CNN Political Ticker notes the race shaping up in Virginia:

Former U.S. Senator George Allen has received some good news should he choose to challenge Democratic Sen. Jim Webb for his old seat in 2012.

Virginia’s GOP leaders elected to select their Republican candidate in 2012 by primary instead of by convention potentially helping Allen who may fare better before primary voters than party delegates…

Allen has been doing a lot of good things and proving himself a conservative leader, but I’ve always had doubts about political re-matches. Sure, they can work out – such as in Allen West’s victory – but they can also turn out badly – such as in Dino Rossi’s serial losses in Washington State. I figure it is especially hard for a former office holder to re-claim his office from the person who ousted him. It all becomes “do you want to go back to that?”, rather than about the issues of the day.

Now, if Webb were to back out, that would be a different story – but if Webb decides to try for a second term, I think the GOP would be better served by someone fresh for the fight.

The arrogance of this astounds – from the Daily Beast:

…Developers of the controversial Park51 Islamic community center and mosque located two blocks from ground zero earlier this month applied for roughly $5 million in federal grant money set aside for the redevelopment of lower Manhattan after the attacks of September 11, according to two sources with direct knowledge of the matter…

Later in the linked article we get a hint at what might really be happening here – the man behind the mosque may have some grand designs about becoming a wheel in New York real estate. While there is no proof of this, it rings true – the whole mosque is nothing but a scam (a dual scam – by the guy promoting it for himself, and by the Islamists who want to use it as a means of rattling our cage). Depend on it; whenever someone does something as brazenly wrong as this, and then doubles down on the brazenness by looking for tax payer funding, he’s running a con.

We must not give him – or the Islamists – the satisfaction. Basic, human decency requires that this mosque be spiked. Pressure must be kept up to ensure that all politicians concerned know that the wrath of the voter will follow swiftly upon groundbreaking for this mosque. If we do that, it won’t happen. And the Islamists and con artists running this show will simply have to move on.

From Hot Air:

…According to new e-mails uncovered by the committee, her (Waters’) chief of staff directly coordinated with other members of the House Financial Services Committee on behalf of OneUnited:

A newly discovered exchange of e-mails led the House ethics committee on Friday to delay its trial of Representative Maxine Waters, a California Democrat accused of helping steer bailout money to a bank in which her husband owned shares.

The e-mails are between Mikael Moore, Ms. Waters’s chief of staff, and members of the House Financial Services Committee, on which Ms. Waters serves. The e-mails show that Mr. Moore was actively engaged in discussing with committee members details of a bank bailout bill apparently after Ms. Waters agreed to refrain from advocating on the bank’s behalf…

This, then, may drag in other Democrats – in this deal, for those who need reminding, Waters got a lot of TARP money for a bank she held a strong financial interest in. Its the really bad sort of political corruption.

Waters, herself, has never been more than a place holder for liberalism in the House. She just parrots whatever she’s told and votes as instructed – but she seems to have taken this to mean that as long as she does as she’s told, she can get away with pretty much anything she wants. This might have been true in the past, but in the TEA Party-influenced present, that sort of thing won’t be tolerated.

There must be a complete investigation of this no matter where it leads – all of those who in any way, shape or form influenced government policy for personal profit must be made to pay the price. Corruption eats at the heart of democracy, and it is long past time that we really did drain the swamp.

The New York Times – probably trying to buck up sagging liberal spirits – has an article which features the 2012 prediction of a Yale economist: Landslide win for Obama. How so? Well, “it’s the economy, stupid”. The Yale economist – Ray C. Fair – plugs in to his election model a GDP growth rate of 3.69% and, presto, people vote Obama ’cause he’s done such a good job.

Is this valid? Certainly, as far as it goes – if the economy improves and we really get growth significantly above 3% for some an extended period of time before November, 2012, then unemployment will go down, wages will go up and people will feel that things are getting better. Even if they are not back to where they were pre-Obama, there is a strong chance that in such a scenario, Obama gets re-elected. The key, though, is to have that level of growth for a long enough period of time to matter.

Are we likely to get such a thing? Fair thinks so – probably because he’s got a Keynesian model some where which says that if you do X amount of stimulus you’ll get Y amount of growth over a period of time. Of course, if Keynes was wrong and you don’t really get that kind of growth, then things might not work out so well for you. But even if Keynes is wrong (and he is) there still could be a bit of alleged growth coming from stimulus such as the Fed’s quantitative easing and continued borrow-and-spend by Treasury – after all, a trillion dollars or so of stimulus got us “growth” in 2010. Bogus growth, but growth none the less.

Keep in mind that the flip side of Fair’s theory holds true – if the economy is going well, Obama has a very strong chance of being elected; if, on the other hand, its in the tank, then he’s probably going to lose. And in both cases it is not absolutely important whom the GOP nominates (some can make it easier or harder, but the best candidate will have a hard time winning in prosperity, the worst will have a hard time losing in recession). Obama and Co are not entirely stupid and so probably realize this – how the economy is in 2012 will go a very long way in determining if Obama wins re-election.

Given this, there is every chance in the world that Obama, his Administration and the financial industry led by Bernanke will do what they can to prop up the economy. They can’t get new spending out of the incoming GOP House, but there is still plenty they can do. And they will do it – and it won’t matter if its legal or not. This is a Ruling Class facing political Armageddon – they won’t go out quietly. The economy really is Obama’s only hope; it is in the tank right now, Obama’s policies will likely put it even more so by 2012…but this won’t stop Obama and Co from trying and trying and trying their liberal prescriptions to try and get it off the ground (it won’t occur to them that they are just wrong; in other words, they are very unlikely to embrace conservative economic ideas – they haven’t the wit to make such a shift).

