Picture of the Year

CAPTION CONTEST...

Sign seen at anti-Israeli protest in Manhattan yesterday. (or, perhaps, against the prune industry? who knows...)
(H/T: LGF, who accurately pins it as "numb-skulled hatred")



Possibly related: Mark Steyn reports in National Review that 75% of Pakistani Muslims in Britain are married to their own first cousins...


Happy New Year, everybody.

London Daily Telegraph: 2008 to be remembered as the year Man-made Global Warming was disproved

Great piece by Chris Booker in yesterday's Telegraph:

Looking back over my columns of the past 12 months, one of their major themes was neatly encapsulated by two recent items from The Daily Telegraph.

The first, on May 21, headed "Climate change threat to Alpine ski resorts" , reported that the entire Alpine "winter sports industry" could soon "grind to a halt for lack of snow". The second, on December 19, headed "The Alps have best snow conditions in a generation" , reported that this winter's Alpine snowfalls "look set to beat all records by New Year's Day".

Easily one of the most important stories of 2008 has been all the evidence suggesting that this may be looked back on as the year when there was a turning point in the great worldwide panic over man-made global warming. Just when politicians in Europe and America have been adopting the most costly and damaging measures politicians have ever proposed, to combat this supposed menace, the tide has turned in three significant respects.

First, all over the world, temperatures have been dropping in a way wholly unpredicted by all those computer models which have been used as the main drivers of the scare. Last winter, as temperatures plummeted, many parts of the world had snowfalls on a scale not seen for decades. This winter, with the whole of Canada and half the US under snow, looks likely to be even worse. After several years flatlining, global temperatures have dropped sharply enough to cancel out much of their net rise in the 20th century.

Ever shriller and more frantic has become the insistence of the warmists, cheered on by their army of media groupies such as the BBC, that the last 10 years have been the "hottest in history" and that the North Pole would soon be ice-free – as the poles remain defiantly icebound and those polar bears fail to drown. All those hysterical predictions that we are seeing more droughts and hurricanes than ever before have infuriatingly failed to materialise.

Even the more cautious scientific acolytes of the official orthodoxy now admit that, thanks to "natural factors" such as ocean currents, temperatures have failed to rise as predicted (although they plaintively assure us that this cooling effect is merely "masking the underlying warming trend", and that the temperature rise will resume worse than ever by the middle of the next decade).

Secondly, 2008 was the year when any pretence that there was a "scientific consensus" in favour of man-made global warming collapsed. At long last, as in the Manhattan Declaration last March, hundreds of proper scientists, including many of the world's most eminent climate experts, have been rallying to pour scorn on that "consensus" which was only a politically engineered artefact, based on ever more blatantly manipulated data and computer models programmed to produce no more than convenient fictions.

Thirdly, as banks collapsed and the global economy plunged into its worst recession for decades, harsh reality at last began to break in on those self-deluding dreams which have for so long possessed almost every politician in the western world. As we saw in this month's Poznan conference, when 10,000 politicians, officials and "environmentalists" gathered to plan next year's "son of Kyoto" treaty in Copenhagen, panicking politicians are waking up to the fact that the world can no longer afford all those quixotic schemes for "combating climate change" with which they were so happy to indulge themselves in more comfortable times.

Suddenly it has become rather less appealing that we should divert trillions of dollars, pounds and euros into the fantasy that we could reduce emissions of carbon dioxide by 80 per cent. All those grandiose projects for "emissions trading", "carbon capture", building tens of thousands more useless wind turbines, switching vast areas of farmland from producing food to "biofuels", are being exposed as no more than enormously damaging and futile gestures, costing astronomic sums we no longer possess.

As 2009 dawns, it is time we in Britain faced up to the genuine crisis now fast approaching from the fact that – unless we get on very soon with building enough proper power stations to fill our looming "energy gap" - within a few years our lights will go out and what remains of our economy will judder to a halt. After years of infantile displacement activity, it is high time our politicians – along with those of the EU and President Obama's US – were brought back with a mighty jolt into contact with the real world.

Bush announces 19 pardons - but where are Ramos and Compean?

Matt Lewis points out that Bush's latest list of 19 pardons leaves off three major names we're looking for in the waning days of the Bush Presidency.

The two we're looking for closest, the ones who deserve it, perhaps more than any Presidential Pardon has been deserved in any of our lifetimes, are Border Patrol Agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean. Ramos and Compean are currently looking at 20 years in prison because (get this) they shot a drug dealer who was shooting at them in a cross border bust gone wrong.

As Matt puts it, this is a "no-brainer." The case itself is a terrible miscarriage of justice (the drug dealer lived, though its doubtful he deserves to), and puts a damper on our ability to enforce our southern border.

So... as the President pushes out another batch of pardons, the question has to be asked - why not Ramos and Compean? We're pardoning dead guys who helped Israel become a nation, but not two guys who help protect our own nation? (FYI: I have nothing against pardoning Charles Winters, especially since he's already moved on to the Great Weapons Depot In The Sky, and since Reagan and Clinton have already pardoned his two fellow smugglers... but I digress.)

Forcing these two agents to spend another Christmas in prison is not justice, and President Bush should be ashamed on this one. Hopefully these two are released before the end of his term, but this does ask the question - what is he waiting for?

As Matt tweets, "If Marc Rich can be pardoned..." I couldn't agree more.

***

The other name we're waiting for is Scooter Libby. Scooter doesn't deserve prison either, in my estimation, as we already know he wasn't the source of the leaks (Richard Armitage was.) Yet, he gets nailed for perjury (on an unrelated matter) and the prosecutor gets his scalp. Libby is less important to me than Ramos and Compean, simply because they were in the line of duty, and Libby is "just" a political appointee. Still, it'd be awfully nice if these three guys got out in time to celebrate a New Year...

Bill Kristol on the Obama shift from Rev. Wright to Rev. Warren

Bill Kristol, writing in the Weekly Standard:

Is this smart politics on Obama's part? Sure. Does it mean Obama has studied the mistakes of his predecessors, Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton? Probably. Obama may have learned from their examples that, even though everyone says the economic crisis has put social issues on a far back burner, mishandling those issues can severely damage one's presidency: Recall gays in the military under Clinton and the IRS ruling on Christian schools under Carter...

No conservative should kid himself about what the Obama administration is going to be like. Many of its key policies will be anathema to social conservatives. But social conservatives need to persuade some social moderates, and social undecideds, and social conflicteds, and social uncertains of the reasonableness of conservative concerns, and the sincerity of conservatives' claims that they seek progress in these areas, not merely conflict. There will be plenty of occasions to draw lines with the Obama administration. For now, it might be a good idea to offer a few olive branches to Obama as well.

And the selection of Rick Warren may turn out to have significance beyond short-term political maneuvering. One can see this from the hysteria on the left and among gay activists. They sense that Obama isn't willing to sign on to their campaign to delegitimize, to cast out beyond the pale of polite society, anyone who opposes same-sex marriage--and in particular, anyone (like Warren) who supported Proposition 8 in California, the initiative that overturned the California Supreme Court's legalization of same-sex marriage.

The assault on Prop 8 supporters has been extraordinary in its mean-spiritedness and extremism--but the left knows what it's doing. The purpose has been to intimidate people with an opposing point of view from defending their position. To be against same-sex marriage, even against the judicial imposition of same-sex marriage, is to be a bigot. As one leftwinger said on CNN, Warren is a "hatemonger" comparable to "the grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan." Or, as the Human Rights Campaign's Brad Luna told Byron York of National Review, dismissing the fact that the benediction will be delivered by the Reverend Joseph Lowery, who is more friendly to gay marriage: "I don't think any Jewish Americans would feel much comfort in knowing that an anti-Semite is starting the inauguration with an invocation, but we're going to end it with a rabbi." So the claim is, opposing same-sex marriage is tantamount to being a racist or an anti-Semite.

Making that charge is at the heart of the agenda of the gay lobby. They don't want to debate same-sex marriage. They want to demonize its opponents. Ironically, Lowery himself, who is a (somewhat equivocal) supporter of gay marriage, refuses to equate the gay rights and the civil rights movements: "Homosexuals as a people have never been enslaved because of their sexual orientation," he told the Associated Press. "They may have been scorned; they may have been discriminated against. But they've never been enslaved and declared less than human."

...Conservatives have to be ready to stand up for themselves--and for each other--if and when the left comes at them from the academy, Hollywood, and the media. Obama's invitation to Rick Warren doesn't mean his administration won't put a heavy thumb on the left side of the scale in our cultural conflicts. It doesn't even mean that organs of the federal government, over which Obama will of course be presiding, won't try to stifle nonconforming opinions. But the Warren invitation means that one can at least appeal to Obama's own precedent against suppressing out-of-favor views.

