Wonder if they’ll pay attention?

House Democrats had better start taking the ethics allegations against Rep. Charlie Rangel seriously. I know it’s difficult for those steeped in Capitol Hill’s hermetic culture to understand, but a verdict of “mistakes were made” — which a lot of Democrats would like to reach — doesn’t cut it in the real world. Strange as it seems. Seriously…

…But just because Republicans are posturing for political gain doesn’t mean that Democrats can do the same without paying a price. If you win big majorities in both the House and Senate by railing against a “culture of corruption” in Washington, as the Democratic Party did, voters tend to get the wacky notion that you actually mean what you say.

The violations that Rangel is alleged to have committed are, inconveniently for him, easy for anyone to understand. The most serious, perhaps, is the allegation that he failed to pay taxes on about $75,000 in income from renting out a beach house that he owns in the Dominican Republic. For the chairman of the House committee that writes tax legislation not to pay his fair share in taxes would be as bad as, say, for the secretary of the Treasury not to pay his fair share in taxes. Hold it, maybe that’s a bad example…

…The real problem, though, is the overall portrait of a wealthy and privileged congressional pasha to whom ordinary rules don’t apply. It’s a picture that obscures Rangel’s long and tireless work in the House on behalf of the needy and dispossessed. It pains me to see his record tarnished, because I like and admire the guy. But he’s the one who did the tarnishing.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi may owe Rangel her job, but she needs to press the ethics committee to do its work without fear or favor. And she needs to contemplate the prospect of explaining to voters, come next fall, why the affluent man who sets their taxes didn’t pay his.

And that is it, in a nutshell. Even if one wishes to believe that the economy will be significantly better by November of 2010, the fact remains that it won’t be great and a lot of people will still be out of work. When you add to frustration over the economy the fact that the political class is corrupt, you can easily get a tidal wave of political change. Keep in mind that the GOP lost its Congressional majority in the relatively prosperous year of 2006. 8%+ unemployment coupled with Culture of Corruption could swing an election from the expected 25-seat Democrat loss to 50 or more (and I think unemployment will be 10%+ at that time…).

The message from the people is very loud and clear – stop the corruption, stop the back room deals, stop tax, spending and borrowing up in to oblivion. Democrats have preferred to concentrate on un-needed and un-wanted reforms to health care and energy along with preparing to scuttle Afghanistan and various oddities about extended “hate crimes” laws to homosexuals and allowing women to serve on submarines. In addition to this, Democrats have, if anything, become more arrogantly corrupt since they won the whole ball of wax last November – they seem to think they’ve won another 40 year term as majority.

If the Democrats don’t heed the voices of wisdom on their own side, they will head towards catastrophe next year.

Here it is in PDF – a quote:

Dear Attorney General Holder,

As you are aware, the Commission on Civil Rights investigates, among other things, complaints alleging that citizens are being deprived of their right to vote by reason of their race, color, religion, sex, age, disability and national origin, or by reason of fraudulent practices. Referred to as the “conscience of the nation,” the Commission and its individual members have historically stood against systemic efforts to corrupt the electoral process and disfranchise qualified voters…

…In November 2008, several commissioners wrote to your predecessor, Attorney General Michael Mukasey, urging him to launch a nationwide investigation into ACORN’s practices in the face of widespread evidence that it has engaged in filing possibly hundreds of thousands of fraudulent voter registration applications in some fourteen states – in invidious invitation for corruption in our electoral process…

…We respectfully urge the Department of Justice to undertake such a full-fledged, nationwide investigation of ACORN, including an assessment of whether ACORN’s conduct violates various applicable federal statutes, and to conduct its work with all deliberate speed. The integrity of our electoral system demands no less.

Ok, liberals; commence explaining this away. Also, we wonder how long before Obama manages to get a new Commission appointed? Certainly can’t have a Commission which asks for this sort of thing – next thing you know, people might start demanding that only citizens vote…and they only vote once! What would Democrats do if that came to pass?

This just sorta slipped out in the New York Times:

Slipped ever so casually into a New York Times profile on Dr. Francis Collins, the new director of the National Institutes of Health, is this stunning and not-so-objective example of reporting:

“First, there is the God issue. Dr. Collins believes in him. Passionately. And he preaches about his belief in churches and a best-selling book. For some presidential appointees, that might not be a problem, but many scientists view such outspoken religious commitment as a sign of mild dementia.”

