELF AND LOVED ONE... BUT RATHER FOR YOUR FUTURE SELF AND LOVED ONES... STOP BEING SHEEP!; April 17, 2014 at 11:47 AM
William R. Barker said...: * TWO-PARTER... (Part 1 of 2)

http://takimag.com/article/the_vanishing_yokel_jim_goad/print#ixzz2zAMM5i2x

During the Bundy Ranch standoff, a County Commissioner from Utah named Darin Bushman wrote on Facebook that Clark County Commissioner Tom Collins referred to the Utahns who’d pledged they’d come to support Bundy as “inbred bastards” who’d “better have funeral plans” if they dared to show up.

It is these “inbred bastards” of rural America — those continually mocked hillbillies and rednecks and teabaggers and throwbacks and country bumpkins - that have consistently been the target of openly articulated cultural bigotry in the USA for generations now. The federal government, major media, academia, and most city slickers hardly seem to view rural white Americans as human.

This coincides with the fact that in real numbers, they are a dying breed.

In 1790, only 5% of Americans lived in urban areas. Now over 80% do. A century ago, roughly 70% of Americans lived in rural areas. That quotient is down to about 15% and falling. According to Census data, last year almost 60% of America’s rural counties suffered a net loss of residents.

In real numbers, America’s rural population has been dwindling for three years in a row.

This is the result of what’s known as “natural decrease,” with deaths outnumbering births. As rural America grows older and all remaining manufacturing jobs have been tidily offshored, young people either flee to urban areas for jobs or toil for $8 an hour at the local Walmart, where they stock, sell, and buy items made by Chinese workers in Chinese factories.

As Americans get more tightly packed into sprawling megalopolises, what coastal snobs dismiss as “flyover country” is rapidly devolving into one giant ghost town. What used to be known as Middle Americans are now called extremists. The heartland has become the hinterlands.

One of the biggest cultural divides in American culture has always been urban v. rural, city mouse v. country mouse. It appears that the city mouse has won.

* WE'RE IN DEEP, DEEP, DEEP, DEEP TROUBLE, FOLKS...

* TO BE CONTINUED...; April 17, 2014 at 1:52 PM
William R. Barker said...: * CONCLUDING... (Part 2 of 2)

It is no coincidence that the last generation or two — an era of escalating "sensitivity" toward minorities, women, and gays — has unfolded amid a cultural climate that cheerleads the open negative stereotyping of that strange exotic breed that is the rural white American. In a 2002 article called “The Prejudice Against Country People” — published in, of all places, The Progressive — writer Wendell Berry linked public contempt for country folks to their ongoing “economic genocide”: "Disparagements of farmers, of small towns, of anything identifiable as “provincial” can be found everywhere: in comic strips, TV shows, newspaper editorials, literary magazines, and so on.…I believe it is a fact, proven by their rapidly diminishing numbers and economic power, that the world’s small farmers and other “provincial” people have about the same status now as enemy civilians in wartime….The industrial and corporate powers, abetted and excused by their many dependents in government and the universities, are perpetrating a sort of economic genocide — less bloody than military genocide, to be sure, but just as arrogant, foolish, and ruthless, and perhaps more effective in ridding the world of a kind of human life."

It may seem paranoid to liken the rapid erosion and eventual erasure of rural white yeomen, the gradual dying-away of cabin-dwelling frontiersmen in favor of unisex urban service workers being crammed into cement boxes, to murderous historical campaigns such as Scotland’s Highland Clearances or Stalin‘s centrally managed urbanization schemes. It may seem even more paranoid to mention China’s current plan to move 250 million people into cities. And it probably seems paranoid to the point of psychosis to bring up UN Agenda 21‘s alleged plans for “smart growth” via urbanization.

What’s clear is that the government, media, and academia comprise a cabal of urban supremacists who neither trust nor esteem rural Americans unless they are Injuns or tortoises. Historically, the dominant culture demonizes any group they are preparing for slaughter. In this case, those inbred rural bastards will be treated like so many cattle who had the nerve to roam freely.; April 17, 2014 at 1:52 PM
William R. Barker said...: * TWO-PARTER... (Part 1 or 2)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/george-will-progressives-are-wrong-about-the-essence-of-the-constitution/2014/04/16/7c05aa00-c4ac-11e3-bcec-b71ee10e9bc3_story.html

* BY GEORGE WILL

In a 2006 interview, Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer said the Constitution is “basically about” one word — “democracy” — that appears in neither that document nor the Declaration of Independence.

