Majority Oppose Obama on Court Issue

Shows that when Obama starts appointing leftwing fanatics to the courts, we can work up a popular opposition to it:

Nearly two-thirds of U.S. voters (64%) say U.S. Supreme Court decisions should be based on what is written in the Constitution, but only 35% think President Obama agrees with them.

Twenty-seven percent (27%) say high court rulings should be guided by fairness and justice, and nine percent (9%) are not sure which is more important, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey.

A slight plurality of voters (38%) say Obama thinks the Supreme Court should base its decisions on fairness and justice. Twenty-seven percent (27%) are not sure.

The courts are a vital thing, because that is really where liberals hope to make the running – knowing that they can’t really get their programs through the legislature, they seek to use the courts as a judicial legislature to impose their views by judicial fiat. But, wonder of wonders, a majority – at least according to this survey – believe that the Courts should just rule on the law and leave legislating to the legislature, or to the people, presumptively.

There is a core of conservatism at the center of the American population – and it is why our democratic republic has endured so long. In the end, a republic can be conservative, or it won’t long be a republic. The self-discipline necessary for a functioning republic only comes from an adherence to a strict code of morals – without this, a republic will disintegrate into a mobocracy as prelude to a dictatorship. The fact that after decades of relentless leftwing attempts to undermine the constitution and convince people that nebulous concepts such as “fairness” should guide our courts, the American people appear to want the law to be the guidance of the courts.

Working in tune with this basic American conservatism, we can thwart the worst aspects of Obama’s liberalism and eventually regain power.

President Obama Retains "Rendition"

For which act I give him credit for thinking clearly on this tricky matter:

Obama preserves renditions as counter-terrorism tool

The role of the CIA’s controversial prisoner-transfer program may expand, intelligence experts say.

The CIA’s secret prisons are being shuttered. Harsh interrogation techniques are off-limits. And Guantanamo Bay will eventually go back to being a wind-swept naval base on the southeastern corner of Cuba.

But even while dismantling these programs, President Obama left intact an equally controversial counter-terrorism tool.

Under executive orders issued by Obama recently, the CIA still has authority to carry out what are known as renditions, secret abductions and transfers of prisoners to countries that cooperate with the United States.

Current and former U.S. intelligence officials said that the rendition program might be poised to play an expanded role going forward because it was the main remaining mechanism — aside from Predator missile strikes — for taking suspected terrorists off the street.

As I’ve said before, I don’t think that Obama will close Gitmo, at least not before January of 2013…when he’s either safely re-elected or equally safely defeated for re-election, and thus a released Gitmo terrorist no longer poses a political threat to Obama and his Democrats (hey, they are Democrats – and that means that everything takes a back seat to political power). After all is said and done, unless Obama proves to be the biggest fool in history (which I don’t think he is) he’ll end up retaining most, if not all, President Bush’s anti-terrorism policies…even if some of them are disguised by new terminology and/or are revived under different guise shortly after being “ended” by Obama.

While the left was shrieking in complete absurdity about threats to American liberty and violations of human rights under President Bush, the fact remains that no liberties were threatened and no one’s rights were violated. All we did, under President Bush, was work out the best means available for dealing with terrorists once captured – the alternatives to doing what Bush did were to either shoot them out of hand, or turn them loose, neither action being in our best interests. It really is a difficult situation – we’re dealing with men who are very wicked and who’s home countries often don’t want them back, except perhaps to kill them.

President Obama, to his shame, joined in with the leftwing slanders about what we were doing – but now that he’s President he’s probably having his eyes opened to just what sort of people we’re dealing with and just how narrow our margin of error is when dealing with people who believe that slaughtering innocent people is a good thing.

And now, lefties, where is your outrage? Of was there ever really anything to it outside of a hatred of all things Bush?

GOP Senate Leader Says America May be Spared Obamanomics

At least to some degree:

Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell said Sunday the massive stimulus bill backed by President Barack Obama and congressional Democrats could go down to defeat if it’s not stripped of unnecessary spending and focused more on housing issues and tax cut.

The Senate version of the bill, which topped out at nearly $900 billion, is headed to the floor for debate. The House bill totaled about $819 billion and earned no Republican votes, even though it easily passed the Democratic-controlled House. At some point lawmakers will need to compromise on the competing versions.

McConnell and other Republicans suggested that the bill needed an overhaul because it doesn’t pump enough into the private sector through tax cuts and allows Democrats to go on a spending spree unlikely to jolt the economy. The Republican leader also complained that Democrats had not been as bipartisan in writing the bill as Obama had said he wanted.