Excuse me. Rewind the tape, please. Did the New York Times just say that people who believe in God and talk about it have dementia?

In an otherwise unremarkable profile, this offhand remark, which is never backed up by anything that could even remotely be considered “evidence,” is included as part of a discussion on whether Dr. Collins, who happens to be Christian, could possibly handle the reins of NIH and believe in God at the same time. Quoted in the article is another doctor who says that Dr. Collins’ two-year search for God after being questioned by a patient about his beliefs and his conclusion that yes, there is a God, is “enough to cause concern.”

One of the many things which amazes me is how monumentally stupid some people will be as regards religion. The knots some people twist themselves in to over their insistence on non-belief is amazing. Its plain as a pikestaff that God exists (one of a hundred examples: if the universe is expanding, it must be expanding in to something…meaning there is something before, and thus outside, the universe; try and work that in to Darwinism, suckers), but here come the non-believers who simply will not admit that there might be something smarter than they are. Its really rather sad – and sterile, too.

While some do hold to “special creation” – that God created everything as is at some relatively recent time – most people are ok with a universe billions of years old. Most are also ok with evolution – I mean, if we’re talking about a creature which, via slow stages, changed from ape to man, who really wants to argue against it? Especially since so many men can be ape-like in their day to day affairs? But what is stupid is to say that it happened by accident – that some self-creating microbe billions of years ago by accident changed in to a man…and also in to a whale…and a fruit fly…and a lizard…it just can’t happen. It defies common sense to believe such an idiotic notion…but it is believed. And so stout is the belief that, per the above article, these people are coming to view belief in God as a mental disorder (which, even if they are right, it can’t be – if we really did evolve by accident to have the best means of survival, then belief in God is proven to be part of our vital survival evolution…those who are denying God are denying evolution, and essentially trying to kill us all…if we take their views at face value; such is the topsy-turvydom of the non-believers).

I also wonder why they bother – it takes a lot of work to be a non-believer. You have to continually reinforce your non-belief – can’t for a moment allow even a sliver of the supernatural, or the jig is up. Meanwhile, believers are free to believe in God and evolution – both of which tend to make sense of the world as we know it.

After all this talk as candidate and President about taking the fight to Taliban, now we get this:

President Obama’s national security team is moving to reframe its war strategy by emphasizing the campaign against Al Qaeda in Pakistan while arguing that the Taliban in Afghanistan do not pose a direct threat to the United States, officials said Wednesday.

As Mr. Obama met with advisers for three hours to discuss Pakistan, the White House said he had not decided whether to approve a proposed troop buildup in Afghanistan. But the shift in thinking, outlined by senior administration officials on Wednesday, suggests that the president has been presented with an approach that would not require all of the additional troops that his commanding general in the region has requested.

In other words: Obama’s leftwing base is opposed to fighting for victory in Afghanistan while an outright cut-and-run would damage Obama irretrievably on the national security and terrorism issues…so, a compromise and, like all compromises in war, its a miserable thing. Obama’s team – if not yet Obama – is leaning towards a cowardly scuttle of Afghanistan. Perhaps with a “decent interval” to get Obama past the 2012 campaign.

This cannot be allowed – to surrender Afghanistan to the Taliban (and any “power sharing” arrangement would just be a temporary delay of outright Taliban control) is to lose the War on Terrorism. It will completely undo all our efforts since 9/11 and put us squarely back where we were the day we pulled out of Somalia in 1993. We’ll become sitting ducks – waiting here at home in a defensive crouch for the enemy to strike…but an ever more inattentive crouch as months and years go by with no direct attack on us. We’ll have 9/11, again – perhaps with WMD instead of hijacked planes.

We must fight – and keep fighting as long as is necessary to turn Afghanistan in to a viable nation with a reasonable level of liberty and prosperity. If we do anything else, then we just sign the death warrants of untold thousands of people – Americans among them, in the by and by. Its fight now, or fight later – and Obama’s people, typical of corrupt, liberal elites, are only thinking of the next year or two…that thousand might die after 2012 doesn’t concern them in the least…only the next election matters.

As usual:

Former President George W. Bush addressed a capacity crowd Wednesday night at the Wilderness Resort and Convention Center in Sevierville.

Bush wowed a crowd of more than 9,000 that attended a three-day conference of the Phil Waldrep Ministries based in Decatur, Ala.