The left senses that the invitation to Rick Warren is a blow to their effort to establish a soft tyranny of "correct" opinion, to enforce society-wide political orthodoxy, on social issues. They're right. This isn't the time for conservatives to snipe at Obama's motives. It's time to welcome him into the American mainstream, to salute the president-elect's progress from Reverends Wright to Warren.

On the Inaugural Invocation

Some days politics and theology intersect – and this is one of those days. For those of you who have somehow missed that I’m an Evangelical, this may be a difficult post, but please bear with me – there’s a political twist here, I promise.

In the Apostle Paul’s first letter to the church in Corinth, Greece, he writes:

Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not
be deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor
homosexuals, nor sodomites, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor
revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God.

In other words, people who are defined by their sin do not enter the kingdom of God.

This makes sense in context with another passage, in the Apostle Paul’s letter to the church in Galatia:

I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ
lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in
the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.

So here’s the context – for those of us who have become Christians, it is not our sin that defines us any more, but our life in Christ. We are no longer listed under “sinner” (though in our imperfect human nature, we will continue to sin – just less and less as we surrender to Christ and are changed), but we are now listed as “Christian” or more literally - “Christ-follower.” This is borne out in the next few lines of the Corinth letter:

And such were some of you. But you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you
were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God….For
you were bought at a price; therefore glorify God in your body and in your
spirit, which are God’s.

In other words, God loves us too much to leave us in the sin we started out in, and He loves us so much He sent His son (whose birth we celebrate at this time of year) to die as a replacement for us, His death the penalty we would have paid if we were to die without that forgiveness. In the process, our identity is changed – from being identified with our sin to being identified with Christ. We are to love the sinner (because we all were there before we were “washed” and “bought with a price”), even as we hate the evil of the sin itself, whether it be murder, theft, extortion or homosexuality, as Paul lists above.

This does get tricky sometimes. In our modern world, Hollywood culture often tries to make these sins feel acceptable – whether the violence of the Godfather or the Sopranos, the adultery of Desperate Housewives or Dallas, or the theft/extortion of Leverage or the Italian Job.

There are Christian leaders who have gotten this issue right – and Rev. Rick Warren of Saddleback Church in Orange County, California is one of them. Now, I must admit I’ve had my issues with Pastor Rick (I think his “seeker-sensitive” church model waters down the Bible, I think his “40 Days of Purpose” book was a bit thin, and I think he gets off on tangential environmental issues a little too much). But all in all, Rick’s a good guy trying to do his best. Rick is known (among other things) for an outreach to the homosexual community that loves the individual while condemning the sin – because God loves the sinners He came to save from their sins. To love the sin is to hate the sinner – because it condemns them to continue in their sins (and without God).

In that light, Pastor Rick worked hard for the passage of Proposition 8 in California this year, a proposition which reaffirmed a past decision of California’s voters (on DOMA – the Defense of Marriage Act) by constitutionally defining marriage as solely between one man and one woman.

I also think Rick was the best debate moderator in the 2008 Presidential cycle. But I digress…

So, yesterday we learned that President-Elect Barack Obama, continuing his headlong rush towards the middle of the political spectrum, has tapped Pastor Rick to do the invocation at the inaugural. I happen to think this is a good thing – and I pray that Rick Warren is one of the voices the new President will listen to in the coming Administration – especially on the policy issues relating to abortion and homosexuality, which Rick is strong on, as mentioned above.

Not everyone is so happy, though, reports Ben Smith of Politico:

“Your invitation to Reverend Rick Warren to deliver the invocation at your
inauguration is a genuine blow to LGBT Americans,” the president of Human Rights
Campaign, Joe Solomonese, wrote Obama Wednesday. “[W]e feel a deep level of
disrespect when one of architects and promoters of an anti-gay agenda is given
the prominence and the pulpit of your historic nomination.”

…“It’s a huge mistake,” said California gay rights activist Rick Jacobs, who
chairs the state’s Courage Campaign. “He’s really the wrong person to lead
the
president into office.”

…“His presence on the inauguration stand is a slap in the faces of the millions
of GLBT voters who so enthusiastically supported him,” (the editor of the
Washington Blade, Kevin) Naff wrote, referring to gay, lesbian, bisexual and
transgendered people. “This tone-deafness to our concerns must not be tolerated.
We have just endured eight years of endless assaults on our dignity and equality
from a president beholden to bigoted conservative Christians. The election was
supposed to have ended that era. It appears otherwise.”

The people who have allowed themselves to be defined by their sin (in this case, homosexuality) are lashing out at the one who is defined by Christ. In another of Paul’s letters – this one to the church in Rome – he explains why this is to be expected.

For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse, because, although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened.

Professing to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the
incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man—and birds and
four-footed animals and creeping things.

Therefore God also gave them up to uncleanness, in the lusts of their hearts, to dishonor their bodies among themselves, who exchanged the truth of God for the lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen.

For this reason God gave them up to vile passions. For even their women exchanged the natural use for what is against nature. Likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust for one another, men with men committing what is shameful, and receiving in themselves the penalty of their error which was due.

And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a debased mind, to do those things which are not fitting; being filled with all unrighteousness, sexual immorality, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, evil-mindedness; they are whisperers, backbiters, haters of God, violent, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, undiscerning, untrustworthy, unloving, unforgiving, unmerciful; who, knowing the righteous judgment of God, that those who practice such things are deserving of death, not only do the same but also approve of those who practice them.

The logical flow of this section? That those who practice homosexuality do so because of a conscious rejection of God and His natural order. In response to that rejection, God “gives them up to vile passions.” (Note how similar this passage is to the list in the Corinth letter – people defined by their sin rather than defined by their new life in Christ.)

So, it makes sense that the people who define themselves by their sin (“LGBT/GLBT voters”) would lash out at “bigoted conservative Christians” like Rick Warren (who are defined by Christ). It is impossible for people of faith to stay true to God (and His Word) and make those folks happy as long as they remain in opposition to God by choosing to be defined (and defiled) by their sin. (They say “Open minds”, Paul says “Debased minds”; I’m with the Apostle Paul on this one.)

Our choice as Christ-followers then, must be to continue to love them, while standing against their attempts in the culture and government to legitimize their lifestyle of sin, whether redefining marriage or adoption or employment rights or using tax dollars for certain tourism promotions.

So (for the first time) I give kudos to President-Elect Obama for his choice for the inaugural invocation. I fear it will be the last time, but hope it won’t – as I hope and pray that the reasonable (and frankly moderate) voice of Pastor Warren is one that the new President will listen to and hear, as Rev. Billy Graham was (at least in name) to Obama’s Democrat predecessor, Bill Clinton. We pray this with the words of Solomon, the author of Proverbs, in mind:

Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people.

President-Elect Obama could do far worse than Pastor Warren, and frankly not much better.

All Scriptures quoted above in New King James Version.

Rove on the need for fresh GOP strategery

Not too much comment needed on this, other than to say, I think Karl Rove in today's Wall Street Journal is right on point. Anyone running for RNC (or SCGOP) Chair needs to clip this out and remind themselves of it at regular intervals... Emphasis is mine.

What a difference a month makes. Since November's election, the GOP is three wins, no losses.

The first win came in Georgia, where Sen. Saxby Chambliss crushed his Democratic opponent by 15 points in a run-off election on Dec. 2. The other wins came in Louisiana congressional races on Saturday. One was in a Republican-leaning district in the state's northwest corner. Democrats outspent the GOP three to two and still lost. In the other, Republican Anh "Joseph" Cao defeated nine-term Democrat William Jefferson in a district where John McCain received 24% of the vote.

These victories have boosted Republican spirits. So has Sen. Norm Coleman maintaining a narrow lead in the Minnesota recount, leadership elections that injected new blood into the GOP congressional hierarchies, and a positive race (so far) for Republican National Committee chairman. Republican governors emerged from meeting in Miami energized, optimistic and eager for the 38 gubernatorial races in the next two years.

But many challenges lie ahead. Much of the GOP's work is away from Capitol Hill, governor's offices and party committees. In recent years, Democrats have done a much better job of tending the networks, initiatives and institutions important to political success. There are at least seven important functions, communications channels or institutions the GOP must launch or strengthen.

First, Republicans need something similar to Democracy Corps, a James Carville and Stan Greenberg creation that uses polls that are made public to help party leaders pick themes likely to resonate with voters and draw attention to the Democratic narrative on issues.

Second, while it's the responsibility of all, someone must take the lead on training candidates and party leaders and nurturing their focus on ideas. Under its founder, Newt Gingrich, GOPAC once did this. It needs to be revitalized or its original mission taken up by a fresh group.