“I think it may be time … for the president to kind of get a hold of these Democrats in the Senate and the House, who have rather significant majorities, and shake them a little bit and say, ‘Look, let’s do this the right way,’” McConnell said. “I can’t believe that the president isn’t embarrassed about the products that have been produced so far.”

Anything the Congressional GOP can do to cut out the wasteful and worthless spending and add a bit of actual stimulus and/or tax cuts will just make it that more likely we’ll start to get out of this recession some time in the second half of 2010 or, perhaps, the first half of 2011…pass it as is, and we’re doomed to an economic depression which will last until a year or two after Obama and his Democrats are either booted out of office or, at least, are forced to apply supply-side economics to the problem. Of course, my preferred course of action is one which won’t happen, but which would put us on the best long-term course – admit we screwed up for the past 75 years or so and go back to a genuinely free market economic system. But we won’t do that – because we’re stupid (and I mean that in a nice way).

In the end, the election of Obama – the most overtly leftwing President America has ever had – might prove beneficial to conservatism in the long run. By showing how entirely out of touch the left is, Obama and his Democrats are just handing the GOP issue after issue to clobber them on in 2010 and beyond. But first we must try to save the economic life of the United States – even if by helping to kill the worst aspects of the bill we end up helping Obama.

Obama Aides Meeting Iranians for "Months"

Given the recent Iranian tirade against the United States and President Obama, this should disturb us:

US President Barack Obama has already used experts within the last few months to hold high-level but discreet talks with both Iran and Syria, organizers of the meetings told AFP.

Officially, Obama’s overtures toward both Tehran and Damascus have remained limited.

In an interview broadcast Monday, Obama said the United States would offer arch-foe Iran an extended hand of diplomacy if the Islamic Republic’s leaders “unclenched their fist.”

If the response to “months” of high level, but discreet, contacts between Obama and Iran is hate-filled rant by the “President” of Iran directed against the United States and President Obama, then we’re seeing the Iranians having a perception of weakness on the part of the new US Administration. I hope President Obama is paying close attention here – be nice and show that you are willing to meet the Iranians on the level, and the response is to pour sh** all over the United States and demand we truckle to them. What the tyrants who run Iran are waiting for, now, is to see whether or not President Obama will show patience (which they’ll perceive as weakness, and thus become more outrageous in their behavior as they test to see how far they can go), or whether he’ll show some teeth to the Iranians.

Iran is in an extraordinarily difficult situation – oil prices in the tank, economy in shambles, surrounded by American power, under threat of severe attack by Israeli forces – and Obama can easily let the Iranians know that we won’t tolerate any nonsense from them. Or, Obama can try to be “big” about it and, like a string of liberals past, ignore the Iranian provocation…thus ensuring there will be more, and worse, to come…

Global Warming Update

I’d like to see the number higher, but at least there’s more smart than dumb in American views of global warming:

Forty-four percent (44%) of U.S. voters now say long-term planetary trends are the cause of global warming, compared to 41% who blame it on human activity.

Seven percent (7%) attribute global warming to some other reason, and nine percent (9%) are unsure in a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey.

Fifty-nine percent (59%) of Democrats blame global warming on human activity, compared to 21% percent of Republicans. Two-thirds of GOP voters (67%) see long-term planetary trends as the cause versus 23% of Democrats. Voters not affiliated with either party by eight points put the blame on planetary trends.

What I’m surprised about is that it seems something like four in ten Democrats are smarter than Al Gore…this bodes well for our new RNC chairman to reach out to Democrats…if we get all smart Republicans and all smart Democrats on our side, then we’ll have an unbeatable majority…plus a minority which will be so dumb that our entertainment will come from playing transparent practical jokes on them…

The Conventional Liberal View

On the Obama-Pelosi-Reid Where-Do-You-Republicans-Get-Off-Questioning-Us? “stimulus” bill:

Yet perhaps the clincher is the answer to a bigger question: how did the Great Depression end? It didn’t stop with the conservative suggestion: slashed spending, slashed debt and slashed government activity. It ended with precisely the opposite: the vast fiscal stimulus of the Second World War. The government sent debt soaring to its highest levels in US history (until today) in order to spend more than ever before. It set up the longest boom in US history.

Uh, no. It wasn’t the massive spending of WWII which got us out of the Depression, it was the fact that of the major industrial nations of the world (USA, USSR, Germany, Japan, UK and to a lesser extent France and Italy) only the United States emerged unscathed from WWII in a world in which there was massive war damage to be repaired. In 1945, if you wanted a manufactured item, the United States and Britain were the only fully operational economies, and Britain was flat broke. Couple this with the entirely unforeseen population boom resultant upon increased food supplies and vastly improved public health efforts and, voila!, you’ve got a post-WWII American economic boom. But it was a boom which was, from the start, living on borrowed time.

