Interesting:

Self-identified conservatives outnumber self-identified liberals in all 50 states of the union, according to the Gallup Poll.

At the same time, more Americans nationwide are saying this year that they are conservative than have made that claim in any of the last four years.

In 2009, 40% percent of respondents in Gallup surveys that have interviewed more than 160,000 Americans have said that they are either “conservative” (31%) or “very conservative” (9%). That is the highest percentage in any year since 2004.

Only 21% have told Gallup they are liberal, including 16% who say they are “liberal” and 5% who say they are “very liberal.”

Thirty-five percent of Americans say they are moderate.

I sure know we’re heavily outnumbering liberals here in Nevada – Harry won’t even hold a real town hall. He’s cooked up some bogus get together where you have to pay $50 to listen to him drone on about whatever it is he thinks is happening. Its a sad day for liberalism when the Senate Majority Leader daren’t show his face in his home State.

More importantly, the pendulum swings – or, more accurately, the people realize they’ve been had by Obama. He did, after all, run as a post-partisan healer. Remember? No, seriously – it was all over his campaign message and echoed from sea to shining sea by the MSM that Obama was a different kind of politician.

Stop that. Stop laughing. No, I’m not making that up. Its just as well known as the fierce, moral urgency the left had to end the war. The war in Iraq. Yeah, that war – the one they were protesting against until….well…until January 20th, now that you think about it….

Anyways…unless by some chance Obamunism works (stop laughing, drat you all!), we’re heading for some fun times for GOPers and conservatives.

Geesh:

Apparently, libtalkers aren’t the only ones asserting that conservatives want Obama dead. After a week of reckless rhetoric from the left side of the dial, along comes Howard Dean to show them how it’s really done!…

…STEPHANIE MILLER: I saw you (Howard Dean) on Keith Olbermann last night. You really do believe we’re going to have a public option.

HOWARD DEAN: At the end of the day, I think we will. First of all, the president is a very smart guy and he knows very well this can’t work without a public option. Secondly, you know he’s run into a rough patch in the Senate, mostly because of Democrats, honestly.

The Republicans, they have no interest in this Bill. They’re using the 1994 playbook. Let’s kill the bill and kill the president…… or, kill the president’s term. Although there are sort of angry people out there I get very nervous about this stuff. I don’t like it at all…

Its getting to be almost a wish on the left. Howard, knock it off – there’s no conservative bogey-man gonna come git ya, or the President. We’re just having fun knocking you about and we’re going to crush you in 2010 and 2012. But we don’t want you harmed, nor Obama – this is the best recruitment tool we’ve ever had!

A great man, a great American, a great conservative – didn’t always agree with him, but he was a man to be listened to, no matter what. America’s intellect dropped by a noticeable amount when Novak left us.

Have at it, boys and girls – lots to talk about in these ever changing times.

Never give in to the doomsayers:

I have found it advisable not to give too much heed to what people say when I am trying to accomplish something of consequence. Invariably they proclaim it can’t be done. I deem that the very best time to make the effort. – Calvin Coolidge

Interesting new wrinkle in the Belmont Abbey case:

In an exclusive interview with LifeSiteNews.com (LSN) , Belmont Abbey College president Dr. William Thierfelder said officials at the Charlotte division of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) told him that a decision to close a discrimination complaint against the school for failing to offer contraception coverage was reversed after the matter went to the nation’s capital.

Eight BAC faculty members filed a complaint against the college for removing coverage for abortion, sterilization, and contraception from their employee health insurance, supplied by Wellpath. The faculty first complained to the North Carolina Department of Insurance that BAC was required to cover contraception under state law because it did not qualify for the religious employer exemption. Both the state department and Wellpath, however, disagreed with the complainants.

“If you ever came on this campus, the first thing you see is the Basilica of Mary Help of Christians,” said Thierfelder. “That basilica is connected to a monastery. That monastery is connected to the main administration building.”

The group of complainants, who joined forces with the National Women’s Law Center, then made a gender discrimination complaint to the EEOC, which in March informed the Abbey that it had closed the issue. Two months later, the EEOC reversed its decision.

