From James Pethokoukis over at Reuters:

…Palinomics, embryonic as it is, seems to be rooted in “free-market populism,” a version of conservative thinking that is pro-market rather than pro-business. It says the role of government is to help markets function more fairly and efficiently for everyone, encouraging competition and “creative destruction” (which Palin specifically mentioned in her book). Pro-business policies, by contrast, can end up subsidizing favored companies, raising barriers to entry and otherwise entrenching the status quo.

Palin is also familiar with one of the champions of free-market populism, the University of Chicago’s Luigi Zingales, linking to his writings from her Facebook page. It’s easy to imagine her campaigning against corporate tax breaks, say, or in favor of limiting the size of banks under the belief that as long as they are ginormous, government will find a way to bail them out. That agenda might not attract much campaign cash from Manhattan bankers or Washington lobbyists, but it could be a compelling formula in the new Tea Party-infused Republican party…

Indeed – and, in fact, it is the only way for us to win in 2012. Reagan manfully tried to break the link between the GOP and Wall Street, but was stymied by the way Wall Street manages to get its hooks in to everyone. After Reagan left office, there was not much effort to really challenge the banksters. And don’t any of you liberals out there think you’re off the hook – while the establishment GOP has been too influenced by Wall Street (such as in President Bush’s stout – and entirely mistaken – assertion that TARP saved the economic day), the Democratic party has been, for at least the last 20 years, a wholly owned subsidiary of the banksters – with George Soros nearly dictating liberal policy these days. Now, in 2010 and heading towards 2012, the people are in no mood for anyone who is too connected with the financial nitwits who led us off the cliff.

Sarah Palin – who is smarter than anyone else in politics, just as Reagan was in his day – sees this, understands this, and knows that both in purely political as well as economic terms, it is time to break the banks as well as the bureaucrats. To battle, that is, with Big Government and Big Corporation in favor of the people – and the small and mid-sized business which are the back bone of America. America’s economy is stifled under taxes and regulations which work out to protection and subsidy for those already on top, who keep the bribes flowing to the political class to keep things as they are. In order to get a real, expanding American economy, these fetters must be broken.

And so, to battle – a battle which, so far in the GOP 2012 ranks, only Sarah Palin is engaged. I’m engaged in it, too, but as I’m just a little blogger, I don’t carry too much weight. Those who have been reading my stuff over the past couple years know that I’ve had it in for the banks, and that my economics are Distributist. I’ve no more use for a Wall Street nimrod than I do for a Ivy League Marxist – we need to get back to work making, mining and growing things and we won’t be able to do that while politicians are bribed by corporations to allow them to ship our factories to China, our farms to Mexico and our mines to Chile.

Sarah Palin understands. And if she goes in to 2012 as the only candidate understanding this, then she will win it all.

“Miss me yet?” on steroids – from Toby Harnden in the Telegraph:

…Whereas Obama was glum, wondering aloud whether 9.6 per cent unemployment might be “the new normal” and griping that as US president “you’re held responsible for everything but you don’t always have control of everything”, Bush used his interviews to display an almost giddy insouciance.

On the Oprah Winfrey Show, Bush charmed the woman who had proclaimed Obama as “the One” and hailed his “tongue dipped in unvarnished truth” in Iowa back in 2007.

“When it [the presidency] was over, I knew I’d given my heart and soul, I’d poured everything I had into the job and was grateful for the opportunity to serve,” Bush said.

With his characteristic corny self-deprecation, Bush said he had enjoyed the writing process. “I know full well it’s going to come as a shock to some people. A lot of people didn’t think I could read, much less write.” Boom boom…

I had thought it would take 20 years for time to rub off the edges of hatred and bitterness directed towards President Bush. As someone of historical bent, my belief is that President Bush will be remembered as one of our strongest and most influential Presidents. Not in the top five (Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, FDR, Reagan), but in the top ten. Little did I suspect how absolutely terrible Obama would be as President – rehabilitation for President Bush has taken less than two years.

What we miss in President Obama is first and foremost that confidence in America. Even when Obama says words about a confident America, it seems like rote recitation – like something his speechwriter threw in because its just part of a Presidential speech. With President Bush, no one could ever have any doubt that he really believes in American exceptionalism and our ability to overcome all obstacles. Obama is floundering like Carter not just because, like Carter, he’s been dogged by bad economic times but because, like Carter, he isn’t acting like President of the United States of America…he’s acting like he our Professor in Chief; our Grand Lecturer.

Obama does need policy modifications in order to win re-election in 2012 – but he also needs to convince the American people that he’s really interested in America being the most powerful and greatest nation in the world. That is how we view ourselves (entirely correctly, by the way), and it is how we want our leaders to behave. Until Obama can manage that trick – which, for Bush, was effortless and natural – he’ll never get our trust back.

