Blogs For Victory

Instapundit has the picture.

We shall have them, America will never be socialist…or, to take a famed lefty slogan and turn it against them, no pasaran!

Might have saved us a lot of trouble:

The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not. - Thomas Jefferson

Liberals, do pay attention.

Why was all of DC in such rapture over Obama coming to town? Because the liberals who run that town - from top to bottom - knew they had hired a man who would be slavishly devoted to the expansion of Big Government which is one of the three primary occupations of liberals (the other two being MSM and education). The liberal commons of DC were finally rid of that nasty, old President Bush and now there would be uber liberals in all government slots - both career and appointive. No more need to even pretend to be fair to conservatives.

Hans von Spakovsky over at Pajamas Media details how the liberals who run DC - regardless of who is President - ensure that liberalism is predominant by simply not hiring non-liberals. Additionally, of course, there are not a large number of conservatives who try - conservatives tending to despise government and to view government employment as something for the weak-willed, weak-kneed and weak-minded. People who want to do things which require solid, measurable results don’t tend to go in to government work (the military isn’t “government work” by the way - it is an honorable calling, like that of the priesthood). And so liberalism breeds liberalism and while a Republican President can issue orders, the carrying out of his orders are dependent upon people who, at the least, have a general opposition to his views and, at the worst, are determined to thwart his policy.

What to do?

Get rid of them all.

This is a tricky thing - due to the rampant corruption in government hiring in the 19th century (the ill-famed “spoils system” of old), various civil service protections were placed on career government officials to help ensure that people were hired and advanced on merit, not on political affiliation. This probably worked pretty well when the government was tiny and there was a fair chance that roughly equal numbers of Democrats and Republicans were interested in government. With the coming of the New Deal, however, things changed - government became massive became a thing not of general public service, but of advancing a particular, political agenda. What Republican would want to join FDR’s program to intrude government into every aspect of life? And so, the make up of government service changed - it became liberal, and liberal it has remained, even though Republicans have controlled the White House a majority of the time post-FDR. We can’t just fire everyone - but we can still make a clean sweep.

We will be returned to power - perhaps as early as 2013 (and, in the House, perhaps as early as 2011), but no latter than 2017. When that happens, our only safety - our only assurance that what we propose is actually carried out - is to furlough as many government employees as possible as soon as office is secured. Ultimately, legislation will be necessary, and that will only be possible if the GOP controls both houses (which might not happen, even if we win the White House in 2012, until after the 2014 mid-terms) - but even without legislation, the President can simply furlough the suspect employees…sure, this will cost tens of millions of dollars in wages to people sitting at home…but better to pay them to watch Oprah than to screw up the United States of America. Once the people are furloughed, a careful review can be done by the Executive Branch to determine which employees should be brought back and which should be replaced - with the entire hiring process entirely in the hands of conservatives.

And that is not the end of it all - the thing is, we’ll never really get conservatism enforced until we de-fund the left. The only thing which keeps the left going is government subsidy (do you really think someone would pay their own money for a feminist studies course in college?) - the government employees are a massive source of this funding, but there are literal thousands of groups out there advancing the leftist agenda on the taxpayer’s dime…and all of these groups would dry up and blow away if the government spigot is cut off. The two things go together - as a for instance: when we pass a law stating that funds must be provided to help unwed mothers, do you think the liberal bureaucrat in DC is going to find the most orthodox, Christian crisis pregnancy center, or find some liberal organization which is actually a mere cover for abortion?

Once the left is de-funded, it will be easy for us to restore America - to return our government to its constitutional functions, and free the American people from the onerous burdens liberalism has imposed over the past 75. We’ll be a genuinely free people again, in control of our own destiny…but only a clean sweep will do it.

To leave office at the end of the month.

Fabulously popular, a certainty for re-election in 2010…and now she leaves?

