Blogs For Victory

I’m betting that, in the end, Reid and the Democrat caucus will back down:

Arrangements are under way for a Wednesday meeting between Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and Roland Burris, the Democrat tapped by Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich to succeed President-elect Barack Obama in the U.S. Senate, ABC News has learned.

Burris confidant and business partner Fred Lebed of Chicago tells ABC News that, despite the opposition of Senate leaders, Burris is on track to arrive in Washington Monday, and on Capitol Hill, Tuesday.

“He intends to be sworn in and seated in the U.S. Senate,” said Lebed, who added that Burris and his “staff” are “looking forward to get sworn in, seated, and to roll up our sleeves.”

When Burris arrives at the doors of the U.S. Senate next week, says Lebed, “he will have a few close friends and supporters with him. he is very careful and has cautioned me to make sure this is not a spectacle.”

For the same reason that the Democrat powers-that-be could not refuse Obama the nomination, Burris cannot be denied his Senate seat: Obama won by 8.5 million votes. There were 125 million votes cast in 2008. 13% of the electorate was black, or 16.25 million voters, who gave 95% of their votes to the Democrats. Had the GOP scored half the black vote, Obama’s vote by blacks would have dropped from 14.4 million to 8.1…in other words, it would have put Obama’s victory in doubt as even though he’d still have come out with more votes, it is likely that places like NC, VA, FL and OH would have dropped into the McCain total, thus giving him the election. To put it bluntly – without a high black turnout giving most of its votes to the Democrats, winning national elections will become nearly impossible. And so Democrats will do whatever it takes to keep black voters on side – and “whatever it takes” will not and cannot include “deny a Senate seat to a black man”.

Reid will back down, I’m sure of it.

For us global warming deniers, that is:

The European Union’s new figurehead believes that climate change is a dangerous myth and has compared the union to a Communist state.

The views of President Vaclav Klaus of the Czech Republic, 67, have left the government of Mirek Topolanek, his bitter opponent, determined to keep him as far away as possible from the EU presidency, which it took over from France yesterday.

The Czech president, who caused a diplomatic incident by dining with opponents of the EU’s Lisbon treaty on a recent visit to Ireland, has a largely ceremonial role.

But there are already fears that, after the dynamic EU presidency of Nicolas Sarkozy – including his hyper-active attempts at international diplomacy over the credit crisis and Georgia as well as an historic agreement to cut greenhouse gases – the Czech effort will be mired in infighting and overshadowed by the platform it will give to Mr Klaus and his controversial views.

Czech diplomats in Brussels insist that Mr Klaus is not a big part of their plans and are trying to limit him to one speech to the European Parliament in February and chairing one international summit, either the EU-Canada or EU-Russia meeting.

They are pinning their hopes on a lunch between Mr Klaus and Mr Topolanek on January 5, which they hope will see both parties agree a truce after the President’s unsuccessful attempt to unseat his rival as Prime Minister at a party conference last month.

“What is sure is that there will be at least a little choir of voices coming from Prague that will not be singing the same song,” said Piotr Kaczynski, of the Centre for European Policy Studies in Brussels.

And therein lies the entertainment value – the head guy will be out there speaking sense, while the rest of the EU apparatus is blindly going along with the anthropogenic global warming hoax. I love how the global warming kooks are determined to put Czech President on a leash…they know that having someone as respected as klaus making rational, incontrovertible statements on global warming (and a host of other issues the EU-topians have wrong) will just be the kid pointing out the naked Emperor.

Anyways, fun, fun, fun for us on the right side of the aisle!

But not the sort of fight against poverty, perhaps, that we think of here in America:

Presiding over the celebration of Mass for the Solemnity of Mary Mother of God, Pope Benedict XVI re-emphasized the need to fight poverty to build a society of peace. Violence, hatred and mistrust, which he called “forms of poverty,” must be brought to an end, especially in the Holy Land, he exhorted.

The Holy Father began his homily by commemorating the Incarnation, “a light which will not go out and which offers the faithful and men of good will the possibility to construct a civilization of love and of peace.”

“The Second Vatican Council said, in this regard, that ‘by His incarnation the Son of God has united Himself in some fashion with every man,’” the Pope noted.

With his birth in Bethlehem, Benedict XVI said, Jesus reveals to humanity that God chose poverty for himself in his coming among them. “The scene that the shepherds saw first and that confirmed the announcement made to them by the angel is that of the stable where Mary and Jesus looked for refuge and of the manger in which the Virgin laid the Infant wrapped in swaddling clothes.”