At least, not in any sort of realistic time frame – Dian L. Chu over at Zero Hedge:

…According to a new paper by two researchers at the University of California – Davis, it would take 131 years for replacement of gasoline and diesel given the current pace of research and development; however, world’s oil could run dry almost a century before that…

…By incorporating market expectations into the model, the authors, Nataliya Malyshkina and Deb Niemeier, indicated that based on their calculation, the peak of oil production could occur between 2010 and 2030, before renewable replacement technologies become viable at around 2140.

The estimates not only delayed the alternative energy timeline, but also pushed up the peak oil deadline. The researchers suggest some previous estimates that pegged year 2040 as the time frame when alternatives would start to replace oil, could be “overly optimistic”…

And do remember this all includes all the government grants, subsidies and mandates for green energy. Even with that, it won’t work – we won’ t be able to replace fossil fuel before fossil fuel runs out. Not by a century – and that means that even if we subsidize and mandate even more, we still won’t be able to do the trick.

So, what does this all means? I means we need a genuinely comprehensive energy policy – the exploitation of all energy resources, all at once, as we go forward and eventually do replace fossil fuels with renewable energy. “Drill, baby, drill” really does have to be part of any energy plan we develop.

As always, the government “experts” can never get it right. This is because no matter how smart they are, they can never obtain sufficient information to know what, exactly, is happening out there. Obama and Co are trying to tell us they know what needs to be done – but they don’t know, and can’t know. Only a full fledged, do everything you can program can work – because that means that people will make their own decisions based upon their own needs, and thus provide whatever energy is needed.

The only place for government in energy policy is to clear the path – to get rid of taxes and regulations which hamper the natural development of both traditional and green energy. Free markets will do what we need, if we just get government out of the way.

Goodness, this didn’t take long – from Vegas Happens Here:

News just broke that R-J publisher Sherm Frederick is stepping down as publisher of the newspaper and as CEO of Stephens Media and Thomas Mitchell is out as editor. And yet, there’s even more to it than that.

Not in their story? Allan B. Fleming, the Review-Journal’s general manager, is also out. And Mitchell is getting a new gig created for him, some sort of senior editorial page editor role…

…An extremely knowledgable source at the paper called this move a “shakeout” and a “head slap” from the top, meaning the owners back in Arkansas. He reminded me that the Stephens family are big Washington D.C. players, with banking interests and other issues to deal with in Congress. They may have supported Republican candidates, but the over-the-top efforts by Sherm Frederick and Thomas Mitchell to support Sharron Angle and unrelentingly beat up on the Senate Majority Leader was exceptional. It was nasty and personal and harmed the reporters’ ability to have their work taken credibly, but even more importantly, if the Stephens clan wanted to make nice with Harry Reid, the only way to do it was to get rid of Frederick and Mitchell…

I wouldn’t classify the R-J’s coverage of Reid as over-the-top; there was a lot of anti-Reid stuff in the editorial page, but the news coverage was pretty much typical, MSM “lets always be nice to Democrats” coverage. Regardless of that, however, the paper was clearly against Reid and for Angle…and Reid is well known in Nevada for getting back at anyone who crosses him. The owners of the R-J are aware of this, and acted accordingly.

As I said before the election – when it looked like Reid would lose – the best thing about a Reid loss would be the ending of a poison in Nevada politics. Reid and his cronies have their claws deep in this State and use it as the merest implement for power and self enrichment. Reid is corrupt and corrupting – and he’s now got Nevada’s largest newspaper to roll over for him, which means there will be even less MSM criticism of his corruption than before.

Now, more than ever, it is important that outside groups look in to the Reid campaign lawbreaking on voter turnout. We know that the Reid campaign and Harrah’s illegally coordinated efforts to get out the vote. In order to expose this – and allow Nevada to breath a bit after Reid has been knocked down – the only path open is House hearings. I do hope that the whole issue of illegal donations and voter fraud is brought up next year – not just with Reid, but if it is done at all, it will help weaken Reid, and strengthen the people of Nevada.

It is what our ex-queen is blaming for her crushing, unbelievable defeat, but the facts don’t bear her out (as usual) – from the Washington Post:

…Overall, Democratic candidates in the 63 races that flipped to the GOP had $206.4 million behind them, a tally that includes candidate fundraising and spending by parties and interests. That compares to only $171.7 million for their GOP rivals.

The pattern appears to contradict widespread complaints from Democrats that they were being unfairly overrun by wealthy Republicans, many of whom donated money to conservative groups to spend on political races…

Outspending us heavily and with a lap dog MSM to get their message out, they were still crushed. They were beaten by the people, who have had quite enough of corrupt, Big Government liberalism.

