Blogs For Victory

From The Monitor:

A new law enforcement bulletin warns that members of drug cartels have been overheard plotting to kill federal agents and Texas Rangers who guard the border, officials in Washington reported Thursday.

The bulletin, which was issued in March, said cartel members planned to use AK-47 assault rifles to shoot agents and Rangers from across the border. It did not name the cartels…

The drug cartels control the border – that is the dirty, little secret of border security at the moment. Because we won’t commit the resources to ensure that no one illegally crosses, the cartels have stepped in to take control where we refuse. The next, logical step in this is to control territory beyond the border – up to the places where drugs, illegal immigrants and other elements of cross-border contraband are distributed around the United States. It is a business move – ensuring that the supply chain is safe and operates smoothly. And this is just the duplicate of what the cartels have done in northern Mexico…first control the Mexican side of the border, then control the territory next to the border.

And what is happening in northern Mexico will happen here – meaning, all that relentless massacre of innocents which goes on unchecked in Mexico will start to happen here. The cartels will first go after the most energetic of the law enforcement agencies and once they are killed or cowed, they’ll go after the then-defenseless political structure, forcing it by a combination of bribery and murder to allow the cartels to do as they wish. The southern regions of the United States will slip out of effective control of both the State and national government.

Unless, of course, we stop them. Stopping them requires putting whatever amount of force proves necessary to ensure that not a single, illegal border crossing can happen. Then, with their money supply vastly reduced by inability to transport goods and people, we go after the cartels, themselves…not to arrest them, but to kill them. This will be a lengthy and expensive campaign, but it must be done. We cannot allow a pack of criminals to take control of part of our nation.

Our problem, as usual, is in our leadership – with additional problem from leftist activists who don’t care how many people are murdered or corrupted…all that matters to them is that a theory about America (ie, that we’re racists who must allow all to enter because we were wrong to ever conquer the American southwest) be enforced. Obama won’t do what is necessary, and any conservative government coming after Obama will face loud protests and intensive legal efforts to ham string the operation of justice along the border. But, with all that, we still must do it – for ourselves, and for the Mexican people. Defeating crime is the primary activity of any government…if peace and justice are not secured, then the government is failing in its prime duty.

From USA Today:

U.S. consumers face “serious” inflation in the months ahead for clothing, food and other products, the head of Wal-Mart’s U.S. operations warned Wednesday.

The world’s largest retailer is working with suppliers to minimize the effect of cost increases and believes its low-cost business model will position it better than its competitors.

Still, inflation is “going to be serious,” Wal-Mart U.S. CEO Bill Simon said during a meeting with USA TODAY’s editorial board. “We’re seeing cost increases starting to come through at a pretty rapid rate.”…

Whatever one might thing of Wal Mart – plus or minus – it is Wal Mart’s business to know what is really happening with consumer prices. This is Wal Mart’s bread and butter. This is a far more reliable forecast than the twaddle coming out of the Federal Reserve that inflation is tame…something anyone who buys groceries or gas knows to be a lie.

The American public are being squeezed. On the one hand is Bernanke printing money like mad to support the banks, on the other is Obama who is deliberately refusing to allow Americans to create wealth…so, our prices are going up as our dollars decline in value while our wages remain flat or down because the economic pie is not growing. Because of this I fully expect another recession – and I expect it will begin in a few months, thought it won’t show up in the data until late this year or early next (just like the recession of 2008 really began in 2007, though hardly anyone noticed it in 2007). As Americans have to spend more and more of their disposable income on the basics there will be that much less demand for other goods – and as demand for non-essential goods is already low, any further drop will swiftly put the economy back in to recession.

Coupled with this is the looming financial crisis. Thanks to money printing, Bernanke has avoided a resumption of the financial crash which began in 2008 but it must be remember that the financial system is every bit as insolvent today as it was in September of 2008. And, in fact, it may be more so as free money from the Federal Reserve has likely made banks and investment firms even more irresponsible than they were before (and its not like they were exemplars of financial probity in 2008). Add in the coming collapse of the real estate bubbles in China, Canada and Australia; looming financial default in the Eurozone and the crushing weight of Japanese reconstruction and all the elements are in place for a full blown Depression.