* BREYER WAS - AND IS - WRONG. THE CONSTITUTION IS ABOUT FREEDOM... INDIVIDUAL FREEDOM.

Democracy is America’s way of allocating political power.

* NO IT'S NOT. (GERRYMANDERING...?!?! EVER HEAR OF IT?) (THE BUREAUCRATIC STATE... EVER HEAR OF IT?)

The Constitution, however, was adopted to confine that power in order to “secure the blessings of” that which simultaneously justifies and limits democratic government — natural liberty.

The fundamental division in U.S. politics is between those who take their bearings from the individual’s right to a capacious, indeed indefinite, realm of freedom, and those whose fundamental value is the right of the majority to have its way in making rules about which specified liberties shall be respected.

Progressives, who consider democracy the source of liberty, reverse the Founders’ premise, which was: Liberty preexists governments, which, the Declaration says, are legitimate when “instituted” to “secure” natural rights.

(*NOD*)

Progressives consider, for example, the rights to property and free speech as, in Sandefur’s formulation, “spaces of privacy” that government chooses “to carve out and protect” to the extent that these rights serve democracy.

Conservatives believe that liberty, understood as a general absence of interference, and individual rights, which cannot be exhaustively listed, are natural and that governmental restrictions on them must be as few as possible and rigorously justified. Merely invoking the right of a majority to have its way is an insufficient justification.

(*NOD*)

With the Declaration, Americans ceased claiming the rights of aggrieved Englishmen and began asserting rights that are universal because they are natural, meaning necessary for the flourishing of human nature. “In Europe,” wrote James Madison, “charters of liberty have been granted by power,” but America has “charters of power granted by liberty.”

* AT LEAST WE USED TO...

Sandefur, principal attorney at the Pacific Legal Foundation, notes that since the 1864 admission of Nevada to statehood, every state’s admission has been conditioned on adoption of a constitution consistent with the U.S. Constitution and the Declaration.

* UNFORTUNATELY STATE CONSTITUTIONS - LIKE OUR FEDERAL CONSTITUTION - ARE (OR AT LEAST I'M ASSUME MOST IF NOT ALL ARE) AMENDABLE. THUS... OVER TIME... UNLESS SPECIFICALLY OVERRULED BY (ULTIMATELY) THE U.S. SUPREME COURT... POST-STATEHOOD STATE CONSTITUTIONAL PROVISIONS CAN OVER TIME PUT STATE CONSTITUTIONS OUT OF SYNC WITH THE U.S. CONSTITUTION.

* TO BE CONTINUED...; April 17, 2014 at 2:20 PM
William R. Barker said...: * CONCLUDING... (Part 2 of 2)

The Constitution is the nation’s fundamental law but is not the first law. The Declaration is, appearing on Page 1 of Volume 1 of the U.S. Statutes at Large, and the Congress has placed it at the head of the United States Code, under the caption, “The Organic Laws of the United States of America.”

* YA KNOW... I DID NOT KNOW THIS! THIS IS GREAT NEWS! (THIS MEANS THAT LEGALLY SPEAKING THE DECLARATION IS PART OF THE CONSTITUTION! OR AT LEAST THAT'S HOW I READ IT!)

Hence the Declaration “sets the framework” for reading the Constitution not as “basically about” democratic government — majorities — granting rights, but about natural rights defining the limits of even democratic government.

(*THUMBS UP*)

The perennial conflict in American politics, Sandefur says, concerns “which takes precedence: the individual’s right to freedom, or the power of the majority to govern.” The purpose of the post-Civil War’s 14th Amendment protection of Americans’ “privileges or immunities” — protections vitiated by an absurdly narrow Supreme Court reading of that clause in 1873 — was to assert, on behalf of emancipated blacks, national rights of citizens. National citizenship grounded on natural rights would thwart Southern states then asserting their power to acknowledge only such rights as they chose to dispense.

* YEP... MAKES SENSE...