Perhaps she’s just sick of the nastiness? If so, then we’re to blame, as a country, for failure to sustain someone as good as she is…

Perhaps her family just wants a year off prior to a Presidential run? Remember, if she ran for re-election she’d be busy in 2010 and then in 2011 its off to the races…

Bobby Jindal’s chore for the weekend: pondering this…

Can she win the White House? If an incompetent, inexperienced MSM darling can get elected, anyone can…

Exhibited by the Father of our Country:

Esqr. that he had the order of the Congress to acq[ain]t him, that the Congress had by a unanimous vote made choice of him to be general and com[mander] in chief to take the supreme command of the forces raised and to be raised, in defence of American Liberty, and desired his acceptance of it. Whereupon Colonel Washington, standing in his place, spoke as follows:

“Mr. President,

“Tho’ I am truly sensible of the high Honour done me, in this Appointment, yet I feel great distress, from a consciousness that my abilities and military experience may not be equal to the extensive and important Trust: However, as the Congress desire it, I will enter upon the momentous duty, and exert every power I possess in their service, and for support of the glorious cause. I beg they will accept my most cordial thanks for this distinguished testimony of their approbation.

“But, lest some unlucky event should happen, unfavourable to my reputation, I beg it may be remembered, by every Gentleman in the room, that I, this day, declare with the utmost sincerity, I do not think myself equal to the Command I am honored with.

“As to pay, Sir, I beg leave to assure the Congress, that, as no pecuniary consideration could have tempted me to have accepted this arduous employment, at the expence of my domestic ease and happiness, I do not wish to make any proffit from it. I will keep an exact Account of my expences. Those, I doubt not, they will discharge, and that is all I desire.”

Pray to God, fellow Americans, that we may in future be blessed with leaders with even a fraction of the worth of Washington.

Today’s flu headlines:

Teen is swine flu’s first victim in London as ministers warn 40 a day could die by end of summer

WHO warns swine flu ‘unstoppable’

Hong Kong finds 1st case of Tamiflu-resistant H1N1

Did we miss something here?

Some pre-4th thoughts on the fundamentals of America:

CHESAPEAKE, Va. (Catholic Online) - This Saturday is the 4th of July, the day when people will gather all over the United States of America to celebrate Independence. Fireworks will light up the sky, families will gather and we will all pause to remember those who gave their lives so that the promises set forth in that Declaration of Independence could inform a new Nation. Their courageous Declaration, signed on this date proclaimed:

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights - that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men”

The Declaration of Independence was the birth certificate of the United States of America. The words are still memorized by schoolchildren and can bring a tear to the oldest American eye with little effort. The principles they communicate have informed our history as a free people and inspired our neighbors in other parts of the world to stand up against all forms of tyranny. As we reflect upon the text this weekend we need to remember that our forebears were not declaring their independence from Divine Providence. Rather, they were trusting in the primacy of the Governance of God over their own lives and their noble undertaking.

Created equal and endowed by their Creator - this is central; because if we are not created equal and if our rights are not endowed by God - and thus irrevocable by human action - then we are not at all equal, and we have no rights save those a tyrant chooses to allow. If our Declaration had said, “We hold these opinions to be valid, that all men are equal, that they are allowed by Nature to have certain Rights”, it would have been an absurd statement…nothing men would be willing to die for. Might as well have Washington and Co. fold up the tents and go home…but if we are fighting to secure what God gave us, then no sacrifice is too great, and nor argument can be made against us and only force could compel us to give in.

People can quibble about whether or not America is a Christian nation - but that 99% or better of the men who shed their blood to found the nation were Christian cannot be disputed. And these Christian heroes gave their lives not for an abstraction thought up by some clever intellectual cobweb spinner, but for the concrete reality that God gave them certain things which others were trying to take away. So it was then, and so it is today - and so it will always be, until the End.

Resolute in defense of liberty:

…If we wish to be free– if we mean to preserve inviolate those inestimable privileges for which we have been so long contending–if we mean not basely to abandon the noble struggle in which we have been so long engaged, and which we have pledged ourselves never to abandon until the glorious object of our contest shall be obtained–we must fight! I repeat it, sir, we must fight! An appeal to arms and to the God of hosts is all that is left us! …

…It is in vain, sir, to extenuate the matter. Gentlemen may cry, Peace, Peace– but there is no peace. The war is actually begun! The next gale that sweeps from the north will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms! Our brethren are already in the field! Why stand we here idle? What is it that gentlemen wish? What would they have? Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death! - Patrick Henry

According to NRO, that is the current number of planned “Tea Parties”. Its a growing movement, boys and girls, and we’re going to take our government back. America will never be socialist!

