Blogs For Victory

So much for that lobbyist ban thing:

One of the leading members of President-elect Barack Obama’s Health and Human Services transition team was an anti-tobacco lobbyist as recently as September, a position that would appear to break a transition team rule that prevents lobbyists from serving in policy areas they have worked to influence within the past year.

But in an example of how the tough-sounding rules can provide Obama plenty of wiggle room, the campaign explained how the lobbyist’s work didn’t violate the restrictions.

Bill Corr, executive director of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, unsuccessfully pushed Congress to give the Food and Drug Administration the authority to regulate tobacco. But because the legislation granting that authority failed, there is no dovetail between Corr’s lobbying and HHS policies, said a transition spokeswoman, who did not wish to be identified.

Asked whether it created a problem that Corr would now be in charge of reviewing HHS after having lobbied to increase the authority of the FDA, which falls under HHS’ jurisdiction, the spokeswoman said it wasn’t an issue because the HHS secretary and FDA commissioner are separately confirmed by the Senate.

Also, she said, Corr has agreed to recuse himself from tobacco-related issues.

Yeah, whatever. Bottom line: a guy who lobbied HHS is now going to be part of building Obama’s HHS team. And, no worries, he’s going to recuse himself from tobacco issues…which doesn’t mean that he won’t help implant anti-tobacco cohorts into HHS who will then carry out the policy he wanted HHS to follow.

“Wiggle room” doesn’t even begin to cover what Obama has allowed himself. Essentially, by not pledging to reform Washington from top to bottom – as McCain and Palin had – Obama has signaled that the only change he brings is that henceforward Executive and Legislative will be on the side of back scratching and sweetheart deals for favored individuals and groups. Now everyone will get to see how it goes when both Congress and the President are “pay to play” organizations.

In a day’s time, two big lies of Obama during the campaign have been exposed. First, it was his attendance at Jeremiah Wright’s racist, anti-American church, and now it is his relationship with domestic terrorist Bill Ayers… which according to Ayers was much deeper than Obama claimed.

In a new afterword to his 2001 book, Bill Ayers, former leader of the 1960s radical group Weather Underground, describes President-elect Barack Obama as a “family friend” and denies he wished his group had set off more bombs in the 1960s.

Ayers, a professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago, adds few new details about his relationship with Obama in the afterword to Fugitive Days: Memoirs of an Anti-War Activist. The book is being reissued this month.

In a new afterword to his memoir, 1960s radical William Ayers writes that the campaign controversy over their relationship was an effort by Obama’s political enemies to “deepen a dishonest narrative” about the candidate.

“We had served together on the board of a foundation, knew one another as neighbors and family friends, held an initial fund-raiser at my house, where I’d made a small donation to his earliest political campaign,” he writes.

Obama supporters can try to argue that Comrade Obama’s close relationship with a terrorist is irrelevant, but I don’t see how they can defend his lying since he claimed to bring change to government.

Obama has betrayed America’s trust. He knowingly and intentionally lied about his attendance at Trinity Church and his relationship with a terrorist.

A long shot, to be sure:

California Rep. Dan Lungren will challenge Minority Leader John A. Boehner next week in a bid to dethrone the top Republican in the House, according to a letter distributed by Lungren’s office on Friday.

Lungren, who opens the note complimenting the Republican leader as “a good man” “of honor and intergrity,” casts his long-shot campaign against Boehner as a move to shake up the GOP “because I think our party is in trouble.

“If we don’t admit our difficulties and address them aggressively, we not only run the risk of becoming a permanent congressional minority but we will do a disservice to our nation,” Lungren says in the letter. “If we choose by inaction to ignore the real challenges we face, then paraphrazing President Reagan, we deserve to be relegated to the trash heap of history.”

Lungren parrots the complaints of the party’s activist base in the aftermath of last week’s election, asking, “‘Do the Republicans in Congress really understand the magnitude of what has happened?'”

