From CNN Money:

As the U.S. economy struggles to recover from a deep recession, the number of Americans filing for bankruptcy continues to rise dramatically.

In the federal government’s fiscal year 2010, which ended September 30, more than 1.5 million non-business bankruptcy filings were processed, according to data released Monday by the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts. That’s up more than 14% from fiscal 2009, when about 1.3 million personal bankruptcies were filed…

Up and up and up it goes – people simply don’t have the money to cover all the debts wracked up during the bubble. And what is the government’s plan to fix this? Create another bubble by printing money and giving it away, willy nilly.

We are broke, my dear people – flat busted and disgusted. We must allow the crash to take its full course and then start anew from the real wealth we still retain. There is no quick fix, there is no painless way out of this. The longer government keeps up the printing presses and borrowing like mad, the longer the day of reckoning is put off and the worse the eventual crash will be.

HAT TIP: Mish’s

This article in the New York Times notes that the advocates of high speed rail in the United States were hit pretty hard by the November 2nd results. Most notably, the incoming Republican governors of Wisconsin and Ohio have indicated they’ll carry out their campaign promises to kill proposed high speed rail systems in their States. One does not wish to argue with the governors – the State’s have very bad finances right now and so large, expensive projects are not really doable. This is especially true when some of the proposals appear of dubious worth.

Overall, though, I am an advocate of high speed rail. For my State of Nevada, I’d like to see high speed rail lines coming in from San Diego, Los Angeles and San Francisco – mostly, of course, so we can steal business from that over-taxed, over-regulated and de-facto bankrupt State (sorry, Californians, but we’re going to be rather mercenary and predatory given the way you’ve elected to commit economic suicide by putting Brown back in the governor’s office. Goodness, what were you thinking?). I want Nevada to become a manufacturing and distribution center for the United States – high speed rail from the coast will make that possible…and, eventually, we extend the rail lines in to the east. I also want us to vastly increase our mining, farming and ranching industries – and all of these need the ability to move large, bulky items swiftly from place to place.

It is my view that our transportation system does need a major upgrade – especially in moving large quantities of goods over long distances at low cost. This will take some government action, but the best action government can take is to clear regulatory hurdles to setting up the manufacturing needed to make the trains as well as providing lost-cost right-of-way for the new network (which, though, will mostly follow the current rail lines…though the whole road bed will have to be re-engineered for the much higher quality needed for high speed rail). If there is a genuine economic need in this, private funds will easily pay for the overwhelming bulk of the direct, monetary cost. Anyone who says Uncle Sam or the States have to take a leading financial role merely means they want to build a rail line no one will use.

Of course, all of this is just part and parcel with a new economic paradigm which encourages the making, mining and growing of things. Productivity is the only way we’ll get out of our economic morass. And if we’re really going to do things which will allow us to compete price-wise with the rest of the world (and especially China) then we’re going to need vastly more efficiency throughout our economy. High speed rail fits right in with this – certainly on the major lines where the bulk of our over-land trade goes.

A new American economy requires us to cast aside the stale, dead policies of the past. No more boondoggles for favored groups; no more hand outs to corporations who grease the most DC palms; no more making things which don’t work. It is time to really think about what we want, and then about how to get it. High speed rail has its vital place in our new economy, but we daren’t let grafting politicians get hold of it, or we’ll have a 300 mph training running banksters and bureaucrats from New York to DC while useful goods amble along at 50 mph in the old system.

This time in Oklahoma:

A federal judge issued a temporary restraining order Monday to block a new amendment to the Oklahoma Constitution that would prohibit state courts from considering international or Islamic law when deciding cases.

U.S. District Judge Vicki Miles-LaGrange handed down the order after an Oklahoma man filed a lawsuit claiming the amendment stigmatized his religion and would invalidate his will, which he said is partially based on Islamic Law, also known as Sharia Law…

And it should invalidate that portion of the man’s will which is based on Islamic law. Such law has absolutely zero place in the United States of America. You want your will to be Sharia-compliant? Then move to Saudi Arabia and have at it – the only thing you will can be in America is American-law compliant. There are not just sufficient elements of American law to ensure a just distribution of the man’s property but, actually, elements which are vastly superior to Islamic law, which treats women as second class citizens in matters of inheritance, as in all other aspects.

