Blogs For Victory

Steyn picks it out in bold colors:

“Our goal in war,” wrote Basil Liddell Hart, the great strategist of armored warfare, “can only be attained by the subjugation of the opposing will.” In other words, the object of war is not to destroy the enemy’s tanks but the enemy’s will. That goes treble if, like the Taliban and al-Qaeda, he hasn’t got any tanks in the first place. So what do you think Obama’s speech did for the enemy’s will? He basically told ’em: We can only stick another 19 months, so all you gotta do is hang in there for 20. And in an astonishingly vulgar line even by the standards of this White House’s crass speechwriters he justified his announcement of an exit date by saying it was “because the nation that I’m most interested in building is our own.” Or, as Frank Sinatra once observed, “It’s very nice to go trav’ling/But it’s so much nicer . . . to come home”:

“It’s very nice to just wander the camel route to Iraq . . . but it’s so much nicer, yes it’s oh so nice to wander back.”

It is to be hoped that a combination of circumstances will force Obama’s hand and not allow him to precipitously withdraw on his time line if victory isn’t yet secured. If we have a string of successes showing that we’re winning – thus building up public support for continued effort – coupled with a public wariness of a cut-and-run, Obama might not have the political power to scuttle Afghanistan right before the 2012 campaign opens. Ultimately, it will be up to the solders to pull Obama’s chestnuts out of the fire. I have confidence in them.

Much less confidence in Obama – and a great deal of worry that his left wing base, especially if not fed the socialist meat of socialized medicine – might start to insist upon an early withdrawal with the threat of backing a third party if not given the desired defeat of the United States in war. Ultimately, it comes down to this: can the military win the war before the liberals force us to lose it?

Write large:

About 25 percent of borrowers helped under the administration’s massive foreclosure prevention plan have already fallen behind on their new mortgage payments, according to government data that raise new questions about the program’s effectiveness.

The delinquency figures reflect the latest troubles of the program, known as Making Home Affordable. Earlier this week, Treasury officials announced a campaign to put new pressure on lenders to do more to move struggling homeowners into loans with easier terms.

So far, more than 650,000 borrowers have been enrolled into the initial, or “trial,” phase of the program…

Why isn’t it working? Because for someone who loses their job, no modification will work. For someone who is massively “underwater” on their loan, lowering the payment doesn’t change the overall financial picture.

As I’ve been saying for a while, the only way out of this housing mess is to send America’s housing market it to bankruptcy reorganization. Its a big, old poop sandwich and everyone is going to have to take a bite. For those out there of an entirely ungenerous view – those who are employed and not underwater and are insisting that everyone just sink or swim – we can give you some tax breaks, or something, if you need a bribe to just agree to people being helped in a manner which does no immediate harm to you and will help you, in the long run (by sustaining housing at its current value, thus ensuring you don’t lose any of your existing equity).

Some people will have to lose their homes – the assistance, for them, should take the form of helping them to easily go through foreclosure/short sale and in to a rental property. For those who will keep their homes but who are underwater, it should take the form of reducing the principle balance to fair market value – which will be a huge loss to those who have paid for years and will now lose all the money they’ve paid to date; this will also be a hard hit on the banks, but at least everyone will know what the real value of their loan portfolio is, and the fear of a massive, new wave of foreclosures will recede.

My dear, fellow Americans – we borrowed ourselves in to oblivion and in the process massively over-inflated the value of our real assets, most especially our real estate. Its time to suck all the gas out of the bag and start afresh. Or, we can just let things fall apart even more – more people to lose their homes or just walk away from them, more banks going under, more jobs to be lost…its our choice.

Now, if we can just force this inhuman organization out of business:

Last week, InsiderCatholic.com issued a story referring to a Harvard Business School case study which outlined some of Planned Parenthood’s recent financial difficulties. According to Mauricio Roman’s article, Planned Parenthood has recently consolidated its affiliates, pushed for more cost effective procedures such as chemical abortions versus in-clinic abortions, and has tried to increase its sale of emergency contraceptive kits.

The Harvard case study, released in April of 2009, claims that “tough economic times, a hostile political environment” and inability to raise philanthropic dollars are among the reasons for Planned Parenthood’s financial difficulties, despite the fact that the non-profit organization claimed $85 million in profits in 2008.

Part of the reason Planned Parenthood and other pro-abortion groups are pushing hard for federally funded abortion via ObamaCare is because of this increasing financial stress. We must fight hard against putting the abortion industry on the federal dole – and then our continuing actions against the Culture of Death will eventually see such groups consigned to the ash heap of history.

• Weekly Recap (2009-11-28) http://bit.ly/8lZMHG #
• The Six Trillion Dollar Man http://bit.ly/4Vx2t3 #
• Phrase of the Day http://bit.ly/83YQkO #
• British World War Two Veterans Disillusioned With the Britain They Fought For http://bit.ly/6aaxtE #
• The Dog Ate My Climate Change Data http://bit.ly/6RkUZN #
• A Bit of Backbone, If You Please, Mr President http://bit.ly/8drGKI #
• The Result of Engaging Iran’s Mullahs http://bit.ly/5U0yHf #
• Bill Press Wants Fox to Take Beck Off the Air http://bit.ly/51zGDz #
• ICC Makes a Play to Try US Soldiers http://bit.ly/68vea8 #
• New grassroots PAC launches to defeat the Blue Dogs http://bit.ly/tdwhpac. Following @NoBlueDogs. Spread the word! #bluedogs # Continue reading →

When, oh when will the television MSM start to cover Climategate?

