Could be:

U.S. stocks fell for the first time in three days, pushed down by concern General Motors Corp. may file for bankruptcy and a plunge in energy shares following Merrill Lynch & Co.’s prediction that oil will hit $25 a barrel.

As oil prices fall and gas prices fall with them, the impulse for “drill, baby, drill” will lessen – and Obama’s promise to “look into” offshore oil drilling will remain just that; a bit of electioneering fluff. But in the by and by if oil prices spike and we’re back to $4 a gallon gasoline while Obama hasn’t drilled for any oil, then that in and of itself will crush him at the polls.

Just something to keep in mind – if Obama is lucky, oil prices will remain low through 2012. They could very well do so, depending on the economy and Obama’s willingness to actually increase US oil supplies…if so, then Obama has nothing to worry about. If not, then…well, that will be all she wrote.

It cannot sustain itself – and while no one knows how it will all shake out, the plain fact of the matter is that California has followed the liberal social and economic model and it is now a basket case which can only be rescued by a conservative revolution:

…we will have the highest sales taxes (ca. 9%) in the nation, the highest state income taxes (10+%), and probably the lowest thresholds to get into those top brackets — and yet only about 380,000 Californians pay 40% of the aggregate income tax revenue.

In exchange, our schools, roads, airports, hospitals, and police are, to use a euphemism, not competitive. The CSU campuses make up the largest university system in the world, with the largest unionized faculty, and yet nearly 50% of entering freshman must take mandatory remedial math and English courses. We don’t utilize our ample energy, mineral, and timber resources, but instead depend on other states who do. Such an odd mix — we have sermons on our own greenness, but stealthy dependence on other less liberal producers to satisfy our insatiable appetites. (Thank god for moose-hunting Sarah Palin’s Alaska and an assortment of Middle East authoritarians).

We have an enormously expensive, but incompetent government at all levels. It has a horrendously expensive bicameral Legislature, hundreds of boards and bureaus that serve as $100,000+ sinecures for political insiders and term-limited ex-politicians. Those with advanced degrees fly to our low- or no-income tax neighboring states, coupled with an influx of tens of thousands without high school diplomas. We have a political discourse that is polarized, self-censored, and completely framed by race, class, and gender agendas — reflecting the curricula of our high-schools, colleges, and universities. The electorate is as volatile as it is unhinged.

And I know that the immediate desire of liberals who read this is to point out that Schwarzenegger is a Republican, and thus Republicans must be responsible for California’s deepening crisis. To be sure, Republicans in California haven’t often been very helpful, but the plain fact of the matter is that in most matters, liberals have gotten their way in California. And this runs right from the State down to the lowest, local level – outside a few pockets of conservatism, liberalism rules the roost from San Francisco to San Diego and all points in between.

While I still love to go to San Diego and the Los Angeles area, it is really rather sad as you drive through California these days and see a State deteriorating right in front of your eyes. Kids aren’t being taught how to read, but I’ve seen gangster graffiti scrawled on walls in Barstow and other out of the way places in California. To descend from the Cajon Pass into the Los Angeles area is to take a step-by-step trip into increasing societal decay. Dirty streets, dirty walls, an indescribable smell, a flashy rich elite which just makes the spreading blight stand out in sharper relief – this is the area my grandfather lived in and my father was born, and neither of them would recognize it today. The life has just gone out of the State.

When will it end? As soon as the conservative forces in California work out a plan and find leaders who are willing to put it all on the line. Meanwhile, liberals will continue to tax and spend and allow things to run down more and more because, quite simply, liberals don’t know anything else to do.

It is a lot more complex than anyone can imagine – a Pakistani friend of mine was recently visiting his home country to clear up some family business and he described a society which is only barely functioning. He’s disgusted with the whole thing and hopes never to have to go back to his homeland again (he became an American citizen some time ago). To hear him tell it, Iranians and Indians and Afghan warlords and various Pakistani factions are all engaged in a massive, criminal conspiracy against the people of Pakistan – who, if my friend is anything to go on, are decent, hardworking people who just want to be left alone. This rings true to me.

