They are talking up Joe Kennedy to replace Ted. Mark Tapscott demolishes this concept. I hadn’t know that Joe got an annulment by claiming mental deficiency…though, that does explain a lot of things.

Some people are questioning his willingness to carry on to victory:

Obviously, Obama gets to make his own call here. All one can do is guess. But if you look at the dynamics as they are shaping up, it’s difficult to predict that Obama opts to see Afghanistan through as a full scale war.

The newly appointed head of NATO and U.S. forces is said to urge an expansion of Afghan security forces and a revamped counterinsurgency strategy that focuses on making Afghan citizens feel safer.

The changes called for here are so significant, if Obama signs on, Bush gets removed from the equation and this completely becomes Obama’s war. Think about how the Democrat Party is aligned. That’s a big, big deal…

… does a very liberal Obama with a very liberal domestic policy he desperately wants to see enacted feel like carrying a potentially very unpopular war on his back at the same time? To get away with that, he’d need to find somewhere else to give concessions to the more liberal Dems in Congress and on the street.

Given the way liberals operate, we must keep open this question – that Obama might ditch Afghanistan (with some face-saving formula) in order to get out of war and get back in to socializing America. I hope it doesn’t turn out this way – winning in Afghanistan is far more important, in the long run, than any aspect of Obama’s domestic legislative agenda. There is much that I, as a conservative, would be willing to give up in order to win in Afghanistan – is Obama willing to give anything up?

Time will tell – but we must never, ever have a situation where Americans are fighting and dying for something other than victory. We will watch Obama and see what he does – support for victory, condemnation for anything less.

Some people are – very correctly – advocating keeping the kiddies out of The One’s propaganda mill on September 8th:

…I wouldn’t have such a problem with the Department of Education were this presented in a non-Orwellian fashion. Oh yes, it is, as the lesson plan directs, to listen to what the president, the mayor, et al. says, to respect their “authoritah” , but there is no emphasis in here on why the president and other elected officials should listen to US. The focus is solely on authority. There is no consideration given to the authority of the American people. That’s what concerns me.

There is this mindset that those in Washington are the “elite,” that we should mind our Ps and Qs and blindly follow their directives. That’s not the manner of governance upon which this country was founded…

Indeed – let Dear Leader speak to empty seats. Obama has no right and no business doing this – and the school systems which are laying down under this are failing decisively in their duty to make citizens out of our children.

Well, so do I. And nothing will be more revolutionary, at the moment, than to replace the archetype of all that is wrong with American politics, Harry Reid, with someone who comes out of nowhere to shake the powerful to the core.

I’m going to run for Nevada Senator – first working to ensure that the GOP nominee honored with sending Harry back to Searchlight is a rock-ribbed conservative and, second, doing the actual sending.

I attended a seminar this past weekend where a fine, young man from GOPAC laid out just what needs to be done to run a campaign. This won’t be easy. In fact, it’ll probably be the hardest thing I’ve ever done – just winning the GOP nomination will be hard, and then I get to go after Harry Reid, arguably the most ill-tempered, mean-spirited partisan Nevada has ever seen. And he’ll have upwards of $25 million dollars – a war chest designed to provide blanket slanderization of whomever the GOP selects. Let him try – I don’t give a rat’s rear what anyone says about me, and as I have no power, wealth or position on the line, I’ve got nothing to lose. Being a citizen of Nevada and the United States of America is honor enough, and Reid can’t take that away from me no matter how much muck he throws. In fact, being the brunt of a Reid slander would be a badge of honor for me.

Why me, instead of anyone else? Here’s why – from my website, Noonan for Nevada:

I have no fame. No wealth. No position of authority. I work for a large, faceless corporation. I’m a small time blogger with one minor book to my name. So, what is so special about Mark Noonan?

Nothing – and that is the point.

