Blogs For Victory

A worrying development:

n a trend that will drive both the Fed and the administration crazy if it lasts too much longer, weekly unemployment claims are moving in the wrong direction.

Please consider the Unemployment Insurance Weekly Claims Report.

In the week ending Jan. 23, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 470,000, a decrease of 8,000 from the previous week’s revised figure of 478,000. The 4-week moving average was 456,250, an increase of 9,500 from the previous week’s revised average of 446,750.

It has been and remains my contention that all of the “stimulus” was just so much nonsense – you can’t print up a trillion dollars, have the Fed buy bonds with it and expect to have the growth in wealth required for their to be an actual increase in employment. We’re just spinning our wheels and the only people gaining right now are the very people who brought on the problem – corrupt bankers and their kept politicians.

Until we start creating wealth we won’t get anywhere – and the only way we can create wealth is to take the burden off wealth creation. We need massive tax and spending cuts and large amounts of regulatory easing in order to get the ball rolling. Obama won’t do this because he is incapable of understanding how wealth is created – we’ll be wallowing in this morass for some time to come.

This is getting really rather exciting:

One more Democratic senator who has long been regarded as a safe prospect for reelection may be facing a challenging year in 2010.

A new Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of likely voters in Wisconsin finds Republican Tommy Thompson edging incumbent Russ Feingold 47% to 43% in a hypothetical U.S. Senate match-up. Five percent (5%) like some other candidate, and four percent (4%) are undecided.

Any incumbent who attracts less than 50% support at this point in a campaign is considered potentially vulnerable.

We must take nothing for granted – and that means, in 2010, not thinking that any seat is impossible. I was talking it over with a friend the other day regarding the Republican challenger to Nancy Pelosi – of course there is no chance. Come on! Its San Francisco! But, then again…

Our job, as conservatives and Republicans, is to fight it out everywhere – spread the field and tap in to voter anger about the corruption and incompetence of government. We do that, and we can have an astounding year.

UPDATE: The growing rumors of a Hillary Clinton primary challenge in 2012. Me: I don’t think it will happen because the Democrat powers-that-be know that if by some chance Hillary did knock Obama out in the primary, the African-American vote would be greatly reduced in November, ensuring not only a Democrat White House loss, but a complete collapse in the Democrat House and State legislative seats. Still, the rumor is there…

Seems that Jonah Goldberg’s book – two years after publication – is gaining traction and, thus, starting to take a lot of flack. Read here for more.

My view: Goldberg gets it exactly right. This is especially true in light of my own assertion that all non-conservative views ultimately stem from the same, flawed source. Liberalism, as I’ve said, rests upon the falsehood that Man is perfectible by men. That our problems stem not from our fallen nature, but from the unjust systems and that if we can just change the system, we’ll change ourselves. Heaven on earth will result.

From that initial folly has stemmed all the rest – and thus liberalism, socialism, communism, fascism and Nazism are branches of the same, poisoned tree. Of course, to point any of this out – especially in a best-selling book – is to irk the liberals to no end. They insist that things like Nazism and fascism have nothing to do with liberalism – in spite of the obviousness of the relationship.

I think – for justice and for the sheer fun of it – that once we gain a commanding majority in the Senate, we should void the censure of Joe McCarthy (arguably liberal fascism’s most prominent American victim) and have him set up with a Presidential Medal of Freedom. It’ll get the dogs off Goldberg and provide us hours of entertainment.

I didn’t plan to watch. But I did… I felt dirty afterwards. It was so partisan, full of lies… This guy is such a narcissist. He still is trying to convince people he saved jobs when we’ve lost millions and the unemployment rate is in double digits.

I really can’t say more now… I am still so disturbed by Obama’s lack of respect for the office of the presidency.

UPDATE, by Mark Noonan: Anyone who wants an alternative to Obama’s blather can do no better than Governor McDonnell’s response:

The circumstances of our time demand that we reconsider and restore the proper, limited role of government at every level.

Without reform, the excessive growth of government threatens our very liberty and prosperity.

In recent months, the American people have made clear that they want government leaders to listen and act on the issues most important to them.

We want results, not rhetoric. We want cooperation, not partisanship.

There is much common ground.

All Americans agree, we need a health care system that is affordable, accessible, and high quality.

