Tuesday, July 15, 2014

Barker's Newsbites: Tuesday, July 15, 2014


It sucks not being at Ted's & Mary's...


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11 comments:

William R. Barker said...

http://www.zdnet.com/gchqs-dark-arts-leaked-leaked-documents-reveal-online-manipulation-facebook-and-youtube-snooping-7000031598/

Summary: A fresh set of documents leaked by Edward Snowden show how the UK intelligence agency can manipulate online polls and debates, spread messages, snoop on YouTube and track Facebook users.

* AND WE'RE THE GOOD GUYS, FOLKS! US AND THE BRITS!

Some of the most interesting capabilities of the tools on the list include the ability to seed the web with false information — such as tweaking the results of online polls — inflating pageview counts, censoring video content deemed "extremist" and the use of psychological manipulation on targets — something similar to a research project conducted with Facebook's approval, which resulted in heavy criticism and outrage levied at the social media site.

The UK spy agency's dark arts were revealed in documents first published by The Intercept, and each piece of software is described in a wiki document written up by GCHQ's Joint Threat Research Intelligence Group (JTRIG).

* IF THIS IS WHAT THE BRITS HAVE... CAN YOU IMAGE WHAT WE HAVE?!

The list, dated from 2012, says that most of the tools are "fully operational, tested and reliable,” and adds: "Don't treat this like a catalogue. If you don't see it here, it doesn't mean we can't build it."

(*JUST SHAKING MY HEAD*)

July 15, 2014 at 3:28 PM
William R. Barker said...

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

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2014/07/14/EXCLUSIVE-Sessions-Warns-All-Of-Congress-Obama-s-New-Immigration-Strategy-Threatens-Foundation-Of-Our-Constitutional-Republic

“I write to inform you of a development that threatens the foundation of our constitutional Republic,” Senate Budget Committee ranking member Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL), Congress’s top immigration hawk, wrote in a letter that was hand-delivered to all 535 members of Congress on Monday and provided exclusively to Breitbart News.

Sessions has warned all of his colleagues in Congress that President Barack Obama’s new immigration strategy — his plans to legalize millions of illegal alien adults through executive power — could destroy America as we know it.

The Senator, whose [staff] hand-delivered the letter to every member of Congress Monday, wrote that this development from the Obama administration is “breathtaking.”

The letter continued:

"The action the President is reportedly contemplating would be a nullification of the Immigration and National Act by the Executive Branch of government. Indeed, it would be an executive nullification of our borders as an enforceable national boundary. By declaring whole classes of illegal immigrants beyond the reach of the law, it would remove the moral authority needed to enforce any immigration law, creating the very open-borders policy explicitly rejected by Congress and the people. And it would guarantee that the current illegal immigration disaster would only further worsen and destabilize."

* TRUE! ALL TRUE!

Sessions’ letter to colleagues comes as some in both Republican and Democratic circles consider various plans they say would fix the problem of the border crisis. Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), John McCain (R-AZ), and Chuck Schumer (D-NY) are reportedly working together...

* IF ONLY THE THREE OF THEM WOULD SPEND THEIR TIME PLAYING RUSSIAN ROULETTE INSTEAD!

House GOP leadership is mulling a plan that would appropriate billions of dollars to the administration...

* YEP... YOU READ THAT RIGHT...

President Obama has asked Congress for $3.7 billion in new funding for use in dealing with the illegal aliens here.

House Judiciary Committee chairman Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-VA) suggested in an op-ed at Breitbart News the president doesn’t need any more money.

* I'M WITH GOODLATTE!

* TO BE CONTINUED...

July 15, 2014 at 4:20 PM
William R. Barker said...

* CONCLUDING... (Part 2 of 2)

But Sessions argues that all of this bickering in Washington is a facade that doesn’t address the real problem. To really fix the issue, he argues, politicians need to be willing to enforce immigration laws in America and stop dealing with special interests who want the border to remain unsecured and seek continually high levels of immigration, legal or illegal, given how it benefits them in the form of cheap labor.

* YEP! IT'S ALL ABOUT EXPLOITING CHEAP LABOR...

“As you know, over the last five and a half years, the President has routinely bypassed Congress in order to suspend enforcement of our immigration laws,” Sessions wrote.

