Blogs For Victory

Can’t have it both ways – you either are, or you aren’t Catholic:

Bishop of Providence Thomas J. Tobin has responded to Rep. Patrick Kennedy’s contention that his dissent from Catholic teaching on abortion does not make him “less of a Catholic.” Saying that such dissent renders the lawmaker’s communion “flawed,” he urged Kennedy to become a “profile in courage” and to defend the unborn.

Rep. Kennedy (D-R.I.), the son of the late U.S. Sen. Edward Kennedy, had accused the Catholic Church of fanning “the flames of dissent and discord” because of the Catholic bishops’ opposition to proposed health care reform that does not explicitly prohibit funding of abortion.

Bishop Tobin responded critically to the congressman and asked for an apology.

A meeting had been scheduled between the prelate and the politician, but a Tuesday statement from the Diocese of Providence said it had been postponed…

Kennedy is trying to straddle the fence – and it just can’t be done. Catholics – like all Christians – adhere to the belief that life is a sacred gift from God, and that life begins at conception. If an abortion is sought, it is wrong. The only time an abortion is not inherently evil is when it happens as a result of some other good desired – such as, for instance, a surgery to save the life of the mother which as an unintended result causes an abortion. The only time it is ever licit to kill is in defense of others – and even then, it is not a good thing that the killing is done. It is, some times, a sad necessity – but there is never a necessity for elective abortion.

And it is high time that the Kennedy family be called to account for itself. For decades the Kennedy’s have played upon their alleged Catholicism in order to both garner votes and give a patina of decency to some rather questionable life stories. Ted Kennedy got away with it, but we daren’t let the next generation do it. Patrick Kennedy is free to believe as he wishes – but if he’s to be Catholic, there are certain things he must believe.

Can you feel that warm glObama?

U.S. job-market optimism has reached a new low, with only 8% of Americans saying now is a good time to find a quality job — the lowest level since Gallup began tracking this measure in August 2001. Americans’ optimism about this had begun to diminish even before the recession began to unfold two years ago, when 38% in November 2007 were optimistic, and there has been essentially no improvement since February of this year, when 9% held this view.

If Obama were to start giving FDR-style fireside chats, the fire would go out…

The results of the NY-23 special election shocked quite a few of us. Knowing a number of people on the ground in the district, things looked continually better for Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman. But, with an apparent deficit of 5,000+ votes, and a less than stellar performance in his stronghold of Oswego County, it made perfect sense, based on the numbers, to concede.

But now it appears that the race is too close to call, with recanvassing closing Owens’ margin of victory to just over 3,000 votes.

Hoffman’s concession — based on snafus in Oswego County and elsewhere that left his vote undercounted — set off a chain of events that echoed all the way to Washington, D.C., and helped secure passage of a historic health care reform bill.

Democratic Rep. Bill Owens was quickly sworn into office on Friday, a day before the rare weekend vote in the House of Representatives. His support sealed his party’s narrow victory on the health care legislation.

Now a recanvassing in the 11-county district shows that Owens’ lead has narrowed to 3,026 votes over Hoffman, 66,698 to 63,672, according to the latest unofficial results from the state Board of Elections.

In Oswego County, where Hoffman was reported to lead by only 500 votes with 93 percent of the vote counted election night, inspectors found Hoffman actually won by 1,748 votes — 12,748 to 11,000.

The new vote totals mean the race will be decided by absentee ballots, of which about 10,200 were distributed, said John Conklin, communications director for the state Board of Elections.

Under a new law in New York that extended deadlines, military and overseas ballots received by this coming Monday (and postmarked by Nov. 2) will be counted. Standard absentee ballots had to be returned this past Monday.

Of course, there is something suspicious about these “snafus.”

The district’s second biggest voter turnout was in Jefferson County, where Hoffman also has benefited from a turnaround since election night, gaining about 700 votes. Owens led Hoffman by 300 votes on the final election night tally. But after recanvassing, Hoffman now leads by 424 votes, 10,884 to 10,460.

