From Sherman Frederick:

It’s hard to keep pace with the weird, almost delusional things Sen. Harry Reid utters.

This weekend, two days after his debate with Sharron Angle, the Sun reported this (and I use the term “reported” loosely):

“When asked if he thought the perception of an Angle victory would hurt him, Reid said he wasn’t aware of any journalists or pundits who declared her the winner …”

What? Are you kidding me?

The Sun just 24 hours earlier published a column from one of its own writers that said Angle won…

The best I’ve seen for Harry has been some people saying that neither won – which is essentially a victory for Angle as she only had to show herself as a minimally acceptable alternative to a horrendously unpopular incumbent.

In the end, I don’t even expect it to be all that close – by 9 or 10 pm Pacific Time on November 2nd, we’ll have Harry’s concession speech.

From Human Events:

Nationally-recognized pollster Scott Rasmussen last night predicted that Republicans would gain 55 seats in races for the U.S. House of Representatives November 2—much more than the 39 needed for a Republican majority in the House for the first time since 2006…

I’ve been wary of making such predictions this year and Rasmussen has always been cautious. But its time for everyone to really grasp how bad its getting for Democrats. I’m figuring that 55 is the low end – if turnout models prove correct, it could go a lot higher than that.

But let’s just fight as if we’re barely going to get 39. Anything beyond that is gravy. Our only purpose in 2010 is to stop the Obama Socialism Express. We can’t do a lot to reverse course while Obama is in the White House, but we must obtain the power to say, “thus far, and no further”. We can start working on the roll back in the 2012 campaign, which will start in the summer of 2011.

Don’t let up for a minute – and if you’re local races are all a lock for the GOP, then look around to find challengers elsewhere who can use some help.

Interesting article on just what should form the long-term basis of TEA Party activism from Quo Vadis:

…What is called for is an ideology that seeks to advance the cause of the common man, rather than elites, and which respects life, family and liberty.

The Catholic doctrine of subsidiarity is precisely that ideology. If a Tea Party Manifesto is created, its cornerstone should be the time-tested Catholic doctrine of subsidiarity.

In the political context, the principle of subsidiarity states that political decisions and other matters generally should be handled by the smallest, lowest or least centralized competent authority. The Catechism (Sec. 1882 – 1883) clearly instructs Catholics to look to subsidiarity to protect against excessive intervention by the state which threatens personal freedom and initiative. This principle safeguards the ideals of limited government and personal freedom and stands squarely opposed to the welfare state’s goals of centralization and bureaucracy.

In the broader social context, subsidiarity stresses the importance of the common good and the values of family, life and community…

This is the time for the United States to catch up, as it were, to modern thinking. We’ve been going with a model first cooked up by 19th century social democrats crossed with Bismarckian statism. Our liberals are wedded to this antique economic and political model, but given that liberalism is about to be whacked on November 2nd, this is a good time to re-assess and figure out “where to?”.

Subsidiarity does not mean “no welfare” in the sense of no aid for the poor. In fact, aid to the less fortunate is an absolute obligation upon any society. What it does mean is that the workings of all organizations – families, businesses, churches and social welfare organizations – must be controlled at the lowest level possible. The only role the central government may have in welfare is to ensure that a dearth in one area is covered by a surplus in another – but how,exactly, such aid is to be expended must be left to the local people to figure out using their own wits and sense of mercy.

On the other hand, there isn’t much place in subsidiarity for large corporations – at least not like we’ve had them, and especially in high finance. While there are efficiencies in large corporations – such as Wal Mart – there are also problems; crushing of local economies, as well as things like ever more purchases from Third World nations at the expense of the American worker. The large corporations will have to be reigned in and the economy more geared to local needs rather than regulatory and tax ease on the part of the federal government and big business.

America was founded – by intent or by accident, it doesn’t matter – as a nation of Subsidiarity. The whole concept of sovereign States under a federal government is Subsidiarity in action. The primary government influence in the life of a citizen should be his city or county government. Only rarely should the State government come in to play, and only in times of emergency should the federal government take a hand. A properly run society is a society which runs itself, as it sees fit, and doesn’t try to create one-size-fits-all mandates upon everyone.

I do believe that the time is now for us to really consider just where we want to go. We know the model we’ve lived under for the past 80 years or so has failed. Our nation is bankrupt, our economy is devastated, our people are fearful of the future. By tapping in to the latent power and wealth of the people, we can restore ourselves to greatness – but this can’t be done as long as we’re waiting for decisions from the federal government, or a few well-connected corporate bosses in New York. It is time for the people to rule – themselves and their nation.

And every other Congressional candidate in Massachusetts – from the Boston Globe:

In a sign that he has caught the attention of Republicans in Massachusetts and beyond, GOP congressional hopeful Sean Bielat outraised every congressional candidate in the state in the latest reporting period — including his opponent, longtime US Representative Barney Frank — according to newly released campaign finance filings in most races…

As Bielat only started to catch national attention about a month ago, we can probably figure that most of his $379,000.00 came in fairly recently. All around the country, Republican challengers are doing this – significantly out-raising their Democrat opponents. Including such entrenched can-get-lobbyist-money-in-a-flash Democrats like Frank.

