Barker's Newsbites: Wednesday, July 25, 2012

Ahh...

BOSTON!

Barker's Newsbites: Tuesday, July 24, 2012

For all you Dylan fans out there...

(*WINK*)

Barker's Newsbites: Monday, July 23, 2012

America 2012 - The Age of Obama

(Newsbites are in the Comment Section...)

By the way, folks... I do hope you are reading the newsbites... because things sure as hell ain't copacetic!

Weekend Hiatus: Sat. & Sun., July 21 & 22, 2012

Parties... barbeques... screw the news!

(*GRIN*)

(*WINK*)

But, hey... it's not a total loss! I'm gonna introduce you to Leddra Chapman!

Barker's Newsbites: Friday, July 20,2012

Am I going to address the Colorado shooting?

Nope.

What's to be said?

A nut with a gun. Happened to be a white guy. Horrific crime.

BUT... not the symptom of the wholesale breakdown of society that these "wildings" and "flash mob" robberies and riots are.

I'd be saying the same thing if this Holmes were black or Hispanic.

Remember John Allen Muhammad and Lee Boyd Malvo?

(*SHRUG*)

Nuts. Criminals. Same as Holmes... same as Son of Sam... same as the Columbine "kids" or Seung-Hui Cho...

We're talking sick individuals. NOT the same as a "random wilding..."

Anyway... just laying out my position so that it's crystal clear. 

See what I mean about Scalia, folks...?

From a recent CNN interview with U.S. Supreme Court  Justice Antonin Scalia:

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia downplayed reports of personal and ideological rifts stemming from the recent landmark health care reform ruling, telling CNN in an exclusive interview "it offends me" to hear criticism of his colleagues over how they ruled.

(*SNORT*)

What "offends" me is Scalia providing cover for his anti-constitutionist colleagues.

The 76-year-old justice talked Wednesday with CNN's "Piers Morgan Tonight..."

Too easy, folks! I'll just leave that one alone...

(*CHUCKLE*)

Scalia, along with Bryan Garner, is co-author of a new book, "Reading Law: The Interpretation of Legal Texts." The men describe their legal philosophy, and how to make sense of the law and the U.S. Constitution. They call their approach "textualism."

I'd recommend the book sight unseen. I'll be reading it.

Scalia would not specifically address the health care decision or other recent or current case issues, such as immigration enforcement, affirmative action or gay marriage.

No... (*SMIRK*)... of course not... (*SNICKER*)...

And he would not discuss how the court reached its health care ruling in internal deliberations.

Sounds like one hell of an interview, huh!

(*SNORT*)

But the conservative justice downplayed media reports of personal fallout from opposing conservative and liberal members of the court over the 5-4 decision three weeks ago.

Which tells you everything you need to know if Scalia is truly being honest and accurate... (Which I pray he's not!)

Scalia said it was wrong to question Roberts or other court members personally for their legal conclusions.

Bull. (Plus... Scalia has been known to throw his own "personal" barbs at colleagues from time to time in his Opinions and Dissents.)

"We are not a political institution," Scalia said. "I don't think any of my colleagues on any cases vote the way they do for political reasons."

(*ROLLING MY EYES*)

Yeah...? Notice Piers Morgan didn't follow up with "well, how about for ideological reasons?"

(*SNICKER*)

Folks... really... it makes me ill to read this.

Scalia added he was dismayed at the criticism of Roberts, suggesting those who may have leaked information were not entirely privy to the internal discussions over the health care decision.

Well... if the Justices themselves had the integrity to share what exactly happened with the American People it wouldn't be necessary to depend upon "leaks."

Listen... folks... I understand why Scalia would spout such nonsense... but in the final analysis that's what it is... nonsense.

Barker's Newsbites: Thursday, July 19, 2012

I'd like to take this opportunity to thank my "regulars" - both old and new - for flattering me with your kind words.

While this blog gets few comments (other than mine), I've been averaging over 100 page views a day recently...

(*SHURG*) (*SMILE*)

...and the other day when I was working-out at the gym one of the trainers informed me that he's become a "regular" visitor to Usually Right.

Why do I do this? Why not?! I'd be doing the reading, anyway, so why not share what I know and what I believe?

Does it annoy me that I get so few comments? Yes. More... er... positive reinforcement would be appreciated. (And if and when you think I'm going wrong have the balls to say so!) Do I understand why I don't get more comments? Yep. Damn straight! I say some controversial things on my blog... remarks that many of my professional friends can't really risk being associated with. (You've heard of "discovery" in court cases and personal investigations...)