Third, more than one out of five Americans eligible to vote is unregistered, meaning there are millions of unregistered Republicans. The RNC once used sophisticated "micro-targeting" to develop a list of 291,000 unregistered Texans who voted in the GOP primary or were registered Republicans in the state or community where they last lived. There were 1.3 million more likely Texas Republicans with no primary voting history. The GOP needs to take this nationwide. New ways must be found to encourage party organizations and independent efforts to focus on registration.

Unions and third-party groups spent $194 million on independent ads for Democrats over the past two years, giving them a five-to-two advantage over similar third-party assistance to GOP candidates. This doesn't include hundreds of millions in unreported expenditures by unions.

So fourth, GOP fund-raisers and allies must create cost-effective independent expenditure groups for House and Senate races, or Republicans will sink under the weight of negative ads, mail, calls and canvassing.

Fifth, there must be a special focus on state legislative races. Legislators elected in 2009 and 2010 will redistrict Congress and themselves in 2011. Today, there are 25 state Senates where either party's majority is smaller than 10 seats and 21 state Houses where the majority is less than 20 seats. In eight states, legislative control is divided, with one party controlling the Senate and the other the House. State parties and congressional delegations have a vital stake in recruiting, training and funding effective legislative campaigns over the next two years.

Sixth, new media require attention. Younger voters are increasingly getting their information from the Web -- twice as many 18-24 year olds get their news online than from newspapers. Political Web 1.0 was about faster and easier communications and Republicans had the advantage. Political Web 2.0 is about networking and Democrats grabbed the lead. The party that figures out where Web 3.0 goes will grab the decisive high ground in high-tech warfare.

Finally, ideas are always the most important currency of politics and never more so than after a party loses. The relationship between GOP policymakers and conservative policy thinkers should be strengthened.

It's not just conservative think tanks. There are independent scholars, academics, staff in governor's offices and state legislatures, and knowledgeable people throughout the country who can help make the party's conservative principles relevant today.

To do this effectively, candidates and party leaders must remember who they need to reach -- young voters who tilt Democratic; Hispanics and Catholics; and suburban and exurban families who were bedrock Republicans, but who have become disenchanted with both parties.

The GOP has the right principles to become the majority party again. What it must have are fresh, energetic voices who apply those principles to meeting the needs of American families. And it must put in place the infrastructure that will take that message and amplify it.

Those are challenging tasks -- but the last month has reminded us that the GOP remains formidable. The age of Obama may have begun, but so, perhaps, has the GOP comeback.

Mr. Rove is the former senior adviser and deputy chief of staff to President George W. Bush.

Random thoughts on a Wednesday morning

When I was SC Communications Director for the Fred Thompson campaign, there were only three journalist blogs worth following in the state - Dan Hoover, David Stanton, and Brad Warthen. Hoover was "let go" last week, Stanton this week; can Warthen be far behind? (They do "go in threes", y'know...)

In all seriousness, losing Hoover and Stanton (on the heels of the retirement of Lee Bandy) leaves this state with no senior leadership in the journalistic community. The AP's Jim Davenport now inherits the title of "SC's best political reporter" (followed by the Young Guns: John O'Connor of The State and Ian Leslie in Beaufort; Jason Spencer in Spartanburg ranks a distant third in that group...); none of those three have the institutional knowledge that Davenport has (or that Hoover, Stanton, and Bandy had, for that matter), but Jim gets lost in the process stories a little too often for my liking (probably because he works for AP - I blame the system not the man - Jim's a good guy). The new generation of journalists has its work cut out for it, and Jim has his work cut out for him as the new Leader of the SC Pack.

Now, Adam Fogle over at the Palmetto Scoop revels in the blogosphere's resilience, but misses the point entirely. Political blogs (especially consultant driven outlets like Fogle's) can never fill the void that honest journalism should have been filling (but largely hasn't in years) - unbiased, unvarnished truth-telling (and we've had it better in SC because of Hoover, Stanton, Davenport and Bandy than the MSM in most states).

On the internet front, FITS comes closest in this state - and anyone who reads that has had too many eyefuls of Chargers cheerleaders and Pam Anderson to consider it a serious, long-term, unbiased news outlet - traffic or no traffic. SCHotline is the state's Drudge Report - but that's not reporting stories, that's collecting stories. I don't think we've seen where an honest internet news outlet can go in this state - but I hope we get the chance soon...

***

Note: I'm an opinion writer. I've never claimed to be a journalist.

***

Speaking of Adam Fogle, he's tearing up Governor Mark Sanford again today. Adam, you do realize he's not running for re-election, right? That second term is safely locked away...

Does make you wonder why Adam's so hung up on the Governor (though at least he's not as mean-spirited about it as the unhinged (and new leading Indigo Girl) Ross Shealy). I think you could almost hear Adam's head getting ready to explode when Attorney General McMaster dropped Sanford's name as potential Presidential material the other day...

***

Speaking of Presidential candidates - here's my early line on the 2012 Republican nomination:

Sanford: 4-1
Jindal: 4-1
Palin: 4-1
Pawlenty: 10-1
Huckabee: 20-1
Romney: 20-1
Giuliani: 25-1
Field: 100-1

It's got to be a proven, reform-minded, socially and fiscally conservative Beltway outsider with experience as an executive this time, boys and girls; Senators and Congresscritters need not apply. Those who lost in 2008 probably also need not apply, though I'm sure some will try.

***

Unsolicited advice for Gov. Huckabee: lose the TV show. All you're currently providing is an excellent reason to look elsewhere in '12, as well as taped fodder for future opponents.

***

While I'm laying odds, the early line on the 2010 Rep. Governor nomination:

Prohibitive Favorites:
Barrett: 4-1
Bauer: 4-1
McMaster: 4-1

Longshots:
Jimmy Merrill, Tumpy Campbell, Jake Knotts, Dr. Oscar Lovelace, and the long rumored but as yet "unnamed businessman" putting $2M of his own money to build name ID...

Winner to face the survivor of a Rex/Tenenbaum/Jimmy Smith brawl on the D side. Should be a fun cycle to watch.

Chance of Rep hold: 75%

***

Not on this list: Bobby Harrell. After last week's performance (stripping committee assignments from two Lexington County conservatives - Nikki Haley and Nathan Ballentine), he'll never be able to set foot in Lexington County again and be taken seriously, and certainly not as a candidate for statewide office. Somebody needs to spend the next two years figuring out how to replace the Speaker.

To bring the discussion full circle - when Mark Sanford runs for President, he can point to his relationship with Speaker Harrell as a reason to be supported. The Speaker's actions this week validate all of the criticism he has taken (by FITS, the Policy Council and elsewhere) for being part of the "Big Government Republican" problem. Just as Palin can say she stood up to the Murkowskis and the Stevens of the world, and Jindal to the corruption of the LA legislature, Sanford will say he stood up to the Bobby Harrells of the world - and voters will get it, because they're hungry for fiscal sanity - including the kinds of accountability and openness in government that Harrell has now proven himself so firmly deadset against. Honestly, it makes me wonder why Harrell's ear is so tone-deaf on this issue - he's a smarter politician than this.

***

Of course, if he stays Speaker, he's still the most powerful man in the State... Mayor of Importantille, indeed...

***

Great week for Corrupto-crats. First Dollar Bill Jefferson gets voted out, now Gov Blagojevich gets outed by the US Attorney for "auctioning off the Senate seat"... Nice to know Chicago is the same (cesspool of corruption) town it's always been.

***

So, today is a "Day without a Gay?" (and this impacts my life, how exactly?)

If we're really, really lucky, the firm of Vierdsen, Lydecker, Mattheus and Prozac takes the day off from blogging... (notverybright having vacated the sphere last month)

...Yeah, I don't actually think we're that lucky either...

...though one wonders with unemployment numbers running where they are right now, how many businesses who have people call in homosexual today decide tomorrow is a good day to lay off that particular headache and recruit a more stable workforce from the currently unemployed (and probably more desperate for - and willing to - work). Just sayin'...

Random Thoughts on President-Elect Hopenchange

A few thoughts while I watch the Prez-Elect introduce his new National Security team...

It's funny (and somewhat encouraging) to me to see how quickly Obama has stuck the knife in the collective back of the Left in his headlong dive towards the middle. Iraq War? Hey, looks like the surge worked and we won - oh, and we're keeping Defense Secretary Gates. (Interesting, isn't it? that Democrats two Administrations running have chosen Republicans to run the Defense Department... Even Democrats know you can't trust Democrats to run the military.)