Turning to today’s celebration of the 42nd World Day of Peace, the Pope explained that its theme– Combating poverty. Building peace– contains two elements: “the poverty chosen and proposed by Jesus and of combating poverty to make the world more just.”

The second consideration is that “there is poverty that God does not want: a poverty that impedes individuals and families from living according to their dignity; a poverty which offends justice and equality and which threatens peaceful coexistence,” the Pontiff said. In addition, he pointed to forms of spiritual poverty: “marginalization and moral and spiritual misery.”

“To combat unjust poverty it is necessary to rediscover sobriety and solidarity, those evangelical and at the same time, universal values,” Pope Benedict asserted.

We wrap ourselves up so much in income levels and judge peoples’ wealth or poverty by the amount of things they have. Now, to be sure, there is actual, physical poverty which we must, as far as possible, end. Those who lack their daily bread, and a roof over their heads, and clothes on their back – they must be succored by a world which does not pause to count the monetary cost of such aid. But while such physical aid has its vital place in the grand scheme of things, it doesn’t attack the real poverty of our modern world, which is spiritual.

Most of the people in the world today are poor. Most of the people who have ever lived were born in to poverty and never rose out of it. And yet with poverty being the normal condition of Man, it has only been in the past century or so that we’ve gone down into the depth of human degradation.

In the last century, at least 100 million people were murdered for political reasons. We abort millions of our children every year. Pornography has become mainstream and the objectivication of our fellow human beings – mostly women, but a large number of men, as well – is considered a right so important that we daren’t place even mild restrictions on it. We think people have a right to lie on our streets in their own filth. We’re teaching our children to massacre their school mates. People set off bombs to kill the innocent. These are the actions of people who are spiritually impoverished – people who may, especially in America and the larger West, live in the greatest of ease and surrounded by wealth kings of the past couldn’t dream of, but who are so morally bankrupt that they can’t bestir themselves to even so much as see evil, let alone do anything about it.

We’re given the simple solutions – just give the Palestinians some land. Just provide sex education. Just withdraw from Iraq. Just ban racial profiling at airport security. Just control guns. Just increase foreign aid. Just go through the UN. Just to this. Just to that. Just do the other thing. But almost nowhere in this world is there the leader who doesn’t merely give lip service to the concept of hope, but who seeks to make it manifest. In other words, the leaders who understand that the problems of the day are fundamentally spiritual are few and far between. You could give the Palestinians all the land you want – give them Alaska and throw in half of Canada for good measure, and it won’t change the fact that the people who strap bombs on themselves don’t really need land, they need a moral revival. Provide all the birth control and sex education you want, and it won’t cure the person who has been degraded to the point where they say, “yeah, give me some money and I’ll allow a stranger to f**k me on camera”. Triple the budget for Head Start and develope the most comprehensive anti-violence education in school and it won’t do anything to sway a kid who is learning, step by step, that its cool to take guns to school and massacre the student body. We’re bleeding to death and we keep trying to put a band aid on the societal lacerations.

Sobriety and solidarity are, indeed, the keys to a revived human society and the restoration of an advanced civilization. Sobriety – not just not getting drunk and stoned, but a set of mental attitudes which refuses excess and which places self indulgence on a much lower plain than self sacrifice. Solidarity – an understanding that we really are our brother’s keeper and that even those who are doing the most wicked deeds must not be allowed to make hatred and despair grow in our hearts. Naturally, as a Christian, I believe I know where one can get this – tap in, that is, to the wellsprings of sobriety and solidarity. But not all my brothers and sisters are Christian. But, still, it remains something we must do – Christian or not – in order to survive as humans rather than die off as a failed experiment, or regress entirely into savagery.

Geesh:

Update: The French press reported that the Interior Ministry released a final “verified” count of 1,147 vehicles burned in France over New Year’s Eve. The number is up 30.64% from last year’s total, 878.

REUTERS – At least 445 cars were torched over the night of New Year’s Eve in France, a 20 percent rise on last year, but there were relatively few clashes with police, the Interior Ministry and police said on Thursday.

Car burnings are regular occurrences in France but the registering the New Year’s Eve total has become something of a tradition since they achieved symbolic status in the violent rioting that shook many of the country’s poor suburbs in 2005.

With riots in Athens heightening worries that the economic crisis might spark a resurgence of the violence seen in the run-down “banlieues” then, 35,000 police were mobilised on New Year’s Eve, some 7,000 more than last year.

Officials were also on guard against possible attacks after five sticks of dynamite were left in a Paris department store just before Christmas by a so-far unidentified group demanding a withdrawal of French troops from Afghanistan.

