Monday, April 27, 2015

Barker's Newsbites: Monday, April 27, 2015




No, folks... I haven't given up.

(*SMILE*)

Ya gotta admit, though, there hasn't been a lot of good news lately.

Not that Baltimore was fully a first world city last month... but today...

(*SHRUG*)

Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake admitted in a press conference on Sunday that she asked the Baltimore Police Department to "give those who wished to destroy space to do that.”

(*SILENCE*)

Is there anyone reading this who doesn't understand why newsbiting takes a toll on me?

(*SIGH*)

Anyway... here's goes... (Newsbites can be found within the Comments Section of this posting.)


11 comments:

William R. Barker said...

http://www.ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/featured-articles/2015/april/12/the-new-militarism-who-profits/

* BY THE ALWAYS HONORABLE RON PAUL

Militarism and military spending are everywhere on the rise, as the new Cold War propaganda seems to be paying off.

The new “threats” that are being hyped bring big profits to military contractors and the network of think tanks they pay to produce pro-war propaganda. Here are just a few examples:

The German government announced last week that it would purchase 100 more “Leopard” tanks – a 45% increase in the country’s inventory.

* TANKS...??? SERIOUSLY...?!?!

Germany had greatly reduced its inventory of tanks as the end of the Cold War meant the end of any threat of a Soviet ground invasion of Europe. The German government now claims these 100 new tanks, which may cost nearly half a billion dollars, are necessary to respond to the new Russian assertiveness in the region. Never mind that Russia has neither invaded nor threatened any country in the region, much less a NATO member country.

The U.S. Cold War-era nuclear bunker under Cheyenne Mountain, Colorado, which was all but shut down in the 25 years since the fall of the Berlin Wall, is being brought back to life.

The Pentagon has committed nearly a billion dollars to upgrading the facility to its previous Cold War-level of operations.

U.S. defense contractor Raytheon will be the prime beneficiary of this contract.

(Raytheon is a major financial sponsor of think tanks like the Institute for the Study of War, which continuously churn out pro-war propaganda. I am sure these big contracts are a good return on that investment.)

NATO, which I believe should have been shut down after the Cold War ended, is also getting its own massively expensive upgrade. The Alliance commissioned a new headquarters building in Brussels, Belgium, in 2010, which is supposed to be completed in 2016. The building looks like a hideous claw, and the final cost – if it is ever finished – will be well over one billion dollars.

* GEEZUS...

That is more than twice what was originally budgeted. What a boondoggle! Is it any surprise that NATO bureaucrats and generals continuously try to terrify us with tales of the new Russian threat? They need to justify their expansion plans!

So who is the real enemy?

* NOT THE RUSSIANS! THE CHINESE ARE THE REAL ENEMY - THE CHINESE AND OUR OWN CURRUPT OLIGARCHY!

The real enemy is the taxpayer.

The middle class and the productive sectors of the economy are the victims of this new runaway military spending. Every dollar or euro spent on a contrived threat is a dollar or euro taken out of the real economy and wasted on military Keynesianism. It is a dollar stolen from a small business owner that will not be invested in innovation, spent on research to combat disease, or even donated to charities that help the needy.

One of the most pervasive and dangerous myths of our time is that military spending benefits an economy. This could not be further from the truth. Such spending benefits a thin layer of well-connected and well-paid elites. It diverts scarce resources from meeting the needs and desires of a population and channels them into manufacturing tools of destruction. The costs may be hidden by the money-printing of the central banks, but they are eventually realized in the steady destruction of a currency.

The elites are terrified that peace may finally break out, which will be bad for their profits. That is why they are trying to scuttle the Iran deal, nix the Cuba thaw, and drum up a new “Red Scare” coming from Moscow.

We must not be fooled into believing their lies.

* I'M MOSTLY WITH RON PAUL ON THIS.

William R. Barker said...