Hispanics in the cabinet? Probably, but not that pesky Bill Richardson as Secretary of State - we'll put Hillary in for that one. (That has to be the most stunning stab in the back of the lot - Richardson is the most qualified Democrat to be SecState; he backs Obama over Hillary; Obama thanks him by... overlooking him for Hillary? Wow...)

Overturning don't ask, don't tell? Too soon to talk about that... Freedom of Choice Act? Well, we're not sure there's a consensus... Undo the Bush tax cuts? Y'know, a recession might not be the best time to do that...

The exhilaration at electing Obama is already wearing off for the left - making this perhaps the first administration whose honeymoon is ending before the inauguration.

***

Of course, that's if there is an inauguration. This pesky birth certificate thing is getting more steam than it should - and now we hear the Supreme Court might hear it this week? A few days before the Electoral College meets? Granted, very little news reporting is going on with this story, so much of what's going around is by email, (or WorldNetDaily) and of questionable repute. Still - this is a story that just won't die - even after the reprinted copy of the birth certificate was released by the campaign. (And was immediately attacked as a fake by critics.)

Dan has already posted the link to the Kenyan ambassador's unbelievable blunder in telling a reporter that Obama's Kenyan birthplace is already a national attraction, and that Obama's paternal grandmother insists he was born in Kenya. (Notable - Obama's maternal grandmother insisted he was born in Hawaii.)

Personally, I still can't get past the Honolulu Advertiser announcing the birth the next day (August 4, 1961). Many questions still arise (why is the hospital still unknown, why seal the records, where's the original), and Obama should put this behind him by coming clean about this whole thing. In my own estimation though, the preponderance of the evidence suggests Obama was born in Hawaii, to an American citizen mother, when he says he was, and is therefore Constitutionally allowed to be President.

***

...which may be more than we can say for Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State, as it turns out. Pete Williams (NBC analyst, and former State Department spokesman) notes Article One, Section Six from the US Constitution:

No Senator or Representative shall, during the Time for which he was elected, be appointed to any civil Office under the Authority of the United States which shall have been created, or the Emoluments whereof shall have been increased during such time; and no Person holding any Office under the United States, shall be a Member of either House during his Continuance in Office.

Since the salary for cabinet secretaries has been increased while Clinton was a Senator, she would be constitutionally barred from serving. Question: do Senators decide not to confirm her over this, or does this one wind up in Court? I'm guessing the latter - the politically expedient thing to do is confirm her "in a spirit of bipartisanship" (blah blah, etc), and let's face it - the Senate isn't known for doing things that are anything other than politically expedient. Still - it will be interesting to see this one wind up before the Supremes.

Global Warming Hoax, Part 3567

News out this weekend that the Goddard Institute for Space Studies, run by Dr. James Hansen (a Global Warming Buddy of former VP Al Gore), misreported it's data for October. GISS, without any apparent irony, declared October of 2008 "the warmest on record."

NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or "the people whose burueaucratic title actually allows them to comment on things like the weather," declared it the "70th warmest October of the last 114," which mathematically sounds a lot like "below average" to me.

The GISS numbers apparently took Russian data from September and repeated it (day for day), making the October numbers the same as the previous, and warmer month. (There are these things called "seasons"; apparently, it normally gets colder this time of year in the Northern Hemisphere. Who knew?)

Turns out that, in the US alone, October had 63 local snowfall records and 115 record low temperatures (while Arctic ice sheets were 30% thicker than last year.) GISS is scrambling to try to change their numbers to make up for the mistake after "climate skeptics" called them on the fraud. (Hurray for Climate Skeptics!)

GISS website now proudly proclaims that "Research at GISS emphasizes a broad study of global climate change." The UN's International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) uses GISS as one of it's four data points, even though we now know that GISS has been fudging the numbers, probably at the behest of the Climate Crazies led by Mr. Gore and Dr. Hansen (as well as Dr. Rajendra Pachauri, the Chair of the IPCC who has no known climate qualifications; The London Telegraph describes his prior employment as "railway engineer".)

US taxpayers should not have to continue paying for intentionally skewed research at GISS. Republicans in Washington: if you want to stand up for fiscal responsibility, here's an agency for which you should immediately cut off all funding. I know it won't pay for a bailout package, but at least it's something.

On the Election Results

OK, so this was supposed to be a You-Tube style video... we even shot it (fireside, no less). Sadly, the new technology we were trying out has some glitches (like, the camera and the new laptop don't want to talk to each other...)

So, instead of a new web video you get... the transcript of a video that never will be seen. Go figure.

Enjoy anyways.

*****

Hello. My name is Joshua Gross. I live in Lexington, South Carolina.

I’m talking with you today to share my thoughts on this election and to call you to action as a result of what happened yesterday.

For the last eight years, President George W. Bush has led America through difficult times, fighting a two-front war in Asia, after the deadliest terrorist attack in our nation’s history and dealing with numerous natural disasters at home and abroad.

Unfortunately, those crises left our President without bargaining chips when it came to dealing with corrupt Washington politicians in Congress. When those politicians came asking for money, President Bush apparently felt he had no choice but to give in to those demands, for fear of losing support for an increasingly unpopular war, despite the successes that war faced on the ground.

As a direct result, the Bush years will be remembered for their bipartisan Washington corruption, and for the massive load of federal debt left behind in their wake. Our national debt now stands at ten trillion dollars. In budgetary terms, the federal government is now five times as large as it was when Ronald Reagan took office in 1980 on his message that the Government was too big and spent too much. The recent bipartisan Wall Street bailout alone was $100B larger than the entire 1980 federal budget.

Yesterday’s election results can rightly be judged as the repudiation of President Bush’s policies (and his willing Republican accomplices in Congress) in exchange for amorphous promises of “hope” and “change”.

Now our country faces the farthest left-wing Socialist government in our history – top to bottom, led by Obama, Reid and Pelosi. If you’re hoping that Harry Reid is the Voice of Reason among those three, you are indeed in very deep trouble.

We in the conservative movement need to realize that the Founding Fathers vision of liberty was not what voters repudiated yesterday – they rejected what they saw as a third Bush term – hardly a conservative notion. Exit polls tell us that voters saw Republicans as “having lost our way” or being inept in governance. Only 9% of Americans thought Republicans were “too conservative.”

So,what do we need to do as conservatives? We need to get back to the basics our Founding Fathers intended. We don’t need to be all things to all people – we need to be all things to the people in our conservative coalition. We need to be liberty-minded conservatives first and Republicans second. We need to realize that power for its own sake must never be the answer we seek; rather we seek to protect the rights and responsibilities of the individual free American to seek life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness in the manner that he or she sees fit.

In the past, our conservative coalition has stood on four legs of a stool. We must reaffirm our commitment to all four of those legs if we are to succeed.

We need to continue to stand up for life and for natural marriage. We need to stand against the corruption of higher taxes and Big Government Socialism while we stand for the dreams of individual liberty and responsibility embedded in our Constitution. We need to continue to stand for a strong military and against the threat of Islamist Sharia. And we need to provide for the basic needs of a nation, securing our borders and ensuring the rule of law. Over the next four years, we are going to have ample opportunity to fight each of these battles at every level of government.

We need to make these fights under a new generation of leaders at every level, from town councils to the U.S. Senate, in government and at the grassroots level of party politics.

We need new leaders in Congress who will stand up against the onslaught of Socialism over the next two years and lead under the banner of conservative vision.

We need new leaders in state legislatures – here in South Carolina and around the country – who will learn from the mistakes of Washington Republicans and stop the out of control government spending. This means making difficult and sometimes politically unpopular choices that the left will demagogue. Those choices must still be made, and must be explained in the larger framework of liberty and individual empowerment.

And we need new leaders at every level within our Party, from the precincts to the RNC. The conservative movement can retake our primacy within the structure of the Republican Party, but it will require focused effort on our part.

The character of this new generation of leaders will be forged in the fires of fierce opposition as we stand up for what is right. We will need to be reform minded – keeping in mind Lord Acton’s warning about the corruption of absolute power. And we will need to stand up for the values that unite us as conservatives.

I hope to be one of those leaders. And I hope that you will too. We have much work to be done, and many who will oppose us at every turn. I hope you will join us anyways.

May God Bless each of you, and may He bless the United States of America.

Obama's Self-Attack Ad

Speaks for itself. Great stuff by Mary Katherine Ham.





Vote today! and Vote McCain/Palin!

Why the NRA backed McCain (or why Barack Obama will lose Florida - and maybe PA and Ohio too?)

Clip of the Day: Barack Obama telling NPR in Chicago that he would ban Concealed Weapons Permits.





Second Amendment fans aren't going to like that...

Cleaning Up Republican Corruption: Stevens and the Skinheads?

This is Senator Ted Stevens of Alaska. He posed for this picture... seriously. Apparently, VERY seriously.

