Blogs For Victory

Senator Jim DeMint has the details:(emphases mine)

We’ve just been alerted that despite House Democrats relenting on extending bans on offshore drilling and oil shale in the continuing resolution (CR) appropriations bill, Democrat Senate Leader Harry Reid has decided to sneak an extension of the oil shale ban through as Congress fights over the financial bailout. Oil shale in America’s West is estimated to hold be between 800 billion and 2 trillion barrels of oil — that is more than three times the proven oil reserves in Saudi Arabia alone.

The text of the Reid language is here.

As an aside, I just got off the phone with Reid’s office and asked the staffer why Reid is hellbent on sending us to the economic stone age, with his constant stonewalling of our ability to harvest our own resources.

The staffer replied that Reid’s energy policy is long term in scope.

I replied, "What about the short term? What good is the long term if in the short term we collapse economically, and have nothing to leave our kids? Why is Senator Reid constantly stonewalling our ability to harvest our own resources?"

The condescending, smarmy schmo replied, "Well, sir, that’s if you believe that more oil will help us in the short term."

Someday, someone will invent a machine whereby it is possible to slap someone upside the head via the telephone.

Until then, banging my head against the wall will have to suffice.

I swear, and I’ll say this professionally: Anyone who votes democrat in the upcoming elections ought to have their head examined.

Talk about audacity!

Former Fannie Mae chairman Jim Johnson was dumped from Obama’s vice presidential search team, but he’s still playing a behind-the-scenes role on the campaign.

Former Senator Tom Daschle, a top Obama backer, emailed a select list this afternoon that he and Johnson would be leading a briefing intended largely for Clinton’s campaign brain trust next month.

“Jim Johnson and I have scheduled another informal breakfast discussion and update on the campaign early next month,” he wrote to a list including Senator John Kerry, James Carville, and Richard Holbrooke, as well as Clinton’s former top campaign aides, including Howard Wolfson, Geoff Garin, and Harold Ickes.

Johnson’s involvement comes at a moment when political association with the failed mortgage giants is particularly toxic. He was already the subject of a McCain ad attacking Obama.

The October third breakfast is also a mark of the continuing effort to bring the ex-Clintonites into the Obama fold.

Wow.

Gotta give Bubba credit here.

Former President Bill Clinton defended Sen. John McCain’s request to delay the first presidential debate, saying McCain did it in “good faith” and pushed organizers to reserve time for economy talk during the debate if the Friday plans move forward.

Appearing on Good Morning America Thursday, Clinton told ABC News’ Chris Cuomo that McCain’s push to postpone the debate would only be a good political move if both candidates agreed. McCain announced on Wednesday that he would “suspend” his presidential campaign to come to Washington to help negotiate a financial bailout bill

“We know he didn’t do it because he’s afraid because Sen. McCain wanted more debates,” Clinton said, adding that he was “encouraged” by the joint statement from McCain and Sen. Barack Obama.

All very true. In the end, McCain will come out of this one looking really good.

Because it’s important:

Interesting:

A $100,000 state grant for a botanic garden in Englewood that then-state Sen. Barack Obama awarded in 2001 to a group headed by a onetime campaign volunteer is now under investigation by the Illinois attorney general amid new questions, prompted by Chicago Sun-Times reports, about whether the money might have been misspent.

The garden was never built. And now state records obtained by the Sun-Times show $65,000 of the grant money went to the wife of Kenny B. Smith, the Obama 2000 congressional campaign volunteer who heads the Chicago Better Housing Association, which was in charge of the project for the blighted South Side neighborhood.

Obama’s actions in awarding the grant are allegedly not “a focus of the investigation.”

But, I wouldn’t be surprised if they eventually are.

Being as its football season, and all that – ya know? Anyways…

Democrats had dared Sen. John McCain to show leadership on the Wall Street crisis and he stepped up. He put his campaign on hold Wednesday and challenged Sen. Barack Obama to postpone Friday’s debate, which Democrats had hoped to turn into a forum on failed Republican economic policies.

Less than a month after he canceled the first night of the Republican National Convention, Mr. McCain again flashed his signature maverick style, declaring President Bush’s proposed $700 billion bailout dead and, as he’s done so often in the past, said he could help broker a bipartisan deal to cut through the political clutter…

…The McCain campaign said last night that Mr. Obama’s refusal would not affect their plans. The Arizona senator announced that he was canceling his political commercials and would return to Washington after a final nonpartisan speech Thursday to the Clinton Global Initiative. He also said he was suspending fundraising, though the link on his Web site for contributions to his campaign compliance fund still worked Wednesday night.

