Blogs For Victory

And they’ll get it, too:

Rarely has a single scandal summed up nearly all the current pathologies of the corrupt Washington scene, combining insider bailouts, revolving-door influence peddling, racial-identity politics, subsidies for failing institutions that have a proven record of partisan Democratic politics, and Democratic efforts to reward wealthy friends under the guise of social justice.

What do you do when few people are listening to your radio stations, and, as a result, ad revenues are not sufficient to pay your rather large overhead and debts? Not hard to guess.

The New York Times reports that the Congressional Black Caucus is holding up legislation until it wins a bailout for a conglomerate of black-owned inner-city radio stations, which are apparently quite broke. (Rush Limbaugh did not make this up.)

Inner City Broadcasting reportedly owes $230 million to the likes of GE Capital and Goldman Sachs — and, not surprisingly, it has no wish to pay back all those millions.

The article then goes on to note the arm-twisting and insider gamesmanship which has gone on to get these radio stations a bail out. Do you think any of these radio stations has a kind word for the GOP or conservatism? We’re essentially being looted of money in order to support those who oppose us. Welcome to Obama’s America.

But what are we to expect? Even having something called a “congressional black caucus” is an insult to American ideals – its an assertion that only black people can represent black people and that all black people must toe a particular line. Just modify that a little bit and call it a “congressional white caucus” and you’ll quickly see how nasty and un-American it really is. But, here we go, just allowing it to happen and nary a word said against – and the end result? Entrenched, corrupt political elites who use government to bail out their special interest buddies.

Ain’t it grand?

Spend, spend, spend:

Job proposals from Democrats could add $300 billion in new federal spending

The cost of a new jobs bill Democrats hope to move early next year runs to nearly $300 billion when major proposals under serious consideration are added up.

Lawmakers are calling for extending aid to the unemployed, infrastructure spending, a hiring tax credit and increased small business loans.

What infrastructure spending? Wasn’t the $787 billion supposed to unleash a horde of “shovel ready” projects? What is left to fix? Or, are we now being told that the first bundle of money wasn’t quite used as advertised? Or is the only thing Democrats can think of is spending?

Do any of you liberals out there really want to defend this? Lets hear it – seriously: defend additional spending on top of the additional spending you’ve already done which was supposed to fix everything right up.

Picked up on Twitter:

I’ll vote for someone who’s had to meet a payroll. Not someone who organizes ways for me to be unable to afford my payroll…

My whole-hearted agreement with this statement.

Michael Barone notes an odd retirement announcement. This is just the sort of thing we started to see in late 2005 on the Republican side.

When your own side is having trouble swallowing the pill, you’ve got some trouble:

Republican governors are not alone in being concerned about what the proposed health care legislation might mean for their already overstrained budgets: Democrats share the same worries.

“We’ve got concerns,” Gov. Jack Markell of Delaware said in an interview Wednesday, hours before getting elected as the chairman of the Democratic Governors Association. “And we’re doing our best to communicate them. We understand the need to get something done, and we’re supportive of getting something done. But we want to make sure it’s done in a way that state budgets are not negatively impacted.”

The issue here is that Reid, et al are lying through their teeth on the budget impact of Obamacare – and one of the ways they lie is by attempting to pass all sorts of new costs on to the States, and thus off the federal government’s books. The “Louisiana Purchase” was all about this – a special deal for which would offset the costs being piled on a State in return for Landreiu’s vote (yes, its corrupt and dishonest – but when has that ever stopped a Democrat?).

For the Democrat governors who will have to deal with these massive, new spending requirements its another story – they can’t help Reid pass the legislation and the Democrat party won’t need any governors as Presidential material until 2016 (Obama being certain to be re-nominated in a walk over in 2012) – and thus the Democrat powers that be are more than willing to throw them under the bus. But that is not where they, the governors, want to be thrown. They’d all like to get re-elected, and thus, so they are worried about budget-busting federal requirements on Obamacare.

It’d be nice if we could get some principled, Democrat support for rationality on health care – but it looks like we’ll just have to concentrate on self-interest on the part of individual Democrats; peeling off as many as we can who feel directly threatened in their political future.

The scandal has a direct bearing on US policy:

The emails and computer files from the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) in Great Britain may prove to be of some importance to the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) current attempts to control greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act.

This is because the EPA — perhaps at the urging of others in the Obama administration — has proposed to regulate GHG emissions on the basis of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports … and reports primarily based on the IPCC reports.

This is highly unusual for the EPA. I cannot think of any instance where the EPA depended so heavily on non-EPA synthesis reports to justify proposed regulatory action in their almost 39 years of existence.

As a result of this EPA decision, the EPA’s fortunes in regard to regulating GHGs are directly tied to the fate of the IPCC reports.

