Leftist astro-turfing meets genuine grass roots effort:

We beat the MoveOn/union/Acorn pro-ObamaCare crowd like a big bass drum.

Scheduled for 7pm, the other side was trying to get there before us, but failed; 20-30 intrepid Tea Partiers grabbed the best (shaded) space by 4:15pm, leaving the 5-6 starting MoveOn troops out in a very hot sun. Later they gave up and moved past the entrance to some shade. By 5pm, we had them beat 10-12 to 1, after which both sides seem to grow pretty proportionally. since ours were actually there for the town hall, many of ours went on inside after awhile, so we had a fluctuating population, while they stayed out, desperately trying to do anything to look less pitiful, even going back to the ZCM tactic (Zombie Circular March). By the time Session started the town hall, somewhere between 1,800-2,000 citizens. And, from the partisan applause and cheering to questions and answers, the entire audience was also 10-12 to 1 supporting the protection of our healthcare system.

The government healthcare advocates couldn’t be happy; about a dozen of theirs were Communication Workers of America and the left as a group before the MoveOn and others. Not many- if any- of the Government Healthcare advocates that were protesting actually went in for the town hall. Not interested in actually discussing the topic.

That is from North Texas TEA Party. Our liberals – from Obama on down – are denigrating this popular movement, but they are doing so at their own political peril. Additionally, any elitist, insider-the-beltway GOPer who also discounts this movement is playing with fire. This is the American people rising up, at long last, against a corrupt system built and maintained for the well-connected.

Going to be taking care of some personal business and so blogging will be light this weekend (which starts today, for me). I’ll do the best I can, but it will be a bit spotty. Meanwhile, have at it on the open thread.

And, yes, trolls, I will be in often enough to thwart you – so don’t go thinking you’ve got a free ride.

At least one banker is getting it:

The president of Etica Bank in Italy, Fabio Salviato, said this week that the new encyclical by Pope Benedict XVI, “Caritas in Veritate,” is a guide for redefining the world economic system.

In an interview with Vatican Radio, the 51 year-old executive and author said the encyclical is a “guide that can enlighten us in this phase of individualization of a new economic and financial system.”

He noted that the new encyclical calls for “a cultural change founded upon the centrality of the person.”

“By responding to the needs of the person, fighting against poverty, and respecting the environment a redefinition of the economical financial system will emerge,” he added.

“I believe the Holy Father has truly offered us not only a light but also a great gift, a guide for economic leaders,” Salviato continued. “And not only for them but for all those who bear responsibility in the world of politics, finance and civil society. It is a cultural point of reference and directory, of almost a technical nature, on how to build, or rebuild, the new system after this crisis and these difficulties,” he said.

There is nothing wrong with being rich but there is very much wrong with the way we’ve attempted to get rich – and if we are to build a dynamic, prosperous and equal opportunity economy, we must attend to core, moral principles in our economic dealings. We must remember that we are stewards of the things we are given – even when we assert ownership of, say, property we are really holding it in trust for the actual owner, God. We must learn that an 8% return is worthless if we haven’t actually served others by gaining it.

The error our socialist friends make is to presume that the economy is a zero sum game and that if some are well off they have done so invariably at the expense of others. This attitude leads to appeals to envy while attempting to “fix” things with programs which invariably make things worse. While there are financial sharks out there who do profit off the un- or partially-requited toil of others, we must not fall in to the immoral trap of assuming that all men who are well off are the beneficiaries of ill-gotten gains. We additionally cannot presume that all people who are poor are mere victims – some people are, indeed, shiftless. Our economy should be built to honor hard work and give such work its proper reward – even if this means that some people will have vastly more wealth than others. As long as the person is the central motivator in economics, we’re at least some what on the right track. As soon as mere accumulation of money becomes central, we’ve lost our way.

Among the things which will be noted in a moral economy is that there will be no corporations “too big to fail” – in fact, a properly functioning economy won’t have any of the monstrous, multinational corporations today’s economy has. How can a CEO in, say, New York know what the needs are in his subsidiary in Calcutta? He can’t – and he’s bound to make policy which will not help, even if it doesn’t directly harm, the people in the remote corners of his economic empire. We conservatives have correctly identified big government as the main culprit in today’s ills – but big corporation is also a problem and, in reality, big government and big corporation go hand in hand…knock out the one, and the other goes with it. We can see in the servile way that big corporations are lining up for Obama’s largesse just how closely intertwined the two things are.

