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2015
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February
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- He Lived Long... and Prospered
- Barker's Newsbites: Friday, February 27, 2015
- Barker's Newsbites: Thursday, February 26, 2015
- The Clock is Ticking on the Future of the Internet
- Barker's Newsbites: Wednesday, February 25, 2015
- Is Your Beloved Blog Host Right... or Wrong... Con...
- Barker's Newsbites: Monday, February 23, 2015
- Weekend Newsbites: Sat. & Sun., Feb. 21 & 22, 2015
- For Mrs. Clinton, Does Charity Begin at Home?
- Peggy Noonan (and yours truly) on The Atlantic's E...
- Barker's Newsbites: Friday, February 20, 2015
- Barker's Newsbites: Thursday, February 19, 2015
- Even if ONLY Michelle Reads This... I'm Posting It!
- Barker's Newsbites: Monday, February 16, 2015
- Weekend Newsbites: Sat. & Sun., Feb. 14 & 15, 2015
- How'bout "Mothers Against Obama"? (Drunk Illegals ...
- Barker's Newsbites: Friday, February 13, 2015
- Barker's Newsbites: Thursday, February 12, 2015
- Barker's Newsbites: Tuesday, February 10, 2015
- The Difference Between a Scumbag Like Ron Fournier...
- Barker's Newsbites: Monday, February 9, 2015
- Weekend Newsbites: Sat. & Sun., Feb. 7 & 8, 2015
- Barker's Newsbites: Friday, February 6, 2015
- 26 Ways the Media Botched Their Reporting on the L...
- Barker's Newsbites: Thursday, February 5, 2015
- Barker's Newsbites: Monday, February 2, 2015
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February
(26)
About Me
- William R. Barker
- Pearl River, NY High School Class of '81; Northeastern University, Boston, MA Class of '87.
8 comments:
http://www.politico.com/story/2015/02/loretta-lynch-attorney-general-committee-vote-115539.html
Loretta Lynch cleared a key vote in the Senate Judiciary Committee Thursday in her bid to become the nation’s next attorney general, picking up support from three Republicans on the panel in favor of her confirmation.
* SEE, FOLKS...
(*SHRUG*)
* "...THREE REPUBLICANS..."
Orrin Hatch of Utah, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Jeff Flake of Arizona.
* NOTHING MORE YOU NEED TO KNOW.
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/article/2560750
It’s starting.
* NO... IT'S BEEN GOING ON FOR MORE THAN SIX YEARS...
President Obama is using executive actions to impose gun control on the nation...
* THE ONLY PROBLEM BEING... THE CONSTITUTION DOESN'T GIVE PRESIDENT OBAMA ANY SUCH POWER...
...targeting the top-selling rifle in the country, the AR-15 style semi-automatic, with a ban on one of the most-used AR bullets by sportsmen and target shooters.
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives this month revealed that it is proposing to put the ban on 5.56mm ammo on a fast track, immediately driving up the price of the bullets and prompting retailers, including the huge outdoors company Cabela’s, to urge sportsmen to urge Congress to stop the president.
* AGAIN... YOU HAVE THE LINK... BUT THIS SNIPPET TELLS YOU ALL YOU REALLY NEED TO KNOW.
* TWO-PARTER... (Part 1 of 2)
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/treasury-wont-explain-decision-to-make-3-billion-in-obamacare-payments/article/2560739
The U.S. Treasury Department has rebuffed a request by House Ways and Means Chairman Rep. Paul Ryan, R- Wis., to explain $3 billion in payments that were made to health insurers even though Congress never authorized the spending through annual appropriations.
* AGAIN... CHAIRMAN RYAN SHOULD ORDER THE TREASURY SECRETARY BROUGHT BEFORE THE COMMITTEE IN HANDCUFFS IF NECESSARY...
At issue are payments to insurers known as cost-sharing subsidies. These payments come about because President Obama’s healthcare law forces insurers to limit out-of-pocket costs for certain low income individuals by capping consumer expenses, such as deductibles and co-payments, in insurance policies. In exchange for capping these charges, insurers are supposed to receive compensation.
What’s tricky is that Congress never authorized any money to make such payments to insurers in its annual appropriations, but the Department of Health and Human Services, with the cooperation of the U.S. Treasury, made them anyway.
(Health and Human Services spending on these cost-sharing payments is one of the issues named in House Speaker John Boehner’s lawsuit against the Obama administration's executive actions on ObamaCare.)
In a Feb. 3 letter to Treasury Secretary Jack Lew, Ryan, along with House Energy and Commerce Committee Chair Rep. Fred Upton, R-Mich., asked for “a full explanation for, and all documents relating to” the administration’s decision to make the cost-sharing payments without congressional authorization.
