Blogs For Victory

From Fox News:

When liberal (financial shark) George Soros gave $1.8 million to National Public Radio , it became part of the firestorm of controversy that jeopardized NPR’s federal funding. But that gift only hints at the widespread influence the controversial billionaire has on the mainstream media. Soros, who spent $27 million trying to defeat President Bush in 2004, has ties to more than 30 mainstream news outlets – including The New York Times, Washington Post, the Associated Press, NBC and ABC.

Prominent journalists like ABC’s Christiane Amanpour and former Washington Post editor and now Vice President Len Downie serve on boards of operations that take Soros cash. This despite the Society of Professional Journalists’ ethical code stating: “avoid all conflicts real or perceived.”…

Ah, but that is just a misunderstanding on the part of Dan Gainor, the article’s author: There isn’t any conflict, real or perceived, between taking Soros’ money and being an MSMer. It is, indeed, the perfect fit: all sides agreeing that a socialist, amoral, weakened, impoverished America living in an increasingly global-government world is the ideal. There would be a conflict if they took money from, say, the Heritage Foundation…because Heritage is a patriotic organization in favor of freedom…two things the MSM is absolutely opposed to.

It has been decades since there was anything like “ethics” in journalism – if, indeed, there ever really was. The “yellow journalism” of the late 19th and early 20th century is held up as an object of scorn…by modern day yellow journalists who will, facts be darned, spread the most amazing lies in the service of an ideology. What, really, has changed in the past century? Where was honest service to the facts then, or now? To be sure, some journalists and a few media outlets do try hard to be honest – but the common run is made up of ideological, ignorant hacks who just regurgitate whatever they’re told.

And that is why the old media is dying, and the New Media is rising – in the 10,000 sources which make up the New Media (and that means left, right and center) the truth can squeeze through. Every blogger knows this – which is why we’re careful not to put out something we know to be false; for goodness sake, if we make the slightest mistake we’ve got 20 critics in minutes quoting chapter and verse where we got it wrong. When its opinion, we make it clear its opinion; when its theorizing based upon facts, we make it clear that its a theory…and if we assert a fact, we’d better darn well be able to back it up. None of this pretend objectivity masking rank partisanship for us…and even though we are of a certain view, I think we commonly get more respect than MSMers who try to lie about being impartial.

Soros is buying a dying entity – in a sense, he’s wasting his money. He hopes that by controlling the MSM he can control the narrative and force America ever leftwards. It won’t work. Oh, he’ll have some success – any propagandist knows how the Big Lie works – but the truth comes out, and comes out a lot faster than it ever used to.

Because the International Community is mulling over issuing an arrest warrant for him – from the AP:

Italy’s foreign minister says he expects the International Criminal Court to issue an arrest warrant for Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi at the end of the month.

Franco Frattini said Thursday that would be a “key moment” in the Libya crisis, suggesting that after the warrant is issued it would be impossible for Gadhafi to agree to an exile.

Frattini said “from that moment on an exit from power or from the country will no longer be imaginable” because “after the arrest warrant is issued all the international community would have legal obligations.”…

Meanwhile, no one is considering issuing an arrest warrant for Fidel Castro…because he’s a good guy, right? Free health care! Wait, Gadhafi has that, too…

Anyways, what a crock – what’s next? A parking ticket for the tanks he’s using to crush the opposition? Are there any men left in Europe, at all? Is there anyone who can say, “here’s an evil man, and I’ll kill him”?

No. Nothing like that. Pointless bombing. Half-assed intervention. Arrest warrants…I’ll lay money that Gadhafi is still in power a year from now.

I’m sure you’ve heard the story – a Toronto cop advised that one way to help protect against sexual assault is for women to not dress in an overtly sexual manner. In response to this, a lot of people have expressed outrage – at the cop for daring to even so much as suggest that the actions of a woman can make more possible a sexual assault. So far have we fallen away from basic, common sense. Monsignor Charles Pope, reviewing a Hannity segment on this matter, neatly encapsulates the issue:

A Central Problem – One of the women says, “In dressing provocatively a woman is saying, I am asking you to look at me as a sexual object, instead of a woman worthy of respect.” The other woman responds, “There is nothing wrong with looking like a sexual object.” And this pretty well spells out where many in our culture have gone. Intentionally provoking a purely sexual response not only tempts men, it also diminishes women by encouraging the notion that sex is the main thing…