Jerry Eaton, the Republican elections commissioner for Jefferson County, said inspectors found a problem in four districts where Hoffman’s vote total was mistakenly entered as zero.

How does such a thing happen? I don’t know… but at least it can be fixed.

“We sent a letter to the clerk laying out the totals,” [John Conklin, communications director for the state Board of Elections] said. “The key is that Hoffman conceded, which means the race is not contested. However, all ballots will be counted, and if the result changes, Owens will have to be removed.”

My opinion is that it is unlikely the result will change, but there are a enough uncounted absentee ballots that given certain factors, make it possible. For one thing, Scozzafava’s endorsement of Owens likely gave him votes, and these ballots are pre-Scozzafava’s dropping out. Military absentee ballots are likely to favor a Republican. As a third-party candidate, I don’t know if Hoffman will get enough of the absentee votes to swing the vote tally in his favor. Scozzafava will likely gain the most… but will Hoffman gain enough? I hope so, but I am only cautiously optimistic.

One thing is certain: it ain’t over yet. Regardless of whether the results change, all the votes must be counted.

Bingo:

Emerson Electric Co. Chief Executive Officer David Farr said the U.S. government is hurting manufacturers with regulation and taxes and his company will continue to focus on growth overseas.

“Washington is doing everything in their manpower, capability, to destroy U.S. manufacturing,” Farr said today in Chicago at a Baird Industrial Outlook conference. “Cap and trade, medical reform, labor rules.”

Emerson, the maker of electrical equipment and InSinkErator garbage disposals with $20.9 billion in sales for the year ended September, will keep expanding in emerging markets, which represented 32 percent of revenue in 2009. About 36 percent of manufacturing is now in “best-cost countries” up from 21 percent in 2003, according to slides accompanying his speech.

Companies will create jobs in India and China, “places where people want the products and where the governments welcome you to actually do something,” Farr said.

Now, don’t let the corporate bosses off the hook, either. Farr does seem like a fairly smart guy, but a very large percentage of the corporate bosses are weak-minded cretins who’s only goal is to make the quarterly balance sheet look better…and thus shoving manufacturing out of high-cost US to low-cost China works out well for them. What we have here is the perfect storm of corporate and government idiots who are – unintentionally or not – conspiring to completely eliminate manufacturing in the United States. We’re being told that we’ll just have to get used to less American manufacturing (and farming…and mining) but that, don’t worry, we’ll still make plenty of money sitting in cubicles answering customer service phone calls and emails (until all of that is outsourced, too).

When I’m talking of “Make/Mine/Grow” I am asserting that if we lower the cost of making, mining and growing things in the United States, we’ll get more of same done here – which will create more wealth – which will mean more jobs – etc. We’re being quite insane, right now – outsourcing our manufacturing to China which then uses its profits from selling things to us to buy our bonds so that we can borrow more money to bail out more financial institutions. Does anyone think this can be sustained? Or that making windmills will replace all the other things we used to make, mine and grow here in the United States?

My good people, we should be coddling our manufacturers – doing everything we can to soften the blows of this down economy and doing everything we can to encourage people to start up farms, mines and factories. We don’t have to buy stuff from China – really, we don’t. We can make stuff – we’re clever enough. We don’t have to be thumb-sucking leeches doomed to default – but we will need a change in government to get the ball rolling.

UPDATE: And as I was saying about China…

Only a couple months behind the curve, but better late than never:

Republicans have moved ahead of Democrats by 48% to 44% among registered voters in the latest update on Gallup’s generic congressional ballot for the 2010 House elections, after trailing by six points in July and two points last month.

Rasmussen has it a 43/37 split in favor of the GOP – and Rasmussen is polling “likely voters”. Bottom line: the GOP is gaining strength as Democrats screw up everything. Question: will the GOP leadership put together the necessary message and candidates to capitalize on this? Remember, we’re not called “the stupid party”, for nothing.