In response, on Wednesday, the Treasury Department sent a letter to Ryan largely describing the program, without offering a detailed explanation of the decision to make the payments. The letter revealed that $2.997 billion in such payments had been made in 2014, but didn't elaborate on where the money came from. Over the next decade, cost-sharing payments to insurers are projected by the Congressional Budget Office to cost taxpayers nearly $150 billion.
Instead of detailing the basis for making the payments without appropriations, Treasury officials cited the ongoing House GOP litigation, and referred Ryan to the Department of Justice.
* TO BE CONTINUED...
* CONCLUDING... (Part 2 of 2)
In a brief filed on Jan. 26, DOJ lawyers wrote that the Boehner lawsuit was incorrect in saying that the payments required annual appropriation. “The cost sharing reduction payments are being made as part of a mandatory payment program that Congress has fully appropriated,” the brief read.
But this argument is undercut by the administration’s own previous budget request.
* WHAT'S THAT...?!?!
* ... this argument is undercut by the administration’s own previous budget request.
For fiscal year 2014, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (the division of Health and Human Services that implements the program), asked Congress for an annual appropriation of $4 billion to finance the cost-sharing payments that year and another $1.4 billion “advance appropriation” for the first quarter of fiscal year 2015, “to permit CMS to reimburse issuers …”
In making the request, CMS was in effect acknowledging that it needed congressional appropriations to make the payments. But when Congress rejected the request, the administration went ahead and made the payments anyway.
* ONE MORE TIME...
In making the request, CMS was in effect acknowledging that it needed congressional appropriations to make the payments. But when Congress rejected the request, the administration went ahead and made the payments anyway.
The argument that annual appropriations are required to make payments is also backed up by a report from the Congressional Research Service, which has differentiated between the tax credit subsidies that ObamaCare provides to individuals to help them purchase insurance, and the cost-sharing payments to insurers.
* AGAIN...
The argument that annual appropriations are required to make payments is also backed up by a report from the Congressional Research Service, which has differentiated between the tax credit subsidies that ObamaCare provides to individuals to help them purchase insurance, and the cost-sharing payments to insurers.
(*PURSED LIPS*)
In a July 2013 letter to then Sen. Tom Coburn, Congressional Research Service wrote that, “unlike the refundable tax credits, these [cost-sharing] payments to the health plans do not appear to be funded through a permanent appropriation. Instead, it appears from the President’s FY2014 budget that funds for these payments are intended to be made available through annual appropriations.”
* THREE-PARTER... (Part 1 of 3)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/foreign-governments-gave-millions-to-foundation-while-clinton-was-at-state-dept/2015/02/25/31937c1e-bc3f-11e4-8668-4e7ba8439ca6_story.html
The Clinton Foundation accepted millions of dollars from seven foreign governments during Hillary Rodham Clinton’s tenure as secretary of state, including one donation that violated its ethics agreement with the Obama administration, foundation officials disclosed Wednesday.
* "DISCLOSED" ONLY AFTER GETTING CAUGHT!
In one instance, foundation officials acknowledged they should have sought approval in 2010 from the State Department ethics office, as required by the agreement for new government donors, before accepting a $500,000 donation from the Algerian government.
* AND HOW MUCH U.S. FOREIGN AID DOES THE ALGERIAN GOVERNMENT ITSELF RECEIVE...??? (DO U.S. TAXPAYERS FUND ALGERIA WHILE THE CLINTONS "GET A TASTE" IN TERMS OF A "REBATE" - "DONATION IN KIND?"
The money was given to assist with earthquake relief in Haiti, the foundation said. At the time, Algeria, which has sought a closer relationship with Washington, was spending heavily to lobby the State Department on human rights issues.
* NOTICE HOW THE REPORTERS/EDITORS FAIL TO ASK THE REASONABLE QUESTION I DID...?
(*SMIRK*)
While the foundation has disclosed foreign-government donors for years, it has not previously detailed the donations that were accepted during Clinton’s four-year stint at the State Department.
* WOW...
Some of the donations came from countries with complicated diplomatic, military and financial relationships with the U.S. government, including Kuwait, Qatar and Oman. Other nations that donated included Australia, Norway and the Dominican Republic.
The foundation presents a unique political challenge for Clinton, and one that has already become a cause of concern among Democrats as she prepares to launch an almost-certain second bid for the presidency.
* AGAIN... I WOULDN'T COUNT ON IT...
Rarely, if ever, has a potential commander in chief been so closely associated with an organization that has solicited financial support from foreign governments. Clinton formally joined the foundation in 2013 after leaving the State Department, and the organization was renamed the Bill, Hillary & Chelsea Clinton Foundation.
