Blogs For Victory

In what we hope will be the final chapter in the overwhelmingly pathetic Plame Kerfuffle:

CREW learned today that the Obama administration is opposing our request that the Supreme Court reconsider the dismissal of the lawsuit, Wilson v. Libby, et al. In that case, the district court had dismissed the claims of Joe and Valerie Wilson against former Vice President Dick Cheney, Karl Rove, Scooter Libby and Richard Armitage for their gross violations of the Wilsons’ constitutional rights.

Agreeing with the Bush administration, the Obama Justice Department argues the Wilsons have no legitimate grounds to sue. It is surprising that the first time the Obama administration has been required to take a public position on this matter, the administration is so closely aligning itself with the Bush administration’s views.

In fact, the Obama administration has gone one step further, suggesting Mr. Wilson failed to provide any evidence that Mr. Cheney, Mr. Rove or Mr. Libby harmed him.

In the Plame Kerfuffle, the only people we know for certain lied are Valerie Plame (about whether or not she suggested her husband) and Joe Wilson (who lied about what he found in Niger) – other than that, all other statements regarding the issue by every single person in the case have proven correct. I offer my thanks to President Obama for agreeing that this issue is a distraction and that people like Plame/Wilson should just go away.

HAT TIP: Gay Patriot

Well, that is how I read it:

Twenty-four percent (24%) of voters nationwide favor federal bailout funds for states like California that are encountering “serious financial problems.” The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that 59% are opposed to such bailouts.

I do wonder about this poll – I mean, I doubt that I’d find one in a thousand people who would want to shell out for California’s problems.

Just as I and all others with any economic sense at all said:

Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia President Charles Plosser said prices may rise 2.5 percent in 2011, a rate well above central bankers’ preferred range, and cautioned against complacency on inflation.

“The economy may be at greater risk of inflation than the conventional wisdom indicates,” Plosser said in a speech yesterday in New York. “While inflation expectations appear to remain anchored, we should not become sanguine about our credibility. It can be easily lost.”

The bank president’s inflation forecast for 2011 exceeds central bank officials’ long-run preferred range of 1.7 percent to 2 percent, and contrasts with the concerns of some officials and economists that the economic slump may provoke a broad decline in prices.

It’ll be higher than that – you can’t print trillions of dollars without a massive devaluation of the currency already held, and that means inflation. I converted my investments yesterday just in line with this. Have you?

UPDATE: And the dollar drops like a rock.

Another reason for us to love her:

ANCHORAGE, Alaska – Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin on Thursday vetoed $80 million from appropriation bills, including $28.6 million from the federal stimulus funds for energy efficiency.

Despite pressure from some lawmakers and others to accept the federal money, the Republican governor said she won’t accept funds tied to adoption of building codes by local governments.

“Alaskans and our communities have a long history of independence and opposing many mandates from Washington, D.C.,” Palin said in a statement announcing the veto. “This principle of maximum self-government for local communities is also set out in our constitution. There isn’t a lot of support for the federal government to coerce Alaska communities to adopt building codes, but lawmakers can always exercise checks and balances by overriding my veto.”

Its hard for States to reject any of the funds, of course – and, in the end, almost all the funds set for the States will be spent by the States…but as a matter of principle, it is good to see Governor Palin taking a stand here. There is no need for DC to even be remotely interested in local building codes – no need, and no constitutional warrant. When you invite in federal money, it comes with federal strings and for far too long our States have acted as mere transmission belts for orders from DC…its time they started acting like the sovereign States they are.

Next time you see some kook leftists shouting about how they are fighting for the people:

It is a general popular error to suppose the loudest complainers for the public to be the most anxious for its welfare. – Edmund Burke

Stupid, stupid, stupid:

Some Federal Reserve officials are open to raising the amounts of mortgage and Treasury securities purchase programs beyond the $1.75 trillion that they have already committed to buying, according to minutes from the Fed’s April meeting.

Officials, meanwhile, projected an even deeper recession than they expected three months earlier and a more sluggish recovery over the next two years as labor markets remain under pressure.