Mr. McCain said top leaders from both parties should meet and hammer out details of a bill that that they would then present to their colleagues as the best solution possible – exactly the way he has crafted deals on other major issues, such as judicial nominees and immigration.

“I am confident that before the markets open on Monday, we can achieve consensus on legislation that will stabilize our financial markets, protect taxpayers and homeowners, and earn the confidence of the American people,” he said. “All we must do to achieve this is temporarily set politics aside, and I am committed to doing so.”

It occured to me yesterday morning – long before McCain’s announcement – that the key to understanding Obama is to realise that he always takes the easy way out. His whole life is nothing but a series of swift turns away from adversity and towards the open door. In a way, I actually understand this and I think its why – believe it or not – I’ve always felt a level of sympathy for Obama since he first rocketed on the scene. One of the things I had to overcome (and, indeed, am still overcoming, with God’s help) was my own desire to always take the easy way out.

Think about it – is Obama a liberal because liberalism appealed to him, or is it just that as a black college student being a liberal was a heck of a lot easier than being a conservative? Why did Obama work to get opponents off the ballot rather than be willing to mix it up with them? Why did Obama vote “present” so many times? Why did he spend his time in caucus States rather than working the more difficult rough and tumble of the big primary States? Why did he give in to Hillary’s absurd demand for a roll call vote? Why did he go with Biden? And, now, why was he caught flat-footed by John McCain in this financial crisis which is ready-made for a strong Democrat to run it for all its worth? Because each and every time the thing Obama decided to do was the easier thing – the less confrontational thing, the thing which held the least risk of Obama coming in second.

The best thing which can ever happen to a leader of a nation is to fail miserably one or more times early on – Lincoln in his Senate campaign; Churchill with the Dardanelles; Theodore Roosevelt with his election losses and bankruptcy in the cattle trade; Reagan with the collapse of his once-successful acting career and the breakup of his first marriage…the thing in common with all these failures is that they represent a failed attempt; these men tried to do something, came out badly, and emerged wiser and stronger for it. McCain has had his character-building failures – being a POW for years, the breakup of his first marriage, his loss in the 2000 GOP primary; he’s a tried and tested man who had done the hard things, lost at times, and is now ready to apply his wisdom to the problems of our age. Obama hasn’t dared greatly – heck, he hasn’t really dared at all; he’ll be eaten alive by the Presidency, if he manages to win it.

Obama has in him the seeds of greatness – he really does, even though his politics are liberal. But until he’s tempered with some hard reality and/or obtains some hard and fast executive experience, he’s just too weak a reed for America to rely on in these troubled times. Needless to say, some of this tempering would do Obama well in the policy area, too – the facts of life, as Margaret Thatcher pointed out, are conservative…and the more a person is exposed to the hard realities of life the more likely he is to become conservative in his views, or at least to modify the more flighty aspects of liberalism (its the difference between war-hero JFK’s liberalism and never-suffered-a-minute Ted Kennedy’s liberalism).

The tmes call for a man of maturity, wisdom and proven courage – the times call for John McCain. Obama’s day may yet come, but it isn’t today – and, actually, the worst thing which could happen to him at this juncture (and to us, incidentally) is for him to win. He’s not ready, McCain is. Let’s go with McCain.

Obamaniacs like one recent poll, but they won’t like this one:

The race between Barack Obama and John McCain remains a dead heat, despite financial turmoil that has turned the nation’s attention to economic issues that tend to favor the Democratic presidential candidate, according to a new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll…

…Mr. Hart said that Sen. McCain’s ability to tap into voter anger explains why.

A near-record 73% of voters said the nation is off on the wrong track, up six points from just last month. More people think the nation is in a “state of decline.” Nearly eight in 10 voters think the nation is in a recession and most of them think the worst of it is yet to come. And public opinion ticked down for every public figure and institution the poll asked about, including President George W. Bush, Sens. McCain and Obama and both political parties.

It makes the electorate ripe for Sen. McCain’s populist message, Mr. Hart said, recalling the classic movie, “Network,” where TV news anchor Howard Beale urges viewers to proclaim, “I’m as mad as hell and I’m not going to take this anymore.”

“John McCain has become the Howard Beale of this election,” Mr. Hart said.