But most Americans do not want to turn over the best medical care system in the world to the federal government…

UPDATE II, by Mark Noonan: Uh, Barry, you shouldn’t be ripping the Supreme Court during a SOTU speech while they’re all sitting there – ’cause now you got another “you lie” moment.

UPDATE III, by Mark Noonan: If you’d like to see how a good President does it.

Along comes proof that a liberal Democrat always has another step lower to go:

…When Elizabeth (Edwards) learned in March 2007 that her breast cancer had returned, it became part of the couple’s political calculations in his presidential run, according to Edwards’ former aide Andrew Young who has written a tell-all book “The Politician.” The book will be released Jan. 30.

“Once Elizabeth was diagnosed with cancer … within 12 hours they were openly talking about how her cancer prognosis was going to help them in the polls,” Young told ABC News’ Bob Woodruff in an exclusive interview.

In a statement to ABC News, Elizabeth denied the accusation, calling it “unconscionable, hurtful and patently false.”

Though the cancer had spread to her bones and was incurable, the couple made the dramatic decision to stay in the 2008 presidential campaign.

“The things that were most disturbing about the Edwards to me in these later years, was that nothing was sacred. They openly talked about [their son] Wade’s death as one of their motivators for running and why he ran… They used [their children] Jack and Emma openly as campaign props,” Young said.

Just as you can’t get blood out of a turnip, you can’t get integrity out of trial lawyers. This was the left’s hero until Obama came along – and let us now be a bit thankful for Obama. It would have been a very dark night for America if Edwards was President.

Which, for those of you who are not Catholic, is a recognition that Pelosi has excommunicated herself from the Church – and do note that: its not her being excommunicated, but an acknowledgment of her self-excommunication:

Speaking with LifeSiteNews.com (LSN) after the Vigil for Life Mass last week, Lexington Bishop Ronald Gainer said that the Church has been “patient enough” with outspokenly pro-abortion Catholic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

LSN questioned Bishop Gainer on whether Pelosi should be denied communion due to her public stance as a ‘pro-choice’ Catholic. While acknowledging that it was up to her local bishop, the Lexington prelate did say that “something should be done.”

Pelosi’s latest salvo claiming to support abortion and yet be a faithful Catholic came in a December Newsweek interview. “I am a practicing Catholic,” she said, while suggesting that this made the U.S. bishops uncomfortable. “I practically mourn this difference of opinion,” she said regarding her conflict with the Church over abortion, “because I feel what I was raised to believe is consistent with what I profess, and that is that we are all endowed with, a free will and a responsibility to answer for our actions.” She added: “And that women should have that opportunity to exercise their free will.”

Reacting to Pelosi’s stance, Bishop Gainer said, “to make these public statements is a betrayal of our Catholic faith and discipline.” The bishop noted that her position was a “contradiction” and stressed that “our Church is clear on what the teachings are regarding the sanctity of life, on the inviolability of human life.”

On the question of denying Pelosi communion for her betrayals, Bishop Gainer said he understood that such actions on the part of the Church are often spun to make a martyr of those denied communion, by falsely painting the Church as being heavy-handed.

Nevertheless, he said, “the bishops have an obligation to stand up for the Church’s teaching and when we have such a broad and public consistent denial of our Church’s moral position it would seem to indicate that we’ve been patient enough and something should be done.”

Everyone should also note that it is, indeed, up to Pelosi’s Bishop to make the call – it must be understood that in spite of what critics believe, the Catholic Church is neither monolithic nor dictatorial. The reason it is left up to the local Bishop in these matters is because it is felt – correctly – that the man on the ground (as it were) will have the best understanding of the totality of the issue. The weakness of the system, of course, is that we some times get Bishops who are unwilling to challenge people who persistently violate Church teaching and yet claim to be Catholic.

If Pelosi is ever denied communion by her Bishop it will, naturally, be spun as her being persecuted by a hidebound Church – but the reality is that just as one doesn’t really get damned by God, one doesn’t really get excommunicated by the Church. Its all in the personal choice – people decide to refuse salvation, people decide to reject the Church. All that anyone else does is recognize the choice having been made.