* THREE-PARTER... (Part 1 of 3)

http://theconversation.com/wind-costs-more-than-you-think-due-to-massive-federal-subsidies-38804

As consumers, we pay for electricity twice: once through our monthly electricity bill and a second time through taxes that finance massive subsidies for inefficient wind and other energy producers.

Most cost estimates for wind power disregard the heavy burden of these subsidies on U.S. taxpayers.

* NOT JUST WIND - ALL POWER!

But if Americans realized the full cost of generating energy from wind power, they would be less willing to foot the bill – because it’s more than most people think.

* MUCH MORE!

Over the past 35 years, wind energy – which supplied just 4.4% of US electricity in 2014 – has received $30 billion in federal subsidies and grants.

* THINK ABOUT THAT, FOLKS; TRY TO COMPREHEND SUCH A NUMBER. (I KNOW... IT'S DIFFICULT... BECAUSE THE POLITICIANS AND THEIR MEDIA AND ACADEMIA ALLIES HAVE GOTTEN US JADED TO SUCH NUMBERS...)

These subsidies shield people from the uncomfortable truth of just how much wind power actually costs and transfer money from average taxpayers to wealthy wind farm owners, many of which are units of foreign companies.

* WEALTHY... WIND... FARMERS...

* MANY CORPORATE "FARMS" - FOREIGN OWNED CORPORATE "FARMS!"

(The Investigative Reporting Workshop at American University found that, as of 2010, 84% of total clean-energy grants awarded by the federal government went to foreign-owned wind companies.)

Financial advisory firm Lazard puts the cost of generating a megawatt-hour of electricity from wind at a range of $37 to $81. In reality, the true price tag is significantly higher.

* FEEL FREE TO DO YOUR OWN GOOGLING, BUT FROM WHAT I READ, THE AVERAGE COST OF A GENERIC MEGAWATT-HOUR OF ELECTRICITY IS ABOUT $10 HERE IN THE U.S.

* TO BE CONTINUED...

William R. Barker said...

* CONTINUING... (Part 2 of 3)

President Obama’s proposed 2016 budget would permanently extend the biggest federal subsidy for wind power, the Production Tax Credit (PTC), ensuring that large foreign companies continue to reap most of the taxpayer-funded benefits for wind. The PTC is a federal subsidy that pays wind farm owners $23 per megawatt-hour through the first ten years of a turbine’s operation. The credit expired at the end of 2013, but Congress extended it so that all projects under construction by the end of 2014 are eligible.

* THE BUDGET PASSED. I HAVE NO IDEA IF IT PASSED WITH THIS IN IT. (THE ARTICLE IS FROM APRIL 8)

(*SIGH*)

Depending on which factors are included, estimates for the cost of wind power vary wildly. Lazard claims the cost of wind power ranges from $37 to $81 per megawatt-hour, while Michael Giberson at the Center for Energy Commerce at Texas Tech University suggests it’s closer to $149. Our analysis in an upcoming report explores this wide gap in cost estimates, finding that most studies underestimate the genuine cost of wind because they overlook key factors.

Many estimates...don’t include costs related to the inherent unreliability of wind power and government subsidies and mandates. Since we can’t ensure the wind always blows, or how strongly, coal and natural gas plants must be kept on as backup to compensate when it’s calm. This is known as baseload cycling, and its cost ranges from $2 to $23 per megawatt-hour.

(This also reduces the environmental friendliness of wind power. Because a coal-fired or natural gas power plant must be kept online in case there’s no wind, two plants are running to do the job of one. These plants create carbon emissions, reducing the environmental benefits of wind. The amount by which emissions reductions are offset by baseload cycling ranges from 20% to 50%, according to a modeling study by two professors at Carnegie Mellon University.)

Another factor often overlooked is the extra cost of transmission. Many of America’s wind-rich areas are remote and the turbines are often planted in open fields, far from major cities. That means new transmission lines must be built to carry electricity to consumers. The cost of building new transmission lines ranges from $15 to $27 per megawatt-hour.