Government, the framers said, is instituted to improve upon the state of nature, in which the individual is at the mercy of the strong. But when democracy, meaning the process of majority rule, is the supreme value — when it is elevated to the status of what the Constitution is “basically about” — the individual is again at the mercy of the strong, the strength of mere numbers.

* BREYER IS UNFIT TO SIT ON THE SUPREME COURT. (BUT THIS ISN'T "NEWS," IS IT?)

Sandefur says progressivism “inverts America’s constitutional foundations” by holding that the Constitution is “about” democracy, which rejects the Framers’ premise that majority rule is legitimate “only within the boundaries” of the individual’s natural rights. These include — indeed, are mostly — unenumerated rights whose existence and importance are affirmed by the Ninth Amendment.

(*STANDING OVATION*)

Many conservatives should be discomfited by Sandefur’s analysis, which entails this conclusion: Their indiscriminate denunciations of “judicial activism” inadvertently serve progressivism.

* WHO ISSUES "INDISCRIMINATE" DENUNCIATIONS? NOT I! I CRITIQUE THE JUDICIAL ACTIVISM... AND JUDICIAL REFUSAL TO ACT ON OCCASION... SOLELY UPON THE GROUNDS AT HAND... WHETHER THE RULING WAS RIGHT OR WRONG.

(*SHRUG*)

The protection of rights, those constitutionally enumerated and others, requires a judiciary actively engaged in enforcing what the Constitution is “basically about,” which is making majority power respect individuals’ rights.

* BUT THAT'S NOT WHAT OUR JUDICIARY DOES... THUS... THE OBAMACARE RULING.

(*SHRUG*); April 17, 2014 at 2:20 PM
William R. Barker said...: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2014/04/16/224636/cias-former-top-lawyer-fires-back.html?sp=/99/100/&ihp=1

The CIA’s former top lawyer disputes Senate findings that the spy agency lied about its brutal interrogations of terrorists, insisting the tactics produced useful intelligence and flatly denying that the CIA misled the former Bush administration, Congress and the American public.

In his first extensive interview since McClatchy published the 20 key findings of the Senate Intelligence Committee report last week, Rizzo strongly denied the panel’s conclusion that the 10 so-called enhanced interrogation techniques, which he acknowledged were brutal, had failed to produce significant intelligence or to prevent more terrorist attacks.

“This program went on for six years,” Rizzo told McClatchy earlier this week. “And I watched daily _ every night there was a meeting in those early years at 5 o’clock. It was chaired by the CIA director, George Tenet. And every night, during the course of those briefings, the career CIA analysts and operatives would sit there and recite the information that had been acquired from these detainees. I mean on a daily basis. I’m not an analyst or an operative, but I’m not stupid, and I sat there and listened to this relentlessly.”

“I was convinced that these techniques were yielding detailed, valuable information into terrorist plots,” Rizzo said. “Now was there ever a ticking time-bomb scenario? I don’t remember a particular (case of): ‘Tomorrow, LAX (airport) is going to blow up,’ but it was incremental and it was steady. And I became convinced just by listening to these career people that the program was yielding very, very valuable benefits.”

Obama formally ended use of the tough interrogation methods within days of taking office in January 2009.

* FOLLOWED BY... THE FIRST FORT HOOD MASSECRE... AND THE BOSTON MARATHON BOMBING... (AND GOD KNOWS WHAT'S BEEN COVERED UP AS "GAS EXPLOSIONS" AND SUCH!)

Rizzo partially agreed with another key finding of the Senate probe: “The CIA subjected detainees to interrogation techniques that had not been approved by the Department of Justice or had not been authorized by CIA headquarters.” He acknowledged there were excesses that went beyond the 10 enhanced interrogation techniques he’d vetted within the CIA and then cleared with the Justice Department.

“There were incidents when CIA interrogators went beyond the authorized techniques. So I’m not denying that,” he said. “It didn’t occur frequently, but it did occur. But the point is, each time that was done and discovered, CIA reported it to the Department of Justice because anything that was beyond the authorized scope of the techniques was potentially a criminal violation. . . . So that conclusion (of the committee) is actually accurate, but if the idea is that we covered this up, nothing could be further from the truth.”; April 17, 2014 at 2:31 PM
William R. Barker said...: * TWO-PARTER... (Part 1 of 2)

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/375919/true-opponents-immigration-reform-victor-davis-hanson

Solving the illegal-immigration problem should not be hard. No one knows how many foreign nationals are residing illegally in the United States — estimates range from 11 million to 20 million. But everyone understands that it is an untenable situation that must be addressed.