As I’ve said before, we live in an Age of Lies. Dishonesty is not just something done, it is something very often preferred to the truth. Further, those who insist upon truth are usually considered annoying to an extreme degree. This is because lies are easier to go along with than truth – lies usually only require that you accept them, while truth usually requires that you do something. When we couple this natural fact about lies and truth with an amazingly large number of people who are willing to lie all the time and everywhere, we get the socio-political stew we are current beset with. First and foremost as we try to figure out what to do is to admit to the truth as far as we can determine it.

The plain fact of the matter is that none of us likely has a clear idea of what goes on in Waziristan and other undergoverned areas of Pakistan. People who have taken some time to read history will note that this very same area gave the British Raj no end of trouble and provoked a large number of ultimately fruitless punitive expeditions to the area. While an outsider can only know so much, it appears to me that the people of that are area fiercely independent, want to be left alone and consider any sort of trade to be legitimate trade – whether its television sets or rocket launchers, goat cheese or opium. I’m not sold on the story that the people of the area are in love with the Afghan and Arab Jihadists who have set up shop – but if said Jihadists are leaving the locals alone and providing money and goods the locals want, then I can see very much how the locals would want to help protect a lucrative source of income in a very impoverished area of the world.

Another important thing to consider is that the people of that area are, well, people. And one thing we know about is people – being people, ourselves. What do we want? To be left alone; given a hand when things are rough; protected from predators; able to work to improve our lives and the lives of our children…that sort of thing. Stands to reason that most people in Pakistan want the same things – and thus the ultimate problem of Pakistan is how to set up a system where the people – the average Ismail on the street – can get what most everyone wants.

We’re already doing part of it – those Predator strikes we see from time to time are probably coupled with various Special Forces operations; we’re taking out Jihadist leaders, and thus getting rid of predators and people who essentially bring a world of hurt to the people of that area. On the other hand, I haven’t seen much effort to purchase the loyalty of the locals. Who has more money, al Qaeda or the United States? If we can flush $700 billion down the Wall Street toilet, then I think we can afford to spread some swag around Waziristan. It might seem crude and mercenary – but, then again, that is precisely what it is, so its best we’re honest about it. We want to take out the really bad guys and bribe in to service the not-so-bad guys in order that the good guys can gain the upper hand by building up a quality of life which makes whatever the bad guys are selling seem worthless.

Fundamentally, the cure for Pakistan is to be found in victory in the Global War on Terrorism – and that war is only to be won by spreading liberty, security and prosperity to areas of the world which have known little or none of such things since the dawn of history. There is no one-size-fits-all solution, but if we dispense with BS and work with what we actually know or can genuinely assume, then we’ll be half way there.

The news story:

At least 38 people have been killed in Tijuana since Saturday, nine of them decapitated, in escalating drug-related violence that appears to have left in tatters a Mexican military offensive launched two weeks ago.

The killing spree marked the end of the tenure of the city’s top law enforcement official. Secretary of Public Security Alberto Capella Ibarra was removed from his post Monday evening after a year marked by upheaval in the police ranks and increasing violence.

It is disgusting what is going on in the Mexican border areas – and it is entirely the fault of a Mexican government which turned a blind eye to smuggling because it brought currency into Mexico and thus allow Mexico’s entrenched establishment to ignore the structural problems Mexico faces. Things are going from bad to worse, and I feel for the poor Mexicans – but we also must not allow this state of affairs to drift across to our side of the border. The fence must be built – and if necessary built 100 feet high from one end of the border to the other. As long time readers know, I’m in favor of an easy immigration policy – but I’m also in favor of our being entirely in control of who comes across, and when.