Senator Ted is the Republican that Alaska Governor Sarah Palin keeps talking about - you remember the quote "I've fought against corruption against the good old boy network in my state - even against corruption in my own party!" Yeah, in case you missed it, Senator Ted is that corruption.

And now he's going to prison, after being found guilty of seven felonies. Not sure what the law in Alaska is, but it's ironic that he might not be able to vote for himself next week, though apparently, he'll still be allowed to remain on the ballot. I think we can rate that one a "Probable Democrat pickup".

He's facing up to 35 years in prison, though at age 80, that's pretty unlikely.

Senator Stevens is also the Father of the Bridge to Nowhere, as the former Chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee. He's the King of Pork, and now he's going to prison. This is a good thing, even if his actions weren't.

Senator Stevens also made a point of requesting a speedy trial so that the outcome would be known before the election. Gee, thanks, Ted. Republicans everywhere truly appreciate your gesture. Now go away. Yes, that way. Up the river.

***

Speaking of morons trying to affect elections, did you catch the news about these two nutjobs? Apparently they wanted to murder 102 African-Americans culminating in the assassination of Dear Leader Himself.

Apparently the numbers 88 and 14 have some sort of meaning for Neo-Nazi skinhead types (who knew?), and when you add those two numbers, you get 102. (My fellow public school grads: trust me on this one). When you add their ages, you get 39, which amazingly also corresponds to their collective IQ.

At any rate, and all joking aside, one does hope the three of them will become bestest buds in federal prison, where all three deserve to remain for a very long time...

Fred Thompson on Danger of Obama Presidency

I know, I know... he lost. I still can't help but wish he was the one on top of this ticket.

UPDATED: HOAX!! The Face of the Coming Obama Thugocracy

UPDATE: WE'VE BEEN HOAXED!

KDKA is reporting that Ms. Todd made the whole thing up. One does wonder what would drive her to do it - since hoaxes rarely work (with the notable exception of global warming...)



The other examples I cite below remain intact, however...

JDG

*****







Study this face.

Look at it closely.

This could be you.

This is the face of Ashley Todd, a McCain/Palin volunteer (not even a paid staffer) who was viciously attacked and mugged in Pittsburgh on Wednesday night.

Pittsburgh police say the 6-foot-4-inch thug punched, kicked and then literally lashed out at the woman after glancing at her McCain for president bumper sticker.

A photo of Todd shows a crimson scar of the letter “B” etched backwards on her right cheek. She also has a black eye and her face is puffy.

Let me see if I can get this straight.

Joe the Plumber asks a question in his own driveway and gets attacked by the New York Times.

Ashley Todd gets attacked for having a McCain sticker on her car.

York County's McCain campaign HQ attacked.

Central Florida man gets his house shot up after putting up McCain yard signs.

The McCain/Palin "Straight Talk Express" Bus shot up in New Mexico.

Clearwater, Florida man's Lexus vandalized over McCain/Palin sticker.


...and we're supposed to ignore this candidate's ties to an unrepentant domestic terrorist?

The latest on climate data

Break out the fur coats, kids, the world's getting colder... or as Lorne Gunter puts it "Thirty years of warmer temperatures go poof".

ICYMI: Washington Times on "Obama's Kenya Ghosts"

Just ran across this stunning piece of journalism from Sunday's Washington Times. It's a MUST-READ.

Turns out Barack Obama isn't the only Kenyan Marxist with troubling Muslim ties running for President recently - and he supported the other one.

Mr. Obama's judgment is seriously called into question when he backs an official with troubling ties to Muslim extremists and whose supporters practice ethnic cleansing and genocide. It was Islamic extremists in Kenya who bombed the U.S. Embassy in 1998, killing more than 200 and injuring thousands. None of this has dissuaded Mr. Obama from maintaining disturbing loyalties.

Be sure to read the whole thing.

The Debate, Marxism, and the Folly of Third Party Voting (or, the Tyranny of Majoritarian Mathematics)

Senator McCain was clearly more aggressively on the attack last night, but by leaving out Rev. Jeremiah Wright, he's left out one of the strongest reasons why not to vote for Barack Obama.

Bill Ayers? Unrepentant "washed up" domestic terrorist, yes, but the Weather Underground was a Marxist/left-wing organization.

ACORN? Yes, they're involved with voter registration fraud, but at their heart, they're a Marxist/left-wing organization trying to radicalize students (under the education "reform" arm) and agitate for left wing causes.

Rev. Jeremiah Wright? The context for "America's chickens have come home to roost" and "G-D America" is his Black Liberation Theology - which could just as easily be described as Urban American Marxism.

It's not that Barack Obama has individual one-time relationships with any of these people; it's that he has had fifteen-to-twenty-year relationships with all of them, concurrently. That paints a picture of a radical, Marxist leaning candidate, running for office as a Democrat.

And it's his answer to Joe the Plumber ("Spread the Wealth") that provides the meat of the charge - that Barack Obama the Marxist is a terrible choice for the country at any time, but especially in a time of economic difficulty and two wars.

Which brings me to my friends trying to get me to vote for the Constitution Party or the Libertarian Party (you know who you are).

A vote for Chuck Baldwin is a pro-choice, anti-family vote - not because Baldwin is pro-choice (he clearly isn't) but because in voting for someone with no chance of getting elected, you are allowing Barack Obama to become President - the most radically pro-abortion, pro-homosexual agenda candidate in our nation's history. A vote for Chuck Baldwin is a vote for Barack Obama. Please think about that before you vote. If nothing else - check out Obama's answer on Roe v. Wade last night. Roe was a constitutional disaster - and Obama thinks it was correctly decided. That alone should send shudders...

For my Libertarian friends, a vote for Bob Barr is a pro-Big Government vote - not because Barr's Big Government (he clearly isn't), but becuase in voting for someone with no chance of getting elected, you are allowing Barack Obama to become President - the most liberal, big spender in the Senate, voting against the taxpayers (either for tax increases or against tax cuts) 94 times in his short stint in the Senate. A vote for Bob Barr is a vote for Barack Obama. Please think about that before you vote.

Now, I give you these two prior paragraphs knowing that voting for a Third Party in America is an inherently irrational thing to do in a winner-take-all Electoral College sort of way. Not to get into the weeds of "rational voter theory", but as we get closer to the election, what tends to happen amongst rational voters is that they see which of the two biggest candidates can win, and choose which one they want, knowing that they want their vote to count and matter (and voting for third place usually means knowing beforehand that you aren't going to win.)

Clearly, there have been the rare exception to the rule - Independent Senators in Vermont and Connecticut come to mind. But, as a rule, and especially at the Presidential level, voting third party actually damages your cause in the long term. Rather than the two possible things you hope to do (either pull your former party in the direction you wish it was going - in this case Republicans to the right - socially or fiscally; or establish a new force in politics), what tends to happen is the opposite. By pulling your forces away from the party you used to belong to, you ensure it's electoral defeat - and get all the blame. The party in question then is free to become less like you (since you are no longer there to influence it) and your third party is also unlikely to succeed (since no new party has won a Presidential Election since Abraham Lincoln in 1860 - the first Republican President. The last President to get elected without being a Republican or a Democrat was Zachary Taylor in 1848. He was a Whig. I digress...)

My point, conservative friends, is that we have but one real, working choice to vote for President - like him or not, it's Senator John McCain.

I'm voting for McCain with my eyes open - I know the day after he gets elected that I'll be working against his policies on global warming, immigration, and probably a few other things as well. But I also know that Barack Obama is the most left-wing, Marxist major party candidate in our nation's history. And for that reason, (and for others), my car sports a McCain/Palin sticker, and I'll be voting for them.

I hope you will, too.

York County Republican Victory HQ robbed, vandalized

The Republican "Victory 08" office in York County was robbed and vandalized overnight.

According to a local York County Republican volunteer, who provided us with these pictures, the vandals painted "Republican means Slavery" on the front door, as well as what appear to be gang-related or tagger signs.

The vandals also defaced large banners outside the office, painting white paint over Senator John McCain's name and eyes.

According to the volunteer, more than forty signs were also stolen from the property.

I spoke this afternoon with York County Republican Chairman (and current Republican National Committeeman) Glenn McCall, who reminds those involved that Republicans were the ones who abolished slavery.

McCall also spoke with the Rock Hill Herald:

“It just goes to show the election is much closer than folks would have you believe,” McCall said. “We have probably the most liberal ticket on the Democratic side that we’ve ever seen. When I look at the polls, it’s within the margin of error. There are people who are just getting nervous about that. As a result, they do desperate things.”

No word from local law enforcement yet as to suspects or arrests.

Stay classy, Democrats.

