Blogs For Victory

From the Wall Street Journal:

Republicans have solidified support among voters who had drifted from the party in recent elections, putting the GOP in position for a strong comeback in November’s mid-term campaign, according to a new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll.

The findings suggest that public opinion has hardened in advance of the 2010 elections, making it tougher for Democrats to translate their legislative successes, or a tentatively improving U.S. economy, into gains among voters.

Which has been my view for a while now – and the level of Democrat support right is sustained by the allegedly improving US economy. If the wheels come off the economic cart before November, then all bets are off.

But let us assume that Obama, Timmy and Ben keep the economic ball in the air until at least November 3rd – the year still bodes very ill for Democrats. This is because while the economy and unemployment are playing a large role, the fervor in the center and the right is being driven by disgust with government as an entity.

My bet is that the “victory” of ObamaCare will be seen in hindsight as the undoing of the coalition which elected Obama and the Democrats in 2008. Such depths upon depths of political skullduggery are not often seen – and have engendered a feeling of revulsion among the center and right electorate without any compensating enthusiasm on the left.

I can’t see any way for Democrats to avoid serious losses in November. I make no prediction as to number of seats to change hands, but November 2nd will be a rough night for Democrats.

Libya to be a watch dog for human rights:

On Wednesday, the General Assembly elected 14 members to its top human-rights body, the U.N. Human Rights Council. U.N. human-rights policymakers now include Libya, Angola, Malaysia, Qatar, and Uganda. On a secret ballot, a whopping 155 countries, or 80 percent of U.N. members, thought Libya would be a great addition.

Obama’s diplomats, sitting in the General Assembly Hall throughout the election, made no attempt to prevent the farce or even to object. On the contrary, Ambassador Susan Rice left the hall before the results were announced in order to hightail it to the microphone. Attempting to spin what was a foregone conclusion, she refused to divulge those states which the U.S. supported. When pressed, she said only that the Obama administration regretted some states on the ballot, but “I am not going to name names. I don’t think that it’s particularly constructive at this point.”

Which is true, but not in the way Rice meant – its not constructive to take exception to this UN action because taking any note, at all, of the UN is not constructive.

In reality, the United Nations hampers the defense of liberty and helps tyrants to rivet even more chains on their people. As in all liberal activities, the UN works out doing the exact opposite of what was intended. It is not something we can fix – the UN, as the UN, will just get worse like this as time goes on.

The reason for this is the fundamental flaw of the UN. The UN is made up of representatives of governments, not representatives of people. The Libyan ambassador won’t represent the people of Libya on the human rights panel – he’ll represent the tyrannical regime which governs Libya. And as such a representative, it will be his main concern to prevent any actions which advance the cause of human freedom – or, indeed, human decency.

A rational international organization would not have a concern about a government like Libya’s getting on the human rights panel because a government like Libya’s would not be a member. No tyrannical regime can gather in congress with non-tyrannical regimes and do anything other than defeat the purpose of the gathering. It is in the nature of things – tyrants are anti-human, and thus are incapable of doing good things for humanity.

We need a President who will recognize the worthlessness of the UN and get us out and kick it out of the United States. Then we can get together with other free peoples and start a new organization which would advance the cause of human freedom.

The news:

Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr., who has been critical of Arizona’s new immigration law, said Thursday he hasn’t yet read the law and is going by what he’s read in newspapers or seen on television.

Nothing more need be said about how cretinous the opponents of the law are: they don’t even know what they’re opposing.

That stolen War Memorial Cross in the Mojave Desert – seems there may be a definite political point to it.

Richard Nixon’s grandson seeks elective office. Meanwhile, Jimmy Carter’s grandson obtains elective office. In a lot of ways, lets hope the acorn has fallen far from the tree.

Los Angeles boycotts Arizona. I’m going to boycott Los Angeles. Hope everyone else will, too – and I was actually planning on going out there soon. Not a chance I will, now – until this idiotic ordinance is repealed, not another dime for Los Angeles.