This gets ever more painful to watch:

President Barack Obama does not plan to accept any of the Afghanistan war options presented by his national security team, pushing instead for revisions to clarify how and when U.S. troops would turn over responsibility to the Afghan government, a senior administration official said Wednesday.

That stance comes in the midst of forceful reservations about a possible troop buildup from the U.S. ambassador in Afghanistan, Karl Eikenberry, according to a second top administration official.

In strongly worded classified cables to Washington, Eikenberry said he had misgivings about sending in new troops while there are still so many questions about the leadership of Afghan President Hamid Karzai.

To translate: “Obama doesn’t want to make a decision to send or deny the troops, but he needed a plausible excuse to spin things out a while longer – Eikenberry provided it”.

Meanwhile, however, people are still dying there – and our troops have got to wonder ever more often if they’ll be given a clear mission and proper support from the politicians back home.

The truth of the matter is that Karzai may be a lot of things, but the ability of his government to assert control over all of Afghanistan rides on our efforts – and it would be the same no matter who was in charge of Afghanistan. Its not for us to settle Afghanistan’s political issues – it is for us to provide the safe haven where Afghans of good will can work it out, just as Iraqis of good will worked out Iraq’s future under the shield of American arms. Most Afghans, like most of the people in the world, just want to be left alone to get on with their lives – right now, the Taliban is making Afghans wonder if it will be Americans or Taliban they’ll have to deal with in the long run. We have to convince the Afghans that we are the power which will stay, not the Taliban. We do that, and we’ll get our Afghan version of the “Anbar awakening”.

What Obama is doing is playing right in to the enemy’s hands – he’s being irresolute. Someone pointed out that the time between 9/11 and fall of Kabul in 2001 was a shorter time than between presentation of the plan and Obama’s continued refusal to makea choice. Our political leaders in Washington must make it clear to President Obama that he must decide – one way or the other, and right away. No more time for thinking it over – it is time to act.

UPDATE: WAR IS PEACE, FREEDOM IS SLAVERY, DITHERING IS STRENGTH.

Do any Democrats out there have any spine, at all?

Gov. Deval Patrick won’t take anymore action to prevent a convicted terror bomber from speaking at the University of Massachusetts Amherst despite his strong opposition, he said today…

…Even though the event will be held on the state-owned Amherst campus and a professor invited Levasseur, Patrick said he will take no more action to stop the terror leader from speaking.

“I can’t control the comings and goings on campuses,” Patrick said.

When asked if the professor should leave the university, Patrick said, “You can escalate and escalate, and I’m not going to go there. I get the academic freedom, all I’m saying is there is an issue of taste and sensitivity that also ought to be considered.”

How about just going there with 10,000 other people and simply not letting the terrorist in? How about doing whatever you can to stop this desecration of higher education?

Nope, none of that…just a mild rebuke. Gotta be careful, you know, get off that liberal ranch a bit too much and you’ll pay the price…especially when you’re a bit concerned about your re-election prospects in uber-liberal Massachusetts.

Dogs are just more, well…human.

Yes, I know, any news over 24 hours old in the blogosphere is old news. But I couldn’t pass up the opportunity brought about by the ‘resignation’ of Anita Dunn to do this song parody:

Another One’s Under the Bus by Barack Obama
(with apologies to Freddie Mercury)

The Maoist walks up to the podium with the mic pulled way down low
Fawning press thrown at her feet, the presser’s ready to go!
Are you ready? Hey, are you ready for this?
Are you hanging on the edge of your seat?
Gonna wage war on ol’ Fox News, they’ll go down in defeat!
But
Thump-thump-thwump Anita’s thrown under the bus..yeah
Thump-thump-thwump And Anita Dunn’s under the bus!
And another one gone
And another one down
Another one bites the dust
Hey, Obama’s gonna get you too
Another one’s under the bus!