We can and must build a moral economy – an economy built for people, not for bureaucrats, corporations and the manipulators of same.

And its a badge of honor:

Planned Parenthood president Cecile Richards is so upset that the nation’s Catholic bishops are opposed to being forced to pay for abortions in the health care “reform” bills that she has written a new editorial saying so. The editorial is making its way across the pro-abortion blogosphere.

In various letters to members of Congress, the Catholic bishops have made it clear that they support health care reform as long as it does not involve taxpayer-financing of abortion.

Richards, whose top goal at Planned Parenthood is making sure abortion is included and that her centers get government funds from the government-run health care plan, used the tried and true approach of talking about everything other than abortion.

She claims abortion is merely a first step and that the Catholic bishops will begin defining legitimate medical procedures out of universal health care, as if the bishops would begin opposing medical care or surgeries.

Its the same old/same old from PP – worried about the fact that fewer doctors are willing to sully their honor with elective abortions and worried that their time on the government gravy train might come to an end, the PP people are determined to get abortion in the health care bill, force doctors to perform them and, of course, keep themselves at the taxpayer trough.

This poor woman, Cecile Richards, would be well advised to drop it – seriously, to dedicate one’s life to such a cause is just a miserable waste of a life. There is so much good she could do – especially for womens health – but she prefers to gnaw the dry bone of the Culture of Death to the very end.

The sad truth:

Hundreds of auto dealers in the New York area have withdrawn from the government’s Cash for Clunkers program, citing delays in getting reimbursed by the government, a dealership group said Wednesday.

The Greater New York Automobile Dealers Association, which represents dealerships in the New York metro area, said about half its 425 members have left the program because they cannot afford to offer more rebates. They’re also worried about getting repaid.

Screwed up from start to finish, counter-productive and a waste of money. In other words, a typical, liberal Democrat tax and spend boondoggle.

A bit of local news with a national angle:

A former Las Vegas director for a political advocacy group accused of illegally paying canvassers to register voters during last year’s presidential campaign has pleaded guilty to a reduced charge and agreed to testify against the group and another employee.

Chief Deputy Nevada Attorney General Conrad Hafen said Wednesday that Christopher Edwards’ plea deal strengthens a felony case against the Association of Community Organizers for Reform Now and Amy Busefink, a former regional voter registration director for ACORN.

Edwards pleaded guilty this week to two counts of conspiracy to commit the crime of compensation for registration of voters.

Now, before we on the right get our hopes up about the law being enforced and other strange hopes to hold while liberal Democrats run the show, it should be mentioned that our State Attorney General is a Democrat. She’s already cooked up an indictment of what everyone assumed was Reid’s strongest 2010 challenger (our Lt. Governor), leaving only little Danny Tarkanian and A Candidate to be Named Later in the field. So, don’t expect too much – the AG might decide to enforce the law vigorously, or she might not. If she does, then she deserves our thanks – if she doesn’t, we won’t be surprised.

But one of the reasons we must fight hard against Obama and his Democrats is because of their ties to corrupt groups like ACORN and the way they are lavishing taxpayer money on these partisan groups – a political party has commandeered the Treasury to support its operatives and we must first stop it, then roll it back and then, when we do regain power, prosecute vigorously. This blow against ACORN is but one, small step – and we must not allow it to drop down the Memory Hole or be treated by the left as an aberration.

HAT TIP: An Alert Reader

And a big one it is, indeed:

Two firms that received $343.3 million to handle advertising for Barack Obama’s White House run last year have profited from his top priority as president by taking on his push for health-care overhaul.

One is AKPD Message and Media, the Chicago-based firm headed by David Axelrod until he left last Dec. 31 to serve as a senior adviser to the president. Axelrod was Obama’s top campaign strategist and is now helping sell the health-care plan. The other firm is Washington-based GMMB Campaign Group, where partner Jim Margolis was also an Obama strategist.