April 2010 deficit four times higher than April 2009 deficit. And keep in mind that most of the time, the government runs a surplus in April. Meaning: there is no recovery. Not even slightly. If there were, revenues would at least be stable. We’re being sold a line of fiscal and economic bull by the banksters and bureaucrats – hoping that (a) we’ll go on another debt-induced spending binge (fat chance) and (b) that we’ll forgive Obama and his Democrats by November (fat chance II).

Raquel Welch: Welch opens her column by noting that, after Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger opened America’s first “family-planning clinic” in 1916,” “nothing would be the same again.”…says the former Playboy covergirl: “I’m ashamed to admit that I myself have been married four times, and yet I still feel that it is the cornerstone of civilization, an essential institution that stabilizes society, provides a sanctuary for children and saves us from anarchy. Smart and beautiful is a formidable combination.

Study: Adult stem cells work. Embryonic stem cells don’t. We already know this, of course. Why, then, do some insist upon butchering unborn children for “research”? Because the Culture of Death likes a high body count. No, there is no other reason.

Cool idea from Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA):

Today, we are launching YouCut – a first-of-its-kind project designed to defeat the permissive culture of runaway spending in Congress. It allows YOU to vote, both online and on your cell phone, on spending cuts that you want to see the House – YOUR HOUSE – enact. That’s right, instead of Washington telling YOU how THEY will spend YOUR money, YOU can tell THEM how to save it. After several days of voting, on Monday, May 17th, we will announce the first winner and later that week House Republicans will call for an up-or-down vote on the spending cut. We will repeat this cycle every week for the rest of the year.

You go here to see the menu of possible cuts and cast your vote. I like this. This is a useful tool to engage people in thinking about what can be cut – and allowing what we hope will be much more powerful GOP caucus in January to know where we, the people stand.

As for me, I cast my first vote for eliminating taxpayer subsidized union activities. Public sector unions are bankrupting our States and cities, and I see no reason for them to get a dime of federal money.

Have at it – and lets keep it up week after week.

Now, if we could just get our liberals to be a bit honest and put out a “YouWaste” website so that liberals can vote on what they want money spent on, we’d get a nice contrast for the Fall.

Holy moly.

The United States posted an $82.69 billion deficit in April, nearly four times the $20.91 billion shortfall registered in April 2009 and the largest on record for that month, the Treasury Department said on Wednesday.

It was more than twice the $40-billion deficit that Wall Street economists surveyed by Reuters had forecast and was striking since April marks the filing deadline for individual income taxes that are the main source of government revenue.

Department officials said that in prior years, there was a surplus during April in 43 out of the past 56 years.

The government has now posted 19 consecutive monthly budget deficits, the longest string of shortfalls on record.

This is hardly a record to be proud of. You know, Republicans were booted out of power in 2006 in part because Democrats attacked their high spending. Here we are today, and Democrats have made the Republicans’ spending look frugal.

Sorry libs, you can’t blame Bush for this. This is the Democrats doing… Obama is the drunkest of drunken sailors.

From NRO’s The Corner:

No one else seems to have noticed yet, but Alan Mollohan (D., W. Va.), who twice voted no on a federal marriage amendment and earned a 63 percent approval rating from Human Rights Campaign, was just ousted by a man (Michael Oliverio) who strongly endorses “traditional” marriage.

Conservatism is surging, it would seem – even in some quarters of the Democrat party.

People are furious with government – tired, that is, of government officials routinely ignoring the clearly expressed, popular will. Mollohan fell afoul of this. So did Bennett in Utah – I’ll bet that Specter does in Pennsylvania, and its 50/50 that McCain will survive his challenge in Arizona.

Throw away all the books about politics – get ready for a very wild ride in 2010.

The news:

The Republican National Committee’s Site Selection Committee is recommending the party hold its presidential nominating convention in Tampa-St.Petersburg in 2012, the RNC announced this afternoon.

Tampa beat out Phoenix and Salt Lake City for the event. Minneapolis-St. Paul hosted the 2008 event.

I was hoping for Phoenix just to really stick it to the left – but Tampa will be fine because we’re going to mop the floor with Obama in that State in 2012.