If a woman dresses in an overtly sexual manner, all but a few men will respond – those few who have either risen entirely above sexual desires and those who sexual desires lead entirely elsewhere. Outside of these two, very tiny groups, most men will respond. To be sure, the response of most men will be silent – no overt word or action. But it will be there – all of us men know it; when we see a woman dressed in a manner suggestive of sexual possibility, the thought of sex does flash across our minds. We suppress it – we remember our wives, our vows and our responsibilities, and move on. But what of those men who either don’t have such vows, or don’t care much about them?

The success of advertising is not that it will move everyone to do a certain thing, but that it will move a small margin to do so. The endlessly repeated advertisement for toothpaste won’t make everyone buy that toothpaste, but it will make some do so…and that is why advertising is engaged in. Why it is such a gigantic, multi-billion dollar annual business. So, when a woman advertises sexual availability, it won’t move most men to want to have sex with her – but it will move some. Including some who are not inclined to take “no” for an answer. And, in fact, given the nature of things, it is precisely those who are least inclined to care about the woman, as a person, who are most likely to respond to the “advertisement”. A woman dressing in a sexually provocative manner is, in a sense, casting about for attention from the least desirable people from the woman’s point of view.

This is all just common sense – and no amount of “I, as a woman, should be able to dress as I please” will make the least bit of difference. Of course a woman can dress as she pleases – but each of our choices has consequences, and all of life is a matter of balancing risks. While dressing like a puritan won’t make a woman rape-proof, neither will ignoring reality. There are certain things which are proper and certain things which are not – and wearing spike heels, a short, tight skirt and a low-cut blouse is not necessarily the wisest choice of attire.

In addition to that, a woman should have more sense. Unless a woman really wants to be nothing more than an object to whatever man happens along, a certain degree of modesty is required. And, yes, it goes for men, too. Tell me ladies, if two men were to appear at your front door, asking you to dinner, which would you go with – the unshaved lout dressed in sweats, or the properly groomed man wearing slacks and a jacket? Clothes don’t determine the worth of a man – but if a man respects you, don’t you think he’d go to the trouble of sprucing up before asking you out? In a very real sense, women are treated more like dirt in 2011 than in 1911…mostly because all too many women have fallen for the idea that being trashy is a requirement; that some how a willingness to engage in sex – and be known immediately to be willing to have sex – is the only way to get a man. Trouble is that the sort of men who go along with this are going to be increasingly unlikely to treat a woman with any sense of chivalry, or even basic decency.

The social problems we experience – violence in the home; out of control illegitimacy; increasing abuse of women; the spread of pornography; the spread of sexual abuse of children; an underclass locked in poverty and ignorance – all stem from the break-down of standards. Because we have gone along with an “if it feels good, do it” mentality, we are suffering from societal break down. The biggest loud mouths, the most obscene people, the most depraved rule the roost. We allowed the foot in the door back in the 60’s, and now they’ve taken over the entire public square…until, in response to a cop offering a bit of wisdom, we have foolish women engaging in “slut walks” in protest. Yes, we’ve reached a point where we’re now supposed to applaud someone for acting like a slut – and condemn the person who so understands the worth of women that he’d rather they dressed like women, rather than like objects.

It is a strange, distressing condition, to be sure. And we have to get away from it – we have to wake up and become sane again. We’re going so far now that we’re about to be offering up our children to this – there are people out there arguing that the age of consent should be lowered so that ever younger girls can be objectified by ever older men. It is said we can’t turn the clock back – such a statement is nonsense. Akin to a man saying that once you’ve made a wrong turn, you have to keep going and never think of going back to where you turned wrong. We must go back – the life of our civilization depends on it.

From Rasmussen:

…The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that the president currently earns support from 45% of Likely Voters across the nation, while a Generic Republican attracts 43% of the vote…

The good news for Obama is that he’s still out in front – the bad news is that he’s only barely ahead, and below 50%.