And any piddling liberal who dares call this an “overseas contingency operation” will really, really tick me off…

Thousands of U.S. Marines descended upon the volatile Helmand River valley in helicopters and armored convoys early Thursday, mounting an operation that represents the first large-scale test of the U.S. military’s new counterinsurgency strategy in Afghanistan.

The operation will involve about 4,000 troops from the 2nd Marine Expeditionary Brigade, which was dispatched to Afghanistan this year by President Obama to combat a growing Taliban insurgency in Helmand and other southern provinces. The Marines, along with an Army brigade that is scheduled to arrive later this summer, plan to push into pockets of the country where NATO forces have not had a presence. In many of those areas, the Taliban has evicted local police and government officials and taken power.

Once Marine units arrive in their designated towns and villages, they have been instructed to build and live in small outposts among the local population. The brigade’s commander, Brig. Gen. Lawrence D. Nicholson, said his Marines will focus their efforts on protecting civilians from the Taliban and on restoring Afghan government services, instead of mounting a series of hunt-and-kill missions against the insurgents.

The enemy hasn’t got a chance - as long as the political leadership in DC sustains our Marines and soldiers.

• Twitter Updates for 2009-07-01 http://tinyurl.com/mwo3ef #
• Is Europe Starting to “Re-Hate” America? http://tinyurl.com/qjw8ru #
• Sanford Still Hasn’t Resigned http://tinyurl.com/ma64hj #
• Sotomayor Part of Anti-Bork Group http://tinyurl.com/mv4rk6 #
• Tax and Spend Liberals Trying to Dodge the Fiscal Bullet http://tinyurl.com/maaxt7 #
• Phrase of the Day http://tinyurl.com/lx3pdg #
• Thursday Open Thread http://tinyurl.com/lgggfq #
• Taxpayer Funded Travel Jumps… http://tinyurl.com/my8s3g #
• A Blast From the Past http://tinyurl.com/nuca9q #

In our 1983-style unemployment rate:

Americans lucky enough to still have a job are noticing something unpleasant in their paychecks: They’re making less money.

Employers cut 467,000 jobs in June, far more than expected, and the jobless rate hit a 26-year high of 9.5 percent. Just as worrisome, wages shrank to their lowest in nearly a year.

The bleak news Thursday from the Labor Department underscored one of the big threats to an economic turnaround: Rising joblessness and falling wages for those still working could send Americans back into spending hibernation and short-circuit any recovery.

What is really short-circuiting recovery is the fact that Obama is leeching every dollar he can out of the private economy and spreading it around to favored, liberal special interest groups…said groups never being noted for their contributions to GDP. Be that as it may, we’re in quite a pickle…and remember, back in 1983, that was the peak before Reagan’s economic policies cause the largest recovery in history…we’re not even to the bottom of Obamunism yet, and we can’t get anyone Reagan-like this side of 2013.

UPDATE: Unemployment? In effect, its official government policy.

Ahh, I can remember when Democrats raised hell about congressional travel back in 2005… Every single trip taken by Republicans was criticized. It was just the beginning of a storm that lead member of both parties scrambling to get their paperwork in order, and these junkets were largely curbed for a short while.

Back in the majority, Democrats have not only gone back to their globe-trotting ways, they are traveling at the taxpayers’ expense this time.

Spending by lawmakers on taxpayer-financed trips abroad has risen sharply in recent years, a Wall Street Journal analysis of travel records shows, involving everything from war-zone visits to trips to exotic spots such as the Galápagos Islands.

The spending on overseas travel is up almost tenfold since 1995, and has nearly tripled since 2001, according to the Journal analysis of 60,000 travel records. Hundreds of lawmakers traveled overseas in 2008 at a cost of about $13 million. That’s a 50% jump since Democrats took control of Congress two years ago.

The cost of so-called congressional delegations, known among lawmakers as “codels,” has risen nearly 70% since 2005, when an influence-peddling scandal led to a ban on travel funded by lobbyists, according to the data.

Truth be told, Republicans are taking these trips, too. But, it was these kind of trips, though funded by lobbyists and non-profits, that had Democrats either crying foul at Republicans for taking part in them, or excusing their own trips, saying “At least it isn’t the taxpayers paying for the trips.”