Could be an interesting two years – and, once again, I mean in terms of the Chinese curse, “may you live in interesting times”.

From Zero Hedge:

With Ireland now a lost cause, the next country which will see its bond yields surge to new records is Portugal. And just so vigilantes don’t miss the hint, the Portuguese opposition party has stated that the country’s budget deficit and public debt are “higher than those reported by the government.” The claim is that Portuguese debt is about 30% higher than claimed by official statistics: instead of 82% of GDP, it is actually 112%. With bankrupt Greece having lied about virtually every aspect of its comatose economy, it is not as easy to dismiss the announcement as merely political bickering, and is sure to leads to at least a modest double digit basis point jump in Portuguese spreads…

Which means that Portugal will find it increasingly hard to finance its debt, which will lead to even more financial stress and, of course, the EU/IMF working out some sort of fiscal papering over the cracks. Eventually, good people, this does stop working. With Greece, Ireland and Portugal, we’re talking about some of Europe’s smaller economies (none of these three nations has has even 12 million people, as compared to the 60, 64 and 82 million of Europe’s big boys, Britain, France and Germany) – but looming in the background are the highly stressed economies of Italy and Spain (60 and 45 million people). There simply isn’t enough money in the world to backstop all that debt.

They keep sticking fingers in the dike, and then another leak springs up…how long can they keep it up? Beats all heck out of me – but they can’t keep it up forever.

If you can honestly answer, “yes”, then you are doing great…if you can’t, then its time for some self-examination.

From C-Span via Instapundit:

There’s no possibility that I would ever go to a debate and have Olbermann or Chris Matthews asking questions. I watched the debate a couple of years ago and it was an embarrassment because they were so relentlessly hostile and they were so left-wing that every question they asked of the Republicans was designed to embarrass and divide the Republicans. And every question they asked the Democrats was designed to make them look good. Well why would we participate in that?

Precisely – why would be do that? We have to just fully admit that the MSM is the merest arm of the DNC. While its ok to go on their shows, there is no sense in just putting ourselves at their mercy.

How this will work out is that we can’t set the 2012 debates with an allegedly impartial MSMer calling the shots. Whatever the DNC/MSM brings to the table must be countered by one of ours – and no kook lefties like Matthews or Olberman anywhere near the place.

Of course, the best way to have a debate is to have the candidates ask each other the questions – without any advance notice and only with someone around to keep time. The Democrats like talking points and taking cheap shots – our path to victory lies in explaining how we’re different from the Democrats. The more there is real debate, the better we do.

Junk touching update.

Britain aborts her future.

Old women do absurd thing, show themselves up as people who have never grown up, never will.

Sarah Palin offer an excerpt from her new book.

The Other McCain warns us against allowing pinko groups to stampede us in to certain actions. In this case, the Southern Poverty Law Center is trying to scare the GOP off of voting for Saul Anuzis as new RNC chair. Pinkos are trying to slander Anuzis – likely because Anuzis would be effective, and the left doesn’t like that. We must never listen to the left – even if an iota of truth comes out of them, it is just in the service of another liberal lie.

EPA over-reach? Of course – we’ve got an ultra-liberal President who has let environmentalists run wild.

The Other McCain says it may be so:

As noted in my last update about Renee Ellmers’ victory in NC-2, Republicans are now at 240 House seats and they haven’t had 241 seats since 1949. And Sam Foster at Left Coast Rebel reports that Ann Marie Buerkle is 411 votes ahead of Dan Maffei in NY-25 after the count of absentee ballots from Onondaga County.

The Buerkle campaign says victory is a “mathematical certainty,” and the Lonely Conservative headlines it: “Buerkle Lead Can’t Be Beat.”

C’mon, Ann Marie. This one’s for the history books, sweetheart…

It might be a mathematical certainty, but Democrats cheat – so it might be a fraudulent uncertainty. Still, it does look good for 241 Republican House members – making 24 the magic number the Democrats would have to win in 2012 to get Nancy back in the Speaker’s chair. This isn’t impossible, but it is unlikely given (a) re-districting will heavily favor the GOP and (b) voting Democrat would put Nancy back in the Speaker’s chair (thanks, Democrats, for keeping her on!).

Not just finding ballots, but discovering entire voting machines – from Legal Insurrection:

We all have heard of ballots being found in the trunks of cars, and elsewhere during recounts. In a hotly contested race for the State Senate in New York, Democrats have gone one better, and found two new (and uncounted) voting machines…

Democrats are at risk of losing the State Senate – and with it their ability to have New York’s redistricting entirely in their hands. Things are already looking pretty grim around the country for Democrats and I guess they want to squeeze out what they can from New York. Trouble is, if they lose the Senate, they’ll have to contend with Republicans in carving up the electoral map.

This long after the vote, it would be hard – even for Democrats – to manufacture believable votes to tip races to their side…so, the new gambit appears to be in “finding” whole voting machines. And how much do you want to bet that there will be just enough votes in there to give the Democrat the win?

Just more proof that we really need to go after this. A very large number of Democrat officials need to go to jail over the rampant voter fraud committed by Democrats. We know they’re doing it, but we don’t really do anything about it. We have to press hard on this issue – starting with House investigations where we can force people to testify. While Holder is in charge of Justice there simply won’t be any moves to prosecute…but we can at least set the stage, and hope that in 2013 we have an AG interested in enforcing the law. One thing certain, if we don’t forcibly stop the Democrats from cheating, they’ll keep doing it, and that puts our whole democratic form of government at risk.