Key to Obama’s victory in 2012 would be the economy turning around – if there is a reasonable GOPer out there who can get people to answer “no” to the “are you better off than you were four years ago”, then Obama is toast. This may seem to mean that the GOP should just find the most reasonable candidate – but I want more than just Obama out: I want liberalism crushed. That means a candidate who can not only win on that question, but will so heartily attack Obama and his policies that a slim win becomes a crushing victory. Remember, Reagan didn’t just win because he wasn’t Carter – he won huge because he offered a vision for America in such stark contrast to Carter that the people rose up in what amounted to a revolution.

And I think that such a candidate would beat Obama even if the economy is turning around – I don’t think the economy will turn around, but even supposing it does, the people are sick of the sort of politics Obama represents. Sure, he presented himself as the new force in 2008 – but that was swiftly proven a lie in practice, and Obama is just another Ruling Class hack, as far as that goes. If the GOP can fire the popular imagination of an America restored to greatness, then even 7% unemployment won’t save Obama…and if the country is wallowing in 9% or higher unemployment in November, then the defeat of liberalism could become epic, if we have the right sort of fighting candidate.

And, so, that is what I’m on the look out – the man who offers the finest vision; the man who is most solid on the core issue…but mostly for the man (or woman, of course) who will fight the hardest and never let up for a minute on Obama and his Democrats.

Or, at least, that is how our liberals like to frame the issue – because there is just nothing we can cut (well, defense, but even there nothing which would eat in to a grafting politician’s campaign funds, ok?). Every last item in the budget is vital, and there is no waste in there, at all…from the Orange County Register:

High pay and benefits for lifeguards in Newport Beach is the latest example of frustrating levels of compensation for public employees. More than half the city’s full-time lifeguards are paid a salary of over $100,000 and all but one of them collect more than $100,000 in total compensation including benefits.

When thinking about career options with high salaries, lifeguarding is probably not one of the first jobs to come to mind. But it apparently should. In one of Orange County’s most desirable beach destinations, Newport Beach, lifeguards are compensated all too well; especially compared with the county annual median household income of $71,735…

Yep, lifeguards. And you just know if someone tries to cut the pay or the number of guards, we’ll have horror stories about how the kiddies will all drown. More than likely, that would work – because if you did vote to cut the spending and a kid did drown at the beach this summer, you’d get blamed. But, seriously, 100 grand for a lifeguard? I’ve been at the beach quite a bit over my life – can’t recall ever seeing a lifeguard actually get out of the tower…

I mean can’t we get some college kids willing to do it over the summer for, say, 20 or 25 grand? Its day work. Its at the beach. For crying out loud, they’d lining up for the job. But, we’ve apparently got career lifeguards…and we’re going to have to keep paying them because they can retire at 50 with 90% pay (wasn’t it once upon a time that a pension was half or one third of your pay?).

You liberals can squawk all you want – but as more and more stories like this come out the people are losing interest in your “the kids will die!” argument about the need to spend. I assert that we could reduce spending by 50% all across the board from Federal down to local government and if we just had some proper management, not one iota of government service would be impacted. Liberalism has built up a pile of corrupt, government garbage…and its time we took a shovel to it.

HAT TIP: Mish’s

And, of course, a bit of race-baiting political advantage for the President in 2012. From Business Week:

…At the Justice Dept., a new 20-person unit dedicated to fair lending issues received a record number of discrimination referrals from regulators in 2010 and has dozens of open cases, according to a recent agency report. Potential penalties can reach into the millions of dollars. “We are using every tool in our arsenal to combat lending discrimination,” Thomas E. Perez, the assistant attorney general for the Civil Rights Div., told a conference of community development advocates in Washington in April.

To some banks the crackdown has come as a surprise, say consultants and lawyers representing financial institutions in discussions with regulators. Like Midwest BankCentre, some lenders are being cited for failing to operate in minority and low-income census tracts near their branches, even when they have never done business there before. “If you put your branches only in upper-income areas, the regulators are not accepting that anymore,” says Warren W. Traiger, a lawyer at BuckleySandler in New York, which advises banks on fair lending issues…

If there is anything we should have learned from the recession and our crushing, national debt is that debt is poison – you’re not doing a person a favor by lending them money. All you’re doing is hooking them – and making it less likely they’ll be responsible and giving them fewer real opportunities to build wealth and acquire property. Borrowed money is like a drug – and once you borrow some, you’ll want to borrow some more. After all, borrowing money allowed you to instantly gratify that desire for a new car…so why not allow it to gratify your desire for a new TV and some fine, new clothes? After a while, your disposable income – part of which is supposed to be saved – is being eaten up by interest and fees. You never get ahead.