The news story:

Still popular in Florida, former Gov. Jeb Bush said Wednesday that he’s interested in the seat Sen. Mel Martinez is giving up, and the field of possible candidates could quickly narrow to make way for the president’s younger brother.

Bush, 55, won praise from Democrats and Republicans alike for leading the state through eight hurricanes over a two-year period. He used standardized testing to overhaul the education system, was credited with making government more efficient and lowered taxes to make Florida more business-friendly.

While his older brother, soon-to-be former President George W. Bush is so unpopular and has been a liability to many Republicans candidates – and was one undoing for Martinez – Jeb Bush remains a popular figure here.

“I hope that Gov. Bush gets in the race. In my personal opinion, he understands public policy better than any other potential candidate looking at that race, by far,” said former state House Speaker Allan Bense, who was contemplating his own bid. Bense said he would not run if Bush entered. “It would clear the Republican field, I’m sure.”

Jeb is something special – I supported him in his unsuccessful 1994 bid for the governorship, and would have backed him in 1998 when he won had I not moved out of the State by that time. There isn’t much dispute that Jeb Bush was one of Florida’s most effective and successful governors, and the only reason he’ll never be President is because his older brother has already been.

But off to the Senate might be a good thing – good, that is, to get someone in there with strong conservative principles backed by the practical knowledge so often lacking in Senate proposals. A Senator Bush would not only know good ideas, but would know how they are likely to affect real world people in their day to day lives.

As a bonus, it would also usefully annoy liberals to have a Bush remaining in the seat of power in DC.

There really isn’t:

Reasonable people can — and do — disagree about how Vallejo found itself in bankruptcy. There’s no doubt, however, that many of the city’s problems stem from its inability to recover from the 1996 closure of the Mare Island Naval Shipyard, once the city’s largest employer. The city also lost hundreds of thousands dollars per year in sales tax revenue after the closure of a Wal-Mart.

But the largest share of the blame in Vallejo has centered on public-safety salaries and benefits, which make up about 75 percent of the city’s general fund budget. Base pay for firefighters is more than $80,000 per year and employees can retire at age 50 with a pension equal to 90 percent of their salary, the result of a retroactive pension increase several years ago.

With the downturn in the housing market hammering revenues, Vallejo is asking the bankruptcy judge to void the collective-bargaining agreements that led to those salary and benefit arrangements. And the possibility of hard-fought union contracts going up in smoke has struck fear in the heart of labor groups.

The California Professional Firefighters union proclaims, “If allowed to stand, Vallejo’s attack on its own employees would send shock waves throughout the labor movement.” Gloster, the attorney representing Vallejo’s firefighters and police officers, says, “It’s very difficult to see how their politicians should actually do the hard work to balance their budgets if they can get a do-over with a simple bankruptcy filing.” Vallejo’s unions are contending in court that the city is not truly insolvent. The city rejected an offer from the unions for about $10 million in concessions.

Here in Nevada we are also in the midst of a financial crisis – a crisis created entirely by the fact that the government figured that not only is there an endless supply of money, but an endlessly increasing supply of money. We budget on a biennial schedule here and our crackerjack legislators and governor assumed that revenues would increase year after year after year…trouble is, revenues are nosediving in 2008 and aren’t looking any better for 2009.

This is the way government should budget:

Whatever the actual revenues were for the fiscal year two years previous to the upcoming fiscal year, assume that incoming revenues will be 10% less than that. Work your budget around those numbers. If, at the end of the fiscal year, you find you have bags of money left over because you lived within your means, then have at it – do whatever you want with that money. If you end up short, then you’ll have to do some trimming, but it is unlikely that you’ll have to do anything drastic. Simple and effective and it doesn’t preclude any particular spending, but it does ensure that you’re always assuming the worst and hoping for the best – which is the wise way to budget.

Will any government ever do this? Only if we insist. Will we do that? Not until we conservatives educate the populace on the connection between personal freedom and prosperity and limited government spending.

This may take a while, but its worth doing.