The survey finds that Sen. Obama has lost ground with the independent voters who will be crucial to the outcome of the election. They now favor Sen. McCain by 13 percentage points, up from eight points two weeks ago. In early September, just after both parties’ conventions, half of independent voters had a positive image of Sen. Obama; now it’s just 39%. Independents were also less likely to say they could identify with his background and values than they were in early September.

For all of Obama’s talk of change, he is just another one in a long line of people who have been part of the problem…shovelling money at problems, working out sweetheart deals for supporters and cronies, acting as if the party will never end and no accounting would ever be rendered. Well, its being rendered now – and McCain is well placed to showcase his long-standing and indisputable record as a reformer who is unafraid to step out of the party line. Palin has this, too – and while its still a long way to November 4th, its not that long and people will start to make their choices soon…and I can’t see people really deciding that Obama – of all people – is best to reform our nation’s government.

If Obama loses, liberals will blame everyone but themselves – they’ll say its because we’re a bunch of closet racists; that we’re afraid of “the Other”; that we’re fools…it will not occur to them, if they are dealing with a President-elect McCain, that it just might have been the fact that Democrats have been so deeply tied to Big Government and Big Corporation that when one fell, the other was bound to fall with it. It may prove in 2008 that only the outsider can get in – and “outsider” doesn’t mean “not in politics long” but “not a tool for the special interests”. McCain and Palin are no tools – Obama and Biden are, and on that fact may turn the electioni.

The root cause:

The Archbishop of Lima, Cardinal Juan Luis Cipriani, said this week the financial crisis in the United States and the rest of the world is a consequence of the idolatry of money and power.

This idolatry has manifested itself in the network of corrupt officials who were greedy for more and therefore did not properly carry out their roles, Cardinal Cipriani said.

“They adore money and therefore, they engage in deceit. They issued a series of mortgages that had no value, and that, multiplied by millions has led to this flood of fraudulent corruption,” the cardinal said on his weekly radio program.

The cardinal warned that idolizing power and money has reached “very troubling levels in the world.” When money and power are “the only objects of our lives, they end in problems,” he said.

“When there is so much desire for money, it is for power, and when there is a desire for power it is for money. All of this just to impose our subjectivism, arrogance and pride,” the cardinal stated.

We will debate this and left will blame right and right will blame left – but, “The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, But in ourselves”. Look in the mirror, and there is our problem. There is much idolatry these days, and much excuse making – and even more turning a blind eye. It is an old saw but a true one which says that for evil to triumph it is only required that good men do nothing.

One of the wisest things a person can say from time to time is, “I confess to almighty God, and to you, my brothers and sisters, that I have sinned through my own fault,

in my thoughts and in my words, in what I have done, and in what I have failed to do…”. It goes on a bit from there, but the most important thing for us to remember is that there’s no point in congratulating ourselves on not being entirely nasty – we’ve all screwed up and added our aliquot portion to the world’s misery. It is time – and high time – that we started acting like men and women and started to set the world to rights. We can continue down this path, and we can even manage this crisis but, eventually, everything has to be paid for; or we can turn aside and start to live as human beings are supposed to live – with love, and mercy and a quiet modesty which understands the limitations of all people.

A gaffe a minute?

Hell… how about a gaffe a second? See if you can spot them all in just this short sentence uttered by Joe Biden:

“When the stock market crashed, Franklin D. Roosevelt got on the television and didn’t just talk about the, you know, the princes of greed. He said, ‘Look, here’s what happened,'” Barack Obama’s running mate recently told the “CBS Evening News.”

Thank you, Barack Obama…for giving us conservative bloggers the gift that keeps on giving.

Never mind that Ahmadinejad seeks to annihilate a race of people. Never mind that this whackjob’s ability to perpetrate a nuclear holocaust is but a | stone’s throw in time away. Instead of admonishing and condemning his policies, what do liberal ‘religious’ groups do?

Why, they throw him a party, of course.

The Christian groups behind the event to honor Ahmadinejad are the American Friends Service Committee, Mennonite Central Committee, Quaker United Nations Office, Religions for Peace and the World Council of Churches, UPI reported.

From the World Council of Churches website:

The World Council of Churches is a fellowship of churches which confess the Lord Jesus Christ as God and Saviour according to the scriptures, and therefore seek to fulfil together their common calling to the glory of the one God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

It is a community of churches on the way to visible unity in one faith and one eucharistic fellowship, expressed in worship and in common life in Christ. It seeks to advance towards this unity, as Jesus prayed for his followers, "so that the world may believe." (John 17:21)

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