True, some people can manage debt – manage, that is, to pay it off with rapidity. Most people aren’t able to do that. It just becomes too easy. I work in credit; I see it all the time. People who have piled up debt and never pay it off. Some go bankrupt (and most of the time start the process over again as soon as discharged), others just stagger along, making slightly more than the minimum payments, never getting done with it. I’m not saying we should ban debt – some times it can be vital, but mostly only in purchases of very large items (a house, eg) or for business expansion – but we should never, ever be seeking ways to make obtaining debt easier. It should be hard – only the most successful, hard-nosed people should be able to obtain it…because only they won’t be screwed by it.

Mostly, this is just a pander – a way to generate leftist sympathy; let the minority communities know that Obama is “fighting for them”; get in the papers. The other side of the coin is the corrupt deals that government will cut with the banks to let them off the hook – the sort of deals which profited handsomely politicians like former Senator Dodd while also allowing things like Fannie Mae to become financial monsters. But it is bad, all around bad – and the worst effect will be on the poor people it is supposed to be helping. Making it easier for them to borrow – making it easier for them to become debtors; making people least equipped to handle complex, financial matters the easy prey of those best able to create financial scams.

For goodness sake, it is high time we got government out of this – to learn the lesson that if you try to “fix” things in the economy via government power, you’ll just make it worse. The way out of poverty is by hard work and frugal living – not by a combination of welfare and a credit card. Sure, that can make a poor person seem like he’s not poor…but it doesn’t help him obtain work skills, financial skills, savings and property…the things of real wealth. Those who are pressing this issue should be ashamed.

As far as intellect goes, he’s at the top rank – and far superior to the dunderhead currently in the White House. In policy, Gingrich has excellent ideas as well as the practical, political experience to get them through Congress.

But can Gingrich win? Or is he just yesterday’s news?

That, to me, is the larger question. If you’re to have a poetry night at the White House, the big question is whether the poets are writing anything worthy of thought, of consideration. It looks as though Common (Lonnie Rashid Lynn, Jr.) has been dissed a bit at the White House, but his invite is still causing all sorts of controversy. Not being someone who listens to a lot of rap (these days I tend to the sillier songs of the 60’s and 70’s, along with bit of Mozart…yes, it is a bit of musical vertigo), I decided to look up some of Common’s recent lyrics – this is from Universal Mind Control

Get-Get it

Get-Get it

Get-Get it

I am a Renegade,

I’ve never been afraid, Fresh and Im getting paid the future, future of this age.

From the Chi, so I talk this way. Twista hate at the Grand Marque, rock the fly (expletive deleted) like everyday till the top and im on my way. Let’s go, uh

This is that new (expletive deleted). keep them standin in line. That Universal Mind Control, now move your behind. You know you like it, it’s calling your name. (N-word), this is that new (expletive deleted) and it don’t feel the same. It’s that bang bigga-bang ba-bang ba-bang bang. Bang bigga-bang ba-bang ba-bang bang. Bom bigga-bom ba-bang ba-bang bigga-bigga bom bigga-bom ba-bang ba-bang bang.

One too many bangs, perhaps? Before we make a judgment, we should find something universally recognized as good poetry to compare it to. So, from Chesterton – Ballad of Suicide:

The gallows in my garden, people say,

Is new and neat and adequately tall;

I tie the noose on in a knowing way

As one that knots his necktie for a ball;

But just as all the neighbours on the wall

Are drawing a long breath to shout “Hurray!”

The strangest whim has seized me. . . After all

I think I will not hang myself to-day.

To-morrow is the time I get my pay

My uncle’s sword is hanging in the hall

I see a little cloud all pink and grey

Perhaps the rector’s mother will NOT call

I fancy that I heard from Mr. Gall

That mushrooms could be cooked another way

I never read the works of Juvenal

I think I will not hang myself to-day.

The world will have another washing-day;

The decadents decay; the pedants pall;

And H.G. Wells has found that children play,

And Bernard Shaw discovered that they squall;

Rationalists are growing rational

And through thick woods one finds a stream astray,

So secret that the very sky seems small

I think I will not hang myself to-day.

