Blogs For Victory

A huge dose of “interesting times” for us this morning. We’ve got reports out of China that inflation is galloping ahead at a much faster rate than expected; reports here at home indicate that fourth quarter growth will be flat or negative; a run on the banks in Ireland as the Irish show how entirely unwilling they are to tax themselves to pay off stupid banks; and to top it all off, China’s cat’s paw – North Korea – fires off artillery at South Korea…as part of either internal North Korean insanity or, more likely in my view, a means of distracting everyone from what is happening in China.

And what is our government doing? Well, our Senate Majority Leader is determined to have a vote on the Dream Act…that vital piece of the global puzzle. Once we pass that, all will be well…

UPDATE: Victor Davis Hanson on the Korean issue

…Dismissing the idea that past global problems might transcend George W. Bush, this administration operated as if a charismatic world citizen, with reset magic, could win over the globe to a U.N.-sponsored utopia. These false assumptions intrigued the curious abroad — why would Obama seek to advance such absurd notions about global problems having originated with U.S. belligerence circa 2001–2009 and being resolved by U.S. empathy in 2009–2010? Apparently, as we are now learning, North Korea wants to find out the answer.

In general, listlessness and misdirection in Washington always ripples out to the world abroad within a year or two. Sanctimonious Carterism had confirmed the image of a paralytic America by 1979, which may be why that year saw the Chinese in Vietnam, the Russians in Afghanistan, Communists on the rise in Central America, hostages in Teheran, the end of the Shah, and the rise of an emboldened radical Islam…

There is that question – supposing North Korea keeps it up, does anyone think that Obama will ok a violent response to the attacks?

Ultimately, the Korea problem stems from an unwillingness to resolve a problem. We went in to Korea without much forethought in 1950 – it was a spur of the moment decision by Truman after a long string of announcements which made everyone think we weren’t too interested in the fate of South Korea. The fighting was immediately brutal and costly and there came a desire to get out – until MacArthur’s master stroke at Inchon chased the North Koreans almost all the way to the Yalu. But then the Chinese came in – because we indicated we wouldn’t allow Chiang’s anti-communist forces to attack communist China, thus freeing up the Chinese forces necessary to attack us – and once that became a brutal slog, the desire to get out once again became paramount.

And so, we got out – with the war half fought. Fast forward 60 years, and here we are…with the half fought war still hanging over us. Once in, you must go all the way in – the war must be fought to a conclusion. Right now, we should steel ourselves to a complete abandonment of South Korea, or a determination to press the North Koreans to destruction. Any middle course chosen will just leave the problem hanging, and likely cause even worse problems in the future.

Destroying North Korea, by the way, won’t necessarily require military action – they are in a bad way up there. But we must cease the kabuki dance of negotiations and calls for North Korea to join the global family of nations. They are run by lunatics and have no place in the world – and a campaign of propaganda and destabilization might raise rebellion in NK as the army and security forces realize the game is up.

One liberal thinks he’s got the 2010 results all figured out:

At a recent discussion on the Nov. 2 election hosted by the local Society for Professional Journalists, UW-Madison political science professor Charles Franklin was expounding on why Republicans emerged triumphant, in Wisconsin and throughout the land.

In my questions to Franklin, I noted that the public seemed to vote against its own interests and stated desires, for instance by electing candidates who’ll drive up the deficit with fiscally reckless giveaways to the rich.

Franklin, perhaps a bit too candidly, conceded the point. “I’m not endorsing the American voter,” he answered. “They’re pretty damn stupid.”…

Its a strange world, indeed. A world in which Obama is considered smart and Palin, dumb. And a world in which college professors, cheesed off at election results, pronounce blanket judgments on millions of people they’ve never met. No surprise, that – after all, the basis of most modern, left wing thought stems from Karl Marx…who wrote about the desires of workers even though he’d never worked a day in his life.

We live in a world where birth rates are falling, and liberals fight tooth and nail to keep abortion legal. A world where rapes and murders take on ever more horrific forms, but any attempt to curb pornography and violence in popular culture is greeted with shrieks of horror. A nation $13 trillion in debt is seriously urged in some quarters to go further in debt. Enemies plot to kill us, and our security officials spend time patting down little boys and nuns. Yes, indeed, there are some stupid people out there. Pity the good professor has mis-identified whom they are.

CNN Political Ticker notes the race shaping up in Virginia:

Former U.S. Senator George Allen has received some good news should he choose to challenge Democratic Sen. Jim Webb for his old seat in 2012.