We’ll see where this leads:

Rep. Nancy Pelosi’s (D-Calif.) moves since the November elections have shaken up some of her colleagues, with some looking over their shoulders and others worried about how the Speaker will lead her expanded majority in 2009.

Next year is regarded as the biggest legislative opportunity for Democrats since 1993, the last time they controlled the White House and both chambers of Congress.

But not all Democrats are celebrating. Liberals are worried about Pelosi’s vow to govern “from the middle” and centrists are concerned that the make-up of the House leadership team has shifted noticeably to the left.

Contrary to the jubilation of House Democrats after they regained control of the lower chamber after the 2006 elections, there is some unease among members heading into the 111th Congress.

“Everybody I talk to, everybody’s worried about something,” said a Democratic staffer.

Pelosi’s effort to make some Democrats anxious could be a calculated maneuver as she seeks to maximize the effectiveness of her caucus heading into 2009. Pelosi’s hard-charging tone and decisions over the past month have sent a message to her colleagues: Don’t get too comfortable.

Indeed, don’t get comfortable. While Pelosi is without a doubt the worst Speaker of the past 50 years (and perhaps much longer), she is adept at the primary liberal game – gaining and retaining power. Pelosi, it should be remembered, essentially obtained her current position via illegal campaign contributions to Democratic House candidates who then owed her big time once the Democrats gained the majority…and who are now being primed to take over key House positions by Pelosi in a gambit to make the House a mere rubber stamp of the Speaker’s. Which is a doubly bad prospect given the fact that Pelosi is a cipher – a mere regurgitator of liberal/left platitudes who wouldn’t know an actual idea if it fell on her. Better for the country if she were a leftwing ideologue determined to push through a clear agenda – at least everyone would know what we’re up against and be able to work with that reality…now we don’t know when she’ll jump ship on a program or what scatterbrained ideas might pass in review on the whim of an ill-informed Speaker.

One of the brightest prospects for the GOP is our chances in the House – and even if we don’t end up scoring a majority in 2010, we can still do a great service to our nation by picking up 25 or 30 seats: that kind of loss might convince the Democrats to unseat Pelosi for the 2011 House session.

It has been noted that the MSM was loath to describe the Mumbai terrorists for what they were – radical Islamists bent on murdering Jews for being Jews, Americans for being American and Brits for being British. This is because the MSMers are largely cowards – offend an Islamist and you might wind up on a videotaped beheading as the guest of honor, offend a Jew and you might be called anti-Semitic in obscure publications. The other reason is that the MSM is deathly afraid of being called to account for their nauseating role in essentially serving as a propaganda distributor for anti-American/anti-western propaganda since 9/11. The latter reason will fade as Obama comes to be more in charge and thus the MSM will feel the need to help him have enemies to battle against, naturally being granted all the patience and reticence the MSM should display towards leaders dealing with complex issues without easy solution…such help, of course, never given to President Bush because, well, Bush is a Republican and that’s all anyone needs to know.

And yet the stark reality remains – Mumbai was attacked for what it is, rather than anything Indians do. It is a highly westernized city, a highly market-orientated city, a city where westerners gather in large numbers to deal with Indians engaging in the global marketplace of goods and ideas. It was, in short, precisely what the Islamists hate – what we are, and they want to punish us for daring to be other than what they are. The MSM is being criminally negligent in not reporting the truth about the situation – and people have died, are dying and will die simply because the MSM – in service to various liberal/left ideologies – simply refuses to tell the truth.

Despite an enormous amount of help from Comrade Obama, Georgia Democrat Jim Martin was handily defeated by Senator Saxby Chambliss.

And despite attempts by Al Franken to steal his election, it looks like Norm Coleman will be returning to the Senate as well.

Tonight, Saul Anuzis, Michigan’s State GOP Chair and candidate for the RNC Chairman will join Ali, Pat, and I on The American Resolve. Tune in at 6 PM EST for the live interview.