Also... I know people are busy and commenting here risks you getting drawn in to a long back-and-forth.

Also... most folks don't enjoy debating - particularly women. ("Go along to get along" is more prevalent than not, it seems.)

Last... (*SIGH*)... not to get too egotistical... but few "regular" folks have the intellectual heft and degree of knowledge necessary to challenge me even if they don't "like" what they're reading.

(*SHRUG*)

But, hey... I'll keep writing, folks! I'll keep sharing! I'll keep providing an ongoing record of the decline and fall of a once great nation and People in the hope that future historians may benefit!

(Yeah, yeah... I can "see" some of you rolling your eyes out there! But in all seriousness... "Peoples' Histories" are a concept actually lauded by the Left and frankly, they've got a point. "Regular" people such as myself writing "diaries" and other commentary... they're used by "real" historians to "fill in the blanks" of the "broad swath of "elite" (top down) history.)

Well... that's today's Newsbites intro! And here's today's Newsbites theme song!

Enjoy!

Reality Sucks (Byron York - and moi - face this sucky reality)

Read it and weep:

Folks... I know I can sound like a broken record.

Folks... I know that what's done is done.

Folks... yes... I'm gonna vote for Romney (and Nan Hayworth) though neither is trustworthy; it's simply that 2012 is like no other election save perhaps 1860. The fate of the nation depends upon not allowing the Leftists of the Democratic Party to retain the presidency nor retain control of even one house of congress - never mind both!

Byron York lays out a powerful case in today's Washington Examiner. Allow me to excerpt and as usual comment within the piece.

A few days before the January 31 Florida Republican primary, a number of Mitt Romney’s top aides took to the pages of the New York Times to brag about how they had destroyed Newt Gingrich. 

The former House Speaker had beaten Romney badly just a few days earlier in South Carolina; a loss in Florida might have unalterably changed the GOP race. So the Times reported that “a team of some of the most fearsome researchers in the business, led by Mr. Romney’s campaign manager, Matt Rhoades, spent days dispensing negative information about Mr. Gingrich.”

That was an understatement. 

Team Romney not only dropped "oppo-research" on Gingrich; before it was all over, Romney and his SuperPAC allies spent about $15 million on ads in Florida, three times what Gingrich and his supporters spent. 

And all — literally all — of it was on negative advertising.

“The only positive Romney ad aired over the past week was single Spanish-language radio ad,” ABC’s Jonathan Karl reported when it was over. Romney’s assault completely dominated the airwaves; 68% of all ads aired in Florida were Romney attacks on Gingrich. 

It worked; Romney won Florida handily.

And thus... (*SIGH*)... the situation we find ourselves in today.

All thanks to Romney... all thanks to Romney's "allies" (of convenience... who with good reason feared Gingrich) in the mainstream media as well as his (true) allies within the unprincipled GOP establishment media.

No matter who they supported, many Republicans felt uneasy as they watched the intra-party war unfold. 

Many — voters and insiders alike — remarked that when the general election campaign came around, Romney had better attack Barack Obama with the same ferocity he attacked Gingrich. (And, at other times in the primary season, Rick Perry and Rick Santorum.) Otherwise, it would look like Romney took more relish in attacking fellow Republicans than in taking on Obama.

(*SHRUG*) (*PURSED LIPS*)

Romney had won the Republican nomination in significant part by operating a death star — a machine that could rain down holy hell on opponents, if that’s what winning required. He had better give the same treatment to Obama.

Look around you, folks... has he? And even if (when?) Romney does go on offense... well... unlike Romney's attacks on Gingrich, Perry, and Santorum, does anyone supposed the New York Times, the Washington Post, the TV networks, and the rest of the mainstream media will "faithfully carry" Romney's attacks and treat them as factual and legitimate?

(*SIGH*)

Now, the general election campaign is here, and the talk is of the Obama killing machine, not the Romney death star. By most accounts, the Romney campaign is not displaying the super-aggressive effectiveness it showed in the primaries. Why?  Here are five factors:

1) The facts. Romney’s business history and taxes are two issues left unresolved from the primary campaign. During the primaries, Republicans didn’t want to hear fellow Republicans criticizing Romney’s record at Bain Capital.

Oh, yes... as I well remember! (Stupid... stupid... stupid Republicans...)