But, hey, if Democrats want to believe it was money and lack of good messaging which beat them – and if they, further, want to re-enthrone Her Majesty as their leader, then don’t think we’re going to really spend a lot of time trying to convince them to see reason…

Some Democrats are kinda hoping to dump the President in 2012 – from the Washington Post:

…This is a critical moment for the country. From the faltering economy to the burdensome deficit to our foreign policy struggles, America is suffering a widespread sense of crisis and anxiety about the future. Under these circumstances, Obama has the opportunity to seize the high ground and the imagination of the nation once again, and to galvanize the public for the hard decisions that must be made. The only way he can do so, though, is by putting national interests ahead of personal or political ones.

To that end, we believe Obama should announce immediately that he will not be a candidate for reelection in 2012…

Which is a grand way of saying, “if the people know you won’t be around after 2012, we Democrats can salvage our party”.

The authors – Douglas Schoen and Pat Caddell – are smart guys and solid Democrats (Caddell was Carter’s pollster in 1980) and they can see utter disaster heading their way. Unless there is a massive turn around in the economy, Democrats face a brutal future in 2012. As the economy is expected, in the rosiest scenarios, to be only modestly better by 2012, Democrats face the prospects of losing the Senate, losing even more House seats, getting further clobbered at the State level and, as the final insult, losing the White House to anyone the GOP cares to nominate. If Obama is out, however, then the Democrats have a good shot at limiting their Congressional losses (though they’d probably still lose the Senate) and retaining the White House. Or, so goes the thinking here.

I’m not so sure that its going to matter – the people are on fire for a complete reform of government, and unless Democrats figure out that they’ve got to toss aside New Deal/Great Society paradigms, there isn’t much of a chance people will swing to them. There can be a liberal TEA Party, as it were, but it will have to be a party committed to personal freedom, balanced budgets and American exceptionalism. I doubt the current crop of Democrats – from Obama on down – can make the leap. It might be that the only way the Democrats can be rescued is to be so thoroughly trounced that new people and new ideas can rise.

We’ll see how this pans out, but it is clear that there are deep fissures in the Democrat party, and it will only take a bit more for the party to split before 2012.

Allahpundit notes that Cindy McCain – wife of Senator John McCain – has made an ad for the “No H8” campaign. “No H8” stands for “no on California’s Proposition 8”, which had banned same-sex marriage. Its a clever slogan, but also about the most stupid thing you can do – it is not the way to win friends and influence people.

You see, the presumption of “No H8” is that the people opposed to same-sex marriage or gays serving in the military are doing so out of hatred for gay people. Its an arrogant presumption of moral excellence on the part of the advocates of gay rights and an equally arrogant presumption of moral depravity on the part of those who dissent from it.

Let me clue everyone in on one thing: the opposition to gay marriage and gays in the military is not based, in whole or in part, upon hatred. To be sure, there are people opposed to gay marriage who, for whatever bizarre reason, hate gay people…but they are a tiny minority and don’t control anything. There are, in my view, more people on the pro-gay rights side of the argument who are motivated by hatred – hatred of Christians – than there are on the anti-gay rights side. The fundamental objection to gay marriage is upon the grounds that homosexual acts are inherently disordered and thus should not be accorded the same social approval as heterosexual acts. You are free to disagree with this proposition – to call it wrong – but you can only call it “hate” by lying.

If someone wishes to convince those who hold to the Christian view about homosexuality, then calling them haters is not the way to do it. In fact, all it does is make people dig in their heels…even I feel it. I’m well-disposed towards the idea of allowing openly gay people to serve in the military. But I’m far less well-disposed to act upon that view when people are slandering the side I agree with morally. It makes me want to dig in my heels and say, “nothing doing” until the “No H8” campaign is dissolved, and all the gay rights groups issue written apologies for ever daring to use it.

We on the conservative, Christian side of the aisle will put up with a lot. After all, we’re commanded to do so by Our Lord. We’re supposed to put up with it in joy, but even if we can’t swing that we’re still to attempt it as a duty. But while we will put up with a lot, there is no command for us to do something we don’t need to do, just to please those who are lying about us.

California is double plus bankrupt. But don’t worry, its not like they’d elect a 72 year old former hippie and failed governor…oh, wait…

Democrats having trouble deciding on their House leadership. No worries, there’s no chance they’d choose a filthy rich, elitist 70 year old who led them off a cliff…oh, wait…

An increasingly grim electoral map for Obama in 2012.

Memo to Joe Miller: time to concede. Yes, it was lousy of Murkowski to mount a write-in effort after you beat her fair and square in the primary, but it looks like she’s pulled if off. Arguing now just makes you look weak and will kill your chances in later years. Memo to Senate GOP: kick Murkowski out of the caucus so she can’t back stab us, again.