The two extreme positions of the Left and Right probably have little public support — on the one hand, blanket amnesties and open borders, and on the other, deportation of all foreign nationals who reside here without legal authorization.

Polls show that most Americans want something in between.

Close the border. Allow entry only to those who have legal permission. Ensure that employers hire only those foreign nationals who have valid green cards. Permit those who have resided here for a while, who are without criminal records and are employed, to apply inside the U.S. for either a pathway to citizenship or legal residence.

* NO! NEVER CITIZENSHIP!

Require that those residing here unlawfully pay a fine for breaking the law and wait in line until immigrants who followed the law are first processed.

* "WAIT IN LINE" WHERE...?!?! HERE...?!?! WHAT SORT OF PUNISHMENT IS THAT FOR THE LAWBREAKERS? WHAT SORT OF JUSTICE IS THAT FOR THOSE WHO FOLLOWED THE LAW?!

Reform legal immigration to make it ethnically blind and predicated on skill sets and education rather than on proximity to our borders or on family connections to those residing here unlawfully.

* NO. I'M ALL FOR USING SKILL SETS AND EDUCATION AS A MEASURE, BUT I ALSO WANT CULTURALLY ALIGNED MEASURES USED! THOSE WHO SHARE OUR VALUES ARE THOSE WE WANT - THOSE WHO MAKE AMERICA BETTER AND STRONGER WITHIN THE TRADITIONAL AMERICAN IDEAL!

Most would agree with those sensible reforms, but I doubt that we will see any such grand bargain. ... The problem is that the establishments of both parties talk in high-minded fashion but in fact act selfishly. Unfortunately...Democratic-party activists, along with employers of undocumented workers, do not support such a grand bargain. Why not? Because Democrats and the members of the identity-politics industry believe that they have gained millions of new constituents.

* AND THEY HAVE! AND THESE NEW "CONSTITUENTS" OFTEN DO NOT SHARE OUR TRADITIONAL AMERICAN CULTURAL VALUES... AND OFTEN THEY'RE LEECHES ON "THE SYSTEM."

The more slowly huge surges of undocumented immigrants assimilate, the more they are likely to remain bloc constituents for particular causes and politics.

* AND THE FACT IS... HISPANICS... PARTICULARLY MEXICANS BECAUSE OF PROXIMITY... DO NOT ASSIMILATE EASILY.

Some employers have profited from employing some of the millions of inexpensive, unskilled workers without legal documentation.

* YEP! ABSOPOSITIVELYLUTELY!

* TO BE CONTINUED...; April 17, 2014 at 2:53 PM
William R. Barker said...: * CONCLUDING... (Part 2 of 2)

The desperation of millions of undocumented workers drives down costs for manual labor, both legal and not.

(*NOD*)

Mexico is also heavily invested in the present system of unmonitored immigration that has ensured it billions of dollars annually in remittances. Millions of impoverished Mexican citizens heading northward serve as a safety valve for political disenchantment over Mexico City’s reactionary policies. The Mexican expatriate population in America also seems far more supportive of Mexico when it resides far from it. Mexico would object vehemently if U.S. immigration enforcement were to mirror Mexico’s own tough immigration laws, which demand strict border enforcement and prohibit unlawful residence or employment within Mexico.

Already we can see immigration compromises evaporating. While many conservatives are now willing to allow working foreign nationals to remain in the country while seeking legal citizenship, many liberals are against finishing the promised border fence. They do not wish to deport those who have committed a felony or a serious offense such as driving under the influence. Indeed, some liberal politicians are already horse-trading to allow two or more such crimes before deportation.

* THAT'S ABSOLUTELY TRUE! UNBELIEVABLE...? BELIEVE IT!

They also want to grant amnesties to those who are not working and are on public assistance — despite the common assurance that all foreign nationals supposedly came to the U.S. only to work.

