Netanyahu to be Israeli PM

The news story:

Israeli President Shimon Peres chose hard-line Likud leader Benjamin Netanyahu on Friday to form a new Israeli government, giving Netanyahu six weeks to cobble together a coalition.

The question now is whether Netanyahu will form a narrow government with his hard-line allies or a broad government along with his centrist rival, Kadima Party leader Tzipi Livni. His choice will have serious ramifications for the Mideast peace process.

Peres made his announcement early Friday afternoon after holding meetings with Netanyahu and Livni. An official ceremony appointing Netanyahu was to be held shortly afterward.

Peres had been meeting political leaders as he decided which candidate would be given the task of forming a new coalition in the aftermath of Israel’s national election last week.

The choice of Netanyahu was cemented on Thursday when Avigdor Lieberman, who heads the hawkish Yisrael Beiteinu (Israel Our Home) party, endorsed the Likud leader.

Israel girds for war – I wonder if Obama is fully paying attention to this? Israel feels its life is at stake, and isn’t going to patiently wait while Obama has State dinners with the leaders of Iran.

Obama's Housing Plan

Larry Kudlow takes it to task:

Reporting from the Chicago commodity pits, my CNBC colleague Rick Santelli unleashed a torrent of criticism against this scheme. Santelli said: “Government is promoting bad behavior. . . . Do we really want to subsidize the losers’ mortgages? This is America! How many of you people want to pay for your neighbor’s mortgage? President Obama, are you listening? How about we all stop paying our mortgages! It’s a moral hazard.”

All this took place on the air, to the cheers of traders. Santelli called for a new tea party in support of capitalism. He’s right.

Obama’s so-called mortgage-rescue plan amounts to $275 billion in new debt that will have little if any lasting impact on deeply corrected housing prices or the mortgage-default problem that stemmed from the insistence of government to throw home loans at lower-income people. A modest reduction in mortgage rates will have little impact on home prices, as Harvard professor Ed Glaser has shown. And by the way, re-default rates on modified mortgages have been running 50 to 60 percent. This is not going to change. So why should we throw more good money after bad?

All very correct – but we do need to do something to deal with the fact that a lot of people who are maintaining their mortgages are now sitting on houses which have lost 50% of their value. The incentive, right now, is to go out and figure out some way to purchase one of the foreclosed houses for half the mortgage a person is carrying, and then let the other house drop into foreclosure. And don’t think no one is thinking along these lines…its the logical thing to do when you’ve put $130,000 into a house which has a 400K mortgage and couldn’t sell for 200K if one’s life depended upon it.

Such, anyways, is my situation – but, of course, I won’t do such a thing. The temptation was there, and the temptation was resisted…and now after much cajolery I managed to get my lender to see a bit of reason and we’ve worked out an acceptable deal, albeit one which still has me short the $130,000 I’ve put into the place. Not everyone will be able to resist such a temptation – and if a two income family loses one source of income (something which is becoming more common as unemployment rises), it might become a financial necessity to go the route of buying a new home and allowing the old one to drop away.

Unfortunately for us, Obama seems to be concentrating most of his effort on people who are at or near default on their existing loans. I’ve got no particular problem with helping people stay in their homes – both morality and practicality decree that I be in favor of keeping people in their homes (having someone become homeless is something we must, as believers, work hard to prevent…on the other hand, even a non-believer doesn’t want yet another foreclosure on the market to drag down housing values even further). Given that Obama is a liberal, it is a natural that his plan mostly involves throwing good money after bad.

What should we do? Essentially go into bankruptcy re-organization of our housing and mortgage markets – rework loan balances to reflect current market values…the banks will lose some of their outstanding receivables, but lots of home owners will lose a lot of money they have put into houses, even if all they’ve put in is interest-only payments for two or three years (this still adds up to quite a lot of money). Everyone loses, but then we’ve got a market where house prices match house values, and thus we can start to rebuild from there. The real beauty of this plan is that it doesn’t require a taxpayer fund to cover other people’s bad moves.

Of course, we should be open for suggestions – I certainly don’t hold my idea as the be-all and end-all of existence, but I do like the factors of human solidarity and mercy it reflects. Anyone has other ideas, they should be brought forward…maybe one or two good ideas will eventually get to Obama, and then we might actually have a recovery in the housing market.

Chimp Cartoon, Racism, Yadda, Yadda, Yadda

Just another day in America – where no stone will be left unturned to provide race-hustlers with a reason for existing:

Hundreds of demonstrators rallied to boycott the New York Post on Thursday, branding the newspaper as racist for publishing a cartoon that (had absolutely no relation to President Obama or, indeed, any person) (Ed. Note: news story edited to make it true)

Liberals, race-hustlers, politically correct fascists – you’re really starting to bore us. And annoy us.