The Washington Post reported last week that foreign sources, including governments, made up a third of those who have given the foundation more than $1 million over time. The Post found that the foundation, begun by former president Bill Clinton, has raised nearly $2 billion since its creation in 2001.
Foreign governments and individuals are prohibited from giving money to U.S. political candidates, to prevent outside influence over national leaders. But the foundation has given donors a way to potentially gain favor with the Clintons outside the traditional political limits.
In a presidential campaign, Hillary Clinton would be likely to showcase her foreign-policy expertise...
* WHAT FOREIGN POLICY "EXPERTISE...???" I'M SERIOUS! HER TENURE AS SECRETARY OF STATE WAS A DISASTER! SHE GOT AN AMERICAN AMBASSADOR MURDERED AND A CONSULATE BURNED TO THE GROUND! SHE HELPED LAUNCH A WAR AGAINST LIBYA (AGAINST MOST REPUBLICAN ADVICE) AND WE'VE SEEN HOW THAT'S TURNED OUT. "SHOWCASE?" SHOWCASE HER EPIC INCOMPETENCE PERHAPS!
* TO BE CONTINUED...
* CONTINUING... (Part 2 of 3)
The Wall Street Journal reported last week that the foundation had accepted new foreign-government money now that the 2008 agreement has lapsed.
Foreign governments had been major donors to the foundation before President Obama nominated Clinton to become secretary of state in 2009. When the foundation released a list of its donors for the first time in 2008, as a result of the agreement with the Obama administration, it disclosed, for instance, that Saudi Arabia had given between $10 million and $25 million.
Foundation officials said Wednesday that the ethics review process required under the 2008 agreement for new donors — or for existing foreign-government donors wishing to “materially increase” their support — was never initiated during Clinton’s State Department years. But, they added, on one occasion, it should have been.
The donation from Algeria for Haiti earthquake relief, they said, arrived without notice within days of the 2010 quake and was distributed as direct aid to assist in relief. Algeria has not donated to the foundation since, officials said.
* HOWEVER...
The contribution coincided with a spike in the North African country’s lobbying visits to the State Department.
(*SMIRK*)
That year, Algeria spent $422,097 lobbying U.S. government officials on human rights issues and U.S.-Algerian relations, according to filings made under the Foreign Agents Registration Act. Data tracked by the Sunlight Foundation shows that while the Algerian government’s overall spending on lobbying in the United States remained steady, there was an increase in 2010 in State Department meetings held with lobbyists representing the country — with 12 visits to department officials that year, including some visits with top political appointees. In the years before and after, only a handful of State Department visits were recorded by Algeria lobbyists.
The country was a concern for Clinton and her agency.
A 2010 State Department report on human rights in Algeria noted that “principal human rights problems included restrictions on freedom of assembly and association” and cited reports of arbitrary killings, widespread corruption and a lack of transparency. Additionally, the report, issued in early 2011, discussed restrictions on labor and women’s rights.
“Algeria is one of those complicated countries that forces the United States to balance our interests and values,” Clinton wrote in her 2014 book, “Hard Choices.” She said that the country was an ally in combating terrorism but that “it also has a poor human rights record and a relatively closed economy.”
Clinton met with the president of Algeria during a 2012 visit to the country.
A State Department spokesman referred questions about the ethics-office reviews to the charity. Nick Merrill, a Clinton spokesman, declined to comment.
* YEAH... I BET HE DID...
(*SNICKER*)
* TO BE CONTINUED...
* CONCLUDING... (Part 3 of 3)
Besides Algeria, a number of the other countries that donated to the foundation during Clinton’s time at the State Department also lobbied the U.S. government during that time.
Qatar, for instance, spent more than $5.3 million on registered lobbyists while Clinton was secretary of state, according to the Sunlight Foundation. The country’s lobbyists were reported monitoring anti-terrorism activities and efforts to combat violence in Sudan’s Darfur region. Qatar has also come under criticism from some U.S. allies in the region that have accused it of supporting Hamas and other militant groups. Qatar has denied the allegations.
The 2008 agreement laid out that the new rules were intended to allow the Clinton Foundation to continue its “important philanthropic work around the world,” while also avoiding conflicts. It was signed by Bruce Lindsey, then the foundation’s chief executive, and Valerie Jarrett, who was co-chair of Obama’s transition team.
Jennifer Friedman, a White House spokeswoman, said in a statement that the agreement was signed “to avoid any appearance of conflict of interest” and “in keeping with the high standards we set for our nominees.” She said the deal went “above and beyond standard ethics requirements.”
Clinton Foundation fundraising, particularly from foreign governments, came up repeatedly at Clinton’s confirmation hearings for secretary of state.