Debate thoughts

Since Leroy apparently missed his deadline last night, I'll give you my thoughts on the Presidential debate...

Clearly, John McCain won the night, and I would expect a small bounce out of this debate, just enough to put the poll numbers in the margins. His idea to have Treasury buy up bad mortgages and renegotiate them would have cost much less than the bailout passed last week - I only wish this one had come up sooner.

But it was his attacks on the record and rhetoric of Barack Obama that defined the night, and will define this campaign in the 4 weeks ahead. McCain pounded Obama's record and his proposals, and painted the picture of a tax-and-spend liberal who will say anything to get elected while doing the opposite in power. His line of attack connecting the dots between Obama and the Freddie/Fannie mess is a powerful one, and one that let's people know Obama's culpability in the housing and financial mess. His mention of Obama's past campaign promise to cut taxes for the middle class, when he never voted for a single tax cut while in the Senate cut to Obama's credibility.

McCain did this while never mentioning the connections with domestic terrorist Bill Ayers, which we now know to have been much deeper than previously reported, including $50 million in taxpayer moneys that Obama funneled to Ayers in the 1990s. McCain never mentioned the anti-American rantings of Obama cronies Rev. Jeremiah Wright or Father Michael Flegler. Clearly Obama expected those (more personal) attacks, and came out swinging - but in the wrong direction. Instead, McCain's attacks on Obama's record and his proposals left Obama on the wrong footing, answering the wrong questions while McCain connected with the audience in the room by answering their questions directly - and by extension connecting with voters across the country.

While Tom Brokaw was, in a word, awful, the town hall format still gave McCain a chance to shine, and his command of the facts (and Obama's record) gave him the clear win tonight. That should even things up with 4 weeks to go. (Note: The best moderator so far has still been Rev. Rick Warren... someone alert the MSM - they need new blood.)

Funny moment of the night: Tom Brokaw asking John McCain who his Treasury Secretary would be, and McCain answering "Not you, Tom."

Hang on, folks, it's going to be a crazy last month...

Barack Obama’s ACORN fraud

Today is (mercifully) the last day to register new voters.

Which means today is the last day that ACORN and the Barack Obama campaign can fraudulently work to steal this election in the battleground states.

ACORN has been filing fraudulent voter applications in Michigan, Washington, Missouri, Ohio, and 12 other states.

Do you remember the “Barack Obama was a community organizer” attack in the Republican National Convention? ACORN is the organization for which Barack Obama was involved.

As Stanley Kurtz points out in National Review, Barack Obama served both as a corporate trainer for ACORN, and as legal counsel, even winning a case in 1995 that allowed additional voter fraud attempts by ACORN using Illinois “Motor Voter” law.

While most press accounts imply that Obama just happened to be at the sort of public-interest law firm that would take Acorn’s “motor voter” case, Foulkes claims that Acorn specifically sought out Obama’s representation in the motor voter case, remembering Obama from the days when he worked with Talbot. And while many reports speak of Obama’s post-law school role organizing “Project VOTE” in 1992, Foulkes makes it clear that this project was undertaken in direct partnership with Acorn. Foulkes then stresses Obama’s yearly service as a key figure in Acorn’s leadership-training seminars.

At least a few news reports have briefly mentioned Obama’s role in training Acorn’s leaders, but none that I know of have said what Foulkes reports next: that Obama’s long service with Acorn led many members to serve as the volunteer shock troops of Obama’s early political campaigns — his initial 1996 State Senate campaign, and his failed bid for Congress in 2000 (Foulkes confuses the dates of these two campaigns.) With Obama having personally helped train a new cadre of Chicago Acorn leaders, by the time of Obama’s 2004 U.S. Senate campaign, Obama and Acorn were “old friends,” says Foulkes.

So along with the reservoir of political support that came to Obama through his close ties with Jeremiah Wright, Father Michael Pfleger, and other Chicago black churches, Chicago Acorn appears to have played a major role in Obama’s political advance…

You begin to wonder whether, in his Springfield days, Obama might have best been characterized as “the Senator from Acorn.”

Now, the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review notes that the Obama campaign has reciprocated by paying ACORN $800K in “get out the vote” and “voter registration” efforts. It is precisely these efforts (listed above) that have ended in vote fraud indictments.

When the numbers come out, we’ll see just how bad this fraud has been. Hopefully, the Obama campaign won’t be able to steal this election using ACORN as a front for vote fraud.

Best 527 ad ever?

Ok all you third party groups, 527s, non-profits, and others doing ads (TV or online). Listen up.

This is how you do it. If I've seen a better ad than this one, someone needs to remind me; right now this is the best I can recall.




(and I'm an Evangelical Protestant!)

Why Abortion is a cause of the Financial Mess (by way of illegal immigration)

Something struck me at breakfast this morning, an awful (and frankly, a little strange) realization that I think has been overlooked in the bailout debate.

One of the root causes of the financial mess we’re in is the holocaust of abortion.

Follow the logic here…

In the thirty five years since Roe v. Wade, 48.5 million babies have been killed (legally) in the United States. That’s 48 million people under the age of 35 that we’re missing as a nation - about 20 million of which would now be in the workforce.

In 1973, according to the US government, the estimated number of illegal immigrants in the United States was at 4 million people. In the intervening thirty-five years, those same years since Roe, that number has quintupled to (you guessed it) around 20 million. To replace the population, especially the workforce population, that had been lost by abortion, businesses turned to an underground market of illegal immigrant labor.

Where did those illegals live? Many were (and in some places, still are) in tent cities and trailer parks hidden away around the nation.

But, in the 1990s, something strange happened. In the ‘90s, those who wanted low-income folks (many of whom had been the victims of racial discrimination) to get more affordable housing changed the rules for lending to those folks, but did it in a way that included easing the paperwork burden. This noble goal came with an unintended consequence: illegal immigrants flocked to buy houses, since the new rules made it easier to get mortgages without actually being a citizen or legal resident.

Those same rule changes allowed no down payment mortgages up to 125% of the value of the house – which encouraged fraud among the illegal immigrant population.

Imagine the fraud possibility – you use the fraudulent documents that allowed you to steal someone else’s identity to also get a mortgage, for 125% of the value of a home, pocket the extra 25% in cash, live in the house for a year, don’t make payments, leave to go work somewhere else and let the bank foreclose. And because you’re on a stolen identity, no one can track you down.

Now, I do understand that this is only one part of the overall mess in the financial system, and not a comprehensive fix. But it’s still a major part.

The Bailout Package really should include border fencing and the repeal of Roe v. Wade. Otherwise, we’re open for more of this in the future.



Update: Video of liberal Democrats in denial over the impact of Fannie and Freddie. When you watch press coverage tonight of the bailout, remember that those same folks are the ones who gave us this mess in the first place.

Presidential Debate thoughts

McCain on points... no Knockout blows in Round 1.

If you want to know how I spent my evening, The State has the roundup. Don't miss the video...

How far to the right did Barack Obama shift before last night's debate? All of a sudden, he's trying to sound like a neocon - giving Ukraine and Georgia NATO membership, calling Iran a terror sponsor, and calling Israel our staunchest ally. If he had come out like that in the Dem debates, we would've been watching someone else on stage last night. All part of the show, I suppose...

McCain did a better job of defining his opponent than Obama did last night. Obama tried to make this the "Bush/McCain" term, and did OK doing it. McCain solidly (and repeatedly) made the point that Obama is too dangerously naive to be President.

There was one clear loser in this debate: Jim Lehrer. I kept expecting him to handout boxing gloves or brass knuckles while trying to get the two to attack each other. After last night, I wouldn't be surprised if PBS got it's federal funding eliminated to help pay for the bailout package...

Every debate moderator has to live up to the memory of Tim Russert (and the surprisingly solid forum performance of Pastor Rick Warren). Lehrer fell far short of those considerations last night.

Where the financial mess goes from here: my 3-point plan

OK, so, for the purposes of this discussion, let's assume the bailout passes, in some form. Congratulations, taxpayers, you're the proud new owners of approximately $700B in other people's bad debts. (I won't get into those arguments here, but I think Senator Jim Demint and former Speaker Newt Gingrich have already made the best cases against the bailout...)

All that said, let's assume for the moment that, 70% of the American public's lack of support notwithstanding, the bailout passes Congress this week, in some form or fashion. Where should we go from there? Here's my three point plan...


The Federal Government must get out of the federal housing and mortgage business, phased out over the next ten to twenty years.

This entire mess happened when President Clinton bowed to liberal pressure (or helped engineer it) and pushed through initiatives to expand home ownership. A laudable goal, to be sure, but never underestimate the power of unintended consequences when dealing with the behomoth that is the Federal Government. The government's interference into the marketplace, loosening credit to folks who frankly never should have gotten loans in the name of expanded home ownership and a growing economy, blew up in all of our faces this month. Fannie is a New Deal relic whose expiration time has come due.