Illinois, destroyed:

Illinois lawmakers were in disarray Thursday as they groped for stopgap measures to address a $13 billion deficit equaling nearly half of the state’s general-fund revenue.

The state faces one of the nation’s worst budget crises, spilled over in part from the broader national economic crunch, and its current bond ratings lag only California’s. But the confusion in the legislature indicates that serious steps to fix state finances won’t be taken until after the November elections—if then…

…Any hopes that the national economic recovery would help the budget discussions were dashed this week when Illinois disclosed that revenue for April —when most citizens pay taxes—fell more than 15% from the same month a year ago, or $501 million, in part because of a $345 million drop in federal aid. Gross personal income-tax receipts, a major revenue source, dropped $103 million, or 8.1%.

And that last bit, by the way, puts to rest any notion that we are in a recovery. If we were recovering, then State tax revenues would at least be stabilizing, but they are still falling. They might not be falling as precipitously as they were last year, but they are still falling. Which means that less people are working; working people are earning less; people are spending less…the economy is contracting.

Illinois – like California, New York and New Jersey – just illustrate in the most stark terms where liberalism brings you: to bankruptcy. Liberals have just spent and spent and when revenues didn’t keep up with political promises, they borrowed. And now the bill has come due – and there simply isn’t enough money to pay for liberalism.

Naturally, liberals are refusing to face reality. New Jersey has proven lucky in getting Chris Christie as governor – the governor has the power (and Christie has the guts) to do do what is necessary to bring things under control. Elsewhere, it will actually take the votes of liberals to undue the damage of liberalism. And so it isn’t happening – as you can see, in Illinois they are just trying to find some sort of stop gap to keep things going for a little while…until after the elections, when either the GOP will be saddled with the problem, or re-elected Democrats will feel safe in hammering the Illinois taxpayer.

The States are in acute crisis because they can’t print money. The United States appears to be a going financial concern because the Federal Reserve can print money – and by printing a couple trillion over the past year, the Federal Reserve has made it seem like a recovery is ongoing. But, it isn’t – and, in fact, all the fake money has just made things worse (we’ve taken the bad debts of stupid bankers and turned them in to the bad debts of an electorate which elected Obama). But even with the magic of Federal Reserve, there is a limit – and we’re very fast approaching it (maybe by as soon as 2013).

We hit that wall, and complete collapse will greet us, just as it is greeting the great State of Illinois – not enough money to pay all the promises. We can still avert if, if we elect a Republican Congress in November – but it will be a close run thing. We might not have enough time to avert the worst sort of crash (there will be a crash – what remains to be determined is how bad it will be).

HAT TIP: Mish’s

The news:

To hear mainstream media outlets like the Associated Press and Washington Post tell the story, Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan once urged President Bill Clinton to back a ban on partial-birth or late-term abortions. The take from the stories is that Kagan’s rock solid pro-abortion views aren’t that strong.

Nothing could be further from the truth…

As it turned out, what Kagan had advised was for Clinton to back the Daschle bill on late-term abortions – an alternative which the pro-abortion groups were trying to slip through. It would have “banned” late term abortions except where the “health” of the mother was concerned. With “health” being undefined (and, indeed, undefinable) it wouldn’t have banned a single late-term abortion. Kagan was just trying to find a means for Clinton to please both sides while still advancing a radical, pro-abortion agenda.

Ultimately, this just indicates what was already suspected: that Kagan is a pro-abortion fanatic and that is the prime reason she was selected by Obama. Abortion is the be-all and end-all of existence on the left – it doesn’t matter if Kagan eventually comes down in favor of gun rights, free speech or a host of other issues…as long as she’s safe on abortion, that is all the left cares about. Given this, the one thing everyone involved would make sure of is that no matter what case comes before the Court, Kagan will vote in favor of abortion.

Which, of course, doesn’t change the complexion of the Court, at all. Justice Stevens has proven to be a pro-abortion fanatic, and he’s to be replaced by same. But don’t let anyone try to sell you on the notion that Kagan is other than what she is – an ultra-leftist, judicial activist.