Blogs For Victory

We’ve all heard Barack Obama talk about how evil lobbyists are, but I guess some lobbyists are more evil than others.

Democrat Barack Obama opposes a bill that would change the nation’s 135-year-old mining law – the same stance as mining industry executives who employ a Nevada-based lobbyist advising the presidential candidate.

The Obama campaign and Billy Vassiliadis, a longtime Nevada power broker, contend there is no connection, saying they have never discussed Obama’s position on the mining bill.

Sure.

Vassiliadis, a longtime Nevada power broker, is a member of Obama’s Nevada steering committee and has contributed $2,300 to his campaign. He is a lobbyist for the Nevada Mining Association at the state level and the chief executive of the advertising and lobbying firm hired by two mining companies to lobby for them in Washington.

Denver-based Newmont Mining Co., one of the world’s largest gold producers, hired Las Vegas-based R&R Partners’ Washington, D.C. office in January. The firm has represented silver and gold miner Coeur d’Alene Mines Corp. (CDE), in Washington since 2006.

Obama campaign spokeswoman Shannon Gilson said Vassiliadis has advised the campaign only on politics, never policy.

“I have not had a single conversation, not one, with anybody in the Obama campaign about mining,” Vassiliadis said.

You can always trust the word of a lobbyist right? This is getting ridiculous. Between faux-transparency and changing his position on Iraq depending on the political climate, and now this interesting little lobbyist connection he has, how can anyone believe a word he says?

There’s been a lot of talk about Hillary’s records from her days as First Lady, but I wonder how much attention is going to be given to this:

Barack Obama, who’s been scolding Hillary Rodham Clinton for not hastening the release of records from her time as first lady, says he can’t step up and produce his own records from his days in the Illinois state Senate. He says he hasn’t got any.

“I don’t have — I don’t maintain — a file of eight years of work in the state Senate because I didn’t have the resources available to maintain those kinds of records,” he said at a recent campaign stop in Iowa. He said he wasn’t sure where any cache of records might have gone, adding, “It could have been thrown out. I haven’t been in the state Senate now for quite some time.”

That’s just too hard to swallow. No records? Eight years in the state senate and we’re supposed to believe there’s nothing he can show?

Now, Obama has based his campaign on him being an outsider, and fixing government, and he’s even made an issue specifically about government transparency. Obama has even suggested that Americans would trust government more if government was made more transparent.

So, since Obama can’t be more transparent, since his records apparently no longer exist, I guess we cannot trust him.

It’s also worth noting that Deval Patrick, the governor of Massachusetts, ran on a pledge of openness and transparency, and has since had what could very well be the most secretive governorship in Massachusetts history.

…before some leftist blog/website to accuse us of “ditching Bush.” So congratulations to Think Progress for being as ignorant as it is predictable.

So, let’s set the record straight. Changing from Blogs For Bush to Blogs For Victory is merely a change in branding. We absolutely support President Bush. The morons at Think Progress can tell themselves all they want that we have “ditched Bush,” but nothing could be further from the truth. But, since when has the Left ever been concerned with the truth?

They can go ahead and keep an eye on our blogging here for as long as they want.. They’ll discover that we have not “ditched Bush.”

So, the plan that caused Hillary to fumble during her disastrous debate performance is now dead.

New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer on Wednesday dropped a controversial plan to issue driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants because of overwhelming opposition to the policy.

“I’ve concluded that New York state cannot conduct this program on its own,” Spitzer said at a Capitol Hill news conference. “It does not take a stethoscope to hear the pulse of New Yorkers on this topic.”

Spitzer’s plan sparked a national debate over the extension of certain privileges to illegal immigrants and haunted Democratic presidential front-runner New York Sen. Hillary Clinton on the campaign trail.

I bet Hillary is wishing this had happened a month earlier.

According to an independent study by CRA International:

Energy legislation pending in Congress likely would have significant adverse effects on the economy and consumers – including nearly 5 million lost jobs and $1 trillion in lost economic output, according to a report released today by API.

The study, prepared by CRA International and commissioned by API, found that the combined effect of seven legislative proposals would restrict the supply of energy available to the U.S. economy and would likely increase the cost of energy supplies to consumers and businesses.

“This legislation would put consumers in a squeeze,” said W. David Montgomery, a vice president and co-head of CRA’s energy and environmental practice. John Felmy, API’s chief economist, said: “This study points out the folly of energy legislation based on taxing the oil industry and raising the cost of energy to consumers.”

Higher energy costs likely would reduce total consumption, employment, investment and economic output, the study found. In addition, the study also found that by 2030: Economic output likely would decline 4 percent, or more than $1 trillion; non-farm job losses caused by higher energy costs likely would result in nearly 5 million lost jobs, and households likely would suffer about a $1,700 reduction in real income.

API is the industry’s national trade association that represents all aspects of America’s oil and natural gas industry. CRA is a worldwide leader in providing economic, financial and management consulting services.

A PDF of the Proposed Energy Bill Study Report is available here.

I did debate that in my mind a bit – do I start with a whole new series of “What Media Bias?” posts, or do I keep up the old series? As a conservative, the answer came pretty quickly – adhere to tradition. So, here we go.