More importantly, the money is flowing in small amounts from average Americans. This is a sign of what is coming on November 2nd.

Let the Revolution begin!

HAT TIP: The Other McCain

From Fox News:

Drug smuggling gangs in Mexico have sent well-armed assassins, or “sicarios,” into Arizona to locate and kill bandits who are ambushing and stealing loads of cocaine, marijuana and heroin headed to buyers in the United States, the Department of Homeland Security has warned Arizona law enforcement authorities.

In a memo sent in May and widely circulated since, the department said: “We just received information from a proven credible confidential source who reported that a meeting was held in Puerto Penasco in which every smuggling organization who utilizes the Vekol Valley was told to attend. This included rival groups within the Guzman cartel.”…

This would not be an issue if we controlled our border. Unfortunately, we have resigned control of the border to the drug gangs and now they are reaching in to the United States to control the land beyond the border. How long before our border towns become like Mexican border towns? How long before our police chiefs and mayors are beheaded because they crossed a drug gang? How long before our law enforcement is intimidated or bribed in to turning the other way?

If we are to be a nation of laws, then we must enforce all our laws – unless we want to pass a law allowing anyone and anything to cross our border at will, then we have to resign ourselves to enforcing our border control laws. No pleas for the poor immigrants (which are false pleas, anyway), no references to political correctness, so storied fables of a nation of immigrants should deter us – our laws say you can’t cross the border without our express permission, and that is what we must do.

Because we don’t do this, people are murdered in great, big bloody batches in Mexico…because we’ve turned a blind eye to the massive illegality upon the border, the Mexican drug gangs have taken control. Because we don’t control the border the illegal immigrants our liberals supposedly care about are raped, robbed and murdered – with those surviving the passage then being ruthlessly exploited by American employers who can’t see a week in to the future. Enforcing our border laws is a matter of basic justice – to ourselves, and to the illegal immigrants.

I don’t care what it takes – if we have to spend hundreds of billions of dollars and build a wall 100 feet high from end to end, we have to do it. If we don’t do this, then we are an unjust nation. A nation of chaos and crime, not a nation of free people and laws.

Go here and help.

From the AP via Jihad Watch:

A soldier who recorded the terror of last year’s deadly shooting rampage in Fort Hood using his cell phone was ordered by an officer to delete both videos, a military court heard Friday.

Under cross examination, Pfc. Lance Aviles told an Article 32 hearing that his noncommissioned officer ordered him to destroy the two videos on Nov. 5, the same day that a gunman unleashed a volley of bullets inside a processing center at the Texas Army post…

The destruction of evidence of a crime is itself a crime – obstruction of justice. We have no reason to doubt this soldier’s statement, and a thorough investigation needs to be launched to find the officer in question and discover just why an order to break the law was given (the soldier, himself, should have refused to obey such an illegal order – but a Pfc. is not one to necessarily know where the law is at a time when a direct order is given by an officer). This story, if it is proved true, demonstrates that our military has been completely infected by political correctness as regards Islam.

We need to get a handle on this. As we saw at Ft Hood, the lives of our soldiers depends on it. Because of political correctness, the Islamist terrorist Hasan was permitted to be in the military, setting in train the events which culminated in mass murder. A non-politically correct military would have cashiered Hasan long before he had his chance to murder. Our military is to defend us, not to bow to liberal notions of what is most sensitive.

As we cannot expect Obama’s politicized Justice department to do anything, we’ll have to rely on Congressional oversight to get to the bottom of this – and come January, we might even have a Congress willing to do such a job.

The MSM report has it from June 30th, but she really didn’t start to raise money until the primary on September 14:

Delaware Republican Christine O’Donnell raised a substantial $3.8 million during the last three months, more than twice what her Democratic opponent raised, but it hasn’t yet thinned his substantial lead in most polls.

O’Donnell, backed by the Tea Party Express, gained national attention when she upset GOP Rep. Mike Castle in the Sept. 14 Senate primary…

It takes a while for such a sudden infusion of money to have its effect. Our here in Nevada, our Sharron Angle has raised $14 million since June 30th but it was only in this past two or three weeks that she’s really gotten up on the air to do battle with Reid’s smear campaign. You don’t just snap your fingers and get a good media campaign going.

The real problem O’Donnell is going to have is not the MSM/DNC smear machine, but the fact that she’s only going to have a limited time to set the record straight (she’s also handicapped by the fact that Coons is not as unpopular as Harry Reid; this has helped Angle). It should be kept in mind that Angle was smeared as every bit as much a crackpot as O’Donnell – in fact, that is still the theme the Democrats are running against her. We’ll find out if O’Donnell can come out with the right message to both take down Coons and build up herself by November 2nd. So far, the polls don’t show it, but we’ll see whether she manages to pull it off.