The storm they caused starting in 2005 ultimately lead to Mark and I writing Caucus of Corruption. That said, this newfound acceptance of travel on our dime wasn’t unexpected.  The question is, why, after Democrats said they’d conduct themselves more openly, honestly, and ethically, have actually done the opposite. I think we all know why.

Doing anything special for the 4th? I might slide by a “Tea Party” protest…what are you up to?

Discuss this and anything else you’ve a mind to.

Is the left merely attacking religion to exalt reason? Hardly - it is an attack upon both, because faith and reason are bound up together:

…the Faith and the use of the intelligence are inextricably bound up. The use of reason is a main part - or rather the foundation - of all inquiry into the highest things. It was precisely because reason was given this divine authority that the Church proclaimed mystery - that is, admitted reason to have its limits. It had to be so, lest the absolute powers ascribed to reason should lead to the exclusion of truths which the reason might accept but could not demonstrate. Reason was limited by mystery only more to enhance the sovereignty of reason in its own sphere.

When reason is dethroned, not only is Faith dethroned (the two subversions go together) but every moral and legitimate activity of the human soul is dethroned at the same time. There is no God. So the words “God is Truth” which the mind of Christian Europe used as a postulate in all it did, cease to have meaning. None can analyse the rightful authority of government nor set bounds to it. In the absence of reason, political authority reposing on mere force is boundless. And reason is thus made a victim because Humanity itself is what the Modern Attack is destroying in its false religion of humanity. Reason being the crown of man and at the same time his distinguishing mark, the Anarchs march against reason as their principle enemy. - Hilaire Belloc, The Great Heresies

Hoping that they can cook to books to the point where they can avoid the full amount of absolutely necessary spending cuts:

California’s top accountant said the state would begin issuing IOUs to hundreds of thousands of creditors after lawmakers failed to meet its deadline this week to close a massive budget deficit.

California Controller John Chiang said Wednesday he planned to send out $3.4 billion of IOUs in July to state contractors and local governments, as well as to residents expecting income-tax refunds, welfare grants and college scholarships…

…Mr. Chiang said without IOUs, the state would run out of cash by the end of July. “It’s our last official step prior to defaulting,” he said. Mr. Chiang delayed similar payments in February because of another cash-flow emergency, but didn’t issue IOUs at that time.

Legislators have been deadlocked for more than a month on ways to close what is now a $26 billion deficit in a $92 billion general-fund budget. Late-night sessions failed to produce a compromise.

Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger proposed deep cuts and some so-called revenue accelerations, which would include larger income-tax withholding. Democrats, who control the Legislature, countered with a $21 billion proposal that includes $11 billion of cuts and relies more heavily on accounting gimmicks and one-time fixes. Republican lawmakers on Tuesday rejected the latest Democratic plan, which Mr. Schwarzenegger said he would veto anyway. (emphasis added)

Gimmicks! The California economy is collapsing under an avalanche of tax and spend liberalism, and the liberals want to use sleight of hand to get out of it…knowing that it will only put off the day of reckoning to next July. Perhaps they hope the economy will recover, or Santa ‘Bama will come down the chimney with a hundred billion dollars of taxpayer goodies…more likely, they are just afraid and simply want to get to the next day without having to expose themselves to an unpopular vote.

This is what you want for us, liberals? This is your State - GOPers have only slight influence, and have had only slight influence for the past decade in California…and conservatism has had no influence at all (except at the ballot boxes when referenda come up for a vote, and even then, sometimes, it doesn’t come through). This should be a paradise - a place of education and health care for all, no more crime, no more pollution, steady “sustainable” growth, racial harmony…where is it, liberals? To use an old phrase, “where’s the beef”? If you can’t do it with 30 million people, why should we believe you that you can do it with 300 million?

The hits keep coming:

A Puerto Rican civil rights organization advised by Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor campaigned against seating conservative Robert Bork on the high court in the late 1980s, according to new documents that shed light on the group that’s become a key focus of Republicans questioning Sotomayor’s fitness to be a justice.

The Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund officially opposed GOP nominee Bork in 1987, “because of the threat he poses to the civil rights of the Latino community,” its president reported in one of several documents from the group that the Senate Judiciary Committee released Wednesday. The 350-plus pages of material offer little evidence about Sotomayor’s role in the cases and causes the organization, now known as LatinoJustice PRLDEF, took up while she served on its board from 1980 until 1992.