The more important issue, right now, is the fact that a judge issued an injunction against the enactment of a law passed by a Constitutionally valid majority of the citizens of Oklahoma – such an act, unless it is in clear violation of some provision of the United States Constitution, is the final word. I can detect nothing in the United States Constitution which prohibits a sovereign State from determining that non-American law has no place in an American court. No judge has the competence to rule on it plus or minus. If someone doesn’t like it, then they’re only remedy is to apply to the people of Oklahoma to re-amend their Constitution.

It is time to reign in the judges – to force them to mind their proper business and not forever intrude upon the legislative power, which rests entirely with the people or their elected representatives. If we have to amend the US Constitution to spell this out, then so be it – but we can probably do it via legislation as there are provisions in the Constitution for Congress to regulate just what sorts of cases federal courts can hear. Free people use judges to referee disputes at law, and for nothing else – where there is no dispute (and there can be no dispute on the legality of a legitimately enacted law which does not violate any specific Constitutional injunction), then the courts must remain silent.

From Politico:

A staffer for a congressional Democrat who came up short on Tuesday reports that a team of about five people stopped by their offices this morning to talk about payroll, benefits, writing a résumé, and so forth, with staffers who are now job hunting.

But one of the staffers was described as a “counselor” to help with the emotional aspect of the loss — and a section in the packet each staffer was given dealt with the stages of grief (for instance, Stage One being anger, and so on).

“It was like it was about death,” the staffer said. “It was bizarre.” The staffer did say the portions about the benefits and résumé writing were instructive…

Now we know the real problem with our Democrats – they’re panty-waist little wimps. For crying out loud, suck it up! Its not like we were all sunshine and lolly pops after 2006, but we didn’t need grief counselors. You lost an election, not a loved one…

But, then again, maybe it was a loved one? Maybe power and its privileges are the only thing Democrats really care about, and now they are bereft?

Well, is that is the case – then don’t get counseling: get on your knees and pray for forgiveness. Your ultimate business is not with political power in this world, but with the life of the world to come. Who is committee chairman won’t matter when that time comes around.

From Rasmussen:

…A new Rasmussen Reports telephone survey, conducted after last week’s elections, finds that 58% of Likely U.S. Voters say tax increases will hurt the economy. Just 18% feel increasing taxes will help our economy, while 14% say it will have no impact. These findings show little change since early April of last year. (To see survey question wording, click here.)

Similarly, a solid majority (58%) believe increases in government spending will hurt the country fiscally, while only 24% feel it will help…

We’ve largely won this debate – the American people are on our side as far as taxes and spending go. The trick will be to translate this in to practical policies.

As I’ve said before, we can’t just be “the axe-man cometh”. We can’t, that is, just demand spending and tax cuts – we also have to present a set of positive actions to the American people which will speak to their needs – more jobs, more wealth; a restoration of American prosperity. In this, our best bet is to not just find spending to cut, but find spending to re-prioritize – move money from wasteful, unpopular programs (which are usually just hand outs to leftist interest groups, anyways) to programs more in tune with American needs. Move money from some highway boondoggle to school vouchers, eg.

It will be tricky going forward – political land mines and pitfalls are strewn over the landscape, and some of them are Senators with an “R” after their name. But with a bit of grit and a bit of imagination, we can win all down the line – not only reforming America, but so discrediting Obama and his Democrats that in 2012 we are able to take the Senate and the White House.

Now, to work.

Sarah Palin unloads both barrels on the Federal Reserve.

Most GOP power in the States since the 1870’s.

Olberman will be reinstated. His viewer expressed relief.

Boehner: ObamaCare? Are you freaking kidding me?

Harry Reid must not be above the law – as an aside, I think this is a growing scandal, something which could plague Reid until he is either forced to resign, or he staggers in to 2012 and loses his Majority status.

In light of that Reid scandal, Rasmussen asks why Nevada polling was so far off the election result. My answer: there is a chance that everyone just got it wrong; the alternative is that someone stuffed the ballot box like no tomorrow. Which do you think is more likely?