Interesting statement quoted by Allahpundit:

“The presenters did differ on where a secular morality might come from. In his new best-seller, ‘The Moral Landscape,’ Mr. Harris argues that morality is a product of neuroscience. (The good, he argues, is that which promotes happiness and well-being, and those states are ultimately dependent on brain chemistry.) Others believe morality is bequeathed by evolution, while still others would argue for ethics grounded in secular philosophy, like Immanuel Kant’s or John Rawls’s. But all agreed that nonbelievers are at least as moral as believers, and for better reasons…”

But what of a man who is happy in sloth? Or greed? Or sexual excess? The trouble with people who say they can be as moral without as with a divine moral code is that they are fooling themselves. Its really not that shocking a thing – even believers fool themselves on this matter. Non-believers just fool themselves more comprehensively.

It is only when belief comes in that a person fully realizes how creepy he is. A non-believer – or an alleged believer who doesn’t really examine his conscience – is a person who has an “at least I’m not as bad as all that” attitude. A man looks at the world and sees a tyrant or a murderer or con artist and figures, “well, I haven’t done anything like that and I’m fairly kind and generous to those around me, so I’ve got all the morality I need or, indeed, can be expected to have”. This is actually a blind – an unwillingness to really examine one’s life and actions.

When a person finally kneels and realizes that he can’t do it on his own, that is just the first baby step towards becoming a better person. It is after that point where the life really gets examined and the believer starts to say, “goodness, did I really do all that? What was I thinking?”. A review happens and all those acts of jealousy, rage, infidelity, theft, sloth, gluttony just come rushing in – to be reviewed, for the first time, in the light rather than hidden in the darkness…that pitch black sheet we put up between our real actions and our desire to love our selves. The person who refuses to believe never goes through this process – and will blindly go through life uncorrected and, even, unaware of just how much pain he is spreading around.

Being good is not just the absence of being a complete rat bastard. Being good means that act of generosity when one is concerned about one’s own finances. That willingness to forgive the person who is in the wrong. That understanding that the error we see in others is often far less than the errors we know are within our selves. That firm desire to love the unlovable. When we do that, then we have become good – then, and only then, have we done something worthy. A person who never examines his conscience because he is already “good enough” never gets there.

It is really rather impossible for a believer to get a non-believer to understand this. Even harder is making them understand that the act of surrender – that embrace belief which combines repentance with the prospect of redemption – is so easy, once done. Taking the step is hard as it requires a break down of that worst of human sins, pride – but once the step is taken, the rest of it becomes easy. Even those times – and they are inevitable – when the believer backslides and drifts back in to error become both endurable and easy enough over with.

Our world is awash in lies. The lies are designed first to take away things from us here on earth (our liberty, our wealth, our self respect) and then, ultimately, to take away from us the life of the world to come. It is pitiable that some men are endowed with such great gifts of intellect and then use it in a petty and mean campaign to prop up their own self-regard. They don’t need that old, worn out Christian morality…they are smart enough to figure it all out on their own. Fools! No one is smart enough to figure anything out on their own – the greatest geniuses of all time only figured out a tiny, end-of-the-journey bit of truth…others, humble and great, had gone before them and done most of the work.

If everyone would at least show the humility necessary to understand our dependence upon others for our very survival, it would then be no great leap to figure out there was one greater than all who did all the real work of salvation.

In the end, that is what is plan amounts to – from the AP:

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke on Friday offered his most explicit signal yet that the U.S. central bank was set to ease monetary policy further, but provided no details on how aggressively it might act.

Bernanke warned a prolonged period of high unemployment could choke off the U.S. recovery and that the low level of inflation presented an uncomfortable risk of deflation, a dangerous downward slide in prices.

“There would appear — all else being equal — to be a case for further action,” Bernanke said at a conference sponsored by the Boston Federal Reserve Bank…

To translate from the Bankster-ese, “ease monetary policy further” means “print up a bucket of money and give it to banks for more of their worthless assets”. What this means is that Bernanke will pick our pockets (printing money means the money we have becomes worth less than it was the day before Bernanke fired up the presses), and buy bonds from the banks. The theory is that the banks will then turn around and lend that money to us.

Please roll that around in your mind for a moment – Bernanke is going to take your money, give it to a bank on the understanding that the bank will lend your money back to you, at interest.

But it won’t work like that – banks can’t lend money as they need to keep high reserves on hands for all the worthless loans they’ve got on their books. Bernanke’s hope will fail him this time just as it did last time – the banks will likely just buy more US treasury notes…which means they’ll be taking our money to buy bonds from our government which we’ll then have to pay back to the banks with interest. This would be the biggest rip off in human history except that it looks like Bernanke won’t print up quite as much money as he did in the first round of easing monetary policy.

This just gets stupider by the moment. Definition of insanity – doing the same thing over and over again, hoping for a different result. Doubling the insanity is that the whole program is, ultimately, to spur inflation…because if we’re paying higher prices for things, Banksters think that is a sign of a healthy economy!

We don’t need to just audit the Fed, we need to abolish it.

UPDATE: Fire Bernanke!