For the fourteenth straight day, the three broadcast networks have failed to report on the great and growing ClimateGate scandal on their weekday morning or evening news programs. How to explain this?

Perhaps it is that ABC, NBC and CBS have not yet heard of the story, despite two weeks of non-stop reporting on and discussion of ClimateGate in a whole host of media outlets.

Perhaps the broadcast networks only trust their fellow liberal press outlets, like the New York Times. Perhaps they don’t realize the Times exhibited journalistic diligence on ClimateGate, with a front page story the day the story broke.

In the event that ABC News, NBC News and CBS News missed the news, the Media Research Center (MRC) is today rushing each of them a copy of the Times story, in the hopes that armed with this new information, they will finally report a story that has been roiling nearly everywhere else for a fortnight.

The problem here is likely two-fold:

1. They, naturally, don’t want to embarrass themselves or the leftwing groups they shill for.

2. They have probably got a whole bunch of global warming stories in the can for broadcast during the Gropenhagen conference and don’t want all the gloom and doom stuff to go to waste.

But, seriously, does anyone out there really want to deny the overt, leftist bias of the MSM? I mean, come on – this is the biggest scandal in science since the “Piltdown Man“; and the biggest political scandal since Watergate. There are plenty of money-making scams to be exposed and plenty of politicians who should be forced out of office and/or in to jail over this…and the television media, which lives for just this sort of thing (when a Republican is on the receiving end) is silent! Its like they want Fox and the blogosphere to replace them.

So be it. So we will.

Just amazing:

Democratic Senator Max Baucus nominated his girlfriend to be US Attorney in Montana while they were dating.

Roll Call reported:

Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus’ office confirmed late Friday night that the Montana Democrat was carrying on an affair with his state office director, Melodee Hanes, when he nominated her to be U.S. attorney in Montana.

First off: Just imagine if this had been a Republican!

Anyways – here we see the complete disregard for basic decency and the contempt our political class has for us and our morals. It should (a) never have occurred to Senator Baucus to have an affair with a subordinate; (b) never have happened before his divorce was final; (c) never should have occurred to him to nominate the party to his adulterous and possibly illegal affair as US Attorney. But, Baucus didn’t care – he’s a Master of the Universe and we peons just don’t have the right to question him.

Get out, Senator – resign, right now.

And they must have massaged the data for days just to get it this high:

CNN finds that Obama’s approval rating has slipped below 50% for the first time. It’s now at 48%, versus 50% who disapprove.

The poll was taken on December 2 and 3 — after Obama’s speech (on Afghanistan)

I wonder which poll the liberals will point to, now, in order to believe that their man Obama is still The One?

Geesh:

Copenhagen’s city council in conjunction with Lord Mayor Ritt Bjerregaard sent postcards out to 160 Copenhagen hotels urging COP15 guests and delegates to ‘Be sustainable – don’t buy sex’.

“Dear hotel owner, we would like to urge you not to arrange contacts between hotel guests and prostitutes,” the approach to hotels says.

Now, Copenhagen prostitutes are up in arms, saying that the council has no business meddling in their affairs. They have now offered free sex to anyone who can produce one of the offending postcards and their COP15 identity card, according to the Web site avisen.dk.

Climate change whores, regular whores – six of one, half a dozen of the other, huh? This is why we have a lot of difficulty satirizing the modern, leftist worldview – they do such a splendid job of it, themselves.

Another 11,000 jobs lost. Meanwhile the “real” unemployment rate is something like 15 or 16%.

Obama said the stimulus would keep the unemployment rate below 8%.

What say you, folks?

UPDATE, by Mark Noonan: Bank Failures rise to 130 for the year. I my view, there are no solvent banks in the United States. Just those who can still hide their insolvency, and those who can’t.

Pay attention, liberals:

President Barack Obama’s speech on Tuesday night deserves to be cheered. Over the objections of his vice president and despite opposition from his political base, the president is sending an additional 30,000 troops to Afghanistan to fight terrorists.

This is the sort of thing you do when you’re a patriot – even if you oppose the man in office, you still try to pick out the parts you can support, especially as it relates to foreign and military affairs.

To be sure, Rove notes that Obama still isn’t giving as much as the military asked. Of course, the military brass could have sensed this sort of thing coming and asked for more than they needed, knowing that the request would be pared back. Bottom line, though, is that we patriots are pleased that President Obama is going to at least try to win.

It’d be better if Obama were to say the word “victory” as part of our goal, but we know we’ve got a liberal with zero military – or, indeed, real world – experience, and so we’ll take the baby steps, if that is the best we can get. It was also dismaying that President Obama laid out an 18 month time frame on this effort – better to have said nothing about it at all, if he was unwilling to use George Bush’s “when the generals request it” for withdrawal questions on Iraq.

This campaign can be won – and in my view, it must be won. We dare not leave Afghanistan with less than victory – if we don’t win, then we’ll pay the price for it in blood and treasure down the road. Interests, honor and basic, human decency require that we validate the sacrifices to date by ensuring a free, prosperous and united Afghanistan. And I hope you liberals with both join Karl Rove and learn a bit about what patriotism requires from him – and from the rest of us conservatives who simply will not attempt to take cheap, political shots at the President for temporary political gain.

UPDATE: With the continuing concern that Obama simply won’t stick it out.