(*NOD*)

“The most dramatic of these lawless directives was the President’s 2012 Deferred Action Program for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), in which the president implemented by executive fiat legislation that Congress has three times rejected.”

* YEP...

Sessions wrote that the president’s DACA program “has led to catastrophic results,” because it was “declaring to the entire world that America will not enforce its immigration laws against those who enter the country as minors” and that the U.S. will “freely grant them access to work permits and taxpayer resources.”

Sessions wrote that Obama’s DACA policy and other policies “unleashed a flood of new illegal immigration into the country” and that this is “the disaster that he created.” As such, Sessions argues that politicians should not just pass new legislation or throw money at the problem; they should work to reverse the president’s executive overreaches.

* WHERE IS BOEHNER...? WHERE IS MCCONNELL...? WHERE IS GEORGE W. BUSH...? HOW'BOUT CARTER? CLINTON? MY GOD... ALL THESE BASTARDS TAKE OATHS TO DEFEND THE CONSTITUTION AND YET SIT BACK IN SILENCE AS OBAMA SHREADS IT!

Sessions told his colleagues that “there is a clear path forward” from this problem in order to “prevent the continued dissolution of America’s borders.” “Certainly, DACA and the President’s other numerous unlawful policies must be terminated,” Sessions wrote. “But as a first step, Congress must not acquiesce to spending more taxpayer dollars until the President unequivocally rescinds his threat of more illegal executive action.”

* YES!

Sessions echoed a call from Goodlatte that Congress should pressure Obama to use “his lawful powers to begin enforcing the law now” rather than “passing legislation on the promise of future enforcement” like the Gang of Eight bill did or like some forthcoming spending packages are likely to.

“If Congress simply passes a supplemental spending bill without these preconditions, it is not a question of if the President will suspend more immigration laws, but only how many he will suspend,” Sessions wrote. “Congress cannot surrender to this lawlessness. Acting in defense of Congress, our constituents, and their communities, we must stand firm. This transcends politics. It is about our duty as constitutional officeholders. It is about the solemn oath we all took as Members of Congress.”

* FEW CARE. THAT'S THE GOD'S HONEST TRUTH, FRIENDS. YOU KNOW IT. I KNOW IT.

July 15, 2014 at 4:20 PM
William R. Barker said...

http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/212328-reid-southern-border-is-secure

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) on Tuesday asserted the Southern border is secure despite the massive surge of illegal minors from Central America that has overwhelmed federal agencies.

“The border is secure,” he told reporters after the Senate Democrats’ weekly policy lunch. “[Sen.] Martin Heinrich [D-N.M.] talked to the caucus today. He’s a border state senator. He said he can say without any equivocation the border is secure.”

* FOLKS... AGAIN... DEMOCRATICALLY ELECTED OR NOT, A CONSTITUTIONAL REPUBLIC SIMPLY CANNOT EXIST UNDER LEADERS WHO OUTRIGHT LIE RIGHT TO OUR FACES! I MEAN... HE DOESN'T EVEN CARE HOW INSANE HE SOUNDS! HE HAS THE POWER AND THAT'S ALL THERE IS TO IT AS FAR AS HE'S CONCERNED. THIS IS NOT HOW AMERICA WAS BUILT TO OPERATE!

July 15, 2014 at 4:36 PM
William R. Barker said...

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/6ae06806-0bbe-11e4-8693-00144feabdc0.html#axzz37ZmcKYsb

The World Trade Organization has struck a blow to U.S. efforts to challenge the role in global commerce of state-owned companies in emerging economies after ruling against Washington in a dispute over the punitive tariffs it imposed on steel and other imports from China and India.

* FOLKS...

(*JUST SHAKING MY HEAD*)

The U.S. has tried for years to build a case against Chinese state-owned enterprises, saying these SOEs benefit from both overt and hidden subsidies that unfairly lower their costs of production. It has argued that those amount to government subsidies to China’s exports, which are banned by the WTO.

* FOLKS... "FREE TRADE" IS A BUST. WHY? BECAUSE AS THIS ARTICLE DEMONSTRATES... THERE IS NO REAL "FREE TRADE." WE SHOULD GO BACK TO A TARIFF FINANCED FEDERAL GOVERNMENT AND REINDUSTRIALIZE AMERICA... PUT AMERICANS BACK TO WORK!

