Friday, September 30, 2011
Thursday, September 29, 2011
The Clinton Gambit
This is what I've feared all along, my friends...
In an interview with conservative radio icon Sean Hannity, former President Clinton adviser and campaign manager Dick Morris stated that, after speaking with a Democratic strategist, he thinks it is “very possible” that President Obama might acquiesce to requests from the Democratic leadership in Congress and bow out of the 2012 race, leaving the door open for him to return sometime in the future.
I concur. Indeed, I've been raising this possibility for quite some time now.
“I asked a top Democratic strategist the other day and he thought that it was possible that, in January, Harry Reid comes to Obama and says, ‘Look you cost us control of the House last year, you’re going to cost us control of the Senate this year. For the good of the party you have to step aside’” said Morris.
“And, then, (Obama) pulls a Lyndon Johnson, he says ‘I’m fighting to solve the recession, and problem is because of partisanship and my re-election people reject everything I say because of partisanship, so I’m going to not run for president and focus my full time attention on solving this recession’ and then go out popular,” Morris added.
And, folks... regardless of the lousy job Hillary Rodham Clinton has been doing as Secretary of State... the average American (at least according to polling data) who was never a "Hillary hater" in the first place believes she's doing a fine job!
Oh... and the Dems and "moderates" and "independents" who have since January 2009 come to the conclusion that they made a mistake backing Obama over Hillary Rodham Clinton... what level of enthusiasm would an Obama "bow-out" and Clinton "fill-in" generate? Answer: It would be HUGE...!!!
A withdrawal by President Obama, with a statement that the reason he’s bowing out is to solve the recession, would likely allow the Democratic Party to recover some of its popularity and allow the president to present himself as rising above the partisan fights in Congress with a higher goal in mind. This would help the Democrats to better portray the Republicans, and especially the Tea Party, as the stubborn, non-compromising party uninterested in truly solving the nation’s problems.
Morris added that he thinks that this strategy could also set up Obama for a presidential run in a later election.
“The twenty second amendment does not preclude non-consecutive terms, he is young, (he could) preserve himself as a possible candidate down the road” said Morris. “We’ve seen how Bill Clinton is much more popular now then he was when he was leaving office, same with Jimmy Carter.”
Yep! Without a doubt!
Folks... let us pray that Obama truly is more interested in holding on to his present power than he is in advancing the interests of his ideology and his party.
Wednesday, September 28, 2011
Barker's Newsbites: Wednesday, September 28, 2011
My wife is a moron...
...as, unfortunately, am I.
When we purchased our main TV we opted for the 5-year-renewable extended home service warranty.
Smart, right?! It was 10% of the purchase price... $120 if I recall... the key word being... renewable!
So... last night we come from visiting friends. I plop down in my chair and turn the TV on. The TV goes on... and then off.
Between last night and tonight nothing has changed. The TV is non-functioning.
Ah... but here's the kicker!
My wife... (*GRITTING MY TEETH*)... she who prides herself on her top-notch organizational skills... she who insists she and she alone possesses the skills and organizational abilities necessary to... oh... not lose important paperwork... seems to have "misplaced" the frigg'n warranty information and receipt..!!!
Oh... and here's the best part: While one may find supermarket receipts from 2003 in the kitchen junk draw and paid utility bills from the Age of Steam in my lovely bride's "box of records," somehow she can't even find the cancelled checks for the six month interest free payment period we took advantage of as sophisticated consumers when we bought the TV!
Ah... but I'm a fair and self-reflective man. If my wife is a moron (and indeed she is!) then I too am a moron for trusting her not to lose a "big ticket" receipt and warranty card.
Yes, I too bare responsibility if it turns out that the warranty has expired. (I put in a call to Sony this morning and they're going to get back to me once they track the purchase info down via the TV's serial number.)
All I can do now is wait and hope for the best! Worst case scenario... it's either pay to get this TV fixed or else just buy a new set... an upgrade while I'm at it.
To anyone reading this... take heed! If you have renewable extended warranties on any "big ticket" items, locate the warranty info right now and set up an auto-reminder so that you don't forget to renew!
Tuesday, September 27, 2011
Philadelphia is Literally in a State of Societal Collapse
About 11:00 p.m., September 9, 2011, dozens of [black and Hispanic] "youths" with bats and pipes descended on a tidy residential area of Port Richmond [Pennsylvania] looking for white teens who allegedly had attacked an African-American kid at Stokely Playground a couple of hours earlier.
Two fearful white teens spotted Mark LaVelle on Indiana Avenue near Belgrade Street and asked for help.
Suddenly, the mob appeared.
LaVelle, who said that he didn't know the two kids, who looked to be 13 or 14, ran with them into his nearby house.