Don’t push this too far, or you’ll get burned.

(Oh, my, “burned”…the KKK burned crosses, and Mark is a Christian, and what that means is that he’ll burn a cross because he’s a racist!!!…so will go liberal “thinking” on this)

Fighting Leftwing Censorhip

Bringing the absurdly named “Fairness Doctrine” out from under its lefty rock, and exposing it to the light of day:

Although a spokesman for President Barack Obama said the administration wouldn’t pursue the revival of the Fairness Doctrine, Republican Sen. Jim DeMint, S.C., wants Senate Democrats to go on the record one way or another on the issue.

DeMint, chairman of the Senate Steering Committee, said on Feb. 19 he will offer the Broadcaster Freedom Act as an amendment to the D.C. Voting Rights bill next week. The Broadcaster Freedom Act was introduced by Republican lawmakers last month and prevents the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) from reinstating the Fairness Doctrine.

“I’m glad President Obama finally confirmed his opposition to the Fairness Doctrine, which attacks the right of free speech on talk radio, but many Democrats in Congress are still pushing it,” DeMint said. “With the support of the new administration, now is the time for Congress to take a stand against this kind of censorship. I intend to seek a vote on this amendment next week so every senator is on record: Do you support free speech or do you want to silence voices you disagree with?”

Its a fair question – and unless Reid can squash this, it will pass overwhelmingly, because no Democrat up for re-election in 2010 will want to be within a country mile of a vote against free speech.

We must fight and must remain vigilant – the left wants to curtail freedom because it leftwing thought holds that non-leftwing thought is wicked…deliberately wicked, or wicked by being folly, but wicked in any case. And something which is wicked is not to be tolerated – in this case, Rush Limbaugh and conservative talk radio, with a possibility of throwing in the conservative blogosphere, too.

If we want to emerge out of the Obama morass as free people, we will have to keep on our toes to guard our liberties against a leftwing which doesn’t really understand what liberty is.

Time to Get Tough or Get Surrendering With Iran

Because if President Obama is determined not to fight, then he’d better figure out how to surrender on the Iranian nuclear issue with the least damage possible:

Iran has built up a stockpile of enough enriched uranium for one nuclear bomb, United Nations officials acknowledged on Thursday.

In a development that comes as the Obama administration is drawing up its policy on negotiations with Tehran over its nuclear programme, UN officials said Iran had produced more nuclear material than previously thought.

Given the nature of the beast here – ie, the delay between actual event and non-Iranian agencies getting into the know – we can probably assume that Iran is within a year of a nuclear device. Remember, this isn’t the work of the world’s greatest geniuses, anymore – pretty much anyone who has the materials can build the device. There is more to a nuke than the uranium, of course, but we can’t count on Iran still being far from the rest of the materials necessary for nuclear weapons.

Now, as to what I mean:

We can fight – we can work out the best plan possible for attacking in an aerial campaign the identified Iranian nuclear sites coupled with a naval blockade preventing the export of oil and the import of gasoline. This is fraught with risk, but we do have a first class army in Iraq and a first class army is being built up in Afghanistan, so we have the ground forces east and west to keep any Iranian attempt to widen a conflict under wraps. Our air and naval forces are so vastly superior to the Iranian that even if the Iranians are capable of landing a Sunday punch, we can rely that very swiftly we’ll have absolute control of Iranian airspace and a tight blockade on Iran’s coastline.

Fighting won’t solve the problem – it will delay Iran’s nuclear program, perhaps by many years, but it won’t stop it, unless the Iranians voluntarily pull the plug. That is what the blockade is for – bombing to wreck the program, blockade to be the bargaining chip to get Iran to dismantle its nuke program under US supervision. Blockade and careful bombing of Iran’s nuclear sites is my preferred option.

We can surrender – we can decide that we can live with an Iranian nuclear force and thus work out some sort of deal where we guarantee Iran against any future American attack in return for some sort of concrete Iranian agreement to some course of action we desire (such as, to keep the IDF out of the picture, an engagement to not supply any more weapons to Hamas and Hezbollah). This sort of deal doesn’t commend itself to me, but if we are to engage in such a surrender to Iranian pretensions, its better to do it now, before Iran has a nuke and while we hold the strategic upper hand. This way we can gain maximum advantage, if any is able to be gained (something I doubt, because tyrannical regimes like Iran tend to be inherently dishonest).

Fight or quit – and lets pray we don’t have President Obama making empty threats and quasi-surrendering, because that would have us held in contempt and would do more to energize the mullahs than anything else we could do.