July 15, 2014 at 5:51 PM
William R. Barker said...

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

http://www.forbes.com/sites/thomasdelbeccaro/2014/07/10/californias-low-on-water-time-to-fine-the-water-resources-board-not-its-citizens/

California is in the midst of one of its many droughts.

To combat the current drought, the otherwise do-nothings of the California Water Resources Board are proposing to fine citizens they call “water hogs” $500 per day.

Instead of fining helpless consumers, California’s government should do its job for once and seriously increase water supplies.

* HA! FAT CHANCE!

It is well known that California is the most populated state in the Union, with more than 38 million people.

* MORE IMPORTANT... WE KNOW WHAT SORT OF PEOPLE...

* MOSTLY A RED STATE. PORTIONS UBER-RED!

Its population was just under 20 million in 1970, when the bulk of its current water storage and delivery systems were already built. California governments have done very little to significantly increase water supplies in over 40 years, even though its population has doubled during that period of time.

California’s current drought was at its worst in 2013, and continues to this day. It is apparently less well known to the public, the media, and government that California has been subject to considerable droughts over the centuries, lasting up to 20 years in a row.

* THE PEOPLE WILL KNOW WHAT THEY'RE TOLD! PERIOD! CONTINUOUS DROUGHT DOESN'T MATCH WITH RECENT "GLOBAL WARMING," SO THEREFORE... (SHUT UP!)

* TO BE CONTINUED...

July 15, 2014 at 6:17 PM
William R. Barker said...

* CONCLUDING... (Part 2 of 2)

In fact, contrary to the notion that California is suffering more droughts than usual, according to Scott Stine, a professor of geography and environmental studies at Cal State East Bay, as reported in the San Jose Mercury News, “the past century has been among the wettest of the last 7,000 years.”

Rather than face the reality that California is subject to drought, what has California government been doing?

Not much beyond talking.

As we all know, the President and others are selling the canard that the current drought is the result of global warming or climate change. (The fact that we had decades-long droughts years before industrialization doesn’t matter to them as they bloviate over a drought of several years.)

Simply stated, California government has other priorities – priorities which to them are far more important that ensuring that 38 million people have water. They include:

A High Speed Rail project, mired in lawsuits and of uncertain costs – at least $68 billion but perhaps double that amount, and; a 2004 $3 billion stem cell bond program ($6 billion with interest) that has produced no approved therapies but has, according to the AP, resulted in “the opening of sleek buildings and gleaming labs at a dozen private and public universities built with matching funds” without any cures in the pipeline.

California legislators spend millions more on non-essential items like $2.7 million for a new swimming pool in Calexico near the Mexican border – during a drought.

(*JUST SHAKING MY HEAD*)

California is also spending an additional $46.6 million to build up to 54 hydrogen fuel stations to serve a state of 158,648 square miles.

(That is one station for every 2,938 square miles. Hope you don’t get stranded.)

Rather than waste money on such projects (which can’t possibly be more important than water) California should look to places like Singapore to learn what a responsible government should be doing. Singapore has but 247 square miles. It is a population of nearly 4.5 million people. Obviously, it has very little land for such things as reservoirs. Instead, Singapore relies on 15 reservoirs, desalinated water, water reclamation, and imported water to meet their water needs.

Singapore obviously made water production a priority for its tiny landmass that is 0.155% of California’s landmass, yet has 8.4% of California’s population. That is what responsible governments do, and one reason why Singapore has the third highest per-capita GDPs in the world - despite its size and lack of natural resources.

* AND, NOW... BACK TO REALITY... THE CONTINUING DECLINE AND FALL OF A ONCE GREAT NATION...

July 15, 2014 at 6:17 PM
William R. Barker said...

http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/obamacare-misses-its-target-uninsured-half_796636.html

In March 2010, ObamaCare was about to be voted upon by the House of Representatives, and the Democrats were in the process of deciding whether to ignore public opinion at their peril.

* WHICH THEY ENDED UP DOING...