For too long our nation has been over run by professional politicians, lobbyists, faceless staffers and bureaucrats who twist and warp our government to suit their own needs, rather than the needs of the people…

…Citizen-legislators/leaders will be interested in serving the people and then going back to live among them, under the laws they helped enact. Senator Reid, in spite of his lowly background, has become a creature of power. He is desperately afraid of losing it, because in his view it is only his power which makes him anything important. The offices of husband, father, friend and citizen have become meaningless for the likes of Harry Reid. And that is a sad thing, and it is something we need to end. Only someone deathly afraid of being a mere citizen would raise $10 million for his re-election bid, and pledge to raise up to $25 million…this is a man who will do just about anything to hold on to office. And that, in turn, makes him an easy mark for those powerful interests who appear to be able to help Reid, if he’ll help them in return….

My first task will be fund raising. Getting the money I need to first make an impact, and then parlaying that impact in to votes. The chances are slim. The odds are stacked against me. And I’m going to do it – my State and our Nation needs people to stand up to the powerful and call them to account. I’m no one special, but I will fight and fight and fight – and then, when knocked flat, I’ll get up and fight some more. Anyone who wants to join me in this fight, please, come along. I need everything – prayers, most of all.

(Ed. Note: This is just me, Mark Noonan, putting the word out where I’ve blogged for 6 years – the owner of this blog is making no endorsement of my candidacy.)

A little inspiration:

…the time has come to see if it is possible to present a program of action based on political principle that can attract those interested in the so-called “social” issues and those interested in “economic” issues. In short, isn’t it possible to combine the two major segments of contemporary American conservatism into one politically effective whole?

I believe the answer is: Yes, it is possible to create a political entity that will reflect the views of the great, hitherto [unacknowledged], conservative majority… We can do it in America. This is not a dream, a wistful hope. It is and has been a reality. I have seen the conservative future and it works. – Ronald Reagan, February 6th, 1977

Been done before, will be done again.

I honestly thought he’d be climbing out of it, at least a bit, by now:

Public disapproval of the job Barack Obama is doing as President reached a new high of 42.4% in the RCP Average today…

…On the flip side, Obama’s approval rating of 51.2% matches his all time low in the RCP Average. Taken together, Obama’s approval-disapproval spread is also at it’s lowest point to date of +8.8 points. That is down from a +43.3 point spread at the beginning of Obama’s term.

Presidents have ups and downs, of course, and we must expect that at some point Obama will rebound – but I don’t think Obama will ever again have the aura he had on January 20th. He blew it in a series of rankly partisan, hopelessly corrupt government moves (you know, Barry, we really did need to read the Spendulus bill before you signed it…). He will rebound. He might be re-elected in 2012, but that chance Obama had to really ram home the leftism is fading fast – and anything he fails to get done in September will continue to be undone throughout Obama’s term.

This is because of the permanent campaign – by October 1st, Congressional Democrats will be far less interested in Obama than in their own political hides. After the election of 2010, whatever the result, everyone will be keying in on what will happen in 2012. Obama will wield immense authority and as long as he has a Congressional majority, he’ll be able to enact many laws…but he won’t be able to abracadabra things like he did from January to June.

And you liberals have none but yourselves to blame for this – it was you who inserted nastiness in to our politics with Bork (well, strictly speaking, you did it when you slandered McCarthy all to heck and gone, but that is very old news); it was you who insisted we have permanent campaigns; it was you who made this situation where there are no second chances. You made the soup, now how does it taste?

Our glorious and charismatic Leader and Teacher will now come directly in to the classroom in order that the rising generation will be well grounded in theoretical and practical Obamunism! All Hail our Leader!

No, I’m not kidding.

Imagine if President Bush had decided to do something like this?

We do want someone in there who might actually enforce the law, rather than turn Justice Department in to a witch-hunter of Republicans – Newt Gingrich lays it out:

…Earlier this week, on the same day that the administration released a six-year-old report on terrorist interrogations, Holder announced he is appointing a special prosecutor to investigate the CIA officials who conducted the interrogations…

…Americans could be forgiven for believing, on the basis of shamefully twisted mainstream media coverage, that the recently revealed 2004 CIA Inspector-General report at the center of this controversy is merely a cataloging of CIA abuse.