This year, AKPD and GMMB received $12 million in advertising business from Healthy Economy Now, a coalition that includes the Washington-based Pharmaceutical Research & Manufacturers of America, known as PhRMA, that is seeking to build support for a health-care overhaul, said the coalition’s spokesman, Jeremy Van Ess…

…Axelrod was president and sole shareholder of AKPD from 1985 until he sold his interest after Obama’s victory, government records show. The firm owes Axelrod $2 million, which it’s due to pay in installments beginning Dec. 31. Axelrod’s son, Michael, still works there. He didn’t return a phone call. The firm’s Web site continues to feature David Axelrod’s work on the Obama campaign.

Connections to lobbyists; big payouts coming while holding federal office; nepotism – and all for the evil, wicked, nasty pharmaceutical industry (or, at least, that is how its characterized in lefty talking points). This is the change we wanted? Anyone else besides me smell a rat here? We already know that Obama won’t prevent the trial lawyers from profiting off his health care plan…now we know his people are in the hip pocket of the pharmaceutical industry. It there a special interest – other than, ya know?, the people – which isn’t feeding at the public trough while Obama talks “reform” of the system?

Hugh Hewitt makes the inescapable point:

If it was Karl Rove in a similar set of circumstances, the blogs and some in MSM would already be demanding a special prosecutor. There are lots of questions for Mr. Axelrod, the first one being whether the Bloomberg story is accurate. if the answer is “yes,” the second will be: “Have you lawyered up?”

The left is cooking up a “crazed, gun-toting, right-winger” meme to try and frighten us in to silence, and likely justify gun control at a later date – so, pay heed:

Both oligarch and tyrant mistrust the people, and therefore deprive them of their arms. – Aristotle

The story:

The nation’s largest organization for seniors is losing members thanks to its support of a health care agenda that includes rationing health care.

Although the group has not technically endorsed the House and Senate bills specifically, it has put enough of its imprimatur on them that President Barack Obama wrongly said AARP endorsed the bills in a recent town hall forum.

In materials provided to CBS News on Monday, AARP said 60,000 citizens have left its membership rolls in protest over its general support for the government-run health care plan.

In the end, AARP is just another group advocating Big Government – including big government experiments, just as long as the money flows and AARP can latch on to some of it. Its high time that seniors dumped this group.

In this case, the FDIC (ie, look in the mirror) backed bubble – from Megan McArdle:

We’ve seen fewer bank failures than we had during the S&L crisis. But as this piece from the Wall Street Journal notes, the failures are worse. Three of the five banks that failed on Friday had to tap the FDIC fund to cover more than 50% of their assets.

This highlights the depth of the market crisis. But it also raises questions about what was going on at the Fed. How did it let things get this bad?

Regulators also have been blamed for not taking quick enough action and for allowing zombie banks to limp along. Inspectors general at the Treasury Department and FDIC, which serve as watchdogs, have issued more than a dozen reports that conclude regulators dithered while banks they oversaw plowed ahead with rapid and unsteady growth.

“When you get these failing banks, they are much more like a fresh-caught fish than a fine wine. They don’t get better with age and the losses keep piling up.” said Bert Ely, a longtime banking-industry consultant.

Integrity Bank, of Alpharetta, Ga., was permitted to keep luring deposits paying unusually high interest rates for more than two years after examiners noted deficiencies in its loan underwriting, according to the FDIC’s inspector general. Integrity failed last year, costing the FDIC $295 million.

It’s easy to lay blame in hindsight. But a bank doesn’t just suddenly and for no apparent reason lose half its assets. Clearly, these banks have been trading while insolvent for quite some time, hoping against hope that everything would somehow turn around. Meanwhile, they poured more of their investor and depositor’s assets into pursuing a Hail Mary pass…

The FDIC, by the way, seems to be out of money – used up the last of it with last Friday’s bank failures. The FDIC mantra is “no one has ever lost a penny on an FDIC-insured deposit” – which is true, but never since the FDIC came in to being have this many banks – and this many large banks – failed in such a short time.

As McArdle puts it, the banks were “hoping against hope” for some miracle turn around to hide the bad loans on the books – as it is, the entirety of the global financial system is currently hoping against hope. Hoping that something, anything, will turn up and allow them to survive – with bankruptcies rising, loan impairments shooting through the roof and no area of the global economy healthy enough to absorb the blow and lead the way out, we’re facing a complete financial collapse akin to – but probably far worse – than that which followed upon the collapse of Creditanstalt in 1931.