At that time, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projected that ObamaCare would cost $938 billion over a decade and would reduce the number of uninsured people by 19 million as of 2014 (with a reduction of 1 million prior to 2014 and 18 million in 2014 alone).

Two years later, the Supreme Court declared ObamaCare’s coercive Medicaid expansion to be unconstitutional as written, and the CBO adjusted its projection for the number of uninsured accordingly. It projected that ObamaCare would reduce the number of uninsured by 14 million as of 2014 (2 million before 2014 and 12 million in 2014 alone), at a 10-year cost of $1.677 trillion — or $739 billion more than the 2010 projection.

(This February, the CBO projected that ObamaCare’s 10-year cost would eclipse $2 trillion.)

In February of this year, the CBO projected that ObamaCare would reduce the number of uninsured by 13 million as of 2014.

In April, the CBO had seen enough of the Obama administration’s skillful rollout of ObamaCare to reduce that estimate to 12 million.

* SEEING A PATTERN HERE, FOLKS...?

Now the Urban Institute finds that ObamaCare has actually reduced the number of uninsured adults by 8 million since the rollout began last fall. (Gallup shows a similar number.) That’s far short of the number of newly insured that the CBO projected in April of this year, in February of this year, or in 2012 — and it’s less than half the tally the American people were told ObamaCare would hit when they opposed it in 2010.

* WHAT'S THAT...???

And it’s less than half the tally the American people were told ObamaCare would hit when they opposed it in 2010.

* AHH...

Yet Paul Krugman says that “health reform is — gasp! — working.”

* AND HARRY REID SAYS OUR SOUTHERN BORDER IS SECURE!

Only in Washington could something that fails to hit even half of its original target be considered a gasp-inducing success.

It’s time for a well-conceived conservative alternative that will fix what the government had broken even before ObamaCare was passed, shift things in a conservative direction from the pre-ObamaCare status quo, and lead to the full repeal of perhaps the worst legislation in American history.

* IT'S CALLED CAPITALISM... AND I'M AFRAID YOU'RE OUT OF LUCK - IT AIN'T COMIN' BACK...

July 15, 2014 at 6:29 PM
William R. Barker said...

* RECEIVED AS AN EMAIL FROM HERITAGE...

Congress Uses Gimmicks to Hide Excessive Spending

Bailouts for banks, car companies, and now reckless government accounts spending too much on highways, mass transit projects and roadside flowers. Hasn't DC learned? Apparently not.

Today, the House relapsed into big-government business as usual by passing a bailout of the federal Highway Trust Fund.

The funding shortfall would have simply slowed down federal payments to states. Members of Congress have long known they were spending much more on transportation than the trust fund had in reserve. But they carried on and diverted billions to mass transit, bike paths, and beautification schemes, confident they could rely on another bailout when it became necessary. So here we are again: bailing out a broken system while enacting no reforms.

Conservatives are eager to work with members of Congress to achieve real reforms, but the status quo isn’t working and shouldn’t be preserved with continuous bailouts.

Michael A. Needham
Chief Executive Officer
Heritage Action for America

July 15, 2014 at 7:08 PM
William R. Barker said...

http://www.wnd.com/2014/07/america-no-longer-1-nation-1-people/

* PAT BUCHANAN GETS IT RIGHT... AGAIN!

Speaking to the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce in Albuquerque in 2001, George W. Bush declared that, as Mexico was a friend and neighbor, “It’s so important for us to tear down our barriers and walls that might separate Mexico from the United States.”

* GEEZUS...

(*JUST SHAKING MY HEAD*)

Bush succeeded. And during his tenure, millions from Mexico exploited his magnanimity to violate our laws, trample upon our sovereignty, walk into our country and remain here.

(*NOD*)

In 2007, supported by John McCain, Hillary Clinton, Teddy Kennedy and Barack Obama, Bush backed amnesty for the 12 million people who had entered America illegally. The nation thundered no. And [in the end]... Congress sustained the nation.

The latest mass border crossing by scores of thousands of tots, teenagers and toughs from Central America has killed amnesty in 2014, and probably for the duration of the Obama presidency. Indeed, with the massive media coverage of the crisis on the border, immigration, legal and illegal, and what it portends for our future, could become the decisive issue of 2014 and 2016.