(In 2013, Texas completed its Competitive Renewable Energy Zone project, adding over 3,600 miles of transmission lines to remote wind farms, costing state taxpayers $7 billion.)

* TO BE CONTINUED...

William R. Barker said...

* CONCLUDING... (Part 3 of 3)

While the backup plants are necessary to ensure the grid’s reliability, their ability to operate is threatened by wind subsidies. The federal dollars encourage wind farm owners to produce power even when prices are low, flooding the market with cheap electricity. That pushes prices down even further and makes it harder for more reliable producers, such as nuclear plants, that don’t get hefty subsidies to stay in business.

For example, the Kewaunee Nuclear Plant in Wisconsin and the Yankee Nuclear Plant in Vermont both switched off their reactors in 2013. Dominion Energy, which owned both plants, blamed the artificially low prices caused by the PTC as one of the reasons for the shutdown.

As more reliable sources drop off and wind power takes their place, consumers are left with an electrical infrastructure that is less reliable and less capable of meeting demand.

The high costs of federal subsidies and state mandates for wind power have not paid off for the American public. According to the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, wind energy receives a higher percentage of federal subsidies than any other type of energy while generating a very small percentage of the nation’s electricity.

In 2010 the wind energy sector received 42% of total federal subsidies while producing only 2% of the nation’s total electricity.

(By comparison, coal receives 10% of all subsidies and generates 45% and nuclear is about even at about 20%.)

* ANYWAY, FOLKS, AS ALWAYS I'VE PROVIDED THE LINK. YOU CAN READ THE FULL STORY FOR YOURSELVES IF YOU'RE OF A MIND.

William R. Barker said...

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/ceos-get-paid-even-when-they-quit-because-they-can-2015-04-13

It sounds fishy, that Mattel Inc. could say its chief executive officer quit... but still pay him severance... and then hire him back as a consultant. But that’s just how the world works for those privileged few in C-level executive positions.

(*SILENCE*)

Mattel said in late January that Bryan Stockton “resigned” as its chairman and chief executive, as the struggling toy maker looked to “revitalize” its business.

But then on Friday, the company seemed to suggest in a regulatory filing that he was terminated - and was receiving a generous severance package.

At closer look, the company didn’t actually say Stockton was fired. It stated he “ceased to be Chairman of the Board and CEO,” and that his “employment was terminated.”

(*SNORT*)

As industry experts explained to MarketWatch, for C-level executives that just means a job has ended. See Page 4 of the proxy statement.

“Termination in a C-suite executive’s contract refers to the end of the [employment] agreement, the end of the relationship,” said Louis Gerzofsky, vice president of technology recruitment and executive coaching at executive search firm JB Homer Associates. “It doesn’t mean how it was ended.”

Mattel, the maker of Barbie dolls, did not respond to requests for comment. The stock rose 1.2% in afternoon trade Monday, but has lost 21% year to date while the S&P 500 has gained 1.9%.

And despite the common usage of the word “severance,” it just refers to the agreed-upon payment a C-level executive receives if the employment relationship ends. As Mattel explains in its proxy statement, the severance plan applies to executives if “employment is terminated” by the company without cause, or by the executive “for good reason.”

(A “good” reason to quit could mean almost anything, industry sources said, from having increased, or reduced, responsibilities, or simply bad performance.)

That might not seem fair to the average employee, but as Gerzofsky said, it’s just how the game is played at that altitude.

“The competition for C-suite executives can be fierce. You can’t recruit a talented C-suite executive without protecting his downside,” Gerzofsky said. “At the top of the pyramid, whether it’s in entertainment, or sports, or Corporate America, it’s a matter of supply and demand, risk versus reward.”

(*JUST SHAKING MY HEAD*)

Also last week, Zynga Inc. said it’s CEO Don Mattrick had “resigned,” but said he would receive a $4 million “severance payment,” and that the company will accelerate the vesting of restricted stock units and unvested options to buy Zynga shares.