Pelosi is perfectly free to believe as she wishes – but to be a Catholic requires acceptance of certain, basic beliefs. Its not hard – we are pro-life. From conception until natural death, no one has just cause for taking an innocent life…and even a guilty life should only be taken at extreme need. Pelosi is flat wrong when she claims her views are consistent with Church teaching – and she’s either a bald faced liar, or a complete fool for making such a claim.

We all have our choices to make in life – Pelosi has made hers. We should recognize it.

UPDATE: Pro-lifers massively outnumber pro-abortion people in San Francisco demonstration. Come on, liberals, you can do this – you can reject abortion. I promise that if you do so you can still be in favor of massive spending and you may even continue to think of President Bush as Chimpy McSmirk BusHitler…you’ll only be giving up despair and death.

What will Obama say tonight? Shall we have a pool on just how many lies Obama will tell? How many times Democrats will pop up like robots to applaud his liberal lines?

Discuss this and anything else under the sun.

This will give liberals fits:

This really should have been released last week, which was of course the best news week evah, but we’ll take it.

Our newest survey looking at perceptions of ABC News, CBS News, CNN, Fox News, and NBC News finds Fox as the only one that more people say they trust than distrust. 49% say they trust it to 37% who do not.

CNN does next best at a 39/41 spread, followed by NBC at 35/44, CBS at 32/46, and ABC at 31/46.

The survey goes on to note how liberals, naturally, trust the old media more than they do Fox, and vice versa for conservatives. We’ve got two Americas, all right – and they are not even on speaking terms, at the moment.

This problem would be solved if the old media would just admit to their liberal bias and spice up the day with a few more conservative shows – Fox would probably follow suit with some more liberal-minded shows and we’d all benefit from having not only different points of view, but having those views available to us in a format we like.

Unfortunately, the old media is still wedded to the idea that they are unbiased (while the far left is still convinced that outside of Olberman, the entire media is right wing). The members of the old media like to think back to Murrow and they want to pretend that they are just tribunes of the truth – that Murrow, himself, was a liberal hack doesn’t seem to occur to them.

For now, this just means the old media will continue to weaken – eventually the stock holders will demand profits and we might see some changes.

Against Ellie Light

And never was a President more deserving of a ripping:

Sen. John McCain (R., Ariz.) tells National Review Online that the spending freeze is a “long, long way from the medicine we need to cure our government’s addiction.” A day before President Obama’s maiden State of the Union address, McCain also says that he is disappointed with the president’s recent mea culpa to Diane Sawyer.

“I was flabbergasted by that interview,” says McCain. “Instead of that, what I’d like to see tomorrow — and won’t — is the president saying that he promised to change the climate in Washington, but hasn’t. That he promised to broadcast health-care negotiations on C-SPAN, but didn’t. And that he promised to sit down with Republicans and work in a bipartisan fashion on issues like the economy, then decided not to. That interview was transparent. He’s looking to avoid any blame.”

“While I’m glad to hear about the freeze, and that he decided to change his position from the campaign trail, it’s only part of the solution,” McCain says. “Anything like this is better than what he’s been doing.”

I know a lot of my fellow conservatives still have a problem with McCain but let’s face some facts here: he would be a much better President than Obama is being. Sure, he’d tick us off by lurching to the left on some things, but we wouldn’t have this amazingly dishonest, hard-left government wrecking America, day by day.

Obama has lied to us again and again and now expects us to believe that his so-called spending freeze is something other than eye wash. The budget is to be frozen at current levels – ie, at the level where we’re bankrupting the nation. Additionally, Obama has given himself all sorts of wiggle room to increase funding on liberal, pet projects. And we can top that off with the concern that Obama is just flat out lying – saying he’ll freeze, when he really has no intention of doing so.

We need not a freeze, but at least a 25%, across-the-board reduction in spending – and if this means that more than half the government employees have to be fired, then that is just what we’ll have to do because we can’t starve the troops nor cut SS benefits to the elderly. But we’ve got a lot of chair polishers who can be shown the door – or they can agree to a 50% reduction in pay, whatever they prefer. Bottom line: we have to stop borrowing. Today.

Unless and until Obama does the right thing, he’ll just be digging us further in the hole and all his populist rhetoric will be just so much nonsense designed to sucker people in to ignoring reality.

UPDATE: While they talk fiscal responsibility, they are set to have deficits which will never be less than $1 trillion over the next ten years.