Blogs For Victory

You can read the sad tale – and view the alarming chart – over at The Daily Reckoning.

This is what tax and spend liberalism has brought us – mountains of new debt to exacerbate the problem of the debt we already had. When are we supposed to pay this back?

I don’t know what they’re thinking in DC – that the economy will actually turn around and give us 6 or 8% growth necessary to service the debt; that we’ll head in to hyper-inflation thus making the debt moot (and wiping out the middle class); or do they just not care? I think its the latter more than anything else – our leaders have tunnel vision and the only thing I see them caring about is this November. Democrats want to limit their losses – so they’re doing everything they can to puff things up until over the vote is taken.

A cynic would want the GOP to lose right now – a massive crisis is heading our way and if we win in November, we’ll bear responsibility for fixing it. On the other hand, the fate of our nation is too vital for such thinking – even if the painful cure costs us in 2012 and beyond, we should still work for smashing victory in 2010 so that we can save our nation.

It just infuriates me, though, to think about this grand nation – this nation of Washington and Lincoln – should be governed by the liked of Obama, Pelosi and Reid…and be governed by people so lacking in sense and public spirit. We will have our financial day of reckoning – that is for all of us. But we must also have that day of reckoning with the liberalism which has driven us up on the rocks.

Belated, but still interesting:

Ha’aretz has revived the mystery surrounding the inability to find weapons of mass destruction stockpiles in Iraq, the most commonly cited justification for Operation Iraqi Freedom and one of the most embarrassing episodes for the United States. Satellite photos of a suspicious site in Syria are providing new support for the reporting of a Syrian journalist who briefly rocked the world with his reporting that Iraq’s WMD had been sent to three sites in Syria just before the invasion commenced.

The newspaper reveals that a 200 square-kilometer area in northwestern Syria has been photographed by satellites at the request of a Western intelligence agency at least 16 times, the most recent being taken in January. The site is near Masyaf, and it has at least five installations and hidden paths leading underneath the mountains. This supports the reporting of Nizar Nayouf, an award-winning Syrian journalist who said in 2004 that his sources confirmed that Saddam Hussein’s WMDs were in Syria.

One of the three specific sites he mentioned was an underground base underneath Al-Baida, which is one kilometer south of Masyaf. This is a perfect match. The suspicious features in the photos and the fact that a Western intelligence agency is so interested in the site support Nayouf’s reporting…

Intelligence agencies can get things wrong – very much so. But they don’t usually report something as being there which doesn’t exist, at all. Every intelligence agency in the world pre-liberation was convinced that Saddam had at least partially reconstituted his WMD program – we get there and find nothing conclusive (but even the inconclusive stuff was a strong indicator that his regime was up to no good). Did we and everyone else just get it flat wrong, or did the WMDs go somewhere?

If I’m ever asked about what I think were Bush Administration mistakes, the one I’ll refer to is the fact that we waited until March of 2003 before going in to Iraq. We should have gone in there a year earlier. By August of 2002, at the latest. We did the whole UN/WMD dance for political purposes – mostly to help Blair build the case for British involvement. All the delay did was allow Saddam’s forces to prepare the insurgency as well as, I’ll bet, allowing the Russians (and, possibly, the French) to move out Saddam’s WMDs.

Speed is the most vital thing in war, and this should remind us that if we’re ever going to fight, get in to the middle of it as fast as its physically possible to do so. Delay always and only plays in to enemy hands – we build our military to be instantly ready to go with overwhelming force even when not by-the-book fully up to snuff (in a fully ready unit there is a lot of redundancy “just in case”, as it were). We delayed and that not only cost us lives, but also allowed the circumstances to develop where the anti-American left, seconded by Democrats, to undermine the entire war effort.

Lesson learned – but, also, we now do have to be concerned. If Saddam’s WMDs did wind up in Syria, will they one day wind up in rockets in Lebanon aimed as Israel? In terrorist bombs for New York? We need to find out, for certain.