So, just as soon as the Treasury Secretary gets his grubby mitts on those debts and the public panic calms down, the US government needs to get out of the mortgage business altogether. Take a couple of years, five at the most to quietly and slowly sell off all of the assets we're taking control of now. Then take a couple of years to sell off all of the Fannie and Freddie assets and close them down. The experiment into government-based lending needs to stop - the government is great at taking people's money, but a rank amateur at managing the process. (Oh, and Rep. Barney Frank should not be allowed within one hundred nautical miles of this process. He's as much responsible for this mess as anyone.)

While we're at it, after we've closed Freddie and Fannie, the whole federal housing mess needs to go away as well. No more crime-stricken, drug-ridden housing projects, no more foot-bridges to nowhere for local congresscritters, no more corrupt under the table favors for which landowner gets to sell out to the feds at an overinflated price. As with so many other things, this is just something the federal government has no business dealing in, no matter how noble the goal. The sooner we get out of this mess, the faster it can get cleaned up - though I'd take ten years to phase the program out altogether, just to make the landing as soft as possible for the folks ekeing out a living in those homes now.

No "Government sponsored entity" should be allowed to donate money to political campaigns. Ever.

The Obama folks will quite rightly point to the $180K that has been donated from Freddie and Fannie to the McCain camp, who will quickly and even more rightly retort that Senator Obama has taken more money in less time ($500K in only two and a half years in the Senate) than any other member of either house of Congress. They're both right, and they're both wrong. I know how much campaigns cost, I don't begrudge politicians' ability to raise money, and I'm willing to give them both a pass on this one, because they accepted legal political contributions.

(Political integrity should mean you accept all legal donations, and still work for what's best for the American citizenry. If you can't work for the citizens because you've taken a political donation, you're in the wrong business. But I digress...)

But that doesn't excuse the fact that Freddie and Fannie have been spreading the federal largesse to the political campaigns of more than three hundred members of Congress. That's unacceptable - federal government entities should not be allowed to influence the campaigns of those whose oversight impacts their business (which should've been closed down years ago...see above.) Frankly, the Hatch Act should've covered this, but since they made Freddie and Fannie "Government Sponsored Entities" (GSEs) instead of departments of the government, the employees weren't covered, and neither were the companies. That should stop - and these companies (and any quasi-governmental or GSE entities like them) shouldn't be allowed PACs, either.

While we're at it, this goes at the state level too - states shouldn't be lobbying the feds for funding, and neither should cities and counties be hiring lobbyists to go for state money, while state associations give money to State Senators, Reps and Leadership PACs. That's just Big Government Corruption begetting more Big Government Corruption, as far as I'm concerned.

On to the Wall Street side of the mess...

No More Short Selling, Naked or Otherwise.

For the uninitiated, the process of short selling involves selling a stock you don't own shares of, and then making up for it later by buying the shares at a lower price. This isn't responsible or moral investing, it's a casino game for vultures - and it directly contributed to the downfalls of Lehman and AIG last week. Senator McCain has quite rightly criticized the SEC for allowing short-selling to continue, and for now, the SEC is banning it - for financials. I'd like to see that go across the board and permanently.

(The difference between "Short Selling" and "Naked Short Selling" is whether or not you borrow someone else's shares first before you sell them. I'm largely referring to Naked, or unborrowed, Short Selling, but the problems apply to both types.)

This isn't the first time this battle's been waged either. In addition to being banned in England after a Dutch tulip crisis, short-selling was partly blamed for the crash of 1929 that brought about (or at least exacerbated) the Great Depression. It's also partly to blame (along with Bernie Ebbers' $11B fraud) for the collapse (and subsequent bankruptcy) of WorldCom, my former employer. After the near-death experience the market had last week, it's long since time to say "Real Men Don't Sell Short."

So, that's my three point plan. Comment away.

ICYMI: Kevin Hassett on How the Democrats Created the Financial Crisis

Courtesy Bloomberg News - this is important reading to understand why liberally motivated government intervention brought us the financial crisis we're in now.

(In other words, this is why excessive government intervention is to blame, and not the free market.)

The financial crisis of the past year has provided a number of surprising twists and turns, and from Bear Stearns Cos. to American International Group Inc., ambiguity has been a big part of the story.

Why did Bear Stearns fail, and how does that relate to AIG? It all seems so complex.

But really, it isn't. Enough cards on this table have been turned over that the story is now clear. The economic history books will describe this episode in simple and understandable terms: Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac exploded, and many bystanders were injured in the blast, some fatally.

Fannie and Freddie did this by becoming a key enabler of the mortgage crisis. They fueled Wall Street's efforts to securitize subprime loans by becoming the primary customer of all AAA-rated subprime-mortgage pools. In addition, they held an enormous portfolio of mortgages themselves.

In the times that Fannie and Freddie couldn't make the market, they became the market. Over the years, it added up to an enormous obligation. As of last June, Fannie alone owned or guaranteed more than $388 billion in high-risk mortgage investments. Their large presence created an environment within which even mortgage-backed securities assembled by others could find a ready home.

The problem was that the trillions of dollars in play were only low-risk investments if real estate prices continued to rise. Once they began to fall, the entire house of cards came down with them.

Turning Point

Take away Fannie and Freddie, or regulate them more wisely, and it's hard to imagine how these highly liquid markets would ever have emerged. This whole mess would never have happened.

It is easy to identify the historical turning point that marked the beginning of the end.

Back in 2005, Fannie and Freddie were, after years of dominating Washington, on the ropes. They were enmeshed in accounting scandals that led to turnover at the top. At one telling moment in late 2004, captured in an article by my American Enterprise Institute colleague Peter Wallison, the Securities and Exchange Comiission's chief accountant told disgraced Fannie Mae chief Franklin Raines that Fannie's position on the relevant accounting issue was not even ``on the page'' of allowable interpretations.

Then legislative momentum emerged for an attempt to create a ``world-class regulator'' that would oversee the pair more like banks, imposing strict requirements on their ability to take excessive risks. Politicians who previously had associated themselves proudly with the two accounting miscreants were less eager to be associated with them. The time was ripe.

Greenspan's Warning

The clear gravity of the situation pushed the legislation forward. Some might say the current mess couldn't be foreseen, yet in 2005 Alan Greenspan told Congress how urgent it was for it to act in the clearest possible terms: If Fannie and Freddie ``continue to grow, continue to have the low capital that they have, continue to engage in the dynamic hedging of their portfolios, which they need to do for interest rate risk aversion, they potentially create ever-growing potential systemic risk down the road,'' he said. ``We are placing the total financial system of the future at a substantial risk.''

What happened next was extraordinary. For the first time in history, a serious Fannie and Freddie reform bill was passed by the Senate Banking Committee. The bill gave a regulator power to crack down, and would have required the companies to eliminate their investments in risky assets.

Different World

If that bill had become law, then the world today would be different. In 2005, 2006 and 2007, a blizzard of terrible mortgage paper fluttered out of the Fannie and Freddie clouds, burying many of our oldest and most venerable institutions. Without their checkbooks keeping the market liquid and buying up excess supply, the market would likely have not existed.

But the bill didn't become law, for a simple reason: Democrats opposed it on a party-line vote in the committee, signaling that this would be a partisan issue. Republicans, tied in knots by the tight Democratic opposition, couldn't even get the Senate to vote on the matter.

That such a reckless political stand could have been taken by the Democrats was obscene even then. Wallison wrote at the time: ``It is a classic case of socializing the risk while privatizing the profit. The Democrats and the few Republicans who oppose portfolio limitations could not possibly do so if their constituents understood what they were doing.''

Mounds of Materials

Now that the collapse has occurred, the roadblock built by Senate Democrats in 2005 is unforgivable. Many who opposed the bill doubtlessly did so for honorable reasons. Fannie and Freddie provided mounds of materials defending their practices. Perhaps some found their propaganda convincing.

But we now know that many of the senators who protected Fannie and Freddie, including Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and Christopher Dodd, have received mind-boggling levels of financial support from them over the years.

Throughout his political career, Obama has gotten more than $125,000 in campaign contributions from employees and political action committees of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, second only to Dodd, the Senate Banking Committee chairman, who received more than $165,000.

Clinton, the 12th-ranked recipient of Fannie and Freddie PAC and employee contributions, has received more than $75,000 from the two enterprises and their employees. The private profit found its way back to the senators who killed the fix.

There has been a lot of talk about who is to blame for this crisis. A look back at the story of 2005 makes the answer pretty clear.