(*SNORT*)

What might irk shareholders the most, is that Mattel’s proxy statement said Stockton was hired back as a consultant for the next 12 months, at a salary of $125,000 a month.

(*SILENCE*)

That equates to $1.5 million a year...

William R. Barker said...

http://ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/featured-articles/2015/april/19/political-murders-in-kiev-us-troops-to-ukraine/

* AGAIN... BY THE ALWAYS HONORABLE RON PAUL

A couple weeks ago two prominent Ukrainian opposition figures were gunned down in broad daylight.

They join as many as ten others who have been killed or committed suicide under suspicious circumstances just this year.

These individuals have one important thing in common: they were either part of or friendly with the Yanukovych government, which a U.S.-backed coup overthrew last year.

(*PURSED LIPS*)

While some journalists here in the U.S. have started to notice the strange series of opposition killings in Ukraine, the U.S. government has yet to say a word.

* OBAMA DOES APPARENTLY LOVE ISSUING ASSASINATION ORDERS...

Compare this to the U.S. reaction when a single opposition figure was killed in Russia earlier this year. Boris Nemtsov was a member of a minor political party that was not even represented in the Russian parliament. Nevertheless the U.S. government immediately demanded that Russia conduct a thorough investigation of his murder, suggesting the killers had a political motive.

As news of the Russian killing broke, Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee Ed Royce (R-CA) did not wait for evidence to blame the killing on Russian president Vladimir Putin. On the very day of Nemtsov’s murder, Royce told the U.S. media that, “this shocking murder is the latest assault on those who dare to oppose the Putin regime.”

* PUTIN ISN'T THE ONE WITH THE MOTIVE TO ORDER THESE PEOPLE KILLED...

(*SHRUG*)

Neither Royce, nor Secretary of State John Kerry, nor President Obama, nor any U.S. government figure has said a word about the series of apparently political murders in Ukraine. On the contrary, instead of questioning the state of democracy in what looks like a lawless Ukraine, the Administration is sending in the U.S. military to help train Ukrainian troops!

* BECAUSE U.S. TRAINING MISSIONS HAVE WORKED SO WELL ELSEWHERE... LIKE IN AFGHANISTAN WHERE THE RESULT IS OFTEN "TRAINEES" KILLING THEIR TRAINERS!

Weeks ago, just as the two political murders were taking place, the 173rd Airborne Brigade landed in Ukraine to begin training Ukrainian national guard forces – and to leave behind some useful military equipment. Though the civil unrest continues in Ukraine, the U.S. military is assisting one side in the conflict – even as the U.S. slaps sanctions on Russia over accusations it is helping out the other side!

* THIS IS MADNESS, MY FRIENDS... SHEER MADNESS...

As the ceasefire continues to hold, though shakily, what kind of message does it send to the U.S.-backed government in Kiev to have U.S. troops arrive with training and equipment and an authorization to gift Kiev with some $350 million in weapons? Might they not take this as a green light to begin new hostilities against the breakaway regions in the east?

A wise consistency of non-interventionism in all foreign affairs would be the correct course for this and future U.S. administrations.

William R. Barker said...

* THREE-PARTER... (Part 1 of 3)

http://dailysignal.com/2015/04/20/incompetence-mismanagement-plague-californias-obamacare-insurance-exchange/?utm_source=heritagefoundation&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=morningbell&mkt_tok=3RkMMJWWfF9wsRojuKjLZKXonjHpfsX56%2BorWa6zlMI%2F0ER3fOvrPUfGjI4GSMdmI%2BSLDwEYGJlv6SgFQrLBMa1ozrgOWxU%3D

California’s health insurance exchange, established under the Affordable Care Act (ObamaCare), has been held out as a national model for. In some ways — not all of them good — it is.