Absent a massive restructuring of the post-WWII American economy to return it to its pre-Depression free market model, it was only a matter of time before the rebuilt industrial nations – joined by other nations rapidly industrializing – began to eat into America’s market share. The pinch started in the 1960′s but only really began to be felt when the bill came due for Vietnam and the Great Society at the same time the Arabs pulled their first oil embargo, sending energy costs in America soaring. From then on until Reagan, the American economy sputtered along unable to cope … the high tax, high spend, high regulation economy built by FDR simply could not provide growth when this started to require rapid innovation – we were heading back into the Great Depression when we fortunately elected Reagan who lowered taxes and cut regulations…unfortunately, he was unable to bring spending under control, so the seeds of FDR were still there, waiting for the perfect liberal storm to have another go at wrecking the economy.

Here we now stand, poised at the same position we were at the start of the Great Depression with a choice to make – follow the myth of FDR, or understand that you cannot spend your way into wealth? Upon our decision here much depends. Obama and his Democrats are incapable of the decision because they are unaware that the FDR model even has an alternative, let alone a more successful one. Only we Republicans have the knowledge necessary to steer America out of our economic morass, and we are completely shut out of power until at least after the 2010 mid-terms. Rather a tricky situation.

Democrat Politics as Usual

Anyone who still claims that Obama is bringing a new way to doing business to DC is a fool:

“If a Bush appointee got rich off of Wall Street in this climate, had a chauffeur from one of his fat cat cronies, had unpaid taxes that amounted to more than what most people make in a year, and then the administration tried to fix it behind closed doors. Democrats would call for his head and would demand ‘accountability,’” said a top Senate GOP aide.

The person referred to is, of course, former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, Obama’s choice for HHS. This is what Democrats do – they cover for their corrupt members. Only the risk of electoral defeat makes Democrats move to punish a miscreant member of their party. Blagojevich is out because he risks not only the Governorship, but a Senate seat as well, in the 2010 elections. Daschle doesn’t risk any particular seat, so its ok and he gets a pass…now, if we GOPers could just figure a way to have Daschle put a Democrat seat at risk somewhere, Democrats would give him the boot in a heartbeat.

All of you liberals out there who were shouting for blood over the alleged crimes of the Bush Administration – where are you now? Demand Daschle withdraw or be known forever as hypocrites.

Is the "Stimulus" Bill the Death Knell for "Hope and Change"?

As more and more details of the fraudulently named “stimulus” bill come out it becomes ever more clear that Obama and his Democrats are viewing the financial crunch as a not-to-be-missed opportunity to just lard up the budget with items they could never get past a GOP Congress or a GOP President. Mark Steyn has the proper take on it:

“Stimulus” comes from the verb stimulare, which is Latin for “transfer massive sums of money from what remains of the dynamic sector of the economy to the special interests of the Democratic party.” No, hang on, my mistake. Stimulare means “to goad.” And, on that front, the Democrats are doing an excellent job. They’ve managed to goad 58 percent of the American people into opposing the “stimulus” package. They’ve managed to goad all 177 Republicans in the House into unpacking their mothballed cojones and voting against the bill. And they’ve managed to goad the rest of the world into ending the Obama honeymoon in nothing flat. Headline from the London Daily Telegraph: “US-EU Trade War Looms As Barack Obama Bill Urges ‘Buy American.’ ”

Its like Democrats realize that this window of opportunity might be short, so they’d better shove through everything they can in hopes of building constituencies in favor of the spending who will then opposed GOP efforts to reform the bloated budget in future years. For sheer cynicism this is astonishing – amazing that people who say they are there to serve the people would be so entirely self-serving that a crisis with millions suffering is viewed as a mere excuse for tax and spending like never before.

The key to defeating this bill – or, at least, having it greatly modified – is to delay it. Delay it to allow more details to emerge and thus build up popular opposition to varied elements of the bill. Delay to allow the bill to go closer and closer to 2010 before passage, and thus start scaring off those Democrats who have to face largely GOP electorates back home. If we can tie this thing up until June, we might be able to bury it for good.

It is now up to the Senate GOP to show the backbone the House GOP displayed – our Senators must, for the good of our country, tie this thing up in as many knots as possible…to at least have it greatly modified before passage so that there is at least some supply side, free market elements in there to counterbalance the Democrats’ waste.