WARNING: Obscenity in this video – it is worse than you thought.

Teachers are ok. Teachers union? An absolute blight on American education. All teacher union contracts should be canceled and no group associated with the current teachers unions should be allowed to engage in collective bargaining agreements with any American school district.

From Reuters via CNBC:

Litigation arising from foreclosure paperwork problems could be “very damaging” to the housing market, a top U.S. banking regulator said Monday.

Federal Deposit Insurance Corp Chairman Sheila Bair said she did not believe legislation would be needed to address concerns over whether the paperwork was properly done so long as investigations show the issue was mostly “procedural.”…

Translation: “for goodness sake, if we make the banks actually do their job properly, our whole ‘extend and pretend’ game will crash and a score of big banks will go under. Don’t you hicks out there realize that only via government corruption are we keeping these banks afloat?”.

The problem here isn’t that people lost their homes unfairly – if you don’t pay your mortgage, you lose your house. People who have been foreclosed upon or who face it might be able to spin things out and live rent free for a while, but the plain fact of losing the house cannot be escaped. The problem here is that this mess will slow down foreclosures making banks keep the toxic loans on the books for longer than they can stand…and, even worse, sales of distressed houses will drop like a rock as title insurers back off any short or foreclosure sales because there are too many questions about who has title to the house. Ultimately, we could also see massive lawsuits from people who bought mortgage-backed securities and took a bath on them…

What the Banksters and Bureaucrats want is for this problem to go away – and go away very fast. The game they’re playing only works as long as everyone pretends there is no problem…as soon as someone notices the emperor has no clothes, the jig is up. We’ll see how successful they are…but I’m not counting on it as once lawyers get involved, easy resolution becomes impossible.

$45,000.00 for a puff piece on a blog?

Well-known mommy blogger Lyss Stern agreed to write a puff piece for an advertising supplement for the New York Observer to pay off a nearly $45,000 dental bill, then reneged on the deal, contends a New York lawsuit filed by a dental firm…

If you want your firm puffed, then I’m your man – I’ll undercut any blogger out there! Mad Mark’s Blog-O-Rama is open for business!

HAT TIP: Instapundit

From National Journal:

It’s easy to look at what appears to be a gigantic Republican 2010 midterm election wave in the House and feel a little slack-jawed, but not so much surprised. There were plenty signs well over a year ago that Democrats were facing grave danger, but even when expecting an onslaught, one can still be shocked at its size and unrelenting force. It would be a surprise if this wave doesn’t match the 52-seat gain on Election Night in 1994, and it could be substantially more…

That, coming from Charlie Cook, should freeze a lot of Democrat hearts. He’s been extra cautious all year long, and now just a week out he’s seeing the tidal wave coming. Of course, he’s probably seen it a lot longer than that, but no sense betting the farm until you’re sure.

Cook goes on to note that the Senate is more tricky to predict. At a minimum, the GOP should pick up 6 seats – something which was considered almost impossibly as little as three or four months ago. Very likely the pick up will by 8…and just that chance of 10 or more. All in all, the 2010 elections look to be a clear rejection of Obama and his Democrats. But, what then?

Make no mistake about it, if we Republicans do score big, our problem becomes in a lot of ways a lot bigger. We’ve got to contend with a collapsing economy for which we, as at least the majority party in the House, will start to bear some blame. We’ve got to work on fixing the problem, because nation comes first, but we have to do it in such a manner as to keep all credit away from Obama, because the United States cannot afford a second Obama term. It is abundantly clear that Obama is the worst possible man to have in the White House at this juncture, and all our efforts must be coordinated with the necessity of ensuring that anyone else is President on January 20th, 2013…even if its a different Democrat, that is still vastly superior to keeping Obama.

Hard times are coming for the country – we must brace ourselves for unemployment to go well above 10%; perhaps even as high as 15%. We must be on guard as our enemies around the world, figuring we are weak and distracted, attempt to take advantage. We must start the process of returning America to constitutional government in the teeth of a vile and increasingly corrupt left which is determined to hang on to power, come what may. This is not the time of fun and games…our celebration of victory should end by the end of the day, November 3rd…we’ve got our work cut out for us.

Joe Walsh, Life of Illusion

Which, in a lot of ways, would make a good campaign song for the Democrats, this last week…

From Politico:

Republicans are on the verge of broad wins next week for one big reason: independent voters are ready to boot Democrats from office, according to a new POLITICO/George Washington University Battleground Poll.

Expressing deep dissatisfaction with President Obama’s policies and performance, independents have increasingly sided with conservatives in the belief that government grew too large, too fast under Obama—and that it can no longer be trusted. In the final pre-election Battleground Poll, Republicans hold a 14-point edge among independents and lead overall, 47 percent to 42 percent, in the generic ballot match up…

Energize your base all you want, Democrats; that and $2.50 will get you a cup of coffee…though you might want to dig deep for about $20…you’ll be needing a bottle of whiskey come November 3rd to drown your sorrows.

You lied to the American people and you are about to pay the price for those lies. You told us Obama was a centrist. You told us you’d be transparent. You told us that you’d clean up the corruption. You told us you’d get spending under control You lied, Lied, LIED!!! You were just saying whatever you thought would work to get elected.

Well, you got elected – you “won”. Congratulations – now, how does that 2008 victory taste?