"'We got you, you white mother-------!' " LaVelle said he heard someone yell in the "mob" of black and Hispanic youths.
Inside his house, LaVelle, 37, called to his wife, Kim, 30, to go to their bedroom with their twin 13-month-old boys, Mark and Mason, and to call police. He also ordered his two other sons, 11 and 17, and his nephew, 7, to stay upstairs.
With the two teens hiding in the house, LaVelle, 5 feet 10, 220 pounds, a well-known sports-league organizer and coach in the community, went outside to try to calm the angry mob, [who] were standing on his steps.
One shouted, "'Something's going to happen now!'" LaVelle recalled in an interview Friday at his house. LaVelle got nervous and went back inside, locking his door with a deadbolt.
But the attackers pounded on his front windows and kicked his wooden door so hard, it flew open and some of them entered his house.
These animals kicked in his door and invaded his home...
"The first guy hits me with a pipe. The second guy knocks me in the face. All I'm hearing is my wife and kids screaming," said LaVelle, who feared that the next time they saw him, he would be in a casket.
He said that he was able to push the attackers out the door, but then a third man...
Hmm... I thought we were talking about "youths."
...who had a gun tried to extend his arm.
"...who had a gun..."
LaVelle grabbed onto the gunman's lower arm and shoulder so he couldn't raise the weapon. Then, police sirens screamed in the neighborhood, and the mob turned and ran.
LaVelle was able to identify three of the people from the melee.
Three of the animals... the dangerous animals who should be "put down" like any other rabid animals...
He said he did not know if they had been chasing the white teenagers, or if they were just trying to find someone to attack.
Police arrested Bergson Morin, 21, of Rosehill Street near Wyoming Avenue, Feltonville, as the man with the gun. They arrested Enrique Delgado, 32, of Rockland and C streets, Feltonville, as the man who hit LaVelle with the pipe. And they arrested a 17-year-old juvenile as the one who punched LaVelle in the face, giving him a black eye.
LaVelle said that the next day the mother of the juvenile came back with some other people, banging on his door, screaming. LaVelle, who was at a charity sports event, was called back to the house by one of his sons. When he got home, LaVelle said, the mother yelled at him, "'You white mother------, you got my kid locked up! You got my son locked up because he's black, you're white!'" The mother claimed that her son had been "a witness," not an attacker. To that, LaVelle said if that were true, it would come out in court.
One generation of animals "raising" the next...
But the mother, according to LaVelle, then yelled: "'If you make it to court! I know where you live!'"
Police public affairs could not confirm yesterday if the mother has been arrested for making threats.
And why not...???
Patty (Pat) Kozlowski, president of the Port Richmond on Patrol and Civic Association, said that police told her that the attack on LaVelle stemmed from the "incident" at Stokely Playground, Indiana Avenue and Thompson Street, a few blocks from LaVelle's house. She heard that an African-American kid "got knocked off his bike or fell off" and white kids were laughing at him. The group of African-Americans and Hispanics came back for retaliation, Kozlowski believes.
"Retaliation," huh? A [black and Hispanic] mob - with at least one member armed with a pistol - breaks into the suburban residence of a law abiding citizen and this is supposedly "retaliation" for... er... laughter?
Rome didn't fall in a day, my friends; neither will America. But make no mistake... we are in terminal societal decline.
Kozlowski said she didn't know any of the people involved in the playground incident or in the attack on LaVelle. LaVelle said he also did not know anyone involved.
Morin and Delgado, who face charges of aggravated assault, conspiracy, burglary, weapons and related offenses, were scheduled to face a preliminary hearing in Municipal Court today, but the hearing got postponed to Nov. 7. Delgado, who is in state prison, was not brought down to the city. Also, both defense attorneys requested a lineup in the case, which the judge granted. Morin is in custody in county prison. Their family members could not be reached for comment Monday.
Freddy Godoy, Delgado's attorney, said yesterday that someone Delgado knows "was probably related to the child" who was attacked in the playground.
Oh... so now all of a sudden what was just moments ago described as an "incident" where a black child falling off a bike led to a boorish (yet typical) adolescent response - laughter - by a couple of white kids who had witnessed the fall is being referred to in terms of "a child who was attacked in a playground." Nice. Cute.
Godoy contends that Delgado was not one of the people who attacked LaVelle.
Richard Patton, Morin's attorney, declined comment yesterday.
Kozlowski, a legislative aide to City Councilwoman Joan Krajewski and a lifelong Port Richmond resident, wrote about the attack in The Spirit community newspaper, which serves the river wards. Since then, the story has created a lot of buzz in the predominantly white neighborhood.