But it needs to be put in a larger context. For this issue is about more than whether the Chamber of Commerce gets amnesty for its members who have been exploiting cheap illegal labor. The real issue: "Will America remain one nation, or are we are on the road to Balkanization and the breakup of America into ethnic enclaves?"

(For, as Ronald Reagan said, a nation that cannot control its borders isn’t really a nation anymore.)

In Federalist No. 2, John Jay wrote, “Providence has been pleased to give this one connected country to one united people – a people descended from the same ancestors, speaking the same language, professing the same religion, attached to the same principles of government, very similar in their manners and customs. … ”

He called Americans a “band of brethren, united to each other by the strongest ties.”

The Republic of the Founders for whom Jay spoke did not give a fig for diversity. They cherished our unity, commonality and sameness of ancestry, culture, faith and traditions.

* TRUE!

* FOLKS... YOU NEED TO UNDERSTAND...

We were not a nation of immigrants in 1789.

* ONE MORE TIME...

We were not a nation of immigrants in 1789.

They came later.

* TO BE CONTINUED...

July 15, 2014 at 11:11 PM
William R. Barker said...

* CONCLUDING...

From 1845-1849, the Irish fleeing the famine.

* NEXT... THE CHINESE...

From 1890-1920, the Germans. Then the Italians, Poles, Jews and other Eastern Europeans. Then, immigration was suspended in 1924.

* YES! SUSPENDED! GIVING THE NATION A BREATHING SPELL! ALLOWING US TO ABSORB AND AMERICANIZE THOSE WE HAD WELCOMED TO BECOME AMERICANS!

From 1925 to 1965, the children and grandchildren of those immigrants were assimilated, Americanized. In strong public schools, they were taught our language, literature and history, and celebrated our holidays and heroes. We endured together through the Depression and sacrificed together in World War II and the Cold War. By 1960, we had become truly one nation and one people.

* ONE... MORE... TIME...

By 1960, we had become truly one nation and one people.

America was not perfect. No country is. But no country ever rivaled what America had become. She was proud, united, free, the first nation on earth. And though the civil rights movement had just begun, nowhere did black peoples enjoy the freedom and prosperity of African-Americans.

Attorney General Eric Holder said Sunday that America is today in “a fundamentally better place than we were 50 years ago.” In some ways that is so. Equality of rights has been realized. Miraculous cures in medicine have kept alive many of us who would not have survived the same maladies half a century ago.

But we are no longer that “band of brethren.”

We are no longer one unique people “descended from the same ancestors, speaking the same language, professing the same religion.”

We are from every continent and country. Nearly 4 in 10 Americans trace their ancestry to Asia, Africa and Latin America. We are a multiracial, multilingual, multicultural society in a world where countless countries are being torn apart over race, religion and roots.

We no longer speak the same language, worship the same God, honor the same heroes or share the same holidays.

Christmas and Easter have been privatized.

Columbus is reviled.

Stonewall Jackson and Robert E. Lee are out of the pantheon - Cesar Chavez is in.

Our politics have become poisonous. Our political parties are at each other’s throats. Christianity is in decline. Traditional churches are sundering over moral issues like abortion and same-sex marriage. Islam is surging.

Our society seems to be disintegrating.

Over 40% of all births now are illegitimate. Among Hispanics, the figure is 52%. Among African-Americans, 73%.

(And among children born to single moms, the drug use rate and the dropout rate, the crime rate and the incarceration rate, are many times higher than among children born to married parents.)

If a country is a land of defined and defended borders, within which resides a people of a common ancestry, history, language, faith, culture and traditions, in what sense are we Americans one nation and one people today?

Neo-cons say we are a new kind of nation, an ideological nation erected upon a written Constitution and Bill of Rights.

* OBVIOUSLY THEY'RE WRONG! INDEED, AMERIKA 2014 HAS BEEN MADE POSSIBLE ONLY BY THE FALL OF THE CONSTITUTION AND THE BILL OF RIGHTS!

But equality, democracy and diversity are not mentioned in the Constitution. As for what our founding documents mean, even the Supreme Court does not agree.

More and more, 21st-century America seems to meet rather well Metternich’s depiction of Italy – “a geographic expression.”

July 15, 2014 at 11:11 PM

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