So, is Common’s work poetry? We report, you decide.

Via NRO’s The Corner:

From The Hill:

[Senate Budget Committee chairman] Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) on Tuesday presented a budget proposal to Senate Democrats that calls for an even balance — 50 percent to 50 percent — of spending cuts and tax increases to reduce the deficit.

The emerging consensus on Capitol Hill is there should be at least $4 trillion in deficit reduction over the next 10 years. To meet that goal, Congress would have to increase tax revenues by $2 trillion over the next decade with an equal amount of spending cuts…

They just can’t do it, you see? They can’t do other than spend. For liberals, there is just nothing else to do. This is because their whole mind-set is wrapped around getting in to power in order to use government to make things happen. There is no concept in them regarding people just living their lives without let or hindrance from anyone else.

To be sure, this plan does allege there will be spending cuts – but you can bank on that just as much as you could bank on the Democrats’ 1991 plan which called for $2 in spending cuts for each $1 in tax hikes. We got the hikes in taxes, never saw the cuts in spending – until Democrats were beaten out of Congressional power in 1994. In a happy, Democrat world – one in which they hadn’t lost the House in 2010 – the tax hikes would sail through, some pretend cuts would be done and then when they thought no one was looking, the spending would skyrocket up (did you know that EPA spending went up 25% between 2009 and 2010? Oh, you don’t? But what about that huge debate in Congress where it was demonstrated that a vital, national priority was a gigantic, 25% increase in EPA spending…oh, yeah, I forgot; there wasn’t any debate…it just happened when no one was looking).

And it happened because that is all liberals know – to spend money to hire bureaucrats to make new rules to make special deals. They will never, ever stop. If you could demonstrate it to them beyond a shadow of a doubt that a reduction of spending would make people, long term, happier, healthier and wealthier than they are today they would still reject the notion. Not because your argument was flawed, but because it is outside their frame of reference. A world in which people just get on and live their lives is not a world liberals understand – mostly because there is no place for liberals; especially no place for liberals to be in charge, and to live a high life with no worthy effort and on a government pay check.

It almost seems a pity that we’re going to have to crush these people – they will be like lost, little lambs once we’ve turned them out. But, we must do it, good people; for their own good, as well as our own. And maybe after they’ve spent a little time in the real, non-taxpayer-subsidized world, they’ll understand that, just perhaps, spending isn’t always the answer.

Mark Hendrickson over at Crisis Magazine explains – first taking note of the idiotic federal policies which have actually restricted the supplies of oil and corn (just to name two commodities), then pointing the finger at where the “general” rise in prices comes from:

…Bernanke and the Fed are not blameless here. If the prices of a small number of commodities rise while most prices do not, we would reasonably conclude that those price movements are dictated by supply-and-demand factors. But when prices in general rise, that is the smoking gun that points to an inflationary monetary policy.

Since the Fed’s QE2 program was launched last September, the Commodities Research Bureau index of 19 basic, widely used commodities has risen by almost 40 percent. Has demand risen and supplies fallen significantly for all commodities since September? The odds against such an improbable coincidence are astronomical.

Instead, the answer is obvious: The Fed has flooded the financial system with newly created money, and the inevitable result of a lot more money bidding for approximately the same supply of goods is markedly higher prices…

It is here, and it is likely here to stay for a while. I don’t think we’ll get a bout of hyper-inflation, but the government policies of Obama and the financial policies of Bernanke have given us a round of “staglation” to deal with. Stagnant economy, rising prices. The big worry is that there are still rumors that Bernanke may go for another round of money printing after he finishes the current bout. The worry, for Bernanke and the banksters, is that if free money isn’t provided by the Fed, we’ll have a stock market collapse and renewed recession. Of course, we’ll have that if we keep printing, too…it’ll just take longer to get there. You really can’t repeal logic – and when things are way over-priced (as things like stocks and housing were in 2008) then only allowing them to settle to their real value will fix the problem.

But that isn’t what Bernanke wants to do – and it looks like he might keep trying his print-madness for a while longer. And, so, just prepare for it. We endured Carter, so we can endure Obama…but let’s just be sure that we repeat the end of Carter, too.