Blogs For Victory

Seems a possibility for 2012:

Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush is the strong favorite among Republican voters to challenge Sen. Bill Nelson (D) in 2012, a new Public Policy Polling survey shows.

Tom Jensen, director of the Democratic-leaning polling firm, said the findings — 72 percent of GOP voters chose Bush as their preferred candidate — differ from other state surveys in which voters have “no clue” whom they want to challenge the Democratic incumbent…

Meanwhile, this poll shows that Nelson bests all possible GOP challengers – expect Jeb Bush. This is a long way out from election day and lots can change, but it is a strong indicator that if Jeb decides to run, he’ll have a good shot of winning…both the GOP nomination and the general election.

I’ve always liked Jeb Bush – and even voted for him, once; during his losing bid for Florida governor in 1994 (I was still living out there, at the time). He’s more of a true-blue conservative than his brother, W and thus would be a good fit for the increasingly conservative GOP Senate caucus. He would also bring to that body a wealth of practical, executive experience – being governor of Florida for 8 years, he can tell the Senators just what a proposed law will do in effect, as opposed to theory.

Finally, it would usefully annoy the liberals to have a Bush in DC, wielding power. They tend to get extra crazy when a Bush is around and that gets entertaining…and we can all use some amusement these days.

From Catholic Culture:

The University of Illinois has offered to reinstate a Catholic faculty member who was dismissed after he explained Church teachings on homosexuality.

University officials announced that they would welcome Kenneth Howell back to campus as an adjunct professor, to teach a course on Catholicism. His faculty appointment had been terminated after he was accused of “hate speech,” for sending an email to a student in which, responding to the student’s question, he accurately summarized the Church’s teachings…

It did take the threat of a lawsuit to get action here, which is rather sad…but not as sad as the fact of the professors firing, in the first place. Here was a man teaching a course on Catholicism during which he explained a Catholic belief and he gets fired for alleged “hate speech”!. For goodness sakes, didn’t anyone at the University think for a moment how stupid it would look to fire someone over this?

But, just another battle in the war against Christianity – and, indeed, the war against all things decent and rational. This is yet another example of why we can’t call a truce in social issues – the other side will never agree to a truce. In large matters and small, they are forever trying to advance their agenda…and if it weren’t for people standing up for this professor, he would have remained fired…and even though he’s being reinstated, the fact remains that his firing casts a pall over academic freedom. All professors will think twice about what they say for fear of running afoul of our campus fascists.

We must fight until there is a distinct roll back of the left – until, that is, people can feel confident of speaking their minds on whatever subject without fear of reprisal. Only when that feeling becomes general in all aspects of American life can we say that there is room for a truce in social issues.

Seems that some people are willing to do so – even without a replacement job lined up. Business Insider has a survey which indicates a willingness by people to bail out on a job without much thought to consequences. All of us know the rule – never quit you job until you have another one lined up. But that rule is fading, fast, it would seem.

It is, though, a rule I’m still following. I pretty much despise my employer and get the distinct sense, when I go to work, that I’m working for the enemy. Just another faceless, mindless corporate blob run by people who haven’t the foggiest notion of what they’re doing (and, of course, they think they do know what they’re doing…and that just makes it worse). The only thing I can imagine being worse than working for Big Corporation would be to work for Big Government. I’ve got an iron in the fire to get out of it and I hope that 2011 will be the last year in which I work for Big Corporation. But, won’t quit until I’ve got something fairly secure lined up as an alternative.

But the survey linked above indicates that attitudes about this are changing. Why? I figure its two reasons:

1. Often you can obtain an ok living just by getting yourself on the varied government programs available for unemployed people. $300 a week in unemployment plus $350 month from food stamps coupled with various programs to subsidize your utilities and you can skate along for quite a while without having to lift a finger. I’m not saying it is wealthy, care free life…but for some people, it does beat the 9-5 grind.

2. Its hard to drive yourself to perform for idiots doing work which has no real point to it. A lot of work in modern America is just that – it might be financially rewarding, but you don’t produce anything and you don’t feel like at the end of the day you accomplished something. If you worked in mining you could measure how much ore you extracted; in manufacturing, how many items made; in farming, how many acres plowed…but working as a financial analyst churning out financial stats that no one will ever really read? Where’s the job satisfaction in that? Couple that with the knowledge that the people on top, who do no real work, are reaping vast sums while you might be lucky to get a 3% raise, and its easy to head for the door.

We live in a very sick society. Only part of us are well – those who do produce useful goods and services, day by day. Those who serve in our armed forces. Police and firefighters – the better part of the teachers, too. But probably a majority of us are infected by the sterile, pointless and ultimately soul-destroying modern way of living. We really need to change – back to a society which does useful work; back to a society which honors hard work, thrift and sobriety. We need, to put it in a nutshell, a revival of a human civilization.