(*SNORT*)

So far, La Raza activists and Democratic operatives do not seem eager to divorce immigration policy from ethnic considerations and preferences. They do not support the idea that all potential legal immigrants be judged equally on criteria such as job skills or education that ensure those living abroad a fair shot at immigrating and more likely a smoother transition to profitable U.S. citizenship. Instead, “comprehensive immigration reform” is shaping up as little more than another divisive campaign opportunity in 2014 to call opponents all sorts of names rather than to seek real compromise.

Too many special interests have profited from the present mess, which is illiberal and reactionary to the core — involving a perfect storm of inexpensive labor, ethnic-identity chauvinism, political cynicism, selective enforcement of the law, and de facto discrimination against immigrants who play by the rules.

The obstacles to reform are not bogeymen who want to deport everyone, but the disingenuous who prefer to deport no one. The culprits are not mustachioed villains who want to close the border, but the more sophisticated who want it to stay wide open.

And the real reactionaries... they are not those seeking to make ethnicity incidental to legal immigration, but those who want to ensure that it remains absolutely essential.; April 17, 2014 at 2:53 PM
William R. Barker said...: http://www.cnbc.com/id/101592670

A hotel executive and Democratic fundraiser has pleaded guilty in New York to witness tampering and conspiracy to evade campaign finance laws.

* WITNESS TAMPERING, HUH... WHY AM I NOT SURPRISED.

Hampshire Hotels chairman Sant Singh Chatwal appeared Thursday in federal court in Brooklyn. The candidates were not identified.

* AND... WHY... NOT...???

Chatwal, whose firm runs hotels around the world, had raised at least $100,000 for Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton's 2008 presidential campaign against Barack Obama.

* AND, YET... "THE CANDIDATES WERE NOT IDENTIFIED." UH-HUH...

"Mr Chatwal deeply regrets his actions and accepts full responsibility for the consequences. He looks forward to resolving this personal matter," a spokesperson for Chatwal told CNBC on Thursday.

* EXECUTE HIM.

According to the Justice Department, Chatwal made more than $180,000 in donations to three candidates via straw donors, who were then reimbursed. "There is no allegation that the candidates participated in, or were aware of, Chatwal's scheme," the DOJ said.

* ERIC HOLDER'S DOJ...

(*LAUGHING*)

In November 2009, Chatwal was among the celebrities, major Democratic fundraisers and businessmen invited to Obama's first state dinner.

* HE WOULD BE...

He also was a guest at then-President Bill Clinton's state dinner for India in 2000 and helped arrange an earthquake-relief visit by the former president to India in 2001.

* IS CHATWAL ALSO A REGISTERED FOREIGN LOBBYIST...? (JUST CURIOUS...)

Earlier this month Chatwal stepped down as CEO of Hampshire. The company owns and manages hotels in New York, Miami, the United Kingdom, Thailand and India.

* LET'S HOPE HE GETS JAIL TIME... BUT I'M NOT HOLDING MY BREATH.; April 17, 2014 at 5:05 PM
William R. Barker said...: * TWO-PARTER... (Part 1 of 2)

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/375938/voxs-deportation-myths-jessica-m-vaughan

On March 11, Homeland Security secretary Jeh Johnson acknowledged to the House Appropriations Committee that claims of “record” deportations by the Obama administration that surpass the performance of earlier administrations were, to use the president’s words, “a little deceptive.”

(*SNORT*)

Under questioning from Representative John Culberson (R-TX), Johnson admitted that most of the deportations credited to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the agency responsible for interior enforcement, were actually cases involving aliens caught in the act of entering illegally, which in prior administrations would have been credited to the Border Patrol.

(*JUST SHAKING MY HEAD*)

* CREDITED AS STOPPING AN ILLEGAL FROM GETTING SUCCESSFULLY VIOLATING OUR LAWS IN THE FIRST PLACE - NOT CREDITED AS A "DEPORTATION" IN THE SENSE OBAMA DELIBERATELY AND DECEPTIVELY TRIED TO TAKE CREDIT FOR. FOLKS... THE MAN IS SCUM. PERIOD.

This was not news to NRO readers, because Andrew Stiles reported it a year ago. But Johnson’s admission came just as pro-amnesty activist groups, resigned to the reality that House Republicans were unlikely to pass the Senate’s immigration extravaganza, had ramped up a public campaign of vigils, hunger strikes, and sit-ins to showcase what they claimed was an unprecedented level of immigration enforcement that is splintering families.