I do wonder if the Congressional GOP really understands what happened – I worry they are thinking they can coast to victory in 2010 on an anti-Obama wave. While that might happen, we should work with the assumption that Obama will be a huge success and thus we’ll have to beat the Democrats with ideas and candidates. Only if the Congressional GOP maps out its program based upon the need for ideas and solutions with a mind towards re-convincing the American people we are worthy of their trust will we have a chance of winning. And I mean really winning – not just falling into power like the Democrats did on an anti-GOP wave.

Top to bottom, we need to reform the way we do business to get our party to be the party of responsibility, moral standards, solutions and core American ideals.

And it was for commemorative Obama plates.

The people who are so enthused about Obama are starting to disgust me. Never in my life did I ever think I’d see some of my fellow Americans acting so servile to a politician…this nauseating flattery really has to stop. Get off your knees, Obamaniacs!

John Hawkins makes a strong argument in favor of removing Senator Mitch McConnell from his Senate Minority Leader post, and that is part of a larger debate in the conservative movement about what moves we should make early on in our rebuilding process. My view? All Congressional GOP leaders should voluntarily step aside and allow new people to compete for their posts.

When you are the leaders of the losing team, propriety dictates a humble recognition that the failure, ultimately, rests in the leadership. Yeah, the cards were stacked against the GOP. Certainly, McCain didn’t run the ideal campaign. The MSM was in the tank for the Democratic party. On and on – there are plenty of mitigating circumstances. And they all amount to nothing – the GOP lost.

I didn’t hear a clarion call from the GOP as to just why we should elect GOPers to the House and Senate. I know we were low on money in a lot of respects, but I saw huge numbers of GOP ads attacking Congressional liberals…which is a fine thing to do, but you can’t beat something with nothing. You can’t just be against Congressional liberals (wise as that position is) you also have to be for something…and the GOP had a host of things to be for which a good, national campaign could have highlighted:

1. Oil and energy – the GOP made some good moves in this, but I never saw a comprehensive, national campaign to highlight just how bad the Democrats are on this issue and the common-sense solutions the GOP had in hand.

2. Taxation – no talk at all about how a variety of tax cuts could be used to stem the financial crisis and restore economic growth.

3. Corruption – Stevens should have been stripped of all his GOP privileges the moment he was convicted and every GOPer in America should have loudly called for his immediate resignation. Couple this with the Democrats continued coddling of people like William “Cold Cash” Jefferson and the GOP could have made fighting corruption an issue for the GOP.

4. Spending – Why didn’t we pledge ourselves to fiscal responsibility? A “we learned our lesson” campaign could have at least started returning GOP favorability in matters of spending.

Others can probably thing of many more things we could have used to go on offense – but all I perceive from the GOP in 2008, as in 2006, is a determination to limit losses…in other words, to not lose as badly as we could. Douglas MacArthur was asked what his formula was for defensive warfare – his one word answer, “defeat”. You can’t win unless you attack – and we didn’t lunge after Democratic vulnerabilities.

It might have been that the ultimate course for 2008 was GOP defeat – perhaps the anti-GOP headwinds really were too strong to overcome by even the best candidate and the best campaign. So be it – but you go into any battle with the absolute conviction of total victory and fight like heck from start to finish. We didn’t do that – our leadership didn’t do that; and it is time for them to go.

Congratulations to our friends in India:

India marked its presence on Moon on Friday night to be only the fourth nation to scale this historic milestone after a Moon Impact Probe with the national tri-colour painted successfully landed on the lunar surface after being detached from unmanned spacecraft Chandrayaan-1.

Joining the US, the erstwhile Soviet Union and the European Union, the 35-kg Moon Impact Probe (MIP) hit the moon exactly at 8.31 PM, about 25 minutes after the probe instrument descended from the satellite in what ISRO described as a “perfect operation”.

Miniature Indian flags painted on four sides of the MIP signalled the country’s symbolic entry into moon to coincide with the birth anniversary of the country’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, observed as Children’s Day.

A remarkable achievement for a nation which 61 years ago emerged from British colonial rule as an impoverished, strife ridden global backwater. The Big Three in 2100 will be the United States, China and India, and the world had better get entirely used to the eclipse of Europe and the rise of the new great powers.

I just read an interesting story about an 8th grader in Illinois who conducted an experiment on politcal tolerance in her school by wearing a pro-McCain shirt one day, and a pro-Obama shirt the next.