“Some members noted that a further increase in the total amount of purchases might well be warranted at some point to spur a more rapid pace of recovery,” according to the minutes of the April 28-29 meeting, released Wednesday with the usual lag.

The Fed can buy all it wants, but the fact of the matter is that most of what the Fed is buying is worthless – to put it into more understandable terms: the Fed could buy my mortgage from my current lender, but the Fed would be buying a mortgage on a piece of property which not only can’t be sold to cover the mortgage, but probably can’t even be sold at all given the number of foreclosed houses on the market undercutting any attempt to sell a non-foreclosed property. So, the Fed will buy worthless securities with money printed into existence at a time when the wealth value of the United States – the source of our currency’s value – is rapidly declining. The institutions which receive this fiat money will then, as swiftly as possible, convert it into anything not tied to the value of the dollar because those dollars are being made progressively worth less by the Fed printing them in order to buy the worthless securities. Who gets screwed in all this. Go look in the mirror.

The old economy is dead – that economy which had as its crowns the Federal Reserve, the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank…all these institutions built to move make-believe money around in a usurious financial system which could only exist by means of the greater fool economic theory (in other words, there is always a greater fool to buy the security). We need a new economy – really, of course, a return to a real economy. We need an economy where the farmer, miner and manufacturer rule the economic roost; a place where there is a free movement of goods and people; a place where a degree in law, accounting or business is of less worth than ten year’s experience on the shop floor.

We’ll get this economy, in the end – but it might take a while before the paladins of our current collapse are forced out of power.

Because Dick Cheney is awesome, and his speech kicked ass, here it is, in full, below the fold. Continue reading →

Well, if he keeps getting more popular, why not?

The same day Dick Cheney delivered a major speech on the battle against terrorism, a new national poll suggests that favorable opinions of the former vice president are on the rise.

But the CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey, released Wednesday morning, indicates that a majority of Americans still have an unfavorable opinion of Cheney.

Fifty-five percent of people questioned in the poll say they have an unfavorable opinion of the former vice president. Thirty-seven percent say they have a favorable opinion of Cheney, up eight points from January when he left office.

Long way to go, but if we average 8 points every four months, then by November, 2012, Cheney should have the support of everyone.

I watched it, and after a while I got tired of essentially hearing that people on my side merely played upon fear, were fearful ourselves, and went about doing horrible, anti-American things which The One will now fix and get us back on track…but, meanwhile, no one is getting out of Gitmo for a while, and if they do they’re going to SuperMax…and I don’t know about you, but I’d rather be at Club Gitmo than in SuperMax.

More important to me than this is the fact that Obama made it abundantly clear that the War on Terrorism has now become the War on al-Qaeda – faced with a global jihad made up of disparate groups backed by various, national players, Obama has opted to become the miniaturist of American national security…he’s going to go after al-Qaeda (with a few swipes at the Taliban, along the way) and fixate American policy on chasing the ghost of bin Laden through the Tribal Areas. We’re in a lot of trouble, folks – al-Qaeda has already been vastly weakened and, at any rate, is only one, small part of the Islamist terrorist threat we face. Obama and his Democrats said we took our eyes off the ball when we went to Iraq – well, its the 7th inning and they are concentrating on the ball used by the first batter in the first inning…

He repeated the usual litany of entirely unsubstantiated, kook-leftist talking points to justify his policy (ie, “Gitmo is a terrorist recruitment tool”), and showed that in the area of national security and the War on Terrorism, he’s walking blindfolded into disaster. He’s getting advice some really smart people (Gates, Panetta, eg) but he seems unwilling to draw the full conclusions from what he’s learned since he received his first Presidential intel brief as the Democrat nominee – that the rhetoric of the left, at best, covered only a peculiar and highly incomplete aspect of what we face. Some moves made since January 20th were encouraging (such as not releasing the photos), but this speech shows that in policy, Obama is retreated to 9/10 and relying upon the magic of his name and the federal courts to keep us safe.

It is an error and I hope it is not paid for in blood.

No justice, no peace:

The greatest destroyer of peace is abortion because if a mother can kill her own child, what is left for me to kill you and you to kill me? There is nothing between. – Blessed Mother Theresa of Calcutta