Kozlowski and Maryann Trombetta, president of the Port Richmond Town Watch, both recalled the murder of Sean Daily, a white teen who was beaten and shot by bat-wielding youths, mostly Latino, in May 1989.
They don't believe that the attack on LaVelle started as a racial incident, but believe that there was a racial element to it when the mob "called him a white mother------" and when the juvenile's mother allegedly threatened LaVelle.
Ya think...?!?!
LaVelle, who runs sports leagues composed of youths and adults of different races, said he doesn't want any retaliation on the people who attacked him.
Personally... I'd like to see them all executed. Obviously they won't be. No doubt they'll "mature" into even more dangerous criminals and present further danger to innocent people after being given slaps on the wrist by the inmates who are running the asylum we call the criminal justice system.
But the attack has instilled fear in him and his family, and he hopes that there will be more of a police presence in the neighborhood.
Hopefully the police will take every opportunity afforded them to permanently take criminals - white, black, Hispanic, whatever - off the streets.
His wife is afraid to stay at home, and "every time I hear a car, I'm looking out the door," he said. "It's not a good way to live."
Welcome to America 2011... the Age of Obama.
Monday, September 26, 2011
Barker's Newsbites: Monday, September 26, 2011
The cement is just... it's just for the weight, babe...
Saturday, September 24, 2011
Reforming Social Security (The Texas Model)
From this weekend's WSJ, an op-ed by Merrill Matthews, a resident scholar with the Institute for Policy Innovation in Dallas, presented here in stand-alone newsbite format:
* HERE'S THE PROBLEM FOLKS... THE FOLLOWING INFO IS KNOWN TO ME AND PERHAPS A FEW MILLION PEOPLE OUT OF A NATIONAL POPULATION OF WHAT... 307 MILLION? IN OTHER WORDS... THE OLD "TREE FALLING IN A FOREST WITH NO ONE TO HEAR IT" QUANDARY. (*SHRUG*)
To highlight the problems facing Social Security, Texas Gov. and Republican presidential hopeful Rick Perry is pointing to three Texas counties that decades ago opted out of Social Security by creating personal retirement accounts.
* THREE... DECADES... AGO...
Now, 30 years on, county workers in those three jurisdictions retire with more money and have better death and disability supplemental benefits.
* WAIT! THERE'S MORE!
And those three counties - unlike almost all others in the United States - face no long-term unfunded pension liabilities.
* BUT, NO, FOLKS... THIS ISN'T THE SORT OF INFO THAT REPORTERS, EDITORS, AND MAINSTREAM PUNDITS - LET ALONE OUR SCHOOL TEACHERS AND EVEN COLLEGE PROFESSORS (EVEN AT THE GRAD LEVEL!) CARE TO BRING TO THE ATTENTION OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE.
(*GNASHING MY TEETH*) (*LITERALLY GROWLING*)
Since 1981 and 1982, workers in Galveston, Matagorda and Brazoria Counties have seen their retirement savings grow every year, even during the Great Recession.
(*PURSED LIPS*) THE SILENCE IS DEAFENING, IS IT NOT?
The so-called Alternate Plan of these three counties doesn't follow the traditional defined-benefit or defined-contribution model. Employee and employer contributions are actively managed by a financial planner - in this case, First Financial Benefits, Inc., of Houston, which originated the plan in 1980 and has managed it since its adoption. I call it a "banking model."
As with Social Security, employees contribute 6.2% of their income, with the county matching the contribution (or, as in Galveston, providing a slightly larger share). Once the county makes its contribution, its financial obligation is done - that's why there are no long-term unfunded liabilities.
(*LITERALLY JUMPING OUT OF MY CHAIR TO CHEER AND APPLAUD*)
The contributions are pooled, like bank deposits, and top-rated financial institutions bid on the money. Those institutions guarantee an interest rate that won't go below a base level and goes higher when the market does well. Over the last decade, the accounts have earned between 3.75% and 5.75% every year, with the average around 5%.
* SOUNDS FRIGG'N REASONABLE TO ME!
The 1990s often saw even higher interest rates, of 6.5%-7%. When the market goes up, employees make more - and when the market goes down, employees still make something.
* FOLKS... THE FACT THAT THIS ISN'T TAUGHT IN SCHOOL AND IF RARELY NOTED BY THE MAINSTREAM MEDIA OR EVEN INDIVIDUAL MEMBERS OF CONGRESS... THIS IS YET MORE EVIDENCE THAT ULTIMATELY... VIOLENCE TO OVERTHROW "THE ESTABLISHMENT" IS THE ONLY VIABLE WAY TO BEAT THEM AND RECLAIM SANITY FOR OUR SOCIETY.