Hopefully we can avoid it – but unless something changes very soon or we have an incredible run of good luck, I don’t see how we get out without a lot of pain.

From NRO’s The Corner:

Sen. Rand Paul (R., Ky.) is quickly establishing himself as a leading opponent of President Obama’s Libya policy. Earlier today, the freshman introduced a resolution to reassert congressional authority over matters of war. To make his point, Paul quoted, in the legislative language, from Obama’s 2007 remarks on the subject: “The President does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation.”

According to Paul’s office, “the measure aims to put the Senate on record affirming Congress as the body with constitutional authority on matters of war.”…

Which is all completely true. As you all know, I’m in favor of our intervention in Libya. Belatedly and with incredibly maladroit tactics, Obama finally did part of what needed to be done…but he did it only after consulting the UN and other foreigners, hardly any of whom care at all about the Libyan people, and none of them caring at all about what is best for the United States. Obama should have gone to Congress for authorization before the guns went off.

You can’t, of course, put the cat back in the bag – the war in Libya will go on as it will and I do earnestly hope that someone in the Obama Administration is starting to think about what we want and how we might obtain it. But we must ensure that this President and all future Presidents know that except in clear cases of self-defense, the United States Congress must always vote to authorize military action before it takes place. We mustn’t place too much blame on Obama over this – after all, it was Harry Truman who first committed the US to war without Congressional authorization…that was the first strike against the war-declaring power of Congress, and it built up a body of precedent Obama eventually used to start war in Libya. This state of affairs must be finally and firmly corrected.

Legislation should be passed specifically enjoining the use of defense funds for armed conflict – except in cases of self-defense or in carrying out properly ratified defense treaties – until Congress has voted to authorize. That way, any future action like the war in Libya will be a clearly impeachable offense, thus deterring the President from doing such a thing again.

To be sure, having to get Congressional authorization will slow down any process of engaging in war – it might, in fact, cause us to lose in future conflicts crucial days which will have to be paid for later at a high price. But a free society can only function if the rules are strictly observed, especially when the rules are terribly inconvenient. The rule is that Congress declares war and appropriates funds for the conflict – without such declaration and appropriation, no war should happen except, once again, in cases of self defense…and, of course, in such cases the relevant authorization and appropriation would be swiftly forthcoming.

Furthermore, I would prefer, as I’ve stated before, that we completely re-work the way we engage in international relations, as well as the manner in which we deploy our military during peace time. I would prefer legislation prohibiting the deployment of US ground forces outside of United States territory except during a declared state of war. Naval and air forces can keep an enemy at bay long enough for the ground troops to arrive, and by not having our “boots on the ground” we can regain our long-lost freedom of action … the time to ponder military action and prepare for it before we send our best to fight and bleed in foreign lands.

Much has been lost of our Constitutional republic over the past 70 or 80 years. Our liberty and our safety are dependent upon our rebuilding what has been lost. There is no better place to start than in military matters as those affairs concern most directly actual lives – and from such a re-assertion of Constitutional powers will flow the political will to restore all the rest of our atrophied rights and liberties.

The revolution does continue:

The Indiana House on Wednesday passed what would be the nation’s broadest use of school vouchers, allowing even middle-class families to use taxpayer money to send their children to private schools. The bill passed the house 56-42.

In an effort to lure House Democrats back from a five-week, self-imposed exile in Illinois, Republicans agreed to reduce the number of vouchers, with a limit of 7,500 the first year and 15,000 the second, 6News’ Norman Cox reported…

The compromise with the union-controlled cretins of the Democratic party is lamentable, but the logic is sound – give the people a taste of education freedom and ever more people will demand it. This is why the liberals oppose any and all voucher programs – they know it is a death knell for the corrupt education monopoly. One step at a time – and this is a grand first step.

