Blogs For Victory

Thank goodness for the stimulus, huh?

New claims for unemployment benefits unexpectedly rose last week, bouncing back above the key 400,000 level, while core producer prices clumbed faster than expected in March, government reports showed on Thursday.

Initial claims for state unemployment benefits rose 27,000 to a seasonally adjusted 412,000, the Labor Department said…

And here’s the real kicker – once again, the previous week’s number for new claims was revised upwards. Even the good news we get really isn’t all that good – while the bad news is really bad.

We still have people out there talking about how the economy is recovering and how its all just going to be fine. People are seriously trying to claim that the massive rise in gasoline and food won’t have an adverse effect on the economy. You start to wonder what universe they’re living in – or if they’re just going along with the con because they don’t know what else to do.

Meanwhile, there is talk that recession will resume later this year – my guess is it will come, and about 6 months from now. Keeping in mind that in a lot of ways, we never really left the old recession behind – much fewer people are now in the work force than there were 25 or so years ago, and if they were back in the labor force, we’d have unemployment at 11%…and that is recession regardless of what the statistics say.

But keep your faith in Obama – and Bernanke. We can always print ourselves in to another couple quarters of growth, or pass another bazillion dollar stimulus bill. Anything to keep the official numbers positive until after election day, 2012, right?

Charlie Cook in National Journal:

Some bright, talented, and highly qualified Republicans are thinking about running for president. Haley Barbour of Mississippi, Mitch Daniels of Indiana, Mike Huckabee of Arkansas, Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota, and Mitt Romney of Massachusetts—all current or former governors—are eminently capable. Regardless of whether you like or agree with them, they are worthy of consideration for the Republican nomination.

How demoralizing it must be, then, for them to look at national polling that shows Donald Trump tied for first place for the GOP nomination…

To Cook, as to most serious political observers, Trump is a joke – and a bad joke, at that. And in a very real sense, they are correct. It is absurd for Donald Trump to consider running for President (doubly so as he’s already indicated that if he doesn’t get the GOP nomination he’ll run as an Independent…if he doesn’t back away from that, he won’t score 1% in New Hampshire). But there he is, front and center in the MSM, certainly looking like he plans to run. The joke is becoming reality – and a lot of people don’t know how to deal with it.

The appeal of Donald Trump is that he’s not “one of the boys”; he’s not part of our political class, held in utter contempt by the American people. Make no mistake about it – while people are dismayed by Obama, there is not much faith placed in the Republican party, either. Our politics is rotten – our politicians have taken the greatest nation in human history and turned us in to a weak, blundering giant. This is not the way America is supposed to be. Trump might not be the answer, but neither is politics as usual. Trump is unusual – in the extreme.

I don’t think Donald Trump will win the GOP nomination. And I don’t think he’ll run as an Independent – because he seems to passionately want Obama out of office and an Independent run by Trump might be the only way Obama can possibly secure a second term (of course, Trump’s ego might get in the way, here, but in Trump I sense a strong worry about America as his motivation). If, however, Trump does win the GOP nomination then it will be because he manages to put forth a series of goals which speak to American aspirations. In other words, if Trump presents a plan the American people can get behind, and no one else does, then he might rise to the stars.

I said some time ago that no one can say for sure what will happen in 2012. We are in a revolutionary political period here. Someone might come out of nowhere and win the whole ball of wax. I was thinking along the lines of someone like Cain, but Trump could do it, too. Don’t hold to old, tired notions of what can and cannot happen. Keep an open mind. Be flexible. A Ruling Class is dying and no one can say what will replace it – only that it is sure to be replaced. Trump has his place in our debates – and an honorable place, too. Don’t consider him a joke – consider him as he is; oppose him or support him because you think or don’t think he’ll make a good President…but don’t write him off, or allow the Ruling Class to tell you what you should think about him – or anyone else in the race.

And Senator Paul congratulates them – from NRO’s The Corner:

Sen. Rand Paul (R., Ky.) tells National Review Online that he supports the 59 House Republicans who broke with leadership and opposed the Boehner-White House spending deal this afternoon. “Are we really cutting anything? What have we cut?” he asks. “The people back home want to know whether we are spending more money this year than last year. I try to look at it in those terms. And I think the people are with us.”…

It is always hard to buck the leadership and so those House Republicans who did stand firm on principal should be encouraged and defended. I’m not one of those who think that the deal was a loss for us – on balance, it was a victory. But more than who won or lost, the most important thing about it is that it shows the Democrats will not go to the mat and have a shut down. Therein lies our strongest weapon and our leverage to get genuine budget cuts – if the GOP leadership realizes it and has the courage to act upon it.