But in fact, the report methodically described a carefully limited and, with a few exceptions, faithfully implemented program of enhanced interrogation techniques – techniques that yielded what the report itself deems valuable results.

The report also details the exceptions, cases in which interrogation techniques were used that were outside the carefully developed regime.

But here is the crucial fact for Holder: All of the allegations of unauthorized methods – all of them – have already been carefully evaluated by career prosecutors. These were legal officials who, unlike Holder, do not owe their jobs to any partisan political figure.

Impartial prosecutors evaluated 20 incidents of unauthorized activity and decided against taking legal action in all cases but one. In that one case, in which a contract employee attacked a terrorist detainee with a metal flashlight, the contractor was found guilty. His case was appealed and his conviction upheld.

In other words, justice was done. (emphasis added)

So, there is nothing to be looked in to – its already been done and the whole issue is finished. But, what if your desire, as a leftist, is to rake up the past, placate your base and take revenge upon those mean, old Republicans you slandered for 8 years? Then, you want a special prosecutor – someone who can fish for info, release biased information the MSM will run with, and time that information to come out at the most politically opportune time for Democrats (such as if some Congressman – Rangel, call your office – is under the gun, or the President’s poll numbers are taking another dive).

It is clear that Obama and his Democrats are determined to keep running against President Bush – so hate-filled have Democrats become that even basic rationality has been put aside. While there is some residual public anger over President Bush (undeserved or not), it doesn’t matter anything what happened 2001-09 in the day to day lives of Americans, right now, facing rising unemployment and a financial system playing economic roulette with what is left of the economy. All Holder will do here is make his side look vindictive – and Americans are generous and forgiving (heck, we’re forgiving Ted Kennedy, aren’t we?). This won’t sit well.

And yet, off they go. Whom the gods would destroy, they do make mad…

Where we are:

When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men living together in society, they create for themselves in the course of time a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that glorifies it. – Frederic Bastiat

Whatever it is, they’ve been given 30 more days to do it:

The Federal Reserve has until Sept. 30 to appeal a federal judge’s order requiring the central bank to identify financial institutions that benefited from its emergency loans.

The Fed’s Board of Governors asked Manhattan Chief U.S. District Judge Loretta Preska to delay enforcement of her Aug. 24 decision that the identities of borrowers in 11 lending programs be made public by Aug. 31. The central bank wanted Preska to stay her order until the U.S. Court of Appeals in New York can hear the case.

The Fed’s “ability to effectively manage the current, and any future, financial crisis” would be impaired, according to the Fed’s motion for a stay. It said “significant harms” could befall the U.S. economy as well…

…The Fed has refused to name the financial firms it lent to or disclose the amounts or the assets put up as collateral under the emergency programs, saying disclosure might set off a run by depositors and unsettle shareholders.

The Bloomberg lawsuit said the collateral lists “are central to understanding and assessing the government’s response to the most cataclysmic financial crisis in America since the Great Depression.”

There’s the fascism aspect to this – if the Fed is allowed to get away with saying that it can’t disclose because, in its unverifiable judgment, it would cause harm, then no government or quasi-government agency will have to disclose. On this grounds alone, the Fed should be smacked down.

On the economic aspect of it – you can bet your bottom dollar that if the Fed was on the square, they’d just release the data. Its not like we’d be getting someone’s private address, or the name of our covert agent in China…that is the kind of stuff which must be protected from public disclosure, not which banks got government swag.

The longer we keep up with this species of action – bail outs, money-shuffling, etc – the worse it will be when it does come crashing down. While Bernanke is deathly afraid that his economic sainthood might be revoked the by the liberal MSM if the truth comes out, the fact of the matter is that no rational economic decisions can be made by anyone until all the cards are on the table. The only people getting anything out of this secretiveness are well-connected financial speculators who are playing people for suckers in the stock and bond markets.

Time to get the facts, and let the chips fall where they may.