When you’ve lost all credibility and have been exposed as nothing more than a bunch of crooks looting the treasury, I guess all you’ve got left is the ability to intimidate – from the Journal Sentinel:

Members of Wisconsin State Employees Union, AFSCME Council 24, have begun circulating letters to businesses in southeast Wisconsin, asking them to support workers’ rights by putting up a sign in their windows.

If businesses fail to comply, the letter says, “Failure to do so will leave us no choice but (to) do a public boycott of your business. And sorry, neutral means ‘no’ to those who work for the largest employer in the area and are union members.”…

Translation: if you don’t show public support for us, we’ll attack you. Doesn’t matter if you just want to stay out of it it – that is not allowed. The Party Line is that this is about worker’s rights and if you don’t back us, then you’re against worker’s rights. This is the sort of thing to bring a smile to the face of a Soviet Commissar or a Nazi Gauleiter. They couldn’t have done it better, themselves.

I have to say, I’m ashamed to think that someone who shares the title of “American” with me could do such an un-American and dastardly thing. Intimidation should be alien to the American experience…but here it is, right out in front of us.

Ok, so the unions want a fight to the finish. We’ll give it to them…we’ll keep this up until we’ve de-certified every public sector union in the United States and entirely cut off government funds from left wing groups. America will no longer be a place where powerful and corrupt interests are able to screw the people – we’ll make sure of that.

From Allahpundit – seems that it is part of a strategery to get TEA Partiers happy with a looming budget deal which only cuts a piddling $33 billion from this year’s budget:

…Before you throw up your hands and decide that it’s third-party time, though, here’s a bit of breaking news from The Hill: “Senate Republicans will finally unveil their balanced budget amendment tomorrow, this time with leadership (I.e., McConnell) on board.” That’s the way they’re going to sell this to Republican voters, I guess — by accepting a deal on this year’s budget and then going nuclear on the next, replete with entitlement reform and a BBA…

I’d prefer we stand firm and allow the government to shut down – Obama is becoming ever more irrelevant in the political debates and it would be great to pick a fight in public with the likes of Reid and Schumer…the more those two are on camera, the better things get for us. But, it looks like the GOP leadership doesn’t want that fight…foolish fears of a repeat of 1995 die hard, I guess. But, it is good that someone thought to link a balanced budget amendment with a bit of a climb down on immediate spending cuts. That is a great issue to carry in to 2012…one which does nothing but win for us each time it is brought up.

From The News Tribune:

A drought that loomed over some of California’s most fertile farmland officially ended Wednesday after a winter of relentless mountain storms that piled snow up to three stories high and could keep some ski resorts open until the Fourth of July.

More than 61 feet of snow has fallen in the Sierra Nevada high country so far this season, second only to 1950-51, when 65 feet fell, according to records kept by the California Department of Transportation. And more snow is possible in April, raising the prospect of an all-time record…

This is really good as I’m hoping to spend at least some time this summer around Lake Tahoe…so it should be nicely filled to the brim. Not so good for Al Gore, however…

The bloom went off the rose about a year ago…I guess by now we’d have to say the rose has gone and died. From Entertainment Weekly:

President Obama’s speech viewership keeps on slipping.

Monday night’s policy address on Libya delivered 25.6 million viewers, continuing the president’s trend of declining ratings for his issue-oriented telecasts.

The speech was down 12% from Obama’s address on Iraq last August (29.2 million), which fell 9% from his speech on the Gulf Coast oil spill in June (32.1 million), which in turn dropped 21% from his Afghanistan speech back in December of 2009 (40.8 million). Last night’s address could have been dinged by starting slightly before primetime, at 7:30 p.m. (which also kept Obama from making ABC choose between the commander-in-chief and airing Dancing With the Stars at its usual time)…

It is, however, mighty disturbing that the considered decision here was that a completely mindless and worthless show is more important than a Presidential speech about war. I mean, come on, I don’t like Obama as President but he still rates higher in the importance sweepstakes than some bit of television trash.