Bush gave the enthusiastic crowd a patriotic message of joy, hope and faith in our families…

…The former president shied away from any political stance and said each U.S. leader must surround themselves with people they can trust.

“Always surround yourself with people that you’re not afraid to listen to,” he said.

“Base your decisions on your values that are steadfast and don’t change with the times. It’s essential that when you look in the mirror you can be proud of what you see. Never compromise your values for popularity. Take a stand and defend it.”

Bush said he was proud to represent the United States during his eight-year tenure.

“The institution of president is so much more important than the person,” he said. “I tried to bring honor to the office for eight years.”

Obama and Co can’t go a day, it seems, without using President Bush as a whipping boy – President Bush simply cannot bring himself to offer criticism, even of those who hate him. A Christian and a gentleman, its just not in him to match his critics’ invective.

I said back in 2008 that we’re going to miss him – I certainly do: I’d give my right arm to have him back in the White House for just a week, in order to make the decisions necessary to carry Afghanistan through.

Nauseating:

France’s Culture Minister Frederic Mitterrand is facing intense pressure over a book he wrote that described paying for “young boys” in Thailand.

The book was written four years ago, before he joined the government, but is back in the headlines following his impassioned support for Roman Polanski.

Polanski has been arrested in Switzerland on child sex charges.

Mr Mitterrand, nephew of late President Francois Mitterrand, is expected to defend himself on TV later on Thursday.

Mr Mitterrand has come under attack from right and left.

In his 2005 book The Bad Life, he wrote: “I got into the habit of paying for boys,” saying his attraction to young male prostitutes was not dimmed despite knowing “the sordid details of this traffic”.

“All these rituals of the market for youths, the slave market excited me enormously… the abundance of very attractive and immediately available young boys put me in a state of desire.”

With people like Mitterrand high up in French government, its small wonder that a child molester like Polanski could be protected for decades.

But there is a larger issue, here: the complete break down of morality in elite circles has led to this sort of depravity. How many more are there like Mitterrand high up in government and corporations? Men who fly to poor nations and purchase boys and girls for sexual gratification? How can we have a moral society if the people who run it are grossly immoral, or even just willing to turn a blind eye to such abominations?

Hiding under the absurd “right to privacy”, protected by the cultural imperative to not be “judgmental” and ensconced in a world of wealth and privilege, we’re seeing the complete collapse of basic, human decency on a grand scale. Some one like Mitterrand would be lucky to escape with his skin a mere 50 years go – now, he might be forced out of government, but he won’t be forced out of the good life…and there could be rehabilitation for him, at some point…as long as he doesn’t offend the cultural elites, they’ll find it in their hearts to forgive…after all, to someone like Mitterrand (or Polanski), what is one, little boy, more or less? Its not like it was “rape-rape”, ya know?

We have to start insisting upon basic decency, again – no man or woman who breaks core, Judeo-Christian principles should be allowed power and privilege in our society. Its either that, or see this just get worse and worse.

No surprise at all:

The Federal Housing Administration, which insures mortgages with low down payments, may require a U.S. bailout because it has $54 billion more in losses than it can withstand, a former Fannie Mae executive said.

“It appears destined for a taxpayer bailout in the next 24 to 36 months,” consultant Edward Pinto said in testimony prepared for a House committee hearing in Washington today. Pinto was the chief credit officer from 1987 to 1989 for Fannie Mae, the mortgage-finance company that is now government-run.

The FHA program’s volumes have quadrupled since 2006 as private lenders and insurers pulled back amid the U.S. housing slump, Pinto said. The jump has left the agency backing risky loans and exposed to fraud in a “market where prices have yet to stabilize,” he said.

Can you just smell the genius here? Who but government could think of this? I mean, it takes that extra, special level of liberal government intellect to go on a lending spree when the economy is collapsing! Boy, wish I had thought of that – we conservatives sure can learn from liberals!

And don’t think its 36 months before we have to bail the government out, again – 6 to 9 months is more like it.

This does explain a lot:

…the Pill may also have changed women’s taste in men, according to a study.

Scientists say the hormones in the oral contraceptive suppress a woman’s interest in masculine men and make boyish men more attractive. Although the change occurs for just a few days each month, it may have been highly influential since use of the Pill began more than 40 years ago.

If the theory is right, it could partly explain the shifting in tastes from macho 1950s and 1960s stars such as Kirk Douglas and Sean Connery to the more wimpy, androgynous stars of today, such as Johnny Depp and Russell Brand.

