Blogs For Victory

An unanswerable argument against the Democrat moves to pass a failed, rejected agenda through a lame duck session.

From Ramussen:

The Wisconsin Senate race is still a toss-up, with Republican Ron Johnson and incumbent Democrat Russ Feingold in a near tie.

The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of Likely Voters in Wisconsin shows Johnson with 48% support. Feingold, a member of the Senate since 1993, again picks up 46% of the vote…

This is pretty much unchanged from the last poll two weeks ago – but the really important thing here is that Feingold should be having a walk over in this race. This is his fourth run – he’s been a popular Senator in tune with the Wisconsin electorate. If Feingold is in trouble – and he is – then the entire Democrat party is on the brink of disaster.

From The Hill:

The House ethics committee announced 13 charges Thursday against Rep. Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.), who is accused of breaking House rules as well as federal statutes.

If he were a Republican, the GOP would be calling for his resignation – as he’s a Democrat, that won’t happen unless his trial starts to adversely affect Democrat chances in November.

Representative Eric Cantor (R-VA), warns of the dangers should the Democrats attempt to ram through Obamunism between November and January:

…In the wake of the November election, the Democratic majorities of 2008 will be frozen in place until a new Congress is sworn in at the beginning of 2011. It appears likely that scores of defeated Democrats will head back to Washington to serve out their terms with nothing to lose. And with President Obama’s promises of tax increases, cap-and-trade, card check, and immigration reform left unfulfilled, what’s to stop Speaker Pelosi and Leader Reid from using the lame-duck session to pass the remaining parts of their agenda that their so-called moderates are currently too jittery to support?…

Not much – in a more rational time, we could rely upon good sense, good manners and a sense of patriotism to prevent a lame duck Congress from enacting an agenda just rejected at the polls. Trouble is that our Democrats have no sense, no manners and a highly atrophied sense of patriotism. Quite honestly, all that stands between us and a lame duck revolution are those Democrat Senators up for re-election in 2012 and already starting to look over their shoulders.

But Democrats will do such a thing at their extreme peril. The American people have a highly developed sense of fair play – indeed, it is some times a bit over-developed and leads to giving a someone a break who really doesn’t deserve it. But that is ok – if we are to err, then better to do so on the side of mercy and generosity. But the flip side of this is a white hot anger when someone really takes advantage of a generous heart.

There is a revolutionary ferment in America today – people are furious with a corrupt and out of touch Ruling Class. This looks as though it will strongly advantage Republicans in November. Not so much because everyone has falling back in love with the GOP (far from it), but that there is at least a perception that the GOP has learned some lessons and, at any rate, they aren’t the guys screwing things up at the moment. If the American people troop to the polls and return a GOP majority – or even just a strong GOP minority – then the expectation on the part of the people will be a strong modification in the course being pursued. If Democrats try to ram through the agenda which has failed, then a revolutionary ferment will explode in to revolutionary demands.

And it would not quiet down. It would not abate and become a non-issue by 2012. It would just mount higher and higher – at the end of the road for the use of a Lame Duck is the Democrat party being a dead duck. We’ll see what happens – but let no Democrat say they weren’t warned.

Mish points out just how out of whack the experts are getting – a whole pack of them predicted durable goods orders to rise:

Individual Forecasts 1.5 Percent or Greater

* Barclays Capital +1.5%

* BNP Paribas +4.0%

* Citi +1.6%

* Desjardins Group +2.0%

* High Frequency Economics +2.0%

* J.P. Morgan Chase +1.7%

* Janney Montgomery Scott +3.2%

* Landesbank Berlin +2.8%

* Nomura Securities Intl. +3.0%

* PineBridge Investments +2.5%

* Raymond James +2.0%

* RBC Capital Markets +2.3%

* Ried, Thunberg & Co. +1.5%

* Thomson Reuters/IFR +2.9%

* Wrightson Associates +1.5%

I’m sure that even the most financially uninstructed recognize a lot of those names – JP Morgan, Barclays, Citi. These aren’t just odd analysts out there no one listens to. This is the cream of the crop – the people who are supposedly really tuned in to what is going on. On the advice of such people, literally hundreds of billions of dollars will move this way or that.

And, so, what actually happened?

New Orders

New orders for manufactured durable goods in June decreased $2.0 billion or 1.0 percent to $190.5 billion, the U.S. Census Bureau announced today. This was the second consecutive monthly decrease and followed a 0.8 percent May decrease…

This is not just being a bit off. This isn’t predicting a 1.5% increase and having it come in at 1.3%. This is black and white – this is people who, for whatever reason, haven’t the foggiest notion of what is going on out there. Anyone who listened to the experts and acted accordingly got burned. You literally would have been better off just automatically doing the opposite of whatever they said.