Aside from that, this tends to confirm my view that the people are tuning him out. Each time he says “let me be clear” the American people hear “let me try to snow you”, and so they are just not paying attention. I have to admit, also, that I only managed to hear the speech by accident – it happened to come on just as I was driving home from work and preempted my normal drive-time radio show (and I missed the first few minutes because I was finishing up my normal drive-time Rosary, done each commute home before flipping on the radio). So, I guess I’m guilty, too. But it is hard to listen to him these days – in fact, it is a bit excruciating when you listen to his words and then bounce them off the reality of the situation and swiftly conclude that the man either doesn’t know or doesn’t care about what is going on.

Forget all the polling and punditry about 2012 – its all wrong. While we still have to rate Obama as the likely winner, we only do that now because it is always so hard to beat an incumbent President. But Obama is very much yesterday’s news for the American people. He has nothing more to say to us that we’re interested in hearing…all the GOP need do is find a credible alternative to him, and he’s beaten next year.

How Democrats use their own failure as justification for giving them more money.

What to do when the police go bad.

OPEC will make a trillion dollars this year. We could cut in to that with a bit of “drill, baby, drill”, but Obama says “no, baby, no”.

Pelosi opens mouth, lie comes out.

Atheist Hitchens is being treated by an Evangelical Christian doctor who was mentioned in a work by Pope Benedict XVI about Jesus Christ. We pray that Hitchens will start to draw some conclusions…

Michael Barone notes some headwinds being experienced by budget-cutting GOP governors. This is to be expected – when you actually get to work doing the right thing, people will get angry and fearful. The key is to hold course and get the job done. Democrats are pep-talking themselves in to thinking that a new, liberal dawn has emerged because they managed to generate some bogus polls and union-stooge crowds…don’t buy it; the people are still with us. But, also, keep fighting…don’t let up for a minute.

I guess we could avoid oil and thus the Middle East by driving around in electric cars and building windmills… though it’s hard to tell if that’s a lifestyle for giving up oil or for giving up testicles.

From NRO’s The Corner:

For those who would like to see D.C. voucher program opened to new students again, expect an uphill battle. Today the White House Office of Budget and Management released a statement opposing House speaker John Boehner’s legislation:

While the Administration appreciates that H.R. 471 would provide Federal support for improving public schools in the District of Columbia (D.C.), including expanding and improving high-quality D.C. public charter schools, the Administration opposes the creation or expansion of private school voucher programs that are authorized by this bill. The Federal Government should focus its attention and available resources on improving the quality of public schools for all students. Private school vouchers are not an effective way to improve student achievement. The Administration strongly opposes expanding the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program and opening it to new students…

Which misses the point, entirely. The reason DC public schools suck is because they are run by an entrenched, unionized bureaucracy which has a captive market – namely, the poor kids of DC. Take away that captive market and the public schools will be forced to improve no matter how much the unions would prefer the schools remain garbage (garbage schools require less work but actually tend to have higher rates of pay…its a win/win for the unions). President Obama and his Administration simply do not care about the poor kids of DC – in their mind, the political calculus of obtaining fat donations for 2012 completely outweighs what will happen to the children in DC. Those kids, ill-educated, won’t become a problem for years – but next year is an election, for crying out loud. Gotta keep our liberal, Democrat priorities in order, ya know?

School choice is the silver bullet to fix education. Not because every kid who goes to a private school will go on to Harvard (which, in fact, is pretty much a useless achievement these days unless you’re just an idiot burnishing your credentials to impress other idiots…which is a quite lucrative practice, by the way…but not worthy of a lady or gentleman) but because it is only when organizations are forced to change that they will change. Allow an organization to enjoy continually higher funding no matter how bad the result and all you’ll get is an increasingly high price paid for an increasingly bad product. That is what is wrong with education – that is why we’ve gone from first to worst in so many categories. School choice will break up the monopoly and allow people who actually care about education to rise to the top.

But as long as Obama and his Democrats are in charge, we’ll make little headway on this matter. Because they don’t care about it. Because their only goal is personal power and wealth – and if it take screwing the kids in order to secure big union donations, then that is what they will do, and have done. Our job, once again, is to get them out of power as soon as possible…and, conservatives, the real fun about this is that beating Obama is now something we can do “for the children”.