Catherine Vogt, 14, is an Illinois 8th grader, the daughter of a liberal mom and a conservative dad. She wanted to conduct an experiment in political tolerance and diversity of opinion at her school in the liberal suburb of Oak Park.

She noticed that fellow students at Gwendolyn Brooks Middle School overwhelmingly supported Barack Obama for president. His campaign kept preaching “inclusion,” and she decided to see how included she could be.

So just before the election, Catherine consulted with her history teacher, then bravely wore a unique T-shirt to school and recorded the comments of teachers and students in her journal. The T-shirt bore the simple yet quite subversive words drawn with a red marker:

“McCain Girl.”

“I was just really curious how they’d react to something that different, because a lot of people at my school wore Obama shirts and they are big Obama supporters,” Catherine told us. “I just really wanted to see what their reaction would be.”

Immediately, Catherine learned she was stupid for wearing a shirt with Republican John McCain’s name. Not merely stupid. Very stupid.

“People were upset. But they started saying things, calling me very stupid, telling me my shirt was stupid and I shouldn’t be wearing it,” Catherine said.

Then it got worse.

“One person told me to go die. It was a lot of dying. A lot of comments about how I should be killed,” Catherine said, of the tolerance in Oak Park.

[…]

One student suggested that she be put up on a cross for her political beliefs.

“He said, ‘You should be crucifixed.’ It was kind of funny because, I was like, don’t you mean ‘crucified?’ ” Catherine said.

Other entries in her notebook involved suggestions by classmates that she be “burned with her shirt on” for “being a filthy-rich Republican.”

Ironic, isn’t it? The Left, who claim to be the party of tolerance, are in fact, so intolerant that they actually cross the line into bigotry. Now. what makes this so interesting is the fact these are kids spewing out such hatred due to a difference in politics. This is not an inborn behavior… this is learned. These kids were taught to hate those who disagree with them… whether it be by their parents or their teachers.

It is a sad thing, for a politcal ideology to be rooted in hate. But that is the Democratic Party of today.

Democrats – and a few RINOs – start lining up for funds to cover their own stupid governing mistakes:

Three big city mayors asked the federal government Friday to use a portion of the $700 billion financial bailout to assist struggling cities.

The mayors sought help with their pension costs, infrastructure investment and cash-flow problems stemming from the global financial crisis.

The mayors—Michael Nutter of Philadelphia, Shirley Franklin of Atlanta and Phil Gordon of Phoenix—made their request in a letter to Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson.

Nutter said cities are facing an economic crisis not seen since the Depression and need help just like financial institutions.

“I want to make sure that cities and metro areas are at the table, that their voices are being heard, that our challenges and problems are well understood, so that we can get relief,” Nutter said.

The big cities – even when they have a supposed Republican Mayor – are generally governed under the core liberal principle that you can spend forever, raise taxes like there’s no tomorrow and issue bonds like they’re going out of style and none of these chickens will come home to roost. After all, to the liberals, the money supply is endless and there’s no level of taxation, spending and regulation which will ever discourage business and/or convince those who can leave that the ‘burbs are a better option. After having spent themselves into oblivion (Philly, for instance, has three departments for housing issues – among a list of city agencies large enough to run the British Empire at its height), these useless and all too often corrupt big city leaders now want you, dear taxpayer, to bail them out. And Obama has encouraged this by saying he wants an element of bail out for profligate liberals in his government.

Get ready for the most recession-inducing and -deepening government free for all in human history, boys and girls: the Democrats are back in power and anyone who actually thought they’d show fiscal restraint and, indeed, common sense just hasn’t been paying attention for the past 40 years.

The US Bishops refuse to back down:

e U.S. Catholic bishops have come out in a united front in a statement on abortion and politics, warning politicians not to misinterpret the election results as “a referendum on abortion,” and that “aggressively pro-abortion policies, legislation and executive orders will permanently alienate tens of millions of Americans.”

Cardinal Francis George, writing on behalf of all the U.S. bishops, begins his statement by heralding the historic election of Barack Obama as president and saying that the bishops look forward to working “for the common good of all” with the new government.