What is the National Women’s Law Center? Here’s a sample from their website:

Jill offered a presentation called “Prosecuting Pregnancy,” where she talked about state actions that criminalize the medical decision-making and drug use of pregnant women. For example, women have been criminally prosecuted with such charges as child endangerment, neglect, or fetal homicide when their newborn infants test positive for drugs at birth. Jill posed the question: Is it right to prosecute pregnant women when they (or their newborn children) test positive for illegal drugs while we don’t prosecute anyone else for who tests positive for illegal drugs? And she answered it for us, too: No, she said, because having illegal drugs in your body is not a crime — even for a pregnant woman. Jill explained that the Supreme Court has held that it is unconstitutional to criminalize a person’s status, including the status of being an addict. A person can be charged with possession of a drug, but the appearance of that drug in their system can’t be a crime.

A group which insists that taking illegal drugs is not a crime. Interesting, to say the least – but entirely in keeping with a pro-abortion view that absolutely everything is ok as long as you stick “choice” some where in there. I think we can tell where the pressure lies, here – kook leftists weren’t about to let something as trivial as the law get in the way of smacking down a Catholic college which, you know?, actually insists upon being Catholic.

We can expect more of this as long as Obama is President – because his staff it just shot through with people either directly from screwball groups like the NWLC, or in sympathy with their views. Vigilance will be needed to defend liberty.

Mish’s links to the scoop (PDF) and quotes:

More than 15.2 million U.S. mortgages, or 32.2 percent of all mortgaged properties, were in negative equity position as of June 30, 2009 according to newly released data from First American CoreLogic. As of June 2009, there were an additional 2.5 million mortgaged properties that were approaching negative equity. Negative equity and near negative equity mortgages combined account for nearly 38 percent of all residential properties with a mortgage nationwide.

66% of the mortgages here in my State of Nevada are under water – with “near negative” bringing it to nearly 69%. That’s a lot – and its why the bottom here in Nevada is no where in sight. This is a State which is getting crushed between a collapsed housing market coupled with a heavily distressed tourism industry (more and more casino operators are reporting losses and indicating possible bankruptcy…if a casino is going broke, you know you’ve got some problems). How do we fix this?

Essentially, we need to reorganize our housing system as if it were going through bankruptcy. Do the best we can to determine the real value of the houses, adjust the mortgage amounts to fit and then just start building our way out of the mess by hard work. And don’t get me wrong, it means the $130,000 I’ve put in to my house is gone for good (or bad, as the case may be). Everyone bet wrong, everyone has to pay the price – well, except for those wise people who bought pre-boom and didn’t sell or refinance their house during the bubble…they’re sitting pretty on equity and deserve it for being wise.

While the mortgage crisis has hit worst just a few States, the fact remains that housing prices are dropping almost uniformly around the United States and it appears that no State has less than 15% of its mortgaged residential properties under water. It will be very painful to get out of this, but any attempt to put the matter off or hide it under various government and federal reserve schemes will just put off the day of reckoning, and make it worse when it finally arrives.

A look at the cold, hard facts is necessary – and the courage to ruthlessly cut to the chase and set things to right. We won’t get that from Obama, Reid, Pelosi and their Democrats, so we’re going to have to do it ourselves starting in 2010.

And it looks good to me:

Republican hopeful Mark Kirk finds himself starting out even in a Senate race against his likeliest Democratic competitor, State Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias.

The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey in the state shows Kirk, a member of the House from the northern suburbs of Chciago, with 41% of the vote while Giannoulias attracts 38%. Four percent (4%) prefer some other candidate, and 17% are not sure.

The sole Republican in the race fares much better against the other top Democratic contender, Cheryle Jackson, president of the Chicago Urban League and a former top aide to disgraced Governor Rod Blagojevich. Kirk beats Jackson by 17 points, 47% to 30%. Six percent (6%) like another candidate, and again 17% are undecided.

Giannoulias is tied to Obama, and tied to Tony Rezko…a scion of a Chicago banking family which has had its share of questions, we couldn’t script a better example of what is wrong with politics to run against (except for whomever the GOP picks – wink, nudge – to run against Harry Reid). If we’re expecting someone to rise out of Chicago finance and banking to have a clean record, then we’re really hoping against hope. Well, more accurately, the Democrats are hoping against hope – we’ll just reap the electoral benefits.