Virginia’s GOP leaders elected to select their Republican candidate in 2012 by primary instead of by convention potentially helping Allen who may fare better before primary voters than party delegates…

Allen has been doing a lot of good things and proving himself a conservative leader, but I’ve always had doubts about political re-matches. Sure, they can work out – such as in Allen West’s victory – but they can also turn out badly – such as in Dino Rossi’s serial losses in Washington State. I figure it is especially hard for a former office holder to re-claim his office from the person who ousted him. It all becomes “do you want to go back to that?”, rather than about the issues of the day.

Now, if Webb were to back out, that would be a different story – but if Webb decides to try for a second term, I think the GOP would be better served by someone fresh for the fight.

The arrogance of this astounds – from the Daily Beast:

…Developers of the controversial Park51 Islamic community center and mosque located two blocks from ground zero earlier this month applied for roughly $5 million in federal grant money set aside for the redevelopment of lower Manhattan after the attacks of September 11, according to two sources with direct knowledge of the matter…

Later in the linked article we get a hint at what might really be happening here – the man behind the mosque may have some grand designs about becoming a wheel in New York real estate. While there is no proof of this, it rings true – the whole mosque is nothing but a scam (a dual scam – by the guy promoting it for himself, and by the Islamists who want to use it as a means of rattling our cage). Depend on it; whenever someone does something as brazenly wrong as this, and then doubles down on the brazenness by looking for tax payer funding, he’s running a con.

We must not give him – or the Islamists – the satisfaction. Basic, human decency requires that this mosque be spiked. Pressure must be kept up to ensure that all politicians concerned know that the wrath of the voter will follow swiftly upon groundbreaking for this mosque. If we do that, it won’t happen. And the Islamists and con artists running this show will simply have to move on.

From Hot Air:

…According to new e-mails uncovered by the committee, her (Waters’) chief of staff directly coordinated with other members of the House Financial Services Committee on behalf of OneUnited:

A newly discovered exchange of e-mails led the House ethics committee on Friday to delay its trial of Representative Maxine Waters, a California Democrat accused of helping steer bailout money to a bank in which her husband owned shares.

The e-mails are between Mikael Moore, Ms. Waters’s chief of staff, and members of the House Financial Services Committee, on which Ms. Waters serves. The e-mails show that Mr. Moore was actively engaged in discussing with committee members details of a bank bailout bill apparently after Ms. Waters agreed to refrain from advocating on the bank’s behalf…

This, then, may drag in other Democrats – in this deal, for those who need reminding, Waters got a lot of TARP money for a bank she held a strong financial interest in. Its the really bad sort of political corruption.

Waters, herself, has never been more than a place holder for liberalism in the House. She just parrots whatever she’s told and votes as instructed – but she seems to have taken this to mean that as long as she does as she’s told, she can get away with pretty much anything she wants. This might have been true in the past, but in the TEA Party-influenced present, that sort of thing won’t be tolerated.

There must be a complete investigation of this no matter where it leads – all of those who in any way, shape or form influenced government policy for personal profit must be made to pay the price. Corruption eats at the heart of democracy, and it is long past time that we really did drain the swamp.

The New York Times – probably trying to buck up sagging liberal spirits – has an article which features the 2012 prediction of a Yale economist: Landslide win for Obama. How so? Well, “it’s the economy, stupid”. The Yale economist – Ray C. Fair – plugs in to his election model a GDP growth rate of 3.69% and, presto, people vote Obama ’cause he’s done such a good job.

Is this valid? Certainly, as far as it goes – if the economy improves and we really get growth significantly above 3% for some an extended period of time before November, 2012, then unemployment will go down, wages will go up and people will feel that things are getting better. Even if they are not back to where they were pre-Obama, there is a strong chance that in such a scenario, Obama gets re-elected. The key, though, is to have that level of growth for a long enough period of time to matter.

Are we likely to get such a thing? Fair thinks so – probably because he’s got a Keynesian model some where which says that if you do X amount of stimulus you’ll get Y amount of growth over a period of time. Of course, if Keynes was wrong and you don’t really get that kind of growth, then things might not work out so well for you. But even if Keynes is wrong (and he is) there still could be a bit of alleged growth coming from stimulus such as the Fed’s quantitative easing and continued borrow-and-spend by Treasury – after all, a trillion dollars or so of stimulus got us “growth” in 2010. Bogus growth, but growth none the less.