Then-Sen. Richard G. Lugar (Ind.), who was the ranking Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, called the foundation “a unique complication that will have to be managed with great care and transparency” and called on the organization not to take any new foreign-government money while Clinton was serving as secretary of state.
“The Clinton Foundation exists as a temptation for any foreign entity or government that believes it could curry favor through a donation,” he said then. “It also sets up potential perception problems with any action taken by the secretary of state in relation to foreign givers or their countries.”
Lugar also called on the foundation to release more information about its donors, including how much each gives annually. (Since 2008, the foundation has released only how much donors have given cumulatively over time.) He said ethics officials should review donations from all foreign sources, not just governments, because of the close ties in many countries between wealthy interests and government officials.
Then-Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.), the committee’s chairman at the time, called Lugar’s concerns a “legitimate question.” Kerry, who succeeded Clinton as secretary of state, suggested the potential at least for appearance problems if her official duties seemed to coincide with her husband’s fundraising efforts.
“If you are traveling to some country and you meet with the foreign leadership and a week later or two weeks later or three weeks later the president travels there and solicits a donation and they pledge to give at some point in the future but nobody knows, is there an appearance of a conflict?” Kerry asked.
http://us6.campaign-archive2.com/?u=a6b3044a9fe8889c822d11c16&id=85baf2e853&e=860a7086e5
Recently, President Obama sent Congress legislation to authorize him to use force against ISIS “and associated persons and forces” anywhere in the world for the next three years. This is a blank check for the president to start as many new wars as he wishes, and it appears Congress will go along with this dangerous and costly scheme.
* HELL... THEY'RE CHOMPING AT THE BIT - ONLY THEY WANNA GIVE HIM MORE POWER (AND THUS RESPONSIBILITY SHOULD THINGS GO WRONG - RESPONSIBILITY THEY THEMSELVES SEEK TO DUCK)!
Already the military budget for next year is equal to all but the very peak spending levels during the Vietnam war and the Reagan military build-up, according to the Project on Defense Alternatives. Does anyone want to guess how much will be added to military spending as a result of this new war authorization?
The U.S. has already spent nearly two billion dollars fighting ISIS since this summer, and there hasn’t been much to show for it. A new worldwide war on ISIS will likely just serve as a recruiting tool for jihadists. We learned last week that our bombing has led to 20,000 new foreign fighters signing up to join ISIS. How many more will decide to join each time a new U.S. bomb falls on a village or a wedding party?
* ANYONE WHO CAN'T ABSORB THE TRUTH OF WHAT PAUL IS SAYING...
(*SHAKING MY HEAD*)
The media makes a big deal about the so-called limitations on the president’s ability to use combat troops in this legislation, but in reality there is nothing that would add specific limits. The prohibition on troops for “enduring” or “offensive” ground combat operations is vague enough to be meaningless. Who gets to determine what “enduring” means? And how difficult is it to claim that any ground operation is “defensive” by saying it is meant to “defend” the U.S.? Even the three year limit is just propaganda: who believes a renewal would not be all but automatic if the president comes back to Congress with the U.S. embroiled in numerous new wars?
If this new request is not bad enough, the president has announced that he would be sending 600 troops into Ukraine - supposedly to help train that country’s military. Just as the Europeans seem to have been able to negotiate a ceasefire between the opposing sides in that civil war, President Obama plans to pour gasoline on the fire by sending in the U.S. military. The ceasefire agreement signed includes a demand that all foreign military forces leave Ukraine. I think that is a good idea and will go a long way to reduce the tensions.
(But why does Obama think that restriction does not apply to us?)
* CAN YOU JUST IMAGINE... A MEXICAN CIVIL WAR... RUSSIAN TROOPS ENTERING THE FRAY...
(*SNORT*)
Last week also saw the Senate confirm Ashton Carter as the new Secretary of Defense by an overwhelming majority. Carter comes to the Pentagon straight from the military industrial complex, and he has already announced his support for sending lethal weapons to Ukraine. Sen. John McCain’s strong praise for Carter is not a good sign that the new secretary will advise caution before undertaking new US interventions.
* NOPE. NOT AT ALL. AMERICA WOULD BE MUCH SAFER IF JOHN MCCAIN WOULD SIMPLY... DIE.
As we continue to teeter on the verge of economic catastrophe, Washington’s interventionists in both parties show no signs of slowing. The additional tens of billions or more that these new wars will cost will not only further undermine our economy, but will actually make us less safe.
(Can anyone point to a single success that the interventionists have had over the last 25 years?)
As I have said, this militarism will end one way or the other. Either enough Americans will wake up and demand an end to Washington’s foreign adventurism, or we will go broke and be unable to spend another fiat dollar on maintaining the global U.S. empire.
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