(*SIGH*)

Some characterized attacks on Romney’s Bain history as attacks on capitalism itself. Democrats and many independents don’t feel the same way, and Obama and his SuperPAC allies are relentlessly slamming Romney’s business history both nationally and in key states around the country. Likewise, while most Republicans were satisfied with Romney’s release of one year’s tax returns, and promise to release one more, that minimalist offering has met less success in the general election fight.

(*PURSED LIPS*)

2) The media. In the primary race, a lot of Romney’s attacks on his GOP rivals were highlighted by the Drudge Report and picked up and commented upon by liberal-leaning media that were happy to focus on divisions inside the Republican party.

(*NOD*)

Now that the race is Republican vs. Democrat, there’s a different dynamic at work. Except on days when terrible economic news is released, Obama has been remarkably successful at getting much of the media to talk about what he wants them to talk about — namely, Romney’s flaws and not the Obama economic record. Whether Romney can change that dynamic remains to be seen. Right now, it’s hurting the Republican badly.

Folks... the dynamic isn't going to change. If anything it'll get worse. The Left knows that if they can retain the presidency for another four years that it's game, set, and match.

(*SIGH*)

3) The SuperPACs. In recent days, Romney’s aides have dropped hints that they believe pro-Obama outside groups — SuperPACs — have done a much more effective job against Romney than pro-Romney SuperPACs have done against Obama. 

Ya think...?!?!

Some Democrats agree. 

“The real surprising thing of the campaign is the Democratic Super PACs have been more influential thus far, Priorities USA, American Bridge,” said Democratic strategist James Carville on ABC last Sunday. “They have driven the debate in this campaign much more than — than the Republican Super PACs … As of July 15th, it’s the Democratic Super PACs that have basically driven this whole Bain, tax return, whatever it is.” Romney officials don’t complain for the record, but they don’t believe the GOP SuperPACs have been nearly as tough as they should have been. (But given Federal Election Commission rules against coordination between a campaign and its supporting SuperPACs, they can’t just come out and say what it is they want.)

4) Campaign finance laws. Romney officials believe this is the most under-reported aspect of the ad war so far. Until the Republican National Convention, which begins August 27, Romney is forbidden from spending the money he has raised for the general election. Instead, he is using money left over from the GOP primary race. Of course, Romney spent a huge amount of money — about $85 million — to win that primary race. Even though he has been raising vast amounts for the general election, he doesn’t have gobs of cash to use right now. Obama, on the other hand, didn’t have to spend any money winning a Democratic primary. The result is that Obama is hugely out-spending Romney in key states. A recent Washington Post report said Obama has outspent Romney in Florida $17 million to $2 million, as of July 6. The numbers in Ohio were $22 million to $6.5 million, and in Virginia, they were $11 million to $3 million. That is a huge, huge advantage for Obama — not unlike the advantage Romney enjoyed over his Republican rivals during the primary season.

5) Romney’s complaining. Newt Gingrich complained loudly — some called it whining — when Romney first hit him with a negative ad barrage in Iowa. Then, when Romney attacked on a far bigger scale in Florida, Gingrich reacted badly again.

Romney lied. He lied time and time again. He outright lied! (Folks... it's all documented in the archives here at Usually Right.)

Privately, the Romney campaign, which at times seemed to delight at kicking the hell out of a Republican opponent, had no respect for Gingrich’s tendency to complain when attacked. Just take it and hit back harder — that was the way they saw it. Now, however, Romney is complaining about Obama’s attacks. 

(*SIGH*)

Folks... this is the man who is the GOP standard-bearer... our "champion" against Obama and the Left. God help us...

Romney is far more self-controlled than Gingrich, but the effect is the same; he’s whining about the other guy treating him badly. It’s the same thing that happened in the primary campaign, only with Romney on the hurting end.

So at least at the moment, the vaunted Romney death star, the machine that flattened his Republican opponents, just isn’t working. 

Romney is trying to get traction — this week, he’s focusing on Obama’s crony capitalism — but he is struggling. 

To fix things, he’ll have to put out more facts about his own record, plus capitalize on more bad economic news for Obama (that’s a sure bet at this point), plus gain access to the money he’s raised for the general election, plus find a way to sharpen the SuperPACs’ games. 

And then he’ll have to regain the back-against-the-wall fighting spirit he had in the Florida primary. 

If he doesn’t, the Obama campaign will run over him.

Giving Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) (one of the good guys) the Spotlight

Just passing it on...