Your tax dollars at work, Americans: the Financial Times is reporting that some of the world’s strongest banks have used the TAF since 2008 and, overall, more than half the money used was used by foreign banks.

More and more it becomes inescapable that first President Bush and then President Obama were snookered by the global financial industry – led by their American stooge, Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke – in to using the wealth of the American people to bail out banks which made stupid loans and investments. This wasn’t about saving the economy, it was about saving the banksters from the results of their folly. Don’t let anyone get you partisan over this – we were conned in a bi-partisan manner in to helping not just the rich stay rich, but the very stupidest among the rich to stay rich.

Turn off the spigot – no more money for any bank, any where, save to cover accounts insured by the FDIC. Everyone else can just go jump in a lake or, more accurately, in to bankruptcy court.

From Rasmussen:

For the second time this month, 60% of Likely Voters at least somewhat favor repeal of the national health care law, while the number who expect health care costs to increase is at its highest level since August…

Of course, we can’t repeal – not while Reid holds the Senate (he wouldn’t allow a repeal to come to a vote, because it would pass), and certainly not while Obama is President as he’d just veto such legislation. But this does show that the GOP can gut the worst provisions of ObamaCare without risking voter ire – we can de-fund ObamaCare while leaving it on the books, hopefully as a dead letter.

And, once we elect a Republican President, we can then go on to repeal.

UPDATE: A bit about the bureaucratic implementation of the “death panels”. With 2,700 pages of law, a bureaucrat can find whatever he wants in there…repeal and replace is the only rational way to deal with ObamaCare in the long run.

Allahpundit over at Hot Air has an excellent run down on the rumor mill over this.

My take: If Hillary leaves the Administration prior to February, then its because she’s looking to a possible primary challenge to Obama in 2012.

Its not that she’d announce it as she left. She’ll leave, if she does, in fog of love-fest between herself and Obama with congratulatory speeches and everything being done to assure everyone that all is well and Hillary just feels its time for someone else to take the helm now that she’s got everything reset in American foreign policy. After she leaves, though, she waits, watches and carefully cultivates political allies as she sees how things go for Obama in 2011.

More than likely, there will be no primary challenger to Obama in 2012. Obama is a prohibitive favorite for re-nomination and, actually, must be favored to be re-elected in 2012, as well (as Barone points out). But Obama is balanced on a knife edge here – just a little more loss of support, and the wolves will start to howl.

And that is what Hillary will be looking for – polling data, economic data and just a general sense of frustration which indicates that Obama is a sure-loser in 2012. If the economy slips back in to full blown recession, then Obama is likely toast…but he could also be toasted just fine by unemployment remaining stubbornly high through 2011. Obama might score some points by playing rope-a-dope with the House GOP…but the House GOP might rope-a-dope Obama, as well (Obama is only considered smart by people who adore him…everyone not blinded by the Obama glow is starting to figure out that there’s just not much behind the teleprompter). If it is late summer of 2011 and Obama is on the rocks, that is when one must start to sniff around to see if anyone is crawling out of the wood work to challenge Obama. Hillary showing up in Iowa would be a confirmation of any challenge rumors…no matter what reason she ostensibly goes there for.

We’ll have to wait and see how this all comes out – but it could be a very fun election year in 2012.

Due to increased used of carbon by humanity, the much warmer world of 2010 has suffered a catastrophic blast of cold and snow. This is just the logical outgrowth of a warmer world – cold, wet weather. If the world had been cooling, people in New York would be forced to wear shorts and tank tops in December because we all know that the result of a gradually cooling earth would be warm winters.

Always keep in mind that if any doubts about this logic creep in, you should repeat to yourself – over and over again – that whatever is happening which causes you to doubt global warming is just “weather” while anything which tends to confirm global warming is “climate” (please note that you no longer have to assert that its “settled science” or “consensus”; you only have to believe that its happening and then go about comparing climate change deniers to Nazis, or some such).

So, how much snow has global warming produced in your neck of the woods? We in Nevada got our blast of wet weather last week – two inches or so of rain; I know this doesn’t sound like much, but for a place that gets about 6 inches a year, two inches in three days was rather astounding. Apparently we’re in for rain and cold weather for later this weeks, so you guys in the east should get hit again in the first week of January.

From the Daily Mail:

For someone who mangled words on a regular basis, it’s an impressive feat.

Former U.S. President George W Bush’s memoir has sold an astonishing two million copies since it was released in early November – and it’s not even in paperback yet.

‘Decision Points’, published both in hardcover and e-book form, is flying off the shelves, the Crown Publishing Group says.