A more than 30% increase – and please note in the news report that its “poor suburbs” and “unidentified group” which is demanding France get out of Afghanistan. That the poor suburbs in question are heavily Moslem and controlled by Islamists and that only Islamists would want France out of Afghanistan shows just how bad its got – Europe is dying by self inflicted wounds, and they won’t even tell the truth to themselves about what is going on.

We had a phrase in the Navy – “BOHICA”, Bend Over, Here It Comes Again. I just hope Obama and his Democrats are kind enough to kiss us after they’re done:

Sources said Obama and Pelosi will discuss the scope and timing of the economic recovery package, which Obama has said will be his first priority upon being sworn into office. Pelosi has said her goal is to have the legislation on the new president’s desk and ready to be signed on Jan. 20.

But that schedule appears increasingly likely to slip, as Republicans and conservative Democrats are raising concerns about the impact on the federal deficit of spending hundreds of billions on an array of projects with little vetting by Congress. Lawmakers now expect a spending package of between $675 billion and $775 billion.

And a top congressional aide said yesterday that Democratic leaders in the House are still waiting for a detailed proposal to be delivered by Obama’s economic advisers before lawmakers can begin the process of turning it into legislation.

Even so, congressional Democrats are anxious to get the process started so that a vote can take place in the House as early as the week of Jan. 12. Pelosi announced yesterday that the first hearing on the plan will take place Wednesday…

…Obama aides said the president-elect and his team will help make an all-out push to convince Americans that the government must spend almost $1 trillion to create jobs, provide cash for spending and shore up the finances of the state governments.

Yeeehaw!!!! Lets go spend some MONEY!!! We’ll pass the swag around to everyone who has their hand out! Mismanaged your corporation into bankruptcy? No problem, here’s some money! Spent your State into insolvency? Big deal, here’s some money! Need to reward corrupt union bosses who helped get out the vote? We’ve got you covered! Here at the Obamathon it doesn’t matter what the money is for, as long as it gets spent and helps Obama get re-elected in 2012!

Gonna be a long four years, boys and girls.

Thank goodness Obama doesn’t take office for another 19 days – had he his way on this, we would have left 9 months ago, in disgrace:

The U.S. formally transferred control of the Green Zone in Baghdad to Iraqi authorities Thursday in a pair of ceremonies that also handed back Saddam Hussein’s former palace.

Iraq’s prime minister said he will propose making Jan. 1 a holiday marking the restoration of sovereignty.

Under the security agreement between Washington and Baghdad to replace a U.N. mandate for foreign troops in Iraq, the Iraqi government also now has control of American troops’ actions and of the country’s airspace.

The moves came amid a dramatic fall in violence over the past year.

Think about that MSM bias – “a dramatic fall in violence”…how about, “due to the Iraqi-American victory”? Or is that just too hard to admit?

Understandably so. 

When asked how they feel about President-elect Barack Obama as commander in chief, six out of 10 active-duty service members say they are uncertain or pessimistic, according to a Military Times survey.

In follow-up interviews, respondents expressed concerns about Obama’s lack of military service and experience leading men and women in uniform.

“Being that the Marine Corps can be sent anywhere in the world with the snap of his fingers, nobody has confidence in this guy as commander in chief,” said one lance corporal who asked not to be identified.

For eight years, members of the U.S. military have served under a Republican commander in chief who reflected their generally conservative views and led them to war in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Now, the troops face change not only at the very top of the chain of command, as Obama nears his Jan. 20 inauguration, but perhaps in mission, policy and values.

Sadly. we are going to learn the hard way that Obama has as much business being commander-in-chief as I have flying a rocket to Mars.

In Tennessee, at least:

On Election Night, voters spoke loudly with the echoes reverberating still today. In Tennessee, John McCain carried the state with 57% of the vote, Senator Lamar Alexander was re-elected with 65%, and fourteen new Republican legislators were elected yielding a Republican Majority in the General Assembly for the first time since 1868.

Voters elected legislators that carried the same values and principles that are held by average citizen in these districts. Those values and principles are pretty simple.

* Taxes and spending: The government should live within its means and oppose higher tax bills to fund a bloated budget; the voters know government needs to cut spending.

* Gun Rights: Voters want commonsense carry laws making it easier for them to protect themselves and their families.

* Local economies: Families in their community know that improvements are needed by investing in transportation and education infrastructure to support existing jobs and recruit new businesses. They are tired of the powerbrokers in Nashville increasing entitlement programs instead.