Oh, and there is one little footnote to the story that's worth keeping in mind while Democrats point fingers between now and Nov. 4: Senator John McCain was one of the three cosponsors of S.190, the bill that would have averted this mess.

Kevin Hassett, director of economic-policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute, is a Bloomberg News columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.
To contact the writer of this column: Kevin Hassett at khassett@aei.org

Obama Goes to Hollywood

So the headlines have been blaring about a $28,500/plate fundraising dinner for Barack Obama last night, one attended by about 300 people (the usual Hollyweird crowd - Will Ferrell, Jodie Foster, Leonardo DiCaprio, Jamie Lee Curtis, Steven Spielberg, David Geffen, Jeffrey Katzenberg...). Barbara Streisand was there singing, so I have to admit, I'm glad I wasn't there.

But it raises a question. I am NOT an expert on presidential fundraising or the laws that govern it (I'm a policy/communications guy...important to "know thyself"), but if memory serves, the legal presidential contribution limit is $2300 per person, no corporate contributions allowed, and all of those people must be US citizens or legal residents, who in turn must also report home address, employer and occupation, etc.

So, if the legal limit is $2300, how do you even legally schedule a $28,500/plate dinner, and have the headline "Obama raises $9M at Hollywood fundraiser"? Isn't the most Obama could raise from 300 people $690K? (I'm a policy guy 'cuz I'm good with the math...) That sounds like more than twelve times the legal limit to me... or is there some weird loophole that lets celebrities give more than normal people?

(Paging Sunny Philips - your expertise is needed today... and we miss your blog)

These have been held previously - most notably one for Hillary in 2005. That one ended badly, with one of the fundraisers getting in federal trouble for breaking campaign finance laws, but for reporting misdeeds, not the clearly obvious "over the limit" thing (The the NY Times has a page up from 2007 that alleges a series of Clinton fundraising abuses.)

Interesting note - McCain, whose monstrous campaign finance law at the least complicates this issue, dinged Obama about the fundraiser with "celebrity friends" but not about the dollar amount.

So why is it legal to hold events that cost 12 times the legal contribution limit to get in? Anyone?

on Patriotism, and Blogging 9/11

OK, I'm opening a can of worms here, but I think it has to be said...

Patriots, blogging on 9/11/01 today:

Adam Fogle, whose Palmetto Scoop included the patriot poetry of a dying Jack Buck;

Earl Capps, who posts Lincoln's Gettysburg Address;

Dan Cassidy, whose Sunlit Uplands posted numerous items, including this patriotic YouTube;

Brian McCarty, whose VUI posted a composite picture of the victims;

Mike's America, who posts pictures and video from the day;

Jeff Duncan, whose Walk-On Legislator posts thoughts from an airport this morning;

Rod Shealy, Sr, recovering from brain tumor surgery, takes a moment to remember 9/11;

Michelle Malkin remembers, while Hugh Hewitt Prays;

The Jawas remember, and do not forgive;

Don McLaughlin remembers where he was at on 9-11 on Redstate;

****

And then we have our friends on the left...

The ever aptly titled notverybright chose to attack The State's Brad Warthen for his support of the Iraq War today, before a post questioning Sarah Palin's qualifications;

Tammy at Seeding Spartanburg chose to mock Sarah Palin's last name today;

Tim Kelly at Crack the Bell chose to continue his attacks on Sarah Palin today (one day after changing "Shrill b*tch" to "lying sack of s**t")

Waldo Lydecker chose to attack Sarah Palin's Christian Faith today.

****

It's not that I'm questioning the patriotism of you liberal bloggers; it's that you don't apparently have any patriotism for me to question. You're too busy attacking the Republican Vice Presidential nominee...

****

An important exception: Roxanne Walker did something different - she chose to pay tribute to Iraqi veterans who suffer from depression and mental illness as a result of the war. While I don't agree with her conclusions (or even her premise), I still appreciate that she took the time to pay tribute to one American soldier today.

****

For some actually historic perspective on 9/11, check out the History Channel's 102 Minutes that changed America. I highly recommend the site - especially for those of you mentioned above who have apparently forgotten that day, what happened, how we changed, and why.

Reprise: The Ballad of Johnny Heff

As we remember 9/11/2001 today, I am reprising my Project 2,996 posting from two years ago, memorializing one of the heroes who fell that awful day, seven years ago.

May we never forget.

*****


Johnny Heffernan was a guitar player, and reportedly a very good one. He played first for a band called the Psychotics, then for a New York neo-punk band known as the Bullys, wearing his trademark black t-shirt and jeans, and working with Marky Ramone on their first album: Stomposition. According to John Holmstrom, editor of Punk Magazine, The Bullys were a force in renewing the punk scene in New York, and Johnny was the true force behind the band.

If not for The Bullys, I might never have bothered with the relaunch of PUNK magazine. This band, more than anything else, convinced me that there's a real rock 'n' roll scene out there worth writing about. I wanted to bring out a new PUNK magazine so maybe we could put The Bullys on the map, just like we did for The Ramones, Blondie and the Dead Boys back in the day… Johnny had real star quality. He was good-looking, articulate (in his own way), talented, ambitious, and charismatic… I thought he was like the Jimmy Cagney of punk rock.

Johnny Heff was as rebellious as you would expect from a punk rocker, except that the occasional target of his anger was radical Islam. And sometimes, that came out in lyrical form:

"I hear the government of Afghanistan is waging a war upon women. Where da f*** is Gasghanistan? I gotta get a f***in' map for dat one. Anyway, it must be one tough m*****f***ing country to wage war against chicks, huh? Since some dude named The Taliban took power in 1996, women had to wear some s*** called the Bercha or somethin', and have been beaten and stoned in public for not wearin' the proper attire. So I guess tattoos and leather pants are out of the question, eh? ... Well, if they ever get into a war with the United States, they should know we ain't gonna just send a bunch of chicks to f*** 'em up... I'll go to fight... Anybody know where 'dis backward frickin' place is?"

So, in his own very unique way, Johnny Heff was alert to who the enemy was, years before the rest of us had necessarily figured it out.

Johnny was also a committed family man. A rebel on stage, Johnny was notoriously mellow around his wife Lori and daughter Samantha, teaching “Sammy” to swim, taking her to her first concert, even helping her do her nails. Lori described Johnny as her “soul mate” and Johnny’s friends were amazed at the way Johnny “marshmellowed out” around his wife and daughter.

Unfortunately, being the lead guitarist in a punk band rarely pays the bills, although the band was becoming very successful and hoped to start touring, so in 1993 Johnny also took a day job, one that allowed him to support his family.

Johnny became a New York City Firefighter.

Perhaps that didn’t seem that heroic at the time, but it certainly does now. You see, on a bright sunny day, five years ago this morning, Johnny Heffernan of Engine Company 28, Ladder 11 raced into a burning World Trade Center, one of the first on the scene.

Maybe Johnny had the lyrics to his song going through his head that morning, as he raced up the stairs to rescue as many people as possible. Maybe he realized exactly who was responsible for the destruction he was witnessing, and maybe he didn’t. We will never know. Nor will we know exactly how many lives he saved that day, just another FDNY firefighter “doing his job” with unparalleled heroism. What we know is that he was right, and he fought bravely to save lives that day just as he’d lyrically promised he would if given the chance.

And that they found him at Ground Zero on October 2, 2001, on his beloved Lori’s 31st birthday.

As we remember the events of that awful day, we also pause to remember and honor the lives of those who were lost that day. I never knew Johnny Heff, and I wish I could’ve met him. He sounds like a brash barrel of fun to me.

I don’t know if any members of the Heffernan family will read this. I hope that if they do, that I will have done Johnny justice (even though I know I’m probably not capable of that). I also hope if you are reading this, that you’ll be willing to add a few notes of your own to honor the fallen hero that you knew far better than any of the rest of us.

One final note. It seems that heroism runs in the Heffernan family. Johnny’s younger brother Michael is a FDNY firefighter, and youngest brother Brian is NYPD.

O beautiful for heroes proved In liberating strife,
Who more than self their country loved,
And mercy more than life!
America! America! May God thy gold refine,
Til all success be nobleness And every gain divine!

*****

I want to thank Dale and the folks at Project 2,996 for the opportunity to participate. It has been an honor, a humbling experience, and an emotional one.

Please take the time today to read more of the tributes to the men and women of 9/11.


*****

To support the family of Johnny Heffernan, and others of his engine company who perished that fateful day, make your check out to:

Eng28/Lad11, WTC Relief Fund

And mail it to:

Engine Co. 28/Ladder Co. 11
222 East 2nd Street
NYC NY 10003

Sources: LGF, Legacy.com, September11victims.com, thebullys.com, Punk Magazine.