By contrast, former president Bill Clinton’s memoir, ‘My Life’, has logged sales of 2.2million copies since it was first published in 2004…

I got a copy for Christmas from the Mrs…only just started to read it; a crisp, business-like book from a man who just wants to say what is on his mind. I always say look at what people do rather than what they say…while a lot of insult has been hurled at Bush, the fact that his book sold as much in a month as Clinton’s did in 6 years indicates the depth of love and respect the American people still hold for this man.

Flawed? You bet he was (and is). Made mistakes? Of course. Could have done a thousand things differently? You know it. But, in the end, he did what he did…and he’s right in saying that a true judgment of his Presidency won’t be possible until 50 years from now, when passions have cooled, the principals are dead and historians can see the long-term effects of the policies.

I said back in 2008 that we’d miss President Bush – and we do; not that he’d have found a sure-fire way out of the mess we’re in (there is, in fact, no easy way out), but we sure do miss a man who can make a decision and stick with it. We’re going to keep on missing him until we get his equal or better in office.

Just terrible news – from Lisa Graas:

My compatriots at Jihad Watch have the news about Islamist violence against Christians in Nigeria on Christmas Eve.

Nigeria: At least 31 dead in Christmas Eve bombings – Posted by Marisol on December 25, 2010 8:30 AM

Jihad attacks threatened against “the unbeliever and Christian countries celebrating Christmas” – Posted by Robert Spencer on December 25, 2010 1:04 PM…

…Nigeria: Pastor killed in front of his church, other churches targeted in arson rampage — Posted by Marisol on December 26, 2010 12:04 AM

I can find no condemnations of this violence from Muslims, but at least one Muslim blogger, at The Islamic Standard, believes this killing of Christians is justified, saying:

The Believers everywhere are rightly enraged against the policies of America and the secularist and nationalist governments that were left in control of their lands by the retreating colonialists after WWII...

I don’t put too much stock in that last statement. To be sure, its standard fare for radical Islam…but my view is that radical Islam isn’t a religious movement so much as a economic and political con job. Some people in Islam want quite a lot of power and wealth for themselves but they don’t want to earn it by working, nor do they wish to obtain it by doing well for the people and thus being rewarded with power…such paths to wealth and power are difficult; much easier, if you can do it, to just use insane violence to obtain your ends.

Unless and until we take the sternest measures possible – without paying the least attention to the softer versions of the scam (those con artists too squeamish to get their hands bloody but who yet wish to gain power and wealth without earning it – you know, groups like CAIR) – against the purveyors of this wicked violence, we won’t get anywhere. The con artist keeps at it until someone forces him to stop…its really just as simple as that (though, of course, the actual process of stopping these criminals will be long, bloody and difficult).

We can keep dancing around the issue and keep having people being killed – or we can act like men and women, and American men and women, and take care of the problem once and for all. The choice is ours.

From the Boston Globe:

…the threat of a primary challenge from conservatives — as well as the potential that national Tea Party groups will withhold financial support — appears to have grown, according to the movement’s activists. Brown’s votes in the past week follow his crucial support for the overhaul of financial regulations, which remains a particular sore point with conservatives.

“I think that there will be a primary challenge,’’ said Christen Varley, president of the Greater Boston Tea Party. “There’s enough of an underground movement in the Tea Party movement as seeing him as not being conservative enough. There probably will be multiple people who attempt to run against him.’’…

At issue is Brown’s votes for the mis-begotten financial “reform” bill, as well as the absurd START treaty. The theory is that Brown may draw a primary challenger – who would probably lose, but would also weaken Brown for the general election. Additionally, even if a primary challenger fails to materialize there may be a drop off in monetary support and voter enthusiasm – things which will be crucial for Brown in heavily Democrat Massachusetts.

As for me, I’m not too concerned about this – we pretty much knew what we were getting when we backed Brown. He’s a Massachusetts Republican – and that means he’s going to be generally to the left of the GOP main stream. He’s made no votes that surprised me, other than backing START…and that I put down to him likely being over-awed by the military brass’ insistence that it was needed. One foolish vote, however, doesn’t get me writing people off…and I believe that holds true for most conservative voters.

The crucial time for Brown is coming – as the GOP takes over the House, it will be up to the Senate GOP to stand firm and force Reid to bring up House bills for a vote on the Senate floor. Naturally, Reid will try to corral enough Republicans to gain cloture on Democrat counter-proposals which will then be sent to the House, forcing the GOP to vote on Democrat issues. If Brown wants to both refurbish his center/right credentials and avoid a primary challenge, then his best option is to stand firm against what will be an orchestrated effort by Obama and Reid to force through items on the liberal agenda.

If Brown stands firm, he’ll be fine – if be cuts the GOP off at the knees, he’ll be primary toast. We’ll see how it comes out.