AP Analysis: Democrats Self-Destructing Over Ethics

Mark and I have been saying for a long time that the Democrats phony tough stance on ethcis and corruption would come back to bite them… and it looks like they are about to get bit really hard.

The Obama administration and the new Congress are quickly handing over to Republicans the same “culture of corruption” issue that Democrats used so effectively against the GOP before coming to power.

Freshman Sen. Roland Burris, D-Ill., is only the latest embarrassment.

Senate Democrats accepted Burris because they believed what he told them: He was clean. Burris now admits he tried to raise money for Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, who authorities say sought to sell President Barack Obama’s former Senate seat.

“The story seems to be changing day by day,” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said Wednesday.

The political mess for the Democratic Party, however, isn’t Burris’ conduct alone; it’s the pattern that has developed so quickly over the past few months.

• The chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., is the subject of a House ethics investigation. It’s partly focused on his fundraising practices for a college center in his name, his ownership financing of a resort property in the Dominican Republic and his financial disclosure reports.
• Federal agents raided two Pennsylvania defense contractors that were provided millions of dollars in federal funding by Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., chairman of the House Appropriations defense subcommittee.
• Blagojevich was arrested Dec. 9 on federal charges, including allegations he schemed to sell the Senate seat to the highest bidder.
• Tom Daschle, the former Senate majority leader from South Dakota, abandoned his bid to become health and human services secretary and the administration’s point man on reforming health care; and Nancy Killefer stepped down from a newly created position charged with eliminating inefficient government programs. Both Daschle and Killefer had tax problems, and Daschle also faced potential conflicts of interest related to working with health care interests.
• Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner was confirmed after revealing he had tax troubles.
• Obama’s initial choice for commerce secretary, Bill Richardson, stepped aside due to a grand jury investigation into a state contract awarded to his political donors.
• While the Senate voted overwhelmingly to confirm William Lynn as deputy defense secretary, Obama had to waive his ethics regulations to place the former defense lobbyist in charge of day-to-day operations at the Pentagon.

The No. 2 Senate Democrat, Richard Durbin of Illinois, expressed his anger about the Burris case Wednesday while he was on an official visit to Greece.

On that note, I am scheduled to do a book signing at CPAC 2009. If any of our reader will be there, bring your copy of Caucus of Corruption (or buy one there) and check the final schedule and I will sign your book!

And of course, bookmark Democrat Corruption, which, as the name suggusts, chronicles corruption in the Democratic Party.

Thursday Open Thread

Good morning, dear friends, conservatives, Americans…and you liberals, too.

It never rains, but it pours, as they say – and as if my beloved mother-in-law passing away this past Sunday wasn’t enough, I’ve now also got my father and elder brother both in the hospital (different hospitals, totally unrelated illnesses) – the elder bro’ will probably be ok, but my father is 82 and in poor general health, so we are concerned.

I would appreciate your prayers for my family during this most difficult time, and your patience with the spotty blog updates.

UPDATE: Thanks, everyone, for your words of concern and support. As it turns out, it seems the old man’s kidneys are not “kidneying” properly, and so he was short a significant amount of blood. So, they gave him some blood and he’s at least temporarily back in the pink – tests are being done to determine if its a general problem with the kidneys, or something more treatable. As for the older brother – haven’t got the latest update on him, though I should hear something tomorrow.

Benedict XVI Reminds Pelosi She's Catholic

Not much hope of a turn around, but with Christ all things are possible:

Benedict XVI is urging legislators to uphold the sanctity of human life according to Church teaching, he affirmed in an meeting with U.S. Speaker of the House of Representatives.

The Pope received Nancy Pelosi and her entourage briefly today after the general audience, reported a Vatican communiqué.

He “took the opportunity to speak of the requirements of the natural moral law and the Church’s consistent teaching on the dignity of human life from conception to natural death,” the Vatican reported afterward.

The Pontiff added that these teachings “enjoin all Catholics, and especially legislators, jurists and those responsible for the common good of society, to work in cooperation with all men and women of good will in creating a just system of laws capable of protecting human life at all stages of its development.”

Pelosi, naturally, didn’t take the hint – rather than addressing her pro-abortion fanaticism, she opted for lauding the Pope for being a leader on global warming. An issue I was unaware the Pope was leading on. From what I can tell, and pardon me if I haven’t been paying attention, the Pope has been rather on and on about life, morality, human solidarity and such…haven’t heard a lot of pontifical statements on greenhouse gasses.