Interesting bit of news from the G-20:

Finance ministers from the world’s leading economies ripped up their support for fiscal stimulus on Saturday, recognising that financial market concerns over sovereign debt had forced a much greater focus on deficit reduction.

The meeting of the Group of 20 finance ministers and central bank governors in Busan, South Korea, also dropped proposals for a global banking levy, instead giving countries leeway to do what they thought best for their domestic circumstances…

The harsh reality is that Europe is bankrupt – any attempt to “stimulus” their way out of what is rapidly shaping up as a “double dip” recession will be severely punished in global financial markets. They don’t want to do it and they’ll fudge the numbers as much as they can, but the governments of Europe know that financial sanity is a requirement.

This will spread to the United States, China and Japan as our fiscal chickens come home to roost – though when, exactly, this will happen is unknown. For us, we might not be able to get a handle on it as long as Obama is President – he seems utterly clueless about what is happening and is entirely enthralled to the banksters who want to keep the money flowing…at least until they’ve got all their personal assets out of the way and safe from the crash.

As Mish points out, the end of “stimulus” will be used by the left as the reason for the end of the so-called “recovery”. If only we’d kept spending, all would have been well. Such stupidity is just par for the course from the left and should be calmly ignored – if we don’t balance our budget by 2015, at the latest, there will be a very high price to pay.

Yep, just a bunch of humanitarian activists trying to help:

“Go back to Auschwitz” as 2:07 in the audio…and with the Turks suggesting the need for a “Final Solution”.

You want to be on the side of these “humanitarians”, liberals?

Today is the anniversary of D-Day – take a moment to remember those men set aside their own lives in order to liberate a continent from a monstrous tyrant.

The story of the Longest Day.

Its a State so liberal that a proven liar leads in the polls simply because he’s a Democrat. Its a State so liberal that it went for Obama by 22 points over McCain. Its a State so liberal that Democrats outnumber Republicans by 114-37 in the House and 24-12 in the Senate. Its a liberal State, boys and girls – and it just got its bond rating downgraded:

Connecticut is preparing to borrow $956 million to close a budget gap in the fiscal year beginning July 1, after borrowing money last year to cover a deficit of $947.6 million. Not good. Fitch has reduced the states credit rating from AA+ to AA.

“The downgrade reflects the state’s reduced financial flexibility, illustrated by its reliance on sizable debt issuances during the current biennium to close operating gaps in the context of already high liabilities,” Fitch said.

Connecticut is the wealthiest state on a per capita basis with personal income of $54,397 in 2009, according to Department of Commerce.

The richest State in the nation is bankrupt – thanks to liberalism. Why? Well, it could be because they have an African-American Affairs Commission, Blue Ribbon Commission on Housing and Economic Development, Office of the Child Advocate, Department of Children and Families, Commission on Children, Children’s Trust Fund (none of which, of course, can be combined in to one agency), Office of the Consumer Council, Department of Consumer Protection, Office of Protection and Advocacy for Persons with Disabilities, Board of Firearms Permit Examiners, Office of Health Care Access, Office of the Health Care Advocate, Commission on Human Rights and Opportunities, Commission on Latino and Puerto Rican Affairs, Military Department, Office of Military Affairs (these in addition to the department looking after Connecticut’s National Guard), Permanent Commission on the Status of Women, Racial and Ethnic Disparity Commission in the Criminal Justice System….and on and on and on.

All of that has to be staffed – naturally with very well paid union workers who’s dues are used to perpetuate the government which keeps the money flowing. But now Connecticut is broke – only massive cuts can save them and so what do they do? Just borrow more money – can’t contemplate any cuts, at all.

The liberal nightmare continues.

Back on July 25th, 2009, I had this to say:

As I’ve said for some time now, we need what amounts to a bankruptcy reorganization of our national housing market. It will take some primo number crunchers to work it out, but mortgage amounts – by zip code – will have to be reduced to match current market values, and then the loans re-worked based upon the current value of the house. Its a lose/lose situation for everyone (for instance, I’d lose the approximately $130,000 I’ve paid for this house to date, the bank would lose a great deal of future interest as my mortgage amount would have to drop by 50% or so to bring it in line with current market values). Its lousy, but I can’t think of any way to really get us out of this mess – we have so many millions of houses “upside down” in relation of loan balance to house value that the temptation will become massive for people in that situation to just walk away…in which case, the banks would get even less than they’d get with a “cram down” on existing loans.