(*SNORT*)

Whether it’s falling far short of 2015 enrollment goals or sending out 100,000 inaccurate tax forms, Covered California is struggling...

Now, several senior-level officials integral to the launch of Covered California — who enthusiastically support the Affordable Care Act — are speaking about what they view as gross incompetence and mismanagement involving some of the $1 billion federal tax dollars poured into the state effort.

Consultant Aiden Hill became a “foxhole convert” to ObamaCare in July of 2010 when he lost his insurance, had a serious medical issue and couldn’t get a new policy. “I lived through a health care nightmare. That’s one reason why I took a cut in my pay rate to work for Covered California.”

In March 2013, Hill was hired as project manager over Covered California’s massive $120 million call center effort. In just six short months, it would face an avalanche of customers seeking insurance mandated under the new law. But five months on the job converted Hill from avid supporter to disenchanted whistleblower.

Hill says the secretive and dysfunctional culture was more interested in cheerleading than real results. After he persistently raised concerns, Covered California abruptly terminated his contract. He says the experience drove him to raise allegations about waste and cover ups at a Covered California board meeting.

* AND WHAT HAPPENED...???

Covered California quietly launched an independent investigation into Hill’s grievances.

Nine months later, the results were summarized in four sentences stating that evidence did “not support” Hill’s complaints. Hill calls the probe a sham and says the inquiry didn’t include interviews with many witnesses he suggested.

* I'D HAVE TO READ THE REPORT AND SPEAK TO BOTH THE AUTHORS AND HILL.

(*SHRUG*)

* TO BE CONTINUED...

William R. Barker said...

* CONTINUING... (Part 2 of 3)

Other officials integral to Covered California’s efforts concur with Hill’s assessment. One of them headed the largest call center. “They started this way too late for what they needed to do,” says the official who was hired in April 2013, five months before the website’s launch. He has since left that position and asked not to be named to protect his current job status. “This program had to touch 58 counties, 11 federal agencies, all medical carriers and all advocates. To have a system that would be integrated seamlessly — somebody must have been smoking something if they thought that was going to happen.”

* WELL... THIS SOUNDS LIKE GOVERNMENT BUSINESS AS USUAL. IN OTHER WORDS...

(*SHRUG*)

* HEY... FOLKS... NEVER LET IT BE SAID I'M NOT FAIR! I SUBJECT EVERYTHING I READ TO THE SAME "SMELL" TEST AND ANALYSIS.

It’s against that backdrop that Covered California finds itself now grappling with a big disappointment: low enrollment growth. California ranked near the bottom in overall growth, with a scant 1% increase over last year. “It’s a tiny fraction of the growth they were expecting,” says an official who helped implement the Affordable Care Act and examined California’s numbers. As recently as last fall, the official says, California hoped to increase enrollment by 500,000 this year. But only an additional 7,098 have “selected a plan” for 2015.

* NOW HERE... COMING UP... IS SOMETHING THAT INTERESTS ME...

Another telling statistic is Covered California’s poor retention rate. Even though people are required by law to have health insurance, only 65% of Covered California’s 2014 customers reenrolled in 2015. The rest dropped off.

(Hoping for a bump, California followed the lead of the federal HealthCare.gov effort and repeatedly extended this year’s enrollment deadline. The Feb. 15 cutoff was pushed back to Feb. 20 and then Feb. 22. Now, it’s been extended to the end of this month.)

The devastating crash of Covered California’s website and call centers on Oct. 1, 2013 was “the canary in the coal mine, an early warning of deep dysfunction,” according to Hill.

Pre-launch testing had proven disastrous. As with the national HealthCare.gov website, “it was breaking at the first click of the button,” says the former call center manager who worked under Hill. “Behind the scenes, states were worried. I know we were worried.”

Covered California contractors projected 10,000 calls the first day. The call center manager says he knew they were way off. “I and my training manager, who had launched call centers before, projected 20,000. We had 21,000 on day one. Our contractors were wrong.”