* MY GOD... WOULDN'T IT BE WONDERFUL IF THESE MORONS EMBARKED ON REAL HUNGER STRIKES... ACTUALLY WENT THROUGH WITH A REAL HUNGER STRIKE TILL NATURE TOOK IT'S COURSE!?

Enter Vox, the new liberal information site. Vox hired immigration activist Dara Lind, formerly of America’s Voice, one of the shrillest pro-amnesty groups around, to do the explaining and hold the message together. Lind’s explanations appear in two long articles on Vox.

Like much of the other content on the site, they are full of deceptions and distortions.

When official or common definitions don’t suit Lind, she makes up new ones. For example, she explains away the fact that the majority of deportations under Obama have been border arrests by suggesting that “border arrests” really means arrests of anyone living within 100 miles of the border. This is utterly false, as Patrick Brennan pointed out in his able critique of Vox.

Lind repeats the recurring, but dubious, claim that most of those deported as recidivists are simply trying to reunite with family members in the United States. However, the survey she cites to back up her statement actually undercuts that assumption. This survey reported that only 24% of the apprehended illegal border crossers who were interviewed (and who were mostly recidivists) said they were trying to rejoin family, and only 16% had been recently living in the United States. This is critical information, because the Department of Homeland Security is reportedly considering deprioritizing the deportation of repeat offenders, precisely on the grounds that they are simply rejoining family.

(*SNORT*) (*ROLLING MY EYES*)

* TO BE CONTINUED...; April 17, 2014 at 5:20 PM
William R. Barker said...: * CONCLUDING... (Part 2 of 2)

Apparently it ain’t so, at least not for recent border crossers, who account for the majority of all deportations.

About that word “deportation” — Lind declares: “‘Deportation’ is no longer an official legal term.”

This too is simply false.

“Deportation” is defined in 8 U.S. Code 1101 and appears in other parts of the U.S. Code and immigration law that are still in force (if not enforced). The case-tracking systems of both ICE and the Border Patrol refer to at least eight versions of “deportation” as a form of case disposition, and they identified more than 100,000 “deportations” in their caseload last year, confirming that the term is alive and well in immigration enforcement.

Lind dives in over her head with an analysis of different forms of deportation. She concludes, based on bogus assumptions and thoroughly fictitious definitions that are too numerous to address here, that the only appropriate metric to assess enforcement is “removals,” which are one form of deportation. The Obama administration did in fact achieve a record number of removals in 2012. However, as Secretary Johnson stated, and as I demonstrated here, that record was achieved by counting border cases, which were never counted by previous administrations. Moreover, removals represent only one-third of all immigration-enforcement actions and thus do not tell the whole story of enforcement.

Ultimately, Lind is forced into a tortured and circular analysis that enables her to rationalize the Deporter-in-Chief moniker. Similar analyses have appeared in the New York Times, Huffington Post, Mother Jones, and other liberal opinion-leading outlets.

* "HE WHOSE NAME DARE NOT BE MENTIONED" HAS THUS BEEN WARNED IN ADVANCE...

(*RUEFUL GRIN*)

No matter how you choose to measure it, there can be no denying that immigration enforcement in American communities has deteriorated significantly.

Under Obama-administration policies, interior arrests have dropped 40% since 2011, when aggressive enforcement-suppression policies, euphemistically called “prosecutorial discretion,” were imposed. ICE is now releasing more illegal aliens than it is arresting.

In 2013, ICE agents reported encountering more than 700,000 illegal aliens, but they took action against less than 200,000 of them, letting the rest get off without charges. (Among the many illegal aliens ICE agents were told to ignore were 68,000 with criminal records.)

* FOLKS... THIS IS INSANITY...

The administration’s failure to...enforce the law is burdening American communities with crime and social-welfare costs, and enabling employers to bypass U.S. workers.

Whether illegal immigrants are technically removed, returned, expelled, excluded, or deported is of little interest to Americans, as long as their numbers are greatly reduced, and that isn’t happening any more. Someone should explain that to Vox and its media colleagues.; April 17, 2014 at 5:21 PM

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Thursday, April 17, 2014

Barker's Newsbites: Thursday, April 17, 2014

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