After listing priorities such as immigration, education, health care and religious freedom, the bishops state that the “fundamental good is life itself, a gift from God and our parents.”

Yet, they note that, “Legal protection for those members of the human family waiting to be born in this country was removed when the Supreme Court decided Roe vs. Wade in 1973. This was bad law.”

Of particular concern, the bishops say, is that “a bad court decision will be enshrined in bad legislation that is more radical than the 1973 Supreme Court decision itself,” referring to the Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA).se

The Act would “outlaw any ‘interference’ in providing abortion at will. It would deprive the American people in all fifty states of the freedom they now have to enact modest restraints and regulations on the abortion industry,” according to the U.S. prelates.

We’ll swiftly find out how smart Obama really is – if he tries to ram through a series of leftwing programs, he’ll likely set himself up for a Clintonesque Congressional defeat in 2010. The fraudulently named “Freedom of Choice Act” (which actually takes away the choices of the American people) is a litmus test of the kook left, and Obama embraced it early on, but then he went and flip flopped on a host of issues, and might realize that FOCA is a losing issue. In addition to this in the the leftwing wish-list is “Card Check” (taking away the right of workers to vote on unionization), “Fairness Doctrine” (an attempt to get rid of Rush and the rest of conservative talk radio) and various criminal investigations of the Bush Administration the left has it’s heart set on. Any one of these, singly or in combination, would be political suicide – the only worse thing Obama could do for himself is to also try a gun ban of some sort. A smart Obama will make noises about these issues and then place them firmly on the back burner.

It should be kept in mind that 2002 was an strange event – the White House party gaining seats in the mid terms is almost unheard of. All else being equal, the Democrats can probably look to a 15-20 seat House loss right out the gate. Can Obama turn this around and duplicate Bush’s 2002 effort? Perhaps – but only if there’s a major turn around in the economy and/or the GOP really screws up badly (and never count us out on that – we’re not called “the stupid party” for nothing, ya know?). The Good news for Obama and his Democrats is that they built themselves a nice cushion in 2008 – the Senate looks entirely out of GOP reach any time before 2012 (when the first of all those new Democrats from 2006 come up for re-election, thus giving the GOP a good shot at significant gains), but if Obama makes people mad enough and adds to it a sluggish or recessionary economy, then 2010 could wind up being a GOP blowout. No need to fan the flames by giving the GOP a series of excellent wedge issues to hammer the Democrats with.

Of course, the GOP will also need to come up with a plan of action and a serious effort to act anew and think anew – can’t beat something with nothing. But in this rebuilding effort, the strong statement from the Catholic Bishops becomes a vital pivot point for the GOP – not a quixotic battle against Roe (out of reach until we recapture the White House, at the earliest), but a battle for the rights of the people. The people have passed – directly or through their State legislatures – various common sense restrictions on abortion, and the left – via FOCA – wants to undo all that and force abortion on demand back down America’s throat. People are wary of anything smacking of a ban on abortion, but they are even more wary of the usurpation of their rights.

We can do no better than relaunching ourselves on the side of Life and Liberty – core American values, core conservative values, and issues we simply blow the Democrats out of the water with.

Always a bad sign for a Congresscritter when he has to deny he’s under investigation:

Sen. Kent Conrad, D-N.D., said he’s not a target in a Justice Department [investigation] of Countrywide Financial.

NBC News recently reported that the FBI is investigating Countrywide’s VIP program – which gave special mortgage deals to government officials.

Conrad was among those officials who received a mortgage.

The senator told WDAY Radio News that neither he nor his office have been contracted by federal investigators.

The Senate Ethics Committee is investigating Conrad’s relationship with Countrywide, and Conrad has denied he ever received preferential treatment.

The other Democrat on the chopping block here is Senator Chris Dodd (D-Bailout Package) – but there are others, and one of the first tests of the Obama Justice Department will be on whether or not they are prepared to see a fairly large number of Democrats brought down by this scandal. My bet is that its a test Obama will fail miserably, given the Democrats’ penchant for simply not caring about corruption unless they can tag a Republican with it at election time.