A timely bit of info if there ever was:

The incoming president of the Canadian Medical Association says this country’s health-care system is sick and doctors need to develop a plan to cure it.

Dr. Anne Doig says patients are getting less than optimal care and she adds that physicians from across the country – who will gather in Saskatoon on Sunday for their annual meeting – recognize that changes must be made.

“We all agree that the system is imploding, we all agree that things are more precarious than perhaps Canadians realize,” Doing said in an interview with The Canadian Press.

“We know that there must be change,” she said. “We’re all running flat out, we’re all just trying to stay ahead of the immediate day-to-day demands.”

The pitch for change at the conference is to start with a presentation from Dr. Robert Ouellet, the current president of the CMA, who has said there’s a critical need to make Canada’s health-care system patient-centred. He will present details from his fact-finding trip to Europe in January, where he met with health groups in England, Denmark, Belgium, Netherlands and France.

His thoughts on the issue are already clear. Ouellet has been saying since his return that “a health-care revolution has passed us by,” that it’s possible to make wait lists disappear while maintaining universal coverage and “that competition should be welcomed, not feared.”

In other words, Ouellet believes there could be a role for private health-care delivery within the public system.

Anyone want Obamacare, now?

Look, liberals, government can play a role in helping manage funds to ensure that people without coverage aren’t left out in the cold – though, even there, the actual dispensing of the money would be best left to private charitable organizations. What government can’t do is run the system – even in the military, staffed with brave and dedicated men and women, things get screwed up…if the military can’t get the bureaucracy right, what makes you think anyone else will? All these boards and all the piles of bureaucratic flapdoodle proposed in Obamacare would, indeed, crush those private insurers your side is demonizing, but they would make the system bureaucrat-centered, rather than patient-centered. Canada is just learning this, the hard way.

We don’t need to – we can get quality, inexpensive health care to all Americans (don’t you mean “affordable”? No, “affordable” is liberal-speak for “costs like the Dickens but not directly” – inexpensive means precisely that). We can’t get it with Obama and his Democrats, but we can get it…it’ll just have to wait until at least 2011.

Is another economic bubble about to burst?:

A massive rally in U.S. stocks since March has reawakened bullish spirits, but insiders are jumping out of the market in a sign the run up is getting stretched.

Company executives are selling stock at a rate not seen in two years after a near 50 percent rise in the S&P 500 from a March 9 low. That suggests directors and managers may think stock prices are nearing the top end of their range in the current economic climate…

…Increased insider selling has in the past been an indicator of an inflection point for equity markets, said Ben Silverman, director of research at InsiderScore.com.

Sales of stock by company insiders suggests managers have a dim view of the market’s prospects…

This would be because there’s nothing to the so-called “improvement” in economic prospects. A huge infusion of cash – most of it created out of thin air by central banks – caused a temporary slow down in the collapse. This was coupled with a bunch of “ye-haw, everything’s great, again” economic spin to create the recent stock market boom – and not just here, but around the world and especially in China, where the bubble has risen higher and faster than anywhere else (this fueled by the Chinese government increasing the money supply by 26% and then essentially ordering banks to lend it on easy terms). But, meanwhile, Chinese exports – the thing which makes the Chinese economy tick – have fallen for 9 straight months; US consumer sales are down (in spite of alleged bumps up which are actually just price fluctuations on necessities); bankruptcies and loan impairments continue to rise; commercial real estate is in the midst of a collapse which may beggar the residential home melt down…on and on it goes, not a scintilla of good economic news, and now the piper will have to be paid.

Added to this is clear evidence of deflationary pressures (such as grocery stores cutting prices, etc. here and around the world). What we’ve got is all the elements of a Depression without anyone wanting to admit that is what we’re in. No admission – but as I always say, look at what people do as opposed to what they say. For all the talk of “green shoots”, the actuality is people in the know (about their own corporations as well as others) are bailing out a rapid clip.

It going to get a lot worse before it gets any better – and it won’t get better until we realize that only hard work will get us out of this. There’s no Economic Fairy named Barack Obama who will wave his magic wand of stimulus and make it all better – we’ve screwed up for generations, and now we have to pay up.