The HealthCare.gov website was on a parallel trajectory. It, too, suffered under hasty development and failed performance tests days before launch — all while the Obama administration put on a positive public face.

“Everybody knew it wasn’t going to function,” says a third Covered California official. “Calls start coming in and within the first hour, the entire system went down — phone and web.”

“The train was coming off the rails,” adds Hill. “The call center was going into meltdown.”

* TO BE CONTINUED...

William R. Barker said...

* CONCLUDING... (Part 3 of 3)

The meltdown lasted for months and fixes proved costly. Covered California would not provide a tally of expenses, but the agency ended up asking the federal government for an extra $155 million. That put the cost of Covered California at more than $1.06 billion federal tax dollars.

Covered California’s disastrous debut triggered a house of cards. When the website crashed, consumers were directed to fill out paper applications; they were 33 pages long and took at least an hour to complete. What’s more, they couldn’t be coordinated with the electronic version because of a major design flaw. The forms didn’t match. But Covered California counted duplicate applications as if they were enrollments, giving the impression that more people had successfully signed up.

* SCUMBAGS...

(The Obama administration did the same with national HealthCare.gov applications.)

* AGAIN... SCUMBAGS...

“A lot of the information that came out of Covered California was misleading or outright lies,” Hill insists. For example, Covered California’s Lee publicly touted 30,000 successful enrollments for the first month. Hill says the actual number was closer to 4,000.

(The Daily Signal asked for Lee’s side of the story, but Covered California declined to make him available.)

(*SMIRK*)

Says an official, who still works at the agency and asked not to be identified, “We were fully aware that those numbers were inflated. It was horrible … morale busting. Things were being said that were blatantly untrue.”

Hill says misinformation was aided and abetted by an uninformed press. In the midst of Covered California’s fiasco, he was stunned to read a New York Times article claiming the Golden State was an ObamaCare utopia: the crown jewel of the health care reform effort. On Nov. 24, 2013, Paul Krugman of The New York Times gushed: "What would happen if we unveiled a program that looked like ObamaCare, in a place that looked like America, but with competent project management that produced a working website? Well, your wish is granted. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you California. … The California authorities have been especially forthcoming with data tracking the progress of enrollment. And the numbers are increasingly encouraging."

That assessment was far from the reality say the Covered California officials who spoke to The Daily Signal.

Covered California declined to respond to our questions but issued this statement: Covered California is proud that it has been the portal for nearly four million people to find coverage through one of our participating health plans or through low cost/no cost Medi-Cal; is helping more than a million people access financial assistance to lower their monthly health insurance premiums; through the Affordable Care Act has reduced the number of uninsured in California by half.

* LOW COST? (NO COST...?!?!) NOT TO THE FUCKING TAXPAYER...!!! I'M PAYING FOR ALL THESE SHITHEADS!

Covered California would not answer our questions about enrollment figures.

Covered California would not address our questions about lackluster retention and growth.

William R. Barker said...

http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2015/04/23/david_petraeus_sentence_probation_fine_in_classified_materials_leak.html?wpsrc=slatest_newsletter&sid=5388d162dd52b8417a00fcbf

Retired general and former CIA Director David Petraeus was fined $100,000 and sentenced to two years probation Thursday after pleading guilty to leaking classified information to Paula Broadwell, his biographer/mistress.

* HE... SHOULD... BE... IN... PRISON!

* LET'S SEE IF THE PRESS LOOKS INTO HOW THAT FINE GETS PAID...

(*SPITTING ON THE GROUND*)

The outcome resulted from a decision by outgoing Attorney General Eric Holder not to press for a jail sentence in the case, a decision that was controversial inside the government.

* FOLKS... QUID PRO QUO. BETRAYAEUS KEPT HIS MOUTH SHUT ABOUT BENGHAZI (AND NO DOUBT OTHER OUTRAGES THAT WE MAY OR MAY NOT KNOW ABOUT) AND IN RETURN GETS A PASS FROM THE... (*DRUM ROLL*)... O*U*T*G*O*I*N*G ATTORNEY GENERAL OF THE O*B*A*M*A ADMINISTRATION.