Which reports, of course, are bogus because the underlying data are bogus. The underlying argument in favor of regulating CO2 is the theory that human-caused CO2 emissions are a prime driver in increasing global temperatures in a disastrous manner. As global temperatures are not rising and human-caused CO2 is not the primary (or, even partial) culprit, the whole rationale for regulating things like CO2 disappears. However, the left doesn’t want to give up this leverage – this tailor-made “problem” which requires entire control of our lives by a leftist elite. So, we can expect a desperate fight on the part of the left to defend anthropogenic global warming and thus the need to regulate our emissions.

Its all about control, good people – that is all its ever been about since the left first raised its ugly head in the late 18th century. The self-absorbed, sophomoric dolts of the left are convinced that they, and only they, know what is best and are determined to force everyone else in to their mold. The battle is joined – and if we can kick out the support of global warming, we can start the process of entirely restoring our nation.

The story:

Former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld on Wednesday lashed out at President Obama for claiming the Bush administration rebuffed commanders’ repeated requests for more troops in Afghanistan.

In a rare break in his public silence since leaving the Pentagon, Rumsfeld rejected the claim as a “bald misstatement” and “disservice” that cannot go unanswered.

“Such a bald misstatement, at least as it pertains to the period I served as secretary of defense, deserves a response,” Rumsfeld said in a written statement. “I am not aware of a single request of that nature between 2001 and 2006.”

What Obama is still hoping is that he can shovel responsibility off for Afghanistan (and, indeed, everything else) to President Bush. Obama, you see, has nothing to do with the current state of Afghan affairs…that is all Bush; and if its necessary to shade the truth to make it so, then Obama is fine with that. Rumsfeld’s statement shows, however, that the truth of the matter is different.

At any event, Afghanistan is from now on entirely Obama’s – he’ll try to dodge the burden, but he can’t escape. Win or lose, its Obama on the line – and, Mr. President, as this is the case, you’d might as well do everything you can to win.

A bill pending in the U.S. Senate to provide shield protection to journalists who choose to protect their sources leaves out one very important part of journalism. I don’t usually go to Daily Kos for my information, but a tweet pointed me here: Continue reading →

Vastly bloated government budgets:

Provincial spending on health care continues to grow faster than provincial revenues, with six out of 10 provinces projected to be spending half of all available revenue on health care by 2034, according to a new report from the Fraser Institute, one of Canada’s leading economic think-tanks.

Ontario and New Brunswick face the biggest crunch, where health expenditures are on pace to consume half of total provincial revenues by 2014 or earlier.

The study suggests that Prince Edward Island will likely reach the 50 per cent point within 10 years, followed by Nova Scotia in 15 years, Manitoba in about 17 years, and Quebec in 25 years.

“Health spending has increased at an unsustainable rate in the majority of provinces over the past decade,” said Brett Skinner, Fraser Institute Director of Bio-Pharma, Health, and Insurance Policy and lead author of Paying More, Getting Less: 2009 Report.

There is no way around this – it is impossible to control costs when the government is in charge of providing the service and everyone is covered. And its not just the patients who are driving costs. To be sure, when you de-couple use of medical care from cost of medical care (which is really what insurance – including and especially government insurance) you get vastly more usage of the system – but that isn’t all.

There is also the fact that the government employees – the non-medical employees, that is – will demand ever higher pay and benefits and politicians will give in because (a) they don’t want to cross the unions and (b) they don’t want anyone being able to say they weren’t willing to support health care. Additionally, the contractors who provide the materials and supplies for the health care system will be politically connected and will pad their contracts with the connivance of the politicians who, in return for such kickbacks, will get campaign cash. The whole thrust of a government-run health system is ever increasing cost – and that would be ok, if at least we got good health care, but you don’t get that. Why? Because there is no upside to providing good health care – in fact, all it does is cause problems because then you’re spending money which could be spent on unions and contractors on patients, who don’t provide a lot of campaign cash.

Every country with socialized medicine – including France, for those on the left who like to hold France up as a paradigm – is going bankrupt with the cost of it. Its just not workable. So, why doe the left want it?

1. Because leftists don’t think; they are slaves to ideology and leftwing ideology requires support for government-run health care.

2. Because leftist leaders want control of the population and there’s no better way than to be in control of health care; don’t make the government mad or you won’t get the health care you want, and so voters are disinclined to vote for anyone who wants to return to a private system.

Will we get this program? Only if we refuse to fight.

A disappointing event because it would have been the most fun race, ever:

A couple of weeks ago on Fox News Sunday, Liz Cheney set off a round of (somewhat far fetched) speculation about her father running for president when she blurted out “Cheney 2012” in the middle of a panel discussion on national security.

Today, in an interview with Politico, the former Vice President put the kibosh any talk of a 2012 run, saying, ““Why would I want to do that? It’s been a hell of a tour. I’ve loved it. I have no aspirations for further office.”

Cheney is one of the most accomplished and intelligent men in American politics – just the thought of Cheney having a debate with his fellow GOPers (and, even better, with the lightweight Obama!) is enough to give us conservatives a thrill. But, he’s also massively hated – because the left spent 8 years lying about him and Cheney was too calm and reasonable to hit back. A loss to American politics, and a shame to our nation that we can’t find further employment for a man like Cheney.