Be that as it may…

The day of reckoning is coming for American Catholics who presume to have it both ways – be liberal on social issues and remain Catholic. Really, there is no way to reconcile the two. One can be in favor of massive – event socialist – levels of welfare spending and remain a good Catholic, but one can’t be in favor of liberal abortion laws, embryonic stem cell research, euthanasia, etc, etc, etc and remain a good Catholic. The Pope and other Church leaders are repeating loud and clear the message that a Catholic in the public square must advance Church teaching on the crucial issue of Life, or cease to claim the name of Catholic. Push will come to shove in the next few years, and the Pelosis, Bidens, Kennedys and Kerrys will have a choice to make – renounce their Catholicism, or renounce their culture of death actions.

I do wonder how it will come out – whether our erring brothers and sisters will repent, or whether they attempt to split off and form some sort of “American Catholic Church” where they’ll pretend to be Catholic and then make trouble for the actual Catholic Church in law and regulation? Time will tell.

Europe's Credit Crisis Worsens

And, boys and girls, this will be far worse than ours:

Hungary’s forint fell to an all-time low on Monday, and Poland’s zloty slumped to the lowest in five years on plunging industrial output. Half of all loans to the private sector in Poland are in foreign currencies so borrowers face a severe debt shock after the 40pc fall of the zloty against the euro since August.

“We’re nearing the level were things could get out of hand,” said Hans Redeker, currency chief strategist at BNP Paribas.

The mushrooming crisis has already started to spill over into Germany’s debt markets, lifting credit default swaps on German five-year bonds to a record 70 basis points. The gap between French and German CDS spreads has narrowed abruptly for the first time since the credit crisis began.

“Investors are beginning to ask whether Germany is going to have to pay for the rescue of Eastern and Central Europe,” he said.

A report by Moody’s released on Tuesday said the region’s banks were coming under severe stress as the property bust combines with a rising debt burden. “Local currency depreciation is a major risk to East Europe banks,” it said.

There are contagion worries for Western banks that have lent $1.74 trillion (£1.22bn) to the ex-Soviet bloc — split between $1 trillion in foreign loans and $700bn in local currency debt through subsidiaries.

Why do we care? Because our President just signed, effectively blindfolded, a trillion dollar or so spending bill and unless we want to print ourselves into hyperinflation, we’re going to have to borrow the money. But European money markets are going to have their hands full just trying to stave off complete collapse in Europe. Meanwhile, China’s structurally weak economy is slumping on a big drop in the export trade as recession dampens the market for Chinese goods, so they won’t have a lot of cash to buy US debt with. Where do we get the money from for Obama’s big plans?

As I watched the Spendulus wind its way through Congress to the backdrop of increasing job losses and near-bankruptcy of firm after firm, I started to get a gnawing fear in my gut…now, I’m way past that. Crushing poverty is heading our way, and I’m already used to the fact – I hope to retain my job through this economic meltdown, but I’ve already braced myself for the loss of all my material possessions and mentally adjusted myself to a willingness, when necessary, to take any honest work I can find.

There is still that chance that we’ll dodge the bullet, and I’ll be ok with that, too – but, really, the bill for the past half century or more of profligacy here and around the world has come due, and if we want our children and grandchildren to have a shot at liberty and prosperity, we’d better be willing to lose all we have, today, in order to give them a clean slate, tomorrow.

The Spendulus, a Description

Here is how it works:

Three contractors are bidding to fix a broken fence at the White House. One is from Chicago, another is from Tennessee, and the third is from Minnesota.

All three go with a White House official to examine the fence.

The Minnesota contractor takes out a tape measure and does some measuring, then works some figures with a pencil. “Well,” he says, “I figure the job will run about $900: $400 for materials, $400 for my crew and $100 profit for me.”

The Tennessee contractor also does some measuring and figuring, then says, I can do this job for $700: $300 for materials, $300 for my crew and $100 profit for me.”

The Chicago contractor doesn’t measure or figure, but leans over to the White House official and whispers, “$2,700.”

The official, incredulous, says, “You didn’t even measure like the other guys! How did you come up with such a high figure?” The Chicago contractor whispers back, “$1000 for me, $1000 for you, and we hire the guy from Tennessee to fix the fence.”

“Done!” replies the government official.

And that, my friends, is how the new stimulus plan will work..

This being sent to me by a friend – I won’t put the name up of the person who seems to have written it, because I’m not certain at this time he wants his name in the public square.

But that is about it, friends – a lot of money is going to be spent, but not a lot of it is going to go for what it was advertised to do. The reason for this is that the bill was rushed through without any real vetting or debate and as no one really knows what is in it, it will be low-level White House and Congressional aides, as well as unknown bureaucrats, who get to decide how the money is spent.

And, my dear liberals, remember that this was set up by your guys – who are oh, so much smarter than we idiot conservatives…