From the New York Times:

FBI officials and some prosecutors had contended that Mr. Petraeus should receive prison time for providing highly classified journals to a woman with whom he had an affair and who wrote his biography when he was the director of the CIA.

* I WAS SAYING THAT!

* SERIOUSLY... FOLKS... WHAT MESSAGE DOES THIS SEND TO THE TROOPS?

FBI officials and prosecutors said the attorney general was giving Mr. Petraeus preferential treatment, according to several law enforcement officials.

* NOTICE... THIS SLATE ARTICLE STOPS THERE... WITHOUT ASKING THE NEXT LOGICAL QUESTION: "WHY...?!?!"

(*SMIRK*)

Petraeus’ relationship with Broadwell became public in 2012 after the FBI began investigating threatening emails sent to Jill Kelley, a Petraeus family friend. Broadwell was identified as the source of those emails. She may have been jealous of Kelley’s relationship with Petraeus, though there’s no evidence Kelley and Petraeus were romantically involved. Investigators searching Broadwell’s property in that case found the classified materials that Petraeus was then accused of leaking.

* QUESTION: WHY WASN'T THE SLUT CHARGED? AFTER ALL, IT WAS A CONSPIRACY. THEY WERE IN ON IT TOGETHER. IT'S NOT AS IF AN UNNAMED SOURCE SHE DIDN'T KNOW GAVE HER THE CLASSIFIED MATERIALS. SHE WAS ACTIVELY INVOLVED IN A DELIBERATE AND ILLEGAL VIOLATION OF U.S. NATIONAL SECURITY! HELL... ACCORDING TO TODAY'S "RULES"... COULDN'T OBAMA THEORETICALLY SIMPLY DECLARE HER AN ENEMY COMBATANT AND ORDER HER ASSASSINATION? (RHETORICAL QUESTION; THE ANSWER IS "YES." YEAH... PONDER THAT...)

William R. Barker said...

http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2015/04/23/loretta_lynch_confirmation_senate_majority_leader_mitch_mcconnell_and_9.html?wpsrc=slatest_newsletter&sid=5388d162dd52b8417a00fcbf

The Republican-controlled U.S. Senate last Thursday finally got around to confirming Loretta Lynch as U.S. attorney general.

* EVEN AFTER SHE FLAT OUT TOLD THEM THAT IT WAS BASICALLY HER VIEW THAT PRESIDENTS (AT LEAST DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENTS) HAVE NEARLY LIMITLESS POWERS TO DO WHATEVER THEY DAMN WELL PLEASE AND TO HELL WITH THE CONSTITUTION AND SEPARATION OF POWERS.

In the end, 10 Republicans joined the entire Democratic caucus to push her nomination over the finish line...

Those Republicans...

* SCUM! EACH AND EVERY ONE A PIECE OF GARBAGE AND A TRAITOR TO THE CONSTITUTION!

...who voted for her confirmation included the five senators who had already signaled their support before this week — Orrin Hatch, Jeff Flake, Lindsey Graham, Susan Collins, and Mark Kirk — as well as a group of five others that, most surprisingly of all, included McConnell himself.

* I'M NOT EVEN GOING TO BOTHER TO LIST THEM. WHAT'S THE POINT? AFTER ALL, HAD MORE VOTES BEEN REQUIRED MCCONNELL WOULD HAVE GOTTEN THEM. MOST OF THOSE WHO VOTED "NAY" ONLY DID SO BECAUSE MCCONNELL DIDN'T DEMAND THEIR VOTES... BECAUSE HE DIDN'T NEED THEM. THE SNAKES ARE IN THE GARDEN FOLKS... AND WOLVES IN SHEEP'S CLOTHING.