Government salaries skyrocket under Obama. Neat first thing to do – a 20%, across-the-board reduction of all non-active duty, non-armed law enforcement salaries. Let the bureaucrats know there’s a new game in town, and they’re not in it.

We nailed 2.5 of them in the Senate this year (looks like we won’t end up taking the trash all the way out in Alaska – but, we still put the fear of TEA in to the Ruling Class) – and Politico notes that other RINOs are feeling the heat:

Another bloody Republican Senate primary election season is taking shape for 2012, with potentially serious intra-party challenges percolating in close to a half-dozen states.

Polls indicate that at least two veteran GOP senators are highly vulnerable to challenges on their right flank — Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch and Maine Sen. Olympia Snowe – and there are rumblings about potential GOP bids against Nevada Sen. John Ensign, Texas Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison and Indiana Sen. Dick Lugar as well…

It is still to be hoped that Ensign, out here in Nevada, will grab a clue and not seek re-election, but that prospect does seem to be fading away. Now that Ensign’s good buddy Harry Reid has been safely re-elected (and we do note that Ensign wasn’t exactly active in campaigning against him), Ensign might figure if we’ll re-elect that creep, one more will slide down quite easily. Mark it here and now – if no one else takes Ensign on, I will. I don’t care how quixotic the effort might be, Ensign will not be un-challenged in the 2012 GOP primary.

Democrats – and especially Harry Reid – are hoping that a bloody GOP primary season in 2012 might allow them to cling to their majority for one more cycle. And, so it might – and, big deal. Some people are still carping that the O’Donnell nomination cost us a Senate seat, and may have set the stage for the Democrats to hold the Senate. As I said when O’Donnell won the primary – I’d rather lose with her than win with a RINO. RINOs do us no good – they do the Ruling Class well, but they always, always cut the people off at the knees when the chips are down. I’d rather lose to a solid, Democrat Senate majority than lose because some people on my own side knifed me in the back.

In the end, this is how we hold their feet to the fire. We let them know that we will challenge them in the primary – and 2010 showed that complete unknowns can still raise the enthusiasm and the money to knock off incumbents. It is what we must do – because if we let up on the pressure for a moment, we’ll have our RINOs “reaching across the aisle” to sell us out to Obama’s liberalism in a heartbeat.

Keep fighting. Never, never, never give in!

It ain’t over – from Bloomberg:

Irish government bonds tumbled for a 13th day on mounting concern that the nation will be forced to restructure its finances.

Spanish bonds also headed for a 13th day of declines as data showed the nation’s economic growth stalled. French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde said yesterday that investors must share in the cost of safeguarding sovereign debt. German bunds advanced on demand for the safest assets, while Portuguese debt recovered from earlier losses. Italian bonds fell.

“Lagarde’s comments mentioned restructuring, and that’s another nail in the coffin” for so-called peripheral nations’ debt, said Steven Major, global head of fixed-income research at HSBC Holdings Plc in London. “There’s still a big constituency of investors and traders who have not recognized until now that restructuring could happen.”…

If that last bit is true – that a lot of investors have not recognized the prospect of restructuring (ie, default) – then we’re in a lot more trouble than I thought. Anyone who has looked at the so-called “PIIGS” (Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece, Spain) nations and not seen “utter freaking catastrophe” just must be blind, or stupid (and, unfortunately, is probably working for the United States Federal Reserve). These nations went on a massive borrowing spree and simply do not have the money to pay back the debt – and I mean, not ever: all of them are entering terminal population decline and so even if the economy improves, there won’t be enough surplus wealth to pay back all the debt.

And, of course, the economy is not improving – not in those specific countries, and not around the world. We got a year of “growth” as a result of central banks printing up vast sums of money and shoving it through the economy, but that didn’t get us what we need – a vast increase in wealth in order to service a debt burden far beyond the capacity of current wealth to pay. In my view, we never really will – default is the only way out. How that default will play out should be our focus – instead, we’re trying to pretend we won’t have to default, at all.

In a lot of this is getting entertaining to watch. Sickeningly entertaining, at times, like a wild roller coaster, but entertaining all the same. We’re watching the fiat-money, usury-based global economy unravel. The people who run it are trying one desperate expedient after another to save it. Mindless “investors” (really, gamblers) move their money from one thing to another, mostly when cued up by the banksters to do it. This goes up, that goes down, talking heads proclaim…and in the background, the real economy grinds to a halt, and won’t start growing again until we admit we’re broke, and just get back to work.

2011 will be an interesting year – and I mean in the sense of the Chinese curse, “may you live in interesting times”.

HAT TIP: Mish’s