It is my opinion that the elite of our economy are entirely out to sea – they were raised on fake money, usurious interest rates and Keynesian economic theory. Now that its all come a cropper, they simply don’t know what to do. They plug their data in to their Keynesian models and its supposed to come out This Way, but then it comes out That Way, instead. They are flabbergasted – FDR cured the Great Depression using the same policies as Obama and the Fed. Why isn’t it working?

I don’t think any of them will ever figure it out – that a line of economic nonsense was propagated for decades and no one really checked in to it (except a few stalwart followers of Hayek, who are now being vindicated all to heck and gone). What they’ll keep doing is just more of the same – there are rumors of another large “quantative easing” in the works. That is elite-speak for “fire up the printing presses, Benny, we need to have government take more lousy assets off our hands!”. If Democrats thought they could get away with it, they’d pass another trillion dollar stimulus bill. They aren’t stuck in a rut – they are shacked to an economic corpse.

Only a complete overturn of the Powers That Be offers a chance to change course and get us on track to real economic revival. Keep these clowns in power, and they’ll bankrupt us completely and still never figure out what went wrong.

No doubt about it, we’re in a fix as far as housing goes. While some short sighted analysts are pumping up recent data alleging a growth in home sales, the fact of the matter is that in raw numbers of houses sold, we’re clearly in a housing Depression. Prices continue to drop, foreclosures continue at a rapid pace, and the incidence of strategic default (ie, people walking away from homes they can afford because the market value is so much less than the mortgage balance) continue to rise. Rosy housing scenarios have us maintaining prices right about where they are now, but I fully expect major reductions in home prices unless we some how change the dynamics of the market.

Here is the terrible scenario – we’re already in the dumpster on home prices and as this dumpster spreads, it pushes more and more people “underwater” on their mortgages, thus stressing their willingness to keep up consumption and/or making them more likely to just walk away from their homes…

Read the rest over at Noonan for Nevada.

Tfmo is doing his latest installment – click and listen.

A few quotes:

“This fight is far from over. In fact, it is just the beginning, and at the end of what is certain to be a long legal struggle, Arizona will prevail in its right to protect our citizens.”

– Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer in her official statement to the press…

…”We are deeply disappointed in the court’s ruling today and disagree with the court’s opinion that the Arizona’s law will unduly ‘burden’ the enforcement of federal immigration law. Instead of wasting taxpayer resources filing a lawsuit against Arizona and complaining that the law would be burdensome, the Obama Administration should have focused its efforts on working with Congress to provide the necessary resources to support the state in its efforts to act where the Federal government has failed to take responsibility.”

– Joint Statement by U.S. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz…

…”Today’s ruling does not strike down SB1070. Her ruling only puts a hold on a few parts of the new law. That’s why her actions today are called a preliminary injunction. Those who are here in this state illegally, my deputies will still ask about their status in this country and will arrest on existing state and federal immigration violations. State violators will be booked into my jail and federal violators will be turned over to authorities.”

– Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio

It is just mind-numbingly stupid to strike down this law – it is the merest enforcement of already existing federal law. Federal law, by the way, which the Obama Administration is refusing to enforce. I understand the judge was a Clinton appointee – if that is the case, then that is all that need be said; a Democrat ruled the way Democrats desires, law be darned.

This will not stand – in fact, this ruling just makes it more likely that the political will to secure our border will rise to power.

From Gay Patriot:

Last week, I jumped the gun (as did many others) in taking what was a complex story and boiling it down to an video clip without its proper context. I apologized to my readers and to Shirley Sherrod.

I hereby withdraw the apology to Mrs. Sherrod.

As I noted at the time, this was a very complex story and I had a pretty good hunch that Mrs. Sherrod was not the angel she appeared to be. I am correct. She is a picture perfect product of the liberal policies that make African-Americans dependent on the Federal Government and foster a victimization mentality…

He goes on to note Shirley Sherrod’s claim that Breitbart wants to bring back slavery, and Mr. Sherrod’s assertion that we have to stop whites and Uncle Toms from stealing elections.

Discuss.

An interesting proposal:

An anti-immigration group is calling on the Obama administration to ensure a smooth exit for illegal immigrants who are trying to leave the U.S. due to the weak economy and Arizona’s strict new immigration law.

Americans for Legal Immigration PAC (ALIPAC) is urging U.S. citizens to pressure the White House and the Homeland Security Department to establish “safe departure” border checkpoints along the U.S. border for illegal immigrants so they can leave without fear of being detained or prosecuted for immigration crimes…

Makes sense – voluntarily turn yourself in at the border, and out you go with no questions asked. The only problem I can see is if a violent offender on the lam tried to take advantage of such a program. We should have protections against that – but other than violent offenders, anyone who wants to self-deport should be afforded all possible conveniences – we can even help defray travel expenses as that will still be a lot cheaper than either having them stay or arresting them in the interior.

Such a program would probably induce several million to head home. The economy here isn’t in very good shape and its highly likely that illegals have borne a large measure of things such as the home building crash. It might be that a large number are willing to head back home but both lack the means and have the fear of getting tangled up in America’s immigration laws.