UPDATE: Rasmussen shows the GOP maintaining a 9 point lead in the “Generic” ballot. To bring us back down to earth, however, it also looks like the Maryland governorship is slipping away from us. We won’t win it all, fellow GOPers…we’ll just win a whole lot.

Obama keeps using his lame and incorrect metaphor that Republicans “drove the economy in a ditch” to try to energize his equally delusional base, but he may have taken it a bit too far.

He said Republicans had driven the economy into a ditch and then stood by and criticized while Democrats pulled it out. Now that progress has been made, he said, “we can’t have special interests sitting shotgun. We gotta have middle class families up in front. We don’t mind the Republicans joining us. They can come for the ride, but they gotta sit in back.”

Aside from the metaphor fail, what really sticks out here is that Obama is saying he is completely unwilling to work with Republicans to fix the bad economy that Obama and the Democrats keep digging us deeper into.  You know, I used to think that we all had the same goals, just different ideas on how to we got to that goal. But, let’s face it, Obama doesn’t want what Americans want. He wants whatever will placate his ego.

We should want a government with people with different views who look for the best solution out of all the options. Obama and the Democrat-controlled congress have no interest in that.

First off, something to put Democrats off their breakfast…

Will the Fed’s “QE2” be $4 trillion? If it is your best investment will be in gold – and canned goods and shotguns.

More good economic news – China about to collapse in a mountain of inflation.

A drop in the bucket: California cut 37,000 government jobs in September. There will be more – though if Brown is elected, his puppet-masters will work out some financial shennanigans to put off the day of reckoning for at least a few months.

Gay voters abandoning the Democrats? Be interesting to see how that comes out – especially as the Democrats will need a huge turnout in this demographic to save Boxer, among other endangered Democrats. Can’t say as I’d blame them for staying home – backing any of the gay rights agenda is, to say the least, problematic for a Conservative Catholic, but even I’m incensed at the way Democrats play up to homosexuals for votes and donations, and then drop dime on them the day after the election. I just don’t like dishonorable behavior – if you say you’re going to do something, then do it…don’t pander and then betray.

Beware of late polls – Ace takes a PPP poll to task for its obvious bias; lesson here is to not dwell on polls right now. The task at hand it GOTV – if you can volunteer for that, do it; take nothing for granted, fight for every vote. We’re all hopeful for a big (indeed, stupendous) GOP victory on November 2nd, but what will be will be – our job is just to do what we can and let the chips fall where they may. In light of this, if you don’t know where you should direct your time and money, Dick Morris has a handy guide.

Keep in good spirits this week; don’t let the fools grind you down (and they are going to try and grind you down, day by day). We know we’ve already won the battle of ideas, but we also know that no matter what result happens, the battle for political power has only just begun. Right makes might, and we’ve got them on the run.

Military Archbishop Timothy Broglio explains:

…Archbishop Broglio explained to CNA what he sees as the basic flaw in Judge Phillips’ ruling, which declared that “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” denied homosexual soldiers their rights to freedom of speech and due process. The archbishop explained that while individuals may have a legal right to declare their sexual preferences, they have no comparable “right” to serve in the military at the same time.

Rather, he said, the military reserves to itself the right to deny individuals that privilege– just as soldiers may forfeit the privilege of military service in many other ways, through their speech and behavior…

This points out a large problem we have in our modern world – too many things are cast in terms of “rights” when they are nothing of the kind. If a person has an inherent – ie, endowed-by-God – right to serve in the military, then the military may not reject anyone for service…no matter what condition they are in, and regardless of the manpower needs of the military. Military service is a privilege, highly revocable, which not everyone is granted.

This doesn’t mean that gays cannot serve openly in the military – it just means that whether or not gays shall so serve is something to be decided upon the merits of the case, not based on a supposed right to military service. My personal view is that the thing can be done – provided certain actions are taken to secure good order and discipline within the military. The most important of these would be a strict order against sexual fraternization among active duty military personnel – the military can’t become a dating service. If you want to serve, then serve – but seek your mate outside of the military and if you do find yourself irresistibly drawn to a fellow service member, then one of you is going to have to get out. And be forced out dishonorably, if illicit activity is detected.

It is high time we started to free ourselves from a lot of falsehoods in our debates. We have to start approaching things as they are. Ultimately, given the nature of this case, the decision on whether or not to employ openly gay people in the military must be made by active duty officers. Only they can really determine if full combat efficiency can be maintained with such a change. If they say it can’t be done, then we shouldn’t do it – we must not permit military service to become the means of cheap, political grand standing on the part of liberals currying favor with special interest groups. The safety of the United States rests upon the military, and we dare not weaken it because some pressure group wants this or that change.

Her new ad:

While the recent polls showing Brown with a big lead are bogus, the fact remains that Brown is ahead and Whitman has yet to convince California voters that she’s the better alternative. Can she do it? This ad lays out a clear choice – and it will now come down to Californians deciding whether they really think a re-tread, has-been former governor is the best answer to California’s impending bankruptcy, or that Whitman, a successful business woman, might have a better plan?

After all is said and done, Californians will get the government they deserve – if they choose Brown, California will go bankrupt as there will be no way to pass any sort of State bailout through Congress in 2011 and there is no chance Brown will make the deep spending cuts needed to save California. If they choose Whitman, they’ll get a lot of initial pain as she clears out the mess, but then prosperity will return. We’ll see what the Californians do.