Right now, Big Government liberals have their backs to the wall – the nation is bankrupt, the people are not interested in new spending programs, tax hikes won’t help anyone win an election. Class warfare rhetoric wears thin and Obama is increasingly being tuned out by the American people. As 2012 comes in, Democrats face defeat – and their risk is that what could be a standard political defeat turns in to an electoral wipe out they’ll be a generation recovering from. This is especially the case if the economy slides back in to recession – doubly so if the GOP also finds a first class candidate to oppose Obama. Democrats have this quandary – keep their liberal base satisfied with government spending while also not alienating the center which wants spending cut. This is a circle I don’t think they can square.

And because of that, we hold all the cards – we are the party out of power (our control of the House doesn’t make us “in power”; it is whomever holds the White House who is “in power”); we are the people with a historical identification with low taxes, spending cuts and free market economics; we are a party filled with new members and vibrant, grass-roots organizations. We are not defending a dying status quo – we are the revolution; the breath of fresh air. At least, all this is true if we act as though it is…if we timidly hope to thread the electoral needle just to win in 2012 for the sake of winning, we’ll be resigning most of our advantages. We have to fight, and fight hard, for the real change Americans want.

A dying Ruling Class is defending it’s crumbling bastions; a revolutionary army awaits leadership…what will come in 2012? I don’t really know – I’ve never in my life seen a man and a party more vulnerable to crushing defeat than Barack Obama and the Democrat party. But even the most vulnerable survive if they are not attacked, or not attacked with sufficient sense and vigor. Time will tell if we seized our opportunities.

Noted by Mish:

Greek and Portuguese Euro-based sovereign debt yields hit new highs today with the Greek 10-Year sovereign bond yield topping 13% for the first time in the history of the Euro…

The Portuguese yield is at 9% – and if you go in to it further, you’ll see that investors believe there is a much higher chance of government default in Europe than a corporate default. The European Union is a financial house of cards, just waiting to collapse.

In case you’re wondering, “why should we care?”; the answer is that if the Euro collapses, it takes the global economy down with it – the three pillars of the global economy, right now, are the United States, the European Union and China…all three have massive, structural problems and no easy way out. China’s economy is overheating and various bubbles are already starting to pop (though given that the Chinese government can shoot you if you let the economic cat out of the bag, there is still the ability to believe that things are ok there); the United States economy labors under a mountain of debt and an absurd tax and regulatory regime which positively discourages wealth creation; Europe also has the mountain of debt and in addition to that the beginnings of a massive demographic decline.

This will get very ugly before it gets better.

The perfect answer to rich liberals who say we should raise taxes.

Don’t raise all our taxes – raise yours. Come on, liberals – you think that we should all pay more? Ok, you, first. Money where mouth is, please.

Remember, boys and girls that line from Shakespeare: Treat each man as he deserves and who would ‘scape whipping?

To be a Christian means to forgive the inexcusable because God has forgiven the inexcusable in you. – C. S. Lewis

Its just something I think important – forgive, forgive and then forgive some more. There’s nothing anyone ever did to you which will matter 100 years from now, so forgive it.

Please note: there are no moderate Islamsits.

Is Mitch Daniels sticking a toe in to the 2012 waters?

Poll: 60% of Japanese firms see negative impact from earthquake/tsunami. The effects of that disaster will be large and long-lasting…don’t believe anyone who says in six months or so Japan will be up and running. It just won’t happen – it can’t happen; the damage and the loss of capital (monetary and human) has just been too large.

Sexism! New study indicates women make 8% more than men. Of course, the whole “pay gap” thing was nonsense from the get-go…when you account for different types of education achievement and length of time in the work force, there never was a pay gap. People get paid the same for the same work, period – it’d be asinine to do it any other way.

Just how good could Republicans do in the Senate in 2012 and 2014? Pretty good, actually.

Obama’s budget speech was really, really lousy.

Well, here ya go – from PJStar.com:

…(Illinois) State government is an employer, too, with approaching 70,000 full- and part-time workers. And from that pool there are currently 25,000 open workers’ comp claims. That’s a breathtaking number. It is impossible to believe all of those are legitimate…

That works out to about 35% of Illinois State workers having a workers’ comp claim. Not only is is impossible to believe that they are all legitimate, it is impossible to believe that most of them aren’t bogus. Military units engaged in battle don’t have that high a casualty rate. But this is what unionized employee pools bring – especially when they are on the taxpayer’s dime. You just build up a huge number of people who will game the system as much as possible – and, of course, unions setting up contracts to they can be gamed in the most brazen manner.

And its not just Illinois, of course. Out here in Las Vegas there is a brewing scandal over the way our firefighters have been milking the system. All sorts of arcane rules were put in to place regarding sick leave, overtime and such – and because of this, at lot of people figured out they could do things like call out sick, have themselves called in while they were “sick” and then get paid over time for working their regular shifts. One firefighter called in sick 42 times, but never four days in a row because that would have required a doctor’s note – in the end, he managed to pile up 232 grand in 2009.

Cities and States are going broke largely because of things like this – bloated payrolls and pensions brought about by unions working out slick deals with bought politicians. In the end, the only way to ensure rational fiscal policies at the State and local level is to either do what Walker did in Wisconsin, or just outsource all the city services, as Sandy Springs, Georgia did – to massive savings and vastly improved services.