Dr Alexandra Alvergne, of the University of Sheffield, says the Pill could also be altering the way women pick their mates and could have long-term implications for society.

‘There are many obvious benefits of the Pill for women, but there is also the possibility that the Pill has psychological side-effects that we are only just discovering,’ she said. ‘We need further studies to find out what these are.’

The links between the Pill and sexual preferences are highlighted in a paper in the journal Trends in Ecology and Evolution.

Scientists have long known that a woman’s taste in men changes over her menstrual cycle.

During the few days each month when women are fertile – around the time of ovulation – they tend to prefer masculine features and men who are more assertive.

On days when women are not fertile, their tastes swing towards more feminine, boyish faces and more caring personalities, researchers have shown.

However, if women are taking the Pill they no longer have fertile days.

On the plus side, since women who take the pill tend towards a more liberal world view, what we’re getting is liberal women ever more attracted to wimpier men, who are thus less likely to get a woman pregnant during those times when Mr and Mrs Liberal decide to have their one, designer baby. Liberals could be breeding themselves out.

With yet more tax and spend liberalism:

Confronted with big job losses and no sign the U.S. economy is ready to stand on its own, Democrats are working on a growing list of relief efforts, leaving for later how to pay for them, or whether even to bother.

Because the first Spendulus worked so well…

Victor Davis Hanson lays it out:

Afghanistan is a messy war, but so far it has been conducted with a minimum loss of American life while achieving some important goals. We can argue about current strategies, fault what’s been done in the past, deplore the length of the war, lament its cost, or blame each other for its inconclusiveness, but the facts remain that we removed the Taliban, weakened al-Qaeda in the region, fostered a consensual government in the most unlikely of places, and helped to prevent another catastrophic attack on our nation originating from that part of the world — and did all this with a degree of skill that is reflected in losses that by historical standards are quite moderate…

…Afghanistan is a tough, nasty war, but so far, by the standard of past American “police actions,” its monthly toll is light. In some 97 consecutive months of warring, we have lost 869 dead, or not quite 9 a month. In comparison, 909 Americans were killed on average each month in Korea over 37 months, and 469 Americans were killed on average each month in Vietnam over 101 months of conflict. So far, Afghanistan is costing about a hundredth of the monthly fatalities in Korea, and a fiftieth of those in Vietnam.

The key is to remain flexible and adaptable. What worked in 2001 to rout the Taliban with a minimum of human and material losses may not work in 2009 to keep insurgents from attacking the fragile democracy. Often counterinsurgency is not at odds with, but complementary to, ongoing counterterrorism operations. And despite the demagoguery, our efforts in Iraq may not have been antithetical to those in Afghanistan but oddly synergistic, as thousands of jihadists flocked to the “main theater,” where it was much easier for the American military to deal with them — as the enormous jihadist losses in Iraq, and the relative quiet there now, attest.

So now Afghanistan is flaring up, perhaps because Islamists, like U.S. forces, have turned their attention to the original focus after the decision in Iraq. It seems that al-Qaeda’s leaders, Ayman al-Zawahiri and Osama bin Laden, suddenly are no longer calling for the devout to travel to Anbar to kill the infidel, but instead to come to Waziristan and help the Taliban with the real struggle. And why not, after suffering thousands killed and failing to stop Nouri al-Maliki’s constitutional effort in Iraq?…

Flexible and adaptable doesn’t just apply to the military – it applies to we, the people, as well. We must not concentrate on the daily or monthly casualties, even as we mourn our losses. We must not pay too much attention to what the enemy says or does. We must, most importantly, never take a televised news story from Afghanistan at face value – television is the great falsifier and while film may be dramatic, it rarely captures the full truth. Our job, as civilians, is to remain staunch in our desire for victory – to demonstrate to our brave soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines that we’ll give them whatever they need, even if this means, at times, that we’ll give them time and patience above all else.

I am pleased that the bi-partisan Congressional leadership has indicated a willingness to fight on. I am pleased that President Obama says he is listening to the military leadership. I urge the President to make very public demonstrations of our political will to victory, as nothing would help our effort better than to clarify to our enemies that we’re going to keep at this until they are defeated. President Obama has my unflagging support in his efforts to secure victory in Iraq – and my prayers are offered for Obama to rely on God’s love and wisdom in choosing the right course.