Candidates, who displayed the courage to challenge Democrat incumbents and in open seats were solid, qualified individuals. They were not just “known” in their communities. They are people that truly represent the values of their communities.

We believe this is what our founders intended with citizen legislators. The hard work and time commitment that is necessary to run campaigns are a good test of how hard each legislator will work for his or her district. The people of these districts will be well represented by their new representative’s principled leadership.

But it should be noted that Alexander out performed McCain by 8 percentage points – and had McCain jazzed up GOPers as much as he should have, we might have had a different result nationally.

The Tennessee GOP showed how its done – in an anti-GOP year with arguably the most unpopular GOPer ever in the White House, the Tennessee GOP clobbered the Tennessee Democrats. We have to get back to our roots, and back to the people – the left talks a great game about being for the people, but what they are really for is themselves…and for too long now, too many GOPers have aped this attitude, and now we’ve paid the price for it, and very deservedly.

It will be a long, hard road back to national power and it may even take a decade or two to complete (though I do think we have bright prospects for 2010), but it is a road we must travel for the sake of the nation. Liberalism, that dead dog of the past, will have its day – and it’ll be our job to ensure that it is the very last day liberalism ever has.

Yeah, right. This from Antioch, California which is in Contra Costa County (Obama 68%, McCain 30%):

As more and more black renters began moving into this mostly white San Francisco Bay Area suburb a few years ago, neighbors started complaining about loud parties, mean pit bulls, blaring car radios, prostitution, drug dealing and muggings of schoolchildren.

In 2006, as the influx reached its peak, the police department formed a special crime-fighting unit to deal with the complaints, and authorities began cracking down on tenants in federally subsidized housing.

Now that police unit is the focus of lawsuits by black families who allege the city of 100,000 is orchestrating a campaign to drive them out.

“A lot of people are moving out here looking for a better place to live,” said Karen Coleman, a mother of three who came here five years ago from a blighted neighborhood in nearby Pittsburg. “We are trying to raise our kids like everyone else. But they don’t want us here.”

City officials deny the allegations in the lawsuits, which were filed last spring and seek unspecified damages.

Across the country, similar tensions have simmered when federally subsidized renters escaped run-down housing projects and violent neighborhoods by moving to nicer communities in suburban Washington, Chicago and Los Angeles.

As a rather idle set of questions, I wonder for our white liberals here on Blogs for Victory, just when was the last time you got a hug from a black person? For me, it was a bit more than 12 hours ago, as I write this. When was the last time you lauded – by name because you’ve known her for years and watched her struggle – a hispanic, single mother as the ideal of what an American can do when determined to work hard? When was the last time you shot the breeze with someone who didn’t look like you? Attended a religious service where more than half the congregation was non-white? Gave a ride to a black person who just came up and asked for a ride? Had a gay guy hit on you and just passed it off as if nothing had happened? Called a black wino “brother” as you handed him a fiver? Worked for a black man? Worked for a black woman? Worked with openly gay people and didn’t give a twopenny damn about it? Was the only white person at a party? Was given a lift by a black gangster when your car was broke down at 1am in the middle of the most African-American community in your locality? Have mixed race relatives? Have friends who have mixed race grandchildren? Compared photos of your own grandchildren with those of your black friend, who’s grandchildren are from a mixed-race marriage?

Just wondering – wondering, that is, if there is really anything other than words and attitude in your views on race in America?

Showing just how wicked they are:

Today (Wednesday, December 31 2008), 12 Palestinians entered Israel for medical treatment in Israeli hospitals. Two of those evacuated were children injured during the military activates, the remaining are chronically sick people, and their escorts, that entered Israel for treatment that is not available within the Gaza Strip.

Further more, despite ongoing rocket fire, Israel continues with the extensive humanitarian effort in coordination with the international organizations, Palestinian Authority and various donors. Ninety three trucks, with approximately 2500 tons of humanitarian aid, medical supplies and medication were conveyed through Kerem Shalom cargo terminal. The World Food Programme has informed Israel that they will not be resuming shipment of food commodities in to Gaza due to the fact that their warehouses are at full capacity and will last for approximately two weeks.

Since the beginning of operation “Cast Lead” some 6500 tons of aid have been transferred at the request of the international organizations, the Palestinian Authority and various governments. Preparations are underway to facilitate further shipments expected to arrive in the coming days.

Yep, we really need to stop those darn Israelis – next thing you know, they might try to foster genuine democracy in Gaza and start giving the Palestinian people hope for a better future. Can’t have any of that!