Now that time is placing more perspective on the Bush Administration – and while Bush, himself, continues to show he’s got more class than all the Democrats, combined – it is useful to start debunking a lot of the lies spread about Bush when he was President. Julian Zelzer takes to this task in the Washington Post – this one I think important:

2. “Compassionate conservatism” was just a campaign slogan.

…as Vanderbilt University historian Gary Gerstle has shown, Bush was personally invested in compassionate conservatism. While growing up in Texas and later serving as governor, Bush constantly befriended and worked with members of his state’s Hispanic community and fought for the rights of immigrants. “Once children are in Texas,” he said in 1995, “Texans know it is in our best interest and their interest to educate them, regardless of the nationality of their parents.” In his gubernatorial reelection victory in 1998, Bush won 49 percent of the Hispanic vote and 27 percent of the black vote – a strong showing for a Republican in Texas. (It is unsurprising that, in his memoir, Bush reportedly describes the accusations of racism he experienced in the aftermath of Katrina as “the worst moment of my presidency.”)…

Many conservatives disparaged “compassionate conservatism” while almost all liberals held the phrase and concept in contempt. But the reason I first started switching from backing McCain to backing Bush in 2000 was because of “compassionate conservatism”. While I disagreed with some of the things Bush did in the name of compassionate conservatism (the prescription drug benefit looms most large here), the fact remains that any real understanding of conservatism requires a person to be compassionate.

For far too long now conservatism has essentially been conserving liberal policies. Huh? What’s that you say? It is a bit of a concept to wrap the mind around, but I’m not remotely the first to figure it out. In fact, it was an old Liberal who understood this best:

The whole modern world has divided itself into Conservatives and Progressives. The business of Progressives is to go on making mistakes. The business of the Conservatives is to prevent the mistakes from being corrected. – G K Chesterton, Illustrated London News, 4/19/1924

Our Progressives, in their eager love for humanity, have quite forgotten about loving their fellow man. Our Conservatives, so desperate to stop Progressivism, have forgotten that they are supposed to be conserving the way of life of the common man. The Progressive makes a new policy, the Conservative opposes it. After a while, the Progressive policy becomes the institution – then the Progressives go on to their next fad, while the Conservatives fight a desperate, rear-guard action to just keep things as the Progressives left them yesterday.

Conservatism, in order to get things right, must try to set things right. Its no good trying to dress up yesterday’s Progressive failure as something worthy – it was idiotic when thought up, and still is no matter how long it endures. A true Conservative looks at the poor, common man and wonders how to get him back to his happy state of being owner of his property and master of his own destiny. That is compassionate, because it is an attempt to do for men what they both want and need done.

President Bush understood this – whether by intellectual process or sheer instinct is both unknown and irrelevant. He got it – he understood that his job, as a Conservative, is to find ways where average, every day people can get back their own. And so, tax cuts for middle class businessmen; quality education for the poor (even the illegal immigrant poor); property ownership spread as far as possible (and too bad that Barney Frank, et al, took this noble desire and turned it in to a casino for their cronies); people able to live and worship without let or hindrance from government. That is conservatism; that is compassionate.

And it is what I am today, and will always remain – a Compassionate Conservative. President Bush did what he did and he made his share of mistakes – what man in leadership hasn’t? But, over all, he was the right man at the right time, and he pointed the right way for conservatism.

From Life Site News:

Widespread discontent with the administration’s progressive agenda, particularly on abortion-funding health care, spurred voters to launch a strong pro-life Majority into the House of Representatives in the 2010 midterm elections.

“The American people have spoken, and replaced 38 pro-abortion Members with pro-life Members and replaced 14 unreliable Members with reliable pro-life Representatives,” said Congressman Chris Smith, Co-Chairman of the Congressional Pro-life Caucus. “Of the 93 Members of the Freshman Class at least 77 are committed to defending the unborn…

Smith introduced legislation in this Congress to ban all government funding for abortion – this, naturally, got nowhere with Pelosi’s Culture of Death majority, but the new House Majority will probably pass it. Then will come the fight in the Senate, but that might go better for Life than most expect. The “2012 Democrats” will want such a populist measure to vote for (after all, forbidding government spending, in and of itself, is popular these days) and may help the GOP minority get it done. What Obama will do with it remains to be seen – but if he were to veto such a measure, it would be a double-whammy against him: he’d signal his support for profligate spending, as well as his support for something (federally-funded abortions) rejected by large majorities of the American people.