How’s Obama gonna get along without you when you’re gone?
You gave him everything that you had but he kicked you out of his home
Is he happy? Is he satisfied?
How long can he stand the heat?
Out of the bus another corpse slips to the sound of the beat (Look out)
Thump-thump-thwump Another one’s under the bus..yeah
Thump-thump-thwump Another one’s under the bus..
And another one down
And another one gone
Another one’s under the bus!
Hey, Obama’s gonna get you too
Another one’s under the bus!

HEY
Oh, it’s crowded
Bite the dust
Under the bus yeah

Hey
Another one bites the dust
Another one’s under the bus, oh
Another one bites the dust, hey, hey
Another one’s under the bus, heeeeey
Oh, shoo ’em out!

There are plenty of ways you can hurt a man and throw him to the lost n found
You can ask Jeremiah you can ask Van Jones
Even Grandma hit the ground!
But I’m ready, yes I’m ready for you
I’m standing on my own two feet, but
Out of the doorway another corpse slips, repeating the sound of the beat. Oh yeeeah
Thump-thump-thwump Another one’s under the bus!
Thump-thump-thwump Another one bites the dust
And another one down
And another one gone
Another one’s under the bus
Hey, Obama’s gonna get you too
Another one’s under the bus
Shoot it
Hey
Alright

Camille Paglia is no conservative. In fact, Camille Paglia is no Republican. Camille Paglia is, in fact, a feminist Democrat. That’s why I found her latest piece at Salon.com so fascinating.

When I first saw the article, entitled, “Pelosi’s Victory for Women,” I thought, “Okay, here we go–another Nancy Pelosi mindless puff piece.”

The first two paragraphs certainly did not disappoint:

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi scored a giant gain for feminism last weekend. In shoving her controversy-plagued healthcare reform bill to victory by a paper-thin margin, she conclusively demonstrated that a woman can be just as gritty, ruthless and arm-twisting in pursuing her agenda as anyone in the long line of fabled male speakers before her. Even a basic feminist shibboleth like abortion rights became just another card for Pelosi to deal and swap.

It was a stunningly impressive recovery for someone who seemed to be coming apart at the seams last summer, when a sputtering, rattled Pelosi struggled to deal with the nationwide insurgency of town hall protesters — reputable, concerned citizens whom she outrageously tried to tar as Nazis. Whether or not her bill survives in the Senate is immaterial: Pelosi’s hard-won, trench-warfare win sets a new standard for U.S. women politicians and is certainly well beyond anything the posturing but ineffectual Hillary Clinton has ever achieved.

Yep, just a run of the mill flaming lib, blindly singing the phrases of another flaming lib.

But the following paragraph (and thereafter) blindsided my expectations:

As for the actual content of the House healthcare bill, horrors! Where to begin? That there are serious deficiencies and injustices in the U.S. healthcare system has been obvious for decades. To bring the poor and vulnerable into the fold has been a high ideal and an urgent goal for most Democrats. But this rigid, intrusive and grotesquely expensive bill is a nightmare. Holy Hygeia, why can’t my fellow Democrats see that the creation of another huge, inefficient federal bureaucracy would slow and disrupt the delivery of basic healthcare and subject us all to a labyrinthine mass of incompetent, unaccountable petty dictators? Massively expanding the number of healthcare consumers without making due provision for the production of more healthcare providers means that we’re hurtling toward a staggering logjam of de facto rationing. Steel yourself for the deafening screams from the careerist professional class of limousine liberals when they get stranded for hours in the jammed, jostling anterooms of doctors’ offices. They’ll probably try to hire Caribbean nannies as ringers to do the waiting for them.

Read, as they say, the whole thing.

If a feminist liberal democrat like Camille Paglia gets it, are the rest of her liberal cohorts that brain-dead? Or are they merely blinded and necromanced by the promise of a socialist utopia, even if they have to destroy an entire nation to achieve it?