And now there’s this report:

…BofA’s credit loss mitigation executive, Jack Schakett, said the amount of strategic defaulters (those who can pay their loans but opt not to) are “more than we have ever experienced before.” He went on to say, “there is a huge incentive for customers to walk away because getting free rent and waiting out foreclosure can be very appealing to customers.”

Schakett says the foreclosure process is still taking 13 to 14 months (and by my estimates that’s an optimistic assessment), and so there’s over a year of free rent. While the banks are trying to improve the time, they’re just not there yet.

31 percent of foreclosures in March were deemed to be “strategic default” by researchers at University of Chicago and Northwestern University.

That’s up from 22 percent in March of 2009.

Business is business, folks. I know that some people are still following the bankster’s meme on this and calling such defaults “deadbeats”, but the fact of the matter is that a bank will default in a heartbeat if that is the most logical business decision to make. When you are in a financial jam, you add up the numbers, figure out what will hurt you least, and then do it.

There are also those who think that a person should still pay even on a massively “underwater” house because the price will eventually come back. Even supposing it will, I calculated that it would be approximately 2038 before my house came back to purchase price. Anyone with a calculator can do the same thing – and I’m sure a lot of people are. But, the prices won’t come back – not ever. There simply aren’t enough people in the rising generation to create the demand necessary for substantial price increases – unless we manage to get ourselves in to hyperinflation (which, of course, would only change the nominal rather than the real price of the house).

Cramming down people’s mortgage amounts will be a difficult business, but it still commends itself to me as the best means of curing the housing industry. Everyone would lose – but, also, everyone would gain. Houses would be priced to reality, they would be affordable and people would no longer view their houses as piggy banks from which to withdraw vacation cruises and other such nonsense.

Or, we can just continue on as we are and have massive increases in defaults which will cram down the prices the hard way. Its our choice.

Dropping Meeks for Crist in Florida – because they know a spineless political hack like Crist will vote as he’s told…and, for Democrats, that is all that matters – from the New York Post:

Top Democratic strategists are abandoning their party’s frontrunner in the Florida Senate race in favor of Independent Charlie Crist, who bolted the Republican party over the state party’s rightward lurch toward the Tea Party.

SKDKnickerbocker, a leading Democratic political strategy and communications firm, has agreed to work on Crist’s up-hill campaign as an independent for the U.S. Senate.

The decision will be widely viewed as a slap at Democratic frontrunner Rep. Kendrick Meek, who is trailing badly in the polls and many Democrats believe is hopeless for winning in November.

Do any of you Democrats out there have the guts to stand up and say “no” to this? This is what the Democrat party has become – a corrupt and hidebound organization only interested in power and the wealth it brings.

Disgusting, that is all it is.

Wikipedia has a good account of the battle. Its good for us to pause and remember – and especially so for our battles of the Pacific War, most of which seem to have dropped out of the public mind.

Midway is especially worth remembering because it was a fight against long odds and we won it. Outnumbered and facing a much better trained and experienced force, the US Navy met the Japanese fleet toe to toe and administered a crushing defeat. Before Midway, there was no limit to Japanese conquest in the Pacific – after Midway, it was only a matter of time before Japan was beaten.

Had the battle gone the other way, Hawaii would have been open to invasion and the US west coast naked to raids and other destruction. It would have added years to the war, at the very least, and might have eventually forced a negotiated peace leaving Japan in control of a mighty empire.

So, remember those brave men – especially the hundreds of Navy pilots, some of them flying hopelessly obsolete aircraft thanks to pre-War idiocy about military spending, who threw themselves upon the Japanese fleet with no thought for their own safety.