Keep in mind that the flip side of Fair’s theory holds true – if the economy is going well, Obama has a very strong chance of being elected; if, on the other hand, its in the tank, then he’s probably going to lose. And in both cases it is not absolutely important whom the GOP nominates (some can make it easier or harder, but the best candidate will have a hard time winning in prosperity, the worst will have a hard time losing in recession). Obama and Co are not entirely stupid and so probably realize this – how the economy is in 2012 will go a very long way in determining if Obama wins re-election.

Given this, there is every chance in the world that Obama, his Administration and the financial industry led by Bernanke will do what they can to prop up the economy. They can’t get new spending out of the incoming GOP House, but there is still plenty they can do. And they will do it – and it won’t matter if its legal or not. This is a Ruling Class facing political Armageddon – they won’t go out quietly. The economy really is Obama’s only hope; it is in the tank right now, Obama’s policies will likely put it even more so by 2012…but this won’t stop Obama and Co from trying and trying and trying their liberal prescriptions to try and get it off the ground (it won’t occur to them that they are just wrong; in other words, they are very unlikely to embrace conservative economic ideas – they haven’t the wit to make such a shift).

Could be an interesting two years – and, once again, I mean in terms of the Chinese curse, “may you live in interesting times”.

From Zero Hedge:

With Ireland now a lost cause, the next country which will see its bond yields surge to new records is Portugal. And just so vigilantes don’t miss the hint, the Portuguese opposition party has stated that the country’s budget deficit and public debt are “higher than those reported by the government.” The claim is that Portuguese debt is about 30% higher than claimed by official statistics: instead of 82% of GDP, it is actually 112%. With bankrupt Greece having lied about virtually every aspect of its comatose economy, it is not as easy to dismiss the announcement as merely political bickering, and is sure to leads to at least a modest double digit basis point jump in Portuguese spreads…

Which means that Portugal will find it increasingly hard to finance its debt, which will lead to even more financial stress and, of course, the EU/IMF working out some sort of fiscal papering over the cracks. Eventually, good people, this does stop working. With Greece, Ireland and Portugal, we’re talking about some of Europe’s smaller economies (none of these three nations has has even 12 million people, as compared to the 60, 64 and 82 million of Europe’s big boys, Britain, France and Germany) – but looming in the background are the highly stressed economies of Italy and Spain (60 and 45 million people). There simply isn’t enough money in the world to backstop all that debt.

They keep sticking fingers in the dike, and then another leak springs up…how long can they keep it up? Beats all heck out of me – but they can’t keep it up forever.

If you can honestly answer, “yes”, then you are doing great…if you can’t, then its time for some self-examination.

From C-Span via Instapundit:

There’s no possibility that I would ever go to a debate and have Olbermann or Chris Matthews asking questions. I watched the debate a couple of years ago and it was an embarrassment because they were so relentlessly hostile and they were so left-wing that every question they asked of the Republicans was designed to embarrass and divide the Republicans. And every question they asked the Democrats was designed to make them look good. Well why would we participate in that?

Precisely – why would be do that? We have to just fully admit that the MSM is the merest arm of the DNC. While its ok to go on their shows, there is no sense in just putting ourselves at their mercy.

How this will work out is that we can’t set the 2012 debates with an allegedly impartial MSMer calling the shots. Whatever the DNC/MSM brings to the table must be countered by one of ours – and no kook lefties like Matthews or Olberman anywhere near the place.

Of course, the best way to have a debate is to have the candidates ask each other the questions – without any advance notice and only with someone around to keep time. The Democrats like talking points and taking cheap shots – our path to victory lies in explaining how we’re different from the Democrats. The more there is real debate, the better we do.

Junk touching update.

Britain aborts her future.

Old women do absurd thing, show themselves up as people who have never grown up, never will.

Sarah Palin offer an excerpt from her new book.

The Other McCain warns us against allowing pinko groups to stampede us in to certain actions. In this case, the Southern Poverty Law Center is trying to scare the GOP off of voting for Saul Anuzis as new RNC chair. Pinkos are trying to slander Anuzis – likely because Anuzis would be effective, and the left doesn’t like that. We must never listen to the left – even if an iota of truth comes out of them, it is just in the service of another liberal lie.

EPA over-reach? Of course – we’ve got an ultra-liberal President who has let environmentalists run wild.