We’re living in an economic horror movie.

No one knows what tax rates will be next year. Nobody knows what the rules governing ObamaCare, Dodd-Frank, carbon emissions or even monetary policy will be. Nobody knows what will happen with Europe, our own debt crisis, or where another round of handouts, carve-outs, or bailouts will take [us].

What did last Friday’s jobs numbers mean?

(*SIGH*)

The same thing they meant last month, and in the months and months before that: President Obama’s economic policies are too big to succeed.

* FOLKS... IN TRUTH THEY'VE BEEN A TOTAL FAILURE! THEY'VE MADE THINGS WORSE!

Million-, billion- and trillion-dollar plans that were pitched as targeted, thoughtful measures to alleviate unemployment and foreclosure have congealed into an all-encompassing mass of new laws, mandates and regulations that ooze over everything. This might be great fun for the government officials who create the rules, but not for the entrepreneurs trying to create jobs.

The Obama administration has put us under rule of the Blob - the bureaucracy has become indescribable, indestructible, and it seems like nothing can stop it from engulfing us all. Politicians assure us every expansion of the state will create jobs, yet three years and several trillion dollars later, the only jobs being created seem to be in Washington, home to four of the nation’s five wealthiest counties despite creating almost nothing of actual economic value.

Instead of jobs, we got the Blob.

(*NOD*)

The federal government does create jobs, sort of, but not the ones it claims. The only jobs Obamanomics creates are for government employees to administer the rules, trial lawyers to sue perceived violators, compliance lawyers to get companies up to code, environmentalists to conduct impact studies, union bosses, executives of companies favored with grants, subsidies and loan guarantees, and Wall Street bankers to buy and sell all our debt.

* YEP! THAT PRETTY MUCH COVERS IT!  

There are three big problems with this. First, these jobs don’t add value to the economy. They don’t manufacture or build or innovate or create their own wealth - they just siphon wealth from others.

* FOLKS... THIS IS A VITAL POINT! APPLY THIS TEST TO YOUR OWN JOB... TO THE JOBS YOUR FRIENDS AND RELATIVES HOLD... NEVER BE AFRAID TO LOOK REALITY IN THE EYE AND APPLY A "VALUE" TEST.

Second, the money Washington uses to create these special interest windfalls kills many more jobs.

And third, these special interest jobs cannot survive without government handouts, so they either become a permanent drag on the economy or, like so many of the president’s green-energy gambles, they eventually fail, losing both jobs and taxpayer money in the process.

* AND SINCE GOVERNMENT "HANDOUTS" COME FROM TAXING YOU AND ME AND BORROWING AND CREATING DEBT WE AND OUR CHILDREN ARE ULTIMATELY RESPONSIBLE FOR PAYING OFF... WE'RE REALLY TALKING TAXPAYER HANDOUTS!

The unemployment rate has been at 8% or higher for the last 41 consecutive months - almost the entire time Obama has been in office. That’s not counting the desperate millions who have part-time jobs but want full-time work, or those who have dropped out of the labor force completely.

* IN OTHER WORDS... (*SIGH*)... THE REAL UNEMPLOYMENT RATE IS MUCH, MUCH HIGHER THAN THE OFFICIAL FIGURE OF 8.2%.

The Associated Press’s economics writer Paul Wiseman has calculated that the economy has lost 5 million jobs since the Great Recession officially "ended" three years ago.

* FOLKS... THE RECESSION DIDN'T END. YOU KNOW IT. I KNOW IT. WE HAVEN'T SEEN A PROLONGED ECONOMIC CRISIS SUCH AS THIS SINCE THE CARTER ERA!

The 80,000 jobs added last month did not come anywhere close to keeping up with population growth, so even modest gains are actually big losses. Historic proportions of the unemployed have been out of work for at least six months. Indeed, more Americans went on disability in June than obtained new jobs.

* AS HAS BEEN NOTED ON SEVERAL NEWSBITE THREADS... (*SHRUG*)

Business have two options: hide from the Blob and hope it passes them by, or become a special interest itself and try to get rich off the Blob. This is no way to run an economy, and no way to create jobs.

In the 1958 movie classic, Steve McQueen saves the day by discovering “The Blob” can be only defeated by freezing it. That could be America’s last resort against Washington today: if we can somehow freeze the government, we might free the economy.

Less Blob means more jobs.

* IT'S NOT QUITE THAT SIMPLY... BUT IT'S A KEY ELEMENT!