It is time to stop this – it is time to stop allowing tiny, corrupt minorities to look the public treasury for personal gain. Outsource, privatize and get rid of the unions.

HAT TIP: Mish’s

From Gallup:

Though majorities of blacks (85%) and Hispanics (54%) continue to approve of the job Barack Obama is doing as president, his ratings among these groups slipped in March and have set or tied new lows. His approval rating among whites, at 39%, remains above where it was in the latter part of 2010…

A year ago Obama was backed by 92% of blacks and 65% of hispanics. To be sure, when election day rolls around we can rely upon it that Obama will win 90%, at least, of the black vote. We can also expect that he will win a good majority of hispanic votes. Unless, by some chance, we put together a Rubio/West ticket. But the key is not what percentage he gets, but how many of each group actually show up on election day. It is looking less and less as if Obama will have the gigantic turnout of 2008 – a lot of people are getting dispirited about Obama.

Fundamentally this is because he lied about himself – he lied about who he is and what he would do. He promised everyone the world and has delivered, at best, only tiny, broken bits of the 2008 program. It is to be hoped that the experience of the Obama years will finally start to open African-American eyes – liberalism is a god that failed. It only speaks about concern for the poor and disadvantaged, it doesn’t actually do anything about them. Look where our liberal leaders mostly live – in gated, guarded communities which are overwhelmingly white; and which are priced out of any chance of most minorities living within 10 miles. Obama was supposed to be different – but he’s not. He’s just another rich, white liberal…he just has a tan.

The opportunity for us is to start an aggressive campaign among America’s minority voters – and come up with a genuine plan to address things such as the persistent, black underclass as well as a comprehensive immigration reform bill which will be both just and merciful (I’m working on such a thing, myself, and will have it out in the next few days). While the Obama magic fades, while liberalism continues to fail, this is our opportunity to permanently change the electoral dynamic in the United States among minority voters.

We daren’t let this opportunity slip – we might not get another chance for a generation.

UPDATE: It could be that Obama just sucks really bad at politics, you know?

“Overseas contingency operations”. “Man-caused disasters”. We should have seen this coming a mile away:

…The president also called for undoing the Bush tax cuts for upper-income taxpayers, and for canceling other tax cuts many of them receive such as the mortgage interest deduction — which he called “spending reductions in the tax code.”…

What that means is “tax increase”. The bizarre world of the left in which not taking your money counts as “government spending” and taking more of your money is a “spending cut”.

The good news is that Obama is just going along with what he’s done for two years: a combination of dishonesty and empty rhetoric. The American people have already tuned this out, so his speech today won’t move the political needle, at all. The ball now comes firmly back in to our court and it is up to us to craft a plan and the tactics necessary to illustrate the bankruptcy of Obama and liberalism. I like my plan best, of course – but the main thing is to think about things and come up with something new. Sure, oppose the tax hike proposal – but don’t just oppose it; figure out a way to throw it right back in their faces.

All in all, there is growing inside me a confidence about 2012 I didn’t feel even a month ago. If there was a time for Obama to really put it back together and prepare a genuine response to us, this was it. He blew it. We’ll still get all the nastiness from the Obama campaign as the campaign season developes, but we won’t be fighting on his terms…he’ll be fighting on our territory and without a map or a battle plan.

The title of this post may sound like so much hyperbole, but what other conclusion can one come to?

The American Principles Project (APP) Wednesday criticized the Obama administration for allowing the elimination of $600 million for Community Health Centers while protecting funding for Planned Parenthood as part of last week’s budget deal agreed to by Congress and the White House.

Touting Planned Parenthood as a key women’s health-care provider, Democrats held firm to their promise not to allow cuts to the nation’s largest abortion provider. Community Health Centers, which do not perform abortions, provide health services to the needy — including mammograms and pre- and post-natal care.

According to the American Principles Project last year Community Health Centers performed 320,000 mammograms while Planned Parenthood did none.

Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2011/04/13/white-house-protects-abortion-provider-allows-cuts-to-community-health-centers/#ixzz1JRYVzxjY

Unlike the blatant lie that Planned Parenthood president Cecele Richards told, Planned Parenthood performs no mammograms. Aside from a few ancillary condoms given out, abortion is, by and large, Planned Parenthood’s Business.

Remember, as an Illinois legislator, Obama voted three times AGAINST the Born Alive Protection Act. In other words, Barack Hussein Obama was quite OK letting a live-aborted baby perish on a gurney or in a trash can, rather than offer it life support.

Obama, beyond a shadow of a doubt, is the most pro-abortion, pro-dead-baby President we have ever had. Period.

His latest act of fealty toward the nation’s most prodigious killer of developing human beings, ostensibly in the name of ‘women’s health,’ to the detriment of organizations that actually provide services geared toward women’s health, is added testament to Obama’s ghoulish psyche.