As we have been saying for some time, we’re winning the campaign in Iraq – though, to listen to the MSM (not to mention the Democrats and the kook left), there has been nothing but a continuing disaster in Iraq. Rich Lowry over at NRO writes of the quiet victory the MSM is ignoring, and quotes from an excellent article in the Weekly Standard on the untold story:

The surge of operations that American and Iraqi forces began on June 15 has dramatically improved security in Baghdad and throughout Iraq. U.S. commanders and soldiers have reversed the negative trends of 2006, some of which date back to 2005. The total number of enemy attacks has fallen for four consecutive months, and has now reached levels last seen before the February 2006 Samarra mosque bombing. IED explosions have plummeted to late 2004 levels. Iraqi civilian casualties, which peaked at 3,000 in the month of December 2006, are now below 1,000 for the second straight month. The number of coalition soldiers killed in action has fallen for five straight months and is now at the lowest level since February 2004. These trends persisted through Ramadan, when violence had typically spiked. “I believe we have achieved some momentum,” General Raymond T. Odierno, commander of coalition combat forces in Iraq, said modestly in his November 1 press briefing.

The MSM story line of the last week or so? That 2007 has been a bloody year for US troops in Iraq. Indeed, it has; and we must never forget those men and women who literally gave everything they have for the cause of freedom. But death comes to us all in the by and by, and what is more important than our deaths is how we lived – and those troops who have given their lives in this war have lived a life far better than almost all of us. While the MSM wrings its hands over the number of dead (and the MSM loves statistics – true or false, it doesn’t matter; given them a poll or a statistic and they’ll love you for the fact that they can make the story about the stat, rather than about what happened…which would require all that tedious legwork to get at the truth), the real story is what they who died accomplished. And what they have accomplished is a revolution in human affairs.

It is the end of “realism” in world affairs – that alleged realism which was first crystallised by Bismarck in the 19th century which really just boiled down to a cruel indifference to the fate of others. The first example of this was the way Bismarck turned over Polish rebels to be executed by their Czarist oppressors in the 1860’s. From that time to this, the realists have continually found reasons for allowing our brothers and sisters to suffer in the name of a false peace and/or a bogus stability. Poles, Jews, Czechs, Cubans, Cambodians, Rwandans, Sudanese, Tibetans, North Koreans, Vietnamese…on and on the list goes of bludgeoned nations who we helped into oppression because it was “realistic” and it helped “peace” and “stability”. Not any more – stability isn’t our ideal; freedom is.

The fact that the MSM is resolutely failing to see this just shows how incredibly biased they are – as well as how ignorant and downright useless they are becoming as transmitters of information. The old-line MSM (newspapers and network news) is already starting in on its death rattle, and its extinction cannot come soon enough.

Suitably Flip takes note of how Barack Obama’s position on Iraq has changed over the past few years, and what his explanation for that change is.

Hillary Clinton has been accusing President Bush of waging a “war on science” for some time now. While I was flipping through stations on the TV the other day, I caught her giving a speech using the same rhetoric. It appears to be one of her favorite talking points. Be it global warming, stem cell research, or abortion, Hillary seems determined to accuse President Bush and Republicans of denying scientific research in favor of political ideology.

But let’s look at these issues, and really see which party is putting ideology over science.

Global Warming

Democrats claim that their is a consensus in the scientific community that (a) global warming is occurring and (b) that it is man-made. But, if that was the case, why does Al Gore refuse to debate global warming skeptics, and why has there been numerous reports of scientists and meteorologists refuting both notions? Instead of recognizing that there is actually a debate about global warming’s existence and/or the cause of it, they instead want to impose economically catastrophic restrictions on greenhouse gas emissions and support all kinds of legislation imposing restrictions on private businesses.

Stem Cell Research

Democrats have failed to give any credence to discoveries indicating that useful stem cells can be obtained from sources other than human embryos. Instead of pushing for ethical ways to continue with stem cell research, they continue to promote stem cell research that requires the destruction of human embryos.

Abortion

Do I really need to explain how pro-abortion advocates abhor 4D ultrasound technology, which can give parents the opportunity to see real time moving 3-dimensional images of their unborn child. House Democrats also voted overwhelmingly against the Unborn Child Pain Awareness Act of 2006, clearly letting ideology trump science.

So, on these three issues alone, Democrats are undeniably allowing liberal political ideology to “interfere with research and scientific evidence.”

I would even call it the Democrat’s war on science.

How amazing is this? Last year, Democrats were blasting Republicans over spending too much, and they tried to portray themselves as the fiscally conservative party.

Now, they’re at odds with President Bush because he and the GOP want to control spending.

One can’t help thinking of the symbolism of this:

After a very Presidential-esque news conference – Clinton turned around to leave the reporters and their peppering questions. A staffer swooped open a curtain, and chaos ensued. Four large American flags came crashing in front of Senator Clinton as she headed for the door. In a controlled panic, the staffers and the Senator attempted to catch the flags before they fell to the ground.

Watch the i-CAUGHT VIDEO HERE.

President Hillary Clinton = the fall of America.