We’re slowly moving the ball our way – one day, America will once again be a Pro-Life nation, as enjoined by our Declaration of Independence.

It is what our government and the rest of the global governments are up to – from the Wall Street Journal:

$10.2 trillion: The amount of money advanced-nation governments will need to borrow in 2011

As the debts of advanced countries rise to levels not seen since the aftermath of World War II, it’s hard to know how much is too much. But it’s easy to see that the risk of serious financial trouble is growing.

Next year, fifteen major developed-country governments, including the U.S., Japan, the U.K., Spain and Greece, will have to raise some $10.2 trillion to repay maturing bonds and finance their budget deficits, according to estimates from the International Monetary Fund. That’s up 7% from this year, and equals 27% of their combined annual economic output…

This is unsustainable. In fact, it is an open question as to whether or not some of the weaker sisters in the global community will be able to do it – Spain, Greece, Italy, Ireland and Portugal already teeter on the brink of sovereign default. With the US and other larger economies sucking up vast sums of money to finance debt, will there be enough for everyone? I doubt it.

But even if we stagger through 2011 without a serious default in the world, all we’ll be doing is putting off the day of reckoning. The books must eventually balance, and as long as the United States refuses to tap in to its potential and create wealth, there is no way we – or the rest of the world – can produce the wealth necessary to reduce the debt. We’re in for a long, hard time – which may get worse than anyone imagines, if we don’t swiftly get control of our debt.

From Nevada News and Views – as regards the e-mails at Harrah’s coordinating efforts to get out the vote for Reid:

If a corporation or union spends money to support the election of a candidate in response to a request by that federal candidate (that is, if they make a coordinated expenditure), as clearly occurred in this case, then they are making an illegal contribution to the candidate.

This was not a situation where a corporation was simply encouraging its employees to go to the polls and vote for their candidate of choice — Harrah’s was telling its employees how important it was to elect Reid, setting up a whole system to coerce its employees to vote, even making records of who had not voted.

Both Harrah’s and the unions spend money, in terms of supervisor and employee resources on company time, and the cost of shuttles, etc., not merely in a nonpartisan way to get out the vote, but to facilitate votes for Reid…

As the linked article notes, this sort of action may violate that section of US law which prohibits coercing people to vote. With unemployment in Las Vegas at 15%, the union employees of Harrah’s – faced with intense pressure from corporation and union to vote Reid – might have felt their jobs depended upon a Reid vote. We can rely upon it that Holder’s Justice Department will not investigate this; we can also rely upon it that Nevada’s Attorney General (the merest tool of the Reid machine) also won’t do anything about it. So, what can we do?

We can hold hearings in the House – not just about Reid’s campaign, but about all incidents of voting irregularity. It is time – and past time – we exposed the voter fraud which is endemic to the Democrat party. We must call the witnesses and put them under oath – in this case, calling Harrah’s employees under grants of immunity to ask them if they felt coerced to vote Reid; were they worried about their jobs if they refused to vote, or voted Angle; did they in any way, shape or form give Harrah’s-paid time to the Reid campaign? These and other questions need answers.

This is an important question to answer (another question I’m looking for answers on is why 15% fewer Nevadans voted in our State-wide Surpeme Court elections than voted in our State-wide Senatorial contest…all the same ballot, so why did 109,000 Nevadans skip the Supreme Court vote? Why was it that the two Reid contests – Harry’s son Rory ran for governor – so greatly outpaced all the other State-wide contests in number of votes recorded? I’m currently waiting on a response from the Secretary of State’s office). More important than just Reid is the legitimacy of our democratic form of governance. If the American people ever lose faith in voting, then our freedoms are done for. People must be absolutely convinced that when they vote, the vote is counted and isn’t going to be canceled by fraud.

Getting to the bottom of this issue is a patriotic duty, and it must be done.