So, she’s part of a group which slandered Judge Bork over his views, and now she wants to be on the Supreme Court? I don’t think so.

Of course, she’ll get confirmed - the questions are rising and its clear that Sotomayor is unfit to be a Justice, but Democrats will not want to hand Obama a defeat like this early on and the GOP can’t even slow things down, even if we wanted to “do a Democrat” and try for a filibuster…we simply lack the votes.

But we can hang this vote on vulnerable Democrats - she’s someone who has un-American views about justice and who thinks race more important than truth…for some moderate Democrats, this vote will be hard to explain to the folks back home.

Which fact amazes me.

Uh, governor - Pound sand. Get lost. Hit the road - the sooner you’re out of politics, the better.

Wouldn’t surprise me:

On the campaign trail, Barack Obama promised that he would “reboot America’s image” around the world. Indeed, many Americans who voted for Obama believed that his global popularity would somehow reverse the tide of anti-Americanism that so vexed his predecessor. Echoing this sentiment of Obama as savior of America’s image abroad, presidential advisor David Axelrod recently asserted that “anti-Americanism isn’t cool anymore.”

In Europe, where anti-Americanism was elevated to the status of a religion during the presidency of George W. Bush, the “chattering classes” have, by and large, toned down their criticism of the United States since Obama was elected. In general, European media coverage of Obama has been quite favorable and the vehemence of the anti-American rhetoric has been notably more muted than in recent years. But now, five months into the age of Obama, the highly vaunted transatlantic honeymoon may be coming to an end. During the past several weeks, European media have started publishing stories that criticize Obama and once again cast the United States in a negative light. Could this be a harbinger of things to come?

The linked article goes on to note the increasing stream of anti-Obama and/or anti-American articles pouring out of the European MSM - some of these articles I’ve seen, and what I catch from them is a sense of betrayal: the EU-niks were hoping, I guess, that Obama would immediately make us just like them and, perhaps, haul President Bush before a war crimes tribunal. Of course, we here at home view Obama increasingly as an Euro-weenie trying to out yellow-belly the most cowardly people in the world - but for the Europeans, its always been a choice: deal with Europe’s glaring failures, or condemn the United States for errors real and imagined. Almost invariably, the choice has come down to condemning the United States.

And, once again, it is because of what we are, not what we do. Obama is doing plenty to please even the most kooky Euro-leftist, and its not enough….because America is still America: still more powerful than any other nation, still richer than any other nation, still more dynamic than any other nation, still more free than any other nation. Deep in their heart of hearts, I think, they realize that we’ll transcend Obamunism in the by and by and we’ll once more be surging ahead while Europe tries to balance the need for workers with the worry about eventual Islamist beheadings. They really, really want to be on top of the world, and they can’t stand the fact that they’re not, and never will be. This resentment is now being turned on Obama.

All of this just illustrates that America can never set its policy based upon concern for what people think of us. It really doesn’t matter what we do - those who are enslaved to lies will hate us, come what may. Much better, than, to just do the right thing and realize that in the long run, these chatterers will be forgotten while the man who did the right thing will live on in memory for ages to come.

• Twitter Updates for 2009-06-30 http://tinyurl.com/n3q3l2 #
• Twitter Updates for 2009-06-30 http://tinyurl.com/loy4k8 #
• What Media Bias? Part 152 http://tinyurl.com/kp727h #
• Israeli Navy Battles Kookery on the High Seas http://tinyurl.com/lbscmg #
• Free Speech is Unfair? http://tinyurl.com/nvdqop #
• Bono’s Ode to Mary http://tinyurl.com/mk9fcw #
• Phrase of the Day http://tinyurl.com/ma3zyo #
• A Question to Ponder http://tinyurl.com/lj7czy #
• Planned Parenthood Breaks the Law, Again http://tinyurl.com/ncvquk #
• If You Wish to Study History… http://tinyurl.com/ma8puf #
• Representative Waxman (D-CA) Hospitalized http://tinyurl.com/lj63m7 #
• Obama to Hide From the American People http://tinyurl.com/mtg73y #