But not all money goes into employees' retirement accounts. When financial planner Rick Gornto devised the Alternate Plan in 1980, he wanted it to be a complete substitute for Social Security. And Social Security isn't just a retirement fund: It's also social insurance that provides a death benefit ($255), survivors' insurance, and a disability benefit.
Part of the employer contribution in the Alternate Plan goes toward a term life insurance policy that pays four times the employee's salary tax-free, up to a maximum of $215,000. That's nearly 850 times Social Security's death benefit.
* AND AGAIN... EVEN IF SOME OF YOU HAVE BEEN MADE AWARE OF THIS INFORMATION PRIOR TO READING THIS NEWSBITES... YOU KNOW THAT THE AVERAGE AMERICAN - INCLUDING THE AVERAGE PROFESSIONAL... THE AVERAGE COLLEGE EDUCATED AMERICAN... EVEN THE AVERAGE MCMANSION OWNER WHO DRIVES A LATE MODEL MERCEDES OR SIMILAR VEHICLE... HE OR SHE IS CLUELESS
* FOLKS... IT'S NO ACCIDENT THAT THE AMERICAN PEOPLE ARE KEPT CLUELESS!
If a worker participating in Social Security dies before retirement, he loses his contribution (though part of that money might go to surviving children or a spouse who didn't work). But a worker in the Alternate Plan owns his account, so the entire account belongs to his estate.
(There is also a disability benefit that pays immediately upon injury, rather than waiting six months plus other restrictions, as under Social Security.)
* AND YET WHILE THESE GOVERNMENT WORKERS IN THESE THREE TEXAS COUNTIES PROSPER - AND AS TAXPAYER IN THOSE COUNTIES ESCAPE THE WEIGHT OF EVER INCREASING PENSION FUND INDEBTEDNESS WHICH FALLS ON THE AVERAGE AMERICAN'S SHOULDERS DUE TO MISMANAGEMENT, CORRUPTION, AND JUST PLAIN INCOMPETENCE - THE VAST, VAST MAJORITY OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE FACE THE NIGHTMARE OF THE PONZI SCHEMES KNOWN AS THE FEDERAL SOCIAL SECURITY PROGRAM AND KNOWN AS (MOST) STATE PENSION PLANS.
Those who retire under the Texas counties' Alternate Plan do much better than those on Social Security. According to First Financial's calculations, based on 40 years of contributions:
• A lower-middle income worker making about $26,000 at retirement would get about $1,007 a month under Social Security, but $1,826 under the Alternate Plan.
• A middle-income worker making $51,200 would get about $1,540 monthly from Social Security, but $3,600 from the banking model.
• And a high-income worker who maxed out on his Social Security contribution every year would receive about $2,500 a month from Social Security versus $5,000 to $6,000 a month from the Alternate Plan.
* ALL WITHOUT SCREWING THE TAXPAYER OVER... WITHOUT LEAVING OUR KIDS AND GRANDKIDS TO CLEAN UP THE FINANCIAL MESS THAT POLITICIANS HAVE MADE!
The Alternate Plan has demonstrated over 30 years that personal retirement accounts work, with many retirees making more than twice what they would under Social Security. As Galveston County Judge Mark Henry says, "The plan works great. Anyone who spends a few minutes understanding the plan becomes a huge proponent."
The Alternate Plan could be adopted today by the six million public employees in the U.S. - roughly 25% of the total - who are part of state and local government retirement plans that are outside of Social Security (and are facing serious unfunded liability problems).
Unfortunately this option is available only to those six million public employees, since in 1983 Congress barred all others from leaving Social Security.
(*PURSED LIPS*)
If Congress overrides this provision, however, the Alternate Plan could be a model for reforming Social Security nationally. After all, it provides all the social-insurance benefits of Social Security while avoiding the unfunded liabilities that are crippling the program and the economy.
* FOLKS... HERE'S THE KEY POINT... COMING UP...
If the presidential candidates, including President Obama, stop bickering about who wants to "save" or "destroy" Social Security and begin debating reform constructively, examining the Alternate Plan would be a good place to start.
Friday, September 23, 2011
Barker's Newsbites: Friday, September 23, 2011
Can anyone guess which of my affluent friends (hint: upper Westchester resident; attorney - midtown Manhattan law firm) forwarded the following video with a request it be made today's newsbites theme song?
(*JUST SHAKING MY HEAD*)
(*SIGHING*)
(*STILL SHAKING MY HEAD*)
Hey... anything for a friend... right...?!?!
(*SHRUG*)
Thursday, September 22, 2011
Barker's Newsbites: Thursday, September 22, 2011
As Obama and Bernanke lead the country to ruin...
(Folks... read newsbites #3 and #4 and explain to me why I'm wrong if you believe I'm wrong.)
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